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Save your IP for both strong champions and champions you like in general. Tier 2 runes are alright enough that it won't matter what you run.
In regards to improving your play, don't focus on macro decisions yet, focus only on your play. Make sure you're playing as optimally as possible. If you have trouble PVPing, but are good at poking, pick champions that can simply harass and win that way. You don't need to finish off your opponent if you can keep poking them and forcing them back, allowing you to gain a lead. Play champions that can just play safer until then.
Especially at level 14, don't worry about anything. Keep playing and trying out champions you like and improving your mechanics. DON'T START DOING RANKED once you hit thirty. Unless you're naturally gifted at the game, you'll be better off waiting and improving upon your skills so that you don't have to climb out of bronze. Playing at low levels will reinforce bad habits so you want to keep improving at normals until you're confident in yourself.
With ADCs, in teamfights all that matters is that you hit something. You shouldn't be on Ezreal and try to assassinate the enemy midlaner or ADC. Simply stay at your maximum range and hit whoever is closest, even if that's a tank. Until you get good enough to improve positioning and know when you can go in or not, this advice will work.
Again, don't worry about macro decisions. Play until your personal play is good, then you can begin to worry about macro decisions.
In regards to improving your play, don't focus on macro decisions yet, focus only on your play. Make sure you're playing as optimally as possible. If you have trouble PVPing, but are good at poking, pick champions that can simply harass and win that way. You don't need to finish off your opponent if you can keep poking them and forcing them back, allowing you to gain a lead. Play champions that can just play safer until then.
Especially at level 14, don't worry about anything. Keep playing and trying out champions you like and improving your mechanics. DON'T START DOING RANKED once you hit thirty. Unless you're naturally gifted at the game, you'll be better off waiting and improving upon your skills so that you don't have to climb out of bronze. Playing at low levels will reinforce bad habits so you want to keep improving at normals until you're confident in yourself.
With ADCs, in teamfights all that matters is that you hit something. You shouldn't be on Ezreal and try to assassinate the enemy midlaner or ADC. Simply stay at your maximum range and hit whoever is closest, even if that's a tank. Until you get good enough to improve positioning and know when you can go in or not, this advice will work.
Again, don't worry about macro decisions. Play until your personal play is good, then you can begin to worry about macro decisions.
Thank you Jovy for this bomb *** sig!
4) It is normal to have trouble playing a melee champ when you first start. IMO you have to know more about quite a few things before you see the similarities between melee and ranged (they do the same thing but at different ranges, which is easier to say then to see when someone is in your character's face bashing you). E.g. one of the main things is that your are probably taking more creep aggro than if you were shooting your target from range.
While playing a ranged character practice always moving. Once you see your projectile animation in the air move. Move randomly while keeping creeps between you and the enemy laners.
You can also fiddle around with Attack+Move (defaulted to the A key) and attack move + click (don't remember to the default key...I bind it to the A key) to facilitate orb walking. You'll use this stuff with every champion once you get comfortable with it.
Once you get moving down then your can worry about things like trading with the enemy laners.
Just worry about one aspect of the game at time.
5) I'd suggest saving your IP until you can buy Tier 3 runes. Once you hit level 30 you should have enough IP saved up to fill out about 2 rune pages.
I'd get
9 Atk Dmg Marks
9 Armor Seals
9 Magic Resistance Glyphs
3 Attack Dmg Quints
9 Magic Penetration Marks
3 AP Quints
optionally 3 Atk Speed Quints (this is the most common quint for attack damage carries like Ashe)
That gives you one Pokey (AD damage Page) and one Blasty (AP damage Page). Those basics will cover your for virtually any champion at this point. Later on if you fall in love with a champion you can start thinking about buying runes and creating specific rune pages for that champion.
Once you have two good rune pages then consider using IP on champions.
While playing a ranged character practice always moving. Once you see your projectile animation in the air move. Move randomly while keeping creeps between you and the enemy laners.
