★ TANK ★
walk forward · hold the line · die first · respawn · walk forward again
HOW TO PLAY REINHARDT TANK
~ skrunk's verdict: "the original. the carpet remembers him." ~
Walk forward. Hold left mouse to swing the hammer. Hold right mouse to put up the shield. Press shift to charge. Press E to throw a fire strike. Press Q to screm and slam the ground.
Reinhardt is what happens when a tank decides shields are optional. Drop yours when you see the supports start to walk backwards. Pick it back up before they hit the spawn door. Repeat for 14 hours.
Skrunk's tip: never charge alone. Always charge alone. (Trust your instincts. Your instincts will lie.)
HOW TO PLAY WINSTON TANK
~ skrunk's verdict: "i used to play him until i learned what 'aim' is." ~
Press shift to leap onto the enemy backline. Hold left mouse to zap whoever is closest. Press right mouse for a bubble. Press Q to become large and angry.
Winston is aim-free. You point him at a support, hold the button, and the support is now stressed. That is the whole gameplay loop. Bubble cooldown management is the only skill, and even that is mostly vibes.
Skrunk's tip: if the enemy Reaper looks at you, you are dead. Leap out. Do not negotiate.
HOW TO PLAY SIGMA TANK
~ skrunk's verdict: "a man in pajamas with quantum physics. respect." ~
Throw rocks. Suck up bullets with right mouse, give them back as a beefier rock. Float in the air with shift for two seconds and pretend it counts as a movement ability. Press Q to suspend everyone and then drop them.
Sigma looks like a tank but plays like a poke damage with extra HP. Stand far back. Throw rocks. Win the long game. Lose the close game.
Skrunk's tip: aim the rock at where the enemy will be, not where they are. They will walk into it. They always do.
HOW TO PLAY RAMATTRA TANK · ★ SKRUNK MAIN
~ skrunk's verdict: "the answer to every question. except the question of why i'm hardstuck plat." ~
Two forms. Omnic form: throw projectiles, put up a wall, harvest souls from afar. Nemesis form: become huge, punch people, gain 50% damage reduction, briefly believe you are unstoppable. Press Q to turn into a fart cloud that prevents healing.
Ramattra is what you pick when the enemy has too much shielding, too much spam, or too much confidence. He breaks all three. The Q ult is the most disrespectful ult in the game — you stand inside it and stare at the enemy supports as they accept their fate.
Skrunk's tip: swap to nemesis form before you engage, not after. The free shield in nemesis form is more valuable than the ranged poke. Anyone who tells you otherwise is hardstuck silver.
HOW TO PLAY WRECKING BALL TANK · ★ SKRUNK MAIN
~ skrunk's verdict: "if you main this, you are not okay. i am not okay either." ~
Press shift to turn into a ball. Press right mouse to fling yourself off a wall with the grappling hook. Press Q to drop an explosion. Hold left mouse to shoot two cute guns. Become the meta.
Wrecking Ball is what happens when a tank decides the team is holding it back. You leave them. You go behind. You spend 90 seconds bullying one support to oblivion. The rest of your team dies. You don't care. You are the protagonist.
Skrunk's tip: learn the rollout on every map. If your rollout doesn't get you behind the enemy in 6 seconds, find a better one. Beanboy made me a spreadsheet.
HOW TO PLAY WUYANG TANK
~ skrunk's verdict: "the new guy. jury's out. probably broken on release." ~
Wuyang is new enough that I don't have a thousand games on him yet. Notes from limited play: melee-focused dive tank, swaps between a heavy form (frontline brawl) and a mobile form (flanking + repositioning). The mobile form animations are too clean, which means he'll be nerfed inside a month.
Pick him into long-range comps where his closing speed eats the enemy backline. Avoid him into hitscan-heavy lobbies — his mobile form's hitbox is generous, in a bad way.
Skrunk's tip: entries will be updated once the meta settles. Until then, swap to him on attack only. (I am holding my opinion. The opinion is forming.)
★ DAMAGE ★
deal the damage · take the credit · die to the mercy you didn't kill · cycle
HOW TO PLAY GENJI DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "the harbor. the frequency. the only character that matters." ~
Throw shurikens. Dash through a target (E). Reflect projectiles with right mouse (this is the test of who you are as a player). Double-jump and wall-climb forever. Press Q to scream "RYUJIN NO KEN WO KURAE" and become a sword.
