League of Legends (Old)

[Brandi]

[mykonian]

Jungle tax is stupid and people who try to use it as an excuse to steal a creep or two should feel bad.

1. Did you kill the hero / drive them out of lane?
Yes - Just start pushing and ram the lane to tower or take down the tower while they're gone.
No - Then go to 2.

2. Did you get the opponent's summoners?
Yes - Then FFS don't push the wave, you want to leave and come back and murder them before they get a chance to reward or get flash back up.
No - You didn't help your laner so don't put them behind by soaking up XP / CS.

The worst thing about this whole "get out of my lane" thing some people have is that you get junglers who get a 1v1 trade in your lane (is a decent trade), then think they aren't allowed to push your wave through. If there's nobody there, that's farm that nobody but you (the jungler) can get: take it. I've had people "thank me" for pinging them to please push the lane. I wasn't doing him a favor... I was just doing the maths. All gold ending up on my team is good. All gold that doesn't reach the opponents (gets eaten by the turret) is good as well. And in case the opponents are half smart, and pull their jungler to at least "hold the lane", you are still making sure he can't gank right then.

[Staeg]

Yeah, I mean- especially when your teammates generally feel free to help themselves to your blue, your wraiths, wolves, etc. constantly- I see nothing wrong with giving the jangler a little bit of money. Obviously not push up your lane when it's unnecessary, but a few creeps? Come on.

No, you don't take wraiths when your jungler is in full position to do it - that'd be this exact situation except in reverse. Same for golems. The blue buff? The laner can usually use it way more, and if he can't, then again, it's the same thing.
And yes, it probably won't make a big difference - but then, why do it when you can go and farm jungle camps and be efficient?

Because I sat in a bush to get a good gank off, and I can fall behind and be useless, or I can take some xp and gold so I don't fall behind the enemy jungler who could be counterjungling or getting a successful gank off?

Mhm.

[mykonian]

Yeah, I mean- especially when your teammates generally feel free to help themselves to your blue, your wraiths, wolves, etc. constantly- I see nothing wrong with giving the jangler a little bit of money. Obviously not push up your lane when it's unnecessary, but a few creeps? Come on.

No, you don't take wraiths when your jungler is in full position to do it - that'd be this exact situation except in reverse. Same for golems. The blue buff? The laner can usually use it way more, and if he can't, then again, it's the same thing.
And yes, it probably won't make a big difference - but then, why do it when you can go and farm jungle camps and be efficient?

Because I sat in a bush to get a good gank off, and I can fall behind and be useless, or I can take some xp and gold so I don't fall behind the enemy jungler who could be counterjungling or getting a successful gank off?

yes, that indeed doesn't help your team. It helps you.

[lil g]

A big issue with laners retreat-pinging 4 times to GET OUT OF MY LANE NOBO is that it's generally someone who has worked themselves into a terrible position.
I don't want my toplaner frozen under the enemy turret, that's bad for the team. I tell them to move it, if they don't move it or they are dead then I go move it for them because I know better. Does that sound terrible? It shouldn't. The multipings and the capsrage are from someone who doesn't understand how to lane, I don't feel responsible to my solo queue teammates to try and educate them on the finer points of freezing, I just smash the creeps while they ping and type "sorry resetting". It's people who started to learn the concept of lane control and wave movement, but stopped learning after "don't push the lane". I've got bigger fish to fry, but I won't be able to do anything if the pushing toplaner keeps getting killed.

[DeathRowKitty]

I won't bug my jungler about taking creeps unless he's just standing there farming for no reason. If a jungler wants to take a couple on his way out, whatever, it's not going to cause me issues in lane in all likelihood. Obviously if I want the lane shoved into tower, the jungler is welcome to help and any creeps he gets in the process is fine.

I recently had a game where I was stomping top lane and our jungler kept coming top just to farm. That pissed me off, but it was someone I was queued with so I kept my mouth shut about it.

[MrZepher]

I'm with Frog. If it's not hurting me I don't mind because it's helping him. One or two creeps honestly isn't going to matter too much in the long run.


So I'm starting to notice that a lot of support players have absolutely no idea how to provide presence in the lane, and it really sucks as an AD carry to have to give up farm because the enemy laners know they can just completely ignore your support and kill you if you walk up to the creep wave(s).
Also: Don't play support Nunu if your AD carry has a shitty early game.

