You have to see passed being stuck there and realize that if you are there, it is because you are not good enough to be out of it. While you may do the things you say you are doing, it still doesn’t mean it’s right. Allow me to elaborate on each of your points, because escaping bronze is pretty straight forward and super simple, if you don’t truly belong there.
Problem 1) Your gold friends still have very little clue what they’re doing, but if you follow them around the map, you’re likely not doing YOUR role correctly either.
Problem 2) Solo trolls - The other side gets this too. This is not an advantage or disadvantage for you, as it evens out perfectly.
Problem 3) Escape velocity - When you exceed a ranks actual skill, you actually rise above not only that rank, but usually rise numerous ranks consecutively until you find yourself in your next “teir” of ranks you get stuck in. This is because the current ranking system doesn’t do a good job categorizing people based on skill tier to an exact science. For example, when you escape bronze 5 because you get good enough, it is likely your “new found skill” will carry you to silver, not just bronze 4 or 3. Bronze being at the very low end of the barrel, players with a higher understanding and faster reactions to abilities can typically carry team fights almost every time regardless of what role they’re in. At bronze level play, there are so many errors made and so many opportunities skipped, that even a mediocre player may appear great when they are in fact not. Once you exceed your skill area however, you won’t have a problem with velocity, I have attempted to throw games due to players being rude to other players in silver games before, and can’t even lose doing some of the dumbest stuff I can think of because the other teams are just so incredibly bad. When you exceed the skill level, you will climb out. You said it yourself, and it still rings true now. Statistically, everyone will end up exactly where they belong, and they already do.
If you need actual help, have someone review your replays and tell you what you’re doing wrong and or what you need to work on. I find that bronze players often lack the most basic of skills including the ability to react to things like not standing in bad stuff for more than a quarter of a second, or letting a telegraphed ability hit them with TONS of time to dodge it. Don’t focus so much on strategy, but on micro ability at bronze level. Play a hero like valla or raynor, where micro means more than anything. It is more important to hone your skills in this way at this low of a rank than anything else. Without being good at this basic function, you don’t have a chance at other ranks regardless.
Focus on awareness and strategy WAY later (gold moving into platinum), as nothing you see in your rank is a good strategy anyways, and always assume that to be true, even if you have a gold calling the shots. You can make it all the way to gold without ever looking at the minimap and no sound with purely micro skills. Not 1 person on your team under platinum is capable of making calls, so just play your best micro game, and attend team fights when they happen, as well as be at the objectives a few seconds BEFORE they’re up.
