League Of Legends

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Do you run in to mids who don't warn their jungle when a lvl 3 fizz is coming to steal the first red/gank?

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Huh? Jungle should easily be able to Blue > Red and be level 3 by the time laners get to level 2. Also, if a fizz goes to a different lane to gank at level 3 he should get so far behind.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Do you run in to a team of 4 who all scream at the support/tank to buy wards all game long even when the support IS warding, but doesn't have enough gold to ward the entire map alone for the entire game?

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This should only happen mid to end game and at that point the support should be spending almost all his money on wards anyway. At most maybe a few other players will buy 1 ward but usually the support is stuck with the ward everything. It's why you see so many 40 minute games where the supports have boots 2 + Sightstone + kindlegem and that's all they have, because they are blowing all their money on wards.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Do you run in to an ADC who literally refuses to be in one single team fight for the entire game?

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So bring the team fights to his lane? If he refuses to leave bottom lane, then go as a team to bottom lane and push it up.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Do you run in to people who troll because someone takes ghost instead of flash?

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Depends on the champion who takes ghost. Ghost is less safe in lane usually but better in team fights because of the mobility. Only champions I like ghost on (that I play anyway) are Irelia, Singed & Hecarim.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Do you get players who literally have no clue how to avoid a thresh/blitz hook or an amumu bandage or every other skillshot in the game?

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It's why these champions are still pick/ban worthy even at the highest level of competitive play. One good grab can win games. Is it your teammate that sucks at dodging? Or is it the enemy who is good at predicting movements?

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Teams who focus the tanks and ignore the squishies?

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This depends. Most of the time the ADC has to focus tanks because he has to just keep kiting away from the tank otherwise he'll get cc'd / killed. Same can be said for some APs as well. If it's assassins like Zed or Khazix that are trying to focus on tanks it's pretty annoying.

Fawe_sl said:

Maybe you mis-read what I said, I definitely agree the majority of Silver/Bronze players are likely at that skill level, I simply stated that there are plenty of players *stuck* in these tiers that could contend at the higher brackets. Gold players are not *that* much better than silver, you just tend to eliminate a lot of the bullshit losses in gold. Less AFKs, less players with only 3 ranked games played, less trolls, etc. Good Silver players (of which I've encountered many) are about equal to the average gold players. There are plenty of bad silver players that do not deserve to advance. I'd say Silver is probably a 70-30 split (70% deserve to be there / 30% deserve to advance). This is just from my observations after 1500+ games played there.

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I think some silver players can and do play at the same level as some gold level players I've seen, and sure - part of the queue is luck, although I feel that over a long period of time it does average out. In 20-40 games? yeah, you could get a really bad streak that sets you behind a bit. Over the course of 2-300 though? I don't really think so. Players *stuck* in the lower bracket of silver that you think should be gold most likely do not play with the same consistency as their gold counterparts. I'm absolutely certain that over a long course of time they'll be in gold if they actually play at that level consistently. Those type of people should be beating their silver opponents in lane if it's that much of a mismatch, and then know to make plays elsewhere on the map. The caveat is of course that it's assuming they're getting the role they are strongest at (solo lanes are pretty contested), but again.. over a long period of time, that shouldn't be a problem. And most players should have at least 2 roles + support that they can do adequately at the lower elo's.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Since there are a decent amount of people in higher tiers here, i'm gonna go ahead and ask a few questions about general play in those tiers.

Do you run in to mids who don't warn their jungle when a lvl 3 fizz is coming to steal the first red/gank? Do you run in to a team of 4 who all scream at the support/tank to buy wards all game long even when the support IS warding, but doesn't have enough gold to ward the entire map alone for the entire game? Do you run in to an ADC who literally refuses to be in one single team fight for the entire game? Do you run in to people who troll because someone takes ghost instead of flash? Do you get players who literally have no clue how to avoid a thresh/blitz hook or an amumu bandage or every other skillshot in the game? Teams who focus the tanks and ignore the squishies?

