I’ve never heard about this before but I’m reading about this a lot nowadays, usually in a healing context. Please help?
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Your teammate is an orange, the enemy is the skin. You need to peel it off your orange. Simple as that, really. To peel for your team as a healer, you want to obviously heal that person and in the case of characters such as Lucio or Brigitte, use your cc to get them off your teammate.
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“Peeling” is the act of providing protection from your supports (or other teammates) by literally being so large of a threat or denying so much enemy value that you turn the enemy’s attention towards you.
The easiest ways to peel are:
- Roadhog’s chain hook. Simply watch your team’s Support players, Tanks, and Damage dealers. When they are attacked, use your hook to rip the enemy away from your teammate and force them to fight you instead. As the original bodyguard tank, this is arguably one of Roadhog’s best uses. Don’t let anyone discourage you from playing Roadhog in this fashion.
- Zarya’s bubbles block incoming attacks against friendly targets. Each bubble has 200 hp, so it’s basically an extra life if you time it right. I’ve heard people and some content creators say that Zarya is best peel, but eehhhhh…I think Zarya’s too exploitable for that label. Her play style is probably among the most refined and unaltered, though…
- Brigitte’s shield bash is extremely effective at stopping incoming attacks on your second support or any other teammates who are taking damage. Brigitte was designed as another bodyguard-type hero, so she’s especially suited to “peeling” like Roadhog is when it comes to forcing the enemy to fight you.
- Orisa’s Halt! can disrupt enemy positioning, sometimes saving a life in the process.
- Whip shot, Soundwave, and Concussive Blast all knock enemies back. With Pharah, Lucio, and Brigitte, look for opportunities to knock-back enemies who are attempting to fight your team.
- D.Va’s Defense Matrix is very good at shielding allies who are under direct attack. Simply point & Project at your team to deny most incoming damage! Follow up with Boosters to position yourself in between the enemy and your ally to provide a nice meat shield to body block with.
When you successfully prevent a teammate from dying while they’re under attack, you have successfully “peeled” for them.
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Peeling, at it’s most basic level, is pulling back from the front line to help out your supports when they are under attack.
Thus, no peels no heals… if you don’t protect the supports they won’t be there to heal you.
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mumble mumble… sunburn joke… mumble
I already agree with the OMG, so I’m here to post … that.
What I gather from this thread, peeling is a gatekeeping term invented purely for the sake of placing a label on a hyper-obscure and ambiguous means of playing a game.
The purpose here is less about providing shorthand specificity to complex ideas and more about ensuring a culture of toxic exclusivity remains central to the gameplay experience.
I’m going to have to ask you to please shut up
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Shhh… don’t let them know that we’re all in on it…
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Eh… It was just a term used in MOBA that this community adopted. If it is easier for you to grasp, just replace the word “peel” with help. The term makes more sense in MOBA because you need to literally get them off of someone who is chasing them in lane. That really only applies to dive targets in this game.
If you hear someone asking for peels, they literally just want help. Simple enough, huh?
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I wouldn’t call it hyper-obscure, but rather commonplace with enough experience. Lack of experience results in lack of motivation to protect your team because you don’t fully understand what it means to protect your team or why you should even do it in the first place.
The term is borrowed from MMOs like WoW, where peeling for tanks and healers is common practice if you want to win a raid and get fat loots.
You must be new here, and maybe not very good at the game yet. I’m not elitist by any means, but there are certain concepts that experienced or very skilled players consider “commonplace” or “basic knowledge and/or fundamentals.”
A lot of these concepts woosh over the heads of newer, unskilled, unaware, inattentive, or inconsiderate players because you can solo Q flank your way nearly into Diamond without any resistance…
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Wait, what? All this time I thought “peeling” was killing the other team’s healer. You know, so they’re vulnerable. Like how an orange is inedible until you remove the peel.
I feel like my version makes more sense.
You forgot the greatest form of peel of all. Widowmaker clicking heads.
So, “peeling” = When Player_Q interacts with Player_Z in such a way that Player_Z’s present attack(s)/harassment(s) of Player_R are hindered/thwarted.
So … “helping.” Or “assisting” or “attacking.” The whole thing is so specific that it seems to have been created to give greater meaning to the act itself than it actually carries, and by choosing a special phrase that only those in-the-know will understand, it helps to ostracize those who don’t understand. That’s gatekeeping.
peeling is specificaly helping the support by being “in the way” so the ennemy has to either give up on the chase or commit more than he will get from it (usually loose both flanker to get one support for example.
The terme isn’t an obscure thing, it just common argo from MOBA and MMO.
It feel new here because it isn’t usually associated with FPS.
But that’s just a slang that catch on. like many other.
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Yes.
Thank you, Mr. Thesaurus.
You’re not going to be able to revert terminology that’s accepted by gamers as a whole community because you’re playing the victim and getting your hormones involved. Please stop, buddy. You’re making yourself look bad… and getting very off-topic…
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If you say “Zarya and D.Va are very good at peeling” everyone and your mom knows what you are talking about.
If you say “Zarya and D.Va are very good at helping” you could literally mean anything, but it stays absolutely unclear what exactly you are talking about.
The term “peeling” is well-established, because it actually HELPS players to understand and play the game better and makes communication between teammates easier.
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Peeling is the act of pulling enemy dps off your support/backline character. It is usually job for the offtank role. If its not done correctly, your backline will die and you will likely lose the teamfight. (Or your support is Ryujehong)
In low ranks flankers are dime a dozen, so peeling is something that needs to be done. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. People just don’t have the gamesense.
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Sorry guys but everytime I look for a definition of that I find different meanings:
- Going back to backline to help your support
- Going back to the backline to help your team members regardless the fact that they are healers or not.
- Generally help one team mate when being attacked and struggling against an enemy regardless the fact it is in the backline.
- Gather the attention of more members of enemy team to you in order to advantage your team mates in a fight against less opponents.
Which one is it?
Its definitely not 4.
Do you need to make a distinction between 1-3?
The reason I wrote that peeling is usually the job for the offtank, is because these often have the ability to protect a singular team member: Zarya can bubble them, DVA can matrix and jetboostbump the enemy, Hog can hook and kill the offender.
If your healer says “I dont have enough peel” it means that enemy is focusing the healer and you are not protecting him/her enough.