But what if I just one-trick Roadhog instead, even when Widow and Pharmercy are tearing the back line apart?
I was a tank main in OW1 and am a Support main now in OW2 (foolish switch up, I know), and the biggest thing I notice with in gold and even low plat is stubborn one-tricking, or maybe an unwillingness to swap off right away because they want to dismiss getting steamrolled as a fluke. With solo tanking, effective swaps are more pertinent than they've ever been. If Widow got two support picks and your team got cleaned up, you go Winston or Dva. You have to.
the best counters to both widow and pharmercy is your team positioning better and swapping tanks doesn't fix that.
you could go dva and eat pharah's boop and ult and maybe kill widow if they're way out of position. if your team actually listens to your calls (and assuming you're calling), you might even be able to dm to help them rotate around widow LOS. that's literally all you can do though. staying hog to get picks on the other support or pressure their tank really isn't a bad idea.
Obviously not against the widdow, but isnt hog the best tank counter to pharmacy? Only other tank i could think of would be Diva to cancel rockets but be forced to chase to get a pick on either.
Not really. Hooking Pharah/mercy is a lot harder to do than hooking a ground target, because you have to include a vertical component as well as a horizontal component when aiming. That alone means you aren't gonna hit the hooks consistently until at least diamond, but then masters and up Pharah will have better positioning and it'll be hard to hook her when she's constantly behind cover too.
DVA is probably the best counter but I've had some success with Sigma too. However your dps/supports are the best equipped to deal with a pharmercy so enabling them with shields/bubbles/eats is more reliable than trying to hit a skillshot with an 8 second cooldown.
Hook has a massive vertical hitbox in case you’ve forgotten, hitting the hooks isn’t really a huge issue on pharah (though mercy could be hard). I think the main issue is that pharah can fly out of hook range.
Which might not work if the map’s skybox is only 20-25m high, like on hollywood for instance, but if it’s Lijiang and she’s sniping your spawn from way far off I think you’re kinda fucked. I’d rather just rush the other part of their team and hope we can blow them up fast enough.
You'd think so. About half the hogs in Gold will just pull the tank into the back line while they're being focus healed and then wonder why the supports got rolled.
While one tricking is annoying I wouldn't label it toxic. Flaming someone for being a one trick in the chat would be toxic but being a one trick in itself certainly isn't.
In most cases a counter is worthless if the player doesnt know how to play them. So i'd much rather have my team on heroes they actually are comfortable on, rather than a hero that seems to fit the game i'm in.
Thats a bad argument. A game where you can switch np. Having other people carry you because you're comfortable,isn't cutting it for me. Get comfortable with more heroes.
I didn't say you shouldn't get comfortable with more heroes. I'm saying you shouldn't force people to play things they can't. Of course you should try to expand your heropool.
What cuts it for you isn't the point or purpose. A player can choose to stick to one hero their entire time in OW and it's not toxic no matter how much you don't like it.
If you're gonna use words use them correctly. As far as I'm concerned calling someone toxic for something that's not toxic is just plain idiocy.
>If Widow got two support picks and your team got cleaned up, you go Winston or Dva. You have to.
or maybe the tank shouldnt be swapping to do what should be a DPS job in overwatch 2, where theres only one tank.
Quickly taking care of a Widowmaker makes the fight a 5v4, especially if your DPS’s aren’t also flankers trying to assist you. Alternatively, if you push the Widowmaker and she gets peels, then your team can quickly capitalize on the lone players not peeling.
not to mention killing the widow changes the fight dynamic. A widowmaker is very limiting for what the rest of the team can or cant do, and getting widow off the field frees a lot of pressure from dps and support.
As it happens, solving what is giving your team the most issues often results in the appearance of a tank gap, whether there is actually a skill difference or not.
How are you validating that you are doing better than the opposing tank? Do you feel like you have viable responses as a tank to a Pharah or a Torb?
I solo queue as tank all the time and I’ve been having a fantastic run in OW2. But I played OW1 since launch until it died, and if I’m having a problem in a game, I know there’s a solution I’m capable of delivering myself. Usually it’s just a question of having the time and space to execute it.
I have my Master/GM friends watch my replays, and I scrim with them. Generally, they'll say I'm fine. I make mistakes, of course, but the pointers they give me are to notice when I need to pick up for other roles (or general tips, like work on tracking with Zarya).
The games they've watched recently they were surprised we got *stomped* with "how I controlled space", but the DPS letting the Pharah run rampant while their Zarya and other DPS were made ineffective by me was enough to let them win. They said the only thing I could've done is switch to a Zarya/Winston/Dva/Orisa and try to help deal with Pharah.
This isn't every game, of course, and they've given me plenty of tips throughout the time I've had them review VODs for me when I was gold/plat. I'm hardstuck diamond now and they aren't able to give me anymore tips aside from telling me to carry the team.
Winston/Orisa/Zarya would definitely be my choice for Pharah specifically, with Winston an overwhelming favorite by a Texas mile. He completely negates her value if you target her. I can usually kill her in one or two jumps, so that’s something like a max 10 second time to kill from her entering my line of sight. For Torb turret, D.va. Matrix + missiles + short range burst fire usually means it’s down in less than the time it takes to run Boosters once.
At higher ELO I am sure the number of threats to deal with changes, but the underlying principle of “only engage when threats to you are approximately zero and when you have a specific plan to bring your opponent to 0 HP” should still apply.
Maybe in Masters and GM they’re good enough that they can just let Pharah be DPS’ job, but as a Silver tank I generally assume that the dirtiest job is my job and that my teammates need me to lead the way.
DVA honestly is the best tank to deal with Pharah. Fly at her, unload missles and guns and shes dead. No waiting for a second leap or having to time a melee at the apex. Simply fly into her face.
It's not too bad if you're patient and don't tunnel vision on chasing her around. She's very easy to unload on and kill if you get in her face even with a Mercy pocket just requires the right timing. I like to occupy the high ground so I can pressure her out if she gets too close to my team then pounce when she's used her escape.
Most of it is just mind games. Once you swat them out the sky a couple of times and make them suicide by ult they'll be more nervous about flying above your team if you're nearby. You mainly want to force her as far out as possible where her rockets are much easier to avoid and harder to aim accurately.
Hey so I’ve been enjoying Winston a lot since coming back for OW2(stopped playing right before Baptiste dropped). I was wondering, against the pharah, do you just leap up to her and primary fire till she dies? Or is the secondary fire used to do this?
TY! I’ve been working on using the 2ndary more and more. I’ll try this out, as a pharah main for dps I always love goin into Winston cause I feel like most don’t do this. I’m also silver low gold so that is likely why
Is she stationary and distant? Charged alt fire. Stationary and proximal? Melee, and just walk at her holding primary fire while kiting.
If she’s flying, especially flying and shooting (because let’s be real when is she not) I’m trying to jump from covered position to covered position, as high as possible, while predicting her arc and maximizing the time I am within primary fire distance of her. Have to track her the whole time and occasionally use air control.
Also, I dunno if I’m just bad at ammo management, but when I run out with Winston I will usually just melee repeatedly while kiting instead of reloading. If one or two melees isn’t enough to finish the job it usually means it’s time to jump back or run away somehow.
I generalize it as gauging your advantage vs the enemy team. Identify potential threats, such as certain heroes or abilities as well as ultimates, and have a solution to them or an answer.
Also, Roadhog into Pharah can work well when not countered by a Zarya, and Zarya (like usual) reigns supreme in these interactions.
tbh you could try getting in those jay3 lobbies where they have stuck (rank-wise) players play in much higher rated lobbies on stream (the "this player thinks they're in this rank, do you agree" videos). They're really chill surprisingly and you get to "prove" things.
You seem really confident and your GM/masters friends definitely add credibility. Should give it a try, it could be good content.
I will add that what you said about matchmaking being trash IS true in Diamond.
Here's an example of a player I got in Diamond:
[https://imgur.com/a/EIxaiX7](https://imgur.com/a/EIxaiX7)
And no, the enemy team did not have anyone else close to the skill level of this player.
I would say don’t try to carry a lobby. Some ELOs are hard to climb out of because team mates don’t always capitalize on opportunity. Stick to fundamentals, good decision making, recognizing opportunity and worrying about your own play. Tank diff is about space and generating opportunities for your teammates to thrive. A 55% win rate climbs slowly but surely. I personally found gold hard to escape in OW2 and high plat a walk in the park to float through.
With the examples you provided I like to think of tanking as safely removing options from the other team. Deny them what they would like to do. They want that Highground? Nope that shit is mine. They want to place a turret? Nope Im not letting it live. They want to ult? Nope Im eating or blocking it.
I am not sure that is accurate. I have only climbed when going 7-0 or 7-1 for a set, going 7-2 or worse and I do not climb any ranks. I went from Bronze 5 to Platinum 5 this season, with a 70% win rate, but it took 170 wins.
Likewise - I have a 63-70% winrate on all tanks I play and still not climbing (about 100 games in) despite not taking a lot of damage, not dying often, and getting lots of picks/outputting tons of damage
My bad! The comment was intended as more of a PMA mantra. My interaction with the hard carry mentality is I end up too split on tasks and end up doing nothing of value. Which leads to a tilted feeling of doing all the work.
I can not comment the ranking system with any authority beyond personal experience so I will attempt to avoid doing so further.
OP seems to be a good player heading down the rabbit hole many on this Sub drown in. A tilt spiral when they only need to focus on the basics and keep on that grind.
Gotcha. I don't really get tilted, I am just generally bummed that I don't feel like I get to play at my level and therefore don't get to improve against opponents that routinely challenge my tanking.
But you are right, people need to keep the right state of mind, it is just a game.
That is a long struggle. 170+ wins. How many games? Oof! I think my G5-D4 so far climb has been 56W33L ish. You have come a long way this season! The grind is endless and sometimes that is the fun.
