Bronze Support wanting some general tips

[ashen mantle]

VP981Q I'm WVDK in game playing Mercy for about 3 minutes before switching over to Zen. I would like some Zen pointers for sure because I'm not great at him, but I'd like some pointers on Mercy as well as it feels like I have to switch to Zen sometimes to make matches work (not just this one*) despite my horrendous accuracy if only to discord orb enemies. This is becoming somewhat of a pattern and while I make a lot of mistakes I'm not completely sure why my Mercy does worse than my Zen, despite me being on average better on Mercy.

(*: Like in this game 7XFY49 where I switch to Zen because I'm not effectively utilizing Mercy and get stomped on because of my horrendous accuracy)

[obsidian tendon]

before i review this i do wanna say that while this WAS a very very close win, at the end of the it was still a win so there's inherently less to learn from it

because who cares what you do during a game as long as you win it honestly

2nd review code i'm not gonna bother with because you guys got stomped in 6 minutes and there's nothing to review from that, i wouldn't even worry about it

0:46 big rule as mercy is dont pocket widow man

damage boost does not help widow

1. she should be hitting headshots anyways

2. if she's not hitting headshots then a damage boost doesn't help her secure kills any better unless it's bodyshotting a tracer and that's literally it

3. damage boost a big fat neon blue thing that reveals widow's position and honestly could get her focused

good safe rez on her a few seconds later though i like that

1:04 why are you standing still here

outside of cover

this is a not safe position

look to your right and you'll notice a zen and soldier running it down mid who could have taken you out then and there

if you widow realizes it's not safe for her there then it's probably not safe for you either and you need to leave

1:13 soldier was savable here if you had reacted faster

as mercy you have to be aware of the enemy at all times

you should have seen the enemy soldier, taken note of who he was pointing at, and put your heal on your own soldier before he got blown up

and i'm going to assume the ga into enemy soldier was a mistake so i do want you to remember that if you ever mess up a ga, mercy can slingshot backwards now

just hold back and spacebar and she'll fly back and not forward

i don't want to dive too deep into specifics so here's my thoughts on your mercy

i think in general you aren't thinking fast enough here

you widow's second death was entirely avoidable but you focused so much on healing your dva that you didn't even notice

(tbh you could have just valked there and healed both of them if you had noticed you had valk)

and when you go for the rez you don't notice that you're totally exposed to the enemy team

you're very lucky they decided to ignore you for dva instead

2:19 is another example of you not having a clear thought process, you don't even have rez so what was the gameplan for standing in front of the enemy team?

get better at recognizing how safe and unsafe you are in any given moment

overwatch 2 is SO so much more lethal for mercy, if you are not actively noticing which enemies have a lethal line of sight on you then you will die

i know i said i wouldn't dive too deep into specifics but man... 2:48 your ana hits a life saving sleep and you take two seconds of pause before deciding to wake up the soldier for no apparent reason and allowing him to escape

if i was your ana i would be incredibly pissed

5:14 this was a great reaction ult with trans but why'd you let cassidy die?

and also now that you don't have trans you should know that you need to play much safer bc of enemy ults you are no longer able to counter right

instead you kind of just sit in mid in front of a roadhog and soldier instead of backing up to somewhere with cover where you could get the same amount of value from a much safer position

6:20 good volley spam kill i like that

one of zen's jobs is to lock down angles with volley

do this type of thing more on zen

6:54 another example of you not having the awareness that's needed in that moment, there's a hog 10 feet away from you and you stand still?

i'm gonna try and stop myself here because i know i can type for 300 million years if there isn't anyone here to stop me 😭

soo what i want you to get from this

this is going to be hard mental work

but what i want you to do

is like, every 5 seconds

ask yourself "can i die right now?"

your biggest issue is your lack of awareness of what the enemy can do to you

you need to start ACTIVELY observing what is happening right in front of you

learn how to learn when you're in danger and learn how to respond, usually by backing away safely

supports can't afford to die in ow2 it's just too much time wasted

when you stand in midlane vs a hog and soldier directly in front of you that tells me you aren't giving any thought to how safely you're playing

once you learn how to get the same amount of value but die less, that will mean you're getting more consistent value just from being alive

[ashen mantle]

First of all, thank you for reviewing my VOD. This is great input so thank you.

And yes 😅 I have been noticing my general lack of awareness, especially now in OW2 which feels more fast paced than OW1 was. Looking back at my past games I'm noticing that I'm positioning reactionary if at all instead of preventively, so I'm going to put on the mental work for sure

[ashen mantle]

And sorry for being stubborn at this point because your arguments against doing it still stand. But couldn't damage boosting Widow be potentially valuable if she makes use of it correctly? Because, yes she has to headshot regardless, but damage boosting her means that she doesn't have to charge her shot for as long.

That being said though, unless the widow's doing well I'll refrain from damage boosting her at all since it's not relevant in the rank I'm in anyway.

