Views: 3859 How to win ranked games
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So, I'm not even sure if I'm going to make this into a real guide. I was trying, but meh. So now, I'm going to just going to put it here to help you guize. If you enjoy it, please spread it around. I was going to release it as a full guide, but there were bugs in releasing a general guide in the high elo section. This is extremely rough, but I think I got the message across.
Throatslasher's guide on how to gain teh elo'z
Who am I?
Hello, MobaFire. My name is throatslasher, and I hit 2k elo last season. Honestly, it wasn't that difficult. One of the biggest woes I hear about in League of Legends is the dreaded ranked solo queue, but it doesn't have to be.
What is this guide about?
In this guide I'll be sharing my tested, proven tips and techniques to increase your win rate in ranked solo queue. Individual champion strategies will not be discussed here, but I may give a brief overview of a large group of champions and their impact in a typical solo queue game. I'm not going to get too specific in any particular area, as I don't want to have to constantly update this guide every time we get a tiny whiff of a new patch.
Warming up
Have a quick tip right here, right now to get you started. Most players like to play a warmup game before a ranked session, for several reasons. I personnaly play a quick game to make sure my connection is stable. Also, I can quickly tell if I'm able to play my A game. During my practice, I get back into the league mindset and settle into my mechanics. If you feel you need it, then do it. Do a normal draft and pretend it's ranked. This guide will be full of tips like this, so read on!
Thanks to:
- jhoijhoi for coding[/columns]
AUTHORS NOTE / PREFACE
I'd like to talk about the 'why' and the 'how' of this guide.
Why?
I have been known, on occasion, to mess around on accounts with very low elo. I've played at almost every elo level, from 500 all the way up to 2200 and everything inbetween. During those hundreds of games, I've picked up some fundamentals that I've parlayed into some success in climbing elo on my main account. That being said, while messing around, I've encountered dozens of people that upon seeing my score of 20-0, beg me for help getting out of 'elo hell'. I've noticed players in silver and below making really, REALLY stupid decisions at varied stages of the game that ultimately result in their loss without them even realizing they made a mistake. I feel their pain, so I decided to attempt writing a general ranked guide.
How?
Writing this guide has been a huge challenge. First of all, these tips and tricks are nothing more than my OPINION. This is an extremely dynamic video game. I can't say all of these nuggets of knowledge will work all the time in every situation, but I'm more or less trying to explain my general mindset I have for when I'm trying to personally climb elo. The most important resource that will help me to retool, revamp, correct, and update my guide will be the community. I highly encourage you to PM me or LEAVE A COMMENT asking for extended reasoning, or if you think any info is wrong or I left anything out. I will either amend the guide, or further explain my reasoning. I'd like to have the comment section serve as somewhat of a discussion thread where we can have a frank and open dialogue about solo queue ranked play.
Why me?
I'll be blunt here. I've played in every elo. In 0-1700 average elo games, I dominate. 1700-1950 I feel pretty comfortable. I've played 1950-2100 games, and they're very challenging. I have even been mismatched into a few 2200-2300 games and I got dominated. I'm not insinuating that I'm some hyper-elite diamond player, but hey, high plat is good enough for me. I am shooting for diamond in season 3, and I think it's a reasonable goal. Long story short, every competitive league player knows most of the 'tidbits' I'll be talking about in this guide. I don't think there's anything in this guide that the average platinum/diamond player will not know, and I would be sincerely surprised if any of those players would strongly disagree with anything in this guide. Take what you want away from this guide. If you are stuck in gold, silver, bronze, or unranked, I think this guide will help.
PHASE 1: How to improve your odds without playing a second of League of Legends
I. Breakfast
A lot of people don't understand the importance of a nutritious, well balanced breakfast. It has been scientifically proven that even a light breakfast that is low in sugar and high in protein will increase mental acuity during the day.
Some examples of breakfasts I eat throughout the week:
- A bowl of cereal (honey nut cheerios, corn pops, etc; no super sugary cereals), a banana, and a couple mouthfuls of yogurt,
- 3 eggs, an orange, couple mouthfuls of yogurt,
- 3 packets of instant quaker "lower sugar" oatmeal, a banana, glass of milk.
I feel that going to work early in the morning is a lot more tolerable after I've eaten something. It may sound strange, but eating is a big deal, and the saying 'you are what you eat' holds true. Garbage in, garbage out.
II. Exercise.
Exercise has also been shown to improve mood and brain function. I find light exercise to be an extremely effective way to relieve stress. If you don't have time to hit the gym and you don't have any equipment, don't fret. One of the best exercises you can do works out your entire body with no equipment required. Do a youtube search of 'the perfect burpee' or 'how to burpee'. Make sure you don't do any wierd variations. You can throw a push-up in your burpees if you desire. When you go down into an elevated push-up position, lower your body to the ground like a push-up and then lift your palms off of the ground, flat on your stomach. That will ensure you do a FULL pushup, raising your body up completely off the floor. I do burpees during comercial breaks while watching TV or after I've locked my champion in champ select. If you work out while waiting for games to start, don't over-do it. You don't want to be physically exhausted during your games and you don't want your heart rate too elevated during the early game.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you actually want to build muscle, you can go a couple steps further. Go buy a tub of NO FAT cottage cheese. It contains casein protein, and a lot of it. Chow down on a large helping an hour or so before bed if you worked out that day. If you want to add some flavor, consider fresh fruit or black pepper, but no salt. I personally prefer the pepper. Incorporate squats. Do some research on the net on how to do proper squats. Once a week, you should do 'sprints'. Go find some empty space, and approximate 100 yards. Run as fast as your little legs will take you those 100 yards and then take a breather. Rinse, repeat, until your legs are jelly. AS WITH ALL EXERCISES, DO NOT OVER DO IT, AND DON'T TRY TO DO ANYTHING TOO AGGRESSIVE. IF YOU ARE OUT OF SHAPE, YOU CAN INJURE YOURSELF PERMANENTLY IF YOU DO TOO MUCH WEIGHT OR HAVE IMPROPER FORM.
A brisk walk or jog around your neighborhood can't hurt, but it is more time consuming, and it does nothing for you besides elevate your heart rate. However, make sure you stay away from those guys who are up to no good, who are also making trouble in said neighborhood. God forbid you get in one little fight and frighten your mother into sending you to live with relatives. Also, Independence Day.
III. Get a good nights' sleep.
This is probably the most important aspect of a healthy routine. The length of your sleep isn't necessarily as important as the quality of sleep you're getting. Typically you don't want to sleep less than 5.5 hours or much over 8 hours. If you find yourself waking up during the night, it might be attributed to what you do before bed. If you turn off the computer and hop into bed, it might be difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep after all that stimulation. Every night before I go to bed, I read for about 15-30 minutes, just to give my brain some time to wind down.
The holy trinity: Diet, exercise, and sleep
These will improve your game without you even realizing it.
PHASE 2: Fundamentals
I'm not going to tell you to cs, because you know to cs. That being said, you're not cs'ing well enough. Try to cs better. It's extremely difficult to boil down a topic as all-encompassing as 'fundamentals' into a few paragraphs that are easy to digest AND extremely helpful. Fundamentals to me boils down to game knowledge and experience, including:
+ When and how to trade effectively in lane
+ When and where to ward
+ Cs'ing
+ Zoning
+ Lane mechanics: freezing the wave, brush abuse (top/mid), etc
+ Jungle routes and how to avoid common wards when ganking
+ Keep timers on dragon, baron, buffs, and enemy wards
+ Buy wards and ward properly, regardless of your role
+ ETC
If you are having trouble with any of these mechanics, ask for specification in the comments, and I'll answer your questions. There is no specific course you can take to improve your fundamentals. It's a gradual process. One way to try to pick some stuff up would be to watch and analyze streams and then implementing those strategies in a game. You have to be critical of what you're watching, and while analyzing, ask yourself, what is the purpose of what they're doing? How and when do they know to zone, trade, freeze, etc?
Trading
The most important of these in my opinion is in regards to 'trading' in lane. Trading involves exchanging damage/harassing your lane opponent while taking little to no damage and losing no cs. If you can trade effectively most of the time, you will slowly build a lifelead over your opponent, forcing them to stay in lane in a precarious situation or recall early and lose gold and experience. Trading is exceedingly important for mid and top laners, and to a lesser extent bot lane.
Knowing how and when to trade comes with experience. If you can't figure out who will come on top of a trade, you can attempt to force a trade in a smart way to test the waters. Make sure you don't do it under a full enemy wave if you auto attack as the creeps will switch focus to you.
Freezing
Freezing is a popular technique commonly employed in the top and bottom lane. "Freezing" refers to holding a large enemy creep wave off of your tower by tanking the creeps yourself. The advantages of freezing are numerous, as are the disadvantages.
+Forces your opponent to be in an unsafe area (past river) if they want to cs
+Allows you to farm under the direct safety of your tower
+Makes it more difficult for your opponent to cs if they have to compete with 15+ creeps for the last hits
-Farming on top of your tower can make you susceptable to tower dive ganks from behind. If your opponents execute it well, you are probably boned, but you may be able to take one of them with you.
-You take damage freezing the wave, and without ample armor and the minion damage reduction mastery it can be quite painful. This is why mid lanes cannot generally freeze waves. That, and the lane is much shorter.
-Your cs'ing slows down temporarily as more of the enemy creeps survive while your creeps die
-If you choose to get aggressive on your opponent after you have frozen a wave, you will take CONSIDERABLE minion agro (when you auto attack your opponent, enemy creeps will switch fire to you. It can suck if there are 4-7, but if there are 12-15+, it can REALLY suck.)
When do I freeze the wave?
You typically want to freeze the wave when your lane opponent is currently in lane. When you are aware of your lane opponent going home, it's more advantageous to shove your wave into their tower to make them lose exp/gold while maybe putting some damage on their tower.
Zoning
If everything is going as it should, you have counterpicked your lane opponent. At a certain point in the lane (it's different for every matchup) the champion matchup is such that your lane opponent cannot win trades with you. Example: Olaf vs Irelia. Olaf will always out damage AND out trade irelia as irelia must aggro creeps to fight back and olaf does not. Also, Olaf's true damage blows through Irelia's high resistances and his resetting undertow = big damage.
Competent players understand matchups much more extensively than less experienced players. Smart player won't allow you to trade with them on favorable terms, while 'other' players don't know any better and lose trade after trade. VS smart players, once you've established that you win trades, it's effective to position yourself in such a way that they risk trading with you in order to obtain CS. This is the ideal position. Forcing your opponent to take free damage in exchange for each CS wins lanes. VS 'other' players, they will lose trade after trade, die, rinse, and repeat.
