I'm just so frustrated and this will be kind of a rant but please tell me if you went through something like this to help put me at ease.

Ok, I'm good at Overwatch. I can confidently say that. I know multiple characters, from all classes, inside out and know how to use them effectively. I don't just insta lock my favorite character. I always choose what's best for my team. I'm a strong believer of the 2/2/2 meta. I'm neck deep into the strategic team based combat of Overwatch. Good enough in fact, to have a season high of 2960 SR in competitive. That's two, maybe one game away from finally hitting diamond rank which I think I deserve. I had climbed all the way up to there this season doing nothing but solo queue. I'm good at the game.

I'm now at 2119 SR. That's a career low for me. For the past few days, no matter what I do, I can't win a game. Not a single one. I choose the heroes I'm best at, we lose. I choose the heroes we need for our comp, we lose. No matter what I do, we lose. I've lost enough games to go from 2960 to 2119 SR. I'm so stunned I'm just considering dropping competitive for the rest of the season. I have no idea how this is possible. The worst part is now I'm getting put together with a bunch of gold ranks who don't understand team composition, the 2/2/2 meta, how to initiate, how to set up at choke points, or how to friggin group up. It's horrible. Has something like this happened to anyone else? I've fallen SO far from what's relatively so high for me and I actually understand the game very well. This is just utter insanity.

Look at it this way: it's now your job to make those lowly gold ranks get better at the game so they can rank up. Raise the bar for everyone. Good luck.

(I've never played the game.)

I think it just happens that way in Overwatch sometimes. I've actually just recently had the opposite experience where I played with a good group of random people, we decided to party up, and we proceeded to not lose a match for like nine or ten straight games. It was the craziest impromptu team I've ever been a part of. This was not ranked, but still.

I don't know, man. Just keep playin'. And hey, at least you can look at that highest achieved rank on your stat screen and know where you probably should still be. It's a team game at the end of the day, and sometimes you just get the short end of the stick.

The new party up system works!

And for the OP, yeah I hear ya. Granted, I only play 6 player AR nowadays, but still! :P

That sounds like the struggle of every competitive gamer honestly. It happens to the pros too. You're just having a run of bad luck and might even be stuck in a bit of a rut.

It's important to not get hung up on what you deserve. It's really easy to tilt when you're already in the mindset of "I'm better than where I'm at and I should be higher." And once you tilt during a session you've pretty much doomed the rest of your games that night. Your rank is going to go up and down, you're going to have hot streaks, and youre going to have times where you're washed up and losing contantly. The best get past that, and if you're serious about rank then you've got to work past that too.

I don't know if you've ever watched pro gamers do their practice nights on twitch or even read any books on the mindset of professional athletes, but the same kind of deal applies here. Get your head into a good space and you'll see improvement. That might mean making sure to take breaks after frustrating losses, or spending some time every week doing another activity or hobby to refresh your head to be in the game.

There's a whole category of psychologists/therapists who help athletes get past struggles like this, so you're definitely not the only person who's ever been stuck in a rut. It might be a game compared to a sport, but the ability to bounce back even better is tough all the same.

I love Overwatch. I feel like I'm really good at it, but I've never given competitive an honest shot. I'm quick play good. I don't think my psyche could handle competitive honestly.

I was having a really rotten streak last night though. Couldn't hit shit, even as my best characters. Got yelled at a lot by teammates (which, whatever). I'd imagine that would be how it would be every match in competitive though. I don't need that. Overwatch is my fun time game, I want it to stay that way.

@mezza: This comment helped a lot especially when comparing it to athletic sports. Thanks!

Anyway, here's a quick update. I have a new hilarious strategy after reading this inspiring post on reddit.

