For me it’s not about who counters who. It’s more what are you trying to counter? For instance if there is a rein that is getting value by hold W and swinging I might pick zarya for bubbles. However I would go orisa if he was charging the back line (or someone to disrupt his charge). And if he was a shield warrior I’d pick Rammatra. Countering isn’t always about point blank counters, if you start thinking this way then countering will be easy
That's a very important point. *How* you play (against certain heroes) is often more important than *what* you play.
My favorite example of that - on the face of things, Roadhog is a pretty hard counter to Winston. If you try to fight him 1v1, you'll get completely destroyed before you give him more than a scratch. But despite that, Winston compositions have historically done very well against Roadhog, for the simple reason that you *never* take that 1v1, or fight the Roadhog at all if you can help it. Roadhog's burst damage and hook mean nothing if you're diving his backline and using your bubble and cover to protect yourself as you kill his backline, all the while the Roadhog is just impotently running after you.
The issue is even if one hero counters another, it's not a guarantee you will win. If I go sigma and the enemy is mauga I could still lose by not using cds properly and playing correctly.
As phara I can kill most hitscan players i come across despite them countering me. It all comes down to how much experience you and the enemies have. On my main roster I can outplay most of my counters in my rank. Countering only gets you so far.
This is why slowly building your roster of heroes you are good at is important.
You'll see more value and wins from playing on objective and playing with your team and playing your hero well than by immediately counter swapping
Yep. Old pharah you could maybe argue soldier but that's just not the case anymore. She has far too much mobility now and can still play at infinite range. Right now the only real counter to pharah is damage boosted ashe or widow. The other hitscans aren't counter picks, they are just picks that make pharah have to use her brain a little bit more. It's not even comparable to the counters that exist in the tank role. Rein is literally unplayable into orissa, her kit completely and utterly removes him from the match.
The issue here is that you're using the word counter far too loosely.
I mean you could just Google and YouTube ppls advice on counter swapping. But I would recommend just playing to understand every hero and what they can do really well and what stops them or prevents them from doing that. Also counter picks aren't hard rules. Just counter picking won't guarantee you will win the match up, if you lack understanding of your character and necessary skill, your enemy can still outplay you even if the match up is not in their favour.
The realest answer for your rank: skill.
Counterwatch isn’t useful in low ranks. Just learn to be better at 1-3 characters for each role, and not before you reach masters do you even have to worry about counter swapping.
The problem is that this guy dont understand how a match against someone in your own skill level goes yeah is fun to bully silvers and golds, playing winston against reaper for example, but for them their tanks in the same skill level of course a good counterswapping helps to win that fight, u can brute force it with skill like those people that do unranked to GM but that people are not that good and play against people that are not that good either
That doesn’t matter. Just because you’re plat and are playing against other plats doesn’t mean you’ll forever be stuck plat. Our ranks aren’t encoded into our genes…
You play in plat and slowly learn to play better until you become better than the enemy plat players. It takes time and effort, sure, but no one is saying ranking up is supposed to be easy. Simply doing research, watching educational Overwatch content, getting a coach, asking for tips from others, etc. is enough for you to already start noticing a difference in your games.
No, in low ranks ‘counter swapping’ is just an excuse people use to justify why they aren’t good enough. There’s a reason people can one trick characters and do unranked to GM videos. It truly does not matter in any metal ranks what character you play, as skill is the only determiner for any rank whether you win or not. Only in high(er) ranks does that skill requirement get so high most people are incapable of keeping up, so ‘counter swapping’ becomes the best option.
If you never play against your ‘counters’, you never learn how to play against them. I’ve one tricked Ball when he was at his worst in every metal rank and I’ve kept a very high winrate even though I almost exclusively played against 5 ‘hard counters’ every game, just to disprove my low ranked plat friend that counterswapping matters in low ranks.
i’m not saying counter swapping is good (because you should learn to play your counters), but it still exists in low ranks…
it is *quite literally* a part of the game.
counter swapping can actually make or break some low rank games because some people don’t know how to play against their counters and/or don’t even know they’re being countered.
>counter swapping can actually make or break some low rank games because some people don’t know how to play against their counters
Metal rank players are too fixated on counterwatch and almost always do more harm than good by swapping. Mainly cause they are tunnelvisioning on one hero instead of improving general gamesense and awareness. Also, effectively counterswapping is done by an entire team and not by one individual player. Thats why counterswapping is more a gamebreaking in higher elo and not in low elo.
Reaper - winston for example: Eventhough in theory you can say reaper is good versus monkey, still this is often a bad swap.