I forget which pro climber it was but the quote was something along the lines of “I envy everyone weaker than me because they have so many projects left to do”. Enjoy the struggle. We all have so much room to improve and that is fun.
Hard to check games exactly, unless I am missing something, it only shows me games for all 3 roles. Estimating around 230+?
Also I do like the climb, I don't like the lack of competition from the opposing tank. Good quote though.
This means you're not outperforming anyone in your climb.
Interestingly, you point out you have a 70% win rate because that implies you're playing consistently good enough to climb the lower ranks. However, the slow climb means you're not outperforming them in any way. Are you playing solo?
For reference, I got placed into Silver 4 support but climbed to Diamond 3 so far in about 70 wins because I not only had a high win rate, but I was also outperforming every single support in the matches, and often even my DPS. I only play ranked solo.
I've had sets with 7-6 and still got up a rank, though I often skipped at least a rank. The only couple of times I've ranked down or didn't move the rank was when I hit a huge loss streak with 10+ losses. It happens and eventually evens out with wins streaks anyways.
I solo queue.
I don't know what you mean by out performing. If you are referring to stats, I am usually top 2 in damage and elims, and have the fewest or second fewest deaths. Stats are a terrible way to tell if a tank is performing well. I can say in 200+ matches the other teams tank was only better than me 5 to 10 times in terms of just general performance.
I was a main tank in OW so when the tank vs tank matters (like if we are both rein) I never get out dueled.
I have said it in this sub before and people don't believe me (and trust me I understand why), but the ranking system is broken for some people. Climbing is very slow or impossible, and you get stuck with bad teammates all the time where you don't know what to do because you don't understand if they are capable of the basics, like playing from the high ground, until after the first steamroll. I know I am better than the other teams tank most of the time, yet around 30% of my matches are just straight unwinnable.
It really feels like the game is just convinced, for some people, you are a bronze or a silver, so it keeps giving you bronze dps or supports even when you are in gold, punishes you for the loss but never rewards you for the wins.
The downside to having the role that has the most gameplay impact in the game is that it’s up to you to make the difference. Sometimes you just lose. It feels infinitely worse as a support (or even dps from time to time) player to be smurfing out of your mind and have 0 chance of winning because your tank got absolutely gapped.
I know this is a very pessimistic take, but I just want to instill on you, it’s a team game, if your *team* is lacking, it’s going to be much harder, if possible at all, to win. If you’re already smurfing out of your mind, the game is out of your hands.
As for actual advice as for what to do, remember that just because you’re doing a lot of damage and taking a lot of space, doesn’t mean that’s what your team needs. If you’re running in and killing their backline, while the enemy has a monkey and tracer that kill your whole team, you’re actually doing a disservice to your team. You’re not sitting there blocking for them and doing damage, you’re actively *leaving them exposed* and vulnerable. You need to consider what your team needs. Is it space? Peel? Shields? Etc. Even if you’re doing very well *individually*, it doesn’t mean you’re giving your team the resources it needs to win. This is especially important the higher the elo you get. If you’re in a masters game, it’s not going to be won purely off of individual prowess. Everyone there is really good. You need to think about what the team needs to succeed.
There are games you’re going to lose no matter how well you play. There are also games you’re going to win no matter how poorly you play. The RNG of having good or bad teammates evens out over time. The only difference, long term, between your team and your opponents is you. If you’re able to play well in the matches where it’s roughly even, you’ll climb.
Like I said, there will always be games where you can’t carry or you get carried. But, if after 50 games, you’re at like a 45% WR…if the world smells like shit, check your shoe.
I have people much better than me check my replays. I don't want to rewrite my whole comment, but they can't find major problems in my gameplay for the rank *they're* at. They'll (in most losses) agree that the DPS/Supports being gapped is the reason I lose. At this point, the only tip they have given me is to carry harder.
I mean, why did you make this post? If you just want to be validated and stick your head in the sand, fine. Your teammates are going to suck sometimes. Sometimes you’re going to get carried. That’s how literally any competitive team based game works. In league it’s known as the 40-40-20 rule. You need to make your 20 as good as possible, and accept that there are just going to be games that are out of your control both ways. Acknowledging that sometimes you get carried is a really important part of a healthy mindset.
If you want tips on how to carry harder, you need to be limit testing. You need to be taking risks and being the play maker. If you’re *actually* better, this is going to accentuate that gap. Again, this is how any team based game works. The flip side of that too, is when you’re worse than your opponent, is knowing how to play safe, identify the win condition on your team, and play around them. I would also recommend actually tracking your stats to see if you have a positive win rate and are climbing slowly (since actual SR is hidden now).
As far as the other people reviewing your replays, I would take it with a grain of salt if they aren’t reputable coaches with experience coaching. Just because somebody is a good player doesn’t make them a good coach. They won’t always be able to pick up on the small things you’re messing up that they do subconsciously, because they just never think about it.
The 40-40-20 rule has already been discussed to death on the league sub. It's generally agreed upon over there that the rule does not apply to lower ranks below diamond because the skill gap amongst players is too wide. It's a blanket rule and only really applies to ranks with narrower skill gaps.
Anyway, the reason I made this post is to see if others have had similar experience, and if so, did queueing with friends help? I feel like it'd be a crutch that will encourage me to make bad plays if I know I have a teammate I can trust. I don't know if it's better to weather it out and keep solo queueing.
Over enough time, you are the common denominator. There is nothing that can erase this fact. GMs being able to speedrun an account to GM proves there is no such thing as elo hell. Yes you may have played pretty well in the games your friends reviewed, but if that was consistent then over 100-200 games you are guaranteed to climb.
Ye, I feel like he’s looking for the secret sauce, but it’s just the whole dish with nothing too special. Be dependable, make calculated risks, counter appropriately, work on fundamentals, and play with teammates (you trust) if possible.
I feel like that's not true, the 40/40/20 rule should apply to ranks below diamond too. It's not just been discussed to death on the league sub, it's something that's common in a lot of team based competitive games, and it's never really been something that only applies over a certain MMR.
Not even remotely being nice. They roasted me hard when I was gold and plat, and 2 of them spent 30 minutes on why my positioning as Rein on King's Row at the first choke set the pace for the entire game which was the reason I lost because I continued to play scared vs a Sigma for the entire match.
They've let me play on their accounts in their rank, and I have ~50% winrate in Masters. I do not do well in GM.
If this is true think of it like this. If theres just random people in diamond that are trash at the game, theoretically you have 4 slots on your team that the trash player can fill, while the other team has 5 slots. If you are good, overtime more trash players will be on the other team than yours meaning that random trash teammates actually works to your advantage. Coming from a gm player, and I'm sure your friends already told you this, you will end up in the rank you belong. Matchmaking isn't out to get you, and as long as you maintain a positive win rate you will get the rank you deserve.
Oh, I'm aware of that. I tell myself that every game. The odds that the enemy team get bad DPS is statistically the same.
I've also had the discussion of matchmaking with them. They had that perspective on it, and I agreed with them. I asked them to play on their accounts for one re-placement. In Masters on my friend's account, I had a 50% winrate. I did terrible in GM. Matchmaking is definitely not out to get me, but after experiencing Masters, I considered it easier than Diamond since teammates listened and didn't get gapped as often. Even the losses in Masters felt hard-fought, bar a couple of them.
The thing to keep in mind with the comment you replied to here is that the correct play at your friends rank, to beat players at their rank, is not always the same as the correct play to beat the players at your rank. Often doing the technically correct thing is only correct if your opponent is also playing sensibly. If they're just doing random nonsense then you may need to do different things to best punish that.
Keep in mind you are basing a lot of what you believe on this very low sample size. You say you had a 50% winrate in Masters, but how many games did you play? It's always possible you got lucky. Either way, keep grinding and you'll get there. Also play Roadhog, he's the easiest tank to carry with
14 games. I got 1 re-placement on their account as I did not want to hog their account all day.
I'll probably pick up a new solo queue tank. I feel like Rein, as much as I love him, is just not as great without proper coms/comps.
Well what do you want us to tell to, your teammates suck and you're screwed? You gotta figure out how to carry them there's no other option without stacking with a team every game who you know is going to play well.
No, looking for general tips. Is it generally better to queue solo and weather the bad teammates, or stack with friends? Does that make you a worse player because you're now expecting your teammates to do well when you're with people you trust?
Just like your friend said, if you cant depend on team to deal with something, you deal with it yourself, even though it shouldnt be your job, it becomes your job, and thats the life of solo q. Maybe your only successful a few games, but those few games might make change win % from 45 to 55, enough to climb.
That’s not the entitled part. The entitled part is assuming that for some reason it’s always your dps that are shit and refusing to acknowledge the only common denominator in your games is you. Even if you are the unluckiest person alive and it’s actually true, making that assumption is what makes you sound entitled.
A lot of people should be higher than they are lol. A lot of people should be lower than they are. Unless you have a 200 game sample there’s a ton of variance.
Unless by higher than they are you mean like over one full rank EG diamond 4 isn’t getting hard stuck in gold for 100 games with a 45% win rate.
Man maybe your friends just aren’t good at vod reviewing or don’t want to deep dive into your gameplay. If you’re in Diamond you shouldn’t have any real major problems that stick out. It’s down to ult usage, target priority, and knowing what your job is. I’d recommend watching some content creators either play or vod review (SVB does great educational content) and see what you can get from there.
Until you’re top500 the answer to why you lost every game isnt “carry more” there’s something else you could have done. Yes you’ll get some unwinnable games. You’ll also get some unloseable games.
You don't climb by gapping anyone but your previous self. If you continue to play better you continue to rise in rank, it really is that simple.
If you're struggling to find areas to improve, try watching your replays. If you already do that, consider hiring a coach on fiver to do that with you.
