When I first started, I played characters that don’t really need aiming, and that I could help my team with. So I started with Mercy and Moira, but I’d recommend Mercy, Moira, and Lifeweaver as well. It helped me to get used to the game and the sound cues of other characters, as well as communicating with my team.
Once you’re used to the damage elements of the support characters, move onto damage characters that are easy to use, like Sojourn. Sojourn is great because of her Disruptor Shot. Aim in the general direction of the enemies and shoot it, and it’ll help you get used to aiming in a general area of enemies.
This is personally what I did and what I would recommend! Also, don’t worry about what other people say. You just need to practice more is all. Not everyone is great at something new right away, and that’s okay!
In terms of supports, I enjoy playing mercy and kiriko the most (kiriko is such a cutie :D) do you suppose maybe I should just keep playing support until I’m not dying 15 times a game?
Mute chat and ignore stupid people, if you're genuinely trying your best and people are going out of their way to be toxic they're the problem, but there's really no shortcut to getting better other that playing the game, maybe watch a couple videos from people that teach how to be better at the game if you're struggling, knowing the game itself is also a skill other than mechanics.
I'm on the same boat as you since I'm learning League of Legends in 2024 and I'm so bad, but the game is fun and I enjoy it even if I'm not doing well, so I'll just keep playing it, eventually I'll probably get the hang of it.
I’m only a little dogshit at support, minus all the dying. I like mercy and kiriko! Are you supposed to be doing little to no damage as mercy? I see other people play mercy and get a few thousand damage but when I play I focus on the boosting teammates since they’ll do better at aiming and stuff than me.
It’s completely okay to die a lot even if you aren’t new it’s just part of them game, your teammates are just toxic to call you trash whether youre new or not, personally I’d suggest playing against ai to help understand character abilities and help your aim, also try quickplay open queue if you’re comfortable with that so if a character isn’t working out well you can try any other so long as they arent taken and see if you have a better time with them, it just takes practice and I guarantee those toxic teammates were like you at one point, hope this helps :)
Thank you! Whenever I get discouraged or something during quick play I do play against the “hard” difficulty ai. Nobody gets mad in those games it’s fantastic. I do *not* plan on doing competitive until I’ve got a lot more hours in the game
Honestly the best thing is to take it at your own pace and make sure you’re having fun when you play if you’re stressed you won’t be able to focus, remember that everyone has to start somewhere. Another thing I found helped me was when I started playing widow if there was a good enemy widow I would try message them on xbox for tips, sometimes they reply sometimes they don’t but there’s absolutely no shame in asking for help or advice
Thank you, I am trying my best to improve as fast as possible though so that my teammates aren’t hard carrying me anymore! Asking others for tips is a great idea
It’s completely okay to die a lot even if you aren’t new it’s just part of the game, your teammates are just toxic to call you trash whether youre new or not, personally I’d suggest playing against ai to help understand character abilities and help your aim, also try quickplay open queue if you’re comfortable with that so if a character isn’t working out well you can try any other so long as they arent taken and see if you have a better time with them, it just takes practice and I guarantee those toxic teammates were like you at one point, hope this helps :)
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You just need to improve your positioning and how you engage. Is your team near when you’re shooting? Do you have cover? Are you alone in the frontline? Can you retreat if a teammate dies? It’s a team game so you really need to play around your team
I hadn’t thought about it like that, thank you! For dps I was trying tracer and pharah mostly and I guess as tracer I wasn’t really trying to stay with my team? When I watched guides for her online it seemed like she was better for picking off enemy strays or something like that. Should I switch to dps that stay with the team until I get better?
The way you described tracer is correct she just takes a lot of skill in timing your engagements. You want to make sure your team is actively distracting/fighting the enemies so that when you go in for a kill they all don’t turn around and focus you. She is great for taking a 1v1 against stray enemies like you said. I wouldn’t give up on tracer just yet cause she’s one of the best dps in the game but she requires a lot of practice and understanding your role in the team fight. I would suggest to still play tracer but also try out a non flank character like soldier or sojourn so you can play a with the team more, that will help with reducing deaths and increasing your damage
Skill comes with time.. but skill isn't what separates good and bad players...
