Kinen's Aimless Wander through Rankedland

[quote=Kinen]I've never been one to rage at teammates or give the sentiment that crap teams are dragging me down. If you really are better than where you are, you'll win pretty much every even game, because hey, you pull your team ahead, right? And you should be able to carry some games where your other lanes are clearly... weak. Sometimes bad games happen, you get lanes which feed so that the game is 4/15 when those 4 are all you, just as the opposite happens and sometimes you annihilate the enemy. But... HOLY FUCKING CRAP, these last two games. [spoiler=Provisional 8 Defeat][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/d5Xa3Dr.jpg[/IMG][/spoiler] Top fed, bottom fed, jungler gave me no blues unless I stole them. Varus was friggin 11/0 really early on. My lane was pretty even (behind in CS at first, Syndra DCed for a bit and I got ahead). Syndra got stupid fed in team fights and picking off people who were wandering around without vision. It was frustrating when the only three wards on the map were mine :/ My play could have been better. I could have crushed Syndra, without ignite, at level 3 without any jungler aid, gotten another kill when she came back, roamed like fuck and gotten fed everywhere else, but let's be realistic, how likely is that unless my opponent is bronze 5? With blues I might have been able to hard push and roam, fat lot of good it would have done. I could smash the entire enemy team with a RW but we had no damage to follow up besides my Qs. But really, I had no idea what to do with that game other than makes sure that Syndra didn't get fed off me. [spoiler=Provisional 9 Defeat][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/jh7BgrO.jpg[/IMG][/spoiler] Top fed first blood before minions spawned fighting a clearly losing fight in his bush, then fed Garen like crazy. Mid fed Nidalee like crazy. Varus was an absolute idiot, constantly picking all ins against Zyra and Draven, making no attempt to dodge roots. I told him time after time after time that we could not all in, but noooo. He spent all his time pinging for all ins, getting caught and absolutely not trying to last hit. Bad games happen... But I was 4/2 at the start of today. Now I'm 4/5 and likely to get placed in Bronze. I think I deserved the first loss of today. Okay, my team was pretty weak and if they had been even with my opponents, my strong late game as Ori would have meant we'd win despite my bad start, however there's no excuse for losing lane if I want to climb. Especially considering that Wukong pushed an already struggling bot further behind. I'd like to get my last game out of the way before the inhouse, but I have some duties to do so it's not gonna happen unless I miss the first game, which I might have to do cus of said duties.[/quote]

[quote=Kinen]Well fuck. I should really just take mid when I can. I don't always do well, but I've lost mid a lot less frequently than I've suffered someone else lose it. [spoiler=Provisional 10 Defeat][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/gbG41Mu.jpg[/IMG][/spoiler] I am seriously pissed off now. I carried 3 of the 4 victories, and would probably have carried the 4th if my Varus had not completely trashed his lane and done the carrying for me. But who carries me, eh? In not a single of my losses did any lane do well outside me in a solo lane (which was generally even-ish, with one exception). Top fed, mid fed. Graves had a tonne of lag issues and got heavily out CSed, but we kept him alive and managed to get him some kills later on. Cait just got crap tonnes of kills in team fights and skirmishes because of some seriously stupid initiates. Really pissed off when Tryndamere went full retard into a 1v3, without ult, for a kill he never got, then Teemo did the exact same for to the same result. Had that been a victory it would have put me in Silver 5 and at least I wouldn't have to put up with a best of 5. To be honest, that game might have been salvageable but my team surrendered. Probably wasn't, though. So, I think I'm better than where I was placed? Certainly. Six losses, only two I could feasibly have turned around, four of which were absolute shit-fests. Well, I guess I'll just carry myself out of Bronze now. Over a large sample of games fuck-ups like those games should have their impact reduced.[/quote]

[quote=Bioalchemist]don't always be the nice guy is my advice...i play with a guy that should easily be gold but he always wants to be the nice guy so rarely ends up playing his best roles...this causes him to stay in silver imo. on a side note....bronze I is not a huge problem...one promotion series and you are in silver. but yeah if you know how to man handle a solo lane i would suggest grabbing it if you have the chance versus being nice.[/quote]

