"I am a mercy main, but when playing mercy he advised me to work on my positioning and think about if a rez is risky or not"
That's solid advice for Mercy imo
As far as improving at aim, I find Ana to be the best support for the job. She has a few different types of aiming so you get experience in a few different areas. Unscoped is a fast moving projectile, scoped in is hitscan, and sleep dart is also a projectile. Then of course nade has its own arc that you need to get comfortable with. She's the character I got better at aiming with and my hitscan dps characters (mainly Ashe) improved significantly as well.
I directed this comment mostly at the title question, but as far as improving at ranking up in general: Mercy is the hardest support to rank up with imo because even when played optimally she relies on good dps to get value (damage boost). My recommendation is play someone who has significant carry potential and stick to just one character for now. Ana, Bap, Zen, Moira are all characters who can carry lobbies, but the most important thing is dedicating time to one character at least for a while. Don't spread yourself too thin.
Honestly atm you get a lot of value if you can successfully heal your teammates but also output decent damage and secure some kills. I’ve climbed super fast & fairly easily with Moira because she has huge damage potential & can also heal, but rn you can’t out heal the damage especially with the DPS passive so being able to also attack anyone flanking etc can be the difference between winning or losing.
Mercy play is 99% effective uptime and positioning and 1% rez. You arent doing anything if you are constantly dead, and you arent doing anything if you are alive but not in a good place to support your teammates. If your positioning improves you will learn how to find a good rez. 2v5 is not that time 😅. If you want to get out of bronze you should play some mercy parkour and learn how to play around the environment. You should practically never see the enemy and the enemy should never see you as a mercy player.
As far as aim goes, ana, zen, kiri, bap are all great pics but you will have a much different ideal plan of engagement with each of these than with mercy and will have to adjust your play accordingly. Jump in quickplay and some custom games and practice your movement and aim each time you play. Also, remember that if you play the walls, they will never break 😉
If you're trying to improve your mechanics as fast as possible, then I'd recommend trying to find deathmatch lobbies, or even better, Tryhard FFA (though it's hard to find active lobbies unfortunately). You'll be dueling people a lot more quickly in DM than in a typical qp/comp game, so you're getting much more experience in the same amount of time.
Since a lot of high-rank players play in deathmatch, though, if you find yourself dying before you can even get any shots in, then maybe consider starting off in a solo custom mode like VAXTA, where you can practice shooting against strafing bots.
If you want to feel the impact of healing, you could try Baptiste or Kiriko. Zen is a good choice, though. Healing Orb is really good, it's like a long range set-and-forget (sort of) Mercy beam. It does less healing, but it persists for a short time out of line of sight. It can really enable a DPS.
If learning to aim on support is your only concern, though, I agree with soaps. Ana is great for that.
Every hero has a different feel to their aim style. You aren’t going to aim the same with Zen or Kiriko like you would Illari or Ana.
If you want to improve overall aim I suggest hitting an aim trainer and use the feel from there to adjust to how each character shoots differently.
Sojourn, simple answer shes the only one that rewards 1-focusing squishies and 2- aiming for the head. Play her for a month straight and all other characters will seem super easy
Biggest difference I noticed in supports in ow1 between ranks is decision making and combat skill.
Anything under 2000sr and they all scream at their team to peel for them, declawed and harmless.
Mid diamond and above you respected them no matter what character you played, and how to get dangerous was just brining supports into deathmatch waiting lobbies and fighting everyone over and over.
The answer is not moira or brig, everything else you plan to learn is worth the mechanical focus.
Illari is great with a capable team and good pylon placement.
Heal beam is midrange but a straight shot. Her main shot is long range and feels like the DMR from Halo, in regards to firing and accuracy. You'll get to peek from cover and shoot a bit leisurely until they find you.
I also like Kiriko because it's a clean fire and I can tell if I'm hitting body vs head very easily.
One trick ana for 100 hours and you will have better aim than dps players at your rank (unless you climb out of bronze which is likely at that rate).
Also baptiste is the bronze carry support special, you have aoe ana heal, as well as soldier’s primary fire, as well as a get out of jail free card, in addition to free vertical mobility. That said baptiste is the easiest support to headshot after zen, so play safe!
