"Don't Blame your teammates if you're not climbing"

DebonairDonnie·6/13/2017, 5:00:49 PM·17 votes·4,499 views

The above sentiment is one I generally agree with both in league and in life in general. I understand the value of introspection but I've just lost 5 games in a row, 4 of which consisted of someone trolling (running around to give free kills) or afk before 15 minutes was up. Perhaps even before 10. Now I'm trying to climb as a support, and I've watched videos and read a lot of "do this, focus on this" based articles, but I clearly need additional information. How are you climbing as a support when your mid lane carry leaves? How are you climbing when your adc engages as the enemy support's cc comes online while yours has just been used/missed, so they resort to insulting you and sitting in base rather than playing? Like is there a better time of day to play in order to avoid people that immediately go toxic? Is summer just a bad time to play in general? You can rest assured that I'm not skimping on the self improvement part. I'm trying to learn more about warding and helping my adc with wave manipulation, ideal match ups, playing champs I don't necessarily like because I need to know how to play what's meta, but since the Summer hit, I went from Silver II to lingering in limbo between Silver IV and V. How are you guys climbing as a support with carries that just quit because of you, another teammate, or whatever? All advice is welcome, please.

~Don

99 Comments

Starcraft243ver6/13/2017, 5:09:39 PM5 votes

There's no reasons your carries would quit more than the carries on the opponents side, except if you are particularly bad or toxic in any way.

You ask "how to climb when XX is doing YY in this ZZ game". That's the wrong mindset. Sure some of your games will be lost because of XX doing YY. The opposite is true as well, you will win some games easily because XX is doing YY on the other team.

Focus on games where you matter. It doesnt matter that you had 50 afks in your team this season. Play 500 ranked games and win the other 450, it's all it takes to be top challenger. There's NO way you can have less afk in your team if you are always nice to anyone. So, stop focusing on how the AFK's ruin your games. You can't change it, why bother ? Focus on EVERYTHING else.

SwiftKitten886/13/2017, 10:25:09 PM5 votes

the whole premise of not blaming your teammtes for not climbing is good for newer players yes...

but overall if you are a LOT lower than where u belong... its not always true...

can i still climb? yes... but if i had teammates who didn't feed thier ass off it would take me 20 games to climb and not 200

will you still climb... yes.. of course you will... but how many more games will it take you? if mean if you can't climb in the length of one season becuase your teammtes feed and since riot demoted everyone at the beginning of each season it is VERY possible to to have your teammates prevent you from climbing.

i mean sure if you play 10 ranked games per day... the no... your still going to climb relativly fast becuase you have a higher number of games..

but if you play 2-3 ranked game per week? then your teammates will make all the difference

The Fuzzy 0ne6/13/2017, 5:59:43 PM3 votes
  1. No flaming And if you're teammate is flaming someone else, try to give them "gj"s or some positive note so they don't feed or afk

  2. Ward Many times people will get behind and therefore get frustrated because they're losing. Don't be afraid to roam up and lend a ward to mid or top if you're real ballsy

  3. Map Awareness Keep an eye out for ganks on your lane AND the other lanes because they might not be aware of what's coming

Those things should help teammates have a more positive game experience and therefore maybe they will play better and have a better outlook on the game at hand

SlashStriker6/13/2017, 7:12:58 PM3 votes

If i am ahead and my team is feeding who do i blame? The Ghost Busters?

RookPusher6/13/2017, 5:03:01 PM3 votes

Your match history says you don't play ranked. You can't complain unless you put your cards on the table.

Azure Hamster6/13/2017, 8:46:14 PM2 votes

Whenever I get stuck and stop climbing, I take some paid lessons. They tell me stupid shit I'm doing, or better things I should do. Then I move up again. After having this happen several times, I am now completely confident when I say, "If you're not climbing, look at your own play, not that of others."

Caitlyn

Solidarius6/13/2017, 5:44:51 PM2 votes

if you can carry the game as a support you are top player.

I dont supp, but the best advice I can give you is try your best to work together with your ADC, a good duo adc/supp is very frustrating to face against.

I know some games you might get those ADC that get tilted easy but if they see you trying your best to save em/protect em ect they will respect you... I played supp once or twice because of autofill and would DIE protecting my ADC vs enemy team, I would even flash to block skill shots aimed for him/her :P

dont give up! and if you get that ADC that insults you and sits in base just work together with the mid carry or top laner, it will make him/her more mad :D

Troll for Trump6/13/2017, 8:27:01 PM2 votes

Stop with the "don't blame your team" mentality.

It's objectively wrong.

This is a team game; you see people saying that a lot. If you lose, it's rarely just your fault. If you win, it's rarely just because of you.

