Shotcalling can be tricky in overwatch, especially in a solo queue environment. There's no time to explain why a play is good, or could be but only time to try to implement it and win the game. In this guide we go through some of the basics in an effort to help you get better at shot calling, let us know what you think and be sure to drop a Like & Subscribe if you enjoyed!
Max Stirner If the team can't spot and kill the screeching tire with all six there... thats kind of sad. Yes, Junkrat can hide and strike from above etc, but once you here the tire the whole team should be on alert.
Potato Beast466 SUPER advanced tactic: convince Blizzard to create hero with silence ability. Convince enemy team to group up. Silence junkrat ult. Sip a martini as you bask in your victory.
Ultra Mega Advanced Tactic. The junkrat player found your discord/teamspeak and joined it, then listened to all your calls and waited for you to say "group up" when you said it, he got into position and yelled into the microphone as load as he could, so you couldn't hear the tire. He then got a 7k ult and won his team the game.
And male. I'm a girl and as soon as people hear me, tactics are out the door and everyone's all "omg a grillll" or they think I'm 10 years old... I'm 20.
yeah I thought she might not be too bad if she's not peaking a lot but sometimes with pharah you have to put a lot of focus into not dying, Zenyatta is the best caller in my opinion since he already needs to call discord as is
I would like to say that there is a misconception about which class has an easier time or is better suited for shot calling. Every character has important things they can call out, so its not truly a class thing, but a personal thing. Some people are better multitaskers, and some heroes that are easier, make it easy to multitask, but it doesn't mean that person couldn't do it with a complex hero. Hero's like Zen and Ana have a lot of things to focus on, just like DPS, as they also require good aim and cooldown management. The reason why supports are usually shot callers is because they have abilities that usually affect most of their team, so they speak for most of their team, however, that doesn't mean that a tank or DPS cannot shot call. A DPS that sits behind his tanks with his medics doesn't have to shot call, because he sees the same thing most of his teammates see. Now a flanker DPS or TANK (Winston/Dva) has a lot of things they can call out that their team may not see. Flankers can tell their team that they are occupying the attention of such and such hero(es), and can tell their team that they should push through the choke, and in which way. They can draw attention to one area and tell their team that another area is defenseless or if defended, the defenders aren't looking in the direction the should. If they kill someone, they can announce that. A tank like Rein is an excellent shot caller, because he's the team escort. If you watch football, he'd be like the Center, which is the guy who hikes the ball to the QB, but before the play starts, he tells the QB what the defensive line and LBs are doing, so the QB has a better idea of what to audible. So you can have multiple shot callers, who have windows where they are needed. Rein can tell people his shield status, whether or not he wants to block a certain dmg, so he can conserve his shield, like if it's a bunch of tickle dmg, he can put his shield down, and let the medics charge ult. If its lethal DMG, he needs to put his shield up. Rein is in a position where he can see most of the enemy's positions, so he can call that out, and since he has a charge move, the team needs to be in position to assists him should he so choose to charge. Shot calling is really dependant on a player's personality, because truly, the only hero that might see the whole battlefield is Pharah, as everyone else sees to an extent before there is a corner, or teammates in the way, or whatever visual obstruction there may be.
lol...I don't think people are impressed by the length, but are rather turned off, however, I'm a detail oriented person that loves this game. So if I'm going to say something that isn't obvious, it will probably require a detailed explanation. Also, I like to explain it well the first time, so I don't have to repeat myself lol.
I was a very confused in comp yesterday when we are attacking control point on numbani all of us pushed to the left about all of us are fighting on the left with some enemies on the point. Most of us are alive, including the rhinehardt and I go "ALRIGHT WE'RE GONNA JUMP OFF TO THE RIGHT TO GET THE POINT READY? 1 2 3" and I jump and I get to watch everyone still alive fighting on the top left..for the 6 seconds of my ult
XxZeN0xX I've been the only one on mic, calling the shots because no one had a mic, but everyone could hear me (I thought only one person could hear me until the end lol). It was awkward, but directing focus fire, calling out opportunities, etc saved us the game. People typed their thanks in chat ("thanks, captain mercy!"), and I was so embarrassed, finding out everyone heard me the whole time, haha. It might be useful to call out small things if you are the only one on mic, like flankers and nearly dead enemies, but do what's comfortable for you!
I used to feel like that but being a healer main i really felt the need to talk when no one else was because you need to at least give direction like group up or push forward or back up or tracer in back line, etc. A thing you can do if you don't want to be the only one talking use the find group and find a group that has mic as required because those people will be talking and if they get somebody who isn't they will most likely kick them because they want the communication
the problem is that people don't even know how to start a conversation, even before they introduce themselves they immeidately try to shotcall others, and nobody is actually communicating, just people speaking their minds. every time i go into a match, the first sentence i say is "hi everyone, how are you doing?" and if appropriate response arrive "what's the plan?". "what's the plan" is a question people should ask more often, we have 50 seconds to come up with ideas and people are much better conjuring up ideas together than everyone to himself.
Honestly... if I see someone who is comunicating/shotcalling in solo queue I'm like THANK YOU GOD and ive basically won every match where we have someone good at shotcalling.
being adept at saying things the right way is super important. like you said, a big part of shot calling is being aware of your team dynamic and adjusting. sometimes you get those insane goofy people who just don't care and you have to cajole and work with them when the rest of the team is already telling them to shut up. I can't count the number of games turned around because I listened to my teammates and remained kind and calm. I've also tilted plenty of times and and lost my effectiveness calling shots.
I main Lucio and my entire game chat speech consists of 4 sentences "I've got drop the beat" "I'm speed boosting in" "back up" "focus ana(or any other heals they have)" pretty effective
Here;s some advice for the shot callers. If you make a call and don't specify a person, the rest of us who fit the call are going to feel you are talking to them. You need to mention people either by name, hero, or class in order to help single out people and let others know you aren't talking to you
Love that you guys made a video on this. Yesterday I was solo queuing as a mercy, defending on the 1st Eichenwalde point, everyone had died, but our bastion was on the side of the map with his ult ready just peppering the point. There were 4 people on the point and I shouted like 3x on my mic "Use your ult!" he ended up ulting with my callout and got 4 picks. We were able to win the match after that... felt good.
I found that encouragement is incredibly important as well. If something works out just tell your team they did a great job and let's keep it up, stuff like that. really helps the team dynamic
Another good tip that works is positive reinforcement in solo queue esspesislly. People are more likely to listen to your shot calls and play better if you congratulate an individual or group as a result of success. Phrases like 'good pick' or 'great push guys' I find bring a solo team together very well.
I've been playing a competitive game today as zenyatta, our Rinehart kept pinning through the first choke on kings row. We were losing until I told my team to group up and attack as one. On defense I called out when someone of the enemy team flanked us. And I was calling out discords through the whole match. Was this a good example of shot calling?
6:40 there are a lot of reasons ppl could not mic. some reasons that come to the top of my head is that they could have a cold/allergies (happens to me 24/7), their environment could be too loud (esp. applies to console users bc no push to talk), and they could have social anxiety (this is a big one that can be v/ common, but i have yet to see it addressed in a single video from ANY overwatch advice channel, not only your overwatch).
just realized i forgot to list that they could be mute. there seems to be a big source of saltiness and toxicity within the community about players who dont mic or join voice channels when it can simply & easily be just due to mental &/or physical disabilities. in fact muteness & social anxiety doesnt just apply here too- people who aren't mic'ing could be having sensory issues, be dealing with a toxic situation in their household (e.g. if theyre too loud they're too anxious they'll be yelled at), they may be having emotional troubles (things common in bpd, bipolar, and other disorders related to mood is getting in a funk where it's hard to talk without your emotions going everywhere), they may even have anger issues and just don't want to upset anyone. i feel like it's really unfair to be salty towards players who aren't mic'ing, because you truly don't know heir situation. i'm not aiming this at Your Overwatch specifically (in fact, you guys aren't usually even very salty about this most of the time); it's more directed towards the general attitude that the community has- streamers, youtubers, and comp players in general.