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To also answer your question - usually mid lanes in general aren't invading jungle solo that early on. Especially not a Fizz who can't really push a wave quickly at low levels and then roam right away, if he didn't ward your jungle ahead of time (which your team ideally should have been looking out for) and he was alone in your jungle.. that's honestly bad play on his part. Maybe it worked out and he got you at red, but it's a serious risk and really weird to hear about. Then again, in bronze anything goes so it's not too surprising I guess. Blitz/Thresh hooks land on people at all kinds of skill levels trust me on that, it's not only up to the player to dodge them, but skilled thresh/blitz's to predict the dodge or movement etc. You see them land hooks all the time even at the LCS competitive level. Like Sidian said, they're still banworthy because they can punish your weakest link, one hook at the end of the game can seriously win the entire thing, especially if it's a close one.

As for the trolling because someone has ghost instead of flash - not really. In general there are less trolls, and more people who ward the map in other roles than support. But there are always exceptions. I dunno, I think the biggest way to carry in lower games is focus on keeping your CS count high in your respective lane, and pay attention to the map to gank over aggressive people in a nearby lane. Warding is atrocious at lower ELO's, you know how no one wards on your team? Probably nobody is on theirs either. Abuse that kind of stuff is what i'd recommend.

Sidian_sl said:

This should only happen mid to end game and at that point the support should be spending almost all his money on wards anyway. At most maybe a few other players will buy 1 ward but usually the support is stuck with the ward everything. It's why you see so many 40 minute games where the supports have boots 2 + Sightstone + kindlegem and that's all they have, because they are blowing all their money on wards..

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Wards are the responsibility of every single player on the team for the duration of the entire game.

Duo queing with my friend a lot lately. He hit g5 about a month ago with me in g3. He hit his new promo series one game before me, he was going for g4 and I was going for g2. We were on a hotstreak from around 20LP. Here is the weird thing. When he won his 2 promo games, he skipped g4 completely and was promoted to g3. The next game we won which put me in g2. I wasn't aware leagues could be skipped and was surprised the same thing didn't happen to me.

Of course a good blitz can land hooks still. I love blitzcrank, he was one of the first heroes I bought back in the day <3 rusty skin. I'm not talking about game changing hooks, i'm talking about laning phase where my teammates flat out refuse to even try to put creeps between them or move around. I get people who stand still and watch as a skillshot comes to kill them, people who run in a straight line and don't even make an attempt to juke, etc. I've had so many games against a nidalee where I watch the other person in my lane stand at the bot tower to recall and then not move when nidalee comes up to throw a spear that will kill them because they have 70 hps. I dunno, maybe it's just because I played so much before they had draft pick that I just got used to playing against blitz/amumu/etc and learned to deal with it instead of cry about how it's an instant loss if the enemy team gets one of them. Blitz isn't the only hero who can make a game winning play, everybody can.

All 7 times i've seen a Fizz (once on my team, 6 on the other team) in ranked he's absolutely raped mid lane. The one time he got me in the jungle I had a terrible annie mid and when I went to red fizz came running in and got first blood on me, maybe my fault because I don't do the smiteless blue then immediate red jungle but would've been fine if annie called missing or even came to help (was 2 seconds away at our mid tower).

I use ghost on every champ, I just haven't been a fan of flash ever really. When I first started I used it for a while but I completely stopped using it after they nerfed it a couple times. I still do fine in laning phase as far as surviving/escaping/chasing.

If you're not saving your replays even after someone offered to go over them with you you really are where you belong. Everyone deals with the same shit you're dealing with in solo ques yet some still manage to get out of bronze.

Is there a point to not do smiteless red/blue? I mean, you would literally have to tell them not to do smiteless at this point in league.

I don't recall anyone saying they'd go over my replays, only people telling me to go over them myself to see what I did wrong. Never said it wasn't possible to get out of bronze either, just that people make it seem effortless to carry your way out of it (i've been moving up, just slowly). I'm sure if I play another 150-250 ranked games i'll be out of bronze but that's a lot more ranked games dealing with an abundance of trolls than I might be able to deal with.

