Seriously, how am I supposed to practice and improve?

Kalmageddon667·Jan 2, 2018·1 votes·712 views

Trying to learn a new champ or role, but there's nothing that can be done. Obviously you don't practice stuff you don't know in ranked cause you don't know it, and half the people don't give a shit anyway cause it's preseason. So I go into normals.

EVERY fucking normals game I get Garen support and Jayce ADC, or Bard ADC with TF support. Or Ahri ADC with Kindred support. Okay, there's a HUGE difference between unconventional off-meta cheese picks, and complete bullshit that isn't a thing and you're just trolling and wasting everyone's time. (Side note, can we start reporting for this bullshit? Unconventional can sometimes work, Zoe support can somewhat be a thing, sure. Aurelion Sol CAN'T fucking jungle, nobody gives a shit that you got autofilled, play the role right.)

K with the rant out of the way, how am I HONESTLY supposed to practice in a live setting? Practice tool can only get you so far in terms of understanding stuff of a champion. You can't do a thing with matchups, teamplay, and decision-making without playing with and against actual players. But when I haven't had a genuine team in four billion games, how the hell do I practice? Having terrible teammates that feed and do poorly isn't the issue, that stuff happens in ranked 80% of the time so that's stuff you have to deal with. Having terrible teammates that feed and do poorly because they want to play one champion and pick it no matter what role they got filled into, or are duo-ing (or god forbid trio-ing) with people and feel like dicking around with horseshit picks is entirely different (and again should be bannable. Find a 5 person queue if you wanna waste time).

How does one go about practicing actual live gameplay when 90% of the games are being thrown away by dipshit players, and I'M the one that would have to lose several hours in dodge timers ALONE to avoid those games?

EDIT: This is all in DRAFT PICK. None of this is Blind Pick, those trolls are not to be trifled with.

19 Comments

69019505DEL1Jan 2, 20182 votes

Garen Teemo are doable support if you are smart, but if your adc is a dumb-ass your out of luck

TengenToppaGnarJan 2, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Trying to learn a new champ or role, but there's nothing that can be done. Obviously you don't practice stuff you don't know in ranked cause you don't know it, and half the people don't give a shit anyway cause it's preseason. So I go into normals.

EVERY fucking normals game I get Garen support and Jayce ADC, or Bard ADC with TF support. Or Ahri ADC with Kindred support. Okay, there's a HUGE difference between unconventional off-meta cheese picks, and complete bullshit that isn't a thing and you're just trolling and wasting everyone's time. (Side note, can we start reporting for this bullshit? Unconventional can sometimes work, Zoe support can somewhat be a thing, sure. Aurelion Sol CAN'T fucking jungle, nobody gives a shit that you got autofilled, play the role right.)

K with the rant out of the way, how am I HONESTLY supposed to practice in a live setting? Practice tool can only get you so far in terms of understanding stuff of a champion. You can't do a thing with matchups, teamplay, and decision-making without playing with and against actual players. But when I haven't had a genuine team in four billion games, how the hell do I practice? Having terrible teammates that feed and do poorly isn't the issue, that stuff happens in ranked 80% of the time so that's stuff you have to deal with. Having terrible teammates that feed and do poorly because they want to play one champion and pick it no matter what role they got filled into, or are duo-ing (or god forbid trio-ing) with people and feel like dicking around with horseshit picks is entirely different (and again should be bannable. Find a 5 person queue if you wanna waste time).

How does one go about practicing actual live gameplay when 90% of the games are being thrown away by dipshit players, and I'M the one that would have to lose several hours in dodge timers ALONE to avoid those games?

Stop playing Blind Pick? I rarely have this problem in draft, outside of one lone troll, and its usually a troll.

Kalmageddon667Jan 2, 20181 votes

Literally never playing Blind Pick. EXCLUSIVELY playing Draft Pick.

TengenToppaGnarJan 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Literally never playing Blind Pick. EXCLUSIVELY playing Draft Pick.

LMAO, then Rito must really hate you? My only thought is you're in a low priority queue, of some sort. NOt the literal one where they forcibly keep you out for like 5 minutes. The low-key one cause you were reported so much, leave-busted a lot, so you're being low-key punished. I thought I got trolled a lot before, then I got a message I wasn't in this type of queue anymore. "WTF are you talking about Rito????" Now trolls are pretty rare :X

Kalmageddon667Jan 2, 20181 votes

I would doubt it. As far as I'm aware, low priority queue is solely based around leaverbuster, and I don't AFK or ragequit cause I'm not a bitch. And if it were report based, I literally__ can't type and be toxic in game (by my own design, not by chat restriction), and since outside of being mean with my words I have no occurrences of toxic behavior, I don't know how I'd be in a low priority queue for being reported, even if it WERE report based.

