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Search Overwatch (OW) heroes to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new hero, or fine tune your favorite OW hero’s build and strategy.

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Updated November 3, 2016

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Last updated on May 28, 2016 at 23:25 by Vlad

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3. Team Composition and Hero Switching
4.2. Attacking in Waves/Running in Together

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The purpose of this guide is to introduce new Overwatch players to several
key concepts, with the aim of helping them have a better gaming experience and
hopefully perform better. Those who have played (or closely followed)
Overwatch from its Beta stages will probably have little to learn, while none
of this will be new for seasoned players.
Having the game run smoothly on your computer is essential for any shooter,
much more so than for other games, since lightning-fast reflexes and pinpoint
accuracy are very important. Having sudden FPS ( frames per second )
drops while you are trying to shoot at other heroes will negatively impact your
performance, not to mention that it will frustrate you.
Before you even begin playing Overwatch, you should first customise the
game's settings. The goal is to reduce the graphics settings to a degree
where the game will run smoothly, even if this means the graphics quality will
be diminished. Enhancing the beauty of the effects might be satisfying to the
eye, but if it affects performance, it is not worth doing.
In the Options menu, the "Graphics Quality" section allows you to choose
from a few preset configurations, and initially this will do for those who
do not wish to tweak things too much. If you are more technically
knowledgeable, of course, you can customise the Advanced settings (located
directly below in the menu) to find the perfect mixture.
Aside from getting constant, high FPS, there are other settings you
should look to customise. The first and most important goal is for you to
feel perfectly comfortable within the game, when you are controlling heroes.
This has to do mostly with appropriate mouse sensitivity and comfortable
keybindings.
The process for finding the right mouse sensitivity is all about trial and
error, and you should not hesitate to repeatedly tweak your sensitivity until
you reach a comfortable level. You are looking for a sensitivity level that is
high enough to allow you to quickly look around (in a 360 degree angle) to be
able to deal with enemies who appear behind you or who move around you, but
still low enough to allow you to aim precisely. Moreover, the exact sensitivity
you choose will have to do with the size of your mousepad.
Regarding sensitivity, it is also worth noting that, depending on what
heroes you prefer playing, different sensitivity levels might be appropriate.
For example, if you play a lot of Tracer , you will want to have a
higher than usual sensitivity, considering how mobile she is and how often
she has to do sudden 180 degree turns.
Mouse sensitivity and other control options.
The default Overwatch keybindings are acceptable, but depending on your
preferences (length of your fingers, type of keyboard, previous gaming habits)
you may want to look into customising them to suit you better. Your goal is
simple: be able to use all of your hero's abilities quickly and easily, without
wasting any time, since every second will of delay can cost you greatly.
The Options menu offers a great variety of other settings that it is a good
idea to look over and possibly change.
The most important things to look at are Field of View (located in the Video options,explained below), as well as turning on the Kill Feed and tweaking your
reticle (crosshair).
While the last two are evident, Field of View requires more explanation.
In simple terms, Field of View determines how much peripheral vision you
have. The lower the number of the setting, the less you will see at the sides
of your screen, with the advantage (if it can be called that) that the center
of the screen will be larger. A higher Field of View number grants you
more peripheral vision, but the center of the screen (including whatever it is
you are aiming at) will be smaller, therefore more difficult to see.
In general, we recommend setting your Field of View to the maximum
possible value (103) , since seeing as much of your surroundings as possible
is very useful in Overwatch. That said, given the fact that some people can get
nauseous when playing with certain Field of View settings (though this
typically happens at low rather than high values), you can tweak it to make it
more comfortable for you. Always try to get it as high as you are comfortable
with, though.
An integral part of teamplay in Overwatch has to do with having a viable
team composition throughout the game, and also with making sure that
individual hero choices are adapted to the in-game situation.
There are 4 roles that heroes can have, according to the in-game
classification.
There is no golden rule for how many heroes of each role you should have,
but there are some good guidelines.
