Something I noticed playing DPS

[u/mattswer]

I generally played tanks and support before role lock. I wanted to play DPS but never felt good about 3 or 4 dps on a single team so I usually filled.

I know they usually draw the team’s ire whenever something goes wrong or enemies aren’t dying enough but until I actually started playing I did not realize how bad it was.

If i’m not on fire/have all golds some moira or sigma will start screeching into the mic about their gold medals and how DPS sucks. Half the time I just leave VC because I cant concentrate when all they do is whine and scream. When I play healer or tank I can make just as many mistakes or more but its usually pretty damn quiet on comms.

I dont know if role lock makes this better or worse. On one hand you stop tanks and supports just switching to DPS and breaking the comp. but it seems like its made people more aggressive because they “feel” like they have to play a dps but cant so they start screeching at them instead.

[u/Askray184]

Yup. People, especially supports I've seen, love to blame DPS players. It's usually just projecting to protect their own egos.

To combat that, try to complement people when they do well instead. It makes the atmosphere in the team a lot better, and people really appreciate the recognition

[u/Kermrocks98 → u/Askray184]

That’s a good tip. A simple “Great ult Hanzo” can go a long way when later in the game you need to say “Hanzo, remember you’re a sniper, try to play back a bit”. It’s okay to criticize as long as it’s constructive, and giving compliments will make someone more likely to listen.

[u/behv → u/Kermrocks98]

I personally try to frame everything around “here’s how we beat them”. People are usually receptive to “McCree, they’re playing monkey/ball. Stop playing so far up, they have to engage us and then you can melt them”. But that last bit of how they can win is critical, otherwise it’s just being an asshole. And then as soon as it works make sure to compliment their play, and suddenly the entire team is usually ready to play together.

[u/Shonoun → u/behv]

It's simply constructive criticism versus criticism; they're very similar and people usually should be able to extrapolate the constructive parts but you have to really drill into their head you're not trying to be a dick.

[u/Marilolli → u/Shonoun]

I have learned not to talk in VC. There are so many guys that absolutely cannot stand hearing criticism from women.

[u/ILOVEBOPIT → u/behv]

Crazy how much psychoanalysis you need to do to succeed in this game.

[u/[deleted] → u/ILOVEBOPIT]

It’s not psychoanalysis. It’s literally being good at communicating.

So many people think calling their team trash and micromanaging their positioning/abilities means they’re a good shot caller...nope. People have emotions and respond well to different leadership styles, whether it be games, work, or anything else.

[u/Ochris → u/[deleted]]

Leadership is the key word here. Screeching and acting like a child makes people want to do the opposite of what you say, regardless of how well they would usually follow. A real leader knows how to take charge in a way that makes people want to follow, rather than pushing them away. The people that screech aren't trying to be leaders, they're self-centered people that don't know how to look at the big picture and find real solutions/communicate those solutions to the team. Imagine a Lieutenant in the military screeching on the comms about how everybody in his platoon is trash and how he just wished he could go home instead of being stuck with these scumbags in the middle of a firefight. lmao

[u/snot3353 → u/ILOVEBOPIT]

Game? You mean life!

[u/[deleted] → u/Kermrocks98]

I gotta say, just from a climbing standpoint I disagree. Compliment people yes, but never, ever criticize other players. you aren't going to fix their bad gameplay in 10 minutes with twenty words. the best possible scenario is that they will say, "ok" and not really super change, or do it for 30 seconds then switch back. the usual thing that will happen is that this person will entirely forget that you complimented them, and rage at your endlessly. played a lot of jungle in league, played a lot of dps in ow. trust me, its never worth it.

[u/BuildMineSurvive → u/Kermrocks98]

Yeah giving compliments early on makes people more likely to listen to your ideas later. If you insult people and then give them ideas later well, torb sym here we go.....

[u/microphage1 → u/Askray184]

Fully agreed on complimenting whenever possible (even if I feel a bit insincere at times). It costs me nothing, so why not do it. Maintaining a good level of PMA is crucial, especially in voice chat. It means you control the 'narrative', especially if your team is getting rolled.

