• Hover optimization
  If you are just holding down hover, you're doing it wrong. Work on getting a feel for on-off-on-off-on-off cycling of hovering. You'll get significantly more horizontal movement out of doing it this way: up, wait to start dipping down, up to cancel it out, repeat. This is also how you can keep in the air for a long, long time during big team fights. Mastering your hover ability will also change the way you move across maps. Combining good hovering with your jump jets will allow you to take the shortest route possible back to the fight in many cases, much faster than walking.
  
• Juking
  If you're just moving smoothly in the air, you're a very easy target for hitscan characters (and Hanzo). Remember that you have 6 axis movement for juking in the air. You should be very hard to hit in close/medium range battles when you're in the air, and the only way to do this is to be jerking back and forth, allowing yourself to plummet suddenly, halting a plummet with hover, etc. The key is to be unpredictable. This takes a lot of practice, and your aim will need to also improve to compensate for it as you learn!
  
• Concussion rocket
  I'll cover this more in abilities, but the concussion rocket is a very important movement ability. It is to your own horizontal movement what your jump jets are to vertical.
  

• Rocket launcher
  Pharah's basic attack. Does 120 damage on a direct hit. Does not have a maximum or minimum range. Moves fast, but isn't hitscan. Will hit where you aim at when you fire (i.e. it does not get inherited velocity from your character velocity--this is especially important to note for those of you used to Spinfusors in Tribes). Has splash damage, but the radius is fairly small--reliably getting direct hits is very important to your overall combat effectiveness here. You need to learn predictive aim with the rocket launcher. This takes practice, practice, practice. Since the rockets will go exactly where you aim at, you'll need to learn to predict where an enemy will be when the rocket gets to them and lead the target. (if you played games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Freespace 2, any of the Mechwarrior games, etc, then you will be familiar with leading targets with rockets)
  
  
• Concussion Rocket
  The concussion rocket is an incredibly versatile "weapon". It has a lot of uses, and deciding on when and how to use it can dramatically change how you play Pharah and how successful you are using her. This will take a lot of practice and trial-and-error to integrate into your playstyle. Please note the things that a concussion rocket will not have an effect on: heroes shielded by Zarya and Reinhardt with his shield up toward the concussion rocket effect. The concussion rocket has very little effect on D.Va. Winston is rarely worth using the concussion rocket on due to the short recharge on his jump. Roadhog seems to not always take as much of an effect from the concussion rocket that most of the other heroes do (but it's often still worth using on him due to his weapon range effectiveness)
  
  Offensive use:
  Many maps have ledges to throw enemies off of. It can take a while to get a feel for this, but there's little more satisfying than sending an enemy player off the ledge. Even better when it's more than one.
  
  Defensive use:
  The concussion rocket is a very powerful movement tool. As long as you're careful with how you aim it, pointing it near your feet and firing is an excellent "oh gently caress I need to get back into my team for heals" button. You move fast enough that it will throw off enemy aim as well.
  
  Disruptive use:
  Much like Mei's Ice Wall, the concussion rocket also excels at disrupting enemy team formations. From tossing them away from the capture point (basic use) to separating healers from their tanks (intermediate) to bouncing Reinhardt away from protecting his team (advanced), smart use of the concussion rocket can make enemy advances collapse or even just disrupt their healing long enough for you (or your teammates) to get a few kills.
  
  
• Jump Jets
  Pharah's jump jets are what let her get around and, importantly, above. Two notes:
  They make noise and alert the enemy team to your presence.
  If you aren't paying attention to where you are in the map you'll smack into a ceiling and may well be trapped. Not a good look, and a quick way to die.
  
  
• Barrage (Ult)
  Pharah's ultimate ability is Barrage, and it channels a whole bunch of rockets that fly out in a cone from you. At close range, it's an unstoppable wall of death. At long range, it's entirely possible to be aiming directly at someone and miss them entirely. When you use Barrage, you're held in place during the channel time, so you're exposed and very vulnerable. During this time you can be killed, stunned, or slept, but you aren't affected by any effects that push or move you (such as another Pharah concussion rocket, Lucio's boop, or a Zarya ult).
  
  If you're accurate with your rockets, Barrage actually charges relatively quickly. Because of the way Barrage works, if you're facing a team that is often spread out, or a team with a very effective death-ball, you're better off blowing Barrage to force a kill on a tank or healer (preferably Mercy) than waiting around for a perfect time to try and catch 3+ enemies unaware. I regularly will use Barrage to kill just one enemy player if I don't have the time to try and kill them with individual rockets (or if I'm about to need to reload my weapon and they need to die right now).
  
  The biggest mistake that most Pharah players make when using Barrage is using it at or near the apex of their rocket jump. Don't do this. Barrage should be used at medium-to-close range, not way high above the enemy team. The further away from your targets you are, the more time they have to react and the more your rocket barrage damage will spread out over an area. That damage needs to be concentrated as much as possible.
  
