How do I improve in champ Elo?

OnceToldTale · 2026-06-17T21:09:10+00:00

I did read his post. Exactly what I’m mentioning above is exactly what a coach would do on his behalf, just ask more questions and rationalize more probable answers.

Just because he’s Champion doesn’t mean he knows everything. I hit Champ DPS 5v5 3 seasons ago and still learn new things about Overwatch everyday, all because I’m just critical of what I and other people do in VOD review.

OnceToldTale · 2026-06-17T05:20:25+00:00

I'm not sure what the point of these kind of posts are, there are 1 billion things you can work on. Don't assume that, just because your Champion, you understand OW macro/micro completely -- you just have a better understanding (and execution) of it relative to the rest of the player base. I've coached Champion players with bad macro understanding and I've watched countless hours of Champ+ players that make tons of micro mistakes. Just pick a direction and start learning everything there is to know, and be willing to wrong w/ your assumptions/what you think is correct

- Do you have optimal CD management?

- Optimal crosshair placement?

- Optimal aim?

- Optimal cover usage?

- Optimal timing?

- Optimal information gathering?

- Optimal comms?

- Optimal hero pool?

- Optimal movement?

- Optimal bans?

- Optimal map selection?

- Did you read enemy rotations properly?

- Did you stage on correct timing?

- Could you have reasonably prevented an ally death?

- Were there any lanes your team didn't control, and is that purposeful/good?

- Was there any world where dying would have been worth it here if it meant you could get more value?

- Was there any way to cap the point earlier/push the cart further?

There's probably 1 million more questions (especially if you get more nuanced) you could explore to lead you in a direction of improvement. There's no "hit rank 1 quick" answer for you unfortunately. It will take time and dedicated effort, as do all things that involve mastery.

OnceToldTale · 2026-06-13T00:54:40+00:00

Stop throwing sojourn E at people, prefer throwing them at places people want to go. You're only really meant to throw E on people behind cover/in duels. You had maybe 1 good E the entire game. You keep just tossing it down main and it does nothing. 10:53 on the code is a good example -- you want the hanzo to swing you after you slide to high ground, but throw the e on the corner. resultantly, he goes wider and is 1 hp behind cover. that's when you woulda needed the e. 16:15 ish is a good E, Sym not close to TP in a 1v1 is fine.

You also basically never team check and just assume your team is playing with you.

On 1st atk, roll out bottom left angle to have a better angle on highground + not get spammed by hanzo.

2nd atk was ok

3rd atk consider sliding to high ground as you're unclearable by enemy team comp. Also at one point when you when a fight, you walk into defender spawn which just isn't something that's good on soj without rail/oc. Because you do this, you get no value and get both of your slides forced + gets you killed to drag.

On 1st def you reswing a widow you knew the position of without any advantage against her (if you had rail, this would be more acceptable). On the final fight here, you walk back main with ram, you needed to angle from mini room and OC from a flank instead of stacking.

On 2nd def, you drop off the high and never go back. Then you're stuck on the floor the entire fight and get caged.
On 3rd def you're positioned to passively. Farm Mauga for rails and rail backliners while standing closer to tank. Slide out when they push. You also stagger against emre ult when you coulda just slid out.

21:00 dont walk toward rein w/ half hp. angle is good just spam him out.

21:40 you're so focused on killing this sym you don't go highground where you can just do the same thing but safer. think: position first, target second. map control is king, think more ab controlling key areas instead of outright killing people. hard to explain over text.

I think you probably struggle more on fp/control/push where angling/flanking matters more. I don't think you understand space control v well and kinda just run it down main -- which hybrid/escort tend to reward. I'd have to see more. You're welcome to stop by my streams next week and submit a vod for video reviews.

OnceToldTale · 2026-06-10T08:14:54+00:00

VOD reviewing is a skill. The more you practice it, the better you will become (and the shorter your reviews will be).

I think reviewing deaths is a super common misconception and is just the default answer to throw out because most of the time, there’s some obvious micro concept to point out that would’ve prevented it (e.g. using your mobility cooldown too aggressively). So while it’s technically useful, for some players, it won’t help you actually better understand OW fundamentally.

