14 day ban because playing Nunu Support with Smite is "stealing other people's roles"...?

Take the Draw·Feb 26, 2017·1,086 votes·263,819 views

Hello, I am Take the Draw, I'm a Nunu one trick pony. I'm almost always listed as the #1 Nunu in NA on various champion skill sites, I ended Season 4 in Challenger (rank 176), and after a 2 year break, I peaked this season at Diamond 1 75 LP. Compared to season 4, I noticed that Nunu jungle is far weaker than it used to be. Counterjungling just isn't as effective as before due to changes in jungler experience gain as well as the addition of Gromp/Scuttle and the change to Raptor camp that makes Nunu's single-target counterjungle much worse.

That said, the long camp respawn times have made it a viable strategy still. The problem is there's very little time with Nunu's abysmal clear speeds to counterjungle and clear your own jungle, which is why I've started playing Nunu as a support rather than a solo jungler. This lets you keep Nunu's great counterjungling and insane neutral objective control, while still preserving the map pressure of having a jungler that can actually gank and quickly clear your own jungle. I've spent hundreds of hours honing this strategy and have developed it to the point that I feel confident that I can achieve at least Master tier with it.

The last game of solo queue I played was against Phreak. We won in extremely convincing fashion, the VOD of which can be found on my Twitch page here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/123657437

The next afternoon I get an e-mail saying that my account was flagged for manual audit and issued a two week suspension, with the warning that if my account is audited again that the next penalty will be a permaban. In the 4 years I've had this account, I've never been banned or suspended previously. I try every game I play, even when I have to deal with extremely belligerent teammates.

The first response I got from Player Support (funny enough, the exact same specialist who handled the similar Singed support case) was a boilerplate saying that I was engaging in 'negative behavior' :

http://imgur.com/qAjp3bJ .

The follow up explanation is that I was "stealing other people's roles" and "failing to communicate":
http://imgur.com/U8RLyn7 .

Since I queue Support/Jungle, I get Autofill protection, which means that I am guaranteed one of these two roles. As you can see in my match history: https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=take+the+draw I've only ever played Ivern Jungle and Support Nunu in my entire two years of play, with the exception of one Veigar game and one Teemo game in which I was in a full premade with friends. Very obviously the specialist is interpreting my Support Nunu with Smite as stealing the Jungle role, despite the contradictory claim that off meta picks were okay.

I'm also not entirely sure where this "failing to communicate" thing is coming from. I have hours of VODs on my Twitch channel dating back to when I first theorycrafted this strategy that you can see here: twitch.tv/itslevi . I type a paragraph long explanation at the beginning of every champion select. I answer questions and give champion recommendations if people ask. I communicate more than almost anyone I've played with in game both with pings and chat since working with my team is essential to my strategy's success.

I compiled data over my last 10 wins and losses (to minimize the effects of correlation), which can be seen here (my na.op.gg is publicly available so anyone can feel free to audit this for accuracy):

http://imgur.com/DrT7lFG

As you can see I place more wards than most of the opponents' supports (and usually in more valuable, deep jungle locations), as well as serving as a kind of mobile ward myself. Quite frankly, I completely dominate neutral objectives, and the counts over my last 10 wins and losses were:

53 Dragons for my team vs 15 for the enemy team 18 Barons for my team vs 5 for the enemy team 11 Rift Heralds for my team vs 0 for the enemy team

How would this be possible if I was "failing to communicate"? The data just doesn't support that ridiculous claim. Further, the data shows that while my bot lane does tend to do worse than the enemy bot lane playing most of the games 1v2, they're on average only 5% behind on gold but the enemy jungler is 6% behind. My bot lanes also get solo experience, and my other solo lanes tend to overperform because their lane opponents have to defend against constant invades and they get ganked way less than they would under traditional play.

I've worked very hard to develop a strategy that's viable at high Elo with a champion that's mostly been forgotten, and Riot has essentially empowered people to reject it just because they don't want to try anything new.

1,525 Comments

EnselusFeb 26, 2017335 votes

That guy honestly deserves to be fired

Take the DrawFeb 26, 2017228 votes

Well, it's a girl, and it IS frustrating she hasn't escalated this ticket (even still) despite multiple requests, even though Riot Gromp said that cases like this could request a full review.

But the overwhelming majority of her cases probably don't require the level of analysis something like this would. I get that. She's probably looking at frequency of reports and lacks the game knowledge to understand their context. That's fine. I'm not mad. I just want Riot to fix their mistake.

