Information To Rating Up In Aggressive Play in Overwatch 2

First-person shooters are stressful. It can be hard when you think you’re on a winning streak but then realize you have dropped three ranks. Overwatch 2 is such a complex game that it can be hard to understand what you are doing wrong. Here, we have a guide on specific things to keep track of in order to climb the ranks in Overwatch 2.

RELATED: Overwatch 2: Character Tier List

There are many complexities to team-based shooters and most of the learning process comes with practice and time. We can’t give you experience, that you have to go out and get yourself. But, what we can give you is sound advice and what to look out for as you progress through competitive mode in Overwatch 2.

Don’t One Trick

While it’s a good idea to focus on getting better at one hero at a time, you can actually hinder your team by picking your main. Overwatch 2 is a team-based game where you have to adapt to new situations. This means countering enemies or playing around your team. If you’re not good at any other hero except your main, this is a good reason to learn at least two different heroes before jumping into competitive.

You can get far by only playing your main, but you will not grow as a player and rise up in the ranks if you never switch to another hero. For example, Mercy is a great healer but if your team is lacking damage you might do better to switch to a character with a low-healing output that help lay more damage down (such as Zen). In these scenarios, it’s not that you’re performing badly on your main, it’s that you could be greatly supporting your team or countering the enemy if you made one simple switch.

Different heroes will work for different scenarios. It’s important to understand how your favorite heroes work so that you can understand if you’re using them to the best of their ability or not. In other cases, you may be using your main (let’s say Ashe) to the best of your ability, but no one else can handle the enemy Winston. Switching to Reaper will give your team a greater chance of winning the game since he is a counter to Winston. Switching won’t always be necessary for every game, but it’s important to do so when it is needed.

Accept Constructive Criticism

Sometimes it can be hard to discern constructive criticism or a suggestion for a personal attack online. It’s hard to hear from your team that you may not be performing well or that something needs to change when you think you’re playing very well. There are two sides to this. It is obvious when someone is being downright toxic and when you should pay them no mind, but it’s important to hear your team out if they are offering feedback because they think they can help you.

Whether you’re able to step back and see your faults or whether you’re confident you are performing well, how you handle these interactions will affect the game. When one person is angry and the other gets angrier, then the team will usually fall apart. Being able to keep up a friendly morale, even if it’s with a group of strangers, will help your team work better together. You can’t ask strangers to behave, but you can control how you react. This is a team-based game and if everyone isn’t listening to each other, there is no winning.

Watch Your Replays

One of the best ways to check your work is by revisiting it from an outside perspective. By selecting Career Profile and heading to the History tab, you can find your most recent game replays. You can watch your previous games like a movie and pause, increase speed, change perspective between players and more. You’re able to intricately analyze what may have gone wrong or right during moments in your matches with this feature. You’re also able to grab replay codes to share with others. Getting second opinions about a match will improve your performance over time.

Browse Hero Guides

TheGamer has hero guides for Overwatch 2, detailing the kits of each hero and how to utilize them properly. You can also find advice on how to play different heroes all around the internet such as YouTube or Reddit. Doing a little bit of research to see what others have to say about your main and comparing the advice to how you play them will allow you to grow and learn. Everyone plays heroes a bit differently, but there is usually a consensus on the purpose of each hero’s kit and how they are best played in different situations.

Comms And Playing In Groups

Let’s be honest, First-person shooters have a reputation as one of the most toxic video game communities. It can be hard to work with your team when you’re paired with a random group of people some of whom have decided to verbally harass strangers on the internet. If this is a consistent problem for you, permanently mute team voice chat. This will allow you to play in peace and focus on your job as the match goes on. Don’t allow negative people to anger you because you’ll have a hard time focusing on the game at all.

There is a downside to tuning out your teammates, though. To climb up the competitive ranks, you need to communicate with your team. Even if everyone knows their job well, things happen and the game is ever-changing. This is why if you’re committed to climbing the ranks you should find a good group to team up with. Whether it be friends or like-minded folks on Reddit or a forum – find people that are positive and that will give you constructive feedback. Finding a good group of players to play competitive mode with will ensure more success than failure, purely because if everyone is feeling positive it will be easier to perform in-game.

