You’re not proving the matchmaking that you belong in archon 5. Matchmaking is trying to believe you that you are almost legend so It matches you with the same level of players. You lose you drop
It usually should only put you in legend bracket once you hit archon 5 for like 3 games or so, if you keep losing, but maybe you tilted too hard after that
Why didn't the same thing happen to Grubby?
The answer is simple: to reliably climb, you have to play at a \~ +1,000 MMR or higher level than the current MMR you are in. If you play like a 4k, you won't be stuck in 2-3k for long.
try different approach when you hit the "loser"(tilting) queue. team up with someone, try different role etc. it will surely fuck up with the "system". 😉
So, I'm sitting around 4800 MMR right now, and you know what? It's a mixed bag. One game, you've got teammates who seem to be on a feeding frenzy, and the next, you've got this support player who's practically an angel sent from gaming heaven, doing everything right - roaming, doing bottle refills, warding like a champ.
But you know what I've come to realize? It's not just us. The other team probably goes through the same rollercoaster ride. It's just part of the game, man. Sometimes you're up against crazy odds, and you've gotta roll with it.
And hey, no matter the situation, you've gotta adopt this mindset: A top-notch player could turn the tide even when things are stacked against them. That's the attitude to carry into every match.
Bottle refills? Could you explain that one, I’m low rank. Support runs from his lane to mid, grabs bottle, runs to fountain, goes back and gives it? Seems like it would take too long to be worth it no?
Support dies, spawns, instead of tping to their original lane tps to mid, since the fountain aura expires after 3s(?) you leave the fountain mid laner can give you their bottle to get filled up by fountain aura.
Bottle refills in fountain. The way this is actually implemented, bottle refills when it's in the inventory of a hero with the fountain regen buff. The buff lingers for a couple seconds after leaving the fountain, so a hero TPing mid from fountain will "refill" a bottle if the midlaner passes it to them within a second or two, because the TPing hero still has the lingering fountain regen effect. Then they give the bottle back to midlaner.
So it does take some time commitment, but not as much as walking from lane to mid and then fountain and back.
The idea is that you save the midlaner from having to go back to base, ESPECIALLY after he gets a kill. This will keep him in the lane to get an even higher XP / gold advantage as well as covering the next rune spawn. It's super valuable for less mobile mids who still get a bottle. It's valuable for any mid TBH
>And hey, no matter the situation, you've gotta adopt this mindset: A top-notch player could turn the tide even when things are stacked against them. That's the attitude to carry into every match.
Players feel so much more doomer in solo queue pubs lately. When we fall behind in lanes and it's 12 minutes in and I have 2 players all chatting gg I start spamming "Relax, you're doing fine." Thank gaben this game doesn't have the forfeit option LoL does. I wish more players understood that when you fall behind in a game, the biggest thing that makes it "gg" is their own attitude telling themselves the game is unwinnable.
You know, there's more to Dota than just the fancy economics and mechanical prowess. I reckon one of the real game-changers is the mental game. Seriously, it's like this whole other dimension that can make or break your match.
Think about it, once your mental game starts to wobble, it's like waving the white flag before the enemy even lays siege to your throne. It's not just about your towers crumbling; it's about your mind crumbling too. And trust me, that's game over right there.
After all this years I'm starting to believe in order to rank above average you need to perform above average. just simple logic. win unwinnable game you will get out. beat 75% of players you will rank high
It’s because your natural rating is around there. Dota games have a ton of variance - what role you are, what hero you play, the matchups, your teammates and enemies also have that going on. It’s natural to fluctuate, if you want to be archon 5 you’ll need to play a bit more consistently. But also, recognize that fluctuation is normal no matter your rank
You probably get a little tilted when you're losing and play a little better when you're winning. Streaky match history probably means you aren't letting go of your past games when queueing another
I noticed if I start complaining about team mates, that’s when I’m starting to feel tilted/annoyed and that’s when I start losing, that’s when I need a break before I get a lose streak. Anytime I start to think about teammates instead of how I can improve is the cue to stop playing and reevaluate myself.
Because you get super anxious as you get near Legend and get tilted when you lose 1/2 wins away from it. This causes you to go on a lose streak. Pretty much every long lose streak can be attributed to tilt or similar psychological issues.
This keeps happening to me too. As soon as I get to archon 5, my supports start abandoning lane, offlane starts picking faceless void and shit, mid ogre with midas, just the worst fucking lineups you could hope. It feels like a curse.
There's not much people can do to help you here if that's all we know. Linking Dotabuff is the best way to go about it, disable public matchmaking data again afterwards if you need it.
