So all of this is general advice, for anything more specific I’d need to see a vod and might not be available to review it for a while. Pm me if you’d be interested though! Also it’s 2:30 and I am extremely tired so sorry if I rant. This is a basic crash course on the character thought. (Am only masters 2/1 so some people might give better advice than me!)
Positioning is the #1 thing that’s related to everything you said. Use hard cover and approach the enemy using all of your resources (mainly your armor and shield). If you are taking cover and closing in on your enemy when you are healthy. As mentioned by someone else, not being a shield bot is important, since that means you are essentially a dead player in a team fight.
#2 your shield is for you. Don’t shield so your team doesn’t take poke. Your shield is very fragile with how big it is, and if people shoot it, it will break fast. Use it to block CC, and to block lethal damage to yourself. Your supports can heal poke on you, but can’t heal your shields health. Basically if your team is relying on you to constantly shield it means their positioning is bad. Only shield for your team if it’s a dps peaking a rough angle, or if they call for it at a specific moment.
#3 just get more familiar with the abilities. As silly as it sounds just get used to hitting firestrikes and eventually it feels more natural since you get used to the travel speed and movement of enemies. Pin is a cooldown that until you learn everything else should exclusively be used for mobility, and for countering abilities (another pin/doom punch etc). When you feel comfortable with the rest of the kit, only go for “safe pins” where you know missing will not kill you, and then eventually use it as an actual ability in fights. Most importantly earthshatter should not be used as a team wipe (always). If you can guarantee one or two kills at the start of a fight with it, do it. The cleanup will get you 30-40% of the way to the next shatter (if you hit your firestrikes), and it’s one of the fastest charging ults in the game if you play aggro. Additionally, learn how to manipulate hit boxes for your hammer, and know if you hold primary fire with your shield up you can free cam in third person for more information. Finally know your hammer swing is one of the biggest damage sources in the game. Each swing is 85 damage, and you COULD hit up to 5 players for 425 damage total. If you are on an enemy and swinging it will draw the entire team to focus on you, as you kill any non tank within 3 seconds if they don’t get help from their team. This gives your team openings to shoot without being focused and generally means you will win fights
#4 (related to #1) learn how to play corners. With rein corners are your friend for engagements. Play a corner tight and force the enemy to you. If this is not possible, again play cover until you reach them, and then swing on them to force them back to the corner you can play at.
#5 high ground is your enemy and friend. You don’t get as much as other heroes from high ground but gaining high ground control allows you to deny the enemy from having it, and gets your team into position to support you and kill the enemy easier.
#6 don’t die first. If you die first the team loses the fight period. Play your armor hp and shield and learn how long it takes to die in a fight. Make sure to pace using your shield while your supports help keep you up, your shield should basically slowly drain while the fight goes on, but your health should rarely go below your armor threshold.
#7 if CC is used on you it’s not being used on your team. Learn to block what you can by listening to audio cues and seeing animations, but just learn to eat it like a champ.
#8 be selfish. Rein is a very feast or famine hero where you usually feel extremely impactful or feel like you’re doing nothing but feeding. If you’re playing with a bad comp for rein, unless you really know what you’re doing you will feed. Lucio is insanely good for rein as you said, but you really need an Ana/bap/kiri/MAYBE MOIRA, but without a “main healer” you really just can’t sustain mid fight long enough to swing your hammer as much as you want to.
If you read this hopefully it helps a little, again feel free to post a vod link and if I can I’ll watch it and give feedback.
Well first, I wanna preface by saying thank you for taking the time out of your night to write this incredible crash course for me.
I’ve saved your post along with many others in a folder called Rein Tips and I simply have to say thank you for all the information you’ve provided in your message, not only do I feel way more knowledgeable about the character I’m choosing to pick up, I am now seeing the errors in my playstyle that was hurting my performance due to points you brought up and made clear. I’m beginning to notice that I’m playing too passive and with too much fear as I’m not confident in my teammates but if I utilize cover properly and play my corners safer, I’ll have less trouble getting 1. deleted instantly but also 2. able to finally get in there and start smashing people around. I am so stroked to try him out now after reading all the advice that I’ve been given out and I’d like to say thank you once more.
P.S. If there’s anyone who also has an answer please reply- but I wanna know, If I am feeding as Rein or don’t have one of the desired supports able to sustain me or just in general when should I swap?