[IH]

Yeah, I mean- especially when your teammates generally feel free to help themselves to your blue, your wraiths, wolves, etc. constantly- I see nothing wrong with giving the jangler a little bit of money. Obviously not push up your lane when it's unnecessary, but a few creeps? Come on.

No, you don't take wraiths when your jungler is in full position to do it - that'd be this exact situation except in reverse. Same for golems. The blue buff? The laner can usually use it way more, and if he can't, then again, it's the same thing.
And yes, it probably won't make a big difference - but then, why do it when you can go and farm jungle camps and be efficient?

Because I sat in a bush to get a good gank off, and I can fall behind and be useless, or I can take some xp and gold so I don't fall behind the enemy jungler who could be counterjungling or getting a successful gank off?

Mhm.

Then you don't ever get ganks from me. Simple.

[Oman]

OMG! NEW PC ARRIVED! Can finally play wthout overheating. Okay still don't have a monitor but...that's short term.

[quadz08]

WOOOOOO

[Oman]

I'M PLUGGED INTO MY TV. IT'S KIND OF DISORIENTATING BUT I CAN TOTALLY LEAGUE NOW!

[Ankamius]

What's wrong with the game? I'm getting this lag where my commands don't go through again.

[Oman]

6%. Holy shit they added some content since I played last. Okay, going to cook dinner, then play lux.

[CF Riot]

4) I try to, but I'm legitimately confused as to how the hell you win them. Here's my average K/D/A (in order) with Ryze,

Corki,

Sona, Taric, and Nunu, the five champs I know best and play the most of currently:

6.2/game 3.4/game 6.4/game

6.8/game 4.2/game 6.4/game

1.5/game 4.5/game 13.1/game
1.2/game 3.3/game 12.4/game
1.4/game 3.9/game 14.3/game

Problem identified? I'm sure people will say Corki is viable in the right hands but just my anecdotal noob experience here, I played Corki as my go-to adc for a while because he came in the champ bundle I bought. Then I tried Cait on Cait free week and did twice as good with 0 previous experience with her. Then I bought mf and I've had I think 3 quadra kills in the past couple weeks when I had 0 with Corki over maybe a month or more. I think there are just adcs that do way more and/or are easier to play than Corki. At 7/4/* you're not carrying hard enough.

The disclaimer to this post is I'm terrible at this game and only play normals.

[mykonian]

Because I sat in a bush to get a good gank off, and I can fall behind and be useless, or I can take some xp and gold so I don't fall behind the enemy jungler who could be counterjungling or getting a successful gank off?

Mhm.

Then you don't ever get ganks from me. Simple.

You are such a teamplayer.

Unless people sacrifice so you can have fun (AND CARRY THEM NOOBS), you won't play to your best ability.

[TheButtonmen]

I don't want my toplaner frozen under the enemy turret, that's bad for the team. I tell them to move it, if they don't move it or they are dead then I go move it for them because I know better. Does that sound terrible? It shouldn't. The multipings and the capsrage are from someone who doesn't understand how to lane, I don't feel responsible to my solo queue teammates to try and educate them on the finer points of freezing, I just smash the creeps while they ping and type "sorry resetting". It's people who started to learn the concept of lane control and wave movement, but stopped learning after "don't push the lane". I've got bigger fish to fry, but I won't be able to do anything if the pushing toplaner keeps getting killed.

You sound like a fucking terrible teammate? This is going to blow your mind but there's multiple lanes / game states where you want to keep the wave frozen at their tower. Ignoring your teammates / prompting rage & bitchfests is a great way to throw the game so yes it is your responsibility to explain yourself in solo queue.

Yeah, I mean- especially when your teammates generally feel free to help themselves to your blue, your wraiths, wolves, etc. constantly- I see nothing wrong with giving the jangler a little bit of money. Obviously not push up your lane when it's unnecessary, but a few creeps? Come on.

No, you don't take wraiths when your jungler is in full position to do it - that'd be this exact situation except in reverse. Same for golems. The blue buff? The laner can usually use it way more, and if he can't, then again, it's the same thing.
And yes, it probably won't make a big difference - but then, why do it when you can go and farm jungle camps and be efficient?