ColivarFeb 26, 2017114 votes

Tbh it's not fine. I'm just now (past few weeks) switching from dota to league to play with RL friends, and this is actually so preposterous that I can't believe it's true.

If this mod/GM's game knowledge is so poor that she can't actually comprehend that smite can legitimately be used by more than one champion on the same team, then she has no place having power to ban people for "stealing other people's roles" and "failing to communicate".

Clapper of AssesFeb 26, 2017216 votes

The funny thing is that Nunu is primary SUPPORT and secondary fighter. Riot intended him to be a support so you're technically playing nunu how they wanted him to be played :D

RiotWookieeCookieFeb 28, 2017192 votes

Here we are again! The case of_ “Unusual Pick that Throws A Game on Its head”_ vs “The Teammates going WTF Is Going On”.

If you’re just tuning in we previously covered this topic with a similar case in December: “Support Singed isn't bannable, but that's not the point”.

We feel that the situation between these two edge cases are very similar. But it’s obvious we need to keep updating a few processes to smooth out any rare repeats in the future. And rare is what we’d call this; it’s a very unique edge case that seems to only present itself once every few months among thousands of audits that we process.

Let’s re-iterate our stance from before:

Q: Can I get banned for choosing a champion or strategy that is outside the current meta?

A: 100% no. Choosing a champion or strategy outside of the current meta is not a factor we take into account when reviewing accounts. On any given day tens of thousands of players are making unusual picks in the game and they’ll never receive penalties in any form.

Q: So why does this issue keep coming up? What makes it different?

A: Riot Gromp said it best in the previous post when they stated: “...common sense and good sportsmanship say that experimenting players need to clearly communicate intent and win conditions to their teammates.” League of Legends is a team game and sometimes the biggest challenge can be coordinating with 4 other strangers who share a common goal; victory. If a player is going to rewrite the rules for the rest of their team then there is more pressure to properly communicate to everyone what they want the plan to be, and what they think everyone should do to achieve it.

But wait! Communication doesn’t stop after you press the Enter button on your keyboard; and that’s where we saw a problem in this particular case. All of us need to be aware of the difference of communicating “with” someone vs. communicating “at” someone. Telling your team what you’re going to do and then ignoring them isn’t really working with them it’s holding them hostage. Telling your team what you want to do and actually working towards a common plan is a central part to playing any team based game.

In this case what we observed was an expert Nunu counter-jungler throwing the meta on it’s head with a respectable win rate of 53%. While pretty impressive on it’s own, we also found that nearly 50% of their games were reported by teammates as frustrating and unfun. Keep in mind, this isn’t just teammates in losing games, this is teammates across all of his games; victories included.

The message was pretty clear to us, this player is serious about_ Making Nunu Great Again_ but they are leaving a trail of dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger in their wake.

Winning is not the end all be all of League. We want players to have fun but not at the expense of teammates. Ideally this means players will coordinate among themselves in a given match and react to the unique circumstances they end up in. If a player is consistently forcing “their vision” on the rest of the team **and **refusing to adapt to their needs we reserve the right to intervene. That’s what happened here (and before with the Singed case); players cried out how terrible the experience was for them and we intervened.

Moving forward we’re going to keep updating our processes for these edge cases. We will still be on the lookout for situations where a player is creating a really negative experience for everyone else and we will intervene when necessary. In this case it’s undeniable that TakeTheDraw wants to win even if their approach leaves a lot to be desired. The effects on others in his games were enough for us to lock the account and we stand by that. But our agents were not properly prepared with a process to handle this edge case when they wrote in and that is on me. I will be working with the team to clarify an escalation process that emphasizes clearer feedback and opens the door for ban reductions if we believe that someone can make changes to their play style allowing them to continue crushing the meta but not at the expense of their teammates.

ABlueQuakerFeb 28, 201727 votes

It's pretty simple. LOOK AT THE SUMMONER'S CODE. More specifically, No.4 - "Enjoy Yourself, but not at Anyone Else's Expense".

SwainLaneWinGameFeb 28, 2017100 votes

Except if you put yourself in the other role, the ones that are griefing and forcing him to conform to the meta are enjoying themselves at HIS expense.

ModAcademy KaynFeb 28, 201771 votes

Thanks for explaining something from both sides of the argument, and not just a single nuanced view.