You can also fiddle around with Attack+Move (defaulted to the A key) and attack move + click (don't remember to the default key...I bind it to the A key) to facilitate orb walking. You'll use this stuff with every champion once you get comfortable with it.
Once you get moving down then your can worry about things like trading with the enemy laners.
Just worry about one aspect of the game at time.
5) I'd suggest saving your IP until you can buy Tier 3 runes. Once you hit level 30 you should have enough IP saved up to fill out about 2 rune pages.
I'd get
9 Atk Dmg Marks
9 Armor Seals
9 Magic Resistance Glyphs
3 Attack Dmg Quints
9 Magic Penetration Marks
3 AP Quints
optionally 3 Atk Speed Quints (this is the most common quint for attack damage carries like
Ashe)That gives you one Pokey (AD damage Page) and one Blasty (AP damage Page). Those basics will cover your for virtually any champion at this point. Later on if you fall in love with a champion you can start thinking about buying runes and creating specific rune pages for that champion.
Once you have two good rune pages then consider using IP on champions.
Unres
<Member>
<Member>
Thanks for the replies guys :).
In regards to the macro stuff, my question wasn't aimed at doing more complex plays, but whether I should be following my teammates into really terrible situations like 5v5 barons or roaming all the way to the inner turret during the laning phase.
Yeah, I know that whenever I've tried to play melee champions, I'm never sure whether I should be using my gap closers as engages or disengages. So I end up just taking a lot of poke against a ranged champion.
I'm decent at kiting minions, but it falls apart during teamfights. When everything explodes on the screen at the same time, I kind of lose track of everything and my kiting goes out the window (as well as any attempts to position...). I've had attack move click assigned to my spacebar since day one though. I find it a lot easier to use than the A-key.
You both gave pretty different opinions on the IP stuff. I'm thinking of maybe buying one mid and bot champion when I find something I like and then save up for Tier 3 rune pages for ADC/APC.
FatelBlade wrote:
In regards to improving your play, don't focus on macro decisions yet, focus only on your play. Make sure you're playing as optimally as possible. If you have trouble PVPing, but are good at poking, pick champions that can simply harass and win that way. You don't need to finish off your opponent if you can keep poking them and forcing them back, allowing you to gain a lead. Play champions that can just play safer until then.
With ADCs, in teamfights all that matters is that you hit something. You shouldn't be on Ezreal and try to assassinate the enemy midlaner or ADC. Simply stay at your maximum range and hit whoever is closest, even if that's a tank. Until you get good enough to improve positioning and know when you can go in or not, this advice will work.
Again, don't worry about macro decisions. Play until your personal play is good, then you can begin to worry about macro decisions.
With ADCs, in teamfights all that matters is that you hit something. You shouldn't be on Ezreal and try to assassinate the enemy midlaner or ADC. Simply stay at your maximum range and hit whoever is closest, even if that's a tank. Until you get good enough to improve positioning and know when you can go in or not, this advice will work.
Again, don't worry about macro decisions. Play until your personal play is good, then you can begin to worry about macro decisions.
In regards to the macro stuff, my question wasn't aimed at doing more complex plays, but whether I should be following my teammates into really terrible situations like 5v5 barons or roaming all the way to the inner turret during the laning phase.
VexRoth wrote:
4) It is normal to have trouble playing a melee champ when you first start. IMO you have to know more about quite a few things before you see the similarities between melee and ranged (they do the same thing but at different ranges, which is easier to say then to see when someone is in your character's face bashing you). E.g. one of the main things is that your are probably taking more creep aggro than if you were shooting your target from range.
While playing a ranged character practice always moving. Once you see your projectile animation in the air move. Move randomly while keeping creeps between you and the enemy laners.
You can also fiddle around with Attack+Move (defaulted to the A key) and attack move + click (don't remember to the default key...I bind it to the A key) to facilitate orb walking. You'll use this stuff with every champion once you get comfortable with it.
Once you get moving down then your can worry about things like trading with the enemy laners.
While playing a ranged character practice always moving. Once you see your projectile animation in the air move. Move randomly while keeping creeps between you and the enemy laners.