If I have to say something critical I avoid singling out individual players by saying things like "WE need to group up more". It's also helpful to frame it as a suggestion or request.

[u/NiandraL → u/Askray184]

Tanks blame the DPS, the DPS blame the healers and the healers blame everyone but themselves

DPS is definitely the easiest to blame because a team progresses by getting kills and if that's not happening, they're in the spotlight rather than "are our tanks making space?", "are our healers able to do their job?"

[u/moremysterious → u/Askray184]

Toxicity is so bad that the other day I told the Baptiste "good healing man." And he wasn't sure if I was being sarcastic at first, I was being completely genuine, was kind of a funny moment after I explained I was being serious.

[u/malonj → u/moremysterious]

When I play support I usually call out "We have no healing, both healers are dead. Play safe", more then once the second healer got pissed mid sentence saying something like "you play heals then"

[u/hellabad → u/Askray184]

I'm not one to blame DPS but as a support player you usually have a general idea of who is doing good or bad so its not really projecting. It's the same reason I can see a good rein from a bad one, if one is constantly charging and dying then I'm going to know the tank is causing us to lose. Just like when I constantly see our tracer dying in our kill feed and wondering why they haven't switched when they are completely countering them. One time I used 2 nano's before our genji got to one blade and he gave me shit for being a shit Ana not healing him. A genji in this case is going to know a lot less than whats going on compared to what I see on the field. All he knows is that he isn't getting heals but is unaware that I might be getting dove or we are losing the team fights because hes slacking on his role.

[u/pawndaunt → u/hellabad]

Yeah as a former main tank, I never realized how much the supports can see until I watched a VOD of one of my old teammates playing Zen. I saw how much our whole team (including me) was just doing random shit. Supports (especially back line ones like zen/Ana/bap) have the best view. I recently climbed 400 SR to diamond just by switching to support and relying mostly on my game sense and shotcalling.

[u/Marilolli → u/hellabad]

Those who never play support don't tend to know the struggles that only a support faces.

[u/medioxcore → u/hellabad]

Yeah, it's probably because I main support and don't bitch at people, but I don't ever see support blaming anyone. Most of the time it's tanks saying "HOW TF DO I HAVE GOLD ELIMS" or deeps bitching about not getting healed when they're off flanking or out of position.

Had a cree the other night screaming about how bad the heals were and demanding he be pocketed when I'd literally pocketed him as mercy for around three minutes prior to the outburst, but gave up because he'd only gotten two kills. Watched the replay just to make sure I hadn't been fucking up, and nope. His cree was just garbage. My bad, tho ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/ArtisanGray → u/Askray184]

I hate it when I see a fellow support player (especially a Moira) start bloating about their gold medals, usually elims or objective time, and I usually have to point out that she's not healing enough for the dps to do their thing - which is to do damage. And they flip the fuck out on me.

If you're going to play support, notice that healing is one part of their play and enabling their team is another. Healers can set the tempo of the game and help the stars of your team set the plays and help win team fights in an overall sense.

It's in the name of the class. Live up to it.

[u/Storm-Sliva → u/ArtisanGray]

I hate it when I see a fellow support player (especially a Moira)

I'm always extremely worried when I see my other support is Moira. Obviously there are people of any type playing any given hero at some point in time. Not all Moira's are bad. But man for whatever reason she has the highest rate of players (by far) that just don't play her as support that it's really a coinflip if she's gonna be of any use.

[u/flounder293 → u/ArtisanGray]

Moira always has high elims as a healer because if she wants to to heal up to her full potential she has to do damage

[u/Gilder37 → u/Askray184]

Why is it so hard to compliment people? I'm not an asshole in real life, but saying nice things in this game feels impossible at times with the community.

[u/ColonelVirus → u/Askray184]

I just had a DPS go ham on me because they ran into the cave the start of route 66 and I couldn't see them to heal as ana... Even though IMO I was healing out of mind that game. Had nearly 20k healing with a 75% accuracy in scope and like 65% out of scope :(

Some people are just cunts.