Honestly, I have more fun playing unranked or even (gods forbid) frontline. Ranked takes a lot of the fun out of it since it puts you at the mercy of things you have absolutely no control of. I am almost always the top dps in my team, and more often than not in the whole match as well. I play objectively and strategically. I think I am a very decent player for the rank I am at (gold 2). Still, I lose just as often as I win, and since I hardly ever get streaks I have been stuck at gold for some time.

The problem is that although I know there is a lot of RNG involved (player matching, team composition, victory distribution, etc) I can't help but get upset when I am about to rank up to plat only to have a streak of eight losses. Something just like that has happened three times in gold already. I have 132 wins, I think, and 260 CC games total. The vast majority is ranked. Yet I am stuck. People with fewer games and worst win % are in crystal because they got one or a few win streaks.

I also get upset about the game balance. We all know it's terrible. I mostly play Dragoon (sometimes scholar or machinist), and though people *think* Dragoon is good, it is not. It's middle of the pack. The large damage numbers you see at the end hide the fact that Dragoon has no cc to contribute with the team, no utility, has difficulty finishing up retreating enemies - it has only 1 dash (the jump), no cc, and no speed % bonus - and a good deal of its damage is AOE, which is not as useful as single-target concentrated damage. Also, 1 on 1 it's the weakest melee DPS, losing even to monk and reaper. So, when I am playing with or against RDM or NIN, I know they are far more useful to the fight than I am. That if I picked one of them I would rank up faster. But I really don't want to.

So... yeah. For all these reasons ranked hasn't been particularly fun to me. I do have more fun playing unranked because then I don't get upset about my teammates or game balance. I just play whatever I want and enjoy it.

Still, for some mysterious reason, I want to get to crystal.