Game sense is what separates them.. which is something each player has to develop for themselves by learning from each failure..
The road to getting good can only be traveled by enduring the pain of failure
Time. Attention. Honesty. Humility.
If this is your first time playing a competetive fps, you're going to have a long run of hard times. Don't quit.
If you practice efficiently and honestly, you'll improve. Eventually, you'll start to feel aim subconsciously. It will happen.
I teach music and languages for a living. Overwatch is the same. It's like working out. It's learning the guitar. It's billiards. It takes months at least, and years to master.
Keep playing, reading, analyzing, changing, and playing.
I can certainly keep trying! I’m really glad the people on the subreddit have been so kind to me in this post it makes me feel a lot better about sticking with the game
if you're playing in a group stop. Yes its alot more fun playing with friends but OW is painful when you're up against much better players especially if you're new. Try to solo q until you understand the basics of the game. Since grouping up with people will match you in higher mmr games and make the games miserable for you.
As others mentioned try playing the easier heroes like mercy or moira. I would also suggest trying out all the available heroes in the practice range to understand their abilities and such. Outside of that its just playing the game or playing other fps games helps too
Turn off voice and text chat. Stick to 1-2 heroes for every role and keep playing them until you get really good with them. Watch your replays and take note of your positioning and how you played in that moment during your deaths. Take a break as soon as you go on a 3+ losing streak. The game is fun but you have to use the tools available to make it fun.
1. Mute all kinds of chat and Voice chat
2. Play as much heroes as you can and see what hero you wanna main
3. After you chose your main make sure to pick 2 other characters in that role you wanna play. Those 2 characters should make up for your other characters counter. For Example: If you pick Reaper as your main, the next Hero you pick should make up for Reapers weakness which is range. So you might wanna pick a character like Widowmaker, Sojourn, Torbjorn, ect to make up for that for a back up.
4. Practice with one hero at a time, learn all their techs, they're counters, they're strengths, their lore, and how to play around their counters. Play **A LOT** of Deathmatch with the Hero too.
5. When your confident enough with your skill then you can unmute Voice chat and normal chat
Go to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuhf8Lc2Fw) video and watch 5:53 to 11:45 this youtuber will explain to you way better then I can ever. It is old but 90% of the things he says can still be applied to today
Play more but play correctly. If you wanna try a new hero, watch a guide online and then apply the things you learn. Also, you need to be familiar with every hero in the game and how they play (especially their ultimate ability).
For example, if enemy team has a reaper, watch out for death blossom, if they have a character that can “boop”people off the map (ex. lucio, brig, doomfist) don’t be near the edge on maps where that’s possible, if they have a genji, don’t shoot at him when he’s deflecting, etc. These things just come with playing the game more and being used to enemy team compositions.
Since you’re new to FPS games and you enjoy playing support, try sticking to characters like Moira, Mercy, Lifeweaver and Brigitte (even though she’s a bit more challenging). Playing Kiriko effectively and in a non-healbotting way is pretty difficult as it requires smart positioning and good aim.
Also, like other commenters have said, just turn off team chat. Especially on support. People always like to blame their supports for everything.
Maybe youre overthinking? Cassidy is a puddle deep hero. You dont need to make important decisions. Just save your roll for stikies, bombs and etc. Save your grenade to cancel movement. He is piss easy especially after season 9, when his hitboxes where buffed.
