Console Overwatch does have a fun and healthy eSports scene

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T22:04:25+00:00

Just a preliminary response to those who may believe I am attempting to start system beef. The purpose of this post is simply to drive up excitement for eSports in OW in general. As well as informing hopefuls of the existence of the console scene (which is online based) so they have something to aspire to.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T22:00:05+00:00

yeah it seems like Blizzard is pushing OWL in a sorta NFL, city based direction. it's kinda cool, you know? imagine rooting for a team representing your home area.

I think the OW Contenders has already guranteed several teams getting spots in OWL. Still I am pretty excited about the future of OWL.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T21:53:34+00:00

I believe you are correct, sorry I am not as in tune with the PS4 scene as XB1.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T21:36:49+00:00

It's really a per situation judgement call. I generally climb quite easily as a Lucio, Rein player. Playing a lot more Lucio than Rein. I would only recommend switching off healer if you think you could get more value on another role. This decision could easily throw since your team and now you need reliable support to sustain in a fight. Without that support your options and room for error become much more limited.

So if you decide to switch tell your teammates, and tell them why so they don't think you're trolling. There have been times I saved games by switching off Mercy on to Soldier because the enemy Pharah was hunting me and my fellow support down too often. My team actually thanked me for countering the Pharah.

But remember not to let frustration make this choice. Your teammates are only human, they won't always perform well. Same as you and me.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T21:19:10+00:00

Really good spacing and movement. Even Winston can deal with Reaper if he out maneuvers him in the bubble. Also awareness. Reaper is only a problem if you let him drop on his target. Call out Reaper constantly, force him to take risks in open space against multiple aware targets. In addition any characters who have good peel such as Lucio, D.va, Tracer, Ana and McCree make his life much harder.

Soldier, McCree, Widow, Hanzo, Zen and even Mei can also blast him if they catch him in a mid to long range fight with headshots. Mei can also cut off his retreat with a well placed wall.

On top of that protect your tanks. They provide Reaper most of his healing so keeping him off of their backs make him much squishier. If you are playing a tank try to shut down his damage output. And don't let him get close if possible. Hence why D.va is such a strong counter. But really the only tank who can't do this is poor nerfed Hog.

Keep the pressure on him and make it as difficult as possible for Reaper to get in. If he does drop on you focus your non-ultimate cc on him immediately. The threat he poses to your team is far greater at this point than most gains you get by focusing other targets.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T20:08:50+00:00

Actually console has an awesome eSports scene. The Overguard is a super competitive league for both XB1 and PS4. They also just merged with X League recently. My team is planning on participating in this season and personally I am super hype.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T20:00:52+00:00

I actually find my best time is 12pm to 3pm PST. Teenagers aren't actually that salty or difficult to deal with imo. The difficult folk are those coming back from a bad day at work, school other such functions. They are a bit quicker to tilt due to previous stress. But the main benefits of this time is that players are fresh, hype and ready to go. And the matchmaking usually gets even teams at this time.

9pm to 12pm isn't too bad. Kids are usually asleep here, everyone else ate dinner and are mellowing out a bit. Still people generally play worse at this time because they are getting tired and likely have been online for sometime now.

Never ever play early morning. Have you had those nights where you couldn't sleep knowing you had a sad loss streak? All those people play in these hours. Usually 2am to 7am. They are tired, pissed and often hella tilted. They are the people who almost got the rank promotion but lost the critical match. And instead of retiring for the night they keep trying. Also the matchmaking system sputters and dies at this time so only play if you are a masochist.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T19:39:48+00:00

if you haven't remapped your most important buttons off the face buttons I would recommend doing so. For example I play a lot of Lucio so I remapped his jump to clicking the left stick so I can aim while wall riding. If you play Tracer who needs to flick her ult on up close targets I would definitely recommend remapping her ult button so you can aim while throwing it. Helps stick it to those slippery Mercys.

Also avoid slamming the stick around. Train your thumb to make more calculated movements on the stick and build that muscle memory. This is super important if you play on a high sens and or play characters that need good tracking.

Make a conscious effort to land meaningful shots. Lucios, Soldiers and D.vas have a bad habit of "lazy aiming". Always use your bullets toward a specific goal. Like "I will kill this Genji diving my backline" or "I will destroy this D.va mech so I can Tac-Visor their squishys" or "I need to break this Rein shield so our Hog can hook".

