The biggest problem with low Elo is that you can barely climb by playing 'smart'

TheThundersRoar·Mar 2, 2016·174 votes·20,882 views

Going ham is the only way you can climb out of low Elo. Farming like crazy, playing super-aggressive, snowballing your lane, and getting ahead is literally the only way you can consistently climb.

Playing 'smart' alone has a very little effect on your Elo increase. By this I mean:

Staying out of range from Blitzcrank late game.
Not getting hit by the other team's AoE engage.
Being grouped when you need to be.
Not getting caught.
Leaving caught teammates for dead.
Disengaging from bad fights.
Staying positive.

Things I listed above are the some of the visible differences between a Plat and a Bronze, yet a Plat who exhibits the above but doesn't snowball out of control often will climb very, very slowly, if at all. And it's a pretty big problem when smarter players are stuck with the players who feed, throw, get caught, and flame half the time, but can snowball out of control the other half of the time.

The traits you need to exhibit to stay at a higher Elo don't allow you to climb out of lower Elo.

You have to win the game by force.

Whether that means being farmed and putting out DPS, or stunning a whole team in a fight, or stomping your lane and being both tanky and bursty, or split pushing hard, or so on.

Last season I climbed into Gold with Volibear. Super aggressive early and engage fights late quickly brought me up a whole 11 divisions to Gold 4. But when I'm not playing Volibear, I feel pretty powerless, because even half-decent play means nothing when you can't forcefully win the game.

208 Comments

Slamurai JackMar 2, 201695 votes

OP is right. You win in low elo by stomping your lane, snowballing out of control, and beating the enemy team with your massive stats stick. Slow, safe, objective oriented play does not work in that elo because your team will never have the coordination and knowledge required to pull off a strategy like that. You win in low elo by giving your team as few chances to lose as possible, and that means getting super fed, constantly forcing down towers, and ending the game as soon as possible. It's Solo Q; your team wants to throw and it's your job to win before they can.

YCitizenSnipsYMar 2, 201624 votes

They best way I can describe low elo since that is where i play is, after the laning phase group and push mid. This is literally the only thing people in low elo do. Trick2g calls it team death match and that is honestly what it is. If you try to split for towers and farm your team will constantly pick a 4v5 and lose, then blame you for not being there. You can't rely on a team in low elo only yourself.

If you want an objective in low elo, you have to ward it yourself and make the call to go for it. If you want to play smart, playing safe, farming well, and focusing on objectives, you have to hope your team isn't complete shit.

DairdrekMar 3, 20164 votes

This is the reason I don't play ranked without my duo, he and I know how the other plays, and if our team refuses to take an objective, then we'll take it ourselves

Ariel the CruelMar 3, 201612 votes

after the laning phase group and push mid.

Works for me. Already got the other 2 lanes covered anyways. item 3060 item 3512

KaisadiIIaMar 3, 20162 votes

you have to hope your team isn't complete shit.

If your team wasn't complete shit, then they wouldn't be in Bronze; so you kinda can't rely on that.

EmExMar 3, 20164 votes

in Bronze they literally dont seem to know that you do not have to fight to death to defend so when I splitpush or not join my team they fight 4v5 even when there is no need to do so at all. Then they blame me or whoever was not in the teamfight.

CavemanteroMar 3, 201619 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WP0yvft2,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2016-03-02T21:01:55.032+0000)

It's Solo Q; your team wants to throw and it's your job to win before they can.

This is the most horrid yet true description of what ranked play really is. So disgusting.

Serika ZeroMar 3, 20162 votes

sry, you got one thing wrong. Its Dynamic Q

DreadlocksMar 2, 201610 votes

Hard engage is the best at lower elo, because people down there generally don't know enough about the game to know when to back out of a fight or how to effectively disengage without losing half your team.

They don't know their limits, or the enemies, so its easier to just have a bloodbath and see who wins it. You have the be the guy who knows how to work around it (or win with it) if you want to climb.

MXXXXXLMar 3, 201610 votes

"Staying positive."

"Things I listed above are the some of the visible differences between a Plat and a Bronze."

Biggest pile of bullshit ever.

DrehirthMar 3, 20162 votes

Can confirm.

