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Any Advice for a Bronze Player

Skyfyre123·6/9/2015, 8:14:34 PM·1 votes·1,986 views

Just so I'm clear, this isn't a QQ thread, but I could use some advice on how I can carry my way out of bronze. I recently started playing ranked games for the very first time since I started playing LOL and I've played a lot of normals before playing ranked, but some of my placement games were lost because of 4 v 5s, but not blaming people for my placement now, just saying that the afkers didn't help.
Either way. I'm Bronze III at the moment and I learned quickly why others called this elo hell (hoping people were over exaggerating it). Seems like every game I get into either has players who don't ward, roam in the jungle where we have no vision when the enemy team is mia, feeders, focus on killing and chasing enemies when objectives are open for us to take, or just plain rude. I've had better players in normals let alone less toxic ones at that. Also it feels like, we constantly get matched up against gold smurfs or something because the other team is so much more organized than ours either that or their skyping or a ranked team.
Overall, I want to get at least into Silver because I know I'm a better player than this, but at the same time I know it can be hard to carry the whole team by yourself unless your that pro that can 1 v 5. It doesn't help that I main tanky champs and I depend on teamwork from the rest of my team to go in when I initiate, but the tank meta seems pretty useless in this division at least from what I can see just in terms of the tank is useless when there aren't people there to follow up on your peeling and/or initiating. I also try to stay positive during every game I'm in and I want to help my team when they need help or at least set a good example to push is to victory. I know that every lose is also my fault too so I don't blame other teammates because I there's always room for improvement and I try to learn from each game I play.
Finally, I'm really stubborn about playing the so called "free-elo" champs in order to carry myself out because I don't want to take this shortcut unless I absolutely have no other choice, because I feel better when I do well with a champ that isn't in that category at all. Right now I seem to have the most luck with Anivia mid and usually win my lane so I can help other lanes too. Is this the best strategy for me at the moment. How did you guys get out of bronze if you were placed in there in the first place?

Tl;Dr: I recently tried out ranked for the first time and despite me trying to do the best job I could during my placements, still ended up in the Bronze Division. How can I help myself get out of it and/or set a good example for the rest of my team to win more games.

Lastly, is there just a good time to play ranked where you are less likely to get the trolls or is it just luck of the draw? TwistedFate

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this and help me out.

20 Comments

Jiberamu6/9/2015, 8:24:32 PM3 votes

basically just get better, work on map awareness, laning, farming. work on not dying and play easy champions. gl

Ternt6/9/2015, 8:42:05 PM2 votes

Find a couple champions you want to main. I switched from Jungle to Mid, then back to Jungle to find my carries. I found I was pretty good on Rek'Sai and Gragas, and they together helped me get out of Bronze. But each person has a specific play style. Outside of the basics like what was posted above, finding your play style relative to your champions is key. I prefer champs that have hard engage but also good escape, i.e. Rek'Sai, Gragas, Zac, and even Olaf (if you got ult at least xD). But those are some of my favorite champions to play, and the best advice I can give you is to learn them forwards and backwards, from basic CSing to proper builds. Building properly will help you win lanes far more. Although you said something about Cho top, you should look in to more top laners and try maining one that doesn't get banned as often like Darius or Irelia. So if you get somebody who bans your Darius, you can Cho, or if they ban your Cho, play Darius, etc. This is how I played through Bronze at least, but definitely watch tutorials and videos on how to play/build/combo abilities, etc that you may have overlooked getting locked into playing 1 specific way.

BStein6/9/2015, 8:56:56 PM2 votes

I managed to get out of bronze by playing impactful support chars. as you said in your post people tend not to ward or watch the map in the lower elo and that is where you come in. you can keep the map warded and keep your eyes more on the map then to ping people to let them know when a threat is coming.

TouchpadExpert6/9/2015, 9:05:41 PM2 votes

I'm just gonna copy and paste a post I made on a similar thread about 2 days ago.

