Is it possible to actually get out of bronze and be promoted to gold or plat?

So, I am a bronze player with tank SR 960 and healer SR 906 currently. Now I know what people say about bronze players, that they are poor players, noobs and worth laughing etc etc. While I am by no means expert in OW, I do believe that I am improved. Every game I play in, I have two or more gold whether it is healing, damage or eliminations. I do my best to help my team and while I too make mistakes, I try to rectify them at all costs. In fact, this season, I have more wins in comp than the last three seasons combined. Yes, I performed poorly last two seasons but I did my best to understand the game and heroes properly before jumping in.

The problem is, bronze is filled with players who are too casual and really don’t care about their rank. They consider this as just another quick play and don’t give a damn about teamwork or composition. While there are players who do care and playing with this them is relaxing, that might be just 10% of the total people in bronze. In the end, bronze match comes down to individual skill and your ability to carry your team more than teamwork and when that does not work, you can kiss goodbye to your gained SR.

I will give an example as to how casual people are, in one match, the player playing main tank Reinhardt just went on ahead without the team just because he wanted to ‘charge his ult’. He had no idea that he would instead end up charging the opposition’s ults. No matter how hard you want to improve or play, things like these do demoralize you.

I want to improve, I want to gain ranks and go beyond bronze, silver, gold and if possible, even plat. But as times pass by and matches go by, the cycle of progression and demotion goes on and I get stuck in bronze. Is it something that I am doing wrong? Or is the jump from bronze to the higher ranks a huge task? Is that the reason why people actually get alt accounts? This is quite depressing to be honest.

Thanks in advance for hearing me out :slight_smile:

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Yes! It is possible. It will take time and effort and sometimes thick skin but you can do it. The important thing to remember is that you can’t pick your teammates. You are the only player you can control and improve. Whether you are bronze, silver, gold or higher up, there are always going to be things you do wrong. Find your mistakes and fix them, don’t let the clowns get you down, focus on improving (one thing at a time) and you will eventually climb. And have fun! No point grinding a game if you’re not enjoying it.

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Yes, performance-based SR is a thing. If you’re genuinely playing like a gold player, consistently, then you’ll get much more SR for a win then you’d drop for a loss.

If you’re anywhere below diamond and overperforming, you can climb with a 40% winrate. Even less, if youre smurfing

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Yes, even if you use a controller instead of m+kb. The problem is, if you belong in that rank, it will take some sacrifice to climb out. There are a ton of casuals and smurfs in bronze, but they affect everyone’s games fairly equally and are not unique to any individuals’ matches. Its not just your w/l, your stats will hold you back a lot at that rank.

If you dont have the time to research and practice, consider a coaching buddy. These forums are filled with players who love to point out any and every mistake you make.

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this is true, not just for bronze, but for the whole ladder. if you want to climb you need to focus on improving yourself. this doesn’t mean you should ignore teamwork though. good communication and teamwork is also an individual skill.

The enemy team is made up of the same players that your team is made up of. This is especially true in bronze as the entire tier is considerably smaller than that of Silver/Gold. While it is very frustrating to see your teammates making mistakes, I’m sure if you went back and watched some of your replays, you’d see players on the enemy team making similar mistakes.

Tank and healer are admittedly more challenging in these ranks because they do require more enabling than the DPS role and it can be a lot more challenging to have the kind of impact you need to “carry”.

That said, what might help you would be to change your definition of “carrying”. If you’re on a tank in particular, being able to take out a key player on the enemy team, such as their main tank or main heal; and then getting just one other frag can pretty much guarantee a team fight. Thinking of “carrying” in those terms, in my mind at least, should feel a bit less stressful than feeling like you need to kill the entire team, and cap the point, and heal yourself.

I would predict that if you were to get an alt account, you’d probably place a bit higher on it. Maybe gold. And you’d either maintain that rank and also begin climb on your current account or you’d quickly drop on your alt account into where your main account is. Having a chance to play in the higher ranks might improve your play, somewhat, as a lot of mistakes can go completely unchecked in bronze. That is to say, if you are reflecting on your mistakes, you’ll be able to see more of them and correct them when you play against people who more actively exploit them. But unless you’re using an alt account to play completely different characters, it’ll likely settle in near your actual skill level.

That said, I do recommend it if its something you’re interested in. Having an account where you can learn new characters and just get more practice with the game in general is a good way to climb.

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Nope, not possible. There is a glass ceiling preventing you from ascending.

