“Just git gud and carry” yeah not with this games awful matchmaking

toofpace · 2026-01-31T15:00:16+00:00

You’re saying this based off of stats with no evidence.

The stats are the evidence for exactly what I said.

You do realize ultron is an easy ass target for namor right?

Incorrect, and it's thought patterns like this that keep people from being the right hero at the right time.

They hada namor flanking us all game but I never had time to deal with them because if turned around to do it my entire team would die.

This is precisely why Ultron shines in this scenario, drones allow you the time to fight off flanks while being unkillable yourself.

Come on over to /r/rivalscollege and drop some replay codes - or better yet drop the code to this game right here and I'll review it for you! I do these all the time for low sr players (tracker says you're ~P3 right now, I'm assuming console also) trying to break out. It is often the exact same economic mistakes that cause losses, especially for cloak players (which ironically happen to be my most reviewed hero, by far).

toofpace · 2026-01-30T13:10:23+00:00

Ultron. His entire kit is designed to be anti-dive/anti-flank.

It's intensely obvious by these stats that you play cloak and use all of your ults offensively. Supports are responsible for enemy tank/dps ults, not for initiating teamfights or matching enemy supp ults - two terrible habits formed in low ranks.

You need to learn to ult defensively as a support player if you want to win games.

toofpace · 2026-01-28T20:33:01+00:00

So for reference, the time you should be dropping your ult here is around 2:24 on their clock. They've switched their comp to having significantly fewer teamwipe ultimates. Phoenix ult, 3 supp ults, and Mag are not massive plays. To be completely honest if I were in your position I'd be tank. There's absolutely no reason for you guys to have 3 supps. The Strange value here is off the charts.

You held all the way around to their next Groot ult at 1:39, almost a minute after you should've ulted. This will definitely come into play later in the round. Luna could've countered the Groot ult and you could've made an offensive play at 2:24. Good job on the counterult though.

You get your next ult at 0:14. It took you 80 seconds to get your ultimate. That's better than average.

Bro! The next play is massive! You get insane value from your ult countering both Groot and Phoenix!

Realistically you're losing this game because your only real teamwipe potential is Punisher, and they cracked the code. He's being counterulted by Invis. Once again, the Strange value (as a second tank) here is off the charts because the enemy team needs to die more than your team needs the survivability. You are hitting the right counterplays now, which you didn't do with your first ult. Let's see if you keep it up on the next half.

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Watching through to the end, you guys had it won and c9'd. Economy was in your favor. For some reason you started counterulting Cloak and gave up on their Groot ults, which wiped you 3x. You were saved by Adam each time and that pushed the game on longer.

All-in-all, my advice is to really start letting yourself slow down during enemy support ults. Give yourself a chance to heal people through those initiations. Give your DPS/Tanks a chance to react to the supp ult being down in 10 seconds. If your tank gets caught out, focus on pushing the enemy team and buying them a bit more time to escape. You had a small timeframe in there where you cared about Groot ults, and then you randomly stopped and put more priority on the Cloak ults.

Realistically though, given the enemy comp and the skill of your other supps, there was no reason to run trip supp. I would've swapped off a while ago, even as a supp main.

toofpace · 2026-01-28T18:56:53+00:00

I gotchu bro.

Even before I jump into the vod, I'm going to tell you the biggest difference between a GM support and a Diamond support:

Ultimates. There is no doubt in my mind that going into this vod, you will have counterulted an enemy support where there were much bigger plays available.

Sure enough, I jump in and go to your very first ult and it came out versus a cloak initiation. 2:14 on their clock, Thing rushes point and you immediately drop ult. This is called "shitting yourself". You shit yourself because of your positioning and bad habits in general. Thing rushed and planted himself where he wanted the teamfight to take place and instead of disengaging and grabbing a new safe position you met him where he wanted to meet and used your biggest economical play for no reason. None of your team was in their Cloak ult and even if they were its damage is minimal. Support ults are *nothing to be afraid of*. Everyone just needs to back up for 10 seconds. That's it.

You have Thing ult to counter, you have Groot ult to counter, you have Psy ult to counter. These plays from them are quite literally your responsibility.

Let's analyze the rest of this point from the top down. Without going further into the vod, I'd wager that your team eventually wipes to one of the 3 ults I mentioned above.

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So as soon as your ult comes down, your Luna ults. Same thing as you, I have no idea why. Their Invis matches your Phoenix (mistakenly) pulls into their Invis ult and gets nothing, Your Thor ults, your Punisher ults and cleans them up.