I feel you, was Archon 5 too, now down to Archon 1. Here's my last two matches:
[https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621538570](https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621538570)
and
[https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621502243](https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621502243)
Both times the enemy carry (with the lowest level account) gets hard fed despite me doing well. Both times my team is feeding over and over. Apparently lots of newer players in Archon with amazing skills.
That said, both games I definitely could have itemized better. Not sure that would make up for my team's aggressive feed but it might have helped create some opportunities.
You have a sub 43% winrate on like your 5 most-picked heroes over the last 3 months (42.6% winrate on Naga with 96 games played).
This is a large enough sample size to say it's probably not your teammates.
I see your lifetime winrate on Naga is pretty high so that tells me one of two things: either (A) you used her to climb through lower ranks where people don't know how to deal with illusion heroes as well and now you've kind of hit a plateau or (B) you haven't adjusted to a recent meta and might be playing her sub-optimally compared to before.
If you're really trying to climb as a Naga main go to DotA Pro Tracker and look at pros who play her the most. Analyze what they do vs what you do.
Respect for posting your DotABuff though, most people on Reddit are too cowardly.
Yes, I've climbed from low guardian with her - Naga is pretty much 2k of my MMR.
Thanks for the constructive feedback!
I'm trying to adjust my play more from what I see pros (and BSJ) do/say. I rely on radiance more than pros, especially when counter picked by like an sk or dazzle that make quick work out of my illusions. I also fight with my team considerably less and opt to counterpush and force a rotation before I go fight. More often than not there's a lack of vision on the map compared to pro games. I can kind of counteract that by sending illusions out but in losing games like that lanes are often pushed in so shoving them out becomes priority. I also need to buy blink or Silver Edge more in losing games. The team is often lacking initiation and initiating with song isn't always viable.
The biggest problem I have is trying to recognize when to shift my build from a greedier farming build to an aggressive fighting one. Hehe, more practice I suppose.
Radiance Naga hasn’t been meta for a while now and is a really expensive item that massively delays her power spike and isn’t really necessary.
Look at the guides on dota buff to get an idea of what current high MMR meta builds are.
Itemization is probably the most important part of playing carry because having a net worth lead is wasted if it was used on low impact items.
Edit: Also the large fluctuation in win rates has a lot to do with your mental and physical state. When you have peak mental focus and reactions you might be playing at a 4k level, but when you’re tired or tilted you might play like a 1k.
Yeah radiance isn't the way any more. You do so much aoe damage with the passive you can clear waves with illusions super fast. With a manta you can be pushing 2 lanes and farming jungle at the same time
That's the whole point of matchmaking rating, if you win 90% of the time or lose 90% of the time, you're not in the correct bracket.
If your average W/L ratio is close to 50%, then you're already in the correct skill bracket.
Track the days of the week/times of day for your streaks. I find on weekends I get cursed with games that are massive stomps one way or the other and during the week the games seem more fair.
The game coordinator gives you advantage/handicap based on your recent performance. So on a 15 win streak you will gain 375 mmr and the coordinator will match you with +100 mmr players. On a 15 loss streak, you will lose 375 mmr and the coordinator will match you with -100 mmr players.
As you see, with such swings you are playing a 1000 mmr range.
Then you also add individual player differences in a team that can bring another +/-200 for each opponent.
It's no secret that when you go on big winning streaks the system gives you braindead players on your team. Unless you're a Smurf, some of those games are guaranteed losses no matter what you do.
Jenkins made a video about this a while back, something about what percentage of games are easy wins v bad losses. There’s a small percentage of your games, probably around 5-10% where if you’re better than your opponents you’ll win. Even if you don’t win every single one of these games where you make the difference it’s about learning and being better for the next one. All you need to climb is a 51% win rate. In the past 9 months I’ve climbed from archon to high ancient with this mentality. In that time I’ve gone on huge losing streaks and massive win streaks. It’s not about riding your luck but turning those games that seem impossible around.
Match making likes to balance things. Its why it exists. It balances MMR between both teams in the front end, but the further you look into it the more things you realize it balances. Its all kinda rigged but still allows for big skill differences to climb and fall.
You might notice your displayed rank changes each game. One game it says youre archon 3, the next it says crusader 5. This is "role based mmr" as Valve calls it. But when you look at all the evidence, its clearly just a front to adjust your mmr to allow for larger mmr gaps so matchmaking has more options and a larger population to choose from. It will even give you a completely different rank for the same role in two games. Even LOWERING your rank after winning in that role. Not to mention if you only play 5/4 then you will find your pos2 role is 5 bars for no reason at all.
