“Target the Mercy down. Kill the Mercy. Can we — hey. Kill the –. Come on, just –. Kill the f*%&king Mercy.
GG my team sucks.”
-You, probably, at some point. Or your teammates.
New Feature: Casual Tips
Hey there, you ol’ casual. Starting this week we’re introducing a new feature to the site called … you guessed it, Casual Tips. We’re not going to get super in depth and these will be relatively short. They are not meant to be strategy guides, or walkthroughs. They are just tips. Simple tips from one casual to another.
My goal is not going to be to help you play better. Rather, my goal will be to help you appear to be a little less bad. In the process, you may get better. Hell, you probably can’t get much worse. I’m talking to you, me.
Our first installment is going to use Overwatch specific examples, but the logic can be applied to any sort of game where there is a hero/champion/character who is healing the other team.
Bullying
I want to be super super SUPER clear about something. I am not talking about verbally or in-game chat bullying. This is not about the player behind the character, but action you are taking directly against the character itself.
When I say “bully the healer” what I am telling you to do is deny their healers a moment of peace. You get right up in their face and you do not let up. You’re like a dog chasing a car, and you finally get that tire. You don’t let go. Even if you should. Sometimes bullying isn’t working and you should fall back and regroup with your team. I am not telling you to do that, or how to decide if you should. This probably isn’t going to make you a better player. Again, I’m not the coaching type. Clearly.
A good team will be protecting their healer and will peel for them. I am laboring under the impression that you are facing opponents that are just as big of a garbage bag as you. If you had to look up what it means to peel, I am talking about you, you garbage bag..
Peeling is when your front-line mobile DPS
(or even a tank) falls back – peels off – in order
to assist a back-line healer or slower support DPS character.
I am assuming, of course, that their healer(s) are actually healing and not trying to do damage instead. If they are pretending to be DPS, their team will probably just let them die anyway.
I would.
Now, in Overwatch there are some heroes that are good for bullying and other heroes that either aren’t that great, or are much better suited to be doing literally anything else.
Good Bullies
Quick and mobile heroes like Tracer or Genji are excellent for bullying healers. You can do a lot of damage very quickly, and you’re hard to keep track of. Don’t stop moving and don’t stop shooting. Even if you can’t take them down, your primary goal is to keep them off-balance. They can’t keep their team’s health up if they’re too busy running to protect their own.
Heroes with significant knockback or displacement abilities like Doomfist, Roadhog, or Wrecking Ball can be effective bullies as well. Don’t be afraid to get in there, boop their healers out of position and then get back to your team. Be careful with a hero like Roadhog though. Even though his hook is on a relatively short cooldown, if it misses you won’t be able to do much and you’ll be a sitting pig for the enemy team.
Dive heroes like D.Va or Winston make excellent hit-and-run style bullies. They are able to move in very quickly, be disruptive through either damage or distraction, and then move back out again to rejoin in the team. They can do this repeatedly and relatively safely.
Even if you can’t get up in their face, if you focus them from a distance with a long range hero like Widowmaker, Hanzo, Soldier: 76, or McCree, you can cause the healers to have a Bad Time, and need to retreat to a health pack or lose their focus on healing their teammates.
Bad Bullies
So, I’m not here to tell you how to play the game, and really you can bully with whoever you want. I would avoid using slower moving heroes, like Zarya, or Bastion. They’re too easily spotted, and their strengths lie elsewhere on the map. Similarly a hero like Reaper, who may seem like they would be a good bully, and indeed they can certainly be a huge issue to deal with, but they are able to deal significant damage to tanks and help bust down shields, so their strength is elsewhere as well.
Generally if I’m on a support role healing, or as a back-line DPS, bullying isn’t always a great plan. Of course Zenyatta or can dish out some annoying damage from a distance while still keeping his healing orb on a teammate, but the rest of the healers aren’t as fortunate. Don’t say Moira. If Moira is forced to use her glowing healing ball, you’re in bad shape.
Remember, I’m not a professional Overwatch player. I’m barely a player these days. I haven’t completed my placement matches since Season 5 and I spend most of my time playing Mystery Heroes or Total Mayhem arcade modes. I’m a casual like you, but this is a tip I picked up somewhere, and it’s helped me out a few times.
At least I can feel like I’m helping.
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