Platinum 4, 0 Stars, for 1 Week Straight Now. AMA

[YukikoKurosawa]

Somehow I managed to rank to Plat in a relatively short time, then got hit with the bad player stick I guess because now I rarely win a game no matter what job I play. I, quite literally, cannot rank at all now. Even when I do manage to get close to Diamond it is always followed by a loss streak that puts me all the way back down. Not really sure what to even say at this point. Every day it's a new record and I don't expect this to change.

[Ransu]

Play warrior. Guaranteed crystal ranked even post nerf.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Play warrior. Guaranteed crystal ranked even post nerf.

I am though. Only thing that's changed since switching to this job is I can carry my goddawful teammates better. Still not enough. Watched somebody today who was holding down the crystal deliberately move off while we were just about there to help and let the enemy win.

Just screw this garbage.

[NamanoNanaya]

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Even you were spewing “oh if you played XXX you didn’t earn it it’s EZ mode to use certain jobs”
No one job will carry you anywhere if the user or combination of users suck. Seems you learned that shit that hard way.
Having a certain combo or using a certain job won’t ensure anything, most of the competitive people are already placed and ranked in crystal, they kept playing and pushing over making posts everyday about how OP they think something is.

All you can do is play during peak hours so you get a healthy mix of those still climbing with the mindset to win over those who are stagnate and can’t or don’t want to dedicate time to climbing.
I learned on my climb to crystal I was getting certain people during certain hours of play, they tended to do really really bad, but being on during peak I never ran into them more than once, and I had better luck overall with getting different diverse groups that wanted to win.

[gioroggia]

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
No one job will carry you anywhere if the user or combination of users suck.

That is true. But you know what else is true?

It is still going to be easier, sometimes considerably so, if you pick a "meta" job than a "non-meta" job, assuming you have equal skills with both. I think the meta job that is least likely to help someone rank up, though, is the white mage. This is because the job is so popular right now that you will have a white mage in your team 80% of the the time even if you never pick one. Warrior was almost in the same place, but with the buffs to DRK and GNB it saw a small decline in use, which makes it a more interesting pick.

OP could also try Red Mage, since it is the best all-round DPS with some breathing space to boot. Still, I would highly recommend practicing a lot before going into ranked with it.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Just dropped another match as WAR. Ran in, with my teammates, and used my aoe stun. I was almost instantly stunlocked to death. I had put up shield but they ate through it in a nanosecond. Somehow teammates managed to push the crystal ahead, but then got distracted and let one lone DRK push it farther than we got. I ran up and pulled him out, then started pushing it back, only for the entire team to jump me and kill me near instantly again. Meanwhile my team was nowhere to be seen. Just dropped, not dealing with that garbage.

All you can do is play during peak hours so you get a healthy mix of those still climbing with the mindset to win over those who are stagnate and can’t or don’t want to dedicate time to climbing.
I learned on my climb to crystal I was getting certain people during certain hours of play, they tended to do really really bad, but being on during peak I never ran into them more than once, and I had better luck overall with getting different diverse groups that wanted to win.

Does not make a difference what time of day I play. If anything the enemy team is even better during peak and my team is about the same on average. I do suspect I'm being grouped up against coordinated players queing at the same time to get into the same group, and some may randomly end up on my side and throw the match on purpose for that reason. There's a massive skill difference between the people on my team and the enemy team since reaching platinum. I have a running theory that from Platinum and up discord cliques having taken over and are controlling who ranks or who doesn't to Diamond and beyond. All I know is the behavior since hitting platinum highly reeks of win-trading type behavior but proving it is the difficult part.

[Raistlin]

If no matter how much you play, you cant get out of Platinum, that means you are platinum skill.


That's how tier ranking works, the more you climb, more skilled players you encounter, until you find people that is normally better than you and then your skill by average make you lose more than win and you get stuck in that tier.

[Sindele]

Do you know how many seemingly hopeless matches like the one you just described have been ones that get turned around into wins? Like, the games don't last THAT long, why give up instead of playing for the outside chance of a turnaround victory? CC is a very, very swingy mode, and it only takes a little momentum and a couple mistakes for a team to flip the balance of power completely.

You are shooting yourself in the foot and then complaining that it's too hard to walk, and it's painful to watch.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Do you know how many seemingly hopeless matches like the one you just described have been ones that get turned around into wins? Like, the games don't last THAT long, why give up instead of playing for the outside chance of a turnaround victory? CC is a very, very swingy mode, and it only takes a little momentum and a couple mistakes for a team to flip the balance of power completely.

You are shooting yourself in the foot and then complaining that it's too hard to walk, and it's painful to watch.

Why should I carry people who are not even trying? Odds of that game turning around were virtually nil and honestly they didn't even deserve victory. Getting destroyed through a shield almost instantly from full HP (as a WAR mind you) TWICE also straight up should never happen. I'm not saying they were somehow cheating, but that's highly suspect. Especially when I can go multiple rounds and fight an opponent who, despite my entire team being on them, does not die (surviving attacks that should've killed them), or taking zero dmg from LB's (when they have no buffs to mitigate dmg).

The behavior in platinum tier is extremely off and I highly suspect something shady is going on. I can only imagine what Diamond and Crystal are like.

[Sindele]

Well, 1) because you should always be trying to win, but mostly 2) because every win you pull out of the trash is another shot at building a streak. Who cares if the chances are low or your team "doesn't deserve it"? You are not trying to win for other people, you are trying to win for yourself. Undercutting your chances of victory is undercutting your ability to rank up, full stop.

To be blunt, the rest tells me that you aren't really focusing on learning as much as you need to be. Getting destroyed through shield almost instantly "should" never happen, but there are a number of tools that make it quite plausible, especially if you're caught out alone and the enemy team has the luxury of taking a breath to synchronize correctly. You play MCH - you know there's over 50k Guard-bypassing damage on tap there in all of two button presses. There are several LBs that will drop shields on the spot, and a fully orchestrated team burst that burns cooldowns is more than enough to lock in a kill inside of a GCD, even on tank HP. Signaling the intent to do this to your team takes all of one macro. None of this is particularly suspicious: this is optimal play, and you will only see it more often from here. Learn what enables those kills, and learn how to mitigate or avoid them altogether. Sometimes the only answer is to have not been there in the first place.