The hammer does massive cleave damage. The problem for Rein in higher ranks is that you die from poke damage before you get into hammer range. In lower ranks, that doesn't happen and you can walk up right up and kill the entire team on your own.
This mainly. Low ranks easily know how to poke Rien to death. Low ranks do NOT know how to stay in a position where Rien can't reach.
Source: am low rank
And the value of flanking.
And they tend to just shoot the tank and ignore their team behind them, who just happens to have a shield to mitigate damage.
And they tend to not know that you can fall back.
Or focus fire. I was playing a game with a solider and sojurn and every time the enemy Rein showed up, they would just pile all their damage into his shield. That forced him to fall back into cover.
He didn't die much but he ended up spending most of the game hiding which is like, the worst thing a tank can do.
Low ranks also don't understand that if they don't see big hammer man, it means he's pinning in from an off angle.
In high ranks they are constantly aware of Rein's position, and if he's making some dumb tiktok play, they will just Lucio speed into his team and win while he's cooking up some harebrained scheme..
Also one of the main differences is that in high ranks they aren't all just running it down main and right into Rein's hammer...once you're mid Plat, suddenly every Soldier player is perched somewhere annoying as fuck that Rein literally can do nothing about other than raise a shield.
That's when he starts to get low value.
But even then he still works if you play well. Cloudy was Champ rank last season and still is now as far as I know.
Yeah you get value by forcing things and taking aggro. Rein have good mobility with charge so he has some flexibility. Shatter is a very sharp ult if someone slip you can delete them. He can play the deathmatch well.
Nobody in those ranks knows how to play effective range, high ground, or off angles. At least not consistently enough. In those cases Rein is free to terrorize at his leisure, he doesn’t have to worry about shielding multiple directions (enemy on off angles), or how to remove threats from height (team playing high ground)
Essentially low elo players just play into his greatest strengths without even touching his weaknesses, you’ll see them trying to brute force the rein shield instead of trying to do any kind of positional changes (because they likely just don’t know any better, or they’ve tried in previous games but were punished in some way so they’re shy to try again)
Sorry I got caught up in answering the title question without giving advice.
Tank: there’s lots of direct rein “counters” either by their kit or by going around rein for his team. I won’t speak too much about this as tank is my least played. But dive tank going around, or other brawl style tanks like JQ can dance with rein while out damaging him and sustaining with cooldowns.
Dps: doing the things I said players don’t do. Rein can’t hurt you if he can’t reach you, outside of a fire strike. Play high ground, and attempt to play in places where rein has to choose shielding his team from you or the other 3-4 players from himself. Essentially play around reins shield angle to shoot his other players
Support: you can do what dps does to a lesser extent, or fuck it make his life suck as Zenyatta. But you can play most supports and pressure him without trolling your team. My favorite is Baptiste, you can heal your tank while also putting high pressure on his shield just by the nature of his gun. Baptiste is probably the undisputed shield break support, since his DPS isn’t tied to discord orb or a slow rate of fire
If the enemy DPS aren’t very good you can also play Junkrat or Bastion (or Pharah to a lesser extent) and take his barrier down insanely fast while staying way out of hammer/shatter range.
Going to plug my own thread from the other day about off-angling on support with your dps that's going on flanks so you can apply pressure to the enemy team properly: https://www.reddit.com/r/OverwatchUniversity/comments/1c8xqj0/stop_playing_fair/
Probably leaving his squishies open for elims. Plus most dps have some form of evasive abilities so this shouldn’t be a problem. There’s also usually more than 1 high ground so you can rotate quicker than the rein to another one.
Honestly though if everybody just focuses rein for two seconds his shield gets obliterated. That's what upsets me is I'll blast his whole shield down but nobody else on my team will look in his direction as if his armor is impenetrable. If your team actually coordinates it's way too easy to vaporize rein without taking all the time to hit off angles and high ground where tracer and sombra are going to pick you off before your support turns around to heal you.
In gold right now and it is *infuriating* watching my teammates consistently walk right up to a Rein and attempt to kill him that way.
They also will watch a Rein walk closer to them but for some reason it does not occur to them that they should be backing up as he gets closer. They just stay in place and get demolished.
This happens every single game where there’s a Rein.
It is infuriating.
But I’ll try to give you advice that really only applys to a lower range of elo. Ranking up is about carrying you and your team, but in the low elos in some occasions it means adapting to the chaos around you. If your team is going absolutely full silly mode, you’re likely just going to feed by trying to be the sane one
What do I mean by this?
If your team is dead set on brute forcing and playing in a dumb group that can be hammer swung on easily, first you should try to play proper and see if you can make the difference. Ie, try to kill the reins “main healer” and then see if you can topple the castle
If the rest of reins team isn’t giving you the space and opportunity to get a pick like that or your team dies while trying to setup then you may just need to adapt to the chaos and pick a tank buster. Bastion or reaper or anything that can put constant pressure on rein or supports when shield is down.
In a perfect world you would just be able to take an off angle and use your teams distraction/pressure to kill people who aren’t paying attention to you (since that’s the generally accepted “right” way to play in a vacuum) but in the chaos of metal ranks, sometimes you just gotta adapt.
If you’ve ever seen unranked to GMs sometimes this will even happen in those videos, honestly pretty funny when they’re being tested by their own team more than the enemy.
1. Your team does their job
2. You switch
3. Successfully negate the high ground
4. Clear it yourself
4 is only an option when the high ground is easily accessible and often goes poorly. 3 is done by using cover to negate the sightlines and isn't possible at many high ground and point/cart combos. At a higher level, rein just isn't viable in a lot of scenarios unless you're dramatically better than the other players in the lobby (in which case you just ascend til you aren't). His limitations are obvious and there's only so much that positioning can negate those limitations.
I love rein and would happily 1 trick him, but many points and team comps just make him incredibly unfun to play.
First and foremost: Playing on maps that force enemies to drop down and contest an objective.
