No one likes reading those articles about “Professional” Overwatch players. Well, presumably apart from other professional Overwatch players.
But for us regular human beings? No thank you. Who wants to hear advice from someone who basically knows that they’re better than everyone else? Not me! What I enjoy doing is talking with my friends about the characters they’re good at and getting advice from them to help me get better. The following is the first instalment of a little series I’m calling “Overwatch Tips from Your Average Joe” where I get some tips and tricks from just your average Overwatch players on how to “git gud” with all your favourite heroes. This week, we’re covering Soldier: 76.
Soldier: 76, or Jack Morrison as some know him, is the first character that players get a chance to play when they start up Overwatch. You play him in the tutorial and he’s meant to be sort of “good for all kinds of players”, being considered one of the easiest to learn and play. I, for one, with over 300 hours in Overwatch to this day, still find myself avoiding playing as Soldier: 76 because I never quite picked up on the best way to play him so here’s what my friend had to say about strategies.
“When I play Soldier, I don’t focus on getting the most kills or the most damage – at least not right away. I focus on picking off the enemy healers as soon as possible.”
The best strategy in most Overwatch games is to try and focus down the other team’s healers so that the damaging characters and tanks are easier to kill. Soldier, using his sprint ability, can get a perfect vantage point high up very quickly, making it easy for him to pick off the healers at the very beginning.
Once you have the healers down, you can then focus on lowering the health of those tanks, making it much easier for your teammates to move forward. You’ll be screaming “Young punks get off my lawn!” every time you take out those healers and clear out the enemy team soon after.
“When it comes to using my ultimate with Soldier, I still prefer that high advantage. That way I’m harder to spot right away and I can focus down anyone that isn’t suspecting me. If there are still healers around, focus them first if you can.”
Soldier’s ultimate can make or break a game, so it’s important to manage the ability the best that you can.
Since Soldier’s Tactical Visor allows you to automatically aim at enemy team members, the high advantage can make you harder to spot therefore you’re much less vulnerable and you can get the most damage out of your ultimate.
“Consider Soldier: 76 a kind of half healer-type character because of his biotic field.”
If your team’s healer(s) are caught up in the fight and you see that someone needs healing, throw that field down to let your teammates heal up. Otherwise you can selfishly use it for yourself in the heat of battle when you take damage. Just don’t use it right out in the open where everybody can see you. Consider it like a dressing room; you don’t want everyone to see you naked, do you? Find cover, heal up, then go back out looking fab-u-lous and kick some serious butt.
That’s it! Those are just a few of the tips that my friend had for those of you wondering about how best to play Soldier: 76. Give them a try, and if you have any tips of your own, please do share them in the comments!
Now, I’m off to go shake my fist at teenagers and tell them how I once walked 10 miles barefoot in the snow everyday to get to school. Those were the days.
