When you ask a high ELO player for advice

Hrd2H1t·Oct 26, 2016·33 votes·2,986 views

You: I'm not really climbing that much, can you please give me some advice?

Them: lol bronze nub cant even get out of bronze

You: But how do I get out of bronze?

Them: lol bronze nub just carry

You: But how do I carry?

Them: lol bronze nub git gud

You: But how to I get good?

Them: ...lol bronze nub cant even get out of bronze

~~i swear some diamond player is going to see this and get so triggered~~

EDIT: A lot of you guys are taking this super seriously, calm down guys its a Memes and Games post. No need to get your jimmies rustled.

75 Comments

The Sword SaintOct 26, 201626 votes

What I usually see is higher elo players giving advice and lower elo players choosing to argue why their crappy builds, champions, mechanics, and decision making are actually correct and it's just their teamates who are bad. Also it's common to claim the higher elo player must just be boosted, or that 'game knowledge =/= rank', or some other reason not to listen - even when they are the ones to ask.

MaizieaOct 27, 20165 votes

Yea I see this a lot and I've never seen what OP said. A lot of people do listen to advice though, they just can't really execute it properly. Simple and straight forward example of that is getting better cs, they try and focus on it more but just suck at doing the last hits.

WolfeurOct 27, 20163 votes

'game knowledge ≠ rank' is actually true. I have a pretty good game knowledge and good tactical decision-making but I don't have the mechanics and I make mistakes too often when I get too excited.

The Sword SaintOct 27, 20163 votes

{quoted}

'game knowledge ≠ rank' is actually true. I have a pretty good game knowledge and good tactical decision-making but I don't have the mechanics and I make mistakes too often when I get too excited.

While it is technically possible to have decent game knowledge without mechanics to back it up, realistically that's not a thing. At least your knowledge can't extend beyond your own mmr range very far, because you haven't actually played a lot of games against better players. You haven't been punished by better players consistently who see the holes in your theories which may work well or makes sense against your current mmr range. 'You don't know what you don't know' - even if you watch high elo streams all the time there's too much subtlety going on that you miss, the commentary they give covers probably 5% of what's going on since the rest of it is just auto pilot for a high elo player who's already learned the proper ways to trade, cs, build, position, pressure lanes, etc. so they only tend to speak up when something unusual or unexpected happens or when they die they analyse the new state of the game by comparing who burned what resources and how that effects the macro strategy.

TLDR: Lower elo theories and game knowledge about the game lack practical experience so cannot be compared to the theories and game knowledge of a higher elo player. If a higher elo player is arguing with you about your 'good game knowledge' it's probably because they have experienced that it's a bad theory, whether or not they have the exact words why on the tip of their tongue at that moment.

Thunder DreamssOct 27, 20162 votes

At least your knowledge can't extend beyond your own mmr range very far, because you haven't actually played a lot of games against better players.

The biggest problem I've seen with advice given by high elo players is exactly this, but in reverse. Just about every high rank player I've met has a poor understanding of how the game works in lower ratings or what tactics a less skilled player can realistically pull off.

For example, remember back when support was the teams ward bitch? I had just started the game and got dragged down from silver into mid bronze by a friend. They quit again and I was stuck trying to climb out of the hole as a support main by myself. I was losing game after game doing the things that had worked so well in silver, the things my high elo friends recommended until I had an epiphany - I was wasting all my gold on wards my team didn't bother looking at while the other support built damage/tankyness. Teamfights rolled around and we were 4.5 champs to the enemies 5. Once I stoped buying wards and just went for damage I shot strait back up to silver.

Could a platinum or diamond support still beat their rival despite being two items behind? Maybe. The fact is that as a silver I cannot beat the average bronze player if I'm that far behind and I needed to adopt some "low elo" strategy to win.

