patd4938: thats how i got better back in wrath. I was topping meters in my guild. Joined the server Rank 4 guild. There i was the worst Ret out of the 4 they had. I looked into why and asked them alot of questions and by the time we cleared Togc25 we all were within the same range of DPS. Playing with better players WILL improve your skill IF you are willing to research and practise

tacothunderking4558: Fun relevant hockey story: When I played beer league, I scored a goal against an NHL goalie in a charity game because my shot was so slow it broke his brain and he whiffed on it completely.

RN_Dreemurr: A. LOT. depends on a group. I was once, in DF, being a young and aspirational vDH but never having the guts to jump above my head, taken by a pusher group into the keys 2-3 levels above my “ceiling”. They were EXTREMELY cooperative, very understanding, patient, kind, informative and supportive of me. I never knew that I could do “that” or “this” before. Basically started as a fledgling and ended up flying on my own later. They’ve built a ton of confidence in myself and my skills.

You do grow in an environment where you are the one lacking, but you don’t always take the right lessons. Learning comes from personal motivation to grow and be better as well as a some kind of tutoring from your surrounding.

EngelRaziel100: TLDR: You don't get better if you don't put in the work.

Based on a small group, I can tell you people don't get better just by playing with better players. One of my friends is on my skill level, and all my other friends are below our skill level. To understand the difference: in LoL, me and my good friend are Diamond rank, while my other friends are all Bronze–Silver. In WoW, me and my good friend are doing high keys, mythic raids, good DPS/HPS, and my other friends get carried by us for M , and only see the HC raid if we help them get into groups and explain everything in voice. They do pretty poor DPS, and none of them has the will to play healer because they know themselves it would end up horribly.

If playing with a better player made you better, they should have improved in LoL for sure—because back in the day, we played this EVERY DAY for YEARS. They got slightly better, but not even close to what you'd expect. The difference between me and my bad friends comes down to two things:

1: I've been playing since I was a little kid, and I play a lot. Most of my friends who aren't that good started playing later or just played way less than I did across their lifetime.

2: When I'm hooked on a game, I dig into it. I watch streamers, YouTubers, read stuff about the game—I'm just heavily invested. My friends don't do that. They've never watched a streamer, looked anything up on YouTube, or even thought about reading anything.

Julian-cn1ey: I went from a plat OW player to a masters player by duoing with a GM player a few times a week, over a few months. Got crushed until I stopped getting crushed, then slowly gained the capacity for solo play in high elos.

Getting thrown into the deep end and learning though osmosis is infinitely better than trying to learn from an environment where nothing is consistently done right.

The situation has to be set up in a way where the noob is willing and capable of learning, but with those two capacities, it is the best way for an aspiring player to grow in skill very quickly.

Learning to do things right the first time, also takes a lot less time and effort than learning wrong, unlearning your entire skillset and relearning it multiple times over.

If you take a game seriously try your hardest to get out of low elo games ASAP, getting used to a low elo environment will destroy your ability to ever grow or compete.

jacekkulinski4414: I think this is something that doesn't have one answer and has a LOT of caveats. Playing with better players can be both good and bad for you, good because you will experience more difficult content and get better as a result, good because you will be able to ask them questions on how to improve, good because you will see how things "should" be done, bad because they will carry your slack, bad because you will be use to them being able to handle things on their own so when you play with bad players you wont be ready to cover them, bad because they wont let situations get bad enough where you will have to step up.

KillchainTV: Its a term in teaching (my missus is teacher) and im sure other aspects use it too or call it something different, but i reckon its the zone of proximal development.

AZealousRetort: wow equivalent is pulling the whole first room in workshop just kinda trusting that kicks & stops are gonna happen. (its a 4 they are not going to happen)

eodyn7: lol at that dude that thinks 3k io is mediocre.

BarrettRTS: So during Dragonflight I had the opportunity to run some keys with some people in Liquid. One of them was learning to tank M and I was an augmentation evoker with a pulse. I don't know if I'd say I learned how to play better in a direct sense, but witnessing people playing better made me appreciate what being in a good group feels like.

Temujim: 100% you get better by playing with better players. Back when i was in guilds pushing for CE I had much better performance overall. Just to be able to keep up with players that are in that enviroment you have to improve, you go over logs togheter, learn the ins and outs of rotation, positioning properly to reduce movement and increase uptime etc.

There are a lot of improvements a heroic early mythic player like me doesnt need to do in order to play that more focused players do. Best thing i can think of as proof is i used to have all purples and orange parses on farm fights, now im down to greens on some of them. I still try to do all those things, but the incentive is not there (neither is the time)

nickd5117: I think if you progress with better players you’ll get better faster

Like, they carry you through a couple of 2/4/6/8/10 keys, then jump into higher ones

You have time to get a feel for pace, mechanics, routes etc

Also, personally until I played a role of responsibility I plateaued, once I learned to tank I improved massively

iceiceice914: So true.

I was a 40 healer in Mythic raid when I joined WoW in df s3

After switching to better teams twice, I’m now 88 in current tier.

Draenal: If you're someone who can't stand being on the bottom, playing with better players gives you so much motivation.

kalyes32: Playing with better players for sure will make you better. But it highly depends on how you make that jump. If you get a player that does 40-50 parses and is in 1200 WR guild and you throw him in Liquid it won't work. The guy will be overwhelmed with information, preparation and expectations. Back in SL I smh managed to get a trial in 400 WR guild and I was like WR 1000 player, a bit lower. I was straight up paniced, confused, ashamed and nervous because I was failing basic mechanics and back then I didn't know how to stand up for myself and ask questions. I ended up leaving after 4 raids with them because I just couldn't keep up and I felt really stressed.

But if you jump from WR 800 to WR 400/500 (which is also a big jump) you might do better. And it also really depends on the guild.

KurosoraDobla: Learning and improving is a lot about time and attitude.

Wanna get good but don't realistically have time? Just don't do it, it really is not worth it, neither the time, money or effort needed for a game like WoW. Just focus on real life matters until you can muster roughly 3-4 hours a day to play. This is NOT a iron-clad time rule, but a good starting point, remember you would be "competing" with people having 12-16 hours a day to spam dungeons, and raids are usually 3 hours per raid if deciding to join a guild.

Have a lot of time but don't want to get good? That's O K; just don't moan about other people that do want to improve, keep it to yourself, don't go out of your way of doing any higher content than max rewards outta vault, because why would you, that's for people that wanna get good at the game. And don't give your input on why the game is terrible when you don't care about it in the first place. Use the one-button rotation helper.

Wanna get good and have time? Put in the effort, learn your class/spec, play with people, add any you liked playing with - networking, go to high rated streamers and ask them questions while being active in their community in a positive and respectful

chaDDizBACK: I went from Raiding Hall of Fame US 9 Peak to now raiding US 180... It feels so much slower and more bad but I dont have the time to OT raid or raId more than 9 hours a week. I do agree with your philosophy.

bigaaronone: Do ONE key with someone better than you, and they will teach you a million things

bambuco2: Couldn't be more wrong, when I go and play M keys with my friends that aren't close to my rating and we play their keys it's always a shit show and it takes way more effort from my side to time

bambuco2: RIP if you're a healer or a tank, good luck joining a better guild

djstory2001: You get better by playing against players that are a little better than you. If there is to big of a gap you will get smoked and not learn much.

Jun 23 2025

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