Once lane dominance is established, position yourself directly behind your creeps if you're ranged, or inside the creeps if you're melee and press the 'stop' key (typically 's'). In the top or bottom lane, you may also abuse the brush. Combine trading, zoning, and freezing to win your lane.
PHASE 3: How to lose/win a game in champ select.
I'd easily say that 20% of games are won or lost during champion select. If two teams are evenly matched skill wise, suppose team A counterpicks team B completely. Team A will probably win the laning phase, and will then probably be able to parlay that advantage towards late game. This is not always the case, but it's hard to conceive of a world where a poppy top will be able to lane effectively vs an olaf to where poppy will be effective late game.
That being said, there are some soft rules to forging an advantage in champion select.
1. NEVER duo queue with someone who is a lesser player than you.
There is no reason to let someone tag along if they're going to be an overall drain. The exceptions to this rule is if you're an adc and they're a proven support. The other exception is if they're 100+ elo lower than you and they're willing to fill. This way, you're guaranteed to be 1st in the lobby, in charge of bans as well as 1st pick. There are wierd interactions with elo gain/loss when you have a duo partner, especially during placement matches. I recommend you do some research on the actual numbers before you duo.
2. IF you are a dedicated support, find a duo partner.
When I was climbing from 1800-2000, I played about 40 games, and I recall playing support twice. It is well documented that raising your elo by maining support is a 100% ****shoot. You have too little influence on the game to be able to significantly contribute to a win. However, you can significantly improve your win rate by finding a duo partner that is better than you in skill or higher than you in elo. It's easy to find an adc in your range that is looking for a support, but you may also find other roles to duoq with. If you play with a top player, you take the pressure off of him to convince someone else to support. Also, you have some consistency in knowing that you have at least 1 teammate you can somewhat rely on. It is, however, most effective to find an adc you do well with and work together, as you can talk on skype/vent/teamspeak to wreak havoc on your uncoordinated lane opponents.
3. ALWAYS diversify.
Scroll down to the bottom of this chapter; I'll talk about diversification. A strong comp has mixed damage (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT), some or lots of aoe, all game presence (don't pick a team that has a ****py early game and a godly late game, and vice versa), decent initiation, and sufficient CC. More on this later. Check below for the section titled 'diversifying your team' at the bottom.
4.a ALWAYS tier *****. Here's my take on ranking champs in tiers:
When a champion is designated high on the tier list, it's generally because they offer a lot to a team. Either they have extremely strong lane presence, teamfighting capabilities, objective control, or a combination of multiple factors that allow for a balanced champion. A good way to establish which champion is strong is to watch streams and pay attention to who high elo players ban and then establish WHY. Try your hardest to familiarize yourself with champions that are currently very strong, and practice them extensively before taking them to ranked. Lets give an example for mages, a high tier, a mid tier, and a low tier.
Katarina - HIGH - Kat provides extremely potent AoE damage during teamfights. Played correctly, she can abuse her passive and dart around a teamfight dishing out unparalleled damage. Although she is melee and has no CC, she has a very dominant laning phase and she has few counters in lane. She is extremely potent during mid and late game, and once 6, she can roam effectively and be a huge threat during all stages of the game.
Karthus - MID/HIGH - Karthus is a fantastic late game carry. He can stay relatively safe in lane due to the extreme range on his lay wastes, but his laning phase can be quite tough as he has quite a few 'counters' in lane. His ultimate provides a serious global threat to the enemy team all game, and his teamfighting and initiation are extremely strong. I would rank Karthus mid/high tier due to his ability to get shut out of teamfights (knockback) as well as his moderately weak laning phase and his poor roaming capabilities.
Swain - MID - Swain has a lot of things going for him. He has good sustained aoe damage, good sustain, decent laning phase, good CC, etc. Unfortunately, he's pretty susceptable to ganks all game, and if he gets behind, he typically stays behind. If fed, he can be a force. Unfortunately, his damage late game isn't super potent, and he needs heaps of gold to really kick *** during late game.
Ziggs - LOW - Ziggs is in a strange spot right now. He can work in a seige comp, and his laning phase isn't too awful, but he really doesn't contribute much to a team. His cc is extremely weak, his damage isn't amazing, and his ultimate isn't as strong as other mages'. He doesn't have much kill potential in lane, and ziggs isn't very good at roaming without his ult. Poor roaming, cc, mobility, and damage put ziggs pretty low on most tier lists.
When you fully understand the strengths, weaknesses, and counters for the champs you play, you can assess the picks of both teams and correctly pick to either combo/assist your team or disrupt/counter the enemy team. For example, lee sin top or tristana adc is a fantastic counter to champions like morgana, irelia, and karthus who strive to be in the middle of teamfights (knockback). Maokai is a very smart pick if your opponents are stacking AoE (his ultimate mitigates a BUTTLOAD of aoe damage). If your enemies don't have any CC, katarina or eve can get in and do TONS OF DAMAGE (TM) without fear of getting locked down.
5. You can counterpick other roles from your role
There are lots of ways to counter, say, a mid champion, or an entire team comp, with a top or jungle champion. There are lots of ways to counter top and jungler champions with adcarries. If you can look past the laning phase and into the teamfighting phase when making your decisions during champion select, you can make the game extensively easier. FOR EXAMPLE:
-Against an enemy vayne, a strong jungler pick is skarner. You basically force her to build a cleanse sash quickly, weakening her mid-game presence. You can also counter vayne with gap-closing top champions, like jax.
-You are a low pick and top, and they currently have amumu, morgana, and sona. You counterpick with Olaf, as you can run through all of that CC. Olaf counters AoE+CC comps.
If you can pick a good lane matchup and pick a champion that will be effective in teamfights, you increase your teams' champions of winning. It's impossible for me to go into every interaction and counter, but I'm just making you aware that you can pick mid champ A to counter their mid champ AND their top champ.
6.a NEVER try to pick top or mid during the first rounds of picks.
Ideally, it's smart to leave top and mid for the last picks so that you can avoid getting counterpicked. If you are an early pick and you want top or mid, try to offer a trade. If your 4th pick wants ezreal and he has a big pool of champs, offer to pick him up ezreal if he'll pick your top. If you do get forced into picking a solo champ early, try your hardest to pick something versatile. If you HAVE to pick top early, as of January, champions like lee sin, AD nidalee, and elise are very safe picks for top (irelia, olaf, and jayce aren't bad either). If you HAVE to pick mid early, champions like morgana, lux, ryze, anivia, and zyra can be pretty safe. If you are 4th or 5th pick, encourage your team to give you top or mid so you can counterpick. Stress the point that you can counterpick and probably win the lane. Use lolcounter.com if you can't think of the direct counters off of the top of your head, I use it often. I had to pick a top when they had xin zhao and J4. I didn't know what countered both, so I checked lolcounter and saw that olaf countered them both. I picked olaf, vs'ed j4, and went legendary.
6.b. DISGUISING PICKS (below 1300 elo? ignore this):
If you want to throw your opponents off, there are some strategies you can implement to trick your opponents into picking in a certain manner. The way this is done is by picking champions that can perform in multiple roles, and then adjusting where that champ is going according to picks. This is impossible to do in low elo, as people don't understand such things, like counterpicking.
For example, in a highly coordinated team, you could 1st pick cho'gath. Lets say their next two picks are teemo top and katarina mid. AP Cho'gath mid destroys katarina, so if you or your team had coordinated this, cho'gath could go to someone who is comfortable in the matchup, and then you can counterpick teemo top with something like yorick or rumble. However, if they pick rumble top (bad matchup for cho) and orianna mid (another bad matchup), someone can take cho'gath and jungle. Other versatile champs that can play lots of roles is lee sin, xin, zyra (mid or support), elise (top, mid, jungle), kha'zix, jax (top/jungle), and a few others.
7. NEVER play a champion you aren't good or experienced with.
If your team encourages you to play something that you don't know how to play, please don't play it. Stick to what you know. Even if orianna would be great for your comp, if you can't play her, you won't be effective with her.
8. NEVER play a matchup you aren't comfortable and experienced with.
On paper, fizz can counter karthus, but if you're not comfortable with fizz, and/or you haven't played many fizz/karthus matchups, don't do it. If you don't know how to do it, don't do it.
9. ALWAYS look out to learn.
There are numerous resources at your disposal - some may or may not be chock-full of misinformation; this is another way of learning. Get your builds from watching streams, spectating high elo ranked games (through the lobby spectate window), or guides like this one and others on MobaFire, SoloMid, LoLPro and even LoLKing. As long as you're learning, you're improving your chances to win games.
10. ALWAYS dodge if you think you need to.
DODGE RANKED GAMES? THAT'S FOR *******S. No, dodging a ****ty team comp is a fantastic way to preserve your elo. What would you rather have;
- 30 minute queue timer
OR
- Incredibly painful ****py game where you guys get stomped, lose elo, and maybe get reported if you rage, oh and the game also takes 30 minutes
Ok, so dodging is sometimes necessary. When/how? Well, I'll tell you. A balanced team is just that, well balanced. Dodge games when:
- EXCESSIVE TROLLING/**** TAKLING BY TEAMMATES IN CHAMP SELECT
- AP top, AP mid, AP jungler (PURE MAGIC DAMAGE, sej jungle, elise top, ahri mid)
- No real support. Someone trolls and picks singed support, etc.
- AD top, AD mid, AD jungler (Xin jungle, Pantheon top, Talon mid, PURE AD)
- Nobody wants to play a particular role, nobody can jungle, nobody can support, etc.
- Duplicates. 2 ADCs, 2 supports, etc.
- Bad champions. Heimer, Fiora.*
- Insufficient CC
- Teammate you know from experience is garbage**
- Other troll picks (mundo top, zed adc, ashe support, xin zhao mid, etc)***
*Have lolking.net open during champion select. If one of your teammates picks something iffy/wierd like shaco jungle or fiddlesticks mid, lolking them. Dodge if:
1. They have more losses than wins with that champ in match history OR every game has them having a ****ty negative KDR.
2. They pick a ****ty solo laner (Fiora) and they haven't picked their lane yet, meaning they didn't pick it strategically to counterpick, and then they get counterpicked hard.
3. While you're there, if they have a huge elo loss for the week, might be OK to dodge then as well, like -150 or something.
**I keep a notepad document where I chronicle every time someone on my team or the enemy team just completely fails or trolls, all while exhibiting typical toxic player qualities. That way, I know to dodge them if I run into them in champ select and they even start hinting at trolling, I know to dodge them. Since I was in mid platinum, there were considerably FEWER people, so I actually ran into people over and over again. If you're in bronze, silver, or low gold, the odds of you running into the same people over and over again are practically 0, even if you constantly queue immediately after you finish a game. Might still be handy, though. Organize it every so often alphabetically for quick reference.