Genji is the only hero where every kill feels personal. If you cannot reflect a Pharah's rocket back into her own face at least once per game, you are not ready. Refer to the 2014 Ryujin Harbor incident for the canonical example of how the ult is supposed to feel.
Skrunk's tip: dash after the kill, not before. Dash resets are how you 1v6. If you don't get a reset, you swung first and now you are dead. Cinema demands you swing second.
HOW TO PLAY REAPER DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "tank counter. self-pocketing. the cowboy boots are NOT canon." ~
Two shotguns. Walk up to a tank. Hold left mouse. Tank is dead. Hold shift to become a ghost. Press E to drop a soul globe and heal off it. Press Q to spin in place and kill everyone in the room who didn't hear you teleport in.
Reaper is the answer to "how do I stop the Winston dive." You don't. You kill the Winston. The Winston respawns. Repeat. He is also the answer to most tanks in close range. He is not the answer to anyone above 15 meters. Don't go up the high ground.
Skrunk's tip: the death-blossom ult is best used to finish a fight, not start one. You start with the shotguns. You finish with the spin. People who Q first are people who don't understand fight tempo.
HOW TO PLAY CASSIDY DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "high noon will return. the cowboy era never died." ~
Click heads with the revolver. Right-click for a fan-the-hammer burst. Press E to throw a magnetic grenade that sticks to the target and slows them. Press shift to roll, which reloads and looks cool. Press Q to lock on to anyone you can see.
Cassidy rewards precision. If you can land headshots consistently, you carry games. If you can't, you become a worse Soldier 76 with no mobility. Pick him into Pharah-heavy lobbies, dive comps you need to anchor against, and any situation where the enemy support has been getting away with too much.
Skrunk's tip: the mag-grenade is not for damage. It's a setup tool. Stick it on the tank, then your team converts. People who throw it at a fleeing target are wasting it. Don't be those people.
HOW TO PLAY ASHE DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "she has a dog. that's the entire pick." ~
Hitscan rifle, scope for headshots. Dynamite (E) — throw it, shoot it mid-air for extra damage. Coach gun (shift) — knockback + self-peel. Press Q to call in B.O.B., who is taller than your problems and shoots people for free.
Ashe is poke damage with the ability to convert kills at range. Sit on the high ground. Hit headshots. Throw a dynamite into the chokepoint when the enemy team groups up. If the dynamite kills two of them, you have already justified the pick.
Skrunk's tip: B.O.B. on point. Always. Save the ult for the contest. If you ult B.O.B. into open air to chase a Pharah, you are throwing.
HOW TO PLAY BASTION DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "we agreed not to talk about him. blizzard made him sentient. unforgivable." ~
Recon form: rifle. Sentry form (shift): become a tank that doesn't move but melts everything in front of it. Tactical grenade (E) that bounces around corners. Press Q to do an artillery strike from across the map.
Bastion is what happens when a hero designer hates the people who have to play against him. Sit in sentry mode behind your Reinhardt. Press fire. The enemy tank evaporates. The enemy supports cry. Your team cheers. Your DPS counter (Genji, Sombra, Reaper) shows up and you go back to recon and run.
Skrunk's tip: never sentry without a wall behind you. Side-spawned Genjis will shred you in 0.4 seconds. Touch a wall. Touch the wall.
HOW TO PLAY JUNKRAT DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "the menace. the lobbed-grenade prophet. mom_brenda hates this pick." ~
Lob grenades around corners. Throw a concussion mine (E), shoot it to send yourself flying. Drop a trap (right mouse) at a doorway and watch a support eat it. Press Q to send a RIP-tire down the hall and detonate it under the enemy backline.
Junkrat is area denial. You don't kill people with him so much as you make them stop standing in places they were planning to stand. The kills come incidentally. The grenades come constantly.
Skrunk's tip: trap-mine combo. Trap in the doorway, mine on top of the trap. They walk in, they're trapped, you detonate the mine. They die without ever firing back. Cinema.
HOW TO PLAY SYMMETRA DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "for the player who has lost faith in their teammates." ~
Beam weapon that ramps up the longer you hold it on something. Right mouse: charged shot through walls. Three turrets (E) you place in choke points. Teleporter (shift) for flanking + rollouts. Press Q to drop a giant photon barrier across the map.
