OverwatchOverwatch Winston Guide and Overview

"To all agents of Overwatch, this is Winston!” Winston greeted us every time we booted up Overwatch 1, and has been one of the best dive Tanks ever since. For longtime players, many have not adapted to the multitude of balance changes that have affected Winston, his playstyle, and his supposed counters. Ever since the last armor changes, for example, Winston can survive against heroes like Reaper, Bastion, and D.Va, and Monke mains shouldn’t be swapping off just because the enemy has these heroes present.

A simple-to-understand yet difficult-to-master kit gives Winston a low skill floor but a very high ceiling. The very generous AoE of primary fire means you don’t need good aim to do well on Winston. Similar to this genius Winston, Winston mains must first develop their brains and game sense in order to perform consistently well. He can suddenly appear anywhere on the map, so the enemy needs to always be on alert and ready to get jumped on. When you want to play aggressively, try out Winston and start bypassing the entire enemy team to target that squishy backliner. 

TLDR

Play As

• Avoid Tank battles. Winston will lose a 1v1 duel against every other Tank. Stay away from them.
• Don’t sit at the choke point. Short range and minimal damage mitigation make Winston bad at contesting choke points. Use Leap to bypass chokes and get to flank angles or high ground.
• Look for isolated dive targets. Anytime you see an enemy a bit separated from their team, Jump Pack onto them and try to get a quick elim.

Play Against

• Track his cooldowns. When Winston uses either bubble or leap, his enemies have a generous window to target him where he can’t shield or jump away. Focus him when he can’t escape.
• Keep your distance. Most heroes have CC to stop or knockback Winston, or a movement ability to run away. Try to never let him get close to you, as he’s only a threat up close.
• Stay in an ally Support’s LoS. Winston's damage is rather low, and most Supports can keep you alive with their healing even while he’s attacking you. Eventually, you’ll do more damage than him, and he’ll have to disengage.

Strengths

Extremely fast jump

Jump Pack sends Winston flying across the map and is one of the fastest movement abilities in OW2. He uses the superior speed to catch enemies and force them into situations where they have to outplay him or die. Whether he’s taking high ground or jumping straight at the backline, the damage and speed of Jump Pack are the core of Winston's kit.

Isolating enemies

Winston excels at scouting and at jumping onto enemies who are separated from their team. On top of this, he also has Barrier Projector to completely cut enemies off from their team. Their team can’t shoot or heal through the barrier, which allows him and his team to quickly eliminate the isolated foe.

Barrier-piercing cleave

Other than melee attacks, Tesla Cannon primary is the only attack that pierces barriers. Additionally, the beam’s wide angle cleaves all enemies within its AoE. This enables Winston to damage multiple enemies simultaneously and build ult charge faster.

Weaknesses

Low damage per second

Winston sometimes struggles to get elims simply because his damage per second is too low to reliably kill a target while they are receiving any healing. The low damage is one of the main factors in why he’s so bad at dueling Tanks. They just kill him way faster than he can kill them.

Long cooldown cycle

Compared to the other dive Tanks, Winston can reposition less frequently. He only has one movement ability, and its cooldown is longer than D.Va's Boosters, for example. The 12-second cooldown of Barrier Projector is even more exploitable. The health usually lasts only a couple of seconds, leaving a long gap between Barrier uses.

Heavily affected by matchups

What Winston can do and should be trying to do in a given match is very dependent on the enemy team’s composition. When they have an immobile backline, he can easily jump them, but if the backline has Stuns and CC, he can get booped out of his leap or stunned to death. The same principle applies to all roles. Winston, more than other Tanks, is forced to adapt his playstyle and strategy to the hero selection of the enemy comp.