Playing Bastion. I'm....just going to keep playing Bastion until I get near 2500 again. I don't know if it'll work but what this guy did is absolutely insane. He made his way up to Master by doing that. He was at 3000, got down to 1500, and then CLIMBED to 3500 with bastion. What the fuck? My thought process is, gold and below don't seem to care about composition anyway. pushing for 2/2/2 seems kinda pointless especially since supports aren't very useful unless your team works with you. I'm going to just play bastion for a while and see what happens. In fact, earlier I did just this on king of the hill of all types, and I CARRIED my whole team, got POTM, and we won. First win in a long time. Crazy shit.

I think in the lower ranks you absolutely need to be carrying the team as an individual if you want to rank up reliably. You can be the best tank/support player and still get nowhere if your team is not good enough to capitalise off you.

It's important not to tilt and complain about your teammates because all that does is bring team morale down, which genuinely has a huge effect on the game... but if you are losing often and know for a fact that you are mechanically better than other players at your rank maybe you should be the person carrying on DPS.

I'm on a pretty huge winstreak right now because I just said fuck it and pick Pharah almost every game, because I know I'm good with that character and people in plat don't have good enough aim or positioning to counter me. I often start out on a tank and if it's clear our DPS isn't working out I'll switch. Don't even worry about the meta, it really doesn't matter so much at lower ranks.

@49th: Tilting was my problem last night. I just kept playing. Kept trying despite being so frustrated with my teams. In one game, our mei kept walling us off so I switched to torb and just sat in a corner not doing anything. I never do stuff like that but boy I was so mad.

You're so right about not following the meta at lower ranks. They don't care so why should I? It's not pro level play at that point. For now, I'm gonna focus on wrecking people. My "main" I would say is reinhardt and boy does that just not work with people who don't care about forming up and team work. I've learned that now.

This is exactly how I got so high in the first place. That team up option is a godsend. Unfortunately once you start nearing diamond, less and less solo people want to do it...I really don't know why.

As one of those lowly gold players who would also say "[...] I'm good at Overwatch:" y'all are jerks.

From hanging around the dota community, i know that if you feel like you belong at a higher mmr / rank, you should pick a hero that has a big impact on the game. If Bastion is that for Overwatch, do it.

However, once you get back to where you were before, spamming 1 hero will be detrimental to you. The skillgap between Bastion & the other heroes will grow, to the point where you can't keep up with your peers because you only played Bastion at that level. Therefore, be wary from spamming 1 hero exclusively. 1 balance change can drop you as hard as you climbed. Make sure you become better at the game as you rank up, instead of one hero. If you're better at the game, you can deal with changes in meta / balance / new heroes.

build your house on rock, not on sand.

I hate Overwatch competitive because i suck at it and i personally think Overwatch is just a casual fps.

@onemanarmyy: Oh I don't ever play just one hero. I'm not that guy, ever.

Playing bastion was just something I'm considering because it worked for the guy I linked and I'm in low levels now and nobody cares about team comp and meta. Like, nobody. Seriously. Everyone instalocks an offense or defense. See, there's no point in playing a tank or offense if nobody wants to help build around you.

Back when I was climbing, and nearing diamond, I always liked to stay true to 2/2/2 and never just picked my favorite or whoever was the most fun to play. Once I get to about 2500 again, I'll start playing serious.

@samanthak: It's both. There's lots of intense strategy to it but if you want to play it casually, it's got all the tools for that too.

@frostyryan: That sounds like the right approach to me. Right now, you need to get away from these people asap. Don't do what's correct, but do what gets you wins at that level. When the games become serious again, you need to get back into serious mode again.

It's also great fun recking with Bastion, so there's that I suppose. Just keep plugging away.

I don't play Overwatch. But I've heard the 'I'm good at X game, trust me, I am really good' before for many games from competitive Destiny to (competitive) Dark Souls and you're probably just not as good as you think. On top of that, if you're playing team-based modes it goes without saying you need a team. There are carries all over any competitive game. Everyone thinks they are good because other people got them there. If you have some bad luck and are in a team where multiple people require a carry and you're not good enough to carry them, constant losses happen.

