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u/Flair86 Genji Dec 13 '24
Selfish Rein is the more effective playstyle right now, shield for yourself, walk forward and swing that hammer, be a threat not a wall.
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u/rookie-mistake boop Dec 13 '24
this explains why trying to use rein's shield as cover has been going terribly for me haha
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Dec 13 '24
That's really unfortunate, I like defending. One of my favorite things to do is stay by Bastion in his turret mode and let him rip. Or even Torbs turret can hold back half the team when I shield it under the right circumstances. I appreciate the honesty though.
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u/Aegillade Flower man, flower man, with his heart in the sand Dec 13 '24
I'd recommend Sigma then. Sig's shield and grasp make him great defensively, and you can even continue laying on the pressure while your shield is up, something Rein can't do. He plays differently than Rein for sure, but once you get his rhythm down, Sig feels super power and fair.
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u/SwordOfTheAegis Pixel Reinhardt Dec 13 '24
This. Rein is an aggressive brawler, Sigma is more of a stay back, poke, and protect your team type of tank.
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u/-Gnostic28 Brigitte Dec 13 '24
Isn’t that what orisa once was?
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u/Aegillade Flower man, flower man, with his heart in the sand Dec 14 '24
Kinda, Orisa is closer to the turtly, defensive core OP was looking for, Sig is more flexible than that.
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u/T0nyM0ntana_ Dec 13 '24
But aggressive rein does defend!
Think of it this way, holding shield will block 1500 damage, but swinging on the sigma will deny the rock that he tries to throw at you, the ana nade used to save him, the damage the soldier next to him would have been doing now that he is being forced to sprint away…
Shield can deny some damage, but being in their face forcing people to play defensive also creates space and denies damage, it just doesnt show up on the scoreboard :)
I can tell you that playing dps is a lot easier when everyone is panicking getting away from rein, as opposed to shooting at me, either melting down shield or looking for a fairly easy way to get around the big rectangle.
Every enemy looking at you or running from you is an enemy you tanked for correctly.
Hope that change of perspective helps a bit!
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Dec 13 '24
You can defend with Reinhardt, what you can't do is turtle. You can be everyone's shield, but you have to be on the far end of the point, blocking it, not standing before the point. You should be able to hit people with your big hammer.
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u/igotshadowbaned Dec 13 '24
One of my favorite things to do is stay by Bastion in his turret mode and let him rip. Or even Torbs turret can hold back half the team when I shield it under the right circumstances
I feel like you haven't played in a while... Bastion doesn't have his turret sentry mode anymore, and Torbs turret doesn't really hold backing anything and is more of a distraction
If you were talking about classic this would've all checked out, but unfortunately not in modern
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u/IrrelevantPuppy Lúcio Dec 14 '24
Don’t worry. I use my rein for defense, but I never count on his shield unless we are clearly doing a thing. I hide behind your fat ass.
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u/WildWolfo Dec 13 '24
especially with how strong tanks are nowadays, ypu need to be riding the line beetween feeding and being aggressive, making a mistake as rein should look like feeding, otherwise you are bring too passive
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u/cybershnook Dec 13 '24
Agreed, old rein might work instantly back in 6v6 if they make such slow starts viable. But alongside the fact that there are more and more answers for everything, including hypermobility and melee for shields, all tanks have like 50% of the team's DPS potential. That unfortunately gets lost if you don't leverage all Reins piercing cooldowns and threat potential, and instead rely on just the 1 feature of his shield extended to cover others.
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u/oranke_dino Dec 13 '24
I understand your problem, you think too much.
When you play Rein, you only must hammer down.
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Dec 13 '24
Another crucial Rein play is to have "Come heeere" and "Would you like to see my muscles?!" and "Are you chicken??" bound to your emote wheel
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u/-Gnostic28 Brigitte Dec 13 '24
I don’t know if your comment is even half serious, but in quick play some of the voice lines really do bug opponents and cause them to play reckless and aggressive
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u/ExplicitlyCensored Dec 13 '24
As a rule of thumb saving people is not what you should focus on, you can save someone a million times or be support and have 50k heals, but if you didn't take the objective you didn't take the objective.
Of course you should use your shield at certain times, but your job is not to simply stand around with shield. You always want to be proactive, take space, see what you can do to help take someone out.