Symmetra is a geometry hero. Turret placement is the game. If your turrets are in the right doorway, you win the fight before it starts. If they're in the wrong doorway, you find out 30 seconds later when the enemy walks through it unharmed.
Skrunk's tip: teleporter exit on the high ground your team can't reach normally. Suddenly your whole team flanks at once. The enemy support has 3 seconds to react. They will not react in time.
HOW TO PLAY TORBJORN DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "smaller than the average tank but with twice the personality." ~
Rivet gun (primary) + shotgun (right mouse). Deploy a turret (E) and pretend it's a teammate. Self-overload (shift) for armor + fire rate. Press Q to fill the floor with molten lava that lasts for 5 seconds and the enemy has to choose: die in the lava, or run out and die outside.
Torb is a weird DPS — short-range, point-defense, mid-tier mobility. Pick him into payload maps where you can sit on the cart with the turret next to you and the enemy has to fight you and the turret simultaneously.
Skrunk's tip: the molten core ult locks doorways. If you drop it in a hallway during a contest, the enemy team cannot push through. Time it for overtime.
HOW TO PLAY SOMBRA DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "the betrayer hero. natural enemy of MOD_DAD_69." ~
Machine pistol. Translocate (shift) to a beacon you placed earlier. Hack (E) any enemy to lock their abilities for 6 seconds. Go invisible while not shooting. Press Q to EMP the entire enemy team, locking all their abilities at once.
Sombra is the most psychological hero in the game. Your enemies aren't fighting you — they're fighting the idea of you. Every time their Mercy turns around at nothing, that's you living rent-free in her brain. The actual damage you do is secondary.
Skrunk's tip: EMP into hack tank. Tank can't disengage. Your team gets a free pick. Always EMP the tank, never the support — the support's value at the moment of EMP is lower because they can't do anything anyway, but the tank has the resources.
HOW TO PLAY ANRAN DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "i have not been confirmed to have played this hero yet." ~
Anran is recent enough that I'm withholding judgement until I have at least 50 hours on the kit. From what I've seen in other people's games: a damage hero with mobility, a setup ability that rewards positioning, and an ult that ends fights in the right hands. Burst kit. Skill-checked.
If you're playing Anran and you're not getting picks, you are playing them wrong. Their kit is built around closing 1-on-1s — if you're poking from afar you're underutilizing them. Get in. Use the mobility. Trade ult for ult.
Skrunk's tip: entries will be updated once I have receipts. Until then: just don't pick them into Sombra. Trust me on this one even though I haven't justified it.
HOW TO PLAY EMRE DAMAGE
~ skrunk's verdict: "exists. mostly. the patch notes are incomplete on my end." ~
Emre is even newer than Anran in my notes. Notes from spectating: a flanker-coded DPS with some kind of reload-cancel tech and a movement ability that has a noticeable startup. The community is still figuring out the optimal play patterns.
If you pick Emre into a comp without secondary peel, the enemy dive will rinse you. Stay in a position your support can see you from. The hero's kit punishes being out of LOS of healing more than most damage characters in the game.
Skrunk's tip: wait for the patch. Wait for the second patch. Then trust the kit. The first version of every hero is broken in some direction; the second version is the one that lasts.
★ SUPPORT ★
heal the tank · heal the DPS · die anyway · get blamed · queue again
HOW TO PLAY MERCY SUPPORT · ★ SKRUNK MAIN
~ skrunk's verdict: "pocket the genji. believe in the cinema. ignore the rest." ~
Beam (left mouse) heals an ally. Beam (right mouse) damage-boosts an ally. Press shift to guardian angel fly to any teammate in line of sight. Press E to resurrect a dead ally. Press Q for valkyrie — flight + chain healing + all your cooldowns reset.
Mercy is the most political hero in the game. Who you pocket says everything about who you respect on your team. Pocket the DPS who is hitting their shots. Damage-boost the Genji who just got blade. Resurrect the tank, never the support — supports are responsible for their own deaths.
Skrunk's tip: super-jump. Guardian Angel + crouch + jump at the end gives you a vertical boost that breaks line of sight from hitscans. If you can't super-jump, you will die to Cassidys for the rest of your career.
