Originally my intention was to include a Symmetra guide here, but given the recent word from Jeff Kaplan that she would be receiving a significant rework in the coming months, I’m going to hold off for now. Honestly, there isn’t a lot to say anyway about how to play her. Her shield boosting ability is an odd relic of the game’s beta period. Her turrets only work on maps with singular choke points. if the other team has a Winston or D.VA, the turrets will be down before they do any real damage. The short version of what I was going to write is as follows:
- Use her on point A defense only
- Only use her on maps with obvious chokes such as Hanamura and Dorado
- Try to keep your presence concealed as long as possible to draw the other team into your turret nests
- Don’t immediately put the Teleporter down, but rather follow the same tactic a Mercy player would where you hide yourself and use it only when needed so the other team can’t destroy it ahead of time.
So instead, this will be general guide on working with your Support players and how to work them into team compositions. This will actually branch out to covering concepts beyond Support play, so consider this a more general guide for players of all roles. And I’m going to start this by explaining through an example why Symmetra is considered a bad pick. The following scenario occurred during a game I was in last week:
The Symmetra Gamble
My team was on attack on Numbani. I’m playing Reinhardt on a team with Zarya, McCree, Tracer, Mercy, and Zenyatta. Our Zarya, Zen, and I take the path up the stairs to come up above the point. Our Mercy, Tracer, and McCree flank from the back staircase. I observe that their team comp is Reinhardt, D.VA, Mei, Reaper, Mercy, and Symmetra. Reinhardt and D.VA are up top trying to defend against my group. The second I see the D.VA lit, I charge in to try to catch one of the two. I actually clip the D.VA, whose mech is just being finished off, and pin the Reinhardt, finishing him off moments later. Their team swarms in to take me out, which they do, but our McCree takes out their Reaper. They take out our Zen, but by this point their defense has completely collapsed and the point quickly falls to the remaining four on our team.
And herein lies the issue with Symmetra: she’s a gamble that your team can win the first team fight while at a disadvantage. While it’s not technically a 6 vs 5 fight, Symmetra has to survive the first encounter to have value. But her primary attack puts her in danger, her charge alt-fire attack is fairly easy to avoid, and thus it’s difficult for her to contribute to the fight. On top of this, picking her means sacrificing a more traditional role, in this case a second Support. So instead of the reliability of Zenyatta’s damage and healing, you have a gimmick character who needed us to enter the area through one specific entrance, and when we didn’t, got easily taken out without much contribution. Basically, the team comp they were using was built to sustain, but only if they could get to the second or third team fight with Mercy’s Rez and Symmetra’s Teleporter in their pocket. The gamble didn’t work, and the odds of it working fall drastically as you play against better teams. This is perhaps the most basic example I can offer as to why picks in Overwatch need to be thought of from a team perspective.
Which Supports to Pick and When
From a very general standpoint, here is a fast and loose guide to optimizing your Support picks:
Lucio is a must pick on Attack and Control/KotH due to the difficulty of engaging teams without Speed Boost. He is less necessary on Escort and Defense, though still a good pick. Lucio pairs best with Ana or Zenyatta in the second Support role. Lucio can work in combination with Mercy, but it puts a lot of pressure on the other four members of your team to make up for the pair’s lack of damage output.
Mercy is never a required pick, though she excels on Defense and to some extent Escort. On the other hand, she’s generally a bad pick on Control/KotH due to the frantic, open nature of it. Basically, you need some way of stashing her for her resurrects. She works better in Reinhardt-backed Death Ball lineups over Dive Comps.
Ana excels on Attack and Escort, but is less useful in other modes outside of triple and quad tank lineups. On Defense, she tends to be a good pick for countering another team using Ana, but I would recommend Zenyatta over her in most other cases as his Ultimate is more likely to bail you out of a bad spot. She works better in tank heavy lineups over traditional 2/2/2 ones.
Zenyatta is a solid pick in any mode and comp. He tends to pair best with Lucio since Speed Boost can compensate for his poor mobility. Ana and Zenyatta is typically not an advised combination, as it reduces Ana to basically a less reliable Mercy. Zenyatta is especially a good option if the other team has a Genji, as Transcendence remains the game’s best counter to Dragon Blade.
Team Comp Basics
Let’s face it: teams are rarely built around the Supports. Rather, you’re likely to pick Supports after the other five players have locked in three DPS picks and a Roadhog to help balance things. For the sake of argument though, let’s talk about your more standard organized formations and which Supports fit into them.
Overwatch’s version of the classic MOBA “Death Ball” simply refers to a team playing behind a Reinhardt shield as a group. A Zarya or Roadhog tends to be in the off-tank spot and a McCree or Soldier 76 tends to be in the role of the hitscan DPS. At most, these lineups might have a single flanker DPS. Because the team is both grouped up and protected, both Mercy and Lucio work well in this comp.
A “Dive Comp” is the other standard style of formation in Overwatch and instead tends to be built around Winston (or D.VA in some cases) as the primary tank. This is a more mobile formation that typically includes a Zarya in the off-tank role due to her ability to throw shields onto flanking DPS characters along with the Winston or D.VA. In this formation, Lucio is an absolute must for his speed boost to initiate the attack.
