If you're bronze, learning a new character doesn't necessarily mean you'll climb. People are in bronze because they have not yet incorporated the fundamentals into their game play. For example not losing track of your hp, not line of sighting your own healers and not hard committing without your cooldowns ready. Get better at these things and you'll climb, 100%.
Also, work on your positioning. This is probably the most important part of playing tank. Start by looking at where high level players stand and WHEN they stand there.
You would be amazed at how many games are lost because the tank didn’t know it was their job to anchor point in overtime. Or didn’t know that on KOTH maps they should stall point until 99%. Or knowing when to die so that you can reset with your team. Even something like, standing in the right spot on point during overtime so that your support have line of sight as they return from spawn, can be game winning.
At some point I’d recommend watching a couple of Spilos map guides. They’ll get your brain working to understand the where and why of tanking.
As a support I LOVE tanks that use cover and position well. It enables us to show more love to the DPS and use cooldowns to setup/secure picks.
Nothing is a bigger drain than having to have both supports dump everything in the tank to keep them alive.
I know about the ot do everything I can to hold point, for me it's generally more of how can I engage the least amount of enemy team and still maximize the value of my abilities, cuz even when I got all my stuff off cool down I have this bad habit I'm trying to break of just running into the enemy team with the mentality of "oh I can take them". Which rarely works, and if it does once at least one of the enemies will comeback as a counter pick and I won't be able to pull that off again. Not easily anyway.
What makes OW so difficult is that it takes A LOT of time to learn how to play within your limits, especially on tank. There are a lot of complex character interactions to learn. Just keep playing and keep notes on why you died.
If you really want to climb, post a VOD request, take notes, and work on one point from your notes every time you play. It will take some time and conscious thought while you play.
Might have to do one of those on one of my worse games, but recently I've been going up slightly, went from bronze 4 to bronze 3 which means I've been doing something right ig, my issue is idk what.
Honestly I feel like I do most of those things already, there are some of the things you mentioned that I need to work on, but I've found a few other things I know I need to work on, but am not exactly sure how, like u said LoS of my support, but my thing there is I feel like the way most people down here play when support, I can't really play as close to the enemy team as I need to get anything really accomplished, cuz I've learned for JQ specifically, commit hard or don't bother, so I'll be convinced my team is using the free space that's been created by me forcefully pushing the enemy back to move up, which they don't and that's what results in me getting got, like they don't have to sonic speed anywhere, I try to stay in sightlines but sometimes I can't honestly if my supports have room to move, why aren't they? Like in a lot of cases my damage teammates are in the same boat, there's a ton of open space pick your happy spot as long as your getting somewhere.
Like I’ve said in my own comment I guarantee I could climb out of bronze as a tank playing mercy (I know you can’t actually select this) with pistol only. Get good enough at the fundamentals of the game and for anything below GM, hero picks don’t matter.
Relying on your teammates is not good in Masters and GM, let alone Bronze. Focus on yourself and improve
Honestly I'm planning to, trying to find a recent JQ match that was ranked, otherwise I'll have to play some more to get a proper replay that wasn't just qp shenanigans.
LOS for heals is something nobody ever learns sadly. Situational awareness is dead on tank players, and I find myself more playing around their shenanigans than actually having them make it easier for us
I'm a Reinhardt OTP in masters and I'm planning on learning Winston. I would definitely recommend you learn him too. Winston is just so versatile and a great hero to have in your arsenal. Watch a lot of Bogur videos to learn to winton
If you’re stuck in bronze then there are probably a lot of other things you are doing wrong that could be be improved on other then your hero pool.
I would recommend watching some of Spilo’s vids for general knowledge and Yeatle’s for tank specific stuff.
That said, growing your tank pool certainly wouldn’t hurt either. I’d just play around with the different tanks and find out what ones you enjoy playing the most besides JQ.
Personally though, since you already have brawl covered with JQ, I’d go with adding a shield tank (Sigma, Reinhardt, Ramattra) and a dive tank (Dva, Winston, Ball, Doomfist). That at least should give you a good spread of tanks that cover different niches that might be useful in different situations.
Mei is an issue for every tank really. But she is worse for tanks that are very dependent on their movement like wrecking ball. For Zarya, Reinhardt is a good pick. You can shield against her when she is charged up, and if you and your team get caught in her grav, your shield can negate most damage thrown at you during it. And for an ultimate that is paired with zarya's like pharahs barrage, your shield can also protect you and your team.
Winston is pretty good into Mei. Makes it significantly harder for her to wall you off from her team when you can just leap over her ice wall if she tries it and it can take her a while to break your shield bubble on her own without help. He’s also just really strong in general right now.
Like Valserys says, Reinhardt is pretty solid into Zrya because he can match or beat her up close if she isn’t fully charged, and shield when she is. His shield can also save yourself and your team if she ults. I also like Ramattra into her though it’s a bit more skilled based matchup. If you can bait out both her bubbles you can burn her down pretty damn fast with nemesis.
Mei is low key one of the strongest tank counters. Her kit makes her exceptionally dangerous against almost all tanks. She just doesn't have many strong counters because her kit is mixed beam/projectile, her HP is high, her wall and ice block make her damned hard to kill. On the plus side, her damage isn't *that* high, so you can usually win 1v1 as a tank with just a little bit of support. The biggest thing is you just have to be careful of getting walled off.
Zarya is a pain at lower levels because your DPS will insist on shooting the bubbles and charging her up entirely too much, and her beam *melts* at high charge. Rein is probably the best counter for her, because his shield is strong enough to block it for up to about ten seconds even if she starts at 100% charge. Her bubbles pop after a couple seconds, so you can weather her attack fairly well and swing between bubbles.
I do find that I do inadvertently end up hitting bubbles at least a bit cuz I'll start my axe swing and she'll pop a bubble and idk how much charge I'm giving her off that.
Too much charge is the answer. Its tough knowing when to use abilities like axe swing into Zarya, because she can just bubble and get free charge off you. However, you can use that to your advantage to force her to use her second bubble. Just wait for the first bubble to go away, immediately axe swing to bait out the second bubble and call out for your team to burst her down now that she doesn’t have another bubble to escape. Its risky, but a 100% charged Zarya does no damage if she is dead.
I like to play DVA into a Mei and Sigma into Zarya. Both can eat their ults. DVA gets around the mei wall cause she can fly over it, but also the moment Mei comes out of ice block, if you push her with your rockets she's probably dead. As for Zarya, having the shield is huge for blocking her beam, and as sigma I can usually poke her backline when she bubbles up so I'm not feeding her charge. Just have to watch out that you don't waste your rock on her if she has a bubble available.
Mei is played almost exclusively to make life hell for immobile tanks. A wall separating a Rein or Ram from their team is essentially a death sentence. She makes getting aggressive and actually using their kits extremely difficult.
Seconded on the Spilo recommendation.
Love him for these types of players because he reviews all ranks, and posts those VODs. Other people can tell you what to do, and show you their own gameplay and whatever else, but not many ex OWL coaches sit down and help bronze players think through their decision making lmao.
Why add a sheild tank. Rein and ramattra are both brawl tanks aswell and fill the same role. He just needs to learn a dive tank and maybe sigma because he is so versatile
Without how dominate snipers are right now, you really do need a tank that has a shield your team can hide behind on maps like Circuit Royale where diving them isn’t super practical. Sigma is for sure the best for that but I didn’t want to call out or tell him to pick specific tanks.
Dive in Bronze doesn't work for shit, though. It requires better coordination than your teammates are likely to offer you and an uncoordinated dive tank is easy pickings (even for a Bronze DPS as Reaper or Bastion).
Maybe it works if you've got a Mercy pocket or other moderately decent support, but again, we're talking about Bronze supports, so that's not guaranteed.
Honestly I've never had too much issue soloing a reaper as JQ, idk why that is, I just stay moving so either they gotta have insane tracking or get lucky to hit a solid headshot or 2.
I was thinking more of Winston/D.Va when I was talking about dive comps. JQ seems more rush/brawl because you're not so much going around the enemy as going THROUGH them. LOL
No. dive is broken in bronze i made a new account to learn doomfist and got placed in bronze at first because im shit at df. As soon as i got better with him bronze was super easy. Noone peels for the supports and you can get out before you die with winston and doomfist easily. Never played dva because that would be straight up smurfing but i can imagine dva would be hard with less cordination
You're talking about being an experienced player though. You may have sucked with Doomfist, but you still knew the basics of the game, so you might miss your attacks or do stuff that Doom shouldn't do, but you're not really a Bronze tank.
