Overwatch: Boop!

[Velaryon]

This is a wrong-headed approach, imo. Yes, supports generally try to do their job in spite of poor team cohesion, but if you're alone on the objective, you're part of the problem. Supports, Lucio in particular, shouldn't go alone ANYWHERE. Find your teammates and help them do what they're doing, even if it's stupid. Your best bet, IMO, is heading back to spawn with speed aura on and bring the respawns back into the battle. But failing that, pay attention to the kill feed, find the strongest player on your team, and help him carry. Yes, Lucio CAN stall against the right opponents, but as the mechanical skill of your opponents improve, solo-styling on the payload will result in more trips to the kill-cam, nothing more.

Right, but if you're playing with dimwits who never approach the objective, which is the situation I believe Avilan is describing, then if you follow them around, you're just enabling their stupidity.

Note that this is the first time in this discussion you mentioned your team scattering all over the map. Not being on the payload is not necessarily the equivalent of being scattered.

He's mentioned he's in Bronze. While I don't play competitive myself, my understanding is that this is pretty much the default state of being in that category. People pick the character they want to play and then either trickle in one at a time, or don't bother with the objective at all. Cooperation-minded players often have to choose between picking a tank or a healer, because the other five players aren't bothering to cover any roles at all. Basically, all the memes on Facebook (Genji constantly crying for healing, Hanzo mains who won't switch off him for any reason, Reinhardts who drop their shields and charge off without warning, etc.) are all true in Bronze.

[The_Jackal]

Right, but if you're playing with dimwits who never approach the objective, which is the situation I believe Avilan is describing, then if you follow them around, you're just enabling their stupidity.

In which case you're going to lose against a team who isn't just as, if not more dimwitted than your own team. And in that case, you're actually HURTING your MMR by doing nothing but parking on your keister on the cart and waiting for death, because it reflects individual contributions. This maybe isn't the most meritorious system, but it's the system we've got. And who knows? Help your teammates get a few kills, then point your cursor at the payload and hit the 'F' key, which will tell your teammates you want to push the cart, then use the 'join me' emote to hammer the point home.

My point is that you have no power over the enemy team's stupidity, whatsoever. So, make sure that you look out for your own stats so you can lose less SR than those idiots, and the best way to do that is to latch onto a teammate and make some bodies.

He's mentioned he's in Bronze. While I don't play competitive myself, my understanding is that this is pretty much the default state of being in that category. People pick the character they want to play and then either trickle in one at a time, or don't bother with the objective at all. Cooperation-minded players often have to choose between picking a tank or a healer, because the other five players aren't bothering to cover any roles at all. Basically, all the memes on Facebook (Genji constantly crying for healing, Hanzo mains who won't switch off him for any reason, Reinhardts who drop their shields and charge off without warning, etc.) are all true in Bronze.

Definitely true. And given that supports generally get shafted for MMR and SR by Blizzard's formulae, then it's possible that trying to climb out of Bronze as a Lucio main might be an uphill battle. That said, however, I still think you're more likely to get superior results by helping one of your teammates than just pushing the cart. To quote Patton, 'A good plan executed violently today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow'. Try to get the best result out of the army you've got, instead of wringing your hands that they're not all Grandmasters with a perfect grasp of tactics and strategy.

[Rising Phoenix]

Well, I don't think smurfing is against the rules, currently. And truth to tell, smurfing by really good players who've bought the game a second time just to have a 'low stakes' account is, I suspect, a fairly rare issue. More common is the player who deliberately tanks their rating to either go for zero SR, or more often, just to have fun beating up on low-skill players. This actually creates two injured parties. First, the team you tanked with who's basically stuck with a loss so they can drop MMR into the scrub pool, and then the scrubs themselves who get curbstomped by someone who belongs at a higher MMR.

It is ridiculously common in Diamond, There are basically smurfs every game...

[Togath]

What is smurfing, and why is it considered so bad?(also, who came up with such a weird name for it?)
Not arguing it isn't bad. I just honestly have no idea of the meaning or what it is about it that makes it so hated.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

What is smurfing, and why is it considered so bad?(also, who came up with such a weird name for it?)

Smurfing is when a player makes a second, new account and enters games with new players (or intentionally loses games to play against worse players, depending on how the system for matching players against each other functions). It's considered bad because it messes with the matchmaking system, can often result in the smurfing player intentionally trying to lose games to keep the account's "skill level" artificially low, and, most importantly, leads to players getting destroyed by far superior players, which isn't ANY fun to experience.