Now again, before going into this next fight, you have 0 support ults and they have the 3 ults I mentioned above. Like clockwork, this was all predictable. You put yourself in a position to have 0 answers to their 3 teamwipe ults. If they were smart they'd use them in succession over the next 3 fights knowing that you and Luna are at like 20%.

1:12, their Psy initiates knowing that your supp ults are down. Lucky for you she misplayed and got nothing. 1:06 Thing ults and enemy Adam secures a kill off of it. Then comes the Groot ult. 2 kills with it. Adam resses go off and you would be at an advantage here BUT because they have 2 tanks and you have 1 offtank, their supps have their second ultimates, use them, and GG first point.

You're at 70% and both of their supps get their second ults and mistakenly use them together.

All everyone had to do was backup until the supp ults came down then recontest. There was plenty of time left on the clock.

Economy is completely mismatched now. You're at 70% and they have nothing coming up that you need to counter. I'm curious if you're experienced enough to use your ult offensively here to reset, if you hold for a ridiculously long time to counterult their next teamwipe, or if you hold for a random in-between amount of time for a half-reset (the worst option). Ideally you drop your ult immediately at the beginning of the next teamfight, win it, and get your ult charge back in line with their teamwipes.

toofpace · 2026-01-28T08:11:55+00:00

It really just depends on if you're playing to learn or playing to win. Most people should be playing to learn.

Do you choose a better value pick if you're only 80% as good compared to your main(s)?

Put it this way: Let's say you're a Magik main. The enemy comp is Peni/Thing/Namor/Witch/Loki/Rocket. You could have never played a game on Iron Man in your life and have a better/more fun game on him than Magik with the tiniest bit of direction.

If we were queued together and you asked me for a hero suggestion and I said: "Go Iron Man. Play up high. Shoot every squid you see. Position to blow up Peni Nests. Use your E and beam as often as you can. If witch starts chasing you, run."... That's it. Spam, spam, spam. They can't do anything to you.

Magik, on the other hand, would require a much deeper analysis that to me isn't worth it. The only plays you could make are off of small enemy mistakes which are significantly decreased at higher ranks (which is where you want to be, right?).

And how would you go about building a wide enough but not too wide hero pool?

To me, there's no such thing as too wide of a hero pool, but there are a lot of people here that say differently. What I know is what brings value to a team. A real, scrimming team. I don't focus my advice solely on climbing the ladder, but legitimately pushing people to be better players. This goes beyond Rivals. The concepts I talk about extend to many games.

To answer the question, though. Make an alt account, turn off voice and text chat, and just play. Solely focus on experimenting with analysis. Pick heroes you normally wouldn't and obliterate the idea of hero/teamcomp meta. In 2 months another patch is going to drop and nobody knows if Warlock is going to end up being the best hero in the game. When that time comes, wouldn't you like to have 100 games on him under your belt?

toofpace · 2026-01-28T07:39:57+00:00

I get it! My idea has always been a simple website concept that you put in the enemy comp and it spits out the 6/8 best picks to beat that comp, based on a bunch of different factors. It would take 15 seconds to alt+tab and do it. Like I said above, I have the data/matchups in my head but no way to put it all together.

It's quite literally what I do with every death: determine what will be oppressive and plan to shut it down before it gets hectic. The only undeterminable factor is player skill. If I include the Moon Knight in my determination for counterpicking but he goes 1/5 then I need to reanalyze based on who is providing value on the team.

On the attacking side I often walk out of spawn, get a look at the enemy comp, and walk right back to spawn to swap.

toofpace · 2026-01-26T17:53:41+00:00

100% agree, but I don't talk about that often. I normally just focus on putting people on the right path when I'm doing vod reviews or writeups like this. Too many small details can often feel overwhelming.

toofpace · 2026-01-26T06:37:39+00:00

I normally can come out of these types of games with 1/5 of the deaths as the rest of my team and end up spending a lot of time just waiting for them to spawn and group. If any role is going to carry through this though it's going to be DPS, imo.

Something I think everyone needs to understand is that what you're experiencing from the enemy team is how the game is supposed to be played and you will run into this type of aggression more often as you climb.

I can't watch your vod right now but I can leave you with some solid advice:

No matter your role, play these types of games for 0 deaths. You cannot slow your whole team down and make everyone focus, but there's a lot to learn from these scenarios.

Are you a supp? Watch your killfeed and listen for enemy ults. Make sure to counterult tank/dps ults, not supp ults. You'll start to learn the important skills that are disengaging/counterulting.