Because I sat in a bush to get a good gank off, and I can fall behind and be useless, or I can take some xp and gold so I don't fall behind the enemy jungler who could be counterjungling or getting a successful gank off?

You A) got xp while sitting in the bush, B) get approximately the same xp in the jungle you get in lane and C) hand the opposing team a massive tempo advantage / free objectives by sitting in lane. If you're not going to be shoving a lane in to get the tower then you're wasting your time sitting around to take a few last hits and you take the laners gold / xp while doing so which puts them behind. It's fine to be a level or two behind as a jungler, it's not fine to be an objective or two behind because you handed the other teams jungler map control for free by sitting in vision.

@TheBrawlGuy:

Never use KDA as a meaningful stat, hell don't even keep track of it. It's a truly godawful of a measurement without any redeeming values. There's no real secret for how to get better but I can share the tips I fall back on when season one / two were ending and I felt like inflating my elo (note the win rates aren't actually impressive as I started off at about 800 elo and ended at about 1350 but I'm including them to pre-emptively shut up people who want to argue about elohell or whatever it's called now).

1. Never argue with a teammate.
2. Never shit talk an enemy.
3. Buy wards for everyone.
4. Talk to your team continually.
5. Build tanky, never glass cannon.
6. Pink wards + roaming = free elo.
7. Don't ever try to carry.

If you're goal is to gain league points / elo then jungler > mid > support > top > ADC. Your whole goal is to stroke your teams ego, herd them into taking objectives, take the blame for everything that goes wrong and to buy fuck tons of wards. You'll be surprised by how few trolls / ragers are on your team once you start getting other lanes ahead by being a roaming pain in the ass for the other team.

[TheButtonmen]

I'm serious about 1 and 2.

Never fucking do it.

Zero excuses.

[mykonian]

If you're goal is to gain league points / elo then jungler > mid > support > top > ADC. Your whole goal is to stroke your teams ego, herd them into taking objectives, take the blame for everything that goes wrong and to buy fuck tons of wards. You'll be surprised by how few trolls / ragers are on your team once you start getting other lanes ahead by being a roaming pain in the ass for the other team.

This only works if you know how and when you win.

It was season two, I guess, where I spectated staeg play a game. Might have been an inhouse, idk. Staeg's a better player then I am by about 200-300 elo. His team was pretty much behind the whole game, and I don't know how he did it but he kept picking the fights his team could win. He'd die in a couple of initiations, he killed a couple but mostly had his team do it. But it was really impressive to see how he kept finding the fights where his team, even if behind, could score a positive result. He won that game for them even if the enemy team had been ahead till only the last bit.

And then I know why I'm not a 1500 player. I couldn't have done that if I had the same champion. I would have missed half the opportunities. He knew when and how to win and all he needed as an aoe cc to show his team that that was the moment they should kill people.

[TheButtonmen]

Talking to your team continually to get them to follow you and being tanky enough to initiate is indeed a fantastic way to win games.

Also if you're unsure of how / when to initiate grinding out 40-50 games of Dominion with your chosen hero(s) is one of the best ways to learn because you'll continually be practicing it there.

[Ankamius]

Your whole goal is to stroke your teams ego, herd them into taking objectives, take the blame for everything that goes wrong and to buy fuck tons of wards. You'll be surprised by how few trolls / ragers are on your team once you start getting other lanes ahead by being a roaming pain in the ass for the other team.

This. #1 reason I have a positive win rate in ranked this season right here. It's not that big of a sample size (since I've only played 22 games), but I'm currently 4-2 as support just by spraying the map with wards and forcing the rest of my team to pay attention to what's on the map.

To anyone who has to play support in a game,

keep dragon pink warded from minute 5 all the way to minute 35.

It's a really simple thing to keep track of, but it can drastically improve your chances of winning a game. Make sure all the common entrances for the opposite team is green warded whenever you're about to take dragon. Keep baron pink warded after about minute 20 or so. If you have room to put down another ward on your sightstone, you're doing it wrong.

The best mids to take in my opinion for low ELO games are ganking/assassin mids that are really good at roaming. Akali, Ahri, Lux, Twisted Fate are the ones that come to mind immediately, but it's not exhaustive by any means. Keep your lane shoved and roam around the map to help your other lanes win. If you're doing this correctly, you will have a good chance of being able to snowball at least one of the other lanes. Depending what side you're on, you could even go into the enemy jungle and go behind the dragon/baron pit to gank through the tri-bush if you would be relatively safe doing it. Just be careful about doing that; you're probably better off not doing it if you're not sure you won't be ganked while moving through it.