Photos of GhostsFeb 28, 2017315 votes

He didn't explain jack. He said "you can't be banned for breaking the meta, but you can be banned for not being a slave to your teammates, and your teammates will want you to meta, so it actually is bannable.

Dextix LTFeb 28, 201738 votes

I play offmeta all the time, yet i dont get banned. This guy, juse like singed ques as a support, yet does not even come to the bot lane at all at times. That is not what a support does. That is leaving the adc to play 1 vs 2, when he was not even planning to do so.

YOu are all hypocrites with this Riot-hateboner i am sure that all of you would be the first ones to report a full ap garen.

DrCyanideFeb 28, 2017173 votes

Do you know how the Jungle position got started? Leaving a Top laner in a 2v1 situation (because the other team didn't mimic it) and only occasionally coming Top.

We're looking at the exact same situation but with a Roaming/Counter Jungleing Support instead of the Classic Support. The difference is that now the system threatens to permaban you for trying to improve the Meta.

DreampodFeb 28, 201721 votes

As someone who played through that period the comparison is amazingly apt. People hated getting 'abandoned' 1v2 in top lane and there was an enormous amount of rage over it. Eventually most people realised that while it hurt the player left solo the benefit to the team was significantly greater and it became standard practice and the rage started flowing the opposite direction, when players 'refused' to jungle and came to lane and 'stole' their experience and gold.

I doubt that this strategy will ever become the default meta since it seems like it is an asymmetric approach that leaves both teams worse off if they both try it and the gains are more marginal than jungling produces. However that doesn't mean that it should be considered unacceptable because another player feels entitled to have a babysitter. I often wish my jungle would play differently when I'm getting camped and they are accomplishing nothing elsewhere but I don't report them for ruining the game because they aren't my dancing monkey and, while I may disagree with their choices, they have the right to exercise their judgement about how to play the game best. It is frustrating to have your expectations of how the game will go turned upside down but it shouldn't give you veto power over other players gaming.

Take the DrawFeb 28, 2017117 votes

Thank you for the detailed response. My main lingering question is this-

What do I do if my teammates object? I very simply cannot play a lane support at the rating that I'm at. If they refuse, what am I expected to do? My winrate would be abysmal and I get the impression that the primary (but yes, not only) reason people report me is because they incorrectly believe that I'm intentionally trying to hurt their chances of winning.

TrulyBlandFeb 28, 201714 votes

Just out of interest: What would you do if Nunu is banned or picked before you can pick him?

Take the DrawFeb 28, 201764 votes

I dodge. But I don't mind the dodge penalty in the <1% of cases I somehow can't secure Nunu. If I dodged just because my teammates objected, I wouldn't ever be able to start a game.

TrulyBlandFeb 28, 201715 votes

As said, it was mostly out of interest. I understand that you can't dodge every time somebody objects to your strategy. I was mostly curious about what exactly you consider to be an "abysmal" winrate. Being willing to dodge (i.e. a dodge has a better outcome than the "expectation value" of the game) puts it into a better perspective.

Take the DrawFeb 28, 201745 votes

The LP penalty doesn't affect MMR, so any LP you lose, you get back in the form of reduced losses/increased gains in subsequent games. It's actually the timer penalty that makes me avoid dodging, not the EV of winning vs the LP loss.

SwainLaneWinGameFeb 28, 2017117 votes

{quoted}

Here we are again! The case of_ “Unusual Pick that Throws A Game on Its head”_ vs “The Teammates going WTF Is Going On”.

If you’re just tuning in we previously covered this topic with a similar case in December: “Support Singed isn't bannable, but that's not the point”.

We feel that the situation between these two edge cases are very similar. But it’s obvious we need to keep updating a few processes to smooth out any rare repeats in the future. And rare is what we’d call this; it’s a very unique edge case that seems to only present itself once every few months among thousands of audits that we process.

Let’s re-iterate our stance from before:

Q: Can I get banned for choosing a champion or strategy that is outside the current meta?

A: 100% no. Choosing a champion or strategy outside of the current meta is not a factor we take into account when reviewing accounts. On any given day tens of thousands of players are making unusual picks in the game and they’ll never receive penalties in any form.

Q: So why does this issue keep coming up? What makes it different?

