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Help with champion pool for climbing the ladder!

Wyenot··1 votes·4,949 views

So I am trying to refine my champion pool a little more and I wanted to hear other's opinions, particularly higher rated players who know how to easily climb.

Right now my strategy is to tell my team that I prefer Top Mid or ADC. If I get top I play Riven (My Favorite Champion), if I get mid I play Orianna, and if I ADC I play Jinx. I have above 50% win rate with all of those champions on my account and they are champions that I enjoy. In theory, reducing my limiting factors in ranked, if I continue to play those champions I should eventually climb. I should mention that I do have back up champions for Top, Mid, and ADC and I also have champions picked out for Jungle and Support just in case. It is not an issue of only being able to play one champion.

I've just recently made it to around Gold 3-Gold 4 and I feel like I've hit a wall. My question is, should I start to focus on one lane and the small pool of champions I have there or continue to develop my 3 preferred lanes equally? I would simply main Mid lane because I feel like I have more influence over the outcome of the game from there, however my favorite champion is Riven and she plays top lane and I have a personal goal of using her a decent amount on my journey to higher elo. So I'm kind of stuck there too! I could shrink down to just top and mid, but then I still feel like I am somewhat limiting myself by not focusing on a single lane.

Any helpful advice is appreciated!

14 Comments

Leti the Yeti4 votes

Easy, mid Riven! in cases where you can SEE what the other laner is picking, you are no longer limited to standard mid champs you know gangplank who is not normally a mid laner... is suddenly a viable mid laner if the other team picked Zed

you can kinda do the same thing with Riven

RiotRiot 10YearSanta3 votes

I do this:

1.) Try a whole bunch of champs in every role/lane. 2.) Pick out the ones I like and practice them until I'm competent. 3.) Spam the ones in my preferred role/lane that I like the most.

This way you get exposure to tons of different champs, and because you're spamming champs that you like you won't burn out.

Wyenot1 votes

Yeah! That's what I've been trying to do! Right now I feel kind of too spread out in roles, so I was seeing if it was time to hone in on a role like top or mid

Apex Citavista1 votes

Your case is different from most top laners, because you are playing riven. So you should focus on your riven play, because a fed riven can literally change a game by themselves. Also if you remember back to season 3 worlds, even professional teams played riven mid, and I still see it from time to time. So you have 1 incredibly powerful, hard carrying champion that you could play in 2 rolls. That's what you should stick to.

Wyenot1 votes

Yeah but I feel like people would think I'm trolling if I picked Riven mid :/

TXin4HepTt1 votes

It's a good champion pool, and those are good champions to carry with through gold elo. For me personally, I used annie, xin and Vi to get out of that elo, And if I had to adc, I would just play vayne. "Also if you're winning with the same champion a lot, you're climbing the right way"

Wyenot1 votes

So do you think I should continue to kind of "main" all three roles or start to specialize in one?

Apex Citavista1 votes

{quoted}

Yeah but I feel like people would think I'm trolling if I picked Riven mid :/

Again, Riven mid was actually a thing. It doesnt matter if people think you are trolling or not, so long as you can play it.

Wyenot1 votes

What would constitute being able to "play" riven mid? I'm obviously no faker and nor do I think I am in any facet. Do I necessarily have to dominate for it to work?

Apex Citavista1 votes

If you can get atleast a 55%+ win rate in ranked, you can play her well enough.

rth21 votes

Advice for climbing the ladder. I would play the champions in lane that you feel strong/comfortable with. If you feel very competent at Riven, then take her mid if you feel the option is there. Just know that mid riven (especially against mostly ranged mages) is a different play-style than top riven against mostly melee's.

However, to climb out of low - mid gold (and most elo's) and move up to plat, diamond, or beyond I would work more on my game outside of lane phase. Knowing where and what to do around the map and how to spend your time and power in a meaningful manner will help you climb the ladder while also giving you tools to turn games around even if your lane goes poorly.

The main idea is that you can still win games when you lose lane by knowing where to go and what to do. However, you can easily lose games by winning lane and not knowing what to do or where to go afterwards.

Hope that helps and good luck with the climb!

Wyenot1 votes

Could you give me some examples of situations of knowing where and what to do around the map? I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea, but I am honestly at a loss for when my teammates are just plain bad.

I can suggest we do things but they have a tendency to not listen...and if they do listen they tend to not know how to do it properly.

They always seem to find a way to waste my teleports. I try to ping. I try to let them know, but usually when I try to help them with it they are already so far behind that the enemy top laner uses that chance to push and get ahead. I feel like i lose more than I gain by trying to help my teammates.