[quote=Kinen]Heh, wish I'd learnt that lesson sooner. Oh well. My problem is that one more win in provisional would have seen my in silver. I'll need 3 wins for bo5, plus however many wins to climb LP in order to get to silver now. Why should a bit of bad luck hold more weight than hours upon hours of ranked games? In other news... I cocked up a ranked game. Bit more ballsy and I could probably have stomped Kass early. Later on... Some good stuff, some bad stuff, but I threw at the end. No real excuse and nothing learnt, I knew what I was doing was a bad idea and also why it was such a bad idea. Probably shouldn't have played that game, I was tired for the last provisional, even more so now. But, it gave me a taster of Bronze 1 (or silver IV, most people where between silver V and III). My first pick made weak bans and enemy had "team OP" (Kass, Vayne, Malph, Thresh). But, based on the way everyone moved, I think I should see myself winning lanes and making games readily enough. I really shouldn't have lost that one, but oh well.[/quote]

[quote=Thalia Kael]wtf I go like 6/4 or 7/3 in provisionals and get placed in Bronze 3[/quote]

[quote=Kinen]Perhaps my normal MMR got carried over into my provisionals?[/quote]

[quote=Thalia Kael]plus I was silver in s2[/quote]

[quote=Kinen]Huh, had a little epiphany of my own. When I threw, what happened was this: We had no vision on jungle and that was resulting in us throwing, I had a stack of 5 wards cus Sona was too chicken to go there (even with an escort, one with a nice bush checking ball), but I saw Vayne mid pushing. My thought as I started going towards her? I can stall her push and poke her a bit, maybe kill her if her team doesn't interfere, but that's not likely to happen. It is highly probably that the rest of her team (not visible on the map) is in the nearby jungle and will immediately begin closing in and cut off my escape. Sona, who is following me, will also die. Then I just sort of shrugged and thought "whatever, we've started throwing what chance we had of winning because of the lack of vision and it doesn't seem like we'll get much, there's only so much I can do without gimping my damage/survivability. It's very unlikely we'll turn it around. I just want to go to bed." Especially because Sona basically gave up over ten minutes ago, she played her lane really badly and I couldn't perk her up. Anyway, a good way to some up how I evaluated the decision was as "super high risk, very low reward" and I think using those terms of thought could be pretty handy in future.[/quote]