Literally yesterday I dropped into the shot caller role with a group of friends. Since I'm the only one who watches your channel some of them didn't understand things like "Back up don't contact until we're at full strength." And they'd be fighting on the payload while two of our team are at the long spawn. Or "Rein go in create some space for us." And we're all standing at the choke having won the shield battle even but can't advance because our Rein isn't moving.
This vid was great, as it covered just about everything. 2 things I would like to add is the need to develop great spacial skills and to speak in 3rd person (hero names). When a teammate is unaware of something, getting him to move or look in that direction in a high paced environment can be challenging. Your left may not be his left. How far left you think the enemy is, may not be your teammate's idea of 'far'. It takes a lot of practice, so practice it even when you aren't doing ranked. If your teammates have a feel for what 15%-30% looks like (90% is like saying turn left/right 180% is behind you), then it will fine tune a lot of positional callouts. If they have a feel for the distance in the US or Metric system, use that too. It sounds corny, and most times you won't have to go to that extent, but sometimes you will, and it helps to have it down so you can say what you need to without thinking too hard about it. Having great spacial recognition is great for Ana, because many times teammates will body block heals from teammates on the brink of death, and sometimes you have to know how to tell your teammates how to get out the way quickly, so that you can keep someone alive. Speaking in third person or calling people by their heroes makes a huge difference. Telling a medic, "I need healing." When there may be 3 people who needs it, doesn't help the medic help you. If you are Zen, say, "Zen needs healing, behinds you or something (spacial skills). No one knows who I, you, us, we, he, etc is within high paced environments. Don't call people by their gamertag unless you are asking them to do a service, like, "(gamertag) (hero name) needs such and such. However, even though you know who they are, your teammates may not be thinking about a guy named X picked this hero in the selection screen. Some things are obvious, and don't require any of what I said above, and somethings teammates can do telepathically, as you can just put yourselves in there shoes to have a good idea what they'd want at this and that time. I guess that's a 3rd thing to think about; be considerate of your teammate's situations in battle, which is part of 1 and 2 anyways.
Two things that helped me get better at shot calling was playing with an open mic (with caps lock toggling mute) and sound confident. I wasn't able to make calls mid team fight because I was focused and unable to hold down a button. If you sound confident, then it doesn't matter what your voice sounds like (trust me I have a speech impediment)
another great video, on a delicate matter I would say. So thank you one more time for trying to make this game better for a lot of people. Watching YOW videos is part of my daily routine nowadays :)
Also a really important call in my opinion is to tell the team to go in and confirm the kills. Sometimes after a won teamfight enemy has like an Ana and a Zarya alive and your team has still everyone but starts backing off.
I play on PS4 and with a 6 stack but if we don't have the full stack(usually only risk it if we have only 1-2 randoms) we stress going to team chat so they can listen to shotcalling. I see so many people saying we don't have many people using mics but a little tip we have found is they might not have one but they might still be able to hear you. we ask all non mic randoms to say thanks if they can hear us. has found us a lot of good randoms who still wanna listen. I am a Mercy main who constantly is the shot caller for my squad. I tell everyone at the beginning of the match that isn't in our group if I get too pushy to tell me so. Just be calm which can be hard. Good video overall. Solo queue shot calling has earned me friend requests. The one issue I'd like addressed is that female shot callers like myself don't get listened to as much because we are assumed to be kids or just a fake gamer girl. I have heard all sorts of bad stuff about my gender and would like a video about reducing toxicity with this particular issue highlighted cause it can get nasty and make me wanna scream.
One thing that happens is even if you die, if you know you killed a very important target, and that your team has the punch to back it up, telling them to go in anyway and then monitoring them on your way back, keeping them up on who's up and who's respawning, can help keep them in a fight. Monitoring criticals as a support, death spectating, all of that can help even if you're down. I generally switch right over to the tank unless I think the enemy did something fishy when I died or someone else suspects a hacker.
This is a good video Weagle. I usually shot call in our 6 stack either as Widow or ana. i want to know sometimes when you ask the team to ult everyone ults. I feel in most cases you need to make the team understand combos you are going for without them all ulting. e.g "Zarya ult with pharah." or "ana, soldier combo to get mercy". Overall nice video, love how you mentioned to be calm and collected.
Really good video. Going to take in as much of this in as I can and implement it into play. I've been trying to shot call in Solo Queue as much as I can, but of course it's difficult because so many people don't even get in the voice channel, which is even worse than being in it and not talking because at least those people can listen if nothing else. Either way, soaking this all in as I can. Thank you for the video.
Helpful video! As a girl who plays a lot of support I'm good at shotcalling but it's difficult to get people to listen to me. In the case that they will these tips will be very useful!
To add onto calling for heals, use the quick select for healing. It puts a big blue marker on your teammates screen. The marker is much better than heal me/ heal Mcree or Pharah or whatever.
I often use the term "push" to try and get people to engage a target or point. I usually call for a push when people are poking at a point but the point or payload could be taken/moved if people would get into the fight, take some damage, but with a consistent attack could easily overrun the defenses the other team has set up.
also I would add that your job as a shot caller is to get your team on the same page, and willing to work together. I will often say things like "ok guys, our goal here is to trap them at this choke point, we need to put 2-3 at right and left door, don't die, if we wipe here, they can push past the choke then we're in trouble. watch for pharah/gengi through that tiny opening up top" etc
One thing i've found very successful is before game starts, if you're playing a support just ask if anyone minds if you shotcall a bit. People tend to be more aware of what you say.
I like some of the advice here. Keeping terminology simple is great advice because it is clearly true, but in the heat of battle, it can be easily forgotten. What do the players here think about using in-character dialog as a form of communication? While in a spawn point, I will often try to establish some line of communication for players who do not have keyboards and-or mics handy. I will say something like, "If you can here me, announce your ultimate status," or, "I'm going to be calling out opponent locations over the team's voice chat. If anyone finds this annoying, just say 'Group Up' twice very quickly, and I will know to shut up." Darn near nobody ever responds to messages, so either they cannot hear me, cannot understand me, or they have already muted me. In any of those three scenarios, no one is hurt by me trying.
I've had a little bit of success at "shot-calling" at the low ranks of competitive. I play zen most of the time, so a receptive team is usually willing to fallow my callouts as to whom I have discorded
Shotcalling with a female voice is pretty 50/50 for me as to whether or not they will listen. A big problem that's really annoying is getting talked over during a match when I'm trying to give the team information or make a play.
I shot call in solo. I usually say we need a dive comp or take the high ground and rain down hell. Most people know when to ult. So I usually take the character that can lead like support or tank. When in solo you kind of have to take the bullet. But you do get the bad guys too.
Soldier please shoot at the pharoah have him disorb then your looking at soldier and he's shooting at the rein shield as Pharaoh rains down bombs at zen and ana
John Romano Today some asshole kept begging us to win in the chat cause it was his last placement. In the last 20 seconds on Route 66, a Nano-boosted, full power Zarya is the only one approaching the payload and I sleep her. No one does anything for the first 2 seconds. Then this goddamn idiot, as Soldier, briefly shoots three bullets at her and stops, as if realizing the mistake he has made. She gets up, Ults right in front of herself, where we are, walks past the Rien shield and kills all four off us immediately. Then wins while we respawn.
