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League of Legends (LoL) Question: Dreams of making it to Challenger. But am I in the right role?

Posted in General 4,950

Dreams of making it to Challenger. But am I in the right role?

Asked by TickleYourMango on September 2, 2015

I have dreams of making it to Challenger. I am currently Bronze so I have a long ways to go but being that my dream is to play in the LCS I am pretty motivated to climb the ladder. I currently play anywhere from 8-10 hours daily, I would consider myself a Support main after I did some thinking and realized that I am best in that position. Now the problem is I've heard that it can be hard to climb unless you are playing carrying roles, now is that true or can I continue to climb while maining Support? Thanks for the help.

Answers (6)

(1495) |

It's easier to climb as a mediocre mid laner than a mediocre support, but for good players it really doesn't matter. Don't worry about how fast you climb, just worry about getting better if your goal is to make it to Challenger.

(3) |

Yeah for awhile I was pretty frustrated from dropping from Gold promos to Bronze 5 right out of my placement for my first season but I came to realize after a hundred or so ranked games that I sucked, and I had a lot to learn. And of course I still do, but I consider myself a more competent player now and have a much better mindset of I really can't go lower than where I'm at currently, so that means all I can do is improve! Thanks for taking the time to respond, much appreciated.

(8) |

I main support & I started playing in Preseason 4. I haven't played a lot of ranked (plus I don't really like it tbh) but after only playing the game for 7-8 months, I started ranked last season. I got placed in Silver 2 and two months later, climbed to Gold 5 mainly playing support, jungle & a little bit of mid & top.

This season, I finished my placements and went 5-5 and landed in Gold 5 yet again. 7 out of my 10 games I played Vel'koz support and carried myself that way (About 57-67% win rate). You don't necessarily have to only play AP carry supports. You can play what's meta or what works for you.

And finally, some things I found that helped me succeed were these 4 elements I used effectively:

1) Champion Select: Sometimes a game can be determined before it even starts. And sometimes you need to dodge. If your team has 3 AD Assassins, An ADC and a super squish support and they have someone like Katarina, you might wanna dodge :/ Another tip, have multiple backup plans. There's a reason why you need to own 16 champs to play ranked. You power picks may get banned or taken by another player. It's a really good idea to have multiple champs in multiple roles... even if you are a 1-trick baller.

2) Attitude: I dunno how many times you may have heard this, but there is nothing beneficial to be gained from negativity. Blaming, complaining, trolling, flaming, etc WILL NOT improve your skill. No matter how bad the situation looks... well im not gonna tell ya to stay positive because sometimes that won't work... don't bring down yourself or your team. And the biggest attitude tip I can give you is to focus on constantly improving & seeing what you can fix.

3) Mechanics: Ok so I don't have the best mechanics. I can't CS well. I can't trade well, & sometimes I get hit by every skillshot like I'm a big mangnet. However, I focus on my strengths & weaknesses and do training sessions to improve. If you need to work on dodging shots, farming waves, or clearing camps, then practice in a custom game.

4) Game Knowledge: Like they say in G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle. To quote Sun Tzu, "If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles... if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." Basically, know what you are capable of doing & what you can (and can not) do. Respect the power of your opponents. If you are playing Lux, don't stand near Annie when she's 6 and has her stun ready (for obvious reasons).

I could've added a bunch more, but I got bored & honestly, you can find whatever method works for ya. I hope this helps man.

(8) |

You're welcome dude. Oh and to answer your Blitzcrank question, in Bronze he has a really high win rate, pick rate & a somewhat high ban rate. It's not hard to carry games in Bronze ELO as a Blitz because most people have sense enough to focus the guy you pulled. :p

And one more thing that I want to remind you about. Practice a lot of normal draft games & play like they are ranked. And I highly recommend learning team compositions and counterpicks. And learning when to dodge is also very important. Dodging in ranked does not affect your MMR, which means that you don't lose MMR because your Top Laner picked AP Varus into a Fiora main and fed him.

If you want to improve more on Champion Select general knowledge & team composition buiding, check out this guide on SoloMid called "GG in Champ Select". The guide was made for mid laners in the champion select screen but I found it to be useful for general knowledge.

http://www.solomid.net/guide/view/123634-generic-build-guide-apc-by-markovicius

Keep doing your thing man! I believe you will get better & improve!