The last thing I want to make clear is that one person being fed doesn't mean that the game is over by a longshot. TehBrawlGuy can testify to this; we played a duo queue game a couple days ago where the enemy Xin Zhao got around six kills within the first 15 minutes of the game by camping bot lane and ganking me in mid once for a kill. Within ten minutes, we all got our shit together and started winning every single teamfight by a landslide. Caitlyn and I (Ahri) would do a ton of damage while TBG (Singed), Zilean, and Jarvan 4 repositioned the hell out of them for us. This was only really possible by us getting a few lucky ganks and catching people off guard, but this would easily have been a significantly different game if the Zilean's annoyance (since he was really the only one feeding; Caitlyn had one death the entire game) had caused more of us to go on tilt or if the constant camping of bot lane had snowballed into other lanes more effectively.

Like literally, following the list TBM posted will do so much. If you're following that and doing all you can to learn more about the game and how to play it, getting to Gold or Platinum should be much easier with practice and diligence.

[TehBrawlGuy]

I'm serious about 1 and 2.

Never fucking do it.

Zero excuses.

I typically don't bring up KDA, but I brought it up to help isolate what my problem is. (i.e. it's clearly not losing lane or CSing badly)

5) How far would you go to include this on ADCs or assassins?

7) What do you mean?

I try to keep everyone positive as much as possible. One of my duoq partners will bitch at any lane that goes 0-2 and will lose all morale if we fall about 4 kills behind. He is one of the best carries I've ever seen, and clearly mid-high Gold material in terms of skill. (only gameplay problems are bad map awareness and judgement calls, he has amazing mechanics)

He sits in Silver III thanks to his rage, and I reap free elo by catching him while he's calm, talking him down if he rages, fixing his map awareness/bad judgement, and by playing jungle and proceeding to essentially forget what bot lane is, unless I'm getting a free kill there or ward covering for a bad support. I got from like 1100-1350 in like 5 days with him; it was glorious. He's also 13, which is both hilarious and incredibly demoralizing, considering how damn good he is. I've never met a more exact version of "that CoD/Halo kid".

Anyway, I should be on all day today, (Monday) so if anyone wants to duoq with me, or even normals/spectate to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong, please do! I have a feeling it may be this:

His team was pretty much behind the whole game, and I don't know how he did it but he kept picking the fights his team could win. He'd die in a couple of initiations, he killed a couple but mostly had his team do it. But it was really impressive to see how he kept finding the fights where his team, even if behind, could score a positive result. He won that game for them even if the enemy team had been ahead till only the last bit.

I had a game as Amumu with Ankamius, and I'd land these amazing 4-5 man QRE combos, but we'd still lose the fight. I kept wondering aloud why we were losing fights when I was repeatedly hitting perfect ults. I still don't know exactly why.

Your whole goal is to stroke your teams ego, herd them into taking objectives, take the blame for everything that goes wrong and to buy fuck tons of wards. You'll be surprised by how few trolls / ragers are on your team once you start getting other lanes ahead by being a roaming pain in the ass for the other team.

This. #1 reason I have a positive win rate in ranked this season right here. It's not that big of a sample size (since I've only played 22 games), but I'm currently 4-2 as support just by spraying the map with wards and forcing the rest of my team to pay attention to what's on the map.

To anyone who has to play support in a game,

keep dragon pink warded from minute 5 all the way to minute 35.

It's a really simple thing to keep track of, but it can drastically improve your chances of winning a game. Make sure all the common entrances for the opposite team is green warded whenever you're about to take dragon. Keep baron pink warded after about minute 20 or so. If you have room to put down another ward on your sightstone, you're doing it wrong.

The best mids to take in my opinion for low ELO games are ganking/assassin mids that are really good at roaming. Akali, Ahri, Lux, Twisted Fate are the ones that come to mind immediately, but it's not exhaustive by any means. Keep your lane shoved and roam around the map to help your other lanes win. If you're doing this correctly, you will have a good chance of being able to snowball at least one of the other lanes. Depending what side you're on, you could even go into the enemy jungle and go behind the dragon/baron pit to gank through the tri-bush if you would be relatively safe doing it. Just be careful about doing that; you're probably better off not doing it if you're not sure you won't be ganked while moving through it.

