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using top rank items does not always improve everyone's game

Electorite·9/14/2018, 5:49:52 PM·2 votes·2,250 views
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i made silver 5 playing with support in 2016, and then mid in 2018 (i took a break from LoL in 2017.) i get harassed almost every ranked game and half the time in unranked SR for my item choice.

i know the top tier players choose from a small list of final build items, and i have the website urls to look and see what the recommended and common top tier item choices are. i hear how the top rank items should be used by lower ranks , and unfortunately players will abuse the reporting system to try to 'force' everyone to use top rank items. i know i'm not as good as the top tier players yet. i know how to build items very very well. i test items, item combos, and runes in custom, as well as during games. it seems all my research and ability is overlooked and if i am not using cookie cutter top tier rank items, TEAMMATES ASSUME I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO BUILD ITEMS. if you watch esports and upper tier games on youtube, the players have fast reaction time and do everything perfectly. this just doesn't happen at mid to lower ranks for several reasons. here are 3 examples...

  1. i was in a ranked match september 2018 and we were winning the entire game, i was winning my lane, and we ended up winning the ranked. i got reported ONLY for not using the cookie cutter top rank items. i did not argue or write anything rude or mean at all. i ended up getting a reporting timer after the game. i was very polite to my teammates, but i still got reported. honestly i think my item choice was better than most/all of my teammates. i usually get the highest cs, one of the highest k+a/d ratios, but the first 5 minutes of the match it's always "why did you choose those items?" "stop trolling and learn how to build" i also will never never kill steal intentionally, so there is no reason i should be reported simply for not choosing the top tier items.

  2. i tend to play a lot of unranked with gold-diamond players (a lot, like dozens of games a day) i usually choose mid when i play with teammates above my rank, because i tend to play mid better vs harder opponents and with better teammates. it's pretty noticable how the matchmaker selects harder renemies or easier enemies based on the team's average elo. i have good map awareness for my rank, and even upper ranked players say i play very well. i tend to build SLIGHTLY more movement speed than the 'recommended top tier build' because my placement on the map isn't quite as good as gold-diamond players, so i will always be 5 seconds late to a fight if i did the recommended items and i would be dying more often if i'm 'as fast' as enemies expect me to be. also if i'm using only the recommended items, good enemies will know exactly what i'm using without taking the time to look. i know this probably isn't an issue with upper ranks who always look at the items, but lower ranks don't usually know what enemies are building, so again uncommon builds does work well in ranks gold and below. i get harassed and reported by higher ranked teammates for not using all the recommended items because "our frame of reference is shackled by our experiences" -unknown a gold 2 ranked friend said "using the cookie cutter top tier items is sometimes 'troll' in his rank". it's beyond the grasp of most silver-gold players that a silver player (me) can understand how items work and choose decent item combinations which are not from the small list of top rank items.

  3. there are some things item descriptions do not explain, or are not obvious in the item description. ancient coin for example. when i'm playing non ranked with teammates above my rank and i am top, mid, or support, i usually choose ancient coin as my starter income item. unless you are doing very well in your lane (winning in cs and not getting ganked by jg), ancient coin ALWAYS gives you more experience than any other income item unless you are getting kills. often early game in ranked you won't be getting kills, it will be more playing safe and getting cs. if a team is getting kills, the difference between ancient coin and other income choices won't matter anyway, the team with the kills is much further ahead because they will be farming cs and probably get the first tower. for anyone who doesn't know (and a lot of people don't know this) you get 100% of the experience for 'assists' on minons using ancient coin (and the 2 upgrades of ancient coin) without hitting any of the minons nearby. without ancient coin you get no gold or xp from minons unless you do damage to them within 10 seconds of them dying. LoL considers ancient coin as 'constantly' hitting all nearby minons all the time, about the distance between 2 turrets is 'nearby'. having ancient coin (or the upgrades to ancient coin) skyrockets your experience later in the game when you near one more or allies and you aren't killing minons. usually a teammate with a lot of aoe damage will be one shotting minons so everyone can focus on champions. with anything except ancient coin you miss out on all that xp. i'v'e seen someone kill a wave of minons when i am at level 16 and i get over half my level. something else i tested, if you spam wards with the upgrades to spellthief's edge and the upgrades to ancient coin, it increases your letter grade a whole 1 letter grade (instead of a B you would get an A). keep placing wards even just in lanes or near base, and it gives you a lot higher grade, which helps with mastery tokens.

