I watched a good portion of kabaji’s Unranked to gm stream on YouTube, granted this was before 2-2-2 role lock, but, it was super educational. He was playing tracer only. We all know he has insane tracking and aim, but, more than that what stood out to me the most was his ability to stay alive, regardless of heals were good or not. His ability to play around health packs and bait enemies into chasing him to tilt the odds in his favor were amazing. His very first game was in gold and he had 75 eliminations with 75% kill participation and 5 deaths. A 15 kda, granted this was only one game. He actually lost a game in platinum, so why am I posting this? This shows me how inferior most of us are, forget aim and tracking for a second. Just the simple task of staying alive, we are inferior. Honestly someone with average aim and tracking that had even 50% of his ability to stay alive could probably hit diamond. There were times he didn’t secure kills because he valued his life more, which ultimately allowed him to create space and have more value longer. Moral of the story don’t just blindly chase kills and stay alive forehead
No offense to tracer players…but have u ever played her? I have for a max of like 2 hours (i hated every minute of it) it is sooooo easy to stay alive with her, unless u have the awareness of a potato in a french fry factory…or get hit with that random head shot from widow/hanzo she has so many blinks that recharge fast enough to have them nearly endless…and a rewind that heals her if done slight right. Only other heros i know of i can stay alive longer with is sombra and moria…and i have little to no exerience on tracer. But then again i try not to die that is a plus for any hero 
Not easy at all to stay alive at top 10%
That is true but again higher ranked…this post is “untanked to gm” so at some point he was playing vs untanked or low ranked players…again tracer os similar to sombra or moria in the ability to stay alive is crazy easy compared to lets say mcgee with his little baby tumble…if i had to stay alive with a hero they would be in order from easyest to hardest…i would go sombra, moria, tracer, and maybe s76 …just for sheer mobility …again the only one of those i have played more then a few hours on is moria…and when i played sombra i went 2-3 games without dieing at all…cant say i was fully useful as i was learning her a bit…but that shows how much “skill” is needed for that. Imagine now if mcgee bad lets say sombras translocator…how much better could he do? Or tracers recall? Or maybe give the recall to reaper…just that one ability would make any hero way OP and even easier to use. Is all im saying.
This is actually a pretty big part of ranking up. Survivability and helping your teammates to survive. You also need to watch your positioning. If you are going through an alley or doorway solo but the enemy has a mei, thats not smart. Wait for more open ground to put pressure on them. Theres lots of other tips I could give but thats some basic info.
-If 2 of your teammates get picked quick, BACK UP. YOU LOST THAT TEAMFIGHT.
-If a Winston jumps your backline and is focusing a support, jump in and help defend it if the enemy team isn’t being too aggressive.
Staying alive and actually getting value are not the same thing. Of course you can stay alive if you just buzz around doing nothing. If you actually watch high tier Tracer gameplay, you’ll realize that they push the boundaries of “amost getting killed but not quite” to the very limit, before actually using her recall. Players like Kabaji can get 2 kills BEFORE using recall.
Most lower tier Tracer just spam her cooldowns frantically to appear “fast”, but what they’re doing is just needlessly using cooldowns without getting value out of it. And when they go for the kill, they actually die because they’re out of fuel. Kabaji uses his blinks in a very calculative manner. Melee-blink, Pulse-blink, full clip-melee-recall, blink past enemies and 180, those are all maximum use of her cooldowns WHILE being elusive. This is what people mean by staying alive; know your limits, but push them to very edge of it.
That’s your opinion I guess but I respectfully disagree. Tracer is pretty killable… Managing the cool downs properly at the right times is not easy, he’s just a top tier player who’s had a ton of experience on her. You could say he’s come very close to mastering her…also his survivabilty is similar in high ranked gm games too. I’m not saying he never feeds or doesn’t ever get bested but it’s not only because he was in low ranks for some time. He was wrecking in diamond and masters too.
Unranked to Gm zero deaths. Now there is a stream I would watch.
Nah, 0 damage taken. That I would watch
I think the Moral of the story is that if you have a life where you can play an FPS for ‘Eleventy’ hours a week, you’ll be god tier also.
If you happen to have a wife, children, place to live, full time job/career, responsibilities beyond your PC/Console? Then not so much.
Oh no dont get me wrong…im sure hes good at her but to me genji and tracer both dont require much skill to play them and survive that is both getting value and staying alive due to the many get away free abilitys. I still hate playing them so i dont. All i am saying is its not impresive to me that a higher rank player can get more value out of said hero cuz even me a non skilled player can do so. (I even know a 12 year old kid thats in masters that can do the same.) But take that skilled player and put them behind a mcgee or maybe zen…with a LOT less mobility and have them survive the same time or things and i would be more impressed.
A good example is this: put a race car driver in control of the fastest car in the world and ya he will probly run laps around anyone…but put him in a slower car then the rest and if he wins its more impressive and amazing. Hope that makes sense. Again not saying whats his butt sucks just not surprized with an easy to use hero its expected.
Ah, so you agree that if you put in time getting good, you can improve and climb just like everything else in life. We’re making progress.
In my opinion a lot of players underestimate the importance of not dying.
I figured out how climb (as damage or healer) from low gold to mid/high plat in a consistent way within a relatively short period of time when I started to optimize my gameplay to finish with less deaths but still good hero-specific stats (getting card on the finish screen if possible).
Following me to other threads now? Wow. I must have really pulled your ponytail. Way to twist what I said to fit your zealot-like narrative. Thumbs up.
Not at all. I’m just participating in these public discussion forums. If you don’t like me responding maybe make your own private forums?
In what what did I twist your words? If you spend time getting good, you succeed. I was agreeing with you, sillypants.
You made your choice…
No thanks. I’m not in the mood to go through minutiae to attempt to make you grasp my point. Maybe tomorrow. Feel free to have your ‘AHA! You’re running away!’ moment. Just not feeling like engaging over something I won’t be able to change your mind on, and you won’t be able to change my mind on.
Don’t run away now! We’re on the same page, we’re saying the same thing! If you want to get good at Overwatch, all you have to do is invest time getting good at it.
We’re really not on the same page. You can think so if you like. Feel free. I’m just not feeling like getting lost in the weeds with you on the subject. There’s no point.
Once again, the points I’d bring wouldn’t change your mind, and the points you’d bring up wouldn’t change mine.
Kind of a waste of our time discussing it.
But we agree!
We’re literally saying the same thing! There’s no reason to be so hostile.