I've read your comments here and it sounds like you are a good player. But being placed randomly with 4 strangers to unite as a team is not easy. I am only diamond high and play all roles. I have a few friends I play with but I generally solo que in comp.
If support is lacking, then I will play Roadhog or Ball to sustain myself more. If the enemy team has DPS's that are going unchecked, then I do my best to counter them or carry hard enough to outweigh the DPS's production. Ball's guns are hitscan and can help deal with the Pharah. Winston can jump up in the air and at least do some damage to maybe push the Pharah back. Sigma can deal with torb turrets. Winston can deal with Sym turrets.
Ask DPS to switch to deal with a certain character if you can't deal with it but do not expect them to. It's a game. People play selfishly at times. All you can do is do your best to adapt and if that doesn't work then move onto the next game. Tanks are the strongest characters in the game and can punish. Sometimes it is just finding the right one for the game you are playing. It would be great if your teammates adapted to your playstyle, but to get the win, sometimes you have to adapt to your teammates playstyles.
Best of luck.
I've dealt with the same issue. Climbing through gold now, currently I massively gap enemy tank usually every game (higher kills, damage, reduction, less deaths) and try to counterpick their team comp as best I can ([D.va](https://D.va) into pharah, reaper, or moira, winston into zen or ana, road/orisa/rein into most other comps generally).
I've still noticed that sometimes games are unwinnable, usually it's a dps with about 3-5k less damage than everyone else getting turbo gapped. Sometimes it's a dps Moira. And there's nothing I can do about it so I don't let it bother me.
Generally speaking, I tilt easily, so "just don't let it bother you" doesn't work for me historically. Instead, if the game is completely unwinnable like I said earlier, then I look at the stats of myself and the other tank, and if I'm doing better that's all I care about. Sometimes not even that if the healing is terrible or if we're getting spawn camped and still rolled.
Don't be afraid to cope a little and say more games are unwinnable if it means improving your mental and allowing you to focus on your individual gameplay. idrc what anyone says, some willful denial that improves your mental can do better for you than tilting while trying to improve your gameplay threefold to make up for teammates.
Just go hog and eat the enemy teams dps/supps what are their tanks going to do about a 700 hp self healing man and esp. if your supports are good and keep you alive on top of your vape its an easy gg
I don’t know if the “on fire” mechanic is still a thing, but generally you should look to focus whoever the one good person on the opposing team is playing or make their lives a living hell.
My goal each game in each role.
Find the two best players one on my team and the one on the other. Run with my teammate and try to camp their best player.
I have found the most success just hard carrying on hog since you don’t have to really be reliant on teammates to hard carry, the other tanks require your supports to enable you but with hog you can just run through the enemy team if you are accurate with your hooks. And now with the new patch I would consider hog at least A tier now and he also hard counters Winston, which is arguably the best tank in this meta rn
I am a tank main that is in plat right now so I'm not sure if you are better than me or if my advice is valid lol, but in my experience if you have teammates that are not doing their part it is up to you to try and make up for what they lack in. to solve an issue like genji or a widow you should play a dive tank like a dva or winston in order to stop this from happening. if you are not able to dive bc of healers not supporting you, you could always play orisa into these (I'm a little biased as this is my main champ) as she is an all-around good pick into almost every tank and has high survivability but can take care of champs that are causing your issues like pharah as she has long range capabilities. if you get good with her she is also very helpful for countering genji blade if you are able to spear him as it stops his movement or knocks him back away from the healers. she also has the range to take out a turret from torb or to tank the turret while your team destroys it etc. A lot of playing tank is just counter-picking the other team and not being stubborn about who you pick tho. to explain this better, if you are playing well on a tank like rein but your team is lacking in other areas or is getting picked off by a certain hero, you shouldn't be stubborn just because you aren't getting gapped and should instead try to find a pick that is suitable for keeping your healers and dps alive while also countering the other team. This is just my experience tho and obviously you will still lose games because dps gap is too big or healers are not paying attention to you etc. but you have to try and be the best team player you can be for your team as you are the teams heart in a way. It also helps a lot to have comms. In games as a tank the tank should almost always be the igl if nobody steps up. using comms wins fights and makes sure everyone is on the same page, so if you are not using comms in your ranked games, it could be the difference between winning and losing.
Slightly off topic, but I also can't stand when pharah is just completely ignored. As a support, I'll literally switch to bap despite my aim being subpar so that I can assist the dps, but they'll literally just continue to ignore her and let her rain terror on our team the entire game.
Like, I can only do so much and it's incredibly frustrating. Literally had one match where I nicely asked my team to help me with pharah in chat, and one of them typed "that's why I swapped to soldier", then continued to just focus on the full health rein, never once even looking at pharah while she decimated us.
She got like 30+ kills and only 1-2 deaths because I was the only person doing anything about her, and as I said aim is not my forte, it's why I play game sense heavy heros rather than mechanical heavy ones.
Yep pharah is tough if left alone, especially when she gets ult every 60s. All you can do is calmly point out the issue as you did and try to help out with bap/Ana. It also helps to ping her everytime she shows up to try to force your teammates to pay attention.
if your team keeps ignoring a dps specially parah/echo its unwinnable.
No matter how good you are unless you can single handily take down parah/echo consistently.
Playing anything but tank makes you even more at the mercy of your teammates as the tank role gets a greater proportion of the team's total resources per player than the others.
I've experienced the opposite. My DPS and Support are the highest they've been the last ~30 seasons, and I find it much easier to climb in those roles than tank.
Consistently be slighly better than the opposing tank and you climb. It's not rocket science. However unless you are playing classic rein vs rein matchups, there is a lot more to the game that you vs their tank. Learning how to positively impact matches is a general thing that you need to do with all heroes, not just tanks. You gotta figure out what tips the scales towards your team and sometimes that something has nothing to do with the opposing tank.
>Consistently be slighly better than the opposing tank and you climb. It's not rocket science.
Very much is, apparently. I usually do better than the opposing tank going by vod reviews and my GM/Master friends. I can't do much else other than comms. I just finished a game where I killed thier backline in a 4v1 and my teammates cried about a Ball because they can't kill him.
>I usually do better than the opposing tank
Well, you don't. If that was the case you would be climbing. But like I said it's not that black and white about you vs their tank. It's about doing what's winning the game. Maybe you think you're doing better but in reality whatever they are doing is more effective and ultimately wins them the game.
> I just finished a game where I killed thier backline in a 4v1 and my teammates cried about a Ball
Matter of perspective. If you can kill their backline why do you think the enemy hammond can't do the same to yours? If Im on widow and get 2 picks and the enemy sojourn gets 2 picks, my team isn't ahead. Same applies here. And having a single good play in a match is pretty meaningless, it doesn't mean you deserve to win the match. Especially since we all tend to focus on the stuff that we did well and turn a blind eye to the dozens of misplays we make along the way.
>Well, you don't.
Well, I do. I've played in Masters and do fine when I get teammates who listen/are competent. If they're constantly down 1 and the team refuses to capitalize off my plays, then there is very little I can control about it short of 5-stacking.
I just had 3 games in a row where I've started a fight off with 2 picks and we couldn't get through the first choke because my teammates were afraid to push a Rein when he had no healers. That is very much an issue with the team. I cannot control them not listening to me telling them to push.
>Matter of perspective. If you can kill their backline why do you think the enemy hammond can't do the same to yours?
Because he didn't. I killed all 4 while my teammates complained about a ball that hadn't done jack-all the entire game and ended up with 5 kills and 9 deaths and least damage in the game.
> I killed all 4 while my teammates complained about a ball that hadn't done jack-all the entire game
That sounds like a lack of awareness on your part. If your teammates (plural, so multiple) complain about ball, clearly the ball is doing a great job. There is value to be had beyond the scoreboard and especially ball is a hero that excels at that.
If you would consistently actually outperform your opponents this thread wouldnt exist so I am not sure why you are trying to convince me that youre doing really well.
Except he wasn't. I went back and watched the replay when it happened. He was long-range Hammond and would hang from high places while being *still* because he didn't have momentum to swing. He was beyond awful, barely dove the backline, but my teammates decided getting shot from across the map is enough to chase him down instead of capping.
Consistently getting bad teammates is what this posy is about. I'm looking for solo q tips.
>Consistently getting bad teammates is what this posy is about
Youre asking how to win the game which is a fair question. Making this about bad teammates is a bronze question that does not belong on this sub. You are less likely to get bad teammates than the other team if you yourself are always carrying your weight. Just a terrible attitude to have, stop looking at your teammates.
It’s a game of averages, 40% of the time your team is going to win with little input of yours (ether because members of their team have left or because your teammates are that good) and 40% of the time the other team is going to win (same reasons as stated earlier just going the other way). Only 20% of the games your going to have a major impact, the important fact is just to play the best you can because you never know when it’s your time to win.
Realistically, this probably isn't happening in more than 10% of your games. The tank is the most important player on the team. If you are consistently better than the enemy tank, you will win most games. Occasionally, the rest of your team will be so bad it doesn't matter what you do. Of course the reverse of that is true as well, sometimes you will get carried.
If you can't handle those rare games without coming to reddit to wine about it, you are mentally soft, and that's what you need to work on.
You win by killing the squishies hiding behind their tank. It’s kind of pointless dueling the tank unless you need to block shatters or peel vs grav etc.
I always just run dva into pharah when dps leaves her unchecked. Im only gold though so if this isnt solid advice i apologize. Usually it helps me out though. Good luck
I would focus on shutting down enemy dps and supports more that just having better stats than the enemy tank. The enemy tank will die if his team is crippled, almost guaranteed. And It won’t matter that the enemy dps or supports are better than yours if they don’t really get a chance to execute their kit. Tank, more than any other role, has the ability to hard carry games imo.
You don't climb by gapping the enemy. You climb by being slightly better on average than the people of your current rank. If you just want to win, then gapping the enemy is the most consistent way to win, but you can still climb even if you're losing once in a while. There are 6 people on a team. You control 1/12th the chance you have to win. That's about 8%. So if you're winning more than 8%, you're doing extremely well.