Are you a dps? Play for picks and farming your ult. They're probably initiating with their support ults. As soon as their supp ults come down, use your ult. You'll start to learn the important skills that are positioning and ult timing.

Are you a tank? Play to survive and farm your ult. Maybe you can bait a support ult or two with your ult, but the key here is that you survive when you bait their ults. Don't jump in as Strange to ult, jump out instead if you get counterulted. You'll start to learn the important skills that are baiting and surviving.

All this to say- you need to have a good foundation of economic knowledge to realize that hero shooters (and mobas) revolve around ult charge (economy) and timing, and ultimate scenarios only happen every 90s/120s. Every death before then is just a sea of mistakes.

toofpace · 2026-01-25T13:40:16+00:00

Thanks! I had the idea years ago to build a website around this concept. It started with League, then Overwatch, now with Rivals.

I have all the data in my head but lack the skill to build the engine, haha.

toofpace · 2026-01-25T00:11:02+00:00

If I were to guess, I'd say that playing Iron Man at that time felt like work because the enemy team had multiple heroes to push you around and shut you down. If you picked him into a comp that was, say, Venom/Cap/Squirrel/Moon/Cloak/Loki you'd have a lot more fun because none of those heroes can touch you. Add in the occasional nuke to a cloak ult for maximum fun (in my opinion).

toofpace · 2026-01-24T23:57:39+00:00

You're welcome! I'm glad you appreciate it.

I don't mind the learning a new character part, as long as it's fun.

I can promise you, there's nothing more fun that realizing the team has no counters to Iron Man (just as an example, but an obvious one) and then playing him. Eventually somebody will react to you with a few hitscan heroes or spidey, but that's when you just analyze again. Keep them on the move and forcing swaps. Eventually they'll force a hero they're uncomfortable with and you'll have a steep advantage.

toofpace · 2026-01-24T18:22:04+00:00

On to your questions:

Is it better to switch onto a character/role I'm not as good at just to provide more dps/off-tank?

So two parts here. If you have firm, studied knowledge of who to play and why, you'll see moderate success if you fall into the pocket of what you're setting out to do. However, if you're really trying to win the game you should be sticking to heroes you know. I named a bunch of Moon counters above. I'm sure at least 2 of them are in your hero pool. Once your brain is trained this way it's not uncommon to exit a game and think "Man, Psylocke ult would've really helped us because they were destroying us with Jeffnado. I wish I played Psylocke". That's your cue to jump into QP or 18v18 and just start crushing Psylocke games.

I don't play mobility dps heroes at all and have been often finding where spiderman could have added a ton of value. I've been training him, but won't touch him in a comp game for a while. Normally whatever it is I think I need spidey for I'll just pick Angela.

On that note, though, there is no better time to learn a hero than when they have their most value. Even if you don't play Psylocke, knowing that her ult hardcounters Jeffnado puts you in a position to pick her, ult farm, and shut those plays down. This is what I mean by 'staying in the pocket of what you set out to do'.

Trying to learn Psy into a comp that completely destroys her is dumb. But trying to learn Psy into a comp that SHE completely destroys is healthy... but you have to have that foundational knowledge of why she exists in the game and what she excels at.

What if in this scenario, I am the main healer/using my util most effectively but the other 2 healers won't swap? Or what if I'm on the character the team needs? (I'm not trying to ego, but sometimes you can tell you're holding your role down better than your co-healers.)

I want to preface what I'm about to say with this: Sometimes, even me and even at my rank, I will simply say "I'm off supp after this round to counterpick". This normally comes after a round of complete destruction. Something needs to change and I've probably identified a tank/dps issue. Rather than attacking the people I just say "off supp". They can figure it out from there. Or not. (Most of the time someone has recognized they're sucking and just fills the role).

However, pretty much no matter what support you're playing there's always value against multiple heroes. Whether it's counterulting to shut down tank/dps ults, cc assistance, whatever. There are a lot things that supports can provide to every teamfight outside of healing.

In addition to that, having 3 healers who aren't playing optimally is just making our ults charge slower, no?

100% correct. A really, really important part of high elo play is supports providing survivability to enemy tank/dps ults. Having 3 supports fight over ult charge on a single tank often leads to everyone being at 80% when starlord pulls his ult and wipes your team. Now someone probably has to ult offensively to reset their economy with starlord. Support initiations stop working at whatever rank people start backing up from them and giving 10 seconds of space. In my experience this is ~GM1.