Here's some helpful advice: Practice good habits. Ward your lane, don't overextend and chase or kills, ping objectives, warn teammates of enemy locations, ward your lane, don't insult teammates for mistakes, press tab every so often to check for teammate and enemy itemizations, upgrade your trinket for 250, ward your lane, buy a sight stone if you get stuck supporting, ward your lane and objectives, call MIAs as soon as you can, learn how to freeze a lane, don't complain about your jungler and expect ganks, don't queue up for a game if you cannot devote a full hour to the game, never surrender because enemies can throw a game if you give them the opportunity to, ward your lane, and learn that its ok to die if the team gets the objective (Their inhibitor > Your death). Oh, and ward your lane.

Good habits will not win you every game. Some games are simply unwinnable. But if you have good habits it will keep you in the close games and may give you that extra edge in the really close games. Hope these tips help

Roaranor6/9/2015, 9:06:29 PM2 votes

While there are certainly certain champs that are more snowball oriented (Katarina, Vayne, etc), your overall mechanics with the champions that you play matter more than the actual champ you play, mostly because Bronze is a elo tier where mechanics aren't very prevalent. It's better to pick champs that you enjoy playing and learn to do well with them rather than trying to spam low-skill floor champs for elo (this will backfire a lot), especially since playing champs that you enjoy has psychological benefits to it such as having a stronger desire to research your champ, practice without getting bored, and learning the matchups and how to deal with unfavorable ones. That being said, I'm going to say that Anivia is an okay pick to go with.

The first thing you have to understand is that there will always be some games that are just flat out unwinnable. And I'm speaking realistically here. None of that "Well Doublelift would've hard carried and won that 3v5". You, nor I, nor the jackass trying to use this logic are pro tier, and there are limits to how well one can do given their current skill level. So yes, there will be times when you lose the game simply because the other team plays more as a team or are more centered around objective control or your team refuses to be productive in any sense of the word and the game is just an overall fail. It sucks, but it's something you're going to have to deal with. The goal here is to minimize the amount of losses, not drop to some obscenely low amount.

Just glancing at some of your previous games, I think you should focus on 1) Farming and 2) Optimizing your build paths. In a solo range, the ideal farm goal is 150 by 20 minutes (Maybe around 70-100 for junglers). Yes, farming is and will always be greater than kills. Kills are nice, don't get me wrong. But it's an unreliable source of gold (you can't count on getting kills throughout a game), but learning to better farm will ensure you a steady source of gold to get items with. As for build paths, you might want to at least do a little research on builds before going into game. The Elise game you just played for example had both a poacher's blade w/ Magus and a full liandry's as a second item. Poacher's is an item you should never pick up unless you're planning on pitching a tent inside the enemy jungle and starving them out of all of their farm, and even then you want to swap it out for Stalker's or Skirmisher's before completing your jungle item. Haunting Guise and Magic Pen boots are really strong early pickups for Elise because of how well she scales with magic pen. Her %hp scaling is the reason why it's her strongest stat. Liandry's, however, is not worth building into until later on because the stat upgrades just aren't worth the gold investment. tl;dr Haunting Guise early = Good, Liandry's Torment early = Bad. I have my own personal gripes about Magus enchant into damage instead Cinderhulk into off-tank Elise, but some people go AP with success so I'm not going to bash it and say the Magus enchant was an okay pickup. Also, you shouldn't still have tier 1 boots on anyone 28 minutes into the game. Once it hits 20 minutes and it comes time for grouping, t2 boots become a higher priority, but you want to optimize your farm so that you can get them sooner and this won't ever really be an issue (except for if you're getting starved out of your own jungle which I doubt you'll see happen much in Bronze).

