was watchin' good job pacov!

grats

Just to say again - I'm super happy I hit plat tonight.  Thx for the well wishing and all that.  Night fellas. 

From a discussion I read on General Discussion, he won't be nearly that high even if there isn't any decay (not sure if MMR decays or not, not sure if anything decays if no matches have been played that season).

Apparently, pretty much the highest that anybody was able to place was Gold I.  That was if you were Diamond last season and went 10-0 in placement.  With only a Gold V last season, Brad should probably plan on being somewhere in midish Silver after placement matches IMO.

I really do like swan.  Just going to cover that now because I got in a bit of a rotten mood tonight.

So - the last few nights have been bittersweet.  Whiles its possible I could be having ddos attacks here and there, I doubt it.  I swapped out IPs late tonight to cover that, but hopefully its just an ISP issue... if I've somehow managed to get someone that pissed or bored to hit me with that crap, well... I'm surprised and a bit sad.  Anywho, I have some shitty ass lag issues during my last game of my promo to plat.  I very fortunately manage to win thx to it ebbing off and a decent team come late game.  Tonight, I've just been wrecked on and off due to net issues.  I'm pretty confident the issues aren't coming from LoL (even though there was a recent patch and riot indicating there are issues atm).  My bandwidth just goes to shit... my phone has enough bandwidth to power a game of LoL... hence the ddos or ISP thoughts.

Anyway, ranked recap - I'm on help folks mode.  It isn't super exciting, but I don't mind.  Played 3 with swan.  1/2.  ouch. Game 1 - we crush bot lane.  They end up with a hyper carry yi that has a BF at 5 minutes in.  The bot lane are scrubs... but folks just keep feeding yi.  End result, no silence on the team and skillshot based cc - we lose.  Disappointing considering it was a cake win if not for yi.  Game 2 was completely excruciating to me.  We win.  I get random lag of 1-2 seconds when I'm running adc.  Things are glitching out on screen.  I think I'm in 1 place, I tp to another 1-2 seconds later.  And I need to cs well... and I'm against a leona, so a misstep of 1-2 seconds = death.  We win, but due almost entirely to my other teammates doing so well.  Winning is nice and all, but not being able to do a damn thing blows.  Def better than losing and being boned.

Last game, swan under performs a bit imo bot lane resulting in some problems.  Their bot was pretty soft and some misplays on his side hurt us quite a bit.  I feel like i could have carried quite a bit and dominated bot with a little better supporting. 

All of that said - here's my super quick seminar on supporting.  I might be arrogant, but I think I'm likely the best support of any of us that play and discuss things here.  STFU PACOV - THERE'S NO NEED TO SAY ANY OF THAT.  Here are 2 things I want to strongly recommend to everyone that I already do and am rewarded for consistently. 

• Unless you are playing a carry support (eg some crazy bs with karma or another champ that isn't a "true" support) - ALWAYS start 4 green wards, 1 pink ward, and whatever 2 pots you want (I usually go 1 red/1 blue).  Once you get to lane, immediately check the enemy support's items.  If they have no pinks, ward w/e is best.  If they have a pink, try to be more strategic.  Always, check, then make a decision on where to pink, etc.  You get all of those wards to ensure your lane is safe AND you buy more time for your adc to be safe if he's cs'ing well.  A support with zero wards early/mid means your adc should back even if he's 100% hp/mana.  It's not safe and you just setup the guy that you are literally doing everything you can to get ahead back.
• Health quints.  I have a setup that I run more often than not that is hurtful to your income, but is very often incredibly helpful to your early game and helping your adc be strong in lane.  If you are EVER concerned about a matchup in bot lane, take 3 health quints and completely skip your gp10 quints.  That's 70-80 extra HP.  That covers you if you screw up or your adc needs you to go apeshit to get folks to back up off of him.  Yes, you suffer a little more than you'd like, but again, your role is to get your adc ahead early mid.  If you don't do that, either your adc is crap or you are.  Your job is to do whatever you can to make sure he wins lane and locks down kills.  If someone has "surprised you with a gank," you failed as a support.  If your HP it too low to help, you failed as a support (well, maybe not always, but if you got poked down being out of position for no reason... yeah, you blew it in your role). 