Sorry, but soldier is both overpowered and easy to play. There's no "its not always easy", he has some of the most consistently high damage, then has burst damage from rockets, he is one of the fastest to get from spawn to a fight, and he can heal his whole team. Edit: My point being, if someone playing soldier fails to get silver or gold eliminations, or fails to gun down others, he is to blame. Its like D.VA blaming tracer when she doesn't absorb an ult with her ridiculous matrix
He was saying it isn't always easy to get pharah as soldier not that soldier isn't one of the easier heroes. If they zarya bubble + mercy pocket and a pharah who is good about falling out of line of sight then killing the pharah can be very near impossible unless you have 2 hitscans.
I know u guys are talking about the competitive circles, but let me throw two cents in from the mere mortals down below: SHOOT THE DAMN PHARAH! If I happen to pick a hitscan hero or someone with long range shots in general (like my man Zen), I make Pharahs my prime target. A well-played Pharah is right there with Junkrat as THE MOST annoying enemy to face. I've lost count on how many times I was playing Zarya, Lucio or Mercy and got a front-row seat to the enemy Pharah raining death on the team while our resident Soldier or Widow was trickling down Rein's shield or something like that.
LucianCanad that's my point in a zen main so I will always call out my disorbs and I will always dis orb pharrah first and shoot at her then I see soldier off to the side shooting at the Zarya with a bubble on her
Nice video, just starting to do some 4 stacks with some people and some how ended up shot calling for the team for no reason and always wondered if i was either doing it right or not, done it before but in a totally different type of game, maybe that's why i ended up doing it.
I'd also like to add that please if your shot calling pay attention to what enemy is flanking and call in team mates to deal with them, as normally a shot caller is a backline squishy often a healer if dva or sometimes genji manage to flank you call it out or else you will die quickly and allow your team to be attacked from two different angles in a 5v6 situation. You won't believe the amount of times I manage to get behind a enemy team as dva and pick up a free kill on a support and then they clearly don't call anything out allowing me to pick off another squishy target.
I get friend requests all the time when I solo-Q because of my calls. Also, apparently I have a very nice voice. Keep getting compliments like, "No homo but your voice is awesome" xD. I also keep calm and collected when I communicate, which helps.
Hello just a suggestion you guys should start summarising the content of the video in the description as some people might forget most of what u guys said(like me) and dont really have the time to rewatch the whole thing, either that adding the yellowish thing/bookmarks? to your next point etc might be useful. Thanks
I was hoping for a more guide as to strategy in shot calling. I have been playing with a 6 stack and we are trying to figure out who all should be calling what and when......any guides for that?
I hope sombra gets a decent buff becus she is a great hero to play if you plan to shot call. Primarily for calling out low health targets that should be focused, but her invisibility really can give also her insight on the opponents set up. I've played her a few times in comp and she's not always viable, but I called out low health targets and they they go down faster then everything else dies faster.
Liam, can you elaborate on how to tone down toxicity? In solo queue it happens almost every game, and I can't figure out how to bring the team back together and win, which is especially annoying when I know we are better but the flaming is holding us back!
when I was younger i was the biggest squeaker ever, but now i think i have an amazing deep voice, which I think is why everyone listens to my calls in games like csgo or overwatch :'D As a tip: start out the game by asking everyone kindly to join the team voice chat, even if they don't want to talk. Then, when many of them are in start out with a slow and calm "Hey guys, lets do this". If you speak a little slower than usual and very calmly you will automaticly get a deeper voice. And as another tip to have them listen to you: if a controvercial pick is being made and they are in voice coms ask them very friendly but also very serious if they are certain of their capabilities. If they stay on the hero, fine, if others try to talk him out, even better, because you can now say that everyone should give him a shot, and you believe he won't fuck you over, but if he doesn't perform, he will surely switch. That way everyone likes you, the (usually hanzo) will like you even more and feel guilty if they dont perform well. From then on make calls, but no hard "switch xy" at the start of the game. If it 100% will not work you always check their profile and tell them they " will surely carry harder/perform better as YX, because they have more practise" It's been working for me. I've gotten my friend and myself to 2700/2800 with that tactic last season, and we are working on it this season again.
shotcalling is pretty easy in a team when everything goes right. but the GREAT shotcallers are useful and effective when you need to make clutch decisions that are NOT part of the original plan AND aren't part of standard strategy. Yeah, "fight", "run", "push through", etc are all standard tools that you have at the ready. But it is very difficult to teach someone make correct and quick snap decisions when something unexpected happens.
I play a lot of lucio so I end up shot calling a lot of the time, I've found if you want people to listen to you (this generally works in solo queue) just be nice to them, just chuck in a gday everyone at the start ask how they are doing. You should also try to be a kind of hype man. I remember a game on dorado where the enemy team had an extra 2 and a half minutes than we did for the second lot of cart pushing. The entire team pretty much gave up at that point, so I gave them a little pep talk "you don't get better at this game with easy wins, you get good with blood sweat and tears, rise to the fucking challenge, LET'S GOOOOOOO" And you know what? We pushed that cart through the whole map in overtime and won the game, just be the voice of positivity and your team can comeback from anything
What do you mean? Is there a mathematical equation to bunny-hopping now? (Yes, I'm salty about bunny-hopping. I know it's necessary to stay alive longer, but it just grinds my gear seeing people jumping like idiots)
i've noticed that i play best with certain people, one of those is a friend of mine, a rein main. hes the kind of rein that anas love, always making good use of my ult, either to ideally destroy the enemy team, or to make them back off to give my team time to regroup. since i only play with my friends, the shot call i do when i ana ult is "try it", "spook em" or "do it". then i do my best to follow up on it and heal who ever i see. its not very easy for me though, since i have an accent and tend to stutter when im more focused on the game.
Ultra Window I also have a Rien/Ana combo with a close buddy... honestly the Rien should sit pretty until yiu ping your ult. THEN he can choose when to jump in, making sure you are following. Then you both perish or wreck them with Nano. The rest of the team generally follows in after. Being Rien, Ana or Lucio means being the shot callers.
This has nothing to do with the video but... I play junkrat on Hanamura defense sometimes, and when the entire enemy team is standing behind a rein shield right in the choke, is it best to burn the shield for my team, or to fire over and go with the low chance of a ricochet killing their support?
Although everyone should be able to lead and call shots, I feel like supports and tanks with the Crowd Control ultimates should be doing the shotcalling. Especially Zarya, Reinhardt, Lucio players due to their kits and ultimates. Half the time I Solo Queue the Zarya on my team would usually Grav without coordination (when none of us have Ults to follow up with or are out of position) and expect the team to follow up on it.
I climbed to 2600 with a 73% winrate on lucio so far this season. My advice is to not worry about being annoying. call out EVERYTHING. Enemy locations, cooldowns, literally anything u pick up on. If nobody is saying anything bad about your calls, it means they're using them and appreciate them. Calling out exactly who to focus in a hectic team fight will make your team pick up man advantage and snowball objectives faster than you would expect!
theres no such thing in solo queue. i usually just end up screaming at people telling them to get the fuck off genji or bastion, or yelling at them to go a healer or tank
then dont play competitive. lol thats what quick play is for. thats like a professional basketball player refusing to change positions to help the team.
Good information Recently I did very well (or at least had fun with the team) shot calling with a very cooperative team. But I felt rather domineering at times in clutch fights. When does shot calling become micromanaging?
