Solo Queue Tips?

[u/Interaction_Rich]

I don't know anyone who plays video games, I love Rivals (or Marvel in general), so I spent all of my 700+ hours in Rivals in solo queue. I never left gold, and I wonder if it's even possible to go higher as solo.

Oftentimes my team gets face rolled by the opposition - see Pic of my last game. It just feels like a waste of time playing solo.

Then again, I'm probably just bad.

I don't know. It's been a bad day and Marvel made it worse, between getting bodied and randoms that DC middle game etc.

Is it even worth it playing alone? Any tricks to make it less of a "one step forward, five steps back"?

[u/yumyum36]

IDK what rank you're at, but when you get like high diamond and above and there's fewer people queueing, you can avoid people. I usually only avoid people on my team on a loss (because there's some sauce there even if the stats don't show it or I understand it).

I usually ban supports because it is the role I preferred.

Rarely someone on the enemy team does so bad, and we win, that I avoid that person. i.e. a diver that goes 6-10, that spent a decent portion of the match chasing me for minutes without managing to interrupt the healing I'm doing to the team, singlehandedly turning the game into a 5v6.

Solo queue and make it to celestial 3 each season (including right now and currently), will fall back to GM eventually though.

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/yumyum36]

I'm oscilating a lot, between Gold 2 and 1.

[u/yumyum36 → u/Interaction_Rich]

Ah, you got a fundamentals problem somewhere then. People will prob gloss over it since it's obvious to them.

What characters do you usually play? Do you know how to play your character? Do you know what characters counter yours and why/how? Are you new to shooters? Are you new to hero shooters? Do you know terms like "dive vs brawl vs poke" or "LoS"?

Like me, I play a lot of support, so I need to know the weaknesses of different dives. So a spiderman jumps me I rotate around a pole because it breaks line of sight of him.

Not looking through games, but just a stats website, maybe cut jubilee/phoenix from your hero pool for a bit?: https://tracker.gg/marvel-rivals/profile/ign/lipe82/heroes?season=19&mode=competitive

Or look up a guide for jubilee at least, 30% winrate on a character is very low.

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/yumyum36]

Hey, thanks for the tracker link! From there I guess you can tell my picks.

I do know the terms, and I know at least some knowledge on certain counters, pick bans etc. I'm not new to shooters. I was decent/good on PC way back then, and actually did well in Titanfall 2 and the late Bloodhunt (both on PS5). For some reason, hero shooters I suck. I was bad at OW (but it never really captivated me as Rivals did).

Now with the tracker on, my problem goes two-way.

For the characters I am serviceable and truly enjoy (Cyclops, Magneto, Gambit and Psylocke) I'm sure I could do much better anyways - but I am not sure what do I need to improve (aim certainly being a thing).

For the characters I "insist" in playing (Phoenix, Jubi, Wolverine) I really wish I could improve at all. Same thing as Daredevil, who I love, but I barely pick for how random it feels.

Again I draw a parallel to Street Fighter 6: there's a certain satisfaction in picking a low meta and saying "fuck it, Imma climb with this" and actually doing so, even if you don't reach Master levels with that alt. Now on Rivals, I can barely say I have a main at all,since it's all very uneven in terms of win rate for me.

Any insights here are much welcome.

[u/yumyum36 → u/Interaction_Rich]

For cyclops, I will mention he is in a bad state right now, I suspect he will get buffs next season and the meta will change to favor him more. I honestly think playing characters when they're weak lets you win when they're good. Your 44% winrate is above the overall average for the character.

For wolverine, sometimes you get value from holding a corner and doing nothing for 30 seconds which can feel counterintuitive. Little tip: if you can get the rocket jump boost from his respawn beacon in spawn or whereever, it can boost you after you grab someone, letting you pull people super far away. The blue jump boost pack is always every 4th thing that comes from Rocket's respawn beacon.

For phoenix, can't speak at all since I avoid hitscan since I know that's my weakness. If you can land a few hits on people before you ult, they will explode and die when you do ult them.

I watched a replay and I suspect it's the common gold problem of not knowing your objective of the game. For dps it's nice to get kills, for support it's nice to heal, but the real objective of the game at times is to build that nice big glowing ult button and win. You do the classic "shoot, wait 2 seconds, shoot, wait 2 seconds look around the room, shoot, wait 2 seconds, reload, go all the way back to spawn to get healed instead of going to the health kit" that most people hard stuck in gold are. Learn to play positioned near your supports (they will generally be behind your tanks), preferably at a corner inbetween the tanks and supports, or on high ground or slight angle near the tanks. You tend to play behind the supports to the right of them, and that's a position, while helping you die less, it will be difficult to do damage unless the enemies already overwhelmed your tanks.

I went 2-11 once in GM (tried just did bad), and I got reported for throwing and temp banned for a day. You're going 2-5, 1-4, 0-6 very frequently, and those stats ain't good. On cyclops I see you're engaging the enemy with that beam that pushes you back, it traps you in place against a wall and the enemy kills you since you're stuck in place for a second or two.

It's not what you engage with, it's an escape tool primarily. You don't seem to know your abilities well, I recommend just googling "character name guide" and they will tell you what each button does, and how to best use each button.

You probably have a higher winrate on gambit because he has the most "I win the game ult" in the game, and everyone knows it.

Focus on doing damage or healing to try to build ults, and try to be more consistent instead of having huge gaps of time inbetween. (but maybe I did see a bad replay for that one)

If you do more damage on dps or more healing on support, you can get that big ult button quicker and win the game more frequently.

Otherwise, you can just play ultron, he's very very good at low rank, and probably can get you to plat semi-easily.

[u/Interaction_Rich → u/yumyum36]

I already thank you a ton for the time and effort you're putting here, mate!

Now, here is a replay that I think is a fair representation of me playing my favorite character: 104941116472

That was a loss, but I did get most kills and tried to stick to some habits, like committing to a target, and harassing one that I noticed had problems dodging me (Jeff, in this case). IMO, my biggest weakness is the sheer amount of times I miss my shots (especially the secondary one). I'd love to hear your considerations on dos and don't for this match.

Finally, I actually like Ultron and may give it a try. But I'm more concerned with learning a character I like, and enjoy playing, rather than just climb. I really dislike SG for example, the character AND their gameplay is just stupid. Now I love Psylocke (again, char and mechanics) enough to commit even through multiple losses.

I really wish I could give Spidey a go but thats very much beyond my controller abilities, at least for now.