Update 5/25/2017
Well, I started a thread back in Dec 2011 that’s seen a lot of activity (some 922,000 views over the course of a few years apparently...). That thread had a good deal of tips/strategies/discussions about League of Legends from new and old players alike. You can find the previous thread (now archived) here: https://forums.joeuser.com/413863. I think its time to start fresh with a new thread.
What’s this thread all about?For those that followed the previous thread, the type of content you see here will be fairly consistent to what you are used to. Please consider this a place to discuss LoL related content as you like. I'll do the same and treat the thread as a blog as well where I talk about what’s going on with me in LoL. Feel free to jump in and join the discussion if you like.
Quick background on meI played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust. Back in August 2011, I started getting heavily involved in League of Legends, and folks from the community were kind enough to help me figure things out. I play LoL most nights, stream, make videos and it’s my main gaming interest.
Some links
Just played vs bigfatlp and got slaughtered. To be expected I guess.
lil bit. Still - always fun to see how you stack up to good players.
You guys should try my new support jhin build out. You take the adc role, but you just get assists.
Anyway, summary of the night - got legit carried 1 game (always feels good to be carried - especially when the guy ahead is like 1v5ing). Had to work the other games. Had a few with boaz where it was freaking WWF stuff. Just people throwing down like maniacs over and over. He worked on his vlad a bunch tonight.
Anyway, got in games with him, then later hunny/soup and a few solo. Ended the night just hitting my promo series back to plat III - so I'll be playing that tomorrow. Night all!
Well... in and out of my series for plat III yesterday. Won game 1 then lost 2 in a row. Took me long enough to get back there and now I get to do it again. Smeh.
hmm... zed is one the recommended bans now due to influence
https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4caogu/best_bans_by_tier_in_each_region_patch_66_a/
also... raka's winrate is a bit nutz. Apparently the changes were pretty decent perhaps? Haven't really played w/ her since the last change up.
Got diamond III tonight. I am hoping to go higher but we will see. I have been playing support here and there for fun and blitz seems to be a lucky charm for me. 10-2 right now on the robot.
Grats! I'm hopefully about to get back into my plat IV to plat III series. Still annoyed about losing the last 1 over crap then having to play several to get back to the here, but w/e.
Been playing ranked a ton with hunny/boaz lately. Having the fun.
For our boy hunnybadger - he's been playing eve a bit lately and his early clears are poo. This shows a better way along with runes, etc - https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4cjljy/66_healthiest_evelynn_clear_full_health_no_leash/
We learned that boaz sej does not do well against the new champ as a top laner... lets just say he probably hates the new champ and died a few times.
What else... I should probably dodge if I'm adc and I don't get to play jhin. Need to work on other champs.
Back in series to plat III again. 0/1 so far though. Not exceedingly hopeful, but we'll see. Grinding my mmr up at least so if I make it, I'm guessing demotion will be slower if it happens.
Oh - and I'm now in the habit of making sure I always know what I could have done better in a game and reviewing that. Even if you have a game with baddies, there is always something you could have done better. Focusing in on that (even if its clear you probably couldn't have won even if you played perfect and everyone on your team is johnny feeder) helps and you at least get something out of a bad game. I got 4 man dove bot. I could have seen that coming and should not have given the goon squad another kill even though we are down 5 to 26, etc. My CS was crap. I didn't trade well enough. I missed a kill OP if I would have flashed. I should have adjusted my itemization or roamed then. There's always something. Pretty good habit to get in. And if you don't see things to improve on (eg I only lost because of X), you are stagnant and likely a bigger problem than you realize. I really enjoy getting better at the game and working on stuff.
I think the hardest thing about evaluating a performance for me is when I play in solo queue I tend to make plays trusting my teammates to follow up and they do 75-85% if the time turn out well (stuff like flash ulting, flash pulls, invading for vision with 2 people, ping a dude and gank with a teammate). In scrublord normals I try to do the same things and a lot of the time I get half hearted responces or no follow up at all and I die and look like a goon. So it's hard to decide if x was a bad play or if my ADC held his heal to long or my teammates reaction time was to slow.