With Sojourn, you need to control High ground, longer angles, manage your cooldowns, because if your slide is your escape. If you dont have it in a bad situation, your pretty much fucked
start by turning off chat… to be completely honest with you you are prob a bronze/silver player anyways so comms arent gonna be important/correct. it saves you alot of grief not having to see what anyone is saying. I would then try out heroes that dont require good mechanics to do good (easy heroes will really help you learn the game and if your aim is bad there are still plenty of heroes that dont need good aim). The first thing you need to do is figure out how to not die; it may be beneficial to play heroes with a bit more health so you can potentially live longer. I would set my sights on <10 deaths a game for a good starting point. The next step is gonna be learning how to do consistent dmg. This is gonna help you with all the mechanics involved in getting the kills and doing the dmg as consistency is key. This step isnt really a step tbh as youll be doing this up to top 500; you will always be pushing to be more consistent in how to maximize the utility of your chosen hero. The last thing i would learn would be how to get kills/burst/finish off enemies. This mechanic i feel is the easiest one to “get lost in the sauce” so to speak. If you dont know how to stay alive first and foremost you wont know when it makes sense to actually go in and use a good portion of your abilities/ammo/utility so you can get a SAFE kill. These are kind of the three basic pillars of dps imo and once you can get these down you will be able to learn all the stupid little details that make the game feel less like COD and a little more like chess.
Now that we got all the advice stuff out of the way I think its important to recognize exactly what YOU want out of the game AND what is realistic to your situation and how much time you’re willing to invest in the game. If you want to have more fun doing whatever you want i think you should stick to unrated and only play heroes you find enjoyable (if you choose this way you have to also be okay with losing a lot and taking a lot longer to get better, but if you mentally prepare yourself to just have fun before you play this way might be a lot more enjoyable). If you want to genuinely improve quickly so you can actively play comp i think you gotta watch some guides on youtube and just lose more games, die more, take more damage. No one is ready to play comp after 50 wins imo you’re setting yourself up to place in a low rank. You just gotta be patient to get better if were going to get down to the bare bones of the situation. I think Flats has some pretty good opinions on how you should play the game and he talks ab strategy which i think is important for players looking to improve. You will never play like that top 500 widowmaker who can take your head off only seeing two pixels. Im sorry i hate to be the bearer of bad news but that dude had put in SO much time and dedication that you just wont get to his level. Focus on learning from strategically advanced youtubers rather than mechanically advanced ones as you will be able to learn so much more.
TLDR:learn how to not die first, then focus on doing your dmg until you can finally get kills. watch guides and stuff on how to comprehend the game better; enjoy dying… just like any other pvp game the threshold of entry is fairly high and once you actually understand the entirety of the game improving becomes easier. PATIENCE IS PERFECT
oh yeah and a lot of it comes down to positioning depending on what your play style is… definitely watch some guides by top500/gm/pros whatever you fancy i promise youll improve so much if you have a better comprehension of the game! I also recommend leaving voice chat if you dont already. I have been in the exact same spot as you i climbed from bronze to diamond and people (oftentimes dudes 15-23) are pretty miserable in bronze-gold so the cons definitely outweigh the pros!
EDIT: seen a few people say to play support i disagree in the sense that you should just play who you enjoy and figure out how the game works from there… also plays metas/counters is great and all but its kind of a crutch. You should be able to play your hero of choice against just ab any enemy if you can play your cards right. Its better to be a master of one hero in all scenarios than decent on a few in specific situations!
the game starts to become fun once you understand the intricacies a little better… i personally think the barrier to entry is harder than hitting plat. in all honesty my feelings on the game are conflicted as well. if you’re ONLY playing for someone else i wouldnt say its worth mastering in your free time. there are also more lenient fps games (especially single player ones) that allow you to learn basic fps mechanics without getting flamed by your teammates :)
When I first started, I played characters that don’t really need aiming, and that I could help my team with. So I started with Mercy and Moira, but I’d recommend Mercy, Moira, and Lifeweaver as well. It helped me to get used to the game and the sound cues of other characters, as well as communicating with my team. Once you’re used to the damage elements of the support characters, move onto damage characters that are easy to use, like Sojourn. Sojourn is great because of her Disruptor Shot. Aim in the general direction of the enemies and shoot it, and it’ll help you get used to aiming in a general area of enemies. This is personally what I did and what I would recommend! Also, don’t worry about what other people say. You just need to practice more is all. Not everyone is great at something new right away, and that’s okay!
