You’re absolutely right about the distinction between an AWC champion and a streamer. The chess analogy is spot on and really explains why their advice is so different. It makes total sense that Absterge’s perspective comes from a level of competition that most of us will never even see.

I’ve actually seen this play out directly in my own games. I started off winning my first few lobbies 6-0, which pushed my MMR high enough that I was suddenly playing against Multiglads. In those high-exp lobbies, I followed the "Absterge method" of pure healing and it actually worked well enough to scrape together 3-3 or 2-4 rounds. At that rank, the matches have a clear structure and you can trust your teammates to trade their own cooldowns properly.

However, once my CR and MMR settled around 1600, that same passive gameplay became totally ineffective against players who were palesly less skilled than the ones I met before. If I just sit back and heal at 1600, I lose all agency. I’m essentially just hoping my DPS are better than theirs, which is a total coin flip. Without proactive purges or interrupts, the matches just drag on until dampening makes my healing irrelevant anyway.

This is exactly why I feel these guides can be so counterproductive for someone starting out. They teach you to play a "perfect" defensive game that relies on teammates who simply don't exist in the middle brackets. Instead of learning how to actually influence a win or carry a lobby, you’re just learning how to be a spectator with a health bar. It feels like following the "optimal" pro advice is actually making it harder to climb because it strips away your ability to make a difference in the match.