A: Riot Gromp said it best in the previous post when they stated: “...common sense and good sportsmanship say that experimenting players need to clearly communicate intent and win conditions to their teammates.” League of Legends is a team game and sometimes the biggest challenge can be coordinating with 4 other strangers who share a common goal; victory. If a player is going to rewrite the rules for the rest of their team then there is more pressure to properly communicate to everyone what they want the plan to be, and what they think everyone should do to achieve it.

Rewrite what rules, specifically ? You mean the meta? But wait, breaking the meta is allowed by riot. So again, what rules is this player "re-writing"?

But wait! Communication doesn’t stop after you press the Enter button on your keyboard; and that’s where we saw a problem in this particular case. All of us need to be aware of the difference of communicating “with” someone vs. communicating “at” someone. Telling your team what you’re going to do and then ignoring them isn’t really working with them it’s holding them hostage. Telling your team what you want to do and actually working towards a common plan is a central part to playing any team based game.

You're conflagrating "communication" with "consent". This player clearly communicated with players both during lobby and in-game to achieve victory. What makes one player's demands more important than another? So because two players disagree on the tactic, only the innovative one must bow down to the others' demands? Again, you don't enforce the meta, remember? Straight from your support site, "tactical disagreements are not reportable".

So although this player utilized his champion more effectively in an off meta way, as a "global support" for the whole team not just the bot lane, is that against the rules? Because as far as I know, support role is the only role that does not have a specific lane assignment, other than its been played bot for a while so that's meta. But you don't punish off meta remember?

Also it has been mentioned before by riot tantrum that you can never, ever be punished for not using chat, do I take that to mean only in game chat then? Or is not typing in the lobby part of that. And what about hovering your champion in lobby? Is not hovering your champion Also punishable?

In this case what we observed was an expert Nunu counter-jungler throwing the meta on it’s head with a respectable win rate of 53%. While pretty impressive on it’s own, we also found that nearly 50% of their games were reported by teammates as frustrating and unfun. Keep in mind, this isn’t just teammates in losing games, this is teammates across all of his games; victories included.

The message was pretty clear to us, this player is serious about_ Making Nunu Great Again_ but they are leaving a trail of dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger in their wake.

Winning is not the end all be all of League. We want players to have fun but not at the expense of teammates. Ideally this means players will coordinate among themselves in a given match and react to the unique circumstances they end up in. If a player is consistently forcing “their vision” on the rest of the team **and **refusing to adapt to their needs we reserve the right to intervene. That’s what happened here (and before with the Singed case); players cried out how terrible the experience was for them and we intervened.

If you would clearly state that off-meta play like this is not punishable or reportable, then there wouldn't be any grief or frustration because players would know to adapt to each other when these things happen, instead of trying to force everyone into one meta box. This is like if you are invited to a costume party and when you arrive, a handful of partygoers tell you they hate your costume. You ignore them and keep partying. You come across some people that love your costume; others are in-different. After a while you're asked by the host to leave, and when you ask why, you're told "because some other people complained that your costume didn't match theirs and they didn't like it". You mention that the party is not a themed costume event, and the host agrees with you, but still kicks you out.

How is that in any way fair?

Moving forward we’re going to keep updating our processes for these edge cases. We will still be on the lookout for situations where a player is creating a really negative experience for everyone else and we will intervene when necessary. In this case it’s undeniable that TakeTheDraw wants to win even if their approach leaves a lot to be desired. The effects on others in his games were enough for us to lock the account and we stand by that. But our agents were not properly prepared with a process to handle this edge case when they wrote in and that is on me. I will be working with the team to clarify an escalation process that emphasizes clearer feedback and opens the door for ban reductions if we believe that someone can make changes to their play style allowing them to continue crushing the meta but not at the expense of their teammates.

Explain to us why on your support portal page for what is reportable, you quite literally have it stating that "tactical disagreements should never be reportable". And in the graphic it shows a swain player saying "but nunu I wanted you to go support bot!"

How is this player's (tactical) decision any different?

Unless you want to come straight out and tell us that support role Must only be bot lane and you are not allowed to leave that lane, then his decision to roam around the map and put global pressure IS a valid tactical decision and as per your own rules not reportable, therefore any griefing done by other players in reports are INVALID.

You yourself are on record stating that riot supports innovative meta changing gameplay **"even if it ruffles some feathers". **, but what, this case doesn't apply? Sounds hypocritical.