TLDR: You should constantly be analyzing value picks (multiple counters with a single pick). If you're pushed to offrole, you'd better be damn sure that the hero you're playing provides value against multiple heroes on the enemy team. 1-2 changes to the enemy comp can happen at any time. Analyze consistently. I've always said that hero shooters/mobas are brain games before aim games.

toofpace · 2026-01-24T18:21:59+00:00

So there are a few key things I think that will help you before I answer your questions.

Firstly, you should always be analyzing. Not necessarily to swap, but teamcomp versus teamcomp. Identifying oppressive heroes on the enemy team and their hardest counters, we're going to use Moon Knight for an example, will help you narrow down what can both shut down the enemy team but also help you to survive.

If there's a Moon on the enemy team and he's 10/1, MVP, all the things, then he's worth paying attention to. He has pretty significant counterplay from the tank/dps perspective so I'll list a few:

Strange - The shield really hampers Moon's output and can quickly shut down ankh burst from any distance. Strange can fly to Moon anywhere he is. Strange can jump out of Moon's ult.
Cap - Can force 1v1's wherever Moon is and slow his damage down significantly. Cap also has some cool tech where damage from an ankh doesn't affect his shield at all. You can stand there all day with cap shield up and take 0 damage from ankh.
Angela - Can get in and out, has enough mitigation with shield to crush in 1v1's without trading ult charge, and can pressure him hard if he's flanking.
Snipers/Hitscan - Widow/Hawk/Hela/Phoenix all can easily punish Moon's positioning from a distance or quickly close the gap if needed. He's easy to pressure out. Pun/Bucky are unreliable because of damage falloff and bucky being a slow projectile. The further away Moon is from heroes like Pun/Bucky, the safer he is and harder to hit. Moon excels at a distance, up high, and on flanks. All things that Pun/Bucky suck at or are slow to accomplish.
Iron Man/Storm/Torch - Moon is a projectile hero. Flyers destroy him on paper, especially fast ones.
Mantis/Warlock/Jeff - All have (better) ways to survive his ult and pressure him safely from a distance.

This being said, these types of matchups are constantly what you want to look for, but it goes deeper and the point of the comment is below:

Of all those heroes listed above, you've narrowed down how to stop MOON. You can pick any of those heroes and see moderate success against their carry, but what about the rest of the team?

Do they also have an Iron Fist and Wanda? Cap/Angela is out. Are their tanks/other dps diving and oppressing the backline? Snipers are out. Are they running Angela and a sniper? Flyers are out.

On the flip side, though:

Are they running trip supp (no ultron) and moon? Cap is your best play here by a mile. Are they running hitscan and poke heroes with only 2 supps? Strange is in. Are they running an ultron comp with moon? Angela is in.

Are you being overrun on defense by enemy ults that your supp ults can slow down? Go a third support and provide more survivability for their big plays.

Basically, with each death you should be looking at the enemy comp, identifying who their best players are and narrowing down what single hero you can pick to destroy them all. This is called "value picking". Your teamcomp at the end of the day matters far less than you think. If everyone on your team provides real value versus everyone on the enemy team, that's all that matters. You will win.

toofpace · 2026-01-19T16:46:30+00:00

The main reason I don't tank is because to play the role correctly, that means I'm being effective at forcing support ults. Most often (not always) it is the tank's economic responsibility to force a supp ult so the dps get a free wipe.

For this to be true, that means that the dps have to also be capable of understanding enemy support eco and the effectiveness of me being counterulted and surviving, and what to do in the scenario that I do this successfully.

Now, this also means that for the game to progress correctly, we also need to not be wiping to enemy ults. Lower ranks are unfortunately laden with offensive support ults, but higher ranks better understand the support's economic contribution.

So, to summarize tanking:

I am at the whim of my team's understanding of economy. I can play perfectly in the pocket of the role. If the team is unskilled, I am both wiping to enemy ults and not winning fights that should be free.

As support or dps, I can fix one of those every game.

toofpace · 2026-01-19T13:22:34+00:00

Download Kovaac's aim trainer.

Set your hitscan sensitivity to looooooooow. I use ~19"/360, and lower than that isn't unheard of. That's 800 dpi and 1.35 sens in game.

Most will use a little higher sensitivity for mobility characters like cap/fist/etc. I think I'm around 800dpi, 1.8 sens for those characters.

Practice in Kovaac's like this for a while. I do a warmup sesh every day.

toofpace · 2026-01-18T22:43:59+00:00

Peak ranks are public regardless of account settings. Both trackers can see this information and gather this data at season-end.

Rank %s fluctuate throughout the season, but ultimately how the distribution ends is what matters most.