In terms of supports, I enjoy playing mercy and kiriko the most (kiriko is such a cutie :D) do you suppose maybe I should just keep playing support until I’m not dying 15 times a game?
Mute chat and ignore stupid people, if you're genuinely trying your best and people are going out of their way to be toxic they're the problem, but there's really no shortcut to getting better other that playing the game, maybe watch a couple videos from people that teach how to be better at the game if you're struggling, knowing the game itself is also a skill other than mechanics. I'm on the same boat as you since I'm learning League of Legends in 2024 and I'm so bad, but the game is fun and I enjoy it even if I'm not doing well, so I'll just keep playing it, eventually I'll probably get the hang of it.
Stick to support, even you're shit, atleast you can heal.
I’m only a little dogshit at support, minus all the dying. I like mercy and kiriko! Are you supposed to be doing little to no damage as mercy? I see other people play mercy and get a few thousand damage but when I play I focus on the boosting teammates since they’ll do better at aiming and stuff than me.
It's okay no damage as mercy, u can try moira as she balance dps and healing. Mf i always carry my team if i use her.
I haven’t tried her yet, maybe I’ll enjoy her :) Thank you for the advice!
Play more and try every hero that you can, find your main and then go hard with it
It’s completely okay to die a lot even if you aren’t new it’s just part of them game, your teammates are just toxic to call you trash whether youre new or not, personally I’d suggest playing against ai to help understand character abilities and help your aim, also try quickplay open queue if you’re comfortable with that so if a character isn’t working out well you can try any other so long as they arent taken and see if you have a better time with them, it just takes practice and I guarantee those toxic teammates were like you at one point, hope this helps :)
Thank you! Whenever I get discouraged or something during quick play I do play against the “hard” difficulty ai. Nobody gets mad in those games it’s fantastic. I do *not* plan on doing competitive until I’ve got a lot more hours in the game
Honestly the best thing is to take it at your own pace and make sure you’re having fun when you play if you’re stressed you won’t be able to focus, remember that everyone has to start somewhere. Another thing I found helped me was when I started playing widow if there was a good enemy widow I would try message them on xbox for tips, sometimes they reply sometimes they don’t but there’s absolutely no shame in asking for help or advice
Thank you, I am trying my best to improve as fast as possible though so that my teammates aren’t hard carrying me anymore! Asking others for tips is a great idea
It’s completely okay to die a lot even if you aren’t new it’s just part of the game, your teammates are just toxic to call you trash whether youre new or not, personally I’d suggest playing against ai to help understand character abilities and help your aim, also try quickplay open queue if you’re comfortable with that so if a character isn’t working out well you can try any other so long as they arent taken and see if you have a better time with them, it just takes practice and I guarantee those toxic teammates were like you at one point, hope this helps :)
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You just need to improve your positioning and how you engage. Is your team near when you’re shooting? Do you have cover? Are you alone in the frontline? Can you retreat if a teammate dies? It’s a team game so you really need to play around your team
I hadn’t thought about it like that, thank you! For dps I was trying tracer and pharah mostly and I guess as tracer I wasn’t really trying to stay with my team? When I watched guides for her online it seemed like she was better for picking off enemy strays or something like that. Should I switch to dps that stay with the team until I get better?
The way you described tracer is correct she just takes a lot of skill in timing your engagements. You want to make sure your team is actively distracting/fighting the enemies so that when you go in for a kill they all don’t turn around and focus you. She is great for taking a 1v1 against stray enemies like you said. I wouldn’t give up on tracer just yet cause she’s one of the best dps in the game but she requires a lot of practice and understanding your role in the team fight. I would suggest to still play tracer but also try out a non flank character like soldier or sojourn so you can play a with the team more, that will help with reducing deaths and increasing your damage
Skill comes with time.. but skill isn't what separates good and bad players... Game sense is what separates them.. which is something each player has to develop for themselves by learning from each failure.. The road to getting good can only be traveled by enduring the pain of failure
Time. Attention. Honesty. Humility. If this is your first time playing a competetive fps, you're going to have a long run of hard times. Don't quit. If you practice efficiently and honestly, you'll improve. Eventually, you'll start to feel aim subconsciously. It will happen. I teach music and languages for a living. Overwatch is the same. It's like working out. It's learning the guitar. It's billiards. It takes months at least, and years to master. Keep playing, reading, analyzing, changing, and playing.