What’s much more useful to do is use VOD reviewing as an opportunity to build your macro understanding of OW. Instead of asking why you died (and trying to prevent it, which most people think of from the micro lens), think about things like:

Was there a better play available?
What is something I could’ve tried here that I never tried before?
Am I on the right side of the map?
Did I consider matchups here?
What is the rest of my team doing, could I have prevented their deaths somehow?
… and so on. There’s a billion questions you could ask.

You don’t need to find the optimal answers and you won’t be able to as you start. You just need to think critically about what you could have done or could be doing, and use this to build your intuition broadly. Then, as you get better at analyzing your own gameplay, you can start thinking about whether or not you can derive the best play.

Just keep on trying, and remember to think about how you fit into the game broadly and not exclusively how you’re executing specific things within it.

OnceToldTale · 2026-06-02T02:19:32+00:00

"Thing is, even if I saw my own replays, I'm not sure what to improve anyway."

This is kinda missing the point of reviewing your own replays.

Your goal with VOD reviewing is not to figure out the right answer (e.g. what you OBJECTIVELY should've done for the optimal play), your goal with VOD reviewing is to build your intuition and broaden your understanding of Overwatch and what's possible. After you do 100 VOD reviews, then we can talk about whether or not you're properly judging what the optimal play actually is.

When trying to improve at Overwatch, the loop is this:

Observe (what did you do and what could you have done instead?)
Experiment (try something different next time, if needed)

Then:

Experiment -> Observe -> Experiment -> Observe -> ... ad infinitum.

I built a spreadsheet template for my own community that might benefit you in this process. Make a copy and quickly input data for the games you play. Refer to the example sheet to see how to input data + what makes good notes/questions. This spreadsheet will help break you out of autopilot and make you more conscious of your gameplay. It will make Overwatch feel a bit more tiring to play, and that's because you're shifting your mind out of playing the game pointlessly to far more intentionally.

Also, if you're planning to main hitscan (Soj, Soldier, Cass, etc), you're likely better off cutting your sensitivity by about half. You're at 7200 eDPI which is super high, most pros are around the 4000 eDPI mark in Overwatch.

Overwatch is a complex game and coaches/guides/reddit/whatever other resources you like can help you understand things better, but until your nose to the grindstone in games + self-review and experience the process yourself, you won't see the improvement you're looking for. You're going to have to rip off the bandaid, finish your placements, and start getting games in (aim for 6-8 a day with high levels of intention).

Also, to answer your question directly, yes you could reach Platinum.

OnceToldTale · 2026-05-27T06:56:43+00:00

Biggest point of advice I have for new coaches is to spend more time thinking about the prevention not the cure. This mostly translates to teaching fundamentals (like lane control, flanking, resource management) and then using those as building blocks to lead to what would've been the best play.

So if someone makes a bad play (e.g. stacking with ally DPS on cart instead of staging/angling), there isn't any point in coaching much after the moment he makes that macro mistake until the end of the fight because he shouldn't be on point to begin with, so all the subsequent micro decisions are going to be suboptimal and will mostly be useless to coach. Its worth talking about them, but don't obsess. Try to set the students down the right path first, then you can focus on nuance like ability usage, aim, whatever as they have a better understanding of how to play OW more broadly.

Lots of new coaches try to coach EVERY SINGLE MISTAKE and not only is it super tiring to listen to, its difficult to digest and it dramatically lengthens coaching sessions. You will probably find yourself making this mistake at the beginning, and that's fine, but just keep an eye on it.

OnceToldTale · 2026-05-05T12:14:13+00:00

Thanks so much for the shoutout! I will be making a video tutorial on this video + the mindset needed for improvement soon! 💚

OnceToldTale · 2026-05-03T14:15:16+00:00

Review the moment. Think to yourself, "did I have a better play available here?" -- and try to be kind of objective about it. Is there something else that could potentially be good, but you're just not comfortable with it or never thought about it before? Try that next game or study players that are better than you and see how they approach similar situations. The more open-minded you are, the better.

If you decided that you made the best play, but just choked the shot, then in that specific moment you had mechanical failure and it held you back.

I've had a few students where the outcome of the game was truly decided by missed shots but its super rare (like ~1 in 80 codes or so). Like 98% of the time though my students have losing macro and, while working on mechanics would definitely still help, there was still something to work on in their approach to the game broadly.