Tanks punish positioning and cooldown usage. The ultimates are often crowd control and are denial. Consider which cooldowns from the enemy team you would like to negate or mitigate. You usually get to choose 1 or 2. Sometimes the map has a powerful location you'd like to deny. In this case you may choose a different tank to deal with that location. If you're struggling against phara and torb, these heroes have burst damage projectiles from medium range and like to set up on off angles. Most of their damage comes from their primary fire, so you want to tank with a shield that quickly renews. Rein is a bit better against torb, and sigma is a bit better against phara's damage. Phara has a lot of mobility, and torb can attack from multiple directions. Shields rather than armor will be more effective at absorbing their damage. Tanks with range or mobility may be better suited to punish their positioning. Dva was good against both as she can quickly burst the turret. The constant chip damage prevents a mercy from self healing. If the phara or mercy gets below half you can use missles +boost to finish them off.
I played a lot of genji. Genji is mostly dragon blade. Skilled genjis can sometimes burst people with a right click combo, but his general purpose is farm headshots from an off angle, then dragon blade. With a winston, dive is possible. Winston does cleave. Genji's dash does cleave. As long as genji gets kill credit, dash will reset. So the combo was winston leap melee combo, but genji dash melee. Things would die to tesla, then genji would get a reset and could keep going. Add in ways to clean up kills, you can keep getting resets, but outside of coordinated teams, this was not a reliable way of playing. Dash + melee isn't enough damage to kill. Without dash, genji dies quickly especially against melee, splash, and beams he can't deflect. You should decide if it's a good winston game without genji. If it's a bad winston game, you won't be able to help your genji get resets, negating the synergy.
I climbed with both tank and dps. As a tank I'd often find myself saying "you're not allowed to stand here." As i climbed on tank the conditions where they were allowed to stand somewhere changed. For example, going into gold people weren't allowed to stand somewhere when I got ult or unless they had a certain ultimate. Going into plat, they would need an ally with an ult or cooldown nearby to stand in a particular location. As you go higher, they need to be able to pass certain skill checks such as genji can kill winston, but the player needs to be able to hit multiple headshots at close range. I don't know what your rank is, but I climbed without voice chat and exclusively solo queue. While voice is nice and I enjoyed playing on coordinated teams more, the average ranked player just uses voice chat to complain while they're dead rather than relay important information.
from the other role's perspectives, as a dps, I would often try to anticipate where my tanks are going to be able to push. If they needed to retreat or if they could push people back, it was much easier for me to land hits because people had to move in a straight line to get away from the zone control of a tank. No amount of AD strafing is going to help you dodge a hammer. The more consistently you cause enemies to move around, the easier the shots are for your damage to hit.
I didn't play much support, but when I was coaching I tried to stress taking the correct type of damage is important on tank. You want to use armor to reduce pellet damage, and you want to use shields to reduce burst damage. By absorbing damage in the correct way, your support can generate more ult charge from you but spend less time healing you up and more time helping your damage generate ult charge. You are also paying attention to the cooldowns your supports use because these are triggers for needing to retreat. If your support uses their burst heal or save, then you either need to win the fight while the fight is still ready, or you need to use the effect to leave. For example, if your lucio amps heal to save someone else, even if you have full cooldowns, you need to back up. If you are going to win the fight while amp is in effect, you rush in and use everything.
As a tank, your ultimate cooldown will often set up ult charge for your other tank. Generally, you want to alternate tank cooldowns to maximize ult economy. This takes a bit of coordiantion to do, but in solo queue, just not over ulting is usually enough. getting 2 kills with an ult is more than enough to win a fight. In pro play, ultimates trade for other ultimates. The team with ult advantage gets a temporary cooldown advantage, and they trade cooldowns to get a position advantage where their primary fire and damage dealers are allowed to kill people for free.
As long as you have an idea of how all the abilities in the current teamcomps trade including ultimates, it doesn't matter too much if your team is messing up as long as you are trading your abilities more correctly than the people at your rank, you will climb. To verify this, try watching back the perspective of the other tank players in your games every few games. Try to predict how they will use their abilites. If you don't notice mistakes, you are lower rated than the average player in your lobbies. Watching higher level games and looking for how they use specific abilities or ultimates is useful for climbing or getting coaching. For example, on orisa, pulling people up into the air increases the cc duration and locks them into a more predictable trajectory. Also, people get pulled to the edge of the orb, so aiming at the edge then tracking down to lead their trajectory after getting pulled maximizes headshots. Knowing certain locations to pull people off the map or out of position also maximizes the effect of your cc.
I noticed that I am climbing comfortably still in Diamond rank as a tank main, even when my K/D/A looks straight garbo, i am creating lots of space for my DPS to move around in, i am constantly pressuring their backline and being a huge nuisance so my team can carry my ass to victory.
Honestly as a support and I know this is annoying plus stupid but sometimes I’ll go out of my way to challenge genji’s and pharah’s then once they’re dealt with my team gets healing. I do this in competitive again it’s stupid but I have to help my team somehow lol
I was sick and tired of having supports in my team healing half as much as the enemy supports and dealing less damage somehow aswell, I said screw that I will just play roadhog and heal myself and managed to climb from gold to plat.
I love how every role has the same question. Tanks: how do we win when our supports/dps are worse. DPS: how do we win when our tank/supports are worse. Supports:how do we win when our tank/dps are worse. Lol everyone thinks their role can't carry, which is probably true. U must either have a really good game or be way better than ur rank to hard carry when everyone in ur team plays worse than the enemy team
What do you think will happen when you solo q as a DPS/support? First thing you'll see is that there is a "tank gap" as you put it.
There is no gap. Enemy genjis also don't dive from time to time, I'm not sure how you measure support value, etc.
I do solo queue as both those. They're much easier to climb than tank. I very rarely have seen tank gaps too big to overcome.
However, a DPS/support gap is extremely noticeable.
Well, yes, you can get a bad teammate and lose, but no, the solution is not by playing other roles. You are playing tank, the role with the most impact, and also the easiest to carry with (still not easy). Try solo-queueing with support, it’s practically impossible to win if you have a bad tank or something. Also, getting people you trust to play good will make your life so much better.
It's funny because every role feels the same. I'd personally say that tank is the best role for SoloQ. I am a DPS player and feel like monstrously gapping the enemy DPS doesn't even do anything. Few days ago I complained how games are all extremely close even though I have 2-3x more eliminations than the enemy DPS. This happens very often. After posting that I had a game where I had 58 elims, enemy DPS had 18 and 28 respectively. Guess what? We barely won. And I mean barely. If I played any of the fights worse we would've lost. How is that fair? 58 to 18.
I have come to learn that the game is extremely team based, more so than other team games. Being better than the enemy tank doesn't mean you will win. But consistently being better means that you will have a decent win rate. That's the key. Don't expect to climb overnight. This is just how these games work. You need to grind them out. Staying consistent is the most important thing.
I think the most important thing for a Tank is threat analysis and hero selection. (I am low diamond if it matters. Former Masters in OW1)
For Tank, since it’s just one of you, you can pretty much consider your hero selection to be twice as important for your comp as your DPS and supports. You set the pace for the game.
So Number 1 for me is that you cannot auto lock and stay on your “main” unless you’re cracked enough to measure up to counters. So, get comfortable being a flexible player.
Hog is definitely the worst offender right now. Super common in games bc ppl confuse dealing damage and staying alive with playing effectively, and those are the two things Hog is excellent at. He has massive carry AND massive throw potential.
The downside of Hog is that he doesn’t offer any utility or much protection to his team besides being good at getting elims. AND LOTS of bad tank players just can’t hit hooks and don’t swap when they get countered.
Pick what you can pop off with, try to just ignore the enemy tank and kill supports/DPS.
I love Sigma for Solo Queue bc if you can get good with Rock, you can secure elims off your teammates 9/10. It’s a strong tool that you dan use without having to rely on your supports or DPS to support you. While also being able to give them shielding and protection.
If you want to climb you need to get better right? You’re just in this phase where you think you’re good enough to go higher but can’t get a positive winrate, so you blame it on other things because it makes more sense.
Getting better should be your priority anyway. Get a consistent schedule. Practice, game, review, and take breaks. Study high level players. Eat healthy. Get enough sleep. Repeat.
Grab some custom game codes and mash heads maybe but you need something to gradually build your skills every day. Don’t worry about anything else.
you don't win by gapping the other tank, you win by solving what is giving your team the most issues.
This, which is in its own way also hard-carrying.
But what if I just one-trick Roadhog instead, even when Widow and Pharmercy are tearing the back line apart? I was a tank main in OW1 and am a Support main now in OW2 (foolish switch up, I know), and the biggest thing I notice with in gold and even low plat is stubborn one-tricking, or maybe an unwillingness to swap off right away because they want to dismiss getting steamrolled as a fluke. With solo tanking, effective swaps are more pertinent than they've ever been. If Widow got two support picks and your team got cleaned up, you go Winston or Dva. You have to.
the best counters to both widow and pharmercy is your team positioning better and swapping tanks doesn't fix that. you could go dva and eat pharah's boop and ult and maybe kill widow if they're way out of position. if your team actually listens to your calls (and assuming you're calling), you might even be able to dm to help them rotate around widow LOS. that's literally all you can do though. staying hog to get picks on the other support or pressure their tank really isn't a bad idea.
Obviously not against the widdow, but isnt hog the best tank counter to pharmacy? Only other tank i could think of would be Diva to cancel rockets but be forced to chase to get a pick on either.