You can also fiddle around with Attack+Move (defaulted to the A key) and attack move + click (don't remember to the default key...I bind it to the A key) to facilitate orb walking. You'll use this stuff with every champion once you get comfortable with it.
Once you get moving down then your can worry about things like trading with the enemy laners.
Yeah, I know that whenever I've tried to play melee champions, I'm never sure whether I should be using my gap closers as engages or disengages. So I end up just taking a lot of poke against a ranged champion.
I'm decent at kiting minions, but it falls apart during teamfights. When everything explodes on the screen at the same time, I kind of lose track of everything and my kiting goes out the window (as well as any attempts to position...). I've had attack move click assigned to my spacebar since day one though. I find it a lot easier to use than the A-key.
You both gave pretty different opinions on the IP stuff. I'm thinking of maybe buying one mid and bot champion when I find something I like and then save up for Tier 3 rune pages for ADC/APC.
I'll take a crack at this.
1) I watch the LCS/LCK streams pretty frequently (probably more than I play), so I have a decent understanding of macro decisions relative to the people I play against (level 14 in unranked). One of the issues I'm having is that those type of macro plays never happen in my games. We'll do suicidal baron attempts when all 5 enemies are alive, there's minimal objective pushing after fights, we generally don't have a team fight phase, the support (or adc if I’m support) will keep pushing to the inner turret even if we don’t have good vision, junglers try to gank when I’m out of mana and/or hp, etc… How should I be handling these types of situations? Should I be following my team to Baron even if I think we’re going to get slaughtered in the pit and do I ditch my fellow bot laner when he pushes too aggressively(I do too sometimes, but I’m trying to tamp down on that) and we don’t know where the jungler/mid-laner are?
It's good to have some familiarity with professional play but it's no substitute for experience. Focus on your fundamentals (CSing, ability + kiting mechanics, positioning, map awareness) and get your game knowledge up to snuff. You don't want to be surprised by something because you didn't understand how an ability works or what an item does.
2) I’m decent at the laning phase compared to most people I play with/against since I usually have one of the higher CS scores and I’m alright at poking with skillshots. But once the mid-game comes, I’m usually lost as to what I should be doing. Should I push my lane and then try roaming mid? Also, come late-game, I try to stick around with my teammates, but I’m never really sure when the appropriate time is to manage the side-waves since there’s usually not one big teamfight, but just long extended skirmishes.
Mid-game decisions depend on role, but a basic principle is to put pressure on the outer towers first, then take control of the enemy jungle while you pressure the inner towers + baron and dragon. If you're playing bot lane and you break the bottom first tower, you usually want to push out (and maybe recall to buy) and push down the mid tower. Make sure you pick up waves before they crash into your own towers though, or you'll lose farm.
A decent rule of thumb is that if there is more than 6 minions hitting your tower, you should probably go pick up that farm. Obviously try not to make your team lose a fight over it, but it's better than sitting grouped as 5 doing nothing while the CS dies to tower. It doesn't take much time to manage side waves, just show up, clear the existing minions and maybe one more wave, then you can go and group with your team again.
3) I’m pretty sure that my biggest weakness right now is my ability to PvP. In the laning phase, I generally out-poke my opponents, but I’m quite bad at finishing them off. In the mid and late-game, even if I’m slightly ahead, I have trouble engaging and finding picks. In team fights, I have trouble getting a lot of damage in since I tend to play very squishy champions. I hang behind my teammates which means I only get a few hits in. When I try and get a little closer, I get engaged on and usually die unless the opponent is weak.
These things vary a lot based on what champion you're playing. Long range mages like Lux can stay at a safe distance and cast constantly during team fights. Combo mages like Syndra want to use basic spells and save their full combo for specific targets. Most AD carries (Marksmen) want to be autoattacking as much as possible without getting themselves killed, no matter who their target is. The best way to improve at this is to play the same champions a lot until you get a feel for what they're capable of.
