Some words of encouragement for climbers.

1. The system is designed for you to be able to climb your way up to Crystal tier quite easily, it achieves so with a combination of not allowing you to drop a tier and giving you extra stars with win streaks
2. A 50% win rate will not stagnate you, it will climb you very fast, a 30% win rate even can let you climb, those people who made it to crystal day 2 had a 70% winrate, which is absolutely unreasonable for most players
3. You might get sucky teammates in many matches, those are matches you are meant to lose, as even professional league of legends players can only attain a 70% win rate on a smurf account in bronze, it's the nature of team based pvp games.
4. If you approach these "loss tax" games with the intent to play as well as you can, and manage a close victory, you basically cheated yourself out of having to lose a game, which adds up in the end.
5. Player skill is largely irrelevant since the game is a lot more based on team comp rng, teammates rng and rng in general
6. Lastly, don't give up, it might take you 250 wins to reach crystal, but you will reach it nonetheless

I've been Platinum 4 0 stars for 5 days straight. Highest I got was Platinum 2. It's incredibly tiresome.

Appreciate the words of encouragement but yeah like the other poster here said it can be extremely tedious/tiring to constantly deal with an onslaught of bad matchups and onesided fights when you start to make progress in the ranks if you don't want to just abandon the job you like to play the 3-5 meta ones.

Point 5. Its rng, skill doesn't come into it if you keep getting bad comps. So its possible you could be best player in world and be stuck in bronze!

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

I've been Platinum 4 0 stars for 5 days straight. Highest I got was Platinum 2. It's incredibly tiresome.

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You and I are in the exact same boat at the exact same progress.

I have 157 win and stuck in Platinum 4 Zero Stars. The matching seems to be purposely pairing me with flawed teams and seeing people with 41-60ish wins make it to Crystal is aggravating!

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Originally Posted by Amelimie

Point 5. Its rng, skill doesn't come into it if you keep getting bad comps. So its possible you could be best player in world and be stuck in bronze!

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No, this is not possible over a reasonable number of games. There will be speed bumps along the way, that's inevitable in any game, but the system hands out more stars than it takes away—so you need to be considerably worse than the people around you to fail to rank up.

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Originally Posted by SeiyaSoiya

1. The system is designed for you to be able to climb your way up to Crystal tier quite easily, it achieves so with a combination of not allowing you to drop a tier and giving you extra stars with win streaks
2. A 50% win rate will not stagnate you, it will climb you very fast, a 30% win rate even can let you climb, those people who made it to crystal day 2 had a 70% winrate, which is absolutely unreasonable for most players
3. You might get sucky teammates in many matches, those are matches you are meant to lose, as even professional league of legends players can only attain a 70% win rate on a smurf account in bronze, it's the nature of team based pvp games.
4. If you approach these "loss tax" games with the intent to play as well as you can, and manage a close victory, you basically cheated yourself out of having to lose a game, which adds up in the end.
5. Player skill is largely irrelevant since the game is a lot more based on team comp rng, teammates rng and rng in general
6. Lastly, don't give up, it might take you 250 wins to reach crystal, but you will reach it nonetheless

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I agree, but knowledge of all these things can make it even more frustrating. I have a 50-55% win rate (I track through achievement data and so I have to discount casual matches), but I have been stuck in gold for a good while. Why? Well, because I hardly ever get three or more wins in a row, and since I never get to Gold 4 0 starts, I never benefit from the "free loss" system. It is frustrating. Just yesterday I was Gold 1 with one win away from Plat 4, then I had a 8-10 loss streak. Well, if that had happened one game later, it would have had 0 impact on my rank. But it didn't, so there I was right back to Gold 3/4.

Meanwhile, folks with worse win/loss ratio and fewer games are diamond. RNG, RNG, RNG. :(

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Originally Posted by Khiry

You and I are in the exact same boat at the exact same progress.

I have 157 win and stuck in Platinum 4 Zero Stars. The matching seems to be purposely pairing me with flawed teams and seeing people with 41-60ish wins make it to Crystal is aggravating!