I don't do smiteless red/blue just because i've always done blue/wolves/wraiths/red/gank. It's what i'm used to and comfortable with. I don't jungle very often tho.

Edit: If someone wants me to record a couple games I will. I was simply saying that I don't really think I need to study my replays because I understand the game well enough that I recognize my mistakes when I make them. Only time I can see any meaning coming from recording games is in a 5man where your team can work on improving strategy/teamplay/etc through those replays.

Everything about your attitude and the statements you make suggest you are a Bronze player.

"I do things this way because that's what I like"
"I don't need to examine my play, I already know what's going on"

Eidal_sl said:

Of course, since you're a player genuinely concerned about improving his game (instead of making excuses), surely you've saved your recent games using lol replay and review them after game and document mistakes or things you could have done better. Right?

I thought so.

If you WANTED to do this, I'd be glad to review it with you because I GUARANTEE you every minute you are doing stupid shit that you dont' even realize, and if someone pointed it out to you a light bulb would go off. I've offered this to at least 5 bronze guys who bitch about it being impossible to carry and no one ever takes me up on it... something tells me a significant amount of gold players would love to have a platinum/diamond player review their games. I sure would.

Double edit: Bronze 2 puts you above the majority that play ranked. Not sure what silver is but gold is top 4-5 percent. If you aren't working hard on improving your game then why would you feel entitled to being in the top 25 percent? I'm not trying to single you out, but I think people have this crazy idea that if theyjust PLAY MORE GAMES then they will improve. That only gets you so far.

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Here, and bolding the "just play more games then they will improve" bit because from what you have been saying you seem to think its only possible to get out of bronze by grinding games when that isn't the case. The first step to getting out of bronze is admitting you're there for a reason, you're there because you know nothing about this game and you suck at it. Yes, you get shitty teams sometimes, but so does everyone else. The sooner you accept this you can then choose to do something about it or continue sucking it up in bronze.

The Ancient_sl said:

Everything about your attitude and the statements you make suggest you are a Bronze player.

"I do things this way because that's what I like"
"I don't need to examine my play, I already know what's going on"

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Exactly.

No one sees all their mistakes. Even pros go back and watch their replays multiple times and find new mistakes every time. The game is a lot more complicated than "I died to a gank, that's where I messed up". Unless, like The Ancient said, you're a lower ELO player and you don't recognize the huge number of mistakes that are constantly being made. The brackets are there for a reason. It is not just technical play that sets the people apart.

Christ at by level 2 there are a ton of things you can be considering - knowing the matchup you are against and when you are strong vs when they are strong, where their jungle vs your jungle started to know when and where a gank will come, whether or not you should be pushing the lane and how best to control it to give your teammates opportunity to gank, to prevent roaming from your lane or to draw attantion to your lane to make their jungle come to you instead of a lane that is weaker. Where you should be positioning in lane relative to wards to be controlling where your opponent is CSing from or standing in place that will deny them certain creeps. When to be aggressive, when to be passive. Etc etc etc.

Anytime people start using their feelings as reasoning or an excuse for why they are where they are, they may as well be dismissed. There is insane amounts of evidence that 'elo hell' doesn't exist, and that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority (I forget the statistic but it's over 99%) of players are where they're supposed to be or on their way to it. Arguing against that is like arguing that masturbation is a sin because you think god said it is. You can say it all you want but it doesn't make it true.

At low ELO, game knowledge and decision making are probably more important than mechanical skill. Mechanical skill can win you small fights in your lane, but knowledge and good decisions will win fights for your team all across the map. Knowing when to push, when to back, when to roam, when to follow, where to ward, WHEN to ward, etc. are all HUGE. People think they know this stuff, but it gets fuzzy and lost a lot when actually in-game. We can all watch the LCS and boggle at bad calls, but when presented with dozens of opportunities for making plays in-game, most people in bronze/silver won't even notice and just let the other team do whatever they were doing.