In terms of not being able to secure kills, it's less important than you think. If you poke someone low and they have to recall, just shove in the minion wave and you'll have a gold and XP advantage. Some champions aren't very good at finishing off kills but they're better at poking, which is fine.
I'd try Vel'Koz; he's pretty fun and not unlike Lux. I play those two champions when I have to play mid.
I'd buy a few champions that you've tried on freeweek and really enjoyed or are interested in, then save the rest for Greater runes. Feel free to buy the lower tier of runes while you're leveling as they're only 1 IP each. Some people don't care much about runes/masteries and just like the champions while other people like me enjoy having a lot of options for optimizing runes for different champions. You'll have to decide which is more important to you, but owning a handful of champions plus two full Greater rune pages is a good place to start.
Easier said than done, but you want to follow your team for sub-optimal plays and abandon them for hopeless plays. Dying because your teammate made a bad decision isn't good, but if your team is gonna do baron, it's usually best to go with them. Just try and keep yourself safe and help your team as much as possible. Especially while you're learning, it's good to try to follow up on things your team does so you'll know for sure if their calls will work out or not.
Unres wrote:
1) I watch the LCS/LCK streams pretty frequently (probably more than I play), so I have a decent understanding of macro decisions relative to the people I play against (level 14 in unranked). One of the issues I'm having is that those type of macro plays never happen in my games. We'll do suicidal baron attempts when all 5 enemies are alive, there's minimal objective pushing after fights, we generally don't have a team fight phase, the support (or adc if I’m support) will keep pushing to the inner turret even if we don’t have good vision, junglers try to gank when I’m out of mana and/or hp, etc… How should I be handling these types of situations? Should I be following my team to Baron even if I think we’re going to get slaughtered in the pit and do I ditch my fellow bot laner when he pushes too aggressively(I do too sometimes, but I’m trying to tamp down on that) and we don’t know where the jungler/mid-laner are?
It's good to have some familiarity with professional play but it's no substitute for experience. Focus on your fundamentals (CSing, ability + kiting mechanics, positioning, map awareness) and get your game knowledge up to snuff. You don't want to be surprised by something because you didn't understand how an ability works or what an item does.
Unres wrote:
2) I’m decent at the laning phase compared to most people I play with/against since I usually have one of the higher CS scores and I’m alright at poking with skillshots. But once the mid-game comes, I’m usually lost as to what I should be doing. Should I push my lane and then try roaming mid? Also, come late-game, I try to stick around with my teammates, but I’m never really sure when the appropriate time is to manage the side-waves since there’s usually not one big teamfight, but just long extended skirmishes.
Mid-game decisions depend on role, but a basic principle is to put pressure on the outer towers first, then take control of the enemy jungle while you pressure the inner towers + baron and dragon. If you're playing bot lane and you break the bottom first tower, you usually want to push out (and maybe recall to buy) and push down the mid tower. Make sure you pick up waves before they crash into your own towers though, or you'll lose farm.
A decent rule of thumb is that if there is more than 6 minions hitting your tower, you should probably go pick up that farm. Obviously try not to make your team lose a fight over it, but it's better than sitting grouped as 5 doing nothing while the CS dies to tower. It doesn't take much time to manage side waves, just show up, clear the existing minions and maybe one more wave, then you can go and group with your team again.
Unres wrote:
3) I’m pretty sure that my biggest weakness right now is my ability to PvP. In the laning phase, I generally out-poke my opponents, but I’m quite bad at finishing them off. In the mid and late-game, even if I’m slightly ahead, I have trouble engaging and finding picks. In team fights, I have trouble getting a lot of damage in since I tend to play very squishy champions. I hang behind my teammates which means I only get a few hits in. When I try and get a little closer, I get engaged on and usually die unless the opponent is weak.
These things vary a lot based on what champion you're playing. Long range mages like Lux can stay at a safe distance and cast constantly during team fights. Combo mages like Syndra want to use basic spells and save their full combo for specific targets. Most AD carries (Marksmen) want to be autoattacking as much as possible without getting themselves killed, no matter who their target is. The best way to improve at this is to play the same champions a lot until you get a feel for what they're capable of.
