How can I improve at this complex game?

GarthBrooksXD·Jan 2, 2017·3 votes·630 views

I have watched all the videos from Phylol, Sky Williams, and that idiot with the head band about how to climb but I just can't get it :( Any tips on reaching diamond this year?

15 Comments

420 gramsJan 2, 20173 votes

Practice and abuse the meta. The higher level you get, the more what's meta matters.

GarthBrooksXDJan 2, 20172 votes

So I should play Shaco?

xReadyPlayerOnexJan 2, 20173 votes

Stop watching youtubers. Odds are they're doing stupid shit that can get you banned.

Getting better requires hours put in and thinking about how to optimize your champion's success. Asking myself questions like this made me better:

Where should I ward?
How does my champion deal the most damage in the least amount of time?
How do I cs most effectively? Or clear the jungle quickest...
What items am I building next? Why? Can I get a different item and help a struggling lane?
Where should I roam? When?
What objective should be taken next?
WHERE SHOULD I WARD???
WHERE SHOULD I WARD??? GET A CONTROL WARD... USE IT... PLACE IT... IF IT DIES GET ANOTHER...
DID YOU GET A WARD YET????
Know which champions can counter you and why they counter you.
USE THE MAP. USE THE MAP... USE THE MAP... USE THE MAP!!!!

There's a couple more that are role specific like when do I gank? Which lane... why...

All of this is helped by math and knowing what time in the game things can and should happen.

The DrewprintJan 2, 20172 votes

and that idiot with the head band about how to climb but I just can't get it :(

Well there's your problem.

GarthBrooksXDJan 3, 20171 votes

man that was so obvious :)

KiyoYoshimaruJan 2, 20171 votes

Use taric when you support, Shaco when you're top lane, sion when you're mid, Zhao when you jungle, and anyone you are good at when in bottom position, not necesarilly an adc.

GarthBrooksXDJan 2, 20173 votes

I'd like some more in-depth analysis and general gameplay tips plz

Elite4RunnerJan 2, 20171 votes

There is no simple answer. As you said, this is a very complex game so all you can really do is learn as much of the complexity as you can and practice.

Being good at this game is really just about establishing good habits and performing consistently.

There are always things that could be suggested to improve upon however.

Laning is a great example. When someone suggests how to get better at laning, they will most often refer to csing or farming and point out that you need to last hit effectively in order to get the most farm possible.

This is absolutely true, but it isn't as simple as "kill all the minions as quickly as possible".

It actually becomes more important to learn when, where, and how to freeze and push your lane in order to deny your lane opponent their share of the farm.

The thing that bothered me about this for the longest time is that nobody seems to have put out any good videos on YouTube about this. It is literally just something that I have had to pick up by watching people play. Sometimes a streamer will mention it, and explain themselves, but never really in full detail.

And despite knowing the importance of it myself, I am still not very good at it.

So again, keep learning, keep practicing, and always keep a positive attitude (it's more important than you think)

GarthBrooksXDJan 3, 20171 votes

Hey Elite, I did kinda post this as a joke, but I also have been focusing on improving my knowledge and skill of lane management and appropriate backing times... And I have talked with diamond+ players on my friend list and even practiced this with them and here is the basic theory pretty much:

When you hit an enemy minion without last hitting it, you cause your wave to push some. If an enemy laner hits a minion without last hitting, then to keep the wave from pushing towards you, you need to hit one of their minions with an equal amount of damage.

If you hit the enemy laner and take minion aggro, you are pushing the lane because their minions are now attacking you instead of your minions. Your minions are hitting the enemy minions still if the enemy did not retaliate.

So you can try to control the waves position by managing these things with the minions. Ideally you can zone the enemy laner off from the farm by keeping the wave just outside the range of your tower(being able to harass the enemy away from farming and exposing the enemy to ganks in this position) and even tanking the wave to keep the tower from hitting the enemy minions until your next wave comes to meet it.

If an enemy has this advantage on you, you would want your jungler to help you push the wave into the tower so the waves will reset and meet in the center of the map.

The ideal time to back is typically on a cannon wave because the wave kills each other more slowly, so you will miss less farm exp when away. Other ideal time to back is after a kill and pushing the wave into the tower but only pushing it either when you know mid cannot kill you and the enemy jungler cannot kill you. The jungler who may have helped you get the kill should help you push the wave into the tower to deny enemy farm/exp.

^ So I think that is correct, no? Implementing it is the part where much practice comes in. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Elite4RunnerJan 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, for the most part that is pretty much it.

A few things.

If you hit the enemy laner and take minion aggro, ..

This may be what you meant, but a lot of people don't know that you only draw minion aggro when you apply on-hit effects, so auto attacks and abilities that apply on-hits, but abilities that do not apply on-hit will not draw minion aggro.

You did mention a portion of what it means to freeze a minion wave when you suggested that you need to apply even damage as your opponent, but just to clarify, freezing a wave means that you want to equalize the number of minions on both sides. It is important to know where and how to do this so that you can freeze a wave on your side of the lane, and force the enemy laner to over-extend. If you can do this when you are confident that there is no vision in the river and your jungler is nearby you can usually set up an easy gank.

You can also accomplish something similar to this by stalling a minion wave by body blocking them or using an ability that will slow their progression to the front line. This is actually less common anymore, but still works well.

I guess I could be wrong, but I am not sure that I agree about it being best to back during a cannon wave. Cannon minions are very valuable and unless you have TP it is pretty likely you will miss it. I suppose it may be best to do this after you have killed the enemy lane's cannon minion and allow the enemy minions to kill your cannon, hopefully before your lane opponent gets it. I still think it is the most ideal to back when a wave is pushing under tower, but of course that is not always possible.

As I said though, understanding and doing these things are two very different things.

I'm not great at either myself yet.

Elite4RunnerJan 2, 20171 votes

Another tip that is now much easier to actually do thanks to the in-client replay system, ..

Watch your own games!

Learn from yourself.

When you die, try and figure out what you could have done, more importantly, what you could have seen (or what you didn't see) that could have saved you.

As one of your other commenters mentioned, vision and map awareness are very important.

nm1010Jan 3, 20171 votes

You can watch whatever you want but league is all repetition, you need to see everything on the map, get every cs, harass the enemy when they go for cs, position well, rotate well, and most importantly you need to do all of this QUICKLY doesn't matter if you do the right thing too slowly.

If you do something that gets you a loss you need to fix it or play 2k games as support janna and hope to get carried.

GarthBrooksXDJan 3, 20172 votes

right, this is an easy thing for you to say being a top tier player who understands what needs to happen in each game for the most part, but for noobs who have 5 million mastery in fiora in bronze 5 repetition has helped nothing. People actually need to know what is the right thing to do and it isn't always clear for low elo players.

nm1010Jan 3, 20171 votes

You just said you watch videos all the time, watch ls and you will see if you understand league improving is literally this. Do you die to much? Stop dying so much. Do you not cs well? Go cs in a custom game until you hit 200 at 20 every time. Does your bot lane feed? Pick a champ that can run bot lane and one shot the adc at level 6.

Yes you have to refine these as you climb, but if it was easy to hit diamond everyone would be in it.

GarthBrooksXDJan 3, 20171 votes

damn. thought it would be easy. gg im afk