For context, I was a peak diamond Zenyatta one trick in OW1 comp. In OW2, I started from Silver, but climbed quickly to diamond. In pre-season 9, I was a low masters Zen main with Ana as my backup.

After they changed the ranked distribution post Season 9, I hovered around low to mid Diamond, with the occasional dip to Plat 1-3 when I was learning Ana all the way until 2 seasons ago where I touched Diamond 1. Then, this season, I reached Masters.

Here are some tips on my journey on how I was able to climb.

1. Your mental and physical health matters the most.

Sleep. Yes, sleep is the most vital aspect to your overall health. Your overall mood for the day will typically be dictated at how good your sleep is. In turn, it will affect how you play the game.

Sleep affects you mentally and physically, and imo, was one of the keys to me being able to perform well. Your mind is clearer, your mood is more positive, and you react better in your games when you have good sleep.

If you are tired, do NOT force queueing, even if you only need that one game to rank up. It's happened to me multiple times. Listen to your body. If it's tired, if you're angry, if you're tilted, your body is telling you it's under stress.

Stop. Rest. Breathe. Exercise. Take a walk. Play Quickplay. Or do something else.

Overwatch is just a game. You can always queue comp on another day when you feel better.

2. Take accountability for your own gameplay and mistakes

Everyone in OW makes mistakes, even those in the highest ranks. Whenever I would replay my matches, even in my wins, I would always spot a mistake that I made that cost us the team fight.

This is why you have to take accountability for yourself and stop blaming teammates for their mistakes. Focus on yourself and getting better. Mute chat if you want to avoid toxicity. I always muted chat and it still got me to Masters.

Let go of the excuses you make. Some people would swear that you will only climb when you queue at certain times of the day. But I mostly queue on those “horrible” times too because I’m not able to find other times to play the game.

I was still climbing consistently because I improved at the game. Not because of the time of day.

You cannot control what four other people are doing in your team, but you can fully control yourself. Work on small goals to getting better.

For example, in a comp game, tell yourself on what you want to improve better. For me, it was mostly focusing on good rotations and positioning. I would mostly focus on being proactive in where I stand in the game and just focus on getting better on it.

Over time, it will become a habit and you can start to autopilot on it.

3. My Gold to Plat Woes: Learning how to actually play the hero correctly

These are the very fundamentals of Overwatch. Essentially, you must learn how to play your hero and learn how to use their cooldowns correctly.

Nade:

Ana is an extremely powerful hero because of anti-nade. Anti-nade, or purple, cripples and gives so much pressure on the enemy team because you nullify healing. It forces teams to give up space and fall back, allowing your team to push into their space.

Always proactively look for an anti-nade, as it is much more powerful than nading/healing your teammates. You don't need to heal when the enemy team is dead!

Time your nades right and try to make sure that your team can follow up on your nades!

Sleep Dart:

This ability is very straightforward. One tip I can give is that if you manage to sleep someone when you are alone, you have the opportunity to finish them by: shooting once, anti-nade, shoot again and melee the squishy.

For tanks, sometimes if I am alone, and I manage to sleep them, I will usually run away and reposition if none of my teammates can help me.

Normally, I save sleep dart as a defensive tool and will usually use my nades as my offensive tool. Cycling your cooldowns is very important as having them both available will allow you to play more aggressively by flank nading.

If you don't have both cooldowns, reposition and play a bit more passively with your team. Ofc, there are exceptions to this and will still depend on the situation you're in.

Nanoboost:

One of the biggest issues I've seen in Gold to Plat, and even Diamond Anas is that they hold nano for way too long. Use nano proactively more often! You build this ultimate very quickly and it alone can keep up the momentum of the fight.

You may think that your teammates might not be good enough to solo nano, but you have to trust your teammates!

Honestly, JUST USE IT! Use it at the start of fights, use it when a DPS or Tank goes in, just use it! You don't have to hold it forever or wait for the "perfect time".

