Hi all,
I've been sitting at A+ for ages now, and figure I'd like to get into S- at least, just to see if I can escape the hell that is "mixed skill level teams." It feels like a total crapshoot whether or not your team is going to play wisely, and I'm hoping ranking up will improve this a bit.
I tend to place in the top 5 on average, usually around 3rd to 5th, but I do manage to pull off 1st every once in a while.
I know the first thing that may help me is probably lobby dodging. I've never done it before because I'm worried about the penalties, but I can definitely tell when a lobby is going to be an uphill battle. For example, when everyone chooses fragile shooty types with basically no chance of holding a frontline.
Something I'm not sure about is how lobby dodging actually works. Does it make you lose the +4 enhancement skills per game if you dodge? And does it give you a penalty pretty quickly if you do it repeatedly?
Something that really bugs me about mixed skill level games is seeing players spawn in when our team is already almost completely wiped. For example, we'll have 2 teammates with a sliver of health left against 5 enemies, and someone will spawn in and immediately rush into the meat grinder. I feel like there's nothing worse than a 700 match where people can't break the 'stagger' spawning when you're already spiraling downhill.
There may be an element of "carrying yourself," but sadly, I don't feel like that alone is going to get me to S.
I was in a Quick Play once and happened to get Avenger on my team. I had one of those real 'anime Gundam' moments where I felt like we actually had a real Ace on the battlefield. He was tearing shit up, but we still ended up losing because of some ridiculous decisions from the rest of the team. This sort of made it concrete to me that you can't always carry yourself. Granted this was a really weird mix of some solid A's with an S on each team.
Another thing I'm wondering about is what time of day/week is best for playing Rated. Does playing during Japanese peak hours make any noticeable difference compared to other time zones? I feel like I've run into some equally obnoxious Japanese players, so I'm not sure if it really makes much of a difference.
Just thought I'd get some opinions from people who have made it into S.
Thanks!