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In depth look at why its so hard to climb to gold ( for bronze-silver players)

dontspinbutwin··2 votes·3,240 views

Hi, I'm not the best at this game. Lets get that sh*t out right now.

In the climb to gold, many bronze and silver players struggle to consistently win, and what usually occurs is they win a game, lose a game, win, lose, lose, win... etc. They kinda just stay in the same spot...until luck occurs and they win a few games in a row. But why do lower-elo players struggle to consistently win multiple games in a row?

It's honestly really easy to just say "oh thats bc theyre bronze and trash they wont ever learn", but i've seen some people go 0/10 in ranked games and still be the carry of the team (YASUO COUGH COUGH).

From 1 permabanned account and this account, ive played my fair share of ranked games, and was indeed placed bronze 5 (ouch) in my first account. I just climbed and learned through failure. Here's alot of what i commonly noticed.

  1. Nearly everyone in lower-elos don't own up to their own faults We all have crap moves/decisions. You've had your fair share and so have I. However, because most low-elo players think they're really good, they refuse to admit to their mistakes, and repeat the same mistake... be it continue to fight while behind, pushing lane, refusing to buy wards, refusing to build defences, so on so forth. Lower-elos hate the idea of slowing down, so they keep doing what they want to do, which causes them to get behind. A really good example of this is our wind boi yasuo. In lower-elos, he's played extremely aggressively, despite having quite weak dueling power early game, because yasuo players just like the idea of a passive shield, infinite dashes, and manaless harass. Because lower-elo yasuo players have the option to play aggressively, many will, in hopes to "outplay" like they see on youtube or reddit. That's a big difference between low elo and high elo yasuo mains: when to go in, and knowing (not guessing) when they can win a trade. If it only impacted one person it might not be too big an issue if the rest of the team plays passively. However, with 1 person feeding, that means someone on the enemy team is getting gold. If someone is 3 kills ahead, thats about 900 gold. If thats an adc, thats a pickaxe. If thats a tank, thats 2 cloth armors and boots. I could go on and on, but tldr: Constant repetition of mistakes causes loss.
  2. obtaining gold. Holy crap. Gold is a heavy factor in the game: usually whoever gets certain items faster leads to better teamfights which leads to a victory/loss. The greatest source of gold as of now is shutting down a hypercarry and getting around 900 gold. However, since alot of lower-elo players want to be aggressive to show they're the best, many kills will be scattered around lower elo early games compared to higher elo early games. And when someone gets behind, that said person will then either complain to their team that they cant do anything... seeing as they dont want to be playing passive. These complaints are usually given to the jungler. However, its not uncommon news to know last hitting minions grants gold. the average minnon grants 14 gold, with a cannon every 3rd wave giving 60. so a wave of perfect last hitting will grant 84 gold, with a cannon granting about 100 gold. That totals up to about 268 gold for 3 conseccutive waves of perfect last hitting. And if you have a dorans blade/shield, you're gaining passive hp during that time, allowing you to take minor harass. Now obviously you cant do that every game. If you're a juggernaut like darius or garen, fighting a quinn top will make it near impossible to farm or kill. Thats why junglers exist. Sadly, alot of junglers have the opposite problem in lower elo: they actually get MORE gold farming in the jungle compared to ganking a lane... So most low elo junglers won't gank unless it wont be inconvenient, lane taxing is guarenteed, or they're playing pantheon jungle. Low elo teams don't see the bigger picture: thats why toplaners will compete with adcs for cs in the same lane late game, granting gold to the wrong players. So tldr: don't be selfish and play selfishly, learn to be passive, know when you can solidly go in for a guarenteed kill/summener spell, and learn to give up farm. 3.Priorities. This last point is probably the single biggest reason why constant game winning is a struggle for low elo. Many low elo players, and I repeat, play for kda, NOT for objectives. This doesn't mean low elo players won't get objectives, oh no. They're gonna get it because itll involve gold.... but thats about it to them. Objectives include dragon, baron, harold, turrets, inhibs, and the nexus ( technically buffs can fit in this category i suppose). However, alot of low elo players won't go out of their way to secure these objectives mainly because the direct impact isn't there for them. Sure they could get bot tower.... or they could back early to pick up those sweet kicks. That brings me to another topic. Many players don't act for objectives because they play for kda. Let me clarify this a bit. Lets say I'm playing tryndamere top and 3 people come top to stop my splitpush. If my team responds appropriately and pushes/gets bot turret, then my death is beyond worth it. However, if I die and my team backs off because theyre afraid of dying, what will likely ensue is verbal toxicity, and less motivation to get turrets, and me giving the enemy team a free 600 gold (300+150+150). So tldr: dont be a wuss, dont play for kda, get objectives.

I understand these things, but much of my team doesn't. So that's why I usually have to assume i'm the only backbone the team has... which is why i usually play juggernauts like darius or illaoi, so I can be a bursty frontline tank who can poke and engage, while killing all who try to counter my engage.

There are factors obviously like inting or actual dc issues, but I wont include them bc that happens in all elos.

