Soldier 76 Ultimate - How do you use it?

[Deleted]

Hi everyone,

I'm serious, how do you use his Q efficiently and effectively. I can rarely find a real use for it other than sniping 1 specific target, but even then I can't get it 100% of the time... or even 4/5 times.
It's not like I have godlike aim or anything, but sometimes it feels like I'm actually doing less DPS/Burst with Q, than without!
The DPS output might be higher, but the burst isn't and that's the problem. The lower reload is cool, but it doesn't help enough for a Q ability.

You can't headshot while using your Ultimate and that's actually a pretty big thing in Overwatch and for Soldier 76 in particular. Some targets are extrelemy easy to headshot, even the squishy and smaller ones will eat several headshots per burst if you can aim a little (and that's enough, either they are out of sight by then, or dead). On top of that, the ult faces the same problem as Mercy's healing/buff stream and "dash" mechanic - the game decides to switch targets or it won't let you aim at the target you want to focus.

I didn't play a whole lot yet (110 games since release + beta) but I had games with an avg. Accuracy of 60-75% (at least that's what the stat-tracker say) as Soldier, so the Auto-aim doesn't really seem much of a benefit in *most* (not all) situations.

How do I make some proper use of it... It's not a rare sight that I don't get a single kill with it, most of the time I get 1, maybe sometimes 2 but more than half of the time I end up thinking "Well, I would've gotten them anyway, I wasted my Q again."
Compared to most Qs in the game, it seems to be countered too easily and doesn't help as much either.
I get the biggest use out of it if I use it against another Soldier 76, it's still not a guarantee though because if I meet him at close/mid range, his burst might be higher than mine due to headshots. It doesn't increase bullet damage, does it?

So, can anyone help me out here? How and when do you guys use it?
Sometimes I start to believe that it would actually be fair if all your shots become headshots while using Q.
Nonetheless, my winratio with him is very high so it's not like I think he's too weak, it's just that I can't get his Q to work gamechanging or even very beneficial way.

Need help here please .

[Jessicka]

As with any ultimate, I don't sit on them too long and therefore use them about 10 seconds before the perfect moment comes up. :/

[Sastank]

Wait for mid team fight, when people are hovering around halfish. Try hovering over their healer, if at all possible, and left click. Don't forget to right click for more burst as well. If you are in a bad position and cannot reach their healer just focus on one person at a time. Don't go in Rambo and press Q and think you're going to kill 1v6. Wait for team and wait for some other damage to be laid down first. Think of it as more of a finisher than some 100-0 team wipe.

[Topcraft]

It becomes very powerful when you use it in combination with a good stun from Reinhardt, Mei, or Zarya's ult. Coordinate the ults and you get a quintuple kill, whoop.

[ro9ue]

Generally my brain needs like 2 conditions:

• Open view of the enemy team
• At least 3 enemies in my view

[Deleted]

Hi everyone,

I'm serious, how do you use his Q efficiently and effectively. I can rarely find a real use for it other than sniping 1 specific target, but even then I can't get it 100% of the time... or even 4/5 times.
It's not like I have godlike aim or anything, but sometimes it feels like I'm actually doing less DPS/Burst with Q, than without!
The DPS output might be higher, but the burst isn't and that's the problem. The lower reload is cool, but it doesn't help enough for a Q ability.

You can't headshot while using your Ultimate and that's actually a pretty big thing in Overwatch and for Soldier 76 in particular. Some targets are extrelemy easy to headshot, even the squishy and smaller ones will eat several headshots per burst if you can aim a little (and that's enough, either they are out of sight by then, or dead). On top of that, the ult faces the same problem as Mercy's healing/buff stream and "dash" mechanic - the game decides to switch targets or it won't let you aim at the target you want to focus.

I didn't play a whole lot yet (110 games since release + beta) but I had games with an avg. Accuracy of 60-75% (at least that's what the stat-tracker say) as Soldier, so the Auto-aim doesn't really seem much of a benefit in *most* (not all) situations.

How do I make some proper use of it... It's not a rare sight that I don't get a single kill with it, most of the time I get 1, maybe sometimes 2 but more than half of the time I end up thinking "Well, I would've gotten them anyway, I wasted my Q again."
Compared to most Qs in the game, it seems to be countered too easily and doesn't help as much either.
I get the biggest use out of it if I use it against another Soldier 76, it's still not a guarantee though because if I meet him at close/mid range, his burst might be higher than mine due to headshots. It doesn't increase bullet damage, does it?