So - summarizing that all quick like - 1 - ALWAYS start 4 green/1 pink/2 pots of your choice unless you are a carry support.  2 - seriously consider running health quints on your support if you have any concerns about the matchup or just want an additional advantage.  I run 1/2 almost every game as support.  You should at least consider running item 2 and 80% of the time, run suggestion 1. 

For anyone curious about the followup to a setup like this, I run what is above.  If at all possible, on my 1st shop, I get a ruby crystal and another green + a pink ward.  Next shop I get sight stone and continue to get a pink for whatever. If the enemy support is spot on with wards or invests in a ton of pinks, I get an oracles to clear that crap and force her to fall behind in money.  A good support will likely pick up an oracle to counter that...but because they already invested a bunch in pinks, they take a bigger loss. 

heh - I woke up this morning and it occurred to me how that was a pretty douchey thing to say.  Being in a rotten mood and possessing great timing...

I shall edit the above to remove the stench of douche.

Some other thoughts re: 4 green/1 pink/2 pots is the optimal start.  It even gives you the added flexibility of putting up a 3 min ward in the jungle to aid your mid, etc, in case they did not pick 1 up, without setting your lane behind.  Eg - that's also helpful to your team and a good thing to do in solo queue if you see your mid without a ward. 

All of that to say, of course you can do other starts as support, I just think that is optimal for the team.  If you wanted to be more aggressive, you could even go 2 pinks with some greens as a start to put increased pressure bot.  I just don't think the added mana regen is worth it.

Going further, but along the same lines, I mentioned I also am often going health quints.  That is also for the adc.  It means I can more safely poke, etc.  That said, you absolutely notice a difference when you don't run the gp/10.  And its annoying as you are likely pretty poor until you can get your sightstone + 1 gp/10.  That said, it takes some getting used to - just like not running a fairy charm takes some getting used to. 

Both starts are far from optimal for yourself, as a support.  They actually set YOU back.  BUT - they also provide a better chance for your adc/team to get ahead early... which I think is my job when I'm running support.

bah - negative smeh.  Quite specifically - a few clear instances stood out in that one game. Swan decided to stare, while standing back at the tower at the enemy support removing his ward near dragon.  During this time, we had a 2v1 opportunity against their ADC or at least a great zoning setup.  Just a tunnel vision problem, but potentially a kill op missed.  Another instance, failure to ward the near bush when there was an extreme probability of a gank - I said multiple times to just bubble where you are looking to ward and then ward.  Instead, gets caught waiting far too long to ward.  And a missed couple of kills due to the support not ulting.  It's legitimate criticism and not meant to be hurtful... unlike the implication that I perhaps lost my lane because I didn't have 2 lifesteal quints + 1 ad quint and that my mmr has caught up with me.  That's the only difference between my adc runes on my alt and my primary account.  The problems bot in that game occurred for the reason I stated.  The only real teachable moment, imo, is re: getting a ward out safely by using your champs abilities if you aren't sure where the enemy is (eg starting a janna whirlwind and moving to ward as it casts so anyone waiting to ambush you is knocked up and you get a ward out safely - or nami using a bubble on a spot where the enemy might be and then warding immediately during the cast and backing up). 

Anyway, for better or worse, I'm taking my time and trying my best to help folks out.  To boot, I'm willing to play whatever role whoever I'm duoing with wants.  In ranked, I'm looking to win.  I'm taking my time and trying my best for the specific goal of getting whoever I'm duoing with a win.  Anytime there is a loss, I often consider that wasted time.  If I lose, I want it to be because I was outplayed or underperformed.   I'd prefer the failure to be on me.  If I'm duoing with someone and think there is a problem with how they are playing, I'm going to tell them.  I do tell them.  I'm a swell support and have bad games as well.  Crap happens. 

I certainly need to work on my skills for getting folks to talk about the topic I'm interested in.  I have a few quick thoughts on all that.  But, seeing as I've dug a wee hole, I'll recap and extrapolate just a sec.

