How is a person supposed to climb?

Bigg Facts·4/12/2016, 7:50:52 PM·3 votes·771 views

I'm aware bronze and silver have been referred to as ELO hell for ages, and many many players have this problem, but I have a serious inquiry. Can anyone who has escaped bronze and silver tell me how they did it? I have a positive KDA in nearly every game, playing jungle mid or top, and roaming to protect my team as much as possible. I play with plenty of Diamond and platinum friends, and I can compete in their games. I'm not a liability. But no matter what I do, I inevitably have teams full of leavers, feeders, and idiots playing things like ADC vel koz who finish the game at 0/12/3, whenever I play ranked. Are all the decent players who are stuck at the bottom just waiting for a string of luck with decent teams? How does one escape, if they're not a diamond player who can dominate and carry every game.

31 Comments

redniwediS4/12/2016, 8:03:59 PM3 votes

You don't "escape" whatever rank you are at. You're not trapped there. The reason you are whatever rank you are is because you are not currently good enough to climb. Ranks don't show how good you are at playing League, they represent how good you are at climbing the ranked ladder. Don't get me wrong, you do have to be pretty good to reach diamond, but diamond level play with a champion pool that cannot directly carry games can keep you at a lower rank.

Try mixing up what champions you play. Some can solo carry pretty darn hard, where as others cannot carry at all. The act of carrying has nothing to do with your KDA and everything to do with putting that heavy team on your back and forcing them to win, even if they do everything in their power to lose.

Keeping up with high ranked players is a good start, but it's only a start. What you need to do next is to learn how to lead.

Sariat14/12/2016, 9:42:11 PM2 votes

Play nothing but item 1403 MasterYi until you get to Gold, then you can branch out again.

MegaManYYZ4/12/2016, 10:13:48 PM2 votes

play more games, you look like you're winning more than you are losing, eventually you'll climb out.

also build ideal items for your champions. first item item 3072 on graves top isn't META.

Only Play Darius4/12/2016, 9:52:01 PM1 votes

Last season I went from Bronze 4 to Silver 5 in no time by spamming Yas in team builder until I got good with him, then spamming him in ranked. You might need to adjust your champ pool to champs that win by brute force (like Blitz/Udyr/Amumu/Darius/Brand/Malz etc.). You need to crush your lane as hard as possible, learn how to animation/AA cancel on champions that can do it and get the first kill in lane, then zone them from as much CS as possible and kill them when they don't respect you.

Avoid champs that are excel at one thing at the cost of weaknessess that are impossible to work around. Kat may have the best cleanup in the game, but if no one else on her team is doing damage to get people low she might as well not exist. Nasus may destroy objectives but he is rendered useless if his team feeds early (and he cannot stop teleports).

Vanic9984/13/2016, 2:08:40 AM1 votes

Just practice a lot in normals. When I say a lot, I mean enough to consistently do 1v2 or 1v3 outplays. I already do those a lot which is how I climbed out of bronze and silver and soon gold very easily. I practiced so much, that I don't rely on my jingled very often. Just practice a lot and you will climb. Btw, marksman Vel'Koz isn't bad at all.

Bigg Facts4/13/2016, 3:01:10 AM1 votes

Update: First game of the day, played a duo with a friend. 10/3/10 for me, 10/5/12 for him. Lost because our botlane fed their vayne.

Bigg Facts4/13/2016, 4:28:26 AM1 votes

Update number 2: Got an S with Jax, got demoted same game. I give up.

ValiantDogFood4/12/2016, 8:22:32 PM1 votes

I'm in the same spot, but I'm starting to climb thanks to dynamic queue

EndlessSorcerer4/12/2016, 8:50:49 PM1 votes

While I'm expecting to get downvoted for saying this, "ELO Hell" is generally the rank a player truly deserves (or slightly below it).

When your level of skill is significantly better than your current MMR, you can carry games rather reliably. When you MMR is significantly above your current ranking, then you will earn more for each victory than you lose for each defeat and you can quickly climb even with a 50% win rate.

ELO Hell is the point where your MMR is approximately equal to your current ranking and you are no longer more skilled than the people you are being matched with. That is, when your MMR and ranking have reached the appropriate placement for your skill level.

You have to deal with feeders, leavers and trolls at all ranks of the game. You are not immune to them in Gold. You are not immune to the in Diamond.

The thing is, players are equally likely to be subject to those players. Over a large enough sample of games, it will even out; you will have won a similar amount of games due to leavers/feeds/afks as you have lost due to them.

While I've not looked over your profile (so I'm taking you at your word about your play-style and skill-level), I would recommend you try to adapt your playstyle (and picks) to the ELO you are playing in.

You said that you focus on roaming and helping your team as a jungler, which is a prefectly fine play-style when you are with Platinum and Diamond players. However, it tends to focus on coordination with your team and relying on their competency to not throw away the lead you have given them.

It may be a good idea to try a more selfish play-style; focus on getting yourself fed enough that you can hard-carry the game even without the help of you allies (i.e. meat-shields, distractions). Focus on out-farming the enemy laners and getting strong enough to solo-kill them even without assistance, then use that advantage to take down objective after objective

If you want a couple examples to watch, I would recommend Trick2G, Nightblue3 and Sirhcez. While they aren't professional players, they are quite skilled and their play-style tends to be rather selfish. While they do assist their teams heavily (since they are in Diamond), their playstyle is generally centered around controlling what the enemy can do and getting themselves strong enough to influence the game with little help.