Overwatch - Detailed Grandmaster Winston Guide by DocSword

Doc Sword’s Grandmaster Winston Guide

The beautiful thing about Overwatch is that there is no one “correct” way to play the game. This guide is based on my playstyle, experiences in the GM/Masters level, and preferences. It may differ from yours and that’s okay. I welcome and encourage any discussion, corrections, or questions with regards to the content of this guide as I love improving just as much as everybody else. Ask any questions or add parts I may have missed (I’ve never made anything like this before and would love feedback). Apologies in advance for the length. He’s got a lot worth mentioning and I’m not even close to covering it all.

1. Abilities/Melee/Weapon/Ultimate

Jump Pack: Without a jump pack, Winston would easily be one of, if not the most useless heroes in the game. So we can reasonably conclude that most of our beloved ape’s usefulness is centered around his leap and the mobility it affords him. Great for high ground denial, fight initiation, escape, and stalling.

• When Diving:
• When you leap towards a player, attempt to land on them as it does 50 points of essentially free damage which will better allow you to secure a quick kill before the enemy can react or escape. (Worth noting the initiation of your jump does 1 damage. I often kill sym turrets with it to avoid turning to zap them).
• In addition to landing damage, your jump also does a mini “boop” of knockback which can be used to remove targets from high ground or even knock unsuspecting enemies off of maps.
• There are two main categories of jumps every Winston player needs to know (there are subcategories I guess but I’ll cover those later). Short jumps are used for pursuing a barely out of reach enemy who is alone or low on health and is frequently used by me to get poke damage and knockback at a tight choke point. To short jump you need to hold your backwards key/stick while you jump as you will regain a bit of momentum control mid-air. To long jump angle your vision in the air (angle depends on where you’re trying to land). Remember that you are a dive tank, and it makes no sense to land away from a target when you could land on them for free damage.
• When Escaping:
• So you got your kill or things are getting too hot, now what? You need to use that bread and butter leap of yours and gtfo. I’ll elaborate more on positioning in a bit but make sure you are never a leap away from support/team sightlines or an escape route with a health pack. Always have an exit.
• You need to learn to “flick” jumps in order to be able to instantly disengage a target and fly off into the sunset.
• Not you that needs to escape? If a teammate is in trouble and you can safely assist them, leap their way and cut off the threat or if it’s your Mercy, give her a target to escape to. Winston is the nice guy of Overwatch for a reason. Be like Winston when you play Winston.

Barrier Projector/Bubble: Every tank has some form of damage mitigation, and Winston’s bubble is easily the most versatile. This bad boy can be used for poke damage, self-preservation, teammate rescuing, capsulizing enemies, or my all-time favorite: killing an ulting Pharah with her own damage. I’ll split bubble usage up into offensive (refers to pursuing kills, not to being on offense or defense) and defensive bubbles but first I’d like to cover an important skill: bubble dancing.

• Bubble Dancing: No I’m not referring to the sensual Stanky Leg dance emote (best dance emote by far). Bubble dancing refers to the weaving in and out of your bubble in order to escape damage from aggressive players or heroes you are diving on. Basically you need to exit the bubble as they enter it and enter the bubble as they exit it. This is very helpful in a scenario where your leap is on cooldown, or you need to call nearby teammates in for help as your damage done while evading the enemy’s will make it easy for your team to clean up that kill. If no help is on the way, bubble dance and leap away when you can. I generally dance in a manner that resembles sewing a thread in and out of the bubble in a circular pattern.
• Offensive Bubbles:
• For those unsure of what “poke” means it refers to quick but safe damage on the enemy team used to force enemies to reposition, encourage them to pursue, or simply to get charge on your ult.
• When you are at a choke, you should leap forward for poke damage and drop bubble as you land. The leap damage/knockback often knocks them out of your bubble which often leads to them putting shots into the bubble and not you or your team.
• Initiating a fight with your bubble is an essential part of your diving capabilities. You should rarely, if ever, leap into enemy territory without your bubble ready to go. Ensure that you drop bubble as you are coming down, not as you are still leaping. Ironically this scientist holds no regard for Newton, and despite his forward momentum, the deployed bubble will not travel with you as you leap through the air. Don’t be the one who gets killed with their bubble 20 feet behind them. Bubble dance, kill, and leave.
• Defensive Bubbles:
• The first defensive bubble we’ll discuss is basically identical to the poke damage example only this has a different purpose. If you see the enemy aggressively coming through the choke or down a corridor to secure a kill on a teammate, you should leap towards the choke and drop a bubble to intercept their push and score some knockback landing damage in the process. Your bubble may soak up those last few shots that may have picked your teammate and resulted in a lost point. In both poke damage and defensive scenarios, you should almost always be back peddling after dropping bubble, as aggressive players will enter the bubble to try and eliminate you. Back peddling is just another form of bubble dancing so be sure to get damage off as you escape.
• If you are engaged in a team fight, dropping a bubble in the center of the action or on top of an enemy enables your teammates to bubble dance or at the very least escape 600 points worth of damage that may have otherwise hit them.
• On that note, there are bubbles you should always go for such as bubbles on an ulting soldier or McCree (multiple dead eye shots will break through and kill so still try to hide after) if your D.Va is busy/dead/nonexistent. You should also place your bubble when caught in a graviton as you could prevent a team wipe if you’re lucky. Another common sense usage is to block or escape D.Va bomb. If you wanna feel extra cool drop the bubble on the bomb (not recommended but you get style points).

