If at any point you say "I dont need to do/learn this" yes you do. if you didn't you would be top500 not plat. you're not as good as you think you are stop pretending you are. there isn't a nice way to say this that will get the message across. You have no idea the amount of people i've tried to help only for them to do absolutely nothing of what i taught them and then wonder why they have not magically gotten better, its gotten to a point where i can predict if people will actually do what i say or not pretty accurately based on how they talk to me.

If you're here for the T500 part i have bad news. The more you play and the better you get at the game, the less enjoyable it is for a majority of people. when you're that high up everyone knows each other and a lot of these people are very weird. It becomes a game of avoid slots, a bunch of them will also screenshot you, trash talk you on twitter, all that. Ive seen tier lists of QUICK PLAY PLAYERS, people do this kinda garbage over quick play and comp.

Hellllooooo! I am Ali! I've been playing Overwatch since beta and i have been Top500 since the very beginning! I have Peaked at rank 32 (4500SR in ow1) and have been able to hit T500 consistently. I have done it in every role and can play most of the heroes.

For a few years now i have despised playing this game so i turned to trying to help people by giving them ways to go and practice on their own, i feel like a majority of videos ESPECIALLY the unranked to GMs are completely useless and they're just commentating whats happening in the game, and the videos where they DO tell you what you should be thinking don't really tell you how to develop your thinking. This results in most people being overloaded with information and just shutting down again learning nothing.

After what i just said about being T500 since the very beginning you'd think i'm some sort of gifted player who was always good and super competitive before playing Overwatch.

I was not

I was actually AWFUL at everything i did before OW,
I was silver in Counter Strike,
K/D below 1 in Call of Duty
I was basically the bottom of anything you could think of.

When Overwatch was coming out i remember a streamer i loved watching at the time wanted to play it, and then more people were talking about it, and then as the beta ended and it was getting closer and closer to launch everybody was talking about it and going to play it. I remember looking at the twitch page for Overwatch on launch day and the entire page was filled with people sitting at the launch screen, and all my friends were going to play it. This was when something just kinda clicked and i was just like "I want to be a higher level than all of my friends" (Ranked was not in the game yet)

So overwatch releases and i just keep playing and got obsessed. I remember making notes on my iPad on team comps that would counter certain heroes

I was somewhere between level 80-100 when Ranked released, i did my placemenets and.....I was at the bottom again. I had an SR of 43

So how did I go from the bottom to T500? I just really, really, REALLY wanted the animated spray because i knew i wouldn't be able to get them ever again. Just the thought of being able to show everyone something that cool was enough. (Btw theyre broken in overwatch 2 STILL, they play the animation once and then don't loop so the animation stops very cool!!!!!!!)

After that i just started winning, and winning, and winning, I went from an SR of 43 to T500 in about a week of nonstop winning. I would gain about a full rank and a half per win.

I remember i used to care about rank to such an unhealthy degree. I would be miserable whenever i was not T500

Basically what im saying from this is if you want something, you need to put in the effort and do whatever it takes to achieve that thing. You cant sit there and take shortcuts. It sucks and half the time feels like youre making no progress but this isnt something that you do overnight, it takes hours and hours of focus and DETERMINATION

There is something i need to make extremely clear before i talk about this as 99/100 times this is why you dont get better at anything. DOING SOMETHING JUST TO DO IT AND PRACTISING SOMETHING WITH THE INTENT OF GETTING BETTER ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT this goes for any skill which includes gaming (yes that is a skill)

Lets say there are two people trying to learn the piano in the same month, one person learns by copying Synthesia videos, the other one takes the time to learn how to read sheet music, where to put their hands on the piano, basic warm ups, and scales. Which one would be better by the end of the month. the one copying Synthesia videos might have played more but over time the one who took the time to learn properly in the beginning will have an easier time improving, eventually outpacing the other one.

We can also use OW as an example. Theres two overwatch players, one plays for 5000 hours but is gold, the other plays for 300 hours but is grandmaster. The one with 5000 hours feels like they deserve a higher rank because they play more. This is actually more common than you would think. But the sad truth is those 5000 hours were spent VERY poorly, its the exact same as the piano example, you will not get better at something just because you do it, you need to do something with intent. Aim training, study the game, ultimate tracking, team comps. everything. Basically what im trying to say from all this is people usually dont improve because they dont want to do the boring stuff, they want to skip straight to the fun stuff

So now we figured out why we don't improve now we need to figure out how we DO improve, for me I tend to learn the best when i finish watching something and then immediately do whatever i just watched. This lets me not forget by actually spending time with the subject and understanding how and why. Doing one at a time is very important as being flooded with information is very overwhelming and will usually lead to no difference at all. This is how i learn, i don't know you so its up to you to understand yourself and how you learn things.