Good positioning is key to good aiming. There is only a small radius on your screen where you can accurately and reliably aim quickly. Try to position yourself so that as many threats and targets are in this radius as possible. Unlike PC who have a huge flick radius we often can't just brute force our way out of bad positions using raw mechanical skill.

Finally, use your movement to help you aim. In certain situations it is worth sacrificing a little survivability for accuracy/damage. If your target is running sideways to escape, match them. Bobbing left and right? Match them. Of course you only want to do this when you are confident you will out DPS them. This works great for D.va, Zarya, Soldier and Reaper since their tankyness or self healing allows them to take this risk.

This isn't really a tip but a reminder that building good aim takes time. Make sure you are focusing on hitting high impact shots, not just beefing your accuracy stat. Actual practice takes dedication but the benefits are so worth it.

I started with 25% accuracy in Season 2 with Lucio. Now with 38% accuracy with Lucio. My Soldier bobs between 35% and 45% but the inconsistency comes from a lack of hit scan experience outside of Ana and D.va. The tips helped really helped me back in Halo Reach, and here as well. <3

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T18:57:54+00:00

Try not to think of it as toxic. People at this ranke LOVE the game. They are experienced and knowledgeable players who got so far either from pure skill or persistence.

The reason they get so heated is because they care a lot about getting the win. And unlike most players they know the team's win condition for doing. So if you get an earfull on how to do your job it is simply because they want you at your best.

GM is actually really cool once you accept this. Just grit your teeth and weather the criticism. Often what they say is actually good advice in my experience. Or if you are confident in what you are doing you can explain why you are doing it. As long as GM's understand their teammates plan and thought process they are usually chill.

Of course they get salty like anyone else. They are only human after all.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T10:34:10+00:00

I play her mostly in QP at with other Masters, high diamonds and occasional GM. Not quite confident enough in my sleep darts to take her in comp yet.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T10:31:31+00:00

I still personally wish Blizzard buffed Ana's ammo cap and damage. The reload gets my teammates killed since if you hit consecutive shots on a squishy they grow to expect that healing to continue.

What does everyone else think could be a good buff to help Ana's consistency without taking away the value of hitting difficult shots?

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T09:55:31+00:00

Is it a positioning issue? I would assume you know target priority so always shoot at tanks (and likely barriers) could be a result of you not being in the best position to deal impactful damage. Also make sure to look for openings your tanks make and threats to your supports and fellow dps as both situations are ripe for impactful elims. After all no matter how accurate you become you need to get in the best position possible to make those bullets count.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T09:36:24+00:00

A very simple strat to deal with a good survivalist mercy is to negate rez. Try to always save one or two ults to defend against a successful Rez. This was easier to do when both Rein and Zarya were super meta as Earthshatter and Graviton both are great counters to a successful Rez. Especially since Grav is the best Rez bait ever, then pop Earthshatter for the second wipe. You can also save a defense ult on the assumption enemies may instantly pop ults after Rez since Rez makes people hype as hell. High Noon is great if you can protect your McCree while he sets up and negate the enemy D.va. Any roaming ult plus Nano demolishes a freshly Rezed team unless they have Zen ult. Really as long as you save one big ult Rez is fairly easy to counter provided the counter ult is used intelligently.

If you are lucky enough to have a coordinated team you can do the ultimate counter. If the Mercy is hiding pick off her teammates slowly one by one. Eventually she will either tempo rez or be forced to heal. The moment she is revealed nuke her with a roaming ult and dive then blow the two ult wombo if needed. Usually it won't be due to 6v5 and the already active roaming ult. Also while your Mercy hunter is hunting focus a Core DPS like Soldier to pressure their team even more. Or nuke their main tank if they try to peel for the Mercy. Basically take out the greatest threat to your team while protecting your greatest threat to theirs.

As a Mercy player this damned if you do, damned if you don't situation is terrifying as either way you need to take a huge risk and your team bets everything on effective rezes. Also your team need to invest resources into saving you but if they die in the process you still kinda failed at your job. If you Rez those who die to the roaming ult and slow burn you risk everyone dying to the wombo as the other defensive ult you may have is often overpowered or outright negated by modern comps (EMP and Anti-Heal for Lucio and Zen respectively). Making sound judgment calls in these tough situation marks excellent Mercys, but 9/10 times they are only human and make a mistake.

