Posted in the OW competitive subreddit and was told to post here.

Rivals player interested in OW, looking for advice!

**TLDR at the end :)**

Hey everybody, I’m a rivals player and overwatch has always interested me but with the recent announcement it made me want to actually sit down and play it. I made an account earlier this week and toyed around with the ui just figuring things out, I didn’t play any matches because I don’t have any game mechanics down or game sense yet and didn’t want to be a bot.

The only overwatch player I watch is apply, but when I’m watching his gameplay I literally have no idea what is going on in my screen. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to name one thing going on the gun would go off.

I’m currently GM with a C3 peak. I know OW ranking system is a beast compared to rivals. I’m best at support but I can play other heros in other roles competently though. Here’s my hero pool for rivals starting from tank down to support.

Emma Frost, Dr. Strange, & Groot.

Hela, Psylocke, Squirrel Girl, Storm, & Scarlet Witch.

Cloak and Dagger, Invisible woman, Luna Snow, Rocket Racoon, Gambit, Mantis, Loki, & Jeff the land shark.

The OW Heros I’m interested in from tank to support for their own various reasons that I’ll probably post about in their respective main subreddits:

Ramattra (I know it’s only one tank but his design is cool, open to other suggestions!)

Ashe, Cassidy, Echo, Hanzo, Symmetra & maaaaybeee vendetta.

Ana, Moira, & Kiriko. I’ve seen what people say about mercy mains so I’m not touching her outside of quick play 🤣🤣

From the new heros Emre and jetpack cat interest me.

My main questions are:

1.) Can anyone share any resources or advice for what can I do to understand what’s going on in a game? Again I literally don’t know what’s on my screen. Is it just a play until you get it type of thing? If you’ve seen those shorts on YT about rivals that say “show this to someone who’s never played rivals” I can literally tell you everything going on in the video with ease, I want to have that level of understanding in OW.

2.) Any resources or advice for game sense? What ult counters what, when to ult, what heros counters who, etc. That type of thing. Is this also a thing where it’s a play until you get it?

3.) What are the meta/broke heros rn that would be good to pick up? (Think Hawkeye & Gambit in rivals). Or heros that have been consistently good like Bucky & Mag in rivals.I know my desired hero pool starting out is large, I kind of want to dabble in all roles kinda like how I do in rivals. Should I focus on 1-2 a role? Will my hero pool in rivals transfer well to the OW hero pool I like?

4.) What are some in game things I should know? Like the loot boxes, hero proficiency & events for example.

5.) YouTubers/Streamers to watch?

I appreciate any and all help!

**TLDR:**

GM Rivals player (C3 peak) trying to get into Overwatch. Only watch Apply but can’t understand what’s happening in games yet. I mainly play support but flex all roles. Interested in Ramattra, Ashe, Cassidy, Echo, Hanzo, Symmetra, maybe Venture, Ana, Moira, & Kiriko + new heros.

Looking for advice & resources on understanding the game overall, current strong/meta heroes, whether flexing roles early is fine, and general beginner things I should know about OW systems :)

Tried to keep the TLDR short and cover all my bases 😭

Is there any possibility that the Thunder Doomfist skin is ever coming back? I've only started playing OW since a few months ago and I really want the Thunder skin, but I've heard it was tied to Overwatch League which isn't around anymore. But considering there are currently OWL skins in the shop right now, does that means there is a possibility that Doomfist Thunder could return? especially after the Mythic was underwhelming, I really want a good skin I can run on my main.

i'm new, and i almost always pick lifeweaver, moira and reinheardt, these three are the most fun to me. and on other heroes people don't bully me as much as they do on lifeweaver. i've met some crazy mean people y'all.

On a side note, god bless winston players, maybe just a lucky streak, but they seem like the nicest people i come across. one of them even defended me when someone was nonstop bullying me

I love her and I want to learn how to play her but alot of the time I play her we lose because I just feel like im feeding 24/7 it seems like when I flank or dive someone their entire team is on me in like .5 seconds the most success ive had is hanging with my tank and playing off of them but idk if thats the right way to play her im never able to pull off any of the crazy 5ks because I get melted sp quick can someone please give me some tips or just how to play her

i had the delightful experience of, after not touching overwatch for a month due to studies, going from Masters 2 to Diamond 5, and at some point was in demotion protection at Diamond 5. for some context, i solo queue tank. i primarily (but not exclusively) play zarya. and this journey, spanning two weeks, dropping to low diamond and going back to masters was a lot more interesting in ways i did not expect. beyond seeing myself get back my original skills, i got a more nuanced view of plat and (rarely) gold players.

just to be clear: this post is not a solo queue tank guide on how i went from low diamond to my original rank. but rather, my personal observations about what i saw that separates players at mid to high plat from players at low masters. and perhaps, through what i saw, it may become more clear for you what differentiates these ranks beyond just blanket terms like mechanical skills or game sense.

while i know two weeks is not a very long time to fully get the plat experience, and admittedly most of my time was spent at diamond 5, it was enough for me to come to a couple conclusions about what's holding perhaps a subset of these players from achieving their ranked goals. some points i bring up may help with the decisions you make in game.