i want the abuse of the reporting system and harassment to stop for the sole reason of not choosing the top rank items and runes. if LoL wanted everyone to choose the top tier items, LoL would have implemented presets or automatic item purchasing. with the other modes and temporary game modes, it seems LoL wants players to think for themselves, not use the top rank items unless you are gold+. lower ranks just don't have the skill, play experience, or reaction time to use top rank items and do well. sure if you don't know what to take itemwise the top rank items is very helpful, but this does not mean the top rank items are the best choice for lower ranks, especially in unranked going for mastery tokens.

11 Comments

Kei1439/15/2018, 2:19:46 AM4 votes

Coin doesnt give you exp bonus. The only items that gives you exp bonus is jg items against monsters, and minions are not monsters. Zilean and more have skills that give you more exp.

Also vision scores dont increase if your ward was useless.

Finally, false reports dont do anything to your account.

usul12029/14/2018, 6:23:05 PM4 votes

Reports against you will do nothing if you have done nothing wrong. Building off meta is not against the rules.

If someone is harassing you, mute them.

Edit: do you play on a second account? I was interested in seeing your builds since I like off meta stuff, and am only seeing you play with silver and bronze, plus a few plays that are duoing down.

Electorite9/17/2018, 10:51:49 PM2 votes

thank you for all the comments! you guys are nicer than a lot of people in the game.

{quoted}

Reports against you will do nothing if you have done nothing wrong. Building off meta is not against the rules.

If someone is harassing you, mute them.

Edit: do you play on a second account? I was interested in seeing your builds since I like off meta stuff, and am only seeing you play with silver and bronze, plus a few plays that are duoing down.

i do not have any other account. i've been busy the last couple weeks with my jobs, and i haven't played much with my 2 groups of upper ranked players. i had a negative experience with one of the groups (there are friends who tend to play together, which is what i mean by groups of players, you tend to see the same people even if they aren't in your friends list)

i wish everyone knew building off meta wasn't against the rules. it seems a good amount of people in the mid ranks (silver-plat) assume you don't know how to build if you aren't using the recommended items. a good number of mid to upper ranks (gold-diamond) are impressed with my ability to build. one diamond player has said 'i can see what you are doing there with the build' on a few occasions. why am i still getting harassed by players who think looking at the common items in the top ranks gives them all powerful authority to harass anyone not using those items? please look at my cs or watch me play before you harass me about my item choice. i get harassed even having the most cs and winning my lane. i don't understand the thought process for that. i would be surprised if anyone who talks down to another player only for item choice has much of a thought process.

i only ever have queued for ranked by myself. i play a lot of non ranked with higher ranks (higher levels too), and that almost always gives us harder enemies in summoner's rift. i know they are higher rank, because i see the border in the loading screen, and in my friend's list i can mouseover their name and see their rank.

i'm not going to quote everyone who commented about ancient coin and who wrote reports which are filed incorrectly don't do anything. the one time in ranked i got a timer and i was nothing but polite AND we won. this doesn't happen often, but why do i get a timer if i'm not doing anything in text which would warrent a report, or anything when i play which warrents a report? if a riot staff member is reading the reports, how do i get a timer when the employee can see the chat at the very least? i'm very careful to be polite in what i write at all times. i have only disconnected once or twice in the last few hundred games due to my internet, and it wasn't ever in a ranked. sometimes i get high ping, but i fix that if and when i die by disabling my wireless internet for 20 seconds, which ends up keeping me out of the game a total of 60 seconds. i don't know why a riot staff member would ever justify a report against me.

as for ancient coin, there is no xp bonus. you simply get xp from minon deaths with ancient coin, and in at least one situation (when only an enemy champion is nearby) you do not get experience from minon deaths. in the lane phase (the beginning of summoner's rift) if you stand at the tower and pick your nose while your tower your minons are killing the opponent's minons you will not get any experience from those minons, per my testing. i have not tested all the possible senarios where you get experience and when you don't get experience from minon deaths, but i have seen no xp gain without ancient coin and xp gain with ancient coin. i've seen this with my own eyes on more than one occasion. i should record a video of this happening to prove it. my point being sometimes you get into a cat and mouse game with the enemy champion in the lane phase, and neither of you are attacking minons. with ancient coin you are getting xp where the enemy champion is not getting xp from minon deaths.