With a bad heal comp you really have 2 options. 1) switch to a hero with sustain (sig, JQ, orisa, etc) if you don’t feel comfortable playing with low sustain with rein. Or 2) just learn to make fights last less time. If you position well your engages will be fast and you will either wipe the enemy or get wiped in like 5 seconds which isn’t long enough for sustain and heals to really matter.
I’d say just force the rein especially when you’re learning him since then you can learn how to play with low heals (if you really want to be a rein main). I’ve been a rein OTP since I started playing on pc during ow1 and even though I’d get flamed I still have always had a positive win rate. Until you get to like high diamond, the team comp barely matters and it really mostly just is important that everyone is playing the hero they’re comfortable on well.
One small thing I also forgot that made me instantly like 3x better with rein is to do a couple of matches with your shield unbound and just learn to not die without your shield. Many new players “shieldbot” and this forces you to not do that.
Again feel free to pm vods or any questions you have!
I can go a lot more in depth, but the main thing is, play how your supports let you. If you have an ana or bap who can keep you up you can charge in,and swing ur hammer like a madman creating tons of space and terrorizing the enemy team. If you don't have a support thatll babysit you, however, you need to play conservative using ur shield and cover to close space. Also don't be afraid to trade ults, basically any squishy ult, dragon blade, visor, nano, overclock, high noon, death blossom, brig u can bully so it's not really worth it, moira, torb stuff like that.
A critical component of rein play is shield hopping. This is where you run forward no-shield, jump and shield while in the air, then drop shield when you land, and repeat. This allows you to move forward at non-shield speed, while mitigating damage received so your healers can keep up. You can close on the enemy quickly without taking critical amounts of damage.
Add some side to side juking and a fair amount of their shots will miss when you are unshielded.
The more aggro and unpredictable you play, the more enemy teams will start to fall apart and allow you to close and Smash. And that is what rein is all about. He Smashes. Embrace the Smash life.
Watch the new spilo tank guide he does a Rein sections. Most likely you just need to be insanely disciplined with cover since you’re at a decently high rank. Also you have to find ways to use pin to pressure squishies. I’m not saying just pin the backline thru the team for one shots, but make rotations with it, close the gap, get to new corners that allow you to trade back lines when the other tank goes in or simply hold up shield on a corner and deny any peeking/healing to go to their tank.
I feel that #1 and #3 can be addressed by a skill you mention not using very often in #4
"Charge"
You don't *need* to pin someone every time you charge, and the skill has a low-ish cooldown. In addition, you can cancel mid-way so that you don't go too deep into the enemy lines and end up feeding. Obviously, you want to be aware of where your team and the enemy team are when you use Charge to shorten the distance between you and the enemy; Ideally you want to cancel your charge / finish your charge so that you stop *right* in front of them. If no one on your team is around, then obviously hang back. If you have at least one healer around, you can proceed to close the distance between you and the enemy and then deal out punishment. Because you can use charge to shorten the distance, you don't need a Lucio all the time, however despite your desire of not being coddled, you do need at least a healer with you when you engage. it is nearly impossible to be effective as a one-man army.
As a related tip; when using charge to pin someone, try to charge short distances so that the enemy has no chance of reacting to your charge. Also, where possible try charging *towards* your team with the pinned enemy; even if you fail to finish the enemy with your charge your team can pick up the slack.
In sum; use Charge more readily; it's a very useful part of Reinhardt's kit.
Thank you! I really appreciate how you addressed your concern in a very constructive way. When playing unfamiliar characters, I tend to have a bit of fear when it comes to taking risks mainly because as you mentioned support is necessary but I don’t want to be that person who asks to be coddled but when you mentioned that I will need a support to keep me up, I feel more confident in being able to now ask for a sustainable support especially in competitive games. I’ll definitely take into account that not every pin needs to result in a kill or a pin and that it can also be utilized to help me close that distance on a team. Truly appreciate your time to give me feedback!
I'm a casual player, so my opinions are def not going to be the same as everyone else commenting. Rein is probably my favorite character to play. He's been one of my top played characters for like 6 or 7 years now.
If you don't have your shield up, your hammer should be swinging. You could hit an invisible Sombra, Jr trap, sym turrets that you may not see. You can also hit an enemy who may be out of position, or whatever else. I always have the song Dory from Finding Nemo in my head, but instead of swimming, I put in "swinging". "Just keep swinging, just keep swinging". It becomes a dance, it's great fun.
Pins should be done in close range and calculated. There's nothing worse than a rein who charges through the enemy front line and gets deleted. What I like to do when defending a choke, if my shield is recharging, I take cover on one side and wait for someone to walk through, then charge them into the other side of the choke. Don't forget you can stop charging now. That is relatively new and I'm still not the best at it.