For example, we were pushing in King's Row and one of the enemy team dies. Normally, this is a signal for your team to go in, I have a Genji teammate with me, but he doesn't have nanoblade. I still nano him because I wanted us to capitalize on the 4v5 situation and to take space.

Without nanoblading, the Genji was able to go in and make the kills at 60% ult charge. And since Ana builds nano rather quickly, we were able to nanoblade in the next few fights and win the game.

Cover and High Ground:

Always remember that the wall is your best friend! Hug a wall, love the wall, and it will love you back! I always notice that lower ranked Anas starting on a good position near cover. But as the fight continues, they'll worry or panic about their team, and go out in the open.

Remember that Ana is a sniper. She can heal and do damage from afar, and you don't have to be following near your tank to do your job!

Learn to use and abuse the high ground. High ground allows you to see the enemy and your team better, and make it harder for the enemy team to push in since you are contesting an angle.

When to heal vs when to damage:

You all probably know the quote "Damage, Damage, Damage". And imo this is mostly true for lower ranked Anas. As you go to the higher ranks, your opportunities to constantly do damage diminishes since people position and play better, but that still doesn't mean you need to healbot your team.

Ana is a support. Support's don't just heal. They support the team. Practice weaving in damage with your healing! This is why positioning with Ana is so important because if you can see both the enemy team and your team, you can do both!

Heal your team when they are critical and need help, if they do not need any help or healing, you must do damage! Even in high diamond and low masters, I had an instance where we lost the teamfight because I tunnel visioned and chose to healbot my Rein who didnt need healing.

Instead of healbotting, I should have been shooting the Moira right in front of me. Since the Moira wasn't in danger, she was able to heal her Ramattra and team. Because of that, we lost the teamfight.

Perks:

99.9% of the time, the two perks I choose for Ana are Speed Serum and Headhunter.

For nano speed, not only does your target gain movement speed, but you do as well. This is extremely useful for repositioning quickly as Ana. As explained earlier, you also tend to build nano very quickly. Don't be afraid to use it often.

Most people don't pick headhunter because they think they won't be able to utilize it well. Don't sleep on it!!! There were countless teamfights that we were able to win handily because Ana with crit can basically two tap enemies. Keep practicing with your aim and you'll eventually get used to hitting headshots.

For double nade, I found it hamper my normal nade usage, because it built a ton of bad habits in my nades. I would often miss them and only rely on the bouncing mechanic. This is why I stopped using it as my major perk.

4. My Low Diamond (D5 to D3) Woes: Positioning and taking rotations

When you understand how to play your hero, and know what their cooldowns do, you must next learn WHERE to use them in order to optimize your Ana gameplay.

The most glaring problem I had with Diamond and other Diamond Anas are with their positioning. In order to consistently climb through Diamond, you have to be constantly rotating fast enough, adapting to where your team is.

You have to look for the optimal position where you can see your team and see the enemy team and be safe at the same time. A good Ana is an unbothered Ana in the backline, doing her job.

That was what got me stuck in low diamond the most. When I finally learned angles from Coach Spilo's Ana Coaching Free VODs, you will learn a TON. After learning, practicing, and incorporating angles and off angling from Spilo, the game finally “clicked” for me and I was climbing pretty consistently.

Overwatch is very much on visual learning. When I watched Spilo's VODs, I was learning which other off angle I could take in order to support my team properly instead of loitering around in main. Looking for great angles really open up to landing your cooldowns much easier. You don't feel as "compressed" when you look at your team.

I found that other youtubers and coaches don't explain this concept as well as Spilo did, and it was really the only coaching resource that truly clicked for me, because Spilo gave a lot of good examples on analyzing which angles to take.

If you want to learn good positioning, I highly recommend watching Spilo's VODs.

Cover, High Ground Pt. 2 + Rotations:

Earlier, I talked about using high ground often. In Diamond, people have finally started to learn about the basics of Overwatch, so they too will be taking high ground and contesting those angles.

