I suck at being midlaner, it is difficult!

Linda de Mol·Aug 4, 2019·3 votes·3,141 views

I have always been a supp main so farming was never an important thing for me

Brought my favourite champ to the midlane for the first time in my life but it felt pretty hard and overwhelming.

First of all, I dont have my vision item anymore which feels like a leg got amputated from me.

Then I need to focus farm, but since I am not used to it I forget to bully the enemy and look at the map every few seconds. Farming eats all my attention away.

Third, I get ganked a lot by both sides. In botlane you can get ganked from 1 side and just ward that spot. But in mid you can get buttfukked from everywhere.

Four, I feel like i have less pressure on drake since I am further away. Normally I spam my jungler until i convince him to do drake when the time is right, but it's harder now to have control over that - also because I dont have as much wards as being a support..

Any advice for me??

8 Comments

bluefire mark 2Aug 4, 20191 votes

It is difficult yes, the. best warding spots aren't the bushes themselves sometimes, bit the single bush mid river. If they are a gap closing or invisible one that is. Generally it should be enough in the bushes themselves. You can cover both, just buy red ward. Red wards are very useful in mid. Farm wise just do your best, don't greed for farm that will get you killed.

Although i don't know what your champion is specifically so there are some things i couldn't say.

Kai GuyAug 4, 20192 votes

I do. Its Velkoz

Edit. Let me follow up on Bluefires comments about Vision here. https://imgur.com/a/xqZg9iI

You can ward the bushes from behind the wall fairly safely. but you only get vision shown as red squiggly from the side bush. If you move a little farther you can see how the ward provides a much wider range of vision shown as Yellow lines.. With Vision established on say left side. you can then go into the river via side bush and get a deeper ward at the interception by Raptors and ward over the wall to establish vision shown on the minimap as an orange blob. Then for right side if you just move a bit father out you can establish the pink vision that covers multiple jungle entrances.

The green blobs on minimap are meant to represent scuttle vision.

Obviously This is for a blue team.

Image 2 shows some spots for vision as red team. You can see how a single ward can protect from river or flanked raptors gank. That the right river ward provides vision for flanked or river ganks. A lot of folks like their "Deep" ward to be in the enemy bush. Personaly If im a squishy inmobile mage I don't really wanna take the risk of the enemy jungler being in it so id just throw it from behind the wall in river with my river vision established. Might go deeper if I can see enemy jungler.

Should help with lane slightly as the more coverage you have on gank paths the more time to react. Not all junglers path or gank the same so adapt on a game to game. Also a Red can be a good tool if your worried about the blue invaded gank or the enemy support roaming a less common pathing. (trying to establish deep vision for counter invades or to keep eyes on your junglers camps/pathing.

Linna ExcelAug 5, 20191 votes

The river bush by the jungle entrance is also a great spot for an early pink. It protects both you and gives warning for some invade routes.

Kai GuyAug 4, 20191 votes

And now perhaps you understand why players at your skill level underperform in roles where they cant rely on having a meat shield or the ability to control vision, why if your vs some one whos just a bit better or is playing vs a champion that counters their pick badly the result of the lane can be very one sided.

Learning how to play from behind is a skill, not a lot of silver players have it down yet. There's a good number of folks in the middle MMRs who have a dramatic gap between their good games and off ones.

Or alternately linda, ya don't get this yet and your gonna go back to complaining about MM hating on you and I will go back to informing you that your expectations for teammates at that MMR are unrealistic and thus you need to rely on yourself to climb not teammates. Kinda hope that's not the case thou.

IainG10Aug 4, 20191 votes

As someone who went through this, let me answer your points 1-by-1.

Yeah, it hurts (R.I.P purchasable green wards). A red ward first back is invaluable, and I tend to buy blue trinket at lvl 9 to keep up vision (as well as to avoid walking into traps).
This is just practice. Maybe spend some time in Normals as an ADC, perfecting last hitting with no distractions.
Refer back to point 1, but as someone else said, keeping wards in the small bushes in River can help a lot.
I do a lot of working out where enemies are by throwing skill shots and seeing if my Runes/items procc. I also try to get vision dominance using the plants, and if I can deny the enemy any Blastcones.

All that said my Mids of choice are Neeko and Lux, having been a W-Max Lux Main Support last Season and Split 1 this Season, and I use Neeko's W/Lux's E for vision more than for mobility/poke respectively when I'm not actively trading.

Linna ExcelAug 5, 20191 votes

Gotta spend time to learn the matchups of that champ in mid-lane. There's a reason why some of them went bot (forced out). They are still viable, but you have to learn how to use them in a different circumstance in addition to learning a new lane. Don't rush yourself and expect to get bodied the first 20-50 normal games or more depending on who you play. Learn what is a mistake and then stop doing it, and punish the other guy when he does it.
Learn to freeze the lane in front of your tower that makes you a little less tempting. Also put a vision item on one side and hug that side. Try to pay attention to the map and timers more. Gotta check the map every 3-5 seconds. Pay attention to the timers as well. At around 7 minutes or so their jungler is going to want to gank someone. Another way to avoid ganks and to get more yourself is to get an early lead over your opponent. Thne mid lane is toxic to their jungler but gold to yours. However that requires you to get good at point 1.
It's going to take a lot of time to practice CS. Start in a custom bot game. Focus CS while avoid damage, then start add in trading. Also look for the right times to trade. You don't want to pick a fight when the other guy has CS advantage. You do want to put some damage on him when he goes to get CS.
Don't worry so much about the drake anymore. To get it you need to be able to shove the lane in and gank bot. Once the outer bot tower is gone should you worry about the drake unless it's free somehow.

WSpeechLessCAug 5, 20191 votes

just play a lot of norms till you get the hang of it. I'm a sup main myself, but I jumped to top/jung so farming and such I get the feels. but I simply played a lot of norms to get the hang of it and worked for me but everyone has their ups and downs with one thing or another, and sometimes you just gotta say screw it and put the try hard pants on

Linda de MolAug 5, 20191 votes

Thanks for all the advice, i will try it out