You are losing because you are not carrying your team

General Discussion
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I feel like this is a common topic lately. A lot of people have been saying that if you are losing, you are simply not playing well enough and should improve so that you can solely carry your team to a victory.

I’ve been primarily maining support lately and I’m having a really hard time wrapping my head around this.

I’m thinking about Mercy as an example who’s whole kit is entirely designed around enabling and empowering the other players on your team. If no one else is performing on your team, ain’t no way you carrying that match alone honay.

So, here you’re probably going to say well you should switch off Mercy and go someone else who can carry. Swapping I can certainly agree with but this mentality about carrying your team feels so wrong to me. Overwatch is a team based game. It’s 6v6 not 1v6. If I were to proceed by going into every match just thinking about how I can win this myself, and screw everyone else - I feel like I’m going to provide significantly less value to my team than if I were thinking about how I can support them to a victory.

So many games that should be so easy to cap but are hopeless primarily due to a lack of team synergy.

I definitely agree with the mentality of not blaming the others on your team and thinking about how you could do (or have done) better but I truly feel a significant discourse between my personal ability to play and support my team vs the rest of the players on teams I’m currently stuck queuing up with. I’ve played this game for years, primarily on console admittedly, but I’ve been on PC now almost this whole year. I’m still stuck at the bottom and can’t climb out.

I’m genuinely interested in improving. Thoughts?

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It’s just that you can’t really control what other people do or if they are even willing to be lead. All thats left is to attempt to carry because you will have games that can’t get worse anyway.

Personally, I feel like overwatch isn’t so complex to where switching is off the table. To me, the biggest jump is projectile travel time vs instant hitscan, the rest is more so knowledge based/teamwork. ( that and that some heros just seem flat out better by being more generalized/independent than others).

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Even on heroes with low solo-carry potential like Mercy, you’ll eventually rank up so long as you’re outperforming your counterpart on the enemy team. It might take a long time though, and really all of these “solo carry” heroes do is speed up that process.

I feel like it’s a blurry line between “solo-carrying” and “supporting your team so well that they have the advantage”. Often you can support your team so well that you’re carrying, even if it’s not blatantly obvious to everyone. I could climb as Bap to Diamond+ without using primary fire. Is it really only solo-carrying and not supporting if all I’m doing is healing?

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Biggest thing I’ve noticed that is a must in any match is determining who on the enemy team is “the problem.”

Figure out who is carrying their team (typically one dps and one support) and shut them down as best you can while the rest of your team deals with the players that don’t cause as much issues.

This should take two full team fights between start and finish to figure out. If you don’t figure out who the problem makers are by then, you’ve probably already lost.

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These are some really helpful thoughts. Thank you!

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Consider that in a team game you shouldn’t have to be carrying just to reach baseline functionality/success.

Either everyone is capable of doing good despite the odds or no one is if even one (usually more) teammates are uncooperative.

OW2 is allegedly leaning towards the former but I have my doubts on that.

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Again with this whole team game argument

It’s ladder. It’s random people. They are on your team, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna work with you as a team. They’re just going against the same people you are.

If you personally improve your own skills at the game, you will climb and have better teammates later on who will want to work with you. If you stay low rank and rely on them though, who is really at fault? It’s you.

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That’s pretty much the mindset that keeps ppl hard stuck, and will even when ow2 comes out, mark my words. Ranking up isn’t something that you are owed I’m sorry, you either become better than most of the ppl at your current rank or you will stay with those ppl, it’s really simple

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Hmm. Interesting thought mcjagger. Thank you for contributing!

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Right, because people need to play like a plat at minimum, and do the jobs of 6 people themselves, just to get out of bronze/silver? Because that’s how the current system works. I shouldn’t have to play two ranks better right out of the gate.

I realize I need to play better in some ways but how is it my fault for being stuck when I am on tank (which has no hitscan options unless you count Hammond’s ineffectual peashooter) with an enemy Pharamercy and my DPS are Reaper/Junkrat and Moira/Lucio and all refuse to swap? How is it my fault when the tanks are feeding their brains out on D.Va/Roadhog by going in yolo-solo and the DPS are taking flank duels (and losing) while I’m desperately trying to stay alive on the point that no one else had touched the entire match? How is it my fault when I throw down Immo field and people walk out of it, willingly, to go chase someone only to be annihilated by the rest of their team waiting around a corner?

How is it my fault when there are leavers galore, pocketed smurfs on all sides making matches pointless so you might as well not be playing on yours or against the other team, and toxic trolls like Battle Mercies, Reddit Lucios, Hi-there-Winstons?

Face it, the current way of doing things is busted.

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It’s not busted tho if you have multiple ppl doing bronze to GM challenges even now, and still able to escape “elo-hell” Again you think you deserve to rank up if you play well enough in your mind. That’s not how competitive games work, you have to play well enough that match to win, sometimes that means being a supportive part of a good team or it means sweating your balls off to make the difference for a team that can barely avoid walking into walls LOL, if you don’t have that carry potential then you as of now are at the rank best suited for you, I don’t understand why ppl think that’s such a bad thing. A game after all is just to have fun for most ppl…

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So, smurfs. You know, the exact people making the comp integrity nonexistent/bad?

Do you have any idea how much of what you’re saying is exactly part pf the problem?

That kind of extreme discrepancy on team quality has no place in a competitive environment. You should be playing at or trying to get close to your best, with and against players of similar skill and effort. Not carrying a bunch of brainless dead weight to a win they don’t deserve or being dragged down because it is once again, UNREALISTIC AND UNFAIR to expect one person to make up for five others plus their own weight.