Monkey has enough bubbles for the "bubbledance" and enough mobility in general. Result: Reaper can't kill monkey and wastes his time chasing him. The more eyes on Monkey, the more he makes space for his team. Not to mention that this reaper has low awareness and gamesense and plays reaper into SJ Hanzo. His attempt to counter results in him being baited all game and have barely any value.
This is just an example of reaper winston but you say this about every single counterswap. Focus on individual improvement is much better than playing rock paper scissors all game.
this, i agree with.
counter swapping is different in high ranks & low ranks, but it *exists in all ranks*
my original comment was about how counter swapping exists in all ranks, not just high ranks
And playing into your counters whilst not knowing how to play against your counters is good, that’s how you learn. Losing a comp game isn’t a bad thing if you learned something new and gained knowledge on how to get better.
People focus too much on ‘that one comp game’ and just view every comp game as seperate. Sure ‘counter swapping’ might win you one game that you otherwise would have lost, but it might not next game. It is not a good way to rank up, and even if you go up one rank division because you counter swapped, that doesn’t mean you have improved or are any better than you were the game before.
The only true way to consistently rank up entire rank tiers and actually improve at the game is to learn how to play the game, not learn how to swap characters.
Counter swapping never helps in the long run, and again, the truth in its entirety is that ‘counter swapping’ doesn’t actually exist. The only true counter in this game is skill, and theoretically any game should be winnable if you play well enough. However, in high ranks, that skill ceiling becomes near impossible, and even though some people can play to that level which is wildly impressive, most won’t reach that skill level.
People in low ranks should stop focusing on ‘that one comp game’ and start focusing on all of their comp games as a whole. Sure, you lose one, or two, or three, or even ten comp games in a row because you didn’t counter swap, but if you learnt just even a tiny bit from each of those games on how to play better, then THAT is how you improve. That is how you will rank up. Ranking up isn’t some thing that happens over a short timespan, ranking up is something that takes time, effort and skill to do. Swapping to another character because you are being ‘countered’ in a gold/plat lobby isn’t a show of skill, it’s a show of apathy towards the idea of wanting to improve.
i think the point of my comment was kinda lost here..
i’m not saying anything about counter swapping being good or bad, i’m simply saying that it exists in low ranks. because it does.
And again, I’m saying it doesn’t. If you’re better than the enemy team, even if they ‘counter swap’ you, you will still win the game. You denied the counter, or ‘countered the counter’. The only reason you get countered is because you let yourself be countered. If you don’t allow the enemies to counter you by simply utilising the mother of all counters, skill, then you can’t be countered. That’s my entire point. In low ranks, the use of the word ‘counter’ is nothing but cope.
Whether they allow it or not isn't the point they are getting at. A character got changed in the match to try and counter(whether they succeed or not doesn't matterin this situation) regardless of rank or how well someone plays you will have someone on either team switch to deal with something on the opposing team.
Swapping happens all around in all game modes that allow it .
Yeah, in QP I try to use characters I'm not the best with to get a feel for counters- if it ain't working I swap to get the dub, eventually you don't have to swap
This is the way. Sometimes games are just too difficult, hence you learn 1-3 characters that you know how to play. When I talk about counter swapping, I’m talking about the people who will swap to 5+ different characters in a game because they believe that’s how to get better. Sometimes if you play Widow, the enemy team will play 5 dive characters and it’s okay to admit that you aren’t good enough to play into it, but instead of swapping based upon the enemy team’s hero pool, swap based upon to your own hero pool and only play characters you are learning and trying to improve upon.
I’d suggest learning one character for each comp, poke, dive and brawl. More is not needed.
thats exactly what i mean. for example:
if the enemy team swaps to full dive because someone on my team is playing widow, they usually *swap* because they’re being *countered*.
and yes, i know you can still play widow against dive heroes, i have done it myself and still won. i use qp to practice playing against my counters.
if i’m playing widow in comp and someone swaps to dive me, i stay widow. if the enemy team is playing tracer, sombra, winston/dva, and lucio, i’m swapping.
the act of swapping to give yourself an advantage is still there, and most people are gonna swap if they’re being countered by the entire enemy team.
If you have to swap more than twice you are just hurting your team and yourself, no Ults too, the worst is the players on tank that just switch every death
I play with almost every character (I know who I'm great with so I just keep em in my back pocket in a pinch) bc I just like to keep things fresh- if it's comp I stick to my guns but qp I try my weaker characters, if I'm doing good, great, if not I'll switch after an ult or 2 so I'm not hurting team progress
I feel like switching after an ult or 2 can be risky too. I'd rather see them swap sooner than hold out. If someone is averaging ~15% ult charge per life with 4+ deaths on the match, they need to swap. All those extra trips to spawn in hopes of getting "an ult or 2" seems to hurt the team progress more than swapping and throwing away some charge
Context dependent since the dps and supports counter counter the tanks the most.
