VexRoth - All That Is Ranked

[quote=Ronyk][quote=VexRoth]I have difficulty realizing if my team is behind.[/quote] This is an odd problem - good job identifying it! Many players just try to determine which team is behind based on kills alone. In professional games, commentary focuses on the gold difference between teams, level advantage in the same lane, tower control and objective control. For your games, instead of just checking the team kills, I recommend paying sharp attention to the kill feed for solo kills (when a laner kills another laner without any assists). Also when trying to determine if your team is ahead, check to see how the kills on your team are distributed. This is also important for the next point. [quote=VexRoth]I have difficulty realizing if our team has the tools to succeed from behind (good wave clear and some amount of disengage)[/quote] Thank you for adding in the parenthesis! It's true that good waveclear and some disengage will help a comeback happen! It's also possible to do with teamfight compositions and pick comps, provided your team has the vision necessary to find the right times to fight (or the knowledge of how/when to catch somebody out). [quote=VexRoth]And I definitely overestimate our teams ability to take a Drake at times.[/quote] This is likely due to one of two things: The first is communication-based. If your team begins to take dragon and the enemy team comes to contest, the enemy team are always unified: stop your team from getting Dragon by fighting your team. Each individual member of your team, however, needs to make an informed choice between fighting the enemy team and fighting the dragon - resulting in poor unity. If you watch pro teams contest one another for dragons, Herald, or Baron, you'll see their amazing communication skills in action (usually), and they all burst down the objective, or turn and fight, or disengage. The second thing this might be is you not recognizing your teammate's current power. This topic is so in-depth it could deserve its own post, but I'll try to keep it short: do what you can to identify power spikes in your allies' and opponents' builds. A 0/3/0 Hecarim who has just finished their trinity force will do TONS more damage than they've been doing up until that point. Mundo's first item is almost always [[spirit visage]] because the power spike he gets from it is gross. This is especially true for AD carries, who rely almost entirely on their items (as opposed to their levels) to deal damage. Keep up the good attitude. I really enjoy reading your journey.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/debd523957a5e134480d79f6784c65a0.png width=700] [br] Ranking up my alternate ranked account. 2nd [[Xin Zhao]] game was rough. Bot lane actually won hard. Then [[Janna]] proceeded to run around the map "helping" everyone except [[Caitlyn]] which put our team in some really awkward spots. We made a bit of a comeback then my team decided to int going for their Bot inhibitor. I warned them to leave because [[Master Yi]] and I think [[Galio]] were about to respawn with the homeguard buff and I headed over to the Baron side of the map to clear my jungle while waiting for Baron to spawn. They didn't listen and a bunch of them died. After my team respwaned their team got a pick on [[Janna]] and then they moved to take Baron. [[Twisted Fate]] ported Bot to take their inhibitor. I foolishly went in for a steal. The two with me foolishly followed me in or near enough that they also got caught. The End. Actually what I learned was if that sort of thing happens, just go push out the lanes or signal that I'll try to pull off a steal but the rest of the team should go push out lanes and let me go on a solo mission. 2nd [[Warwick]] game - Helped [[Riven]] kill [[Nasus]] a couple of times. She solo killed him at least once and then he hit a point where she couldn't deal with him. [[Yasuo]] won in Mid. Our Bot lane lost. Then they swarmed over us with a brutal combination of tankiness and damage.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/749dd83099153c0c31d1117f0ca3b515.jpg width=700] [br] At the beginning of the game our [[Ahri]] suicided to three of them. I thought it was going to be one of those games where my Mid laner runs it down Mid, but she acctually played well until she DCd for about 10 minutes. I suppose it is possible that her original suicide was also a DC. Made a mistake right after Ahri DCd where I thought I had a catch on [[Karma]] or [[Zilean]], but it turns out [[Draven]] was hiding in the brush behind them, which was weird to me as [[Draven]]'s don't normally hide in my experience. Would have really have liked to buy [[Ninja Tabi]] in this game, but a 99% slow from [[Zilean]] would have been awful without some tenacity to make it slightly less awful. Lesson learned. 1. If someone on your team DCs you are instantly behind and need to play accordingly. 2. Anyone can bait, if you are not sure someone is alone, assume it is a bait.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/4c126efb403c4be5c5087fc4ee203d42.jpg width=700] [br] And the team wimped out and surrendered. Yeah we were behind but we could have played this one out and had some chance of winning. Super irritating moment when [[Braum]] goes behind the dragon pit for some unknown to me reason, gets caught and the rest of my team peels off Dragon and runs to save him. [[Warwick]] casually walks in from the other side of the dragon pit and [[Smite]]s the dragon before I realize it is not one of my teammates. The [[Ahri]] was a problem in the early game. She kept roaming and [[Annie]] wasn't able or didn't try matching her. [[Sion]] as usually was impossible to kill as he would just ult away whenever we managed to get him low. I think that he goes on my ban list unless my team plans to play him.