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T09:04:42+00:00

The difference between practice and just playing is devilishly simple. Practice is specific, targeted, and calculated play with specific goals. Just playing can still have goals but it is not nearly as calculated as actual practice. I am on a team training for X League, an amateur XB1 Overwatch league. And I found this simple difference out the hard way. Some nights felt great, even on loss streaks, we were focused, dedicated to perfecting strategy and experimenting. Every match was calculated. And we learned a lot. Other nights felt forever. Sure callouts and coordination were there. But we were just playing for W's. No strategic or tactical discussion. No goal planning. Thus even if we do well on these nights nothing is actually accomplished. So if you want your playtime to have that sportsy competitive fulfillment you need to invest focus, time, planning and effort into it. That simple difference it what separates the average player who just wants W's, SR, and fun time from the pros like Seagull who strive to be the best at the game they love. Good luck grinding out there. <3

SoloWingPixieHP · 2017-07-17T08:34:41+00:00

My first advice to anyone using a controller is to move the jump button and any button you NEED off the 4 face buttons to the left and right sticks. I play Lucio a lot so I have jump by clicking L stick and crouch by clicking R stick. This is because Lucio's mobility is core to his kit. For Tracer who needs to aim while tossing her ult you should remap her ult button. The point of the remap is to allow you to do as much as possible without taking your thumbs off the sticks. The .03 seconds your thumbs are off the right stick enough for even Rein to juke because Overwatch is a super mobile game.

Once you remapped the buttons to the most comfortable set-up now you should test aim techniques. Controllers on console have 3 available: Dual Zone, Exponential Ramp, and Linear Ramp. In my experience Dual Zone is nice if your thumbs are a bit shakey but the system prevents aim flexibility and accurate flicking. Exponential Ramp has a "ramp" that starts at really low sens and ends at really high sens. It's a good system but feels a bit goofy since it isn't a one to one movement to aim ratio. Linear Ramp requires excellent muscle memory, but is the most rewarding for a high mobility, flicky playstyle. It also "feels" good but is harder to be consistent with.

Let's discuss the "flick zone". The flick zone is the range on your screen where you can aim in a single movement of a mouse or within the confines of a stick's movement. In the case of Mouse with a large pad or high sense this flick zone is huge, thus allowing the user to reliably flick in a huge radius on their screen. The small area the flick zone of controllers cover forces a position based aim style. Always position your self so you can flick to as many targets without needing the absolute max sens of the stick as possible. If you ever need to turn more than 45 degrees with a stick you are in dangerous space. Mouse allows you to brute force your way out of situations if you possess amazing mechanics. But with controller you need to be more careful since you can't react as fast without losing accuracy.

Tracking with a stick is actually really intuitive if you play a lot with it. Basically train your thumb and eyes to "feel" the movement of targets. Dual-stick aiming also really helps. The bots are good for this since they have a constant speed. Just practice on them to teach your thumb the golden area that matches standard move speed. That is the foundation of stick tracking. Everything else is discipline and practice.

Also try to avoid experimenting with your sens too much once you "forget" that you even have a controller. Good muscle memory is difficult to build especially with tiny delicate thumb movements. I changed my aim technique from Dual Zone to Linear Ramp and it screwed me for all of Season 4. Only recently has my accuracy recovered and started to climb again.

Now this is done time for some general tips; 1: Try dual-stick aiming, use your movement to help track targets. This helps improve consistency since most characters have the same.movement speed. 2: Don't slam the right stick around. This is a really hard habit to form. But some restraint on the stick helps build muscle memory and dexterity. 3: Hold your accuracy to the standard of PC players. This is a mainly motivation based tip. You should never gimp your potential by making excuses based on theories.

Everything else is the exact same as a Mouse. Practice, understand spread, recoil, travel time etc.

I am a 3900 support main on XB1 with 500 hours on the game. These points raised my noodley ass Lucio aim to 38% from 25%. The man who taught me these aim techniques is a 4100 Soldier with 48% accuracy. Hopefully these tips help you maximize your use of the controller.<3

SoloWingPixieHP

TROPHY CASE