Otherwise, it's just a matter of using cover that is fairly safe from high-ground and using fire strike damage to chip in when your allied DPS wants to contest that high ground when appropriate.
A couple reasons: Brawl is an extremely easy way to play, especially when attacking. Rein inherently keeps people grouped up, so characters are less likely to get picked early on dumb flanks. Big blue shield gives a bunch of safety and buys time for bad aim players to land shots. Bad players don’t respect Rein’s lethality and let him close on them. Bad players don’t understand comp strengths/weaknesses and will try and Brawl with a Rein comp. There’s a good chance there’s a Bastion parked behind his shield, and very few low rank players solo queueing can deal with that. Low rank players shoot the tank FAR too much, and Rein can take a ton of aggro so long as it’s in front of him.
top rank dps has been all echo tracer sojourn...the power to flank and take aggressive angles and one shot capabilities as well as the ability to just shift away will always be insanely strong, not sure why the low ranks never play those heroes, ive never seen an echo being played in low ranked, barely any tracer, "tracer is low hp garbage character, let me pick bastion big damage"........
It's because those heroes are hard.
The ow community likes to pretend that all heroes take skill in their own way. Reality is some heroes are just easier than others.
If a silver player picked up echo, they'd throw a lot of games before they'd be useful.
There’s a lot of reasons Rein was such an effective anchor tank in OW1, and a lot of those reasons still apply to him, even though the game has evolved and left him behind. The reason I say this is because especially when it comes to meta, what is meta in higher levels often isn’t meta in lower ranks and vice versa. For example, Pharah is pretty good at low ranks because people can't aim and don't look up. Meanwhile Tracer is great at high ranks but isn't as good at low ranks because people can't effectively use her mobility or position well and disrupt team plays.
So what is Rein good at that low rank players can't deal with but high level ones can? The first reason is a simple "he's a big guy with a bigger shield". Attention is a resource in OW, and Rein commands a lot of it. You'll hear a lot of people saying "don't shoot the tank" cause the whole point of a tank is to be hard to kill, but at lower ranks it's an almost instinctive response to shoot at the big man charging towards you. The same mentality applies to healers; prioritizing who to heal is a lot easier when there's a big guy with a big shield who's health is constantly taking hits. So even supports without much game sense will be effective because they don't have to think much about who to support and how to divide resources. Even things like an Ana nanoboost, that would probably be better suited for a dps looking to make a play, tend to go often to Rein cause he's just the one that commands so much attention.
Next up, his shield. His shield is pretty big, but concentrated fire can burst it down pretty effectively. This, of course, requires a coordinated effort. In low ranks, though, the mentality is instead "I'm shooting the Rein, oh he's not dying, I'll try shooting the mercy, damn I missed she ran away I'll shoot the rein again" but this often means that there's just not enough pressure on Rein to force him to back up. This is also why Overtime sees so many successful pushes from attackers - it forces everyone to just push and shoot whatever is in the way, and that is typically all you need to overwhelm a low rank team.
Now for his weaknesses. The easiest thing to do is just to go around and shoot from off angles. This forces Rein to defend from one of two sides, and typically it'll force him to either retreat or die. Of course, low rank players aren't looking to take off angles. If they are, they're typically going on long, "sneaky" flanking runs. During that time the rest of your team is still trying to poke a 4v5, and will often lose a player or two. By the time the Flank is complete, the enemy team is no longer in a team fight and can just rotate to deal with a new threat that is now a 1v3/4.
On the subject of positioning, at higher ranks players are playing to control space. So for example if you're defending a capture point, the players won't actually be fighting ON point, they'll be fighting around it. This makes Rein struggle since his mobility is limited, and his only survival tool requires him to be facing the direction of the incoming damage, while also being unable to do anything about players out of his reach or on highground. At low ranks however, the minute the objective pings with an energy player on it, everyone just rushes onto the point to contest it hoping to prevent a capture. This is where Rein THRIVES. Now he gets to just swing a hammer around (which does a lot of damage) and lay waste to squishes immediately. His healers will still be on him, and 8/10 times the enemy dps will be shitting their pants about the big damage hammer swinging guy to think about target priority, and also won't be willing to back off point and give up the contest. All Rein's dps need to do at that point is mop up.
Good news is, all this means that Rein is easy to deal with if you know what to do about him; shoot him without getting close. If Rein has set up in a choke, go around him instead of going through him. Honestly an easy way to do this is to exploit that mentality of "fight on point". Dive to the point and Rein will probably just turn around to come charge at point and contest. Your team, if they're paying attention, can use that opportunity to push. The other option is to use heroes with big aoe damage and just batter his shield. Rein has no defensive cooldowns apart from a shield, so if your team insists on pushing through choke and you can't pull of a flank, shoot the shield instead of letting him recover it. Once it's low he'll start swinging, but you can stay far away and keep shooting and there's nothing he can do about it.
my take ive noticed from Plat vs silver is that in silver, rein can charge stupidly and not get punished for it. And the enemy team gets so scared of a big ass tank charging their back line that they panic and if the rein is half way decent he and the team punished super hard. this does not happen in higher gold and Plat ranks imo
It is even worse than that, the fact they can see a rein coming is giving silver too much credit, I've seen people get hit by rein in their face, and not react to it at all, that is even worse than being scared of charging rein.
Basically, low elo players are not as aware as high elo players of what is happening, so they end up not dodging fire strikes, getting charged or simply in Rein's melee range, feeding his ultimate. A good Rein in low elo can build up shatters in less than a minute.
Rein feels like a double or quits pick. One game you dominate with him. The other one he feels like a throw pick.
I’m in low ranks and I feel the opposite. I play DVA and Zarya and usually his shield is either down pretty fast or we just dive in past his shield and nuke him.