Sir YamazukiMar 2, 20167 votes

{quoted} The traits you need to exhibit to stay at a higher Elo don't allow you to climb out of lower Elo.

Not really true. Just play for objectives and constantly take towers.

TheThundersRoarMar 2, 20163 votes

What I meant with that, is this:

Being smart and avoiding getting hooked/caught late game is a big part of staying at high Elo.

But barely helps with climbing out of low Elo. Sure, your chances go up, slightly, but it doesn't directly let you stomp.

Sir YamazukiMar 2, 20164 votes

{quoted}

What I meant with that, is this:

Being smart and avoiding getting hooked/caught late game is a big part of staying at high Elo.

But barely helps with climbing out of low Elo. Sure, your chances go up, slightly, but it doesn't directly let you stomp.

When I played rank on an alt I played the same exact way I played on this account and won a large majority of the games. The only thing I had to do differently was understanding my team wasn't as reliable as the people I normally play with.

Cry H4vocMar 3, 20162 votes

You realize you just argued and then proved his point in one statement? If you can' trust your teammates to do the smart thing then you have to adjust your play-style. For example: You are Fizz mid with an Elise and Vayne ready to turret dive the damaged Jinx and Nami bot lane(lets say half health for arguments sake) . A smart team would lead off with Elise to stun the Jinx and take turret agro. Next would come you as Fizz to deal your burst while Vayne jumps in to try and secure one of the kills. Elise repels, you playful trickster, Vayne rolls out of turret range and you secured two kills for the team. But with a bad team your Vayne would flash in get immediately cc'd, your Elise would repel in leaving her stranded and now you have the decision between leave them to die or jump in and pray for a kill. You can't play like a plat in bronze because plat is ALL about teamwork. Whereas bronze is ALL about individual play and the hopes that your team will snowball hard enough to win.

Sir YamazukiMar 3, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Cry H4voc,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WP0yvft2,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2016-03-03T20:56:00.698+0000)

You realize you just argued and then proved his point in one statement? If you can' trust your teammates to do the smart thing then you have to adjust your play-style. For example: You are Fizz mid with an Elise and Vayne ready to turret dive the damaged Jinx and Nami bot lane(lets say half health for arguments sake) . A smart team would lead off with Elise to stun the Jinx and take turret agro. Next would come you as Fizz to deal your burst while Vayne jumps in to try and secure one of the kills. Elise repels, you playful trickster, Vayne rolls out of turret range and you secured two kills for the team. But with a bad team your Vayne would flash in get immediately cc'd, your Elise would repel in leaving her stranded and now you have the decision between leave them to die or jump in and pray for a kill. You can't play like a plat in bronze because plat is ALL about teamwork. Whereas bronze is ALL about individual play and the hopes that your team will snowball hard enough to win.

Adjusting for the fact my team mates are worse does not equate to changing my focus, because what you aren't realizing is the enemy team was also worse than what I was used to as well. I still played the game with objectives in mind and supporting my team mates, with kills as something that I got if they were brought to me. He is saying that you have to stomp your team to get out of low elo and ignore your team, where as I'm suggesting it is entirely possible to get out of low elo without the stomping. A lot of low elos are already focused on stomping the opposing team as it is, and clearly it isn't working out.

People are only focusing on their team to support their arguments ignoring the fact the opposing team isn't going to be 5 smurfs, so they'll be just as bad. If killing the opposing team a million times to gain a large advantage is all that was needed to win low elo games, then I wouldn't have ever made it out of Bronze/Silver multiple times, especially since I was playing support and tanks often.

This topic/thread is honestly just a way to justify the bad habits and lack of objective focus and to reinforce the idea that your team mates aren't ever worth your time. Most of what he listed that separates a Bronze from a Plat isn't even true, considering all the issues brought up occurs even in Challenger.

VerxintMar 2, 201635 votes

What he's saying is true but not very clear

Basically if you want to climb in low elo, you have to actually win. A lot of players go "I don't feed and I farm my lane and I try to focus on not making mistakes but my team always feeds". Instead of playing their lane safe and last hitting because they're afraid of feeding the jungler, they need to be aggressive and take advantages and force the enemy to respond to them.

However, when you get higher up, people don't get thrown off by aggression and you get fucked for it.

