Overwatch: 14 essential tips and dirty secrets
1. Health / Armour / Shields
This is one of the first things Overwatch explains, and it’s pretty clear that a lot of players didn’t take it in. We could go into endless depth but it’s important to understand some basics about how the different types of HP operate: health and armour doesn’t regenerate (unless you’re certain support classes), but shields do regenerate. Hence, with the shield-heavy Zarya, the character’s being set up to bait shots with her shields before dropping her barrier to absorb the fire and power-up (which lets the shield regenerate.)
Much more importantly, having armour as any part of your health pool reduces the damage of incoming fire for as long as it’s there. This is super-effective against high-frequency low-damage weapons, where every shot will be affected, and less so against single-shot big-damage weapons like rockets.
As a practical example take the oft-misunderstood tank D.Va, sometimes seen as a poor alternative to the Reinhardts and Winstons. The whole point of D.Va is that her health pool is disproportionately stacked with armour, and therefore she’s the choice counter for teams attacking with Tracers and Soldier 76. Dash into their vicinity and the shots bounce off you like confetti.
2. Exploit hidden shield effects
To briefly return to the Russian bicep queen, Zarya is built around applying a barrier to herself and teammates, and it has one very special property. The barrier has 200HP but can absorb a single attack greater than that value before disappearing, meaning it has incredible utility against something like Junkrat’s Rip-Tire ultimate or even D.Va’s self-destruct – pop a barrier on yourself and any nearby teammate, and you’ll emerge unscathed from the explosion.3. Audio cues are practical, not realistic
Overwatch’s incredible sound design is all about information, and it’s worth realising that your teammates’ actions are dialled-down and the enemy has higher priority. So if you hear clunking footsteps, for example, even though there’s a heavy teammate nearby, the game is still telling you something: each character – barring Zenyatta, who floats – has a different sound effect for their footsteps. (If you’re especially keen, there are videos running them down)
Finally, the audio cues for ultimates are different depending on whether it’s a teammate or an enemy. English-speaking characters will have a more aggressive ultimate phrase when on the enemy team, but others like Hanzo or Zarya will speak their native tongue – so if you hear a foreign language it’s always bad. Hey, I didn’t develop it.
4. Fire at anything
There’s a reason Overwatch has infinite ammo, and that’s because Blizzard believed the alternative wasn’t fun enough. Take advantage of this largesse by not waiting for the perfect shot, but firing in the general direction of any sign of the enemy, not least because even potshots that dink foes will build ultimate charge faster. This goes double when talking about Reinhardt’s shield – which a lot of my teammates don’t seem to realise has a finite health bar and is relatively easily destroyed. Abuse the fact that you’ll never run out of bullets / rockets / lasers / whatever.5. Anti-Bastion
First, Bastion in turret form acquires a big shield at the front but a newly vulnerable point on his back – which any flanking character can take advantage of. Roadhog’s hook will not only pull Bastion out of position but put him in his less-powerful walking mode, though finishing him off might require some assistance. But by far the most useful thing to know about Bastion is that you can corner-peek him (as Widowmaker, for example) and aim at the exposed edges of his shield, without his being able to see you and return fire.
The most baller thing to do, of course, is walk right out in front of him as Genji and deflect every single bullet back into his smug robot face.
6. Deflect anything
Genji’s deflection is amazing against Bastion but can be used on any attack in the game with similarly spectacular results. The most beautiful thing about deflect is that it’s a duration ability, so you just need to get the timing roughly right rather than have split-second precision – if you see Widowmaker lining up a shot on you, it’s surprisingly easy to predict the shot within this window and return it with interest.But this isn’t the half of it, because deflect can be a hard-counter to enemy character’s ultimate abilities. Something like Soldier 76’s ultimate, which makes all his shots tracking headshots, is begging to be deflected. But less obvious is that you can bounce back Hanzo’s twin dragon ultimate – as long as you hit the arrow before it transforms – or even bat back the canister for Mei’s infuriating freeze circle. And this may just be the tip of the iceberg: Genji can even deflect the cluster bombs that Junkrat drops on death (very useful if you’re finishing him with a melee), while in close-quarters he can deflect and steal Soldier 76’s healing “biotic field”, a projectile that drops on the ground.