XinCrinOct 26, 201615 votes

I mean, to be fair, getting good will get you out of bronze [slayer-jinx-wink]

Learning momentOct 27, 201613 votes

your CS is horrible, so fix that.
taliyah/ori are not good champions to play, too high skill cap for you.
you took cleanse vs ahri, dont get ahead of yourself stick with barrier, ignite, tp.
you take thunderlords on everything.... get grasp on sion.
you dont have tier 3 runes but that doesnt have that large of an impact.
spam darius/vel/sion/ect. easy to play champions until you can cs and understand laning and wave management.

notice me Sin piOct 27, 201610 votes

.7 stop building MR against full AD comp

TequilaZombieOct 27, 20163 votes

I swear to god, this week I had a Mundo who was getting his ass handed to him in lane by a Poppy. When I pressed Tab to see his build he was rushing a Spirit Visage.

EndlessSorcererOct 27, 20162 votes

When we were against a full AD team, I had a Mundo build Mercury Treads, Sunfire Cape, Spirit Visage and Warmog's Armor.

It is really obvious that they were just blindly following a guide or set build path without thought or comprehension.

TequilaZombieOct 27, 20162 votes

I'd rather have those 5 warmogs builds than the guys who just copy paste something from Mobafire.

People really need to learn how to think a little on what they are building.

MaizieaOct 27, 20164 votes

Spirit is always good on mundo for the healing bonus and mercs are always good against a lot of CC. That said I don't know what the enemy team had so maybe you're right and this build was terrible. And there are so many AD champions that still deal magic damage, both of those items are always good on Mundo aslong as you don't rush them.

I recently played an aram on malphite and I was building armor only against a mostly AD team since their Ekko never attacked me until my entire team was dead, I was getting shredded by double sunfire, alistar passive and MF E. just to give an example.

Imperial JapanOct 27, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Learning moment,realm=NA,application-id=Ir7ZrJjF,discussion-id=8Q8vFuwP,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2016-10-27T02:14:19.750+0000)

your CS is horrible, so fix that.

taliyah/ori are not good champions to play, too high skill cap for you.

you took cleanse vs ahri, dont get ahead of yourself stick with barrier, ignite, tp.

you take thunderlords on everything.... get grasp on sion.

you dont have tier 3 runes but that doesnt have that large of an impact.

spam darius/vel/sion/ect. easy to play champions until you can cs and understand laning and wave management.

Hey I'm a guy who's a fairly average silver player (s1) and I want to know what I should work on. Based on what you told him I'll tell you some things about me.

My CS'ing isn't terrible but I think it could use more work
I thought so with Yasuo and Orianna. I would lane pretty good with both often coming ahead but mid and late game I would struggle due to poor positioning and the inability to contribute a lot to teamfights. As Orianna I would often land 2-3 man Ults in teamfights but could never do enough damage to actually kill anyone. Right now I'm playing a lot of jinx and it's usually hit or miss, I'll tell you why In a bit.
I play Jinx and morg (mid) right now so I'd say they're fairly easy.

As for why I'm hit or miss with jinx is due to how easily I tilt.

PhelasOct 27, 20161 votes

You don't get out of silver with mechanics, you get out of silver by knowing what you are doing, unless the other players in your games.

EDIT: This is why you should dig Yasuo and Orianna and move on towards easy champs, like Annie, Morgana (as ya already do), Vel'Koz and so on.

EndlessSorcererOct 27, 20163 votes

I found waveclear, poke and CC were the easiest way to climb out of Silver.

When I was in it last season, people just grouped around a random objective constantly and faced-off against one another until someone got caught out. The ability to stall pushes, poke the enemy team down and engage/disengage fights is invaluable.

MaizieaOct 27, 20162 votes

This, low elo heavily underestimates how important waveclear is. I remember when I was a new player I could just stall games for 30 minutes spamming W on Ashe to defend inhib towers while my team fought every 3 to 5 minutes, every time we lost I'd go back to holding the base and eventually we won a team fight around the 50-60minute mark and it was game over for them lol.

EndlessSorcererOct 27, 20162 votes

Basically.

If you can't win fights at the moment, just stall until you can (or you pick off an enemy).

PhelasOct 28, 20161 votes

Indeed, you macro your way out of this, you don't have to do flashy plays for the Lee Sin x Riven montage noone is going to see anyways.

Imperial JapanOct 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

You don't get out of silver with mechanics, you get out of silver by knowing what you are doing, unless the other players in your games.

EDIT: This is why you should dig Yasuo and Orianna and move on towards easy champs, like Annie, Morgana (as ya already do), Vel'Koz and so on.