You win or lose based on the team. Sometimes, you get crappy teammates, and you just have to accept that you got unlucky.

Got that autofilled ADC with 13 deaths?

Of course it isn't your fault, you got unlucky.

The outside factors of soloQ affect you more than you affect others.

Yes, you are the only constant in between games, but you have little effect on the other variables.

LightIsMyPath6/13/2017, 9:29:28 PM2 votes

Hi! I'm experiencing the same up and down through silver you are ( currently I am coming back from the 5.. Again:/) . My best role is not support but it's my secondary so I played it enough to understand what you are saying.

What I noticed in games when your team"goes wild" is your behavior towards teammates can really be a big difference. I often make the mistake of playing when I 'm not in the mood for being social and if something goes rough my chances of loosing are way higher. When I ' chill instead I tend to be really positive towards my teammates and this usually have effects you wouldn't believe! If I managed to make my team like me early game (be it with plays or words) they are way more likely to follow my calls and since I have the control of the vision and usually a good map awareness I can often find myself in the position to carry the game via leading the team while the enemies can't keep up with our rotations.

Another thing is being able to judge your teammates and your team comp: Sometimes you realize for example that your midlaner sucks: So, better building more apish if your champ allows it or build towards maximizing your ADC damage output since you will lack proper damage from one of the carries?better leave him to rot and maximize the income from other lanes or help him stay relevant? All of this is stuff we should ask ourselves and decide accordingly to our reading of the game ( of course the decision can't always be good.. Some games ago for example I decided to let my Darius top to rot on his fed teemo cause my jinx was fed and I thought she could easily carry the game even without top online.. Boy I was wrong : I didn't consider Darius frustration and disregarded his constant calls for help, he tilted eventually and started suiciding on purpose on our lane.. Just so we could feel how it is to deal with fed enemies. We lost. ) .

Anyway aside from mechanic improvements (which I can't help you with as we are same elo), I find more succes being the"psychologist" of the team, as it helps your map management too. Instead when I feel negative even if I look at map no one trusts me enough to follow on more then standard calls like free barons/drakes/turrets .. And I end up relying on mechanics from both me and my opponents so when we have the skill disadvantage the game is lost.

Inting Pillow6/14/2017, 5:07:56 AM2 votes

90% of players who deserve gold are stuck in silver because of bad teammates.

briz83803/25/2019, 3:41:24 AM1 votes

Thinking that blaming your teammates is the reason you're losing just indicates that you have a low iq. If your stats are better than almost everyone for your rank (which you can check), you should climb. Teammates are the main reason good players lose games. Riot does it on purpose, you can check on leagueofgraphs, when you go into promos you get worse players on your team because for some reason, instead of climbing being something that involves being highly above average, climbing is a contest to see who's better at master yi and vayne and who can 1v9 on a more consistent basis.

Emerald Fang6/13/2017, 5:04:34 PM1 votes

Well, it happens. You aren't playing ranked, so... you can't really complain about "not climbing" when you have nothing to climb.

FioraWillCarry3/25/2019, 8:22:54 AM1 votes

I think people generally misunderstand what it means not to blame your team mates. Of course your team mates are primarily responsible for whether you win or lose a game, it would be stupid to think otherwise. However, what you must realize, just as often as your team mates will lose you games, the enemy teams you face will also have idiots losing their team's game which gives you wins. So what it comes down to is chance. In any given lane, members from one team will feed the other. This means there is a 50% chance in each lane that you get the feeder. That is completely up to chance and you absolutely cannot do anything about that. But you can alter the chances in your own lane. If there is a 100% chance that you won't feed, then you give your team an advantage. There will be 5 people on the enemy team with a 50% chance of feeding but on your team, there are 4 people with a 50% chance of feeding and one with a 0% chance of feeding, which is you. The overall odds are 45% that your team will feed and lose and 55% that the enemy team will. These are favorable odds for you that will result in you climbing over a large number of games.

I managed to get to Gold recently, on another account of course. I tried for years and finally succeeded. While many things were responsible, part of the reason was embracing that League is ultimately a game of chance. I played only my best champs and tried every game to not be the reason my team loses and what resulted was a positive overall win rate. I got to Gold fairly easily. I had lots of games with AFKs and feeding trash but I was almost never the reason any of my teams lost their games. It's a boring way to play but it's effective at climbing.

