A KDA of 2 is average, a KDA of 3 is good, a KDA of 5+ is bad

XinZhao2WinNhao·Oct 16, 2016·6 votes·7,612 views

If your KDA is 2 you're average.

If your KDA is 3-4 you should be climbing, but if you're not it might be because you get troll teams and AFKs or just unskilled players.

Seriously, if your average KDA of over 5 over a large sample of games and you're still in the elo you're in without climbing, there's something lacking in your game sense. Your mechanics are definitely there, the next question is, why are you not climbing. At that point you can learn the answer to that question and fix whatever it is because it's your lack of game knowledge and not your teams holding you back.

And if you are climbing, eventually you'll reach an elo where you will no longer be able to pull off 5+ KDAs every game, so your average KDA will drop to a reasonable number.

24 Comments

Arcus DiabolusOct 16, 20164 votes

If you have a KDA of 5 or more and you are not climbing, you are being greedy and taking all the kills for yourself, thus starving your teammates and just plain insisting that you have to do everything yourself, then complain about not being able to do that since the enemy is just feeding off your weakened team.

Best Kog NAOct 16, 20163 votes

Or you're just an ADC who got fed early game and had a good team to protect you so you didn't die

Arcus DiabolusOct 16, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Best Kog NA,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gitUhEKe,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-10-16T22:42:11.604+0000)

Or you're just an ADC who got fed early game and had a good team to protect you so you didn't die

But that assumes you are climbing. There is no way you could lose and not climb if you are a fed and skilled ADC and your team is properly protecting you. I could be wrong, but I believe the context of this whole thread is about the relationship between KDA and climbing.

A bit of a flawed correlation, but I figured I'd toss my two sense in there for the sake of discussion.

Best Kog NAOct 16, 20161 votes

I was semi-joking :P

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 16, 20162 votes

Well then you'll be winning games and climbing to a higher elo.

And climbing to a higher elo = no longer being able to pull off a 5+ KDA every game anymore because enemy teams are better.

In other words, your average KDA will begin to drop.

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 16, 20162 votes

This might be one of the reasons.

Other reasons might be that if you're just 7/0/0 most games and 7/1/0 some games, that could mean that you don't do anything after laning phase despite the fact that you win top lane all the time so the game is a 4v5 without your participation.

Or if you're 0/0/7 then it might mean that you don't actually do anything besides occasionally heal a teammate from afar to get an asssist, like a Soraka who just ults from base every few minutes.

Or you just chase too many kills and ignore turrets and inhibs.

Best Kog NAOct 16, 20163 votes

KDA =/= whether you deserve to climb

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 16, 20163 votes

If your KDA is over 5 and you're not climbing there's a problem there. Whether it's because you chase kills and not objectives, or whether you're just bad at working with a team, there's some issue there.

Best Kog NAOct 16, 20163 votes

You can climb with a KDA of 1. You can climb with a negative KDA. KDA isn't everything

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 16, 20163 votes

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about people who have a KDA over 5 and are still not climbing and what their problem might be.

OneMustFallOct 16, 20163 votes

Logic doesn't follow. You could technically play perfectly every game and go 18/3/10 but still have extremely unskilled teammates which can't win team fights and don't play safe enough to allow you to split push objectives. Regardless of how skilled you are, you generally can't 1v5. If you got insanely unlucky with awful teams you could wind up with a 5.0+ KDA and still have a losing record. You dying more often can not help the problem.

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 16, 20162 votes

Logic dictates that the chances of you being that unlucky are super low. So the likely chance of you having your high KDAs and not climbing is that you're really shitty at leading your team, avoiding teamfights, you don't take objectives or you just chase kills nonstop. In that case, you chasing less kills (aka getting a lower KDA) will help. If you're avoiding teamfights then yeah if you go into a teamfight you might die more but it's also more useful than leaving the game as a 4v5. So sometimes dying more actually helps.

OneMustFallOct 16, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Logic dictates that the chances of you being that unlucky are super low. So the likely chance of you having your high KDAs and not climbing is that you're really shitty at leading your team, avoiding teamfights, you don't take objectives or you just chase kills nonstop. In that case, you chasing less kills (aka getting a lower KDA) will help. If you're avoiding teamfights then yeah if you go into a teamfight you might die more but it's also more useful than leaving the game as a 4v5. So sometimes dying more actually helps.

You made a definitive statement which isn't always true. While it is possible that if you have a high KDA, you're only playing super safe and not chancing dying (Most commonly seen in Supports) which means not helping your team if there is a chance of you getting killed, there is also the possibility you just get bad teams or poor team comps. Sample size does increase the probability that the former is true however. But I wouldn't say it's any more likely that a person with a 3.0 KDA is stuck and a person with a 5.0 KDA is not and is making mistakes.

jaymc1130Oct 16, 20162 votes

The legend is learning...

Does this mean the end of the world is nigh?

