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Is there a chance for average players to improve?

GeÌst·4/13/2017, 8:20:44 PM·2 votes·874 views

I'm a s5 mid main and struggle to get anything going in ranked. Most of the time, my loses happen because of 1 or more of 4 things.

The person that is in a position to carry gets caught/ thinks they can 1v5 and gets killed then we lose the ensuing 4v5 while we try to defend.
Everyone on my team, including me, is playing bad and we can't get anything going our way before they end.
(this doesn't happen often) I'm the only one in a position to carry and either my team can't peel for me or I just can't do enough to carry.
(this happen even less than #3) I'm playing so bad that my team can't carry me. On a lot of these, I do well in lane phase. Unless I get shoved under tower the whole time, I generally help out my side lanes a good bit but almost immediately after lane phase everything goes wrong. My teams won't group, I'm suddenly missing skill shots more often and, even if we win a team fight, we don't get objectives after, even with pinging for them.

All this tilts me hard and makes me wonder what I could do better. Like I know, I'm probably not even okay at map awareness and I sometimes miss position. I've improved considerably since I really started trying to about a year ago but now I just feel stuck and useless. I've watched tons of videos and streams but though barely help. I've tried the practice tool to improve on a few aspects of the game but in a real match I seem to be able to use half of what I practiced so this doesn't help much. I've tried watching my own replays in an attempt to find more mistakes that I don't already see while I'm in the match but normally all I see are the ones I already know but are unsure on how to fix.

So is there any way I can improve so that I lose less via the first two reasons? Am I just missing something that's holding me back? Am I just a lost cause? Last but not least, is there anyway I can work on my positioning specifically as I don't really know how to?

EDIT: If you look up my stats on op.gg or where ever they are probably not current as i stopped playing ranked much awhile back.

40 Comments

Mizuki Zahra4/13/2017, 8:36:15 PM1 votes

try using the champs you main in a normal or blind pick with no runes and no masteries to get a "feel" for base stats

HalcyonDweller4/13/2017, 8:39:49 PM1 votes

If your team has a fed player who is trying to do things their way and is bullheaded you will find more success by just following them and sticking together.

A lot of games I've lost because we had someone who could carry but wanted to do something different than the rest of the team and died because we weren't together.

It's easy for us to blame them for not going with the majority, and it's easy for them to blame us for not helping. Who's at fault isn't really important; the end result is all that matters. They die and we lose defending a 4v5. It's better to stick together and guide their decisions with suggestions and pings.

If the player being bullheaded isn't the one who is ahead, you can point out the player doing best on your team. Saying stuff like, "Hey our top laner is really fed, lets stay near them so we don't fight without our best player." People usually agree to follow others based on score, so it's the easiest way to convince people to follow a common strategy.

Frightning4/13/2017, 8:45:56 PM1 votes

Improve your individual player skill. You should seek to:

-Always dominate lane (this requires learning mid champions and how they work and how to beat them) -Roam effectively to snowball other lanes (early game macro decision making) -Ward constantly (that trinket should always be generating more charges, which it only does if you keep warding as charges become available) -Rotate to the correct part of the map for the given situation (good post laning phase macro play decision making)

I had a 70% win rate in season 3 ranked when I hit Silver II (after getting double promoted from Silver IV). I almost always got fed in those games and often used my advantage to also snowball my allies.

If you want, I'd be willing to give you some free coaching. Point you more specifically towards what you can improve to get better at the game. I've been playing since season 1 and play nearly every champion in the game (quite the generalist these days), so I've learned a lot about the game.

Azure Hamster4/13/2017, 8:48:11 PM1 votes

I'd like to point out that S5 is near the middle of the bell curve of players (I think the midpoint is S3), and not all players play ranked. So you're probably above average. :)

One of the big important things to know is that if you're losing your lane, the answer is not to try to get kills to catch up. They're ahead, you already lost engagements, it will only get worse. Assuming no smurfs, the matchmaker has put you with other people roughly in your area of skill. So if you're outmatched in your lane, chances are one of your other opponents are outmatched in theirs. Don't feed your lane. Just pull back, cs where you can, give up turrets as you have to in order to live. This allows the other lanes to win without getting hammered when your lane opponent (if you fed them) roams.

