Overwatch Ranks Explanation. How to Reach Top 500

A huge number of players constantly ask the Internet how to raise the rating in online games. Whether it’s Dota, CS, or Hearthstone. This is especially true for team games where a lot depends not only on you but also on your “colleagues”.

In this article, we will touch upon the Overwatch esports discipline and, in particular, its ranking system. What competitive games are, what ranks are there in the overwatch, and what is needed to rise higher in the rating!

Ranks are the categories a player belongs to when a certain skill rating is achieved in the Competitive Game. The initial rank is awarded after a player has played 10 qualifying matches at the start of the competitive season. The rank in the game is displayed as a special icon in the frame of the hero’s portrait.

Overwatch Season 3 Ranking System: 

• Bronze (1-1499)
• Silver (1500-1999)
• Gold (2000-2499)
• Platinum (2500-2999)
• Diamond (3000-3499)
• Master (3500-3999) 
• Grandmaster (4000-5000)
• Top 500 players in your region (regardless of rank)

According to a post by creative director Jeff Kaplan, the full Overwatch rank distribution reads:

• Bronze — 8%
• Silver — 21%
• Gold — 32%
• Platinum — 25%
• Diamond — 10%
• Masters — 3%
• Grandmaster — 1%

If you are at the Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Diamond rank and your skill rating has dropped below the corresponding minimum. Then you must return to your skill rating within 5 matches, otherwise, you will drop to the previous rank.

If you are at the Master or Grandmaster ranks and your skill rating has dropped below the corresponding minimum, then you are reduced to the previous rank.

At the ranks Master or Grandmaster, in order to play as part of the same group, the difference in rating between you and your allies should not be more than 500.

At ranks from Diamond and below, in order to play as part of the same group, the difference in rating between you and your allies should not be more than 1000.

Players of the ranks Diamond and Master cannot join a group with players in qualifying matches.

The rating of skills at the ranks of Diamond, Master, and Grandmaster begins to automatically decrease if the player has been inactive for 7 days.

How many Victory Points are awarded for each rank

At the end of a competitive season, players receive an additional number of Victory Points for the maximum rank earned throughout the season.

Winning a competitive match will award 15 Victory Points.

At the end of the season, you receive an additional number of Victory Points, depending on the maximum rank you have achieved throughout the season. Points are not reset at the end of the season.

Players who have 6,000 unused Victory Points will not receive Victory Points for participating in competitive matches.

Max. Season ‒ Rank Victory Points
Bronze (1-1499) 25 Victory Points
Silver (1500-1999) 50 Victory Points
Gold (2000-2499) 100 Victory Points
Platinum (2500-2999) 200 Victory Points
Diamond (3000-3499) 300 Victory Points
Master (3500-3999) 450 Victory Points
Grandmaster (4000+) 650 Victory Points

At the rank of Master, to play as part of the same group, the difference in rating between you and your allies should not be more than 250.

At the Grandmaster rank, in order to play as part of the same group, the difference in rating between you and your allies should not be more than 350.

At ranks from Diamond and below, in order to play as part of the same group, the difference in rating between you and your allies should not be more than 1000.

How Not to Be a Noob in Overwatch?

What if you don’t have the reactions of a mongoose and a cool aim, and you really want to win in online games? Perhaps, without “the fastest hands in the Wild West” you won’t become an e-sportsman. But you can definitely raise your MMR and be useful in the team.

If you have already played three billion hours of Overwatch, then most likely you will not find anything new here. And if you just want to conquer Overwatch, and your rating, like mine, is just as bashfully hovering at around 2,000, then we will help you.

Training, training and training again

A CS: GO player (with a rank higher than Silver) often begins his matchmaking crusade with aim training. In Overwatch, even though many characters don’t need shooting as such, the same principle works.

In Overwatch, there are a lot of “custom” ones where you can hone different game aspects or just “call out” before matchmaking, the latter is the golden rule of any online game.

Ana paintball

A good custom to master a fairly complex hero and get used to the flight path of her dart.

Widow headshot only

Here you can fulfill your need to play as a sniper. You can only kill an opponent with a headshot. It is an ideal opportunity to practice aiming in combat conditions but without the screams of disgruntled teammates and loss of rating.