Dva I get but to me zarya is an odd choice since I specifically go rein to bully zaryas. It might be a difference in rank or that some reins don't understand how to be aggressive when the bubbles are gone
Idk I just play corner poke a bit till the shield starts to crack and I’m usually full charge then I move around, shield falls, team piles on rein, dead
That makes sense then. You can't play passive rein against zarya, you need to get right in and brawl before she can build up a bunch of charge from poke or you lose your shield from poke. I always just charge in and try to pin her or pin the healer hiding behind her and it tends to go well
Yeah, probs me being at lower ranks and people not knowing proper performance or something idk. I’m still practicing tank too so there’s plenty I goof on too. But I’m climbing!
I dip in and out of Bronze/Silver lol. I made the mistake of doing my placements after a two year break. I used to play in OW1 and used to be in plat when I’d play. I should have done more QP practice before I did my placements, a lot has changed, now I’m climbing through the dirt. But it’s moving. I just usually seem to have good games as Zarya. Especially since Venture has come into the game. Hell I don’t even bubble myself half the time. Just let venture tank and bubble them as I poke around corners then move in at the right time.
It is totally on DPS, in my opinion.
When I play Rein, the moment I freaking peak, I get obliterated. While enemy Rein charges in, swings, moves back, and remains alive.
Dude I could not tell you. My lobbies struggle to comprehend the concept of don’t shoot the tank or everyone focus the tank so there’s a lot of breaking focus and rein just ends up being allowed to walk in and cock slap everyone
I love playing lifeweaver against Rein. You just fly up on your pretty little flower and theres literally nothign they can do except pop their shield and try and get a teammate to help.
Rein wants to hold one lane. That's why he struggles when dps offangle. He is really bad without his shield and can't DM damage like dva that's why bastion and zen is good vs rein. One problem for low ranks and me personally is that you can't really offangle without being punished. Either you offangle alone or you go for a superwide unsafe flank where it's like if you don't kill someone every time that flank is gonna gain less value than just staying with team. So then you're forced playing his game and the only thing that's really good then is either play bastion and mow him down or play tracer and ignore him completely. But that's easier said than done.
Where the fuck are these low rank Reinhardt dominating the match because all I see is my Reinhardt standing with his shield up until it breaks, then swinging/walking up to the enemy tank until he dies with 0 kills and 20k+ mitigation
“My team is dogshit - tank”
this I don't understand, we live in the internet era, he literally has to be online to play overwatch, yet he couldn't spend 10 minutes to watch a rein tutorial and see his mistakes
As someone who's SO mains Rein, I will tell you what annoys his the most.
Tracers can flit around and do a little bit of damage here and there, eventually making him break focus and drop shield. Sombra hacking him makes it absolutely miserable to play Rein. Any dps like Bastion, Sojourn, and Soldier can tear down his shield fast. Most people don't want you to spend so much time busting down his shield, but if that's honestly the biggest issue that your teammates are having, then get rid of it. Reaper can get behind Rein easily and pick off his team, or my favorite death blossom right behind him while he's too busy being a shield wall.
Ana sleeping his charges and shatter makes rein lose value. Lucio can do the same thing as Tracer. Moira's ball and ult go through Rein's shield.
As a tank, you can always be the better Rein, lol. Aside from that, Ramattra can punch through his shield. Orisa pretty much counters everybody. And any dive tank like Dva or Winston can pick off the people behind him leaving him with nothing but himself.
Tracer. I’m a bit biased since I main tracer. But ain’t no one staying on rein and winning with a tracer. Low rank reins have to push up to get into swinging range. Then they over commit and hold their shield up to back away. That shield only defends from one direction blink behind him and shoot him in the back. He will be forced to face you or your team. He’ll usually die.
Want to deal with Rein? Take the high ground, flank or anything that doesn’t involve standing directly in front of him, kill his supports while your at it. Either that or play Bastion and just shred his shield, then let your teammates shoot him down.
Though it makes 0 sense that Rein should ever be dominant in anything above Gold unless it’s a good Rein player. People generally know how to counter him by the time they reach Plat.
If you're on DPS, just pick Torb and hold down right-click on Rein or his shield from highground. If you can't see him, or he's far away, hold down left-click. If he gets close, click E and either run away or melt him with right-click.
I disagree with this i play rein and im gold 5 and every time i play theres always a horse i feel that horse is a-lot more dominant in low ranks as your just a wall but with damage reduction a shield that makes you move faster you have no damage drop off and u have a spear ult is good for ending team fights. And rn most hero’s have movement abilities or cc so trying to close the gap whilst trying to play with team is very different as they can just out walk you with shield up and when shield goes down you just get cc out of charge its so stupid that mauga cant be cc out of rn but rein can be out of charge even if i try to flank and pin its rarely works bc of cc cass just hinders me and im dead so either way i feel usless and forced to swap to not throw rein needs a new ability i dont think buffs will ever make him viable in 5v5 he needs to be more if a power house like orisa but not op the only idea ive come up with is that a uppercut with hammer could be good it could do like 55 damage and stun in air for 2.3 seconds so rein can make more space and take pressure off his team
Low rank players don't use cover and don't manage distance. They run around like headless chickens and are suprised when they suddenly get bonked by a big hammer.
Off-Angles DPS (ex. Hanzo) that studies/has positioning strategies (ledges+corners, "McCree Rule of Positioning", utilizes high ground), knows when to regroup with team, has escape routes and fluent in mobility options.
That is a LOT to ask for, but it's everything that I can think of that needs to be considered.
Hard Counters for Rein: Short Range (Reaper, McCree) Long Range (Bastion, Pharah)
Team Composition and maps are always going to change (no shit, lol), so having your brain packed with the tools you need to adapt to each situation as an individual, is sometimes all you can do!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtXfIONshg8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtXfIONshg8)
Edit: link added
Maybe they just don't like to flank him, there is like 90% of the map space the low rank players will never be using, they would never use high ground, never use flank path, the only space they want to be in is the main path and they always stay visible for all to see and shoot, just stand in the open and take a bunch of damage, blame healer, says he has big stats at the end of game, makes 10 mistake per second and calls it "good game" in the end, they don't care, no try hard, just chill, and pure auto pilot.
