Boards›Gameplay

I did a 50 game comparison of roles in the game. Here's my personal results.

Better Jungler·11/30/2018, 2:33:32 AM·10 votes·7,261 views

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LiuaYs9ySN3wjXyjG3U-3liKUxrYIey0LY9zbyvRDsI/edit?usp=sharing

**Tldr at the bottom. **

After hitting platinum 5 last season, I decided to make the push for diamond. However, I didn't think my current roles of Jungle/support were going to work. I didn't know if support could carry hard enough reliably win games through platinum. So I set out to find an off role that I could play reliably with a bit more practice.

I created this spreadsheet which I used to record the data from 10 different games of each role. I had a couple of rules in place to keep some consistency in the way I measured games.

  1. The first game of the day, in each respective role, didn't count for the data. (Warmup game) -This is the reason you'll see inconsistencies in my match history and the chart. Removing the "warm-up game" from the equation allowed me to transition roles a bit easier.
  2. I did one section at a time with exceptions. -This is to get into the mindset of that position, which does change depending on the role you decide to play. (an adc is going to think differently than a jungler)
  3. I did not withhold any games after the warm-up game. If I played it, it was recorded on this sheet, no matter how hard the loss or how easy the win. -It is surprisingly difficult to record EVERY game. Some games (top especially) had trolling teammates or people at each others throats. I recorded these losses despite feeling like they were poor representations fo the role.

The data collected is pretty self-explanatory.

  • KDA- kills deaths assist. ((Kills+Assists)/Deaths)
  • Win-Loss Ratio
  • Champs Played- # of champs I tried in each role.
  • Fun- Recorded IMMEDIATELY after the game ended. scale of 1-10,
  • Carry Potential- A bit of a throwaway category. Seemed like each role could carry, but it depended on your champion, the enemy's comp, and a ton of other variables. This is personal, not an overall statement about the role itself. ("can I carry?")
  • Rage Rating- The rage rating is a bit arbitrary. I used the assumption that fun is on a 1-10 scale, so the remainder of that is where rage is. However, there were games that were not rage inducing, but rather just neutral "meh." So I made rage be (100-overall fun)/2 So half of the non-fun rating = rage.

Before I discuss the results...The bar graphs are messed up because I imported them into google sheets from Microsoft Excel.

-------------------------------------------------------------The Results------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **My Expectations: ** I expected my main role of jungle/support to be the highest stats. I was surprised to find that after playing 10 games of each role, ADC managed to be the highest stats I had. In order of best to worst the lanes ended up being:

Adc was an 80% win rate, with a 2.82 KDA, and a 7.8 fun rating. Jungle was 70% win rate, with a 2.67 KDA, and a 7.3 fun rating. Support was a 60% win rate, with a 2.25 KDA, and a 6.2 fun rating. Mid was a 60% win rate, with a 2.23 KDA, and a 6.9 fun rating. Top was a 50% win rate, with a 1.63 KDA, and a 5.7 fun rating.

**A couple of sources of error here. **

  • -During the week I played ADC, I was taking midterms, so I played less games, scattered throughout the day. This resulted in more "warm up games"
  • I threw away I believe 5 games from adc that were warm up games due to the 10-12 hours between games.
  • -I played a couple of duo games as support but lost 50% of those as well. My partner was silver 2.
  • -I recorded the time of day I was playing for support and jungle. Late night resulted in more wins, while early morning games resulted in more losses.
  • -I started these games at the end of the season and finished today 11/28/2018, the Dark Harvest bonanza likely had an effect on the top/mid games.

**Notable Outcomes: **

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed playing ADC. With the introduction of mages into bot lane, I found immediate success with heimerdinger and karthus adc. I didn't want to fully depend on the current state of karthus/heimer bot, so I played a good majority of marksmen games as well.

Before this experiment, I hated top lane. I hate the match ups, I hate the island mentality, I hate the champions. After the experiment, I have a bit more respect for the people that play off-meta champs up there. I had success with Wukong, Gnar, Riven, Yasuo and Irelia, despite losing lane in the majority of those games. Still not the role for me.

Support games should've been split into two different categories. On heavy ap champs like brand, vel koz, my win rate and kda were significantly higher than on actual supports like thresh and nami. I also had much more fun utilizing champs that had impactful damage. It is important to note that every win I recieved in my support games was a heavy ap support.

Final Notes for each role

Jungle Role:

  • Heavy damage dealers were riskier to play, often leading to feast or famine situations.
  • Flexibility between heavy AP, AD, and Tank allows for easy champ select
  • Games were stressful when team was behind, but very fun when team was ahead.

ADC:

  • Season 9 allows for strange carry adcs that may be nerfed. (karthus and heimer) they are basically auto-win.
  • Most actual marksmen play very similar, allowing a wide pool of champs to pick from with minimal experience.
  • Potential to have bonkers games, flipside, potential to be completely deleted every time you spawn.

Support:

  • Non-Carry supports have a much lower winrate, and much higher reliance on team members.
  • Heavy AP supports are capable of carrying games, with most damage on team using brand MOST of the time.
  • Games were very relaxed, more fun than stressful, rage rating was low.

Top:

  • Annoying champions like Nasus, Urgot, Singed, Aatrox live here.
  • Either get camped or be camped by junglers, Usually enemy jungler is living in your lane.
  • Could potentially be interesting lane with off-meta champs, otherwise boring "vanilla" gameplay in this lane.