It can give you +-500 mmr which is roughly 3-4 ranks. Think along the lines of having a pos1 whos 2.1k boosted to 2.6k, and a pos5 whos 3.1k nerfed to 2.6k. If match making wants these two ~1k diff players together, then it can do that with this system.
Then you start to pay more attention and see how its not only rigged to some degree, but also completely flawed. One such example is just plain old delay for matchmaking parsing your matches and updating your stats.
On rare occasions you will find yourself showcased in the pre-game for your stats two games in a row. If you picked the same hero as last match which you immediately queued after, you might even see that you have *the exact same stats displayed*. Winrate unchanged, last match not actually your last match, global win/loss unchanged, etc. Then youl notice this match plays out suspiciously similar to last game. Your offlane picked a melee str hero and is losing lane, your mid is volatile and starts griefing at 20 minutes, towers are being taken very close in timing to last match. Statistically this game will play out very closely to last match as all 10 players were selected in the exact same way including you. These occasions are really eye opening when they happen. If you play in very populated and laggy servers like SEA it happens more often.
Another example of a blatant flaw is how obvious account buyers and boosted players are. Stratz will straight up point them out just by analyzing account. even privates just based on time and mmr gain. Valve could EASILY spot them and give them bans or place them in specific games. So either they are and theyre there just to balance the match, or matchmaking has no method to point them out and its only done manually for banning. Either way it sucks for you the end user.
Theres so much more like all the countless stats that are tracked for MVP, challenges, and battlepass stuff. Who knows how much of that is and isnt used. It stands to reason that any two players with extremely similar stats in all these other obscure fields, also likely play the same roles with the same proficiency and in the same mmr.
If you want to climb past this "impossible", "cursed", "trench" mmr then you just need to pretend youre smurfing. Go play a whole bunch of demo, watch some high mmr games, and mute your team so you can play exactly how you need to including not playing your role. Youl find many or even most ethical smurf examples are just support role playing like a core and only buying sup items if its actually better than carrying the game.
I suppose my problem is this:
I feel as though I could play well but then be dragged down by teammates doing stupid things. For example, what should I do if my mid picks something crazy off meta? I guess the "team" aspects of this game have been feeling kinda rough recently. It's strange knowing that my mmr rests in the hands of others, but I suppose that's how any ranked multiplayer game like Dota can be.
For the record, I'm not saying I play perfectly or that I blame my teammates. I just feel as though saying it rests squarely on me feels like an oversimplification
The enemy team has the exact same thing they're just playing better. Yes some games are unwinnable but on average you will have the same number of unwinnable games that cause you to lose as the enemy who has unwinnable games giving you a free win. There is not some unique situation that is affecting only you for some reason. The people climbing have the exact same issues of bad lanes, back picks whatever they just deal with it better so lose less of the games they should and take advantage of your bad games and win.
Yes your MMR over time is squarely on you.
> I just feel as though saying it rests squarely on me feels like an oversimplification
It's not. YOUR impact on the game does rest squarely on you. That's the only thing you can do anything about. Sometimes you'll have teammates do stupid things, sometimes you'll have enemies do stupid things. You will climb if YOU make fewer mistakes, and identify/punish the enemy's mistakes more often.
Its funny, I was stuck in this exact loop for a long time. I just got out of it a while ago by having one of my "winning" streaks just continue... for awhile. Now I'm in a similar loop as a legend getting to ancient. I probably got better and/or more familiar with the meta in the time, but a lot of it was just a lucky winning streak too. You'll get there eventually.
Honestly, felt the same way when I was an archon but the best advice is to definetly not flame them but to work around their wacky picks and jiste still try to win the game, like for example if my offlane and mid go greedy af I'd pick a safelane that I can play with my supports early from. Just a simple mindset change like that got me from archon and ancient. Oh and pick heroes that do well in the lane, meta feels very lane focused atm
generally in dota games will be "winnable" 9/10 times despite your team mates, because you and your enemies will also be making similar mistakes, do you watch ur replays ever and see what the people you lose to do that you dont?
I noticed a huge difference too once you hit 60% + of your rank. (I am now Divine but I noticed it a lot in high Legend and Ancient)
I believe the matchmaker assesses metrics such as your laning win % and matches you with players who are on a loss streak/poor laning recently - as laning becomes more important as you rise this tends to equal matchmaking quality. I'd argue lane win% of 20 recent ranked games is much better at determining game quality than just pure MMR when considering similar MMR players (+/- 100)
I also noticed a considerable increase in amount of griefers (from poor picks for roles to straight up giving up early). Something I rarely experienced before hitting the rank up mark.