  Barrage vs. tanks:
  Reinhardt: Reinhardt's shield cannot withstand a full barrage. If a Rein has his shield up (and there aren't any of his allies to shoot you down while you ult), a full Barrage centered on him will destroy the shield and kill the Reinhardt.
  Zarya: Zarya's shield will collapse under more than 200 dps. At medium/short range this is peanuts for Barrage and you will murder Zarya (or anybody she's shielded) with a brief focus on them.
  Winston: Winston's shield is annoying, but also collapses under Barrage relatively quickly. Normally I avoid ulting through a Winston shield though--I'd prefer to get it collapsed (or mostly there) with rockets and my teammates fire before activating Barrage
  D.Va: Don't use your ult against D.Va. Just don't. A good D.Va will immediately react by tossing their shield up and jetting directly at the ulting Pharah. All the rockets will disappear into the shield right up until the moment the D.Va mech comes into contact with Pharah, at which point she'll die to the explosions of her own rockets. If you need to use Barrage on a team with a close-in D.Va, make sure she's been using up her shield before you unleash the ult.
  Roadhog: Don't ult around Roadhog until you've seen him use his hook. An ulting Pharah is probably the single easiest hook target in the game for Roadhog.
  
  A word of warning vs. tanks: the easiest way to kill an ulting Pharah as a tank is to force the explosions to hit her be running toward her during the ult. Reinhardt can do this if you ult too close to his shield, and an ulting Winston can do this just by jumping at you.
  

• Flanking
  Learning to flank well takes practice, but also requires good situational awareness. The situation and your reading of the enemy team is going to determine whether you should be doing a proactive flanking or team support flanking.
  In proactive flanking, the purpose of your flank attack isn't so much to kill the enemy (though obviously kills are a good bonus), but to distract them and pull them off of a coordinated charge.
  In team support flanking, you'll actually wait out of sight hidden until your team begins engaging the enemy team, then you'll come in from behind to kill healers, blast exposed tanks (especially Reinhardt, and generally cause confusion.
  
  Proactive Flanking Example:
  On the attacking team on Eisenwald, opening up with a Pharah flank paves the path for a quick capture of the first point. While your team groups up near the initial choke point and begins keeping the enemy team busy, Pharah heads around to the right, over the cliff. (you'll have to use your jump pack as the hover can't get you around by itself). Going through the walls toward the point, and the capture point will be on your right with the enemy team to your left, facing away from you.
  You might be tempted here to just get onto the point, but that isn't enough. If you just get onto the point, a competent team will have someone watching for that who will engage you, leaving their team to face off against yours at the chokepoint 5v5.
  What you really want to do is target their healers here. A few well-aimed rockets should easily take care of their Mercy, Zenyatta, or Ana. (you'll notice I don't mention Lucio here, more about that on target values later).
  Toss a few rockets into the back of their grouped up team, focusing on their primary healer, but do not fully engage. Instead, once you've gotten their attention, then head to the capture point. The combination of damage (plus hopefully a kill) and the point getting captured should really get their attention. At this point, all but the most disciplined, organized teams will start either falling back to the point, or collapse into total chaos with half their team going after you, leaving the choke point 5v3 or so in your team's favor. (This tactic works, and works well--we used it to great effect on multiple occasions during my ranking up to diamond over the past few days.)
  
  Team Support Flanking Example:
  Watch one of the videos I posted recently and you'll see me get my biggest sets of kills doing exactly this. The trick is to wait until the enemy team is occupied. But the key here is to understand the situational awareness of the other team. At lower ranks, most players aren't going to have very high situational awareness, and even if they do, often they won't communicate it to teammates. But as you move up you need to rely on stealth more and more. This means don't use your jets immediately before a flanking attack if at all possible. You should be dropping from above them. Using your jets makes a very loud sound and alerts the other team to your presence. Advanced tactic: use your hover ability to keep your feet off the ground when you are on fire. Be aware of how loud your steps are when you're on fire. Using your hover during your final approach on a flanking route can mean the difference between being noticed and being a complete surprise.
  
  A word of warning about flanking:
  It is very easy to overextend yourself while flanking. It is almost always better to retreat from a fight back to your team to get healed than to die way behind enemy lines (I say almost, because while there may be rare situations where it's better to keep the enemy occupied far from the fight, it's pretty rare that this is the case). If you feel like you keep dying while flanking, stop it and use one of the other techniques here.
  
  
  
• Bombardment
  Most people are immediately going to think of Junkrat when I talk about bombardment, but Pharah is very effective here too, just in a different way. Where Junkrat excels at bouncing grenades around corners and arcing them over things, Pharah excels at long-range straight-line bombardment.
  
  You'll see less experienced Pharah players standing on ledges firing away. Normally this is pretty ineffective, because Pharah is exposed and easy for a sniper, McCree, or another Pharah to kill! The key to bombarding with Pharah is understanding how her rockets work. Since they're fire-and-forget, and go directly toward where you aimed, you can be dodging in and out of cover, each time out only long enough to fire a rocket, and not leaving yourself exposed or your location obvious. Here, range is your friend. The further back you are, the harder you are to hit, and a constant line of exploding rockets from an inaccessible Pharah is actually a pretty good psychological weapon that can help keep less experienced teams from charging at all.
  