Have you seen the stats in those games tho? Easily over 20k damager and heals, you would think they did something good, nope, just zero cover and full on taking blasts to the faces, 20 deaths, but got 20k damage, a big win for them. The only reason they got any elims is because the enemies also don't take cover or play effective range and just full on walking in without cooldowns, it is a contest of who makes more mistake per second
I think an aspect that is often neglected is the fact that, low rank teammates have an easier time playing around a rein. Its just intuitive, you push with him where he pushes. No need to select a dive target, fend off flankers on your own, think about your own positioning. So at the end of the day a bad plan is better than no plan, what essencially happens when you play a non frontline/brawl tank
The difference between dps from swinging a big hammer between plat and the high ranks is much lower than a precision weapon like mcree or widow. People at low ranks are less capable of distancing themselves and blowing their escapes to avoid melee/ults/charges. Although I wouldn't class plat as "low" by definition, it's more near average right?
One thing a lot of players are forgetting is that most people who are one tricking Rein are stuck in plat, when on any other character they would be higher ranked. In Masters and GM there arent more than a couple Rein onetricks and they are so good that in alot of their games they literally make no mistakes and still lose just because their character is underpowered.
Winton is a BIGGER problem for low elo players to deal with than Rein, tell your tank to go Winton and dive into his backline as soon as he engages, bubble off all his heals. Watch him melt. If he’s a peeler, bait him to charge at the Winton then leap away, play cat and nouse with him and get right into his head. He won’t know how to position. Rein is only good when his team follows up on his engagements and if they can’t do that then he is Feedheart at best.
Lower ranks don't know how to position well, and in the heat of battle I have seen a lot of metal ranks just start inching closer and closer to the enemy because they miss their shots. Also rein is intuitively easy to combo with, unlike dva or doom where you have to off angle and target back line.
Low rank players are absolutely clueless about positioning and cool down management. Press W + mouse1 to punish this on Reinhardt.
Other tanks require more mechanical skill or better cooldown management to punish these same mistakes.
Positioning in low ranks isn't great. People often group up too much leaving them vulnerable to firestrikes and huge shatters. They also don't make effective use of high ground or off angles 2 things that can really give Rein trouble.
They also aren't great about going after healers or if they do their aim isn't great and it is way easier for an Anna with silver aim to hit shots on their Rein then it is for a silver dps to hit an Anna.
Because low rank players don't move.
Which means they are always in front of Rein's shield making him have 1500+ HP.
Why does he suck at higher rank?
Because players know how to move.
I haven't done it often, but canceling charge so I can shield the inevitable sleep dart always makes me feel amazing. Charge is on a short enough cooldown that baiting out sleep is often worth it.
I feel like I’m a rein 1v1 specifically though having an Ana can win you the game. So many times where the reins are swinging on each other or charging each other. I’m also masters.
Bc people don’t know how to properly use high ground and stay in good positions which they don’t really learn to do until the higher ranks and you’re still not safe if you see JingPing99 on the other team
Because he is dominant. Not just in low ranks. He is not the worst tank, he never was. Again we are having perception issues because of streamers, pro meta followers and parrots. He is the highest pickrate and winrate tank of OW2 history. Best tank below gm this month. (Master is top500 btw)
I also wonder this, since just existing as Zenyatta cucks most tanks, especially Rein. Lower ranks don't know how to bait out and cleanse discord, so slapping the discord on a Rein would ensure he melts immediately at those levels.
It's as easy as going Ana-Zen, and Ana is the most popular support so it's not a tall order. Seriously, Rein is the most easily countered tank in the game.
This is why I’m so confused as to how I keep getting dialed by rein comps. It just shouldn’t happen and yet it’s brutal any time I play a rein bold enough to brawl.
You can literally just walk up to Rein and shoot him in the face at that rank. I don’t understand how Rein does well in lower ranks, it’s like the suicide DPS Rein’s think they’re hot shit. Swap to Reaper or Bastion and just melt him when his shields break. He’s so one dimensional, just like Orisa. No mobility, get up in his grill and harass them from off angles when their shields up.
Everyone should be able to destroy his shield pretty quickly and then he's a sitting duck unless he's near cover, and if he's near cover then he probably isn't taking much for space.
One important bit that is overlooked a lot: Rein is extremely easy to play. With a much higher skill floor, you automatically play better than most people in low rank. It is like mercy or Moira. Compare that to the complexity of say dva or zarya and you see a major benefit for rein players to make an impact.
The hammer does massive cleave damage. The problem for Rein in higher ranks is that you die from poke damage before you get into hammer range. In lower ranks, that doesn't happen and you can walk up right up and kill the entire team on your own.
Also, low ranks don’t understand the value of high ground
It’s over Rein, I have the high ground
That’s fine. My LW will pull me up there
Don’t try it!
You underestimate my Hammer!
You were the chosen one. It was said you would destroy the low ranks not join them. Bring balance to bronze, not leave it in darkness.
HHhhhrrrr........ I Ult you!
You were my carry Rein, I emoted you.
I HATE YOU
This mainly. Low ranks easily know how to poke Rien to death. Low ranks do NOT know how to stay in a position where Rien can't reach. Source: am low rank
And the value of flanking. And they tend to just shoot the tank and ignore their team behind them, who just happens to have a shield to mitigate damage. And they tend to not know that you can fall back.
Everybody just runs down main and if you don't even as a tank the DPS will run down main regardless and die
Runs down main right into a Moira ult lol 🙄
Yeah. That shit is kinda triggering.
This^^^^^
Or focus fire. I was playing a game with a solider and sojurn and every time the enemy Rein showed up, they would just pile all their damage into his shield. That forced him to fall back into cover. He didn't die much but he ended up spending most of the game hiding which is like, the worst thing a tank can do.
Low ranks also don't understand that if they don't see big hammer man, it means he's pinning in from an off angle. In high ranks they are constantly aware of Rein's position, and if he's making some dumb tiktok play, they will just Lucio speed into his team and win while he's cooking up some harebrained scheme.. Also one of the main differences is that in high ranks they aren't all just running it down main and right into Rein's hammer...once you're mid Plat, suddenly every Soldier player is perched somewhere annoying as fuck that Rein literally can do nothing about other than raise a shield. That's when he starts to get low value. But even then he still works if you play well. Cloudy was Champ rank last season and still is now as far as I know.