Primary Fire: Tesla Cannon

Tips for Tesla Cannon

• Barriers and mitigation abilities
• • Most of the time, Winston doesn’t want to battle the heroes who have barriers, so you should only look to take advantage of this feature early in fights, or to finish off a critical health enemy who’s shielding to stay alive.
  • Example: Enemy Sigma has low HP but has barrier and Kinetic Grasp available to keep him alive. Tesla Cannon ignores both and can kill the Sigma when the rest of your team can’t.
• Big cleave
• • Always try to keep multiple people in your beam. You can strafe and adjust your aim to make cleaving additional targets easier.
• Melee weave
• • Whenever you are in melee range, you should alternate between melee and primary fire. Over time, you’ll deal more single-target damage since you’ll be reducing reload time. 

Secondary Fire: Tesla Cannon (Charged)

Tips for Tesla Cannon (Charged)

• Poke damage
• • Before every fight breaks out, you can use secondary fire to start building some ult charge and applying light poke pressure to the enemy. 
  • When the enemy team has high poke damage and peeking to deal 60 damage costs hundreds of your HP, you’re better off not peeking or poking. 
• Jump combos
• • Begin charging secondary fire, Jump Pack, fire while in air to get some damage in before landing. This tech increases your burst damage and helps to secure elims.
• Range without committing Jump Pack
• • Often, enemies will have very low health and run away from you. You could Jump Pack to chase them down, but if they are low enough to be killed by a charged beam, go for the shot and save the jump.

[SHIFT]: Jump Pack

Tips for Jump Pack

• Contest the high ground
• • The greatest strength of Jump Pack is the capability to contest the high ground. Never let enemy DPS and Supports stand on high ground for free when you are Winston. Jump up, use your health and barrier to survive their damage, and injure them enough that they have to fall back.
• Prioritize survival
• • Never Jump Pack into the enemy team without Barrier Projector. The cooldown of Jump Pack is twice as fast as Barrier Projector, so be careful not to leap into the enemy and instantly die because you don’t have bubble to keep you alive.
• Jump distance
• • Jump Pack can be directionally influenced. Hold forward to go farther, or backwards to jump short distances.
• Jump target prioritization
• • The most important thing to learn with Winston is how to discern who you should be jumping on. Here’s a condensed checklist of examples to help you figure out where to jump in any given match.
  • • Threat to your team: Sojourn is ulting and slides into your team looking for picks. Immediately Jump her. Even if you can’t kill her, your presence will likely keep the rest of your team alive.
    • Isolated: Zenyatta is off angling by himself, trying to catch your backline with a full-charged volley. Jump him while he’s alone for an easy kill.
    • Already used counter-cooldowns: Ramattra just exited Nemesis Form. His standard form doesn’t pose much threat to you, and you can damage him through his barrier. This is the only time you would want to Jump a Ramattra.
    • Immobile: You see Ashe use Coach Gun. Jump to wherever she lands because you know she can’t boop you back or escape.
    • Can’t break your barrier: Mei is pushed up on your team. You can Jump her as long as some of the rest of the enemy team is preoccupied. She can’t break your barrier, and you can bubble dance to win the duel. 

[E]: Barrier Projector

Tips for Barrier Projector

• Block crowd control
• • The most important use of your Barrier Projector is to block stuns and knockbacks. You could perfectly time a dive on an enemy Ana all by herself, but if you don’t block her Sleep Dart, she’ll escape and you’ll likely get anti-naded and die instead.
  • Once you start blocking enemy CC, expect them to change up timing. Then it becomes a mental battle of who can read the other better. 
• Bubble dance
• • If you plan to spend any time actually fighting, you’ll need to master the bubble dance:
  • • Stand at the edge of the bubble and walk inside when the enemy is outside. When they try to walk in, walk out to keep blocking their attacks.
    • Depending on the matchup, you can learn the timing of their attacks to be more effective. Roadhog has a slow-firing shotgun, for example, and you can time your dance to counter his rate of fire and never get shot by a full blast.
• Cut off LoS
• • Sometimes the best use of Bubble is to cut off an enemy from their team's resources. This could be to stop a low health Rein from being healed, or placing bubble to cut off Sound Barrier’s AoE.
• Peel
• • While Winston isn’t always the best Tank for peeling, he’s certainly capable. When you see an ally in danger of dying, jump to them and drop bubble to keep them alive. 
  • Many ults can be survived with a well-timed bubble. Drop bubble on top of your team to buy them time to counter the enemy's ult. 