Unnamed Player36/14/2017, 6:02:59 PM1 votes

I feel your pain man. Sometimes things don't go the way we want them to. Several pieces of advice, but its probable you heard them already (take this with a grain of salt as I am not a good player):

While your games will heavily influence most of your games, you are only 20% of your team ultimately, so don't blame yourself if your team made games unwinnable. Note, however, that tilt can greatly affect your perception of games: a tilted player may view a perfectly winnable game (think 8vs12 with a 1 tower deficit) as unwinnable because of tilt - happens to the best of us, but it greatly increases our lost game count if tilt is allowed to reign upon. Based on your post I'm guessing you may be a bit inclined to tilt (I may be wrong so please don't hate me), so try playing an easy smurf game to get rid of that first (or any other tilt-removing technique that fits you).

As a support, try playing damage supports (brand, zyra, lux, even tf etc.). if your adc is a toxic pussy, is uncooperative or just afk (NOT if he's just having a bad game and trying their best), damage supports are your best bet. Take cs if they actually have no idea what they're doing and try to be a second mid laner - I may be downvoted to the dust for saying this but to win, you NEED damage to win - a game with no utility is still winnable, but a game with no damage isn't imo.

If you prefer utility supports that is perfectly fine, but you must pray that your team's hyper carry does not disconnect.

Best of luck in your climb m8.

DebonairDonnie6/15/2017, 12:39:18 AM1 votes

As I respond to what I can individually, I just want to leave a general comment stating that I'm overwhelmed by and appreciative of the positive energy coming from you guys. I'm legitimately applying things that you've told me, and I know it's too early to say I'm on a permanent climb, but I do notice myself enjoying my games more and participating in more positive (or at the very least, constructive) discourse with my teammates. So thanks guys, and keep it up.

DJ Hatsune Miku6/13/2017, 7:45:18 PM1 votes

Ultimately it's all about attitude and comfort. Yes, bad games happen. I feel like I've had more trolls, leavers, and feeders on my team than the enemy team by a huge margin. But that's also because I probably remember those experience more than when I got to walk down midlane at 15 minutes for a free win.

One of the most important things to remember is that ranked is, at least when I played most often, a collection of misfits that are trying to play a game together. For better or for worse you can't just ignore them or let them run around doing their own thing. Take charge early and forcefully, actively praise good plays more than just a "Nice" and don't let misplays become a focus. Let them slide, say it's no big deal, be a leader and shot caller. Sky Williams actually made a video about this tactic and it really does work it's kind of amusing. As a support you're in the best position to do that. This is by far the most important thing you can do, especially in silver/bronze. Warding up and timing buffs doesn't do much if your team doesn't even look at their minimap. You have to force-feed your team this knowledge and the only way to do that is being the leader.

Supports also dictate botlane. ADCs are the stars of the lane but a good support can easily forcefeed his carry 6 kills and mountains of farm. I've had Sona as one of my main support for years (who would have guessed lol) and more often than not I play her like she is a murderbot. I never go passive, I'm always dictating the pace of the match even if it means some games I end up overstepping and getting killed. By doing this I force the enemy team to earn their farm and a lot of times it results in me first backing into a sheen and straight up dueling the enemy ADC while the enemy support can't match me because he went back into a sightstone and upgraded gold item. You have to be very aware of your own damage because it's the only damage you can rely on.

That being said, don't get caught up in damage supports. As much as going bot as a murder lane with Brand or Annie feels like the best way to climb I've never felt they were as strong of bullies as Sona or Soraka. Yes, I play Soraka as a bully, it's absolutely hilarious.

Either way, don't play "Meta picks" just because they're meta. Play your favorites, play what's strongest for your playstyle. I've stuck to my guns as a Nautilus player through thick and thin and despite, at times, being one of the worst junglers in the game or not even considered a jungler by the community. I've maintained a 65%+ winrate over like 150 ranked matches on him. Do remember that there are diamond 1 tricks for about every champion. It always feels great to surprise people with just how crazy the plays can be when you're playing with someone that's got like 500 hours on a character. Can't tell you how many needles I've managed to thread with Nautilus' hook.

As a wise fighting game player once said, "Pick yo shit!" I think it applies well to this game as well. Hope this helped!

Ashyha Kadame11/28/2017, 8:48:52 PM1 votes

Man not all games are to blame on your team ... but if they keep getting 2/11/1 i really cant stand it man

[sg-shisa]

LeDjent6/13/2017, 5:11:12 PM1 votes

I've been experiencing the same thing actually. I climbed from B5 to S2 rather quickly switching from Jungle to Support. I got to my Silver 1 promo games, and lost the series, since then have just been having a tough time in ranked.

I just feel like I've hit an unlucky streak, much like what you have talked about. I have played my fair share of poor games during this streak (I'm not blaming all of this on my team, I mess up too) but boy does it seem like I get matched up with some bad players. It kind of leaves me scratching my head sometimes. LOL.

I would stick with your guns tho, support mains unite!