Sir YamazukiMar 2, 20168 votes

[{quoted}](name=Little Mac is OP,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WP0yvft2,comment-id=00020001,timestamp=2016-03-02T19:59:30.861+0000)

What he's saying is true but not very clear

Basically if you want to climb in low elo, you have to actually win. A lot of players go "I don't feed and I farm my lane and I try to focus on not making mistakes but my team always feeds". Instead of playing their lane safe and last hitting because they're afraid of feeding the jungler, they need to be aggressive and take advantages and force the enemy to respond to them.

However, when you get higher up, people don't get thrown off by aggression and you get fucked for it.

Gaining an advantage is meaningless when you don't know how to use it, which would be the same as playing without an advantage. If you ever notice, a lot of people complaining about being Bronze/Silver sometimes have high average kda, farm and have a gold lead often but still lose more than half the time. You're more likely to win with an objective focus, especially since lower ranked players don't respond to objective pressure that well. I had several games where I was already at their Nexus tower by 22 minutes solo. I didn't join fights, I didn't try killing anyone, I didn't gain much of an advantage other than what the towers gave.

VerxintMar 2, 201620 votes

When you never gain an advantage because you're too afraid to fail, you never learn how to abuse one.

ScramrailMar 3, 20168 votes

The problem is that a lot of newer players that end up having the mentality of being afraid are given that mentality by smurfs during the process of leveling up.

For a very long time, my strategy in lane was to just farm, play defensive and take as few risks as possible, because while I was leveling up I was constantly getting destroyed in lane by smurfs and high level duo queues. It forces newer players to adopt the safest laning strategy possible because they remember that even a single mistake can result in a massive tipping of the scales. They don't realize that the people they are playing against in low elo are not the same caliber of players they met during their climb from 1-30, and it takes dozens if not hundreds of games for these players to reacquaint themselves with the concept of lane dominance and early aggression that can lead to snowballs and easier wins.

Ive only recently started to really try utilizing early game aggression, but I still don't take it to the extreme that is probably necessary to carry myself out of low elo.

CrownsyMar 3, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Yamazuki,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WP0yvft2,comment-id=000200010000,timestamp=2016-03-02T20:12:32.991+0000)

Gaining an advantage is meaningless when you don't know how to use it, which would be the same as playing without an advantage. If you ever notice, a lot of people complaining about being Bronze/Silver sometimes have high average kda, farm and have a gold lead often but still lose more than half the time. You're more likely to win with an objective focus, especially since lower ranked players don't respond to objective pressure that well. I had several games where I was already at their Nexus tower by 22 minutes solo. I didn't join fights, I didn't try killing anyone, I didn't gain much of an advantage other than what the towers gave.

I feel like you are saying the exact same thing the OP is saying. You are correct, but his point was in low Elo trying to do this on your own means you'll just lose as your team won't display the coordination needed to do what your suggesting, I.e the proper strategy.

Only Play DariusMar 2, 20167 votes

This is so accurate. Got to silver last season almost instantly by getting good with Yasuo. If you want to get out of low elo you need to play a champ that:

Snowballs hard and can 1v4 when fed
Can easily exploit mistakes made by bad players
Isn't reliant on teammates for objectives

Volibear fits the bill, especially since no one in Bronze kites or rushes GW if he gets fed. I (used to) like Yasuo as my opponents are actually scared of him early game and he can split push and farm extremely fast while everyone is playing ARAM mid. Nasus is decent since people don't even try to freeze the wave and I get insane stacks, although sometimes my team feeds out of control early.

If you want to get out of Bronze, you can't play what you want or even what you are good with. You have to play what you can consistently stomp with.

Spaceman5pffMar 3, 20164 votes

FUCKING Tryndamere IS THE ANSWER

jusho1Mar 2, 20165 votes

true unless you can get tot he point where you can almost win 1v5 your chances of climbing are low

TheThundersRoarMar 2, 20162 votes

It's not necessarily 1v5. Even a Sejuani can climb out of Bronze and Silver. It's all about being able to, how do I put it?

Win the game by force.

Avoiding making stupid plays doesn't allow you to climb out. But nuking multiple people/engaging a fight with ease/safely delivering a ton of DPS/single-handedly pushing an inhibitor in is what does.