@your overwatch, can you make a video on how to be a good grunt? you allude to a few things that make life easy for the shotcallers in their team, but there is probably a whole video in good ways to support your callers.
As a rein main should i try to shot call and establish positioning? Usualy i see my team when i solo que take an unfavourable position and i wont join them i will try and get into the better position and try to get and hope my teammates will group up behind the big blue shield but maybe this is why i hover around low gold? Should i just fallow me team into their bad positioning?
I'm starting to learn that if everyone's calling out I need to keep quiet unless it's really important...I used to call out all the time until I realized my friends and I do better when we talk less.
Rob Cameron Different methods work for different people, especially if you've played a lot with a certain group. Your game sense in combination with each other can make calling out stuff redundant in some cases! Grats on a good team!
i once had a korean shotcaller in one of my EU games, the guy could barely speak english but everybody just listened and we won. if a person is willing to help 5 other people at their game, just work with them instead of against them. most of the time you will come out winning a game.
Please make a video on how to deal with symetra torb on the current patch. It makes it hell to take out key supports when they now have 350 health due to that combo. I've had some progress against them, but nothing definitive
It's difficult playing healer in solo queue as you often have two the tanks playing like full on flankers (speaking to some of the bad DVA and Roadhog players) and you get isolated easily trying to heal two sets of people on two different halves of the map...
The worst feeling I have while playing is when I'm playing D.Va but the enemy has a Mie and/or a Zarya who keeps shutting me down, so I call out to my team that I'm getting hard countered and as such am switching, but then a person on an important role (such as healer or Rien) switches off to D.Va and then I can just tell we are going to loose because we have to fight a 5v6. This has happened to me twice recently and is making me very annoyed about the recent D.Va buff
I often try to be the most active shot caller in my team when playing SoloQ but often times people dont take me seriously because I am only 14 and my voice is pretty high-pitched. :/
I can understand if mics seem expensive cause often decent normal mics look bad cause their attached to headsets. Also buying a mic can seem like a big commitment, separate to the rest of the game.
The only time I technically "shot call" is when I'm Zenyatta and inform voice chat who I discoreded. Seems to be the right strategy so far, but I need to pick my targets more logically.
is their anyway to practice shot calling because my friends say I'd be good at it but I'm not sure I'm good enough yet to go into comp and say ima shotcall, and no one has mic in quickplay
Isaiah B Literally just make a list of everything you think is important for your team to know (eg. Low-health targets, flanking Genji/Reaper, battle initiation/retreat) and make it as short and easily understandable as possible. Instead of "Reaper is flanking us on the right", say "Reaper right!" Similarly you could just say "Attack Roadhog" to make everyone focus and kill him quick! Never make any negative remarks and compliment your team whenever you can to boost morale. (If your team doesn't want to fight, you won't get anywhere) Having good charisma and a strong voice are necessary especially in solo queue. (Teammates need to know they can trust you. This reaches it's peak when you can tell someone to literally suicide and they follow your order without question) There's more to be learned from this video as well, but hopefully my view on the subject will help you out.
Isaiah B well, it might be helpful to shotcall with your mic off just to get a feel of things before going mic on into something. I already have a habit of talking things through off mic ("oh, fuck that flanking tracer." "reaper definitely has his ult, so I'll save my rez" etc), so turning it on and shotcalling was an easy transition. Just practicing talking things through, especially focusing on the things the guy above mentioned. You'll be a lot more comfortable turning your mic on to shotcall for the first time that way, too! Also, you can do supportive, but not main, shotcalling in matches to practice. Assisting the main shotcaller in a match will help you a lot! Good luck!
More people likely have mic in qp then you think but people are shy about it. Also consoles had some issues with voice comms not working when you in a ingame group (but not when you solo play)
I shot call playing mainly rein and dva and hit grand master very quickly. you have to understand the game really well and be overly nice to people so you get less toxic games!
Sometimes, even though most people have mics, I am the only person calling shots but because I am a little younger, they don't really listen. What can I do about this?
hey one quick question. I am 14 and my voice is a little hight ( u might even can call me a squeaker ) and i tried shotcalling in many soloq games but 90% of the time people get mad at me for just talking and they blame and abuse me in chat. Should i just stop or keep trying to shotcall thanks
As a support main I play this role a lot, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how few people object to me doing this as a woman in Overwatch. I've stayed off voice chat in most online games just because of the toxicity. Granted, I also rarely solo queue and have at least one or two other people to back me up if someone else on the team decides to be a dick.
Idk if it's bc I'm so assertive but I almost never get into games where ppl try and shot calling. usually I end up calling everything. it's probably bc I just immediately start talking and pointing out possible strats.
I hate when a teammate tells me to pick Reinhardt, and we have a low damage team. This gives the opponent's shield less damage and our shield will be destroyed. So I end up using D.Va's shield so I can also do some quick damage. But I try to be nice and say, "be patient and shoot behind my shield."
Shotcalling can be tricky in overwatch, especially in a solo queue environment. There's no time to explain why a play is good, or could be but only time to try to implement it and win the game. In this guide we go through some of the basics in an effort to help you get better at shot calling, let us know what you think and be sure to drop a Like & Subscribe if you enjoyed!
RiasTV - Overwatch where my loot boxes at m9
lol subbed
Your Overwatch How can I direct my teammates better whilst playing on an Xbox. I use the "Group up" command, but that usually never works.
The servers suck right now!
Fiona Carew use a mic
"everyone group up"
*junkrat uses his ult and wipes your whole team*
oops...
Advanced tactic. Convince enemy team to group up and stop trinkling. ....then junkrat ult.
Max Stirner If the team can't spot and kill the screeching tire with all six there... thats kind of sad.
Yes, Junkrat can hide and strike from above etc, but once you here the tire the whole team should be on alert.
what if its a silent tire?
Potato Beast466 SUPER advanced tactic: convince Blizzard to create hero with silence ability. Convince enemy team to group up. Silence junkrat ult. Sip a martini as you bask in your victory.
Ultra Mega Advanced Tactic.
The junkrat player found your discord/teamspeak and joined it, then listened to all your calls and waited for you to say "group up"
when you said it, he got into position and yelled into the microphone as load as he could, so you couldn't hear the tire. He then got a 7k ult and won his team the game.
You can only be a shot caller if you're 16+ and speak good English. Otherwise you're screwed.
And male. I'm a girl and as soon as people hear me, tactics are out the door and everyone's all "omg a grillll" or they think I'm 10 years old... I'm 20.
RoyalxAndy ikr I'm 13 and do can't do shit
that's one of the main reasons I dont like turning on the mic...
RoyalxAndy Im twelwe And if i try to shout call everbody shuots: FFFFUCK YOU!
mary george lol i feel you i triple stack with 2 of my friends and their girls and most times all the randoms talk about is wanting to fuck
4:45 That was the whitest "Let's break it down!" impression I've ever heard, haha.
The voice actor for Lucio is white....
mbrown44 LOOOOOOOOOOOL
mbrown44 No he's not
Rexnah have you seen him?