Already got rid of Yasuo for a while (although I still like playing him) and I guess I'll lay off of Ori till I get a bit higher

Mig89Oct 27, 20161 votes

Your team has to follow up with a champ like orianna. She can carry hard but you've gotta have godlike cs to solo anyone with a brain. She's a zone control mate meaning her team fighting and seige ability is strong. Yasuo is a little different but his skills cap is high so once late game rolls around you have to know how to time your engage. Watch the fight for hard cc to be thrown, then go in.

Imperial JapanOct 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Your team has to follow up with a champ like orianna. She can carry hard but you've gotta have godlike cs to solo anyone with a brain. She's a zone control mate meaning her team fighting and seige ability is strong. Yasuo is a little different but his skills cap is high so once late game rolls around you have to know how to time your engage. Watch the fight for hard cc to be thrown, then go in.

Okay, I haven't played Yasuo much anyways and I guess I'll lay off of Orianna for a while.

TheorexOct 27, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=DLTD Stuart,realm=NA,application-id=Ir7ZrJjF,discussion-id=8Q8vFuwP,comment-id=000a0003,timestamp=2016-10-27T06:12:50.518+0000)

Hey I'm a guy who's a fairly average silver player (s1) and I want to know what I should work on. Based on what you told him I'll tell you some things about me.

My CS'ing isn't terrible but I think it could use more work

I thought so with Yasuo and Orianna. I would lane pretty good with both often coming ahead but mid and late game I would struggle due to poor positioning and the inability to contribute a lot to teamfights. As Orianna I would often land 2-3 man Ults in teamfights but could never do enough damage to actually kill anyone. Right now I'm playing a lot of jinx and it's usually hit or miss, I'll tell you why In a bit.

I play Jinx and morg (mid) right now so I'd say they're fairly easy.

As for why I'm hit or miss with jinx is due to how easily I tilt.

1: Learn how to wave control. Here is a link to understand controlling the wave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQz3yU5tzJ0 . Even people in Gold/Plat do not do this correctly.

2: You are playing too many different play style champions. Limit yourself. Jinx is an ADC. Yas is Cancer (Assassin Like, Bruiser). Orianna is a Mage.

Start with something simple. If you like Jinx she is fine. Just learn how to manage her switcharoo. Get that down. Yas has a low pick up skill, but a high skill cap. Also he is just one of those champions people dislike playing against because he is annoying. If you like Assassins start with someone like Fizz or Talon. Mages; Orianna is a hard to play champion. Because she is more reliant on her team then she is on herself. Play something that can be self sufficient. Malzahar, Ryze, Vlad, Anivia, Viktor, Syndra, etc. People that can still kill multiple people without needing their team the whole time to do so.

Where is 3,4,5?

6: Like I said earlier. Limit your play style champions. Pick a role. ADC or Mid. Get really good at that one role first. Then slowly pick up another role if you are bored.

Tilt? Want to learn something about tilt? Its all mental.

Want to know what I do when I get pissy about a game? I switch to a slightly lower rating account of mine. So my main is p1, my smurf is p4. There isn't enough of a skill difference to be like "Hey I am going to stomp thing completely" but there is enough of skill difference for me to enjoy the game instead of having to worry about the next move all the time. This will really help with tilt. By being able to practice, in ranked. While not jeopardizing your team or yourself. It helps solidify that you belong where you are (if you spend enough time on your smurf to get to where your main is). It helps improve your weaker mechanics. It helps with learning decision making. It helps with learning match-ups that you experience but do not fully know. (Like I learned that Silence fucks up Vlad. Hence why I almost always beat Vlad with Malzahar. But I didn't know that until I played Vlad vs Garen. Where Garen fucked me sideways.) Overall I think that smurfing is good for a singular stand point. And I can confirm. A smurf will not be in Bronze/Silver/Gold for very long. Like for me. I can get from Placements to gold in placements. I know a lot of people hate smurfs. But let me ask you why?

Do you hate smurfs because they prevent you from winning?| Do you hate smurfs because they are not playing in their own elo? Do you hate smurfs because they seem to always be on the enemy team?

If the answer to those are yes. Then improve.

Show that smurf that just because they are on the enemy team. That doesn't mean that you will lose.

