For quite some time I have been a platinum player, staying at or around Platinum 3 for the last few acts. I am confident that I can reach Diamond by the end of this act, but at this point in time it feels so difficult and stressful. I've never reached Diamond before, but it would be a huge achievement for me, so I'm really just asking for advice from people that have reached that checkpoint.

I already know one factor is that for the most part I play with friends on an alt because it generally is more fun for me to queue with them than soloQ. I am still plat on those alts, but they are typically gold lobbies. I'm kind of kicking myself in the rear because I'm getting used to gold gameplay instead of how diamonds perform.

I like to play duelist but in my comp games on my main I tend to fill because duelists are either autolocked or I worry I won't be able to perform as well so I let them pick what they are comfortable with, and I fill because I still know how to play at least an agent or two from each role.

I try for the most part to not be overaggressive and play in different positions each round, but it feels like I lose most gunfights to a quick headshot. These diamonds are literally built different and unless I'm playing at 110% percent, I'm getting dumpstered on, lmao.

It could be either a mental thing or just mechanical skill that I'm lacking. Probably both, but its hard to narrow down what I'm struggling with completely even with video reviewing.

I have narrowed down my sensitivity though to a T, so that's a plus.

I appreciate any advice. I have noticed that though I may be towards the bottom of the board more often than not. This area of ranked is not too toxic, at least not as much as gold. That I am happy for. I've witnessed so many simple mistakes in gold with my buds, and I've complained about our teammates to them, but is it really that hard to not yell at randoms? And they wonder why no one responds after round three when the whole team has muted them.

Apologies for making this post so long winded.