***Depends on the elo. At sub platinum, I'd be very wary of people picking something cheesy and then trying to say it works. I don't trust some random silver kid that his bs strategy is worth me gambling my elo. At plat and above, I have a bit more trust for cheese. When in doubt, check their lolking match history. If they've played it a few times recently and they did well with it, you might want to let it rock. I have been HARD CARRIED by cheese (1st time I saw lulu mid, pre-nerf) in the past.
11. Never get too locked into your role.
What I mean, is, if your top/mid gets counterpicked, it's viable in certain situations to swap lanes. If they pick a champion like pantheon or talon mid, it's certainly viable to stick your melee bruiser mid to **** on them. They've probably adjusted their runes and masteries in preparation to counter a mage. I'll give you examples:
-We were in champion select. They had swain, and I had an early pick and tried to disguise my pick as olaf. My ally picked fizz, and they picked talon. If I or fizz had been stubborn, we would have gone to our lanes and probably lost them (swain does well vs olaf, talon ****s on fizz). However, we devised that we should lane swap. I ended up going 13-0, and fizz did well too. YT VID BELOW
-Another game, our 1st pick picked lee sin. Their first picks were Malphite and Vlad. I was next pick, and I coordinated with lee sin that he should go mid and I should go top with rumble. I diversified our damage by picking AP top while counterpicking malphite. The lanes played out and things were going well. On his first back, malphite came to lane with boots, chalice, negatron cloak, and bottle. Upon seeing this, I told lee to immediately switch, and we did. Within 1 minute, lee sin had killed 45 armor 120 magic resist malphite.
Examples of top champs that can mid:
Yorick, Olaf, Riven, Jayce, Rumble, Lee sin etc
Mid champs that can top:
Kennen, Katarina, Swain, etc
(Too many to name, and the meta shifts constantly, so take this with a grain of salt)
=======================================
Diversifying Your Team in Champ Select
=======================================
A well balanced team consists of several components. Here are some off of the top of my head to name a few:
-Sufficient CC
-Strong magic damage source(s)
-Strong physical damage source(s)
-Tanky front line
-SOME range (skills + AA's)
-Someone has to have initiation
-AoE (this is debatable. You could conceive of a kite/poke comp that can beat an AoE comp, but some AoE will certainly make your teamfights better)
All of these components can be filled by all roles, to SOME degree. The exception would be a tanky AD Carry. The reason why certain champions are HIGH TIER is because they contribute to multiple roles at the same time.
Take amumu, for instance. Lets add tags to him.
+Sufficient CC (2 forms of CC, can potentially stun 6 times with one rotation of spells)
+Strong magic damage source (Amumu puts out tremendous damage if built with some penetration)
X No physical damage
+Tanky front line (with a balanced build, not only can he do good AoE damage, he can be quite tanky)
+SOME range (He has chasing power with bandage toss, and his ultimate has extensive range, although he is obviously melee)
+Great initiation (BT ult or flash ult)
+AoE (He's an AoE bomb)
Now, lets take a different champion. Lets look at Fiora. Lets assign all the tags we can to Fiora.
X No CC
X No Magic damage
X Extremely weak phyiscal DPS
X Not tanky
X No Range
X No Initiation
X SOME AoE on ultimate, but, it's just a ****ty ultimate
These things in mind, it's quite easy to see why Fiora doesn't really fit on many comps. Add on the fact that she has a weak laning phase and we can see why fiora is in the Fiora tier (aka **** tier).
If you are an early pick, try to pick something that brings a lot of utility. This is extremely important. If you MUST pick a solo or jungler early, make sure you pick someone that has as much to offer as possible. If you have a late pick, try to fill gaps and pick something with a lot of utility. Whether you need more tank, more cc, more physical damage or what have you, you can pick to flesh out the comp.
Just for fun, I'll try to use ADcarries to fill the requirements listed above. You can, on your own time, make your own lists in the comments section for each specific role and have a debate on where champions belong.
-Sufficient CC (Vayne, Varus, Ashe)
-Strong magic damage source(s) (Varus, Kog'maw, Vayne (true damage>magic damage))
-Strong physical damage source(s) (All!)
-Tanky front line (Graves?)
-SOME range (skills + AA's) (All)
-Someone has to have initiation (Ashe, Varus)
-AoE (Graves, Varus, Ashe, Ezreal (ultimate, frozen fist))
PHASE 4: In-game.
ADJUST YOUR PLAYSTYLE
There are generally two playstyles. Ham-crazy-hog-wild aggression, and *yawn* passive. Of course, it is very effective to switch between these when the situation calls for it, and identifying when is the mark of a good player.
Switching between these two modes can really mess with your opponents' collective heads. I'm not going into too much detail on aggressive and passive play, as it depends on what champion you're playing, what champion they're playing, positioning, what your jungler is playing, what level you are, what level THEY are, have they bought yet, have you bought yet, and possibly most important, what THEIR jungler is playing etc etc etc. Too much to talk about here.
KEEP YOUR BUILDS FLUID
An extremely common mistake I see in low elo are players' innability to build correctly. What I mean is, you shouldn't have one single set build for a champion in your mind and adhere to it throughout the game. Sometimes, they have stronger AD over AP, and vice versa, and it's important to itemize for each individual game. It's ok to have your first 2-4k gold planned out, but even then, you might have to vary your itemization as early as your 1st recall. Guides are great to follow (except 98% of moba guides), but don't get too stuck into their specific builds. If you intend to build a common aura item (frozen heart, abyssal, aegis), communicate with your team EARLY and make sure you don't end up with 2 aura items.
It's not about "hurr they do physical, I buy armor," there's more to it than that. Sometimes, you need to shut down auto attackers, and which is better for this situation; randuins or frozen heart?
examples:
-Malphite top vs excessive magic damage team comp - Don't build too many armor items. 1-2 will suffice, but try to branch into MR early.
-Lee sin top vs triple AD and their ap mid is failing hard - Don't build hexdrinker.
OBJECTIVES
How do you win a game? Kill da nexus. How do you get to the point where you can destroy their base? You have to have certain things going for you:
1. Massive gold lead
2. Emaculate synergy and perfect teamfighting.
Since this is solo queue, it's harder to achieve the second, but it's easy to achieve the first. The easiest way to turn small victories into HUGE advantages is to score objectives such as dragon, towers, or baron. If the jungler executes a successful gank on bottom and either kills one (or both), or sends them both back with ~10% hp, it's probably a great time to take dragon, or their bot tower if dragon is down, or maybe even both. Call your mid laner down if he's not there already and kill dragon.
Certain champions have fantastic objective control, that is to say that they're extremely potent at killing baron and dragon. Champions like shaco, vayne, kog'maw, cho'gath, and karthus are a few examples of proficient objective champs. Vayne and kog'maw do good percent damage or big chunks of true damage from silver bolts, jungle cho can instantly burst dragon down from 1700+HP to 0, and karthus with blue does really solid sustained damage to dragon if he's not interrupted from spamming lay waste. Shaco can easily sneak and solo dragon with madreds/wriggles and his ultimate.
Examples: brand, elise, heimer, jax, kha'zix, miss fortune, nunu, nasus if ulted, rengar, shen, sivir (ult), varus, warwick, zyra are good as well, etc.
If your teamcomp is very slow at killing dragon/baron, don't attempt to do it when your opponents are alive and healthy and near. Good times to do it are when someone is obviously backing, like the adc, mid, or jungler, when their jungler is ganking top, or when one or a few members of their team is dead.
JUNGLERS: NEVER ATTEMPT DRAGON WHEN YOUR SMITE IS DOWN. IF YOU FEEL A DRAGON COMING IN THE NEAR FUTURE, DO NOT USE YOUR SMITE. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH NOT SMITING ANYTHING FOR 2 MINUTES IN ANTICIPATION FOR A DRAGON. THE WORST POSSIBLE THING TO HAPPEN IS FOR DRAGON TO GET STOLEN BY A LUX/EZREAL ULT, OR THE ENEMY JUNGLER DRIVE BY SMITING THE DRAGON AND GETTING AWAY SCOTT FREE. DON'T. DO. IT. Unless you've literally just aced them, of course. Then, by all means, kill that baron/dragon, dawg.
WHEN DO WE GROUP?
This is one of the most important questions to address. Grouping is one of the strongest strategies in the game, but executed poorly, it can actually be a huge detriment.
Group when:
1. You have a huge gold lead; when you are extremely far ahead, the only hope of your opponents is to pick you off one by one. By grouping and forcing objectives, you are forcing your opponents to either engage and lose, or give up towers.
2. All of your tier 1 towers are down, or all of their tier 1 towers are down; this is a good indicator that the laning phase is over. Once towers are down for either team, the lane becomes more precarious for your team, either they have to farm too far up the lane or they have no protection from their tower. Grouping will ensure that you don't get picked off. If your opponents are still farming with no tower behind them, call for your team.
3. You are losing and/or getting picked off constantly by assassins; if the enemy eve has roamed bottom twice and stomped your bot lane, it is clearly time to abandon the lane and group up. If something isn't working, repeating the strategy is extremely foolish. If your lanes are not doing well/losing, group up to ensure you retain control.
Don't group when:
1. Towers are still up and your opponents are still farming normally and the game is somewhat even; sometimes, the laning phase is very extended, and this is OK.
2. You have split pushers; with a nidalee or shen top, it might be best to put pressure on the lines while your top laner forces the enemy team to deal with them.
3. The enemy team is getting pubstomped; if your lanes are CONSTANTLY killing their lane opponents, there's no reason to group. Let the lanes keep pubstomping.
What is my job? Breakdown by role:
TOP: Your job is to crush your lane opponent. Top lane is generally the bruiser lane, and bruisers are extremely dependent on farm. Counterpick your opponent and punish them when they attempt to farm. Additionally, you can roam mid if your lane opponent is freezing or dead. When your team is going to dragon, you can choose to assist or not. If your team crushed their team and is securing a safe dragon, you are not required. If your team is going to dragon while your opponents are alive, you should start running down just in case things go sour. I personally prefer to take the top tower as SOON AS POSSIBLE to secure some gold for my team and allow me to swing down for dragon/their jungle whenever I feel like it.
MID: Your job is to kill your lane opponent and roam. Ideally, you can push your lane opponent around and use any time they aren't in the lane to roam bottom and secure kills. You can roam top, but helping bot out is more impactful to the game. Your job is to ward around mid lane to make sure that your lane opponent doesn't suprise buttsecks your bot lane.
ADC: Farm, kite, be a boss. Your job is to do as much damage as possible during teamfights which means attacking the tanks is ok as long as you stay safe.
