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Situational Awareness - Looking for veteran advice

Mute Button X 4·3/8/2016, 5:26:37 AM·1 votes·753 views

I made the title 'Situational Awareness', because there are many factors that are included when carrying lower elo games. And i believe there is a significant reason Diamond players can create multiple accounts and put them all in Diamond. These are a few of the reasons i feel lower-elo players(Bronze-Gold) are stuck where they are

Below-par positioning in teamfights and early-mid game brawls.. Below-par targeting during teamfights and early-mid game brawls.. Below-par itemization/counterbuilds and situational builds.. Below-par champion selection/counterpicks, and team compositions.. Below-par champion mechanics Players outplaying THEMSELVES in unforgiving situations...

These are incredibly important issues that 99% of guides are going to tell you that you need to improve on in order to better yourself at the game. However, there is another factor that must be considered that i do not know if many players give thought to. When you only play with lower-elo players, it is difficult to understand what you and them are doing wrong when making long-term decisions. Because you do not have a coach over your shoulder telling you when you should be doing something else, sometimes it is obvious, but sometimes it is not obvious when poor long-term decisions are made. You may believe what you did was the right decision, and then things go wrong.......

Situational Awareness, to my understanding, is defined as knowing what is going on at a particular time, and what steps need to be taken to get the results you want. Example; mid Zed leaves lane to gank bot, because bot is pushed. Generally this is a good idea, because who doesn't love GANKS? Though so much more must be considered! Is the enemy mid-laner just going to give a 'MIA' ping and sell you out.. So should you make them believe you are recalled? Orthe enemy mid-laner may just follow and counter-gank. Where is your Jungler/their Jungler's location? Will you be counterganked? Will you arrive and their bot lane kill YOU and your entire bot lane? Will they burn 1 Flash and escape, forcing you to return to your own lane(then their Jungler and mid laner 2v1 you on your travel back) Or, will you simply waltz into lane and pick up a kill+assist? Will you lose 2 waves of farm and get back to your lane and realize your opponent has recalled and bought an additional item needed to kill you at lvl 6?

Correct me if i am wrong, but i believe this is defined as 'Situational Awareness'.

Lets continue with the story.

You ( Zed ) arrives at bot lane, and burns both enemy Flashes. Enemy NamiCaitlyn are on full-retreat mode, as their Amumu is no-where to be seen andFizz didn't MIA you, so Nami Caitlyn are both damaged. It's level 5 but your Ashe is level 6 for picking up an early kill. You Alistar pings the tower, letting you know he's going to dive. He wombo's the enemyCaitlyn successfully, tanking tower shots. Zed jumps in for additional damage and Caitlyn dies. Nami lands a bubble on Alistar and forces him to take an extra {{summoner:17}} shot to kill him before he gets out. Meanwhile, Fizz has been putting a gank on your top lane Darius and killed him. Then you realize Ashe was sitting back farming the creep wave whilst the dive was taking place........ . . . END RESULT..... There are a ridiculous amount of things you can analyze in this scenario. Cause and effect. The short term, would bot lane gank have been more sucessful if Ashe was actually paying attention? The obvious answer for that is 'most likely'. Still, the bot dive would seem to be worth. Giving Nami a kill on Alistar isn't a huge deal.... Kiling Caitlyn now puts her behind a few creep waves, especially since retarted Ashe wasn't going to miss any farm while the fight was happening. She would probably be around 12 cs ahead just because of this, which amounts close to a kill(plus the assist she picked up off Caitlyn , assuming she damaged her during the gank itself). But then, you have to begin to question if your Ashe understands how to teamfight.. Can you put your trust on a player who doesn't keep up w/ ganks? So anyways.. That gives bot lane a huge advantage in the long run. But now Darius is pissed and raging at Zed for not pinging the MIA on Fizz. . . . Top lane is now behind 1 kill and farm because Fizz gave the kill to the laner. You have now tipped the balance of the game, all by a single decision you made to give bot lane a gank. Top lane is raging, and behind. but your bot lane has a lead, though they seem shaky. Would it have been best to stay in your lane and hope for the best? . . . If you have read this far, i hope you understand what i mean when i say 'Situational Awareness'. The advice i am looking for is this - how do you know what situations to look for, to take advantage of in lower elo's? And please don't say 'catch people out of position'. What specifically does 'out of position' all include, but is not limited to? An example is this - Thresh landing a hook is not always a good thing! The moment Thresh lands a hook, the entire enemy team may appear out of no-where and turn the fight. You could say this is due to lack of map awareness(IE, YOU knew 4 enemies were MIA. YOU knew they could be anywhere, so assume they are everywhere). Many higher teir players do not have to take risks simply because they look for specific situations where their decision will not fail. This has a part to do with mechanics, simply because lower-elo players missing abilities will ruin their chances of getting the results they are interested in. But aside from mechanics, during early, mid and late game, what scenarios do you look for that makes you think, 'why would so-and-so be doing that?' or 'why is so-and-so there?'. Examples of situations where you KNEW, you would get the outcome you wanted. Things that happen specifically in lower-elos, that you do not see in Platinum and up.