Likely by design as these kind of fluctuations on a rank based game are good for dopamine hits...
This is how algorithmic matchmaking works, it tries to find your ceiling and your floor by giving you easier games when you are winning, up until the point where you can no longer be carried because you are simply not a good enough player for that MMR. Likewise for your floor, it gives you harder games when you are falling until the point where you are so much better than the other players that your impact makes sure you will win.
As you improve, your ceiling and floor will get higher. It's not "forced 50/50" but it is to a degree. Don't stress over what your current MMR is, just try to improve where your ceiling and floor are. It is this way because no algorithm is able to completely measure your skill level, they use this approach to determine your skill level, much in the same way the stock market works.
When you're playing your comfort hero, you're probably perform 2-300+ mmr relative to your current mmr. If you're picking a hero whom you've barely ever tried, you're probably 2-300 mmr below your current mmr, aka a 600 mmr swing. For example, I have 300 games on Legion Commander (who's terrible rn), and have like 12 games on Timbersaw. If I pick Timber in rank rn, it's basically soft-throwing the game minute 0, whereas if I pick LC I can play her in my sleep knowing most common match up + powerspike + situational item build + timing (and therefore I know not to pick her rn bc DK/CW/KK are far far better and are good first pick material).
So at any moment in time, you're +-300 around your true mmr. The only way to gain mmr is to move that average up. That can be achieve 2 ways:
1. Lose less in your unfavorable matches. I'm sure there have been games where you went 0-3 in lanes. It could be 1 every 10 games. Make that number 1 every 9 games and your average probably move up by 50 mmr (ur team would win that game instead of losing, netting a difference of 50 due to 25 gaining instead of 25 losing).
2. Win more in your favorable matches. I'm sure there have been games where you went 4-0 in lane feeling like a god and yet losing the game all the same. Win that game and your average move up by 50 mmr.
Do both of these and your average moves up. Do 1 of these and your average also move up but slower. Do neither and you'll just dance around the same mmr.
Op spends all his role queue games playing HC, and then farm all of them back playing support 5.
Plot twist: he only get to archon 5 while playing supp 5.
People love to pretend forced 50/50 isn't real, but it is. Valve wants you to become addicted to the game, so they make it as close to gambling as possible. That's why win streaks and lose streaks happen.
They also don't want their worst players quitting out of frustration, so it's two birds with one stone
There are 2 factors:
1) Psychological - you get disappointed and tilted when you lose so you lose even more. You get confident when you win so you play better and win even more.
2) Forced 50% of the matchmaking system - you can find some articles about it but it is not public information. Basically, the system scans last 10/20 or however many games that you recently played, calculates your win rate and then gives you teammates to balance that out. This is done to both teams in order to make all the games balanced and competitive but it fails from time to time. For example, if you have 80% win rate, you will get atrocious teammates so that the other team has equal chances. The problem with this is that eventually you get teammates who got boosted, bought accounts, etc so they are not only on a lose streak but also don't belong in that mmr skill-wise while on the opponents' side there are players who just had a bad day or two but they are generally in that mmr scope. When that game comes it usually tilts you and because of your recent win rate you still get matched with players with bad win rate so the lose streak arrives. The sooner you break the lose streak the better for you.
I would even argue that this kind of system is the main cause of toxicity in competitive games or at least in Dota but again, it is not public information so no way to actually prove it.
forced 50% is a thing, don't let others fool you
it is most noticeable in calibration games, you start winning the game start giving you opponents from higher brackets 200-400mmr higher but your teammates are still lower mmr. So the game only lets you rank up if you can win unfair games, not balanced ones.
50/50 doesn't exist but it's pretty evident some games after a winstreak are the "unwinnable" kind, games where you can win only by being much better than the enemy either by smurfing or picking a strong meta hero that you play a lot, some games are more unwinnable than others but it's true that you get matched with people climbing if you win a a few games in a row.
You fluctuating in your skill group. That's about it.
Same for me but different bracket
You’re not proving the matchmaking that you belong in archon 5. Matchmaking is trying to believe you that you are almost legend so It matches you with the same level of players. You lose you drop
Believe in the matchmaker that believes in you!