Melee: “Uh dude I know how to melee why is this a section?” Fair enough, and that’s why this is a brief section, but melee used far more frequently with Winston than with almost any other hero besides maybe Genji. Use melee when landing after a leap, when fighting armored targets, and when you are about to finish a kill as your punch is faster to finish the last 30 points of damage than your weapon.

• Three Essential Melee Points:
• Many claim that punching as you land from a leap resets the animation and allows immediate use of your weapon, which results in quick free damage. I’ve seen others claim this is false information, but punching before landing is never a bad option and a good habit to get into as it will frequently secure kills on quickly escaping enemies who are critical.
• Armor is brutal for Winston, as his weapon DPS is dropped from 60 to 30. If you frequently interrupt your weapon usage with a punch, it is about the same DPS so this is recommended against armored targets and high health targets in general as it results in less frequent reloads. The downside of the zap punch combo? You can miss punches.
• Third point is pretty basic. Your punch does the same amount of damage as .5 seconds of your weapon only faster. Faster kills = better monkey.

Tesla Cannon: Winston is a harasser. A pest. A big hairy mosquito who sucks the blood of healers then flies away before you can swat him. Ironically this big hairy mosquito has a bug zapper as his primary weapon. Underwhelming damage, yet consistent damage over time and capable of hitting multiple targets, going through barriers, and inducing panic in the enemy team as they scramble to escape their slow and steady death. This tank tickler of a weapon does 60 dps (30 against armor) and requires no aim (why most of us are tank mains tbh). Less common sense uses (that I see players not utilize often) include using it when bubble dancing, nano-boosted, and while above/below enemies holding a position.

• Non-Standard Tesla Cannon Usage
• If you can effectively bubble dance I’ll assume you know to be using your damn weapon while you do it, yet I’ll see players bubble to avoid damage and then dance scared while trying to find an exit route (which is why you should always know your exit prior to engagement). Don’t be scared. Limit mistakes and you can escape hairy scenarios while also getting off a good bit of damage.
• Getting boosted as Winston is a big compliment. Don’t spit in Ana’s face by using primal rage, as each swing of your meaty arms only does 40 damage (60 with nano) and makes you more single target in addition to knocking them away which causes you to chase. You can put out much more consistent and unescapable damage when nano-boosted with your tesla cannon. Focus down squishy characters with healers as priority. Only primal if you’re gonna die with nano and the fight hasn’t been won yet.
• Last tesla cannon tip is to get on high ground or just below it and zap at enemies below or above you. I sit below high ground and jump up to get free chip damage off on enemies who must either drop down to handle me or sit there and take abuse every time my leap cools down. Great examples of zapping high ground is found on Eichenwalde, Hollywood, and Anubis, while good zapping low ground is on Gibraltar, Anubis, and El Dorado.

Primal Rage: “Primal rage? That sounds badass, I bet I’ll team wipe as soon as I use it. Play of the game here I come!” gets no kills “This hero sucks, bro”. Your ultimate does 40 damage per swing, with 1.6 swings per second and a heavy knockback. Most importantly it decreases your leap cooldown from 6 to 2 seconds and heals you completely while giving you a grand total of 900 health and 100 armor. Yes primal rage may seem to be the most useless ultimate, but “useful” is a subjective term in this game. So you may not get a ton of kills (hey you also could who knows) that just means you need to make use of this ultimate outside of getting kills. One of the hardest parts of any hero is “when do I ult?” and Winston still has me asking that every now and then. First of all, you should pretty much never be ulting at full/high health unless you need to stall or some juicy environmental kills are a guarantee. It comes down to your intuition and game sense sometimes, but there are other objectively correct times to use your ultimate. Those times include capture point/payload stall or contest, increasing uptime in a team fight, and knocking enemies off of a point/ledge. Also always bubble before primal if you can, as the bubble will be on cooldown during your ultimate and can soak some damage for you.