In terms of not being able to secure kills, it's less important than you think. If you poke someone low and they have to recall, just shove in the minion wave and you'll have a gold and XP advantage. Some champions aren't very good at finishing off kills but they're better at poking, which is fine.
Unres wrote:
4) ... My question is, what other champions do you guys think I’d enjoy based on that information?
I'd try
Vel'Koz; he's pretty fun and not unlike Lux. I play those two champions when I have to play mid.Unres wrote:
5) Also, what should I be using my IP for?
I'd buy a few champions that you've tried on freeweek and really enjoyed or are interested in, then save the rest for Greater runes. Feel free to buy the lower tier of runes while you're leveling as they're only 1 IP each. Some people don't care much about runes/masteries and just like the champions while other people like me enjoy having a lot of options for optimizing runes for different champions. You'll have to decide which is more important to you, but owning a handful of champions plus two full Greater rune pages is a good place to start.
Unres wrote:
In regards to the macro stuff, my question wasn't aimed at doing more complex plays, but whether I should be following my teammates into really terrible situations like 5v5 barons or roaming all the way to the inner turret during the laning phase.
Easier said than done, but you want to follow your team for sub-optimal plays and abandon them for hopeless plays. Dying because your teammate made a bad decision isn't good, but if your team is gonna do baron, it's usually best to go with them. Just try and keep yourself safe and help your team as much as possible. Especially while you're learning, it's good to try to follow up on things your team does so you'll know for sure if their calls will work out or not.
Thanks to The_Nameless_Bard for the sig!
Unres wrote:
I'm decent at kiting minions, but it falls apart during teamfights. When everything explodes on the screen at the same time, I kind of lose track of everything and my kiting goes out the window (as well as any attempts to position...). I've had attack move click assigned to my spacebar since day one though. I find it a lot easier to use than the A-key.
To get more practice at team fighting you might try playing a good chunk of ARAMs on Howling Abyss. Lots of team fights and some chasing.
That helped me to pick out my character more reliably in a scrum and gave me more practice at focusing on a specific target while under some duress.
1) My dad also watches quite a lot of professional play. He tries his hardest, but he is Bronze V, I believe. Some of the things you see happen in professional play simply won't happen in a normal game, especially pre-30. If you're looking to play a champion who can carry from the sidelines and doesn't necessarily need to follow the team, consider playing top lane champions who excel at split-pushing. I'm thinking Singed, Yorick, Tryndamere. At your level, your opponents will struggle to deal with these champions.
2) Check where the enemy champions are. If they are all top lane and bottom lane is pushing to take down a turret, it is generally safe to push with that wave, assuming they don't have teleport up. Are the enemy champions mid lane, going to take down your mid turret? Then you should be there defending or ready for a teamfight. Once laning phase is over, and you're struggling to think of things to do based on your teammates, start making decisions yourself based on the enemy team's movements.
3) Try playing Nasus top lane and learning how to last hit and harass with Q. I think that may help you with the idea of trading and figuring out how much damage you can take before being destroyed. You can then take those mechanics back with you to bot lane as an ADC.
4) Similar to Lux is Morgana. Annie is also a pretty safe support/mid lane champion. If you want to try the jungle with a champion with a reload system like Jhin, you could try Graves. Miss Fortune is fun as support too, if you'd like to try that.
5) I'd save IP for T3 runes.
Singed, Yorick, Tryndamere. At your level, your opponents will struggle to deal with these champions.2) Check where the enemy champions are. If they are all top lane and bottom lane is pushing to take down a turret, it is generally safe to push with that wave, assuming they don't have teleport up. Are the enemy champions mid lane, going to take down your mid turret? Then you should be there defending or ready for a teamfight. Once laning phase is over, and you're struggling to think of things to do based on your teammates, start making decisions yourself based on the enemy team's movements.