How on earth can you be so blind as to not see why these are NOT GOOD THINGS and again HAVE NO PLACE in a COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT?

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It simply comes down to this, 90% of Overwatch players either:

A: Don’t care anymore
B: Are just plain toxic and want to ruin the experience for everyone else
C: Are smurfs/alt acc/cheaters just looking to do B.
or
D: Just type all game about how their “high” or “drunk” or spam sexual innuendos

So what’s the point of trying anymore.

There are very few players left who actually just want to play and have fun. I’m done with OW and don’t plan on going to OW2. The game is un-fun and filled with jerks and cheaters.

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These are rhetorical questions, but they expose the fundamental flaw in your thinking. ‘Why won’t people play the way I believe is correct?’

The answer to both scenarios is exactly the same. Stop doing what YOU think is right and go play with your team. How is it your fault on tank against PharMercy? Take the 6v4 against the rest of the team and ROLL. If you aren’t taking that engagement, and swiftly, YOU are the reason your close range team is losing.

How is it your fault when your team is taking flank duels and losing? Because you could be there supporting them and helping them WIN them.

Sometimes it is less important to do the ‘right’ thing and way more important to just play together. If your team won’t, well guess what? You STILL CAN. Go support a flanker. Go hyper aggressive on your engage. Dump support into your flank Hog.

At lower ranks, these plays WIN GAMES. That is how you rank up. Nobody cares if you played ‘correctly.’ Only of you WIN.

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If you’re genuinely interested in improving and climbing in rank, then why are you so hesitant to embrace the reality of what Ladder Overwatch requires (solo-carry potential)?

It is true, Overwatch is “supposed” to be a team game. The reality is, most people are going to play casually and don’t care about winning or losing (consistently) until at least 2.7/2.8.

And at that point you’ll contending with players of your rank, players who’ve dropped from Diamond and will blame you for everything, players who are throwing to de-rank, and Smurfs constantly boosting accounts.

So if you think it ever gets better…. Haha…. It’s pretty universally accepted that Platinum is the worst ranked experience.

Okay, so you’ve been playing for years and haven’t seen any real change in your place on the ladder.

Sounds like you “think” you’ve been doing the right things when you clearly haven’t.

I don’t mean to be rude but that’s the reality.

You say you’re stuck at the bottom?

  • Bronze?
  • Silver?

Doesn’t matter. Treat those ranks for what they are. Team Death Match with an objective.

Your goal should be to kill as many people as possible while helping your team survive.

  • Lucio
  • Zen
  • Bapt
  • Ana

Are great for this.

Which is why YOU need to take control of YOUR games.

As they say in the professional world, nobody cares about your career more than you do.

The same concept applies to Overwatch.

This is probably the worst hero to try and solo-carry on unless you’re an excellent gamer (most people aren’t).

Okay so why are you still playing Mercy if you’re constantly trying to ice skate uphill?

  • The definition of insanity :rofl:

If you truly care about ranking up, this is what you’ll do when your team is not performing well enough to be enabled by a mercy.

Well…. What feels wrong and what is actually required are not synonymous.

Your choice though….

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And tell me, how does that work when the pocketed Pharah is turning your supports into scorched earth because no one peels in those ranks? How about the fact that calling them to group up is meaningless because wrangling your teammates is like pulling teeth? I can call them to me multiple times, I cannot physically make them follow me, out of Pharah’s sightline (or Bastion, it happens a lot with Bastions too), to engage the rest of the enemy team.

So I should suicidally join them and be incredibly out of position, when they can barely aim in the first place, on the offhand they MIGHT pull off a miracle (we are talking about legit bronze/silver players, not smurfs, by the way), while the rest of the team is dying because they’re two players down.

Have you ever tried to solo-heal a team while your other support is off in no man’s land ‘helping’ an ineffective flanker? I have, and it’s miserable.

This is literally just fueling feeding. There is almost no flank Hog doing their job properly in those ranks (especially since most of them are DPS players throwing for tickets now), they exist to fuel ult charge. Same with D.Va a lot of the time, except at least her ult is marginally useful.

I like how you say this as though playing correctly doesn’t make it easier (and may in fact be the solution) to winning in the first place.

You have no idea what it’s like in low ranks, and it shows.

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As stupid as it sounds, but this is the best advice: Don’t die
Deaths are the number one stat influencing if you climb or not, so learning to staying alive means improving your general gameplay.
When you watch your replays be honest to yourself and accept if you suck

Oh and climbing as a support is one of the most difficult roles up to high plat

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Everyone knows that you can’t carry most of your games.
Even if you are a top 20 player on adderall, there are matches you are going to lose.
You don’t really have to carry and win, but the system should be convinced that you are carrying most your matches.

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I think the idea that all games can be carried or all games are winnable isn’t true. Because you can’t force your teammates to play well. You just have to try and enable them somehow.

What I’ve found helps the most is when you win a game, and it felt like a solid team effort, try to get atleast 2 people to group with you.

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One issue that is hard to sift out to me is player ego’s. I’m fairly convinced that most players over inflate their worth. Its easier to see where other people mess up than their own gameplay since honestly people never dwell on their own gameplay enough to really understand the effects they are having.

How many people honestly take the time to go over their own replays and ask the questions. Where did I mess up? In many cases they can’t make an unbiased opinion because they will probably think their opinion is right. Even if they did mess up to everyone else around them they will probably find some justification that they were still right.

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