trying to rank up a bit from silver and I know 100% I make dumb mistakes, but if my dps aren’t taking high ground or off angles, and just unload full clips into zarya’s bubbles i’m genuinely confused as to how to carry as juno in that instance.

from my understanding juno’s damage output isn’t high enough to carry, and shouldn’t really be taking hard flanks.

hypothetically if I’m a gold juno, would I really be able to rank up playing in silver lobbies?

I feel like if a gold kiri is playing in silver lobbies there’s a lot more opportunity there for them to carry, by taking flanks and putting more pressure through her higher kill threat and damage output.

I just really struggle soloqueueing as juno a lot of the time, but when I queue with my gold friends in gold lobbies I don’t struggle to keep up at all, and ik stats can be misleading but I rarely have bad stats even in lost games.

I hope this doesn’t come across as cocky or patronising, i’m aware that a lot of the decisions I make in game would be laughable to higher ranks, my mechanics can be really off, my ult usage isn’t ideal a lot of the time etc.

also I know that people say if you’re in silver you can’t judge what other people are doing bc you don’t know enough about the game to judge, otherwise you wouldn’t be silver- but the dps surely objectively should be taking high ground and flanking 🦍

any advice would be appreciated and if i’m mistaken in anything i’ve said here lmk!!

Had a game recently on Esperanza. My ana and brig get their ults around 7:15. So 2/3 mins into the game (they swapped first fight). We do really good, push the bot past checkpoint. We have 5 ults. Ana with Nano and Brig with Rally just let our Soj die to a Sombra. So the push is done. Whatevs. We still have 5 ults.

My ana, soj, and brig proceed to hold onto their ults for the REST OF THE RAATID GAME. I don't know why even masters players need to learn this, but you are never gonna fashion the perfect opportunity to use your ult and get a teamwipe. Just pop the damn thing and build it again. This is a fundamental principle of the game. Ults win games. Good Ult cycleing wins games. The enemy ball got 4 minefields by the time our Ana finally used Nano with about 20 seconds left of the game remaining.

Needless to say we lost. Not saying they were primarily the reason for the loss, but I just can't fathom why people just hold onto ults waiting for the right moment. Especially supports. I can kind of understand our Soj never getting the chance to use hers, but support ults are pretty much free, bar infrequent circumstances (Ajax, losing Nano etc). Just press Q and you get value.

I know it sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, cause it is, but please use your ults. Preferably as soon as you get it. You want to ult as much as possible in the span of a game.

Hey there! My name is nerdbrain, I'm a gm career high symmetra main who now plays her around masters and diamond. I've been working on a series of long form video essay type projects all about each of symmetra's abilities. I've just finished my newest one all about the teleporter.

I go over the basics and stats of the ability and then talk about all of its various applications. Crucial enemy attacks you can evade, combos you can perform with your teammates, and specific spots to build the teleporter to capture objectives quickly. If that sounds interesting to you check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc5UoNOyRq8

Context: Booted up old alt account to play with friends and had to do placements for it starting in silver. Main account is in masters. Literally won every game.

Now does this make me smurfing asshole even though it's unintentional? Yes probably. That's not the point though.

Basically until the account hit diamond the game just felt like a completely different experience. Fights happened in the most stupid and dipsh*t places, people chased all the way to spawn just to get murdered, positioning was non-existent, ego challenging up the wazoo, SO MANY WASTED ULTIMATES AND ABILITIES, and basically just a fundamental misunderstanding of the game. Which by the way, is okay, that is completely fine. The point I'm trying to get across is that at these ranks you genuinely barely need to be able to aim.

If you just learn how not to feed your brains into oblivion you will win more games than you lose. Not that you won't lose, BUT YOU WILL WIN MORE. Also, if match chat affects you, turn it off. No one there knows wtf they're talking about. They'll complain about almost anything and not understand what the problem actually is. If you're a bap who's about even on healing and damage and outputting a lot of both, do not listen to some dimwit complaining about your numbers. You are not a healbot, you are a support, if you are doing your job then you are doing your job.

So much of playing getting out of these ranks is (yes work on your aim) just understanding the game. How do fights work, what's my job, what's my teammates job. What is the "win condition". How do I maximize my value. How do I not feed like an idiot. How do I maintain uptime.

Stop blaming your teammates, usually the most vocal ones are the ones on the team who are the biggest problem. Unless you are straight up obviously carrying, like you're a widow with 40 elims and 3 deaths while everyone else has 29 deaths and 3 elims, please shut up and look at what you could have done differently.

Last thing, why the f*ck does everyone play mystery heroes? I understand when it's higher elo lobbies, but come on, at these ranks people need to focus on 1 or maybe 2 heroes and just figure out how they work. Stop playing 30 heroes, focus on 1-2, hell or high water, emphasize getting better and your rank will follow.

Edit: I said this in the post, so I'll reiterate that IT IS PERFECTLY FINE TO BE AT THESE RANKS AND DO EVERYTHING I SAID ABOVE. I'm just pointing out frank observations for anyone that wants to know what are probably the most glaring issues at these ranks.

Pretty straight forward suggestion. Avoids accidental use of the button and angry DPS spamming at spawn after death.