3) Try playing
Nasus top lane and learning how to last hit and harass with Q. I think that may help you with the idea of trading and figuring out how much damage you can take before being destroyed. You can then take those mechanics back with you to bot lane as an ADC.4) Similar to Lux is
Morgana. Annie is also a pretty safe support/mid lane champion. If you want to try the jungle with a champion with a reload system like Jhin, you could try Graves. Miss Fortune is fun as support too, if you'd like to try that.5) I'd save IP for T3 runes.
Unres
<Member>
<Member>
Thanks for all the answers so far!
I've played a few Jhin games tonight and he's definitely my best champion so far. I'm not sure if that's because of his playstyle (I never even need to be in the fight) or because of general improvements. But I've managed to get a 7.75 / 2.25 / 6.75 K/D/A with an average of 5.6 CS per minute in four games. All of which are at least slightly better than what I've done on other champions. Of course, there was one support Karma game in-between where we lost the Nexus in 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure there was a smurf who steamrolled us though :\.
Moving to mid after taking down the bot turret did help out my mid-game though. The support usually won't keep pushing to the second tier turret if I just leave the lane on my own, so it's a win-win situation.
Once all those recommended champions are in the free rotation, I'll be sure to check them out. I definitely want to learn top lane and jungle as well. Jungle might have to wait a bit though because I'd be dead-weight if my 1v1 skills are poor.
I've played a few Jhin games tonight and he's definitely my best champion so far. I'm not sure if that's because of his playstyle (I never even need to be in the fight) or because of general improvements. But I've managed to get a 7.75 / 2.25 / 6.75 K/D/A with an average of 5.6 CS per minute in four games. All of which are at least slightly better than what I've done on other champions. Of course, there was one support Karma game in-between where we lost the Nexus in 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure there was a smurf who steamrolled us though :\.
Moving to mid after taking down the bot turret did help out my mid-game though. The support usually won't keep pushing to the second tier turret if I just leave the lane on my own, so it's a win-win situation.
Once all those recommended champions are in the free rotation, I'll be sure to check them out. I definitely want to learn top lane and jungle as well. Jungle might have to wait a bit though because I'd be dead-weight if my 1v1 skills are poor.
1) Watching pros and pro streams isn't too useful for getting better. Unless they explain their decision making, most of their decisions will go over your head. I mean, you can see some useful stuff, but most of the execution only happens after considering how the enemy will counter it and how you can counter their own countering (and how they will counter your counter to their counter, etc.). tl;dr most of the macro won't happen most of your games and most of the micro won't give useful info. Do watch streams if you like them, you'll get some small gains while having a good time.
I think his point about not caring about macro is that in low level games it's often a full clown fiesta game. You can literally stay in your lane for the whole game and still win. Just focus on improving your PvP and ignore baron unless the whole enemy team died past minute 35.
I guess you should still follow the team if 3/4 of them are agreeing upon an objective, but most of the time just try to focus on what you think is most important.
2) I don't want to sound preachy with this, but it's not a good habit to compare yourself to other people in your games. Especially not in low level games, where the MMR-per-level algorithm will throw a lot of variance to games. You'll get paired with completely clueless players or get steamrolled by smurfs from time to time no matter how good or bad you play.
My rule of thumb: If you look at how someone else plays focus on what they do better than you to learn from them. You can look for weaknesses in your enemies if it's to exploit them, but using it for comparison is actually counterproductive. There are a ton of different skills that matter to win a game, and when criticising you'll only look at those where the other is worse than you while ignoring those where they're better. You might not even know what they're doing right if they're that much better than you in some aspect of the game.
3) Finishing off is harder for most ranged champions than for melee. Caitlyn's ult ( Ace in the Hole) could be a nice fit to your strenghts. She's also quite reliant on strategy with her Yordle Snap Traps, which you might be good at if you're already thinking of macro play.
Do notice that kills aren't mainly important for the gold. The important part is denying gold and experience from your enemy, so if your enemy is backing off constantly you're doing things right. Just make sure to push your lane quickly before they come back and maybe back yourself to buy some item advantage and come back to lane before you lose too much exp/gold.