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Those numbers pretty much imply an over 90% win-rate... I'd almost be tempted to report someone like that. There is no level of adequate skill that puts you in that win-rate unless you're throwing some pretty shady add-ons into the mix. And I'm saying that knowing full well that WAR, WHM and RDM are pretty strong even after patch. You can be good, but you can't steamroll like that...

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Originally Posted by GayRobot

No, this is not possible over a reasonable number of games. There will be speed bumps along the way, that's inevitable in any game, but the system hands out more stars than it takes away—so you need to be considerably worse than the people around you to fail to rank up.

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It depends on what you consider a reasonable amount of games. 100? 500? 2000?

In the short to medium term, it is all in the distribution of your win-losses. Consider two people with 50% wins over the course of ten matches with the following distributions:

Player 1: w-w-w-w-w-l-l-l-l-l
Player 2: w-l-w-l-w-l-w-w-l-l

Player one advanced 3 stars. Plater two advanced 0 stars. Both won the same number of games, but due to RNG on matchmaking, one is stuck and the other is moving forward. Now consider the second example. Two players suffered a 5-loss streak, but one did that in Gold 1 (2 stars) and the other on Plat 4 (1 star):

Player 1: Gold 1 (1), Gold 1 (0), Gold 2 (3), Gold 2 (2), Gold 2 (1)
Player 2: Plat 4 (0), Plat 4 (0), Plat 4 (0), Plat 4 (0), Plat 4 (0)

Both players had a 5-loss strak, yet while one lost 5 stars worth of rank, the other lost 1 start only.

Of course, on average, like you said after a very large number of matches, things will tend to even out for two players of similar skill. But if you consider, for instance, 200 matches, there can be very large, luck-based differences.

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Originally Posted by gioroggia

It depends on what you consider a reasonable amount of games. 100? 500? 2000?
[...]
Of course, on average, like you said after a very large number of matches, things will tend to even out for two players of similar skill. But if you consider, for instance, 200 matches, there can be very large, luck-based differences.

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I hit Crystal after ~150 wins while watching my friends get in after 70—including a spirit-crushing loss streak at Diamond 1—so I'm intimately familiar with this feeling, LMAO. The current system makes the problem even worse, since variance gets higher and higher over time as more players find a lucky streak past a derank border.

Still, even in a working system, it usually takes a pretty long time to accurately assess skill with team sizes this large, and some people probably need some extra rewards to blunt that for themselves.

In all seriousness, how is this supposed to help me?

I've been trying insanely hard every day to climb in rank, like anything at all. After all this time I'm still stuck in Bronze. If I get EXTREMELY lucky and win enough to go up a star, the very next round I end up with a garbage team and we all die, and I immediately go down a star. Nothing I've tried works. I've played the "Meta" using classes that I hate, like white mage, just on the hope that I can get some wins in, and all that happens is the other team focuses hard on me because of it. So again I die cause my team sure as hell isn't going to support me. Again this bronze garbage tier. And nothing I do will let me climb up at all.

Clearly I must utterly suck and am a horrible player, as I'm sure you're all thinking by now. So how can I get any better if all I experience is loss after loss after loss? And most of those times there's nothing I could do about it because everyone else in my team sucks too. I'm desperate for help, I'm begging for it now, but all I get to enjoy is utter torture.



Just to add an example for reference:
In my last game I had 6 kills, 0 deaths, and 11 assists. We still lost. So tell me again how I'm supposed to do any better?

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Originally Posted by KasaiRuby

In all seriousness, how is this supposed to help me?

I've been trying insanely hard every day to climb in rank, like anything at all. After all this time I'm still stuck in Bronze. If I get EXTREMELY lucky and win enough to go up a star, the very next round I end up with a garbage team and we all die, and I immediately go down a star. Nothing I've tried works. I've played the "Meta" using classes that I hate, like white mage, just on the hope that I can get some wins in, and all that happens is the other team focuses hard on me because of it. So again I die cause my team sure as hell isn't going to support me. Again this bronze garbage tier. And nothing I do will let me climb up at all.