If you're winning your lane, do not just give your opponent a chance to catch up for free. SNOWBALL YOUR LEAD. If you've forced them out of lane, shove the wave to turret to deny them farm or lane freezing (shove hard enough for the wave to reset mid-way through lane afterwards). Bully them in lane for every cs attempt they make, and definitely look for chances to take your lane advantage and feed/feed off of other lanes that are shoved. Pick up a pink along the way to help clear wards for you and your jungler. It doesn't too much matter who gets the kill from roaming as much as you want to get as much out of it as possible. If you kill bot with jungler help, welcome to a free turret + drag. If you get the kill top, help him take his turret so he can roam too, or at least get damage on it and reset the wave if he has to recall. Shoving lane for someone (even as a jungler) is perfectly fine if you're doing a full reset. It only becomes a problem if you half-ass the reset and the lane instead freezes in favor of the enemy laner.

OhBoyItsaMegaman6/9/2015, 11:32:49 PM2 votes

Just as I checked out your thread, I went to look at your op.gg profile and noticed that you had just started a game. So I'm spectating your Shyvana game! I'll do my best to give you some insight into what you could be doing differently. You can follow along by going to op.gg and clicking the Replay button.

As the game starts, notice that your team has some very snowbally champions and not a whole lot of CC. The enemy has Shen, Lulu, and Annie for chain AOE cc. You will want to be very careful about initiating any "fair" fights because they'll probably win. Your team wants to catch someone out with superior vision and blow them up to make it a 4v5.

So, the very first thing: you don't get out of base in a reasonable amount of time. You leave the fountain at :50. This is ranked, so take it seriously. Buy your items in the first 15 seconds every time, and head straight out of the base as soon as the barrier drops. If their team intended to invade, you would be in danger when you go into your jungle to guard because you gave them a big head start.

Shen is pushing early, and you're playing very passive. He pushes towards your tower and you start missing a lot of cs. There are a couple times where you're waiting for a minion to get low, then you turn on W and knock it down to like 20 hp. The W sometimes finishes it off, sometimes not. You need to know your damage output a little better so that you don't miss those minions. You also want to do some cs training under tower, as it is not something that you can do easily without practice. You miss almost every single one, when with practice you could be getting every single one.

When Shaco comes to gank, you have no idea (even though he pinged OMW). As Shaco stealths in, you miss a point blank E, walk up, AA, Q, then immediately walk directly away from Shen. Shen flashes out but he would have died even after flashing if you had played it right.

Shaco immediately ganks again and gets a solo kill, and you correctly push to tower and recall. You come back to lane with cloth and 5 pots. The only way you should have that many pots is if you are determined to crank the aggression way up and force Shen completely away from the creeps. But you don't do that at all... you continue to let him harass you, run away from fights that he initiates, and use the pots as a bandage to cover up what you're doing wrong.

When you hit level 5, I see you back off to put a point in W. You shouldn't be clicking to level up abilities.

http://imgur.com/l6zy7eM

Right here, look how scared you are of this Shen. He's a few hundred health under you and he has no pots left. You are completely just handing him this farm because you're afraid to fight him for some reason. If he was a better player, he'd have double your farm right now. As it is, he's keeping even with you even though he was ganked twice and killed once.

I don't understand what you were doing with that first ult... You waited until he had pushed a wave of 8 minions to your tower, then ulted and missed him. Really, this ult and everything that comes after make very little sense. You got him so low and then flashed away when you had more health than him. He was 1 AA away from dying and his ignite was down.

A bit later, Shen is ulting for the first time. Your ult is up and you're in range to interrupt him. There's no reason you shouldn't instantly ult him. As it turns out, he is ulting just to join Annie and Rengar as they slam mid tower while Talon is dead (generally speaking, this is a poor use of Shen's ult). About 4 seconds after Shen's ult is complete, you TP to that tower. There's no way you're going to save it; they have 3 champs there and a big minion wave. You ult into the 3 of them and predictably die for it. The lane that you left was pushing towards you, and now you will miss out on almost 3 waves of farm. This was a terrible decision on your part, and not just because you "got unlucky" and died.

(Continued)