"Play unranked first" -> keep killing the population

Someone was poking at my performance (though I'd have to say theirs was awful too), and they told me this. LIke I hadn't been playing the class I'd been playing a ton lately and like unranked prepares you for ranked (it doesn't, you usually stomp people in unranked unless they're a premade if you've played ranked). Toxic harassment like this cuts down on the player base and doesn't help all the matchmaker kitten (tons of guildies, etc have said toxicity is why they stopped playing PVP). If there's enough bronze players to even out the one on your team, then you're going to do okay (if you don't suck yourself). But if there's only 1 because you scared away everyone at their level, and they're on your team, well you brought this on yourself (I'm not bronze btw). There's only one person you can change for certain, and that's yourself. If you want to be helpful, then tell someone precise pionters about how to play and how they could have done better in a given situation, maybe learn the class and you'll learn even its seemingly powerful abilities have limits.

That being said, it felt like we were up against a completely coordinated 5 man. I literally saw on the team health bar everyone get a ridiculous amount of condis at once and all go to down state in 2-3 secs. It felt like a wombo-combo. Nerfing sustain on most classes has made untouched burst harder to deal with. (And I'm wondering if there's combo field burst that hasn't been touched that should have been.)

Well ... the guy that told you that should just get better - so he will get teamed up with better team mates. (+ He should duo queue as often as possible.)Clearly not your fault that he was pissed. (Also he could do tournaments or playing unranked only with a 5 man team and team queue. Always a good idea for people complaining about team mates in a toxic/insulting way.)

I agree toxic behavior deters players away but from personal experience, players using Ranked to learn a class does frustrate me. I can understand learning rotations in ranked as they become more complex and vital in higher tiers and unranked isn't a good place to learn that.Often players take criticism and pointers personally which is never helpful either.

Like you said, players should focus on improving their own playstyle instead of blaming others. The common denominator in all of everyones losses you, the player.I've had quite the climb as a returning player. I've climbed from Silver 1 to Gold 3 (currently 4 games away from play) just from focusing on my own faults. I'm now in a team of Plat 2 players, competing in regular AT's :)

Don't let toxic players ruin your PvP experience, there are some great and kind players out there!