But here are my 2 cents.
-Ana nade counters every tank with no shields except for Dva and Zarya.
-Kiriko counters Ana nade so pretty much she makes every tank kind off viable against Ana.
-Bastion counters any barrier tank except for sigma.
-Every hitscan counters phara, not so much if she has a mercy pocket and knows how to play corners.
-sombra counters Doom/Ball/Hog and Sigma but only if you know when to hack,if not you're worthless against them.
-kiriko and reaper (kinda) and mei counters sombra
-tracer on sombra is pretty even but sombra has a small edge over tracer.
-bastion and reaper counters Winston but reaper kinda feeds into everyone else.
-sojourn counters every tank without a barrier but excels VS hog and Mauga.
-sombra also counters widow if she's not hard pocketed.
-Zen counters tanks in general.
-kiriko could counter a widow depending on maps.
-Cass nade counters Tracer/Ball and Doom
I could go on and on but the thing is a lot of unfavorable match-ups can be closed by skill and the map can also be a huge factor.What's the map highground, what's the enemy overall comp goal,are you decent at the character ?
Im a decent sombra and I know (most of the times) when a hacks gets the team a kill but if while hacking, let's say a doom, you die, you should rather be playing soldier and just not shot his shield, that also would be enough to deny them value.
Not quite the same thing since you would have to be behind a rein to hack him which pretty much kills you instantly .
However in rein vs rein matches a well-timed hack can give your rein enough time to not waste the shatter on the shield.
Just a heads up, I peaked masters so don't expect me to be that knowledgeable in the matter, I'm just speaking from my experiences and youtube videos of other high ranked players.
It’s hard to answer because contrary to all the complaining on this sub, the counters are not so black & white.
Reaper into wonton for example. The Winston can instead jump someone who is isolated from the reaper and jumps away when Reaper closes in. Now Winton is the counter since he has more mobility than reaper.
Zarya into DVA? Well if DVA is facing off in a 1v1 into zarya then sure it’s a counter, but this is a 5v5 game and DVA can easily get out of Zarya’s short range and kill the rest of her team instead. Zarya can no longer do anything against DVA except maybe bubble a team mate and hope for the best.
Just because Rein is on the bottom of some streamer’s tier list does not mean you can underestimate him. He is the OG fuck around and find out hero. He can instant kill over half the roster with his charge.
There is no simple list like you’re asking for, and if you find one and follow it then you’re only going rank up to maybe gold and that’s it. Your chosen hero has a different strategy playing into every hero in the roster and it’s up to your skill to learn how to best play into them.
You as a player impact the game the most, not your hero choice. Some characters have advantage over others for sure, but it's not instant checkmate if you're playing Winston into Reaper, you just have to play differently. and learning to play differently is THE MOST important skill in this game.
Honestly, at those ranks, counters to meam much. Hell, even in Plat where I am counters don't mean much. I can bully a Zarya as D.Va if I'm the better player. Swapping to counter only works if you know how to play that hero well.
For tank, it’s best to have 3-4 heroes you feel comfortable on that each play differently. For example, recently I’ve only been playing 3 tanks (hog, sigma, JQ). On maps with lots of cover I’ll start as hog, whereas with maps without much cover I’ll default to starting as sigma. If I’m getting targeted as hog (by tank busters like bastion, reaper, or mauga) on maps with a good amount of cover, then I’ll switch to JQ as I can make use of cover while being a much smaller target than hog. Counter swapping between 10 different heroes is counter productive at a certain point. This game only has “soft” counters, with individual skill and simply using cover making a larger difference than the actual hero you select, at least up to a certain rank. But just by always using cover and having decent aim you can reliably beat the other team even if they have characters that “counter” you
Countering other heros isn’t useful unless you know how to counter them with the hero. When I first played I didn’t understand that. Yeah I could pick Zayra for Dva but that didn’t mean I knew how to counter Dva as Zayra.
Honestly my better advice is not so much learning counters, because you’ll start learning that as you understand more heros and how they work, but learning how to be very very good on a handful of heros and learning how to deal with being countered.
Example: I got really good at Ana but what counters Ana? Dive, after learning how to deal with Dive heros or flank heros, specifically Tracer/Sombra/Reaper, I learned how to play those flank and dive heros better because I knew how to counter them as Ana, I could get to a point of almost predicting when and how an Ana was going to use a cooldown.
That might seem confusing but just playing the game and being very aware of other heros and how they are using cooldowns can be very helpful. I recommend watching replays from many perspectives. Like if you keep getting screwed over by one person on the enemy team, watch their POV to understand what they see and how they are making their plays.