[ashen mantle]

Also good thing to know, I've been doing these types of things, because I'm not mechanically strong. I wasn't sure if what I was doing was valuable at all

[deft flower]

I will watch your vod n see on this

It usually differ case by case but to a certain degree it make sense

1. Damage boosting a target can help increase the target to get their ults faster. Consider 76 or widow is your choice, you can choose do u wan to assist 76 more or widow more than more?
   Widow has 1 shot potential even without damage boost,
   76 has healing capability

Your option is rather huge, stay with widow to let widow get wall hacks faster and have her to not use full charge n have more options on how she wanna 1 shot her target or help 76 farm his ult faster

2. I mean yes it may glow where the widow is but heres my counter argument, if u see a damaged boosted widow, do u have the guts to pop her head(twice) at 100% faster than she can hit your head at 80%? If Yes then good job ur mitigating both mercy n widow job, but if no, damage boosting widow is still an option. Rather than closing an option i rather you have more options to work with

[deft flower]

I do agree to some point on what Arhk stated at point 3. The line literally tell where u two were

However

Should you had position within anywhere within that bluebox (Out of enemy Line of Sight (Shorthand : LOS) the Beam would be lessor of a beacon and will be more benifit towards you AND the widow

i give props where props is due, you do know how to manage your Damage boost up time, but heres my issue, its more of a reaction time and decision making stuff.

You need to reconise who on the enemy team is a direct threat towards you and potentially the team. Atm im seeing their Pharah is having free reign in the sky and she is left unchecked. Its not your problem to kill her but more of your problem on where you position and how you position. So u had 76 or widow as an option to choose who u want to pocket. but still u need to maintain and keep distance so pharah dont get a 2 for 1 deal on u two

idk is this a thing but back when some people who dont use voice coms, i would literally spam heal boost heal boost heal boost to annoy them to get into the " Wtf u want" and look at you and maybe they will realise your getting attacked by the pharah and when they start shooting the pharah and thats where i stay either heal or boost. it may not work but idk your milage may vary on this.

i wont commend anything of zen since whatever arhk has already pointed out is more helpful than what im gonna add cuz im not a really good zen play cuz i cant aim

its a way for me to com without speaking that im in danager i need your help/attention

[deft flower]

Usually i always have to tell people the Rules of Support which are Position (Survival) > Healing > Damage but for your case it rather different cuz although Positioning is a problem for you, you reaction time and decision making is what cause you to be in a bad position. So that's where I believe where u need to look into it

[ashen mantle]

I'm not really sure how to fix reaction time, so while I know it's one of my bigger issues I was hoping that it would get better over time

and I'm glad the ping system exists as that helps a lot with warning people of dangers

as for decision making... I need to rewatch more vods I think

[deft flower]

well, you ur slow on your reaction time, it co-relate to your decision making too right?

you can watch millions of vods but if u cant react fast enough, does the effort of watching vods help?

how to fix it well..

there are some workshop code in overwatch i can send u

do try it out

[ashen mantle]

it can help prevent me in putting myself in some situations, pick up on my bad habits and better my decision making by making me think about why I do things

But I'm willing to try to train reaction time

[ashen mantle]

also the reason why I watch deathcams

But over time I hope to get better at it as well once I get fully used to the pace of ow2

Once I do I'll try to ult track again

[deft flower]

im not sure for what training to help you on reaction time tbh

do you have issue aiming or smt?

maybe since Kirko is new and it will help you on.
A. Aim
B. Getting used to her iframe for her E
C. Reaction on where the Enemy attack is
D. Able to reaction and decide what is happening and your cause of action

NVMEE
PMAJellie Kikrko Training

[ashen mantle]

Yeah been working on aim as well

My edpi was way too high

[deft flower]

Do you know how to import Custom workshop?

[ashen mantle]

Yes

[deft flower]

then use NVMEE and import Kirko training in to your game and pratice there

[ashen mantle]

I will next time I have OW open

[deft flower]

i know it sound weird, asking you to practice kikro but, the purpose of why i feel Kirko training will help u more cuz not just making you learning kikro aim n skills, it also has a random situation happening and u need to react fast enough to max your skills within a given time

and it can be offensive and defencsive at the same time so u need to reaction and make decision making on what u want to do and how u want to do thats where i feel it will be more benifift for you to train on reaction time

from there it can help you transition your reaction time to your other heros too

[obsidian tendon]

you're right in thinking that it'll get better over time

but it's not going to get better over time without active effort and thought being put into it

it doesn't come naturally by just playing the game more

what i personally did to up my mental speed was just moving my crosshair around faster lmao

looking around more = more information for your brain to process = brain "stretches" in a way

your brain doesn't get faster unless you force it to get faster

[ashen mantle]

Agree with that I suppose the first thing to work on is awareness (as in making myself aware in the moment if I'm in a 'safe' position), adding to that specific thing is that I should peek around me more from different potential flank angles (esp on Mercy).

Next thing on the list to work on is trying to track the enemy position, my own allies and their ult charge (Mercy) and eventually the enemy ults.

And last but not least aim, though arguably less for Mercy as I rarely should use her blaster if at all anyway.

Some of this is going to require me to remind myself to do during matches, some things I will train in various customs and rewatching VODs with the goal of dissecting my decision making at that time and slowly trying to build better habits