Your problem is you want to appease as many people as possible by being vague and saying yes yes that's ok, but turn around and punish the ones that actually do try to innovate and enjoy the game in different ways.

stop trying to appease everyone by being vague; come out and say you either enforce the current meta completely, or you completely embrace any and all creative methods of meta breaking gameplay as long as it's not purposefully losing games.

Me0wsticFeb 28, 201741 votes

Completely agree! [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

HowPlayGAEMFeb 28, 2017220 votes

[deleted]

Time Police EkkoFeb 28, 2017130 votes

[{quoted}](name=OMG halp meh plz,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=FrILlWp7,comment-id=00f0000c,timestamp=2017-02-28T06:35:14.614+0000)

Go fuck yourselves, this is a travesty and a rape of justice.

YormaughmFeb 28, 201763 votes

Everything you said is true.

So. Fucking. True.

ADepressedLeonaFeb 28, 201710 votes

[{quoted}](name=OMG halp meh plz,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=FrILlWp7,comment-id=00f0000c,timestamp=2017-02-28T06:35:14.614+0000)

"Wow malzahar support!" isn't an unusual pick.

There is no common plan, the team refuses to play with this strategy. You're insinuating that the support player is required to seek approval from his/her team on how he/she is meant to play.

This player told his team how he plays and he carries it out, and wins. He's higher ranked than the majority of LoL players, clearly he knows what he's doing.

Cool, so you're admitting the support role is a slave role; you're forced to play how the ADC tells you to play. Then you wonder why everyone hates the support role?

Bullshit, this is the very definition of enforcing the meta. Dumb meta slaves don't want to play a little differently and reported this player. That's the end of the story. Their experience wasn't terrible, stop making shit up with weasel words.

A terrible experience is getting AFKers and feeders. Getting a nunu counterjungler is not remotely a "terrible" experience.

Go fuck yourselves, this is a travesty and a rape of justice.

1: Malz support was unusual until it was done, so was support MF, so was jungle Nasus, AP Yi, AP Tryn, AP Trist at one point.

2: I guess you completely ignored the fact that he was not only reported in his losses but also his wins with reports in 50% of his games Half. Half of his games he was reported in.

3: Ya know, I've been seeing this a lot in this thread "THE SUPPORT IS A STRONG INDEPENDENT ROLE WHO DON'T NEED NO ADC." And you know what? You're right. It's actually the opposite.

ADC's desperately need their support in the early game. Watch any LSC game, high elo stream, watch bot lane and see for yourself. The supports dictate 90% of the lane interaction. They harass, they heal, they set up plays, they ward. The ADC plays whack a minion until the support sets a potential play for them to capitalize on. So no, supports are not a slave to the ADC, it is in fact the other way around in most cases.

4: The only thing being enforced here is making the game enjoyable for everyone, which this person was clearly not doing. In half of his games. Both wins and losses.

5: And people wonder why Riot is so uneasy to reply in threads like this these days.

hshtagniemehrcduFeb 28, 201726 votes

{quoted}

1: Malz support was unusual until it was done, so was support MF, so was jungle Nasus, AP Yi, AP Tryn, AP Trist at one point.

2: I guess you completely ignored the fact that he was not only reported in his losses but also his wins with reports in 50% of his games Half. Half of his games he was reported in.

I guess you ignore that more then 50% of people- according to the redpost- did not think it reportworthy, or at least didn't bother to report. He got reports in less then 50% of the games, and unless he got x9 in each of those games he got reported in, it is a clear minority that reported him... Either that, or the redpost is wrong. How dare we ask for a precise answer on a topic such as this....

4: The only thing being enforced here is making the game enjoyable for everyone, which this person was clearly not doing. In half of his games. Both wins and losses.

Again, the use of the word "everyone" when the majority decided not to report....

What is the real problem here?

Someone playing **sucessfully off-meta- ** or that some people are **unable to accept such innovation? **

Riot has to choose to either take a stance on "non-meta is punishable" or "people's close-mindedness is the problem".

Currently, they choose to punish innovation. With the same arguments they can ban anyone for playing off-meta picks and everyone who roams to much. And thats just sick imho.

5: And people wonder why Riot is so uneasy to reply in threads like this these days.

If they can't deal with responsibilty, then that's what i call a weak excuse...

ADepressedLeonaFeb 28, 20174 votes

Wait wait... you think 50% of the people who reported him in hundreds of games is the minority???

Take the DrawFeb 28, 201732 votes

{quoted}

Wait wait... you think 50% of the people who reported him in hundreds of games is the minority???

