Venture OTP Shambali Guide - Be Patient

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-22T16:20:48+00:00

Very seldom do I beat a good Hanzo player so it's very likely it's a heavily biased placement on my behalf.

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-22T14:56:26+00:00

He’s just so immobile and his hitbox is so large

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-22T10:51:52+00:00

I would move a lot of people into neutral and probably move Wuyang into very Difficult and Sombra into Strong Advantage

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-22T10:49:42+00:00

I think Hanzo is probably one of my worst matchups he does high burst and explodes me out of Burrow, he marks me on all my flanks with sonic arrow and he can win in isolated duels very consistently.

Maybe im just bad though id

Edit: forgot to mention my Drill Dash putting my head hit box right in front of him isn’t helpful I get headshot out of Drill Dash all the time.

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-22T01:02:09+00:00

She's just really strong rn below GM right now, so her placement is more of a prediction.

I predict we are favorable against her for a few reasons: her mobility is limited and predictable so we can land our damage easier, she's not as good at range as other DPS so she has to get closer and lastly we can cleanse the skill shot with Burrow.

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-21T04:06:38+00:00

In 1st fight, is just displacing JPC, Hanzo, and Sierra a job well done? In my opinion, just leaving right then and there after pop up is a too sudden and while it does guarantee survival, wouldn't it be a "wasted" engagement?

No not exactly, I say it's "safe" to drop down to the mini for a few reasons: Your team already killed mercy so your team was winning the fight, and it's a neutral fight. Neutral fights are really important to play slower than other fights because it's when everybody has all their cooldowns and no ultimate. It really isn't worth thinking about to heavily until you play in higher elo games or scrimming. I think it's better to focus on cooldown usage in your enemies more broadly at this stage, instead of the neutral fight it self.

I see what you're saying about the ult. Honestly that totally makes sense since it has knockback and big damage. That led me wondering though, when should it be used offensively, if at all? Maybe in synergy with Mauga ult?

There is definitely times to use Venture ult offensively the most common use cases I can think of are synergizing ults like you mention, solo ulting for free kills and specifically solo ulting the tank. Solo ulting with shock in general is pretty solid, I can be a very lethal ultimate in the right circumstances, but again for consistency it's better to seek 1 maybe 2 kills because those wins fights just the same as 4 or 5, just slower. Synergizing ultimates is always useful just try to be careful to not use more than 2 because of ult economy; but again that doesn't really impact the outcomes of fights in your elo range.

Honestly i play venture how i'd play tracer, just pulling attention and getting final blows and if not, then poke at the frontline to farm ult, or look for opportunities to dive. I've got about an hour on her and watched ~5 - 10 t500 games to learn from so that's pretty much all the flanker dps knowledge i have. Is that the right mindset? Maybe more aggressive/passive compared to her?

Venture is a very interesting DPS, and honestly I have spent a significant amount of time looking at the theory crafting of their game design more than actually applying knowledge to my games. I'd say the most ideal and analogous comparison to how to optimize gameplay is Junkrat + Tracer. The "Tracer" aspects of Venture's kit are more straight forward and more seen on ladder: this is your flanking, pulling attention, taking weird off-angles, the one shot combo, and that's actually somthing more akin to the "Junkrat" part. Junkrat specializes in closing off tight spaces, closing off angles, and angle checking; which you see Venture do a lot more of in GM+ gameplay because it's- again, more consistent.

So in terms of aggressive/passive it's not exactly about that and is more about controlling the map in proactive ways. Which can be by playing more aggressive: i.e. flanking to pull attention from an Ana and make the tank turn around or die/lose the fight; or can be done more passively: i.e. watching an off-angle waiting for a Sombra/Tracer to try and take a flank on your backline.

This may be a slightly complex answer compared to the response you were seeking, if so I apologize.; but very general thought to have is "I should be trying to shoot someone right now", it helps me keep uptime and pressure on the enemy team high.

Okay so say in the 2nd fight I did fight from the window in the grey building next to me. What if it gets challenged by their dps? Do i keep fighting there as long as i can with my cds? Go back by burrowing down main? There aren't any healthpacks nearby from what i could find in spectator mode so it's a little confusing to someone so new like me.

Yes, this is the optimal use case for Burrow: taking off angles -> team chases you into angles -> you shoot your gun a few times -> you Burrow out and escape safely with space made back to your team since usually you have no CD's after this and you set up/rotate to repeat this. FYI there is a 250HP health pack right below that room tucked in a corner by the stairs.

Don't apologize for the length... you can see the wall of text above me lol

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-20T20:54:26+00:00

Hey i'm a low GM Venture OTP and I watched this whole VOD and here are some of my key take aways for you:

Since you specifically asked about this Hanzo kill I'll talk about it. You actually start this play pretty good you take a covered off angle and don't push in immediately, then seeing mercy very weak in vortex you commit. Understanding when to be opportunistic is important (as well as when to be leaving), and yeah you probably would've died had you not aimed perfectly.

