So, I've been having a bit of a problem lately, and I'm sure there are others who share the sentiment. I've been trying to get into sparring, but it hasn't been very "beginner" friendly. I've been towering and pking for years, but I felt like picking sparring back up. I got more than 1000 wins a while back, while still keeping it positive(From side rooms), but now that I went back to it strictly using tournament rooms(since sides are frowned upon for other than beginners), I haven't been doing very well, 191 wins to 303 losses since I started sparring again.

It seems like the best players on at the time rule over the spar rooms, and obviously it's not easy beating them(Not to mention when a room gets taken over by an obviously questionable player). I feel like I've been playing the best I've ever played, and yet I still can't pull off the win most of the time. I'm not a bad player, the matches are always close, but my question is, how do people manage to get such good ratios? Should I be practicing in a guild house with a really good player until I can beat them 90% of the time? Or is it normal to lose so much as you get better? Based on how positive everyone there seems to be, it doesn't seem normal.

I use alts as well to practice, but at this point I don't know how else I can improve, it's only the really good sparrers and some people from certain countries who beat me over and over, I don't really think using an alt is going to make any difference except to hide losses. What do people do to get to that higher level? Like I said previously, you have to beat the best players online to even get wins going, so should I just stick to alts until I somehow get better? Or just keep the grind going, even if it's going south? I play using a tablet, by the way. Would using a PC really make the difference?

It's not really a big thing, it's probably more of a personal problem, so thanks for any advice/jokes that come out of this thread. Thanks for reading!  

Those guys with like 10,000 to 2000 are selective in who they fight.  

Is that a sparring strategy then? I just join the queue over and over, even if it's just me and 1 other person in the room. Is it dumb of me to keep facing the same person if I'm losing more often than not? Probably should just run away then  

Posted by Force

Is that a sparring strategy then? I just join the queue over and over, even if it's just me and 1 other person in the room. Is it dumb of me to keep facing the same person if I'm losing more often than not? Probably should just run away then

The best way to improve ratio is to go to the siderooms. The best way to improve skill is to keep on joining in the main rooms and sparring as wide of a variety of good sparrers as you can. Progress may seem slow but try and learn from each loss and apply different strategies as time goes on to beat different people. It's never something that will happen overnight.  

Posted by Force

Is that a sparring strategy then? I just join the queue over and over, even if it's just me and 1 other person in the room. Is it dumb of me to keep facing the same person if I'm losing more often than not? Probably should just run away then

Yeah this is why you see noob accounts with high spar ratios. Players will actively pursue other players who are not good at spar to fight in place of other skilled players in order to get a better ratio. Numbers, like the hours you've been playing, really mean nothing.  

Thanks for the info guys. You're both right of course, I was letting the numbers get to me. I have been feeling improvement regardless, so I'll try not to let it get to me and just focus on sparring. If I keep losing matches and end up in negatives, they'll really only be one person to blame. If you play well enough, stats tend to take care of themselves.  

Posted by Force

Thanks for the info guys. You're both right of course, I was letting the numbers get to me. I have been feeling improvement regardless, so I'll try not to let it get to me and just focus on sparring. If I keep losing matches and end up in negatives, they'll really only be one person to blame. If you play well enough, stats tend to take care of themselves.

Worst case scenario is you end up like Boots or Kaios in terms of ratio, who were negative for a while but worked up to get positive around 10k. Those guys are only memes cause of their attitude (though Kaios improved his a good deal) but in terms of working to improve and fix the score it's respectable.  

spar and ignore everyone else. just aim to better yourself and ask for advice when you feel stuck.  

use a vpn  

It's always a good idea to find one or many people to spar in a gh to better yourself. Don't worry about being negative, there are plenty of people that are negative that can spar like animals.

Just have fun and try your best figuring out what works and what does not work. If you get on one day and don't feel like sparring, it's okay to just watch how those good players spar in the main rooms.

And like Crono said, ignore everyone. Put your in-game chat to friends only, people are pricks. Don't worry about how many losses you have. If you know what you did wrong in a spar, you're less likely to make that same mistake. If you figure out what you did in a spar that completely turned the tides, giving you the advantage, you'll only know more and you'll be able to continue implementing that strategy.

Overall, just keep working at it and have fun doing it. This takes a while, and the only way to get better is to put some time into it. Try and spar better people, you may learn more. It's a lot better to see a person with less wins that's completely beast at spar than seeing a person with 10k wins and spars like Carly. People with high ratios typically selective spar newer sparrers. Overtime, those sparrers will lose their reflexes, and will get destroyed by someone who spars better players. Be better than those people.