Educational Overwatch streamer “KarQ” teamed up with Wrecking Ball prodigy “Yeatle” to explain five core concepts that can help you rank up fast in the game – if you make good use of them.
Overwatch can be a very complex game, especially when factoring in elements like positioning and making use of one’s environments. The first concept the streamers delved into during their video is all about defenders’ advantage and controlling the objective that the attackers need to take.
As Yeatle explains, when a team has control over an objective, they know exactly where the attackers want and need to go. Because of this, defenders can place themselves in a position to contest the choke yet survive.
This leads into the second concept: choke points. Chokes are tight areas that a team is forced to pass through in order to reach an objective. When applied with the first concept, it’s important for defenders to understand how vulnerable opposing players are when funneling through the choke.
“Defenders only have to look at one angle for the most part, whereas attackers are faced with multiple angles when they enter the choke,” Yeatle explained. Depending on what the enemy team runs, it will impact how the choke is defended.
For instance, if the enemy runs Reinhardt or Orisa, as an Ana, setting up on high ground to look for big grenades over the shield is key. However, against a Winston, the Ana player needs to be more conscious of being dove and eliminated.
Some maps with multiple chokes can result in the attackers catching the defenders off guard if they deke their opponents out. This can be prevented with concept three: scouting.
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Mobile heroes have the ability to sneak behind enemy lines, or gain a good vantage point to see where the enemy team is going in order to counter their movements by relaying the information to your team.
“This is a heavily underused tactic in lower ranks,” Yeatle explained. “Knowledge is power.”
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The fourth concept, baiting the objective, is likewise massively important, because understanding it will help players win more team fights – and as a result, more games.
Many players place too much value on objective progress. By giving up a few percent to the enemy in order to remain in, or access a more favorable position to win the fight ,is better than dying on the objective, only to lose it completely.
In the example given by Yeatle, his team killed four enemies on Temple of Anubis and funneled onto the objective, only to be picked off one by one by enemy snipers who had taken the high ground.
“On defense capture point, you haven’t lost until the enemy gets all three ticks,” Yeatle explained. By letting the enemy have some progress, they could be putting themselves in the open leading to a big hold.
The final concept, explained by KarQ himself, delved into the best heroes to stall with as an overtime situation nears. While trying to 1v6 is a horrible idea, the trick, according to the streamer, is to touch the objective when there are three seconds or less remaining, then run away.
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“Three seconds before time expires is all you need to force the overtime count down,” he explained.
Additionally, figuring out if your job is to simply stall or win a team fight outright can completely change how you go about selecting your hero in the dire situation.
Using these concepts can be your ticket out of your current rank and into a higher ELO. Give them a go and see what happens.