My Problem with Low ELO Climbing

General Discussion
1

Ok so like, I’m not about to sit here and say I’m some Master rank support player, but I do understand my own value as a player. I’ve got hundreds of hours into the game, and most of it I’ve bounced between Silver and Gold.

Starting this season I had just joined an Owlet team called Blazing Pegasus and thanks to them I have learned a lot about how to play the micro game, specific things like rotations, positioning, team comps, and overall player management. All of these things have turned out to make me a better player in general.

But what does it matter how good my personal skill is, or how well I can keep track of the game, if the players around me refuse to cooperate and take in game calls to push the team forward? How am I supposed to climb when my team purposefully throws a game?

Now I’d throw it to a bad group of people if it didn’t happened every game. I’ve lost 400 SR in the last few days because of constant trolls, bad teammates, and toxicity. I know i can’t expect Bronze, Silver, or even Gold players to grasp the play style of Goats or how to target call with Dive, but I do expect, from Silver and up, to know that you can’t heal with Lucio and Zen without the proper team. Or that solo tanking as Zarya won’t get us through choke. I do expect players to understand that in order to take space, you have to make space. And if the players around me don’t understand this, then why am I still in the same ELO as them?

If I am able to play with and against high Gold and Plat level players, then why am I forced into Silver? Because you cannot tell me I deserve to be in Silver. I refuse to believe it. And if you think otherwise, then play a few games with me to prove it to you.

4 Likes
2

I think this happens when you learn about how the game is played in higher ranks than you are in. Games in gold simply do not work the same way.

3

Yeah, that’s the beauty of our placement matches! You’ll get placed around the same rank as the last season (+/-100 sr), so it’ll take you a bunch of these to get out of silver if the situation won’t get better.
FeelsBadMan

4

I can agree with this. Starting I never knew how to super jump with mercy or how to orb cancel moira’s ult. But with this knowledge you’d think I’d be able to climb. But it seems to be having the exact opposite effect and it’s frankly annoying. And it’s not just me. I’ll play with members of my team and unless we full on 6stack then we usually get at least one person who won’t work with the team and thinks his pog junkrat is the way to go and we lose.

I’ve seriously thought about buying a new account just to climb with. It’s absurd that I’m hard stuck in this elo with no real way to get out without a hassle.

5

From my experience the players in silver vary hugely in ability. Some of them are completely new to the game & ignorant about everything while others are knowledgeable and understand the characters and team comps. The problem is that in solo queue it is entirely random as to what your teammates will be like. In the end all you can do is your best.

Last season I mained Lucio in high silver and gold with a 60% win rate. I have over 100 hours on him. This season I lost a lot of games and my win rate is 44%. I even fell into bronze. The further I fell down the less effective my Lucio play got because people couldn’t stay alive long enough to be healed.

In the end, I had to switch to playing Orisa and Brigitte much more to get back into mid silver. I just think with supports the lower ranks can be brutal as we don’t have the ability to carry games like a DPS can.

2 Likes
6

It’s absolutely miserable climbing as a support. Not only do you have to have the ability to carry games, you’ve gotta also manage everybody’s poor attitudes and make sure some 9 year olds won’t get tilted and throw the game. And I feel you. I’ve got 200 hours on Mercy. But I’ve found myself playing Lucio and Ana more because of the fact that I don’t have to rely on my team nearly as much.

If you’re a Bronze/Silver player and you’re reading this; For the love of god peel for your supports. You can’t fight if you’re dead. You can’t take the choke without a speed boost. You’re not DSP. You’re not xQc. Stop acting like it, for the love of everything good that’s left in this game.

1 Like
7

There is a point in time you got to realize you can’t keep blaming the team, for a simple logical reason.

If you claim all players are like this, that means the opposing team has the same conditions as you. The only way to deny that inalienable fact is if there is a global conspiracy happening at Activision Blizzard to prevent you personally from climbing.

3 Likes
8

Oh no I get that. Dude, low ELO is like watching apes throw sht at everything. And then screaming about there being sht everywhere. And I’m not omnipresent and stating I’m better than all of them. I’ve been caught playing Duck Hunt with Widows as I rez a Zenyatta for the memes.

But when things get serious, and at the end of the day, when I’m sitting here with 15k Healing at the end of round 1 or 58% accuracy (compared to a terrible 15% average at the beginning of the year) as Ana at the end of the game, and my team is blaming me for not healing them while Rein does a ballet at choke, I know the loss is because I deserve it.

In low ELO Comp is legit worse than QP. You get throwers, trolls, derankers, and overall bad players. And as a person who’s had their eyes open to how this game is played at higher ranks, the only way to truly see if I deserve this rank is if I buy the game again.

1 Like
9

That’s exactly what I am sure of is happening.

3 Likes
10

I love how the name fits the comment perfectly. :rofl::+1:

11

You’re not alone in your problem.

But you must consider this: Even if you are better than the people you play with, you still have to play with them.