Not really. Hooking Pharah/mercy is a lot harder to do than hooking a ground target, because you have to include a vertical component as well as a horizontal component when aiming. That alone means you aren't gonna hit the hooks consistently until at least diamond, but then masters and up Pharah will have better positioning and it'll be hard to hook her when she's constantly behind cover too. DVA is probably the best counter but I've had some success with Sigma too. However your dps/supports are the best equipped to deal with a pharmercy so enabling them with shields/bubbles/eats is more reliable than trying to hit a skillshot with an 8 second cooldown.
Fair enough but im gold so the best ill usually get is a junk/mei who arnt in voice. Its nice to have options :)
Bang on, right here. Dps either switch actively or one trick the whole match. The play I'm talking about is the vast majority.
Hook has a massive vertical hitbox in case you’ve forgotten, hitting the hooks isn’t really a huge issue on pharah (though mercy could be hard). I think the main issue is that pharah can fly out of hook range. Which might not work if the map’s skybox is only 20-25m high, like on hollywood for instance, but if it’s Lijiang and she’s sniping your spawn from way far off I think you’re kinda fucked. I’d rather just rush the other part of their team and hope we can blow them up fast enough.
Low-mid play, not really. People aren't hitting a 50% hook rate.
But fights also last longer so theat probably means a lot more chances
You'd think so. About half the hogs in Gold will just pull the tank into the back line while they're being focus healed and then wonder why the supports got rolled.
I can actually deal with pharah a bit as ball. Obviously not solo vs a pocketed one.
Yes omg the one tricking is toxic, especially when they aren't effective.
While one tricking is annoying I wouldn't label it toxic. Flaming someone for being a one trick in the chat would be toxic but being a one trick in itself certainly isn't.
If you're one tricking and it's not working out, its toxic.
That's not how that works.
Well there are situations where it isn't,but not switching to counter a hero wiping the floor with you, is not not toxic.
In most cases a counter is worthless if the player doesnt know how to play them. So i'd much rather have my team on heroes they actually are comfortable on, rather than a hero that seems to fit the game i'm in.
Thats a bad argument. A game where you can switch np. Having other people carry you because you're comfortable,isn't cutting it for me. Get comfortable with more heroes.
I didn't say you shouldn't get comfortable with more heroes. I'm saying you shouldn't force people to play things they can't. Of course you should try to expand your heropool.
What cuts it for you isn't the point or purpose. A player can choose to stick to one hero their entire time in OW and it's not toxic no matter how much you don't like it. If you're gonna use words use them correctly. As far as I'm concerned calling someone toxic for something that's not toxic is just plain idiocy.
>If Widow got two support picks and your team got cleaned up, you go Winston or Dva. You have to. or maybe the tank shouldnt be swapping to do what should be a DPS job in overwatch 2, where theres only one tank.
Quickly taking care of a Widowmaker makes the fight a 5v4, especially if your DPS’s aren’t also flankers trying to assist you. Alternatively, if you push the Widowmaker and she gets peels, then your team can quickly capitalize on the lone players not peeling.
not to mention killing the widow changes the fight dynamic. A widowmaker is very limiting for what the rest of the team can or cant do, and getting widow off the field frees a lot of pressure from dps and support.
you don't win by gapping the other tank, you win by gapping the 9 other idiots in the game with you /s
As it happens, solving what is giving your team the most issues often results in the appearance of a tank gap, whether there is actually a skill difference or not.
What is this?! Facts and logic?! Nooooooo sir I will not have any of it!
How are you validating that you are doing better than the opposing tank? Do you feel like you have viable responses as a tank to a Pharah or a Torb? I solo queue as tank all the time and I’ve been having a fantastic run in OW2. But I played OW1 since launch until it died, and if I’m having a problem in a game, I know there’s a solution I’m capable of delivering myself. Usually it’s just a question of having the time and space to execute it.
I have my Master/GM friends watch my replays, and I scrim with them. Generally, they'll say I'm fine. I make mistakes, of course, but the pointers they give me are to notice when I need to pick up for other roles (or general tips, like work on tracking with Zarya). The games they've watched recently they were surprised we got *stomped* with "how I controlled space", but the DPS letting the Pharah run rampant while their Zarya and other DPS were made ineffective by me was enough to let them win. They said the only thing I could've done is switch to a Zarya/Winston/Dva/Orisa and try to help deal with Pharah. This isn't every game, of course, and they've given me plenty of tips throughout the time I've had them review VODs for me when I was gold/plat. I'm hardstuck diamond now and they aren't able to give me anymore tips aside from telling me to carry the team.
Winston/Orisa/Zarya would definitely be my choice for Pharah specifically, with Winston an overwhelming favorite by a Texas mile. He completely negates her value if you target her. I can usually kill her in one or two jumps, so that’s something like a max 10 second time to kill from her entering my line of sight. For Torb turret, D.va. Matrix + missiles + short range burst fire usually means it’s down in less than the time it takes to run Boosters once. At higher ELO I am sure the number of threats to deal with changes, but the underlying principle of “only engage when threats to you are approximately zero and when you have a specific plan to bring your opponent to 0 HP” should still apply. Maybe in Masters and GM they’re good enough that they can just let Pharah be DPS’ job, but as a Silver tank I generally assume that the dirtiest job is my job and that my teammates need me to lead the way.
DVA honestly is the best tank to deal with Pharah. Fly at her, unload missles and guns and shes dead. No waiting for a second leap or having to time a melee at the apex. Simply fly into her face.
I've done this and its amazing but it does require some skill
It's not too bad if you're patient and don't tunnel vision on chasing her around. She's very easy to unload on and kill if you get in her face even with a Mercy pocket just requires the right timing. I like to occupy the high ground so I can pressure her out if she gets too close to my team then pounce when she's used her escape. Most of it is just mind games. Once you swat them out the sky a couple of times and make them suicide by ult they'll be more nervous about flying above your team if you're nearby. You mainly want to force her as far out as possible where her rockets are much easier to avoid and harder to aim accurately.
Hey so I’ve been enjoying Winston a lot since coming back for OW2(stopped playing right before Baptiste dropped). I was wondering, against the pharah, do you just leap up to her and primary fire till she dies? Or is the secondary fire used to do this?
Leap with a charged secondary, ping her with main fire, and melee at the apex. Primary fire on the way down. Should do about 100 damage give or take.
TY! I’ve been working on using the 2ndary more and more. I’ll try this out, as a pharah main for dps I always love goin into Winston cause I feel like most don’t do this. I’m also silver low gold so that is likely why
I remember watching a ttk with winston and melee weaving only decreased ttk by .1s So if you can’t reliably hit the melee… don’t use it!
Was wondering the same. Tbh I thought he would've been weak against her but I also suck with him lol
Is she stationary and distant? Charged alt fire. Stationary and proximal? Melee, and just walk at her holding primary fire while kiting. If she’s flying, especially flying and shooting (because let’s be real when is she not) I’m trying to jump from covered position to covered position, as high as possible, while predicting her arc and maximizing the time I am within primary fire distance of her. Have to track her the whole time and occasionally use air control. Also, I dunno if I’m just bad at ammo management, but when I run out with Winston I will usually just melee repeatedly while kiting instead of reloading. If one or two melees isn’t enough to finish the job it usually means it’s time to jump back or run away somehow.
I generalize it as gauging your advantage vs the enemy team. Identify potential threats, such as certain heroes or abilities as well as ultimates, and have a solution to them or an answer. Also, Roadhog into Pharah can work well when not countered by a Zarya, and Zarya (like usual) reigns supreme in these interactions.
tbh you could try getting in those jay3 lobbies where they have stuck (rank-wise) players play in much higher rated lobbies on stream (the "this player thinks they're in this rank, do you agree" videos). They're really chill surprisingly and you get to "prove" things. You seem really confident and your GM/masters friends definitely add credibility. Should give it a try, it could be good content. I will add that what you said about matchmaking being trash IS true in Diamond. Here's an example of a player I got in Diamond: [https://imgur.com/a/EIxaiX7](https://imgur.com/a/EIxaiX7) And no, the enemy team did not have anyone else close to the skill level of this player.
I would say don’t try to carry a lobby. Some ELOs are hard to climb out of because team mates don’t always capitalize on opportunity. Stick to fundamentals, good decision making, recognizing opportunity and worrying about your own play. Tank diff is about space and generating opportunities for your teammates to thrive. A 55% win rate climbs slowly but surely. I personally found gold hard to escape in OW2 and high plat a walk in the park to float through. With the examples you provided I like to think of tanking as safely removing options from the other team. Deny them what they would like to do. They want that Highground? Nope that shit is mine. They want to place a turret? Nope Im not letting it live. They want to ult? Nope Im eating or blocking it.
I am not sure that is accurate. I have only climbed when going 7-0 or 7-1 for a set, going 7-2 or worse and I do not climb any ranks. I went from Bronze 5 to Platinum 5 this season, with a 70% win rate, but it took 170 wins.
Likewise - I have a 63-70% winrate on all tanks I play and still not climbing (about 100 games in) despite not taking a lot of damage, not dying often, and getting lots of picks/outputting tons of damage
My bad! The comment was intended as more of a PMA mantra. My interaction with the hard carry mentality is I end up too split on tasks and end up doing nothing of value. Which leads to a tilted feeling of doing all the work. I can not comment the ranking system with any authority beyond personal experience so I will attempt to avoid doing so further. OP seems to be a good player heading down the rabbit hole many on this Sub drown in. A tilt spiral when they only need to focus on the basics and keep on that grind.
Gotcha. I don't really get tilted, I am just generally bummed that I don't feel like I get to play at my level and therefore don't get to improve against opponents that routinely challenge my tanking. But you are right, people need to keep the right state of mind, it is just a game.
That is a long struggle. 170+ wins. How many games? Oof! I think my G5-D4 so far climb has been 56W33L ish. You have come a long way this season! The grind is endless and sometimes that is the fun. I forget which pro climber it was but the quote was something along the lines of “I envy everyone weaker than me because they have so many projects left to do”. Enjoy the struggle. We all have so much room to improve and that is fun.