[quote=Kinen]Blasted forum ate my super long post (problem on my end, I think). RAAAAAGE. Also I have questions. So, tl;dr version [list] [*] Not been playing ranked cus pissed off at placements. [*] Doing pretty good with Ahri, much better than with Syndra. [*] Practised other stuff, failed pretty bad, although Vlad has improved vastly. [*] I die too often as support in unnecessary ways. 2 for 1 is a good trade, but often it could have been 2 for 0. [*] Thought I was rusty as Ori, I was. Did decently first game, but could maybe have won it if up to scratch, or maybe had roamed. [*] Second game (pictured) is special. [/list] [spoiler=It's Speshul][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5K8rKQW.jpg[/IMG][/spoiler] So fiddle was Plat V. I'm getting used to playing against Golds, but the Plat is a first. Yes, I do know that ranked MMR and normal MMR differ. Anyway, lane was actually pretty stale. Really pissed at Renekton though. "Where was SS?" he yells. He got three pings, long, loooong before Fiddle came top. I should have followed. Not. We'd both recalled, he went top from fountain. Bah, anyway, Nasus was already getting fed and that just made things so much worse. Bot was kinda a mess and I got pissed when I saw Fiddle coming from a mile away, used my W to run yet somehow his R flash still had enough range on it for him to fear me. Meh. I actually think I really upped my game this match. We were at something like a 15 kill, 3 tower, 3 dragon deficit at one point yet we came back to just a kill behind, with both barons. Sadly, we got pushed too hard, with too few towers taken ourselves, to manage to put pressure on their base even when we aced them. Sucks when you're stood there whaling away on Nasus and he just tanks it all and takes the newly respawned inhib like it ain't no thang. It wasn't solely me, some nice actions from Lee and Thresh, plus both Cait and Renek managed to pull their weight later on, but I really do think I made a really good job of that game. Until the decision which ended it. Oops. We'd scored an ace and were taking baron, meanwhile minions whaled on our nexus turrets. I thought Renek would spawn before they took one. They took both. Then Nasus could just 3-shot it before we could lay more than a scratch on him. Myself or Cait should have recalled and cleared it. But to be honest, I think we were just delaying the inevitable anyway. 3-inhibs down, and even with us winning team fights, they could easily take any that respawned and keep too much minion pressure on base for us to make a comeback. The early game lost us the match, kinda ironic considering Nasus is more late-game (although he got there kinda early, so, yeah). Nevertheless, my play in that game served as a pretty good confidence boost. Question Uno: Lanes that are doing really bad. Is it even worth roaming to them? The game started even, they crashed badly, evening it up will likely not suddenly stop them from crashing, and at that point all you can do is even it up. Still, you can get some good shut down gold, protect some turrets and give your failing lane a bit of a chance to comeback late-game (their laning phase being unsalvageable). Really pisses me off when bot manages to go 0/4 or something like that before I even get to lv6. Question Dos: Nasus. Blech, he all too often gets super-fed early (why?) and unless mid and bot are doing really, really well, it seems pretty much GG, barring early throws or bad team-play from the enemy. Because, when it takes three people to stop a lone Nasus, he still gets another kill and the rest of the enemy team takes the opportunity to take objectives, it seems hopeless. You try to shut him down, you lose, you leave him alone, you lose. Am I missing something, or is all I can do when Nasus are getting early feeding is try make sure that bot and mid go as well as possible? Question Tres: Kinda like above, but with Riven. She's so obnoxious when fed early, which happens pretty much all the time. I'm trying to learn to work around her abilities, juke the Qs, don't waste abilities on her shield, avoid the stun. Basically just outplay her. Which works in a 1v1 or 2v1, but when team-fights are starting it seems to get hopeless, again unless we wrecked their mid and bot or they make utterly stupid throws before they push us so hard we cannot come back. I better get some ranked done. I should really have started it months ago, start Uni on saturday and Cambridge... does not particularly afford one the leisure time to spam ranked. Especially when you want to use what leisure time you do have to go out and be a student. Although I'm sure there'll be some fellow LoL-ers there. I -wanted- to climb from like mid-silver to gold, but I'm gonna have to waste time dragging myself from bronze to silver, so I kind of gave up hope of making significant self-improvement in ranked. Eh, my fault for delaying ranked so much. Even if provisionals had gone appropriately, I'd still be lacking the time to climb, probably. Although I would have been spamming ranked rather than avoiding this past fortnight if it had gone well. Meh.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][quote=Kinen]Question Uno: Lanes that are doing really bad. Is it even worth roaming to them? The game started even, they crashed badly, evening it up will likely not suddenly stop them from crashing, and at that point all you can do is even it up. Still, you can get some good shut down gold, protect some turrets and give your failing lane a bit of a chance to comeback late-game (their laning phase being unsalvageable). Really pisses me off when bot manages to go 0/4 or something like that before I even get to lv6.[/quote] That depends on a number of things. [b]Are you going to lose anything by roaming?