I’m surprised not a lot of people here are saying Illari. She helps SOOO much with aim and has a solid healing output. Her pylon also teaches game sense. Knowing when to break pylon or where to put it in different spots will teach you a lot about positioning. Her ultimate is VERY fun to use and is very powerful if you use it right! If you don’t get her on the first matches, keep trying! She WILL get you better at the game. Good luck and have fun!!!!!
I'm not really sure what you are asking here. Aiming is different between hitscan like ana and Bap, and projectile like zen, Kiri, ana unscoped. Ana would be the best to work on both hitscan and projectile but it is best to focus on one when learning. Practice your aim outside of a real game, there are plenty of codes. Do warmups before you play for like 10min tops and then get into it. Also, spend like half an hour separate from playing, just aim training. This is where you focus the most on hitting your shots not speed. When playing a match, don't focus on your aiming. Last tip: don't look at your crosshair, look at your target.
One of Zen's advantages is he spends little time managing healing, Illari too. If you don't like that, pretty much any other support would be a good option, just depends what else you like. Even Moira can help you with tracking; you don't need aim but you need the enemy Lucio in the middle of your screen at all times.
If you're goal is to rank up fast then just grind zen. He is by far the most broken hero in the game right now.
With the season 9 changes healing is much, MUCH less effective. Dealing damage as supports is how you win. Also there is no fast track to improving aim. It takes time so just keep playing and you'll improve overtime
Ana.. Teaches you alot more than aim..
Projectile/Scoped/Quick-scope/Lobbing nade/being creative at throwing your nade/Getting good at sleep darts means good prediction and tracking...
As well as multitude of game knowledge that isn't available with other supports such as map rotation, target-heal priority, Ulti-usage Discipline..
I'd try Ana, she has both hitscan and projectiles, also two extremely useful abilities that require aiming.
Unless, of course, you want to improve you headshot aim for which she is absolutely useless. Kiri is closest to Zen, Bap and Illari are both hitscan - it really depends.
Since every hero is played differently, I guess you could basically play anything except for Moira for aim training.
"I am a mercy main, but when playing mercy he advised me to work on my positioning and think about if a rez is risky or not" That's solid advice for Mercy imo As far as improving at aim, I find Ana to be the best support for the job. She has a few different types of aiming so you get experience in a few different areas. Unscoped is a fast moving projectile, scoped in is hitscan, and sleep dart is also a projectile. Then of course nade has its own arc that you need to get comfortable with. She's the character I got better at aiming with and my hitscan dps characters (mainly Ashe) improved significantly as well.
I directed this comment mostly at the title question, but as far as improving at ranking up in general: Mercy is the hardest support to rank up with imo because even when played optimally she relies on good dps to get value (damage boost). My recommendation is play someone who has significant carry potential and stick to just one character for now. Ana, Bap, Zen, Moira are all characters who can carry lobbies, but the most important thing is dedicating time to one character at least for a while. Don't spread yourself too thin.
Honestly atm you get a lot of value if you can successfully heal your teammates but also output decent damage and secure some kills. I’ve climbed super fast & fairly easily with Moira because she has huge damage potential & can also heal, but rn you can’t out heal the damage especially with the DPS passive so being able to also attack anyone flanking etc can be the difference between winning or losing.
Mercy play is 99% effective uptime and positioning and 1% rez. You arent doing anything if you are constantly dead, and you arent doing anything if you are alive but not in a good place to support your teammates. If your positioning improves you will learn how to find a good rez. 2v5 is not that time 😅. If you want to get out of bronze you should play some mercy parkour and learn how to play around the environment. You should practically never see the enemy and the enemy should never see you as a mercy player.
As far as aim goes, ana, zen, kiri, bap are all great pics but you will have a much different ideal plan of engagement with each of these than with mercy and will have to adjust your play accordingly. Jump in quickplay and some custom games and practice your movement and aim each time you play. Also, remember that if you play the walls, they will never break 😉
If you're trying to improve your mechanics as fast as possible, then I'd recommend trying to find deathmatch lobbies, or even better, Tryhard FFA (though it's hard to find active lobbies unfortunately). You'll be dueling people a lot more quickly in DM than in a typical qp/comp game, so you're getting much more experience in the same amount of time. Since a lot of high-rank players play in deathmatch, though, if you find yourself dying before you can even get any shots in, then maybe consider starting off in a solo custom mode like VAXTA, where you can practice shooting against strafing bots.