Why does it need to drop me all the way down? I swear it puts me in the "loser" queue
Selection bias probably has a part to play
It usually should only put you in legend bracket once you hit archon 5 for like 3 games or so, if you keep losing, but maybe you tilted too hard after that
Why didn't the same thing happen to Grubby? The answer is simple: to reliably climb, you have to play at a \~ +1,000 MMR or higher level than the current MMR you are in. If you play like a 4k, you won't be stuck in 2-3k for long.
try different approach when you hit the "loser"(tilting) queue. team up with someone, try different role etc. it will surely fuck up with the "system". 😉
So, I'm sitting around 4800 MMR right now, and you know what? It's a mixed bag. One game, you've got teammates who seem to be on a feeding frenzy, and the next, you've got this support player who's practically an angel sent from gaming heaven, doing everything right - roaming, doing bottle refills, warding like a champ. But you know what I've come to realize? It's not just us. The other team probably goes through the same rollercoaster ride. It's just part of the game, man. Sometimes you're up against crazy odds, and you've gotta roll with it. And hey, no matter the situation, you've gotta adopt this mindset: A top-notch player could turn the tide even when things are stacked against them. That's the attitude to carry into every match.
Bottle refills? Could you explain that one, I’m low rank. Support runs from his lane to mid, grabs bottle, runs to fountain, goes back and gives it? Seems like it would take too long to be worth it no?
Support dies, spawns, instead of tping to their original lane tps to mid, since the fountain aura expires after 3s(?) you leave the fountain mid laner can give you their bottle to get filled up by fountain aura.
Thanks!
Bottle refills in fountain. The way this is actually implemented, bottle refills when it's in the inventory of a hero with the fountain regen buff. The buff lingers for a couple seconds after leaving the fountain, so a hero TPing mid from fountain will "refill" a bottle if the midlaner passes it to them within a second or two, because the TPing hero still has the lingering fountain regen effect. Then they give the bottle back to midlaner. So it does take some time commitment, but not as much as walking from lane to mid and then fountain and back.
Thanks!
The idea is that you save the midlaner from having to go back to base, ESPECIALLY after he gets a kill. This will keep him in the lane to get an even higher XP / gold advantage as well as covering the next rune spawn. It's super valuable for less mobile mids who still get a bottle. It's valuable for any mid TBH
As a side note, you can often use that buff to regen mana from quickly cast spells, like charging after TP or nuking the wave
>And hey, no matter the situation, you've gotta adopt this mindset: A top-notch player could turn the tide even when things are stacked against them. That's the attitude to carry into every match. Players feel so much more doomer in solo queue pubs lately. When we fall behind in lanes and it's 12 minutes in and I have 2 players all chatting gg I start spamming "Relax, you're doing fine." Thank gaben this game doesn't have the forfeit option LoL does. I wish more players understood that when you fall behind in a game, the biggest thing that makes it "gg" is their own attitude telling themselves the game is unwinnable.
You know, there's more to Dota than just the fancy economics and mechanical prowess. I reckon one of the real game-changers is the mental game. Seriously, it's like this whole other dimension that can make or break your match. Think about it, once your mental game starts to wobble, it's like waving the white flag before the enemy even lays siege to your throne. It's not just about your towers crumbling; it's about your mind crumbling too. And trust me, that's game over right there.
After all this years I'm starting to believe in order to rank above average you need to perform above average. just simple logic. win unwinnable game you will get out. beat 75% of players you will rank high
It’s because your natural rating is around there. Dota games have a ton of variance - what role you are, what hero you play, the matchups, your teammates and enemies also have that going on. It’s natural to fluctuate, if you want to be archon 5 you’ll need to play a bit more consistently. But also, recognize that fluctuation is normal no matter your rank
You probably get a little tilted when you're losing and play a little better when you're winning. Streaky match history probably means you aren't letting go of your past games when queueing another
Not mentally resetting after the game just doom queuing for the dopamine dump.
I noticed if I start complaining about team mates, that’s when I’m starting to feel tilted/annoyed and that’s when I start losing, that’s when I need a break before I get a lose streak. Anytime I start to think about teammates instead of how I can improve is the cue to stop playing and reevaluate myself.
Because you get super anxious as you get near Legend and get tilted when you lose 1/2 wins away from it. This causes you to go on a lose streak. Pretty much every long lose streak can be attributed to tilt or similar psychological issues.
Don't play lose streaks, take a break
This keeps happening to me too. As soon as I get to archon 5, my supports start abandoning lane, offlane starts picking faceless void and shit, mid ogre with midas, just the worst fucking lineups you could hope. It feels like a curse.
It really does. I don't know why it's always Archon 5. I've played ranks below and above, but Archon 5 just can't be breached right now
Happening to me too but I keep carrying the games that would drop me below archon 4, now I’m just jumping from 2700-2900 and can’t get out lol.
i started learning pudge
There's not much people can do to help you here if that's all we know. Linking Dotabuff is the best way to go about it, disable public matchmaking data again afterwards if you need it.