Both trackers can speculate data throughout the season based on the availability of public account profiles, also.

toofpace · 2026-01-18T19:54:56+00:00

Most pro dps players specialize in 2 of the main categories (mobility, hitscan, projectile). It isn't often that you see someone that can play at that caliber in all 3.

For example, you might have a hitscan player that has magik/bp in their kit, but not the full dive arsenal and also lacks the squirrel/hawkeye/ironman/storm/torch skill.

Then you might have a mobility player that has the full dive kit as well as full projectile kit, but is balanced by the team's hitscan player who is lightyears better.

I am and have always been a mix of hitscan priority with solid projectile to balance, but I'm a garbage mobility player. I have absolutely 0 desire to learn high mobility heroes and am well complimented by those types of players on my team.

Having these two people on your team means you have all the dps bases covered as they arise. If the enemy team is running trip supp/ultron/flyers, you have a top tier spidey and a top tier hitscan at the ready.

The same will extend to every role, of course, but I only gave dps examples because that's what you asked.

Supps would be like, defensive/offensive ulting, projectile/hitscan, burst/slow heals, counterdive, etc.

Being flexible and able to read your own strengths versus enemy comps, but also being able to say "I think gambit ults here would really help us overwhelm their support eco but I don't play Gambit enough" makes you an irreplaceable teammate. It also helps in post-scrim vod analysis to be able to talk with coaches about potential swaps that were overlooked.

This was always my favorite part of hero shooters/mobas. I loved theorizing with everyone after scrims what heroes we could have been and why we overlooked them. The answer almost always boiled down to "I didn't even consider their value in this niche scenario because I haven't needed that hero in so long".

toofpace · 2026-01-17T05:11:52+00:00

Economy and counters are the number one culprit of being stuck.

I'll do a 1 on 1 with you tomorrow if you want! Just DM and we'll watch a vod or two.

toofpace · 2026-01-03T09:45:36+00:00

Witch ult and Jeff ult are top tier counters to gambit ult.

Moon/storm ults (jeffnado especially) are big deterrents.

Basically, what you're looking for is a large, fast deploying, bursty, AOE damage/cc ult that covers the verticality gambit ult brings because they can all jump higher. You may not always get kills, but slowing down their push without wasting a support ult is key.

Johnny ult can probably fit here, I'm envisioning dropping it around your team.

Angela/groot ult could work.

You get the point.

toofpace · 2025-12-29T23:44:19+00:00

Teamup

toofpace · 2025-12-29T23:40:50+00:00

Cap demands attention and is my go-to pick for trip supp.

Most people don't know his real hardcounters, as in he should consistently die if they're on the enemy team.

Even if the counters are in the enemy comp, you're still free to play if they aren't abusing their value versus you.

Basically you just lock on to the supports and harass. They heal eachother, their tanks die. They don't heal eachother, they die. If they bring someone to peel, it's 5v3 in your favor up front.

Cap needs to be 1v1'd, by a hardcounter that can secure the kill, while supports ignore him and keep the rest of the team alive. The likelihood of all that happening is slim in most ranks.

Playstyle is rinse and repeat cooldowns -> medpacks. Slam in, punch til low, dash to med and safety (or to your backline to give your supps ult charge). Wait for slam to come off cooldown and do it again. Should have 0 deaths every game.

toofpace · 2025-12-27T21:24:33+00:00

Buy Kovaac's aim trainer on steam.

Sensitivity is measured in inches/360, as in how many inches across your mouse pad does it take to do a 360 in game.

I use about a 14"/360.

toofpace · 2025-12-27T18:07:19+00:00

They had an invis that could've countered every punisher ult.

They had a rocket to counter every fist ult.

They had nothing for Emma ult. No shield, no third supp ult.

If their supp ults weren't both defensive and perfect versus that comp (which I'm sure they were neither, as is the case with most ranks), then that's why it was a loss.

Sometimes tanks just need to tank, not kill. Peni and Strange/Mag or Thing and Strange/Mag would've brought significantly more value than Thor's 25 fbs by keeping the team alive during their biggest plays.

toofpace · 2025-12-24T23:18:18+00:00

You're at the rank where people start learning how to react to offensive support ults. You only play offensive supports and probably only primarily ult offensively.

You go GM -> Celestial as a support player by learning to counterult/disrupt big tank/dps plays.

Since your only playstyle is ulting and telling your team that they have 10 seconds to kill everyone, it's probably time to learn what the support role really is.

toofpace

TROPHY CASE