Which role to main?

JmanXD·Apr 27, 2015·1 votes·2,054 views

I've been playing a lot of normals and one thing i haven't figured out yet is what role to main before going into ranked. The general consensus seems to be that maining a role is optimal, but I can play all my roles decently so I'm not sure which one to main. I'd like to pick a role that has high carry potential and isn't dependent on your teammates. I'm looking at mid and jungle, but I'm also a big fan of adc and top so...

For mid lane I can play: Diana, Cass, Yasuo, Talon For top: Chogath, Swain, Renekton, Nasus For Jungle: Udyr, Jax, Shyvana, Kayle For Adc: Draven, Jinx, Graves, Tristana.

So what role should I practice the most before entering ranked?

18 Comments

MasterPranksterApr 27, 20152 votes

Top would be great the carry your team in the late game if you make it there Mid would be great the carry your team in the early game and keep lanes in check with river control ADC is a bad lane for solo queue, sorry I can't lie. Jungle is very good to snowball lanes but it isn't as easy as it sounds.

really it is up to you dude. Whatever you like the most, I main azir/velkoz mid for their teamfight potential but mainly because it's fun.

EbonRypperApr 27, 20151 votes

Heh... I'm suffering from that exact dilemma myself. I play ADC Mid and Top myself, but solo Q for normals imo sucks. You don't ever get a chance to really pick your best position in normals from what I experience. I'm best and get the most practice playing top, but I always have been finding myself sitting at mid, or Bot as ADC...

JmanXDApr 27, 20152 votes

I've played a couple draft pick games as practice, and I've only gotten to go mid/top once out of 5 games, so even if I practice top/mid in normals, I'm afraid I won't be able to utiilize that practice in ranked. So yea, same problem, if you figure something out, let me know.

mvargusApr 27, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Heh... I'm suffering from that exact dilemma myself. I play ADC Mid and Top myself, but solo Q for normals imo sucks. You don't ever get a chance to really pick your best position in normals from what I experience. I'm best and get the most practice playing top, but I always have been finding myself sitting at mid, or Bot as ADC...

my suggestion here would be if you can join a community. I belong to a teamspeak community and have had opportunities to work on champs by joining games with them and saying "hey, can I play X for a few games, I want the practice." My group usually agrees as long as I'm willing to return the favor and give someone the opportunity to try out my main role occasionally.

djjomonApr 27, 20151 votes

If I may, who do you play for Support? I'm not telling you to main support if you don't want to. But you will end up playing Support here and there.

On that, I used to main ADC. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. I mained it not just for carry potential, but because I had most fun with it, and it was my best role.

But I switched to jungle. I was tired of being botlane while the enemy team would take dragon after dragon, with my jungler regularly not watching timers. I'd rather be the one "running the map" (as best as I can), attempting to secure objectives. And if I mess that up, well, it's my fault. I'd rather put myself in a position to mess up the map, than rely on someone else to do it better.

JmanXDApr 27, 20151 votes

I play Soraka, Vel, Annie, and Alistar for support, really the only ones I'm competent with, I'm considering buying Thresh since he seems like a lot of fun. I'm not one of those guys who says he can't play support, I'm fine with support, just don't like it. I've been considering jungle as well, only problem is that I'm a pretty shit jungler, and it's not something I enjoy per se, I prefer the lane atmosphere where you can actively match your skills vs. someone else's. Do you have any tips on maining adc, since I think that's what I'm drifting towards. How can you stay relevant early game, and what to do if you have a bad support? Thanks for the advice.

djjomonApr 27, 20151 votes

Glad to hear you can play support. If you can avoid it, by all means avoid it. But if you're last pick on either side, expect to support lol.

As for being not as good at jungle, I wasn't a great jungler when I transitioned to it. But I got better as I played. You won't get better until you do it wrong a few times.