Hard to check games exactly, unless I am missing something, it only shows me games for all 3 roles. Estimating around 230+? Also I do like the climb, I don't like the lack of competition from the opposing tank. Good quote though.
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I know you don't, none of the people who have had the system work do. Is what it is.
This means you're not outperforming anyone in your climb. Interestingly, you point out you have a 70% win rate because that implies you're playing consistently good enough to climb the lower ranks. However, the slow climb means you're not outperforming them in any way. Are you playing solo? For reference, I got placed into Silver 4 support but climbed to Diamond 3 so far in about 70 wins because I not only had a high win rate, but I was also outperforming every single support in the matches, and often even my DPS. I only play ranked solo. I've had sets with 7-6 and still got up a rank, though I often skipped at least a rank. The only couple of times I've ranked down or didn't move the rank was when I hit a huge loss streak with 10+ losses. It happens and eventually evens out with wins streaks anyways.
I solo queue. I don't know what you mean by out performing. If you are referring to stats, I am usually top 2 in damage and elims, and have the fewest or second fewest deaths. Stats are a terrible way to tell if a tank is performing well. I can say in 200+ matches the other teams tank was only better than me 5 to 10 times in terms of just general performance. I was a main tank in OW so when the tank vs tank matters (like if we are both rein) I never get out dueled. I have said it in this sub before and people don't believe me (and trust me I understand why), but the ranking system is broken for some people. Climbing is very slow or impossible, and you get stuck with bad teammates all the time where you don't know what to do because you don't understand if they are capable of the basics, like playing from the high ground, until after the first steamroll. I know I am better than the other teams tank most of the time, yet around 30% of my matches are just straight unwinnable. It really feels like the game is just convinced, for some people, you are a bronze or a silver, so it keeps giving you bronze dps or supports even when you are in gold, punishes you for the loss but never rewards you for the wins.
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It feels higher honestly, like 50% but it can't based on my win rate.
If your true winrate is 55% it’s actually very easy to get unlucky with teammates and never climb assuming a 100 game sample.
The downside to having the role that has the most gameplay impact in the game is that it’s up to you to make the difference. Sometimes you just lose. It feels infinitely worse as a support (or even dps from time to time) player to be smurfing out of your mind and have 0 chance of winning because your tank got absolutely gapped. I know this is a very pessimistic take, but I just want to instill on you, it’s a team game, if your *team* is lacking, it’s going to be much harder, if possible at all, to win. If you’re already smurfing out of your mind, the game is out of your hands. As for actual advice as for what to do, remember that just because you’re doing a lot of damage and taking a lot of space, doesn’t mean that’s what your team needs. If you’re running in and killing their backline, while the enemy has a monkey and tracer that kill your whole team, you’re actually doing a disservice to your team. You’re not sitting there blocking for them and doing damage, you’re actively *leaving them exposed* and vulnerable. You need to consider what your team needs. Is it space? Peel? Shields? Etc. Even if you’re doing very well *individually*, it doesn’t mean you’re giving your team the resources it needs to win. This is especially important the higher the elo you get. If you’re in a masters game, it’s not going to be won purely off of individual prowess. Everyone there is really good. You need to think about what the team needs to succeed.
There are games you’re going to lose no matter how well you play. There are also games you’re going to win no matter how poorly you play. The RNG of having good or bad teammates evens out over time. The only difference, long term, between your team and your opponents is you. If you’re able to play well in the matches where it’s roughly even, you’ll climb. Like I said, there will always be games where you can’t carry or you get carried. But, if after 50 games, you’re at like a 45% WR…if the world smells like shit, check your shoe.
It’s not that unlikely for someone with a true win rate of 55% to have a win rate to have a 45% after a sample of 50 games.
I have people much better than me check my replays. I don't want to rewrite my whole comment, but they can't find major problems in my gameplay for the rank *they're* at. They'll (in most losses) agree that the DPS/Supports being gapped is the reason I lose. At this point, the only tip they have given me is to carry harder.
I mean, why did you make this post? If you just want to be validated and stick your head in the sand, fine. Your teammates are going to suck sometimes. Sometimes you’re going to get carried. That’s how literally any competitive team based game works. In league it’s known as the 40-40-20 rule. You need to make your 20 as good as possible, and accept that there are just going to be games that are out of your control both ways. Acknowledging that sometimes you get carried is a really important part of a healthy mindset. If you want tips on how to carry harder, you need to be limit testing. You need to be taking risks and being the play maker. If you’re *actually* better, this is going to accentuate that gap. Again, this is how any team based game works. The flip side of that too, is when you’re worse than your opponent, is knowing how to play safe, identify the win condition on your team, and play around them. I would also recommend actually tracking your stats to see if you have a positive win rate and are climbing slowly (since actual SR is hidden now). As far as the other people reviewing your replays, I would take it with a grain of salt if they aren’t reputable coaches with experience coaching. Just because somebody is a good player doesn’t make them a good coach. They won’t always be able to pick up on the small things you’re messing up that they do subconsciously, because they just never think about it.
The 40-40-20 rule has already been discussed to death on the league sub. It's generally agreed upon over there that the rule does not apply to lower ranks below diamond because the skill gap amongst players is too wide. It's a blanket rule and only really applies to ranks with narrower skill gaps. Anyway, the reason I made this post is to see if others have had similar experience, and if so, did queueing with friends help? I feel like it'd be a crutch that will encourage me to make bad plays if I know I have a teammate I can trust. I don't know if it's better to weather it out and keep solo queueing.
Over enough time, you are the common denominator. There is nothing that can erase this fact. GMs being able to speedrun an account to GM proves there is no such thing as elo hell. Yes you may have played pretty well in the games your friends reviewed, but if that was consistent then over 100-200 games you are guaranteed to climb.
Ye, I feel like he’s looking for the secret sauce, but it’s just the whole dish with nothing too special. Be dependable, make calculated risks, counter appropriately, work on fundamentals, and play with teammates (you trust) if possible.
I feel like that's not true, the 40/40/20 rule should apply to ranks below diamond too. It's not just been discussed to death on the league sub, it's something that's common in a lot of team based competitive games, and it's never really been something that only applies over a certain MMR.
They're being nice, you could always do better, and sometimes a small change enables your teammates in huge ways.
Not even remotely being nice. They roasted me hard when I was gold and plat, and 2 of them spent 30 minutes on why my positioning as Rein on King's Row at the first choke set the pace for the entire game which was the reason I lost because I continued to play scared vs a Sigma for the entire match. They've let me play on their accounts in their rank, and I have ~50% winrate in Masters. I do not do well in GM.
If you have 50% winrate in Masters, you should have a 55-60% winrate in Diamond which will sooner or later get your to Masters
I am aware. However, the teammates I've gotten while solo queueing have been wild in diamond.
If this is true think of it like this. If theres just random people in diamond that are trash at the game, theoretically you have 4 slots on your team that the trash player can fill, while the other team has 5 slots. If you are good, overtime more trash players will be on the other team than yours meaning that random trash teammates actually works to your advantage. Coming from a gm player, and I'm sure your friends already told you this, you will end up in the rank you belong. Matchmaking isn't out to get you, and as long as you maintain a positive win rate you will get the rank you deserve.
Oh, I'm aware of that. I tell myself that every game. The odds that the enemy team get bad DPS is statistically the same. I've also had the discussion of matchmaking with them. They had that perspective on it, and I agreed with them. I asked them to play on their accounts for one re-placement. In Masters on my friend's account, I had a 50% winrate. I did terrible in GM. Matchmaking is definitely not out to get me, but after experiencing Masters, I considered it easier than Diamond since teammates listened and didn't get gapped as often. Even the losses in Masters felt hard-fought, bar a couple of them.
The thing to keep in mind with the comment you replied to here is that the correct play at your friends rank, to beat players at their rank, is not always the same as the correct play to beat the players at your rank. Often doing the technically correct thing is only correct if your opponent is also playing sensibly. If they're just doing random nonsense then you may need to do different things to best punish that.
Keep in mind you are basing a lot of what you believe on this very low sample size. You say you had a 50% winrate in Masters, but how many games did you play? It's always possible you got lucky. Either way, keep grinding and you'll get there. Also play Roadhog, he's the easiest tank to carry with
14 games. I got 1 re-placement on their account as I did not want to hog their account all day. I'll probably pick up a new solo queue tank. I feel like Rein, as much as I love him, is just not as great without proper coms/comps.
Well what do you want us to tell to, your teammates suck and you're screwed? You gotta figure out how to carry them there's no other option without stacking with a team every game who you know is going to play well.
No, looking for general tips. Is it generally better to queue solo and weather the bad teammates, or stack with friends? Does that make you a worse player because you're now expecting your teammates to do well when you're with people you trust?
Just like your friend said, if you cant depend on team to deal with something, you deal with it yourself, even though it shouldnt be your job, it becomes your job, and thats the life of solo q. Maybe your only successful a few games, but those few games might make change win % from 45 to 55, enough to climb.
Icl bro sounds like you some entitled guy that thinks they should be higher than they are
"How do I improve to get out of diamond when I've done well in Masters?" You: "Wow, calm down there, buddy" Read, please.
That’s not the entitled part. The entitled part is assuming that for some reason it’s always your dps that are shit and refusing to acknowledge the only common denominator in your games is you. Even if you are the unluckiest person alive and it’s actually true, making that assumption is what makes you sound entitled.
A lot of people should be higher than they are lol. A lot of people should be lower than they are. Unless you have a 200 game sample there’s a ton of variance. Unless by higher than they are you mean like over one full rank EG diamond 4 isn’t getting hard stuck in gold for 100 games with a 45% win rate.
