Overwatch, the Blizzard Entertainment First Person Shooter has really captured my attention. There’s a review here which only starts to show you how much I like it. Now, even though it’s a game you can dive straight in and play, it will take many, many go’s before you stop getting your ass handed back to you in the majority of the games. You’ll need some advice, but not from an expert, but from someone who has bit the bullet more than is reputationally acceptable. That someone is me, as you can see from this rather embarassing video of me playing Tracer. Thankfully, I’m better than this now, just.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve picked up 5 things that you should be doing if you want to increase your chances of survival in Overwatch.
Play the Characters
Simply put, get used to as many of the different characters as you can. Although, you can just learn to use only one character, there’s no guarantee of that character being the most useful in the team or game type you’re in. In Overwatch you can switch to another character within the game, so if you think a sniper would be more useful than the tank you’re playing, simply switch to Widowmaker for example.
Plus, the broader your knowledge of the characters the better your awareness of how to defeat them will be. You’ll soon recognise all the special attack noises, weapon ranges and character weaknesses, such as not getting close to Reaper, or staying outside medium range for Solider 76.. There’s no guarantee you can exploit these weaknesses, but knowing about them is the first step.
Learn the Maps
This one is very similar to learning the characters. There are a number of maps within Overwatch and rather obviously, they all have their own layouts, defense and attack points. Learning the maps will help you with the positioning of certain characters, the snipers and those you’re using to hold chokepoints like Bastion, Widowmaker, Hanzo and so on. Once you know the basic layouts of the maps you can get yourself in a position to do some serious damage or hold valuable areas.
Of course, the flip-side to that is also true. Once you recognise these points, you’ll also be able to avoid them so that others set up there will not have such an easy time. A vast portion of Overwatch is simply becoming familiar with everything.
Don’t Stop Moving
Moving targets are harder to hit. It’s a simple and unbelievably useful premise. Unless you’re a character who either can’t move or finds it difficult to move while shooting try and stay mobile as much as you can. This, certainly for new players does increase the difficulty of aiming and actually hitting something, but generally speaking staying alive is more important.
Use Your Special Attack
The more damage and general sort of helping you do, the quicker your special move gauge fills up and the quicker you can unleash it. The trick is learning when you should or shouldn’t use it. You need to find the line between holding on to it and waiting for that perfect time (which may never happen) and wasting it on nothing the moment you have it.
I would say however, that if you’re in a tight spot with a full special move gauge, I would more often than not use the ability in that case. If it saves your live you can always simply move on and refill it again.
Know Where Your Team is
Overwatch is a team game, and knowing where the rest of your team is can be invaluable. All friendly players are shown as a blue silhouette. These silhouettes show regardless of whether you’re in line of sight or not, the same goes for the skull icons of recently deceased friendly players.
Knowing where the rest of your team is can ensure you lead joint attacks and defenses. If you run towards an objective by yourself, you are more likely than not just going to end up being mullered by the whole enemy team, and then have to run back to give it another go.
Maybe when you play you’ll be master sniping head-shots like a professional and won’t need any of my help. In which case, I now have a fairly competitive dislike of you, and hope only to be on your team and not against you, but I think that’s fair.
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Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