Yeah it's a team game. You are gonna go on a big losing streak eventually if you play enough. Anyone who plays a moba can tell you that. And I'd almost argue it's harder to 1v99 carry a game in Overwatch than in a moba. If you actually are good at the game, you'll bounce back and get wins in again. In the law of averages, as long as your team has one good player (you) you'll meet enough 5 stacked chimpanzee teams to eventually climb up again.

Also, if you go on a losing streak and get frustrated/tilted, take a break and come back later. You are only gonna play worse and lose more when you're mad.

Personally I have a hard time taking OW ranked too seriously, there's enough problems in the core design to make it unviable as a competitive game. But eh, even in a busted game skill will generally shine through enough to make a noticeable difference.

This season I've found my most reliable win source to be playing supports. I have roughly 10 hours on Ana, 10 on Zen and 9 on Lucio this season. Managed to hit a season high of 3500 playing them. I know it's hard sometimes and when you feel the dps isn't doing enough it's so easy just to switch out to one, but I think my advice would be to just keep playing what you're best at and what the team needs.

I'm going to share a piece of advice that really helped me.

Git.

Gud.

It happens. Sometimes I get steamrolled by a group of randoms, sometimes I get to steamroll over them.

It's common in random games with people you most likely don't communicate a lot. It has nothing to do with you, personally...

I find that 'maining' a support is what helped me climb. I had a similar, albeit less severe, losing streak that took me down to about 2500 after which I suddenly got to 3060. I haven't played since then so my rank decayed down to 3000, mainly due to the fact that studying made me not want to have the pressure of comp. If you get good at him Zenyatta can really clean up and help his team clean up. I can't wait to finally get the golden orbs end of this season. Could have had them by now if I played as much comp as others around my level, but I could not be bothered.

I made a similar post not too long ago. I'm in platinum rank (third season in a row) and I still find it nearly impossible to get ranked with people who know how to play the game. I would say that in competitive I lose 2x as much as I do in standard matchmaking, for whatever reason, and I'd say my general experience with teammates is worse in competitive. Also, I find the gains of winning to be really low and it sucks when you have someone leave the game early 1/5 times.

I'm going to give a small bit of advice and you can take it however you like. If you are on a losing streak and are continuing to just lose then take a break for an hour or two. You might not feel like it but there's a good chance your frustrations and agitation are causing your game to slip. Taking that break allows you time to reset yourself and sometimes you get out of the bad group funk too.

If you deserved to be diamond, you'd be diamond.

@frostyryan: I had a similar drop from 2800 SR to 2150 SR. Solo-queuing is by far the most frustrated I have ever been playing a game. It is basically a dice roll to hopefully get paired up with competent OW players.

My honest solution is to use your mic and when you find others that are using a mic, party up. While my SR still has not recovered, I am making my way slowly back up.

Good luck and taking a break can be a very good thing when you get frustrated.

I go through streaks like this in Rocket League a lot where I lose 8-10 matches in a row. I get stuck with jag-offs who never play the cross or rebound shot. Who always knock me out of the way as I'm about to clear it or as I'm about to get an easy goal. Who refuse to play goal at all, even just once. Don't give up, just persevere and it'll eventually pass.

Playing this game solo sounds like a miserable experience.

Saying you deserve a certain rank is weird to me. Maybe time after time you were getting matched up with bad teammates. That's possible. Solo queueing all the time sounds like a nightmare, though. It would benefit you to find a squad that you can group up with and build a chemistry with. Then, you might acheive that rank you deserve.

@adequatelyprepared: I do that but sometimes the team just doesn't wanna work with me as support. if everyone's off doing their own thing, supports just seem almost useless in these low ranks.

I just had a match where literally all 5 of them were out there, in overtime, not a single one was on the payload. we lost. ELO hell is so real.

I've dropped from 3240 to ~2400 over the last few weeks, not necessarily playing often but when I do I just lose way more than win. I dunno what's up.