Ah - that's a good point and I guess that can get a little dicey. I tend to think that if I'm setup to make a great play and it requires solid follow through on someone else AND i know my teammate has whatever I need available for the play (if you don't know this before you start the play, thats on you, ofc)... in that case, the outcome is the take away. Eg if it works, spot on. If your teammate gets all wishy washy and doesn't follow through (again, with you knowing that they could have, with their cooldowns, sums, etc), then you know you can't rely on the fella. If you know that and continue to play like you can still make the play that relies on someone else, I think that's a mistake on your part. eg the optimal play is a bad one if you can't rely on your team or teammates and you are actually the one making the mistake by pushing it.
2 things here - 1 - sounds like you are making good decisions with such a high success rate. 2 - that's also a really good benefit you get playing in Dia vs lower elo's I'd think. The lower you go, that follow up is less likely to occur. Honestly, I'd say 1 out of every 3-4 games I get someone really in sync with me when I'm running support and I can make some big plays that require followup.
I think the support/adc synergy just gets better at higher elos. The AD's that I have been supporting know how to trade and not take poke. They also follow all my initiation even if they are bad. Usually the lane is decided by jungles/mid lanes ganks instead of just "oh my ADC fucking sucks".
yah - not the same down in plat land like you said.
I'm still trying to figure out how the new champ crushed mr boaz in top lane. Don't think I've got a replay of that game. Guess he'd take a pounding in melee range. hurm.
I think that Boaz just probably doesn't know how to play against the new champ. The new champ is supposed to be VERY vulnerable at close range since you can get inside the stars. So if you can dash inside and stay inside the star halo, you can mess him up (since you can't insta proc the stun either).
clips from my last promo game tonight. Feel the salt.
http://plays.tv/video/56fc985ab7e13979a0/queue-bot-support-get-bot-everytime-sometimes-get-this-?from=user&_t=eyJ0eXBlIjoiZnJvbSIsImxvY2F0aW9uIjoiUmVwbGF5VXNlckNvbnRyb2xsZXIuVXNlclZpZGVvc01vZC12aWRlb3MiLCJmZWVkX2lkIjoiNTZmYzk4NWFiN2UxMzk3OWEwIiwiZ2FtZV9pZCI6ImIxNzk1ODVjNmI2OGEyNzkxZWVhNGExYWQzZDdlZjcyIiwibGlua19pZCI6InZpZGVvX2xpc3RfdGl0bGUifQ%3D%3D
http://plays.tv/video/56fc991ce0b45a2426/wouldnt-be-quite-as-annoying-if-wasnt-they-guy-complaining-about-his-team-sucking-?from=user&_t=eyJ0eXBlIjoiZnJvbSIsImxvY2F0aW9uIjoiUmVwbGF5VXNlckNvbnRyb2xsZXIuVXNlclZpZGVvc01vZC12aWRlb3MiLCJmZWVkX2lkIjoiNTZmYzk5MWNlMGI0NWEyNDI2IiwiZ2FtZV9pZCI6ImIxNzk1ODVjNmI2OGEyNzkxZWVhNGExYWQzZDdlZjcyIiwibGlua19pZCI6InZpZGVvX2xpc3RfdGh1bWIifQ%3D%3D
http://plays.tv/video/56fc9a1c56bd37e2eb/we-need-cure-for-cancer-also-malphite-is-dr-garbo?from=user&_t=eyJ0eXBlIjoiZnJvbSIsImxvY2F0aW9uIjoiUmVwbGF5VXNlckNvbnRyb2xsZXIuVXNlclZpZGVvc01vZC12aWRlb3MiLCJmZWVkX2lkIjoiNTZmYzlhMWM1NmJkMzdlMmViIiwiZ2FtZV9pZCI6ImIxNzk1ODVjNmI2OGEyNzkxZWVhNGExYWQzZDdlZjcyIiwibGlua19pZCI6InZpZGVvX2xpc3RfdGl0bGUifQ%3D%3D
and me whining about a hunny play - http://plays.tv/video/56fc9794bf300fddf8/that-time-when-hunny-hit-2-with-his-ult?from=user&_t=eyJ0eXBlIjoiZnJvbSIsImxvY2F0aW9uIjoiUmVwbGF5VXNlckNvbnRyb2xsZXIuVXNlclZpZGVvc01vZC12aWRlb3MiLCJmZWVkX2lkIjoiNTZmYzk3OTRiZjMwMGZkZGY4IiwiZ2FtZV9pZCI6ImIxNzk1ODVjNmI2OGEyNzkxZWVhNGExYWQzZDdlZjcyIiwibGlua19pZCI6InZpZGVvX2xpc3RfdGl0bGUifQ%3D%3D
and me whining about a hunny play when its totally my fault :/
http://plays.tv/video/56fc97f7c726bf8142/me-being-good-then-being-awful-then-bitching-someone-when-its-not-their-fault?from=user&_t=eyJ0eXBlIjoiZnJvbSIsImxvY2F0aW9uIjoiUmVwbGF5VXNlckNvbnRyb2xsZXIuVXNlclZpZGVvc01vZC12aWRlb3MiLCJmZWVkX2lkIjoiNTZmYzk3ZjdjNzI2YmY4MTQyIiwiZ2FtZV9pZCI6ImIxNzk1ODVjNmI2OGEyNzkxZWVhNGExYWQzZDdlZjcyIiwibGlua19pZCI6InZpZGVvX2xpc3RfdGl0bGUifQ%3D%3D
I like the malphite "WTF" *ping ping ping* "can't land a binding"
just don't mind me going in 5 minutes early and dying! lmfao what a twat. All he had to do was wait for amumu to come and RIP there whole team.