This may sound a little rude but its because I need to hammer how important this is. If you rely solely on something like motivation to be able to start something. Then its probably easier to just give up. Motivation is extremely finite and unreliable. You absolutely need to just do something until it becomes a habit, at that point you're not even thinking about doing it you just are. Trust me the hardest part of anything is the beginning, always, and i mean like the very very beginning, you will surprise yourself with how quickly you can improve at something if you spend the first 20-50 hours seriously trying to learn as much as possible. nobody wants to be bad at something and a lot of the time nobody knows where to even start. So thats what we are going to do!

Overwatch is way simpler than people make it out to be. There's two teams and an objective, one team has to do the objective and the other has to stop them, or sometimes both teams are fighting for the same objective. That's how the entire game works. There isn't really one way to learn the game you just need to play and watch videos. If you're scared of playing your first game don't be. You're going to be put with other new players who also have no idea what's going on, nobody should be whining or trash talking because they're just as bad.

Basically your first month or so with the game will be learning as much as possible about the game, sitting in practice range learning hero abilities, just getting used to everything that's going on.

Dont focus too hard on things like team comps, ult tracking, anything that inst super simple, if you don't understand what people are talking about then its not worth learning yet.

• Heroes and abilities *Important*
  You will learn this by just playing as every hero, Spending time in the practice range, messing around and having fun! If you want to read abilities look for the Hero Information keybind in settings and see what its set for you
  
  
• Choke Points
  Refer to How Overwatch Maps Work
  
  
• Counters
  Once you learn all the heroes you can now play around and use that big ol brain of yours!. Try and think of which heroes would be good against others. Don't make it took complicated yet just do some simple counters like Reaper Vs Winston. i think its pretty obvious who would win

(This will be using 800 DPI, you will have to convert to your DPI if you are using something else) If you actually want to aim properly then i highly recommend checking out something like Voltaic, they will teach you more than i ever could. If that sounds like too much work then basically, go into overwatch right now and change your sensitivity to 5, now mess around until you find something you like. For most people there is no reason to go above 7 or go below 3. Being able to do a full 360 across your entire mousepad should be enough. Don't worry about changing your sensitivity in the future, aim isn't about muscle memory it's more about mastering different types of aim, depending on how often you change sensitivity it may take minutes or days to adjust.

Next is buying KovaaKs, you technically could use aim lab since its free but it doesn't have the same scenarios (and i also don't like it) if you joined the Voltaic discord there are a ton of scenarios there to train every type of aim and benchmarks to keep track of your progress. If you're looking for D.Va specific scenarios then you want to be looking for tracking scenarios or if you're extra lazy then i made two playlists, one for tracking and one for tracking while moving

KovaaKsDinkingFlyCamo KovaaKsDodgingFlyTank

A few people I also recommend checking out is Pinguefy who made a good video on aim trainers, Ridd and Silky Crisp who both make videos on aim, and Viscose Who has very good videos on aim training.
It took about 300 hours to get to a point where I didn't need to practice if I didn't want to anymore which sounds like a lot but this was over a full year where I didn't even play OW. You could probably reach a similar level in less time if you train for a bit before playing or while in queue.

Overwatch maps are VERY chokepoint heavy, you may see teams choosing to defend a specific part of a map rather than just sitting on the payload. This is because those specific locations have more advantages and are harder for the other team to get past you.



For example in this image you want to hold the bridge as it covers all entrances, gives a height advantage and is hard to get to for attackers. Losing one fight may allow the other team to put one person on the objective and take as much space away from you as possible making it way harder to defend. To learn choke points watch a bunch of streams or if you're out of the new player lobbies by now, just follow your team. You will start to notice patterns.

Teamfights in OW have a very predictable flow to them, fights happen, small window where nothing is really happening, fight again. It's about what you do in that small window that could have a big impact on the game, whether that be positioning better or getting an early kill. It's up to you to determine what you think is best. Improving this skill mostly just comes from experience and trying things, learning how your hero interacts with others and how other heroes interact with you.

I don't think people realise just how important ultimate's are in ow, entire games can easily be won or lost based on how you use your ults. You need to learn how to ult properly so you don't waste ult, If a fight is already won or lost there is 0 reason to ult. I need to make this clear, you do not need to keep track of everybody's ults. Having a basic idea of how many ults they have and who might have them is more than enough for you to plan accordingly for the next fight. Dont over-complicate everything and overload your brain. One way to start learning how to keep track of ults and teamfights is to try to keep in mind that usually every 2 teamfights the other team will have ultimate's so try to get used to counting teamfights. Obviously it depends a lot on how long the fights are but its still every 1.5 to 2 fights.

