So, I have been occasionally having an argument with my teammates. They are absolutely convinced I am a complete idiot regarding this situation but I am fairly certain that I am the one that is correct. This has been going on long enough that I seriously think its a good idea to ask the internet what they think
The topic is: "When should you switch from one character to another during a match."
My stance is that if you do not have a solid reason to switch then it is how you are playing that should be addressed and not the class you are playing. There are a lot of valid reasons to switch characters, like if the enemy team switches in a Pharah who is doing a lot of work and making things rough. At that point changing out a reaper for a McCree or a soldier is a solid reason to switch. Sometimes if a damage dealer just has a gut feeling that switching to a tracer at this key moment is a good idea does qualify but for the most part I feel like switching needs to be a calculated strategy.
I have always had a strong stance that its always better to look at things from the bigger picture and seriously understand what you are doing and why. Often times if you are having a bad run it might not even be entirely your fault. In fact it can literally be because SOMEONE ELSE on the team needs to switch. That also, if you are a healer or a tank its often counter productive to switch to a different role because it usually displaces the rest of the team.
I try very hard to explain that its more important to understand why you are switching and providing a solid reason for doing so as being very important. And that often switching for a bad reason can be even more destructive than staying your current class. Very often when someone asks if they should switch I will look at the enemy team and our team before answering and very often I will say no. Sometimes I will say yes "Yeah they have a tracer and a genji we might want a winston". Before a match starts I will often look at our team and say "We might be weak vs X so if they are running X then get ready to switch to X. If not dont worry about it"
Sometimes you can be playing the optimal choice but failing to play it very well and that practice is the only way to really get better. Switching is not a panacea and is often very costly in terms of ult charge and team composition.
Their stance is that if you feel like you are not effective it doesnt matter what you switch to just switch. This came up during a conversation where a teammate said "I tried 3 different characters and they(the enemy team) still were kicking my ass". I questioned if he should have been switching so much because every switch costs ult charge. This is usually met with "Here go again with this shit."
This also once came up when a teammate felt countered as Lucio. At which point I kind of started laughing to myself. Which again, brought up the same debate, that if you are being countered that person should switch. I explained that Lucio is not being countered, Lucio is having bad luck and that Lucio doesn't really have counters that matter.
"Here we go again. Look if someone is being countered they should switch."
What really took the cake last night is our Zarya, who had been playing Zarya all night, claimed that he was being ganged up on and felt very countered. My reaction was to face palm a bit. I asked, "What could you possibly switch to that would change this?" Being ganged up on is NOT A COUNTER PLAY ITS TACTICS!!
Its obvious that if you are being killed as Zarya over and over again you need to chill out and stop soloing 4 people, which is something he is very prone to do anyway. He commenced to switch to Junkrat because he was being countered as Zarya...
"WHAT THE FUCK!!!" I didn't say it out loud but I sure as hell was thinking it. That makes me almost angry thinking about it. We were down a 2nd tank near the end of a kings row defense under the premise that they were bursting down our Zarya as a form of class counter play...
There stance is that if we are losing then switch, it doesn't matter what it is, just do it. Until something sticks. I explained over and fucking over again, if you switch you need to do it for a solid tangible reason. At that point they say I am basically a fucking idiot because I am saying to my team to;
"Don't even bother trying!"
"Just lose! Just give up I guess!"
"This guy thinks that we should just lose!!"
"His logic is so broken!"
My exact words were "If you switch randomly its like throwing darts at a dart board with a blind fold on." Now I am a stubborn idiot asshole with broken logic.
So it ended up being a cycle of arguing about the topic. So what is your take on this? am I a stubborn idiot who should shut up?