How to escape Elo Hell? (assuming it exists)

[quote=Hatted]Hey, sorry if you looked at this and was hoping to leave the clutches of your elo-draining team. This is purely a discussion about how to escape, providing it exists, the Elo hell. I've been in Silver V for quite some time, I'm by no means godlike (or great) but I feel I can advance a lot of times. However, many times I'm put with uncooperative and genuinely salty summoners. I main jungle, and if I go Naut (my main) I tend to gank often and play well. However, sometimes I feel powerless to advance the ranks because either lanes are fed and ready to burst or I end up feeding every time I go to gank. I feel I lack a sense of when to leave or when not to help. Last ranked game we had a Yasuo who fed a full ap Nidalee (didn't know it was still a thing), a salty Gangplank who was the only one doing well, and a bot lane who was unfamiliar with itself, but admitted its faults (along with mid lane). There was nothing we could do and I felt like while I did feed (pretty much every mid lane gank was unsuccessful and was followed by a xin) I also feel like something could've been done to prevent the early feeds. Nidalee just has to much of an escape for a troll. So, if Elo hell does exist, how do you escape its clutches?[/quote]

[quote=Nighthawk]Play more. If you play well 400/400 times, you will win more games. Period. Doesn't matter how many trolls/feeders whatever you encounter, play well, you will win more than you lose. Play more, and you will advance in rank.[/quote]

[quote=sirell]If Elo boosters exist, then clearly Elo Hell doesn't exist. All it really means is that either your knowledge or your mechanics aren't up to par. Find out what you're doing wrong and get better at the game.[/quote]

[quote=Slappiz]Elo hell is where you end up when your skill lvl longer dosen't matter if you win or loose games. You are simply stuck where you belong.. That's how I see it. If you really want to climb, [i]play your main as often as possible[/i], master your mechanics, know your limits and eventually you will know how to handle every champion in the game with that specific main. It's a lot easier to climb if you can master one champion instead of being good/average with 10 champions.[/quote]

[quote=utopus]Man, I just wrote up a long response, only to have it be blocked by my corporate web filter #fkwebsense When I was in silver, I mained [[leblanc]] - this was pre-nerf, when she was really strong. I usually got good KDAs on her, but my win rate with her was embarassing for the KDA that i had - my winrate with leblanc stayed at around 50%. It seemed so unfair that I would do so consistently well, and still lose games. In reality, I had forgotten the fact that there were things that I wasn't doing right, and my good plays with leblanc distracted me from recognizing my own mistakes - I could not improve as a leblanc player. Keep that in mind, friend. After you've played enough games, reasons for losing individual games don't matter, when viewed in the scope of your aggregate win rate with a champion. When I evaluated my play, I realized that while I could catch out opponents well, I failed to create the map pressure necessary for my teammates to push down towers and win games. I changed from a mid main to a support main, and ended up carrying myself out of silver by creating map pressure through vision control, catching champions, and locking down champions in team fights. From what it sounds like, I believe the reason you are struggling to win is because you try to hard to gank, and you gank the wrong lanes. There are likely other reasons, but from the description you gave, those are the top two reasons that come to mind. You say that you sometimes die when you gank lanes, and you have to realize how bad that is. If you give your opponents a buff, that means that for the next 3 minutes, they will be able to dominate your buff-less ally for the next 3 minutes. Not only did you give your opponents gold, you screwed the rest of your allies' laning phase. The only way your ally can now win lane is through simply outplaying your opponent, and that is not something you should rely on your allies to do. Learn exactly how much damage you can take while still being able to live. The difference between ganking a lane, and leaving a fight and escaping with 5% hp and dying are huge. Also, the only lanes you want to gank are gankable lanes. Gankable lanes are not the same thing as losing lanes... If the only gankable lane is the snowballed top laner, then it is your duty to camp the living hell out of your opponents top laner, and make him lose lane so badly that he is shut out for a significant portion of the game, and is forced to concede map control to your allied laner. You want to protect your losing lanes just enough so that your opponents won't get significant map control (through destroyed towers) and will be able to roam elsewhere.[/quote]