DengedenMar 3, 20165 votes

The 5 man mids make cry every time.[zombie-nunu-tears]

YossarianSenseiMar 3, 20165 votes

Playing 'smart' =/= playing conservatively. Often times playing aggressively is the smart thing to do even if you risk feeding.

Playing 'safe' should be an absolute last resort because you basically surrender your map pressure and shift the burden onto your teammates. Often times you can get more value out of taking a risk and dying than staying safe and living.

Chuck CharlesMar 3, 20165 votes

im sorry but this is flat out incorrect.

the EASIEST way to climb quickly is to go ham and snowball out of control.

you can win 60-70% of your games simply by picking smart and playing smart around the map for objectives.

ive been winning around 65% of my games on champions like Rammus/Lulu/Azir simply because they are good into the shitty low elo comps I'm up against. Super tanky? Azir melts you. I've legit first picked Lulu and the enemy legit goes 3 assassin's anyway. enemy is all ad? hello malphite.

you can also win just by taking advantage of the low elo mistakes that happen literally every game. i've found wave clear and pushing all lanes constantly wins me almost every game as teams do not know what to do when lanes are never pushing for them. Peeling as a tank for your carries is also freelo in low elo. legit have assassin's/hyper carries like xin dive my carries when I'm rammus standing RIGHT there.

just play smart and you will win MOST of your games. you just won't take over every game.

if you are a better player and i mean signficantly better than your elo, then yes play aggro as fuck and just snowball the game. but if you aren't, playing smart will help you climb the steadily.

AmocMar 3, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Chuck Charles,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WP0yvft2,comment-id=0040,timestamp=2016-03-03T17:51:44.322+0000)

you can win 60-70% of your games simply by picking smart and playing smart around the map for objectives.

ive been winning around 65% of my games on champions like Rammus/Lulu/Azir simply because they are good into the shitty low elo comps I'm up against. Super tanky? Azir melts you. I've legit first picked Lulu and the enemy legit goes 3 assassin's anyway. enemy is all ad? hello malphite.

Exactly. I first picked Lulu mid the other day. Enemy mid locks in Zed. I laughed.

You can win your lane by default a lot of the time in champ select. I'm not even exaggerating. Mechanics are so poor in Bronze/Silver that your lane opponent is almost never going to know what to do when he's counterpicked and will either feed stupidly or play overly scared and get zoned out the entire lane phase.

UrgotToBeKiddingMar 2, 20164 votes

Yes. Climbing elo at a decent pace requires you to exploit your opponent's weaknesses. Below plat, your opponents are 90% weakness.

BRBGTGBOWFLEXMar 3, 20164 votes

I think you're really wrong about basically everything.

The things you are mentioning are not "smart" play, they are just sort of the bare minimum things you should expect a player to do. But nothing you mentioned there is a plan to win a game. Everything you mentioned is about avoiding mistakes or advice on minimizing your losses. It's all reactive stuff that immediately places you and your team on the back foot. This actually only works at higher levels of play because you are more likely to have competent team mates who have a plan to win the game.

Your idea of "smart" play is basically showing up without a plan to win the game, avoiding making huge mistakes, and hoping their nexus falls. You can only do that if other players are actually smart, and you climb just by making less mistakes. However, in low elo, you have to bring that plan. While you refer to it as "going ham" what it really is, is coming to the game to win and carry it, not rely on someone else on your team to have that plan.

You can do it from any position. There are supports that can execute on plans to end the game. There are top lane champions that can end the game. Same with mid and jungle. They do it by performing extremely well, not by just avoiding mistakes.

VelasanMar 3, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I think you're really wrong about basically everything.

The things you are mentioning are not "smart" play, they are just sort of the bare minimum things you should expect a player to do. But nothing you mentioned there is a plan to win a game. Everything you mentioned is about avoiding mistakes or advice on minimizing your losses. It's all reactive stuff that immediately places you and your team on the back foot. This actually only works at higher levels of play because you are more likely to have competent team mates who have a plan to win the game.