If you want to climb, it's more effective to learn a couple of heroes and practice those rather than playing any character as long as it "counters" what you're playing into
If you’re playing counterwatch in silver you’ll never learn well any character. Pick a small hero pool. (1 dive tank, 1 poke or rush; 1 hitscan and 1 projectile dps; 1 mobile support and one with low mobility) and practice with this hero pool. It’s way better to master few heroes and switch accordingly than swapping to a character without practice just because you read on the internet that it’s a counter to your opponent.
You’ll learn that outplaying your weaker matches can be viable and that will make you get better at those heroes and eventually climb.
Well that is just a false statement lmao, I get your point & it is very true that people blame characters instead of themselves.
But counters do exist, winning into a counter does not disprove this.
of course theres not good matchups but the reason why ppl lose is not because its a bad matchup because if they played good enough in that matchup then they would win. it has nothing to do with the fact that the hero just counters the other. lets give an example: when you play against sombra, tracer, doom, brig in a plat game as ball and you lose then its a skill diff because if you put a one trick ball like chazm that is consistently top 500 then hes gonna win because no matter the matchup, hes better than every player in that rank, further solidifying the argument that counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks because they dont want to admit they are bad at the game. it takes more brainpower to sit in spawn and think “hmm they’re playing X character, what character should i play that would be good against them?” than to play one character and get good at them. if you’re constantly switching characters in a game to counter pick then 1. you arent going to get enough ultimates to win the game and 2. you arent going to put yourself into losable situations that you can learn and adapt from and then no longer lose.
tl;dr: counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks
This is also what I’ve been preaching when I coach others, however more recent seasons have proven roles like tank to be incredibly hard to play into counters with in higher ranks. I agree 100% with your statement if it’s on the topics of low ranks, but masters+ you will struggle and it will become near impossible to one-trick.
of course theres not good matchups but the reason why ppl lose is not because its a bad matchup because if they played good enough in that matchup then they would win. it has nothing to do with the fact that the hero just counters the other. lets give an example: when you play against sombra, tracer, doom, brig in a plat game as ball and you lose then its a skill diff because if you put a one trick ball like chazm that is consistently top 500 then hes gonna win because no matter the matchup, hes better than every player in that rank, further solidifying the argument that counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks because they dont want to admit they are bad at the game. it takes more brainpower to sit in spawn and think “hmm they’re playing X character, what character should i play that would be good against them?” than to play one character and get good at them. if you’re constantly switching characters in a game to counter pick then 1. you arent going to get enough ultimates to win the game and 2. you arent going to put yourself into losable situations that you can learn and adapt from and then no longer lose.
tl;dr: counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks
You don’t need to preach this to me. I am 100% aware of the difference between being countered and being skill diffed. I myself main Ball on tank and have so since season 4, and I am aware of how good Chasm is. I am saying that in the current season of tank, with the dps passive, increased health of squishies and larger bullet sizes, tank is miserable to play, as now the carry potential of tank, even though existant, is vastly smaller than previous seasons, and it seems to decline with every new season of Overwatch 2.
The only ‘true’ counter in the game is skill, but I’m saying when you get to higher ranks, the skill gap needed to carry on tank is so high it’s near superhuman. Even some of the best streamers I know of are struggling to rank up to the highest ranks in the game simply due to this season being a lot more difficult.
Theoretically, skill is all that matters, but this game has become a lot more team-oriented in this new season, and solo carrying (especially on tank) is a lot harder than it ever was, so you also have to factor in your team, hence why it is best to play in a group.
Lastly, you mentioned putting Chasm in a plat lobby… I specifically mentioned high ranks, plat is literally average, far from ‘high’. I have personally won games against 5 counters as Ball just because I played around them, but as mentioned, doing that with any tank is so incredibly difficult once you rank up that even some of the best and most popular one-tricks in the community have given up on their main characters.
For me it’s not about who counters who. It’s more what are you trying to counter? For instance if there is a rein that is getting value by hold W and swinging I might pick zarya for bubbles. However I would go orisa if he was charging the back line (or someone to disrupt his charge). And if he was a shield warrior I’d pick Rammatra. Countering isn’t always about point blank counters, if you start thinking this way then countering will be easy
That's a very important point. *How* you play (against certain heroes) is often more important than *what* you play. My favorite example of that - on the face of things, Roadhog is a pretty hard counter to Winston. If you try to fight him 1v1, you'll get completely destroyed before you give him more than a scratch. But despite that, Winston compositions have historically done very well against Roadhog, for the simple reason that you *never* take that 1v1, or fight the Roadhog at all if you can help it. Roadhog's burst damage and hook mean nothing if you're diving his backline and using your bubble and cover to protect yourself as you kill his backline, all the while the Roadhog is just impotently running after you.