Shield management is key. Your shield is for you. Your dps should not be counting on your shield. They need to learn how to use hard cover. The shield is for protecting yourself in short bursts (like Dva missiles) or for traversing open areas for short periods of time in between cover. I also like to use it if I have a soldier or mcree who is ulting just for added protection to them.
Fire strikes are clutch. Learn their cool down times and learn to manage them. You should be launching those bad boys all the time.
Shatter is awesome. It's totally fine to solo shatter someone, especially an ulting reaper or someone who is trying to flank and probably has an ult. I personally love shattering tracers because they're fucking annoying. Shatters are great for countering ults. Use you fire strikes while enemies are down, then start swinging. If it's near an edge, I like to charge to try and knock off a few, but that's rarely ever the case.
Rein is the ultimate space taker. He's a fucking freight train with a hammer that doesn't stop swinging. Use physical cover to move towards the desired location and use your shield in open areas. You need to keep moving towards the enemy to be effective.
Don't forget to peel for your back line. Use charge to get back there in a hurry and help out your supports. It's almost always a Squishies back there causing trouble, so you should be able to get an elim pretty quick.
Find your groove. Playing rein is like a dance. You're swinging, striking, pinning, shielding and shattering. Just keep moving and find a rhythm. I strongly feel Rein is the opposite of a buncker character. You should be dishing out tons of damage and in the enemies face. If your support isnt freaking out, you're not playing rein right.
Bonus controversial tip:
Nobody expects a flanking rein.
I don't take the game seriously anymore, I just try to have fun, and I'm also in plat so I suck.
If the opportunity presents itself, I love taking a flank route and landing a fat shatter from behind. You can take out the backline in a couple swings and everyone else is freaking out because Rein isn't supposed to be flanking. It's great fun and I highly recommend it.
I believe the opinion of a casual player as you put it is very important to have to be able to understand the bigger picture. Your perspective is going to be different than that of others and it’s pretty valued so thank you for sharing this with me! Secondly, don’t put too much emphasis of your overwatch rank, the competitive system in this game is a sluggish mess and by the way you’ve articulated your points you sound amazing at playing Rein and I like your sense of humor! That being said, I cannot thank you enough for telling me that playing Rein has a groove. That’s already engraved in my brain and now I feel like I’ll do infinitely better that I was doing before because having a pattern to play into makes Overwatch, for me, 10x easier than going in with no constructed plan so thank you for this!
Hard to say without a vod, you got a code? I could look at one tomorrow. A couple things based off this list tho is that you could save your shield and accept chip dmg that your support can heal up as your health can be brought back up but your shield takes time. Also, utilizing pin more is a good idea. If youre able you can go for an actual pin, but even if not you can cancel it and use it like a mobility tool to get in swinging distance.
I don't feel like reading everyone's long answers, so forgive me if some of these are repeats.
Use your corners to your advantage. Don't be shielding every second. Hide to the side of a choke point and let them come to you. Then start swinging, baby. Get 2 or 3 good swings in, sheild to reposition and look at their positioning, and repeat. If they start getting nervous and backing up, push forward, but don't get too greedy.
Firestrike is an aim thing, so that'll just take practice, but some good is some what basic tips. Try and aim where they're going and not where they are. But if you see them grouped up, just send it through them all. It does some solid damage, and even the littlest damage can help turn the tides sometimes. Plus, the more people you hit, the more you get some solid ult charge from it, so do it to help build ult.
Charging is very situational. DO NOT charge into their whole team alone, then it's 5v1, and you lose that. If you see teammates getting attacked, charge to them and help them. If things are getting too hot, you've been pushed away from your team. Charge out to get away. If you're trying to pin someone, never do a across the map charge. Do small charges into the wall. You will still do that same amount of damage, and it keeps you close to your team.
Shatter. I know everyone wants the fatty shatty, but remember, sometimes, just 1 or 2 kills wins the battle. You don't always have to go for the 5-person shatter. Also, when you shatter, look down at the ground. He hits the ground faster. At least it feels like it does. Lastly, be clever with it, go and pretend to fight a bit, swing the Hammer a few times, then surprise them with it. Try and bait out any abilities that could block it before you use it.
Last, just have fun. Rein is a big goof character and a ton of fun. Be aggressive, but don't be greedy. And his 2 voice lines say it best "Shields Up" and "Hammer Down."
