Looking to improve in Overwatch? Look no further!
One of the most popular team-based FPS Shooters today is Overwatch. We asked a pro player for useful tips and collected valuable information for you that will help improve you as a player and make your gameplay more efficient. Here are some tips he shared with us. Let’s dive into it!
Your desk and chair ergonomics, positioning, comfortability
Here let’s cover some basics. This may sound irrelevant, but I can assure you that this plays a huge role in your skill and in-game consistency. Even sitting for a couple of hours in front of your pc affects your body a lot and this can be a reason you play worse after a couple of games. Here are some things to consider:
First: your feet have to fully touch the floor with your knees bent approximately 90%. This will decrease pressure on your spine and whole body, which will improve your overall condition during long gaming sessions.
Second: make sure your arms are supported! I have seen so many times that players (due to lack of table desk, good chairs with elbow support and ext.) are playing with only their wrist on the table with the rest of the forearm just hanging. This applies a lot of stress to your hand which can cause wrist issues and injuries over time. For example: if you have a small desk, buy a monitor hand if you have a VESA mount and mount your monitor on it. This will give you some space to place your arms below your monitor.
Third: find your comfortable spot in front of your desk and stick to it. Comfortability affects your consistency and finding the perfect chair settings, positioning of your arm and position in front of your desk will make a huge impact on your path to being a good consistent player.
This is the first step to becoming better! Health is important.
If you want to know more about your desk ergonomics, you can find a lot of guides to set up your gaming space, like this one in NYTimes.
Your mentality and gaming session management
This is a very important topic. How many times you just hoped in Overwatch, played a couple of deathmatches and instantly queued for a long gaming session with a lot of bad matches, losses, tilting, toxic teammates and ext.?
Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Well, I totally feel you here and I myself was unconsciously a victim of this negative circle, but even if you can not control some things (like toxic teammates, leavers and ext.) you can definitely control most of it. Let us see the things you can do:
First: Why do you play this game and what is your goal? You want to be good and reach a high rating? You want to prove to somebody or yourself that you are good and rating is a key to do that? Do you play for fun and to hang out with your friends? Or maybe you want both: to be good and to have fun playing the game? There are thousands of reasons why people play overwatch, both casually or competitively. BE HONEST with yourself.
Being honest with what you really want in this game is a key to setting your goals and reaching them. People tend to overlook this part and cant notice when they are simply addicted to playing this game. Stop. Take a break now and really think of what is your goal. If you are playing casually or for fun – forget about the competitive queue. Just forget it. Playing a couple of better matches compared to Quick Play does not cost your nerves and effort, trust me.
Competitive – is a warzone, a battleground where you have to be tough, committed, motivated to improve. Decide if you really need it and if you do – set your goal! It can be small goals like hitting the next rank or 100 sr in a week or big goals like becoming a pro – it DOESN’T MATTER. Setting a goal will clearly distinguish what actions are helping you to reach it and what actions set you further from the goal.
Scheduling and mentality
Second: Make a schedule or at least separate your learning, training and gaming experience. There are three main parts that make a good player in this game: knowledge, mechanical skill, game sense and decision making. Give EQUAL time to every part! As I mentioned earlier, a lot of players just think that if they play a lot they will become better, but that is not the case. I will break it down for you:
Knowledge: all theory and information you gain about the game. For example, this guide is knowledge and I am happy you found some time to read it. Experiences like this are very important, so consume as much of them as you can. You can gain this knowledge on Youtube (Example: Akshon Esports, Stylosa) Reddit (Example: r/OverwatchUniversity), Twitch (Example: Space, V1olet, Danteh).
If you struggle on your own and you feel like you need assistance, you can always get coaching or rank-boosting by Overboost to learn from the best players.
Constantly taсkle your brain to think about the game and your gameplay during free time. If needed, ask better players to help you with tips for free! Rewatch your VODs, analyze them and pay attention to your improvement. Trust me – this game is much deeper than you think it is!
Mechanical skill: this is mostly trained in deathmatches, aim lobbies, aim trainer, etc. Don’t overlook this part even if you are a main tank or for example Mercy/Lucio/Moira player (you can still train your movement and strafing).
Gamesense and decision making: this is mostly trained while you yourself play the match. You can also watch good players and professional matches and try to apply some things that you see in your gameplay.
For example, a perfect overwatch session for me will look like this:
- One hour of mechanical skill training (20 minutes OSU to warm up, 20 minutes in lobby shooting bots to train my aim and 20 minutes of deathmatch to set myself into the game flow)
- Another hour of competitive play (usually two to three, maximum four ranked games)
- One hour of gaining knowledge and analyzing the game (it can be a VOD review of some ranked games to see where I could have done better, a review of a pro match, or watching some of the pro players play my role and learn from them)
Your teammates or luck is not the reason you can not rank up.
Every good player will tell you this: if you can not rank up – the only reason is you. I understand that it is easy to make somebody or something else the reason for your problems, but in reality – the issue is always you. Throughout all my career I saw a lot of players being stuck in their rating, but ALL of them improved after they changed their mentality (setting the goals), approach to their gaming sessions, or commitment. Stop looking away, focus on yourself, do not waste your time.
Also, you always can track your improvement (especially look for your death rate) on websites like Overwatchtracker.
Well, that’s all for now. A pro player has covered for you some of the things they feel are most important to consider at the beginning of your path of improvement and we hope it was helpful for you.
Overwatch ESTNN image by: ESPAT Timo Verdeil
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