Tell them that "Hah, you can't play in your own elo and now you lose in our elo. BOOSTED!"

Its good practice to know how to beat a smurf. Playing against them is annoying; but watch what they do, and replicate. It will inadvertently make you a better player.

Oh and everyone that bitches about smurfs in lower elo. How do you think all of us High Elo people feel when we eventually run into WildTurtles 9 accounts? Trick2g's five or six accounts. QQ's other boosted accounts? Everyone gets annoyed but at some point please learn that Smurf help the losing team if they are not whining about the game and just watch and learn.

Imperial JapanOct 28, 20161 votes

Okay
As for Yasuo I haven't played him for over a few months so I think I'm good. As for Orianna I've payed off of her as she didn't work out too good in my games (team wasn't good) and so I switched to Morg and I'm doing fine. As for too many play styles I really only play mages and then jinx as my only adc.

I'm getting that down after my friend commented I was in rocket form for too long.

As for 3, 4, 5 I didn't think they were too relevant to me.

My primary role has almost always been mid, I've just switched over to ADC (jinx) as there was much more carry potential. (Although recently I've been tilting a lot)

As for the smurfing idea that's actually pretty interesting. I might try it out. As for my opinion on smurfing, I don't really mind it. As you said I just try to pick up from things they do and try to adapt to the situation. (Such as adapting to position better when I was against a Vayne main by sitting in the very back until she showed and was CC'd by our frontline)

I've actually taken boosting in considering to see what I could pick up from better players before demoting but decided against. For a few reasons like how risky it is, how it'll affect the higher elo players (aka I'll make the game a 4v5) and etc

TheorexOct 28, 20161 votes

Too lazy too go back and look at my current comment in which you are replying to.

So time to wing it.

All that I got from this was you are in the spot I was stuck in for a while this season when I made gold 5. (that was way too long ago)

I was getting pissy because I couldnt get games to end the way I wanted them to and I was getting sick of my ADC's being Grabo.

So I picked up ADC as well.

Well long story short is.

Stick to the lane you were assigned by your friends.

You have more knowledge and do not have to learn every match-up all over again.

Just work on your match-ups it will be better that way.

Here just follow these 6 steps for the Elo Gains.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/6tl6O6j6-do-you-want-to-improve-basic-game-knowledge

May Emilia-Tan bless you with Elo Gains.

TheMinezOct 27, 20161 votes

I recently spectated a bronze 5 game where my friend was playing support.

I am a jungle main.

I am a patient man.

Both junglers were awful. The Lee started at his red and smited it. The Vi started at her blue and smited it. The lee hardly even ganked.

Need I say more about why I was disgusted with the poor quality junglers?

DecritOct 27, 20161 votes

starting and smiting buff? holy shit this brings me back to season 2

ThrëatOct 27, 20164 votes

You are far off the mark. My interactions when giving advice to low elo players more goes along the lines of:

Them asking me for help Me giving them advice which helped me climb Them arguing that they think their way is better Me explaining that if their way was better than they'd be a higher elo Them saying that they are only struggling to win games because they are unlucky or their account is cursed or riot marked their account to demote (lol) and that they would easily be my rank if they just had better team mates Me telling them that they are low elo because they are bad and not willing to change and then removing them.

IggletOct 27, 20161 votes

Teach me senpai. I'm willing to learn, I swear on me mum.

notmebuthimOct 27, 20164 votes

Getting out of Bronze is like... its hard to explain how. Once your out you'll know what I mean, you'll just see the odd mistakes you were making and laugh.

Leon EtoileOct 27, 20164 votes

Just because someone can play the game at a high level doesn't mean they can explain it.

Also, their advice is 100% accurate and makes sense to them.

A lot of players play LoL instinctually. They don't have to think about wave management, trading, warding and more things. You kind of develop a game sense that is hard to explain.

When you are bronze you are looking for a step by step what should I do at this exact moment; unfortunately there is no answer to this. Every decision needs to be made in that moment based on what is going on around the map. You develop decision making by playing more games and getting experience.

