Dumb question...what's your gameplan as Reindhart? Like put up Shield, pray for healer, die, repeat?
W+M1 is a meme but honestly a big part, at least from my relatively low exposure to Rein (only 1ish season really making an effort to play him and I'm bronze/silver xD).
The idea is to lead the engagement, whether this be punishing an out of position enemy, moving while shielding to encourage your team to move from cover to cover, shielding to protect your team if need be, or literally swinging into the enemy. Rein has the tools to cause huge disruption, it's surprising how much a single character can do to disrupt an enemy setup if he is properly supported. Taking space can be as simple as moving from worse cover to better cover to setup for the next movement, or as aggressive as swinging into the enemy and forcing them to move from where they are.
A lot of learning Rein for me so far has been learning how to communicate, learning how to work with your team, and learning how to control the agression. You'll know when you're too agressive: you'll die a lot, you'll miss enemies flanking you, you'll break your shield over meaningless damage. You'll know when you're too passive, because you won't be doing much aside from being a temporary wall all the time and waiting on your team to get picks. You can be that wall sometimes, but that's not your only purpose.
Easy low level tips:
- Firestrike. It cleaves through shield and enemies and does 100 damage to each if you get a nice group. If you Firestrike out of shield enemies might commit to you a bit and try to punish, but you can punish back if they get greedy. Worst case, your healers top you up and they get ult charge.
- Shattering even a few enemies helps. It doesn't have to be a fat team shatter. Shatter can also help in counter situations; I've shattered enemies who graved my team because all they went red in the eyes and dropped shield.
- Don't charge long distance to kill. It leaves you way too open, is easy to punish and avoid. Very, very rarely does it go unpunished, even in bronze.
- If you want a better kill/damage option, swing the hammer once, then Firestrike. It cancels the animation, so you do 175 burst damage.
- Pressing shield+hammer swing allows you to spin the camera around Rein, handy for checking around corners and if your team is even with you.
- Try not to let your shield break, it takes longer to recharge. This is why setting up near cover is handy, you just duck behind to recharge.
Playing Reinhardt is like playing a fighting game, except as a character you need to rely on your team in order to play to your full potential.