SUPPORT: Keep your ADC safe, die for him if necessary, block skillshots, exhaust important targets. Don't take cs.
JUNGLE: This is important to remember; don't try to do too much. Jungling is by far the most dynamic role and carries with it a lot of responsibility. The most important lane to gank is bot lane, but it is definitely the most difficult. Top and mid are equally important to gank, but top is much easier if it is unwarded. If a lane is dying constantly 1v1, just abandon the lane. They suck. I could write a novel on jungling nuances, and I may later, but for now, just watch jungler streams. Make sure you keep track of EVERYONE'S flash. If you force someone to burn flash, don't leave. Fake a back, turn around, and gank him again.
HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR TEAM
Every team is different. Some are extremely difficult while some just work well together without having to say a word. Team chemistry is always different, but there are some tennents that hold true from game to game.
1. There needs to be a team captain.
It's the job of the team captain to make calls, calling things such as, "all mid push" "dragon" "invade blue" etc. Typically, early on, whoever takes the initiative can assume the role of team captain. As the early game progresses, it should typically fall to the role of the jungler to make the calls, as lanes are pretty static. It's on the jungler to call out where's ganking and call for early objectives. As mid game roles around, team captain may shift to whoever is currently doing the 'best' on your team. People are more apt to listen to a 9-0 jax than a 2-2 nocturne, even if nocturne has contributed plenty to the early game. If you take the role of team captain, be warned. A bad baron/dragon call is all it takes to throw a game.
2. Never flame.
There is a difference between reprimanding and flaming, see if you can tell the difference.
"You need to buy a ward for top so you don't get ganked that easily again"
"WOW U ****ING ******. YOU ARE ****ING AWFUL, I SHOULD HAVE TOP'D"
Some people may take reprimanding poorly, and get defensive, but that's on them. Addressing the problems your team is having WHILE offering a solution will give them an opportunity to correct problem behaviors. If your adc gets caught mid/late game, don't call them a ******, just tell them to group and don't go off alone again.
3. Keep lines of communication open.
ADC's should be communicating often with their support/vice versa. Tops and mids should be communicating with their jungler, and vice versa. As a jungler, it can be effective to ask your laners where the wards are, if they know. It gives you good information while encouraging cooperation. You should also always call out when enemy summoner spells are burned. A simple 'top no flash' may encourage your jungler to come and clean up a free kill or two while their escapes are down. It also lets your teammates know that you're willing to be a part of the team. I'll give you some examples.
You are mid morgana, and your lane is not going super hot. You just hit level 5, you haven't died yet, but you're starting to get bullied. Your jungler is nocturne. Which is correct?
> "****ING HELP ME NOC THIS GUY IS SUCH A ****ING LUCKER"
> "Noc, I'm almost 6, gank when I'm 6 for a free kill, no wards mid, he has flash"
Obviously, the second option mentions your lane is having problems while also offering a solution. Spamming your jungler GANK PLZ GANK PLZ GANK PLZ HALP will probably make them even less likely to come to your lane. Having high WPM (words per minute) will allow you to convey more information in a shorter amount of time.
CONCLUSION:
This ends my guide. I hope to expand it and improve it in the near future as I get feedback from you. Again, I want to stress that this is not gospel. This is me attempting to write my experiences down on paper. I wrote this for you guys, those of you who feel stuck. I've been asked these questions 1,000 times:
"How can I win a game when my top goes 0-10-0?"
"I'm stuck in 1300 and my teammates feed and are noobs. What do?"
"I played ranked after getting to 30 playing nothing but co-op vs ai and lost all my placements. Halp"
I just want to say here that not every game is winnable. Sometimes your opponents are more skilled than you and your allies, or someone on your team is having an off game, or someone on the enemy team is playing out of their mind.
That being said, NEVER GIVE UP. Even if someone is getting destroyed, there is always a chance your opponents will throw the game. If your team is getting wrecked, encourage your team to group and try a couple of teamfights. I
TIME SENSITIVE SECTION
In this section, I will describe from personal experience some winning strategies that I find to be very strong. However, with each new patch the meta always shifts around. Items and champs fall and rise, and I'll talk about that here. You will see the date last updated below, and then some strategies. I will update this section at least every patch, if not more frequently.
AS OF 2/7/13
Important bans:
Kha'zix
Blitzcrank
Shen
Amumu
Katarina!!
Mediocre bans:
Twisted fate
Malphite
Lee Sin
We are definitely playing the League of Assassins, at the moment. If they have an assassin tag, they're probably pretty strong at the moment. Your akali, your kha'zix, your eve; they are a big gamble, but they have ridiculous payoff if executed correctly.
It is also kind of the league of liandry's torment. We finally got what we mages wanted, and that was an upgrade to haunting guise, and damn, what a strong item. They will nerf the health very soon, though. It's not viable on every mage, but if your mage has natural cc, aoe, etc, it's certainly viable (LEAGUE OF LIANDRYS RUMBLE)
AS PER ABOVE:
TOP CHAMPS:
Shen (banned often)
magic pen marks, armor seals, mr scaling glyphs, movespeed, armor or health quints
9-21-0
Shen brings a lot of utility to a team. He has a great laning phase in a lot of matchups and his taunt can be skilled at level 1 for invades. He has decent burst early and can cc his lane opponent during a jungle gank. If you keep your energy up, you're hard to kill during a gank. He's also a sick split pusher. VS AD champs, I'll rush a sunfire cape and shove all day long, looking to jump into fights with my ultimate. I then pick up a static shivv (superior push power) if our team is dominating, or a wits end (superior dps to champs) if we're closer to even. VS AP champs, I'll pick up a null, giants belt, and wit's end early, and then complete sunfire cape.
Olaf
AD marks, armor seals, flat mr glyphs, MS quints
9-21-0
Olaf is an EXCEPTIONAL pick against cc heavy teams. Ashe, taric, morgana, irelia, and warwick? Olaf is the viking for you. Olaf not only has a dominant laning phase vs most bruisers, he has a lot of options to obliterate teamfights. If you're against a ranged character in lane (you probably don't want this matchup) then max your axes. Against most melee, you want to max e. Don't put a point into w until level 13. Axes level 1 always. Olaf is no slouch in invades, as long as you pick up axes. You have two choices for mid-late strat and builds.
Is your adc/mage kicking ***/getting fed? Get frozen mallet and PEEL for him during teamfights. That means you sit on him, and use your slowing auto attacks and axes to keep people off of your adc/mage.
Are your carries sucking? Ignore your carries, pop ghost and your ultimate, and run through their team and obliterate their carries. If they have high mobility characters, you might be sunk (ezreal, fizz, etc) but if they have low mobility characters (ashe, varus, karthus) then you're set.
If you're worried about physical damage, pick up a sunfire. Magic damage, warmogs+maw. You can build almost anything on olaf, from frozen heart all the way to aegis. Build for their comp, and you can't lose.
Other strong, versatile tops: lee sin, AD nidalee, rumble
JUNGLERS:
Hecarim
build: not sure, not a hec player
Hecarim is a solo queue star. Early ganks, great damage output, solid early, mid and late game, exceptional teamfighter, hecarim has it all. His objective control isn't great, but his kit is quite strong.
Lee Sin
AD marks/quints, armor seals, MR glyphs
19-11-0
Lee is a fantastic ganker and counterjungler. It is lee's job to snowball the early game for his laners and get carried late game. You CAN go dps, but if your team is light on CC, pick up a madreds, boots 5, then frozen mallet, and peel all day long. Ward the enemy jungle after your 1st back and try to harass them at their buffs or just smite steal them.
Other versatile junglers: Amumu, Skarner (Some pros say he's weak right now, but I think he's pretty well balanced and fits on a wide variety of team comps), olaf, j4
MIDS:
Ryze
mpen marks, armor or mana regen seals, flat mr glyphs, MS quints
9-0-21
Ryze is a jack-of-all-trades. Strong laning phase vs a wide variety of opponents combined with exceptional teamfighting potential makes for a well balanced champion. Ryze is going to be nerfed soon (sometime in January, maybe early Feb). Get some games in before he loses some power.
flask, 2 hp pots, faerie.
boots, tear
catalyst
If you need MR immediately, turn it into BV now.
If you need armor, get a glacial shroud now.
If you need neither, get RoA.
Finish those items, toss in a void staff, mercs, and manamune, win game.
Cho'gath
mpen marks, armor seals, flat mr glyphs, ap or ms quints
21-0-9 or 21-9-0 or 9-12-9 or 9-9-12, your choice. I prefer 21-0-9 for easier lanes, 9-12-9 for harder lanes.
Cho'gath is very strong versus a lot of popular picks for mid. He is one of the hardest counters to katarina. With some skill, he is an exceptional teamfighter, and his silence and rupture have huge utility all game. With feast, you should ensure your team never gets dragon stolen or baron stolen. I have flash+feasted dragon and baron and stolen it many times. His exceptional sustain will beat out weak mid poke. I prefer athene's->chain vest->rabadons->glacial shroud->etc. I skip RoA, I think it's extremely junky on mid cho. Opt for resists, AP, and cooldowns. Once you hit 6 and get the second blue, spam feast on creeps to stack feast as quickly as possible. Max scream, then rupture. 1 point in vorpal spikes at level 4, max it last.
Other versatile mids: Evelynn, Twisted Fate, Morgana, Katarina, Orianna, Karthus, Pantheon, Vladimir, Syndra, Swain (risky)
It would behoove you to check out Elementz's Competitive play Tier list. Even though it's for competitive play, it still holds true for solo queue; the strong champions are strong, and the weak champions are weak. (LINK)
Lolcounter.com
Pretty decent resource on matchups for lazy people.
Throatslasher's guide on how to gain teh elo'z
Who am I?
Hello, MobaFire. My name is throatslasher, and I hit 2k elo last season. Honestly, it wasn't that difficult. One of the biggest woes I hear about in League of Legends is the dreaded ranked solo queue, but it doesn't have to be.
What is this guide about?
In this guide I'll be sharing my tested, proven tips and techniques to increase your win rate in ranked solo queue. Individual champion strategies will not be discussed here, but I may give a brief overview of a large group of champions and their impact in a typical solo queue game. I'm not going to get too specific in any particular area, as I don't want to have to constantly update this guide every time we get a tiny whiff of a new patch.
Warming up
Have a quick tip right here, right now to get you started. Most players like to play a warmup game before a ranked session, for several reasons. I personnaly play a quick game to make sure my connection is stable. Also, I can quickly tell if I'm able to play my A game. During my practice, I get back into the league mindset and settle into my mechanics. If you feel you need it, then do it. Do a normal draft and pretend it's ranked. This guide will be full of tips like this, so read on!
