u/ihaveacrushonlegos

This post is 100% personal experience, but ive told some friends about this and it seemed effective to them too (especially tip 1 since its very visible and easy to apply)

hi, im a player with barely no mechanical skill (if you are above plat u can prob diff me in any aim chracter), who likes to play this game by exclusively otping, and i like heros who are extremely team dependant (currently otping brig and symettra) (i also have accounts where i dont OTP so its not like i can only play these chracters or these tips are not valid to not OTPs)

Despite all of that, i have managed to solo queue climb trough the seasons, and i found some tips that really helped me climb (these tips are majoritarily not "gameplay" tips like off angling more or taking space, if u want to i can give tips on that but there are people more qualified than me)

in the last few seasons i have climbed from

Diamond > GM in support (3 times, once in s19 and then again recently after placements, and at the start of this season i went on a losing streak that put me in masters 4 which is pratically diamond, so a 3rd time)

Hard Stuck Diamond 5 > Masters 2 on DPS

low diamond > masters 3 in tank

yes its not the biggest gap, but its still a gap nonetheless. and there are things that really help me that i would like to share, a lot of these tips sound kind of dumb but they work really well for me

Avoid Lose Streaks, Play for Winstreaks: For whatever reason it may be, maybe you get tilted (even if u dont want to admit it), maybe the matchmaker is horrible today with a lot of new players, whatever it is, it doesnt even matter if its the right reason or not. you can lie to yourself if u want for ur ego it doesnt matter, whenever u see a lose streak start, stop playing. come back after at least an hour and a half. people say to stop after 3 losses, but i found that stopping after 2 is more consistent for climbing

(btw i dont find playing other gamemodes like quickplay or stadium to "reset" the streaks, so i would actually recommend just getting off the game completely)

but people dont mention the opposite, if you are winning a lot for whatever reason, KEEP THE WINSTREAK AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. all the times ive climbed a big gap in this game it hasnt been, Win 2, lose 1, Win 2, Lose 1, no. All the times ive ever climbed a big gap it has been a massive 12-2 winstreak or something crazy. so ive learnt to play to maximize those

How do you play then? First of all only sit down to play comp when you KNOW you have time to keep the winstreak going. then you play 2 games. if you lose 2 in a row, STOP PLAYING. the reason does not matter, idc if u lost cuz ur teamates, if u think u played well, it doesnt matter. if you lost 2 in a row stop playing. Repeat this process over many gaming sessions, until suddenyl u notice u got on and started winning, when u do, KEEP THE WINSTREAK, this is the moment to play until 2 am, until u lose 2 in a row do not stop. ive had gaming sessions where i went on a 15 game winstreak after being hardstuck for weeks. Keep the winstreak.

You make the lose streaks as short as humanly possible, and the winstreaks as long as humanly possible, it doesnt matter if u went in 6 2 game lose streaks, if u get 1 13 game winstreak afterwards

Play for WINNING, nothing else matters other than Winning:
stats dont matter, KD doesnt matter, playing the game "correctly" doesnt matter, getting praise from your team doesnt matter, your team can hate you for all u care. if you win thats what matters

How does this manifest, you start getting into 1v1s you dont need to because you want to win a 1v1, if thats not the highest winchance/risk play you have dont go for it. you start trying to deny your team from doing something for whatever reason, because theyre "bad" or whatever. like trying to ban their main or steal their chracter or even even more stupid things llike going lifeweaver to pull your tank or mei to wall ur tank.

How do you want to think about the game? What can i do here to maximize my chances of winning? If your tank pins 5v1 into the enemy team, how can u maximize ur chances of winning because of it? sometimes it is to just try to replace the tank and play tank urself (ive done that multiple times playing tank as brig, its not the "correct way to play" but, again, playing the game correctly doesnt matter) . Sometimes its by being a kiriko and tp suzuing in the middle of the enemy team (even if that results in you dying, if the only way to win the fight is for ur tank to not die there, then thats what u should do) .

Play YOUR game, not your teamates:
this is ESPECIALLY for SUPPORT players, but valid for all of them, you want to play your own game not your teamates. Using the same example as before, if your rein is pinning 5v1 the WORST thing you can do is go lifeweaver and try to pull him back. Let your teamates do whatever the fuck they want even if u think its stupid. but use tip n2, and try and maximize ur chances of winning because of it.

