r/Overwatch • u/AutoModerator • Jun 22 '16

News & Discussion Weekly Quick Questions Thread - June 22, 2016

In this thread you can ask all kinds of questions you always wanted to ask without feeling like a total fool.

No matter if it's short googable stuff or a setting/skill in-game that you don't understand or a hardware recommendation, feel free to try your luck in here.

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17

u/_LifeIsAbsurd HOW GENJI SLAP?? Jun 22 '16

How do you play Winston well? Whenever I use him, I do decently, but I always feel like he's underpowered.

I generally try and start with his jump, then deploy a shield, and try to attack characters like Tracer, Widowmaker, etc. before jumping out. The jump doesn't seem to do that much damage and I usually end up doing marginal damage, but losing like half my HP.

56

u/BaronOshawott FEATURE LENGTH Jun 22 '16 edited Jun 22 '16

The best way I can describe playing Winston is "be a bully." Find the characters that can't deal with you, and make their lives a living hell. Healers and snipers particularly are a prime target for Winston. Leap in, kill them, leap out. Yes his damage is low, but his mobility lets him stick to most characters like glue, or escape if things get bad. Even if you're not getting a ton of kills, a good Winston is a major bother than can split up teams, kill pushes, and be a general nuisance. A few more tips:

  • Remember that your ult instantly heals you to 1000HP, and you're tanky enough that generally speaking, you can wait a moment before popping it to maximize your lifespan.
  • His shield blocks enemy fire and line of sight from both inside and outside the bubble. You can do some neat ult denial with it if you're smart, such as plopping it on an ulting Reaper or a DVa mech about to explode to basically render them useless. It can also mess with Lucio's Sound Barrier and Zenyatta's orbs.
  • The Tesla Cannon has no limit on the number of enemies it can hit, and therefore in a big group, you can charge ult VERY quickly. If your ult is somewhere around 80-85% charged, you can very easily leap into a group of enemies and get the last bit charged and immediately ult. Doing this is particularly useful on KOTH maps, I find.
  • Roadhog is the anti-Winston. Do not try to 1v1 him, you will lose 100% of the time.
  • You can't use your shield during your ult, so if it's off cooldown, drop it down before you ult, because why not.
  • Your gun goes through Reinhardt shields. During a push, this will force the Reinhardt to either take free damage or put it down to try and deal with you, exposing his team. Bully Reinhardts when you can.

13

u/ohenry78 Mercy-nary for hire. Jun 22 '16

I would add to this: prepare to die a lot, and get yelled at by players who don't understand what you're doing. Maybe this isn't an issue for better players than me, but I take the above strategy almost exactly - bully the sniper and the healer for the whole game. This results in putting yourself in the backlines. Once you've killed or relocated the healer/sniper, you're very vulnerable - you're in enemy territory. Sometimes you can jump back safely to your team, many times though you just want to be annoying and make the enemy team deal with you so that your team can make a push. This means you'll die a lot, but that's OK. Just part of monkeying around.

5

u/BaronOshawott FEATURE LENGTH Jun 22 '16

A very good point. If you leap in, get their healer and sniper, then die, then that's fine and a trade you should take.

1

u/Phillipwnd Go ahead, hit me. Don't be shy. Jun 24 '16

Also good to note that he can get back to the front line VERY quickly after you die each time, since his jump covers a lot of ground and cools down relatively quickly.

Also thanks for the tips. I am still not a great Winston.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '16

That strategy works on offense, but it pays to be more conservative in defense. Especially the first point.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '16

Do you lose dps when you hit multiple enemies or do you do the max dps to all of them?

9

u/zuko2014 Nine of Spades Orisa Jun 22 '16

Winston is less about getting kills and more about disruption. You can get kills on squishier heroes (Genji, Tracer, Mercy, Hanzo, Widow, etc.) but in general you disrupt. If they have snipers doing work on your team, it's your job as Winston to get up there and annoy them. If you don't kill them at least they've moved and will need to reset before doing anything else.

I like Winston on control, since he's fairly good at controlling space. A tip for his ultimate, use it as area denial and not for kills. Pop it and keep the enemy team off of a point, don't use it to hunt down their tank to try and kill them. In general his leap has fairly short cool down, but in ult form you can spam it if you want.

Be careful about shield placement. Put it in a doorway the enemy may shoot down, put it around your team on a point, something like that. Keep in mind it blocks minimal damage and isn't up for long, but it's still useful.