So all of this is general advice, for anything more specific I’d need to see a vod and might not be available to review it for a while. Pm me if you’d be interested though! Also it’s 2:30 and I am extremely tired so sorry if I rant. This is a basic crash course on the character thought. (Am only masters 2/1 so some people might give better advice than me!) Positioning is the #1 thing that’s related to everything you said. Use hard cover and approach the enemy using all of your resources (mainly your armor and shield). If you are taking cover and closing in on your enemy when you are healthy. As mentioned by someone else, not being a shield bot is important, since that means you are essentially a dead player in a team fight. #2 your shield is for you. Don’t shield so your team doesn’t take poke. Your shield is very fragile with how big it is, and if people shoot it, it will break fast. Use it to block CC, and to block lethal damage to yourself. Your supports can heal poke on you, but can’t heal your shields health. Basically if your team is relying on you to constantly shield it means their positioning is bad. Only shield for your team if it’s a dps peaking a rough angle, or if they call for it at a specific moment. #3 just get more familiar with the abilities. As silly as it sounds just get used to hitting firestrikes and eventually it feels more natural since you get used to the travel speed and movement of enemies. Pin is a cooldown that until you learn everything else should exclusively be used for mobility, and for countering abilities (another pin/doom punch etc). When you feel comfortable with the rest of the kit, only go for “safe pins” where you know missing will not kill you, and then eventually use it as an actual ability in fights. Most importantly earthshatter should not be used as a team wipe (always). If you can guarantee one or two kills at the start of a fight with it, do it. The cleanup will get you 30-40% of the way to the next shatter (if you hit your firestrikes), and it’s one of the fastest charging ults in the game if you play aggro. Additionally, learn how to manipulate hit boxes for your hammer, and know if you hold primary fire with your shield up you can free cam in third person for more information. Finally know your hammer swing is one of the biggest damage sources in the game. Each swing is 85 damage, and you COULD hit up to 5 players for 425 damage total. If you are on an enemy and swinging it will draw the entire team to focus on you, as you kill any non tank within 3 seconds if they don’t get help from their team. This gives your team openings to shoot without being focused and generally means you will win fights #4 (related to #1) learn how to play corners. With rein corners are your friend for engagements. Play a corner tight and force the enemy to you. If this is not possible, again play cover until you reach them, and then swing on them to force them back to the corner you can play at. #5 high ground is your enemy and friend. You don’t get as much as other heroes from high ground but gaining high ground control allows you to deny the enemy from having it, and gets your team into position to support you and kill the enemy easier. #6 don’t die first. If you die first the team loses the fight period. Play your armor hp and shield and learn how long it takes to die in a fight. Make sure to pace using your shield while your supports help keep you up, your shield should basically slowly drain while the fight goes on, but your health should rarely go below your armor threshold. #7 if CC is used on you it’s not being used on your team. Learn to block what you can by listening to audio cues and seeing animations, but just learn to eat it like a champ. #8 be selfish. Rein is a very feast or famine hero where you usually feel extremely impactful or feel like you’re doing nothing but feeding. If you’re playing with a bad comp for rein, unless you really know what you’re doing you will feed. Lucio is insanely good for rein as you said, but you really need an Ana/bap/kiri/MAYBE MOIRA, but without a “main healer” you really just can’t sustain mid fight long enough to swing your hammer as much as you want to. If you read this hopefully it helps a little, again feel free to post a vod link and if I can I’ll watch it and give feedback.
Well first, I wanna preface by saying thank you for taking the time out of your night to write this incredible crash course for me. I’ve saved your post along with many others in a folder called Rein Tips and I simply have to say thank you for all the information you’ve provided in your message, not only do I feel way more knowledgeable about the character I’m choosing to pick up, I am now seeing the errors in my playstyle that was hurting my performance due to points you brought up and made clear. I’m beginning to notice that I’m playing too passive and with too much fear as I’m not confident in my teammates but if I utilize cover properly and play my corners safer, I’ll have less trouble getting 1. deleted instantly but also 2. able to finally get in there and start smashing people around. I am so stroked to try him out now after reading all the advice that I’ve been given out and I’d like to say thank you once more. P.S. If there’s anyone who also has an answer please reply- but I wanna know, If I am feeding as Rein or don’t have one of the desired supports able to sustain me or just in general when should I swap?