  I should note here that, far from a waste of rockets, it's a really good idea to use the long-range bombardment technique against Reinhardt players on either side of a chokepoint. Teams that keep up the pressure to keep the enemy Reinhardt shield low/down are simply going to win more often than teams whose players see a Reinhardt shield and start looking for other targets. When the enemy team is forming up for a coordinated push, you should be sending rockets toward the lower edges of the shield. More often than not you'll hit the shield, which is good, but with all the confusion and movement, you're going to also hit enemy players and sometimes kill them outright (it's especially fun to kill a Mercy or Zenyatta with this, as normally that delays their push, or if they push without their primary healer... well, you can predict what will happen)
  
  Same with any map with a long hallway that enemies will come down. Much like Junkrat, if you've got nothing else to shoot at, just keep sending rockets in a stream toward where enemy players might push through. If you wait until you see them, they can also see you and take preventative measures against being hit by rockets. But if you're just flinging rockets down a hallway, that first (and maybe the second!) rocket are just going to hit them out of nowhere.
  
  Bombardment example, defense:
  The folks that play with me often may have noticed that on defense maps, at the very beginning I like to sit on a perch and just fling rockets in a straight line. This is actually a reliable technique that can slow down the enemy advance and once in a while even get you a random pick kill. The trick is to look for very tight openings in the path that enemy players will be walking toward whatever the first choke-point is. Once you've chosen your spot, wait for the starting buzzer, and, depending on the map, start firing. On escort-only maps like King's Row and Gibraltar, I usually start firing when the countdown timer hits 1 or 0. On checkpoint or hybrid maps, I wait for the round to start and then count to 5, then begin firing. (Here I should commend Blizzard's consistent map design: on nearly every map it takes approx 4-7 seconds for the Attackers to move from the spawn point to turning a corner and being visible from the first chokepoint).
  
  This initial bombardment will cause Reinhardt players to toss their shield up early (early than they normally would) and thus walk slower toward the chokepoint. Less experienced Zarya and Winston players may also use their shields too early as well.
  After the initial bombardment, get off your perch. You're now a easy, annoying target, especially for Roadhog or a sniper. Get back behind your team's defensive formation.
  Now start tossing rockets through the chokepoint from long range. Don't stop firing, but also don't lose your situational awareness--as an extremely mobile character, it's also your job to deal with flankers. This is why you're sitting near the back and not getting killed!
  
  Bombardment example, offense:
  Using bombardment during offense is much the same, but you'll be combining it with movement and keeping a careful eye out for snipers and turrets. An inexperience Torb will place turrets in a location where you are able to simply out-range the turret with your rockets, for example, while an inexperienced sniper will be standing on a narrow perch fairly still and present a good target (and often a rocket will bounce them right off their perch). Again, the key with bombardment is to stay alive by staying in the back lines of your team, preferably behind a tank and near the healers. The real trick to offensive bombardment is knowing when to stop and help your team push, either by going with the team or by flanking. (constant bombardment can also provide you with good "cover" for a quick flank, since the enemies will assume you're playing Pharah conservatively in the back lines)
  
  
• Disruption
  While flanking often causes disruption, it's not the only way to do it. The key to disrupting enemy teams with Pharah is two-fold: having deadly aim with the rocket launcher, and knowing how to use the concussion rocket effectively.
  
  Healer picking: against teams that don't have a really good hitscan (or Hanzo, or Roadhog in tighter sections of maps), you should be a terror on their healers. Jump behind lines, hit healers with rockets (kills are great but not always required), then get back out to your lines. On some maps this may mean knocking those healers off ledges to their deaths (Zenyatta and Ana are the most susceptible to this). Mercy should almost always be your #1 target.
  
  Tank disruption: if a team is relying on their Reinhardt for protection, suddenly bouncing him away from them is extremely disruptive and often unexpected. Since you can't knock him back while his shield is up, you can either knock him to the side or forward. I actually recommend bouncing him forward, toward your team. This very often results in the very quick death of the enemy Reinhardt, either because he panics and drops his shield to attack and run back (or charge!) or because he's then that much closer to your team and they can pour that much more damage into his shield. When you do this, wait until his shield starts getting low before you bounce him. I've seen the other team do a number of things here: sometimes they think he's charging forward and charge in with him, other times they hang back (and the healers that you've hopefully bounced backwards desperately try (and often fail) to keep him alive, and more often half the team does the one, the other half does the other.
  
  Ult disruption: with proper positioning and by paying attention, Pharah is quite capable of shutting down most enemy ults. I'll get into specifics when I breakdown Pharah vs. each character, but most often this is done with the concussion rocket (unless it's an ult that allows for an easy rocket kill)

Kenshin fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Sep 20, 2016

sleppy fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Sep 20, 2016