Should you use an easy champ for climbing or use your main?

FrankieZSR·Jan 7, 2020·2 votes·4,238 views

Okay, so basically I bought Nidalee on my main account and have been trying her out. I've played enough to the point where I'm decent enough and understand her mechanics however I still can't carry games like when I'm playing an "easier" champ like Warwick or Annie.

If I play someone like Warwick on Ranked it'll probably be easier for me to climb, however that means I'll have harder opponents and playing NIdalee is going to be even harder. What are you guys thoughts on that?

16 Comments

WoollyWitchJan 7, 20203 votes

[deleted]

GilxeNJan 7, 20201 votes

{quoted}

Nidalee is very under powered at the moment. I don't think your losing game because of her skill ceiling or anything like that. She simply needs some tweaking done. My only advice is to play what you enjoy. If you enjoy nidalee, just play her. Playing all of the "op" champion will just make you a grumpy meta slave. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Pretty much this.

Z3SIeeperJan 7, 20202 votes

Easy climb to Diamond -> Warwick. (Edit: I didn't even read the whole post just the title but now I see you even mentioned WW too lol, yes he's that easy to climb with)

Climbing past Diamond -> Play your main.

Edit 2: Annie is not easy to climb with. Simple to play =/= simple to win with. Warwick being simple to play and simple to win with is merely a coincidence and not the rule for all simpler champs.

AstroFerrari Jan 7, 20202 votes

Yeah this is a really great way of putting it. You can see it in Challenger there are multiple one-tricks who specialize in "ineffective" champions too.

Z3SIeeperJan 7, 20202 votes

Yeah once you get high enough you can flex your picks more with much more success, as many less popular picks are less popular in lower levels of play simply because they do not work in those environments where a stable game state (lower lethality) is extremely uncommon.

Warwick is an extremely simple to play champion that thrives in those consistently unstable environments while also being a completely solid pick in stable matches as well. On top of that, Warwick actually does have a good bit of a skill curve which allows people such as Chelsea Smile (really good WW player I love having on my team) to onetrick him with success in high elo.

JoeMGJan 7, 20201 votes

{quoted}

Easy climb to Diamond -> Warwick. (Edit: I didn't even read the whole post just the title but now I see you even mentioned WW too lol, yes he's that easy to climb with)

Climbing past Diamond -> Play your main.

Edit 2: Annie is not easy to climb with. Simple to play =/= simple to win with. Warwick being simple to play and simple to win with is merely a coincidence and not the rule for all simpler champs.

I've actually heard the opposite X). I've heard climb with your main, but once you hit high diamond/Challenger level, you need to be a meta slave to keep climbing. Not that you can't as a OTP, it's just playing the statistics at that point.

Z3SIeeperJan 7, 20201 votes

Either method works. Either onetrick or metaslave.

SirWimderJan 7, 20201 votes

So when it comes to rank here is typically my mindset, and it a very simple one. My goal in ranked is to climb, So i stick to champs that I can maintain 51% win rate or better. to me it does not matter if the champ is "Easy" or not, No point in playing an easy champ if you cant be consistent and visa versa. No point to play a champ if I consistently suck with it....unless its norms to learn it.

FrankieZSRJan 7, 20201 votes

{quoted}

So when it comes to rank here is typically my mindset, and it a very simple one. My goal in ranked is to climb, So i stick to champs that I can maintain 51% win rate or better. to me it does not matter if the champ is "Easy" or not, No point in playing an easy champ if you cant be consistent and visa versa. No point to play a champ if I consistently suck with it....unless its norms to learn it.

Well by "easy" I meant I can play it consistently and in some cases carry the entire game.

SirWimderJan 7, 20201 votes

So your questions really was....Do i play champs i can win with.....or champs that i think are fun and i suck balls with. if you have to ask that question, maybe go with the option that has win in it.

or here is an option that alot of people seems to think is beneath them.... you could stop playing ranked...and spam norms and play nid till your not shit with her and then go to ranked and play something that is fun/and you can easly carry the entire game with.

MorticianjohnJan 7, 20201 votes

I was in that situation when I first started nidalee. I could play her in bronze or I could play ww and climb to silver. IMHO bronze is more fun than silver anyway. Games go longer, are more volitile, and comebacks/throws are more frequent. Eventually I realized that if I wanted to play Nidalee I couldn't take time off. If I wanted to play another champ for a dozen games, the next game on nidalee was rusty. I moved on from Nidalee because even though the gameplay was unique and enjoyable my favorite thing is to try new champions that I haven't played as much.

FrankieZSRJan 7, 20201 votes

Ah okay. Thank you for this insight its quite relatable. I love trying out new champions and my highest mastery is level 4 :( I don't seem to be able to stick to champions which is actually why I chose to try out nidalee (unique kit hard to master). I figured I wouldn't get bored of her because theirs so much to learn.

IP MasquerenaJan 7, 20201 votes

I would first look at what rank you are. The reason for that is because if you are low elo, just focus on improving your basics instead of the champ.

The thing with that is that champs like WW or Annie are very forgiving when you don't fully know the basics, while champs like Nidalee are very punishing.

So if you can consistently win on forgiving champs but really underperformed on the others, just improve your basics

Skia AsteriJan 7, 20201 votes

Simple champions do two things:

One, they take less of your concentration to play effectively making it easier to pay attention to everything else going on in the game.

Two, if you do review your games to see what you could have done differently, simple champions have less options thus it is easier to find what the "right" or "better" choices were.

Specifically in reference Nidalee , you need games to end quickly for her to be good. Which makes her inherently better at higher ranks because people are better at ending games.

IainG10Jan 7, 20201 votes

You need to find the champion that resonates best with you, then Main that, rather than trying to force a Main; I started the game with Jinx on her release, and whilst I'm not bad at her, my first Main was Leona, because I play fairly aggressively and am not bad at making engage plays (i.e. when to engage vs back off, who to engage on). In the games you win and do well in, look at what you did that enabled you to carry (did you land some really clutch skillshots, or repeatedly single out and kill the enemy carry), then find the champions that are good at that.

Simple champions can get you a fair ways in lower Elos, but they tend to drop off fast as you climb, because simple to play usually means simple to counter.

Annie has a nice simple rotation that is easy to land if you can get in range; any poke mage with a hard cc can remove her with 0 risk.
Warwick has a really healthy clear early for a jungler (seriously, I'd recommend his as everyone's first jungler right now), but hard CC shuts him down and he can't do much to tanks on his own. Also, his clear, whilst healthy, is slow, and the enemy jungler can easily take camps from Warwick's other quadrant, denying him gold and exp.

At the end of the day, the goal of Ranked is to win and climb (keep the 'purely for fun' shit in Normals); with that in mind, play with what wins you the most games.

5or6storesJan 7, 20201 votes

Play the champs you think are fun because rank doesn't really mean anything. Because you're a random person and not a pro player, nobody really cares if you're a plat 3 jax or a gold 3 nidalee. If you boost yourself on point and click snooze champs like Jax Tryndamere then your opponents will be too hard when you play the champs you actually enjoy. This will restrict your choices and make your games no fun.

Simple champs will also not take you all the way, because they offer a more static value. A bad Annie is better than a bad Irelia , because Annie has more guaranteed damage and performance, but it's the other way around where Irelia is superior to Annie at high elo. More of the damage of champs like Irelia or Nidalee is derived from player performance rather than the inherent value of the kit, so it's a better way to view your rank as an accurate reflection of player skill.