Ultimate: Primal Rage

Tips for Primal Rage

• Extra Life
• • When the fight is still winnable and you're about to die, pop Primal Rage for the instant health. You essentially get an extra life and can save the fight just by being alive.
  • Keep track of players alive and save your ult if your team is already way behind in numbers.
• Overwhelm enemy resources
• • Primal Rage enables Winston to commit and go all in on a fight. In many fights, this will make the difference between the enemy backline surviving with a sliver of health and being able to finish them off.
  • Winston's initial dive traded for the enemy's cooldowns, then Primal Rage can be used without the threat of these abilities. Thus, allowing Winston to secure elims with Primal Rage that he otherwise could not have.
• Don’t Primal Rage if the enemy has counter resources.
• • Whole hog, sleep, grav, and other similar abilities easily shut down the giant body of the angry Ape. Wait until these abilities have been used before you commit Primal Rage.
• Juggles
• • The final stage in mastering Primal Rage is juggle mechanics. By far the most difficult and flashy aspect of his ult. Spend time in training mode getting used to how far the melee knock back and how far you need to jump to keep the combo going.
  • Walls, corners, and small rooms all make juggling considerably easier. Trap enemies against the environment, hold attack, and jump off cooldown to maximise damage output.
  • Look down in the air to hit enemies during Jump and carry them with you.

Minor Perks

Electric Charge

• Excellent for chasing opponents as they try get away from your dives.
• Compared to Heavy Landing, this perk will give you more consistent value.
• Best when the enemy has speed boosting abilities or if you are not confident with Primal Rage juggling.

Heavy Landing

• Best Minor Perk
• Increased lethality during Primal Rage
• • Every time you Jump Pack during Primal Rage, you’ll deal more burst damage. The extra damage is surprisingly helpful in converting kills.
  • The longer you’re in the air, the higher the resource meter fills up, and you’ll deal more damage upon landing.
  • In general, it’s better to only go for a high Jump on the initial attack, then keep the Jumps low and quick.

Major Perks

Chain Lightning

• Extra ult charge
• • Chain lightning deals an extra 72 damage when hitting 2 extra enemies. Compared to the 48 damage of a single hit, Winston can generate 2.5x the amount of ult charge with every secondary fire.
• Potential for final blows
• • The bounce can hit enemies behind cover as long as they have a targetable teammate in range. You may be able to get some final blows if the enemy is one-shot.

Revitalizing Barrier

• Self healing
• • Even a few seconds of healing while bubble dancing with an enemy can make the difference between winning the exchange and getting out alive.
• Extra ult charge
• • A full duration Barrier heals 240 HP to each hero inside. The healing you and your allies receive generates ult charge. When needing to farm Primal Rage for a fight, you can use the bubble defensively and heal your allies.

The best maps for Winston have structures, high ground, and plenty of natural cover. Winston doesn’t want to have to rely on his Barrier Projector as his only means of staying alive. Instead, he performs best when the map’s environment offers protection. Jumping the high ground to push enemies off is his bread and butter. High ground also allows Winston to stage dives and drop down on the enemy without having to use Jump Pack. That way, he can leap away at a moment's notice. 

The maps Monke struggles on are the wide-open ones with very little cover. Also maps that favor close-range fights on the objective are pretty miserable for him since he has a harder time staying away from his bad matchups.

Best maps

• Watchpoint: Gibraltar
• Dorado
• Hollywood

Worst Maps

• New Junk City
• Nepal
• Havana

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!