The reason I don't like jungling is because it is CONSTANT decision making and timing is literally everything for a jungler. I'm really good at map awareness and roaming/helping my team when I'm mid/top, but when I'm in the jungle it's just a different world and gets a bit overwhelming. Even when I get stuck with support (which I'm also not great at), if me and the ADC are winning our lane I'll constantly be looking at mid and our jungle for a chance for me to go help and just let the ADC farm more (or follow if he wants).

Edit: waaarrrrdddddssss. Unless I'm ADC or Jungler, I start the game with at least 1 ward. Every time I back, I buy at least 1 ward (unless a HUGE buy prevents me but gives me an advantage anyway). I can't even count, over the past dozen or so games, how much gold those wards have prevented the enemy team from getting and enabled my team to get. It's not even just for your lane, if you're top and you see the jungler come for you, you back off and make him wait there and get your team to act on it. They won't always obviously, but they will often enough to fucking matter.

Amzin_sl said:

Anytime people start using their feelings as reasoning or an excuse for why they are where they are, they may as well be dismissed. There is insane amounts of evidence that 'elo hell' doesn't exist, and that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority (I forget the statistic but it's over 99%) of players are where they're supposed to be or on their way to it. Arguing against that is like arguing that masturbation is a sin because you think god said it is. You can say it all you want but it doesn't make it true.

At low ELO, game knowledge and decision making are probably more important than mechanical skill. Mechanical skill can win you small fights in your lane, but knowledge and good decisions will win fights for your team all across the map. Knowing when to push, when to back, when to roam, when to follow, where to ward, WHEN to ward, etc. are all HUGE. People think they know this stuff, but it gets fuzzy and lost a lot when actually in-game. We can all watch the LCS and boggle at bad calls, but when presented with dozens of opportunities for making plays in-game, most people in bronze/silver won't even notice and just let the other team do whatever they were doing.

The reason I don't like jungling is because it is CONSTANT decision making and timing is literally everything for a jungler. I'm really good at map awareness and roaming/helping my team when I'm mid/top, but when I'm in the jungle it's just a different world and gets a bit overwhelming. Even when I get stuck with support (which I'm also not great at), if me and the ADC are winning our lane I'll constantly be looking at mid and our jungle for a chance for me to go help and just let the ADC farm more (or follow if he wants).

Edit: waaarrrrdddddssss. Unless I'm ADC or Jungler, I start the game with at least 1 ward. Every time I back, I buy at least 1 ward (unless a HUGE buy prevents me but gives me an advantage anyway). I can't even count, over the past dozen or so games, how much gold those wards have prevented the enemy team from getting and enabled my team to get. It's not even just for your lane, if you're top and you see the jungler come for you, you back off and make him wait there and get your team to act on it. They won't always obviously, but they will often enough to fucking matter.

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I like the point about jungling. I'm a try hard when I jungle ranked which just makes me want to rage when my team doesn't support me when needed. For example yesterday, I'm heca. NO ONE BANS NUNU. Ok whatever, we know he's going to counter jungle. I start blue, our support wards my red. Nunu comes to my red after his blue. Bottom doesn't respond fast enough and nunu gets away with red and his life...sure he flashes to get over the dragon wall to live, but the damage is done. I get one red buff after that then die soon after. Game snowballs in their favor with nunu making driveby passes in literally every lane, forcing summoners all over or getting kills. I can't even get into his jungle for buffs because of their map and ward control. Maybe the point of all of this is to just say: ban nunu.

I never said simply playing x games made you a high level player. The only reason I even mentioned playing x amount of games was when I said I will (probably) be in the higher leagues if I put in another 200ish games. If Eidal ends up in gold 1 on this bronze account after 37 games then i'll bow out and admit i'm a trash player.