For PvP maybe you could pick some low mechanics, low skill floor top lane champion to play and practice short fights. Garen, Darius, Illaoi, Maokai are all quite straightforward to play and can bully most enemies, so you get to practice fighting without making that many wrong engages. Unfortunately most of the learning is knowing which champions win vs you and at which levels one of you have the advantage (my unfinished powerspikes blog), which is why most of the people that play too much adc/supp have a hard time in top/mid, since in bot lane you can get away with not knowing that much about your enemy and just focus on surviving until the lane phase ends.
4) I already recommended Caitlyn, but I also recommend that you try some straightforward melee champion (like Garen/ Darius/ Illaoi/ Maokai), since it's always good to know a bit more of every role and type of champion if you want to get better.
5) Depends on your preference. If you find a stable pool of champions you like you can focus on runes, but otherwise you shouldn't buy T3 runes at all until you plan to play ranked, and you probably shouldn't play ranked until you have over a couple hundred games under the belt. I made a blog on runes for starters that may be useful. You can buy the discount runes to get two generic pages for the price of one champion (that's cheap), but you should wait to level 30 for it. After that just check if you want to optimise one champion or one playstyle before getting a specific page, otherwise just get a good stack of champions to choose from.
Unres wrote:
In regards to the macro stuff, my question wasn't aimed at doing more complex plays, but whether I should be following my teammates into really terrible situations like 5v5 barons or roaming all the way to the inner turret during the laning phase.
I guess you should still follow the team if 3/4 of them are agreeing upon an objective, but most of the time just try to focus on what you think is most important.
2) I don't want to sound preachy with this, but it's not a good habit to compare yourself to other people in your games. Especially not in low level games, where the MMR-per-level algorithm will throw a lot of variance to games. You'll get paired with completely clueless players or get steamrolled by smurfs from time to time no matter how good or bad you play.
My rule of thumb: If you look at how someone else plays focus on what they do better than you to learn from them. You can look for weaknesses in your enemies if it's to exploit them, but using it for comparison is actually counterproductive. There are a ton of different skills that matter to win a game, and when criticising you'll only look at those where the other is worse than you while ignoring those where they're better. You might not even know what they're doing right if they're that much better than you in some aspect of the game.
3) Finishing off is harder for most ranged champions than for melee.
Caitlyn's ult ( Ace in the Hole) could be a nice fit to your strenghts. She's also quite reliant on strategy with her Yordle Snap Traps, which you might be good at if you're already thinking of macro play.Do notice that kills aren't mainly important for the gold. The important part is denying gold and experience from your enemy, so if your enemy is backing off constantly you're doing things right. Just make sure to push your lane quickly before they come back and maybe back yourself to buy some item advantage and come back to lane before you lose too much exp/gold.
For PvP maybe you could pick some low mechanics, low skill floor top lane champion to play and practice short fights.
Garen, Darius, Illaoi, Maokai are all quite straightforward to play and can bully most enemies, so you get to practice fighting without making that many wrong engages. Unfortunately most of the learning is knowing which champions win vs you and at which levels one of you have the advantage (my unfinished powerspikes blog), which is why most of the people that play too much adc/supp have a hard time in top/mid, since in bot lane you can get away with not knowing that much about your enemy and just focus on surviving until the lane phase ends.4) I already recommended
Caitlyn, but I also recommend that you try some straightforward melee champion (like Garen/ Darius/ Illaoi/ Maokai), since it's always good to know a bit more of every role and type of champion if you want to get better.5) Depends on your preference. If you find a stable pool of champions you like you can focus on runes, but otherwise you shouldn't buy T3 runes at all until you plan to play ranked, and you probably shouldn't play ranked until you have over a couple hundred games under the belt. I made a blog on runes for starters that may be useful. You can buy the discount runes to get two generic pages for the price of one champion (that's cheap), but you should wait to level 30 for it. After that just check if you want to optimise one champion or one playstyle before getting a specific page, otherwise just get a good stack of champions to choose from.