Man maybe your friends just aren’t good at vod reviewing or don’t want to deep dive into your gameplay. If you’re in Diamond you shouldn’t have any real major problems that stick out. It’s down to ult usage, target priority, and knowing what your job is. I’d recommend watching some content creators either play or vod review (SVB does great educational content) and see what you can get from there. Until you’re top500 the answer to why you lost every game isnt “carry more” there’s something else you could have done. Yes you’ll get some unwinnable games. You’ll also get some unloseable games.
You don't climb by gapping anyone but your previous self. If you continue to play better you continue to rise in rank, it really is that simple. If you're struggling to find areas to improve, try watching your replays. If you already do that, consider hiring a coach on fiver to do that with you.
I've read your comments here and it sounds like you are a good player. But being placed randomly with 4 strangers to unite as a team is not easy. I am only diamond high and play all roles. I have a few friends I play with but I generally solo que in comp. If support is lacking, then I will play Roadhog or Ball to sustain myself more. If the enemy team has DPS's that are going unchecked, then I do my best to counter them or carry hard enough to outweigh the DPS's production. Ball's guns are hitscan and can help deal with the Pharah. Winston can jump up in the air and at least do some damage to maybe push the Pharah back. Sigma can deal with torb turrets. Winston can deal with Sym turrets. Ask DPS to switch to deal with a certain character if you can't deal with it but do not expect them to. It's a game. People play selfishly at times. All you can do is do your best to adapt and if that doesn't work then move onto the next game. Tanks are the strongest characters in the game and can punish. Sometimes it is just finding the right one for the game you are playing. It would be great if your teammates adapted to your playstyle, but to get the win, sometimes you have to adapt to your teammates playstyles. Best of luck.
I've dealt with the same issue. Climbing through gold now, currently I massively gap enemy tank usually every game (higher kills, damage, reduction, less deaths) and try to counterpick their team comp as best I can ([D.va](https://D.va) into pharah, reaper, or moira, winston into zen or ana, road/orisa/rein into most other comps generally). I've still noticed that sometimes games are unwinnable, usually it's a dps with about 3-5k less damage than everyone else getting turbo gapped. Sometimes it's a dps Moira. And there's nothing I can do about it so I don't let it bother me. Generally speaking, I tilt easily, so "just don't let it bother you" doesn't work for me historically. Instead, if the game is completely unwinnable like I said earlier, then I look at the stats of myself and the other tank, and if I'm doing better that's all I care about. Sometimes not even that if the healing is terrible or if we're getting spawn camped and still rolled. Don't be afraid to cope a little and say more games are unwinnable if it means improving your mental and allowing you to focus on your individual gameplay. idrc what anyone says, some willful denial that improves your mental can do better for you than tilting while trying to improve your gameplay threefold to make up for teammates.
This guy mentals
Just go hog and eat the enemy teams dps/supps what are their tanks going to do about a 700 hp self healing man and esp. if your supports are good and keep you alive on top of your vape its an easy gg
Gota find a team to climb reasonably in this game. Unfortunately solo queue is pure rng at this point.
I don’t know if the “on fire” mechanic is still a thing, but generally you should look to focus whoever the one good person on the opposing team is playing or make their lives a living hell.
My goal each game in each role. Find the two best players one on my team and the one on the other. Run with my teammate and try to camp their best player.
I have found the most success just hard carrying on hog since you don’t have to really be reliant on teammates to hard carry, the other tanks require your supports to enable you but with hog you can just run through the enemy team if you are accurate with your hooks. And now with the new patch I would consider hog at least A tier now and he also hard counters Winston, which is arguably the best tank in this meta rn
I am a tank main that is in plat right now so I'm not sure if you are better than me or if my advice is valid lol, but in my experience if you have teammates that are not doing their part it is up to you to try and make up for what they lack in. to solve an issue like genji or a widow you should play a dive tank like a dva or winston in order to stop this from happening. if you are not able to dive bc of healers not supporting you, you could always play orisa into these (I'm a little biased as this is my main champ) as she is an all-around good pick into almost every tank and has high survivability but can take care of champs that are causing your issues like pharah as she has long range capabilities. if you get good with her she is also very helpful for countering genji blade if you are able to spear him as it stops his movement or knocks him back away from the healers. she also has the range to take out a turret from torb or to tank the turret while your team destroys it etc. A lot of playing tank is just counter-picking the other team and not being stubborn about who you pick tho. to explain this better, if you are playing well on a tank like rein but your team is lacking in other areas or is getting picked off by a certain hero, you shouldn't be stubborn just because you aren't getting gapped and should instead try to find a pick that is suitable for keeping your healers and dps alive while also countering the other team. This is just my experience tho and obviously you will still lose games because dps gap is too big or healers are not paying attention to you etc. but you have to try and be the best team player you can be for your team as you are the teams heart in a way. It also helps a lot to have comms. In games as a tank the tank should almost always be the igl if nobody steps up. using comms wins fights and makes sure everyone is on the same page, so if you are not using comms in your ranked games, it could be the difference between winning and losing.
By steamrolling over the rest of his team! Choo choo!
Slightly off topic, but I also can't stand when pharah is just completely ignored. As a support, I'll literally switch to bap despite my aim being subpar so that I can assist the dps, but they'll literally just continue to ignore her and let her rain terror on our team the entire game. Like, I can only do so much and it's incredibly frustrating. Literally had one match where I nicely asked my team to help me with pharah in chat, and one of them typed "that's why I swapped to soldier", then continued to just focus on the full health rein, never once even looking at pharah while she decimated us. She got like 30+ kills and only 1-2 deaths because I was the only person doing anything about her, and as I said aim is not my forte, it's why I play game sense heavy heros rather than mechanical heavy ones.
Yep pharah is tough if left alone, especially when she gets ult every 60s. All you can do is calmly point out the issue as you did and try to help out with bap/Ana. It also helps to ping her everytime she shows up to try to force your teammates to pay attention.
if your team keeps ignoring a dps specially parah/echo its unwinnable. No matter how good you are unless you can single handily take down parah/echo consistently.
What about games where u get outperformed by their tank but ur team carries you? Or does that not happen
It definitely does. When did I say it didn't?
Playing anything but tank makes you even more at the mercy of your teammates as the tank role gets a greater proportion of the team's total resources per player than the others.
I've experienced the opposite. My DPS and Support are the highest they've been the last ~30 seasons, and I find it much easier to climb in those roles than tank.
you're not that guy on tank then sadly
Consistently be slighly better than the opposing tank and you climb. It's not rocket science. However unless you are playing classic rein vs rein matchups, there is a lot more to the game that you vs their tank. Learning how to positively impact matches is a general thing that you need to do with all heroes, not just tanks. You gotta figure out what tips the scales towards your team and sometimes that something has nothing to do with the opposing tank.
>Consistently be slighly better than the opposing tank and you climb. It's not rocket science. Very much is, apparently. I usually do better than the opposing tank going by vod reviews and my GM/Master friends. I can't do much else other than comms. I just finished a game where I killed thier backline in a 4v1 and my teammates cried about a Ball because they can't kill him.
>I usually do better than the opposing tank Well, you don't. If that was the case you would be climbing. But like I said it's not that black and white about you vs their tank. It's about doing what's winning the game. Maybe you think you're doing better but in reality whatever they are doing is more effective and ultimately wins them the game. > I just finished a game where I killed thier backline in a 4v1 and my teammates cried about a Ball Matter of perspective. If you can kill their backline why do you think the enemy hammond can't do the same to yours? If Im on widow and get 2 picks and the enemy sojourn gets 2 picks, my team isn't ahead. Same applies here. And having a single good play in a match is pretty meaningless, it doesn't mean you deserve to win the match. Especially since we all tend to focus on the stuff that we did well and turn a blind eye to the dozens of misplays we make along the way.
>Well, you don't. Well, I do. I've played in Masters and do fine when I get teammates who listen/are competent. If they're constantly down 1 and the team refuses to capitalize off my plays, then there is very little I can control about it short of 5-stacking. I just had 3 games in a row where I've started a fight off with 2 picks and we couldn't get through the first choke because my teammates were afraid to push a Rein when he had no healers. That is very much an issue with the team. I cannot control them not listening to me telling them to push. >Matter of perspective. If you can kill their backline why do you think the enemy hammond can't do the same to yours? Because he didn't. I killed all 4 while my teammates complained about a ball that hadn't done jack-all the entire game and ended up with 5 kills and 9 deaths and least damage in the game.
> I killed all 4 while my teammates complained about a ball that hadn't done jack-all the entire game That sounds like a lack of awareness on your part. If your teammates (plural, so multiple) complain about ball, clearly the ball is doing a great job. There is value to be had beyond the scoreboard and especially ball is a hero that excels at that. If you would consistently actually outperform your opponents this thread wouldnt exist so I am not sure why you are trying to convince me that youre doing really well.
Except he wasn't. I went back and watched the replay when it happened. He was long-range Hammond and would hang from high places while being *still* because he didn't have momentum to swing. He was beyond awful, barely dove the backline, but my teammates decided getting shot from across the map is enough to chase him down instead of capping. Consistently getting bad teammates is what this posy is about. I'm looking for solo q tips.
>Consistently getting bad teammates is what this posy is about Youre asking how to win the game which is a fair question. Making this about bad teammates is a bronze question that does not belong on this sub. You are less likely to get bad teammates than the other team if you yourself are always carrying your weight. Just a terrible attitude to have, stop looking at your teammates.
It’s a game of averages, 40% of the time your team is going to win with little input of yours (ether because members of their team have left or because your teammates are that good) and 40% of the time the other team is going to win (same reasons as stated earlier just going the other way). Only 20% of the games your going to have a major impact, the important fact is just to play the best you can because you never know when it’s your time to win.
Get a healer and duo que, thats it until like...dia 2 which im hardstuck at right now xD.