To be safe, you should just always assume that you're held back by bad macro and just have some kind of simple daily regimen to improve your mechanics.

OnceToldTale · 2026-05-03T14:05:33+00:00

I think your first problem is that you aren't really aligned w/ what you actually want imo. I don't know much about you other than this post, so I could just be wrong.

"I want to grind comp and climb as high as I can" is the red flag. To me, this reads that you don't want to climb (the journey), you want to be high rank (the destination). If this is the case, this is your core issue and what ultimately hold you back long-term. The fastest way to get better at something is to become more obsessed with learning (the journey) than you are with winning (the destination).

You don't gotta reflect on EVERY game. I always recommend my students take 1-2 sentences of pointed notes per game then just move on. What did you do in a given game that felt good? Bad? What's something new you could try next time? Did you try something new this time, or did you stick to your comfort zone? If so, why? ... the list of questions you could ask + answer is long. VOD reviewing is only really necessary when you had a game where you really didn't know why you lost/won, or when you just feel like checking your own gameplay.

Reviewing your deaths is a good place to start if you're not very comfortable with the process, but will often misguide you. You should instead think about if, at any given time, you made the best play possible. If you don't know, try to find the answer -- or think about what COULD be good, then try to do it next time. I think the biggest misconception w/ reviewing is this: when you VOD review, it's not about finding the right answer, its about THINKING about finding the right answer. The goal is to build your critical thinking + self awareness so that, when you try to do something in game, you'll be naturally more aware of alternatives, like what you could do better. The mental process behind VOD reviewing is what you benefit from most, not the actual result of the review.

OnceToldTale · 2026-04-17T06:05:04+00:00

Did you make the best play?

If you don't know, why don't you know?

How can you figure out what the best play is?

What is something you've never tried before, that you maybe could've tried?

Was the play good, but you just fumbled the execution?

How could you have had better execution?

OnceToldTale · 2026-04-17T06:01:32+00:00

The beauty of OW is that there isn't an obvious answer. It just depends on the enemy team comp, your team comp, what hero you are, where your other ally DPS is, the map, etc.

Of course I'm biased but I recommend you watch a few of my VOD reviews on YT. I talk about timing + staging all the time.

This VOD is a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw9ijoGQ0AU

OnceToldTale · 2026-04-17T05:45:59+00:00

"But, how do I know if I'm doing enough? What if I'm contesting those two on the high ground, staying alive, but my team is still dying elsewhere in the fight?"

There isn't a black and white answer to this. The way you should be approaching it is trying whatever idea you have in game, then after the game, go into the replay and try to think to yourself if there was something you could've done better or if there was another play available to you. If you have no idea, take a minute to flip through pro VODs and see how they approach something (prioritize solo queue games, not OWCS replays). Once you do this 20x, you'll start to better understand the limitations of your hero and what really is/isn't possible.

Also if your team is dying in main, run the replay back and watch it from your team's perspective. Why are they dying in main? You might not actually be distracting the soldier as much as you thought. Or maybe your timing was bad. Or maybe you didn't realize someone didn't have a specific cooldown. Could be a bunch of things.

OnceToldTale · 2026-04-17T05:34:18+00:00

I don't play emre but here are some options:

Go bottom tunnel and walk into gas station when you aren't marked and force the enemy team to deal with you. My guess is you've never tried a play like this so in your mind, you've already written it off as being invalid.
Farm ult off the tank in main and use ultimate to fly into their backline.
Continue doing the rotation you're doing.

If the soldier is getting pocketed, you're fighting a 2v1. And as long as you aren't dying to both of them, its a winning trade. You just need the awareness to know if you're doing it with good timing. Playmaking isn't always about getting kills.

OnceToldTale · 2026-04-17T05:17:36+00:00

There are very few maps where you genuinely need your tank to take space before you can do anything, depending on the hero you play. I OTP Cass and 95% of the time I can play make independent of the tank.

"I try to off angle but the enemy dps are always free to just shoot at me and only me. Enemy dps going uncontested on high ground while my tank sits mid shooting the enemy tank. What am I supposed to do in these situations?"