Sorry if this sounds like me blaming my teammates, but I am at a loss. I just don't know what to do. I play to get better and I try to be honest with myself, but playing ranked really feels like rolling the dice every time. I made it to gold three a few days ago. I then proceeded to get very toxic and extremely inadequate team mates. Team mates that make me literally question why they aren't in Bronze...I am now back to gold five. What's a guy to do?

Also, how does the mid riven play style differ from the top lane style?

rth21 votes

Also, how does the mid riven play style differ from the top lane style?

As laning goes, it just depends on who you are against. You are more likely to be in a melee match-up top, and ranged match-up mid. Just generally though. The big difference, while laning, is that mid lane is a lot shorter than top lane. So as Riven, you have 3 spammable short dashes with your q, and a longer dash with your e (the shield one). Therefore, you are generally harder to gank and kill in mid as you just have so much escape potential.

The other difference is that you can generally just need to ward below you when you are top lane. However, in mid you have two sides to ward. However, most players will ward one side then just play more towards that side. As Riven, I would suggest warding the side where you have vision near the wall that you can jump. You can jump one bank in mid, so if you have vision on that side you can easily get over that bank and run to your turret/wraith camp. Whichever keeps you safer.

Outside of lane it is mostly the area's that you can impact. Mid lane has more roaming potential, especially if you want to take ignite to secure kills. With your mobility it is generally easy to roam bottom, top, or into the enemy jungle, gank, and then use your mobility to get back to mid without losing much. However, as mentioned in my other comment, ganking a far away lane like bot from top has other issues (mainly how far away it is!).

Top lane has more split pushing potential. Mid can only really split push if you manage to swap lanes with top or bot in the mid game so that you can apply that pressure. Top lane also has the distinct advantage of not being bot or mid. I say this is an advantage only because in Solo Queue top lane is usually referred to as "an island" as it is the lane most likely to just get left alone by everybody. So it may be easier to stomp your lane uncontested top. But this is really really game dependent and good teams WILL NOT just let Riven feed off of top without repercussions.

In summary, mid lane can actually be a lot safer however may be more likely to be ganked. You can also roam easier from mid, but this can be achieved with top lane with good use of teleport. The other benefit of top is that most people take AD characters top. So if you go mid it is the equivalent of taking zed mid and potentially leaving your team short on AP threats. So based on team composition it may be better to allow an AP threat mid if you don't have someone who can play an AP threat top (such as ryze or swain or somthing AP).

Hope that helps a little bit!

rth21 votes

Sure, I will try to answer some of the questions.

They always seem to find a way to waste my teleports. I try to ping. I try to let them know, but usually when I try to help them with it they are already so far behind that the enemy top laner uses that chance to push and get ahead. I feel like i lose more than I gain by trying to help my teammates.

So when using summoner 12 you want to use it as optimally as you can. Remember that you are controlling your teleport, so your team cannot waste it. There is a pretty common rule in the jungle that you do not gank a lane that is behind in 99% of situations. This is because if the enemy jungler counter ganks, your laners are weaker, therefore you are more likely to lose that battle. You mention that when you try to help your team is already so far behind that the enemy top laner takes advantage. If your bottom lane is that far behind then it is more likely that you won't be able to salvage that lane by teleport ganking. Even if you successfully gank, your bottom lane will most likely not be ahead, and you have just given up your advantage.

You have to assume that your enemy laner will push your lane and take advantage as soon as you teleport, so if you are determined to help another lane, here is something you can try. Push your lane and go back to base. If you are ahead as riven, it is really easy to push your lane in with item 3077 . Generally the enemy laner assumes you went back, may call top mia, but attempts to freeze lane. While they freeze, you walk mid or bot, and try to gank that lane, hopefully coordinating with your jungler. Then if you get the gank, you still have summoner 12 available to get back to lane without your enemy laner gaining as much. Also if the gank goes horribly and you die, then you can still teleport back into your lane faster. This serves to give the enemy laner less time to respond. (you may also use this tactic to push the enemy, and then go help the jungler take dragon).

You can also reserve your teleport for split pushing. Riven, especially if you feed yourself in lane, has a lot of 1v2 potential. So one thing many top lanes will do is split push incredibly hard. This draws pressure top and forces the enemy team to choose between pushing your lanes or stopping you from pushing. If you are strong than the enemy will more than likely need to send more than one person to stop your split push, giving the rest of your team a numbers advantage. Then it is up to you to either try to 1v2 the enemy, escape without dieing, or retreat back and then teleport behind the enemy team (who is already outnumbered) and fight them with your team.

The important difference is that this takes teleport from being a spell you are using re-actively to try and save teammates into a spell that you are using pro-actively to make something happen on the map and then react to how your lane decides to react. If they push you can defend, or if they try to roam down to help you can save your teleport to retain pressure.

These are by no means all the things that you can do to create pressure but they are a few ideas. The main thing to note is that this takes you from playing re-actively to playing pro-actively.

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