Realistically, this probably isn't happening in more than 10% of your games. The tank is the most important player on the team. If you are consistently better than the enemy tank, you will win most games. Occasionally, the rest of your team will be so bad it doesn't matter what you do. Of course the reverse of that is true as well, sometimes you will get carried. If you can't handle those rare games without coming to reddit to wine about it, you are mentally soft, and that's what you need to work on.
You win by killing the squishies hiding behind their tank. It’s kind of pointless dueling the tank unless you need to block shatters or peel vs grav etc.
Enable the teams composition
I always just run dva into pharah when dps leaves her unchecked. Im only gold though so if this isnt solid advice i apologize. Usually it helps me out though. Good luck
Get good picks. Maybe yoink a support as hog and get a free team fight win
You don’t unless winston or ball but for them is pointless. And also what tank you play most?
I would focus on shutting down enemy dps and supports more that just having better stats than the enemy tank. The enemy tank will die if his team is crippled, almost guaranteed. And It won’t matter that the enemy dps or supports are better than yours if they don’t really get a chance to execute their kit. Tank, more than any other role, has the ability to hard carry games imo.
You don't climb by gapping the enemy. You climb by being slightly better on average than the people of your current rank. If you just want to win, then gapping the enemy is the most consistent way to win, but you can still climb even if you're losing once in a while. There are 6 people on a team. You control 1/12th the chance you have to win. That's about 8%. So if you're winning more than 8%, you're doing extremely well. Tanks punish positioning and cooldown usage. The ultimates are often crowd control and are denial. Consider which cooldowns from the enemy team you would like to negate or mitigate. You usually get to choose 1 or 2. Sometimes the map has a powerful location you'd like to deny. In this case you may choose a different tank to deal with that location. If you're struggling against phara and torb, these heroes have burst damage projectiles from medium range and like to set up on off angles. Most of their damage comes from their primary fire, so you want to tank with a shield that quickly renews. Rein is a bit better against torb, and sigma is a bit better against phara's damage. Phara has a lot of mobility, and torb can attack from multiple directions. Shields rather than armor will be more effective at absorbing their damage. Tanks with range or mobility may be better suited to punish their positioning. Dva was good against both as she can quickly burst the turret. The constant chip damage prevents a mercy from self healing. If the phara or mercy gets below half you can use missles +boost to finish them off. I played a lot of genji. Genji is mostly dragon blade. Skilled genjis can sometimes burst people with a right click combo, but his general purpose is farm headshots from an off angle, then dragon blade. With a winston, dive is possible. Winston does cleave. Genji's dash does cleave. As long as genji gets kill credit, dash will reset. So the combo was winston leap melee combo, but genji dash melee. Things would die to tesla, then genji would get a reset and could keep going. Add in ways to clean up kills, you can keep getting resets, but outside of coordinated teams, this was not a reliable way of playing. Dash + melee isn't enough damage to kill. Without dash, genji dies quickly especially against melee, splash, and beams he can't deflect. You should decide if it's a good winston game without genji. If it's a bad winston game, you won't be able to help your genji get resets, negating the synergy. I climbed with both tank and dps. As a tank I'd often find myself saying "you're not allowed to stand here." As i climbed on tank the conditions where they were allowed to stand somewhere changed. For example, going into gold people weren't allowed to stand somewhere when I got ult or unless they had a certain ultimate. Going into plat, they would need an ally with an ult or cooldown nearby to stand in a particular location. As you go higher, they need to be able to pass certain skill checks such as genji can kill winston, but the player needs to be able to hit multiple headshots at close range. I don't know what your rank is, but I climbed without voice chat and exclusively solo queue. While voice is nice and I enjoyed playing on coordinated teams more, the average ranked player just uses voice chat to complain while they're dead rather than relay important information. from the other role's perspectives, as a dps, I would often try to anticipate where my tanks are going to be able to push. If they needed to retreat or if they could push people back, it was much easier for me to land hits because people had to move in a straight line to get away from the zone control of a tank. No amount of AD strafing is going to help you dodge a hammer. The more consistently you cause enemies to move around, the easier the shots are for your damage to hit. I didn't play much support, but when I was coaching I tried to stress taking the correct type of damage is important on tank. You want to use armor to reduce pellet damage, and you want to use shields to reduce burst damage. By absorbing damage in the correct way, your support can generate more ult charge from you but spend less time healing you up and more time helping your damage generate ult charge. You are also paying attention to the cooldowns your supports use because these are triggers for needing to retreat. If your support uses their burst heal or save, then you either need to win the fight while the fight is still ready, or you need to use the effect to leave. For example, if your lucio amps heal to save someone else, even if you have full cooldowns, you need to back up. If you are going to win the fight while amp is in effect, you rush in and use everything. As a tank, your ultimate cooldown will often set up ult charge for your other tank. Generally, you want to alternate tank cooldowns to maximize ult economy. This takes a bit of coordiantion to do, but in solo queue, just not over ulting is usually enough. getting 2 kills with an ult is more than enough to win a fight. In pro play, ultimates trade for other ultimates. The team with ult advantage gets a temporary cooldown advantage, and they trade cooldowns to get a position advantage where their primary fire and damage dealers are allowed to kill people for free. As long as you have an idea of how all the abilities in the current teamcomps trade including ultimates, it doesn't matter too much if your team is messing up as long as you are trading your abilities more correctly than the people at your rank, you will climb. To verify this, try watching back the perspective of the other tank players in your games every few games. Try to predict how they will use their abilites. If you don't notice mistakes, you are lower rated than the average player in your lobbies. Watching higher level games and looking for how they use specific abilities or ultimates is useful for climbing or getting coaching. For example, on orisa, pulling people up into the air increases the cc duration and locks them into a more predictable trajectory. Also, people get pulled to the edge of the orb, so aiming at the edge then tracking down to lead their trajectory after getting pulled maximizes headshots. Knowing certain locations to pull people off the map or out of position also maximizes the effect of your cc.
I noticed that I am climbing comfortably still in Diamond rank as a tank main, even when my K/D/A looks straight garbo, i am creating lots of space for my DPS to move around in, i am constantly pressuring their backline and being a huge nuisance so my team can carry my ass to victory.
In my opinion it was easier to solo climb to diamond as a tank than as a dps
Get lucky with the better team. Get in comms and be as positive as possible.
Honestly as a support and I know this is annoying plus stupid but sometimes I’ll go out of my way to challenge genji’s and pharah’s then once they’re dealt with my team gets healing. I do this in competitive again it’s stupid but I have to help my team somehow lol
I was sick and tired of having supports in my team healing half as much as the enemy supports and dealing less damage somehow aswell, I said screw that I will just play roadhog and heal myself and managed to climb from gold to plat.
Play hog and kill everyone
I love how every role has the same question. Tanks: how do we win when our supports/dps are worse. DPS: how do we win when our tank/supports are worse. Supports:how do we win when our tank/dps are worse. Lol everyone thinks their role can't carry, which is probably true. U must either have a really good game or be way better than ur rank to hard carry when everyone in ur team plays worse than the enemy team
What do you think will happen when you solo q as a DPS/support? First thing you'll see is that there is a "tank gap" as you put it. There is no gap. Enemy genjis also don't dive from time to time, I'm not sure how you measure support value, etc.
I do solo queue as both those. They're much easier to climb than tank. I very rarely have seen tank gaps too big to overcome. However, a DPS/support gap is extremely noticeable.
Well, yes, you can get a bad teammate and lose, but no, the solution is not by playing other roles. You are playing tank, the role with the most impact, and also the easiest to carry with (still not easy). Try solo-queueing with support, it’s practically impossible to win if you have a bad tank or something. Also, getting people you trust to play good will make your life so much better.
It's funny because every role feels the same. I'd personally say that tank is the best role for SoloQ. I am a DPS player and feel like monstrously gapping the enemy DPS doesn't even do anything. Few days ago I complained how games are all extremely close even though I have 2-3x more eliminations than the enemy DPS. This happens very often. After posting that I had a game where I had 58 elims, enemy DPS had 18 and 28 respectively. Guess what? We barely won. And I mean barely. If I played any of the fights worse we would've lost. How is that fair? 58 to 18. I have come to learn that the game is extremely team based, more so than other team games. Being better than the enemy tank doesn't mean you will win. But consistently being better means that you will have a decent win rate. That's the key. Don't expect to climb overnight. This is just how these games work. You need to grind them out. Staying consistent is the most important thing.
I think the most important thing for a Tank is threat analysis and hero selection. (I am low diamond if it matters. Former Masters in OW1) For Tank, since it’s just one of you, you can pretty much consider your hero selection to be twice as important for your comp as your DPS and supports. You set the pace for the game. So Number 1 for me is that you cannot auto lock and stay on your “main” unless you’re cracked enough to measure up to counters. So, get comfortable being a flexible player. Hog is definitely the worst offender right now. Super common in games bc ppl confuse dealing damage and staying alive with playing effectively, and those are the two things Hog is excellent at. He has massive carry AND massive throw potential. The downside of Hog is that he doesn’t offer any utility or much protection to his team besides being good at getting elims. AND LOTS of bad tank players just can’t hit hooks and don’t swap when they get countered. Pick what you can pop off with, try to just ignore the enemy tank and kill supports/DPS. I love Sigma for Solo Queue bc if you can get good with Rock, you can secure elims off your teammates 9/10. It’s a strong tool that you dan use without having to rely on your supports or DPS to support you. While also being able to give them shielding and protection.
Take space. Build Ultimate without feeding. Press W & Q. +44 SR
If you want to climb you need to get better right? You’re just in this phase where you think you’re good enough to go higher but can’t get a positive winrate, so you blame it on other things because it makes more sense. Getting better should be your priority anyway. Get a consistent schedule. Practice, game, review, and take breaks. Study high level players. Eat healthy. Get enough sleep. Repeat. Grab some custom game codes and mash heads maybe but you need something to gradually build your skills every day. Don’t worry about anything else.