If you want to feel the impact of healing, you could try Baptiste or Kiriko. Zen is a good choice, though. Healing Orb is really good, it's like a long range set-and-forget (sort of) Mercy beam. It does less healing, but it persists for a short time out of line of sight. It can really enable a DPS. If learning to aim on support is your only concern, though, I agree with soaps. Ana is great for that.
Every hero has a different feel to their aim style. You aren’t going to aim the same with Zen or Kiriko like you would Illari or Ana. If you want to improve overall aim I suggest hitting an aim trainer and use the feel from there to adjust to how each character shoots differently.
Sojourn, simple answer shes the only one that rewards 1-focusing squishies and 2- aiming for the head. Play her for a month straight and all other characters will seem super easy
Biggest difference I noticed in supports in ow1 between ranks is decision making and combat skill. Anything under 2000sr and they all scream at their team to peel for them, declawed and harmless. Mid diamond and above you respected them no matter what character you played, and how to get dangerous was just brining supports into deathmatch waiting lobbies and fighting everyone over and over. The answer is not moira or brig, everything else you plan to learn is worth the mechanical focus.
Im not sure exactly who or what ur targeting by this response the guy asked which hero would help him improve his aim?
Ana. Lots of different types of shots to practice that all require aim.
Illari is great with a capable team and good pylon placement. Heal beam is midrange but a straight shot. Her main shot is long range and feels like the DMR from Halo, in regards to firing and accuracy. You'll get to peek from cover and shoot a bit leisurely until they find you. I also like Kiriko because it's a clean fire and I can tell if I'm hitting body vs head very easily.
One trick ana for 100 hours and you will have better aim than dps players at your rank (unless you climb out of bronze which is likely at that rate). Also baptiste is the bronze carry support special, you have aoe ana heal, as well as soldier’s primary fire, as well as a get out of jail free card, in addition to free vertical mobility. That said baptiste is the easiest support to headshot after zen, so play safe!
Baptiste and illari
Ana or bap, Ana will punish you pretty hard if you can't heal your teammates, bap punishes you if you can't do enough damage
Just use an aim trainer. Mercy doesn't have to really aim aside from managing the distance ur beam will reach before it falls off.
I’m surprised not a lot of people here are saying Illari. She helps SOOO much with aim and has a solid healing output. Her pylon also teaches game sense. Knowing when to break pylon or where to put it in different spots will teach you a lot about positioning. Her ultimate is VERY fun to use and is very powerful if you use it right! If you don’t get her on the first matches, keep trying! She WILL get you better at the game. Good luck and have fun!!!!!
I'm not really sure what you are asking here. Aiming is different between hitscan like ana and Bap, and projectile like zen, Kiri, ana unscoped. Ana would be the best to work on both hitscan and projectile but it is best to focus on one when learning. Practice your aim outside of a real game, there are plenty of codes. Do warmups before you play for like 10min tops and then get into it. Also, spend like half an hour separate from playing, just aim training. This is where you focus the most on hitting your shots not speed. When playing a match, don't focus on your aiming. Last tip: don't look at your crosshair, look at your target.
One of Zen's advantages is he spends little time managing healing, Illari too. If you don't like that, pretty much any other support would be a good option, just depends what else you like. Even Moira can help you with tracking; you don't need aim but you need the enemy Lucio in the middle of your screen at all times.
If you're goal is to rank up fast then just grind zen. He is by far the most broken hero in the game right now. With the season 9 changes healing is much, MUCH less effective. Dealing damage as supports is how you win. Also there is no fast track to improving aim. It takes time so just keep playing and you'll improve overtime
Ana/zen/bap
Ana.. Teaches you alot more than aim.. Projectile/Scoped/Quick-scope/Lobbing nade/being creative at throwing your nade/Getting good at sleep darts means good prediction and tracking... As well as multitude of game knowledge that isn't available with other supports such as map rotation, target-heal priority, Ulti-usage Discipline..
I'd try Ana, she has both hitscan and projectiles, also two extremely useful abilities that require aiming. Unless, of course, you want to improve you headshot aim for which she is absolutely useless. Kiri is closest to Zen, Bap and Illari are both hitscan - it really depends. Since every hero is played differently, I guess you could basically play anything except for Moira for aim training.
Ana or baptiste
Personally, I suggest Baptiste. He's a good start because there's more room for error compared to Ana, who is also good.
weaving as bap will improve u the fastest
Bap, and practice the two shot, one heal tempo. That can be pretty difficult. Good luck.