YoobaOct 27, 20163 votes

It's like asking a person for tips for driving. It just doesn't work that way. You do it by practicing.

notice me Sin piOct 27, 20162 votes

yes and no. Upvoted for yes and downvoted for no. Yes: real-time stuff: mechanics, map awareness, etc. No: decision making: proper item builds, baron calls, etc.

Ste the ripperOct 27, 20163 votes

{quoted}

It's like asking a person for tips for driving. It just doesn't work that way. You do it by practicing.

I don't agree

DukuesOct 27, 20163 votes

Dukue's mid gold guide to getting out of bronze.

Play champion/role you feel confident in and can carry with. Should also have over a 50% win rate with that champion if you have played some ranked games on it.
Focus on csing and beating lane opponent. If you fall behind in lane keep farming and play passive. If ahead then eventually roam and help teammates, grab some kills.
Watch mini map and watch enemy/ally movement. Use your allies as human meat shields and roaming wards. Watch as they get themselves into a stupid situation then go in and kill enemy players while they distracted and run before the rest of the enemy can kill you. Don't die trying to save your meat shields or roaming wards as it only will help the enemy.
Push turrets and objectives as you will be a couple items ahead. .Prepare to destroy the enemy in the final ARAM fight with your + 1.5 - 2 items on them.
Profit.

LoomberFootOct 27, 20163 votes

My favourite is when they ask for advice then ignore everything you say.

TheorexOct 27, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bob Chelson,realm=NA,application-id=Ir7ZrJjF,discussion-id=8Q8vFuwP,comment-id=0018,timestamp=2016-10-27T15:30:27.271+0000)

My favourite is when they ask for advice then ignore everything you say.

Thats life. If I had $10 for every time someone didn't listen to me about something fucking stupid. I would be rich.

If I gave $100 for every time someone actually listened to me about something important. I would actually be broker then broke. For some reason, people only take me serious about serious things FeelsBadMan.

Death and DoomOct 27, 20162 votes

well, from my little experience, bronze are not the most receptive crowd for advice. normally ends with me getting flamed for. so i stopped.

Supreme Senpai69Oct 27, 20162 votes

To be fair a lot of it is just time and RNG. I lost 60 LP today through feeding and AFK'ing. I know "it's my teammates" is a bad excuse but sometimes it's true lol. You have to understand not all games are winnable. Get some friends that are your skill level, but not too many so you don't have to go against a 5 man premade using skype. Then play. Win, lose, doesn't matter just play. You'll climb even if it takes 1,000 games.

That's why it bugs me when people say "Don't blame your teammates, look how you can do better." Like that's true but in this game you can legit go 18/2/15 and lose. Just gotta keep grinding those games

The Blue RajahOct 27, 20162 votes

Pet peeve of mine. If you went 18/2/15 and didn't win, it's probably your fault. Most likely, that sort of score means you had all the power on your team, and you were unable to apply it in such a way that your team got objectives. That's a fixable mistake.

Supreme Senpai69Oct 27, 20163 votes

Could mean that. Doesn't have to mean that though. Maybe you had an amazing laning phase and roamed, but come teamfights someone AFK'd.

Mig89Oct 27, 20163 votes

This is true but what he said is true as well. I get games where an enemy kat is 15/0 but come late game we shut her down and the rest of her team is gold starved while we're all average in terms of cs and items and we win because they funneled all their gold into one champ. If you're carrying that hard, let your team have the kills and settle for assists and cs. Sometimes you gotta play like a support and only take a kill if someone else can't get it in time.

Cat on Roids v2Oct 27, 20162 votes

but you have to be stupid af to not be at least gold nowadays......

RISE Shlack123Oct 27, 20162 votes

Statistically untrue. As long as there is a large population on a competitive game, there will always be a bottom rung of the ladder. That doesn't make them stupid - it just makes everyone above them better at climbing. Plus, LoL is just a damn game.

VenomarOct 27, 20162 votes

This advice brought to you by proguidesdotcom.

RISE Shlack123Oct 27, 20162 votes

I've been gold every season since I started playing. I've been a support main since I started playing. I always have the most wards in the game since I started playing (or at least since it started getting tracked). So the only real advice I can give you to climb is to ward, and ward properly. If you play anything other than support, don't blame your support for lack of vision. There are warding limits and everyone must contribute if you want effective vision control.

tl;dr ward more