If you want to move up in MMR, do you have to carry the team?

Not necessarily. You need to have high impact on the game for the most part.

From my experience, there is a switching point in what you need to do for that to happen. That tends to rely on mechanics and farm.

Pre-Good Mechanics

If your teammates are not able to last hit/farm efficiently, make good item choices, and use the space they are given, then there is a lot of resources going to waste.

This doesn't mean you cannot win by playing support heroes, but you need to play greedier and take farm.

Basically, if you have confidence in your decision making, try to get farm and worry less about your teammates.

For this reason, many players will just go for mid because they can easily win a 1v1 matchup and snowball off that.

You can win matches regardless of role, but it is more difficult when you have less access to farm and your allies are wasting it. Without it, you need to really rely on good rotations, decision making, and shot-calling with allies that listen.

Post-Good Mechanics

Once players have solid mechanics, then having high impact is about doing well in your role.

Often you'll see supports having huge impact because their rotations win lanes and that sets up the team to win.

Hero mastery is another way to move up quickly. If you pick a handful of heroes that work in every situation and master them, you will be able to use them to their full potential and out play your opponents.

What I mean by hero mastery is that a general Earthshaker player might know the builds and item progressions. An expert Earthshaker has their mind trained to look for good Fissure opportunities, they know how to position themselves to be in spots where they can get better Fissures. They also know how much damage they do, how to play against various heroes and matchups, etc. It's playing the hero on a different level instead of going through the motions.

There are pros and cons to this method (and it is a method that is widely used, even with pros):

Pros

• You ascend rapidly
• You can play certain heroes at very competitive levels
• Because you're playing against better players, the rest of your abilities will also improve faster (e.g. map awareness, build choices), and you will get better feedback (sometimes).

Cons

• Your MMR is not a good representation of your overall skill
• You expect MMR drops outside of your main heroes
• You are a bit 1-dimensional
• Balance patches have a big affect on you
• You may miss out on some valuable cross training (e.g. inherent benefits of playing a wide array of heroes / learning to see the game from many viewpoints, etc.)

Another way that can work is by going into Crystal Maiden where the games have more structure. Captains should at least have some plan in mind and players are generally a bit more communicative and a bit more team oriented. Even when you are outdrafted, the teamwork can be a saving grace (as well as better late game decision making / taking advantage of timing windows).

The first key to raising your mmr, is to not raise your mmr

If you queue into any dota match to win, or raise your mmr, and you don't what happens mentally? Generally frustration, thoughts of your team holding you back, or things along these lines. Even if you think you are better, or even if every few games you have someone that leaves or throw, you can never blame others for losing. I say this because it will become a scapegoat mentally; "Well I am stuck at this MMR because my teammates hold me back, or I they never help me, or leave or whatever, ugh I hate dota." When in all reality, the only factor you DO control is you.

So instead of worrying about what others do, focus on yourself

Someone leaves on your team, no big deal, can I still learn for this game since he left? No, just leave the game. Someone on your team is feeding, fine, I am not going to miss a single last and I am not going to get ganked. Your carry is missing many CS, fine, I am going to get him and my mid so many kills by roaming that I win their lane for them. Whatever the situation, no matter how tantalizing it is, never look to others for the answers. That being said, if you are playing with a friendly group of players (I know this is as rare as unicorn dolphin), learn from them and practice coordination. Whatever the game, whatever the situation, do what you can to learn.

The logical extension of this leads to my point about not trying to raise your mmr, to raise your mmr

If you focus on skills, mechanics, understanding, and mental strength, mmr will come in time. As someone who plays against 6k players in tournaments/in pubs together, and being 4k myself, reading other posts, its the same issues at every level just varying degrees. So worry about you, your mechanics, your knowledge, and your mental state.

As far as what role, that depends on both what you want to play and like playing

If you like carrying, accept that fact that most safelane farmers (minus a few aggressive heroes, the earlier portion of the game is in the hands of your teammates. So what can you do? Make sure you don't miss CS. Your support isn't pulling, well pull yourself or harass out the offlane. The point is, understand what you can and can't do, and make the most of it every game.

If you want to play mid, decent if you are playing a farming or ganking hero

If you are playing a farming mid, such as tinker, make sure you never miss CS. Practice LH'ing in solo lobbies for a 10-30 minutes a day, etc. IF you are playing a ganking hero, think about when and where you can gank. What heroes should you gank. And lastly, what can I bring my team to make their game easier.

As far as support, I touched on this about, but focus on the thought, "I don't care what my carry or mid does, how skilled they are, I am going to pull, roam, stack, and gank. And by 15 minutes, I am going to make sure my tram is winning." Buy wards, place a rune ward in the beginning, then think about what wards your cores need to live. All of these are skills and knowledge you need to learn over time to consistently get better. If you pm me or respond, I can elaborate on playing support as i have logged over 6k hours playing that role, mostly competitive.

I just really want to emphasize, and I know most of the dota community disagrees with me, don't focus on the thoughts about your team. Who cares if they are good, bad, make mistakes, etc. That only matters if you are queueing to win, or queueing to raise your mmr. In my opinion, if you are doing that, you are setting yourself up to fail. No professional athlete who has achieved the status of champion blames or focuses on his/her teammates. There may be exceptions, but that point is they focus on themselves. Whether or not you agree with this is up to you, but you are always getting upset at the game or your teammates ask yourself these questions. Did I do EVERYTHING I could CORRECTLY to win the game? Did I help my teams Morale? Did I learn something for that game regardless of the out come? If you can answer all 3 yes, and still lose because of your teammates, it happens (and the more you focus on it, the less room you leave for yourself).