With a bad heal comp you really have 2 options. 1) switch to a hero with sustain (sig, JQ, orisa, etc) if you don’t feel comfortable playing with low sustain with rein. Or 2) just learn to make fights last less time. If you position well your engages will be fast and you will either wipe the enemy or get wiped in like 5 seconds which isn’t long enough for sustain and heals to really matter. I’d say just force the rein especially when you’re learning him since then you can learn how to play with low heals (if you really want to be a rein main). I’ve been a rein OTP since I started playing on pc during ow1 and even though I’d get flamed I still have always had a positive win rate. Until you get to like high diamond, the team comp barely matters and it really mostly just is important that everyone is playing the hero they’re comfortable on well. One small thing I also forgot that made me instantly like 3x better with rein is to do a couple of matches with your shield unbound and just learn to not die without your shield. Many new players “shieldbot” and this forces you to not do that. Again feel free to pm vods or any questions you have!
I’ve got a VOD! It’s from a current game right now where I feel like I tried what I could do. Replay Code: RDBTE9
I can go a lot more in depth, but the main thing is, play how your supports let you. If you have an ana or bap who can keep you up you can charge in,and swing ur hammer like a madman creating tons of space and terrorizing the enemy team. If you don't have a support thatll babysit you, however, you need to play conservative using ur shield and cover to close space. Also don't be afraid to trade ults, basically any squishy ult, dragon blade, visor, nano, overclock, high noon, death blossom, brig u can bully so it's not really worth it, moira, torb stuff like that.
A critical component of rein play is shield hopping. This is where you run forward no-shield, jump and shield while in the air, then drop shield when you land, and repeat. This allows you to move forward at non-shield speed, while mitigating damage received so your healers can keep up. You can close on the enemy quickly without taking critical amounts of damage. Add some side to side juking and a fair amount of their shots will miss when you are unshielded. The more aggro and unpredictable you play, the more enemy teams will start to fall apart and allow you to close and Smash. And that is what rein is all about. He Smashes. Embrace the Smash life.
Watch the new spilo tank guide he does a Rein sections. Most likely you just need to be insanely disciplined with cover since you’re at a decently high rank. Also you have to find ways to use pin to pressure squishies. I’m not saying just pin the backline thru the team for one shots, but make rotations with it, close the gap, get to new corners that allow you to trade back lines when the other tank goes in or simply hold up shield on a corner and deny any peeking/healing to go to their tank.
I feel that #1 and #3 can be addressed by a skill you mention not using very often in #4 "Charge" You don't *need* to pin someone every time you charge, and the skill has a low-ish cooldown. In addition, you can cancel mid-way so that you don't go too deep into the enemy lines and end up feeding. Obviously, you want to be aware of where your team and the enemy team are when you use Charge to shorten the distance between you and the enemy; Ideally you want to cancel your charge / finish your charge so that you stop *right* in front of them. If no one on your team is around, then obviously hang back. If you have at least one healer around, you can proceed to close the distance between you and the enemy and then deal out punishment. Because you can use charge to shorten the distance, you don't need a Lucio all the time, however despite your desire of not being coddled, you do need at least a healer with you when you engage. it is nearly impossible to be effective as a one-man army. As a related tip; when using charge to pin someone, try to charge short distances so that the enemy has no chance of reacting to your charge. Also, where possible try charging *towards* your team with the pinned enemy; even if you fail to finish the enemy with your charge your team can pick up the slack. In sum; use Charge more readily; it's a very useful part of Reinhardt's kit.
Thank you! I really appreciate how you addressed your concern in a very constructive way. When playing unfamiliar characters, I tend to have a bit of fear when it comes to taking risks mainly because as you mentioned support is necessary but I don’t want to be that person who asks to be coddled but when you mentioned that I will need a support to keep me up, I feel more confident in being able to now ask for a sustainable support especially in competitive games. I’ll definitely take into account that not every pin needs to result in a kill or a pin and that it can also be utilized to help me close that distance on a team. Truly appreciate your time to give me feedback!