So played a few ranked games supported as blitz in both and went 1 and 1 (dodged a game that had some one pick aurelion top in it).
A few things kayle and shyvanna seem broken as fuck. Kayle died like 10 or 11 times on the enemy team and still carried doing like 36k damage in 30ish minutes. Shyvanna with and titanic and a devourer did stupid damage and is tanky as fuck. These 2 were so oppressive to play versus. I felt like I was beaten by how stupid broken they were not by the player. Definitely two of my must bans now.
Got some more games in with dr swan yesterday. We got him up to a promo series and then got him a loss. Think I'm on one of my last alt accounts now that can still play with silver. Also, we learned the hunny has no variance when playing jax. Its either 27 deaths or 27 kills. There are no defensive items. Also, hunny did not know about brooke candy. Twas a sad day for the queen of italy.
Dreadful.
Played with lord dump truck again. And my mind exploded a tiny bit. He played a serviceable support. PDT is back for a bit. Also, we don't know if we got bouche to rage quit last night or what. He played 1 game w/ us as shy top, didn't do so well, and then dropped off the planet mid game.
Anyway, this patch = who care for me. jhin feels a bit weaker - you get punished much more for any q farming in early levels and that was always a good tool for securing cs/zoning. Mana cost on E going down isn't even kind of surprising as everything I've seen in korean high elo play didn't even scale a point into it until late. Anyway, I figure he's probably in a much better place now.
Really looking forward to seeing how the new taric turns out. Some interesting mechanics at least. Got some stuff to do so probably won't be playing tonight.
Ah - sweet, sweet game time is soon upon me. Looking forward to nerding it up tonight. Been a long week. I'm up for norms or ranked or w/e accounts needed. Need to check out some stats post patch changes as well - not sure how hard some nerfs hit.
Holy crap did I get sucked into the CLG vs TL games on Sat. So much flip flop. Last couple of games were great.
On demand here if you didn't check out. You can see how amped everyone got in game 5 though. Tense one
http://www.lolesports.com/en_US/na-lcs/na_2016_spring/matches/na_2016_spring_playoffs/semi-final-1
Mixed results in ranked on my main lately.
Someone reposted this on summonerschool. So much to learn from on this topic - https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4eagut/this_wellwritten_guide_by_a_challenger_player/
Some excerpts from that post. I went through and reread it a few times now:
"Your teammates are four players that were chosen by the Matchmaking Algorithm to be matched with you, so that your team's MMR is more or less equal to the enemy team's.
2) Don't flame. Okay, hold it here. "Not again those holier-than-thou Dontbetoxicbepositiveeverybodyishappy". I'm not. I've been toxic beyond your imagination. I've seen some chat logs from DarkWinJax (nota: The guy who supposedly has the most toxic record in League history) and honestly I wasn't impressed. I've earned hundreds of chat restricts. But I've improved since. And since I improved my behavior, I started to significantly win more. EVEN if you can type without spoiling your focus. EVEN if you play exactly the same no matter if you're typing or not. EVEN if you are playing at your top no matter what. Your teammates are strangers. If you cross a stranger in the street and he starts insulting you, you move on. You don't get mad at him, you don't start feeling bad, even if he tells you to kill yourself. He's a fool. You don't talk with fools. And if you insult strangers in the street, you're a fool yourself.