As to the word? The first major answer here seems about the best explanation of it I can find.

[Rising Phoenix]

Smurfing is when a player makes a second, new account and enters games with new players (or intentionally loses games to play against worse players, depending on how the system for matching players against each other functions). It's considered bad because it messes with the matchmaking system, can often result in the smurfing player intentionally trying to lose games to keep the account's "skill level" artificially low, and, most importantly, leads to players getting destroyed by far superior players, which isn't ANY fun to experience.

As to the word? The first major answer here seems about the best explanation of it I can find.

Yep, there are plenty of Grand Masters and top 500ds with smurf accounts trashing diamonds. It was so bad yesterday that my group quit playing competitive for the day. We also got paired with a six stack of top 500ds...not kidding...That was basically the last straw, we couldn't have any fun.

[Avilan the Grey]

I know i am better than Bronze, because Season 3 dropped me in mid silver and I lost some rank, but stayed there rather comfortably.

[Silverraptor]

Yeah. Which is why I don't understand why people would pay $40 to make smurf accounts. Maybe even more if the accounts get banned and they buy more smurf accounts. I don't understand throwing away money like that.

[Avilan the Grey]

The numbers according to Blizzard (from memory) are as follows btw (based on season 3):

Bronze 6%, silver just over 20%, gold just under 40%, platinum and up the rest (great grandmaster less than 1%).
Medium rank is low Gold. Which is hard to realize when reading forums where everyone seems to be Plat or diamond or higher...

So right now according to rank I am in the bottom 6%... Sigh. Better luck next season.

[huttj509]

Yeah. Which is why I don't understand why people would pay $40 to make smurf accounts. Maybe even more if the accounts get banned and they buy more smurf accounts. I don't understand throwing away money like that.

One streamer I know of did it to learn another role.

At the level he was playing at, it was common for people to look at the profile to see what heroes people were good with. Not only would they see he had very little time with, say, Soldier76, but he also knew he was NOT at that level with soldier, and playing above his dps skill he wouldn't learn the dps skills he needed.

So he made a new account, and only played dps. He did placement matches as dps, worked hisa way up as dps, and now he *is* at that skill level as dps, since he learned while progressing.

[Silverraptor]

One streamer I know of did it to learn another role.

At the level he was playing at, it was common for people to look at the profile to see what heroes people were good with. Not only would they see he had very little time with, say, Soldier76, but he also knew he was NOT at that level with soldier, and playing above his dps skill he wouldn't learn the dps skills he needed.

So he made a new account, and only played dps. He did placement matches as dps, worked hisa way up as dps, and now he *is* at that skill level as dps, since he learned while progressing.

Okay, that I understand. But I doubt every smurf is created for that purpose.

[Silverraptor]

Okay, this was funny!

[The_Jackal]

Okay, that I understand. But I doubt every smurf is created for that purpose.

What bothers me about the 'I smurf to learn new things' is that unless you're a top 500 player, there's literally no point to worrying about your rating, so you may as well just switch heroes like everyone else does and take a rating hit on your main instead of waste a bunch of money for a second account, on top of which all the games you play and levels you gain don't give you any of the boxes on your primary account. It really is a stupid, pointless, self-indulgent process that doesn't ultimately do anything for the smurfer or the rest of the player base. It's just dumb troll behaviour that makes the environment worse for everyone.

[Rising Phoenix]

What bothers me about the 'I smurf to learn new things' is that unless you're a top 500 player, there's literally no point to worrying about your rating, so you may as well just switch heroes like everyone else does and take a rating hit on your main instead of waste a bunch of money for a second account, on top of which all the games you play and levels you gain don't give you any of the boxes on your primary account. It really is a stupid, pointless, self-indulgent process that doesn't ultimately do anything for the smurfer or the rest of the player base. It's just dumb troll behaviour that makes the environment worse for everyone.

Agreed, but I'd personally would prefer to not affect my accounts sr, I like playing in diamond as the plays are generally better than plat (not that has been my experience in the last few weeks, everyone appears to be playing badly recently). I would much rather practise on an alt account rather than on my main as I don't want to risk getting mired at a lower sr bracket. This is especially true for me as I main support.

IMO they should just have individual SR ratings for solo Q- ratings for dps, tanks, support etc- so that you can practise at what reflects your skill role. They should also have a group SR for group q purposes.