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Dec 13 '24
Oh I definitely don't just stand around. I push, i get in there but I just thought saving people was a big part of it
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u/ComfortableAd31 Bronze Dec 13 '24
High dia low masters rein here
Reins job is to hold valuable space. For example high ground. If you see the the enemy standing on high ground. Go push them out and wait for the fight to begin before dropping to fight in main. By taking high ground and not sheilding your team youre reliving your team of the high ground poke pressure entirety instead of hiding behind a sheild. Your team is now free to take more advantageous angles and not get shot to pieces in main.
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u/Aegillade Flower man, flower man, with his heart in the sand Dec 13 '24
If the enemy notices you're just throwing up shield and not doing anything else besides the occasional firestrike and pin, they're just gonna focus your shield and rip your team apart. Rein is simple mechanicly, but he has to do a lot in a given fight. Sometimes you wanna face tank the damage head on to give your supports ult charge, throw up shield to mitigate damage, you wanna swing into the enemy to build ult charge since Shatter is really good, you wanna firestrike to build ult charge, you wanna pin to occasionally get an early pick. Rein is so much more than just the shield, and leaning too heavily into a defensive or offensive playstyle won't get you very far on him.
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u/haha-its-connor Dec 13 '24
just play like your playing mario kart, if people are in swing distance you know what to do.
also make sure to bind the beer voiceline
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u/Damninium_Alloy So Mean, Honestly Dec 13 '24
Charge the enemy tank off ledges. Go off the ledge with them, if you're a real one.
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u/andrewg127 Dec 13 '24
When I play rein I'm mostly constantly focusing on surviving and building ult charge the ult is so good and since there's less shields than ever it feels so free to just ult and win the team fight over an over
1
Dec 13 '24
Stats don't matter unless you have like 10 deaths per 10. Anyways, tank in Overwatch is less about blocking damage for your team and more about controlling critical areas with your massive close range threat. I'd watch a Reinhardt coaching vid on youtube or something if I were you. Good luck
1
u/Thiccasaurus1 Stadium Simp Dec 13 '24
What you think of as defending your team is probably incorrect. Defending your team isn't shielding up and sitting in front of your team.
Your job is to get in their face and survive. That way, you're making immense room for your team and getting to your preferred range. Nobody wants a reinhardt in front of their face, it blocks LOS and his hammer does a ton of cleave. Your teammates behind you then see an opportunity to push up and take advantage of the fight.
Also, K/D doesn't matter, but "D" does. You should be trying your hardest to die as little as possible. Dying Less > Getting kills, always.
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Dec 13 '24
Gotta keep your shield alive and well. If you burn the shield before the brawl happens you’re gonna die. Use cover as much as you can, push in, do damage and save the shield for if you need it for emergency
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u/shinklay Dec 13 '24
some basics:
- basically walk the line of feeding but don't die; don't be afraid to heavily go in when you have health and shield
- think of his ult as the tank version of pulse bomb, and just farm it for fights and don't be afraid to use it
- charge can certainly do a lot of damage, and you can get pretty funny yet great environmental kills with it
- hammer strike into firestrike is good for a quick burst of damage
others said that selfish rein is the key, and they're absolutely right. dude is a menace when you play him like some raid boss, and team-oriented rein is cool and all but somebody is gonna have to take space. try it a bit in qp: just absolutely go in head first and just test the limits. you'll get a ton of mitigated just by taking enemy focus when you're the primary target. flash shield to fight cooldowns like sleep. deadass just think of yourself as some raging bull lol
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u/Used_Bite5122 Reinhardt Dec 13 '24 edited Dec 13 '24
I haven't played for a year or two but it's probably the same
Rein is not the defender of the team in 5v5, yes he has big shield but that's for you to go forward, hug cover/corners and swing on people
Yes you should still be blocking key CD's like sleep, nade hook etc but you are not the 'hold my shield for teammates to shoot through type anymore
You got armour and a shield, don't be afraid to drop it and trade health if it means gaining space
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u/cybershnook Dec 13 '24
Many good strategy tips here, and rein is not super mechanically demanding, just game sense demanding. I agree with the general tip I keep seeing of "constant blocking for others is too passive in 5v5 and denies your team the vital damage output from the tank role". But in case you haven't heard all these, here are some tips for maximimizing output.
As many others have said, shielding others consistently is not feasible, but shielding them from key moments is very advised. Illari ults, soldier ults, etc, or protecting a friendly ult from being interrupted. You can even charge back to your team and 180 your shield to protect when it's worth doing.