~~Thank you. ~~

1 Comments

Dinkis3/8/2016, 5:50:15 AM2 votes

Lots of tips and information out there. It's already a good start that you are aware and looking to make improvements. Disclaimer my main is high plat so I am not exactly some Masters tier god. From my experience on smurfs and playing with low and higher elo friends, here are a couple of things I noticed that change the higher rank you are.

  1. Champion pools and picks. I see a lot of Bronze/Silver/Gold players who think "I am going to play Zed next game!" the enemy picks lux and i nthey go with Zed. They build the same 6 items they always do, and lose. Firstly pick 2 roles you want to master. this is even easier with the new que system! Expand your champion pool, and by doing this do not learn 4 AD assassins mid. Lets say you want to play top; learn an AP champ, like Rumble or Kennen, learn a tank, like mundo, learn an AD fighter, like Riven; and find your comfort pick, something that you can 90% of the time win or go even in lane with when you need to pick first blindly into your opponent. (Ex Kenne, ranged, espace, easy to farm). Once you have a handful of champions for different situations in your roles, experiment with items. Like I said dont be the guy who builds the same items no matter what. Look at the enemy team, and your lane opponent, and wee what is going to hel pyou and your team win THIS game. Also pick the champ that fits your team, if you have an AD assasin mid, pick a tank or an AP top, do not go xXrivenorFEEDXx on your team.

  2. Communicate as effectively as possible. If you are a slow typer just stick to pings, they are probably better anyways. Do not walk back to your tower and stand still missing 6 CS to type "mia". Ping missing and even a retreat ping on the lane they are roaming too. If yo uneed to shot call just keep it simple, tell your team to turtle, play safe, take objective, or engage. that's it. Don't waste your time by step by step coaching players if they are playing badly. Also do not get sucked into a circlejerk in the chat. Be the rock your team needs.

  3. Map, probably the hardest one, at least for me. I feel this is holding me back from climbing to diamond right now. Look at your map quickly once per 10 seconds. It's amazing how much you can change the way you are playing in lane when you actually see the jungler just showed bot, rather than playing in fear because you havn't looked to see where he is. This will also give you a good idea of what's going on. You can roam to make plays or pressure another objective when you are aware of whats going on around the map.

Bonus notes: Depending on your rank, you may already know this; but always avoid getting sucked into team death match. If you are ahead do everything you can to crush your opponents. Walk into their side of the map and steal camps, get vision, or just walk into objectives as 5. As soon as you get a one item lead and you start chasing kills or ignoring objectives, you are just giving your opponents time to wait for yo uto slip up and turn the lead around. 2 people in base and 3 players engage on 5 and lose, then they get dragon and 2 towers. Happens more now than ever with this big death timers.

Hope it helps man. If you ever want to play, I just came back from a couple season break, working on leving up a new account. IGN: Got 2 Dads