I'm gonna be real i have no idea what people are talking about when they're like "Main Support this, Flex Support that" unless you're playing in pro matches which if you're reading this you're probably not it just feels like over-complicating again. Instead focus more on things like "Lucio + Mercy is bad because they barely heal together. Lucio + Kiriko good because they click the funny buttons and run down your team at 300MPH and Kiriko can heal a lot more. This will mostly come down to using that big ol brain again and seriously thinking about why teams will use specific heroes together and why they don't use other ones together.

You really don't need to know your exact damage numbers. Just remember that the better your tracking is the more damage you do because you'll be landing more bullets on the enemy rather than half because of the weapon spread. So learn and practice tracking because it will directly affect how much damage you can do. You will learn whether or not you can all in on a hero over time and a lot of deaths.

Ever since the disgusting rework that turned her into a DPS you now get to deal with being a tank who can barely tank anything without matrix, especially with the absolutely absurd amount of damage in the game now if you have Supports like Lucio + Mercy you might as well switch heroes. You absolutely can not be in a bad spot without matrix, play corners to take less damage while not having to use as much matrix, don't just stare at the enemies since you have a massive headshot hitbox. Basically don't go in unless you have a full matrix or know you can get out through a corner, cause if you do anything then realise you have no matrix, you die.

Your boosters are your movement tool and it's very important to not waste it as it has a 3.5 second cool down. If you boost in to get a pick and use your entire matrix to stall waiting for your boosters to come back you have about a half a second where you can't do anything. So always keep that in mind if you plan on using boosters, when boosters are down you should be playing corners especially if matrix is also down. Go into training or custom games and mess around with engages.

And now for the worst thing to ever happen to the game. Micro Missiles. There's not really anything to say about them, it's a projectile that lets you do more damage when going in or when killing a tank / bursting someone. Just make sure you're taking account of the projectile speed.

Positioning is much more important in OW2 since you're the only tank, the team is basically going to follow you so you can put your team in bad spots. Play choke points and corners until you see an opening to do anything, when you win a fight it's very important you push up to take away as much of the map / advantage spots from the enemy as possible.

I remember back in the day i used to have all these fancy lineups and bomb spots that a lot of the time would get like 3-4 kills a lot, this isn't a thing anymore, a majority of the time you're going to be using your ult to remech (which when you're in a fight that isn't lost yet you absolutely should do even if it doesn't kill anyone) or ulting to displace the enemies. Being able to consistently get kills with ult now is entirely about having a very deep understanding of the maps, the team comps and where the enemies can run to in before your ult goes off. And im gonna go insane if i ever see this again stop ulting immediately after flying straight up your bombs radius doesn't go that far

For some reason when people lose mech they completely forget how to play the game and still play like they're a tank. it is not your job to get kills or do anything crazy, your job is exclusively to get back in mech as fast as possible, whether that be sitting in the back and spamming down a choke point, it doesn't matter, you should be shooting non stop and doing as much damage as possible, AND STOP TRYING TO GO FOR REMECH KILLS IT IS EXTREMELY BAD TO JUST SIT THERE IN A CORNER OR WORSE, DIE AND COMPLETELY WASTE 30-60 SECONDS. this goes with urgency, stop wasting time.

Think of D.Va as a rubber band, you should be able to go forward but also be able to go back very quickly, lets say you have a Tracer on your Zenyatta which is 100% your job to be matrixing as quickly as possible, that is snapping backwards. Now lets say you see an Ana use sleep, you are confident your team wont die so you move forward and take a free pick or at the very least cause a big disruption. We moved forward but didn't move forward enough for our rubber band to break. Now if we use our boosters to fly straight into their team with all cooldowns with 0 consideration of what they are going to do now that we have done that, our rubber band is broken. We are not playing with the team and that is going to cause a big problem. Another way of saying stop flying straight into the enemy team and dying.

Bunny Stomp
This perks seems extremely useless. you shouldn't be going for mech kills in the first place so I cant find a situation this would ever go this. Maybe in like an overtime fight on a point?

Ejection Suit
You're probably going to go this one every time just to help with not getting one shot out of mech

The major perks are very straightforward. If you're having trouble staying alive take shield otherwise take rockets. Rockets would also be way better against shields or to burst tanks, it should not be used as a crutch because your aim isn't good enough to burst lower HP targets

Right now its probably better to just take the shield every game the rockets feel extremely useless

To practice any of these matchup you can try in quick play OR set up any workshop practice map Here[workshop.codes]

• D.Va
  It's pretty much just about keeping track of matrix and missiles. If she has no matrix use missiles, if she uses missiles matrix, do this and aim for the headshot hitbox and you will always win.
  
