One of the last few year's most anticipated games and likely to be this year's most highly acclaimed game; Overwatch has been a hit. Being a team based objective shooter, Overwatch has a heavy focus on communication with your teammates & focusing on working together to get things done. Since Overwatch has launched, I've spent most of my time playing with a group of people. A premade of 6, I've christianed us as the "Sonya Squad".

This group is composed of gamers from various different backgrounds, led under the supervision of RedSonya, who all have decided to start playing Overwatch seriously. This resulted in, at first, a clown fiesta of different skill levels, varying emotions, terrible puns, and a resentment towards playing Reinhardt. In 4 short days, however, we've worked together & improved, resulting in a vast increase in win rate in our games. In this article, I'm going to be discussing what the "Sonya Squad" did to shift from a random group of friends to a more decisive, skilled team.

Communication

I'm a Jungle/Support player on League of Legends. Communication has always been core for me in ensuring successful games. However, I've learned that I need to take it to a next level while playing with the "Sonya Squad". In Overwatch, communication is critical. To have better chances of success while playing, you need to provide accurate, quick information to your team as swiftly as possible. While we're playing together, it's not uncommon for players to shout out "Reaper on the right! Tracer behind us! Bastion on the right building!" while also periodically using the keybind to announce what % their ultimate is at (Z by default). This level of communication ensures that every player in the group knows exactly what's going on at all times & can take the steps necessary to complete the objective on the map.

Versatility

If you're like me, you really, REALLY enjoy playing one or two champions in Overwatch. Realistically, for the best chances of success, try to widen yourself to a specific role & play every champion in that role. What I've learned while playing with the "Sonya Squad" is that I can't just pick Tracer every game & win. I need to pick around the map, the team composition, and the enemy team composition. I like to focus on Damage characters so I may pick Pharah if my team needs someone who can handle snipers/turrets. I may pick McCree for an all-around solid damage pick or even Tracer for high close-range damage & mobility.

Repetition

When starting off, I was discouraged. I'd average maybe 5-10% weapon accuracy and honestly felt like it may have been in my best interest to refund the game. But repetition is key. We grinded dozens of games out together and I noticed a sharp improvement in the my weapon accuracy as well as having a better idea on what I'm doing. The fact is, no matter how good you may at other games, you'll need to relearn a few things when swapping over to another game. And that can take quite a bit of grinding.

Don't be a Hero

Overwatch is a team based objective shooter. The "Play of the Game" feature is great and all but, at the end of the day, the steps up to acquiring the objective and securing the objective itself are what wins the game. The "Sonya Squad" taught me to avoid going for insane plays & try to focus on more calculated team plays. The games tend to be more methodical and filled with strategy when we work together as opposed to running in and attempting to acquire a Team Kill.

Synergize

This applies to all aspects of the game including your team composition, your ultimates, and your movements. One of my worst habits while in my baby steps with Overwatch was going for plays on Tracer where I'd try to get near the enemy's spawn and "zone" them. While not a terrible strategy, if you don't communicate that with your team and create a strategy or a team composition around that, your execution may not work effectively. On synergy, ultimates are powerful abilities but the strength of the ultimates when used together can be game-changing. Utilizing two ultimates such as Zarya's ultimate into Hanzo's ultimate can be what ends up winning the game. This partially leads back into the point of communication.

Group up (Until you get Junkratata'd).

"GROUP UP ON THE PAYLOAD!" At the end of the day, the only way you're going to get that payload moving is by having your team work together to push it up. The only way you're going to secure that objective is by grouping up and applying all the other points in this article. Just make sure that when you're doing that, you listen for Junkrat's ultimate. Or you'll end up getting Team Killed multiple times like the "Sonya Squad".

Thank you for reading!

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