Clearly I must utterly suck and am a horrible player, as I'm sure you're all thinking by now. So how can I get any better if all I experience is loss after loss after loss? And most of those times there's nothing I could do about it because everyone else in my team sucks too. I'm desperate for help, I'm begging for it now, but all I get to enjoy is utter torture.



Just to add an example for reference:
In my last game I had 6 kills, 0 deaths, and 11 assists. We still lost. So tell me again how I'm supposed to do any better?

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I was in your shoes, many of us were. I am at crystal now so I can part with some advice that I think worked well for me. After every game I would analyze the scoreboard. I would look at my damage taken and in the beginning I'd find that I often took the most damage on my team. I then start to ask, why exactly am I always taking the most damage, and how can I take less damage? Can I mitigate more? If I was mitigating on cooldown, could I have chosen to mitigate at better times when the enemy is about to burst? If so, now I need to study what the other jobs burst looks like. If I got all that down and Im still taking the most damage, I ask myself whether my positioning could be improved? Am I heading into the fight too early and everyone targets me?

This is just one aspect, I had many, many, many things I was doing poorly even though I could achieve the most kills on the team. But once you solve one problem, you work on the next. For example, now that Im not taking the most damage any more, I'm playing very carefully and patiently, but now my damage is low. How can I continue to play carefully but also maximise my damage? Etc etc etc.

After you've perfected your own gameplay, the biggest and most determinant factor in climbing rank is by taking control of the game as your party's leader. Marking 1 on the highest priority target, and changing it to the target who is most easily attackable by all members of your party (someone who over extended) as the game goes on. Telling your team when its time to push the crystal, telling them to fall back (before they are dead, call the fall back when you see your party's MP is below 25%) and telling them when to all out attack. Also being patient and not giving up the moment your team doesnt follow your direction.

Hope this helps!

Up until your in the top tier the pvp ranking is very much just getting thrown into a tumbler full of garbage, getting beaten against the walls for a while, and hoping it spits you out in the right direction.

I'm only in gold, don't really play that much, but still get teamed up with people that maybe have 3 or 4 career wins. You'll get 10 game losing streaks where all you can think at the end is "did they really think funneling in 1 at a time versus a full team was going to work?"
and then you'll get 5 wins in a row and jump 3 ranks in the snap of a finger

my wife got to platinum accidentally not having 3 skills on her bar including her limit break, it's just luck of the draw

I'd love to win even 3 in a row at this point. I'm in the same situation as KasaiRuby -- stuck at Bronze 3, got to 2 once, only to fall right back down. 14 wins out of gods know how many matches. Play CC for at least an hour a day if not more, so in theory should move up, but nope, so it's not for lack of trying. I play RDM mostly because it's the job I'm most comfortable with there (play on an alt, not this char), beat the poor dummies to death to get the rotation down, but still -- get in the match and be the first one zerged. Feel like cannon fodder at this point. Especially when the matchmaking system plops you in a team with 3 bronze and 2 unranked vs. 3 silver and 2 bronze, as happened in one match tonight.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

Up until your in the top tier the pvp ranking is very much just getting thrown into a tumbler full of garbage, getting beaten against the walls for a while, and hoping it spits you out in the right direction.

I'm only in gold, don't really play that much, but still get teamed up with people that maybe have 3 or 4 career wins. You'll get 10 game losing streaks where all you can think at the end is "did they really think funneling in 1 at a time versus a full team was going to work?"
and then you'll get 5 wins in a row and jump 3 ranks in the snap of a finger

my wife got to platinum accidentally not having 3 skills on her bar including her limit break, it's just luck of the draw

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For me it's a limbo in S3. I just can't get out. MM is garbage because
I get Bronze or Unranks versus like Gold 1 then constant meta picks on enemy side.
WHM + WAR + DRG + BLM + RDM lately in almost every game today and I'm just sick of it lol.
My luck ran out when I won a few games just to quickly head out of Bronze and Silver is where I stay.

At least you guys are getting 2 stars, I haven't seen that in the last 30-40 games I've played.
I'm just going up a star, then lose 10, up 1, and lose 8, etc.
I like the bit of competitiveness but only I can take so much of the stunlock metapick 10 kill WHM sweatruns vs.
my team who is Deathmatching the random NIN on the side while everyone else is pushing every single game like I'm sorry lol.