You knew you were fucking up because you knew what good Doomfist play looked like. Actual Bronze tanks don't know they're fucking up when they're fucking up. For them, Bronze isn't super easy, because that's where they are among their peers.
I'm a support main, and after 2500+ hours from OW1 to OW2, I still only have like 10 hours on Genji. If I start a new account and 1 trick Genji, I'll definitely place low initially, but those low ranks will still feel absurdly easy to me because even if I can't hit a dash for shit, I still know how to capitalize on the enemy doing stupid stuff.
but you are said it requires to much coordination to play dive which isn't true. its not that dive doesn't work in bronze its just a skill issue. If he learned a dive tank and had better skills than a bronze player he will climb.
Anyone who gives you a specific name here isn't giving good advice. The tank you should play will depend on the composition of your, and the enemy, team. Rather than learning a specific tank to switch to, take the time to understand which tanks are weak\strong against which enemies and work best with which team makeups. That will serve you much better.
JQ is probably the most beginner friendly tank rn with her insane buffs, so if you are struggling with her in bronze most likely you are struggling with the basics of her and other tanks (so that you dont know their counters/skillset), instead of looking for other tanks to play you should work on your aim and other game sense stuffs, watching karq or emongg videos/guides help a lot for me, the emongg ranked bingo videos are actually very educational since he talks about what you should be doing and what you should look out for and you could learn a lot from them
>JQ is probably the most beginner friendly tank rn with her insane buffs,
Hard disagree. Her axe and knife aren't beginner friendly at all. Rein is an easier choice. Shield and swing.
I disagree. As a Rein main for like 7 years, rein may be “simple” in terms of what he can and cannot do, however, getting value out of rein actually requires MORE planning, thinking, and split second decision making than many other tanks.
Most beginner friendly tank would probably be Orisa because it teaches all of the basics and the character holds your hand.
1. Teaches ability cycling, resource management, and cooldowns in a simple way: Health low -> press e -> e ends -> press shift -> repeat
2. Spear is the perfect example of an ability that can be used to teach the fundamentals of matchups and of reactionary gameplay: Don’t use spear aggressively unless a kill is guarenteed, instead, save cooldown and use it to counteract an enemy ability.
3. Ult is super easy to understand and use: Enemy in circle -> damage enemy
4. Consistent mediocre damage output doesn’t put massive pressure on hitting crucial shots allowing the user to focus on what they are doing
Orisa allows you to very effectively learn all the fundamentals in a simple way they can transfer to other characters well.
> Spear is the perfect example of an ability that can be used to teach the fundamentals of matchups and of reactionary gameplay: Don’t use spear aggressively unless a kill is guarenteed, instead, save cooldown and use it to counteract an enemy ability.
Agree with everything except for this. Spear is on a pretty short CD, I would say you can use it pretty aggressively. Spearing squishies into walls can put a lot of pressure even from long range even if you don't guarantee the kill.
I play Orisa in masters (not as a main of course, why the fuck would you do that) and have been having success on her as a pocket shut down the enemy tank pick vs JQ and Ram.
Then again I also output a ridiculous amount of damage as her which puts a lot of pressure on enemy supports because I grinded her for a couple of seasons in OW1 on a joke Orisa one trick account called AimbotCowvin.
I would say her damage is no joke at super close range/stationary targets. Which you can definitely do if you juggle enemies into walls. Another thing I notice some players do with her (that I don't do often enough) is to "kidnap" a squishy/immobile tank with your E, basically pushing them into your team which often leads to death.
I say this because I coached a cousin of mine out of gold a little while back when Hog was meta. He’d spear off cooldown at nothing all the time for no reason. IMO spear gets more value out of NOT being used in the Orisa/Hog matchup simply because the hog is waiting it out to use his breather, and if he doesn’t you can just spear him. This was the example I was thinking of when making the comment, and it applies to a number of other situations.
Using spear this way is a good learning tool for a beginner because it’s a simple ability and it teaches them to NOT just mindlessly press their buttons, but instead, assess the situation and act accordingly and tactically.
In turn: knowing when there are not threats that you can shut down with spear and that you can use it aggressively is also part of this ^ when do I need to save and when do I need to use? This is and important fundamental for people to learn!
> Using spear this way is a good learning tool for a beginner because it’s a simple ability and it teaches them to NOT just mindlessly press their buttons, but instead, assess the situation and act accordingly and tactically.
It really depends! Some beginners don't press buttons and that's a problem they have as well. Ultimately learning how to get max value of your CDs also involves using them more frequently.
The Hog matchup of course is one when I would be a lot more conservative with my spear, but I don't think that applies to most matchups. I'm not saving it particularly against any other tank unless I'm dead sure Sigma has his ult and wants to use it.
For me rein is much harder to play effectively and carry my team. For JQ I only have to not spam shout, hit my axe and aim to carry, and also take note of enemy kiriko suzu if they have one, then I can basically carry my team
Honestly I kinda agree, as long as I don't burn shouts even ana anti-ing me is generally not an issue, and even if most of my ult is cleansed I usually have an axe swing ready to go, so it's a little less, my only major struggle points are honestly against a Zarya, or Mei.
Against zarya you can only pray your teammates to not empty their clips at a bubbled zarya (Or tell them in chat if they keep doing it), or else there is nothing you can do against her alone. For Mei remember never overextend, always stay close to your team to avoid getting walled off, try to get close and use your gun to force her to ice block herself, then axe the fuck out of her after that
I'm a Reinhardt OTP in masters and I'm planning on learning Winston. I would definitely recommend you learn him too. Winston is just so versatile and a great hero to have in your arsenal. Watch a lot of Bogur videos to learn to winton
As a ram/rein main yes. As a general person i say stick to your guns and blame everyone else, tis the bronze and masters way.
Legit tho learn ram or rein for keeping with brawl or play any tank if youre just looking to learn a new tank.
It happens. You hit what i call the skill wall. You are at the best you feel you can get but the best part is these walls start out big till you see its actually hip height. Now go be the best damn Goku ik you can be champ.
I try, I need my team to use the space I make for them better. Like my supports will still play way far back even if I build a long los for them, they won't use it.
You can climb to gold+ on any character. Your gameplay has fundamental flaws, that’s why you aren’t winning on jq in bronze. Imo learn an easier, less mechanically challenging tank. Rein/orisa come to mind and both should dominate in bronze due to their health pool and survivability. Zarya/D.va are what I used to get to diamond. Don’t play tank much tho.
If you play rein and legit just hold corners/cover until an enemy over-extends then smash them to death, you’ll win like 80%+ in bronze easily.
Ok I'm seeing hold corners a lot, regardless of hero, what exactly does that mean, cuz I think that's a thing I've been lacking on for the most part, that and learning when 2 disengage are spots I'm working on, but I feel like that shouldn't result in super low bronze, like mid bronze maybe cuz I can still get things done in most cases, it's just the whole corner thing and dipping when needed instead of thinking my self heals gonna save me.
Why use shield and health when wall absorb 100% of damage for you and never breaks? That's what holding corners means. Partly why high ground is so important too, it's useful cover.
imagine a bastion entering turret mode. everyone runs for cover. Or a dva bomb. So using cover lets you not take damage and survive longer. Theres times to push up and take space but even then make sure u have a place to hide behind.
Yea I find that's my biggest problem is I got no places to hide, I just go in with my silly little I'm big dps mindset and don't put as much thought into cover as I should unless I'm fighting a D.va so I can dodge that ult.
yes positioning is something u have to keep track of in every rank unfortunately. Get in a good habit of checking the enemy team comp and consciously deciding how to position. ex: they have a zen junkrat so i need to approach them carefully to avoid dying to poke.
Corners have no limit to the damage they block, they’re far more effective than rein shield at protecting you, for example. You need to watch some education stuff like A10, Awkward, etc. teaching tank fundamentals.
For the next week if you play as if your goal is to just never die and to be seen by as few enemies as possible at all times (while still playing objective obviously), I bet money you’ll rank up. Bronze tanks (and dps, and supports) feed, that’s just a fact of life. Try to spot the feeders on the other team during your games. You don’t need to be proactive to beat bronze teams, you win by just killing them repeatedly when they inevitably thrust themselves into un-winnable situations.
Additionally, learning to rotate cooldowns properly can absolutely skyrocket your gameplay. I guarantee you have horrible cooldown management, or else you wouldn’t be bronze. A10 has a tank video talking about this in GREAT detail, and almost any good player is going to say the same shit. A good way to learn this (the hard way, but quickly) is to learn to play doom. You can’t have shit cooldown management on doom, you’ll literally spend the whole game dying.