Thanks to:
- jhoijhoi for coding[/columns]
AUTHORS NOTE / PREFACE
I'd like to talk about the 'why' and the 'how' of this guide.
Why?
I have been known, on occasion, to mess around on accounts with very low elo. I've played at almost every elo level, from 500 all the way up to 2200 and everything inbetween. During those hundreds of games, I've picked up some fundamentals that I've parlayed into some success in climbing elo on my main account. That being said, while messing around, I've encountered dozens of people that upon seeing my score of 20-0, beg me for help getting out of 'elo hell'. I've noticed players in silver and below making really, REALLY stupid decisions at varied stages of the game that ultimately result in their loss without them even realizing they made a mistake. I feel their pain, so I decided to attempt writing a general ranked guide.
How?
Writing this guide has been a huge challenge. First of all, these tips and tricks are nothing more than my OPINION. This is an extremely dynamic video game. I can't say all of these nuggets of knowledge will work all the time in every situation, but I'm more or less trying to explain my general mindset I have for when I'm trying to personally climb elo. The most important resource that will help me to retool, revamp, correct, and update my guide will be the community. I highly encourage you to PM me or LEAVE A COMMENT asking for extended reasoning, or if you think any info is wrong or I left anything out. I will either amend the guide, or further explain my reasoning. I'd like to have the comment section serve as somewhat of a discussion thread where we can have a frank and open dialogue about solo queue ranked play.
Why me?
I'll be blunt here. I've played in every elo. In 0-1700 average elo games, I dominate. 1700-1950 I feel pretty comfortable. I've played 1950-2100 games, and they're very challenging. I have even been mismatched into a few 2200-2300 games and I got dominated. I'm not insinuating that I'm some hyper-elite diamond player, but hey, high plat is good enough for me. I am shooting for diamond in season 3, and I think it's a reasonable goal. Long story short, every competitive league player knows most of the 'tidbits' I'll be talking about in this guide. I don't think there's anything in this guide that the average platinum/diamond player will not know, and I would be sincerely surprised if any of those players would strongly disagree with anything in this guide. Take what you want away from this guide. If you are stuck in gold, silver, bronze, or unranked, I think this guide will help.
PHASE 1: How to improve your odds without playing a second of League of Legends
I. Breakfast
A lot of people don't understand the importance of a nutritious, well balanced breakfast. It has been scientifically proven that even a light breakfast that is low in sugar and high in protein will increase mental acuity during the day.
Some examples of breakfasts I eat throughout the week:
- A bowl of cereal (honey nut cheerios, corn pops, etc; no super sugary cereals), a banana, and a couple mouthfuls of yogurt,
- 3 eggs, an orange, couple mouthfuls of yogurt,
- 3 packets of instant quaker "lower sugar" oatmeal, a banana, glass of milk.
I feel that going to work early in the morning is a lot more tolerable after I've eaten something. It may sound strange, but eating is a big deal, and the saying 'you are what you eat' holds true. Garbage in, garbage out.
II. Exercise.
Exercise has also been shown to improve mood and brain function. I find light exercise to be an extremely effective way to relieve stress. If you don't have time to hit the gym and you don't have any equipment, don't fret. One of the best exercises you can do works out your entire body with no equipment required. Do a youtube search of 'the perfect burpee' or 'how to burpee'. Make sure you don't do any wierd variations. You can throw a push-up in your burpees if you desire. When you go down into an elevated push-up position, lower your body to the ground like a push-up and then lift your palms off of the ground, flat on your stomach. That will ensure you do a FULL pushup, raising your body up completely off the floor. I do burpees during comercial breaks while watching TV or after I've locked my champion in champ select. If you work out while waiting for games to start, don't over-do it. You don't want to be physically exhausted during your games and you don't want your heart rate too elevated during the early game.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you actually want to build muscle, you can go a couple steps further. Go buy a tub of NO FAT cottage cheese. It contains casein protein, and a lot of it. Chow down on a large helping an hour or so before bed if you worked out that day. If you want to add some flavor, consider fresh fruit or black pepper, but no salt. I personally prefer the pepper. Incorporate squats. Do some research on the net on how to do proper squats. Once a week, you should do 'sprints'. Go find some empty space, and approximate 100 yards. Run as fast as your little legs will take you those 100 yards and then take a breather. Rinse, repeat, until your legs are jelly. AS WITH ALL EXERCISES, DO NOT OVER DO IT, AND DON'T TRY TO DO ANYTHING TOO AGGRESSIVE. IF YOU ARE OUT OF SHAPE, YOU CAN INJURE YOURSELF PERMANENTLY IF YOU DO TOO MUCH WEIGHT OR HAVE IMPROPER FORM.
A brisk walk or jog around your neighborhood can't hurt, but it is more time consuming, and it does nothing for you besides elevate your heart rate. However, make sure you stay away from those guys who are up to no good, who are also making trouble in said neighborhood. God forbid you get in one little fight and frighten your mother into sending you to live with relatives. Also, Independence Day.
III. Get a good nights' sleep.
This is probably the most important aspect of a healthy routine. The length of your sleep isn't necessarily as important as the quality of sleep you're getting. Typically you don't want to sleep less than 5.5 hours or much over 8 hours. If you find yourself waking up during the night, it might be attributed to what you do before bed. If you turn off the computer and hop into bed, it might be difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep after all that stimulation. Every night before I go to bed, I read for about 15-30 minutes, just to give my brain some time to wind down.
|
DON'TS: - Drink alcohol before sleeping - Chug water before sleeping - Eat heavily up to 2 hours before sleeping - Sleep for more than 9 hours - Sleep for less than 6 hours, ideally |
DO: + Try to go to bed about the same time every night + Try to wake up around the same time every day + Sleep with as little light as possible, including turning your alarm clock's face away. + Launder your bedding once a week (hygeine, folks) |
The holy trinity: Diet, exercise, and sleep
These will improve your game without you even realizing it.
PHASE 2: Fundamentals
I'm not going to tell you to cs, because you know to cs. That being said, you're not cs'ing well enough. Try to cs better. It's extremely difficult to boil down a topic as all-encompassing as 'fundamentals' into a few paragraphs that are easy to digest AND extremely helpful. Fundamentals to me boils down to game knowledge and experience, including:
+ When and how to trade effectively in lane
+ When and where to ward
+ Cs'ing
+ Zoning
+ Lane mechanics: freezing the wave, brush abuse (top/mid), etc
+ Jungle routes and how to avoid common wards when ganking
+ Keep timers on dragon, baron, buffs, and enemy wards
+ Buy wards and ward properly, regardless of your role
+ ETC
If you are having trouble with any of these mechanics, ask for specification in the comments, and I'll answer your questions. There is no specific course you can take to improve your fundamentals. It's a gradual process. One way to try to pick some stuff up would be to watch and analyze streams and then implementing those strategies in a game. You have to be critical of what you're watching, and while analyzing, ask yourself, what is the purpose of what they're doing? How and when do they know to zone, trade, freeze, etc?
Trading
The most important of these in my opinion is in regards to 'trading' in lane. Trading involves exchanging damage/harassing your lane opponent while taking little to no damage and losing no cs. If you can trade effectively most of the time, you will slowly build a lifelead over your opponent, forcing them to stay in lane in a precarious situation or recall early and lose gold and experience. Trading is exceedingly important for mid and top laners, and to a lesser extent bot lane.
Knowing how and when to trade comes with experience. If you can't figure out who will come on top of a trade, you can attempt to force a trade in a smart way to test the waters. Make sure you don't do it under a full enemy wave if you auto attack as the creeps will switch focus to you.
Freezing
Freezing is a popular technique commonly employed in the top and bottom lane. "Freezing" refers to holding a large enemy creep wave off of your tower by tanking the creeps yourself. The advantages of freezing are numerous, as are the disadvantages.
+Forces your opponent to be in an unsafe area (past river) if they want to cs
+Allows you to farm under the direct safety of your tower
+Makes it more difficult for your opponent to cs if they have to compete with 15+ creeps for the last hits
-Farming on top of your tower can make you susceptable to tower dive ganks from behind. If your opponents execute it well, you are probably boned, but you may be able to take one of them with you.
-You take damage freezing the wave, and without ample armor and the minion damage reduction mastery it can be quite painful. This is why mid lanes cannot generally freeze waves. That, and the lane is much shorter.
-Your cs'ing slows down temporarily as more of the enemy creeps survive while your creeps die
-If you choose to get aggressive on your opponent after you have frozen a wave, you will take CONSIDERABLE minion agro (when you auto attack your opponent, enemy creeps will switch fire to you. It can suck if there are 4-7, but if there are 12-15+, it can REALLY suck.)
When do I freeze the wave?
You typically want to freeze the wave when your lane opponent is currently in lane. When you are aware of your lane opponent going home, it's more advantageous to shove your wave into their tower to make them lose exp/gold while maybe putting some damage on their tower.
Zoning
If everything is going as it should, you have counterpicked your lane opponent. At a certain point in the lane (it's different for every matchup) the champion matchup is such that your lane opponent cannot win trades with you. Example: Olaf vs Irelia. Olaf will always out damage AND out trade irelia as irelia must aggro creeps to fight back and olaf does not. Also, Olaf's true damage blows through Irelia's high resistances and his resetting undertow = big damage.
Competent players understand matchups much more extensively than less experienced players. Smart player won't allow you to trade with them on favorable terms, while 'other' players don't know any better and lose trade after trade. VS smart players, once you've established that you win trades, it's effective to position yourself in such a way that they risk trading with you in order to obtain CS. This is the ideal position. Forcing your opponent to take free damage in exchange for each CS wins lanes. VS 'other' players, they will lose trade after trade, die, rinse, and repeat.
Once lane dominance is established, position yourself directly behind your creeps if you're ranged, or inside the creeps if you're melee and press the 'stop' key (typically 's'). In the top or bottom lane, you may also abuse the brush. Combine trading, zoning, and freezing to win your lane.
PHASE 3: How to lose/win a game in champ select.
I'd easily say that 20% of games are won or lost during champion select. If two teams are evenly matched skill wise, suppose team A counterpicks team B completely. Team A will probably win the laning phase, and will then probably be able to parlay that advantage towards late game. This is not always the case, but it's hard to conceive of a world where a poppy top will be able to lane effectively vs an olaf to where poppy will be effective late game.
That being said, there are some soft rules to forging an advantage in champion select.
