Short version: I categorically lose more SR than I gain by such a large degree that I need to win over 60% of my games just to maintain my rating.
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Long version: A lot of people come on here to talk about SR gains that they don't understand, like when they're unusually small due to a large difference in SR between the teams, but I think I have a fairly good understanding of the system and yet I still have absolutely no idea what's going on with my account.
Basically, I categorically gain very small SR for wins and lose a lot when I lose, particularly if I play as Pharah for any length of time in the match. This is problematic for me because Pharah is the hero on which I have both the most playtime and the best win rate. I would understand the logic that the game's systems have concluded that my wins are in spite of me underperforming on Pharah if it weren't for the fact that my win rate on her is at 58% and shows no sign of abating from that number, which would, in combination with the fact that I mostly solo queue, indicate that I'm doing just fine on her.
Here are some numbers. You can verify them yourself pretty easily if you take a gander at my profile on any of the stat-tracking websites (Fugu#1436).
Yesterday, I played six games and went 3-3. For this effort, I lost 36 SR (3708 to 3672). I played all of these games as Pharah, with some time on Ana in at least one of them. Maybe there was a big SR difference between the teams -- fine. There wasn't, but it's at least plausible that decay/hidden MMR played into that result.
On Tuesday, I played 27 games broken into two segments. During the first segment, I duoed with a friend and went 6-10. The net loss there was about 110 SR for me and 45 for my friend. I started at 3911 and finished at 3802; she started at 3982 and finished at 3937. A couple of relevant points here are that my season win rate is better than my friend's and that my placement was also much lower; my current number is a climb from around 2450 whereas she was placed in the 3400 range. I'm not sure how either of those details play into the result, but they're the only factors I can think of.
The stranger part is the second segment of my Tuesday games where I went 5-6. Although this is still a win rate below 50%, that does not account for the fact that I dropped another 100 SR over the course of those games for a daily record of 11-16 and a net loss of 203 SR for the day (3911 to 3708).
The problem as I see it is that the win rate that I need to achieve to even maintain my current SR is unrealistically high. Just taking yesterday's games as an example, for me to recover my SR after the 3-3 result would take at least two wins -- I've been charting my average gains for awhile and I notice that with win streak factored in I get an average of about 19 per game -- and only after the third would I be up any SR.
5-3 -- a win rate of 62.5% -- necessary to maintain a rating? Given that I mostly solo queue and I'm playing in the master range it is very unlikely that I will be able to consistently achieve a win rate that high.
I'd really like to know why this is happening to me. My aforementioned duo queue friend with the lower win rate tends to see a small SR gain when she finishes with a 50% win rate, suggesting that the win rate required to maintain her SR is just below 50%. Why is mine 62.5%? It has been this way for a little while, although it's getting worse now; I've repeatedly been turfed back to diamond and then gone on a ridiculous tear to recover my lost SR due to my SR being too low. Indeed, the reason I was at 3911 on Tuesday in the first place is because I had lost something like two games out of the last twenty.
It's seriously impacting my enjoyment of competitive and I'd appreciate an explanation, if not a solution.
Thanks.