(3) |

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a descriptive response! Yeah lately these three points you have touched on have been like a mantra to me every day, of course I sometimes slip up and flame the **** out of a troll or someone flaming others in the game but I've learned it's much easier just to mute them and move on with the game so I don't throw MYSELF into a tilt. I've been trying many things to improve myself as a player and I think I have grown so much as a player of just a month of practicingma few regimins. One thing I currently do (as crazy as it may seem) is commintate my own gameplay, for some reason when I hear out loud what I am doing in a game it helps me think what I need to do better in a situation and it keeps me focused on the game.

On top of that I try to keep my mind completely away from the idea of my team being bad, even if at the time it is true the mind is a powerful thing and by even briefly thinking those thoughts I throw myself into a state of mind where I'm focusing on others rather than myself and what I can do better.

As for being a one trick pony I would say currently that is no problem for me, even though this topic is on maining support I do pretty well in any position I am in and I can play many champions in those roles, there are some I prefer over others but if say I'm having to lane against a Blitzcrank I will often pick Morgana so I don't get smashed in lane (By the way I'm not quite sure why people in Bronze complain so much about Blitzcrank when he is countered so stupid hard by any Morgana who is competent enough to throw her Black Shield when he tries to hook :P) so I have practiced pretty extensivly with nearly every champion, there are definintly some I just cannot play well such as Riven, I swear I'm cursed with her... And the fact that I have played nearly every champion to mastery level 2 gives me a lot of knowledge about the game such as what a Jungler will be doing and when, what kind of cooldowns I'm looking at, when I should go in on a champion when they have blown a key ability, ect. so that covers the game knowledge part, now I think it's just a game of patience and persistent practice. It was hard for me to realize that this is my first season, and it's very unlikely I'm going to be a master of the game by then end of the season, but I just keep looking forward and remembering practice makes perfect.

Once again thank you for your detailed response, it was much appreciated!

(149) |

Last time I checked Support mains get to play in the LCS too.

(3) |

Very true, I mean look at players such as Aphromoo.

(201) |

Hard to climb? Yes. Impossible? No.

Ever role is hard to climb with to challenger. It all depends on your own skill first. It also depends on which support you're playing. Using "My adcs are always bad" is not a valid excuse IMO as the enemy team can also get a bad marksman on their team, and they can also get a bad support on top of it.

Carrying as a support is very possible. You just have to do it right.

(3) |

Alright! Thanks for the advice, generally I try not to blame my ADC because then it just puts me in the mindset of it's my teams fault, and even if at the time it is I should be focusing my attention on myself and what I can do better to help my team. And by sitting in that mindset I have steadily become a better player.

(2) |

I myself am I mid lane main but Thresh is probably my most played champ for all the times I have to support or get it. In any role or in the game in general your main focus is improving your play. Map awareness, mechanics, animation canceling, counter picking, warding right places at right times, following up on players mistakes, ect. All these factor in to making you a statistical player and your winrate is statistics.

(6) |

There's basically no way to answer this question without getting down-voted.
So here's the thing.. Support is great. Supports can definitely set up a game to be won. But it's unlikely that if your ADC d/c's at 40+ minutes that you're going to be able to carry a game in the same way. ADCs probably have the most consistent carry potential.

That being said, if you feel you are best at Support and like playing it, stick with it. No reason to force a change. Plus if you end up forcing yourself to play something you don't like, you'll quit before you reach Challenger.

And just to go ahead and discredit myself, I don't really play ranked. I play enough ranked every year for a boarder/skin and that's basically it. But I have been playing since Xin Zhao's release.

(3) |

No I get what your saying, it's much easier to carry a game with a designated carry role (hence the name AD Carry). Lately I've just been filling out my team the best I can, because I've found that something people in Bronze really struggle in is champion select and often times will counter pick themselves or when we have a strong poke combo and we need a top laner or jungler with some initiation such as Maokai or Sion and they decide to pick Teemo or Fiora, so to do my best of preventing these things I just usually fill out what our team needs the most to tie us together and combat the opposing teams composition as well.

(6) |

Sorry, I obscured my point with the exaggeration. When I started my response there were no others yet, but when I finally got time to finish typing 2 answers were there. But your answer is a much more concise with a similar goal. So now I've wasted all this time typing! ha.

(1495) |

You shouldn't really take a 4v5 situation as a baseline for deciding which role is strongest. Those aren't the games you need to win in order to climb.

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