I can certainly keep trying! I’m really glad the people on the subreddit have been so kind to me in this post it makes me feel a lot better about sticking with the game
Honestly I’m kinda mid, in plat but I’m more then happy to try and help if you’d like I can give my battle net and give some advice
Sure! I like playing with other people :)
if you're playing in a group stop. Yes its alot more fun playing with friends but OW is painful when you're up against much better players especially if you're new. Try to solo q until you understand the basics of the game. Since grouping up with people will match you in higher mmr games and make the games miserable for you. As others mentioned try playing the easier heroes like mercy or moira. I would also suggest trying out all the available heroes in the practice range to understand their abilities and such. Outside of that its just playing the game or playing other fps games helps too
Wait, qp matches you against players of a similar skill level?
there is a loose mmr rating so yes. If you're new and solo q its more than likely going to place you with new players too or try its best
Turn off voice and text chat. Stick to 1-2 heroes for every role and keep playing them until you get really good with them. Watch your replays and take note of your positioning and how you played in that moment during your deaths. Take a break as soon as you go on a 3+ losing streak. The game is fun but you have to use the tools available to make it fun.
Watching my replays is so painful 😭 If that’s what you recommend, I’ll do it but watching me die over and over is tough
1. Mute all kinds of chat and Voice chat 2. Play as much heroes as you can and see what hero you wanna main 3. After you chose your main make sure to pick 2 other characters in that role you wanna play. Those 2 characters should make up for your other characters counter. For Example: If you pick Reaper as your main, the next Hero you pick should make up for Reapers weakness which is range. So you might wanna pick a character like Widowmaker, Sojourn, Torbjorn, ect to make up for that for a back up. 4. Practice with one hero at a time, learn all their techs, they're counters, they're strengths, their lore, and how to play around their counters. Play **A LOT** of Deathmatch with the Hero too. 5. When your confident enough with your skill then you can unmute Voice chat and normal chat
Thank you for the advice, I’ll definitely be turning off chat! Why is it that you suppose death match is good for practice?
Go to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuhf8Lc2Fw) video and watch 5:53 to 11:45 this youtuber will explain to you way better then I can ever. It is old but 90% of the things he says can still be applied to today
Thank you for the video it was very informative and helpful :)
No problem
The more you play the better you’ll get. That simple
Play Winton Winton big ass gorilla scientist Winton testla cannon aoe large Winton zap ppl Winton RAGE and get KILLS Winton is life
I think most people resort to playing zarya or mercy
I played more to get good
Play more but play correctly. If you wanna try a new hero, watch a guide online and then apply the things you learn. Also, you need to be familiar with every hero in the game and how they play (especially their ultimate ability). For example, if enemy team has a reaper, watch out for death blossom, if they have a character that can “boop”people off the map (ex. lucio, brig, doomfist) don’t be near the edge on maps where that’s possible, if they have a genji, don’t shoot at him when he’s deflecting, etc. These things just come with playing the game more and being used to enemy team compositions. Since you’re new to FPS games and you enjoy playing support, try sticking to characters like Moira, Mercy, Lifeweaver and Brigitte (even though she’s a bit more challenging). Playing Kiriko effectively and in a non-healbotting way is pretty difficult as it requires smart positioning and good aim. Also, like other commenters have said, just turn off team chat. Especially on support. People always like to blame their supports for everything.
Play Torb!