Positioning

Know where to stand in a fight to decrease your chance of death and increase your team’s time on the objective. This is most important part of high-level Overwatch play. Like most advice about competitive gaming, this comes with experience. If there is an enemy Torbjorn turret on the high ground, stick to cover, behind the payload, or behind your tank’s shield so that you don’t suddenly picked. As Mercy, you are able to temporarily heal or damage-boost behind walls before her beam breaks. You can use this feature to stay safe behind cover while healing. If you are playing Roadhog and an enemy Wrecking Ball used his ultimate near your team, sacrifice your health and use your healing ability while walking into the bombs to protect the rest of your team.

The more you play, the more comfortable you’ll become with the different maps and where to run and hide when a D.va drops her ultimate or a Junkrat releases his tire. As a Widow, you are extremely vulnerable and need to work from a distance as a sniper. If you’re sniping from the ground just behind the payload, you are going to die quickly – so find good high-ground spots that suit your playstyle. These are just some examples of why positioning is important. Another common mistake people make when playing as a tank or DPS and asking for heals but not being accessible to their supports because they are not in a safe spot. Always be aware of your positioning with regard to danger (enemies) and safety (your supports).

Good Team Composition

There is a lot to learn here that comes with experience. That’s why you should be sure you have enough hours and experience in the game before heading into competitive mode. Understanding which heroes complement which is important!

If your supports picked Mercy and Moira, and then you chose Wrecking Ball, don’t expect to get good heals. Wrecking Ball is expected to be good enough to know where health packs on the map are and to supply himself, but if you need aid quickly it will be harder (not impossible) for a Mercy and Moira to save you because they do not have long-ranged healing (such as an Ana or Zenyatta). If all the players on your team are good, sometimes good hero synergy won’t matter as much. That usually isn’t the case, though.

Take into consideration how much range your supports have, how much mobility your damage heroes have, or what your tank’s kit lets them do and how that can help the team. Often it doesn’t matter who switches to fit team synergy, someone just has to. If your supports are close-range healers like Lucio and Brigitte is it smart or safe to pick Pharah? If your DPS are playing Bastion and Torbjorn would bunker-like Reinhardt make more sense or would hyper-mobile Junkerqueen? Watching gameplay and conversing with others who play the game will help you learn over time as well.

Overwatch Stats – Do They Matter?

By heading to Career Profile and selecting the Statistics tab, you can select different heroes and go over your stats. You can see your average death rate, how many kills you get per ten minutes, and more. This is a good starting point for looking over your performance and setting goals. If your deaths per ten are high, you can set a goal to decrease this and start playing more conservatively. While it is important to be aware of your stats and understand what they mean, they can also hinder you if you over-analyze them too much as well.

As said before, a game of Overwatch 2 is ever-changing, and you need to adapt to the different scenarios that come into play. When looking at your stats in-game, they may not actually align with how well you have been playing. Look at the Mitigated Damage stat for instance; this stat might be low in a certain game where you played Rhein, but if your team was adapting to the team fight and simply avoiding damage, so you didn’t need to raise your shield, this may not be an issue. Keep track of your hero stats and understand what is to be expected by browsing hero guides, but don’t obsess over the statistics too much.

Sensitivity And Reticle Adjustments

These are optional and specific to each person. If you’re having trouble playing different characters, enter the Practice Range and play around with these Control settings. Head to Options > Controls > General and select a hero. You can adjust the sensitivity so that your aiming feels more comfortable depending on the hero and other factors.

You can also edit each hero’s reticle. Maybe you want to have fun and color-code the reticle to match each hero’s skin. Better yet, changing reticle sizes, shapes, and colors can help you focus your aim better when you need it most. Play around with these settings and try searching around and asking others (on things like Reddit) to see what reticle adjustments they use for specific heroes.

High Ranks And Low Ranks

Each rank plays differently and has different unwritten rules. Like everything else in Overwatch 2, it’s situational. For example, supports in higher ranks are able to heal less and use the range of their kits more because they know their teammates are able to survive on their own longer. Support heroes in lower ranks need to focus on healing more because their team will be dying a lot and still learning important things like positioning. Be aware of what ELO (rank) you are in and how that may limit you. You may be under or over-performing. A support in Bronze rank may be over-performing by trying to use damage or their other abilities instead of focusing heals on their less-skilled team members. Like everything in Overwatch, play for your team first, then your own stats, the ranking up will shortly follow.

Next: Overwatch 2: Beginner Tips