Anyway, ADC tips:

Push hard for the early level 2. If you and your support are level 2 before them, go all in. (Though be aware of the matchup. I probably wouldn't all in a Caitlyn/Leona as Tristana/Sona, for example)
Focus on CS as much as possible. If you happen to give up first blood or something, it happens. Apologize in chat if necessary, and move on. Keep your farm up. Farming keeps you relevant all throughout the game.
You'll get bad supports here and there. If you wanna go aggressive, and they don't, play passively. If they're too aggressive and you can't keep up, ask them to be bit more passive. Use pings to your advantage. Encourage them to get a Sighstone/Sweeping Lens to keep up vision control. But if you two just don't have synergy in lane, or they're feeding left and right, tell them you don't want to trade in lane, just farm. If they continually make bad choices, don't die with them.
If you're losing lane, don't rely on ganks. It's not the jungler's job to win your lane. You can ask for a gank, but if they won't gank, accept it. It's often hard to gank losing lanes. Just help secure dragons
Use your trinket ward when it's off CD.

Anything else you'd like me to offer/explain?

mvargusApr 27, 20151 votes

From my experience having just completed my provisionals, its easy to get ADC or support roles, but top and mid are very popular and if you choose to main them you'll often run into others wanting to play the same role.

Jungle my one worry would be your champ pool. Right now tank junglers are reigning supreme and your junglers might suffer quite a bit late game.

You do definitely want to be flexible in what role/s you play as it can be hard to get any role other than support. I planned on being a jungle main, but due to pick order and trying to give my teams the best opportunity to win I played only 3 games as a jungler during my provisionals, the other 7 were support.

JmanXDApr 27, 20151 votes

Thanks for your help. I've been worrying about my jungle pool too, I've been playing with shyvana and udyr with cinderhulk, I've yet to run into any problems late game with Jax and Kayle :). I'm decent with any role, I think I might main adc since mid/top and even jungle to some extent are hotly contested. As a support, how do you manage if your adc isn't good? This is the real issue with me as support, because I don't play Leona/Blitz, where I can carry the lane, I play more supportive supports like Soraka/Alistar, so any tips?

CrazyHollowApr 27, 20151 votes

For any support with heal the best thing is to take trades early. This allows you to use your sustain to heal up while they have to burn potions or leave themselves open to an early gank. The trick is to not get baited into the all in and just keep poking and using your sustain to force them out of lane. The best thing to do when your stuck with a bad adc is to create as much pressure on them as possible. Zone them off your adc to allow him to focus on farming. You can do this on any support so long as your good enough with positioning to not get all in 1v2. My last tip would be not to burn all your abilities at once. A lot of newer supports just try to burn everything for a catch or trade and leave them self open to counter.

mvargusApr 27, 20151 votes

I support mostly with Sona or Zyra, who can't really "carry" and had most of my wins with them during my provisionals.

However that said I found that in my 10 games I really only had 2 with ADCs that were disappointing and one of those times I was jungling. The one where I supported a poor ADC the issues were less in lane, than in map awareness and an understanding of avoiding getting caught out as my ADC got caught in the jungle several times going to or from our base. (we were being counterjungled hard all game)

My suggestion would be to be ready to aggressively poke the other team and be very aware of the map and warding. Several of my wins were helped by having wards in the river and tribush so that gank attempts could be detected in plenty of time. Also talk to the ADC in the champ lobby. See how they want to play. If you prefer to be supportive let them know how much you poke and if you need a signal to go all-in. One of my losses was me playing Zyra paired with a Lucian who was extremely good. He and I worked together very well, and tried hard to win the lane and then carry the game. I hurt the team a bit with too many deaths, but kept him alive and helped him to a solid KDA. (sadly, we just couldn't win team fights. I had died enough to be behind in build.)

You can win with less aggressive supports, you just need to work with your ADC. Try playing some normal solo queues as a support and just get used to having to read your ADC. Yes, you might get some bad ones, but I also had some who were better ADCs than I was a support. Ranked tends to be a bit random in the quality of your team.