[DaedalusMkV]

What bothers me about the 'I smurf to learn new things' is that unless you're a top 500 player, there's literally no point to worrying about your rating, so you may as well just switch heroes like everyone else does and take a rating hit on your main instead of waste a bunch of money for a second account, on top of which all the games you play and levels you gain don't give you any of the boxes on your primary account. It really is a stupid, pointless, self-indulgent process that doesn't ultimately do anything for the smurfer or the rest of the player base. It's just dumb troll behaviour that makes the environment worse for everyone.

So, I'm no Master player. I've been high Gold/low Platinum pretty much since Competitive became a thing, and I know that even for me trying to learn a new thing in Competitive would result in awful, terrible, toxic games where my teammates yelled at me for sucking and bringing the team down. I've seen people get on the mic to yell at Ster and Seagull for 'throwing' on-stream because they're playing non-standard characters for the enjoyment factor. I'm pretty sure the average non-famous high ranked player is going to get absolutely pilloried for it, even though you're totally right and rank really makes no difference at all. I know I'm pretty close to the middle of the pack in terms of Overwatch pwn skillz, so I can usually do pretty well at learning whatever new thing I want to try just by jumping into Quick Play and getting a decently even match where people are trying at least a little bit every second or third game, but I'm pretty sure the same is not true for people in the top 5% of the playerbase.

So yeah, those really high-end competitive players who make smurf accounts as practice mode? Those guys I have no problem with. Remember, their MMR will fairly quickly stabilize them to a reasonable rank relative to their skill with whatever they're doing and they'll continue to gain as they actually achieve their goal, so they really aren't hurting anyone. Just playing the game the way it was meant to be played, and avoiding the dickbags who take the game too seriously in exchange for spending some extra money (and $40 or so really isn't a bad sum for people who expect to put well over 100 hours into their smurf practice accounts). The ones who want to pwn some n00bs in Bronze and Silver to boost their own ego, though? Those guys can go to hell.

[Silverraptor]

New Overwatch Comic! It was actually pretty cool. Music startled me at first. Also, looks like the rumors of an Ominic Crisis Flashback Special Event might be turning out real. Especially since a major patch is scheduled for tomorrow.

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't have a problem with Smurfs who are super-skilled people that takes the game seriously, because they will very quickly pick up a new character and move up the ranks. And in the meantime they will help carry most games.

I have a problem with the trolls and the morons that do some sort of experimentations. Smurfs or not.
The ones that deliberately go for a <500 or even a 0 rating and therefore throw the game all the time. Or the ones that always throws the game if they don't win the first round (or throw the game after the first loss, regardless if we're leading 2-1).

[Silverraptor]

So I just played a game where I made the conscious decision to switch to Bastion to counter the enemies team comp. It was a weird game to make such a decision. Was Soldier vs Winston/Reinhardt combination. Couldn't do jack as Soldier, so many shields up. Then I remembered and switched to Bastion and switched to the focus of shooting barriers. Boy do they go down fast under a couple seconds fire of Bastion mini-gun mode.The change was dramatic, game went from being walked over on Gibraltar to making a last stand around the last corner to my entire team camping outside the enemies spawn point and killing them as they came out one after the other. It was such a huge change in the flow of the game from that one conscious decision, and it was me switching to Bastion. Still trying to wrap my head around that...

[Togath]

So trying out my worst hero, reaper... Am I doing it right if I'm playing him a little like the Spy from tf2? Sans disguise, of course, using my teleport to sneak past enemies/harass snipers, and my ghost mode to evade death, and ambushing foes from behind/above with my attacks.

[Silverraptor]

So trying out my worst hero, reaper... Am I doing it right if I'm playing him a little like the Spy from tf2? Sans disguise, of course, using my teleport to sneak past enemies/harass snipers, and my ghost mode to evade death, and ambushing foes from behind/above with my attacks.

That's how I play Reaper. Is there another way?

[The Hellbug]

So trying out my worst hero, reaper... Am I doing it right if I'm playing him a little like the Spy from tf2? Sans disguise, of course, using my teleport to sneak past enemies/harass snipers, and my ghost mode to evade death, and ambushing foes from behind/above with my attacks.

Sort of. Reaper's much less reliant on catching people totally unaware than the spy is. For example, if one of your tanks is making an opening, Reaper's fine with being on the front line with them, much more so than other flankers, in my opinion, since his damage is much higher than theirs (making him much more of a legitimate threat to tanks). Once he gets to that 'knife fight' sort of range, he doesn't much care how he got there or (to a lesser extent) who he's there with.

The nature of his escape also wants him a little closer to the front lines since, if things go south, he has to be able to make it to a place whoever's threatening to kill him can't follow (ie: the rest of his team) otherwise they'll just walk alongside him and kill him after.