Your idea of "smart" play is basically showing up without a plan to win the game, avoiding making huge mistakes, and hoping their nexus falls. You can only do that if other players are actually smart, and you climb just by making less mistakes. However, in low elo, you have to bring that plan. While you refer to it as "going ham" what it really is, is coming to the game to win and carry it, not rely on someone else on your team to have that plan.

You can do it from any position. There are supports that can execute on plans to end the game. There are top lane champions that can end the game. Same with mid and jungle. They do it by performing extremely well, not by just avoiding mistakes.

I actually agree with you I just want to point out that in some cases the plan is to minimize your own mistakes as much as possible and then let the enemy screw up, at which point you capitalize heavily on their mistakes and take over the game. In general, this is what aoe engage tanks like Zac and Malphite thrive on. Just waiting for the enemy to do something stupid and group up in the wrong place and swing a team fight at a very important part of the game, sometimes giving up a drag and a couple of towers or baron in the process.

It's not a plan to win the game outright, but it is at least a method.

WulfyMar 3, 20162 votes

And that's what the difference between gold and silver is. You get better at that then hit platinum, and once there, you have to either be a mechanical god or REALLY good at getting a team to go wtih your plan. Yes, sometimes incompetent players rise, but the system does a pretty good job at weeding out idiots.

...

most of the time. The times the system fails sticks our pretty bad though, lol

NyhverMar 2, 20163 votes

At which point it becomes a grind imo, which ranked for the most part, barring luck has always been about, but I haven't felt this insignificant and powerless since I first started playing ranked in season 3, was placed in silver and didn't know how to play or influence games.

The best chance you have is to crush lane and split push while your team defends turrets because they usually aren't the ones that are fed IMO, and even that doesn't always work, I had a game vs. Diana as Zed who must have been lagging really badly or just didn't know how to lane, crushed her in lane, proceeded to split push then my team attacks the enemy team when I'm not there "Maplh missed his ult again" Malph was on my team, great.

If you look through my match history it could be thrown up to luck, but it feels like most of the time it doesn't matter what I do, my team will not team fight properly, so it doesn't matter if I roam to help other lanes and shut down the enemy, it doesn't matter if I lose, go even, win lane or have more lane pressure. It seems like the only realistic thing to do is make oneself as big as possible and split push to draw the enemy team over while giving them nothing and taking towers because most of the time the team can't be relied to team fight, unlike in higher MMRs where they know where they should be and how to team fight, for the most part.

I might be demoted to silver 1 after being placed in gold 4, that 2 division drop is worse than S4 when I was placed into silver and had to grind out platinum again

BlGsexyMar 3, 20163 votes

i agree.. champs like udyr, yi, xin and jax all just destroy and get quadra or pentas once they have 3 or 4 items. tanks mean nothing in this meta it seems. too many ppl just funnel on one player running away and then boom.. quadra for yi or jax. its very frustrating. building for a support is worthless in low elo. being a support is very frustrating. ppl tell u to stop pinging when its about the smartest thing u can do to help team keep map awareness. many times as a jng i make a lvl 2 gank for a kill (usually make sure the laner gets it) and yet 2 other lanes are already feeding before i can even back to restore my health(and by feeding i mean 3 deaths in the first 8-10m). then the toxic blame game starts and its all you can do to try and keep a positive outlook. i dont care about my kda. i care about objectives. i certainly dont feed though. I've yet to understand the mentality of the player who dies, tps to lane and dies again. then runs down the lane and dies a 3rd time and then blames that a jng hasnt helped even though i warded river w/ 2 wards for them and asked them to play safer and not push so much. once a lane is down 3 kills its hard to gank for them because the other teams laner is 2 levels ahead and a whole item ahead at least. i meet alot of ppl who are pretty darn good at their position, but have 20 more losses than wins because so many people just dont understand how to play the game other than try and kill as much as they can. there really should be more training to go through before ranking. too many just have no clue as to what a win condition is or what a counter is to a lane opponent. they just pick garen or annie or ashe and stay in lane for 20m wondering why they have 10 deaths already. 1 person cant ward the whole map and they definitely cant make decisions for people who scream "dont tell me what to do noob"... /end rant

BluePolarizerMar 3, 20163 votes

I got out of gold in 20 games after this year's placement drop. I mostly play engage tanks.

Theory doesn't hold. sorry.