1. NEVER duo queue with someone who is a lesser player than you.
There is no reason to let someone tag along if they're going to be an overall drain. The exceptions to this rule is if you're an adc and they're a proven support. The other exception is if they're 100+ elo lower than you and they're willing to fill. This way, you're guaranteed to be 1st in the lobby, in charge of bans as well as 1st pick. There are wierd interactions with elo gain/loss when you have a duo partner, especially during placement matches. I recommend you do some research on the actual numbers before you duo.
2. IF you are a dedicated support, find a duo partner.
When I was climbing from 1800-2000, I played about 40 games, and I recall playing support twice. It is well documented that raising your elo by maining support is a 100% ****shoot. You have too little influence on the game to be able to significantly contribute to a win. However, you can significantly improve your win rate by finding a duo partner that is better than you in skill or higher than you in elo. It's easy to find an adc in your range that is looking for a support, but you may also find other roles to duoq with. If you play with a top player, you take the pressure off of him to convince someone else to support. Also, you have some consistency in knowing that you have at least 1 teammate you can somewhat rely on. It is, however, most effective to find an adc you do well with and work together, as you can talk on skype/vent/teamspeak to wreak havoc on your uncoordinated lane opponents.
3. ALWAYS diversify.
Scroll down to the bottom of this chapter; I'll talk about diversification. A strong comp has mixed damage (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT), some or lots of aoe, all game presence (don't pick a team that has a ****py early game and a godly late game, and vice versa), decent initiation, and sufficient CC. More on this later. Check below for the section titled 'diversifying your team' at the bottom.
4.a ALWAYS tier *****. Here's my take on ranking champs in tiers:
When a champion is designated high on the tier list, it's generally because they offer a lot to a team. Either they have extremely strong lane presence, teamfighting capabilities, objective control, or a combination of multiple factors that allow for a balanced champion. A good way to establish which champion is strong is to watch streams and pay attention to who high elo players ban and then establish WHY. Try your hardest to familiarize yourself with champions that are currently very strong, and practice them extensively before taking them to ranked. Lets give an example for mages, a high tier, a mid tier, and a low tier.
Katarina - HIGH - Kat provides extremely potent AoE damage during teamfights. Played correctly, she can abuse her passive and dart around a teamfight dishing out unparalleled damage. Although she is melee and has no CC, she has a very dominant laning phase and she has few counters in lane. She is extremely potent during mid and late game, and once 6, she can roam effectively and be a huge threat during all stages of the game. Karthus - MID/HIGH - Karthus is a fantastic late game carry. He can stay relatively safe in lane due to the extreme range on his lay wastes, but his laning phase can be quite tough as he has quite a few 'counters' in lane. His ultimate provides a serious global threat to the enemy team all game, and his teamfighting and initiation are extremely strong. I would rank Karthus mid/high tier due to his ability to get shut out of teamfights (knockback) as well as his moderately weak laning phase and his poor roaming capabilities. Swain - MID - Swain has a lot of things going for him. He has good sustained aoe damage, good sustain, decent laning phase, good CC, etc. Unfortunately, he's pretty susceptable to ganks all game, and if he gets behind, he typically stays behind. If fed, he can be a force. Unfortunately, his damage late game isn't super potent, and he needs heaps of gold to really kick *** during late game. Ziggs - LOW - Ziggs is in a strange spot right now. He can work in a seige comp, and his laning phase isn't too awful, but he really doesn't contribute much to a team. His cc is extremely weak, his damage isn't amazing, and his ultimate isn't as strong as other mages'. He doesn't have much kill potential in lane, and ziggs isn't very good at roaming without his ult. Poor roaming, cc, mobility, and damage put ziggs pretty low on most tier lists.When you fully understand the strengths, weaknesses, and counters for the champs you play, you can assess the picks of both teams and correctly pick to either combo/assist your team or disrupt/counter the enemy team. For example, lee sin top or tristana adc is a fantastic counter to champions like morgana, irelia, and karthus who strive to be in the middle of teamfights (knockback). Maokai is a very smart pick if your opponents are stacking AoE (his ultimate mitigates a BUTTLOAD of aoe damage). If your enemies don't have any CC, katarina or eve can get in and do TONS OF DAMAGE (TM) without fear of getting locked down.
5. You can counterpick other roles from your role
There are lots of ways to counter, say, a mid champion, or an entire team comp, with a top or jungle champion. There are lots of ways to counter top and jungler champions with adcarries. If you can look past the laning phase and into the teamfighting phase when making your decisions during champion select, you can make the game extensively easier. FOR EXAMPLE:
-Against an enemy vayne, a strong jungler pick is skarner. You basically force her to build a cleanse sash quickly, weakening her mid-game presence. You can also counter vayne with gap-closing top champions, like jax.
-You are a low pick and top, and they currently have amumu, morgana, and sona. You counterpick with Olaf, as you can run through all of that CC. Olaf counters AoE+CC comps.
If you can pick a good lane matchup and pick a champion that will be effective in teamfights, you increase your teams' champions of winning. It's impossible for me to go into every interaction and counter, but I'm just making you aware that you can pick mid champ A to counter their mid champ AND their top champ.
6.a NEVER try to pick top or mid during the first rounds of picks.
Ideally, it's smart to leave top and mid for the last picks so that you can avoid getting counterpicked. If you are an early pick and you want top or mid, try to offer a trade. If your 4th pick wants ezreal and he has a big pool of champs, offer to pick him up ezreal if he'll pick your top. If you do get forced into picking a solo champ early, try your hardest to pick something versatile. If you HAVE to pick top early, as of January, champions like lee sin, AD nidalee, and elise are very safe picks for top (irelia, olaf, and jayce aren't bad either). If you HAVE to pick mid early, champions like morgana, lux, ryze, anivia, and zyra can be pretty safe. If you are 4th or 5th pick, encourage your team to give you top or mid so you can counterpick. Stress the point that you can counterpick and probably win the lane. Use lolcounter.com if you can't think of the direct counters off of the top of your head, I use it often. I had to pick a top when they had xin zhao and J4. I didn't know what countered both, so I checked lolcounter and saw that olaf countered them both. I picked olaf, vs'ed j4, and went legendary.
6.b. DISGUISING PICKS (below 1300 elo? ignore this):
If you want to throw your opponents off, there are some strategies you can implement to trick your opponents into picking in a certain manner. The way this is done is by picking champions that can perform in multiple roles, and then adjusting where that champ is going according to picks. This is impossible to do in low elo, as people don't understand such things, like counterpicking.
For example, in a highly coordinated team, you could 1st pick cho'gath. Lets say their next two picks are teemo top and katarina mid. AP Cho'gath mid destroys katarina, so if you or your team had coordinated this, cho'gath could go to someone who is comfortable in the matchup, and then you can counterpick teemo top with something like yorick or rumble. However, if they pick rumble top (bad matchup for cho) and orianna mid (another bad matchup), someone can take cho'gath and jungle. Other versatile champs that can play lots of roles is lee sin, xin, zyra (mid or support), elise (top, mid, jungle), kha'zix, jax (top/jungle), and a few others.
7. NEVER play a champion you aren't good or experienced with.
If your team encourages you to play something that you don't know how to play, please don't play it. Stick to what you know. Even if orianna would be great for your comp, if you can't play her, you won't be effective with her.
8. NEVER play a matchup you aren't comfortable and experienced with.
On paper, fizz can counter karthus, but if you're not comfortable with fizz, and/or you haven't played many fizz/karthus matchups, don't do it. If you don't know how to do it, don't do it.
9. ALWAYS look out to learn.
There are numerous resources at your disposal - some may or may not be chock-full of misinformation; this is another way of learning. Get your builds from watching streams, spectating high elo ranked games (through the lobby spectate window), or guides like this one and others on MobaFire, SoloMid, LoLPro and even LoLKing. As long as you're learning, you're improving your chances to win games.
10. ALWAYS dodge if you think you need to.
DODGE RANKED GAMES? THAT'S FOR *******S. No, dodging a ****ty team comp is a fantastic way to preserve your elo. What would you rather have;
- 30 minute queue timer
OR
- Incredibly painful ****py game where you guys get stomped, lose elo, and maybe get reported if you rage, oh and the game also takes 30 minutes
Ok, so dodging is sometimes necessary. When/how? Well, I'll tell you. A balanced team is just that, well balanced. Dodge games when:
- EXCESSIVE TROLLING/**** TAKLING BY TEAMMATES IN CHAMP SELECT
- AP top, AP mid, AP jungler (PURE MAGIC DAMAGE, sej jungle, elise top, ahri mid)
- No real support. Someone trolls and picks singed support, etc.
- AD top, AD mid, AD jungler (Xin jungle, Pantheon top, Talon mid, PURE AD)
- Nobody wants to play a particular role, nobody can jungle, nobody can support, etc.
- Duplicates. 2 ADCs, 2 supports, etc.
- Bad champions. Heimer, Fiora.*
- Insufficient CC
- Teammate you know from experience is garbage**
- Other troll picks (mundo top, zed adc, ashe support, xin zhao mid, etc)***
*Have lolking.net open during champion select. If one of your teammates picks something iffy/wierd like shaco jungle or fiddlesticks mid, lolking them. Dodge if:
1. They have more losses than wins with that champ in match history OR every game has them having a ****ty negative KDR.
2. They pick a ****ty solo laner (Fiora) and they haven't picked their lane yet, meaning they didn't pick it strategically to counterpick, and then they get counterpicked hard.
3. While you're there, if they have a huge elo loss for the week, might be OK to dodge then as well, like -150 or something.
**I keep a notepad document where I chronicle every time someone on my team or the enemy team just completely fails or trolls, all while exhibiting typical toxic player qualities. That way, I know to dodge them if I run into them in champ select and they even start hinting at trolling, I know to dodge them. Since I was in mid platinum, there were considerably FEWER people, so I actually ran into people over and over again. If you're in bronze, silver, or low gold, the odds of you running into the same people over and over again are practically 0, even if you constantly queue immediately after you finish a game. Might still be handy, though. Organize it every so often alphabetically for quick reference.
***Depends on the elo. At sub platinum, I'd be very wary of people picking something cheesy and then trying to say it works. I don't trust some random silver kid that his bs strategy is worth me gambling my elo. At plat and above, I have a bit more trust for cheese. When in doubt, check their lolking match history. If they've played it a few times recently and they did well with it, you might want to let it rock. I have been HARD CARRIED by cheese (1st time I saw lulu mid, pre-nerf) in the past.