The proper answer to flame is to mute and move on. Remove the mute a few minutes later if you feel like it. Do NOT start quarrels. You got 5 enemies on the other team so you might as well not get some in your own team. You need to be absolutely serene in your games. Complete serenity. The only reaction you should have when somebody flames it a slight movement of your eyes towards the chat log, a slight sigh, pressing tab and peacefully hovering towards the* mute *button and pressing it.
The only feeling you should have in a SoloQ game ever is your desire to win. Feel no anger. Feel no pain. Feel no fury. You are a mountain of peace and quiet. You are ABOVE those people."
Think I'll continue jibber jabbering in the same vein for a bit. Very random bits of info first - bryff appears to be single once more, cow appears to be johnny dates a bit, and boaz is going through some rough family stuff. Be very aware if you play with him in the near future at least that he might have to leave unexpectedly, so please don't report or anything. Not good stuff going on there.
OK - back to the topic of my mentality towards the game. So, step 1 was the culling, more or less. Decide who you enjoy playing with and play with them. Folks you fight/argue with regularly? You don't enjoy playing together - stop. Not enough people as a result? Begin supplementing to find more like minded folks. Over the past 3-4 months I've checked out and joined 2 new communities. The latest one I'm digging quite a bit as there appears to be an abundance of plat elo folks, which is great for me. Anyway, as such, I'm getting to meet more folks and figuring out who I click with and enjoy playing with. It's good stuff.
So, what I highlighted in my last post...
...etc.- well, I started to put things together a little better. Yesterday, I played in some of the most excruciating games I've played in some time. We are talking, sigh inducing at a minimum with rage inducing being the logical outcome. I'll hop back to that, but first, it codified a few things for me.
1 - all those rules in the previous post - those are expressly about solo queue. It's a very important distinction to make as the rules change in tremendous ways once you add repetition into the mix (eg playing with the same folks).
2- there should be a different set of rules for folks you choose to play with based on a wider set of variables.
Last night for a few games, I chose to play with some folks from MadCast. All nice folks, a couple much lower elo than I'm used to playing with. What ensued was fun for some of them, but totally and utterly excruciating for me. More on this later...
and its later...
Recap - so attitude you should have when you are solo queue and want to improve, be a non shitty human being, etc - already covered in detail here: https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4eagut/this_wellwritten_guide_by_a_challenger_player/. Easy to forget, but good to meditate on briefly before queuing up. The 9 other people in the game aren't my pals and aren't my enemies; they are strangers I'm playing exactly 1 game with whose opinion of me does not matter in the slightest and my opinion of them means nothing - I will forget them all. I am here to climb, I am not playing to make my team climb.
That leaves a few areas - finding folks to play with that you enjoy playing with, playing with folks you've just met (when you are looking to meet new people and develop relationships) and playing with folks you already know.
First, I think its really worth talking about what are you looking for. By now you should already have a really good idea of who you like to play with, what game mode you enjoy best, etc. For instance, like in the game I mentioned the other day, I really don't enjoy casual f-about games. I don't like playing with an entire team that has no idea how to group, when to group, etc. I don't like it when folks want to play roles I prefer. I generally enjoy playing with the gold/plat crowd and toss in diamonds when I'm looking to really try to improve my game. I also enjoy playing in lower elo games when I'm trying to work on champs or roles I'm smeh in. But, very importantly to me, I very rarely just play games to screw around. Whatever I'm playing, even if I'm trying out runes and masteries, I'm playing to win. I want to play with folks who really desire to get better and are willing to work at it - not folks that are unable to adapt to their teammates, etc.
I don't like playing normals. It never really occurred to me until this season, but often in normals with some of our pals, I'm expected to play hard while someone else dicks around and plays TF top because they expect it will be an easy match for them due to lower elo. Naw - let's play a ranked where you actually have to try if we are going to play.
Anyway, I'm very specific with what I like/dislike - so, folks that I will most often want to play with are people that play roles other than adc/support in gold/plat that are passionate about winning. Folks I play with will not rage quit. They do and I'm typically done with them. They will also have consistently reliable internet (within reason, ofc - i mean, do you really want to play with someone that will cause you to lose 1 out of 3 ranked games because they are dc'd for 10 min?). On almost any given day I'd rather play alone or queue up for ranked than be in a low elo game playing my main role. Last, and obviously very, very critical. Who do you actually like as a person and enjoy hanging out with? You don't have fun with them, stop playing with them - I'm not obligated to play with anyone and no one is obligated to play with me. If there is enmity, just knock it off. Everyone will be much happier as a result, folks lose their agita, etc. All good. Blunders like hopping into a game with some MC folks without checking their elo aside, I'm definitely happier moving on from some folks, as are some from me, so its a net positive for everyone.