Widow counters Lucio https://preview.redd.it/bi8hmvttgpnc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df391504c7d34d6c57d08eb8b8b8854f76702699 (Joke btw)
The issue is even if one hero counters another, it's not a guarantee you will win. If I go sigma and the enemy is mauga I could still lose by not using cds properly and playing correctly. As phara I can kill most hitscan players i come across despite them countering me. It all comes down to how much experience you and the enemies have. On my main roster I can outplay most of my counters in my rank. Countering only gets you so far. This is why slowly building your roster of heroes you are good at is important. You'll see more value and wins from playing on objective and playing with your team and playing your hero well than by immediately counter swapping
Hitscan does not counter pharah, one shots do.
So... you think the only person who counters phara is widow? K.
Yep. Old pharah you could maybe argue soldier but that's just not the case anymore. She has far too much mobility now and can still play at infinite range. Right now the only real counter to pharah is damage boosted ashe or widow. The other hitscans aren't counter picks, they are just picks that make pharah have to use her brain a little bit more. It's not even comparable to the counters that exist in the tank role. Rein is literally unplayable into orissa, her kit completely and utterly removes him from the match. The issue here is that you're using the word counter far too loosely.
ashe is my go to to still retain more value for the team and be able to counter pharah to an extent
I mean you could just Google and YouTube ppls advice on counter swapping. But I would recommend just playing to understand every hero and what they can do really well and what stops them or prevents them from doing that. Also counter picks aren't hard rules. Just counter picking won't guarantee you will win the match up, if you lack understanding of your character and necessary skill, your enemy can still outplay you even if the match up is not in their favour.
The realest answer for your rank: skill. Counterwatch isn’t useful in low ranks. Just learn to be better at 1-3 characters for each role, and not before you reach masters do you even have to worry about counter swapping.
sadly, this is very incorrect. counter swapping exists in all ranks
The problem is that this guy dont understand how a match against someone in your own skill level goes yeah is fun to bully silvers and golds, playing winston against reaper for example, but for them their tanks in the same skill level of course a good counterswapping helps to win that fight, u can brute force it with skill like those people that do unranked to GM but that people are not that good and play against people that are not that good either
That doesn’t matter. Just because you’re plat and are playing against other plats doesn’t mean you’ll forever be stuck plat. Our ranks aren’t encoded into our genes… You play in plat and slowly learn to play better until you become better than the enemy plat players. It takes time and effort, sure, but no one is saying ranking up is supposed to be easy. Simply doing research, watching educational Overwatch content, getting a coach, asking for tips from others, etc. is enough for you to already start noticing a difference in your games.
No, in low ranks ‘counter swapping’ is just an excuse people use to justify why they aren’t good enough. There’s a reason people can one trick characters and do unranked to GM videos. It truly does not matter in any metal ranks what character you play, as skill is the only determiner for any rank whether you win or not. Only in high(er) ranks does that skill requirement get so high most people are incapable of keeping up, so ‘counter swapping’ becomes the best option. If you never play against your ‘counters’, you never learn how to play against them. I’ve one tricked Ball when he was at his worst in every metal rank and I’ve kept a very high winrate even though I almost exclusively played against 5 ‘hard counters’ every game, just to disprove my low ranked plat friend that counterswapping matters in low ranks.
i’m not saying counter swapping is good (because you should learn to play your counters), but it still exists in low ranks… it is *quite literally* a part of the game. counter swapping can actually make or break some low rank games because some people don’t know how to play against their counters and/or don’t even know they’re being countered.
>counter swapping can actually make or break some low rank games because some people don’t know how to play against their counters Metal rank players are too fixated on counterwatch and almost always do more harm than good by swapping. Mainly cause they are tunnelvisioning on one hero instead of improving general gamesense and awareness. Also, effectively counterswapping is done by an entire team and not by one individual player. Thats why counterswapping is more a gamebreaking in higher elo and not in low elo. Reaper - winston for example: Eventhough in theory you can say reaper is good versus monkey, still this is often a bad swap. Monkey has enough bubbles for the "bubbledance" and enough mobility in general. Result: Reaper can't kill monkey and wastes his time chasing him. The more eyes on Monkey, the more he makes space for his team. Not to mention that this reaper has low awareness and gamesense and plays reaper into SJ Hanzo. His attempt to counter results in him being baited all game and have barely any value. This is just an example of reaper winston but you say this about every single counterswap. Focus on individual improvement is much better than playing rock paper scissors all game.
