If you find yourself consistently taking a lot of damage, you should consider using cover or distance better, or switching heroes, instead of asking more of your team to pick healing characters. It is strongly suggested that your team have no more than one “Support” character at a time. Healer characters pay a price in other areas and have many weaknesses, dragging down the team. The best ways to stay alive for beginners are: by staying far away from enemies, by staying in cover, by using shields, and playing characters with “escapes,” or quick movement abilities.Ī word of caution: a common trap new players fall into is overestimating the necessity of “healer” characters. A retreat point, a distraction, an obstacle for the enemy-you can be very valuable when alive. Staying alive benefits your team as well-you are one more friendly on the field, helping them in ways obvious and non-obvious. You can come up with all sorts of wacky things to do.īut none of them matter if you can’t stay alive. Overwatch has a diverse cast with countless abilities. If the enemy can’t shoot up, for instance, you might want to think about switching to Pharah, who can fly.Įarly in your Overwatch career, you should aim to solve most of your problems by switching. This will serve as a good start when pondering whom to switch to. Get a feel for all the heroes, and pay particular attention to their “standout” qualities, the things that make them unique. Switching provides you with access to:flight, machine guns, AoE, invisibility, disabling abilities, long range, invincibility, automated turrets, energy shields, one-hit KO’s, teleportation, healing (both self and others), auras, mobility, traps, and ally buffs. You can do this at the beginning of the game, after you die, or simply by walking back into the spawn room.

We actually encourage players to do that, it is actually the best and right way to play the game.Īfter joining a team, the most powerful influence you can have on the game comes through your ability to switch heroes. You can swap heroes every single life that you are out there. Overwatch is not a game where you have to lock into a hero at the beginning of the map and then you can’t swap half of them. Don’t be one of them!Īll further steps depend on this one! Make sure your team/friends understand this list as well.Īnd then also, one just minor housekeeping note: we really encourage that when you play Overwatch to switch heroes often.

Sadly, they miss out on the game as designed, and have a dull, frustrating experience. Whereas with a teammate, everything you learn will benefit you even through other people.įinding a team can be hard! Many don’t even try. And finally, playing with the same people gives you a whole new way to influence the game:if you see a solo queue teammate make a mistake, correct them, and they say, “OK” and learn from it-chances are you’ll play against them next round, or never see them again. Alas, people are often only nice to each other when they know they’ll interact with them more in the future. Playing with the same people means you will have a much more pleasant experience. The scientific method depends on similar conditions. Whereas, if you play with the same people, you have a much more controlled environment. This leads to wildly inconsistent results, and makes it hard to learn and improve. Since you’re only 1/12 of the match, then, the only common factor in your games doesn’t matter that much. The only common factor in your games is you. …is it really possible to build a shooter that…promotes teamwork and relationship and having fun with your friends? ~ Chris Metzen It is instead a guide to the basics, the things that will hinder you from playing the game if you don’t know them. It is not a guide to advanced tactics or deep principles-those are elsewhere on this blog. This post is designed to get you, Joe/Jane Overwatch player, over the hump. Without that, Zerg and Protoss will seem “OP” and “unfair,” and the game will “obviously need changes.” But it doesn’t-you’re just not over the hump. In many competitive games there’s a big hump to get over before you even can “play.” In Starcraft, you have to learn to wall as Terran before you can do anything else.

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