Okay, I have a confession to make. In the beginning of season 3 I felt hopeless, my rank wasn't rising and I felt stuck in plat/gold forever, I didn't feel like the games I played made me improve my skills because I felt everyone I played against was just as clueless as I am and improving my mechanical skills (aim) seemed like the only way to escape out of that "elo hell" which was hard to do when team comps in plat/gold are mostly awful with no healers/tanks, so playing DPS was just asking to lose and I was always stuck as the sole healer. One of my best friends is a top 500 player, and his gf was stuck in plat like me, so he offered to sign in into her account and basically boost her to a higher rank and he offered to carry me at the same time, I was hesitant at first but I remembered how much I hated the team comps in lower ranks and how much I despised solo healing 5 dps characters, so I agreed.
And in no time my friend who is the best Zarya I've ever seen, got us into a massive win streak that got me from gold into masters in 2 days. And this is where everything changed, because while playing with my friend I realized how much I SUCKED at healing, I always blamed my teammates for not defending me or watching out for flankers that I never considered that I might be the problem, I was playing stupidly, I was ignoring the enemy team and getting hard tunnel vision whenever I needed to focus a target, I was right in the middle of battles with my teammates, I never stayed back or got a full view of the team, I was always right behind our tank or dps, and I died A LOT which is always my team's fault according to gold rank me. And this is where I started to improve RAPIDLY, in no time I started to consistently win games as a master's rank in solo queue and I felt like I was making a difference, and I really was, my clutch revives or Lucio ults/boops felt impactful. And this is where I decided to start mastering the art of DPS, I knew the rapid improvement I experienced with support characters will probably happen again, and it did! I'm still improving but thanks to my disproportionately high rank I'm improving and learning FAST, a lot faster than if I was still stuck in plat or gold.
I guess my point is, the best way to improve fast in Overwatch is to play in a rank that is MUCH higher than your actual skill level, you will get destroyed and you will get frustrated but every death will be a learning experience for you, and you will improve in no time.
Anyway this was before I knew smurfing was a thing, so I really do not condone "boosting" but I'm just saying that this negative thing had a positive impact on me, and it should be looked into by blizzard, perhaps a mode where one lower rank player can be matched with and against high MMR players in QP occasionally or something.