He looks Latino, but that's irrelevant. Lucio sounds black as expected, and the example in the video was hilariously white-sounding.
how about pharah? she literally has a birdseye view of the battlefield
yeah I thought she might not be too bad if she's not peaking a lot but sometimes with pharah you have to put a lot of focus into not dying, Zenyatta is the best caller in my opinion since he already needs to call discord as is
I would like to say that there is a misconception about which class has an easier time or is better suited for shot calling. Every character has important things they can call out, so its not truly a class thing, but a personal thing. Some people are better multitaskers, and some heroes that are easier, make it easy to multitask, but it doesn't mean that person couldn't do it with a complex hero. Hero's like Zen and Ana have a lot of things to focus on, just like DPS, as they also require good aim and cooldown management. The reason why supports are usually shot callers is because they have abilities that usually affect most of their team, so they speak for most of their team, however, that doesn't mean that a tank or DPS cannot shot call. A DPS that sits behind his tanks with his medics doesn't have to shot call, because he sees the same thing most of his teammates see. Now a flanker DPS or TANK (Winston/Dva) has a lot of things they can call out that their team may not see. Flankers can tell their team that they are occupying the attention of such and such hero(es), and can tell their team that they should push through the choke, and in which way. They can draw attention to one area and tell their team that another area is defenseless or if defended, the defenders aren't looking in the direction the should. If they kill someone, they can announce that. A tank like Rein is an excellent shot caller, because he's the team escort. If you watch football, he'd be like the Center, which is the guy who hikes the ball to the QB, but before the play starts, he tells the QB what the defensive line and LBs are doing, so the QB has a better idea of what to audible. So you can have multiple shot callers, who have windows where they are needed. Rein can tell people his shield status, whether or not he wants to block a certain dmg, so he can conserve his shield, like if it's a bunch of tickle dmg, he can put his shield down, and let the medics charge ult. If its lethal DMG, he needs to put his shield up. Rein is in a position where he can see most of the enemy's positions, so he can call that out, and since he has a charge move, the team needs to be in position to assists him should he so choose to charge. Shot calling is really dependant on a player's personality, because truly, the only hero that might see the whole battlefield is Pharah, as everyone else sees to an extent before there is a corner, or teammates in the way, or whatever visual obstruction there may be.
+Eastra3, i'm just going to say wow, like your comment, and say congratulations on how long your comment was.
Eastra3 Nice dissertation there. Is the for you PhD? ; P
lol...I don't think people are impressed by the length, but are rather turned off, however, I'm a detail oriented person that loves this game. So if I'm going to say something that isn't obvious, it will probably require a detailed explanation. Also, I like to explain it well the first time, so I don't have to repeat myself lol.
literally every time i ult as Zeny i say "Do fight now"
Lmao when I sound barrier I say something like " go shoot bad guys "
Red Guy I main Lucio and I pretty much do the same thing ☺
Allups lol, when i do a rez, i usually call out enemy aoe ults that are up like "wait out for the reaper ult! :)"
Mine is "Kill them! Do murder!"
I was a very confused in comp yesterday when we are attacking control point on numbani all of us pushed to the left about all of us are fighting on the left with some enemies on the point. Most of us are alive, including the rhinehardt and I go "ALRIGHT WE'RE GONNA JUMP OFF TO THE RIGHT TO GET THE POINT READY? 1 2 3" and I jump and I get to watch everyone still alive fighting on the top left..for the 6 seconds of my ult
i dont call shots
i just order a whole bottle (⌐■ ͟ʖ■)
i have a mic but i feel weird when im the only one talking
most games i start by saying hello or something but no one responds
XxZeN0xX I've been the only one on mic, calling the shots because no one had a mic, but everyone could hear me (I thought only one person could hear me until the end lol). It was awkward, but directing focus fire, calling out opportunities, etc saved us the game. People typed their thanks in chat ("thanks, captain mercy!"), and I was so embarrassed, finding out everyone heard me the whole time, haha. It might be useful to call out small things if you are the only one on mic, like flankers and nearly dead enemies, but do what's comfortable for you!
I used to feel like that but being a healer main i really felt the need to talk when no one else was because you need to at least give direction like group up or push forward or back up or tracer in back line, etc. A thing you can do if you don't want to be the only one talking use the find group and find a group that has mic as required because those people will be talking and if they get somebody who isn't they will most likely kick them because they want the communication
the problem is that people don't even know how to start a conversation, even before they introduce themselves they immeidately try to shotcall others, and nobody is actually communicating, just people speaking their minds.
every time i go into a match, the first sentence i say is "hi everyone, how are you doing?" and if appropriate response arrive "what's the plan?".
"what's the plan" is a question people should ask more often, we have 50 seconds to come up with ideas and people are much better conjuring up ideas together than everyone to himself.
Honestly... if I see someone who is comunicating/shotcalling in solo queue I'm like THANK YOU GOD and ive basically won every match where we have someone good at shotcalling.
Shot caller, big baller, 20 inch rims on the payload
Will Andrews lmfao
Synapse Don't worry, white people rap can and will induce cringe, but no physical pain.
Rolls Reus u wut m8 ill bamboozle u 2 teh UK and back
Double Shrekt Oh dear, we've got a top kek le 9 GOG armi reddit hermit memester on the lose. Don't swat me "m9"
being adept at saying things the right way is super important. like you said, a big part of shot calling is being aware of your team dynamic and adjusting. sometimes you get those insane goofy people who just don't care and you have to cajole and work with them when the rest of the team is already telling them to shut up. I can't count the number of games turned around because I listened to my teammates and remained kind and calm. I've also tilted plenty of times and and lost my effectiveness calling shots.
I main Lucio and my entire game chat speech consists of 4 sentences "I've got drop the beat" "I'm speed boosting in"
"back up"
"focus ana(or any other heals they have)"
pretty effective
Here;s some advice for the shot callers. If you make a call and don't specify a person, the rest of us who fit the call are going to feel you are talking to them. You need to mention people either by name, hero, or class in order to help single out people and let others know you aren't talking to you
Love that you guys made a video on this. Yesterday I was solo queuing as a mercy, defending on the 1st Eichenwalde point, everyone had died, but our bastion was on the side of the map with his ult ready just peppering the point. There were 4 people on the point and I shouted like 3x on my mic "Use your ult!" he ended up ulting with my callout and got 4 picks. We were able to win the match after that... felt good.
I found that encouragement is incredibly important as well.
If something works out just tell your team they did a great job and let's keep it up, stuff like that. really helps the team dynamic
4:13 "Can you please jump off the side of the map, get it over with..." :D:D LOL
Another good tip that works is positive reinforcement in solo queue esspesislly. People are more likely to listen to your shot calls and play better if you congratulate an individual or group as a result of success. Phrases like 'good pick' or 'great push guys' I find bring a solo team together very well.
I've been playing a competitive game today as zenyatta, our Rinehart kept pinning through the first choke on kings row. We were losing until I told my team to group up and attack as one. On defense I called out when someone of the enemy team flanked us. And I was calling out discords through the whole match. Was this a good example of shot calling?
6:40 there are a lot of reasons ppl could not mic. some reasons that come to the top of my head is that they could have a cold/allergies (happens to me 24/7), their environment could be too loud (esp. applies to console users bc no push to talk), and they could have social anxiety (this is a big one that can be v/ common, but i have yet to see it addressed in a single video from ANY overwatch advice channel, not only your overwatch).
just realized i forgot to list that they could be mute. there seems to be a big source of saltiness and toxicity within the community about players who dont mic or join voice channels when it can simply & easily be just due to mental &/or physical disabilities. in fact muteness & social anxiety doesnt just apply here too- people who aren't mic'ing could be having sensory issues, be dealing with a toxic situation in their household (e.g. if theyre too loud they're too anxious they'll be yelled at), they may be having emotional troubles (things common in bpd, bipolar, and other disorders related to mood is getting in a funk where it's hard to talk without your emotions going everywhere), they may even have anger issues and just don't want to upset anyone. i feel like it's really unfair to be salty towards players who aren't mic'ing, because you truly don't know heir situation.
i'm not aiming this at Your Overwatch specifically (in fact, you guys aren't usually even very salty about this most of the time); it's more directed towards the general attitude that the community has- streamers, youtubers, and comp players in general.