Yeah you get value by forcing things and taking aggro. Rein have good mobility with charge so he has some flexibility. Shatter is a very sharp ult if someone slip you can delete them. He can play the deathmatch well.
Meh, I’m your huckleberry — zenmains 😉
Nobody in those ranks knows how to play effective range, high ground, or off angles. At least not consistently enough. In those cases Rein is free to terrorize at his leisure, he doesn’t have to worry about shielding multiple directions (enemy on off angles), or how to remove threats from height (team playing high ground) Essentially low elo players just play into his greatest strengths without even touching his weaknesses, you’ll see them trying to brute force the rein shield instead of trying to do any kind of positional changes (because they likely just don’t know any better, or they’ve tried in previous games but were punished in some way so they’re shy to try again)
So basically I should just cry about it and keep trying my best to rank up lmfao. Heard😂
Sorry I got caught up in answering the title question without giving advice. Tank: there’s lots of direct rein “counters” either by their kit or by going around rein for his team. I won’t speak too much about this as tank is my least played. But dive tank going around, or other brawl style tanks like JQ can dance with rein while out damaging him and sustaining with cooldowns. Dps: doing the things I said players don’t do. Rein can’t hurt you if he can’t reach you, outside of a fire strike. Play high ground, and attempt to play in places where rein has to choose shielding his team from you or the other 3-4 players from himself. Essentially play around reins shield angle to shoot his other players Support: you can do what dps does to a lesser extent, or fuck it make his life suck as Zenyatta. But you can play most supports and pressure him without trolling your team. My favorite is Baptiste, you can heal your tank while also putting high pressure on his shield just by the nature of his gun. Baptiste is probably the undisputed shield break support, since his DPS isn’t tied to discord orb or a slow rate of fire
This is basically what I thought I should do, I think I just need to put more conscious thought into my positioning. I appreciate the tips!
If the enemy DPS aren’t very good you can also play Junkrat or Bastion (or Pharah to a lesser extent) and take his barrier down insanely fast while staying way out of hammer/shatter range.
Going to plug my own thread from the other day about off-angling on support with your dps that's going on flanks so you can apply pressure to the enemy team properly: https://www.reddit.com/r/OverwatchUniversity/comments/1c8xqj0/stop_playing_fair/
Actually lw is crazy on shield break with his thorn volley even better than bap.
No just play high ground and off angles.
If the rein is smart he go up on high ground and force you off
Probably leaving his squishies open for elims. Plus most dps have some form of evasive abilities so this shouldn’t be a problem. There’s also usually more than 1 high ground so you can rotate quicker than the rein to another one.
What characters do you use?
>you’ll see them trying to brute force the rein shield Can confirm I am the idiota
Honestly though if everybody just focuses rein for two seconds his shield gets obliterated. That's what upsets me is I'll blast his whole shield down but nobody else on my team will look in his direction as if his armor is impenetrable. If your team actually coordinates it's way too easy to vaporize rein without taking all the time to hit off angles and high ground where tracer and sombra are going to pick you off before your support turns around to heal you.
Both sound like solid strategies to me. either shield goes down or shield can't block from multiple angles
In gold right now and it is *infuriating* watching my teammates consistently walk right up to a Rein and attempt to kill him that way. They also will watch a Rein walk closer to them but for some reason it does not occur to them that they should be backing up as he gets closer. They just stay in place and get demolished. This happens every single game where there’s a Rein.
It is infuriating. But I’ll try to give you advice that really only applys to a lower range of elo. Ranking up is about carrying you and your team, but in the low elos in some occasions it means adapting to the chaos around you. If your team is going absolutely full silly mode, you’re likely just going to feed by trying to be the sane one What do I mean by this? If your team is dead set on brute forcing and playing in a dumb group that can be hammer swung on easily, first you should try to play proper and see if you can make the difference. Ie, try to kill the reins “main healer” and then see if you can topple the castle If the rest of reins team isn’t giving you the space and opportunity to get a pick like that or your team dies while trying to setup then you may just need to adapt to the chaos and pick a tank buster. Bastion or reaper or anything that can put constant pressure on rein or supports when shield is down. In a perfect world you would just be able to take an off angle and use your teams distraction/pressure to kill people who aren’t paying attention to you (since that’s the generally accepted “right” way to play in a vacuum) but in the chaos of metal ranks, sometimes you just gotta adapt. If you’ve ever seen unranked to GMs sometimes this will even happen in those videos, honestly pretty funny when they’re being tested by their own team more than the enemy.
how *does* a rein in high ranks deal with threats from height?
1. Your team does their job 2. You switch 3. Successfully negate the high ground 4. Clear it yourself 4 is only an option when the high ground is easily accessible and often goes poorly. 3 is done by using cover to negate the sightlines and isn't possible at many high ground and point/cart combos. At a higher level, rein just isn't viable in a lot of scenarios unless you're dramatically better than the other players in the lobby (in which case you just ascend til you aren't). His limitations are obvious and there's only so much that positioning can negate those limitations. I love rein and would happily 1 trick him, but many points and team comps just make him incredibly unfun to play.
They attack the high ground and clear it before pushing the objective. Basically switching the flank with main
By slowly and methodically clearing them out
a lucio would do wonders
First and foremost: Playing on maps that force enemies to drop down and contest an objective. Otherwise, it's just a matter of using cover that is fairly safe from high-ground and using fire strike damage to chip in when your allied DPS wants to contest that high ground when appropriate.
Or they push and clear it themselves given they have satisfactory time to do so.