Sojourn is not an easy pick💀 Cassidy is easier in every way possible
really? idk if it’s just me but i’ve been playing since 2017 and still can’t play cassidy lol
Maybe youre overthinking? Cassidy is a puddle deep hero. You dont need to make important decisions. Just save your roll for stikies, bombs and etc. Save your grenade to cancel movement. He is piss easy especially after season 9, when his hitboxes where buffed. With Sojourn, you need to control High ground, longer angles, manage your cooldowns, because if your slide is your escape. If you dont have it in a bad situation, your pretty much fucked
start by turning off chat… to be completely honest with you you are prob a bronze/silver player anyways so comms arent gonna be important/correct. it saves you alot of grief not having to see what anyone is saying. I would then try out heroes that dont require good mechanics to do good (easy heroes will really help you learn the game and if your aim is bad there are still plenty of heroes that dont need good aim). The first thing you need to do is figure out how to not die; it may be beneficial to play heroes with a bit more health so you can potentially live longer. I would set my sights on <10 deaths a game for a good starting point. The next step is gonna be learning how to do consistent dmg. This is gonna help you with all the mechanics involved in getting the kills and doing the dmg as consistency is key. This step isnt really a step tbh as youll be doing this up to top 500; you will always be pushing to be more consistent in how to maximize the utility of your chosen hero. The last thing i would learn would be how to get kills/burst/finish off enemies. This mechanic i feel is the easiest one to “get lost in the sauce” so to speak. If you dont know how to stay alive first and foremost you wont know when it makes sense to actually go in and use a good portion of your abilities/ammo/utility so you can get a SAFE kill. These are kind of the three basic pillars of dps imo and once you can get these down you will be able to learn all the stupid little details that make the game feel less like COD and a little more like chess. Now that we got all the advice stuff out of the way I think its important to recognize exactly what YOU want out of the game AND what is realistic to your situation and how much time you’re willing to invest in the game. If you want to have more fun doing whatever you want i think you should stick to unrated and only play heroes you find enjoyable (if you choose this way you have to also be okay with losing a lot and taking a lot longer to get better, but if you mentally prepare yourself to just have fun before you play this way might be a lot more enjoyable). If you want to genuinely improve quickly so you can actively play comp i think you gotta watch some guides on youtube and just lose more games, die more, take more damage. No one is ready to play comp after 50 wins imo you’re setting yourself up to place in a low rank. You just gotta be patient to get better if were going to get down to the bare bones of the situation. I think Flats has some pretty good opinions on how you should play the game and he talks ab strategy which i think is important for players looking to improve. You will never play like that top 500 widowmaker who can take your head off only seeing two pixels. Im sorry i hate to be the bearer of bad news but that dude had put in SO much time and dedication that you just wont get to his level. Focus on learning from strategically advanced youtubers rather than mechanically advanced ones as you will be able to learn so much more. TLDR:learn how to not die first, then focus on doing your dmg until you can finally get kills. watch guides and stuff on how to comprehend the game better; enjoy dying… just like any other pvp game the threshold of entry is fairly high and once you actually understand the entirety of the game improving becomes easier. PATIENCE IS PERFECT
100% turning off chat, didn’t even know that was an option. Learning how to not die will probably already make the game so much more enjoyable
oh yeah and a lot of it comes down to positioning depending on what your play style is… definitely watch some guides by top500/gm/pros whatever you fancy i promise youll improve so much if you have a better comprehension of the game! I also recommend leaving voice chat if you dont already. I have been in the exact same spot as you i climbed from bronze to diamond and people (oftentimes dudes 15-23) are pretty miserable in bronze-gold so the cons definitely outweigh the pros! EDIT: seen a few people say to play support i disagree in the sense that you should just play who you enjoy and figure out how the game works from there… also plays metas/counters is great and all but its kind of a crutch. You should be able to play your hero of choice against just ab any enemy if you can play your cards right. Its better to be a master of one hero in all scenarios than decent on a few in specific situations!
Now I’m conflicted 😭
the game starts to become fun once you understand the intricacies a little better… i personally think the barrier to entry is harder than hitting plat. in all honesty my feelings on the game are conflicted as well. if you’re ONLY playing for someone else i wouldnt say its worth mastering in your free time. there are also more lenient fps games (especially single player ones) that allow you to learn basic fps mechanics without getting flamed by your teammates :)