Literally yesterday I dropped into the shot caller role with a group of friends. Since I'm the only one who watches your channel some of them didn't understand things like "Back up don't contact until we're at full strength." And they'd be fighting on the payload while two of our team are at the long spawn. Or "Rein go in create some space for us." And we're all standing at the choke having won the shield battle even but can't advance because our Rein isn't moving.
This vid was great, as it covered just about everything. 2 things I would like to add is the need to develop great spacial skills and to speak in 3rd person (hero names). When a teammate is unaware of something, getting him to move or look in that direction in a high paced environment can be challenging. Your left may not be his left. How far left you think the enemy is, may not be your teammate's idea of 'far'. It takes a lot of practice, so practice it even when you aren't doing ranked. If your teammates have a feel for what 15%-30% looks like (90% is like saying turn left/right 180% is behind you), then it will fine tune a lot of positional callouts. If they have a feel for the distance in the US or Metric system, use that too. It sounds corny, and most times you won't have to go to that extent, but sometimes you will, and it helps to have it down so you can say what you need to without thinking too hard about it. Having great spacial recognition is great for Ana, because many times teammates will body block heals from teammates on the brink of death, and sometimes you have to know how to tell your teammates how to get out the way quickly, so that you can keep someone alive. Speaking in third person or calling people by their heroes makes a huge difference. Telling a medic, "I need healing." When there may be 3 people who needs it, doesn't help the medic help you. If you are Zen, say, "Zen needs healing, behinds you or something (spacial skills). No one knows who I, you, us, we, he, etc is within high paced environments. Don't call people by their gamertag unless you are asking them to do a service, like, "(gamertag) (hero name) needs such and such. However, even though you know who they are, your teammates may not be thinking about a guy named X picked this hero in the selection screen. Some things are obvious, and don't require any of what I said above, and somethings teammates can do telepathically, as you can just put yourselves in there shoes to have a good idea what they'd want at this and that time. I guess that's a 3rd thing to think about; be considerate of your teammate's situations in battle, which is part of 1 and 2 anyways.
Eastra3 Eastra3 bro u writing long ass paragraphs on TH-cam overwatch not even serious
Da_Host L3GT its a game, but that doesn't mean you have to be ignorant about it.
Two things that helped me get better at shot calling was playing with an open mic (with caps lock toggling mute) and sound confident. I wasn't able to make calls mid team fight because I was focused and unable to hold down a button. If you sound confident, then it doesn't matter what your voice sounds like (trust me I have a speech impediment)
another great video, on a delicate matter I would say. So thank you one more time for trying to make this game better for a lot of people. Watching YOW videos is part of my daily routine nowadays :)
Also a really important call in my opinion is to tell the team to go in and confirm the kills. Sometimes after a won teamfight enemy has like an Ana and a Zarya alive and your team has still everyone but starts backing off.
I play on PS4 and with a 6 stack but if we don't have the full stack(usually only risk it if we have only 1-2 randoms) we stress going to team chat so they can listen to shotcalling. I see so many people saying we don't have many people using mics but a little tip we have found is they might not have one but they might still be able to hear you. we ask all non mic randoms to say thanks if they can hear us. has found us a lot of good randoms who still wanna listen. I am a Mercy main who constantly is the shot caller for my squad. I tell everyone at the beginning of the match that isn't in our group if I get too pushy to tell me so. Just be calm which can be hard. Good video overall. Solo queue shot calling has earned me friend requests. The one issue I'd like addressed is that female shot callers like myself don't get listened to as much because we are assumed to be kids or just a fake gamer girl. I have heard all sorts of bad stuff about my gender and would like a video about reducing toxicity with this particular issue highlighted cause it can get nasty and make me wanna scream.
Appreciate the tips. Tip for video- show relevant footage, screenshots, text on screen. This is a podcast with mostly random gameplay.
One thing that happens is even if you die, if you know you killed a very important target, and that your team has the punch to back it up, telling them to go in anyway and then monitoring them on your way back, keeping them up on who's up and who's respawning, can help keep them in a fight. Monitoring criticals as a support, death spectating, all of that can help even if you're down. I generally switch right over to the tank unless I think the enemy did something fishy when I died or someone else suspects a hacker.
This is a good video Weagle. I usually shot call in our 6 stack either as Widow or ana. i want to know sometimes when you ask the team to ult everyone ults. I feel in most cases you need to make the team understand combos you are going for without them all ulting. e.g "Zarya ult with pharah." or "ana, soldier combo to get mercy". Overall nice video, love how you mentioned to be calm and collected.
Really good video. Going to take in as much of this in as I can and implement it into play. I've been trying to shot call in Solo Queue as much as I can, but of course it's difficult because so many people don't even get in the voice channel, which is even worse than being in it and not talking because at least those people can listen if nothing else.
Either way, soaking this all in as I can. Thank you for the video.
well now that I know how to be a shot caller, I just need to be a baller and get 20 inch blades on the impala.....
Helpful video! As a girl who plays a lot of support I'm good at shotcalling but it's difficult to get people to listen to me. In the case that they will these tips will be very useful!
To add onto calling for heals, use the quick select for healing. It puts a big blue marker on your teammates screen. The marker is much better than heal me/ heal Mcree or Pharah or whatever.
That last point really made me take another look at myself. I need to work on my toxicity and tilt
I often use the term "push" to try and get people to engage a target or point. I usually call for a push when people are poking at a point but the point or payload could be taken/moved if people would get into the fight, take some damage, but with a consistent attack could easily overrun the defenses the other team has set up.
also I would add that your job as a shot caller is to get your team on the same page, and willing to work together. I will often say things like "ok guys, our goal here is to trap them at this choke point, we need to put 2-3 at right and left door, don't die, if we wipe here, they can push past the choke then we're in trouble. watch for pharah/gengi through that tiny opening up top" etc
Could you make a video on engage? It seems to be very important in overwatch and in this meta.
One thing i've found very successful is before game starts, if you're playing a support just ask if anyone minds if you shotcall a bit. People tend to be more aware of what you say.
always let other teammates do that. my voice is so deep that it scares some folks lol
Mike K
"Hello guys. I'm Satan and I'll be shot calling for us today" ;)
Angelo Acosta lol pretty much
I like some of the advice here. Keeping terminology simple is great advice because it is clearly true, but in the heat of battle, it can be easily forgotten.
What do the players here think about using in-character dialog as a form of communication? While in a spawn point, I will often try to establish some line of communication for players who do not have keyboards and-or mics handy. I will say something like, "If you can here me, announce your ultimate status," or, "I'm going to be calling out opponent locations over the team's voice chat. If anyone finds this annoying, just say 'Group Up' twice very quickly, and I will know to shut up." Darn near nobody ever responds to messages, so either they cannot hear me, cannot understand me, or they have already muted me. In any of those three scenarios, no one is hurt by me trying.
This videos are absolutely fantastic! Really glad I found this channel and hopefully my noobishness will begin to diminish :-)
That was a sick ana hook at 3:00
I've had a little bit of success at "shot-calling" at the low ranks of competitive. I play zen most of the time, so a receptive team is usually willing to fallow my callouts as to whom I have discorded
hahah dude I love this channel... I didnt even look at the names enough but I was the Genji playing with a friend in this game!
On a side note: Our team mate that symmetra, SeareN was his name I think. Trolled on purpose
Shotcalling with a female voice is pretty 50/50 for me as to whether or not they will listen. A big problem that's really annoying is getting talked over during a match when I'm trying to give the team information or make a play.