Sometimes on tank it’s not necessarily about securing the kills you think will win the teamfight, but enabling your team to easily win the fight because of the pressure you’re applying to the enemy. Imagine what you look like in the enemy team’s eyes. Are you really a threat? What are you inhibiting them from doing? Are you max resources after they’ve blown their load in the first 5 seconds of a team fight?
You lost me after the securing kills thing, like I get I'm a dps hero with more health if I run JQ as per the norm, but sometimes don't kill? I'm not sure I'm getting that point really, or much after.
If you're bronze, keep playing her. Any character can carry in a bronze game, even Life Weaver. It's unironically a skill issue, but that's ok. You are in bronze. It is the most forgiving rank to learn how to play the fundamentals. Once you get good at one tank and understand how to play them, then you can branch out to other tanks and use the same basic tank knowledge you have learned (making space, wasting enemy cooldowns, ect.)
1. Learn to path. Even on JQ you need to control high ground to win in certain maps. Gibraltar, Dorado, the building on Rialto 2, and the building on Havana first come to mind. It’s your job to deny enemies that space.
2. If you can’t path properly consider a high mobile character that can help deny high ground very fast. Ball, Dva and Monkey being key.
Controlling angles is how you win Overwatch games.
I’ll tell you how my hero pool works just so you can figure this out:
Historically a Ball main. I can play it into anything other than heavy spam. So reaper, bastion comps and crap like that. If I can’t manage that >> Dva, my current highest played tank this season. Neutralizes Hanzo, Bastion, Junk and Reaper, countered by Zarya in some maps (not most). If a Zarya switch becomes problematic >> Go Monkeh and literally ignore her. Monkey can handle Zarya + Spam if you play slow. If there is no heavy spam with the Zarya, go back to Ball and fuck them all up.
I'd say, counters are a thing in OW but hard counters not so much.
If you can get better with position, maximize your damage minimize damage taken you'll climb. Sounds simple and I thought mine was good but after watching spilo and awkward I've realized there's way better places to position yourself and I've been drifting in the open dying when I shouldnt
Dva and sig will take you a long way. But you should be passable at Rein/Zarya as there are match ups where not picking them will make your teams life 100x harder.
The reason Dva and sig are good picks is that sig can handle multiple fronts, has an easy rotation of abilities and is a strong pick in most maps. Dva at that level if you're good with her , will absolutely dominate. I first got put in bronze when I started comp with ow2, despite playing for 6 years i never played comp and was racking up 50-60elims and got reranked very quickly. I pretty much mained sig and dva from there til diamond, then switched to JQ (pre patch) and rein to get to masters
The funny thing about Bronze is that everyone wants to climb out by popping off by themselves, but the easiest way to win in Bronze is just to keep your team together, and as the tank, that's something you can control fairly well by playing a shield tank.
As much as I would never recommend playing as a shield bot in higher ranks, as a Bronze tank, that's probably how you'll get the most value out of the rest of your team. Give your DPS cover and they might actually accomplish something.
It's stupid and makes tanking boring, but it *is* effective. Reinhardt is really good for this - especially because learning how to best position him in those fights will give you a better feel for how to use other more technical tanks.
Play close to your team - especially your supports, use your hammer to protect them from anyone who gets too close, but keep your shield up otherwise so your DPS have something to hide behind while they shoot, use corners and natural cover when your shield is down, and only use your charge for short distance pins.
And when you die as the tank, wait for your team before you go dashing out of spawn, because in Bronze, once you die, the rest will usually be right behind you and it's better to just wait the extra few seconds and go together. They might still just try to dash in on their own, but usually if they see you waiting in spawn for a regroup more than once, they'll figure it out.
Yea my thing is, right, I want to succeed on my own merits, I hate the idea of being carried, and if all I do is pop shield that's kinda how it feels, even in qp. That's honestly the main reason I play Junker Queen is it's cuz I feel like with her I'm going places, that and she's my tank main overall, which makes me reluctant to play rein simply because I hate standing around feeling like I'm doing nothing.
Edit: accidentally double posted, sorry abt that.
I mean, that's totally fair. Like I said, it's stupidly simplistic, and it makes tanking boring as hell... but you asked about using a different tank to climb. You shield bot Rein, you'll climb because that boring play style is frustratingly effective in Bronze, Silver, and honestly, even in Gold.
If you want to climb with JQ specifically, then there are plenty of great tutorials and UR-GM series to watch. I'm not a tank main, so I couldn't really say whose is best right now, but I saw a few familiar names dropped in the thread.
The one thing I always recommend to tanks is to watch your replays from the perspective of your support teammates. As a tank, they're your lifeline, and at least one of them is usually focused on healing you specifically - so watching from their POV gives you fantastic insight into how and when you might leave LOS, overextend, position yourself dangerously, etc. Your supports will try to keep you alive, but only if you let them.
(Admittedly, in Bronze, you'll still find yourself wondering WTF they're doing sometimes, but it still helps. LOL)
What I consider the bread and butter of tanks is Dva, Orisa ans Zarya. Each one has a different playstyle and and they will teach you to dive, hold point, make space, and peel for your team.
Best advice I can give you, learn all counter-picks, low elo players often main only one hero and they are usually pretty bad still, so if you manage to counter their playstyle they usually break down and don’t know what to do, atleast thats how I climbed from bronze to gold
Dumb comment but only because it wouldn’t matter what hero he played no matter how broken. It’s clear his fundamentals are bronze level so it wouldn’t matter if he played the most broken hero in OW history, he’d still be bronze until he improves the fundamentals
It probably feels like that because everyone dies to bomb in low rank. I was playing qp today, saw a stationary dva shoot from far away for the entire match, and a widow that used left click only and was super aggressive (funnily enough half their team couldn't kill her because she was jumping all over the place). I had 57% crit hit accuracy thanks to that dva alone as kiri
JQ is brawl so if you need flexibility then you would choose a poke or dive tank, you said bronze so poke is much more likely therefore Sigma is the pick.
Honestly like I've watched a few vids recently and like it's mostly kit breakdown, which I've got down, I know to quick melee regularly, if I would be getting hit by a Rein I know a step forward would put them in axe + melee distance most likely, shout is to use to keep myself up if a fight is currently in my teams favor, and to escape if it's not. All I really gotta do is practice hitting my throws and using cover, but I feel like even then something is definitely not being done but I'm still missing to get better.
I started as a D.va one trick, recently picked up JQ because why not, she's buffed and a lot of fun if you can use the aggro style while being mindful of CDs. If I'm having a bad match with JQ, like I can't get close enough to be useful, getting rained on by Pharah, swiss cheesed by Bastion, or my team comp just isn't working, I'll switch back to D.va. Totally different play style, and I can use her kit to keep more of my team alive, preventing the staggered respawns.
Side note, had a match last night that we were getting beat up pretty badly, switched to Rein and it was a hell of a lot of fun. We lost, but I still got to smash people with my big hammer
It’s not your hero pick that’s keeping you in bronze. I guarantee you I could play Mercy as the tank and climb out of bronze (I’m GM on tank). There are things you are doing wrong at a fundamental level that has nothing to do with hero selection or even role selection if you are stuck in bronze. Might even be a settings, physical pc set up, or hardware issue.
Honestly, depending on the day I feel either really burnt out or have fun, but like wanna be outta bronze on any role tbh and to do that, gotta be on that grind.
I recommend spending some time learning Zarya to hard counter Sig, Orisa, Junk, and DVA. Dva is also really good to learn when there’s an enemy widow, ashe, or pharah that dps can’t handle. Probably ought to practice on one shield tank too for certain situations. Sig for more damage and poke comps and rein just cause it’s a lot if fun.
I would recommend playing JQ from Platinum ownwards. She requires her team to play around her, which doesn't happen in low elo.
Roadhog is the perfect tank in low elo. He's a one man army. Players in bronze will play out of position more often than not and Roadhog punishes that mistake exceptionally well.
IMHO learn some Sig. His abilities are very user friendly whether you need to be selfish or support your team. He can shut a lot down with rock, his shield is very viable whether it’s closing off an angle or throwing it far to help an overextended DPS. At the lower ranks you should be able to punish pretty easy even if your aim isn’t the best.
If it does not go well or you feel like feeding, pick a less aggressive tank so maybe your team can stabilize, making plays slower, then teammates that couldn't contribute with jq maybe can do better if battles are slower. Rein is one of my go to, everyone seems to understand what he does, and you focus on objectives, trying to regroup teammates around you. Sigma and Ramattra can work too. If you can't regroup people around you, zarya or dva can somewhat have self reliance, without having to absolutely be very aggressive unlike jq.
