Hey, so, I've been doing completely terrible the past week for some reason... and would love some advice. I'm a top/jg main, and well... I've been doing so terrible in all my games lately that I'm borderline inting, which is weird for me. Literally any advice would be wonderful!
Stop playing every champion that exists, keep it to a single role. CS better. If youre getting pressured too hard to cs freely atleast get the experience from being near the dieing creep so you can hold lvl advantage. Buy more wards. All the normal stuff. Keep a calm head
Find 5 champs that u can play really well and 5 more for backup incase you are going into a bad team or they get picked/banned,working on your vs is a big part of climbing out of low elo if u need anything specific reply I'm on my phone so it takes a bit to write
There are many climbing tricks higher level players use to help climb the ladder and I'll get to those in a moment, but the best advice is still, and always was, that there is no substitute for experience in this game so acquire as much as you can in as many ways as you can and always look to find ways to improve your individual play on a game by game basis!
As for what many higher level players term "Proper climbing technique", it consists of the following (keep in mind these techniques were gathered for solo q ranked play and with the new addition of Dynamic queue many, perhaps even all of them may be less useful than they were in the past) pieces of advice:
Specialize! Sure, many players say you should be able to play many roles and be a versatile player, and this is definitely a good thing. However, to become a master of a trade instead of a jack of all trades requires intense effort and focus and means you will need to specialize your play style. Its wise to pick one specific role and to master a smaller pool of champions to play within it, perhaps only 2 or 3. Be ready and willing to play whatever is required of you in any game, but be polite in lobby about your preference for, and dedication to, a specific role and champion. If you are an extraordinary Lulu player out of the support role (as was the case with a poor silver player I met while smurfing early last season named Zeretov who showed far greater skill than his ranking indicated and so he became a student of mine, 6 months later he's a diamond level player and quickly climbing even there!) explain this to your team in a polite way and tell them if they need further convincing they need only to op.gg you to see you are indeed an excellent Lulu support. Most players appreciate this kind of teamwork in lobby and will go out of their way to let you do your thing because they are hoping to benefit from that 70% Lulu win rate! Everyone likes a free win!
Op.gg your teammates before every match. This will allow you to do a couple of things. You can easily identify an optimal role and champion for each player and this information can be communicated in lobby to help organize your team and get everyone on the same page quickly and efficiently. You can also identify when matchmaking has paired you very poorly and you've been unlucky as you will be able to identify certain "red flags". That player on a 7 game losing streak? Likely on tilt and in a poor frame of mind to play ranked. You can soothe this player, pump him up, motivate him, or simply dodge the game instead of risk a loss (Use your dodges!!!! Use them wisely! They cost nothing but time. It doesn't matter if you are in promo matches, a loss costs you LP and MMR, a dodge costs you a fraction of the LP but no MMR and only a small amount of time for the first dodge of the day!) Have a duo with a sub 60% win rate? Red flag, act accordingly. Have a player playing a champion for the very first time ever in ranked? Red flag! Use your third party resources, they are of immense help when making a serious effort to climb. In addition you can monitor your MMR+ (or your MMR relative to the division you are playing in) and this can help you determine how much LP you stand to gain from a match should you win. If op.gg says your MMR+ is 150 or better and you are seeing 30 LP gains from wins get ready to skip a division and bypass promos after another win or two! You can also identify opposing players who are very skilled and warn your team and craft a game plan to shut them down early so they don't get going and carry the game! Use that op.gg mates.
Ignore LP at all costs. It does not matter for any player below diamond 1. Focus on increasing that MMR so you can skip divisions and climb even faster!
Dodge games that look like a loss in champ select. Bad team comp with no frontline and an awkward off meta pick? Don't lose MMR and LP, sacrifice that 3 or 10 LP and a little of your time and keep that MMR intact! Super troll in lobby? Dodge! Uber toxic premade in lobby? Dodge! Don't sacrifice MMR and LP when all you have to do is wait a little while for the dodge timer to be up. Dodges, in essence, cost nothing but time.
Always play when you are primed and ready! Don't play when you are tired, or hungry, or have too many distractions around you. Ranked is a serious game mode and you need to be in a serious frame of mind to work with your team in a well coordinated fashion.
