Image from From IGN Nordic

I wanted to write this because, Overwatch has been out for a year now and as a day one player, I've experienced the frustrations of low level play and the exhilaration of climbing out, then falling back down. I stopped playing Competitive for a while, mostly out of frustration, but also regarding the way players were pushed back in rank to achieve a 'false sense of growth'. Now, after playing months of quickplay, I've returned back into Competitive and I wanted to write a short brief on what I've observed and why YOU are likely not climbing out of the ranks of Bronze, Silver and Gold.

First and foremost, I want to mention the reason for the capitalization of YOU. What I've found, including with myself, is there is too much blame being put on others for the reason to why YOU are not climbing in a lot of cases. Common excuses are "if my team had a better comp" or, "if my healer would've been better!" or, etc. I'm sure you get the gist. But, the problem is not your teammates, the reason why YOU aren't climbing is due to how YOU played.
Everyone on your team is in the same boat, including YOU so, look at yourself and what YOU can do better to amplify YOUR chances of victory and climbing. This isn't to say that you're going to have a 100% winrate, but these are tips on the 'basics' that should help.

So far, from what I've seen, there are THREE common mistakes that low-level players make that you don't see as much at higher levels, 'Grouping Up', 'Adaptability' and 'Scoreboard'. Until you understand these basics, you shouldn't be worrying about higher level Overwatch skills. There are A LOT of 'GOOD' INDEPENDENT FPS players at the lower tiers, but that's the problem - good individual play makes not a good team. I'll clarify below:

1. Group Up!

This, in and of itself, is the most important thing that I see ignored at lower levels. This is a TEAM GAME, not a lone-wolf TDM game. Grouping up is paramount to the success of your team. While so many people stress team composition as being important, a group of all attackers WHO STICK TOGETHER will fair better than a well composed team THAT DOES NOT. The reason is being able to focus fire on targets, rather than being FORCED to pick the most dangerous target. This is often the case why, in team fights, the larger team has the likelier chance to come out victorious. Note that you DO NOT need a mic to effectively Group Up as a team.

Grouping up is two-fold: when you are attacking DO NOT TRICKLE! And when you are defending a point, or payload, DO NOT over-extend. Not grouping up is one of the most difficult habits to break, and once you're able to break this bad habit, you'll see better play.

Trickling is probably worse off than over-extending. If you're on attack and trying to reach the point, you absolutely MUST wait for your teammates. Think of it this way: even 2 v 'X' is better than 1 v 'X'.

If you're stuck in 'ELO Hell', you absolute need to face the fact that you are not good enough to take on an opposing team 1 v 'X'. If you were, you'd have a better winrate and you would not be stuck in the lower tiers of play. All you are doing is feeding the Ults of the opposing team, in addition to likely getting yourself picked and set on a re-spawn timer only to trickle back in and repeat.

I understand that, when solo-queing, Trickling is very difficult to prevent over an entire team. So, rather than adding to the problem, be patient and WAIT for your team. Spam 'Group Up' and 'Hello' at, or outside of spawn. Talk over you mic. Typically, it will register with many players and they will stop and group up.

Do this, even if you see 2 or 3 of your teammates at the point, or that still want to 'lone-wolf'. The reason is you want to maximize your team's ability to attack as a force. Again, 3 or 4 v 'X' is greater than 1 v 'X'.

I do want to further stress that you don't want to trickle EVEN IF you see blue chevrons above your teammates names that are at a point, or ahead 'lone-wolfing'. Again, even if the opposing team was wiped, you MUST assume they will be returning as a group. This is even more reason to wait, be patient and reinforce as a group, rather than individually.

Over-extending can be just as bad as trickling. I don't care if you're playing a Uber McTeam-wiper, if you've taken the objective, stay near the objective. Competitive Overwatch is an objective based game, not a TDM. I know its nice to get picks, and its fun to tell people that you're averaging 40 kills with Soldier, but if you're not winning, you're doing something wrong (and I'll get to this later).

