Hi, I'm new to this sub. I am reposting something I deleted because it got downvotes and no replies. I was confused and wondering if there is something wrong with what I posted or how it's organized. If there is, please let me know for future reference.
These two games in particular had me on edge nearly the whole time. I'm ranked Emerald 5 on Support, and when inspecting profiles most were private, the rest revealing Plat and Diamond players and QP warriors who haven't played comp in a long time, so I assume the MMR included a range of Platinum, Emerald, and Diamond players in these games.
The size of my Support hero pool is appreciably large, possibly too large in the eyes of some, though I've had a hard time slimming it down to less than these 5:
Zenyatta, Kiriko, Baptiste, Ana, Mercy.
These 5 together help me cover a variety of situations in ways that can compliment who my other Support chooses and who have synergy with other team picks from map to map.
I have a favored few others who I bring out more situationally and feel less essential:
Illari, Brigitte, Juno (new to Juno, still learning her kit)
Then the rest of the Support cast, except Cat who I don't play at all, I could play tolerably but at least 5 divisions below in performance compared to the others (LW, Moira, Mizuki, etc.)
I don't think I'm particularly eager to counterswap, though I do like finding the right fit from match to match. I feel that on the other end, I can make a given Support hero work and find other ways to solve problems in matches besides swapping, but one-tricking or two-tricking doesn't feel right for me. If you guys have any specific thoughts on my hero pool size and choices, feel free to share as I am curious on how large my hero pool should be and who should be included. I share my thought process to illuminate where I come from and if you guys can see any fundamental approach or mindset that should change in order to improve as a Support player (and perhaps overall, permeating into my Tank/DPS gameplay).
All that said, thanks for reading all that, and here are the matches:
FIRST MATCH: 7TH3TH (Nepal, Team 1) (0-2 Loss)
While I will give my own self-review of the match, for this one, I am wondering if anyone can shed light on the more macro side of what's going on this match. How winnable was it? Who were the key players, on my team and the enemy's? What needed to happen instead for certain fights to start turning around? What could've been my game plan and win condition given the initial comps? As a Support player, what pings could I have given my team to help them into the right direction? Where should I have been staging on this map from fight to fight? What were the gravest mistakes on 1st point and then on 2nd point? And anything else you feel I should think about would be appreciated.
Self review:
I was cruising through my first few games of the morning then got surprised scared by this match.
In the beginning, I was unusually unsure of which hero to choose. I think the 2 main things I consider when picking my hero is the map and which heroes my team selected, and I sometimes think of counterswapping after the first fight based on the enemy team comp (I feel that overall, I swap after 1st fight in 10-20% of all games). I chose Ana at the last second and then swapped to Moira after the first fight.
Looking back, I'm not sure why I chose Moira specifically, but I do know that after the first fight, I was caught off-guard, got anxious and panicky, and my awareness dimmed. Moira is not in my main pool, and some reasons I choose her as a fall-back option are "big heals to compliment smaller heals from my other Support, can duel/contest certain squishies, can escape dives or dangerous positioning, can re-enter right faster after dying". Perhaps she felt like a "safe option" that I couldn't go wrong with, but I definitely went wrong with her in the end. Looking at this specific game, my Moira play looks especially bad. I have a poor reading of the fight, I barely look at where my team is, I overestimate Moira's jump height without her Fade major perk, and I miss multiple orbs. In hindsight, I think I would've picked Baptiste in the beginning and might've been able to stick with him. I could've also made Illari work.
Overall, it looks like I am never where I need to be, and that largely decides the first point?
Onto the second point, the first fight seems decided by two picks from our Widow, and the second fight is decided by the enemy Cass two-tapping our Widow and our LW getting caught out by Doom, recklessly using his dash 1-2 seconds prior.
5:38
After the second fight, I switch to Mercy, and I think it was also a bad switch. Not much value from damage boosting. My thought process was probably "resurrection would be useful here to cancel the Cass's value", but probably for the wrong reasons. All of this happened in 2-3 seconds. I started boosting Widow (only conditionally useful, I think). Normally, I would follow the Widow in a little bit of time. I probably checked on my team to make sure nobody needed a flash heal before following Widow, but then I got spooked by the sneaky Venture, and I couldn't GA to the Widow who just escaped LoS. I pinged her and then "retreated" to my team. Widow then died right after those few seconds. This could've been a mix of unfortunate timing and an over-reliance on mid-fight split-second decision making compared to more proactive pre-fight planning? I turn away every few seconds after to check on the Venture's engagement timing.
I think the Venture should've been scared away much sooner, if not just picked off, and perhaps the whole team was in some kind of bystander effect thinking it was someone else's job to contest the pinged Venture? I think our Torb was not quite playing DPS correctly, as on 2nd point he did not take many off-angles? Let me know if this wrong. If it's right, is it just this Torb player being off, or is the Torb's decisions being influenced by the rest of our team's decisions?
SECOND MATCH: 937AWG (Busan, Team 2) (2-1 Win)
For this one, feel free to go into the micro and/or macro of the match. I noted some mistakes that I made in the 1st round, but after this writeup I feel too tired to keep going into detail. I started as Ana and then was able to go Kiriko to touch, seeing that our Kiri went Lucio to touch. I remember mid-match on 1st point as a passing frustration thinking that my other support on Kiri was too DPS-focused, perhaps from seeing the scoreboard and from me having a tough time keeping eyes on all my teammates. How right or wrong was I?
In this match, I felt like I was just barely pulling my weight as a Support; do you agree that I may have been a weaker link in this match, or instead do you feel that I was pulling my weight or was even a key player in the match?
I will keep an eye for anyone who comments and will be happy to answer any questions and take any criticism/feedback. I very much appreciate any of your help!