As for your second support pick in these comps, it’s really comes down to how you fill out your team. If you pick Ana, she needs to be paired with someone who can benefit from her Nano-Boosts: Reinhardt, Roadhog, Reaper, etc. If you have numerous flankers off in the distance, Zenyatta tends to be better unless you have a highly skilled Ana capable of hitting consistent shots.
Basic Calls and Comm Traffic
The following is a quick starter guide to common communications you should be giving your teammates throughout a match and what your teammates should know to do in each situation. Get used to keeping communications short and sweet during engagements.
- Die on point – Your Mercy is letting you know her Resurrect is ready and wants you to die on the point so she can bring you back together. This is an especially good counter to the other team’s Ult stacking You should not use your own Ultimates before being resurrected or attempt to keep yourself alive in this situation, though you do want to try to eliminate as many opponents as you can.
- “Need heals” – When you need healing, keep it simple. “Need healing badly” is about the extent of what your Supports need to hear.
- *Blank* is orbed – Your Zenyatta is telling you that he has put his Discord Orb on a specific target he wants you to focus fire.
- *Blank* is asleep – Ana has put someone to sleep. If you choose to wake them up, you better be able to immediately kill them. Otherwise, leave them alone.
- *Blank* can’t heal – Ana has hit a target with her grenade, and you should immediately focus fire them.
- Speed boost in *blank seconds followed by a direction* - Lucio is telling you when and where he’s going to boost the team in. Group up and go in that direction.
- Nano-Boost calls – Just make sure you as Ana let your teammate know they’re about to be boosted.
- *Flanker* is *location* – If you spot a Reaper, Genji, etc. coming into your backline, let your teammates know as soon as you spot them.
“I’m Under Attack,” or “Who Needs to Stop What They’re Doing and Kill That Genji”
We’ve all experienced the following: the Supports are being dived, they call for help, and instead of teammates helping, a debate occurs as to who is supposed to help out. Players soon turn toxic, and these teams end up losing every time. This following section is for everyone, not just Support players, in the hopes I can help reduce the confusion in the community that leads to these situations.
First off, the team’s primary tank needs to worry about tanking, not killing the nimble enemies in the backlines. The other team would love nothing more than to force your Reinhardt to drop their shield and try to fight a Tracer. The same goes for Winston in a Dive Comp. Yes, Winston is typically an amazing counter to Genji, but he needs to concentrate on causing distractions.
So congratulations off-tank; you’re on escort duty. If you’re playing Zarya, throw a shield on whoever is being targeted. If you’re playing Roadhog, you’re a fantastic counter to just about every diver and flanker, and they’ll have to come within hook range to attack your Supports If you’re playing D.VA, you can boost into anyone’s face, your Defensive Matrix can absorb fire, and you can beat most divers and flankers one-on-one save Reaper. If you’re Winston outside a Dive Comp, you are the best Genji and Tracer counter in the game.
Next, any backline hitscan or long-range projectile DPS characters need to assist. McCree, you are not a flanker. You should be in the safety of your team’s backline where you can protect Supports while still being able to fire on anyone. Soldier 76, the same goes for you, even if your sprint and healing allows you to flank. This same point applies to snipers. There’s no reason for any of you to be firing into a 2000 HP Reinhardt shield as opposed to the 150-250 HP squishie flanker out in the open.
Now, a note to flanking DPS players: while it’s typically not your responsibility to protect the Supports, what you need to understand by picking Genji, Tracer, or Reaper that the Supports aren’t there to babysit you. There is a reason Reaper has his Shadow Form and Reaping abilities. There’s a reason Tracer has her Recall ability. You are expected to keep yourself alive with the tools the game provides if you’re away from your team. You are expected to know where health packs are located throughout the map. If you are off on your own and constantly dying, that means you’re doing something you’re not supposed to do. If you want your Supports to heal you, you have to come back to the rest of the team for healing.
Finally, Supports need to look after Supports. If you’re Mercy, you can heal whatever Support is being attacked. If you’re Lucio, you can Speed Boost them out of danger and use your Soundwave to bump opponents off their attack runs. If you’re Ana, you can put opponents to sleep, you can use your grenade to either heal or damage flankers, and you can heal whoever is being attacked. And if you’re Zenyatta, your Discord Orb needs to be on whoever is attacking your backline.
Pushes fall apart without Supports. If you can’t keep your Supports alive, you need to do whatever it takes to remedy the situation or you’re going to lose. If that means changing the comp, you need to do it. And I don’t mean a minute away from losing, but within the first two minutes of the match. Yelling at your Support players over the mic is not going to fix things. Continuing to go about playing the game as if protecting your Supports is a job for someone else isn’t going to help you rank up. This is simply put the way the game was designed. Don’t tell me “But in the last game I was in our Zenyatta kept killing their Genji.” That means the Zenyatta player was likely significantly better than the other team’s Genji. Or it means he was getting more help than you realized.
Genji, Tracer, and Reaper are characters all designed to create one vs. one engagements in the middle of team fights. You are not losing because these players beat your team on their own. You are losing because you allowed that Genji to take your team on one at a time rather than forcing him to engage you as a group. But that’s the beauty of Overwatch: if you understand how character complement one another, you can beat better players through the use of good teamwork.
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