IqqiMar 3, 20163 votes

Yep. It is common knowledge that the ranked system is flawed by its very design. Your tier and your rank are completely based on your Win/Loss percentage. The very system is built on the fact that assuming you are not the problem, you will _eventually _ climb. The number people like to use is 100 games. Personally I think it can be much higher than that depending on where you are thrown in your promos.

Whenever I see someone in bronze posting advise I always tell them a few things.

Make sure you are not the problem - I mean don't be the flamer, don't be the toxic person. Don't be the idiot who does not recall back to help hold off the enemy team who are taking your towers, or the player split pushing without vision while their team is grouping for a fight. It won't end well.
Do not tell other people what to do and be polite - This one is expanding on point 1 a little. If someone gets gripped by a blitz hook do not say "watch out for the hooks" or "come on man wtf?!". Point one is stating the obvious. They clearly are not trying to get hooked and your comments only make things worse. They are not necessary. Don't state the freaking obvious and create some illusion that you are "superior to them". Despite what you believe, you are not. Get that part through your head. Everyone has bad games. You are in the same tier as them for a reason. If your top laner is getting destroyed in lane, suggest that they clear the jungle while they wait for the minion wave to push back to their turret.
Play a champion who can highly influence the outcome of games. I used to play a lot of ADC solo Q and what I found was today the ADC alone can not carry games. The ADC is not the one making the plays. _The support and jungler make the ADC. _ anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. The ADC is not 2v1 ing in lane. The support and ADC make the plays and the ADC benefits. Most supports are terrible in Bronze and there are far too many group queues with duos bot. Riot tries to hide this, but they are terrible at it.

Top - trynd, Nasus, Olaf? (6.4 maybe?) Jax, and possibly Yi top. All these champions have a really high influence on games if your team does not get destroyed late game. Eventually you will "come online".

Jungle - Udyr, Xin, Shyvanna, Yi - All high influence champs

Marksman - I really do suggest avoiding ADC if you want to carry games. You are not capable of getting ahead on your own. You 100% rely on your support and the jungler. Your destiny is not in your own hands if you will.

Support - Blitz, Janna, and Soraka. (Soraka is about to be nerfed to oblivion if the current PTE changes make it to live, but today she is amazing in bronze. You have the heals to help carry your ADC through the lane phase. Chances are they are terrible and will take tons of poke or decide that they need to trade in lane as an Ezreal with tear vs. Lucien with BF sword and thus get shit on. Heals cover that. After lane phase your heals are amazing to carry team fights. Tons of players dont realize they need to focus the Soraka instead of the person attacking them. So you throw out heals and silences to your hearts content. )

Anyway this is my advice. Currently the best thing you can do is find other people at your same tier to play with who are not terrible. They don't have to be good, just not terrible and you will win more than you lose by reducing the likelihood of an AFK, troll, or flamer on your own team.

Emperor TimeMar 2, 20162 votes

I'd say to win the game below gold you need to play hard carry champions and snowball super hard and pretty much just 1v5. However once you get into plat/diamond you have to start playing champions that can win early game or are good with your team comp. It's not until high diamond/ masters do you want to start playing the meta to climb consistently. And then In challenger you just abuse what ever is broken as fuck at the time.

lolptwoMar 2, 20162 votes

Idk if the boards is somewhere you should be posting this. Half the people here think Bronze and Plat are the same thing.

Also of course you got to hard carry in low elo, that is how Riot made their match making system to be.

CC MustangMar 3, 20162 votes

I got placed bronze 3 and have quickly climbed to bronze 1 51 lp in 26 games (36 including provisionals) and have won 24 out of these 36 games. What ive seen is that to win, you must play smart and just abuse the mistakes the enemy makes. Typically i duo Lucian Braum with my friend and are quite effective. I would say that yes playing smart is very possible in low elo. After one lane gets beaten by the other and the jungeler can no longer provide support we group mid. From there were do the little dance around and poke until somebody makes a mistake or we see an opportunity for a hard engage. Sometimes the fights are a bit sloppy because i dont know exactly when the Malphite will ult or when the Riven will flash in but we just immediately follow up afterwards, and do our best to win the fight. To remind you guys this is with three randoms. To win one must do their best in lane, respond to their team, and when the fight starts to not back down. Even if I or another teammate screws up and im down to 300 health as Lucian I don't back down because i can put out a crucial amount of damage that could change the tide of the fight.