This is one thing that has really helped me as ADC.

Caitlyn

franchise76764/13/2017, 9:16:17 PM1 votes

no

Penns4/13/2017, 9:50:41 PM1 votes

Well looking at your kdas and win rates theyre way better than mine (https://i.gyazo.com/2a0f02f5f6263d1e9f76584f0c281534.png ) and Im almost diamond xd

So I guess if you just play more youre probably good unless youre doing something horribly wrong to not climb with these stats but I cant really judge that by just reading a post.

Kilanost4/13/2017, 10:08:18 PM1 votes

Just looked at the champions you play most and I will offer a suggestion: Don't play assassins unless your team comp can handle what it loses by not having a mage.

What does your team lose not having a mage?

Reliable, free poke- seige defense and offensive
wave clear--seige defense and offense
cc-safety
more reliable damage
If you're playing talon the team also likely loses a good mix of AD and AP damage.

The game starts in champ select. Play it smart.

EDIT: Also, stop dying so much. You're feeding the enemy team to get fed yourself. You get stronger relative to the enemy team but the rest of your team gets weaker relative to the enemy team.

ModKnightsKemplar4/13/2017, 10:30:20 PM1 votes

Just keep practicing... And understand that it takes time for improvement to show in your rank.

One of the things that I have noticed BIG since I climbed from silver to plat is that you need to understand very well how to win from behind. If your strategy is to get ahead and snowball the game, but you never try to win when you get behind, it is very hard to climb. In that case, you are basically just crossing your fingers every game and hoping your team doesn't feed too hard early.

It sounds like you are aware of the things you need to work on. So just keep doing that.

Mighty Mortein4/14/2017, 3:42:29 AM1 votes

I feel like the reason why so many games are lost or thrown (at least in a lower elo) is that no one either wants or can close out a game while they're in the lead. People are just hungry for pentas and having flawless KDAs. Sure they get towers, but the longer a team takes to win, the longer the enemy team has to catch up. And then you have that last teamfight around 40+minutes in with 50s death timers and you've lost the game.

FioraWillCarry4/14/2017, 4:28:55 AM1 votes

I've tried that. I've recently realized that winning is not really about you but your team. I've tried everything humanly possible to figure out what I could be doing better. I've done lots of things to improve my own play but alas, they provide little towards the goal of winning. No amount of game knowledge, mechanics or other gimmicks is gonna win you a game where your bot lane feeds 2 kills per minute. Having 200 CS in 20 minutes is not gonna save you from a 14-3 Katerina bursting you instantly.

I'll quote something I said in another thread:-

I was totally completely wrong. What I failed to realize at the time I wrote this was that I had accumulated well over 1000 ranked games when I reached there from Bronze 5 . While yes, the stuff I mentioned above does help, all it does is helps you to NOT be the reason your team loses. The reason you win any match is entirely dependent on your team.

So how did I make it to Silver last season ? The MMR system the match maker uses in League is designed to give each player a roughly 50% win rate. You can overcome this by consistently not being the reason your team loses. That means don't feed or otherwise do anything to throw your games and you will carve out a slightly above 50% win rate. What this also means is that you have to play a lot and I mean a lot of games for this to work in your favor. You'd have to be extremely lucky to climb from Bronze 5 to Silver 5 in less than 100 games. The point is, you as a single player have zero control over whether you win or lose. There are too many random factors that determine the outcome of a game for a single player to overcome. After 3 seasons and thousands of ranked games played I've finally realized that.

I started this new season, season 7 at B5 and peaked at B1 after 900 games. I'm currently on the verge of being demoted to B4. I have no doubt I'd make it to Silver again but I'm guessing that will take about 300 games or so. Last season I made it after 1300 or so ranked games.

So the the short version is this: If you want to climb, try not to be the reason your team loses and play lots of ladder matches. You should climb a tier in about 800 to 1500 ranked games.