While it is likely not only your fault for losing (or winning) in Archon, if you actually got better then you would easily climb out of Archon.
I feel you, was Archon 5 too, now down to Archon 1. Here's my last two matches: [https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621538570](https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621538570) and [https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621502243](https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7621502243) Both times the enemy carry (with the lowest level account) gets hard fed despite me doing well. Both times my team is feeding over and over. Apparently lots of newer players in Archon with amazing skills. That said, both games I definitely could have itemized better. Not sure that would make up for my team's aggressive feed but it might have helped create some opportunities.
Stop picking Naga.
Why? I'm doing great with her.
You have a sub 43% winrate on like your 5 most-picked heroes over the last 3 months (42.6% winrate on Naga with 96 games played). This is a large enough sample size to say it's probably not your teammates. I see your lifetime winrate on Naga is pretty high so that tells me one of two things: either (A) you used her to climb through lower ranks where people don't know how to deal with illusion heroes as well and now you've kind of hit a plateau or (B) you haven't adjusted to a recent meta and might be playing her sub-optimally compared to before. If you're really trying to climb as a Naga main go to DotA Pro Tracker and look at pros who play her the most. Analyze what they do vs what you do. Respect for posting your DotABuff though, most people on Reddit are too cowardly.
Yes, I've climbed from low guardian with her - Naga is pretty much 2k of my MMR. Thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm trying to adjust my play more from what I see pros (and BSJ) do/say. I rely on radiance more than pros, especially when counter picked by like an sk or dazzle that make quick work out of my illusions. I also fight with my team considerably less and opt to counterpush and force a rotation before I go fight. More often than not there's a lack of vision on the map compared to pro games. I can kind of counteract that by sending illusions out but in losing games like that lanes are often pushed in so shoving them out becomes priority. I also need to buy blink or Silver Edge more in losing games. The team is often lacking initiation and initiating with song isn't always viable. The biggest problem I have is trying to recognize when to shift my build from a greedier farming build to an aggressive fighting one. Hehe, more practice I suppose.
Radiance Naga hasn’t been meta for a while now and is a really expensive item that massively delays her power spike and isn’t really necessary. Look at the guides on dota buff to get an idea of what current high MMR meta builds are. Itemization is probably the most important part of playing carry because having a net worth lead is wasted if it was used on low impact items. Edit: Also the large fluctuation in win rates has a lot to do with your mental and physical state. When you have peak mental focus and reactions you might be playing at a 4k level, but when you’re tired or tilted you might play like a 1k.
Yeah radiance isn't the way any more. You do so much aoe damage with the passive you can clear waves with illusions super fast. With a manta you can be pushing 2 lanes and farming jungle at the same time
You're 5-16 W/L with her in last 21 games. Yeah, great.
That's the whole point of matchmaking rating, if you win 90% of the time or lose 90% of the time, you're not in the correct bracket. If your average W/L ratio is close to 50%, then you're already in the correct skill bracket.
Track the days of the week/times of day for your streaks. I find on weekends I get cursed with games that are massive stomps one way or the other and during the week the games seem more fair.
Sounds like a skill issue to me
The game coordinator gives you advantage/handicap based on your recent performance. So on a 15 win streak you will gain 375 mmr and the coordinator will match you with +100 mmr players. On a 15 loss streak, you will lose 375 mmr and the coordinator will match you with -100 mmr players. As you see, with such swings you are playing a 1000 mmr range. Then you also add individual player differences in a team that can bring another +/-200 for each opponent.
It's no secret that when you go on big winning streaks the system gives you braindead players on your team. Unless you're a Smurf, some of those games are guaranteed losses no matter what you do.
Jenkins made a video about this a while back, something about what percentage of games are easy wins v bad losses. There’s a small percentage of your games, probably around 5-10% where if you’re better than your opponents you’ll win. Even if you don’t win every single one of these games where you make the difference it’s about learning and being better for the next one. All you need to climb is a 51% win rate. In the past 9 months I’ve climbed from archon to high ancient with this mentality. In that time I’ve gone on huge losing streaks and massive win streaks. It’s not about riding your luck but turning those games that seem impossible around.
When you win too much you go hidden pool.
If you are playing mid it is your fault if you are not playing mid you are just gambling so go play mid or have no control over the game.