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Yeah, comparing myself to other players in unranked is pretty useless. As long as I'm not feeding, I'm fine. Though it's a little frustrating when I'm in a game where I'd be carrying in a normal match, but either someone else feeding hard or someone AFKed makes it a lost game. I played my first Oriana game today where I was carrying from the mid lane (11/4/4, 7.2 CS/min, first tower kill), but our support AFKed and the other players were going 0/10 and stuff. Guess it happens in my favor as often as it does against me, but it still feels bad.
Part of the reason I watch a lot of LCS/LCK is because I'm usually too tired to play after work. I've learned from Hearthstone that if I play when I'm tired, I play worse and will then start tilting. It helps that it's enjoyable to watch games that are played cleanly.
Caitlyn is probably the champion I'm most interested in trying. Her strong laning phase + long range is right up my alley. I can give Garen a shot in the top lane for PvP practice. Hopefully I'm better than I was the last time I tried top.
Part of the reason I watch a lot of LCS/LCK is because I'm usually too tired to play after work. I've learned from Hearthstone that if I play when I'm tired, I play worse and will then start tilting. It helps that it's enjoyable to watch games that are played cleanly.
Caitlyn is probably the champion I'm most interested in trying. Her strong laning phase + long range is right up my alley. I can give Garen a shot in the top lane for PvP practice. Hopefully I'm better than I was the last time I tried top.
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1) I watch the LCS/LCK streams pretty frequently (probably more than I play), so I have a decent understanding of macro decisions relative to the people I play against (level 14 in unranked). One of the issues I'm having is that those type of macro plays never happen in my games. We'll do suicidal baron attempts when all 5 enemies are alive, there's minimal objective pushing after fights, we generally don't have a team fight phase, the support (or adc if I’m support) will keep pushing to the inner turret even if we don’t have good vision, junglers try to gank when I’m out of mana and/or hp, etc… How should I be handling these types of situations? Should I be following my team to Baron even if I think we’re going to get slaughtered in the pit and do I ditch my fellow bot laner when he pushes too aggressively(I do too sometimes, but I’m trying to tamp down on that) and we don’t know where the jungler/mid-laner are?
2) I’m decent at the laning phase compared to most people I play with/against since I usually have one of the higher CS scores and I’m alright at poking with skillshots. But once the mid-game comes, I’m usually lost as to what I should be doing. Should I push my lane and then try roaming mid? Also, come late-game, I try to stick around with my teammates, but I’m never really sure when the appropriate time is to manage the side-waves since there’s usually not one big teamfight, but just long extended skirmishes.
3) I’m pretty sure that my biggest weakness right now is my ability to PvP. In the laning phase, I generally out-poke my opponents, but I’m quite bad at finishing them off. In the mid and late-game, even if I’m slightly ahead, I have trouble engaging and finding picks. In team fights, I have trouble getting a lot of damage in since I tend to play very squishy champions. I hang behind my teammates which means I only get a few hits in. When I try and get a little closer, I get engaged on and usually die unless the opponent is weak.
4) So far, I’ve found that I like to play ranged characters the most (but not assassins so much because I suck at PvPing) and I’m pretty terrible at melee, so I usually prefer playing mid/bot/support roles. The champions that I’ve enjoyed the most have been Jhin, Ezrael, Miss Fortune, Syndra, Zyra, Lux, and Ahri (even though she’s an assassin). When Nautilus, Thresh and Rumble are in the free rotation, I’d be very interested in trying them out as well. It’s a little unfortunate that they’re all heavy skillshot champions and immobile, but I guess I’ll just have to improve my skillshot accuracy. My question is, what other champions do you guys think I’d enjoy based on that information?
5) Also, what should I be using my IP for? So far, I’ve just been playing with the free champions and a few 450 IP champions that I bought. But I’ve started to understand what champions I enjoy playing and learning a new champion every two games doesn’t help my performance at all. Should I be buying the champions that I enjoyed playing for free or should I be looking at Tier 3 runes / rune pages?
Thanks for reading and any help would be greatly appreciated :).