1 - I'm usually aware when I've said something inflammatory.  Granted, sometimes my brain is slow, like yesterday, where I said something fairly idiotic.  Eg, for no logical reason in the slightest, I proclaimed myself king support of everyone I play with.  This is an exceptionally stupid thing to say.  Even if it were true, and there was a way to measure such a thing evenly, its just dumb to say crap like that to pals.  I apologize for that.  Quite foolish and rude - that was in poor taste.  

2 - I offered a 1-2 line critique of how swan performed in 1 game as support.  I fleshed out the reasoning a bit in the follow up post.  No offense really meant; hopefully none taken.  Thunder thinks its inappropriate to call out folks like that.  I'll take that under advisement.

3 - pacov has completed his formula.  The formula is to say something arrogant or imply superiority to fellow players.  That = here comes the fuck you train. This formula is tested and true. 

Well again, knowing that I've met the criteria of my formula, I'm expected some fuck you inbound, so I read your post through those goggles.  I read that regardless of what I said, that the fault in laning was my lack of runes.  Which I find to be a comment without merit regarding what actually happened in the game.  You make a supposition to defend someone without any knowledge of the actual game.  I suppose I could have simply said, no - I don't think runes were a factor.  To which you could continue to suppose they were.  In short, not all that valuable to either of us.  Your point seemed to be that you think its shitty to call someone out here.  Probably right. 

I'll probably hop back to the whole support start discussion in a bit.  I'll make another quick attempt here though - what do you folks think re: support starting with 4 green/1 pink/2 pots?  I think its quite possible the best start for most supports at this time.  Bryff thinks/prefers to start with an item like fairy charm for additional mana output.  Any other thoughts? 

Plat 3! Diamond 2013 any body?????

I've seen this sort of thing as well, and while its not necessarily wrong, I tend to think its not the best possible move.  When you back early, you leave your adc exposed - even if you ward.  If I see an adc without a support, that's an immediate signal to me that the enemy adc is done farming now - because my support and I will make him done farming.  In that case, the early back is positive for you (the support), because you now have extra income, but you likely cost the adc some money/xp.  Now, if you were sneaky with something like that, then perhaps it would take the enemy a bit to figure out that you left your adc.  Eg, if you back in a bush where you know they don't have vision, you have bought some time where the support/adc don't zone out your adc. 

Anyway, I think the general strategy is one that is not in your adc's best interest.  It helps the support, which in turn helps the adc eventually, but at the loss of early game pressure/domination (unless your harass has succeeded in getting your adc a kill or getting them low enough that they cannot counter).  As a rule, I try to only back when my adc does early/mid. 

That would be pretty freaking solid.  CAN YOU DO IT, COW?

Yay - wb bryff.  No idea why you couldn't post, but glad that's sorted now - pacov's off to bed tho :/

Side note - I am really bad.  I went on an awful streak tonight.  On the bright side, I didn't have any system issues or slowdown outside of 10 minutes 1 game, so that's encouraging at any rate.  I also discovered that karl will be eating or silent if I ask him to duo ever.    Ah, the good old days where I made sure karl would be invited to my games. 

Anywho - I am finding plat games to be fairly one sided.  It's kind of strange.  Bronze was WILDLY inconsistent.  Silver was quite a bit inconsistent.  Gold was kinda even.  Plat so far is WILDLY inconsistent.  Again, in my experience.  When I say inconsistent, I mean that 1-2 roles will be completely awful in most games.  Then you have the spill over and high odds of loss.  In gold, I actually found that most games were consistent (eg 1 role would lag behind, but others would move ahead).  Not really sure why there are all the imbalances.  I think I might just be dealing with slightly lower mmr and needing to crawl out of plat 5.  I feel like I'm likely at a place where good players appear and cross paths with so so folks.  Anyway, hopefully that changes.  As it stands, a good performance from me could very well end in a loss because of a CRAZY FUCK YOU GOOD performance out of another player on the other team.  That kind of blows.