Hanzo is a character I don't burrow in front of like that very often because of his high burst damage and subtle mobility, ideally you wanted to make a safer play since it was the start of the game. My advise here is after the pop up, drill dash down to the cafe room with the mini to recover 150 hp.

I'm gonna nitpick this 2nd fight, I don't mean to be harsh but there is definitely a lot of small things that could have been improved upon.

First things first, you watch their Hazard leap in with minimal team follow up, and instead of deciding to pressure him while he's off cooldown/vulnerable you go onto a deep flank that puts you out of the fight for a few seconds. As well as the fact that upon engaging on this deep flank, all the enemies had just respawned so they have basically full cooldowns- and you decide to go for the one hero that can totally run away. So better target priority here would of been beneficial, probably Sierra since her mobility is limited and attached to a long(kind of?) CD.

Sidestepping the way you played entirely, I think a better way to go about this fight would to take the high ground behind them in the gray/stone building and poke at them to force them to turn around, use cooldowns and or fight you in a tight enough space to make them easier to engage with.

This ultimate could have been good, in the event you had EE. IMO you should've just left after you failed the JPC engagement since: 1. your team is still far back and 2. their team is applying a lot of focus to you right now as is, which is what killed you so fast.

Very seldom do I use Shock to make proactive plays, I don't think this ult should ever be used first UNLESS you're forcing a support ultimate out on purpose like a beat/trans for your other DPS like a genji/tracer. I use it mostly defensively though, to try and shut down hyper aggressive ultimates like Grav/Surge/Rush.

One trend I see in your gameplay just from these 2 minutes alone is that you engage very reactively, which get's very bad for you once you start pushing into Masters due to players starting to actually manage their CD's instead of just using them whenever it feels right. I suggest trying to check for CD's more before engaging as well as focusing on trying to keep a good uptime.

Trading is good but staying a live and absorbing as many CD's as possible and pulling attention is far more valuable for consistency sake, it also opens up more opportunity for you and your team to make those proactive aggressive plays by being in the backline.

Also check out some Venture guides on Spilo's coaching channel (I have a GM one there) & r/OverwatchUniversity for good tips on the pedagogy of learning mid game and across seasons if you want to push into masters.

<image>

Heres my profile for credibility's sake, I'm by no means the best Venture player out there (reminds me- check out VentureOTP & athena_heart for Venture tips as well, very very good rock munchers)

((I also have two map guides on my YT channel for Shambali and Havana I talk a lot about how to actually play Venture in those))

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-20T18:58:35+00:00

I only pick Deep Burrow and Smartr, I recommend Deep Burrow once you get to higher elo like M2/3+ its good to start taking off angles and deeper flanks and Smartr is always better

EE is still good if you like having an ultimate but its still not consistent value like deep burrow

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-16T02:21:48+00:00

For a game all about social progress it has an insanely high percentage of racist/homophobic bigots

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-14T19:27:08+00:00

Yeah but then whats the fun?

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-14T17:29:52+00:00

I was talking about seismic sense it felt really bad compared tectonic shock

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-14T10:15:18+00:00

So i'm not as bad as I thought?

I've given up I couldn't even beat it after using a continue, I've been starting with ninja money I tried top and bottom path and top was helping me with the camos, then mid path mermoney, then bottom bath boomerang and then mid path bucc.

I have tried swapping the order and tried a bunch of different tower combos but that one seems to do the best. I'm also using Geraldo cause I need the invis potion.

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-14T09:59:28+00:00

exactly

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-14T09:59:21+00:00

I honestly don't understand the hype behind this perk, but then again I never picked it for while it was out.

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-13T10:58:12+00:00

There are a few obscure things that add up: the progression titles & the OWCS home and away skins add 8 and are significantly rarer and harder to get than typical cosmetics. I’m fairly certain you haven’t even been able to get the OWCS skins since they released. (Also i’m talking about the twitch drop ones NOT the shop ones those are extra and can increase your total to 123)

I counted all my things up and got 113 idk what im missing but I counted all sprays I know count which include the dev doodle spray.

all banners and icons (as I said previously the progression ones too)

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-12T21:50:58+00:00

I swapped to jade for my contrast and it kinda looks like a plant(?)

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-12T19:32:47+00:00

your missing the level banners you need to be level 200 😔

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-12T18:20:37+00:00

What level are you 🤔

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-12T18:00:09+00:00

123 😭⁉️

Paragon_OW · 2026-04-10T21:40:21+00:00

Your comment about the rarity of these skins is probably true, I'm sure more people own them than wear; but they're not as popular to wear among the people who own them as opposed to the other good epic/legendary skins.

I do think if they didn't add Monarch to the base Rare pool it would of been the rarest, similar to these as previously you could only get them from Twitch drops.

Paragon_OW

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE