PSA: KDA doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, the end game lobby reveals all

MatchmakingSlave·Dec 7, 2017·53 votes·2,393 views

If you go something like 8/0 with a fuckton of CS but you only got a measly 5k damage dealt to champs, next to no objective damage, revolting vision and CC points? You're not good, you're just a braindead last hitter that waited till the target blew everything on someone else who managed to get them low enough.

You can have zero kills whatsoever with a shit ton of deaths, have shit CS compared to others, but if you have major damage on champs, respectable damage on objectives, and your cc and vision is through the roof? You're a good player that kept getting focused by the enemy who never had to be scared of your "carry" punishing their positioning by going after objectives or collapsing with the team on the enemies that ganged up on you.

36 Comments

SuperLuigiLXIVDec 7, 201717 votes

That is my favorite form of vindication.

Got told by an Ahri that I was playing Sion all wrong. Like, real passive aggressive shit like "Is it bad I didn't know that was your main" and "Your runes are really awful for Sion" (this being before the rune change, I was running hybrid pen reds and quints).

We get to the endgame screen, she decides to be snarky more while I just quietly slide over and check the numbers. Turns out, I outdamaged her. On champions, on objectives. And I put down about 12 more wards than her.

No idea why she started targeting me, by the way, but I got my mic drop moment right then:

"You should take more time to work on your main, get better at him."

"I mean, I was good enough to do your job for you while doing my job too."

Felt intensely good.

ALSO WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, if you're playing in a game, and you decide to taunt someone by being like "talk more 2/7" and that person's 2/7/23, and you're 5/1/2, you're not outperforming them. If you do insist on going by KDA, stop acting like not calling assists magically makes them not count.

HaIlMonitorDec 8, 20174 votes

I love that when a leo support will be 0/3/27 and the snarky Riven/Yas/Weeb is sitting in top at 3/1/0 and acts like they are doing so much for the team. While saying "0/3, you suck!"

Dead flag bluesDec 7, 201712 votes

bUt whY diDn'T i GeT mY s foR mY maSTErY 7

Yasuo main

Tails9016Dec 8, 20171 votes

Please, I'm still going for mastery 6

Wait I've revealed that I main Yas

AR URFDec 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dead flag blues,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=g9dbE8yA,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-12-07T20:38:48.965+0000)

bUt whY diDn'T i GeT mY s foR mY maSTErY 7

Yasuo main

I literally have yet to see a yasuo main type that in.

An DraoiDec 8, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dead flag blues,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=g9dbE8yA,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-12-07T20:38:48.965+0000)

bUt whY diDn'T i GeT mY s foR mY maSTErY 7

Yasuo main

Yasuo 0/48/0 flashes mastery 8 Yasuo HASAKI

Attticus FinchDec 8, 201710 votes

KDA might not matter but feeding does. If you get lots of kills but also die 20 times then you played poorly, even if you carried in damage. On the other hand a player who gets no kills but never dies has ultimately played well by not giving the enemy team gold.

This is the core reason why anyone who gets put behind in lane but still tries to rush damage is a fool. Not giving gold to the enemy is the most important is the most important skill in the game.

Esio RexDec 8, 20172 votes

Feeding stops being a thing really after a set amount of death, what with the diminishing returns each death gives in terms of gold.

If I have an ally who is 0/8/22 do I REALLY want him to get a kill and reset himself back to 300g?

SanKakUDec 8, 20171 votes

As long as you're not around to stop them from taking minions, you're giving them free farm. So your argument is totally weak.

The Space CowboyDec 8, 20172 votes

Those games where you are so worthless you may as well die to get a turret <3

PokkuDec 8, 20171 votes

In one game I had a Singed who focused on feeding and deviating the enemies' attention by going into their base. In the end he was no longer worth any gold, and we could freely push while the enemies were focused on killing that troll. We won. [vlad-salute]

The Space CowboyDec 8, 20171 votes

Exactly! I love when people understand Towers>Neutral Objectives>CS>Kills. It's the same thing that kills me when we ace the enemy at 30 minutes and the team wants to Baron. HELLO! Let's break their base!

Troll for TrumpDec 8, 20174 votes

End game stats don't reveal everything either, because they can be skewed towards certain champs.

Wouldn't be surprising, for instance, for a mage to outdamage something like Irelia or Jax, even if bot lost lane while top won.

Again, with top, wouldn't be surprising for the top laner to have less objective dmg or dmg done overall because of the "top island" effect.

SuperLuigiLXIVDec 8, 20171 votes

This is a good point.

When I look at the damage of a poke champ like Ziggs, I tend to assume about half of it was superficial. Although it could be argued that any damage equates to pressure, because you're eventually going to force that enemy to back. Damage to turrets can't be skewed, but it also doesn't tell the whole story.

I would agree with you that top lane is, speaking in terms of stats, an anomaly. You can do a lot from top lane in terms of pressure and rotations without ever managing to touch a turret. However, I would also say it's possible to look at other stats to predict that a bit better. A champion with low damage done and low damage taken, low turret damage done, but they have a ZZ'Rot, is likely someone who just kept pressuring top lane, pulling the enemy team towards him, and backing off, staying alive, being a constant relief for their teammates. And it didn't pay off in personal numbers, sure, but it's fair to say that the numbers don't tell the story here either.

And I would argue that the enemy team will make it clear during or after the game when someone wins by being a massive pain in their ass. [slayer-jinx-wink]

The Space CowboyDec 8, 20171 votes

Also on a poke champ you may get the enemy to 50% hp 5 times without getting much other than lane pressure. The jungles on the other hand comes in and kills the champ. They did less damage but achieved more for the team. Both are valid but the roles are different so ya it’s hard to compare to your teammates when we all do different things.

SanKakUDec 8, 20171 votes

That's true although he didn't mention the stats specifically in the title. It's just an example. Players that like to comment on the teamwork may also give some valuable information which can be confirmed by watching a replay.

Lil Homie bustaDec 8, 20171 votes

Not only that, but poke champions will always have more damage dealt. Sometimes i see the damage dealt of my jungle who carried the game and compare to my (a lulu) and the numbers are close to equal. Damage dealt on champions doesn't tell you everything.

MrHaZeYoDec 7, 20172 votes

I could argue that not dying to the best player on their team over and over also helps my team hmm.

You are in the grand scheme of things right though.

KVbqbFsC8eDec 8, 20172 votes

Sure, but in the grand scheme of things the team that dies less will win the vast majority of the time.

LordGeovanniDec 8, 20171 votes

What you say may slightly be true but its usually that Even if you die less early if you dont Get things out of your lead you end up dieing more later and hence the enemy team who died alot early becomes the team who died less and hence they win the game because they played objectives and all contributed to fights not their biggest potiental damage source sitting out 90% of every fight only trying to come in to last hit for kills.

AmazoXDec 8, 20172 votes

DEAR OP,

              WELL FUCKING SAID.

ninjaroxasDec 8, 20171 votes

Had a a teammate that was 5/9/2 tell me I did awful going 2/10/8 (not amazing either). Checked the after game stats. Out did her In every thing.

TheGoomyGamerDec 8, 20171 votes

I had my team flame me for feeding a zed once, even though I had the second least deaths on our team and the reason zed for fed was or bot lane staying when I told them zed was coming down. People instantly assume it's the laner's fault, even though when he was 6/0/0 I had only died to him once.

FairyfleurDec 8, 20171 votes

me whenever I play Zyra tbh

Pixie StormDec 8, 20171 votes

What makes a good player is rotation, map awareness, and itemization. Without those three key things you can be the king of outplays but trash in general.

MeriipuDec 8, 20171 votes

{quoted} You can have zero kills whatsoever with a shit ton of deaths, have shit CS compared to others, but if you have major damage on champs, respectable damage on objectives, and your cc and vision is through the roof? You're a good player that kept getting focused by the enemy who never had to be scared of your "carry" punishing their positioning by going after objectives or collapsing with the team on the enemies that ganged up on you.

this is true, but riot does not feel this way they reward players with an S if they play like a greedy shit taking all the kills, CS, and other last hits while playing it safe never taking any risks even if it leads to a loss, as long as they get that S rating.

it is double standards at its worst. A solo player not in a premade doing everything to win, even if it means sacrificing themselves for the team by taking out a high priority target might not get an S because they died, despite making the right decision.

If at least one player on your team gets an S, and you get an A (maybe even a B) or better, you too should get a box tbh.

so in short: KDA matters if you do not care about winning as much as about getting a box. I treat some queues like that because that is what riot indirectly encourages through their hextech system. Even losing is better than winning without getting an S, because if you lose then your MMR drops and the next game you might have opponents with lower MMR that you have a higher chance of getting an S against. It literally encourages losing on purpose or surrendering if there is no chance for you to get an S.

LordGeovanniDec 8, 20171 votes

It pains me that the latter is my playstyle of fighters but i get punished for playing a riskier class with less range than any mage (that isnt a support) or adc

NemeBroDec 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

If you go something like 8/0 with a fuckton of CS but you only got a measly 5k damage dealt to champs, next to no objective damage, revolting vision and CC points? You're not good, you're just a braindead last hitter that waited till the target blew everything on someone else who managed to get them low enough.

You can have zero kills whatsoever with a shit ton of deaths, have shit CS compared to others, but if you have major damage on champs, respectable damage on objectives, and your cc and vision is through the roof? You're a good player that kept getting focused by the enemy who never had to be scared of your "carry" punishing their positioning by going after objectives or collapsing with the team on the enemies that ganged up on you.

Anyone who has a shit ton of deaths and bad CS (assuming not jungle or support) was playing poorly, relative to the skill level of the game they were in. Period.

LeetriDec 8, 20171 votes

I won a game a couple of days ago where the rest of my team has absolutely terrible K/D (I think our Lee Sin jungle was like 5/15 or something like that) but we still managed to win because my team was better at focusing and making the few kills we did get count. In the end the enemy had 24 more kills than us, but that doesn't matter since we're the ones that won. Leona support is pretty damn good at carrying, I noticed.

DemainaNyxDec 9, 20171 votes

Exactly.

Not a fair comparison, but when Overcharge mode was going, I played a game where one of our teammates AFKd at the beginning of the match and my other teammate had literally no clue how to play the mode until I explained and kept trying to 1v3 the enemy (he was like 5/16, I was 16/1). We ended up winning due to me running around and getting the charge bots while the enemy team chased my teammate, and we got our kills while overcharged so they counted for more points.

This whole game is about killing objectives. It doesn't matter if the score is 50-0, whoever kills the nexus wins, even if it's the 0 kill team.

LeetriDec 9, 20171 votes

I also managed to win a game 2v3 in Overcharge. The score was like 50-48 at the end so it was really close, but us 2 were more effective at clearing bots somehow.

Starcraft243verDec 8, 20171 votes

but if you have major damage on champs

Doesnt mean anything ever. If you are an sniper comboing perfectly to oneshot people you'll deal fewer damages than someone who pokes constantly but let the opponent lifesteal or regenerate between the pokes.

If you are playing a nasus vs mundo toplane and you spent 40 min fighting and lifestealing each other, you are worthless as well, even tough you dealt 150k damages to champions over the course of the game.

SanKakUDec 8, 20171 votes

Preach it, Slave(see his username)!

It's ironic how people attach their feelings of superiority to any little thing that means more to them than anyone else and pretend it validates all their inability to play with the team.

Bad teams are inexcusable. And yet players that make bad teams happen are more common than I wish they were. But this isn't Player Behavior.

The Space CowboyDec 8, 20171 votes

Ya I like this post a lot. The mastery rankings should downplay kda in favor of kill participation % damage to champ % vision cs and damage to objetives%

Gives No LuxDec 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

You can have zero kills whatsoever with a shit ton of deaths, have shit CS compared to others

Coming from a player who is terrible at CS I can tell you for an absolute fact that If you have shit CS then you are not a good player. Period. Unless you're a support.

I can play most aspects of the game pretty dang well however lack of ability to maintain 80%+ CS puts me at a disadvantage nearly every game so in the long run I still struggle quite often.