Absolutely ridiculous difficulty curve going from Draft to Ranked for the first time (?)

Adsolution·5/11/2018, 3:41:44 PM·1 votes·1,473 views

I started playing League in February and have been playing hours a day, every day. I'm not the most flexible when it comes to champion selection yet, but I started with and ended up maining support (I got my mastery 7 with Nami a month in and usually get at least one S+ per-day with her now, most games being victories), and I end up winning my lane pretty much 80% of the time in Draft. I got into jungle as a secondary role, maining Jax and Evelynn, and I've been doing consistently well enough lately there too, to the point where I thought I'd finally give these roles in ranked a try.

(I have played a bit in every role, so I'm not ignorant towards their struggles.)

I've done four solo/duo placement matches now and have gotten absolutely destroyed, losing all of them. Three of them were with Nami support (since it's what I'm the most consistently good with), and every time we lost our lane before the ten minute mark. It wasn't just me though, all of our lanes got pummelled.

To go one step further, everyone in all of these games were absolutely obnoxious and I got flamed to no end for things I felt were out of my control (they probably weren't, but I felt they were in the moment). I'm an incredibly tolerant person, so to me, flaming your teammates who are genuinely trying is the pretty lame. I know this attitude constitutes 50% of the playerbase, but it's really hard to tell when 100% of your teammates in all four games were doing this, including the classic post-game outcry in an attempt to get approval from the enemy team ("I just wish I had a support who knew what they were doing"/"noob bot lane"/"**** useless support"/"back to bots") to which I'd finally reply "that's a lot of anger", and get "fk off Nami" in return.

I mean, yeah, whatever. I'm not the sole target of the flaming (though I have had an absolutely nasty ADC every single game who manages to rile everyone onto their side), so it's not like I'm the sole reason every game was lost. I obviously had a key role in it, as do the other nine players in each game, but I'm trying my best.

In the one Jax jungle game I played, I did about equally as bad, but again, it was one of those scenarios where every one of our lanes was getting destroyed and I didn't really know what to do, and then got yelled at by the ADC for not specifically thinking to jump over the raptors wall to take out a lower-health Jhin who was near two other fed teammates of his. Their Warwick absolutely dominated the game and I didn't stand a chance early on, aside from one lucky kill I got on him while I found him trying to steal my Blue.

I wasn't expecting to land above Silver V or something given that I've only been playing for a couple months - and honestly, I think I'm doing very well given how not-long I've been playing - but I don't really know what to do here if I'm going from doing so consistently well in Draft to being completely, almost 100% useless in solo/duo ranked. Is this a difficulty curve everyone can expect? Are placements more of a wildcard with who you're matched up with given that they're placements? Is this normally how people act in ranked, or have I just wound up with unusually obnoxious teammates in all four of these matches?

I'm not demotivated from playing at all, but I'm really wary about trying even one more placement match because I have to be doing something horribly wrong - at the same time, I know that, while I was probably consistently one of the worst players on our team each game, even if I wasn't, we probably wouldn't have stood a chance. I'm just not really sure what to do, since at this point I'm expecting to end up losing all ten of my placements and wind up with the rudest teammates on all of them. I'm aware of /mute all, but I don't want to hinder any important communication.

[sg-jinx]

7 Comments

ValyrianBlade5/11/2018, 4:13:40 PM2 votes

It's probably a bit early for you to start ranked.

The longer you consistently play well in normal draft, the better quality opponents you'll get there, and the smaller gap you'll have going to ranked.

I played loads of normal draft before going to ranked, and in my first season of ranked I found placements really easy (8-2) and finished the season in gold with about 75 ranked games played. However I was in the top 10% of normal MMR and was frequently playing with platinum and diamond players in normals (so even if they're in off roles, their game knowledge was really good).

In just a few months, you're not going to be high normal MMR. Your probably playing mostly with pre-30 players, or bronze/silver players that may not be on their main champions/roles. So jumping from unranked/bronze level games (or silvers in off roles) to low Silver in main roles is going to be a big difference and you'll understandably do poorly.

On the flip side, losing in ranked and ending up in high bronze and developing from there isn't a bad thing. It sounds like you're doing really well in normals, and you won't grow as fast when you're beating people worse than you. You're simply waiting for your normal MMR to catch up to your skill level, and that can take a long time due to inconsistencies caused by people playing off roles, messing around, etc... Whereas in ranked you'll be forced to learn fast, and once you hit the right spot (quickly), start growing from there.

BLACK REALM GOD5/11/2018, 3:50:52 PM1 votes

before joining ranked you need 5 rune pages, 25 champion/lane combinations that you know how to play really well, a basic understanding of all 150 champions and all items, recent patch notes, and an understanding of gold/xp allotment. it helps tremendously to have <40ms ping.

i have 1 of these and only on occasion yet i still play ranked. i've just settle for bronze v.

Speeedy5/11/2018, 4:27:58 PM1 votes

in short think of the game mode options as a pyramid. with challenger at the top then masters players, all the way down to bronze, then you have normal draft, then blind draft

the best way to get better is to play better people and that means grinding it out, also doesnt hurt to watch to see what pros do or how they build. The biggest mistake I see in low elo is people dont know how to build. Example: I had a top laner VS a full AD team and he built item 3111 item 3065 item 3379 when they had 3 assassins of mid Talon top Yasuo and jungle Khazix. There is no reason to at least build item 3047 since that will negate a lot of damage

NY645/11/2018, 4:34:52 PM1 votes

You really shouldn’t feel bad, honestly I have stopped playing ranked to play normal games for many reasons which would take a while to explain but the main difference between ranked and normal is that in normal people are trying different things and care more about having fun while in ranked people only care about winning and will only try to do their very best. If they can’t win while doing their very best, they point their finger at something or someone to blame, even if it is not that person’s fault. Unfortunately they point their finger at you simply because you’re new to the game. Also don’t feel bad about Warwick kicking your ass, right now he kicks everyone’s ass. Yes the difficulty spike is huge because everyone is trying their best. My best suggestion is too keep playing nami and learn who she is good and bad against, and try to watch which of your actions were good or bad and try to improve from them. My last suggestion which people might disagree with is that you should buy ancient coin and not spell thief as nami. Ancient coin is easier to work with for newer players and allows you to manage mana better, spelltheif is for those who like to play more aggressive by poking.

Doge20205/11/2018, 5:49:29 PM1 votes

Lol have done 7 of my flex placements so far and I think around 4 of them I lost so far, the only reason I won the other 3 was because my team managed to actually do good. My first game I played my main nasus, against a teemo. Which did not go so well because that teemo was good. I actually waited until I was lvl 40-50 before I started to get into ranked.

I have not done solo queue yet because I know that place will be aids for me.