The OverThinker: One Tip Against Every Tank Ultimate

Hey everyone, welcome to The OverThinker! In this post, I'll be giving you guys one tip to deal with every tank ultimate in Overwatch. Let's begin!

1. D.Va's Self-Destruct: In preparation for a D.Va Bomb, be sure to play near hard cover and/or save your movement cooldowns to escape its blast radius. You could also try and block its damage with a friendly barrier, but since those can be broken, disabled, or ulted around, they are a less-reliable option, and you should prioritise using hard cover instead.

Not all victims of a D.Va bomb do a rockstar impression

2. Orisa's Supercharger: When the Horse Goddess pulls out her bongo, you should try to destroy it quickly, but if doing so is risky, you should retreat and play passively until it runs out. Taking out a Supercharger is a high-value play, but you must make sure you don't die trying to make it. If you've got a low-risk ultimate like Doomfist's Meteor Strike or Tracer's Pulse Bomb on hand, you can use it to get rid of the damage-boosting bongo; it's totally worth it. If that isn't possible, it's best to just play passively. The additional 50% damage on the enemy team is no joke, and you can easily get burst down if you even spend one second out of hard cover.

3. Reinhardt's Earthshatter: Block, Avoid, Peel. That's the order in which you've got to deal with an incoming Earthshatter. Your primary objective should always be to block it so that it gets no value at all, which you can do with your own Rein's shield, or even things like a Zarya bubble or Mei's Ice Wall. Those characters that cannot block a Shatter must always be prepared to avoid it when the time comes, which can be done either by staying outside its range from the get-go, or by reactively using escape abilities to save themselves from the CC. For instance, you could save your Fade ability as Moira to avoid the Earthshatter when you see and/or hear the enemy Rein going for the "Hammer down". If you're playing something like Soldier:76 and can neither block nor escape from the Shatter when it lands, just take high ground or play a bit further back to avoid its impact. If the enemy Rein lands a successful Shatter, everyone that's escaped its clutches must try to peel for their teammates i.e. protect them in whatever way they can. For instance, Lucio could use Beat to make his teammates tankier, or Bap could throw his Immortality Field to protect someone getting pinned. Just think about anything you can do on whichever hero you're playing to protect your teammates from the followup damage.

Should've stayed on the wall, Lucio

4. Roadhog's Whole Hog: Roadhog is a character that becomes really vulnerable while ulting, and that's an opening you have to exploit. Try to either stun him to cancel his ult, or focus him down and confirm the kill. Be quick though, since good Roadhogs will get value almost immediately after popping their ult, either by booping someone off the map, or bursting them down along a wall.

If you see this happening, you focus down that Hog!

5. Sigma's Gravitic Flux: Avoid, Escape, Peel. Facing off against a Flux requires a 3-pronged approach similar to the one used against Earthshatter. The best way to play against a Sigma with Flux is to split up a little so that more of you can avoid getting caught in it. Those that think they'll be caught in the ult regardless must save their escape abilities for when they do. Again, Moira's Fade is a classic example. If you get caught in the Flux and have no escape, you'll need your teammates to peel for you. This may involve things like getting a Zarya bubble to nullify your impact damage, Bap's Immortality Field to keep you alive, or even just plain heals to top you up quickly. You can even protect yourself if you're playing a hero that has these kinds of defensive abilities.

6. Winston's Primal Rage: Focus the Winston down (provided you haven't slept him). It's a very common mistake by ladder players when they ignore an ulting Winston since they think shooting him is a waste of time due to his additional tankiness. Au contraire, an ulting Winston can turn out to be quite the ult battery for your team since he's very easy to shoot and focus down with that massive hitbox. Naturally, you shouldn't lose sight of your other opponents in the process, but if you're not in an exposed position, just farm him. Damaging him will also cause him to retreat, saving any teammates of yours he's juggling around. If your Ana lands a Sleep Dart on the Winston when he presses Q, just ignore him and let him sleep. That way you can fight a 6v5 battle for a few seconds and potentially get a pick.

He's just mad coz he's hacked and can't do anything

7. Wrecking Ball's Minefield: Destroy the mines as quickly as possible. It's obvious that you need to exit the radius of the Minefield, so I'm not going to use that as the main tip. However, it isn't that obvious to some players that you should destroy the mines while/after doing that. This is to ensure that neither you nor your teammates accidentally walk into or get booped into them and die. If the fight's over, you may use the mines to take damage bit-by-bit and let your supports heal you up for ult charge.

8. Zarya's Graviton Surge: Since Zarya can use Grav in many different ways, I'd say you should figure out how she's going to use it, and build a game plan to counter it. Ask yourself questions like: "Is my team playing together or split (if you're playing split she's more likely to solo-Grav)?" "Does the enemy team have a defensive ult for our Nanoblade (if not she's likely to Grav your Genji away from her team)?" "Can any of my other enemies combo with the Grav? (this can sometimes be the difference between using/holding on to a defensive ult)" Although asking these questions won't necessarily help you counter the Grav, it'll help your team prepare better for it. You can then decide how worried you want to be about the Grav, if you want to save a defensive ult for it, if it's predictable enough for your D.Va to eat, etc. Ideally, we should plan like this for every ult, but since that isn't always possible, I'd say at least do it for Zarya.