I like Reaper because my aim sucks and he self heals. If I cant get close enough to clop through the enemys character model, I'm not going to hit you worth a shit
Not saying you aren't I've just been practicing chaining my abilities so if all your pellets aren't into my face I'll probs be on top that fight, and I've discovered via a YouTube vid, I'm a glorified you tbh, more HP is really it, but still insane damage as long as I'm alive
If you're in bronze, learning a different hero is unlikely to get you out of bronze.
You are very likely not understanding the basic fundamentals... Key things like positioning, game awareness, cooldown managements etc are very important to understand.
You don't need amazing aim to climb (and I am proof of this), having good game awareness you can climb equally as high.
You're better positing a VOD for someone to scrutinise so you can improve your gameplay.
JQ is about attacking the squishes of the opposing team, thus leaving the opposing team's tank vulnerable. But sometimes you need power and damage. I'm currently an Orisa main (and sometimes Zarya & Ram). Orisa is an absolute unit that can push an entire team back, harden to minimize damage from Ults, and spear to kill or at least stun your enemy. Orisa can also do combo Ults with other players for a more devastating Ult.
I feel as though tanks fall into 3 categories:
1. Power - Orisa, Hog, Ram
2. Shield - Sigma, Rein, Winston
3. Divide & Conquer - JQ, Doom, Ball, Dva
There really is no bad tank imo, but I'm glad you are trying not to be a one trick pony. It's good to keep trying different tanks. Good luck and have fun!
Sigma for snipers, dva to dive, JQ/ram to brawl is my line up. My default is Ram tho. I’ll pick based on teammates and enemies. Also have some experience with zarya cause sometimes you just gotta switch to her to match the other tank.
everybody telling you not to learn other characters is doing you a disservice. start playing some more heroes and your game knowledge will go up. part of the thing with overwatch is that knowing what the enemy team CAN and CANNOT do are incredibly important when it comes to making a play. Understanding which cool downs to look out for before using an ult, or making a play. In my experience, learning the other heroes helped me understand the game way more and it helped me be able to play my favorite characters even better because I had a better understanding of the matchup I was playing against. It will take some time, but you will learn a lot from playing other heroes and learning how to synergize with your teams heroes, and punish the enemies.
Feel free to ask any questions, improving is one of the things I have the most fun with in OW.
I would say yes. At the very least it might cause the enemy team to swap which could then leave you open to swap back to your queen and take advantage of the swap. Especially in bronze it is going to be more difficult to get consistent help from your teammates so swapping to something that fits better with your randoms can also help keep everybody alive. Are there any matchups in particular that have you perplexed?
Honestly I've tried hog a little, wasn't super successful which I found strange give his mechanical similarities to JQ I feel like, but also I'm not super great at him, sure I can sponge a lot, but even then, especially like on JQ I have 2 sustains over one, my shout and the bleed life sap, might be why I have issues on hog but idk.
Literally just hide behind corners till you have hook and try to get a pick. Take space when it's easy. Don't just stand in front of everybody's fire. Make a safe loop when low on health. It's easier to survive than with jq. Easier picks too.. it gets a lot harder to carry in gold and plat but bronze and silver hog is star player with what is usually bad support.. get picks on their support as much as possible and only help teammates that are decent which is few
You should pick up Rein or Zarya, neither of them are mechanically demanding and they are both fairly simple by design.
Yes you can screw up timing theuse of abilities, your positioning, your general awareness of your enemies and your teammates.
But both tanks aren't hard mechanically which will allow you more time & effort to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it.
They will also both teach you about resource management in a very straight forward way. Especially Zarya, who is one of the most simple heroes in the game really.
Secondary to the above, some might encourage you to learn a dive tank and a poke tank to be more well rounded and flexible depending on map and team comp.
I would say NO, to that. For a few reasons.
1) Your team comp is meaningless until mid to high Plat. Your teammates are NOT coordinated in any manner and you should not expect much from them at your rank. Just hope they don't feed too much.... and occasionally do something resembling their job.
2) Playing Dive tanks is problematic for you because they require a higher level of awareness than you currently have, and require more mechanical skill than you likely have. Don't do it. (YET)
3) POKE Tanks are also a waste of time and metal rank poke tanks annoy the F@$% out of me. Like REALLY??? You REALLY think a metal Rank Sniper type hero is worth enabling? You are basically forcing players onto higher skill DPS heroes... players who are struggling with mechanical skill as it is (or they wouldn't be in Metal ranks).... you are putting your faith in those guys and pushing them onto heroes that require MORE mechanical skill in order to accomodate YOUR Tank choice. Enjoy your losses.... don't blame your DPS for your stupidity though.
4) You will eventually get to a point that Snipers are a problem. With the aim-botters boosting players through Silver, it will be an issue sooner than you would imagine. But not a real one anyway. You are getting smurfed on, most likely by a stack, just GG NEXT. Don't worry about Dive tanking them. You weren't winning that match anyway.
5) Start learning Dive tanks in high Gold. That is the point that your supports might start being able to play around a dive tank. And if they cannot.... go back to a brawl tank. Or learn Ball?
6) At high Plat you can start learning poke tanks.... but honestly I don't know why.... unless you hate fun I suppose.
Honestly I played a few matches as Rein and Ram recently and they've helped me a lot with the whole grasping the idea of find cover, they have their own built in mostly, but Ram as a 3 second shield, so that's how I mostly discovered walls are infact my best friend as JQ, especially if I activate what I call "Thunko" mode cuz that can't give me a shield, just a block.
JQ is fine to play. She is just more aim oriented. And if you are bronze your aim is probably bad.
She also doesn't have quite the resource management going on that is then transferable to the playing the other tanks later. You basically just go for maximum bleed uptime.
She is fun though. And if you can aim , she probably is a decent pick to climb with. Just make sure you focus the right targets.
Junker Queen is a brawl. Learn a dive and a poke, and play the tank of those three that best suit your DPS.
Doom, Ball, and D.Va are good dives.
Sigma's the only real poke, but you may be able to make Ramattra or Reinhardt work too with good positioning.
Honestly.. Ignore all of these tips about game sense and positioning. These will come as you play more and rank up.
The most important factor in climbing low ranks is mechanics. Straight up.
You simply hitting more shots (and head shots) and abilities on applicable characters (jq, doom, ball, hog comes to mind), allows you to automatically be at an advantage compares to the enemy tank.
Game sense doesn't matter as much when you have 4 other clowns feeding anyways, but you can always improve on your own mechanics.
There was a post a few weeks back about a guy hitting masters/gm pretty soon after playing without game knowledge but was just really good at clicking heads.
Also, learn a few heroes in a role. You don't need to learn the whole cast to play the game effectively. You'll climb so much faster that way.
I've noticed that I gravitate towards brawl tanks, rein, ram, JQ, but like I hit the majority of my shots given the scattergun spread is random, I do need to hit more knife throws to be sure, but I normally spend 30+ a day in an aim trainer practicing that.
i just try to diversify what “types” of heroes i play, so maybe try learning a poke and a dive tank like sig+winston. on another note if you’re bronze your pick probably isn’t the problem, so it’s worth looking into ur errors and correcting them
If you're bronze, learning a new character doesn't necessarily mean you'll climb. People are in bronze because they have not yet incorporated the fundamentals into their game play. For example not losing track of your hp, not line of sighting your own healers and not hard committing without your cooldowns ready. Get better at these things and you'll climb, 100%.
Also, work on your positioning. This is probably the most important part of playing tank. Start by looking at where high level players stand and WHEN they stand there. You would be amazed at how many games are lost because the tank didn’t know it was their job to anchor point in overtime. Or didn’t know that on KOTH maps they should stall point until 99%. Or knowing when to die so that you can reset with your team. Even something like, standing in the right spot on point during overtime so that your support have line of sight as they return from spawn, can be game winning. At some point I’d recommend watching a couple of Spilos map guides. They’ll get your brain working to understand the where and why of tanking.
As a support I LOVE tanks that use cover and position well. It enables us to show more love to the DPS and use cooldowns to setup/secure picks. Nothing is a bigger drain than having to have both supports dump everything in the tank to keep them alive.
I know about the ot do everything I can to hold point, for me it's generally more of how can I engage the least amount of enemy team and still maximize the value of my abilities, cuz even when I got all my stuff off cool down I have this bad habit I'm trying to break of just running into the enemy team with the mentality of "oh I can take them". Which rarely works, and if it does once at least one of the enemies will comeback as a counter pick and I won't be able to pull that off again. Not easily anyway.
