I am done only blaming myself for losses; sometimes it truly is your team's fault.

[GreatGateway]

I play a support role using the Inkbrush and Octobrush. My job is to paint the turf faster than the enemy, pick off isolated targets, mess with Chargers and clear a path for whoever has the Rainmaker from the shadows.

I do NOT take on teams head-on, wait in a puddle for just one target for a whole match, fight entire teams or fight rollers.

I know my role, and I am perfectly happy to acknowledge where I do things wrong. Many losses are indeed my fault, as I am the most consistent factor in most games.

However if there is one thing worse than me in consistent games, it's the inconsistent nature of teammates.

We can't all join fancy groups and voice chat - players like me must play Solo. And it is immensely frustrating, because a huge number of players do not understand the roles their teammates play and how to capitalise on them.

For example, say I pick off a Charger or a Gal user. I just freed up the battlefield for my allies, and turned the battle into a 4 on 3 advantage. Is it my fault the team does not push forward, cannot defeat the remaining targets, or similar? No it isn't. In some cases my target priority needs to change, but more often than not, it is the fault of the frontline players to splat opponents and move up, not mine.

This is just one example of things going wrong. Perhaps you have met another Inkbrush player who fails to support, a Charger who cannot aim, or even a player who can't get out of the spawn for the same trap every time. We cannot change weapons or roles in battle, so we cannot adjust to these problems on the fly entirely. By the time we can change our loadouts, fresh new problems surface leading to a vicious cycle of losses.

The point is, you cannot control everything in the battle as you cannot be everywhere at once. You cannot carry if the odds are stacked against you either. It is perfectly normal to blame teammates, and in a lot of cases, it is the correct thing to do. It isn't exactly healthy but it's better than the downward spiral of only blaming yourself exclusively.

 

[Hamachiカマ★]

Well firstly none of us can gain rank from playing with friends, league battles do not increase your rank. It's actually more intense than regular rank lmao. I got to like 1980 and they were paring us with S+2 with 2300 power I just want money.

It's partly RNG my friend. I'm an S level player but I'm having a hard time passing B/ A- because I'm unable to carry at this level and obviously some people are just better at the game than me.

Also Nintendo isn't great at matchmaking. I get people on level 12 at B rank and the other team has B or B+ level 25. In some cases this might not make a difference because they aren't a new player but if this is their first time playing and they were carried to their rank (which is absolutely still possible, especially now that you can skip ranks) they will be less likely to understand their role or just how to face a certain weapon.

So yes, while I agree you can blame teammates it's important to realize some of these people are just young children or newbies lol. You can just keep trying and get better. Like now I try to work with the few commands we have and try and boost moral. If I see a good splat or someone does a good job pushing I will say booyah, I'll also use c'mon to go ahead and follow or jump to me safely.
I've seen players who are S+3 already fall back to S and gain it all back.

As frustrating as it can be I think it's important to actually try not to place the blame on anyone in particular and stay positive. There are many things they could do to fix it and be more fair but it is a bit better than before and hopefully it'll keep getting better.

 

[Vitezen]

On the one hand, support weapons inherently require a team to support. If no one can take advantage of the support you provide, then your team is essentially down a player.
On the other hand, you're also choosing to play a support role with a support weapon in an environment where you know that you can't rely on teammates for support, since you can't communicate with them.
I avoid situations like this by choosing weapons with which I can feel comfortable contributing even if I don't have my teammates backing me up. There's a huge difference between having to retreat due to a lack of numbers or a disadvantage in terrain versus not having the coordination necessary to maximize your weapon's utility. The approach that your teammates take is random, but you have control over your options, and have the freedom to choose options that have less variance based on what they choose.

 

[RespawningJesus]

Solo queue in Splatoon is just how hard you can carry, plain and simple. Sometimes, you are gonna end up getting those teams where there is nothing you can do to help them. It happens, no matter what game you play.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I think it's fair to blame your teammates sometimes, if you are playing very well, playing the objective, and keeping tabs on the match, and you lose because your team is doing neither, well someone has to take some blame.

I had a RM match where I grabbed the rain maker, I was ready to advance and started shooting the RM blasts to get some ground covered, and all three of my teammates where hovering behind me. You guys realize I can only support you with my RM blasts if you guys carve a path forward and protect me right? So all the while I am waiting for them to move forward, the enemies come in and wipe us all out for obvious reasons. I forget if we won or lost that match, but it was a rare instance where I was baffled by how my teammates were acting.

Just keep in mind after a loss (or even a win) what you did wrong, because chances are you made some mistakes too.