50% of GAMES is very different than 50% of PEOPLE. There are nine other people in the game and it only takes one for that game to count as a game I was reported in.

hshtagniemehrcduFeb 28, 201721 votes

[{quoted}](name=Take the Draw,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=FrILlWp7,comment-id=00f0000c0002000000000000,timestamp=2017-02-28T14:06:58.324+0000)

50% of GAMES is very different than 50% of PEOPLE. There are nine other people in the game and it only takes one for that game to count as a game I was reported in.

The Rioter stated that he got reportet in nearly 50% of his games. Nearly means less then 50% of the games. In addition, i dare say that he didn't get x9 reports in each o those games.

This means, that the majority didn't bother to use 5 seconds to report, and that the people that did report him, are (probably far) lower then 50% --> minority (even if he got x9 each time, it still are less then 50% --> minority).

Again, i would like to know what riot should be fighting: people innovating, or people being extremly close-minded?

Jesus is SaviorFeb 26, 2017155 votes

My smurf got permabanned for playing cinderhulk nunu top with smite.

It took me a year to finally get my account back.

The system is fucked.

BastionKrossFeb 26, 201754 votes

How would this be possible if I was "failing to communicate"? The data just doesn't support that ridiculous claim. Further, the data shows that while my bot lane does tend to do worse than the enemy bot lane playing most of the games 1v2, they're on average only 5% behind on gold but the enemy jungler is 6% behind. My bot lanes also get solo experience, and my other solo lanes tend to overperform because their lane opponents have to defend against constant invades and they get ganked way less than they would under traditional play.

So you queue up for support, leave your marksman to 2v1, and counterjungle instead? I can't imagine a lot of marksmen are okay with that, especially in SoloQ.

When you copy/paste your paragraph and answer questions in champ select, do you only do this strat when the marksman is cool with being left alone or do you do it regardless of what they want? If it's the latter, then that does count as failing to communicate. There's a huge difference between communication:

"Hey, I'd like to try this off meta strat, but if you're not down I can just normal support"

and dictation:

"I'm going to be doing this off meta strat, and if you're not down with that, too bad."

That is what got Singed Guy in hot water, and as far as we know, he stopped doing his strat outside of premade play and he's golden.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 2017219 votes

Why did Support become synonymous with Bot lane? The data shows that the advantage lost in bot lane is more than offset in jungler gold, in addition to having much greater objective control. It's completely arbitrary to say the Support needs to be Bot. In a parallel universe where the meta developed with a roaming support (as it did in DotA), people would be making an identical argument to what you just said for why laning Bot lane should be bannable.

That is literally the definition of meta enforcement, and the ticket clearly states that that was not the reason.

BastionKrossFeb 26, 201735 votes

...So, I'm going to take that as a "yes" to my question of "Do you do this strat even when your marksmen isn't cool with it". Whether we like it or not, the action of playing off meta roles against the wishes of your team is reportable and punishable. Luckily for you, as we learned in Singed Guy's thread a few months ago, the Rioter explained that Singed Guy would never be permabanned for such behavior. However, he would continue to get two week bans over and over.

Link to the thread here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/79aGu3wR-support-singed-isnt-banable-but-thats-not-the-point

I'll also reply to your other post in this one, to prevent two discussions at one time:

Furthermore, I should point out that I am a one trick pony (as many people in ranked queue are), and my Support pool is only one champion. If my bot lane disagrees with my strategy, am I supposed to play a champion I don't know, in a lane I'm not comfortable with and have very rarely played, in high Elo games, knowing fully well that it will greatly sabotage my team's chances of winning? How is that better for anyone?

In high elo games, players are more open to trading roles and ensuring everyone gets a role they are comfortable in. This isn't 100% guaranteed of course, but it's much better than lower elos where asking for a trade is like asking the sun not to shine in a lot of cases.

If it comes right down to it, and you believe that you will sabotage your team by playing support in a traditional fashion and they won't trade, then it's probably in everyone's best interest to dodge that champ select. If you're adverse to dodging for moral or ethical or competitive reasons, then it would be of great benefit to become comfortable with a support strat that doesn't require a paragraph of copy/paste before every game.

Or you could premade with an ADC main that doesn't mind being left alone bot. That would solve your problem too.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201796 votes

I see very little merit in duo queueing with an ADC main. For one thing, I don't even want the person bot lane playing ADC. I would much prefer they played ADC mid or top. This goes back to the whole thing about people having a very entrenched mindset. If anything, I would duo queue with the jungler.