1 - see solo queue rules above
2 - evaluate who you currently play with and decide if you want to continue playing with those folks.
3 - find new folks.
I'll briefly go over a little what I've done. It's a lot easier for me than it is for most of you due to the sheer number of smurf accounts I've made over the years (this enables me to play exclusively with certain folks on certain accounts, at varied elos, etc). Also helps if you are feeling timid and just don't want to have to tell billy you'd rather not play with him.
Some advice re: finding new folks. Don't just play 1 game with someone new and bugger off. Give folks a fair shake. It's pretty easy to play 1 game with someone, they have a pisser of a game, and then you are like... nope... thx for the game.. cya. I recommend playing a few games. Get to know them a bit. Now, if they are being an ass, etc, and that doesn't really work with your sense of humor, etc, then drop em and move along to the next. There are a LOT of other folks playing league.
OK - so one easy way to meet new folks - check out the league connect subreddit. I don't personally find this the best way to go about things, but its a good introduction to meeting new folks. People will post their region and w/e other info they want to. If you are interested you either reply to them or add them in game and chat them up. w/e. Here's a random copy/paste to give you an idea of a typical post:
NA looking for duo support main to climb back to goldself.LeagueConnect
Submitted 8 hours ago by bobbypepperman
Last season I hit Gold V, I'm currently place silver V looking to climb back to gold with a support main. Preferably someone who made it to gold last season but is currently climbing silver like me. No drama no raging just trying to climb, get back to gold and get better a long the way bobbypepperman if interested
Boom - just like that you probably ended up with someone new to get a game in with and you know what they are about. It's a nice starting point and I recommend giving the subreddit a look anyway.
I found the gaming communities I joined just by some basic google searches and then hopping in with folks. Here's a snarky link which shows how I started: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=find+people+to+play+league+of+legends+with#
As you can see, there are already a few tools out there that help you meet people. Those are OK. The gold mine has been in joining communities though and hopping in the LFG channels.
/outoftimeagain
It never really occurred to me until this season, but often in normals with some of our pals, I'm expected to play hard while someone else dicks around and plays TF top
I think that one of the problems has been that most of us do try reasonably hard even in normals and are willing to adapt to a fairly large range of situations. As you say, you sometimes find it odd that you should have to try hard if you have to adapt to a teammate going off meta. This had led to a conflict of expectations I think.
One of the problems that can happen here is that you tend to be stubborn about meta picks. That is, you very much expect people to play off of tier lists and get unhappy when they don't. A few comments.
When in one of these normal games with pals, and somebody doesn't pick something meta, it might be more productive to be more positive about it. Once the pick has been locked in, it might not be useful to complain about it at length any more. I'd also generally attempt to try and find ways to play WITH the off meta pick on your team, rather than just tilt against it.
Let me give an example. I don't find Sejuani mid to be particularly good. But if I find myself in a game with it as a jungler, I substantially change my playstyle to deal with it in the best way possible (I change jungle paths to gank mid a lot since that's about the only good point of Sejuani mid, so it actually works out a lot of the time). On the other hand, I find that on many nights with off meta picks you tend to not try hard (as you say) and we get the weird split pushing behavior. This leads to bad feelings all around.
I'm not a challenger player dispensing advice, but I would also generally advise that you be proactive in champion picks, rather than reactive. This basically means not being so stubborn about tier lists.
A tier list or stats website tells you what is already happening. It is reactive.
Many of us tend to play in a more proactive way with champion picks, where we counter what is popular rather than picking off the "I'm popular" list. For example, I played runeglaive Hecarim for a month and got crap from you and Hunny about it sucking before Valkrin said it was good and made it more popular. Cow was playing Maokai top before it became a big thing again.
I think that it would be productive to not go into a negative place when somebody goes off meta. You tend to begin games with a negative mindset if somebody picks off meta, and you would probably win more (and get along better with teammates) if there were more positive thoughts.
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