Any comments on my thoughts? Am i a fool and am I wrong in all I say? let me know.

9 Comments

PrismalDawn3 votes

The greatest source of gold as of now is shutting down a hypercarry and getting around 900 gold

There are these cool things called "minions" in the game. Killing like 6 or 7 of them grants about 100 gold give or take 60 of that as the game progresses. It's really cool, they do no damage to you later in the game and plus they spawn like every 30 seconds and check this, everyone on your team ignores them after the laning phase is over! IS THAT COOL!? IT'S LIKE FREE GOLD JUST SITTING THERE! LOL!!!11ONE!!!!

Warmanreaper2 votes

{quoted}

There are these cool things called "minions" in the game. Killing like 6 or 7 of them grants about 100 gold give or take 60 of that as the game progresses. It's really cool, they do no damage to you later in the game and plus they spawn like every 30 seconds and check this, everyone on your team ignores them after the laning phase is over! IS THAT COOL!? IT'S LIKE FREE GOLD JUST SITTING THERE! LOL!!!11ONE!!!!

I agree with all of these, except that "They do no damage to you later" That's a fat lie to tell these people lol you're gonna have them face tank a wave and it'll be Attack On Titan all over again.

dontspinbutwin1 votes

... if you keep reading the paragraph, i actually do mention the gold distribution among teammates,and the value of cs. I specifically mention a wave is roughly 100 gold. Also, minions do hurt if ur a support. My gripe withe the hypercarry shutdown is that they won't exist if everyone just plays passively, which is usually never seen in lower elos.

Zardo1 votes

You think getting to gold will fix this? How cute. It doesn't even get any better in low plat.

dontspinbutwin1 votes

I've gotten to gold, and it gets slowly better from what I experienced in my games. Of course, there are the few arrogant snobs here who try to be playmakers and then fail, but I just assumed that gold was the borderline of this "stupidity".

Warmanreaper1 votes

If you want to be completely honest, The hardest elo to climb in league isn't gold, isn't plat, isn't challenger or master, it's literally bronze. Some can argue, but bronze has the lowest success rate in the game due to the fact that, Everybody that has mistakes is in bronze. No matter what, you will always be with somebody (along with yourself) in a ranked game that makes alot of mistakes, which will let alone cause you to lose regardless. Someone will feed, or they'll be toxic, or you'll just have those people that ignore everybody etc. Bronze is bad because its bad players, put with bad players, Bad interms of skills, OR bad interms of social standing. I can say, which many people can't, You can actually be good in bronze, and still be bronze just because of the fact that even if you're a Gold player in bronze, you will lose because everybody will make mistakes, it just depends on if you cant abuse the enemies mistakes before they abuse your teammates mistakes and use them against you. This is where the "1v9" phrase comes in.

dontspinbutwin1 votes

I'm split here. I mean it's true that bronze is hard to climb out of bc the reasons u stated, but at the same time, you also have the silver 5s who are trash, yet brag like "oh but im not bronze, so im good!", and their arrogance loses games. Ive seen it firsthand, both on my team and on the enemy. I seriously think if everyone just plays super safe and doesn't think they can be a playmaker, then players will actually get smarter and better at the game, rather than a person winning by champ pick alone.

Sträw Hat1 votes

{quoted}

I'm split here. I mean it's true that bronze is hard to climb out of bc the reasons u stated, but at the same time, you also have the silver 5s who are trash, yet brag like "oh but im not bronze, so im good!", and their arrogance loses games. Ive seen it firsthand, both on my team and on the enemy. I seriously think if everyone just plays super safe and doesn't think they can be a playmaker, then players will actually get smarter and better at the game, rather than a person winning by champ pick alone.

I think that's bull. I'm currently silver 1 and I started from bronze 5 a few seasons ago. I've climbed out of bronze twice. I used to actually be bronze 5, but then I started to learn more about the game. And if you look at this season, I started silver 4 (technically 5 cause there's no 5 now) and am now silver 1. And I will say, your team doesn't matter. I play jungle and understand how important it is to have teammates that can follow plays. But the biggest mistake I see is everyone assumes that someone's going to be there to help. If you play like your alone and only pick fights that you know your team will follow up on (That means baron/dragon fights too) then you'll win more. I could rant on about everything I've learned from bronze to gold (Not there yet, but will be in a few games.) but I won't. If a bronze honestly cares to know what's holding them back, watch a replay of your own game and tell me why everytime you died, it wasn't your fault. Better yet, what could you have done to avoid that death.

Dylan5951 votes

I do agree with almost everything you say. I won't focus on rebutting what you stated but rather put my own add on. The ability to play around your teams ability is an INSANELY good skill. Playing in solo que is not the same as if you had coms and could rely on you're teams skill because you know them. You often have to feel out how you're teammates play and what they tend to do. You can give them advice but just accept it if they don't change their habit. TLDR: Play good League play but be conscious to play around your teams ability. Don't play aggressive if you're team doesn't know to play aggressive with you. etc. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] Feel free to add a comment or suggest I revise this.

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