Before the buffs/nerfs to jobs I got to gold 1 then lost so much I dropped back down to gold 4. I was frustrated and gave up but I decided to give it another try and today went from gold 4 to diamond 5 on my Astro. The buff to macrocosmos definitely helped. I’ve had a blast. I had the longest streak ever in CC. I’m one happy Midlander.

It definitely takes team work and everyone working semi together at least to get wins. Don’t have to be perfect.

I got to Crystal after 260+ wins and over 800 games. If I can do it, you can too!

My background is Master in OW and D2 in LoL and I never had a harder time climbing in the sense of 'bad luck' than I did with Crystal.

After every game I would rage but also remember all the times I missed my LB and abilities and focused on getting better at that and building muscle memory.

Also remember at the moment after Plat 4 you'll be in the same pool as diamond and crystal players, so in relative terms once you get there you'll be playing with and against the top percentile.

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Originally Posted by KasaiRuby

Nothing I've tried works. I've played the "Meta" using classes that I hate, like white mage, just on the hope that I can get some wins in, and all that happens is the other team focuses hard on me because of it. for it now, but all I get to enjoy is utter torture.

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I wouldn't recommend playing white mage with the purpose of climbing unless you become very good with the job.

What is the purpose of picking a meta job, after all? There are two reasons. First, you ensure you always have the meta job in your team composition. If you pick WHM, there is always a WHM in your team. If you pick, say, a bard, there is no guarantee there will be a WHM in your team. That's reason #1. Second, you ensure that not only does your team have the meta job, but also that's in the hands of someone who's good at it (you). There will always be a good WHM in my team , which should increase my chances of winning. That's reason #2.

But ensuring you have a WHM in your team isn't that necessary anymore. It is very likely there will be a WHM in your team no matter whether you pick one or not. The job is just that popular right now. So, that negates reason #1 almost completely. Now, since there almost always is a WHM in your team, picking one yourself will only help if you are above average with it. If you were not playing WHM in your team someone would. So, you will only increase your chances of winning by picking a WHM if you are better than the average with it. If you are not, then reason #2 for picking a meta job does not apply to your case. If you're bad with the WHM you are only hurting your team by picking one, since if you hadn't picked it odds are someone who's better with it than you would have been in your team. Oh, and by the way, yes WHM always gets focused. So you if you want to play it and increase your win % to climb you need to get really good at surviving getting focused.

So, if you want to climb, I suggest practicing either with a warrior or with a red mage. The warrior's situation was similar to the WHM's in that almost every team had one. After the patch, however, people are picking pal/del/gnb more often, but warrior is still the top dog among tanks. So picking it can be an advantage to your team. The RDM, on the other hand, is by no means a guaranteed presence in your team even though it is definitely the best damage dealer for single-target kills. Yes, you will often see DRG doing more damage than RDM, but the Dragoon's damage is very unfocused (lots of AOE) and so not as useful as the RDM's in securing kills for your team. Additionally, it has no cc to help the team or to eliminate a fleeing target, and it's easier to focus down. So, RDM is the best damage dealer you can want in your team.

In both cases - WAR and RDM - you must still practice and get at least average with them, otherwise you'll hurt your chances at winning because your team could have a better RDM/WAR than you.

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Originally Posted by GayRobot

No, this is not possible over a reasonable number of games. There will be speed bumps along the way, that's inevitable in any game, but the system hands out more stars than it takes away—so you need to be considerably worse than the people around you to fail to rank up.

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That is just not true the ranking system is totally flawed its luck on team comp and how good your team is. Just because you got lucky with few games to crystal doesn't mean that will apply to everyone. I hate people who think they good because got to crystal with this ranking system!

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Originally Posted by Amelimie

That is just not true the ranking system is totally flawed its luck on team comp and how good your team is. Just because you got lucky with few games to crystal doesn't mean that will apply to everyone. I hate people who think they good because got to crystal with this ranking system!