The last thing I want to make clear is that one person being fed doesn't mean that the game is over by a longshot. TehBrawlGuy can testify to this; we played a duo queue game a couple days ago where the enemy Xin Zhao got around six kills within the first 15 minutes of the game by camping bot lane and ganking me in mid once for a kill. Within ten minutes, we all got our shit together and started winning every single teamfight by a landslide. Caitlyn and I (Ahri) would do a ton of damage while TBG (Singed), Zilean, and Jarvan 4 repositioned the hell out of them for us. This was only really possible by us getting a few lucky ganks and catching people off guard, but this would easily have been a significantly different game if the Zilean's annoyance (since he was really the only one feeding; Caitlyn had one death the entire game) had caused more of us to go on tilt or if the constant camping of bot lane had snowballed into other lanes more effectively.

Like literally, following the list TBM posted will do so much. If you're following that and doing all you can to learn more about the game and how to play it, getting to Gold or Platinum should be much easier with practice and diligence.

Oh, man, that game. Another few things that can definitely be learned from that game are that you have literally no excuse for dying in lane, and that you should always, always, try and slow the bleeding, even in an obviously lost lane. I countered myself super-hard in champ select, (was thinking quinn = adc, forgot she was also a bruiser) but I ended up only dying once in lane, and that was on an all-in I had entirely screwed up. Quinn managed to win in CS by a lot, and took my tower, but I managed to entirely prevent her from outputting presence. I let her push waves into turret and got the CS from those that I could, (she could still poke me very easily, even farming under turret) but I just stayed in lane and willingly missed lots of CS to avoid poke. Because I was constantly in lane, I was not behind in levels, and Quinn was pinned there all game while Anakmius snowballed. Quinn didn't snowball (she lost in kills, thanks to Ahri ganks) and still built pretty squishy, so I wrecked her in teamfights by simply flinging her into 4 people and watching her blow up.

It was amazing. Zilean + Singed is also incredibly hilarious.

Having played with me, is there anything on that lists I don't do?

[TheButtonmen]

5) How far would you go to include this on ADCs or assassins?

7) What do you mean?

It's quite simple, don't play ADC's or assassins.

ADC's are literally the worst role to solo queue as because you have no effect on the game for the first fifteen-twenty mins, you're stuck in your lane, you're item reliant and you need your team to peel for you.

Assassins are also pretty bad because it's snowball or bust and they're also extremely item dependent.

If your playing solely to earn ladder points then it's a lot easier to outplay the enemy team then it is to outplay the enemies individually.

[TehBrawlGuy]

5) How far would you go to include this on ADCs or assassins?

7) What do you mean?

It's quite simple, don't play ADC's or assassins.

ADC's are literally the worst role to solo queue as because you have no effect on the game for the first fifteen-twenty mins, you're stuck in your lane, you're item reliant and you need your team to peel for you.

Assassins are also pretty bad because it's snowball or bust and they're also extremely item dependent.

If your playing solely to earn ladder points then it's a lot easier to outplay the enemy team then it is to outplay the enemies individually.

In those games where I'm forced into ADC, or I'm late in pick and they have no hard CC for Kat, etc. what should I do?

[TheButtonmen]

To clarify on that because of how the matchmaker works there's a pretty good chance one of them is better then you but there's an extremely small chance that one of them is a better team player then you.

LoL is a team game, no matter how big of an e-peen you're getting while trying to hyper-carry some team you'll never get far enough ahead individually that five players working together can't beat you, two mouth breathing retards, that angry dude and the one guy who can't really speak English. Being a huge force for your team is helpful yes but being a force multiplier is a lot more effective.

[TheButtonmen]

If you absolutely must ADC then just pick someone who's self-reliant for example Cait standing on a trap with netgun up gives zero shits about bruisers, Urgot has seven thousand build paths depending on how the game's progressing and if you have a survivable lane once Vayne has her ult she also zero fucks about bruisers and has enough built in steroids you can afford to come out of lane behind.

But seriously how often are you in a position where 5th slot is forced to ADC?