Low elos are a crapshoot. You shouldn’t bother making calls, honestly. The truth is that players at that elo do not have the capability to listen to calls and react accordingly. 90 percent of them don’t want to listen to you anyway and if you tell them what to do, they will do the opposite out of spite. There are a lot of top-level players who will tell you flat out that joining voice and making shotcalls in low elos is not only a waste of your time, but a detriment because everytime you open your mouth, someone else on your team loses their concentration. They do not have the skill level needed to absorb calls and react accordingly in time.

The only way for you to climb is to be better than everyone else and pick up their slack. Don’t make calls. Don’t even join voice. Just play whatever hero you need to play in order to win, and play better than everyone else. You’re still going to lose, but you will win MORE if you rely on only yourself and pretend your team is full of AI.

How do I know this? Because I have climbed from the depths of bronze hell into plat on two accounts. Both times it happened once I stopped trying to shotcall, stopped trying to help people on my team get better. I just did it myself.

These people aren’t purposely throwing either. They just don’t know any better, and they have no interest in learning. They are playing to the best of their ability (except for the few people who actually DO throw). Their best is simply not good enough, that’s all.

So my advice is simple:

Stop joining voice chat. Turn off text chat as well so you’re not tempted to shotcall that way. Play a hero you can get high value out of (I climbed with Zenyatta, for example) and don’t worry so much about team comp. Just play that hero. It’s low elo, chances are high the enemy team has 1 tank, no tanks, 1 healer, or no healer. Identify the ‘trouble’ hero on the enemy team - the one who is doing the most work, the one who is giving your team the hardest time. Kill that hero over and over. You’ll climb. It just takes time. Eventually you’ll be with people where shotcalling matters.

Low elo players just don’t play the same as higher elo players. You can play a flanking dps Moira in silver. The enemy team will freak out and let you kill their support. If you try the same thing in plat, you’ll be squished like the bug you are. Different.

1 Like
12

I’ll have to try this. Brig is stupid OP for low elo. Might climb with her until i hit Gold again.

1 Like
13

You know, I am pretty frequently watching fitzyhere, Sombra streamer. Trying for myself some interesting mechanics.

Noted that in qp I make a lot more impact neither rating match. Noted that mostly ppl in qp don’t ignore my hacks and EMPs.

I tried to play the same in rating, expecting more teamplay, but what I 've got? Total ignorance, deaf teammates and 0 cooperation. Also I got blamed for voice chat abuse (tried to shotcall).

Sombra isn’t work well in gold. Cleared by my own.

14

from my experience climbing through ranks in League of Lego’s, i have learned that your win conditions in any given match, change depending on your enemy (and too a lesser extent your team).

in league of lego’s solo queue, it is simply bad tactics to try to ask for cooperation, or too expect anyone to fulfill their role on the team in fashion that will lead to a victory. lets be honest, anyone and everyone is susceptible to having a bad game. it is best to pick a character that u know u can win lane with, u know u can take objectives with, and u know u can splitpush/teamfight with. remember, if u consider your teammates to be terrible, u have to understand that the enemy is at the same level of play (because matchmaking works most of the time), and if u can see the obvious mistakes ur team is making, there is no reason u should no be able to take advantage of the enemies mistakes.

for the most part this translates into Overwatch, by picking a character that u can consistently kill the first enemy with turning the game quickly into a 5v6 (or preferably better), only swapping if u need to counter pick the strongest enemy player. many people will now sputter and foam at the mouth and call me wrong because of my elo. so have fun watching that.

15

My only problem with that is that fundamentally, League is nothing like Overwatch. The way team play is done and how the meta’s shift. You can theoretically win with a dead limb in League, but not in Overwatch. The focus on teamwork stops that from being possible

16

Exactly, all players are like this in bronze and silver. That therefore translates into a 50/50 percent win loss ratio, meaning you won’t climb. Not unless you can output a shed load of damage and are significantly better than everyone in your rank. I can get out of bronze because my strength is low gold but it takes ages to rank up again playing a healer. Obviously it can be done but it isn’t easy and I’m not good enough yet to get out of gold.

17

Solo q and 6man team stacking are completely different things.

Solo q requires flexibility and adaptability, and group play requires knowing your role and executing a plan without mistakes. The latter doesn’t work on solo q.

Try to see where your team hurts, and fill that role. Or, play a hero who is useful in almost every case, like Reinhardt.

While you have the chance of 5 players being bad on your team, in the same time there are 6 players that can be bad in the enemy team.

The chances favour you. If you’re good, you will climb eventually. Or try to find like minded people and form a group.

18

This is probably the one thing most high rank players don’t understand, the fact that most players in lower ranks usually don’t think about teamwork in the game. Don’t get me wrong, some higher ranked players have the empathy to understand the struggles of being in a lower rank.

My personal tip, despite it being hard to find good teammates who can coordinate is try your luck with a smurf. Considering you main support you are depending on your tanks and dps to get the job done. And seeing how they wont do teamwork, my only tip right now would be to maybe befriend a smurf, then when you reach a new rank you can learn from that new rank.

I’m not 100% against smurfing, but other then them stomping people, players who play against smurfs can maybe, and I do say maybe learn a smurfs positioning and aim and then punish it later. But I do understand what it’s like to get stomped.