Take breaks! Don't spam games one after another unless you are a high level player smurfing for some reason. Take your time in between games. Everyone needs a break to properly prepare for the next match. When you lose two ranked matches in a day, stop playing ranked! Make the goal every day to win as many ranked games as you can until you lose your second match of the day. When you get on a groove you will find you average better than 4 wins for every 2 losses each day of a given week which can lead to some pretty impressive climbs! If you get in the zone on a particular day and reel off a streak of 8 in a row or something find an obvious benchmark stopping point and let that be the end of your ranked session for the day, perhaps that 8th win got you promoted, let that be how you end the day, on a high note. This will keep you motivated and eager to get back down to business in a serious fashion the following day.
Avoid playing ranked during peak usage hours. Weekends and the time frame immediately after school lets out is a very risky time to play ranked. A lot of casual players will be on then and they tend to perform more poorly when compared to the average teammate during primo ranking hours.
Always work with the team! Even if some one is a dick with a capital D to you remember it requires the efforts of all 5 members to win on a consistent basis. Find ways to ignore the flame and blame game and focus on being productive. Be a leader, a communicator, and a team organizer regardless of how you feel about that jungler who just fed doubles to your lane opponent. Teamwork is op, be a team player.
Feel free to One Trick Pony! This has been, for the past several seasons one of the best ways to climb quickly. One tricking will allow you to get into a groove with your champion and reel off wins at a prodigious rate as playing your favorite champion becomes so second nature it feels less like manipulating a character and more like wiggling your toes, or taking a breath, an extension of your body. Getting into this zone and playing by reflex frees your mind to pay more attention to the map, communicate more effectively, and craft more intelligent game plans in game because playing your champ is like being on autopilot. It allows you to focus on the strategy you need to implement to achieve success.
If all else fails and you feel stuck, make a new account and start over! Its far easier to climb quickly on a fresh account that has never played a single ranked match because fresh accounts have increased MMR and LP gains in their first 50 lifetime ranked matches, starting with the biggest bonus in the first placement match on that account and slowly decreasing over the next 49 lifetime ranked matches. Smurfing can lead players to quickly achieve a higher ranking on a secondary account than they have achieved on a primary account and playing against tougher competition then can teach new lessons, gain you new experience which can then be applied on your primary to get it going the right way on the ladder. Alternating play on these accounts can lead to a feedback effect where each keeps climbing higher than the other!
Always happy to help out around the community, hope this advice can help get you where you want to be mate! Best of luck on the Rift!
Yes. I just quoted myself. Wanna fight about it?
Advice on climbing:
Figure out what works for you. Analyze your champion picks, see what you win with, what items you built the games you won/lost, your opponents, if anyone got fed, if you got fed, what you did that game to get fed, how you transitioned your lead to other lanes, etc.
Constantly question whether your in-game decision-making is correct. Watch your own replays, think "was that the best way to spend my time?" If not, why not? What could you do better? When you lose, what did the enemy team do to win? If you stage a comeback, how did you catch back up?
Winning and losing is much less important than learning from the mistakes you actually make. The more you learn, the more you'll win.
Accept the fact that where you are in ranked is where you should be right now. That doesn't mean you can't climb, it just means you have to get better. The only way you can get better, or improve on anything, is by accepting your faults and acknowledging what you do poorly. When you figure out what you do wrong, you can work on it and improve on it until you can cross it off the list. Then move on to the next thing, etc. etc.
The thing that sticks out for me is that you have bought less control wards in your past 40 ranked games than I do in a single ranked game. Control wards save lives and make ganking easier for your jungler when they know that bushes aren't warded. As a jungler, you should almost always have one sitting in your bag for when you go do dragon, herald, or baron. It takes a while to get used to, but always have a control ward in your bag to replace the one that is down when it gets destroyed. It doesn't even matter if it gets destroyed immediately after being placed. It very well might have been you getting destroyed if you didn't place it. You losing 75 gold on every back is far better than giving the enemy 300 gold every time you go out to the rift.
The thing thats hard about climbing is youre playing with people making the same exact mistakes as you. Therefore its a lot harder to learn those mistakes. I learn a hell of a lot more playing against diamonds than golds.
The major difference between what they do and what I do is they dont waste any time at all... Its actually crazy how efficient some of the top 1% are
I'm pretty stuck in Bronze because I don't play enough to actually climb, but I play a lot with friends who are in Gold and I picked up some good habits. Buying a control ward whenever you can is important, as is also knowing the best places to put it. Knowing when to roam, either with TP or on foot, is also important. Also, sticking with only one champion per role can help you a lot.