Mid:

  • Mid lane allows for a ton of different champs, ad, ap, tanky, assassins.
  • Safe afk lane possibles like Malzahar and veigar. For high winrates.
  • Potential to carry heavily with roaming assassins like zed.

**Final Decision: ** With the diamond push right around the corner, I have decided that it would be best for me to pursue the role i'm comfortable with, jungle, and off role as the role I have the most fun with, which is adc. Adc also happens to have the highest winrate of my 10 game experiment, the lowest rage rating, and a moderately high pool of champs I can find success on. I look forward to practicing this role for the next few weeks until the season starts.

TLDR: I plan on making it to diamond next season. (despite this being my first season hitting platinum.) So i played 50 games to compare various aspects of each role, such as win rate, KDA ratio, Champ pool depth, and Fun/Rage Ratings. The bar graphs are messed up because I imported them into google sheets from Microsoft excel. This was for personal use, and not meant to be statement about anything other than my views on my experience in this experiment.

If anyone else would like to use the spreadsheet, I made a blank sheet that is editable. The formulas are in there, so as you fill out the tables on the bottom, the graphs and top table should populate with the statistics I had.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pWF-fK1CZNK2YuY3GwEcdb-U4a93fOF8YP0DjEwqnhk/edit?usp=sharing

I'd love to see others results in this experiment!

EDIT: Because the mods and some other super smart people want to nitpick the language

ADCS in this post are referencing the position that plays alongside support in the bot lane. I dont care if its ap, ad, full tank, or a 3000 mana build. If I played it as a carry position in the bot lane, along side a support, via the draft button "BOT LANE" button, im calling it an adc.

ALSO, This post is not a statistical analysis of what role is better for every single person on the planet. Some people are taking this data extremely serious, where it was meant to be an interesting look into my PERSONAL experience with the lane over 10 games. I'll type it twice to try and stop this nonsense. PERSONAL statistics from my PERSONAL experience, for my PERSONAL knowledge, not meant to prove or disprove anything.

27 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer11/30/2018, 2:41:17 AM5 votes

What champions did you play as "ADC"? Because you call it ADC, which stands for Attack Damage Carry, but then talk about champs like Karthus or Heimerdinger, which are decidedly NOT ADCs.

If you are going to do something like that, then call it "bot carry" or even just "bot lane"

Prozzak11/30/2018, 3:44:22 AM2 votes

Unfortunately the test size you used is far too small to really comment on anything other than maybe the amount of fun you get from each role. Any overall result in win %, kda etc will hold no statistical significance.

DrCyanide11/30/2018, 2:42:36 AM2 votes

I like seeing the spreadsheets people come up with to track their experiences. A friend of mine had one where he tracked all the usual stats plus what skin he was using, and using that could find his highest win rate skins as well as the skins he'd gotten the most mileage out of. I've got one where I tracked my Blind Pick Fill roles, just to see how often I'd get each role.

OneMustFall11/30/2018, 1:09:54 PM1 votes

So basically...you enjoy winning.

Cool.

Free Roll12/4/2018, 10:15:27 AM1 votes

Meaningless stuff, 10 game sample size = lulz. To give you an idea I did as similar experiment but much much bigger sample size. I used 3 different account a few seasons back 150 ranked matches with katarina once because I was told "its not your team you are just bad l2carry harder. I had a 37% winrate on 150 kat games on my main account.

So I swapped to my next account after 150 kat games wow i had a 67% winrate, the forum warriors told me see you were bad your better now (even though all the metrics but winrate were better on the first account lol.

Hey i have an open mind though but I wasnt new to playing mid or kat so It seemed unlikely I magically got better at her after using her for many other seasons. So I fired up my 3rd account 46% winrate on kat after 150 games. The forums silent all of the master minds vanished with all their explain aways.

So reality check for people league of legends is primarily luck of the draw on your team, the only exception is when the skill gap is massive like a diamond 2+ player in bronze silver low gold. I been challenged on this assertion a number of times and I have seasons worth of multiple account data have no other explanation I got nothing but crickets as the "carry harder " trolls run and hide when I show them how of my 3-4 accounts the same 3-5 top played champions with 50+ games played each all have wildly different winrates and the only real variable is "my teamates".

Now if you add to your sample size there are still a number of possible explanations and oddly enough some will support the idea well as ADC your role is so diminished right now in league your poor play has the least impact where as if you are top or mid you really need to carry hard and be a rockstar or your team loses. So you can be a bad adc and have a high winrate....just an example, could also be your amazing ADC and its the most important so you carry like a boss, though I am pretty sure it sure former 6 years of thousand + ranked games each season seeking to understand this stuff I have learned immense amount about this game more than most.

PS if you want anyone to take you serious you need to post with the account you used, not some throw away normals aram spam account.

ez mental boom12/5/2018, 12:46:18 AM1 votes

The tldr is still tldr

Volibears Keeper11/30/2018, 2:53:17 AM1 votes

Surprised you didnt call it a "StoryTime" I almost missed this one.

Very interesting results. Kind of confused how you managed to keep a 60%+ win rate in almost ever role though?

OtterlyLost11/30/2018, 4:29:46 AM1 votes

Your information on bot lane is extremely misleading. You say ADC like you only played Attack Damage Carries when in reality, you played APCs bot lane. I feel like your data would have been different if you were playing the more traditional ADCs, as your graph leads people to believe. :/ perhaps you should change it to Bot Lane Carry instead and delineate the two sections of champions.