[/b] Taking a guaranteed small advantage - say, a few waves' worth of gold and experience - is usually better than gambling on the possibility of a big one. Roaming is usually only worth it if your lane is shoved out and you won't be losing too much CS before you can get back, and if your tower is going to be pressured, just don't. I've taken a [i]lot[/i] of towers during ranked matches because I just realize when someone is roaming and shouldn't be, leaving their tower open for me to destroy. [b]Can you reasonably expect to get a kill from this?[/b] Is the enemy laner too fed for you to try to kill? Is it someone like [[Rumble]] who might even be able to turn it around on you? Again, roaming for kills, especially to lanes that are too behind to reliably back you up, is very risky. You're pretty much guaranteed to lose out on [i]some[/i] gold and experience from your lane. Can you reasonably expect to make up the cost? [b]Will it give you an edge over an important objective, or leave one of yours exposed?[/b] There have been so many times, like with towers, where I just get free dragons in ranked games because the enemy midlaner or jungler is hovering around top, letting everyone know that it's a 4v3 down towards the dragon pit - or any of the towers we care to take. This becomes especially important to consider if either jungler is in a position to steal a buff. Are you going to be handing the enemy team an objective because you're not there to defend it? [quote=Kinen]Question Dos: Nasus. Blech, he all too often gets super-fed early (why?)[/quote] Because he's very sustained in the lane and does a surprisingly high amount of damage even early on. Also, people are stupid and try to fight him while [[Wither]]ed and standing on top of [[Spirit Fire]], because they are bad. He's not a champion who people think they need to be wary of. Thus, they do stupid things and he murders them. [quote=Kinen]and unless mid and bot are doing really, really well, it seems pretty much GG, barring early throws or bad team-play from the enemy. Because, when it takes three people to stop a lone Nasus, he still gets another kill and the rest of the enemy team takes the opportunity to take objectives, it seems hopeless. You try to shut him down, you lose, you leave him alone, you lose. Am I missing something, or is all I can do when Nasus are getting early feeding is try make sure that bot and mid go as well as possible?[/quote] Nah, that's pretty much right, though that isn't unique to [[Nasus]]. If [i]any[/i] lane is feeding, you just need to do what you can to make sure that the other lanes are doing well. If one lane is feeding and the other lanes aren't doing so hot either, well, that's not going to end happily for your team. But anyway. Yeah, [[Nasus]] snowballs like a bitch. He doesn't have to build damage items in order to be a threat due to the infinite scaling on [[Siphoning Strike]]. In the jungle, his damage is less obscene, but if it's a lane [[Nasus]], the only way to really shut him down is to keep him from farming. Because he has built-in sustain and tankiness, that's pretty hard to do. He's sort of a binary champion; he's either shut down early and useless, or he's not (this includes the lane just going even) and he simply outscales his opponent. And because his damage is not item-dependent, he can snowball even building full tank - all he needs to be a threat is the ability to last hit, so if he gets a kill and can free farm, well, you're in trouble. The real thing to remember when fighting [[Nasus]] is that he has no hard engage. Sure, [[Wither]] is OP as balls, but that's a single-target spell, and doesn't actually get him to the target, either. Kite him to death. Make sure that your AD carry has a [[Blade of the Ruined King]] and a [[Last Whisper]], and that someone else on your team has some way of keeping him from getting close. [[Rylai's Crystal Scepter]], [[Crystallize]], anything like that. Some form of disengage. Just don't let him get in close. A [[Nasus]] who can't reach melee range is a very sad dog indeed. Yes, he is sort of a champion that you need the right team comp to fight. It's annoying. [quote=Kinen]Question Tres: Kinda like above, but with Riven. She's so obnoxious when fed early, which happens pretty much all the time. I'm trying to learn to work around her abilities, juke the Qs, don't waste abilities on her shield, avoid the stun. Basically just outplay her. Which works in a 1v1 or 2v1, but when team-fights are starting it seems to get hopeless, again unless we wrecked their mid and bot or they make utterly stupid throws before they push us so hard we cannot come back.[/quote] Armor. Make sure that you have armor. If you are the midlaner, make sure that you have [[Zhonya's Hourglass]]. [[Riven]], early on, is all about the burst. She will all-in you with [[Broken Wings]] and attempt to cut you down with [[Wind Slash]]. If you activate Zhonya's at the proper time, you can avoid most of her damage. She becomes more capable of dealing serious sustained damage as the game goes on, just because she stacks AD, but you still deal with it the same way: build armor, try to avoid [[Wind Slash]]. Other than that, you kind of have to rely on your teammates to have some idea of how teamfights work. [[Riven]] is durable, but she's not a tank. You need your team to be paying attention when she dives onto your backline and have them immediately move in to murder her. But relying on your teammates for peel is unreliable at the best of times, and doubly so in Bronze. People just mindlessly dive the enemy carry. That's part of why [[Blade of the Ruined King]] is god-tier in soloqueue. It's built-in peel.[/quote]