[quote=gatekept]1. [b]Don't rage[/b]. The more time you spend typing, the more you lose farm, gold, map awareness, and team morale which gives you more of an advantage than you realize. 2. [b]Mute people who do rage[/b]. They'll only put you on tilt. 3. [b]Get really good at csing[/b]. A full creep wave is worth the same amount of gold as a kill, unless the enemy is worth shutdown. Oftentimes, lower elo players will put importance on kills rather than focus on farming. 4. [b]Try to have 80 cs by 10 minutes[/b]. If you can consistently hit 80 cs by 10 minutes, you're giving yourself a much higher chance of advancing. 5. [b]Never chase an enemy into the jungle without vision[/b]. Never chase anywhere without vision. If you don't have full vision of the enemy team and go into their jungle, expect to die. 6. [b]Baron is a noob magnet[/b]. If you ace the enemy team and have to choose between getting an inhibitor or doing baron, get the inhibitor. If you can't get an inhib, then do baron. If there are less than four people dead on the enemy team and you do not have full vision of the area and have not swept baron pit/do not know if it's warded, do NOT attempt baron. I have seen more bad baron calls lose games at lower elo than I can count. 7. [b]Pick carry champions[/b]. I know this may sound stupid, but there is a meta for a reason. Pick strong champions that scale and snowball well and you'll have a higher chance of carrying your team. I saw that you mentioned you play a lot of Nautilus. He is a fun champ, but you'll have a difficult time carrying with him. Try junglers like Vi, Lee Sin, etc. They may take some skill, but if you can get good with either of them, they are extremely strong. 8. [b]BUY WARDS[/b]. This is the most important rule and possibly the most obvious. Vision wins games. Period. If you're not helping your team ward, don't complain about losing the game. 75 gold is not a lot to spend to protect a buff steal or objective, and will make the money spent back on just one kill from vision of the enemy. Hope these tips helped :)[/quote]

[quote=Embracing]Focus on improving - elo comes naturally as you improve. I tend to believe that understanding of the game is far superior than minute details, which is why I often avoid recommending people to spend time purely focusing on CS. Think more as you play, and focus on the end goal. What helps you reach that end goal? Will getting a tower here help me more than roaming down mid to help my team? Stuff like that. Be active in learning. I'd only advise you to work on improving flat-out mechanics if active thinking is hard for you to do. Elo-hell only exists for people who find it hard to notice what they're doing wrong. Their attention is dragged to others' mistakes, which is why some think they're "better than their elo" or their "team pulls them down" One specific piece of advice for improving - [b]never[/b] impulsively reach conclusions. Stuff like [[Tristana]] shouldn't jump in teamfights, or like [[Zed]] should always ult the enemy ADC are stuff that really limits your growth. Learn when you can break these common perceptions and you'll improve quickly. The more you understand macro-game and how to win, the more elo you'll get.[/quote]

[quote=Hatted][quote=gatekept]1. [b]Don't rage[/b]. The more time you spend typing, the more you lose farm, gold, map awareness, and team morale which gives you more of an advantage than you realize. 7. [b]Pick carry champions[/b]. I know this may sound stupid, but there is a meta for a reason. Pick strong champions that scale and snowball well and you'll have a higher chance of carrying your team. I saw that you mentioned you play a lot of Nautilus. He is a fun champ, but you'll have a difficult time carrying with him. Try junglers like Vi, Lee Sin, etc. They may take some skill, but if you can get good with either of them, they are extremely strong. Hope these tips helped :)[/quote] Thanks for all the tips. I don't lane alot, so I feel some of these don't pertain as much. I've been playing a lot of Rengar lately, and I do pretty well with him in ranked. He is a person I feel that snowballs pretty hard and long as I'm not pinned down to the ground with cc it goes pretty well. However, being a snowball-type champion if something goes wrong early it's pretty hard to catch back up. :/ I never rage, I'm only upset when people drop so much salt that it comes out of my monitor and as force-fed to me.[/quote]

[quote=gatekept][quote=Hatted][quote=gatekept]1. [b]Don't rage[/b]. The more time you spend typing, the more you lose farm, gold, map awareness, and team morale which gives you more of an advantage than you realize. 7. [b]Pick carry champions[/b]. I know this may sound stupid, but there is a meta for a reason. Pick strong champions that scale and snowball well and you'll have a higher chance of carrying your team. I saw that you mentioned you play a lot of Nautilus. He is a fun champ, but you'll have a difficult time carrying with him. Try junglers like Vi, Lee Sin, etc. They may take some skill, but if you can get good with either of them, they are extremely strong. Hope these tips helped :)[/quote] Thanks for all the tips. I don't lane alot, so I feel some of these don't pertain as much. I've been playing a lot of Rengar lately, and I do pretty well with him in ranked. He is a person I feel that snowballs pretty hard and long as I'm not pinned down to the ground with cc it goes pretty well. However, being a snowball-type champion if something goes wrong early it's pretty hard to catch back up. :/[/quote] You're right, it can be hard to catch back up. That is the risk of playing champs like Rengar, Kha, etc. Just have to practice and really know how to exploit them to their full potential to make sure you don't get behind. Some easier jungles that are also super strong at lower elos are J4 and Warwick.[/quote]

[quote=Hatted][quote=gatekept] You're right, it can be hard to catch back up. That is the risk of playing champs like Rengar, Kha, etc. Just have to practice and really know how to exploit them to their full potential to make sure you don't get behind. Some easier jungles that are also super strong at lower elos are J4 and Warwick.[/quote] I've been playing Warwick quite a bit and holy moly. One of the last games I played with him I was confronted in the jungle by their jungler and mid/top. Bot times, because of minimal help from our laner and Ww's extremely high 1v1ing, I got a double kill. J4's on my list to buy, played him forever ago and surprisingly wasn't a fan. After I get Rammus the Demacian Prince shall be mine. Then I'll get an OP crippled Gravedigger.[/quote]