34 articlesIf you’re struggling to climb the ranks while playing Ranked in Overwatch, you’ve come to the right place.
In this guide, I’ll give you a variety of tips aimed at helping you clean up your game. The idea is to help you learn how to do better so that you can win more often. I can’t give you better teammates, though! But I hope these tips help you improve nonetheless.
Remember That It’s a Team Game
This one should go without saying, so I think it deserves to be the very first point to bring up. One way or another, Overwatch is a team game. That is extremely important, even if some players seem to forget it.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you get to trash-talk your teammates because you lost. I know, sometimes you really do have someone throwing the match on your team. But, ultimately, you were also part of the team.
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Maybe you’re taking too many risks and making mistakes that make your Healer struggle to keep up, snowballing your team’s defeat.
Maybe your backline is being harassed too much and not getting enough help. Or perhaps there’s a lack of communication on the team, with nobody making callouts.
Trying to find out what exactly is making your team struggle and trying to address it within your role is one way to try to swing things back in your favor.
That said, do also remember that you can only control your own gameplay. Try to think about what you can do for the team, but don’t insult a failing DPS if that’s where you think the issue is. Besides, getting them tilted will just make them play worse or leave, anyway.
On that note, don’t overextend yourself trying to carry your team. Team plays are what makes players win, because the numbers aren’t in your favor if you try to solo carry against the entire enemy team.
Communication is Key
Following up from the previous point, trying to communicate with your teammates is also key. Making sure that the entire team knows what’s going on in the match can help make better coordinated plays.
You don’t even need to use voice chat for this, really. Even basic pings like “Going In” or “Fall Back” can help inform your teammates, even if they seem to not be paying attention.
Admittedly, this is easier said than done! You can ping things as much as you want or make all the callouts in the world. Sometimes your teammates will ignore them.
However, even when that happens, don’t let it deter you. Keep trying to communicate because, again, you can only control your own actions in this game.
Learn Proper Positioning
What counts as “proper positioning” is one of the biggest variables in a match, so it can be a bit of a nebulous concept. It varies greatly depending on your team, the enemy team, and the map.
But, to simplify as much as possible, proper positioning is finding places where you have an advantage over your enemy.
A simple but underrated example of this are corners. Peek around corners to try to spot enemies before they spot you, and use them as cover to keep yourself safe from enemies.
In fact, cornering is one of the most important things you need to keep in mind as you play. Being careful around them will help keep you safe, give you the upper hand on the enemy, and reduce the strain on your team overall.
Get into the habit of peeking out of corners, attacking enemies, then retreating back behind the corner where you’re safe.
Other examples of good positioning are places that have decent cover while giving you a clean line of sight to wherever the enemies are coming from. Bonus points if you have the high ground over your enemy!
Overall, as I said, proper positioning is something that you mostly learn with time and map experience. Regardless, you’ll find yourself immediately doing better if you try to be actively conscious of where you’re standing during matches.
Be Mindful of Cooldowns
As I’m sure you’re well aware, abilities in Overwatch are primarily based on cooldowns. That means, you can’t use them for a few seconds after using them once, generally speaking.
A lot of abilities have seemingly short cooldowns, so you might start to get twitchy and use them willy-nilly. After all, 10 seconds go by in a flash, right? This, however, can lead to you being punished heavily by more patient enemies.
You need to be fully aware of cooldowns and be careful before committing. Do not use your abilities carelessly, or they will be on cooldown when you actually need them.
Let’s say, for example, you’re playing Kiriko, and you decide to use Protection Suzu to heal an ally faster. If the enemy team notices this, they’ll push harder since you no longer have Protection Suzu’s invulnerability to fall back to. You and your team will be at a disadvantage.
Similarly, be mindful of when to use your Ultimate. Find the proper time and situation to use it, instead of throwing it out without considering the current game situation.
Of course, that does not mean you should just save it forever! It’s also a good idea to call out when your Ult is ready to avoid unnecessary stacking.
Ultimately, you need to be conscious of your ability cooldowns, while also considering those of your allies and the enemy team. Don’t be wasteful, try saving your abilities to punish enemies’ mistakes and defend from their abilities.
Regroup if Needed
Let’s say that you and your team just got destroyed in a team fight, with the enemy team surviving. It sucks, but it does happen!
When it does happen, though, you and your allies have to be mindful and try regrouping. Do not rush in and try to fight the enemy team on your own.
Chances are, if you do, you’ll end up dying again as you get outnumbered. This is known as staggering, and is something that can make any team absolutely crumble.
Instead of trying to rush in on your own, wait to regroup with your team. Wait for their respawns to finish if need be, and avoid rushing the enemy on your own. As I said earlier, this is a team game!
Similarly, this is also why it’s important to communicate. If a fight is basically lost, it can be helpful to just call out and try to get your team to fall back and regroup. Similarly, pay attention to such calls from teammates.
Ultimately, waiting and falling back might suck. But pushing in on your own against the enemy team is just going to be worse in the long run, so try to regroup.
Practice Makes Perfect
For the last tip, this is an obvious one, and one some players don’t like to hear. But the simple matter is that you just have to keep playing and keep practicing.
As you play the game more, you’ll gain more experience and attune your game sense. That means learning the best routes for positioning, understanding the abilities of every character, becoming able to predict when enemies have Ultimates ready, etc.
It all might sound fairly nebulous, depending on how new you are to the game. But ultimately, it might be as silly as saying “play the game more to get better at it.” But that’s just the truth!
If you want further help with this, I also highly recommend watching replays of matches. Try watching your own replays to understand where you made mistakes or figure out how the enemy team got an advantage over yours.
You should also watch matches of high-level players, particularly ones that play the same characters and roles you want to play. Try to learn how they move, how they position, how they manage their abilities, etc.
Wrapping Up
So, there you have it! Those are the various tips and tricks I can give you to help you climb in this game.
You can try using some of the base concepts right away, such as being more mindful of cooldowns and positioning. Mastering this all takes time, but you should notice an improvement by just being more mindful overall.
Regardless, at the end of the day, do also remember that this is a team game. Try to communicate and avoid staggering, and be a team player.
Not all teammates will be great, that’s for sure, but you can only control your own actions and trying to coordinate is still important for victory. Blaming teammates for everything is taking the easy way out.
Ultimately, there really is no easy way to climb in Overwatch. Nonetheless, I hope the various tips and tricks I shared with you here can help you.