Also, as a very general rule, defense heroes are not suited for Attacking
(though there are exceptions, and high skill levels can compensate for this);
offense heroes are always a good choice, though.
The higher the level of coordination between teammates (especially
in case of actual teams), and the higher the skill discrepancies between the
opposing teams, the more creative the team compositions can be. The guidelines
above are meant for teams that are evenly matched and have only reasonable
amounts of coordination and communication.
As stated repeatedly by Blizzard, Overwatch is designed with the idea of
dynamically switching between heroes in mind. The various advantages and
disadvantages of heroes, as well as the fact that some heroes are very good
counters to others all mean that switching heroes fluently is crucial to
maximising your (and your team's) chances of success.
Using the keybind (default H ), you can switch
at any time before the game has started, while you are dead, or when you are
in your team's spawn room.
As you play the game and read our hero guides, you will develop a good
understanding of which heroes are suited to which situations, and also which
heroes are good at countering others. The point we wish to make in this guide
is that you are very encouraged to switch heroes whenever you feel that
your current choice is not optimal or no longer suited to the game.
At the start of the game, it is advised that your team heads out of the
spawn with a viable team composition (as outlined above), but this is not all
there is to it. Once you see what heroes the enemies have chosen, and once
you start moving along the map and the environment changes, you should always
consider switching your hero.
For example, if the enemy team has a strong hero combination that is proving
devastating, someone on your team should switch immediately to a hero that
can counter the enemies. Likewise, if your hero is being countered or you feel
the other team are locking down certain areas of the game that make it very
difficult for you to play, you should quickly switch hero to something that
will do better.
Keep in mind also that some heroes are very good on some segments of certain
maps, but then they lose their value as the action moves to another area of
the map, at which point it is a good idea to switch to a different hero.
Now that we have covered some of the basics about getting into Overwatch,
there are a few actual in-game strategies that we feel it is important to
convey the right idea about. These are things that are not always
immediately obvious, especially to new players.
Each of the 12 Overwatch maps revolves around an objective (capturing a
Point, pushing a Payload, or a combination of the two). It is extremely
important that all members of a team focus on the objective at all
times .
Indeed, for newer players, a very common situation is to get carried away
skirmishing with enemies in areas of the map that are irrelevant, while
leaving the rest of your teammates to fend for themselves at the actual
objective. This is particularly bad when you are not keeping an equal number of
enemies occupied (for example, you are going around remote areas of the map
looking to kill stragglers, while the rest of your team is outnumbered on the
objective).
Moreover, when fighting for an objective, you should always make it a point
to actually contest it (by being on the Point/close enough to the Payload),
especially during critical moments (when you need to prevent the other team
from capturing it, when you need to trigger or prolong Overtime. Many times,
players will simply fight or stand next to the objective, when moving only a
few steps close would make a big difference.
One of the most common mistakes that new players make in public Overwatch
matches is to run back to the action/objective as soon as they respawn.
The instinct is understandable — players want to make themselves useful
to the team as quickly as possible. However, this can lead to devastating
consequences when the result is that a team's players trickle into the fight
one at a time, only to each get killed on their own.
So, if when you respawn the rest of your team is dead or no longer
engaging the enemy at the objective, do not run into the enemy team .
Instead, wait (either at the spawn point or at some other suitable, safe
location) for the rest of your team to respawn, and attack the enemies when
you are all (or almost all) together.
Naturally, if your team is still holding out at the objective (even if
outnumbered) when you respawn, you should hurry back to help them as quickly
as possible.
The majority of time in Overwatch is spent engaged in fights against
enemies, and there are a number of things that players (new ones, especially)
should keep in mind.
The importance of surviving cannot be overstated. The penalty for dying in
Overwatch is substantial, since you deprive your team of your presence for
an extended period of time, leaving them outnumbered and giving the enemies a
good chance to capture the objective.
As such, you should always do everything in your power to avoid dying.
Whenever you are engaged in a fight that seems lost, or when your ambush
or backstab was discovered, you should try to make your escape so that you can