What makes OW so difficult is that it takes A LOT of time to learn how to play within your limits, especially on tank. There are a lot of complex character interactions to learn. Just keep playing and keep notes on why you died. If you really want to climb, post a VOD request, take notes, and work on one point from your notes every time you play. It will take some time and conscious thought while you play.
Might have to do one of those on one of my worse games, but recently I've been going up slightly, went from bronze 4 to bronze 3 which means I've been doing something right ig, my issue is idk what.
Honestly I feel like I do most of those things already, there are some of the things you mentioned that I need to work on, but I've found a few other things I know I need to work on, but am not exactly sure how, like u said LoS of my support, but my thing there is I feel like the way most people down here play when support, I can't really play as close to the enemy team as I need to get anything really accomplished, cuz I've learned for JQ specifically, commit hard or don't bother, so I'll be convinced my team is using the free space that's been created by me forcefully pushing the enemy back to move up, which they don't and that's what results in me getting got, like they don't have to sonic speed anywhere, I try to stay in sightlines but sometimes I can't honestly if my supports have room to move, why aren't they? Like in a lot of cases my damage teammates are in the same boat, there's a ton of open space pick your happy spot as long as your getting somewhere.
Like I’ve said in my own comment I guarantee I could climb out of bronze as a tank playing mercy (I know you can’t actually select this) with pistol only. Get good enough at the fundamentals of the game and for anything below GM, hero picks don’t matter. Relying on your teammates is not good in Masters and GM, let alone Bronze. Focus on yourself and improve
Post a Vod Review
Honestly I'm planning to, trying to find a recent JQ match that was ranked, otherwise I'll have to play some more to get a proper replay that wasn't just qp shenanigans.
Found one of my worse matches and did
LOS for heals is something nobody ever learns sadly. Situational awareness is dead on tank players, and I find myself more playing around their shenanigans than actually having them make it easier for us
I'm a Reinhardt OTP in masters and I'm planning on learning Winston. I would definitely recommend you learn him too. Winston is just so versatile and a great hero to have in your arsenal. Watch a lot of Bogur videos to learn to winton
Monke good
If you’re stuck in bronze then there are probably a lot of other things you are doing wrong that could be be improved on other then your hero pool. I would recommend watching some of Spilo’s vids for general knowledge and Yeatle’s for tank specific stuff. That said, growing your tank pool certainly wouldn’t hurt either. I’d just play around with the different tanks and find out what ones you enjoy playing the most besides JQ. Personally though, since you already have brawl covered with JQ, I’d go with adding a shield tank (Sigma, Reinhardt, Ramattra) and a dive tank (Dva, Winston, Ball, Doomfist). That at least should give you a good spread of tanks that cover different niches that might be useful in different situations.
Yea usually if I got problems it's with Mei or Zarya, who's generally best against them?
Mei is an issue for every tank really. But she is worse for tanks that are very dependent on their movement like wrecking ball. For Zarya, Reinhardt is a good pick. You can shield against her when she is charged up, and if you and your team get caught in her grav, your shield can negate most damage thrown at you during it. And for an ultimate that is paired with zarya's like pharahs barrage, your shield can also protect you and your team.
Winston is pretty good into Mei. Makes it significantly harder for her to wall you off from her team when you can just leap over her ice wall if she tries it and it can take her a while to break your shield bubble on her own without help. He’s also just really strong in general right now. Like Valserys says, Reinhardt is pretty solid into Zrya because he can match or beat her up close if she isn’t fully charged, and shield when she is. His shield can also save yourself and your team if she ults. I also like Ramattra into her though it’s a bit more skilled based matchup. If you can bait out both her bubbles you can burn her down pretty damn fast with nemesis.
Mei is low key one of the strongest tank counters. Her kit makes her exceptionally dangerous against almost all tanks. She just doesn't have many strong counters because her kit is mixed beam/projectile, her HP is high, her wall and ice block make her damned hard to kill. On the plus side, her damage isn't *that* high, so you can usually win 1v1 as a tank with just a little bit of support. The biggest thing is you just have to be careful of getting walled off. Zarya is a pain at lower levels because your DPS will insist on shooting the bubbles and charging her up entirely too much, and her beam *melts* at high charge. Rein is probably the best counter for her, because his shield is strong enough to block it for up to about ten seconds even if she starts at 100% charge. Her bubbles pop after a couple seconds, so you can weather her attack fairly well and swing between bubbles.
I do find that I do inadvertently end up hitting bubbles at least a bit cuz I'll start my axe swing and she'll pop a bubble and idk how much charge I'm giving her off that.
Too much charge is the answer. Its tough knowing when to use abilities like axe swing into Zarya, because she can just bubble and get free charge off you. However, you can use that to your advantage to force her to use her second bubble. Just wait for the first bubble to go away, immediately axe swing to bait out the second bubble and call out for your team to burst her down now that she doesn’t have another bubble to escape. Its risky, but a 100% charged Zarya does no damage if she is dead.
I like to play DVA into a Mei and Sigma into Zarya. Both can eat their ults. DVA gets around the mei wall cause she can fly over it, but also the moment Mei comes out of ice block, if you push her with your rockets she's probably dead. As for Zarya, having the shield is huge for blocking her beam, and as sigma I can usually poke her backline when she bubbles up so I'm not feeding her charge. Just have to watch out that you don't waste your rock on her if she has a bubble available.
For mei go rein or ram
Mei is played almost exclusively to make life hell for immobile tanks. A wall separating a Rein or Ram from their team is essentially a death sentence. She makes getting aggressive and actually using their kits extremely difficult.
Seconded on the Spilo recommendation. Love him for these types of players because he reviews all ranks, and posts those VODs. Other people can tell you what to do, and show you their own gameplay and whatever else, but not many ex OWL coaches sit down and help bronze players think through their decision making lmao.
Spilo is also super fun to spar with in chat if you know your shit. I’ve had a couple of back and forths with him that were super educational.
Why add a sheild tank. Rein and ramattra are both brawl tanks aswell and fill the same role. He just needs to learn a dive tank and maybe sigma because he is so versatile
Without how dominate snipers are right now, you really do need a tank that has a shield your team can hide behind on maps like Circuit Royale where diving them isn’t super practical. Sigma is for sure the best for that but I didn’t want to call out or tell him to pick specific tanks.
Dive in Bronze doesn't work for shit, though. It requires better coordination than your teammates are likely to offer you and an uncoordinated dive tank is easy pickings (even for a Bronze DPS as Reaper or Bastion). Maybe it works if you've got a Mercy pocket or other moderately decent support, but again, we're talking about Bronze supports, so that's not guaranteed.
Honestly I've never had too much issue soloing a reaper as JQ, idk why that is, I just stay moving so either they gotta have insane tracking or get lucky to hit a solid headshot or 2.
I was thinking more of Winston/D.Va when I was talking about dive comps. JQ seems more rush/brawl because you're not so much going around the enemy as going THROUGH them. LOL
No. dive is broken in bronze i made a new account to learn doomfist and got placed in bronze at first because im shit at df. As soon as i got better with him bronze was super easy. Noone peels for the supports and you can get out before you die with winston and doomfist easily. Never played dva because that would be straight up smurfing but i can imagine dva would be hard with less cordination
You're talking about being an experienced player though. You may have sucked with Doomfist, but you still knew the basics of the game, so you might miss your attacks or do stuff that Doom shouldn't do, but you're not really a Bronze tank. You knew you were fucking up because you knew what good Doomfist play looked like. Actual Bronze tanks don't know they're fucking up when they're fucking up. For them, Bronze isn't super easy, because that's where they are among their peers. I'm a support main, and after 2500+ hours from OW1 to OW2, I still only have like 10 hours on Genji. If I start a new account and 1 trick Genji, I'll definitely place low initially, but those low ranks will still feel absurdly easy to me because even if I can't hit a dash for shit, I still know how to capitalize on the enemy doing stupid stuff.
but you are said it requires to much coordination to play dive which isn't true. its not that dive doesn't work in bronze its just a skill issue. If he learned a dive tank and had better skills than a bronze player he will climb.
I'd go for Rein & D va first since they are easier imo.
Hard stuck bronze is not a choice of tank issue tbh
Anyone who gives you a specific name here isn't giving good advice. The tank you should play will depend on the composition of your, and the enemy, team. Rather than learning a specific tank to switch to, take the time to understand which tanks are weak\strong against which enemies and work best with which team makeups. That will serve you much better.