My argument is that studying replays of my games to improve my game is not going to be some magical factor that speeds the grind out of bronze. With the 163 ranked games i've played so far, 170 more hours spent dealing with terrible players (did I tell you guys about the jungle teemo I got in one of my promo games? It was awesome.) is reason enough to have rustled jimmies about being stuck in bronze and "elo hell" IMHO.

Also, jungle is probably my weakest spot which is part of the reason I don't do it very often. I don't do smiteless red+blue then gank because I don't usually trust my team enough to get a good gank that early and hate wasting time on bad ganks that only slow me down.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

My argument is that studying replays of my games to improve my game is not going to be some magical factor that speeds the grind out of bronze.With the 163 ranked games i've played so far, 170 more hours spent dealing with terrible players (did I tell you guys about the jungle teemo I got in one of my promo games? It was awesome.) is reason enough to have rustled jimmies about being stuck in bronze and "elo hell" IMHO.

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Well you're sort of correct, its not some "magical factor" that'll get you out of bronze, but if you don't understand that watching your own replays even on your own, much less with someone much higher ranked with you will significantly improve your gameplay then you will be forever bronze.

I said the same thing bro back when I was bronze in sc2, "pfft, why would I watch my own replays, I know what I did right/wrong in the game, it would just be a waste of time." And then one day I realized I knew nothing and then I watched my own replays and even though I didn't have expert analysis I still was able to point out obvious flaws/timings, which without looking at the replay I would have never known about.

Just look at the avatar bro, admit you suck, but know that its ok because sucking at something is the first step to being kinda sorta good at something.

Watching my own replays will stop me from getting a duo using revive? Watching my own replays will stop me from getting jungle teemo? Will it stop me from getting an adc who goes 0/4 and is lvl 2 with 9 cks while the other teams adc is 3/0/1 and has 59 cks in the opening stages? Will it stop me from getting players who actively refuse to team up for the entire game? Will it stop me from getting people who actively steal jungle buffs to troll the team? I can honestly say that 50% of my losses come from things like this and it happens extremely often while i'm in promo series games.

Yes i'm not the best but I guarantee I could hold my own in at least silver 1/gold.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

Watching my own replays will stop me from getting a duo using revive? Watching my own replays will stop me from getting jungle teemo? Will it stop me from getting an adc who goes 0/4 and is lvl 2 with 9 cks while the other teams adc is 3/0/1 and has 59 cks in the opening stages? Will it stop me from getting players who actively refuse to team up for the entire game? Will it stop me from getting people who actively steal jungle buffs to troll the team? I can honestly say that 50% of my losses come from things like this and it happens extremely often while i'm in promo series games.

Yes i'm not the best but I guarantee I could hold my own in at least silver 1/gold.

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No it won't prevent any of those things. But it will prevent losses that should have been wins because of mistakes you made and thereby mitigate when you do get hell games.

Just got gold here. Feels good man, carried from support and jungle roles to do it. Really enjoying elise/udyr jungle and thresh/leona support.

Yeah it would probably make a difference in a few of the close games. The vast majority of games in bronze league, however, are not close games. It's almost always a complete slaughter one way or the other. Out of my 163 ranked games, i'll be generous and say maybe 20 of them were actual good games that could have gone either way (where that learning from replays might come in handy) and some of those were wins anyways.

Maybe the games go like that in higher leagues too tho.

While I don't watch my replays, I would still say I want to improve my game and I'm naturally bad at this game. I never had anyone to hold my hand and coach me through the learning curve. What I've developed to learn in this game is awareness, attempting to anticipate jungle movement, roaming as lane phase is ending, and general mechanics and positioning. I'd say over the last couple months I got myself over a hump that was solely self learned.

I watch streams but generally do for entertainment. I will admit I've picked up a couple things on map knowledge from watching streams, but not so much on mechanics. A couple things that took me a long time to learn is how to bait abilities, be passive if you miss an important skill shot in lane while it's on CD (lux comes to mind), decision making (when to visit another lane at the expense of losing farm)....even when to base. Very important to think about and analyze throughout the game.