Using Trends to Track Improvement in Overwatch
Hey there!
We are super excited to launch trends on Pursuit. In this post, I want to share some pointers on how you can use it to set the right goals for this season and track your improvement.
The first step is to assess your strengths and weaknesses. To do this, go to the heroes tab and select the hero that you want to improve. Here is an example of my statistics for Zenyatta.
On the first column, you can see the primary stats for the hero. These are the stats that most accurately reflect your impact on the game. The second column are the targets that you should aim for. These are created from the average of players in your rank with a >60% win rate. In this example, my biggest problem on Zenyatta is not enough healing. My healing done, transcendence healing, and defensive assists were all significantly lower than the rank targets.
The second step is to reflect on why your stats are lower than the rank targets. After reflecting on my own gameplay and doing some research on how to become a better Zenyatta, I concluded that my low healing done and defensive assists were caused by me forgetting to switch harmony orbs to low health targets during team fights. In addition, my low transcendence healing value is caused by me using transcendence to engage fights instead of countering offensive ultimates like Graviton Surge and Dragon Blade. If you get stuck here, just look for videos on YouTube that have hero tips or watch high ELO players on Twitch and look for what they do differently from you.
The last step is to focus on 1 thing at a time and track your progress. For example, I like to work on just 1 thing for an entire week. For the most recent 5 matches on Zen, the only thing that I was focused on was making sure that I had my harmony orb on a low health ally at all times. To ensure that I was on track, at the end of every night when I played, I checked the trends graph for my healing done. Here were the results:
As Genji says, “Measure Twice, Cut Once”. The best way to climb the competitive ladder is to play smart. Grinding mindlessly on autopilot isn’t going to get you very far. By tracking your progress overtime and reflecting on your gameplay frequently, you will start to see major improvements in both your skill and SR.
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Good luck on the climb!
James Sun
P.S. If you see incorrect numbers on the graph, you can hide it from trends by reporting it on the match page. More info on how to report here.