Yes it is possible and it would take me few hours to do so. But you know why? Cuz I worked my a$$ off since past 3 years watching, analysing and learning from people who were better than me. I started at low gold, being new to FPS games, now sitting at 4200+ and still working on myself trying to improve things and keep thinking what I could do better. If you are bronze you are also casual who lacks of simply everything. Otherwise you would already do your research and didn’t flex your gold medals at the beginning of the post. Gold is an average rank and plat is considered below average even tho their game knowledge doesn’t exist. I’m not saying this to be mean I was hardstuck plat myself, that’s just how it is. What I’m saying is that if gold is average (2k) and you are 1k below that means you simply lack of just everything as I mentioned. It is aim, awareness, gamesense, knowledge, skill just every single thing. You didn’t make any progress if you are 1k sr I’m sorry. If you do want to improve do what I did and simply watch better players playing your heroes, watch guides and learn the game. You can be in plat simply if you position yourself better, make better decisions and die less. If you want to climb even higher than that, you have to learn how the game works and you will understand what has to be done in every situation in order to win the game. As I said it took me a lot of time but I did it by myself without anyone to advice me. If your goal is to be average at the game I really don’t know why wouldn’t it be possible. There are disabled people who made it to gm. Everything is possible and it’s all up to you. I wish you good luck but stop looking at your gold medals whatsoever please. Look at your elims/deaths per 10 min instead and accuracy.

It is possible but VERY difficult as an individual. Find a group and 6-stack until you make it. It took me a whole season of playing a few games a night.

That’s how you get boosted, not learn the game. If he climbs up this way and then plays with strangers in plat, he will drop again to his rank and we will see another post how throwers smurfs and everything caused a huge sr drop for another individual. Best way to learn this game is soloq so your team is changing every single game and in long term you can’t blame anyone but you if you can’t climb up.

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Playing with people who are interested in using coms and attempting strategies is how you actually learn to play the game.

No, Its either he would hold them back or the other way around. You can do things like that if you already have any knowledge of the game but this is 1k sr. He doesnt know the basics of this game. Once he learns basics he can work on teamplay and strats and combos with friends, sure.

I feel you… But wouldn’t he be better off trying to get to Gold and learn in soloqueue there? They’ll still endure Smurf’s, throwers, leavers in gold, but hopefully they’ll get more actual play time? IE: “slightly” less leavers in gold will hopefully translate to more games spent playing all the way through, trying their absolute hardest only to get rekt because of being outplayed, Smurf’d on, or thrown against…?

You want him to play 1k sr higher where he doesnt belong. He would only frustrate his teammates and himself by keep losing games. Imagine yourself 1k sr higher and how would you underperform.

Yes and no. there’s a definite benefit to playing with higher ranked players. But if he truly cant keep up, then he’s not going to learn much by playing respawn simulator. Plus, golds wouldnt have much to teach thats actually correct/useful in high ranks

Better to progress more gradually and linearly

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Lol… I’ve been there… For me, it’s ENTIRELY dependent on a lot of contingencies, primarily “MY” hero selection for the map.

But in general, playing at 36-37xx SR results in a very lopsided game for my team as I tend to be the weak link.

But if a bronze player teams up with 5 other bronze players and they grind together to try and climb out of bronze, the camaraderie is far more valuable than the SR obtained and there will ABSOLUTELY be setbacks along the way (that was me once, I fell back to bronze after reaching gold) which will force all of them to either grow as players, or find a different group (as you mentioned).

Yes and no. If you try to solo your way out its possible but you have to have rng on your side.

Or douo queue out like i did. Did it in 3 hrs.

Sadly i tilted after getting roadhog ball on temple 4 games ina row and dropped back down soooo yea

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No no… I meant bronze group with bronze. Not getting boosted by smurfs.

I hate smurfs and I do not support the boosting practice and I think all boosted players should be banned.

Especially those who buy Masters/GM accounts and play in a range they don’t belong…

That means it would take him way more time since he not only has to work on himself but also has to rely on these 5 other people every single game. They would have to improve together and work on actually fixing their gameplay together as a team. It just doesnt make sense to do so.

It’s definitely some “luck of the draw.” When I started playing, I placed bronze but (even before LFG) I found a group of friends, we started a discord and worked together, developing strats, reviewing games, being hard on each other, and eventually we all climbed out of bronze and silver to gold.

Again, a season later, I fell back to bronze, but because of the mistakes I’d made along the way, I refused to allow that to be my destiny and I grinded out of bronze back to silver and back to gold all in the same season. It really depends on your tenacity…