I am a low to mid 3k player. I have been playing Dota since 2008. For a while I played team games with 4-6k players, and did fine usually.

But, right now, my account is at 1837. The highest I have gotten it to is about 2000~, but then it has dipped again. The struggle to get back to 3k has been so frustrating for me that I'm starting to really hate the game, despite my long history of loving it.

Sure, you'll say play a pubstomp carry, and you should be able to carry your teams over and over until you get back to 3k, that is.....if you are 3k. Well, this statement is guaranteed made by someone whom has not ACTUALLY dealt with trying to climb out of the trench. I'm a pretty solid player, I can play any role easily and efficiently. However, my best roles are support and initiation, and I don't like playing carry very much. But 90% of the times I lose, one or more of my teammates is so counterproductive that it doesn't matter what role I play or how well I am doing.

More often than you might think, our team loses in the picking phase; I just lost two games in a row today because a pubbie picked an absolutely unneeded carry, despite the entire team telling him not to, and the opposite team had a well balanced team and absolutely destroyed us.

If both teams are fairly balanced, I am usually able to have a significant enough impact on the game to guarantee victory. But really the main struggle is the picking phase. I'm convinced that is the root of the problem of the trench. It seems like newer players are fascinated with being carry, because they are the most powerful and important role in the game. There seems to be some experienced players I come across that are obsessed with being the most important role, and they of course are stuck in the Trench as a result.

I feel like there needs to be more emphasis on new players that playing other roles can be fun and cool. It's no mystery that supports would be thought of as weak and lame. Some kind of tutorial system helping players try out different roles could be good, so they could guilt-free test them out. But the major change that I think needs to be made is some kind of hero suggestion system should be implemented for a certain MMR (2500~ and lower).

I am getting extremely sick of having to scramble out an explanation why picking the last carry is a really bad idea. The other players usually don't even listen to me anyway. But if there were nice little pop up messages from the game itself saying something like "Hey, your team doesn't have any supports yet. Someone needs to be an early game presence and help out the carries so they can farm safely" I feel like players would be much more inclined to listen to the game itself than any other player.

I have tried everything: playing only carry, playing only support, and now playing carry/support while muting everyone on my team. Nothing seems to be really making a difference to help me get back to my MMR. Maybe I'm just burned out on the game and should take a break for a while. But still, I'm strongly convinced that the reason the Trench exists is because players that low like to do whatever the hell they want, even though it is really bad for the team. I truly believe that a lot of new players will dislike the game more if they don't know what they're doing, but just go along with what everyone else is doing. I feel like this definitely a failure of the game to help integrate new players. Plus, it is absolute misery for experienced players who get stuck in the Trench.