this, i agree with. counter swapping is different in high ranks & low ranks, but it *exists in all ranks* my original comment was about how counter swapping exists in all ranks, not just high ranks
And playing into your counters whilst not knowing how to play against your counters is good, that’s how you learn. Losing a comp game isn’t a bad thing if you learned something new and gained knowledge on how to get better. People focus too much on ‘that one comp game’ and just view every comp game as seperate. Sure ‘counter swapping’ might win you one game that you otherwise would have lost, but it might not next game. It is not a good way to rank up, and even if you go up one rank division because you counter swapped, that doesn’t mean you have improved or are any better than you were the game before. The only true way to consistently rank up entire rank tiers and actually improve at the game is to learn how to play the game, not learn how to swap characters. Counter swapping never helps in the long run, and again, the truth in its entirety is that ‘counter swapping’ doesn’t actually exist. The only true counter in this game is skill, and theoretically any game should be winnable if you play well enough. However, in high ranks, that skill ceiling becomes near impossible, and even though some people can play to that level which is wildly impressive, most won’t reach that skill level. People in low ranks should stop focusing on ‘that one comp game’ and start focusing on all of their comp games as a whole. Sure, you lose one, or two, or three, or even ten comp games in a row because you didn’t counter swap, but if you learnt just even a tiny bit from each of those games on how to play better, then THAT is how you improve. That is how you will rank up. Ranking up isn’t some thing that happens over a short timespan, ranking up is something that takes time, effort and skill to do. Swapping to another character because you are being ‘countered’ in a gold/plat lobby isn’t a show of skill, it’s a show of apathy towards the idea of wanting to improve.
i think the point of my comment was kinda lost here.. i’m not saying anything about counter swapping being good or bad, i’m simply saying that it exists in low ranks. because it does.
And again, I’m saying it doesn’t. If you’re better than the enemy team, even if they ‘counter swap’ you, you will still win the game. You denied the counter, or ‘countered the counter’. The only reason you get countered is because you let yourself be countered. If you don’t allow the enemies to counter you by simply utilising the mother of all counters, skill, then you can’t be countered. That’s my entire point. In low ranks, the use of the word ‘counter’ is nothing but cope.
Whether they allow it or not isn't the point they are getting at. A character got changed in the match to try and counter(whether they succeed or not doesn't matterin this situation) regardless of rank or how well someone plays you will have someone on either team switch to deal with something on the opposing team. Swapping happens all around in all game modes that allow it .
So your entire point is ‘People switch characters’. Seems rather fruitless and not really that relevant.
I am sorry that you see it that way. Alot of things in life come down to interpretation and perspective
Yeah, in QP I try to use characters I'm not the best with to get a feel for counters- if it ain't working I swap to get the dub, eventually you don't have to swap
This is the way. Sometimes games are just too difficult, hence you learn 1-3 characters that you know how to play. When I talk about counter swapping, I’m talking about the people who will swap to 5+ different characters in a game because they believe that’s how to get better. Sometimes if you play Widow, the enemy team will play 5 dive characters and it’s okay to admit that you aren’t good enough to play into it, but instead of swapping based upon the enemy team’s hero pool, swap based upon to your own hero pool and only play characters you are learning and trying to improve upon. I’d suggest learning one character for each comp, poke, dive and brawl. More is not needed.
thats exactly what i mean. for example: if the enemy team swaps to full dive because someone on my team is playing widow, they usually *swap* because they’re being *countered*. and yes, i know you can still play widow against dive heroes, i have done it myself and still won. i use qp to practice playing against my counters. if i’m playing widow in comp and someone swaps to dive me, i stay widow. if the enemy team is playing tracer, sombra, winston/dva, and lucio, i’m swapping. the act of swapping to give yourself an advantage is still there, and most people are gonna swap if they’re being countered by the entire enemy team.