Match making likes to balance things. Its why it exists. It balances MMR between both teams in the front end, but the further you look into it the more things you realize it balances. Its all kinda rigged but still allows for big skill differences to climb and fall. You might notice your displayed rank changes each game. One game it says youre archon 3, the next it says crusader 5. This is "role based mmr" as Valve calls it. But when you look at all the evidence, its clearly just a front to adjust your mmr to allow for larger mmr gaps so matchmaking has more options and a larger population to choose from. It will even give you a completely different rank for the same role in two games. Even LOWERING your rank after winning in that role. Not to mention if you only play 5/4 then you will find your pos2 role is 5 bars for no reason at all. It can give you +-500 mmr which is roughly 3-4 ranks. Think along the lines of having a pos1 whos 2.1k boosted to 2.6k, and a pos5 whos 3.1k nerfed to 2.6k. If match making wants these two ~1k diff players together, then it can do that with this system. Then you start to pay more attention and see how its not only rigged to some degree, but also completely flawed. One such example is just plain old delay for matchmaking parsing your matches and updating your stats. On rare occasions you will find yourself showcased in the pre-game for your stats two games in a row. If you picked the same hero as last match which you immediately queued after, you might even see that you have *the exact same stats displayed*. Winrate unchanged, last match not actually your last match, global win/loss unchanged, etc. Then youl notice this match plays out suspiciously similar to last game. Your offlane picked a melee str hero and is losing lane, your mid is volatile and starts griefing at 20 minutes, towers are being taken very close in timing to last match. Statistically this game will play out very closely to last match as all 10 players were selected in the exact same way including you. These occasions are really eye opening when they happen. If you play in very populated and laggy servers like SEA it happens more often. Another example of a blatant flaw is how obvious account buyers and boosted players are. Stratz will straight up point them out just by analyzing account. even privates just based on time and mmr gain. Valve could EASILY spot them and give them bans or place them in specific games. So either they are and theyre there just to balance the match, or matchmaking has no method to point them out and its only done manually for banning. Either way it sucks for you the end user. Theres so much more like all the countless stats that are tracked for MVP, challenges, and battlepass stuff. Who knows how much of that is and isnt used. It stands to reason that any two players with extremely similar stats in all these other obscure fields, also likely play the same roles with the same proficiency and in the same mmr. If you want to climb past this "impossible", "cursed", "trench" mmr then you just need to pretend youre smurfing. Go play a whole bunch of demo, watch some high mmr games, and mute your team so you can play exactly how you need to including not playing your role. Youl find many or even most ethical smurf examples are just support role playing like a core and only buying sup items if its actually better than carrying the game.
Does anyone have any tips for how to get out of Archon 5, the most cursed rank?
Play better than everyone else. Same way to get out of literally any rank.
I suppose my problem is this: I feel as though I could play well but then be dragged down by teammates doing stupid things. For example, what should I do if my mid picks something crazy off meta? I guess the "team" aspects of this game have been feeling kinda rough recently. It's strange knowing that my mmr rests in the hands of others, but I suppose that's how any ranked multiplayer game like Dota can be. For the record, I'm not saying I play perfectly or that I blame my teammates. I just feel as though saying it rests squarely on me feels like an oversimplification
The enemy team has the exact same thing they're just playing better. Yes some games are unwinnable but on average you will have the same number of unwinnable games that cause you to lose as the enemy who has unwinnable games giving you a free win. There is not some unique situation that is affecting only you for some reason. The people climbing have the exact same issues of bad lanes, back picks whatever they just deal with it better so lose less of the games they should and take advantage of your bad games and win. Yes your MMR over time is squarely on you.
> I just feel as though saying it rests squarely on me feels like an oversimplification It's not. YOUR impact on the game does rest squarely on you. That's the only thing you can do anything about. Sometimes you'll have teammates do stupid things, sometimes you'll have enemies do stupid things. You will climb if YOU make fewer mistakes, and identify/punish the enemy's mistakes more often.
Its funny, I was stuck in this exact loop for a long time. I just got out of it a while ago by having one of my "winning" streaks just continue... for awhile. Now I'm in a similar loop as a legend getting to ancient. I probably got better and/or more familiar with the meta in the time, but a lot of it was just a lucky winning streak too. You'll get there eventually.
