Borders give you a brief preview of teammates and enemy levels of skill without actually seeing them play.
In this overview, you will find what borders are and how you can achieve them with efficiency and skill. This detailed guide will explain everything you need to know about borders in Overwatch, so let’s get started!
What are borders in Overwatch?
A border portrait simply put is your level in prestige’s, it’s like other games e.g. Call of Duty when you get to a certain level then go back to level 1 with a different higher-level icon. To get different borders in overwatch is a simple ranking system, when you start your journey on overwatch you will begin as a Bronze portrait and level yourself up by playing the game, when you reach level 100 you will go gain enough experience to go to level 1 again but this time a star under your portrait will appear when playing, this indicates how many times you have reached level 100. It does take a while to get to level 100, I would say around 30 hours of gameplay depending on how efficient your gameplay is.
You need to gain 5 stars to then move onto the next portrait which would be silver for people still on a bronze portrait. This doesn’t change no matter what portrait you are. Whilst levelling up you will notice a change in your border every 10 levels as your border slightly gets bigger and looks more appealing to the eye.
When you’re about to go up to your next portrait you might be wondering what does changing borders from the likes of silver to gold do, or how will changing borders affect me? The short answer is no, it won’t change negatively change anything, it will only change your level, stars, and the way your portrait looks. You won’t lose any hero’s, gold weapons, or Competitive rank. It’s a positive thing to go up in portraits so you shouldn’t worry about losing anything however you can’t lock your level. What I mean by this is that you can’t choose to stop levelling or going up border levels, unfortunately, so if you like the look of bronze 5 stars and level 100 savour it cause if you play more it’s going to change soon to silver, level 1, no stars.
How to find your and other people’s border’s
A Border Portrait is shown around every player in the game, to see a person’s portrait when in a game you can look at the character they have chosen and see a colorful Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum or diamond portrait. You can view your own or other people’s border and level on the home screen as well as in a game. How you check your level and portrait is simple on the home screen, you simply log in to overwatch and look in the top right corner. There you should find your Gamertag and next to it you should have a level with your portrait color and the number of stars next to the level it’s as simple as that. You will also have an endorsement level however this doesn’t affect your portrait or level in any way so you shouldn’t worry about that.
You can see your friend’s border’s with ease, if you have your friend already added in-game as a friend you can simply Click on social in the menu. There you will find your friends that are playing overwatch and friends that aren’t. You can see your friend’s Gamertag and the level/border is underneath it.
Finding a friend’s level/portrait when they’re offline is also an easy task similar to the last one, all you have to do is go onto social again and go to the friend that you want to see’s Gamertag and click on it, from here just go onto their career profile. Now that you can see your friend’s stats you can see on the left they have their Gamertag and their level/border next to it you can also see their exp bar below their name that shows how close they are to the next level.
How to see other people’s borders that are not your friend’s is a bit more difficult but still easy to figure out. The annoying thing about overwatch you can’t search in the game for people’s Gamertags to find their level and portrait however you can find recent players that you played have with and their level/border in the social menu.
How to gain Levels and Experience
If you’re a gamer or play games casually you will probably know what experience is, but for those who don’t know experience or exp is what you gain from playing and doing anything in the game. Simple things will give you exp like:
- Playing the game- Just by playing win or lose will give you exp on how long the game took to complete.
- Completing a match- match finishing gives you 150 XP
- First Win of the day- winning your first game will give you 500 XP
- Backfill- backfill is when you’re playing overwatch and you get pulled into a game already in progress and you complete it.
- Medals- Medals are a very important way to earn XP fast, the better you’re the more XP you will earn each game. You can get a maximum of five medals each game. Gold medals give you 150 XP, Silver 100 XP, Bronze 50 XP so if I get 5 gold medals in one game that’s 750 XP from just one game. When wanting to level up fast it’s a very efficient way to gain as many gold medals as possible.
- Group bonus- Playing with friends gives you a 20% XP bonus so make sure to join up with Friends when trying to level up.
Consecutive match- Playing multiple times in a row will give you 300 XP
Leave penalty’s- leaving may seem like a bad thing and it is if you want to level up faster but you still gain XP so don’t be afraid to leave non-ranked games as you will only get an XP Penalty.
Different game modes have different exp multipliers for winning or playing the game- Arcade mode games like free for all and team deathmatch only give you 80% of normal games worth of XP.
All these methods are important to find the most effective way to level up and an efficient way to change your border faster.
Best ways to Level up fast
Now for the casual player, they wouldn’t particularly care about levelling up faster however if you’re a person that likes to achieve greatness in games then you will surely look at the most efficient ways to get to the max level or the best ways to go up in borders.
Levelling up and getting a better rank is no simple task as it takes time and effort. The fastest way to level up in overwatch would simply be playing with your friends in competitive and trying to get wins and gold medals.
Starting at level 1 you will want to try grinding your way up to level 25 to get access to competitive gameplay. A popular question always pops up and that is “how long does it take to get to level 25” and that all depends on how skilled and efficient you’re in playing the game. On average it would take around 10 hours however if you played the right way you can make it quicker.
The key to getting more experience is playing with friends, the more the better consecutively in competitive. The more wins the better, with friends and communication you can make it much easier to win games, and gaining XP is all about winning games and doing well.
The highest level in overwatch
Technically the max level is 2800 although you can go higher as overwatch doesn’t have a level cap but does have a border cap. At this point, your border would be maxed diamond and won’t change but you can go on forever. Don’t get your hopes up though as this might take you a few years.
You will still get given rewards for levelling up like loot boxes you just won’t see any change to your profile apart from all those hours that are still going up when you play
Bronze Border
Bronze borders start from level 1-600, you will also get 1-5 Bronze stars every 100 levels and every 10 levels an advanced version of the border. At level 700 the next level puts you in Silver.
Silver Border
Now that you’re in Silver you get a SIlver border that starts from level 701-1200, you will also get 1-5 SIlver stars every 100 levels and every 10 levels an advanced version of the border. You will now move onto gold when you hit 1300
Gold Border
Here we are at Gold, Gold starts from level 1301-1800, you will also get 1-5 Gold stars every 100 levels and every 10 levels an advanced version of the border. Like the rest, you have got to the point where you have 5 stars under your name and you have now got to max level for that border in this case level 1900 and your next level will push you over to change your border once again.
Platinum Border
Platinum border, the pro level of overwatch, you have played for hours and hours you once again start at level 1 but this time you’re level 1901 and you’re going to level 2500, you will get 1-5 Platinum stars every 100 levels and every 10 levels an advanced version of the border
Diamond Border
The Final Border diamond, only the best and the most addicted players get here you’re back at level 1 but this time technically level 2501 to get to 5 stars and level 2901 is the final stretch. You finally get there and you for the first time in playing get to keep your border with 5 stars forever until they might change it.
Do Borders show how good you are?
I have played Overwatch for a long time and honestly what I think is no, yes they have more experience than someone starting but that doesn’t mean everyone is a pro just because they played for a long time. Of course, players who have spent 1000 hours in a game are going to be somewhat good however you shouldn’t be scared of them as a level is only a number and anyone can overcome anyone with the ability.