[Togath]

Cool~ I think I'm finally figuring him out then!

[Velaryon]

In which case you're going to lose against a team who isn't just as, if not more dimwitted than your own team. And in that case, you're actually HURTING your MMR by doing nothing but parking on your keister on the cart and waiting for death, because it reflects individual contributions. This maybe isn't the most meritorious system, but it's the system we've got. And who knows? Help your teammates get a few kills, then point your cursor at the payload and hit the 'F' key, which will tell your teammates you want to push the cart, then use the 'join me' emote to hammer the point home.

My point is that you have no power over the enemy team's stupidity, whatsoever. So, make sure that you look out for your own stats so you can lose less SR than those idiots, and the best way to do that is to latch onto a teammate and make some bodies.

So is it better to go for personal stats and say screw the objective when it comes to building your SR? I've never had any interest in competitive mode, so I never bothered to learn how the ranking system actually works. Because if so, that would explain why everyone in bronze is running around treating it like a deathmatch instead of playing as a team, because the ranking system is actively encouraging them to do that from the way you're making it sound.

Also, you have a button that tells people to push the payload? We console plebs don't get one of those...

Definitely true. And given that supports generally get shafted for MMR and SR by Blizzard's formulae, then it's possible that trying to climb out of Bronze as a Lucio main might be an uphill battle. That said, however, I still think you're more likely to get superior results by helping one of your teammates than just pushing the cart. To quote Patton, 'A good plan executed violently today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow'. Try to get the best result out of the army you've got, instead of wringing your hands that they're not all Grandmasters with a perfect grasp of tactics and strategy.

What I would do in that case is say "screw support" until you reach a rank where you have a prayer of finding a team that works together, and just play a character with good self-sustaining like Mei, Roadhog, etc.

Or just play Quick Play and Arcade, which is what I actually do.

[Milo v3]

I feel so lucky, people in Gold actually work as a team and I haven't noticed any smurfs.

[The_Jackal]

So is it better to go for personal stats and say screw the objective when it comes to building your SR? I've never had any interest in competitive mode, so I never bothered to learn how the ranking system actually works. Because if so, that would explain why everyone in bronze is running around treating it like a deathmatch instead of playing as a team, because the ranking system is actively encouraging them to do that from the way you're making it sound.

If your team has 5 tardlicks who won't cooperate? Yes, I'm afraid so. That said, I don't think that's people "gaming the system" because cooperating and communicating is WAYYYYY more effective. If you really want to climb, get a mic, and use it.

Also, you have a button that tells people to push the payload? We console plebs don't get one of those...

Wow, that sucks.

What I would do in that case is say "screw support" until you reach a rank where you have a prayer of finding a team that works together, and just play a character with good self-sustaining like Mei, Roadhog, etc.

Yeah, they really need to fix support SR.

Or just play Quick Play and Arcade, which is what I actually do.

Yeah. It's mostly what I do too.

[Avilan the Grey]

I want new Lucio NOW. Dammit.

[Togath]

So I'm decided to learn Tracer and Reinhardt. Anyone have advice? For far... I've figured out using Rein's flame blast on cooldown seems good, and that binding his shield to my Q key was a very unwise choice since it prevented me moving left while it was up. I've since bound it to middle click(since my right mouse button only works about 50% of the time). Also that Rein has surprisingly good range on his hammer.

[Chambers]

Tracer can reload her guns while Blinking if I remember correctly. I would recommended practicing for headshot against Ana Bots with Tracer. Tracer can kill some squishy characters in one clip if she gets headshots.

Also practice strafe blinking, not just forward/backward. Be wary of cliffs.

[Silverraptor]

For Tracer, I find sowing confusion the best strategy. Be unpredictable in your movements and always try to hit the enemy where they are not looking. And when they start looking at you, run away and come back at a different angle. Also, recall can be used to get you out of a tricky situation, even if you are at full health. Just always remember where you were 3-4 seconds ago before using it. Once on Hanamura I intercepted a tracer trying to blink jump the gap when I was defending a second point. After a couple blinks she recalled and appear right over the chasm where she fell to her death. So remember if you did just jump over a chasm or some other hazards 3-4 seconds ago and react accordingly from there. That's all my tips and advise using tracer, anyone else got tips to add?

[Pendulous]

On the other hand, if nobody is pushing the payload, we'll loose.

That reminds me. I frequently have gold objective time as Mei. I don't know why.