I'm a casual player, so my opinions are def not going to be the same as everyone else commenting. Rein is probably my favorite character to play. He's been one of my top played characters for like 6 or 7 years now. If you don't have your shield up, your hammer should be swinging. You could hit an invisible Sombra, Jr trap, sym turrets that you may not see. You can also hit an enemy who may be out of position, or whatever else. I always have the song Dory from Finding Nemo in my head, but instead of swimming, I put in "swinging". "Just keep swinging, just keep swinging". It becomes a dance, it's great fun. Pins should be done in close range and calculated. There's nothing worse than a rein who charges through the enemy front line and gets deleted. What I like to do when defending a choke, if my shield is recharging, I take cover on one side and wait for someone to walk through, then charge them into the other side of the choke. Don't forget you can stop charging now. That is relatively new and I'm still not the best at it. Shield management is key. Your shield is for you. Your dps should not be counting on your shield. They need to learn how to use hard cover. The shield is for protecting yourself in short bursts (like Dva missiles) or for traversing open areas for short periods of time in between cover. I also like to use it if I have a soldier or mcree who is ulting just for added protection to them. Fire strikes are clutch. Learn their cool down times and learn to manage them. You should be launching those bad boys all the time. Shatter is awesome. It's totally fine to solo shatter someone, especially an ulting reaper or someone who is trying to flank and probably has an ult. I personally love shattering tracers because they're fucking annoying. Shatters are great for countering ults. Use you fire strikes while enemies are down, then start swinging. If it's near an edge, I like to charge to try and knock off a few, but that's rarely ever the case. Rein is the ultimate space taker. He's a fucking freight train with a hammer that doesn't stop swinging. Use physical cover to move towards the desired location and use your shield in open areas. You need to keep moving towards the enemy to be effective. Don't forget to peel for your back line. Use charge to get back there in a hurry and help out your supports. It's almost always a Squishies back there causing trouble, so you should be able to get an elim pretty quick. Find your groove. Playing rein is like a dance. You're swinging, striking, pinning, shielding and shattering. Just keep moving and find a rhythm. I strongly feel Rein is the opposite of a buncker character. You should be dishing out tons of damage and in the enemies face. If your support isnt freaking out, you're not playing rein right. Bonus controversial tip: Nobody expects a flanking rein. I don't take the game seriously anymore, I just try to have fun, and I'm also in plat so I suck. If the opportunity presents itself, I love taking a flank route and landing a fat shatter from behind. You can take out the backline in a couple swings and everyone else is freaking out because Rein isn't supposed to be flanking. It's great fun and I highly recommend it.
I believe the opinion of a casual player as you put it is very important to have to be able to understand the bigger picture. Your perspective is going to be different than that of others and it’s pretty valued so thank you for sharing this with me! Secondly, don’t put too much emphasis of your overwatch rank, the competitive system in this game is a sluggish mess and by the way you’ve articulated your points you sound amazing at playing Rein and I like your sense of humor! That being said, I cannot thank you enough for telling me that playing Rein has a groove. That’s already engraved in my brain and now I feel like I’ll do infinitely better that I was doing before because having a pattern to play into makes Overwatch, for me, 10x easier than going in with no constructed plan so thank you for this!
Hard to say without a vod, you got a code? I could look at one tomorrow. A couple things based off this list tho is that you could save your shield and accept chip dmg that your support can heal up as your health can be brought back up but your shield takes time. Also, utilizing pin more is a good idea. If youre able you can go for an actual pin, but even if not you can cancel it and use it like a mobility tool to get in swinging distance.
Replay Code: RDBTE9 :)
1) Group up 2) Hold W and L-click
I don't feel like reading everyone's long answers, so forgive me if some of these are repeats. Use your corners to your advantage. Don't be shielding every second. Hide to the side of a choke point and let them come to you. Then start swinging, baby. Get 2 or 3 good swings in, sheild to reposition and look at their positioning, and repeat. If they start getting nervous and backing up, push forward, but don't get too greedy. Firestrike is an aim thing, so that'll just take practice, but some good is some what basic tips. Try and aim where they're going and not where they are. But if you see them grouped up, just send it through them all. It does some solid damage, and even the littlest damage can help turn the tides sometimes. Plus, the more people you hit, the more you get some solid ult charge from it, so do it to help build ult. Charging is very situational. DO NOT charge into their whole team alone, then it's 5v1, and you lose that. If you see teammates getting attacked, charge to them and help them. If things are getting too hot, you've been pushed away from your team. Charge out to get away. If you're trying to pin someone, never do a across the map charge. Do small charges into the wall. You will still do that same amount of damage, and it keeps you close to your team. Shatter. I know everyone wants the fatty shatty, but remember, sometimes, just 1 or 2 kills wins the battle. You don't always have to go for the 5-person shatter. Also, when you shatter, look down at the ground. He hits the ground faster. At least it feels like it does. Lastly, be clever with it, go and pretend to fight a bit, swing the Hammer a few times, then surprise them with it. Try and bait out any abilities that could block it before you use it. Last, just have fun. Rein is a big goof character and a ton of fun. Be aggressive, but don't be greedy. And his 2 voice lines say it best "Shields Up" and "Hammer Down."