Stay on the point until the other team gets close enough for you to retreat if you get in trouble. You don't need to be pushing all the way back to their spawn trying to rack up elims and shame-killing Zenyatta, because 'he's easy'. When you over-extend, you're doing your team a disservice. You are weakening your team's presence on the objective (the entire point of the game) and leaving them susceptible to be at a disadvantage during a team fight.

Think of it this way, yes, you may get a pick between the opponent's spawn and your point, but the distance they need to cover is much shorter than what you would need to cover if you get picked. Furthermore, you're trying to 1 v 'X' again and those just aren't good odds. If you get picked, your team is down a hero, causing you need to run back to the point for the team-fight.

It may not be flashy, you may not get as many elims, but grouping up will increase your wins AND THAT IS WHAT MATTERS.

2. Adaptability

Too many times to I see a team that doesn't understand their role, or refuses to switch when things are not working. You don't need to be an expert on heroes and counters, but if you're playing a specific hero, and you're not filling your role, you need to switch. Note that I don't mean switch every time you re-spawn, but if you're not finding success over the course of few quick re-spawns, it's time to change things up.

While Team Composition can be a factor, YOU should not be a stickler for it if you know its not working. This is again, another things that trap that I've found myself falling into: "well, I'm the only support; I know we need 'X', but if I switch off, there's no support". The problem is, if you can't do your job as 'X' role, either based on the composition of the opposing team OR because of the actions of your own team, you need to find a way to impact the team more. For example, if you're Genji, and you're going up against a defense of Orissa, Bastion and Torb, you're likely not going to see much success. Stop trying to force playing Genji and maybe pick up Pharah. Conversely, using the same example of enemy team composition, if you're Zenyatta and you notice that you Junkrat and Pharah aren't playing well enough to break down that defense, and you realize that you can probably help out with Zarya, switch to Zarya EVEN IF you're the only person playing support. You can always switch back after you break through the trouble spot.

At lower levels, you need to switch into and play as a role that you know will impact YOUR TEAM'S performance when you hit a stall MORE SO than what you think is most applicable based on team composition.

UNTIL YOU REACH HIGHER TIERS OF PLAY, TEAM COMP AND META NEED TO TAKE A BACK SEAT TO PERSONAL IMPACT AND FLEXIBILITY.

This cannot be overstated.

3. Scoreboard

Too much emphasis is placed on the Scoreboard, and many times in all the wrong places. Repeat after me: "the only statistic that matters is Wins and Losses!" Seriously, I don't care if you got 56 elims, if you didn't win that statistic means that you didn't do enough to help your team. Congratulations! You are a good FPS player, but you're playing the wrong game. You might want to play the TDM mode in Arcade, or pick up Battlefield One, where re-spawns are limited by eliminations.

When you look at the post-match scoreboard during a loss, before you say, "I did my job, look at my 1337 skills," take a look at some of the cursory data and use that as a barometer of impact. What was your objective time? How many offensive/defensive assists or elims did you have? If you had 60 elims, but 20 seconds of objective time and no offensive/defensive elims or assists then you're not playing the game to win, you're playing for the Scoreboard. Why do I say this? Because clearly, you weren't playing the objective based on your game statistics.

If you're a support or tank, this is still a good measure of how well you're playing - objective time, and offensive/defensive assists mean that you were in the right area, or helping the right people. Even if you're not racking up elims. Just because you healed 15k damage, if you're not doing it to the right people or in the right area, it's not going to help you win.

In summary, these are the three biggest pitfalls I see with lower tier players that can be corrected to see an improvement to their winrate. Note that this isn't an "End-All-Be-All" for how to climb out, but these are ways that YOU can improve your impact on a team and tilt the odds in YOUR favor for increasing your winrate.

I'm actually x-posting this from my Reddit account. This was my first 'Actual' blog-post on the internet and I posted it right before my membership was approved here. Usernames don't match because I wanted to drop my Reddit moniker, but I can send a DM to you on Reddit for verification that this is my work.

X-Post from my Reddit Account u/mosesofwar on r/Overwatch University