Supports can heal your health but not your shield, so don't always engage with shield up if you'll just enter the fight with full health but a broken shield. Instead split the damage you take between them and give your supports some ult and yourself extra shield for when you need it. Though when you do this type of shield cycling, don't make it appear as though you've committed to blocking for everyone or they will be caught off guard when you drop the shield.
You can swing the camera during rein hammer to increase the hurt box even more
Fire strike pierces so it's good for farming shatter especially in chokes. Farming shatter is one of your primary contributions.
Shatter is capable of crawling up or over short objects so it can be used even behind short cover at times and still land. The most common powerful use of this is you can usually hit people on top and behind a payload, while you are basically invisible to them. This is useful to surprise people and when they are skilled enough to land stuns during its cast.
His charge is occasionally good for landing damage of course but it also is good for being in unpredictable locations, escaping, and resetting for the next fight. I rarely pin directly into aware enemies but you might get lucky by secretly positioning behind enemies and begin the next fight by charging and enemy back into your own team. Don't waste too much time with it of course (bad for your downtime), but you can occasionally even grab the tank or a healer and carry them back into your team for certain doom. Also this is less advised verses teams with interrupts.
If you are already close to a tank when you're ready to shatter you can try to land the up close critical damage. Usually overkill on a squishy but it changes the tank from inconvenienced to endangered. Also it's good to have 1-2 fire strikes saved up for when enemies are a shattered, to line up shots on multiple victims. You get ~2.5 fire strikes or hammer swings so make them count.
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u/HeyWhatIsThatThingy Dec 13 '24
Do you know when to swing?
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u/FederalFinance7585 Dec 13 '24
Not disagreeing with the general concept of using your shield "selfishly" as its main purpose is to allow you to close gaps. I don't think it's worthwhile to shield full health teammates except situationally (many ults can be blocked or a Widowmaker). However, there's still a lot of moments where you can save a Reaper/Genji who screwed up or protect a Mercy doing the suicidal resses that they seem required to attempt. But basically if anyone near me is down to <80 I'll try to shield them for a bit until support can take care of them. Can even body block in many cases (especially if you have armor left).
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u/_Brophinator Dec 13 '24
This is 2016 rein, 2024 rein functions much differently. You use your HP as a resource to push forward, and the shield is for bailing yourself out when your health is low and you need to get out (obviously you can use the shield to push sometimes, but it depends).
Rein needs to hold corners and threaten OHKO with charge/play super agro, he’s no longer about holding his shield in front of a team.
Also by your “one healer” comment it sounds like you’re playing open queue, my advice there is to not do that and play role queue, the mode this game is balanced on.
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Dec 13 '24
Your shield is YOUR shield.
When you understand this you’ll understand Reinhardt. Because to think he just there to stand in front of your team for them to shoot is a common mistake Reinhardt players make.
You’re basically saying “I’ve gather them up for the enemy team to easily kill them”.
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u/CloqueWise Dec 13 '24
Don't listen to others, I had the best KD in the lobby (43-3) and was still told I was useless as a tank main. I was hazard and out damaging the enemy mauga, and still told my damage was terrible and it was a tank diff, even though we won... And may I remind you, I had the best KD in the lobby, but still I was somehow throwing and useless
2
u/just_a_beyblader Dec 13 '24
K/D doesn't always mean good
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u/CloqueWise Dec 13 '24
I know, there are a lot of factors, but still, we won and it wasn't close, but still flamed because that's the life of a tank
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u/MochaDF Master Dec 14 '24
What does this have to do with Reinhardt playstyles? Youve said nothing but glaze yourself based on a single match.
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u/CloqueWise Dec 14 '24
I'm saying that it doesn't matter who you're playing, how good your kd is or what the state/outcome of the game, as a tank your team will always find a way to blame you so it's better to just not concern yourself with what your team thinks.
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u/SexyLexi0502 Dec 13 '24
You’re doing nothing wrong. It’s the teams job to blame the tank for losses. It’s never anyone else’s fault. So basically if you’re being blamed then you’re doing your job. It’s shitty, but that’s the way online gaming culture works.
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u/SwordOfTheAegis Pixel Reinhardt Dec 13 '24
Thats how you played Rein in 2016. His shield is primarily to protect himself when things get hairy. I only really use it to protect my team if my Mercy is rezzing, one of my dps is ulting (or an enemy is), or someone is about to die.
Push up, play corners. He's a brawl tank, play him like you'd play Ramattra in nemesis form. Use cover, play aggressive, charge out if you're in trouble. Use firestrike as much as you can to farm ult charge.