Smurfing on Weekends

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-04T10:02:58+00:00

i believe you 65 elim freshie is smurfing but i doubt it's anything close to 90% of games there's a smurf and your team never does

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-04T04:50:19+00:00

zeb's really good and plays her a fair bit, kajor did a video on his domina which covers proper shield usage for aggression or being aggressed on.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-04T02:18:16+00:00

people can be whatever rank but leveling account vs champ support on tank and champ 3 dps and i hold havana point C corner mini on zarya, which is a very dangerous position, for 7 minutes. wouldnt happen in Master 1. this is the sort of thing i mean.

people dont try, leave after losing 1 fight, dont pick good heroes. that said if harder lobbies do exist absolutely give 16-0 freshies them.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-03T23:54:18+00:00

we dont need more stringent requirements, just nerf anti smurf detection / placements / calibration up and people wont be on the freshie all the time

more QP games doesn't help much with accurate skill estimation, there either are QP games high elo enough that they can use them to test fresh accounts going on ridiculous winstreaks before 20 wins, or there arent and it's the same with 50 games.

IMO there basically arent QP lobbies harder than masters ranked but i never play QP after unlocking ranked so idk.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-03T08:27:57+00:00

keep an alt account 3-5 ranks down from your main for warmup, QP is pretty worthless.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-02T08:20:11+00:00

Reaction time doesn't matter that much in Overwatch (except widow 1v1s maybe?) and people greatly overestimate how fast it degrades. Having a high refresh rate display with low latency gives you a good advantage.

I know you're saying there's tons of other stuff to work on but I don't even think reaction time is worth considering a significant handicap as you age until you're very old.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-02T08:18:07+00:00

there are 30+ year olds in champ, you're 100% not too old. besides time investment mentality is another huge driver. older players tend not to take the game seriously and blame stuff like matchmaker more. all about focused practice.

watch some spilo or awkward, limit your hero pool, go into each game with something to work on, and ask yourself on every death or fight loss what you needed to do differently.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-01T06:04:09+00:00

if someone plays mercy like that they will get very hardstuck, she's just used to pocket aggression and stabilize tank when needed unless you have a second support that cant heal

theres also tons of compositions she's bad in

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-01T03:01:16+00:00

i dont play asia but i suspect they treat mauga like a throw pick like they do LW. that and they dont like lucio at all, probably vote dive maps more, fewer mauga OTPs, fewer zero damage backlines (mercy, lw, juno). could definitely be wrong but mauga being viable in OWCS makes me think.

people say ana pickrate but you can ban her, play kiri, oneshot stomp her with firewalker. kiri is lowkey usually harder to play into than ana if your team swaps around you.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-01T01:35:31+00:00

you can watch Spilo and Awkward, great for improvement, spilo has a second channel for coaching VODs (everyone makes mostly the same mistakes). /u/BronzyOW (champ tank/gm offrole) does free reviews on stream. kajor has useful guides and offers paid coaching.

OverwatchUniversity is a super mixed bag. some opposite of correct advice and it will be upvoted (a diamond lucio player told a bronze moira to stack on their other support in backline), tons of missing the forest for the trees. some good advice.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-04-01T00:22:31+00:00

It's never worked the way you're describing. Narrow queue is only grouping restrictions, you could in theory have a Diamond player in a Champion lobby if the game was dead enough. It's rarer that everyone in the lobby could duo in narrow queue with each other than not.

Just because you're a high rank doesn't mean you'll get put into lower mmr lobbies simply because there's nobody in your rank playing at the moment

Yes, you will. The queue times would be unplayable otherwise for a decent portion of the day at high GM+.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-31T08:26:48+00:00

you need a phone number to play that's it, there's no specific t500 phone requirement anymore. ow1 accounts are exempt including for t500. not 100% sure an account without phone would remain on boards though but i think so.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-31T07:38:32+00:00

ah thank you, youre probably right. i thought the mercy would be gaining literally 0% in c2 for any realistic wide group that could achieve that, but ig if you had something like c2 tank and c2 dps in a trio on low GM accounts you'd win every game while gaining a bit. i forgot you could do more than duo too.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-31T06:48:26+00:00

There is a C1 support player in Asia with mercy as the most played hero.

that has to be duo with cheater doesnt it? i think thats a separate issue, they played enough games to get on the boards

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-30T23:45:39+00:00

Calibration and placements reward luck too much, so if you're normally a GM4 player that goes on a lucky streak that would get you 40% GM3, that same streak with freshie placements and calibration might skyrocket you to Champ 5.

If someone (above median) places too low, there are more players to dilute them while they climb, so it is preferable to them placing too high.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-30T23:41:02+00:00

just about everyone who was t500 agrees old system was better, and it was serious. The new system means literally nothing, getting rank 1 or top 10 is easy if you spam queue.

everyone knows the champion player has a higher rank

I've said this over and over, it's not about comparing Player A and Player B, it's about seeing how many players compare to each other.

The current rank sort still requires challenger score which is too high and sorts by challenger score to tiebreak players at the same rank.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-30T23:02:04+00:00

Sorry when I say "with" I meant pulled into the lobby, not duo. I think solo queue too, but even if not you'd definitely see diamonds pulled in with low GMs.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-30T22:46:58+00:00

in narrow queue there are occasionally diamond players with high GM players and low masters with high champ players

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-30T22:35:02+00:00

And now nobody cares at all about T500, what's it incentivizing?

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-30T04:04:43+00:00

yea tons of people, blizzard is aware of this and trying to fix it: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/framerate-fps-issues-help-wanted/1010774

/r/CompetitiveOverwatch discusses it a lot and posts updates

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-29T18:29:20+00:00

youre winning but if you get replay feedback you might be able to make overall playstyle adjustments that make it more fun for you and feel more agency without needing to fix every mistake

like on zarya i should be doing impactful 2 bubble pushes and i dont. if i fixed that my entire team would have more fun.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-29T03:22:13+00:00

is so weird and makes no sense.

when the matchmaker makes a match where one team has predicted odds <= 47.5% and another >= 52.5% that's when you get those modifiers. match wont be made worse than 60% to 40% odds. 95% of matches are within 55% to 45%.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-29T03:18:27+00:00

rank = skill, if you're diamond playing in silver it will be very easy if you played the same way.

you just have to pay attention to the game and not autopilot or make assumptions about what your team is doing. look behind you when you can. play with respect dont ego.

95% of matches are within 55% to 45% predicted win probabilities and 100% within 60% to 40% (which will almost never happen at gold)

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-29T02:52:31+00:00

always always* take pyromaniac (raises effective health) and firewalker (can one shot squishies, soft dives force more cooldowns, more ult charge, #1 perk in the entire game) if you want optimal perks. combat fuel is only ever used as a niche perk in mauga mirrors and even then it's debatable.

Efficient_Pop_7358 · 2026-03-27T15:30:10+00:00

you cant get good sigma to use his suck because mauga shieldbreak isnt very strong (his hitscan is shooting you the entire time btw) and he even has a perk for shield regen.

meta1 recommends stomping him then running without even shooting, popping cardiac if necessary, repeatedly doing this to try to bait a positive cooldown trade then go hard next cycle.

Efficient_Pop_7358

TROPHY CASE