11. Never get too locked into your role.
What I mean, is, if your top/mid gets counterpicked, it's viable in certain situations to swap lanes. If they pick a champion like pantheon or talon mid, it's certainly viable to stick your melee bruiser mid to **** on them. They've probably adjusted their runes and masteries in preparation to counter a mage. I'll give you examples:
-We were in champion select. They had swain, and I had an early pick and tried to disguise my pick as olaf. My ally picked fizz, and they picked talon. If I or fizz had been stubborn, we would have gone to our lanes and probably lost them (swain does well vs olaf, talon ****s on fizz). However, we devised that we should lane swap. I ended up going 13-0, and fizz did well too. YT VID BELOW
-Another game, our 1st pick picked lee sin. Their first picks were Malphite and Vlad. I was next pick, and I coordinated with lee sin that he should go mid and I should go top with rumble. I diversified our damage by picking AP top while counterpicking malphite. The lanes played out and things were going well. On his first back, malphite came to lane with boots, chalice, negatron cloak, and bottle. Upon seeing this, I told lee to immediately switch, and we did. Within 1 minute, lee sin had killed 45 armor 120 magic resist malphite.
Examples of top champs that can mid:
Yorick, Olaf, Riven, Jayce, Rumble, Lee sin etc
Mid champs that can top:
Kennen, Katarina, Swain, etc
(Too many to name, and the meta shifts constantly, so take this with a grain of salt)
=======================================
Diversifying Your Team in Champ Select
=======================================
A well balanced team consists of several components. Here are some off of the top of my head to name a few:
-Sufficient CC
-Strong magic damage source(s)
-Strong physical damage source(s)
-Tanky front line
-SOME range (skills + AA's)
-Someone has to have initiation
-AoE (this is debatable. You could conceive of a kite/poke comp that can beat an AoE comp, but some AoE will certainly make your teamfights better)
All of these components can be filled by all roles, to SOME degree. The exception would be a tanky AD Carry. The reason why certain champions are HIGH TIER is because they contribute to multiple roles at the same time.
Take amumu, for instance. Lets add tags to him.
+Sufficient CC (2 forms of CC, can potentially stun 6 times with one rotation of spells)
+Strong magic damage source (Amumu puts out tremendous damage if built with some penetration)
X No physical damage
+Tanky front line (with a balanced build, not only can he do good AoE damage, he can be quite tanky)
+SOME range (He has chasing power with bandage toss, and his ultimate has extensive range, although he is obviously melee)
+Great initiation (BT ult or flash ult)
+AoE (He's an AoE bomb)
Now, lets take a different champion. Lets look at Fiora. Lets assign all the tags we can to Fiora.
X No CC
X No Magic damage
X Extremely weak phyiscal DPS
X Not tanky
X No Range
X No Initiation
X SOME AoE on ultimate, but, it's just a ****ty ultimate
These things in mind, it's quite easy to see why Fiora doesn't really fit on many comps. Add on the fact that she has a weak laning phase and we can see why fiora is in the Fiora tier (aka **** tier).
If you are an early pick, try to pick something that brings a lot of utility. This is extremely important. If you MUST pick a solo or jungler early, make sure you pick someone that has as much to offer as possible. If you have a late pick, try to fill gaps and pick something with a lot of utility. Whether you need more tank, more cc, more physical damage or what have you, you can pick to flesh out the comp.
Just for fun, I'll try to use ADcarries to fill the requirements listed above. You can, on your own time, make your own lists in the comments section for each specific role and have a debate on where champions belong.
-Sufficient CC (Vayne, Varus, Ashe)
-Strong magic damage source(s) (Varus, Kog'maw, Vayne (true damage>magic damage))
-Strong physical damage source(s) (All!)
-Tanky front line (Graves?)
-SOME range (skills + AA's) (All)
-Someone has to have initiation (Ashe, Varus)
-AoE (Graves, Varus, Ashe, Ezreal (ultimate, frozen fist))
PHASE 4: In-game.
ADJUST YOUR PLAYSTYLE
There are generally two playstyles. Ham-crazy-hog-wild aggression, and *yawn* passive. Of course, it is very effective to switch between these when the situation calls for it, and identifying when is the mark of a good player.
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AGGRESSIVE (AKA I'M GONNA GIT YOU) CERTAIN SITUATIONS CALL FOR AGGRESSION. WHEN YOU ARE IN A MATCHUP YOU FEEL EXTREMELY CONFIDENT IN, OR WHEN YOU KNOW YOU CAN HARASS AND LOSE NOTHING FOR IT, IT'S TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE TO TURN UP THE JUICE, ZONE, DENY CS, AND POKE. FOR JUNGLERS, IF YOU'RE PLAYING A GANKING JUNGLER, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE LANES, LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO OVEREXTEND. WHEN ONE OF YOUR OPPONENTS' FLASH IS DOWN, IT'S A GOOD INDICATOR THAT THEY ARE VERY VULNERABLE TO GETTING PINCHED. YES, THIS IS ME SHOUTING. If your aggression is rewarded, it can be more effective to zone your lane opponent from cs (if zoning from exp is possible as well, fantastic) than to continue the balls-to-the-wall aggression. It's more effective to zone while cs'ing than it is to abandon the cs and chase your opponent back to their tower for no reason. You're both getting denied. |
Passive (aka I'm gonna out farm you) Playing passive effectively is an art. During my climb to platinum, I played exceedingly passive. My main champion was Morgana, and my primary goal was to:1. Secure 100% of cs 2. Harass with pools and AA's 3. Stay safe from ganks, waste the jungler's time (black shield) 4. Prevent my lane from roaming by warding the sides of my lane and shoving waves into his tower. |
Switching between these two modes can really mess with your opponents' collective heads. I'm not going into too much detail on aggressive and passive play, as it depends on what champion you're playing, what champion they're playing, positioning, what your jungler is playing, what level you are, what level THEY are, have they bought yet, have you bought yet, and possibly most important, what THEIR jungler is playing etc etc etc. Too much to talk about here.
KEEP YOUR BUILDS FLUID
An extremely common mistake I see in low elo are players' innability to build correctly. What I mean is, you shouldn't have one single set build for a champion in your mind and adhere to it throughout the game. Sometimes, they have stronger AD over AP, and vice versa, and it's important to itemize for each individual game. It's ok to have your first 2-4k gold planned out, but even then, you might have to vary your itemization as early as your 1st recall. Guides are great to follow (except 98% of moba guides), but don't get too stuck into their specific builds. If you intend to build a common aura item (frozen heart, abyssal, aegis), communicate with your team EARLY and make sure you don't end up with 2 aura items.
It's not about "hurr they do physical, I buy armor," there's more to it than that. Sometimes, you need to shut down auto attackers, and which is better for this situation; randuins or frozen heart?
examples:
-Malphite top vs excessive magic damage team comp - Don't build too many armor items. 1-2 will suffice, but try to branch into MR early.
-Lee sin top vs triple AD and their ap mid is failing hard - Don't build hexdrinker.
OBJECTIVES
How do you win a game? Kill da nexus. How do you get to the point where you can destroy their base? You have to have certain things going for you:
1. Massive gold lead
2. Emaculate synergy and perfect teamfighting.
Since this is solo queue, it's harder to achieve the second, but it's easy to achieve the first. The easiest way to turn small victories into HUGE advantages is to score objectives such as dragon, towers, or baron. If the jungler executes a successful gank on bottom and either kills one (or both), or sends them both back with ~10% hp, it's probably a great time to take dragon, or their bot tower if dragon is down, or maybe even both. Call your mid laner down if he's not there already and kill dragon.
Certain champions have fantastic objective control, that is to say that they're extremely potent at killing baron and dragon. Champions like shaco, vayne, kog'maw, cho'gath, and karthus are a few examples of proficient objective champs. Vayne and kog'maw do good percent damage or big chunks of true damage from silver bolts, jungle cho can instantly burst dragon down from 1700+HP to 0, and karthus with blue does really solid sustained damage to dragon if he's not interrupted from spamming lay waste. Shaco can easily sneak and solo dragon with madreds/wriggles and his ultimate.
Examples: brand, elise, heimer, jax, kha'zix, miss fortune, nunu, nasus if ulted, rengar, shen, sivir (ult), varus, warwick, zyra are good as well, etc.
If your teamcomp is very slow at killing dragon/baron, don't attempt to do it when your opponents are alive and healthy and near. Good times to do it are when someone is obviously backing, like the adc, mid, or jungler, when their jungler is ganking top, or when one or a few members of their team is dead.
JUNGLERS: NEVER ATTEMPT DRAGON WHEN YOUR SMITE IS DOWN. IF YOU FEEL A DRAGON COMING IN THE NEAR FUTURE, DO NOT USE YOUR SMITE. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH NOT SMITING ANYTHING FOR 2 MINUTES IN ANTICIPATION FOR A DRAGON. THE WORST POSSIBLE THING TO HAPPEN IS FOR DRAGON TO GET STOLEN BY A LUX/EZREAL ULT, OR THE ENEMY JUNGLER DRIVE BY SMITING THE DRAGON AND GETTING AWAY SCOTT FREE. DON'T. DO. IT. Unless you've literally just aced them, of course. Then, by all means, kill that baron/dragon, dawg.
WHEN DO WE GROUP?
This is one of the most important questions to address. Grouping is one of the strongest strategies in the game, but executed poorly, it can actually be a huge detriment.
Group when:
1. You have a huge gold lead; when you are extremely far ahead, the only hope of your opponents is to pick you off one by one. By grouping and forcing objectives, you are forcing your opponents to either engage and lose, or give up towers.
2. All of your tier 1 towers are down, or all of their tier 1 towers are down; this is a good indicator that the laning phase is over. Once towers are down for either team, the lane becomes more precarious for your team, either they have to farm too far up the lane or they have no protection from their tower. Grouping will ensure that you don't get picked off. If your opponents are still farming with no tower behind them, call for your team.
3. You are losing and/or getting picked off constantly by assassins; if the enemy eve has roamed bottom twice and stomped your bot lane, it is clearly time to abandon the lane and group up. If something isn't working, repeating the strategy is extremely foolish. If your lanes are not doing well/losing, group up to ensure you retain control.
Don't group when:
1. Towers are still up and your opponents are still farming normally and the game is somewhat even; sometimes, the laning phase is very extended, and this is OK.
2. You have split pushers; with a nidalee or shen top, it might be best to put pressure on the lines while your top laner forces the enemy team to deal with them.
3. The enemy team is getting pubstomped; if your lanes are CONSTANTLY killing their lane opponents, there's no reason to group. Let the lanes keep pubstomping.
What is my job? Breakdown by role:
TOP: Your job is to crush your lane opponent. Top lane is generally the bruiser lane, and bruisers are extremely dependent on farm. Counterpick your opponent and punish them when they attempt to farm. Additionally, you can roam mid if your lane opponent is freezing or dead. When your team is going to dragon, you can choose to assist or not. If your team crushed their team and is securing a safe dragon, you are not required. If your team is going to dragon while your opponents are alive, you should start running down just in case things go sour. I personally prefer to take the top tower as SOON AS POSSIBLE to secure some gold for my team and allow me to swing down for dragon/their jungle whenever I feel like it.