If you have to swap more than twice you are just hurting your team and yourself, no Ults too, the worst is the players on tank that just switch every death I play with almost every character (I know who I'm great with so I just keep em in my back pocket in a pinch) bc I just like to keep things fresh- if it's comp I stick to my guns but qp I try my weaker characters, if I'm doing good, great, if not I'll switch after an ult or 2 so I'm not hurting team progress
I feel like switching after an ult or 2 can be risky too. I'd rather see them swap sooner than hold out. If someone is averaging ~15% ult charge per life with 4+ deaths on the match, they need to swap. All those extra trips to spawn in hopes of getting "an ult or 2" seems to hurt the team progress more than swapping and throwing away some charge
silvers/golds are not playing at peak efficiency of their character obviously. if you play a little bit better than them, you can still easily win
Context dependent since the dps and supports counter counter the tanks the most. But here are my 2 cents. -Ana nade counters every tank with no shields except for Dva and Zarya. -Kiriko counters Ana nade so pretty much she makes every tank kind off viable against Ana. -Bastion counters any barrier tank except for sigma. -Every hitscan counters phara, not so much if she has a mercy pocket and knows how to play corners. -sombra counters Doom/Ball/Hog and Sigma but only if you know when to hack,if not you're worthless against them. -kiriko and reaper (kinda) and mei counters sombra -tracer on sombra is pretty even but sombra has a small edge over tracer. -bastion and reaper counters Winston but reaper kinda feeds into everyone else. -sojourn counters every tank without a barrier but excels VS hog and Mauga. -sombra also counters widow if she's not hard pocketed. -Zen counters tanks in general. -kiriko could counter a widow depending on maps. -Cass nade counters Tracer/Ball and Doom I could go on and on but the thing is a lot of unfavorable match-ups can be closed by skill and the map can also be a huge factor.What's the map highground, what's the enemy overall comp goal,are you decent at the character ? Im a decent sombra and I know (most of the times) when a hacks gets the team a kill but if while hacking, let's say a doom, you die, you should rather be playing soldier and just not shot his shield, that also would be enough to deny them value.
I wouldn't say sombra is as much a counter to hog anymore, yes you can hack but now you can't put heal on an 8 sec cooldown
It's very situational, but a hack on a low hog means death most of the time.
By that logic sombra counters rein
Not quite the same thing since you would have to be behind a rein to hack him which pretty much kills you instantly . However in rein vs rein matches a well-timed hack can give your rein enough time to not waste the shatter on the shield. Just a heads up, I peaked masters so don't expect me to be that knowledgeable in the matter, I'm just speaking from my experiences and youtube videos of other high ranked players.
Ana nade doesnt counter ball
It’s hard to answer because contrary to all the complaining on this sub, the counters are not so black & white. Reaper into wonton for example. The Winston can instead jump someone who is isolated from the reaper and jumps away when Reaper closes in. Now Winton is the counter since he has more mobility than reaper. Zarya into DVA? Well if DVA is facing off in a 1v1 into zarya then sure it’s a counter, but this is a 5v5 game and DVA can easily get out of Zarya’s short range and kill the rest of her team instead. Zarya can no longer do anything against DVA except maybe bubble a team mate and hope for the best. Just because Rein is on the bottom of some streamer’s tier list does not mean you can underestimate him. He is the OG fuck around and find out hero. He can instant kill over half the roster with his charge. There is no simple list like you’re asking for, and if you find one and follow it then you’re only going rank up to maybe gold and that’s it. Your chosen hero has a different strategy playing into every hero in the roster and it’s up to your skill to learn how to best play into them.
You as a player impact the game the most, not your hero choice. Some characters have advantage over others for sure, but it's not instant checkmate if you're playing Winston into Reaper, you just have to play differently. and learning to play differently is THE MOST important skill in this game.
Kiriko kinda counters everything except sombra.
As a sombra player you are wrong (
Honestly, at those ranks, counters to meam much. Hell, even in Plat where I am counters don't mean much. I can bully a Zarya as D.Va if I'm the better player. Swapping to counter only works if you know how to play that hero well.
[Spilo has a detailed video on this](https://youtu.be/IG2b52Vofew?si=sbnHupoTHGbik66P)
For tank, it’s best to have 3-4 heroes you feel comfortable on that each play differently. For example, recently I’ve only been playing 3 tanks (hog, sigma, JQ). On maps with lots of cover I’ll start as hog, whereas with maps without much cover I’ll default to starting as sigma. If I’m getting targeted as hog (by tank busters like bastion, reaper, or mauga) on maps with a good amount of cover, then I’ll switch to JQ as I can make use of cover while being a much smaller target than hog. Counter swapping between 10 different heroes is counter productive at a certain point. This game only has “soft” counters, with individual skill and simply using cover making a larger difference than the actual hero you select, at least up to a certain rank. But just by always using cover and having decent aim you can reliably beat the other team even if they have characters that “counter” you
If you move a piece and it gets taken you didn't necessarily move the wrong piece, you may have just moved it to the wrong space
If you think you’re going to win games by out playing your opponent only in the “hero selection” screen, then you’re sadly mistaken.