High ground will always be a good place to be, but in higher ranks, people will move and adjust to where the enemies are positioned in, and this is where rotations are so important!

Normally, Anas in Diamond will take a good angle or take high ground, but they stay too long in it! You have to proactively move around your team and adapt to the position they take. It's okay to take low ground too if it's the safer and more optional off angle for you!

If they move back, you too have to move back because you're a backline support! But that doesn't mean you once again loiter around in main. Quickly find an off angle and reposition there. You'll learn more about off angles visually in Spilo's Youtube Coachings VODs.

Thinking Laterally:

I learned this from Spilo. Ana may be a sniper in the backline, but positioning wise, you have to think about the sides, not main. Once again, off angles are the key to climbing! It doesn't even have to be so far out of main, even a small movement to the left or right will open up your POV so much more for you to be effective.

When to take an aggressive angle (or when to flank anti-nade):

As explained earlier, my cooldowns will dictate on how aggressive I will play. I will normally take a high risk, high reward off angle with two of my CDs available. If I manage to hit them successfully and my team goes forward, I will also adapt to my team's position and move forward with them.

If I don't land my CDs, I will immediately rotate back to my team and take a more safe position. Too many aggressive Diamond Anas find themselves rotating too slow, leaving them vulnerable to dives and spam damage because they stay on very risky angles.

5. My Mid-High Diamond (D3 to D1) Woes: APM

Learning from higher ranked players:

After learning about Ana's CDs, positioning, and practicing decision making, I was still stuck around high diamond. I was wondering what I was lacking, so I went to OWreplays.tv to watch some higher level Ana gameplay.

What was so different from them was that they moved so quickly. They rotated quickly, used their CDs quickly, and generally just had a higher APM than I did. Of course, they also had great decision making, good CD usage, and great positioning.

Making Good Habits:

There really isn't any secret to this. You basically have to play the game more. I played a lot more quickplay, but with the mindset of practicing whatever I wanted to practice. For example, only focusing on my rotations, or only focusing my aim with anti-nades, etc.

After some time where you feel like the things you practice intentionally become a habit, you can start trying to tell yourself to move a bit faster, aim a bit faster, shoot a bit faster, and as time goes by, it will turn into something that's automatic for you.

I personally noticed that I’ve improved my APM when my teammates started thanking me profusely when I save them from danger. They usually comment that they would normally die for the mistake they made, and thank me because I saved them.

Most of the time, I was able to save them because I reacted and moved fast enough to support and heal them.

APM and Finally Climbing to Masters:

After incorporating everything I've learned, I went to comp this season feeling good, slept well, and took care of myself. In games, I constantly reminded myself to rotate for off angle, move, and make decisions quickly.

I was able to win 8 games in a row from D2 to high D1. I lost two games, but quickly went on another winstreak, and finally reached my goal of Masters this season!

6. Have fun

Overwatch is a game. If you're not having fun, what's the point? Having fun and enjoying your time at the game is what will make you consistently play it and make your time spent on this game worth it :)

And that's all! Wishing everyone good luck on their journey in climbing, and I hope these tips and my experience on climbing can help you out!

I believe all 4 characters popped their ults in a similar timeframe, or potentially an echo got 2 in a single activations. This was way back when echo would clone tanks since her health didn't get reduced at all

I'd appreciate any pointers

The mode for defense just feels super punishing. U get 1 maybe 2 chances per point to hold, while attack gets several. As attack, it can feel like a steamroll. Played an assault map, getting our asses handed to us on second point, then last 20 seconds, one of the healers gets killed, then we steamroll and cap point before any of their team could respawn and get back to defend. If the mode comes back, they're definitely needs to be some respawn timer tweaks and maybe the first points should have a closer spawn room.

Edit: i love these maps, playing these again like it was in overwatch 1 is a great nostalgia trip though, despite the criticisms i have.