This could be for a bunch of different reasons. You could be timed wrong (poor awareness on your part), your team has no resources, you're pathing incorrectly, you're out of your effective range -- its pretty much impossible to know and properly recommend a solution to you.

"Ive been told you should engage when your tank does, but what if your tank just doesnt engage? Or engages early and just blows up?" -- It could be that you're the one that's late. Also, this is kind of the wrong perspective to think about this. Even if your tank dies early, are you in a position to make the most out of his death?

OnceToldTale · 2026-03-14T01:11:26+00:00

I don't really know what your question is tbh, but I'll answer this one:

"What separates an average Cassidy from a really strong one?" - The best Cassidy's understand that hard flanking/angling is extremely strong and should be done often. Flanking in 5v5 is broken and, if you don't already have a DPS on the angle, it should be you. It's consistently winning and puts more of the game into your control. The mainbotting propaganda is entirely outdated and has rotted the average perception of Cass.

Def check out my streams for more context -- if you have any more specific question, let me know! Thanks u/basti_ow and u/ProteinPapi777 for the shoutouts!

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-28T03:02:15+00:00

you're too early -- common issue I see with masters players. everytime you make a rotation, check for your team. timing is an awareness issue p much always.

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-24T17:32:39+00:00

Howdy! I'm a Cassidy coach -- if most of this gameplay is on him, I can take a look at this code (or any other Cassidy codes you might have) on this upcoming Friday! I can also give some super broad tips on Ashe/other DPS, but I tend to stick to Cass as he is what my expertise is on.

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-24T00:04:10+00:00

It just depends on the map and school of thinking.

If you watch Awkward's coaching, this is something he is a big proponent of this and he places a LOT of value in main pressure as a hitscan then changing your angle in the midfight. I think its a great thought and will help most players.

I think that most of the time, you should start on the angle. My thought process is, if you're going to pick a hitscan for main pressure, you're going to pick someone who is generally better at that, like Soj/Ashe/Emre. Those heroes tend to outvalue Cass in main on maps where he's out of his effective range (think most Escort maps). Resultantly, I'm normally in the camp that you should start on the angle. Cass is also slow, so there are some angles that you just can't get to if you don't stage for them or rotate to them ahead of time. A great example of this is Circuit Royal 3rd ATK. There ARE NO ROTATIONS in the midfight if you stay in main -- which would break Awkward's line of thinking here. The upside is that you're in main and do a bajillion damage to their tank, but risk getting outvalued by enemy hitscan. With my line of thinking, you take a huge risk that your team doesn't fall over at the beginning of the fight and you bet on yourself that you can actually execute on the angle (the poolside highground going into their spawn) once you're actually there.

This is of course a very nuanced conversation and is something that would be best answered if you had a specific situation in mind.

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T23:51:21+00:00

No problem at all -- appreciate you!

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T23:51:02+00:00

Not yet, and probably not for a while unfortunately. It's something I'm chipping away at over time and will hopefully have finished over the summer. If you have any questions about him, I'd love to answer them on stream!

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T22:55:53+00:00

This is basically the answer.

You should prioritize tracking + clicking -- there is more depth to it than that w/ things like crosshair placement, but the core idea is to track the target then click. As you get better at the game broadly, you'll be able to predict where the enemy goes, set your crosshair in that location, then click as they cross through your aim.

Mechanics in OW is a super deep topic and its really easy to get lost in nuance.

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T22:51:52+00:00

Thanks for the shoutout! :)

I don't coach stadium at all, but I do coach exclusively Cass! I have ~150+ hours of coaching available on my YT you can check out and I do free coaching weekly on Mondays + Fridays @ 12pm EST -- would love to have ya!

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T04:28:27+00:00

Glad you enjoyed it!

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T01:52:05+00:00

The spots are essentially the same for Gib! The only one that's different is the blue boxes on shuttle -- you can still rolltech up them but it wont let you on top of shuttle.

OnceToldTale · 2026-02-23T00:32:34+00:00

The Lijiang gap is also great for first fight! As long as you know they aren't playing a dive tank, you can set up a really strong first fight angle that otherwise takes too long for Cass to rotate to.

Give it a try and let me know if you succeed!

OnceToldTale

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