I shot call in solo. I usually say we need a dive comp or take the high ground and rain down hell. Most people know when to ult. So I usually take the character that can lead like support or tank. When in solo you kind of have to take the bullet. But you do get the bad guys too.
Soldier please shoot at the pharoah have him disorb then your looking at soldier and he's shooting at the rein shield as Pharaoh rains down bombs at zen and ana
John Romano Today some asshole kept begging us to win in the chat cause it was his last placement. In the last 20 seconds on Route 66, a Nano-boosted, full power Zarya is the only one approaching the payload and I sleep her. No one does anything for the first 2 seconds. Then this goddamn idiot, as Soldier, briefly shoots three bullets at her and stops, as if realizing the mistake he has made. She gets up, Ults right in front of herself, where we are, walks past the Rien shield and kills all four off us immediately. Then wins while we respawn.
Sorry, but soldier is both overpowered and easy to play. There's no "its not always easy", he has some of the most consistently high damage, then has burst damage from rockets, he is one of the fastest to get from spawn to a fight, and he can heal his whole team.
Edit: My point being, if someone playing soldier fails to get silver or gold eliminations, or fails to gun down others, he is to blame. Its like D.VA blaming tracer when she doesn't absorb an ult with her ridiculous matrix
He was saying it isn't always easy to get pharah as soldier not that soldier isn't one of the easier heroes. If they zarya bubble + mercy pocket and a pharah who is good about falling out of line of sight then killing the pharah can be very near impossible unless you have 2 hitscans.
I know u guys are talking about the competitive circles, but let me throw two cents in from the mere mortals down below:
SHOOT THE DAMN PHARAH! If I happen to pick a hitscan hero or someone with long range shots in general (like my man Zen), I make Pharahs my prime target. A well-played Pharah is right there with Junkrat as THE MOST annoying enemy to face. I've lost count on how many times I was playing Zarya, Lucio or Mercy and got a front-row seat to the enemy Pharah raining death on the team while our resident Soldier or Widow was trickling down Rein's shield or something like that.
LucianCanad that's my point in a zen main so I will always call out my disorbs and I will always dis orb pharrah first and shoot at her then I see soldier off to the side shooting at the Zarya with a bubble on her
I'd love an advanced guide for symmetra. ive loved playing symmetra since beta and with the new changes I'd like to use her better
Nice video, just starting to do some 4 stacks with some people and some how ended up shot calling for the team for no reason and always wondered if i was either doing it right or not, done it before but in a totally different type of game, maybe that's why i ended up doing it.
I'd also like to add that please if your shot calling pay attention to what enemy is flanking and call in team mates to deal with them, as normally a shot caller is a backline squishy often a healer if dva or sometimes genji manage to flank you call it out or else you will die quickly and allow your team to be attacked from two different angles in a 5v6 situation. You won't believe the amount of times I manage to get behind a enemy team as dva and pick up a free kill on a support and then they clearly don't call anything out allowing me to pick off another squishy target.
Who else plays on console and can't chat?
Dagaming 101 me
Peasant.
ever heard of a thing called headset ?
Yes but it would seem 99% of the people I play with haven't
Michael Walters so true
Great video guys, thanks for this.
I get friend requests all the time when I solo-Q because of my calls. Also, apparently I have a very nice voice. Keep getting compliments like, "No homo but your voice is awesome" xD. I also keep calm and collected when I communicate, which helps.
You guys are awesome! Thank you.
Hello just a suggestion you guys should start summarising the content of the video in the description as some people might forget most of what u guys said(like me) and dont really have the time to rewatch the whole thing, either that adding the yellowish thing/bookmarks? to your next point etc might be useful. Thanks
This is more a guide to being a social and secure person more then anything else. Still nice video gj :D
I was hoping for a more guide as to strategy in shot calling. I have been playing with a 6 stack and we are trying to figure out who all should be calling what and when......any guides for that?
I hope sombra gets a decent buff becus she is a great hero to play if you plan to shot call. Primarily for calling out low health targets that should be focused, but her invisibility really can give also her insight on the opponents set up. I've played her a few times in comp and she's not always viable, but I called out low health targets and they they go down faster then everything else dies faster.
Liam, can you elaborate on how to tone down toxicity? In solo queue it happens almost every game, and I can't figure out how to bring the team back together and win, which is especially annoying when I know we are better but the flaming is holding us back!
MrCykko Use 'please' and 'man'. Not 'Soldier get the Pharah' but 'Hey Soldier please get the Pharah man'
4:46 Spot on Lucio impression.
when I was younger i was the biggest squeaker ever, but now i think i have an amazing deep voice, which I think is why everyone listens to my calls in games like csgo or overwatch :'D
As a tip: start out the game by asking everyone kindly to join the team voice chat, even if they don't want to talk. Then, when many of them are in start out with a slow and calm "Hey guys, lets do this". If you speak a little slower than usual and very calmly you will automaticly get a deeper voice.
And as another tip to have them listen to you: if a controvercial pick is being made and they are in voice coms ask them very friendly but also very serious if they are certain of their capabilities. If they stay on the hero, fine, if others try to talk him out, even better, because you can now say that everyone should give him a shot, and you believe he won't fuck you over, but if he doesn't perform, he will surely switch. That way everyone likes you, the (usually hanzo) will like you even more and feel guilty if they dont perform well.
From then on make calls, but no hard "switch xy" at the start of the game. If it 100% will not work you always check their profile and tell them they " will surely carry harder/perform better as YX, because they have more practise"
It's been working for me. I've gotten my friend and myself to 2700/2800 with that tactic last season, and we are working on it this season again.
I've had matches where, as a healer, every time I leave spawn I die to an ultimate just as soon as I make it to where the action is.
shotcalling is pretty easy in a team when everything goes right.
but the GREAT shotcallers are useful and effective when you need to make clutch decisions that are NOT part of the original plan AND aren't part of standard strategy.
Yeah, "fight", "run", "push through", etc are all standard tools that you have at the ready.
But it is very difficult to teach someone make correct and quick snap decisions when something unexpected happens.
Hello! Can you guys make a video how to deal with communication-less teams that don't even listen to me in voice chat and read no letter chat?
I play a lot of lucio so I end up shot calling a lot of the time, I've found if you want people to listen to you (this generally works in solo queue) just be nice to them, just chuck in a gday everyone at the start ask how they are doing. You should also try to be a kind of hype man. I remember a game on dorado where the enemy team had an extra 2 and a half minutes than we did for the second lot of cart pushing. The entire team pretty much gave up at that point, so I gave them a little pep talk "you don't get better at this game with easy wins, you get good with blood sweat and tears, rise to the fucking challenge, LET'S GOOOOOOO"
And you know what? We pushed that cart through the whole map in overtime and won the game, just be the voice of positivity and your team can comeback from anything
Next vid:
How to Effectively jump as Genji
Gloomy you need to *insert complex thing idk what pro players do but you would never do bc you are lazy af*
N00bi Senpai Fuck off
What do you mean? Is there a mathematical equation to bunny-hopping now? (Yes, I'm salty about bunny-hopping. I know it's necessary to stay alive longer, but it just grinds my gear seeing people jumping like idiots)
i've noticed that i play best with certain people, one of those is a friend of mine, a rein main.
hes the kind of rein that anas love, always making good use of my ult, either to ideally destroy the enemy team, or to make them back off to give my team time to regroup.
since i only play with my friends, the shot call i do when i ana ult is "try it", "spook em" or "do it". then i do my best to follow up on it and heal who ever i see.
its not very easy for me though, since i have an accent and tend to stutter when im more focused on the game.