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/3cf2542b423a557d68a50252ce3a6418.jpg width=700] [br] Encouraged the team to buy items with Grievous wounds at the beginning of the game. [[Kled]] mopped the floor with [[Trundle]] in the early game. [[Brand]] got big early on their side. I helped a little with that by trying to tower dive him after blowing his [[Flash]] early. [[Ryze]] pinged for me to come back over and I did, but Ryze turned out not to be close enough when I went in so we didn't quite have the damage. Ryze popped [[Barrier]] to try and survive and I swear it actually did not give him a shield so he died to a minion after taking a tower shot. I managed to walk away. Not quite sure I should opt for a [[Trinity Force]] vs a [[Tiamat]] / [[Titanic Hydra]]. In this game since we didn't have a true tank I opted to be one hence Titantic.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/5e917980b03f92c994265c9ab78be22a.jpg width=700] [br] Our Bot lane was napping at the beginning of the game and didn't pay attention to the fact that they were getting invaded. They died. To be fair I could have been more explicit that they needed to get the F out of there, but I did ping that Skarner was lurking around. I ran and got their Blue since I figured my Blue was likely a goner. They were propably tilted out of their minds after that and fed multiple kills to their lane opponents and later to [[Skarner]] who could tell that was a weak point. A 17th level [[Quinn]] was simply too much to deal with at that point in the game.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/817b211ca3308250557af4f16ac7fc97.png width=900] If you need help securing an objective, don't start it if you don't have the help you need. Don't get lost in the sunk cost fallacy if you almost have it in [[Smite]] range when interference shows up. Just drop a ward if you haven't already (you should be dropping a [[Control Ward]] before starting it and make a strategic retreat and hope they didn't come in enough force to take it themselves. For context [[Brand]] went after a tower while I wanted to get a drake. Thresh came over to give me pause. He left so I tried to burst it down, but he returned with Riven who won the [[Smite]] fight. And I don't believe we got the tower. If we would have picked one or the other we would have at least got one of them. Try to look at it from your laner's perspective as well as your own. If two of you can secure one objective where you might not be able secure any objectives, one is better. Read the patch notes. Don't be the [[Nasus]] that says "Oh, did [[Volibear]] get a buff?" after getting killed by one.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/36490550d7735060c45520c867097596.jpg width=900] [br] [[Thresh]] got me into Bot lane several times allowing me to pick up some early kills. My team definitely made some questionable map movements toward the later stages of the game, but we were far enough ahead that it turned out not to matter. Lessons Learned: -[[Thresh]] and [[Skarner]] can pair well together -Suppressing [[Fiddlesticks]] does not turn off his ultimate, [[Crowstorm]] You can take [[Thresh]]'s lantern [[Dark Passage]] while ulting a target with [[Impale]] allowing you to pull them the distance of the lantern tether. Did not actually get to do this in the game, but I have seen it done in a professional game, though I believe there are some caveats to making it work properly.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/29e6c8a01bb2327f822138fd733bd28d.jpg width=900] [br] [[Skarner]] seems to be working for me. The [[Master Yi]] thought he could duel me while I was setting on one of my spires. Not so bright. The early game was a little slow, which gave some concern as I don't like games going too long when the other team has a [[Master Yi]] and/or [[Tristana]]. But, it gave me time to farm up and I was able to start having a substantial impact on the game after about my second clear or so. [[Garen]] put some nice wards in their Top side jungle that helped us keep track of [[Master Yi]]. The team responded well to pings and kited back well whenever Yi decided to try to go in on us. Our Bot lane swapped to Top lane at and unfortunate time as a second Infernal drake was spawning. On the plus side we got their two top turrets and their Mid turret and a chunk of damage on their inner Mid turret in trade when I hatched the Rift Herald so in terms of opening up the map it turned out to be a decent trade.[/quote]

[quote=Ronyk]Congrats on all of your recent wins VexRoth! I'm also seeing a definite improvement on your ability to self-analyze games! Here's one I grabbed at random from page 127: [quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/f4504f86f8e363a7ee8b566e89f2461b.jpg width=700] [br] And now I know first hand why [[Vladimir]] into [[Gangplank]] is a hard matchup. He can simply poke you and then heal up any minion aggro and you can't really burst him as long as he has his pool and isn't dumb enough to unpool when you have him in a barrel chain.[/quote] Now you're talking about the macro game- map movements, [b]why[/b] things went wrong instead of just [b]what[/b] went wrong. You're also providing splendid advice for those reading (taking objectives together, sunk cost fallacy, anticipating ambushes, recognizing when grievous wounds are important, etc). Keep up the good work! I love reading about your games during my day. Are you watching your replays to try to improve? It seems like you are. Just wondering.[/quote]