YoobaOct 16, 20162 votes

This post is a waste of time and you're bad at the game

Swiftstrike4Oct 16, 20162 votes

People with high KDAs in low elo just means they can effectively capitalize on mechanically poor players, but not translate that into a win.

Killing someone in silver over and over and over again is easy to pad stats, but doing that instead of CSing, taking towers, securing epic monsters, will not lead to a victory and mitigates you lead.

KDAs do "even out" once you start climbing and begin to play around players that are about your rank. It also sometimes depends on the champion and role. Supports will frequently have high KDA's but they will sit in a pretty low rank. Same with assassins. While frequently ADCs an top laners will have more modest KDAs.

Win rate (after more than 30-40 games with a champion probably) is a more sufficient indicator of player skill. Anyone sitting above 50% with their mains will probably effectively climb and are probably under ranked. I feel like if you have 2-3 champions with 55% or higher win rate on you will probably climb out of the elo you are currently in.

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 17, 20161 votes

I don't think winrate is that good of an indicator either. The system tries to even out your winrate to 50% as well.

The best indicator is really by watching a replay and seeing how they react to certain situations.

Swiftstrike4Oct 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I don't think winrate is that good of an indicator either. The system tries to even out your winrate to 50% as well.

The best indicator is really by watching a replay and seeing how they react to certain situations.

Well you do play against tougher competition as you climb so your win rate may start high and evens out. Still if you play a lot of game (100s) with one champion and maintain a 60% win rate with that champion, that's really good.

XinZhao2WinNhaoOct 17, 20162 votes

If you play 100s of games with 1 champ and maintain a 60% winrate, the only thing you can say is that you're better at that champ than the other champs you play, not that you're objectively good, that's what I mean.

Swiftstrike4Oct 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

If you play 100s of games with 1 champ and maintain a 60% winrate, the only thing you can say is that you're better at that champ than the other champs you play, not that you're objectively good, that's what I mean.

I guess it depends what your criteria is for "good." I think if you are silver II and lower you are probably not very good at the game. If you can get to gold, play in it, and stay in it with a decent win rate you are probably "decent" a the game. .

Remember most of the player base does not achieve gold, though this year more players have obtained gold while the plat numbers are about the same. Last year on NA i think it was 27% of the player base on NA ended up in Gold or higher, while currently 35% of the base is in gold or higher on NA. So more people are in gold than last season, but this may be due to dynamic queue. The plat number look about the same.

I think if you are good with a few champions and maintain a high win rate with them you are probably pretty good at the game. The biggest problem with silver and lower players is that they play TOO many champions and TOO many roles so that they never excel in specific roles or champions in the game.

They stunt their development in other aspects of the game by playing too many champions and roles.

Most really high elo players only play a few champions, that's how they climb. They don't play 3 plus champions and 3 plus roles at the elo they are in.

If you have played probably 300 games in silver you are probably a silver player. If a person that is gold plays on smurfs they will eventually climb to gold. I have climbed 3 different accounts to gold, my main, and two smurfs. One smurf I specifically created just to play ranked with friends in silver that I could not queue with on main. I won too many games on it and its in Gold. The other account is an older account that I decided to climb with mostly playing support . I didn't play a lot of brand prior trying him out. I don't particularly like trying new champions on my main in normals just because I will queue against players that are still close or around my mmr and it inhibits my learning. The account was silver V and now its Gold V.

Now I am mostly a ranked one trick and I can climb through that role and one champion. I am adequate with other champions, but winning with them is a coin toss or less. I can play other champions and roles at a low gold level, but I will avoid taking them into my ranked games verse mid to high gold players and plats. I know what my skill is in other roles.

CerealBoxOfDoomOct 17, 20162 votes

its worded funny but what he says is partly correct.

You cant put specific numbers on it like that but if you are getting an average kda of 5:1 and still can't climb you are shit and need to do something about it. In that case there is probably something very simple to fix and the only thing holding you back is the fact you're too busy jerking off at yourself to improve that last little bit.

You reach a point where you are wasting time or killing targets of no value. You are more than likely that idiot who gets way ahead in lane then just keeps killing the same person even after he's worth less than minions while your teammates you'll inevitably blame for your loss are fighting easy targets worth over 30 minions and even then you should probably be going after even bigger targets.

Ruin LanceOct 17, 20161 votes

serious question why is a bronze 5 trying to lecture people about why they can't climb

EDIT: just checked your match history and, what the fuck even are you lol

WoonStruckOct 17, 20161 votes

He never said he didn't lack game knowledge.

What he says isn't exactly wrong.

There comes a point where objectives trump safety, and where pretty much everything trumps going after anything other than necessary or free kills.

FioraWillCarryOct 17, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ruin Lance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gitUhEKe,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2016-10-17T19:25:54.054+0000)

serious question why is a bronze 5 trying to lecture people about why they can't climb

LOL OMG. I just assumed the guy was Plat or something....it sounded so authoritative....