return and contribute to your team in another way. Many heroes have abilities
that allow them to get away, and even those who do not should try to simply
run away/to the security of their team.
Health packs also play an important role in your survival, so becoming
familiar with their locations on the map is very useful. Not only does this
allow you to quickly heal yourself up when you have escaped your enemies, but it
can even be useful for healing up during combat, which can make a huge
difference.
In any case, you will have to learn to really value your life, because even
if you have to run away, run around after health packs, and find another way
into the fight, you will have lost less time than dying would have cost
you.
Sound is very important in Overwatch, serving much more than just to
immerse you into the game and give heroes some more character.
First of all, you can hear the footsteps of heroes near you. While the
effect is nowhere near as precise as in other shooter games (such as
Counter-Strike), it is still sufficient for you to be able to tell when there
is a hero closing in on your location, around the corner, and so on. It is
difficult to keep track of this at all times, given how many different sound
effects there are in the game, but you should still make an effort.
For example, if you are in a rather isolated area of the map (for example,
you are playing Bastion or Widowmaker and you are away from
the action) and you hear footsteps close-by, you should quickly look to see
if there are any allies near you. If not, then you should prepare to be
backstabbed.
Another use for sound is related to the warnings that go out when heroes
use their ultimate abilities. Every ultimate in the game has a loud sound
warning that the enemy team can hear when the ultimate is used. In some
cases, the warning comes too late, or has little relevance (such as for
Zenyatta or Winston ), but in most cases, players who hear the
warning have a chance to avoid the ultimate. Here are some of the most
important ones to look out for.
Aside from these, there are many others that you should master, but provided
that you play for long enough and pay attention, this will not be a
problem.
Reloading your weapon happens automatically when you run out of ammo,
and you can also do it yourself as long as you are not at full ammo using
R . The process is standard in all shooter games,
but there are a few subtleties to keep in mind.
For starters, simply because you can reload your weapon (some ammo
is missing) does not mean that you have to do so. If you are engaged in combat,
reloading your weapon should only be done if absolutely necessary (you are out
of ammo), and even then it is sometimes better to do something else (like use
a melee attack, as we will see below). Even out of combat, you should try to
consider the situation before you reload. For example, if you know there is a
low-health enemy nearby and you have half of your ammo capacity, you are
probably better off not reloading so that you can shoot them immediately when
they appear, as opposed to being stuck reloading your weapon.
Conversely, there are times when reloading is not only safe, but the only
thing you can do. For example, if you are forced to take cover from an enemy
ultimate ( Deadeye , Self-Destruct , Tactical Visor ),
that is a great opportunity to reload your weapon.
Every hero in Overwatch (except Reinhardt ) can perform a
melee attack that deals 25 damage. The default keybind is this action is
V . It deals damage to a single target, within a short
range in front of your hero, but the aiming process is quite lenient (targets
located basically anywhere in front of you can be hit).
You should use your melee attack often, especially when you are fighting
targets that are very low on health, since its damage is almost guaranteed.
It is also a good way to deal additional damage to a target quickly when you
have run out of ammo, without having to wait for the 1-2 second reload
time.
Keep in mind, however, the using your melee attack will reset and prevents
the process of reloading your weapon, so depending on the situation (enemy
has a lot of health, killing them very quickly is not a priority), it may be
better to reload your weapon instead.
Zarya can protect herself with a 2-second shield called
Particle Barrier , and she can protect an ally with a similar shield
(which absorbs more damage) called Projected Barrier . These shields
can absorb a large amount of damage before they are destroyed (unless they
expire first), and any damage that they absorb only serves to boost
Zarya's damage potential (thanks to her Energy passive).
As such, it is never a good idea to damage a target that is shielded .
This is because, given the low duration of the shield and the large amount of
damage it can absorb (200 and 400, respectively, for the two shields),
you are unlikely to be able to destroy the shield and deal any meaningful
damage before it expires. Moreover, any damage you deal boosts Zarya's damage
(to potentially extremely dangerous levels), and also charges up her
ultimate.
Below, you can see the graphical effect of Zarya's shields (as seen from
an enemy point of view).

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