1. fixation on theory crafting

this surprised me quite a bit, but plat, and to an extent, low diamond players fixate on playing overwatch from the textbook. and what i mean by this is that these players have a tendency to approach the game with a very rigid framework. they have an understanding of theory, when to rotate, what the ideal comp looks like, who counters who, but they treat these as if and only if conditions rather than a living decision. the result is that they'll make a play that is technically correct in a vacuum but completely wrong for what's actually happening in front of them.

i'll admit, this point surprised me because i never really cared about overwatch theory. it was never something i engaged with on my way to masters, which is probably why the fixation stood out to me so clearly when i dropped down.

and this goes beyond just team composition. it extends to how players expect specific heroes to be played. for example, when i play zarya, i like to use one of the perks to reposition myself that aren't typical for her. at higher ranks, nobody questions it as long as i'm getting value. but at diamond 5 (specifically where matchmaking setup more plat players), players were taken aback by it. one teammate criticized me for not playing zarya the way they expected. the concern wasn't whether it was working, it was that it didn't look right to them.

the difference i noticed isn't that higher ranked players know more theory. honestly, a lot of plat players have a surprisingly solid understanding of the game conceptually. it's that higher ranked players treat theory as a set of sufficient conditions, not necessary ones. they'll deviate from the textbook the moment the situation calls for it, because they're responding to the game as it unfolds rather than as they expect it to unfold. plat players, in my experience, seemed more anchored to the plan even when the plan had already stopped being relevant.

1. ebb and flow

again, this also surprised me given my first point. but even if there is a fixation on how overwatch should be played, i saw that at the mid to high plat and low diamond ranks, players struggle to think about the game beyond what is immediately in front of them. not just with respect to themselves, but with respect to their individual teammates. this is a rather abstract point, so i will try to anchor what i am trying to say with a match i had playing hazard.

the important part of the match is that my team understood that hazard excels at diving. so, it is a reasonable conclusion to draw that i should be diving. but, when they saw me playing passively, just poking around, they were (to say the least) confused. truth be told, the enemy team had an ana that was always positioned in very solid spots that made it hard to do any bold plays without the fear of sleep or anti. i was making a deliberate choice to not go in because of that. usually, at times like this, i would expect to coordinate with the dps to get ana to use her cooldowns so i can move around more freely, or i somehow find a way to get to the ana myself without her teammates protecting her, but neither ended up happening. ended up having to swap in order to win that game, which is fine but the map heavily favored hazard so it was a lot harder than it had to be.

the issue wasn't that my team was playing badly (to some extent). it's that they weren't tracking the specific thing that was dictating the pace of the fight. i titled this point ebb and flow because while plat players have an understanding of the rhythmic movement of individual 1v1s or team fights with respect to ultimates, there is a clear gap in terms of understanding how individual enemy or teammate cooldowns can shape the tempo of a team fight.

1. mercy

this one was less surprising, but there was more push back in regards to me banning mercy at lower ranks. i personally dislike the enemy team having a mercy pocket and just generally dislike having mercy on my team. a single good anti from ana, even if the ana is missing her shots and underperforming in terms of healing, is so much more valuable to me than a mercy damage boost. but the reason i bring up mercy specifically is because she is the most visible example of a broader issue i noticed at these ranks: support players not getting the full value out of their kits.

what i saw at mid to high plat and low diamond is that support players would almost exclusively use their cooldowns defensively. abilities that could create openings or swing fights were being held purely for reactive plays. and at the same time, players on off healers like brigitte would position themselves poorly, accompanying me at the front lines when they'd get far more value playing around their other support or their dps. there really is a stark difference between support players at the mid to high plat level and mid diamond level, and i think this is a key component in that difference.

1. pressure

tank blaming was not surprising at lower ranks during this journey, but what was surprising to me was the justification used to blame the tank. while justifications vary depending on the situation, the reasoning often devolves into: if the job of the tank is to make space, and the tank is not making space, therefore the tank is the problem. but both premises are so reductive that the conclusion is essentially meaningless.

making space is a very dynamic process, and a single bad decision by a tank is enough to lose the fight. which is why i can somewhat understand where players are coming from that just blame the tank. but, what i think gets missed is that pressure is the metric by which you can evaluate whether space is actually being created, and pressure is not generated by the tank alone. your dps applying pressure on off angles, your supports enabling aggression or landing key cooldowns, these all feed into whether the tank can make space. a tank could be doing everything right, but if nobody else is contributing to pressure, space doesn't get made.

so when players at these ranks say "the tank isn't making space," what they're really doing is looking at the metric and blaming the most visible part of the process without considering the inputs that affect it. and in a way, this point ties the previous three together. the rigid theoretical thinking from point one leads players to assign blame based on what the textbook says each role should be doing. the lack of awareness from point two means they aren't tracking the individual contributions, or lack thereof, that are actually affecting pressure. and the underutilization of support kits from point three is itself one of those untracked inputs. the result is that the tank becomes the scapegoat not because the conclusion is correct, but because the reasoning never had enough depth to arrive anywhere else. and this is something i only see start to fade at the high diamond level.

1. conclusions

fixation on theory crafting, ebb and flow, mercy and pressure: these are the four main points that i see separating mid to high plat, low to mid diamond, high diamond and low masters. these are by no means the only differences i noticed. there are other factors like players consistently getting sniped in very obvious situations, not understanding the true benefit of high ground, among other things. but the four points above are the ones that stood out to me the most because i think they are less visible to players and harder to identify in your own play. there is a certain irony in that the players who are most fixated on understanding the game correctly are often the ones blind to these things.

while i mentioned in the beginning that this post is not intended to be a guide, i do want to end with a quick tip in regards to improving in the non-mechanical aspect of overwatch. whenever you lose a team fight, win one, get eliminated or get an elimination, always ask yourself one question: why did that happen? the answer is never as simple as you think it is.