  
• Doomfist
  as long as you have matrix for his shots you are fine. You're going to get stunned every 0.1 nanoseconds so make sure you don't get stunned out of your rockets or boosters.
  
  
• Junker Queen
  If she uses shout incorrectly y
  ou should be able to just walk on her. You can matrix the knife but cant matrix the E, if you get knived wait until you get pulled to matrix and fly away.
  
  
• Orisa
  Same thing as with JQ, she uses fortify and you can just walk on her. Just make sure your missiles dont get deleted or speared and you really shouldent have any problems
  
  
• Ramattra
  If hes in his melee form he is scary, its best to just use boosters to dodge or go somewhere else. Other than that you can usually just missiles through his shield and burst him down
  
  
• Reinhardt
  You can dodge his charge with boosters, delete his firestrikes with matrix, and break his shield with missiles. Just make sure to not feed his shatter or get pinned if you don't have to.
  
  
• Roadhog
  If he can't two shot your mech he is free ult charge. Just keep an eye out for anyone who gets hooked, matrix sucks now so you have to be right next to them to matrix hooks
  
  
• Sigma
  If he doesn't have rock you should be able to just walk through the shield or break it. If you don't spam into his grasp you shouldn't have any problems
  
  
• Winston
  wait for jump, free ult charge.
  
  
• Ball
  free ult charge. The only hard part is catching up to him, also make sure when he slams he doesnt just delete one of your teammates
  
  
• Zarya
  The only tank that's near impossible to play against in ow2, if Zarya has bubbles don't even bother, just play somewhere else until she has no bubbles so you don't give free ult charge, if she uses both bubbles and still has no charge that is your only window to kill her.

• Ashe
  
  Does more damage to you than you would think, don't just stand there and let her headshot you, she will always shift you away when you try to dive her so either waste it or wait for her to use it first. You are on bob duty so make sure to tank it, you will have to rely on your supports for this.
  
  
• Bastion
  As long as you don't just stand there when he's in turret form he can't do anything to you.
  
  
• Cassidy
  
  They got rid of flashbang so as long as you matrix the nade or his right clicks, which he will usually do when you fly at him, you are fine.
  
  
• Echo
  
  The E goes through your matrix so watch your health bar. Wait for fly. Initiate kill mode
  
  
• Genji
  
  Just a tracking heavy hero, nothing special at all. When he blades fly into him to either displace him, draw attention away, or kill him. Basically you're on genji duty when he ults
  
  
• Hanzo
  
  Matrix storm arrow. KILL
  
  
• Junkrat
  
  Matrix the mines after you kill. will probably nade away from you so save boosters if you can.
  
  
• Mei
  
  Mei is pretty much all about keeping track of her cooldown usage, if she has no cooldowns then you should be safe to kill. Be careful about being too close to mei because once she can start slowing you you are NOT getting out.
  
  
• Pharah
  
  Pharah relies on good movement or mercy to be able to do anything, you rely on your team to do anything to a pharmercy. If she has no mercy its your job to make sure she cant play the game, if she has a mercy it's your job to be as annoying as possible because you are not killing a pharmercy alone. Pharahs usually make it very obvious when they are about to ult, matrix it, you can also drop matrix to make the pharah kill themselves with rockets, this might not work in higher ranks though as they will know what you're doing and just turn around.
  
  
• Reaper
  
  Reaper really isn't as bad as you'd think it is, as long as you have matrix there really isnt anything he can do as you can just fly away and in a lot of cases just kill him. Basically just a health management matchup, always be watching to matrix his ult.
  
  
• Sojourn
  
  Matrix the rail for your team and initiate kill mode when she uses her movement.
  
  
  
• Soldier
  
  Soldier is weird because with perfect tracking you can kill him in his heal, you kinda just have to try it and if its not working then either back off or matrix. Always matrix his ult.
  
  
• Sombra
  
  You basically just shoot nothing until you shoot her invisible since you only need 1 damage to cancel the invisibility. If you have someone like a zen on your team be more careful of the sombra as she can just sit there and kill the zen over and over again. Try to save boosters for when she teleports.
  
  
• Symmetra
  
  Sym is a very tracking intense hero for you. If you don't kill quickly you absolutely need to leave as you cant matrix her beam. Its safest for you to be the one to destroy the turrets.
  
  
• Torb
  
  Funny torb guy, if he has no E even with his shotgun you should be able to kill him, he has a really big hitbox. Eat his coom and youll be fine.
  