{quoted}](name=Doge2020,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=AmLFKiFO,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-09-14T19:14:01.279+0000)

As long as you know that the items you are gonna get will fully benefit your champ then you are clear. For example: If you build something like yommus on Janna and claim it’s only for the MS then don’t be surprised if you get reported for trolling. The only way that yommus helps Janna is the MS active, but there is item 2065 that has more efficient stats for Janna (MS, AP and also mana regen) and it costs less because it is designed for enchanter supports.

i'm not saying every time i play every game i build perfectly. i often test builds and spend a long time tweaking item builds so i can find better items and more item combinations than what i am using. if you look at my item builds from past and recent games, in unranked i'm rarely building the same items from game to game, but with champions i'm used to playing, there aren't many more item variations i am aware of, so that's a good time to look at what top rank players are doing with the items to get more ideas. this doesn't mean i should be harassed for trying new item builds in unranked, or that i have to type every time "i'm testing a new build" or i risk getting harassed. it's very very common for players to talk down or harass if you are using one non top rank item. it's so apparent everyone assumes you cannot build when you aren't using top rank items i don't want to play summoner's rift anymore, even unranked.

[{quoted}](name=Silent Gravity,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=AmLFKiFO,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2018-09-14T23:44:47.235+0000)

Two words: Spellbinder Jinx.

i tried ap jinx one lower difficulty odyssey game to see if ap helped with jinx (it didn't appear to, so i stick with ad). i don't own jinx, and i don't play jinx outside of odyssey. the only time i would play jinx is if she is one of the free random champs and i accidently select jinx as my champ (which i've never done). i was testing jinx builds in odyssey, again because i don't look at the top builds yet. i even heard 'jinx is useless' in odyssey, but odyssey is good with jinx if you don't use the recommended top rank summoner's rift items (why anyone uses all the items recommended for in summoner's rift in odyseey i will never know. i run through all of odyssey without dying on every skill (yes onslaught too) and i'm putting out enough damage for us to win (i wasn't carried). this is a perfect example why you should be thinking which items are good yourself instead of looking at the top ranked or recommended items in SR and thinking those items work best in other modes. you get no benefit from any items or runes with a 'tower' or 'champion' effect in odyssey. from my testing of items in odyssey... it's easiest if you build passive run speed and damage with jinx (unless possibly using the aug with jinx which gives infinite warps for a short time, then you wouldn't need run speed). i usually choose spirit visage, for a lot of magic resist and hit points and hp regen. the rest of the items are run speed and ad damage or attack speed.

Doge20209/14/2018, 7:14:01 PM2 votes

As long as you know that the items you are gonna get will fully benefit your champ then you are clear. For example: If you build something like yommus on Janna and claim it’s only for the MS then don’t be surprised if you get reported for trolling. The only way that yommus helps Janna is the MS active, but there is item 2065 that has more efficient stats for Janna (MS, AP and also mana regen) and it costs less because it is designed for enchanter supports.

Electorite9/18/2018, 1:04:35 AM1 votes

i just tested spellthief's edge, and that gives you xp on minon deaths now. i swear i've seen it several times in the last few months where it doesn't give xp on nearby enemy minon deaths. i bet it's an intermittent bug. how many people really watch their xp bar when a minon dies and they haven't hit it within the last 10 seconds? i do. i know i've seen enemy minons dying nearby and i wasn't getting xp. i always take an income item, so i'll have to do further testing to see when this is the case. i thought it was only ancient coin, but may be all income items or only in some modes.