• When Do I Primal?
• If, and only if, your team holds the capture point or you need to contest for overtime, you should use primal to increase your teams percentage and maybe even stall long enough to allow other teammates to come back or get picks. When you stall focus on flicking your leap upwards and leap immediately after landing to continually stall the point while only subjecting yourself to damage on the ground for a split second. The same tactic applies to a payload stall only you should attempt to circle the payload more if possible to use it as cover. If you are in a rush to get back, use your leap and use primal at the top of that leap. Activating primal instantly gives you another leap and you can chain these to get back to the point in no time. Likewise, your leap is refreshed instantly after primal wears off, so try to again chain your jumps to increase mobility.
• You jumped in and bit off more than you can chew, but the enemy only needs one tick to capture and your team will get rolled without you. Pop that ult and disrupt their push. Disrupt how? Deny high ground with knockback, slap away enemies shooting at teammates, etc. Try to use your ult to corner an enemy and beat their ass while they stare into your eyes begging for the sweet release of death. If you get trapped in graviton and you hear that damn weeb pull out his dragonblade, feel free to drop bubble and primal in order to attempt to swat him away from your team. Don’t do this if they have a Pharah, you’ll die.
• If there’s one thing this damn game loves it’s environmental kills. Make use of that cool highlight intro you have by scoring a few environmental kills and snagging POTG. If you are low, or the enemy team on Lijiang Night Market is pushing through the outside door, try to snag some environmental kills. Use your leap to position yourself however you need to in order to get the correct trajectory.
• A random note that I almost don’t want to mention and accidentally encourage misplays, but if you are falling off of a map, leap is on cooldown, and you need to stay in this fight: use primal to leap back up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve absolutely wasted primal by doing this and only recommend it to players with the reflexes to do it consistently.

These next portions will be more subjective so feel free to pick discuss anything you disagree with

1. Game Sense

What the hell does that even mean? : I hear and see this in every guide on “how to improve” but nobody ever really describes what they’re referring to. It boils down to a series of questions: What do I want to do and who do I want to combo with, how are they gonna stop me, how am I gonna handle their attempts to stop me, who do I prioritize and how do I get out? In addition to these questions you should always ensure you never assume your enemy will make mistakes (miss sleep dart, headshots, etc). That being said, punish any player who underestimates you or goes for cocky plays assuming you’ll choke. Whether you play with a keyboard or a controller, you control that hero you’re playing so act like it. Don’t too passively as it is usually a lack of confidence, and don’t play too aggressively as it is overconfidence. We’ve all seen the Reinhardt who is told to be more aggressive and then charges to his death. Controlled aggression is key. Know the answer to all of the questions I mentioned earlier here and you can be as aggressive as you want within the confines of those answers. Playing with meta heroes in quickplay can help give you a good idea of that heroes positioning, roles, and how they will act in certain scenarios. Use this knowledge to your advantage. If you die, why? If an enemy escapes but shouldn’t have, why? If you got a kill but shouldn’t have, what did they mess up? If you won or lost, why? In order to continually become a better player, reflection on your gameplay is essential.

Play Around Counters or Swap?: “Hey man they switched to Zen and Reaper can you swap?” Hell no, that means I’m doing my job and have them scared of me to the point of altering their team composition for one player. Winston is a scientist, which means he doesn’t accept statements without data and experimenting first. While the thought of experimenting with Winston sounds enticing, I’m referring to playing around your counters through communication and seeing how it goes. Don’t be “scared off” of your hero just because they switched to counter you. View this as an advantage, knowing that a portion of their team will see red when you’re in the fight and this will allow your team to assist you as they pursue you with blinders on. D.Va is my partner of choice for dive as she is the answer to all of your counters. Bastion? Not a favorable matchup for Winston and I would consider swapping for this pick only, but if you dive him with D.Va using defense matrix and a Genji using dash or deflect you should be golden. Just drop a bubble around that turret asshole as you land and your trio of doom will create an aggressive start to a winnable fight. Reaper? D.Va again! Stay nearby or leap to her when Reaper creeps up to melt you. Her defense matrix will eat his shots as you zap him to death or cause him to flee. Fleeing from a Winston as Reaper. Pathetic. Torbjorn? This dude has armor, drops armor, gains armor from ult, and has a turret that puts out a hefty bit of damage as you try to zap through his seemingly endless armor. If you thought I may suggest D.Va again then you’re absolutely correct. Dive the turret to prevent the molten core as he gets low health, and then turn to him. Only swap if you’ve given it a shot and it just isn’t working for one reason or another such as poor communication, no synergy between teammates, limited or nonexistent heals (sorry elo hell I know it sucks). If you can, politely suggest changes to make a comp work, but if not don’t be toxic and tilt your team.