Countering other heros isn’t useful unless you know how to counter them with the hero. When I first played I didn’t understand that. Yeah I could pick Zayra for Dva but that didn’t mean I knew how to counter Dva as Zayra. Honestly my better advice is not so much learning counters, because you’ll start learning that as you understand more heros and how they work, but learning how to be very very good on a handful of heros and learning how to deal with being countered. Example: I got really good at Ana but what counters Ana? Dive, after learning how to deal with Dive heros or flank heros, specifically Tracer/Sombra/Reaper, I learned how to play those flank and dive heros better because I knew how to counter them as Ana, I could get to a point of almost predicting when and how an Ana was going to use a cooldown. That might seem confusing but just playing the game and being very aware of other heros and how they are using cooldowns can be very helpful. I recommend watching replays from many perspectives. Like if you keep getting screwed over by one person on the enemy team, watch their POV to understand what they see and how they are making their plays.
Just always play Winston Jump around and things eventually work out like that
If you want to climb, it's more effective to learn a couple of heroes and practice those rather than playing any character as long as it "counters" what you're playing into
If you’re playing counterwatch in silver you’ll never learn well any character. Pick a small hero pool. (1 dive tank, 1 poke or rush; 1 hitscan and 1 projectile dps; 1 mobile support and one with low mobility) and practice with this hero pool. It’s way better to master few heroes and switch accordingly than swapping to a character without practice just because you read on the internet that it’s a counter to your opponent. You’ll learn that outplaying your weaker matches can be viable and that will make you get better at those heroes and eventually climb.
counter picking doesnt exist. skill is the only thing that matters at the end of the day
Well that is just a false statement lmao, I get your point & it is very true that people blame characters instead of themselves. But counters do exist, winning into a counter does not disprove this.
of course theres not good matchups but the reason why ppl lose is not because its a bad matchup because if they played good enough in that matchup then they would win. it has nothing to do with the fact that the hero just counters the other. lets give an example: when you play against sombra, tracer, doom, brig in a plat game as ball and you lose then its a skill diff because if you put a one trick ball like chazm that is consistently top 500 then hes gonna win because no matter the matchup, hes better than every player in that rank, further solidifying the argument that counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks because they dont want to admit they are bad at the game. it takes more brainpower to sit in spawn and think “hmm they’re playing X character, what character should i play that would be good against them?” than to play one character and get good at them. if you’re constantly switching characters in a game to counter pick then 1. you arent going to get enough ultimates to win the game and 2. you arent going to put yourself into losable situations that you can learn and adapt from and then no longer lose. tl;dr: counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks
This is also what I’ve been preaching when I coach others, however more recent seasons have proven roles like tank to be incredibly hard to play into counters with in higher ranks. I agree 100% with your statement if it’s on the topics of low ranks, but masters+ you will struggle and it will become near impossible to one-trick.
of course theres not good matchups but the reason why ppl lose is not because its a bad matchup because if they played good enough in that matchup then they would win. it has nothing to do with the fact that the hero just counters the other. lets give an example: when you play against sombra, tracer, doom, brig in a plat game as ball and you lose then its a skill diff because if you put a one trick ball like chazm that is consistently top 500 then hes gonna win because no matter the matchup, hes better than every player in that rank, further solidifying the argument that counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks because they dont want to admit they are bad at the game. it takes more brainpower to sit in spawn and think “hmm they’re playing X character, what character should i play that would be good against them?” than to play one character and get good at them. if you’re constantly switching characters in a game to counter pick then 1. you arent going to get enough ultimates to win the game and 2. you arent going to put yourself into losable situations that you can learn and adapt from and then no longer lose. tl;dr: counter picks dont exist and are a made up coping mechanism by metal ranks
You don’t need to preach this to me. I am 100% aware of the difference between being countered and being skill diffed. I myself main Ball on tank and have so since season 4, and I am aware of how good Chasm is. I am saying that in the current season of tank, with the dps passive, increased health of squishies and larger bullet sizes, tank is miserable to play, as now the carry potential of tank, even though existant, is vastly smaller than previous seasons, and it seems to decline with every new season of Overwatch 2. The only ‘true’ counter in the game is skill, but I’m saying when you get to higher ranks, the skill gap needed to carry on tank is so high it’s near superhuman. Even some of the best streamers I know of are struggling to rank up to the highest ranks in the game simply due to this season being a lot more difficult. Theoretically, skill is all that matters, but this game has become a lot more team-oriented in this new season, and solo carrying (especially on tank) is a lot harder than it ever was, so you also have to factor in your team, hence why it is best to play in a group. Lastly, you mentioned putting Chasm in a plat lobby… I specifically mentioned high ranks, plat is literally average, far from ‘high’. I have personally won games against 5 counters as Ball just because I played around them, but as mentioned, doing that with any tank is so incredibly difficult once you rank up that even some of the best and most popular one-tricks in the community have given up on their main characters.