Yes, I do the strategy regardless of whether my bot lane player is okay with it, just like anyone in solo queue can pick a champion if their teammates don't like it. I assume that, on average, the other 3 players on my team would prefer winning to losing, so it's a utilitarian imperative that I pick the champion and playstyle that gives my team the best chance of winning. What if I was an ADC main playing with someone like Janna Mechanics, who only plays Janna? Can I demand that he picks a different support because I don't like Janna?

It's an absurd argument to say that I should force myself to be comfortable playing a mainstream champion because of my teammates objections. For one thing, I may never get to that point- in fact, most players don't. There are people who've been playing the game for years who would have winrates well under 30% at D1+.

TrulyBlandFeb 26, 201721 votes

You are wrongly comparing the choice of a champion to the strategy/metagame. Strategy is a team choice. Strategy has to be a team choice. How you believe you can best work with this strategy (in other words the champion / runes / masteries / summoners you pick for the job) is up to you entirely.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201771 votes

So the bot lane player's objections decide the strategy for the team? I think it's fairly apparent that the team, as a whole, in ranked, would prefer winning to losing. So I do the strategy that maximizes the team's chance of winning. Moreover, this argument fails to address the point that Riot said my ban was for "stealing people's roles" and has nothing to do with bot lane. If you want to discuss bot lane just from a game theory perspective, that's fine. I'll do that. The data demonstrates the bot lane does not get screwed over nearly as hard as people who've never seen the strategy seems to think. They finish, on average, with about 600 less gold than traditional gameplay. They get also get solo exp, and far more Dragon/Baron buffs. I mean hell, the Caitlyn in that video I linked finished 6/1/7 with 7.8 CS/min, the highest on our team.

TrulyBlandFeb 26, 201717 votes

So the bot lane player's objections decide the strategy for the team?

Why not? You are deciding the strategy all by yourself as well.

I think it's fairly apparent that the team, as a whole, in ranked, would prefer winning to losing.

Yes. And they would like to win. Not the average team in your statistics. The very team you are deciding the strategy for. The very team that might actually very well be screwed over completely because the adc doesn't know how to properly play 1v2. That very team wants to win. But you don't give a shit about that, because on average you win.

What the average team gains from your choice means jack shit to the individual team you are in.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201744 votes

{quoted}

Why not? You are deciding the strategy all by yourself as well.

Yes. And they would like to win. Not the average team in your statistics. The very team you are deciding the strategy for. The very team that might actually very well be screwed over completely because the adc doesn't know how to properly play 1v2. That very team wants to win. But you don't give a shit about that, because on average you win.

What the average team gains from your choice means jack shit to the individual team you are in.

That... did not make any sense. So I'll just respond to it with this - Riot said the reason for my ban was due to "stealing other people's roles" and has nothing to do with bot lane or team preference.

TrulyBlandFeb 26, 201713 votes

That does make sense. Let's use a hypothetical scenario:

Let's say you have a 90% winrate on Zed over all games and only a 50% chance when playing some other midlane. But you also have a 0% winrate on Zed when in an all AD team.

Your team is now trying to convince you to sway your champion but you reply "Don't worry, on average picking Zed is a good idea."

Your stubborn decision to play Zed every single game in this case might work out for you, but whenever it's an all AD team, that decision completely and utterly screws over the team; which doesn't matter to you personally because it doesn't happen that often.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201740 votes

Okay. What you're saying is that my unconditional win rate is different than my conditional win rate. Great, that actually makes some amount of sense. But here's why that's not the case: I am an extremely specialized one trick pony. My winrate is not 50% playing a different champion. It isn't even close. Almost totally irrespective of my teammates' preferences, my winrate will ALWAYS be highest picking Nunu.

TrulyBlandFeb 26, 201711 votes

Have you tried? Because from the sounds of it you haven't. Perhaps you simply have trouble identifying when it would be better to go with something different. It also doesn't change the fact that in certain situations, whether it's the highest winrate you can bring (due to your unwillingness to get comfortable with a different role) it's still detrimental to the team's chance to win.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201735 votes

{quoted}

Have you tried? Because from the sounds of it you haven't. Perhaps you simply have trouble identifying when it would be better to go with something different.