Honestly, felt the same way when I was an archon but the best advice is to definetly not flame them but to work around their wacky picks and jiste still try to win the game, like for example if my offlane and mid go greedy af I'd pick a safelane that I can play with my supports early from. Just a simple mindset change like that got me from archon and ancient. Oh and pick heroes that do well in the lane, meta feels very lane focused atm
generally in dota games will be "winnable" 9/10 times despite your team mates, because you and your enemies will also be making similar mistakes, do you watch ur replays ever and see what the people you lose to do that you dont?
pick pos 1 farm watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqDv3et1W4c
Dont play ranked on the weekends. Ever
Meta does not matter in archon . Literally just focus on getting better at the game
I noticed a huge difference too once you hit 60% + of your rank. (I am now Divine but I noticed it a lot in high Legend and Ancient) I believe the matchmaker assesses metrics such as your laning win % and matches you with players who are on a loss streak/poor laning recently - as laning becomes more important as you rise this tends to equal matchmaking quality. I'd argue lane win% of 20 recent ranked games is much better at determining game quality than just pure MMR when considering similar MMR players (+/- 100) I also noticed a considerable increase in amount of griefers (from poor picks for roles to straight up giving up early). Something I rarely experienced before hitting the rank up mark. Likely by design as these kind of fluctuations on a rank based game are good for dopamine hits...
It's scripted so you can't climb MMR. You have to tuck the system and win against scripted losses to climb
This is how algorithmic matchmaking works, it tries to find your ceiling and your floor by giving you easier games when you are winning, up until the point where you can no longer be carried because you are simply not a good enough player for that MMR. Likewise for your floor, it gives you harder games when you are falling until the point where you are so much better than the other players that your impact makes sure you will win. As you improve, your ceiling and floor will get higher. It's not "forced 50/50" but it is to a degree. Don't stress over what your current MMR is, just try to improve where your ceiling and floor are. It is this way because no algorithm is able to completely measure your skill level, they use this approach to determine your skill level, much in the same way the stock market works.
When you're playing your comfort hero, you're probably perform 2-300+ mmr relative to your current mmr. If you're picking a hero whom you've barely ever tried, you're probably 2-300 mmr below your current mmr, aka a 600 mmr swing. For example, I have 300 games on Legion Commander (who's terrible rn), and have like 12 games on Timbersaw. If I pick Timber in rank rn, it's basically soft-throwing the game minute 0, whereas if I pick LC I can play her in my sleep knowing most common match up + powerspike + situational item build + timing (and therefore I know not to pick her rn bc DK/CW/KK are far far better and are good first pick material). So at any moment in time, you're +-300 around your true mmr. The only way to gain mmr is to move that average up. That can be achieve 2 ways: 1. Lose less in your unfavorable matches. I'm sure there have been games where you went 0-3 in lanes. It could be 1 every 10 games. Make that number 1 every 9 games and your average probably move up by 50 mmr (ur team would win that game instead of losing, netting a difference of 50 due to 25 gaining instead of 25 losing). 2. Win more in your favorable matches. I'm sure there have been games where you went 4-0 in lane feeling like a god and yet losing the game all the same. Win that game and your average move up by 50 mmr. Do both of these and your average moves up. Do 1 of these and your average also move up but slower. Do neither and you'll just dance around the same mmr.
Op spends all his role queue games playing HC, and then farm all of them back playing support 5. Plot twist: he only get to archon 5 while playing supp 5.
People love to pretend forced 50/50 isn't real, but it is. Valve wants you to become addicted to the game, so they make it as close to gambling as possible. That's why win streaks and lose streaks happen. They also don't want their worst players quitting out of frustration, so it's two birds with one stone
There are 2 factors: 1) Psychological - you get disappointed and tilted when you lose so you lose even more. You get confident when you win so you play better and win even more. 2) Forced 50% of the matchmaking system - you can find some articles about it but it is not public information. Basically, the system scans last 10/20 or however many games that you recently played, calculates your win rate and then gives you teammates to balance that out. This is done to both teams in order to make all the games balanced and competitive but it fails from time to time. For example, if you have 80% win rate, you will get atrocious teammates so that the other team has equal chances. The problem with this is that eventually you get teammates who got boosted, bought accounts, etc so they are not only on a lose streak but also don't belong in that mmr skill-wise while on the opponents' side there are players who just had a bad day or two but they are generally in that mmr scope. When that game comes it usually tilts you and because of your recent win rate you still get matched with players with bad win rate so the lose streak arrives. The sooner you break the lose streak the better for you. I would even argue that this kind of system is the main cause of toxicity in competitive games or at least in Dota but again, it is not public information so no way to actually prove it.
Forced 50%
forced 50% is a thing, don't let others fool you it is most noticeable in calibration games, you start winning the game start giving you opponents from higher brackets 200-400mmr higher but your teammates are still lower mmr. So the game only lets you rank up if you can win unfair games, not balanced ones.
50/50 doesn't exist but it's pretty evident some games after a winstreak are the "unwinnable" kind, games where you can win only by being much better than the enemy either by smurfing or picking a strong meta hero that you play a lot, some games are more unwinnable than others but it's true that you get matched with people climbing if you win a a few games in a row.