Ultra Window I also have a Rien/Ana combo with a close buddy... honestly the Rien should sit pretty until yiu ping your ult. THEN he can choose when to jump in, making sure you are following. Then you both perish or wreck them with Nano. The rest of the team generally follows in after. Being Rien, Ana or Lucio means being the shot callers.
This has nothing to do with the video but...
I play junkrat on Hanamura defense sometimes, and when the entire enemy team is standing behind a rein shield right in the choke, is it best to burn the shield for my team, or to fire over and go with the low chance of a ricochet killing their support?
Although everyone should be able to lead and call shots, I feel like supports and tanks with the Crowd Control ultimates should be doing the shotcalling. Especially Zarya, Reinhardt, Lucio players due to their kits and ultimates. Half the time I Solo Queue the Zarya on my team would usually Grav without coordination (when none of us have Ults to follow up with or are out of position) and expect the team to follow up on it.
I climbed to 2600 with a 73% winrate on lucio so far this season. My advice is to not worry about being annoying. call out EVERYTHING. Enemy locations, cooldowns, literally anything u pick up on. If nobody is saying anything bad about your calls, it means they're using them and appreciate them. Calling out exactly who to focus in a hectic team fight will make your team pick up man advantage and snowball objectives faster than you would expect!
Ben Wagner no it is annoying nobody wants to constantly hear the obvious that's how u get muted just trying to be a esports wannabe player
theres no such thing in solo queue. i usually just end up screaming at people telling them to get the fuck off genji or bastion, or yelling at them to go a healer or tank
Gabriel Rivera Well your toxic
yeah you are
rather be toxic than bad or uncooperative. usually dont resort to name calling or yelling until they refuse to. lol
Gabriel Rivera youre whats wrong with the game let people play how they want
then dont play competitive. lol thats what quick play is for. thats like a professional basketball player refusing to change positions to help the team.
Good information
Recently I did very well (or at least had fun with the team) shot calling with a very cooperative team. But I felt rather domineering at times in clutch fights. When does shot calling become micromanaging?
@your overwatch, can you make a video on how to be a good grunt? you allude to a few things that make life easy for the shotcallers in their team, but there is probably a whole video in good ways to support your callers.
Quality content as always.
So much more intelligent advice than Overwatch Central
As a rein main should i try to shot call and establish positioning? Usualy i see my team when i solo que take an unfavourable position and i wont join them i will try and get into the better position and try to get and hope my teammates will group up behind the big blue shield but maybe this is why i hover around low gold? Should i just fallow me team into their bad positioning?
Does the intro vid/song change based on who's presenting the video?
I'm starting to learn that if everyone's calling out I need to keep quiet unless it's really important...I used to call out all the time until I realized my friends and I do better when we talk less.
Rob Cameron Different methods work for different people, especially if you've played a lot with a certain group. Your game sense in combination with each other can make calling out stuff redundant in some cases! Grats on a good team!
i once had a korean shotcaller in one of my EU games, the guy could barely speak english but everybody just listened and we won. if a person is willing to help 5 other people at their game, just work with them instead of against them. most of the time you will come out winning a game.
Please make a video on how to deal with symetra torb on the current patch. It makes it hell to take out key supports when they now have 350 health due to that combo. I've had some progress against them, but nothing definitive
It's difficult playing healer in solo queue as you often have two the tanks playing like full on flankers (speaking to some of the bad DVA and Roadhog players) and you get isolated easily trying to heal two sets of people on two different halves of the map...
The worst feeling I have while playing is when I'm playing D.Va but the enemy has a Mie and/or a Zarya who keeps shutting me down, so I call out to my team that I'm getting hard countered and as such am switching, but then a person on an important role (such as healer or Rien) switches off to D.Va and then I can just tell we are going to loose because we have to fight a 5v6.
This has happened to me twice recently and is making me very annoyed about the recent D.Va buff
I often try to be the most active shot caller in my team when playing SoloQ but often times people dont take me seriously because I am only 14 and my voice is pretty high-pitched. :/
I can understand if mics seem expensive cause often decent normal mics look bad cause their attached to headsets. Also buying a mic can seem like a big commitment, separate to the rest of the game.
The only time I technically "shot call" is when I'm Zenyatta and inform voice chat who I discoreded. Seems to be the right strategy so far, but I need to pick my targets more logically.
I believe using the pings correctly can also be very helpful
is their anyway to practice shot calling because my friends say I'd be good at it but I'm not sure I'm good enough yet to go into comp and say ima shotcall, and no one has mic in quickplay
Isaiah B
Literally just make a list of everything you think is important for your team to know (eg. Low-health targets, flanking Genji/Reaper, battle initiation/retreat) and make it as short and easily understandable as possible.
Instead of "Reaper is flanking us on the right", say "Reaper right!" Similarly you could just say "Attack Roadhog" to make everyone focus and kill him quick!
Never make any negative remarks and compliment your team whenever you can to boost morale. (If your team doesn't want to fight, you won't get anywhere)
Having good charisma and a strong voice are necessary especially in solo queue. (Teammates need to know they can trust you. This reaches it's peak when you can tell someone to literally suicide and they follow your order without question)
There's more to be learned from this video as well, but hopefully my view on the subject will help you out.
Isaiah B well, it might be helpful to shotcall with your mic off just to get a feel of things before going mic on into something. I already have a habit of talking things through off mic ("oh, fuck that flanking tracer." "reaper definitely has his ult, so I'll save my rez" etc), so turning it on and shotcalling was an easy transition. Just practicing talking things through, especially focusing on the things the guy above mentioned. You'll be a lot more comfortable turning your mic on to shotcall for the first time that way, too! Also, you can do supportive, but not main, shotcalling in matches to practice. Assisting the main shotcaller in a match will help you a lot! Good luck!
Thanks I will try both of those things
More people likely have mic in qp then you think but people are shy about it. Also consoles had some issues with voice comms not working when you in a ingame group (but not when you solo play)
Greatttttttt video Liam!!!
I shot call playing mainly rein and dva and hit grand master very quickly. you have to understand the game really well and be overly nice to people so you get less toxic games!
Sometimes, even though most people have mics, I am the only person calling shots but because I am a little younger, they don't really listen. What can I do about this?
hey one quick question. I am 14 and my voice is a little hight ( u might even can call me a squeaker ) and i tried shotcalling in many soloq games but 90% of the time people get mad at me for just talking and they blame and abuse me in chat. Should i just stop or keep trying to shotcall thanks
It'd be nice if I could get a group in comp to work with this sort of mindset
could you guys do a Torbjorn guide?
As a support main I play this role a lot, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how few people object to me doing this as a woman in Overwatch. I've stayed off voice chat in most online games just because of the toxicity. Granted, I also rarely solo queue and have at least one or two other people to back me up if someone else on the team decides to be a dick.
Shotcalling doesn't matter when no one is in team chat
I do this stuff all the time, half of the time people dont listen and just trickle after i say back up 4-5 times
Idk if it's bc I'm so assertive but I almost never get into games where ppl try and shot calling. usually I end up calling everything. it's probably bc I just immediately start talking and pointing out possible strats.
I don't shot call but I keep positive vibes and try not let my team get tilted or toxic
I tend to shot call a lot since my friends tilt super easy.
I hate when a teammate tells me to pick Reinhardt, and we have a low damage team. This gives the opponent's shield less damage and our shield will be destroyed. So I end up using D.Va's shield so I can also do some quick damage. But I try to be nice and say, "be patient and shoot behind my shield."