 

[ZEROrevive]

I play a support role using the Inkbrush and Octobrush. My job is to paint the turf faster than the enemy, pick off isolated targets, mess with Chargers and clear a path for whoever has the Rainmaker from the shadows.

I do NOT take on teams head-on, wait in a puddle for just one target for a whole match, fight entire teams or fight rollers.

I know my role, and I am perfectly happy to acknowledge where I do things wrong. Many losses are indeed my fault, as I am the most consistent factor in most games.

However if there is one thing worse than me in consistent games, it's the inconsistent nature of teammates.

We can't all join fancy groups and voice chat - players like me must play Solo. And it is immensely frustrating, because a huge number of players do not understand the roles their teammates play and how to capitalise on them.

For example, say I pick off a Charger or a Gal user. I just freed up the battlefield for my allies, and turned the battle into a 4 on 3 advantage. Is it my fault the team does not push forward, cannot defeat the remaining targets, or similar? No it isn't. In some cases my target priority needs to change, but more often than not, it is the fault of the frontline players to splat opponents and move up, not mine.

This is just one example of things going wrong. Perhaps you have met another Inkbrush player who fails to support, a Charger who cannot aim, or even a player who can't get out of the spawn for the same trap every time. We cannot change weapons or roles in battle, so we cannot adjust to these problems on the fly entirely. By the time we can change our loadouts, fresh new problems surface leading to a vicious cycle of losses.

The point is, you cannot control everything in the battle as you cannot be everywhere at once. You cannot carry if the odds are stacked against you either. It is perfectly normal to blame teammates, and in a lot of cases, it is the correct thing to do. It isn't exactly healthy but it's better than the downward spiral of only blaming yourself exclusively.

Ah, hello fellow Inkbrush user. I play as supporting role as well, and solo most of the time (im trying to change that a bit, though).

I agree with whats been said by you and others. And the role of a supporting brush user can be outright difficult- especially with our weapons few disadvantages. In order to succeed, we do need our team to play their part, else we can find ourselves outnumbered and surrounded easily with very little options of survival left, depending on circumstances...

Annoyingly, sometimes dealing with poor teamates does mean that we have to do things out of our comfort zone. Sometimes I have to find myself going more agressive and risky with the inkbrush- going more into the face of enemies more than what would be plausible. And at times I will always, always try to sneak past enemy lines and call my teamates to come to me....only for my signals to be ignored.

Sometimes, we have to accept that we cant always win. And learn what we can from it. Better to learn what we can from bad scenarios rather than remain angry at it, after all.

 

[MakenTosch]

God, I wish the Overwatch community had the level of optimism that the Splatoon community has right now.

 

[OArcadiaSkiesO]

I understand the frustration of not having a team who recognise the opportunity when it shows itself. Im constantly finding myself looking at the map and seeing that even though ive cleared the objective, teammates are just walking around the outside the map or all in the same area. Can become very irritating.

 

[GreatGateway]

I'm very glad for the positive responses here :) Any other community would have told me it's my fault, to "git gud" and that I deserve my rank and no better.

 

[OArcadiaSkiesO]

What gets me is you cant tell your team that a player is here, there or anywhere because lack of voice chat with randoms. Solo player just do there own thing. This is good if the guy is an expert inker/splatter but not if they cant.

 

[Saber]

@GreatGateway
I understand your pain I have been a solo queue warrior for a long time, many time with laggers or rng fighting you.
I do recommend a few things that I have seen in higher ranks to help you out...

1. Analyze your setbacks, yeah sometimes teammates just are bad, but there are still lessons to be learned. Look back at the battle and look at the few things you could change, and then change accordingly. (For me it was continuously taking the same routes or pushing in too deep)

2. Be adaptive, no one player in solo queue can always keep the same role over the game, especially in higher level. This is cause better players will adapt how they play to prevent you from being able to accomplish your task Personally I switch when my team needs turf or enemy has pushed in I support, when my team in all being conservative I take the objective, and when there are big pushes or too many supports I go in and play aggressive. Doing so will help you become a more well rounded players and change your strategies to get win in spite of your team.

For example, I was recently playing the duelies squelchers, a support weapon in rainmaker, however at 1 point my teammates all kept running in and getting splatted during a huge push and that could win them the game.
So I flanked above them and dropped down and splatted the rainmaker and a players nearby, using dodge roll to close the distance. My team was still out and there were 2 enemies near rainmaker, I marked them as my team redrawn to force them back, then I grabbed the rainmaker and moved into a less risky position for my team to later push and win.
It will take time and patience but if you improve your own skill enough you can at times be able make up for the setbacks a team member may have