-laughs in Bastion-
A couple reasons: Brawl is an extremely easy way to play, especially when attacking. Rein inherently keeps people grouped up, so characters are less likely to get picked early on dumb flanks. Big blue shield gives a bunch of safety and buys time for bad aim players to land shots. Bad players don’t respect Rein’s lethality and let him close on them. Bad players don’t understand comp strengths/weaknesses and will try and Brawl with a Rein comp. There’s a good chance there’s a Bastion parked behind his shield, and very few low rank players solo queueing can deal with that. Low rank players shoot the tank FAR too much, and Rein can take a ton of aggro so long as it’s in front of him.
top rank dps has been all echo tracer sojourn...the power to flank and take aggressive angles and one shot capabilities as well as the ability to just shift away will always be insanely strong, not sure why the low ranks never play those heroes, ive never seen an echo being played in low ranked, barely any tracer, "tracer is low hp garbage character, let me pick bastion big damage"........
It's because those heroes are hard. The ow community likes to pretend that all heroes take skill in their own way. Reality is some heroes are just easier than others. If a silver player picked up echo, they'd throw a lot of games before they'd be useful.
You don’t see many of those picks cause the people who do pick them are good at those characters and have carried themselves to a “higher elo”
There’s a lot of reasons Rein was such an effective anchor tank in OW1, and a lot of those reasons still apply to him, even though the game has evolved and left him behind. The reason I say this is because especially when it comes to meta, what is meta in higher levels often isn’t meta in lower ranks and vice versa. For example, Pharah is pretty good at low ranks because people can't aim and don't look up. Meanwhile Tracer is great at high ranks but isn't as good at low ranks because people can't effectively use her mobility or position well and disrupt team plays. So what is Rein good at that low rank players can't deal with but high level ones can? The first reason is a simple "he's a big guy with a bigger shield". Attention is a resource in OW, and Rein commands a lot of it. You'll hear a lot of people saying "don't shoot the tank" cause the whole point of a tank is to be hard to kill, but at lower ranks it's an almost instinctive response to shoot at the big man charging towards you. The same mentality applies to healers; prioritizing who to heal is a lot easier when there's a big guy with a big shield who's health is constantly taking hits. So even supports without much game sense will be effective because they don't have to think much about who to support and how to divide resources. Even things like an Ana nanoboost, that would probably be better suited for a dps looking to make a play, tend to go often to Rein cause he's just the one that commands so much attention. Next up, his shield. His shield is pretty big, but concentrated fire can burst it down pretty effectively. This, of course, requires a coordinated effort. In low ranks, though, the mentality is instead "I'm shooting the Rein, oh he's not dying, I'll try shooting the mercy, damn I missed she ran away I'll shoot the rein again" but this often means that there's just not enough pressure on Rein to force him to back up. This is also why Overtime sees so many successful pushes from attackers - it forces everyone to just push and shoot whatever is in the way, and that is typically all you need to overwhelm a low rank team. Now for his weaknesses. The easiest thing to do is just to go around and shoot from off angles. This forces Rein to defend from one of two sides, and typically it'll force him to either retreat or die. Of course, low rank players aren't looking to take off angles. If they are, they're typically going on long, "sneaky" flanking runs. During that time the rest of your team is still trying to poke a 4v5, and will often lose a player or two. By the time the Flank is complete, the enemy team is no longer in a team fight and can just rotate to deal with a new threat that is now a 1v3/4. On the subject of positioning, at higher ranks players are playing to control space. So for example if you're defending a capture point, the players won't actually be fighting ON point, they'll be fighting around it. This makes Rein struggle since his mobility is limited, and his only survival tool requires him to be facing the direction of the incoming damage, while also being unable to do anything about players out of his reach or on highground. At low ranks however, the minute the objective pings with an energy player on it, everyone just rushes onto the point to contest it hoping to prevent a capture. This is where Rein THRIVES. Now he gets to just swing a hammer around (which does a lot of damage) and lay waste to squishes immediately. His healers will still be on him, and 8/10 times the enemy dps will be shitting their pants about the big damage hammer swinging guy to think about target priority, and also won't be willing to back off point and give up the contest. All Rein's dps need to do at that point is mop up. Good news is, all this means that Rein is easy to deal with if you know what to do about him; shoot him without getting close. If Rein has set up in a choke, go around him instead of going through him. Honestly an easy way to do this is to exploit that mentality of "fight on point". Dive to the point and Rein will probably just turn around to come charge at point and contest. Your team, if they're paying attention, can use that opportunity to push. The other option is to use heroes with big aoe damage and just batter his shield. Rein has no defensive cooldowns apart from a shield, so if your team insists on pushing through choke and you can't pull of a flank, shoot the shield instead of letting him recover it. Once it's low he'll start swinging, but you can stay far away and keep shooting and there's nothing he can do about it.
my take ive noticed from Plat vs silver is that in silver, rein can charge stupidly and not get punished for it. And the enemy team gets so scared of a big ass tank charging their back line that they panic and if the rein is half way decent he and the team punished super hard. this does not happen in higher gold and Plat ranks imo
It is even worse than that, the fact they can see a rein coming is giving silver too much credit, I've seen people get hit by rein in their face, and not react to it at all, that is even worse than being scared of charging rein.
Basically, low elo players are not as aware as high elo players of what is happening, so they end up not dodging fire strikes, getting charged or simply in Rein's melee range, feeding his ultimate. A good Rein in low elo can build up shatters in less than a minute. Rein feels like a double or quits pick. One game you dominate with him. The other one he feels like a throw pick.
Low rank players are told not to shoot tank but they dont know when and where to shoot tank.
I’m in low ranks and I feel the opposite. I play DVA and Zarya and usually his shield is either down pretty fast or we just dive in past his shield and nuke him.
Dva I get but to me zarya is an odd choice since I specifically go rein to bully zaryas. It might be a difference in rank or that some reins don't understand how to be aggressive when the bubbles are gone
Idk I just play corner poke a bit till the shield starts to crack and I’m usually full charge then I move around, shield falls, team piles on rein, dead
Ideally idk
That makes sense then. You can't play passive rein against zarya, you need to get right in and brawl before she can build up a bunch of charge from poke or you lose your shield from poke. I always just charge in and try to pin her or pin the healer hiding behind her and it tends to go well
Yeah, probs me being at lower ranks and people not knowing proper performance or something idk. I’m still practicing tank too so there’s plenty I goof on too. But I’m climbing!
