Tracking Opponents at Mid-Range in Overwatch
In the heat of a battle, things can quickly get pretty hairy. Before you know it, a player has closed the distance on you, and now you’re throwing down with each other in short to mid-range, edge of your seat battle. If you are playing something like Overwatch, where that player may be able to soak more of that damage up or can move quickly enough to shake your aim off repeatedly, you are in for some serious trouble. So lets drill exactly that: having a player engage you at medium range and maintaining a smooth and steady tracking aim on the target to melt them down before they do the same to you.
You will want to keep a few things in mind when aiming in these scenarios, first, focus on being reactive rather than being predictive. A lot of players are going to ADAD spam you until your knees bump into each other, and if you are trying to predict where they are going, you can quickly overestimate, taking your crosshair off of the target for an extended period; time that they are doing damage to you without taking anything back.
Remember, if your crosshair is not on the target, you’re not scoring points, and in a live game environment, you’re not doing damage. If your opponent can eliminate you without taking much punishment back, they’re not just taking you off the board, they’re doing it at a discount.
In this featured task, you will be challenged to track a pill shaped target at mid-range as it dashes with variations of short, mid, and long strafes. Focus on reacting to the target’s movements, so that you are training your reactivity in a way that is much more beneficial in the long run than correctly predicting which direction they will head in next. It may not click at first, and this may be something that you need to work on for more than just one training session, but the benefits will begin to appear in other corners of your aim and skillset, so make the most of it.
Avoid the trap of prediction against a target that is being unpredictable. Instead, train your reactivity so you can trust your tracking when you’re facing the strafe spam.