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I do not think I'm good—I'm a middling BRD at best. I miss my teammates with LB constantly, freak out and panic when trying to target people in crowded point fights, and sink like 50 silences into Resilience every game. But I'm trying to improve—if I insisted on blaming my teammates and the matchmaker for everything, not only would I be worse at that, but I wouldn't be having much fun either.

People are climbing with 30% winrate, over a large number of games, simply by getting their wins in the right order and maximizing streak bonus. If you're patient enough to keep playing, you can be much weaker than the people around you and still climb, it'll just be agonizingly slow as you repeatedly crash into the derank barrier.

Random factors like team comp and teammate skill apply to everyone equally, with one key difference—you are always on your team. If you're observing long trends in your gameplay or rating, start there.

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Originally Posted by GayRobot

I do not think I'm good—I'm a middling BRD at best. I miss my teammates with LB constantly, freak out and panic when trying to target people in crowded point fights, and sink like 50 silences into Resilience every game. But I'm trying to improve—if I insisted on blaming my teammates and the matchmaker for everything, not only would I be worse at that, but I wouldn't be having much fun either.

People are climbing with 30% winrate, over a large number of games, simply by getting their wins in the right order and maximizing streak bonus. If you're patient enough to keep playing, you can be much weaker than the people around you and still climb, it'll just be agonizingly slow as you repeatedly crash into the derank barrier.

Random factors like team comp and teammate skill apply to everyone equally, with one key difference—you are always on your team. If you're observing long trends in your gameplay or rating, start there.

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Is there a way to check how many matches i have done? i think i can see only the ones i won

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Originally Posted by Sinstrel

I was in your shoes, many of us were. I am at crystal now so I can part with some advice that I think worked well for me. After every game I would analyze the scoreboard. I would look at my damage taken and in the beginning I'd find that I often took the most damage on my team. I then start to ask, why exactly am I always taking the most damage, and how can I take less damage? Can I mitigate more? If I was mitigating on cooldown, could I have chosen to mitigate at better times when the enemy is about to burst? If so, now I need to study what the other jobs burst looks like. If I got all that down and Im still taking the most damage, I ask myself whether my positioning could be improved? Am I heading into the fight too early and everyone targets me?

This is just one aspect, I had many, many, many things I was doing poorly even though I could achieve the most kills on the team. But once you solve one problem, you work on the next. For example, now that Im not taking the most damage any more, I'm playing very carefully and patiently, but now my damage is low. How can I continue to play carefully but also maximise my damage? Etc etc etc.

After you've perfected your own gameplay, the biggest and most determinant factor in climbing rank is by taking control of the game as your party's leader. Marking 1 on the highest priority target, and changing it to the target who is most easily attackable by all members of your party (someone who over extended) as the game goes on. Telling your team when its time to push the crystal, telling them to fall back (before they are dead, call the fall back when you see your party's MP is below 25%) and telling them when to all out attack. Also being patient and not giving up the moment your team doesnt follow your direction.

Hope this helps!

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once again things like trying to focus on personal performance hardly matters until crystal
the amount of things you learn in challenger tier in league of legends, for example, is about 100x more complex and wide than anything you learn by obsessing over your personal skill and performance in iron/bronze to grandmaster
it does help to have some fundamentals in CC, like ensuring your MP is expended when you disengage/die, ensuring you never die without using your LB, guard or purify, ensuring you have as much uptime in damage as possible, and focus firing
but all that pales and is insignificant in the face of the RNG that overshadows everything in bronze all the way to crystal credit 100

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Originally Posted by Garten

Is there a way to check how many matches i have done? i think i can see only the ones i won

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I think some people have been using achievements to get a rough estimate, but if you've played any Feast (or the Fold, god) in the past, it'll be inaccurate. I wish they'd add full stats to your PvP Profile.

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Originally Posted by Garten

Is there a way to check how many matches i have done? i think i can see only the ones i won

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I recorded all of mine on google sheets during streams to keep track. I stopped after crystal because I assume it's more of the same. Majority of the people seem to report more loses than wins, but there's also a bias in that, so just start recording from now, see what your wr is and extrapolate from that.