AyRe CoNteMpTApr 27, 20151 votes

let me, a diamond player, tell you what i think. play the role that is most fun to you and the champ that you like the most. if its possible, chose 3 champions that can be played in multiple positions

(for example, im a jungler and main volibear, pantheon and karma. volibear can be played jungle and top, pantheon jungle top mid and karma jungle top mid and support)

this means, even if i dont get my prefered role, i can still most likely use a champion im good with. the only thing i really dont like to play is adc, and its mostly avoidable for me to get that role.

the only role that is statistically proven to carry more effectively than other roles across the last 3 years or more is the adc. if really all your focus is on carrying and you also like adc, this is an option for you. if you play lucian, ezreal, kalista, quinn or vayne, its even possible to go top/mid with them too, so you are kinda likely to get at a position you can use your champions in effectively.

but aside from that, really just play the champs you like. for example, from your list i see a few champs that fit perfectly fine in multiple roles. diana can go mid/jungle/top, chogath can go mid/jungle/top/support and most others in your list can fill at least 2 roles without problems. just play what you like, forget "meta" and "this is not viable right now" bullshit.

JmanXDApr 27, 20151 votes

Thanks a lot for your post. I really do enjoy Chogath the most, the problem is that I want to play ranked to win, and if if I'm last pick, the odds of me playing cho aren't really very high. I do have a lot of fun playing adc as well, and since that seems to be open most of the time, I'm considering really just tunneling on practicing adc (still making sure I'm decent everywhere else tho) and then go into ranked feeling confident. Does that seem like a good plan, or am I better off maining champions instead of roles?

AyRe CoNteMpTApr 27, 20151 votes

the popularity of roles changes drastically not only with season but also with elo. the higher you climb, the harder it will become to get adc while in bronze, people probably play garen adc because only champ they have.

what you should definitely do is main some champions. three is a good number. for example, you can main your favorite two ADC's plus cho. as i said, cho is very viable in top mid and jungle and even as support. there is NO complaint on him in any of those roles. if you play adc's with good mobility (ex. lucian, quinn, ezreal, kalista) you can play them mid and top too VERY efficiently. jinx and draven are bound to be botlaners tho and i personally have to say, those two are my favorite adcs. also, its advantageous if you play champions that arent totally meta right now because less people will know the exact extent of your capabilities.

for example, play draven, chogath and diana, so you have at least two champions that can fit any role in case one of your champions for that role is picked/banned. and for the current meta, you are 95% likely to get to play draven as adc.

maining a role is all cool (LOL MY CAT YAWNED AND IT STINKS HELLISHLY!) but generally speaking, your chance of playing that role is about 40-50% overall. this means if you only play jinx, draven and graves, 50% of your games you have to play champions that you are completely incapable of playing and even if your winrate with your adc's is great, the winrate in other roles will suffer so hard, it'll become a nightmare to climb and youll just be one of those persons crying "Omg better let me adc next time".

JmanXDApr 27, 20151 votes

Alright, I appreciate the advice a lot, I think I will main Graves, Cho, Yas, and Udyr, just so I have good versatility in damage and role. I really appreciate the advice.

ShogunaiApr 27, 20151 votes

That's actually some really good advice and its a good way to look at things. It kind of change my prospective, because I been an devoted support player, an lately things have been rather frustrating. There been a lot of recent games where I just feel stuck an can't do anything to really help the team win despite wining during lane phase. So I been looking at the some other roles an a refresher.

CrazyHollowApr 27, 20151 votes

From reading the post's I suggest you play adc the most. The reason for this is because it is one of the most mechanically challenging roles and depends a lot of positioning. These skills are important to all roles and will translate to whatever second role you are going to play. The hardest part of playing adc is positioning. A lot of the time your team will forget about you and give you no peel. When this happens you have to be able to position yourself in a way to deal damage while not getting dived by the assassins. The best tip I can give you is to rotate around the map. Don't forget there are other lanes besides bot. A lot of adc's will take the tower and then still go bot to farm. The way you snowball a lead on adc is by taking towers.