I have. My strength as a player is that I have an appropriately high risk tolerance (most people in solo queue are too risk adverse), that I predict junglers very well, and that I identify invisible advantages that most people undervalue. No other champion can capitalize on those strengths as well as Nunu.

TrulyBlandFeb 26, 20179 votes

Yeah... I mean, being able to predict junglers is entirely wasted on botlane. It's not like they have to decide when to push, when to dragon, when the fall back to the tower etc.

And when most people are too risk adverse, that would point exactly to the situation where it might actually make sense to support bot lane, where that person picks a high risk adc and/or mentions it in chat.

To be honest it really just sounds like you are simply rejecting botlane support from the get go and only look for a reason to do so afterwards.

3TWarriorFeb 26, 201762 votes

a support's job is not to babysit the marksman but to help the team in a useful manner but in most cases, this ends up being sticking to the ADC like glue because they go full ham and die in 3 seconds

with nunu, this is not the case. He can force opponents into an unwinnable situation if played properly by invalidating at least one opposing position. If he stays bottom lane, the opponent has to worry about a jungler coming after them at all times.

if he goes after the jungler or dragon, he benefits the entire team

most people simply do not understand this

he is playing nunu as both of his intended positions and to the maximum of the champion's capability

reaperteaserFeb 26, 201714 votes

hes trying to explain that teamates need to compromise, if you and your adc want 2 different things you both need to settle your differences and come together to meet the best of both worlds. just because your stats show that your nunu counter jgl support strategy works doesnt mean your teamates will be happy with the decision. you were banned because you failed to compromise not because of your strat

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201750 votes

{quoted}

hes trying to explain that teamates need to compromise, if you and your adc want 2 different things you both need to settle your differences and come together to meet the best of both worlds. just because your stats show that your nunu counter jgl support strategy works doesnt mean your teamates will be happy with the decision. you were banned because you failed to compromise not because of your strat

Except the ticket very clearly says I was banned for stealing other people's roles. And you're not asking for a "compromise"- you're asking me to wholly cave into their expectations, at the detriment of the team.

reaperteaserFeb 26, 201711 votes

i feel like the auditer just worded that poorly, and technically you did skip the traditional support role and played what would be considered a second jungler, obviously there were quite a few people who were unhappy with that decision otherwise you wouldnt have gotten reported/banned

SwainLaneWinGameFeb 26, 201745 votes

It's called roaming; something people at your low elo don't understand about support (or any laner for that matter).

I mean, riot has designed champs made to roam away as support on PURPOSE -- ever heard of a little champ named BARD? He literally has to go around the map to get chimes to get stronger.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201767 votes

I would also like to point out that you failed the address the reason Riot said I was banned, which is stealing other people's roles, which has nothing to do with the bot lane.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201779 votes

Furthermore, I should point out that I am a one trick pony (as many people in ranked queue are), and my Support pool is only one champion. If my bot lane disagrees with my strategy, am I supposed to play a champion I don't know, in a lane I'm not comfortable with and have very rarely played, in high Elo games, knowing fully well that it will greatly sabotage my team's chances of winning? How is that better for anyone?

TrulyBlandFeb 26, 201747 votes

What if the adc also is a one trick pony and is only able to play an adc with a low survivability when facing two people in lane? Is he supposed to play in a situation he doesn't know, in a lane he's not comfortable with and has very rarely played (in those circumstances) knowing fully well that it will greatly sabotage his team's chances of winning? Why is it okay for you to force him into a strategy he doesn't like, but not okay for him to do the same to you?

You might know what is best for you, but you don't know what is best for the adc and, for the same reason, the entire team. And if a team can't agree on an unusual strategy, the best course of action is to simply go with the default strategy.

And the default strategy is duo botlane.

Take the DrawFeb 26, 201730 votes

{quoted}

What if the adc also is a one trick pony and is only able to play an adc with a low survivability when facing two people in lane? Is he supposed to play in a situation he doesn't know, in a lane he's not comfortable with and has very rarely played (in those circumstances) knowing fully well that it will greatly sabotage his team's chances of winning? Why is it okay for you to force him into a strategy he doesn't like, but not okay for him to do the same to you?

You might know what is best for you, but you don't know what is best for the adc and, for the same reason, the entire team. And if a team can't agree on an unusual strategy, the best course of action is to simply go with the default strategy.

And the default strategy is duo botlane.

I fail to see your argument. If the person is a Vayne-only player, they're welcome to play Vayne bot if they want. I won't complain.