So, can anyone help me out here? How and when do you guys use it?
Sometimes I start to believe that it would actually be fair if all your shots become headshots while using Q.
Nonetheless, my winratio with him is very high so it's not like I think he's too weak, it's just that I can't get his Q to work gamechanging or even very beneficial way.

Need help here please .

You pretty much use it against squishys or when you flank the team from the side or from behind. You still need to aim close to the person you want it to hit, kind of like Mercy's heal/blue. It takes a while to figure out exactly when to use it, I have about 30 hours on Soldier and I still occasionally pop it for a solo kill and the timer runs out after You don't want to be sitting on it for extended periods of time as you will just be wasting ult gain while it's ready to use. The best use of it is when you flank a healer or another squishy assault type player like McCree or another Soldier, the kill time is so low if you get anybody in the open they're essentially dead.

Try to avoid using it on characters like Roadhog or RH as you can hit them 100% of the time anyways if they're in mid range. The only plus side when fighting tank types is your reload speed is so fast your DPS goes up, so there's times when you will actually be popping it to score a kill on a D'va or Roadhog etc.. You can be super aggressive with the ult if you're confident with your survival skills, constantly sprinting towards the target for the kill if they're trying to escape. Pop it on flanks as much as possible and see what you can do. Also make sure to drop your healing just before you ult, that way you don't waste damage time triggering the animation on dropping the heal, tossing a Helix Rocket before you start ult'ing is pretty nice.

If you're sitting on 60%+ accuracy you're a god by the way You shred down most teams sitting on a 40-45% accuracy rating! I'd just stick with it and keep testing the waters.

[Deleted]

Does the helix rocket actually benefit from autoaim too? Because if I want to single out a target, I start aiming somewhere else on purpose (like to his left or close to a wall).
Otherwise a Roadhog or some other, high/100% targets runs into it and he starts to lock on him instead of finishing off the healer/focus target.
So, yeah, the rockets add alot of burst (but they do it without Q too) and unless it's a 100% hit (due to soldier's Q autoaim assist), I once again start to think that if I manage to hit with a helix rocket, the target would've died anyway.

If I wait for my team to deal damage too, targets might die easier and faster due to my headshots.
Right now, I use it mostly on long(er) range engagements, because that's where I won't hit the head or even body consistently. It always feels like I'm giving up my burst (through headshots) potential when I use Q in close engagements, so unless I can find a Tracer (which are hard to hit) inside that teamfight mess, I refrain from using it.

[Ealyssa]

Wait team fights
Wait a mass control/disrupt (reinhard ult, Mei's, Hanzo dashing in, Winston jumping in, McCree grenade, D.va ult, etc.)
gg you got potg

As you said, 76 ult isn't as bursty as some other one. You can sit on it a lot longer imo. Just wait for the good occasion.

And using it to "snipe" someone really anyoing isn't necessarily a bad move. Whatever helps your team to win.

[TheMiBu Gaming]

Don't use it when all enemies are in sight and go crazy. Wait for some in your sight, pop it and aim at one until he's down and move on to the next. People keep referring to it as aim bot (which it kinda is) but you have to do some of the work.

[Deleted]

I expected that quite a few guys would recommend using Soldier's Q with another person's CC, which is why I tried to highlight the fact that you can't headshot while doing so. If 3 targets get hit by hammer down and I'm close enough, wouldn't I be able to kill them faster by doing headshots?

Zarya's ult for example: She hits 3 targets - I'll Helix + 90% Headshots (because nothing moves) - everything inside is pretty much guaranteed to die (I'm also most likely not the only one shooting it) and I might end up doing more damage without Q than I'd have done WITH Q. It's probably AFTER that where I'd use Q to get the faster reload and instant target switch if anything survived that. But that's really underwhelming for a Q, isn't it?

If you're sitting on 60%+ accuracy you're a god by the way You shred down most teams sitting on a 40-45% accuracy rating! I'd just stick with it and keep testing the waters.

I'm not sitting on 60%+ on overall average, but I had quite a few with 60%, my highest was exactly 75% as of yet (with ~13k dmg or something so normal gamelength, most likely). But I wonder how the game tracks it anyway, sometimes I spam LMB @ spawn, I spam it against shields (do they count as hits) and all that, sometimes I don't feel like doing it.. so who knows.

[Rivellana]

If my ultimate comes up, I will at that point try to flank and come up behind them (especially if they have a Reinhardt) to try and mow down all the squishes in back before they realize where I am.

And you're saying you spam LMB against shields. You SHOULD be doing that. Anything that helps break that shield so your team can deal with the people hiding behind it is beneficial.