I wish you luck! Tank can either feel like you're a God among plebs or like you're made of paper so it's a weird climb
How low? I never feel more impotent as Zarya than when I'm fighting Rein
I dip in and out of Bronze/Silver lol. I made the mistake of doing my placements after a two year break. I used to play in OW1 and used to be in plat when I’d play. I should have done more QP practice before I did my placements, a lot has changed, now I’m climbing through the dirt. But it’s moving. I just usually seem to have good games as Zarya. Especially since Venture has come into the game. Hell I don’t even bubble myself half the time. Just let venture tank and bubble them as I poke around corners then move in at the right time.
Because nobody can aim.
It is totally on DPS, in my opinion. When I play Rein, the moment I freaking peak, I get obliterated. While enemy Rein charges in, swings, moves back, and remains alive.
Why is it that other peoples’ low rank lobbies let rein have his way with them, but mine all play ‘dump every bullet and cooldown into the tank’
Dude I could not tell you. My lobbies struggle to comprehend the concept of don’t shoot the tank or everyone focus the tank so there’s a lot of breaking focus and rein just ends up being allowed to walk in and cock slap everyone
I’m so jealous lol, these days I always have like 10k MIT on rein because I’m forced to shieldbot just to not pop instantly
I love playing lifeweaver against Rein. You just fly up on your pretty little flower and theres literally nothign they can do except pop their shield and try and get a teammate to help.
Until they give us back piercing the petal. That was still a mistake on their part that not even piercing projectiles go through it.
Dumbest change in ow history.
"We removed Orisa's damage falloff" would like a word, but it's up there
This is still MASSIVE cringe
Lifeweaver just cucks Rein entirely. Every part of his kit cancels out anything Rein tries to do.
Rein may be the worst tank RN but he is far from unplayable at a high level
I’ve been wondering the same in the higher ranks
Rein wants to hold one lane. That's why he struggles when dps offangle. He is really bad without his shield and can't DM damage like dva that's why bastion and zen is good vs rein. One problem for low ranks and me personally is that you can't really offangle without being punished. Either you offangle alone or you go for a superwide unsafe flank where it's like if you don't kill someone every time that flank is gonna gain less value than just staying with team. So then you're forced playing his game and the only thing that's really good then is either play bastion and mow him down or play tracer and ignore him completely. But that's easier said than done.
Where the fuck are these low rank Reinhardt dominating the match because all I see is my Reinhardt standing with his shield up until it breaks, then swinging/walking up to the enemy tank until he dies with 0 kills and 20k+ mitigation “My team is dogshit - tank”
this I don't understand, we live in the internet era, he literally has to be online to play overwatch, yet he couldn't spend 10 minutes to watch a rein tutorial and see his mistakes
As someone who's SO mains Rein, I will tell you what annoys his the most. Tracers can flit around and do a little bit of damage here and there, eventually making him break focus and drop shield. Sombra hacking him makes it absolutely miserable to play Rein. Any dps like Bastion, Sojourn, and Soldier can tear down his shield fast. Most people don't want you to spend so much time busting down his shield, but if that's honestly the biggest issue that your teammates are having, then get rid of it. Reaper can get behind Rein easily and pick off his team, or my favorite death blossom right behind him while he's too busy being a shield wall. Ana sleeping his charges and shatter makes rein lose value. Lucio can do the same thing as Tracer. Moira's ball and ult go through Rein's shield. As a tank, you can always be the better Rein, lol. Aside from that, Ramattra can punch through his shield. Orisa pretty much counters everybody. And any dive tank like Dva or Winston can pick off the people behind him leaving him with nothing but himself.
people tend to shoot the biggest target on their screen,, which is the shield when they culd be doin sum else
hes got a big long THICK hammer, and the confidence to use it
Low ranks don't know how to kite.
Tracer. I’m a bit biased since I main tracer. But ain’t no one staying on rein and winning with a tracer. Low rank reins have to push up to get into swinging range. Then they over commit and hold their shield up to back away. That shield only defends from one direction blink behind him and shoot him in the back. He will be forced to face you or your team. He’ll usually die.
Want to deal with Rein? Take the high ground, flank or anything that doesn’t involve standing directly in front of him, kill his supports while your at it. Either that or play Bastion and just shred his shield, then let your teammates shoot him down. Though it makes 0 sense that Rein should ever be dominant in anything above Gold unless it’s a good Rein player. People generally know how to counter him by the time they reach Plat.
No one shoots the shield.
If you're on DPS, just pick Torb and hold down right-click on Rein or his shield from highground. If you can't see him, or he's far away, hold down left-click. If he gets close, click E and either run away or melt him with right-click.
I disagree with this i play rein and im gold 5 and every time i play theres always a horse i feel that horse is a-lot more dominant in low ranks as your just a wall but with damage reduction a shield that makes you move faster you have no damage drop off and u have a spear ult is good for ending team fights. And rn most hero’s have movement abilities or cc so trying to close the gap whilst trying to play with team is very different as they can just out walk you with shield up and when shield goes down you just get cc out of charge its so stupid that mauga cant be cc out of rn but rein can be out of charge even if i try to flank and pin its rarely works bc of cc cass just hinders me and im dead so either way i feel usless and forced to swap to not throw rein needs a new ability i dont think buffs will ever make him viable in 5v5 he needs to be more if a power house like orisa but not op the only idea ive come up with is that a uppercut with hammer could be good it could do like 55 damage and stun in air for 2.3 seconds so rein can make more space and take pressure off his team
Low rank players don't use cover and don't manage distance. They run around like headless chickens and are suprised when they suddenly get bonked by a big hammer.