Very common thing with bad support players is that "judgemental look", i think youve all seen clips of it, you see a support player recording seeing someone like a rein or whatever doing something stupid and they are standing still judging from a distance without doing anything. Whenever one of your team is dying it means the entire team is distracted so even if you CANT save him (if u can at least try) it is the PRIME opportunity to do literally anything, dps, take a flank, do anything but stand still wasting ur precious chance ur team is literally sacrificing themselfs for

Another way is the "asking for something", for example, if there is a widow thats killing your team, and you recognize that you need to contest the widow (lets assume that this decision is correct), there are 2 ways to proceed, one of them is go something to deal with the widow (if u think its not ur job, read tip 2 again) , the other one is to tell ur teamates to go something to deal with the widow. 1st is what u should do, 2nd is what you should not. Multiple reasons, first if they dont immediately do it and u keep begging them for it theyre gonna get tilted and then ur chances of winning immediately get cut in half if that happens, second they might not be good at anythign that can deal with that, third even if they know something, if they are not going to it alredy it might mean they dont think it could work (youre not in their shoes u dont know whats happening to them exactly)

And thats all assuming you are smarter know more than all your teamates (if you think your teamates are all dumb, research "dunning kruger effect") and that you are 100% correct for the situation. How many times have i had people tell me stupid shit when i got placed in diamond and had to climb to gm? ive had someone tell me brig is bad into winston. How many times ive had people tell me "we need more healing" , "we need more damage". everytime im not on support and see a support saying "i need to be pealed a reaper/winston/dva/genji is flanking me" instead of them doign anything i understand more why people hate support players, dont think you are excluded you probably think you are smart but when u wanna complain to your team remember, you are most likely in that same group of players i just mentioned that think they are way better than they are

3.2 dont let your teamates ,play YOUR game:

Dont do something just cuz ur teamates tell u to, especially when its telling u which chracter to go to. If your teamates ask u to go someone, you think "will i do better on that than what i am doing now" not just blindly listen. Your teamates wont be happy until u are playing what they consider the counter to the entire enemy team (jk they still wont be happy). your teamates are not as smart as they think, youll see people telling u to play in their LOS (u shouldnt if possible). see people telling u to peel for them , youll see they tell u to do literally anything. you only do what you think will get u the highest chance of winning. Maybe ur ana is bad and shes getting dived but you can get more value by killing their backline rather than helping her? go for it

If the game is not over ITS WINNABLE:
Btw this is the one thing u can ignore rule 3 for, try to keep ur teamates on rule 4. DO NOT STOP PLAYING FOR THE WIN. Overwatch is an Incredibly snowbally game. One player in ur team overstep their welcome for 0,5m? they instantly die, the enemy team gets a better position, they win next fight as well cuz u tried to stop the cap and staggered, the enemy team gets better ults, they roll you by having more Qs and u are pushed to 3rd point with 5 minutes left on the clock. does it mean "they are better than us gg *insert player* gap" ? no it just means they had a snowball and use it well

So keep playing for the win, as long as u stop the snowball u can still hold it. you have no idea how many games ive won that by the first 2 minutes look alredy down the drain completely lost. If you want a way to stop the snowball the easiest one is just to make them use ult and dont use ur ult yourself and when ur team has an big ult gap to pop every ult, even if u go from ult advantage to disadvantage, stopping the momentum means ur chances of winning skyrocket

To keep your teams morale high, i highly recommend just telling them gameplay, if you can ult track (good skill i recommend learning but this post isnt about improving at the game) its an easy way to game plan , Example thing you can do to keep morale high after u lose a fight: Ok they spent litearlly everything (i say that even if they only used 3 ults cuz it makes it sound like we are in bigger advantage and morale = chance of winning) , kitsune early and anhilation and GG. Does it matter if ur plan is good? No, Why does this matter then? To keep morale high, Gaslight ur team into thinking ur winning, so that u can keep them playing for the win

Edit: forgot this one
5. Have a plan
A lot of people i see especially when i coach lower ranked players, they will try and do the literally best play i can see, be that to contest someone on a highground which is getting a lot of value, go on a flank, or whatever. they will lose that fight, be it by being outmechaniced, getting unlucky, the enemy spamming like 4 ults, or an ally getting picked randomly. then next fight they will just give up and go main and do the simplest thing. Dont just give up on your plan, you can abandon one plan if u think of a better one, but if you dont have a better one just try again. you need to deal with the issues that exist

but at the same time there are more than one way to deal with issues, for example pharah mercy there is the usual counter of "just go hitscan and shoot them" which is a plan and can work. but if u dont wanna do that there are other ways to deal with them, you can play below roofs so she cant shoot you, you can try and run trough their tank since they have a weak frontline. there is always multiple plans u can have to deal with things. the only thing you cant do is give up on every plan and just run it down main

This is what works for me! hope it helps u too! if you have any other suggestions feel free to tell me and ill consider including them

If anyone wondering what high masters symettra gameplay looks like

What does he even do?

If subaru dies of old age will he return by death forever