For example, a Los Angeles Valiant player who plays mostly support characters uses this mod all the time to warm up. 8 headshots in 10 seconds on flying enemies, what is it like? Naturally, you will hardly be able to show such results in the near future. But such customizations will improve your accuracy and help you calculate the trajectory of your opponents in flight.

For those who just want to learn how to aim and get their hands on, I recommend creating your own game with bots (Ana and Lucio), twisting their movement speed up to 150% . And there is already enough imagination for that: just train the mechanics and aim, at least headshots/air shots/flick.

Choosing a Role

Any newbie always wants to take on a character who can kill everyone. Dealing damage, riveting frags, making highlight after highlight are, of course, cool. Often the DD position is extremely easy to learn and not as responsible as the “tank” or “healer”. Overwatch in this respect differs from the same WoW (where similar logic worked). The most popular pattern in Overwatch is 2-2-2. That is, the team will always have 2 DD, and here the personal skill will really be important.

Lack of damage can be a noticeable problem for the entire team. In addition, playing flankers requires the player to have a good knowledge of the map and an understanding of the formation of the enemy team’s “redoubts”. You are required not only to shoot at Reinhardt’s shield but to go behind the lines and cut out enemy supports ‒ this is not an easy task for a beginner.

Therefore, it is worth leaving the role of DD for now and trying other positions.

On a healer, when you just start playing, you quickly master all the subtleties of the game for the rest of the heroes. Since you are always in the rear, you see how the team works and interacts, what is bad for you as a healer, what is good. Proceeding from this, you yourself then realize that, playing as flankers, you need to go to the rear and strain the healers, playing close distance, you need to disassemble tanks while playing on a tank ‒ to create space for the team.

In addition, at first, there is a high probability that you will be the only one who wants to play on the tank/heal. After all, everyone naturally wants to take DD. Thus, you will already give an advantage to your team and increase the chances of winning. And you will surely collect likes at the end, thanks to its usefulness, and this is always nice ‒ who would not like to amuse their CSV in online games?

I think the best option is to start playing flex tanks (D.Va, Zarya) because they are quite easy to learn and can play any role in the team (DPS, Support, Tank). Thus, it will be easier for the player to understand the game and realize what role he likes or suits the most.

Nobody forbids you to choose a Soldier and fire indiscriminately at enemy shields, pretending that you are in Vietnam, and there are gooks around. But it will be easier to get used to the game, improve your understanding of it, and generally be useful, and therefore win, it will be easier on supporting and related roles. After all, even if you play badly on Angel, you will still make a huge impact on the team game.

Train Signature Characters

There are 28 heroes in Overwatch, and, of course, each has its own unique gameplay, so everyone wants to try. But experimentation is worth leaving for arcade or casual games. For ranking, it’s best to create a small pool of characters that you are best playing at. Initially, in ordinary games, try for everyone to imagine how the character works: what are his strengths and weaknesses. Then determine for yourself a few priority heroes, for whom you will conquer matchmaking.

For all novice players who plan to achieve big ratings, or even become a pro player, I always advise you to study 1-2 of the most popular heroes. By playing 1-2 heroes, you will definitely make progress faster and begin to understand the game much better. It will be easier for you to raise your rating, and you will play against stronger opponents. Thereby, your global understanding of the game will increase significantly, and you will be able to play on other heroes a maximum of 300-400 ratings below your main characters. Improving the game for the rest of the heroes will then be a matter of time.

Choosing a Hero

Each hero, in order for you to be able to squeeze the most out of him, requires a lot of practice and dozens of played hours. However, some heroes are a little easier to learn, so it’s better to start your acquaintance with the game and conquer matchmaking with them. 

Once again: if the hero has more understandable and simplified gameplay, this does not mean that after playing a couple of games for him, you will understand everything and become the best. The Reaper is simple mechanically, with skills that do not require super micro-control and mongoose reaction, however, its effectiveness and usefulness depends entirely on your understanding of macro games, ability to move, and knowledge of timings. All of the above comes precisely after tens/hundreds of played hours.

The most important thing to keep in mind for everyone who deliberately goes to the ranked games: you must have a clear goal in each game. Who will you play on, what to do, whether you can be useful on your hero in this team setup?

But if you are just getting to know Overwatch or this acquaintance is limited to 20-30 hours, then it is better to get used to the peculiarities of playing on characters with more understandable gameplay.

Heroes that are easy to learn: Mercy, Lucio, Moira, Brigitte, Diva, Soldier, Widow, Reaper.