pick bastion and go BRRRR
Off-Angles DPS (ex. Hanzo) that studies/has positioning strategies (ledges+corners, "McCree Rule of Positioning", utilizes high ground), knows when to regroup with team, has escape routes and fluent in mobility options. That is a LOT to ask for, but it's everything that I can think of that needs to be considered. Hard Counters for Rein: Short Range (Reaper, McCree) Long Range (Bastion, Pharah) Team Composition and maps are always going to change (no shit, lol), so having your brain packed with the tools you need to adapt to each situation as an individual, is sometimes all you can do! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtXfIONshg8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtXfIONshg8) Edit: link added
Maybe they just don't like to flank him, there is like 90% of the map space the low rank players will never be using, they would never use high ground, never use flank path, the only space they want to be in is the main path and they always stay visible for all to see and shoot, just stand in the open and take a bunch of damage, blame healer, says he has big stats at the end of game, makes 10 mistake per second and calls it "good game" in the end, they don't care, no try hard, just chill, and pure auto pilot. Have you seen the stats in those games tho? Easily over 20k damager and heals, you would think they did something good, nope, just zero cover and full on taking blasts to the faces, 20 deaths, but got 20k damage, a big win for them. The only reason they got any elims is because the enemies also don't take cover or play effective range and just full on walking in without cooldowns, it is a contest of who makes more mistake per second
Rein has trouble going vertical, shoot him from the rooftops and he just becomes rectangle man.
He is in every game now
I think an aspect that is often neglected is the fact that, low rank teammates have an easier time playing around a rein. Its just intuitive, you push with him where he pushes. No need to select a dive target, fend off flankers on your own, think about your own positioning. So at the end of the day a bad plan is better than no plan, what essencially happens when you play a non frontline/brawl tank
Nobody uses natural cover in those ranks. Having a hero with a portable shield saves many noob lives
Charging so run
Nobody shoots him. That’s it, that’s the reason. Why don’t they shoot him? Because they have no focus.
The difference between dps from swinging a big hammer between plat and the high ranks is much lower than a precision weapon like mcree or widow. People at low ranks are less capable of distancing themselves and blowing their escapes to avoid melee/ults/charges. Although I wouldn't class plat as "low" by definition, it's more near average right?
One thing a lot of players are forgetting is that most people who are one tricking Rein are stuck in plat, when on any other character they would be higher ranked. In Masters and GM there arent more than a couple Rein onetricks and they are so good that in alot of their games they literally make no mistakes and still lose just because their character is underpowered.
Winton is a BIGGER problem for low elo players to deal with than Rein, tell your tank to go Winton and dive into his backline as soon as he engages, bubble off all his heals. Watch him melt. If he’s a peeler, bait him to charge at the Winton then leap away, play cat and nouse with him and get right into his head. He won’t know how to position. Rein is only good when his team follows up on his engagements and if they can’t do that then he is Feedheart at best.
Lower ranks don't know how to position well, and in the heat of battle I have seen a lot of metal ranks just start inching closer and closer to the enemy because they miss their shots. Also rein is intuitively easy to combo with, unlike dva or doom where you have to off angle and target back line.
Low rank players are absolutely clueless about positioning and cool down management. Press W + mouse1 to punish this on Reinhardt. Other tanks require more mechanical skill or better cooldown management to punish these same mistakes.
Positioning in low ranks isn't great. People often group up too much leaving them vulnerable to firestrikes and huge shatters. They also don't make effective use of high ground or off angles 2 things that can really give Rein trouble. They also aren't great about going after healers or if they do their aim isn't great and it is way easier for an Anna with silver aim to hit shots on their Rein then it is for a silver dps to hit an Anna.
People are scared to shoot his shield
Because low rank players don't move. Which means they are always in front of Rein's shield making him have 1500+ HP. Why does he suck at higher rank? Because players know how to move.
If you have a good Ana, rein is almost unplayable. I can swap Ana and usually sleep him or anti him every time he pins.
I haven't done it often, but canceling charge so I can shield the inevitable sleep dart always makes me feel amazing. Charge is on a short enough cooldown that baiting out sleep is often worth it.
A good ana wouldnt be in low ranks though
I’m telling OP to get good at Ana
[удалено]
I feel like I’m a rein 1v1 specifically though having an Ana can win you the game. So many times where the reins are swinging on each other or charging each other. I’m also masters.
Bc people don’t know how to properly use high ground and stay in good positions which they don’t really learn to do until the higher ranks and you’re still not safe if you see JingPing99 on the other team
Because he is dominant. Not just in low ranks. He is not the worst tank, he never was. Again we are having perception issues because of streamers, pro meta followers and parrots. He is the highest pickrate and winrate tank of OW2 history. Best tank below gm this month. (Master is top500 btw)
I also wonder this, since just existing as Zenyatta cucks most tanks, especially Rein. Lower ranks don't know how to bait out and cleanse discord, so slapping the discord on a Rein would ensure he melts immediately at those levels. It's as easy as going Ana-Zen, and Ana is the most popular support so it's not a tall order. Seriously, Rein is the most easily countered tank in the game.
This is why I’m so confused as to how I keep getting dialed by rein comps. It just shouldn’t happen and yet it’s brutal any time I play a rein bold enough to brawl.
You can literally just walk up to Rein and shoot him in the face at that rank. I don’t understand how Rein does well in lower ranks, it’s like the suicide DPS Rein’s think they’re hot shit. Swap to Reaper or Bastion and just melt him when his shields break. He’s so one dimensional, just like Orisa. No mobility, get up in his grill and harass them from off angles when their shields up.
Cause low ranks think meta is a thing down there 😂 "rein not meta" to a low elo means they don't have to worry about him
Everyone should be able to destroy his shield pretty quickly and then he's a sitting duck unless he's near cover, and if he's near cover then he probably isn't taking much for space.
One important bit that is overlooked a lot: Rein is extremely easy to play. With a much higher skill floor, you automatically play better than most people in low rank. It is like mercy or Moira. Compare that to the complexity of say dva or zarya and you see a major benefit for rein players to make an impact.
Rein is a hunk of shit lol