HOW TO PLAY MOIRA SUPPORT
~ skrunk's verdict: "the hero for people who don't want to actually heal anyone." ~
Spray a healing mist (left mouse) on allies. Spray a damage drain beam (right mouse) at enemies for self-healing. Throw an orb (E) — choose damage or heal flavor. Press shift to fade through walls. Press Q to fire a giant draining laser.
Moira is what you pick when you want to be a support but get DPS damage credit. The skill curve is "press buttons toward enemies." The skill ceiling is positioning + orb prediction. Most Moiras never reach the ceiling. Some of them are GM5. Both can be true.
Skrunk's tip: stop chasing kills. Your job is to maintain healing uptime on the tank. If you're in the enemy backline draining their Ana, you're throwing. (Unless you get the kill. Then it was a great play.)
HOW TO PLAY ZENYATTA SUPPORT
~ skrunk's verdict: "the support that does more damage than your DPS. embarrassing for them." ~
Throw orbs at the enemy. Hold right mouse to charge a 5-orb volley. Place a heal orb on a teammate (left shift) — they get healing-over-time. Place a discord orb on an enemy (E) — they take 25% extra damage from everything until line-of-sight breaks. Press Q for transcendence — invincibility for 6 seconds.
Discord orb is the single most impactful ability in the support role. Put it on the tank. Watch your team kill the tank. Put it on the next tank. Repeat. This is the entire gameplay loop. You will be flamed by your tank. Ignore them.
Skrunk's tip: trans is for finishing fights, not surviving them. You use it to push through a Reinhardt ult, not to revive yourself when you got caught out of position. People who use trans to survive are people who shouldn't be on Zen.
HOW TO PLAY KIRIKO SUPPORT
~ skrunk's verdict: "fox spirit. cleanse. immortality on a 12-second cooldown. they will nerf her again." ~
Kunai (right mouse) — headshots delete people. Healing ofuda (left mouse) auto-locks onto teammates. Suzu (E) — throw the bell, allies inside get briefly invincible and cleansed. Swift step (shift) — teleport to any teammate instantly. Press Q for a fox spirit that buffs movement + reload + cooldowns on a long path.
Kiriko is the hero who, if she lives, your team lives. The cleanse on suzu wins games — pop it on a Nano-blade Genji, on a hooked tank, on a tank about to die. Anyone who plays her without learning suzu timing is playing 70% of the character.
Skrunk's tip: suzu through walls. You can throw the bell at the floor in spawn and your tank gets it 50 meters away. Learn the bounce angles. They are how you outpeel a Sombra.
HOW TO PLAY ANA SUPPORT
~ skrunk's verdict: "the cooldown queen. if you sleep my dash, i resign from gaming." ~
Scoped rifle (left mouse) — heals allies, damages enemies. Sleep dart (right mouse) — puts an enemy to sleep for ~5 seconds. Biotic grenade (E) — heals allies in a burst, blocks enemy healing in a burst. Press Q to nano-boost a teammate: +50% damage, -50% damage taken.
Ana is the highest-skill support in the game and arguably the highest-impact when piloted correctly. Healing requires aim. Anti-grenade timing wins games. Nano-boost on the right target wins fights. Nano-boost on the wrong target loses fights.
Skrunk's tip: nano the Reinhardt before his shatter, not after. The nano makes the shatter unbreakable by stuns. People who nano AFTER the shatter have not been paying attention.
HOW TO PLAY BRIGITTE SUPPORT
~ skrunk's verdict: "anti-dive shield mom. carries lobbies that don't deserve it." ~
Flail (left mouse) — heals nearby allies passively when you swing. Whip-shot (right mouse) — pokes from afar and knocks back. Shield bash (shift) — stun an enemy. Repair pack (E) — burst heal an ally. Press Q to give the whole team massive armor that decays slowly.
Brigitte is what you pick when the enemy Genji + Tracer + Sombra are all in your backline at once. She cannot be dived. Her flail provides constant area healing while she's swinging. She's the hardest support to kill in the game if her teammates respect peel.
Skrunk's tip: never solo-engage with Brig. Her kit is reactive, not proactive. You play off your team's engages. If you front-line as Brig you lose the support fight every time.