u/BenjiB1243

I've been trying pretty hard to improve at Overwatch lately, mainly by playing Cassidy and reviewing my games / watching coaching content. One thing I'm struggling with more than almost anything else is figuring out what I'm actually supposed to learn from my deaths.

There are so many variables in a fight that I feel like you can justify almost any death after the fact.

I could have:

• stood somewhere else
• taken a different angle
• used an ability earlier
• saved an ability for something else
• waited for an enemy cooldown
• targeted someone different
• backed up earlier
• pushed earlier
• played closer to my team
• played further from my team
• etc.

It feels almost infinite.

So how do you actually determine whether a death was:

1. A mistake that I should learn from
2. A reasonable decision that just didn't work
3. Basically unavoidable / variance

For example, I've been watching some Cassidy coaching, and the coach will sometimes say something like, “You died here, but I think this death is fine.”

I understand the words, but I don't really understand the criteria behind that.

How am I supposed to know when a death is actually a “good death” and when it's something I should be correcting?

One of the things I've noticed from watching coaching is that I barely use Cassidy's Flashbang compared to higher-level players. The coach I'm watching seems to position himself in ways that let him use it constantly, whereas I tend to play further back and use it much less.

I think part of that comes from being scared of getting blown up, especially because I don't always trust that my supports will keep me alive. I'm often hesitant to take closer fights or commit to punishing someone because fights get so chaotic that I don't always know whether I'm actually safe.

I'm trying to improve, but I feel like I have trouble converting:

>

into an actual lesson like:

>

Sometimes I look back at a death and think I could have done something differently, but then I wonder whether that alternative was actually better with the information I had at the time, or whether I'm just using hindsight to invent a mistake because I died.

So for people who are actually good at VOD review / coaching / improving at the game:

What is your process for deciding whether a death contains a meaningful lesson?

How do you distinguish a bad decision from a reasonable decision that simply lost the fight?

And what specifically do you look for when reviewing a Cassidy death?

I'm Low Diamond / High Emerald right now, so I'm definitely not claiming I'm playing everything correctly. I'm genuinely trying to figure out how to review my own gameplay without either blaming everything on variance or convincing myself that every single death was my fault.

I used to be a Widow main until I had a really bad stretch of games that made me nearly break my desk and I haven't played her since. That was back in March. But I still love the character and I think I want to try playing her again, but I don't know how to not get upset with this game? Especially for Widow, Widow is one of the few characters where not getting tilted is super important because you kind of just spiral. You start making worse decisions, missing shots, etc. and the mistakes just compound off of each other due to the nature of the character lol. That was the trap I fell into the first time I mained her and I'm just wondering how can I get past that? How do you keep a calm mental in this game?

I feel like I don't really understand Cassidy fundamentals at all and I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing.

I understand the basic advice people give. Stay around your effective range, take soft off-angles, play around cover, time your pressure, peel for your supports when you need to, etc. It all makes sense when people explain it, but when I actually get into a game I feel like I don't know how to apply it.

I don't really know what I'm supposed to be thinking about from fight to fight. Like how do you actually decide where you should stand? How do you know when an off-angle is good vs when you're just too isolated? How do you know when you're being aggressive in a good way vs just putting yourself in a position where you're gonna get fucked?

Cassidy also feels really unforgiving to me because he doesn't have much mobility. It feels like if I make one bad positioning decision I'm just dead, so I'm constantly second guessing whether I'm playing too far forward, too far back, or just in the wrong spot entirely.

I've played around 60 hours of Cassidy and I'm fine with his mechanics, but I feel like I don't really understand what his actual job is beyond "play midrange, take angles and punish people."

I just genuinely feel like there's a gap between understanding the advice and actually knowing what to do in a real game.

I also know I might just be overthinking this way too much. Maybe I need to stop thinking about every little thing I'm doing, play more, mess up, and just learn from those mistakes over time. I know that's probably part of it, but I still feel like I don't have a good enough understanding of the fundamentals yet.

What do you guys actually think about when you're playing Cassidy? How do you decide where to position, when to take an off-angle, when to give one up, how aggressive to be, etc.? I feel like I need someone to explain the thought process behind it because "take off-angles and play around cover" is a lot easier said than done lol.

I'm trying to improve at Support, mainly Ana and Kiriko, and one thing I'm struggling to understand is whether I'm actually doing enough healing.

I frequently end games with more damage than healing, and I'm often near the bottom of the lobby in healing on both Ana and Kiriko. I don't really know whether that's normal or a sign that I'm being too damage-focused.

My general approach is that I don't want to healbot. If a teammate is in immediate danger, I'll prioritize keeping them alive, but if everyone is reasonably healthy and there's an opportunity to damage an enemy or use my utility, I'll usually take it rather than constantly topping everyone off. I also try to save people when I can and use abilities proactively, but I'm still learning how to recognize when healing is more valuable than damage.

So I'm wondering:

• Is it normal for a reasonably aggressive Ana/Kiriko to finish games with more damage than healing?
• Are there any rough healing/damage ranges or benchmarks that are actually useful for these heroes, or are the raw numbers mostly meaningless without looking at the gameplay?
• How do you tell from a VOD whether someone is genuinely underhealing versus simply getting good offensive value?
• What should I actually be looking for when reviewing my own Support games if I want to improve my healing decisions?

I'm currently around low Plat on Support, so I'm still learning the role and genuinely don't know what "good" Support statistics should look like. I'm less interested in having a specific number to aim for and more interested in understanding what good Ana/Kiriko decision-making looks like.

Thanks!