MID: Your job is to kill your lane opponent and roam. Ideally, you can push your lane opponent around and use any time they aren't in the lane to roam bottom and secure kills. You can roam top, but helping bot out is more impactful to the game. Your job is to ward around mid lane to make sure that your lane opponent doesn't suprise buttsecks your bot lane.
ADC: Farm, kite, be a boss. Your job is to do as much damage as possible during teamfights which means attacking the tanks is ok as long as you stay safe.
SUPPORT: Keep your ADC safe, die for him if necessary, block skillshots, exhaust important targets. Don't take cs.
JUNGLE: This is important to remember; don't try to do too much. Jungling is by far the most dynamic role and carries with it a lot of responsibility. The most important lane to gank is bot lane, but it is definitely the most difficult. Top and mid are equally important to gank, but top is much easier if it is unwarded. If a lane is dying constantly 1v1, just abandon the lane. They suck. I could write a novel on jungling nuances, and I may later, but for now, just watch jungler streams. Make sure you keep track of EVERYONE'S flash. If you force someone to burn flash, don't leave. Fake a back, turn around, and gank him again.
HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR TEAM
Every team is different. Some are extremely difficult while some just work well together without having to say a word. Team chemistry is always different, but there are some tennents that hold true from game to game.
1. There needs to be a team captain.
It's the job of the team captain to make calls, calling things such as, "all mid push" "dragon" "invade blue" etc. Typically, early on, whoever takes the initiative can assume the role of team captain. As the early game progresses, it should typically fall to the role of the jungler to make the calls, as lanes are pretty static. It's on the jungler to call out where's ganking and call for early objectives. As mid game roles around, team captain may shift to whoever is currently doing the 'best' on your team. People are more apt to listen to a 9-0 jax than a 2-2 nocturne, even if nocturne has contributed plenty to the early game. If you take the role of team captain, be warned. A bad baron/dragon call is all it takes to throw a game.
2. Never flame.
There is a difference between reprimanding and flaming, see if you can tell the difference.
"You need to buy a ward for top so you don't get ganked that easily again"
"WOW U ****ING ******. YOU ARE ****ING AWFUL, I SHOULD HAVE TOP'D"
Some people may take reprimanding poorly, and get defensive, but that's on them. Addressing the problems your team is having WHILE offering a solution will give them an opportunity to correct problem behaviors. If your adc gets caught mid/late game, don't call them a ******, just tell them to group and don't go off alone again.
3. Keep lines of communication open.
ADC's should be communicating often with their support/vice versa. Tops and mids should be communicating with their jungler, and vice versa. As a jungler, it can be effective to ask your laners where the wards are, if they know. It gives you good information while encouraging cooperation. You should also always call out when enemy summoner spells are burned. A simple 'top no flash' may encourage your jungler to come and clean up a free kill or two while their escapes are down. It also lets your teammates know that you're willing to be a part of the team. I'll give you some examples.
You are mid morgana, and your lane is not going super hot. You just hit level 5, you haven't died yet, but you're starting to get bullied. Your jungler is nocturne. Which is correct?
> "****ING HELP ME NOC THIS GUY IS SUCH A ****ING LUCKER"
> "Noc, I'm almost 6, gank when I'm 6 for a free kill, no wards mid, he has flash"
Obviously, the second option mentions your lane is having problems while also offering a solution. Spamming your jungler GANK PLZ GANK PLZ GANK PLZ HALP will probably make them even less likely to come to your lane. Having high WPM (words per minute) will allow you to convey more information in a shorter amount of time.
CONCLUSION:
This ends my guide. I hope to expand it and improve it in the near future as I get feedback from you. Again, I want to stress that this is not gospel. This is me attempting to write my experiences down on paper. I wrote this for you guys, those of you who feel stuck. I've been asked these questions 1,000 times:
"How can I win a game when my top goes 0-10-0?"
"I'm stuck in 1300 and my teammates feed and are noobs. What do?"
"I played ranked after getting to 30 playing nothing but co-op vs ai and lost all my placements. Halp"
I just want to say here that not every game is winnable. Sometimes your opponents are more skilled than you and your allies, or someone on your team is having an off game, or someone on the enemy team is playing out of their mind.
That being said, NEVER GIVE UP. Even if someone is getting destroyed, there is always a chance your opponents will throw the game. If your team is getting wrecked, encourage your team to group and try a couple of teamfights. I
TIME SENSITIVE SECTION
In this section, I will describe from personal experience some winning strategies that I find to be very strong. However, with each new patch the meta always shifts around. Items and champs fall and rise, and I'll talk about that here. You will see the date last updated below, and then some strategies. I will update this section at least every patch, if not more frequently.
AS OF 2/7/13
Important bans:
Kha'zix
Blitzcrank
Shen
Amumu
Katarina!!
Mediocre bans:
Twisted fate
Malphite
Lee Sin
We are definitely playing the League of Assassins, at the moment. If they have an assassin tag, they're probably pretty strong at the moment. Your akali, your kha'zix, your eve; they are a big gamble, but they have ridiculous payoff if executed correctly.
It is also kind of the league of liandry's torment. We finally got what we mages wanted, and that was an upgrade to haunting guise, and damn, what a strong item. They will nerf the health very soon, though. It's not viable on every mage, but if your mage has natural cc, aoe, etc, it's certainly viable (LEAGUE OF LIANDRYS RUMBLE)
AS PER ABOVE:
TOP CHAMPS:
Shen (banned often)
magic pen marks, armor seals, mr scaling glyphs, movespeed, armor or health quints
9-21-0
Shen brings a lot of utility to a team. He has a great laning phase in a lot of matchups and his taunt can be skilled at level 1 for invades. He has decent burst early and can cc his lane opponent during a jungle gank. If you keep your energy up, you're hard to kill during a gank. He's also a sick split pusher. VS AD champs, I'll rush a sunfire cape and shove all day long, looking to jump into fights with my ultimate. I then pick up a static shivv (superior push power) if our team is dominating, or a wits end (superior dps to champs) if we're closer to even. VS AP champs, I'll pick up a null, giants belt, and wit's end early, and then complete sunfire cape.
Olaf
AD marks, armor seals, flat mr glyphs, MS quints
9-21-0
Olaf is an EXCEPTIONAL pick against cc heavy teams. Ashe, taric, morgana, irelia, and warwick? Olaf is the viking for you. Olaf not only has a dominant laning phase vs most bruisers, he has a lot of options to obliterate teamfights. If you're against a ranged character in lane (you probably don't want this matchup) then max your axes. Against most melee, you want to max e. Don't put a point into w until level 13. Axes level 1 always. Olaf is no slouch in invades, as long as you pick up axes. You have two choices for mid-late strat and builds.
Is your adc/mage kicking ***/getting fed? Get frozen mallet and PEEL for him during teamfights. That means you sit on him, and use your slowing auto attacks and axes to keep people off of your adc/mage.
Are your carries sucking? Ignore your carries, pop ghost and your ultimate, and run through their team and obliterate their carries. If they have high mobility characters, you might be sunk (ezreal, fizz, etc) but if they have low mobility characters (ashe, varus, karthus) then you're set.
If you're worried about physical damage, pick up a sunfire. Magic damage, warmogs+maw. You can build almost anything on olaf, from frozen heart all the way to aegis. Build for their comp, and you can't lose.
Other strong, versatile tops: lee sin, AD nidalee, rumble
JUNGLERS:
Hecarim
build: not sure, not a hec player
Hecarim is a solo queue star. Early ganks, great damage output, solid early, mid and late game, exceptional teamfighter, hecarim has it all. His objective control isn't great, but his kit is quite strong.
Lee Sin
AD marks/quints, armor seals, MR glyphs
19-11-0
Lee is a fantastic ganker and counterjungler. It is lee's job to snowball the early game for his laners and get carried late game. You CAN go dps, but if your team is light on CC, pick up a madreds, boots 5, then frozen mallet, and peel all day long. Ward the enemy jungle after your 1st back and try to harass them at their buffs or just smite steal them.
Other versatile junglers: Amumu, Skarner (Some pros say he's weak right now, but I think he's pretty well balanced and fits on a wide variety of team comps), olaf, j4
MIDS:
Ryze
mpen marks, armor or mana regen seals, flat mr glyphs, MS quints
9-0-21
Ryze is a jack-of-all-trades. Strong laning phase vs a wide variety of opponents combined with exceptional teamfighting potential makes for a well balanced champion. Ryze is going to be nerfed soon (sometime in January, maybe early Feb). Get some games in before he loses some power.
flask, 2 hp pots, faerie.
boots, tear
catalyst
If you need MR immediately, turn it into BV now.
If you need armor, get a glacial shroud now.
If you need neither, get RoA.
Finish those items, toss in a void staff, mercs, and manamune, win game.
Cho'gath
mpen marks, armor seals, flat mr glyphs, ap or ms quints
21-0-9 or 21-9-0 or 9-12-9 or 9-9-12, your choice. I prefer 21-0-9 for easier lanes, 9-12-9 for harder lanes.
Cho'gath is very strong versus a lot of popular picks for mid. He is one of the hardest counters to katarina. With some skill, he is an exceptional teamfighter, and his silence and rupture have huge utility all game. With feast, you should ensure your team never gets dragon stolen or baron stolen. I have flash+feasted dragon and baron and stolen it many times. His exceptional sustain will beat out weak mid poke. I prefer athene's->chain vest->rabadons->glacial shroud->etc. I skip RoA, I think it's extremely junky on mid cho. Opt for resists, AP, and cooldowns. Once you hit 6 and get the second blue, spam feast on creeps to stack feast as quickly as possible. Max scream, then rupture. 1 point in vorpal spikes at level 4, max it last.
Other versatile mids: Evelynn, Twisted Fate, Morgana, Katarina, Orianna, Karthus, Pantheon, Vladimir, Syndra, Swain (risky)
It would behoove you to check out Elementz's Competitive play Tier list. Even though it's for competitive play, it still holds true for solo queue; the strong champions are strong, and the weak champions are weak. (LINK)
Lolcounter.com
Pretty decent resource on matchups for lazy people.
Played +40 games as support, won +30 of em as solo que.
As support you have really good chances to get the AD carry fed and make the calls.
Map awarness is priceless also. Also makes the life of enemies ad carry a hell, if you play well.
After playing on both CN and NA I realized that most NA players in higher elos focus on individual gameplay and perfection while players in CN focus on game flow and teamplay.
Nickwu's repping him hurr.