7. The easy way to time ultimates
An easy way to prep for this when playing solo is just hitting tab to see the stats. Under each player on your team there’s space for a tick mark and, if they have the tick, their ult is ready to go. Hang around their general area, use the quickchat option to let them know you’re charged too, and get ready for the cue.
8. Reinhardt’s Shields are permeable
Overwatch’s attacks and abilities have many characteristics that aren’t explicitly identified by the game, and one useful thing to know is that certain characters can attack directly through Reinhardt’s shield barrier. Winston’s tesla cannon goes straight through there, although that depends on a close engagement, but both Symmetra’s orb attacks and Reinhardt’s own fire strike will travel straight through, while any melee attack also gets full damage. Hence, one supposes, his hammer.
9. Tweak character-specific options
Every character in Overwatch has a few dedicated options in the controls screen and, OK, we may be approaching the point of nerd return. There’s little else to do in matchmaking lulls apart from admire your collection, however, so it’s worth getting familiar with your favourite characters’ capabilities – PC Gamer has an exhaustive guide.
Don’t underestimate the life-or-death importance of control options – I couldn’t stand Mercy for ages because her escape ability would so often screw up choosing the intended target, and leave me in the frontlines getting chewed down by the enemy team. After switching “Guardian Angel prefers beam target” off, however, I started flying where I was supposed to, and the character came alive. Also, toggle mode for her beam will let you look around much easier while still healing.
10. Hidden abilities? Mercy me!
Speaking of Mercy she’s a great example of how many characters have ‘hidden’ abilities – in this case, she passively heals herself when out of combat – and this passive heal is buffed if she’s healing allies. These things become obvious, but the potential of her other basic abilities can be magnified in the right company. One possible combination is with an airborne Pharah – Mercy can jump to her position with Guardian Angel, use her ‘Float’ ability to hover with Pharah above the battlefield, and by the time you’re falling the cooldown for Guardian Angel has reset.Beyond even this keep an eye out for little bonuses that the game doesn’t explicitly tell you about – an especially useful one is that Genji’s blade dash will reset after a successful kill or assist. This means you can take a risk to chase down opponents with the dash and rely on the reset to escape. Tracer’s pistols will fully reload from a recall, Winston’s ult will restore all his health, Junkrat can double-jump using his mines if you wait for the first cooldown to pass...
11. The other way to heal turrets
Every character in Overwatch has a few dedicated options in the controls screen and, OK, we may be approaching the point of nerd return. There’s little else to do in matchmaking lulls apart from admire your collection, however, so it’s worth getting familiar with your favourite characters’ capabilities – PC Gamer has an exhaustive guide.
Don’t underestimate the life-or-death importance of control options – I couldn’t stand Mercy for ages because her escape ability would so often screw up choosing the intended target, and leave me in the frontlines getting chewed down by the enemy team. After switching “Guardian Angel prefers beam target” off, however, I started flying where I was supposed to, and the character came alive. Also, toggle mode for her beam will let you look around much easier while still healing.
10. Hidden abilities? Mercy me!
Speaking of Mercy she’s a great example of how many characters have ‘hidden’ abilities – in this case, she passively heals herself when out of combat – and this passive heal is buffed if she’s healing allies. These things become obvious, but the potential of her other basic abilities can be magnified in the right company. One possible combination is with an airborne Pharah – Mercy can jump to her position with Guardian Angel, use her ‘Float’ ability to hover with Pharah above the battlefield, and by the time you’re falling the cooldown for Guardian Angel has reset.Beyond even this keep an eye out for little bonuses that the game doesn’t explicitly tell you about – an especially useful one is that Genji’s blade dash will reset after a successful kill or assist. This means you can take a risk to chase down opponents with the dash and rely on the reset to escape. Tracer’s pistols will fully reload from a recall, Winston’s ult will restore all his health, Junkrat can double-jump using his mines if you wait for the first cooldown to pass...
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