JarodDempseyJan 2, 20182 votes

idk man i mean trolls suck but having played lol for close to 5 years now and only played normals i find it hard to believe that you get so many feeder trolls. Maybe it's mainly supports which then i wouldnt know since i main support so my team wouldnt have a troller but still. Also, youre higher level than me so it's not because youre low level. Also all of those champs/roles you mentioned are viable although off-meta except ahri adc/kindred supp (which would work if the roles were reversed). Lastly aurel can jungle although he is super uber weak to counter jungle and relies almost entirely on his flying ability to gank with his stun aoe since he cant hide for shit in bushes.

RookPusherJan 2, 20182 votes

No I feel you. This is why I wish they'd bring Team Builder back.

TehNACHOJan 2, 20181 votes

You play despite the weirdos.

Just saying though a lot of those picks you mentioned are hilarious off meta picks when they are/were strong.

Lord of bearJan 2, 20181 votes

(Side note, can we start reporting for this bullshit? Unconventional can sometimes work, Zoe support can somewhat be a thing, sure. Aurelion Sol CAN'T fucking jungle, nobody gives a shit that you got autofilled, play the role right.). Yeah you Can start reporting then but rito doesnt have any people working on reports and bots dont know if they troll or are just Bad at game so thats why you Can run Down mid :(

InfernapeJan 2, 20181 votes

Sol jungle was his highest win rate role for most of season 7.

ModPeriscopeJan 2, 20181 votes

I don't understand. You want to practice in only meta/near meta teams? What happens when you come across atypical picks in Ranked?

It's still a new season, and while there are typical picks/roles, I think we're still far from a clearly defined meta.

Kalmageddon667Jan 2, 20181 votes

There's a difference between near meta, and does not/can not function in a role. Top lane Vayne? Not meta, but can somewhat function. That's an atypical pick in ranked. AP Urgot ADC? No that doesn't work in any role let alone as an ADC. There's a difference between things that will ACTUALLY be played, or can put up somewhat of a struggle and then have their powerspike at some point in the game, and people wanting to fuck around or tunnel on EXCLUSIVELY playing a champ but not getting the role they queued primary for and picking that champ anyway and then going 0/10.

TL;DR - An atypical or niche pick is NOT the same as a borderline-completely-nonfunctional pick.

ModPeriscopeJan 2, 20181 votes

You playing Kayne isn't tunneling? You're trying to make an exception for yourself.

You mentioned non-meta picks earlier. Your history shows you playing with non-meta picks, not with things like AP Urgot.

Kalmageddon667Jan 2, 20181 votes

Me playing Kayn is indeed not tunneling because I don't pick him when I get autofilled, and if he's banned I don't play ADC Fiddlesticks. If I get him in the jungle, I get him in the jungle. If I don't get jungle or get him, I don't bullshit around and don't deliberately waste 4 people's time. So, no I'm not making an exception for myself in the slightest.

Kalmageddon667Jan 2, 20181 votes

{quoted} You mentioned non-meta picks earlier. Your history shows you playing with non-meta picks, not with things like AP Urgot.

It's almost like I'm dodging the EXCEPTIONALLY extreme picks in champ select such as the ADC fiddlesticks and the guy calling out AP Urgot because there's almost no good to be had in terms of personal improvement playing with literal dead weight. As opposed to sticking out an AD Taric Support with a tank thresh ADC because there's at least a mildly acceptable perform-ability to be had there, and with the increase in outrageous picks and the punishment of dodge timers it's impossible to avoid every situation where people are clearly not playing with the intent of winning and instead to dick around where they should be doing so in customs.

ZephyrDrakeJan 2, 20181 votes

it's a normals, the mode where people go to when they either want to learn something, try something new or just screw around with. As long as they are not trolling and actually playing to win and not being a toxic douchebag then it doesn't matter what they pick. It can be something stupid like support Kassadin or something like ADC Shaco as long as they are trying to win then that's enough.

Kalmageddon667Jan 2, 20181 votes

Take this for example, in Season 6 I believe it was, there was a Singed Support 1 trick. That's VERY off meta, but at least has somefunction. He would take ghost and smite (okay, even way more unconventional) and his gameplay revolved around constantly roaming, and smite stealing the enemy jungler's camps and then harassing him. He follows those up with very effective ganks in top and mid, and also helped gank with the jungler. He would almost constantly roam, and very rarely be in lane. He essentially took out three players on the enemy team (mid, jungle and top) by getting his lanes WAY ahead, at the expense of his ADC solo laning for a lot of time. He got as far as Plat 1 I believe, and had almost a 70% win rate on the champion.