  
  
• Tracer
  
  Extremely tracking heavy hero. if you think you can kill her then do it, otherwise just matrix for your team. It can be very hard to eat the pulse bomb you can play like she always has pulse bomb up because you're not gonna matrix it with reactions alone.
  
  
• Venture
  
  Kind of an annoying hero. Its mostly just about watching for the engage and trying to kill them before they one shot your supports. Use your boosters to dodge the ult
  
  
• Widowmaker
  
  basically just matrix and try to get as close to her as possible to make her use grapple and initiate kill mode. You can also just fly into her to force her to a new spot. you dont want her to be able to just sit there and shoot at your team

• Ana
  
  Almost every low rank ana will immediately sleep when you fly into her so try to bait out the sleep when flying in and then she can't do anything to you. Try to matrix the anti nade or matrix whoever on your team gets anti'd
  
  
• Kiriko
  
  With kiriko you're just trying to force her to use either swift step or suzu, as long as you aren't constantly getting headshot she can't do anything to you so with no abilities she is a free kill.
  
  
• Zenyatta
  
  Its 50/50, if he has no help there is no reason you shouldn't be able to kill him But just as easily as you can kill him, if you're not paying attention and he hit some headshots you can lose your mech just as fast.
  
  
• Baptiste
  
  This one is very simple, if he cant jump away anywhere he is no threat, just remember to break lamp and matrix the damage from his ult
  
  
• Brigitte
  
  Save boosters for if she shield bashes away, save micro missile for breaking shield. You win
  
  
• Mercy
  
  It's just tracking. The movement can be annoying to keep up with depending on how good the mercy is
  
  
• Moira
  
  Also just tracking, she will probably outheal your damage when ulting.
  
  
• Lifeweaver
  
  He can escape if you use boosters too early otherwise he is no threat
  
  
• Lucio
  
  Very tracking heavy, don't stand next to the edge of the map after using boosters
  
  
• Juno
  
  A good Juno will probably be able to outrun you, Her shift lasts way long but is slower. Its mostly about either being able to burst fast or keep track of cooldowns

Sometimes when a fight is over the other team will try to stagger you by keeping you alive on purpose to then kill you and waste as much time as possible. If this happens the only thing you should be thinking is "how do i die as fast as possible". teams are rarely coordinated enough to pull this off properly so the quickest way to die if there is no cliff nearby is find someone with a low amount of HP like a zen and try to do as much damage as possible to force them to kill you.

This is something nobody thinks about but is extremely important, it could even be one of the most important skills to learn but basically when there is nothing happening or even sometimes during a fight you should be spamming tab to see ults and they are by far the most important thing in the game. It is also extremely important on D.Va to be looking at your health and cooldowns constantly, I would say around when boosters are coming up your eyes should be on cooldowns and health and during a fight your eyes should be on your health every one to two seconds. This gives you enough time to look to disengage or not be surprised thinking you had more health or a cooldown was up when it wasn't.

This is hard to explain but your booster movements should look robotic, your turns should be instant and you should know exactly how far you are going to go and where you are going to land. This is just something you have to practice over and over and over. Either in real games or practice tools or custom games.

I'm going to say what nobody wants to hear, no you don't actually need voice chat to win, if you seriously sit there and get mad believing nobody joining voice is the reason you don't win i don't know what to tell you. I don't join voice and usually have text off as-well until around mid to high GM. Especially in the lower ranks it usually does more harm than good, because people have no idea how to make proper calls and sit there talking forever, its just annoying. Something ive noticed is the lower rank you are the more people type, and their egos are massive every time without fail, despite having 0 idea what they're talking about.

This basically means not wasting any time, when you're playing if there's not a second where you're doing something that's a second wasted. There should almost never be any downtime, whether that be setting up the objective, teamfighting, anything. Wasting seconds adds up very fast

You can get a free melee off by meleeing right before you cancel your boosters. its guaranteed damage on someone so do it. You start by flying into them, melee, then immediately after using melee cancel the boosters. By doing this you get free damage off from your boosters AND from the melee

Sounds kinda simple but when you're firing you barely move and your headshot hitbox is massive, jumping is the only way to make that hitbox harder to hit when going on someone. This might develop bad habits on other heroes like it did for me though, I jump all the time for 0 reason on other heroes which is really bad cause it locks you in a direction for a short time making you easier to hit

This will require a bit of practice but you can throw your bomb against a wall so it slowly glides and then launches a lot closer when it eventually goes around the corner. You can use this instead of flying straight up but its a bit tough to pull off

Yippee you're now a very cool gamer!

I hope there was at least one thing in here that you may have found even somewhat useful! If you have any questions ill try to answer them as best as possible.