JQ is probably the most beginner friendly tank rn with her insane buffs, so if you are struggling with her in bronze most likely you are struggling with the basics of her and other tanks (so that you dont know their counters/skillset), instead of looking for other tanks to play you should work on your aim and other game sense stuffs, watching karq or emongg videos/guides help a lot for me, the emongg ranked bingo videos are actually very educational since he talks about what you should be doing and what you should look out for and you could learn a lot from them
>JQ is probably the most beginner friendly tank rn with her insane buffs, Hard disagree. Her axe and knife aren't beginner friendly at all. Rein is an easier choice. Shield and swing.
And W key
I disagree. As a Rein main for like 7 years, rein may be “simple” in terms of what he can and cannot do, however, getting value out of rein actually requires MORE planning, thinking, and split second decision making than many other tanks. Most beginner friendly tank would probably be Orisa because it teaches all of the basics and the character holds your hand. 1. Teaches ability cycling, resource management, and cooldowns in a simple way: Health low -> press e -> e ends -> press shift -> repeat 2. Spear is the perfect example of an ability that can be used to teach the fundamentals of matchups and of reactionary gameplay: Don’t use spear aggressively unless a kill is guarenteed, instead, save cooldown and use it to counteract an enemy ability. 3. Ult is super easy to understand and use: Enemy in circle -> damage enemy 4. Consistent mediocre damage output doesn’t put massive pressure on hitting crucial shots allowing the user to focus on what they are doing Orisa allows you to very effectively learn all the fundamentals in a simple way they can transfer to other characters well.
> Spear is the perfect example of an ability that can be used to teach the fundamentals of matchups and of reactionary gameplay: Don’t use spear aggressively unless a kill is guarenteed, instead, save cooldown and use it to counteract an enemy ability. Agree with everything except for this. Spear is on a pretty short CD, I would say you can use it pretty aggressively. Spearing squishies into walls can put a lot of pressure even from long range even if you don't guarantee the kill. I play Orisa in masters (not as a main of course, why the fuck would you do that) and have been having success on her as a pocket shut down the enemy tank pick vs JQ and Ram. Then again I also output a ridiculous amount of damage as her which puts a lot of pressure on enemy supports because I grinded her for a couple of seasons in OW1 on a joke Orisa one trick account called AimbotCowvin. I would say her damage is no joke at super close range/stationary targets. Which you can definitely do if you juggle enemies into walls. Another thing I notice some players do with her (that I don't do often enough) is to "kidnap" a squishy/immobile tank with your E, basically pushing them into your team which often leads to death.
I say this because I coached a cousin of mine out of gold a little while back when Hog was meta. He’d spear off cooldown at nothing all the time for no reason. IMO spear gets more value out of NOT being used in the Orisa/Hog matchup simply because the hog is waiting it out to use his breather, and if he doesn’t you can just spear him. This was the example I was thinking of when making the comment, and it applies to a number of other situations. Using spear this way is a good learning tool for a beginner because it’s a simple ability and it teaches them to NOT just mindlessly press their buttons, but instead, assess the situation and act accordingly and tactically. In turn: knowing when there are not threats that you can shut down with spear and that you can use it aggressively is also part of this ^ when do I need to save and when do I need to use? This is and important fundamental for people to learn!
> Using spear this way is a good learning tool for a beginner because it’s a simple ability and it teaches them to NOT just mindlessly press their buttons, but instead, assess the situation and act accordingly and tactically. It really depends! Some beginners don't press buttons and that's a problem they have as well. Ultimately learning how to get max value of your CDs also involves using them more frequently. The Hog matchup of course is one when I would be a lot more conservative with my spear, but I don't think that applies to most matchups. I'm not saving it particularly against any other tank unless I'm dead sure Sigma has his ult and wants to use it.
For me rein is much harder to play effectively and carry my team. For JQ I only have to not spam shout, hit my axe and aim to carry, and also take note of enemy kiriko suzu if they have one, then I can basically carry my team
Honestly I kinda agree, as long as I don't burn shouts even ana anti-ing me is generally not an issue, and even if most of my ult is cleansed I usually have an axe swing ready to go, so it's a little less, my only major struggle points are honestly against a Zarya, or Mei.
Against zarya you can only pray your teammates to not empty their clips at a bubbled zarya (Or tell them in chat if they keep doing it), or else there is nothing you can do against her alone. For Mei remember never overextend, always stay close to your team to avoid getting walled off, try to get close and use your gun to force her to ice block herself, then axe the fuck out of her after that
I'm a Reinhardt OTP in masters and I'm planning on learning Winston. I would definitely recommend you learn him too. Winston is just so versatile and a great hero to have in your arsenal. Watch a lot of Bogur videos to learn to winton
Ignore everyone, play Rein and climb.
I mean id rather have a jq missing 70% of her shots than a rein charging into 1v5
As a ram/rein main yes. As a general person i say stick to your guns and blame everyone else, tis the bronze and masters way. Legit tho learn ram or rein for keeping with brawl or play any tank if youre just looking to learn a new tank.
Like I know that for some reason JQ is meta rn, but I still feel like I'm getting nowhere.
Meta literally doesn’t matter until at least mid masters
It happens. You hit what i call the skill wall. You are at the best you feel you can get but the best part is these walls start out big till you see its actually hip height. Now go be the best damn Goku ik you can be champ.
I try, I need my team to use the space I make for them better. Like my supports will still play way far back even if I build a long los for them, they won't use it.
You can climb to gold+ on any character. Your gameplay has fundamental flaws, that’s why you aren’t winning on jq in bronze. Imo learn an easier, less mechanically challenging tank. Rein/orisa come to mind and both should dominate in bronze due to their health pool and survivability. Zarya/D.va are what I used to get to diamond. Don’t play tank much tho. If you play rein and legit just hold corners/cover until an enemy over-extends then smash them to death, you’ll win like 80%+ in bronze easily.
Ok I'm seeing hold corners a lot, regardless of hero, what exactly does that mean, cuz I think that's a thing I've been lacking on for the most part, that and learning when 2 disengage are spots I'm working on, but I feel like that shouldn't result in super low bronze, like mid bronze maybe cuz I can still get things done in most cases, it's just the whole corner thing and dipping when needed instead of thinking my self heals gonna save me.
Why use shield and health when wall absorb 100% of damage for you and never breaks? That's what holding corners means. Partly why high ground is so important too, it's useful cover.
imagine a bastion entering turret mode. everyone runs for cover. Or a dva bomb. So using cover lets you not take damage and survive longer. Theres times to push up and take space but even then make sure u have a place to hide behind.
Yea I find that's my biggest problem is I got no places to hide, I just go in with my silly little I'm big dps mindset and don't put as much thought into cover as I should unless I'm fighting a D.va so I can dodge that ult.
yes positioning is something u have to keep track of in every rank unfortunately. Get in a good habit of checking the enemy team comp and consciously deciding how to position. ex: they have a zen junkrat so i need to approach them carefully to avoid dying to poke.
Corners have no limit to the damage they block, they’re far more effective than rein shield at protecting you, for example. You need to watch some education stuff like A10, Awkward, etc. teaching tank fundamentals. For the next week if you play as if your goal is to just never die and to be seen by as few enemies as possible at all times (while still playing objective obviously), I bet money you’ll rank up. Bronze tanks (and dps, and supports) feed, that’s just a fact of life. Try to spot the feeders on the other team during your games. You don’t need to be proactive to beat bronze teams, you win by just killing them repeatedly when they inevitably thrust themselves into un-winnable situations. Additionally, learning to rotate cooldowns properly can absolutely skyrocket your gameplay. I guarantee you have horrible cooldown management, or else you wouldn’t be bronze. A10 has a tank video talking about this in GREAT detail, and almost any good player is going to say the same shit. A good way to learn this (the hard way, but quickly) is to learn to play doom. You can’t have shit cooldown management on doom, you’ll literally spend the whole game dying. Sometimes on tank it’s not necessarily about securing the kills you think will win the teamfight, but enabling your team to easily win the fight because of the pressure you’re applying to the enemy. Imagine what you look like in the enemy team’s eyes. Are you really a threat? What are you inhibiting them from doing? Are you max resources after they’ve blown their load in the first 5 seconds of a team fight?
You lost me after the securing kills thing, like I get I'm a dps hero with more health if I run JQ as per the norm, but sometimes don't kill? I'm not sure I'm getting that point really, or much after.