Electorite9/24/2018, 5:33:01 PM1 votes

{quoted}

What? You automatically get XP when minions near you die. That's not related to items.

ya i didn't know that, but i thought i saw no xp gain on several occasions in 2018 when minons right near me died, maybe it was a bug and fixed by LoL since. i have always gotten xp with minons dying nearby near the end of 2018.

i'm actually getting better. i've been playing with higher elo again, but not as frequently as i used to. the gold-plat players say i'm getting better and more than one has said they like my off meta builds. i started looking at items top players use, but only as a guide. i find testing builds in game works for me, because i notice if something is helping. i don't really want to get into specifics in this thread about items, but since someone already messaged about it, shuriya's reverie is a very good item because in addition to all the stats and mana regen, if you use the active (short range aoe speed boost) wisely, you can get away or get a kill (or help a teammate do that), and it refreshes in only like 2 minutes. much shorter refresh than flash. i find it very useful to start with shuriya's reverie on most of my games where i play an ap champ.

i just started a smurf, but i will not be playing any ranked until 2019 season. a few gold members have said they think i can make gold np, and i'll try for gold possibly in 2019 if i feel up to it. i used to be an extremely good video game player, just not in LoL. i know i could be good if i put a lot of time into LoL, but my life is getting busier, so i want to keep my games in the bankground. it would be nice not to have to work and instead play games a lot like i used to.

thanks for all the comments! i will probably stop checking this thread, but you are welcome to continue to post.

Doge20209/14/2018, 7:17:05 PM1 votes

I like off meta stuff too, but I usually do the “cookie cutter” route because it is the most efficient for my champ and I can make a good impact with it. There is a good off meta player and Youtuber called SoloRenektonOnly. Last that I heard he is still in the Diamond elo, and almost all of his videos are troll builds and champs top. Yeah he does do top lane but based on what I saw in this post you can prob try do the stuff he does in mid lane fairly easily.

Anklespankin did a good video on Vi mid a little while back. Anklespankin and SRO are prob the two people that I would go to for troll builds, Prof Akali is kinda on that list too but his builds are more focused on Akali.

Unstoppable Monk9/14/2018, 7:28:56 PM1 votes

Honestly people like that have been ruining ranked for a while. Although I'd say playing main support in low elo is a bad idea and a lot of support players just avoid playing pure support champs until plat.

Silent Gravity9/14/2018, 8:12:04 PM1 votes

{quoted}

3: there are some things item descriptions do not explain, or are not obvious in the item description. ancient coin for example. when i'm playing non ranked with teammates above my rank and i am top, mid, or support, i usually choose ancient coin as my starter income item. unless you are doing very well in your lane (winning in cs and not getting ganked by jg), ancient coin ALWAYS gives you more experience than any other income item unless you are getting kills. often early game in ranked you won't be getting kills, it will be more playing safe and getting cs. if a team is getting kills, the difference between ancient coin and other income choices won't matter anyway, the team with the kills is much further ahead because they will be farming cs and probably get the first tower. for anyone who doesn't know (and a lot of people don't know this) you get 100% of the experience for 'assists' on minons using ancient coin (and the 2 upgrades of ancient coin) without hitting any of the minons nearby. without ancient coin you get no gold or xp from minons unless you do damage to them within 10 seconds of them dying. LoL considers ancient coin as 'constantly' hitting all nearby minons all the time, about the distance between 2 turrets is 'nearby'. having ancient coin (or the upgrades to ancient coin) skyrockets your experience later in the game when you near one more or allies and you aren't killing minons. usually a teammate with a lot of aoe damage will be one shotting minons so everyone can focus on champions. with anything except ancient coin you miss out on all that xp. i've seen someone kill a wave of minons when i am at level 16 and i get over half my level. something else i tested, if you spam wards with the upgrades to spellthief's edge and the upgrades to ancient coin, it increases your letter grade a whole 1 letter grade (instead of a B you would get an A). keep placing wards even just in lanes or near base, and it gives you a lot higher grade, which helps with mastery tokens.

You always get experience from being in range of minion deaths.

There is no requirement for damaging minions to receive xp.

The coin line does not add any xp, at all, ever.

/Edit And a spellbinder on Jinx. Goodness gracious.