EPTWhy shot calllers?
As you watch streams you'll see players like fenn3r or Seagull dominate the battlefield. Even though they are doing great their team will still lose some games. This is a recognized problem that is addressed in a variety of other places and as such there are systems in place that are used. I'll use primarily paintball as an example given that i played on a semi-pro team when i was younger. 10v10, 7v7. I would play well, but sometimes our team communication was lacking and we still lose. It felt frustrating to improve as a player but not see results.
Shot callers-
Usually in scenarios with more than 4, most people have a specific role, but there has to be some organization within the roles to get the most out of them. Usually you have a core that you want to keep safe, and pass information to so that they can make the game run well. In the second series of articles I will write is about base compositions and who makes good shotcallers. In general the best shot callers are the players close to the tank that are not going to die as much. This means that in general its going to be support and an auxillary dps player that will position to have a good view of the battlefield. This person not only has to be aware of what he is doing, but also what his team is doing and the opposing team is doing. For example when the opposing team used and ultimate, they are likely to have a chance to trade out that class for another class upon death. When that person is killed after using an ultimate then, they need to check to see if they changed their class.
Good classes to practice to work on shotcalling by my opinion of priority
Widowmaker
Pharah
Lucio
Zarya
Soldier 76
Mercy (I don't like as much because she often does not have vision)
Symmetra
Reaper
Hanzo (as suggested by ApatheticSchizoid)
Information to pass to the shotcaller-
Position of players
Kills
Deaths
Ultimate timings
Information that the shot caller needs to pass to his team-
Information requests-
*Player positions
*What is causing player deaths
*How well someone is playing
*Ultimate proximity
*Pace
*When the enemy team likely has an ultimate coming up
*When a class change occurs from the opponents
Key decisions that the shotcaller should make-
Focus- Who the team needs to focus on killing to progress
Ability pairing- How to make the push together.
Team positioning- Whether the core should function with the dps and role players
Spawn timing-Waiting to push in waves or continuous fighting
Push Timing- When the core should push harder usually based of a certain kill that blocks moving forward.
Flanking-Positioning of certain players to deflect counter attacks or make flanking maneuvers.
"Walking the field"-
In general there is no point in having a shot caller without the entire team knowing the relationship of items on the field. For example, On the temple of anubis, if you say pharah is in rafters, Widow is sniping the alley, rein and soldier are pushing mid Tracer is in crypts. Thus, in the third series of articles i plan on writing are the layouts of the maps
Pushing in Waves vs Continuous Pushing-
The general rule of thumb is that if the objective is far from the spawn point. You should either be pushing in waves or moving back to a secondary position after each set of major trades in an engagement. In general if you are close to the spawn it is more advantageous to trade a player for a player then it is for the opposing team. This should be one of the primary focuses of the shotcaller is to identify what trades you can make when pushing and how to prevent trades from happening when defending.
When to leave a position or adjust-
This is one of the hardest things to do but is the secondary function that is important to know about. If for example you have a bastion, a torbjorn, a symmetra, all in garage and the hanzo ult is coming up, you have to alert the team to spread out to minimize the damage of the ultimate. If they focus a position or are changing position to flank a character you should tell that player to alter their position. For example, Tracer is in hotel lobby pushing up to balcony.
Laning (aka holding a position)-
Often in paintball or other sports you aren't actually looking where all the players can see you. It is better to sit in a spot where they have to move out of cover to shoot at you. You might slam volleys of shots into that area where they would come from to make them take damage any time that they push into that area. This technique is called laning, where you aren't shooting where someone is directly but you are shooting where they will come if they move. The advantage from laning is that you are somewhat mindlessly shooting down one area while looking at something else on the screen. Positioning wise this is an ideal scenario to be placed as a shot caller. It allows for you to spot flanks while still putting on pressure. This should be one of the primary focuses of a shot caller is to find ways to minimize the attention needed in his own actions to increase his awareness of the rest of the battle.
Single push vs dual push-
There is a secondary style where often the map is larger and too much information is going on. Usually you would say have two squads of 3 players within a 6 player team. In this case you would have 2 shotcallers. This is a scenario that will play out often on some of the maps where attacking in through a single position is very hard such as Hanamura, Anubis, Volskaya, or Nepal.
Team skrims and working with other shotcalllers (In game Leaders)-
One of the biggest lessons from other sports and video games in generals is that the public environment is not as effective practice. Your primary goal should be skirmishes with other teams. As a shotcaller, your initial push should be to find other teams to practice with consistently. In paintball, the best 10v10 teams actually played with a consistent group of about 26 players. Usually and A-team, practicing against a b-team group and about 6 extra role players to fill in the times that the standard 10v10 lineup could not play. Thus in overwatch, a standard overwatch team should consist of regular team skirmishes based off about a consistent group of 15 or so players. This means that as you play you should be trying to get the best 15 or so players that you can to sit on a consistent time to do skirmishes with about 4-5 of them understanding shot-calling. The forum created by teamliquid thus it is important to utilize this or other means to create the
correct training environment to do well in winning tournaments.
*edit:There are a few more places to find players. Mostly through discord these days. There are discords for cloud9, Gosugamers, and competitive overwatch.
Closing Arguement-
Overall the difference in all sports is the coaches and shot callers. There is a reason why teams with consistent high level coaching do well. They teach the shot callers to lead and the role players to do their roles well. They are good at finding talent to do these things. Thanks you very much for reading this.