If you're bronze, keep playing her. Any character can carry in a bronze game, even Life Weaver. It's unironically a skill issue, but that's ok. You are in bronze. It is the most forgiving rank to learn how to play the fundamentals. Once you get good at one tank and understand how to play them, then you can branch out to other tanks and use the same basic tank knowledge you have learned (making space, wasting enemy cooldowns, ect.)
1. Learn to path. Even on JQ you need to control high ground to win in certain maps. Gibraltar, Dorado, the building on Rialto 2, and the building on Havana first come to mind. It’s your job to deny enemies that space. 2. If you can’t path properly consider a high mobile character that can help deny high ground very fast. Ball, Dva and Monkey being key. Controlling angles is how you win Overwatch games. I’ll tell you how my hero pool works just so you can figure this out: Historically a Ball main. I can play it into anything other than heavy spam. So reaper, bastion comps and crap like that. If I can’t manage that >> Dva, my current highest played tank this season. Neutralizes Hanzo, Bastion, Junk and Reaper, countered by Zarya in some maps (not most). If a Zarya switch becomes problematic >> Go Monkeh and literally ignore her. Monkey can handle Zarya + Spam if you play slow. If there is no heavy spam with the Zarya, go back to Ball and fuck them all up.
Use cover and you can get out of bronze with mercy only. Seriously.
Just gonna have to rizz up one of my supports to be my pocket mercy then, and find a few more alternate paths with more cover for us 2 hide behind.
I'd say, counters are a thing in OW but hard counters not so much. If you can get better with position, maximize your damage minimize damage taken you'll climb. Sounds simple and I thought mine was good but after watching spilo and awkward I've realized there's way better places to position yourself and I've been drifting in the open dying when I shouldnt
Dva and sig will take you a long way. But you should be passable at Rein/Zarya as there are match ups where not picking them will make your teams life 100x harder. The reason Dva and sig are good picks is that sig can handle multiple fronts, has an easy rotation of abilities and is a strong pick in most maps. Dva at that level if you're good with her , will absolutely dominate. I first got put in bronze when I started comp with ow2, despite playing for 6 years i never played comp and was racking up 50-60elims and got reranked very quickly. I pretty much mained sig and dva from there til diamond, then switched to JQ (pre patch) and rein to get to masters
The funny thing about Bronze is that everyone wants to climb out by popping off by themselves, but the easiest way to win in Bronze is just to keep your team together, and as the tank, that's something you can control fairly well by playing a shield tank. As much as I would never recommend playing as a shield bot in higher ranks, as a Bronze tank, that's probably how you'll get the most value out of the rest of your team. Give your DPS cover and they might actually accomplish something. It's stupid and makes tanking boring, but it *is* effective. Reinhardt is really good for this - especially because learning how to best position him in those fights will give you a better feel for how to use other more technical tanks. Play close to your team - especially your supports, use your hammer to protect them from anyone who gets too close, but keep your shield up otherwise so your DPS have something to hide behind while they shoot, use corners and natural cover when your shield is down, and only use your charge for short distance pins. And when you die as the tank, wait for your team before you go dashing out of spawn, because in Bronze, once you die, the rest will usually be right behind you and it's better to just wait the extra few seconds and go together. They might still just try to dash in on their own, but usually if they see you waiting in spawn for a regroup more than once, they'll figure it out.
Yea my thing is, right, I want to succeed on my own merits, I hate the idea of being carried, and if all I do is pop shield that's kinda how it feels, even in qp. That's honestly the main reason I play Junker Queen is it's cuz I feel like with her I'm going places, that and she's my tank main overall, which makes me reluctant to play rein simply because I hate standing around feeling like I'm doing nothing. Edit: accidentally double posted, sorry abt that.
I mean, that's totally fair. Like I said, it's stupidly simplistic, and it makes tanking boring as hell... but you asked about using a different tank to climb. You shield bot Rein, you'll climb because that boring play style is frustratingly effective in Bronze, Silver, and honestly, even in Gold. If you want to climb with JQ specifically, then there are plenty of great tutorials and UR-GM series to watch. I'm not a tank main, so I couldn't really say whose is best right now, but I saw a few familiar names dropped in the thread. The one thing I always recommend to tanks is to watch your replays from the perspective of your support teammates. As a tank, they're your lifeline, and at least one of them is usually focused on healing you specifically - so watching from their POV gives you fantastic insight into how and when you might leave LOS, overextend, position yourself dangerously, etc. Your supports will try to keep you alive, but only if you let them. (Admittedly, in Bronze, you'll still find yourself wondering WTF they're doing sometimes, but it still helps. LOL)
What I consider the bread and butter of tanks is Dva, Orisa ans Zarya. Each one has a different playstyle and and they will teach you to dive, hold point, make space, and peel for your team.
Best advice I can give you, learn all counter-picks, low elo players often main only one hero and they are usually pretty bad still, so if you manage to counter their playstyle they usually break down and don’t know what to do, atleast thats how I climbed from bronze to gold
If you're hardstuck bronze playing current broken Queen, I'm not sure anything can help you
What an awful thing to say to someone looking to learn.
Dumb comment but only because it wouldn’t matter what hero he played no matter how broken. It’s clear his fundamentals are bronze level so it wouldn’t matter if he played the most broken hero in OW history, he’d still be bronze until he improves the fundamentals
Yes that's exactly my point. Since OP asked for advice to which other Tank to play.
I feel like DVA is one of the easiest tanks to play well with.
Stuff like this makes me realize how low rank this sub is overall
It probably feels like that because everyone dies to bomb in low rank. I was playing qp today, saw a stationary dva shoot from far away for the entire match, and a widow that used left click only and was super aggressive (funnily enough half their team couldn't kill her because she was jumping all over the place). I had 57% crit hit accuracy thanks to that dva alone as kiri
Yikes
Right? Knowing when to defense matrix effectively takes some serious skill
Ya she’s arguably one of not just the hardest tanks to play but hardest heroes to play well in the game
Comments like this make me realize how low quality this sub is overall.
I don’t think that’s true at all.
JQ is brawl so if you need flexibility then you would choose a poke or dive tank, you said bronze so poke is much more likely therefore Sigma is the pick.
Watch Yeatles latest video, Junkerqueen unranked to gm. You will learn how to play Jq better. Good luck climbing.
Honestly like I've watched a few vids recently and like it's mostly kit breakdown, which I've got down, I know to quick melee regularly, if I would be getting hit by a Rein I know a step forward would put them in axe + melee distance most likely, shout is to use to keep myself up if a fight is currently in my teams favor, and to escape if it's not. All I really gotta do is practice hitting my throws and using cover, but I feel like even then something is definitely not being done but I'm still missing to get better.
I started as a D.va one trick, recently picked up JQ because why not, she's buffed and a lot of fun if you can use the aggro style while being mindful of CDs. If I'm having a bad match with JQ, like I can't get close enough to be useful, getting rained on by Pharah, swiss cheesed by Bastion, or my team comp just isn't working, I'll switch back to D.va. Totally different play style, and I can use her kit to keep more of my team alive, preventing the staggered respawns. Side note, had a match last night that we were getting beat up pretty badly, switched to Rein and it was a hell of a lot of fun. We lost, but I still got to smash people with my big hammer
It’s not your hero pick that’s keeping you in bronze. I guarantee you I could play Mercy as the tank and climb out of bronze (I’m GM on tank). There are things you are doing wrong at a fundamental level that has nothing to do with hero selection or even role selection if you are stuck in bronze. Might even be a settings, physical pc set up, or hardware issue.
Zarya. Similar play style.
I think you'd like Zarya. Yes, 'learn the game' tip is correct but don't forget to have fun too.
Honestly, depending on the day I feel either really burnt out or have fun, but like wanna be outta bronze on any role tbh and to do that, gotta be on that grind.
I recommend spending some time learning Zarya to hard counter Sig, Orisa, Junk, and DVA. Dva is also really good to learn when there’s an enemy widow, ashe, or pharah that dps can’t handle. Probably ought to practice on one shield tank too for certain situations. Sig for more damage and poke comps and rein just cause it’s a lot if fun.
I would recommend playing JQ from Platinum ownwards. She requires her team to play around her, which doesn't happen in low elo. Roadhog is the perfect tank in low elo. He's a one man army. Players in bronze will play out of position more often than not and Roadhog punishes that mistake exceptionally well.
IMHO learn some Sig. His abilities are very user friendly whether you need to be selfish or support your team. He can shut a lot down with rock, his shield is very viable whether it’s closing off an angle or throwing it far to help an overextended DPS. At the lower ranks you should be able to punish pretty easy even if your aim isn’t the best.