T RexHasTinyArmsMar 3, 20162 votes

Last season I made it to gold w/ engage tanks, poke/push mid lane, and nunu. None of that is going ham and it still worked. Has it changed and become much worse this season?

JasiwelMar 3, 20162 votes

As a low ELO jungler, I've found it's important to know what champions require snowballing and which ones don't. For example, if you have a Yasuo on your team, you will have to either hope for his snowballing on his own, or babysit him. If neither happens then you lose because he becomes 100% useless. Not all champions require babysitting, which is great because then I can focus on counterjungling or helping bottom lane.

Also, at low ELO you need to play ~~junglers~~ champions that are simple and direct, or overwhelming - I have a vastly different winrate with Rek'Sai than I do with Nocturne, for example. Rek'Sai requires your team to know how to make use of your kit as much as you do, while Nocturne just kind of does his thing. Low ELO players don't know how to make use of Rek'Sai's kit and Rek'Sai has to have a functioning team to operate. Rek'Sai is good at counterganking, but when your team dies from constantly overextending then there is no way to make use of her global capabilities. Nocturne might snowball backwards, but once he snowballs even a bit he becomes far more dangerous on his own than a champion that requires a good team to work well.

Athenes LuluMar 4, 20162 votes

I mean, people hated playing support for a good damn reason.

It's more about flashy mechanics and how quickly someone can mash buttons, not how "smart" someone can pull off, or also known as tactics.

GigahappytownMar 5, 20162 votes

Problem with low elo is that solo quere rank is pure W/L despite being a team game where personal skill has almost no meaning that might be acceptable in 5v5s it is no acceptable in solo

Odyssey85Mar 2, 20161 votes

This is so true, like I'm just trying to get outta bronze but like it feels like I'm inclined towards playing what's strong, not really what I'm comfortable with. But I guess with support, I get leeway for that? I mean I usually play someone like Braum, Tahm Kench or Lulu (buying her next) but are those solid picks in order to climb? Or should I go for a support which can carry themselves, even with a bad ADC?

CarryMar 2, 20163 votes

{quoted}

This is so true, like I'm just trying to get outta bronze but like it feels like I'm inclined towards playing what's strong, not really what I'm comfortable with. But I guess with support, I get leeway for that? I mean I usually play someone like Braum, Tahm Kench or Lulu (buying her next) but are those solid picks in order to climb? Or should I go for a support which can carry themselves, even with a bad ADC?

Best support in the game is Janna. If you want to climb, play Janna.

Tbh the idea that you need to pick a "support to carry themselves, even with a bad adc" is stupid. You're really not that much better than the players your playing with. You're not going to go 6 hat Annie sup and solo carry a team of feeders with your superior mechoniks and game knowledge. Focus on winning the close games by improving your play in scenarios where you misplay and improving your judgement around bad scenarios you notice that you're putting yourself/team in. Just forget about the games where your whole team feeds. You weren't going to carry it, get over it. Focus on contributing as best you can.

PartholonianMar 2, 20167 votes

There is only one champion who can carry a game with superior mechanics.

Viktor

HeedprimeMar 3, 20167 votes

I disagree with this. I HATE supporting in low elo because I am basically flipping a coin as to whether or not my lane will win. I can TRY my best to keep my ADC alive but not if he WANTS TO DIE. So I play Vel'Koz support and when my ADC dies I just get a double kill and start snowballing. If I have an ADC worth anything I can still get him kills and CC enemies for him.

Carpe VictoriaMar 3, 20162 votes

I disagree on Janna. She requires a team to help to be relevant in the game. Her entire kit is literal support... low damage peels, shield, heal. If your adc is dumb you fall behind and if a lot of your team is dumb you're completely useless. Sups that can hold their own like bursty mages with harass damage or hard cc tanks that spoon feed kills and tank the damage are the only thing that's almost foolproof for low elo.

Spaceman5pffMar 3, 20163 votes

See the thing is, if you play janna properly, you can make it so your adc wont die even if they want to. They will try to kill themselves and end up with a triple kill.