However, due to the extreme amount of reports he got, he was personally informed by Riot that he was expressly FORBIDDEN from playing the champion in that role with those summoners and that playstyle because it negatively impacted their ADC. Despite achieving a good rank, despite having a 70% win rate in hundreds of games, and despite Riot's regulations stating they will never enforce a meta and will let the be defined by the players, they still warned him of an impending permaban if he kept up the playstyle. However this was a very well proven victory condition, and a roaming support that gets other lanes ahead is in fact an incredibly viable option and playstyle.

But this differs entirely from something that CANNOT function.

By picking something that has borderline zero functionality, you are by default not playing to win. If you pick Ivern mid lane, that DOESN'T WORK. If you pick some champion that has a hard CC and good burst damage and put it in the support role (Syndra, hell even lethality Wukong worked for a bit) then you at least have the capability of performing to some degree what a more commonly picked champion might perform. Zilean can support, Zilean can mid lane, Zilean can even top lane. Zilean only has one damage ability in his kit and CANNOT jungle due to the fact he would need to be level 11 to have enough AP to double bomb clear camps safely and not die.

I'm not "complaining" about people play things that aren't meta. I'm complaining about people playing things that have almost zero functionality just because they want to play that champion and only that champion, or feel like dicking around with their buddies.

ZephyrDrakeJan 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Take this for example, in Season 6 I believe it was, there was a Singed Support 1 trick. That's VERY off meta, but at least has somefunction. He would take ghost and smite (okay, even way more unconventional) and his gameplay revolved around constantly roaming, and smite stealing the enemy jungler's camps and then harassing him. He follows those up with very effective ganks in top and mid, and also helped gank with the jungler. He would almost constantly roam, and very rarely be in lane. He essentially took out three players on the enemy team (mid, jungle and top) by getting his lanes WAY ahead, at the expense of his ADC solo laning for a lot of time. He got as far as Plat 1 I believe, and had almost a 70% win rate on the champion.

However, due to the extreme amount of reports he got, he was personally informed by Riot that he was expressly FORBIDDEN from playing the champion in that role with those summoners and that playstyle because it negatively impacted their ADC. Despite achieving a good rank, despite having a 70% win rate in hundreds of games, and despite Riot's regulations stating they will never enforce a meta and will let the be defined by the players, they still warned him of an impending permaban if he kept up the playstyle. However this was a very well proven victory condition, and a roaming support that gets other lanes ahead is in fact an incredibly viable option and playstyle.

But this differs entirely from something that CANNOT function.

By picking something that has borderline zero functionality, you are by default not playing to win. If you pick Ivern mid lane, that DOESN'T WORK. If you pick some champion that has a hard CC and good burst damage and put it in the support role (Syndra, hell even lethality Wukong worked for a bit) then you at least have the capability of performing to some degree what a more commonly picked champion might perform. Zilean can support, Zilean can mid lane, Zilean can even top lane. Zilean only has one damage ability in his kit and CANNOT jungle due to the fact he would need to be level 11 to have enough AP to double bomb clear camps safely and not die.

I'm not "complaining" about people play things that aren't meta. I'm complaining about people playing things that have almost zero functionality just because they want to play that champion and only that champion, or feel like dicking around with their buddies.

you can't be this dense... that Singed was someone who went into ranked, played nothing at all like you expected to, everyone in his team was telling him to not do it yet all he did was copy and paste the exact same message in every single game and then refused to say anything else. He actively went to screw with his jungler, actively left his ADC alone just for a strategy that might work or it might not even though everyone told him to not do it. Like i said he was doing this in ranked. Not normals where people just want to try new things or just play whatever it is that they want to play.

Sorry you want people to normals like they were ranked games. Why even have normal games at that point? why not just have ranked as the only mode?

PeachyPosteriorJan 2, 20181 votes

First things first, have you vs'd bots to practice your combos and really learn the champs kit? If no, do so.

If yes, and you're playing draft, you just gotta roll with the punches. Add people who you enjoyed playing with and start making premades. That's one player on your team who you know is going to know their stuff.

As for games where you think someone did something wrong, (wrong champ for roll, needs a better item set, etc.) polity point it out to them. "Hey have you tried X champ in Y lane instead? They're better matched for it, especially if you grab Z items for them"

Also what level are they? It took a while before I was able to branch out into other champions, never mind actually having any clue how to play them. Most one tricks I've encountered are simply new to the game. They've only found the one champ that they understand and find fun so far (out of their small pool of champ options) and are trying to get better at them.

Yeah, it's harsh when they're auto filled and have no idea what to do and have no one else they know how to play, but I'm pretty sure we've all been there at some point.