Overwatch 2 is here, and people are playing. But not everybody is winning, at least not as much as they could be if they kept a couple of things in mind. Whether or not you’re a high-level Overwatch player returning for the sequel or a totally new player to the game, if you make sure to stay on top of the following things, you’ll be sure to turn those Ls into Ws.
So, in this article, we’ll tell you what you need to keep in mind while playing Overwatch 2 if you want to win more and lose less.
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Positioning Is the Most Important Thing
It may sound trivial, but position, at every level, is the most important thing you can focus on in fights. Regardless of your hero and how good your aim is, if you’re always positioning yourself well, that’s a fantastic way to rack up the kills and the wins.
Of course, finding the right position is going to be a dynamic process depending on where you are on a map, what your team is doing, and what hero you’re playing, but in general, you’ll want to always be thinking about two core concepts: line of sight and cover.
As a rule of thumb, whenever you fire a weapon, you want to either be next to or behind cover or you want to be taking advantage of line of sight. Yes, every time you fire a weapon. But what does that mean, exactly?
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Say you’re playing a DPS hero like Sojourn. She’s most effective at medium-range, but she can be extremely powerful at shorter ranges, too, if you play your cards right. When taking engagements at medium range, you always want to be behind cover. After all, you’re building up charged shots by doing damage, so you’ll have to be firing a lot, drawing attention.
But say your team just took out the enemy DPS heroes, and now, there’s just a lone Lucio and a tank by the payload. Since you know you won’t be vulnerable from a bunch of different angles, you and your team can focus them safely, thanks to line of sight.
At any given moment, you want to be thinking about where the enemy team is and what kind of angles on you they might be able to get. Avoid placing yourself in a position where it’s easy for someone on the other side to target you, and only get out from cover when there’s a good expectation that doing so won’t get you killed.
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At first, this might make you play more cautiously than you need to, but eventually, moving from wall to wall and cover to cover in between moments where you can push and be more aggressive will become second nature, and you’ll find yourself at least at Gold in ranking.
Be Aware of Your Teammates
Overwatch is a team game. It’s not Call of Duty. Even if you’re an amazing player, you’re not going to be able to carry your team to victory by just playing well, you have to play with your team. Consequently, that’s why a team of even below-average players can win against much better gamers that aren’t working together.
But how do you work together with teammates that may not communicate or might often make terrible decisions? Well, as a rule, you should at least work pings into your gameplay experience so they become second nature to hopefully encourage teammates to listen to you and to communicate, but in general, there are some things to keep in mind.
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First, before you ever make a push or go in for a kill, ask yourself where your teammates are. Even if you’ve got audio notifications when kills happen, in a second, it can be easy to miss the rest of your team getting wiped behind you while you’re focusing on wrapping up a couple of kills.
So, before you push or make a play, make sure to take stock first. If you notice your team getting pushed back or that, god forbid, they’ve died, turn back toward spawn. The sad reality is that you’re not winning a 1v5, ever. It just doesn’t happen, and it won’t start.
DPS heroes oftentimes are doing their own thing in a fight, but you should always pay close attention to your tank and your supports. If supports are getting harassed by a Reaper or Sombra, regardless of what you’re playing, you should try and help if you can.
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Similar goes for your tank. Since there’s only a single tank in Overwatch 2, oftentimes if your tank dies, you lose the team fight. So, if your tank is moving up ahead of the objective, even if you think it’s the better play to stay where you are, make sure he doesn’t go in alone, assuming it’s not a death sentence.
After all, as the saying goes, one person charging in is feeding while two going in is strategy. You can make the difference between a team member who isn’t helping becoming an asset if you’re only willing to give them some space to call the shots, most especially with tanks.
Don’t Waste Your Ults
Everybody has an ult, and chances are, you’ll get a few ults every game. On its own, a single hero’s ult can completely swing the outcome of an entire team fight or even game. If you start working two or even three ults together, victory is almost inevitable.
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So, the worst thing you can do is waste your ult or solo it on a single enemy. Make sure to ping your ult status as it approaches full, sure, but more importantly, don’t be afraid to hold back on using your ult until the right moment. It’s better to wait a little longer and maybe chance missing out on another ult later than it is to lose a team fight because you wasted your ult.
As a general rule of thumb, the most important thing to keep in mind when ulting is picking a time to use it where you can make a meaningful impact on a fight, for one, and making sure you’re positioned in such a way that you won’t be killed before you can get your ult off.
With Reaper, for example, his ult is routinely pretty devastating, killing easily up to three people and almost inevitably winning whatever team fight is going on. But you have to time it right or you’ll be the dude whose Reaper only gets to scream “Die!” once before, well, dying.
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How do you pick the time and place? First, off, make sure you’re with your team. At the very least, don’t ult alone. If you’re a character like Reaper where your ult might get cut short while it’s going off, telling your support to focus you with healing for a moment is a great move.
Then, before you ult, position yourself behind cover and from a location where it’ll be hard for multiple members of the opposite team to focus you while ulting. At this point, it’s always good to make sure nobody else on your team has an ult that can combo with your ult.
For example, if you’re Reaper but you’ve got a Sombra with a charged ult on your team, having the Sombra ult first and then you ult afterwards to turn all those hacked enemies into kills is a fantastic combo that can turn a Reaper ult from something that nabs one person out of position into a full-fledged team kill.
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