[Dug]

I mainly use it as a deterrent to push enemies back into hiding so my team can push. Rarely use it to try and get those epic team kills but sometimes when combined with a Zarya ulti or reinhardt ulti it's super effective. Mainly though I don't save it. I will try and use it within the minute that I got it because it charges quickly anyways. Same concept for pretty much all of the attack heroes ultimates. If you save them thinking you're going to get that POTG worthy triple/quad then you're not helping your team as much as if you were just using it to deter enemies

[Pivotal]

I usually try to find high ground so I can have good view of at least three enemies. An example of this is on the hollywood map, at the first point; the enter-able building in the middle of the place.

[Mogai]

To secure that kill on the cornered alone mercy

[Raamm]

If you're good you don't use it.

You just aim at their heads the whole time and ignore the ult. I think his basic abilities are just the best in game and I doubt any of the soldier 76 leader board guys even use the ult they probably just score repeated head shots due to the head hit boxes in Overwatch being intentionally one head length bigger each direction. I imagine anyone who was good like top 1% of any shooter like CS:GO or CoD wouldn't have any issue hitting a continuous head shot burst in Overwatch.

[Deleted]

Well, the game is alot faster than both CoD and CS, but that was my feeling too.

It seems like you guys aren't doing anything much different than me. That's both reassuring, but also disappointing.
His Ultimate seems a bit "console-ish". Similiar to how mr.dwarf seems to be alot better on console etc.

[Woobels]

If you're good you don't use it.

You just aim at their heads the whole time and ignore the ult. I think his basic abilities are just the best in game and I doubt any of the soldier 76 leader board guys even use the ult they probably just score repeated head shots due to the head hit boxes in Overwatch being intentionally one head length bigger each direction. I imagine anyone who was good like top 1% of any shooter like CS:GO or CoD wouldn't have any issue hitting a continuous head shot burst in Overwatch.

Come on now.

[Jester Joe]

I'm not sitting on 60%+ on overall average, but I had quite a few with 60%, my highest was exactly 75% as of yet (with ~13k dmg or something so normal gamelength, most likely). But I wonder how the game tracks it anyway, sometimes I spam LMB @ spawn, I spam it against shields (do they count as hits) and all that, sometimes I don't feel like doing it.. so who knows.

It's weird, I couldn't get an exact thing on it, but when I was hitting Reinhardt's shield, it seemed almost like as long as the shot would of hit Reinhardt it counts?

But my accuracy definitely increased while hitting the shield in general.

If you're good you don't use it.

You just aim at their heads the whole time and ignore the ult. I think his basic abilities are just the best in game and I doubt any of the soldier 76 leader board guys even use the ult they probably just score repeated head shots due to the head hit boxes in Overwatch being intentionally one head length bigger each direction. I imagine anyone who was good like top 1% of any shooter like CS:GO or CoD wouldn't have any issue hitting a continuous head shot burst in Overwatch.

This is incredibly wrong for the ult part. I'm not quite sure how people are even forgetting to mention it, but Soldier 76's ult drastically decreases his reload time to like, a half a second. That alone is extremely good if you want to mow down the team quickly.

[Thelxi]

You press Q and get at least 2 free kills. With a bit of skill you can get more kills while also surviving this demonstration of skill. You won't get many team-solo kills with him like Mccree and Reaper can occasionally, but it's a small price to pay for a few seconds of free auto aim.

Take care to actually be pointing your camera in the general direction of the enemy team! even if they are half-hidden behind foliage or whatever, so a bit of awareness helps. Unfortunately you still have to reload your gun while slaughtering people on your screen, so a bit of skill and planning helps here too.

[Deleted]

It's weird, I couldn't get an exact thing on it, but when I was hitting Reinhardt's shield, it seemed almost like as long as the shot would of hit Reinhardt it counts?

But my accuracy definitely increased while hitting the shield in general.

I was just saying that I don't know what the game tracks as a hit or miss and if pre-gamephase spam will reduce your accuracy stat at the end of the match or if shieldhits are also counted as hits etc. I personally believe that shieldhits count as a hit. I was just giving an example.

You press Q and get at least 2 free kills. With a bit of skill you can get more kills while also surviving this demonstration of skill.

that's exactly what's not happening when I use Q as Soldier. Unless I'm getting buffed by Mercy or speedboosted by Lucio.... which is ofcourse what SHOULD be done, but it's still alot less likely to get kills with Soldier's Ult than it is with most other hero ults for me and it requires a lot more effort too. Which is why I started this thread.