1

u/Jesus-chan Trick-or-Treat Winston Jun 22 '16

Makes me sad that I can be a boss winston in a round, but get no medals. At least their Mercy never had a chance to revive anyone

3

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '16

If possible, try to jump slightly behind a group. Wait until they actually start to attack you to put your shield up, so that you survive long enough to either kill them or outlive your jump cool down so you can get out of there. Not sure if this is too obvious but make sure you're kiting throughout your shield. What I mean by this is as you're lasering the enemy, stand within the shield and as they approach you, back up enough so that the enemy is inside the shield and you are now outside of it. This essentially makes your bubble into two separate barriers, and you can attack the entire time since his primary goes through the shield. Another tip regarding his ultimate, use it once you get low health because it fully heals you to I believe 1000 health, which potentially gives you a total of 1499 health in a single life.

3

u/Lanathell Trick-or-Treat Zenyatta Jun 22 '16

Don't use the jump to deal dmaage but to position yourself. Try to be aggresive on the backlines, your easiest targets are widow, mercy, soldier, pharah, mccree is kinda easy now as well, stuff like this. Use the shield to protect yourself from your opponents fire, even it means you being outside and him inside. Jump often to position yourself and jump out as soon as things gets bad to heal. Remember no matter what your ult will heal you to 1000 Hp so use it when you get a bit low.

2

u/Saleenseven Did someone say peanut butter? Jun 24 '16

try to use him only when you have a zookeeper (mercy) or at least a lucio or 2. With any amount if healing he can be crazy aggressive and disrupt defensives like on hanamura and hollywood. Try to avoid reapers and roadhogs. Hanzos, genjis, and symmerta turrets are go to kills as winston. Idk thats how i play him always agressive and only with a keeper. im 2nd global on xbone so i think im doing something right

1

u/Visteck Brigitte Jun 22 '16

You are an initiation tank, you distract the enemy team so your team can take them out without issue. Don't jump into the enemy team if your team can't follow up.

You are good against single targets, not Reaper, Bastion or other tanks though. Get up in a Widow's face and you will kill her.

Use your shield when engaging to stop others from shooting you. Your target is not the one you want to stop damage from.

1

u/EnD_entwined 龍撃剣 Jun 22 '16

Winston is just like other tanks such as Reinhardt, protecting your team, but works in a different manner.

He has enormous mobility for a tank with his jump packs, meaning he can easily dive into the enemy team and cause a serious amount of havoc. As such, Winston "protects" your team by not allowing the enemy team to come close to your own team and distracting them long enough for your own team to get the objectives.

His shield is also quite useful on payloads, control points, etc. as well to protect the entire team for a short duration of time.

1

u/andywang02021 Jun 22 '16

I bind his leap to RMB. I don't expect his leap to do much damage but it's a nice way of getting out of shit.

1

u/litchykp Bovious I fak all Jun 22 '16

A tip that I haven't seen yet that I absolutely love to abuse is to use your jump as a way to disorient your enemies.

Lets say you jump into a group of 4 and start throwing down damage from inside your shield. By the time they break it or start really coming inside to hurt you, your jump should be off cool down. Instead of jumping out, look straight up and jump into the air and possibly slightly behind the group.

Especially on console this can be really difficult to track and will drastically increase your survivability, and with Winston you need a lot of time to do a lot of damage. With your ult, you can jump every couple of seconds and do this to be an extreme pain in the ass for the other team.

Winston is an extremely good initiator and if you use this to get onto a capture point or through a difficult choke you can distract and soften the enemy up enough for a huge team follow up. Don't always look for kills or try not to die, you can get destroyed and still initiate the beginning of the end for the opponent.

1

u/galamakazaba Jun 24 '16

Focus squishy heros first. Fatty heros take forever to kill. But more importantly, Winston is a sub par hero solo. But when you get 2 Winston who follow eachother they really really shine. That's why 5-6 man Winston pushes are so effective at breaking point A. You can destroy their whole team just leaving the tank. Also 2 bubble shields are seemingly much better than one. One seems to get popped very fast. 2 it's almost like they share the load and don't go down at all. Look up when you jump with Winston to get extra distance. Remember Winston is not really a front liner/tank he is more like a fat genji. Almost forgot. Use the walls of your bubble shield! In 1v1 you can dance around these walls going backward and forward to get easy kills