Heroes that you shouldn’t go to the rating without having enough experience: Genji, Doomfist, Hammond, Tracer, Ana.

“I want to play Genji!”

If “simple characters” do not appeal to you and, despite all our assurances, you firmly decided to play only on DPS, and besides, it is on “that tough guy with a sword”, then here is a little advice for you:

In order to learn how to play Genji, you should devote a lot of time to the mechanics (move correctly and shoot well) and he is one of those characters who need to monitor all the cooldowns of abilities and the current charge of ultimates from the enemy in order to increase their survivability and know at what moments you can attack or even completely turn the situation in your favor.

Follow the Meta

No online game will ever be completely balanced. Someone always drops out of the meta, while others, on the contrary, are so imbalanced. Therefore, always, especially after a long break in the game, go to read the “patch note”, scroll through the forum, watch the streams to understand which of the characters is now in the top, and more effective in their position. It is clear that it will not work to win the match by picking a more “meta” character. But it will still give a slight advantage. On the other hand, though, it must be remembered that if a hero is popular, then there is a good chance that most players have already adapted to play against him.

In this meta, Brigitte turns the game around and makes it difficult for flankers like Tracer and Genji. But even so, players still find workarounds and ways to defeat Brigitte.

Play With a Friend

Playing with someone in a pair is always more enjoyable and more fun. But players do not always squeeze all the advantages out of the joint game. If you just joke in discord, while mindlessly running around the map each on its own, there will be little sense in the game. We are not against jokes in discord, but they need to be combined with well-coordinated team play. It is ideal to choose two heroes that synergize with each other, so you get an edge over your opponent. Here are some hero combinations to play with a friend from us:

If you play with tanks, then this is Reinhard + Zarya. Working together, you must consistently outplay the enemy tank bunch. When playing DPS, you can play very aggressively with two flankers (Genji, Tracer, Sombra) and coordinate your focus on targets. When playing as support in conjunction with DPS, you can combine a nano blade (Genji + Ana) or just focus and kill targets under discord.

The Main Thing is a Positive Attitude

Fortunately, Overwatch is a little better with this than in the same Dota 2. Largely due to the fact that the games last 10-15 minutes and, even losing, the players do not have time to hate each other so much. But of course, there is a tilt in Overwatch after a losing streak.

After losing matches, newcomers, without noticing it, lose focus and go down even lower in rating. If the players put their emotions aside and try to show their best play at any rating, they will steadily develop their level of play and their rating, accordingly, will grow too.

Try to interact and communicate with the team, but only within the framework of the literary language. Effective combination of abilities and well-coordinated approach to points depend on in-game communication and your desire to find a common language with allies. In addition, this will help to find a more balanced pick, no one will “get into a pose” shouting: “I want DPS!”

If you maintain a positive attitude, communicate with the team, do not tilt, play every match to the limit of your capabilities. Then your chances of winning and learning something increase greatly.

Good behavior during the match is now necessary not only in order to win but also in order to simply play with other campy players.

Player Reputation Levels have been added to Overwatch. The developers decided in this way to deal with players who behave badly during the game. Now, after each match, the player can praise both allies and opponents for a good game.

Reputation Categories in Overwatch

There are three categories of reputation in total: “Shot Caller”, “Good Teammate” and “Sportsmanship”.

In the “Shot Caller” category, one can praise the players who come up with and help carry out tactical maneuvers during the match. The Good Teammate category honors players who work well as a team. If a player has a positive impact on their team members, then they can be commended in the Sportsmanship category.

What Gives the Reputation Level

Initially, the reputation level of all players is 1, and the maximum possible level is 5. The reputation level grows when you are praised. You will also receive a small amount of experience when praising other players. A high level of reputation gives you an advantage when searching for a group through the “Group Finder”. You will find a group for a match faster than players with a low reputation. This is how the reputation system works in Overwatch.

Overwatch Reputation Rewards

With a high reputation level, you can get containers from time to time (their number will depend on the level). During Special Events, you will earn Event Containers (such as Summer Games containers) for Overwatch Reputation.

How to Maintain Your Reputation Level

If you are not praised for a long time after the end of the match, or you often leave the game before the end of the match, the reputation system will lower your level. In addition, when receiving sanctions, the player’s reputation can be reduced to 0.