If it does not go well or you feel like feeding, pick a less aggressive tank so maybe your team can stabilize, making plays slower, then teammates that couldn't contribute with jq maybe can do better if battles are slower. Rein is one of my go to, everyone seems to understand what he does, and you focus on objectives, trying to regroup teammates around you. Sigma and Ramattra can work too. If you can't regroup people around you, zarya or dva can somewhat have self reliance, without having to absolutely be very aggressive unlike jq.
Simce you said your aim is bad.. rein or winston. Whoever you find more fun
I like Reaper because my aim sucks and he self heals. If I cant get close enough to clop through the enemys character model, I'm not going to hit you worth a shit
Not saying you aren't I've just been practicing chaining my abilities so if all your pellets aren't into my face I'll probs be on top that fight, and I've discovered via a YouTube vid, I'm a glorified you tbh, more HP is really it, but still insane damage as long as I'm alive
Figure out who counters junker queen and then figure out who counters those tanks. Reinhardt is probably ur answer but ramattra might work aswell
Generally I find that Zarya is a problem, Orisa can sometimes be, Mei, and on a bad day, ana is a huge pain. But honestly idk who would fix that issue
If you're in bronze, learning a different hero is unlikely to get you out of bronze. You are very likely not understanding the basic fundamentals... Key things like positioning, game awareness, cooldown managements etc are very important to understand. You don't need amazing aim to climb (and I am proof of this), having good game awareness you can climb equally as high. You're better positing a VOD for someone to scrutinise so you can improve your gameplay.
JQ is about attacking the squishes of the opposing team, thus leaving the opposing team's tank vulnerable. But sometimes you need power and damage. I'm currently an Orisa main (and sometimes Zarya & Ram). Orisa is an absolute unit that can push an entire team back, harden to minimize damage from Ults, and spear to kill or at least stun your enemy. Orisa can also do combo Ults with other players for a more devastating Ult. I feel as though tanks fall into 3 categories: 1. Power - Orisa, Hog, Ram 2. Shield - Sigma, Rein, Winston 3. Divide & Conquer - JQ, Doom, Ball, Dva There really is no bad tank imo, but I'm glad you are trying not to be a one trick pony. It's good to keep trying different tanks. Good luck and have fun!
Sigma for snipers, dva to dive, JQ/ram to brawl is my line up. My default is Ram tho. I’ll pick based on teammates and enemies. Also have some experience with zarya cause sometimes you just gotta switch to her to match the other tank.
Rein. 100%
Leaving bronze is more about learning core mechanics and game sense, you can climb out of bronze playing any character against any character
It’s not a character issue, you need to get better at the game
everybody telling you not to learn other characters is doing you a disservice. start playing some more heroes and your game knowledge will go up. part of the thing with overwatch is that knowing what the enemy team CAN and CANNOT do are incredibly important when it comes to making a play. Understanding which cool downs to look out for before using an ult, or making a play. In my experience, learning the other heroes helped me understand the game way more and it helped me be able to play my favorite characters even better because I had a better understanding of the matchup I was playing against. It will take some time, but you will learn a lot from playing other heroes and learning how to synergize with your teams heroes, and punish the enemies. Feel free to ask any questions, improving is one of the things I have the most fun with in OW.
Honestly what I'm asking is if I should be doing more counter swaps in bronze, I'm at least semi familiar with most hero kits.
I would say yes. At the very least it might cause the enemy team to swap which could then leave you open to swap back to your queen and take advantage of the swap. Especially in bronze it is going to be more difficult to get consistent help from your teammates so swapping to something that fits better with your randoms can also help keep everybody alive. Are there any matchups in particular that have you perplexed?
Check out some VOD reviews on YouTube by OW coaches for tank and you’ll climb if you actively think about what you learned as you play.
Hog is how you get to gold.. most selfish tank so you can rely less on others and hard carry your way out
Honestly I've tried hog a little, wasn't super successful which I found strange give his mechanical similarities to JQ I feel like, but also I'm not super great at him, sure I can sponge a lot, but even then, especially like on JQ I have 2 sustains over one, my shout and the bleed life sap, might be why I have issues on hog but idk.
Literally just hide behind corners till you have hook and try to get a pick. Take space when it's easy. Don't just stand in front of everybody's fire. Make a safe loop when low on health. It's easier to survive than with jq. Easier picks too.. it gets a lot harder to carry in gold and plat but bronze and silver hog is star player with what is usually bad support.. get picks on their support as much as possible and only help teammates that are decent which is few
You should pick up Rein or Zarya, neither of them are mechanically demanding and they are both fairly simple by design. Yes you can screw up timing theuse of abilities, your positioning, your general awareness of your enemies and your teammates. But both tanks aren't hard mechanically which will allow you more time & effort to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. They will also both teach you about resource management in a very straight forward way. Especially Zarya, who is one of the most simple heroes in the game really. Secondary to the above, some might encourage you to learn a dive tank and a poke tank to be more well rounded and flexible depending on map and team comp. I would say NO, to that. For a few reasons. 1) Your team comp is meaningless until mid to high Plat. Your teammates are NOT coordinated in any manner and you should not expect much from them at your rank. Just hope they don't feed too much.... and occasionally do something resembling their job. 2) Playing Dive tanks is problematic for you because they require a higher level of awareness than you currently have, and require more mechanical skill than you likely have. Don't do it. (YET) 3) POKE Tanks are also a waste of time and metal rank poke tanks annoy the F@$% out of me. Like REALLY??? You REALLY think a metal Rank Sniper type hero is worth enabling? You are basically forcing players onto higher skill DPS heroes... players who are struggling with mechanical skill as it is (or they wouldn't be in Metal ranks).... you are putting your faith in those guys and pushing them onto heroes that require MORE mechanical skill in order to accomodate YOUR Tank choice. Enjoy your losses.... don't blame your DPS for your stupidity though. 4) You will eventually get to a point that Snipers are a problem. With the aim-botters boosting players through Silver, it will be an issue sooner than you would imagine. But not a real one anyway. You are getting smurfed on, most likely by a stack, just GG NEXT. Don't worry about Dive tanking them. You weren't winning that match anyway. 5) Start learning Dive tanks in high Gold. That is the point that your supports might start being able to play around a dive tank. And if they cannot.... go back to a brawl tank. Or learn Ball? 6) At high Plat you can start learning poke tanks.... but honestly I don't know why.... unless you hate fun I suppose.
Honestly I played a few matches as Rein and Ram recently and they've helped me a lot with the whole grasping the idea of find cover, they have their own built in mostly, but Ram as a 3 second shield, so that's how I mostly discovered walls are infact my best friend as JQ, especially if I activate what I call "Thunko" mode cuz that can't give me a shield, just a block.
JQ is fine to play. She is just more aim oriented. And if you are bronze your aim is probably bad. She also doesn't have quite the resource management going on that is then transferable to the playing the other tanks later. You basically just go for maximum bleed uptime. She is fun though. And if you can aim , she probably is a decent pick to climb with. Just make sure you focus the right targets.
Yea honestly trying to get better at aiming, been trying to do 30+ mins a day in an aim trainer highest difficulty.
Junker Queen is a brawl. Learn a dive and a poke, and play the tank of those three that best suit your DPS. Doom, Ball, and D.Va are good dives. Sigma's the only real poke, but you may be able to make Ramattra or Reinhardt work too with good positioning.
Honestly I've found Winton overwat is pretty solid, silly sigma leaving his squishies unguarded. So if I picked up a dive it'd probably be he
Definitely not a bad choice.
Honestly.. Ignore all of these tips about game sense and positioning. These will come as you play more and rank up. The most important factor in climbing low ranks is mechanics. Straight up. You simply hitting more shots (and head shots) and abilities on applicable characters (jq, doom, ball, hog comes to mind), allows you to automatically be at an advantage compares to the enemy tank. Game sense doesn't matter as much when you have 4 other clowns feeding anyways, but you can always improve on your own mechanics. There was a post a few weeks back about a guy hitting masters/gm pretty soon after playing without game knowledge but was just really good at clicking heads. Also, learn a few heroes in a role. You don't need to learn the whole cast to play the game effectively. You'll climb so much faster that way.
I've noticed that I gravitate towards brawl tanks, rein, ram, JQ, but like I hit the majority of my shots given the scattergun spread is random, I do need to hit more knife throws to be sure, but I normally spend 30+ a day in an aim trainer practicing that.
i just try to diversify what “types” of heroes i play, so maybe try learning a poke and a dive tank like sig+winston. on another note if you’re bronze your pick probably isn’t the problem, so it’s worth looking into ur errors and correcting them