Unfavorable Matchups: These following heroes aren’t exactly hard counters, but you probably won’t win in a fight without help so be sure to only pursue with help or if they’re low. - McCree: Solo you can maybe get him, but with a team he’ll flash you (not the good kind either) and you’ll get swarmed while stunned. - Mei: bubble dancing negates her freeze gun, yet if she does freeze you it’s game over. Plus she can heal and block you off if your leap is on cooldown. - Junkrat: can knock you away from a kill with his mine, and getting trapped is certain death - Sombra: hacked Winston = dead Winston - Roadhog: Stop it, nobody plays this dude anymore - D.Va: She has armor and can out damage you at close range. Bubble dance and zap punch.

Favorable Matchups: Heroes you are great at handling. An asterisk will be next to heroes you can kill but should be approached with caution. An explanation is given for those. - Zenyatta: Slow, often baited into transcendence, no escape options. Asterisk: discord and headshots/charge shot can melt you if you aren’t careful so bubble dance. - Ana: No escape, often alone in back lines, ineffective weapon requiring good aim. Asterisk: her grenade can ruin your escape if your healers can’t assist you, and her dart will allow the team to circle jerk around you before killing you. Bubble dance. - Tracer: She’s frail and you can leap after her blinks to secure the kill. Asterisk: if you have no bubble or teammates she can and will avoid you while farming you for her ult. - Hanzo: Snipers are usually on their own and can be easily dove. No fantastic means of escape. Asterisk: scatter is a sunovabitch. - Genji: you’ll melt this lil bitch - Widow: Zap her and then leap to wherever she grapples - Mercy: Anticipate her flight patterns and meet her wherever she flies to. Make sure to communicate as she’s a pain sometimes. - Lucio: Don’t really go for him unless he’s discorded, weak, or alone, or your team wants to focus him. His healing ruins your dps. - Reinhardt: Sure you may not solo kill or dive him, but you zap through his shield which causes panic and retreat. - Symmetra: People seem to be so scared of her but bubble dance to avoid beam, flick tesla cannon to zap turrets, and finish this annoying hero. If she catches you with your pants down don’t run just fight because you can often win or leap out if death is imminent.

Other Winston Matchups Worth Noting: Some heroes don’t really counter or get countered with Winston so here are a couple accompanied by tips for handling them. - Zarya: Anticipate her bubble. Stop zapping briefly to reload and then zap some more. Even if you zap the tail end of her bubble, she won’t gain much charge and you’ll jump straight into damaging her and increase your time to kill. - Soldier: He likes to think he counters you but he’s wrong. Leap damage, bubble dance, and pursue. His biotic field nullifies your weapon so be sure to punch if he’s low health and then leap out if he can’t be killed. - Orisa: She’s an odd one, as you can zap through her barrier but often she isn’t directly behind it to be zapped. Dive on her and bubble dance. Take advantage of her being slowed as she shoots.

Parting Wisdom: Engage with controlled aggression. That means that you don’t let enemies escape if you can secure the kill safely. If you hit a payload checkpoint, hunt enemies who got “bad” spawn. Get that Zarya by herself even if she deploys a bubble. But controlled aggression also means knowing your limits. Don’t leap into a group of 3. Don’t leap to the enemy spawn to try and stagger an enemy. One other flaw many players make is not grabbing health packs in order to give their healers ult charge or because the packs are “out of the way”. If you are aggressive and playing smart, your healers will get plenty of ult charge. Know where every health pack is. Your enemies will rush to them as you try to kill them. If you leap and beat them to it they have no recovery options and you just gained a bunch of health. Always be a leap away from a healers sightlines or a room with a health pack.

If you made it this far and want more guidance, I'm more than willing to do VOD reviews!

Thanks for reading!

• Doc Sword

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