What the good bronze players do wrong
I've been in bronze for awhile, and I've just recently grown to hate the division more than I love support, so I'm operating in other lanes with much better results (even when I lose, I feel like I had the chance to carry).
In bronze there are bad players who are bad because they don't do any prep. Bad players because they gut-checked their strategy and think they're the best And bad players because they're trolls, feeders, Wifi players, or they aren't sober.
There's nothing you can really do there. Just swear out loud at your computer, mute everyone, and try to pull off trick plays and hope the enemy get's complacent. But in my experience of playing, here's the 5 things I'd love to explain to Bronzies with talent as the reason they're still bronze.
- Chill Out.
One of the major problems is that people keep saying "If you're good, you'll climb." That's true, and while it's rare, sometimes your teammates are also good. If they start running up the score - don't give the enemy a chance to reciprocate. Hug towers, call MIAs, and push objectives when they back. In other words, let yourself be carried. There's a ton of players who can't do this and it kills me because if you just told yourself its ok to not be a hero, you wouldn't be in this terrible bracket.
- When to recall
The number of times I v-ping when you Ace and recall is absurd. But I see this more than anything and it's a lack of 3-steps-ahead thinking. You get the ace, you're psyched, and you have 2800+ gold. Almost every bronze player cannot resist the catnip of the post-Ace items. This stems from a larger problem where objectives are too low on the priority scale, and kills are way too high (imo they should be 4th or 5th), but in the immediate term, i'll say the post-ace recall is one of the ugliest things I see too often.
- Poke is not an invitation to go HAM
I used to play support constantly. 70% of the time that was mages with the Frostqueen line and therefore I poked a lot. Some ADCs see one Bard poke on the ADC as an invitation to ignore the farm, run through it, and get killed. The Support is supposed to poke, folks. And if he's going in on a situation, you don't follow him blindly. If he died, he dies. That doesn't mean you should, too. 17-20 CS = 1 kill. Just farm.
- Defending the group push without wards.
You're the blue team, and red is barreling down the middle. You fall back and defend the tower, but no one is warding the grass just inside the jungle/fog of war? WHY? How many times have you stood there and fought invisible people from the grass? Someone face checks, gets hooked and murdered, then they kill everyone else and take the tower. It's so simple - ward the side grass as they approach. There's never been a time where warding had more sight-to-power.
- Junglers and overextension.
I have to tell way too many junglers that if the enemy laner is overextended, they need to punish them for it. The key word there is "for." In other words, you need to give the enemy a reason NOT to do something. If they extend without retaliation, they'll always extend. In a perfect world you'll punish them 70% of the time they do it. If that means camping, do it. but the goal isn't kills, the goal is to get them to think "I probably shouldn't extend because that FUCKING jungle is camping out there, I can feel it." Once you've done that, you've created a more global pressure, and you give your laner more farm.
