Climbing Elo

Junsui Aoi·11/17/2014, 12:48:39 PM·5 votes·6,520 views

So last night I had a rather poor experience in ranked. The same kind of thing that made me stop playing ranked before end of season despite the fact that I'd been Bronze 1 and SO close to Silver 5. (I'd been in promos maybe 2, 3 times)

How do you keep at it? I'm about to quit. I try and put on a positive spin on things that happen. But then I get bashed by teammates for being naive, just plain stupid, or not "seeing it coming." Or the team isn't being negative (they weren't really speaking at all), but then our support DC's at level 4 and we never hear from her again. Or we make a plan, and then one person deviates and screws us over by getting caught out or not being there for the fight. Or you get the occasional troll that just decides "I quit. I'm feeding. k?", which happens to be even worse than AFK'ing.

How do you climb? I'm figuring I'm going to be placed Bronze again (oh God, don't let it be B5 again T^T), and I just need some advice and maybe some stories on how some of you made it out (please?). Even if only to Silver.

Bit about my 'playstyle': I main support, usually with Sona (<3). Though I'll bring Soraka/Janna/Morg into the mix if someone asks. I'm practicing Leona now, but I haven't taken her ranked because she's so all in and I don't trust my ADCs. I like Malz mid and top (yes, I'll take that into about anything. It usually goes quite well). My ADC is MF. Yes, I only play one. My jungle is Sej. I can tank pretty well. But my jungling/ganking skills are fairly awful. Yes I've tried practicing. I get bashed for it even in normals.

So if you have any advice, please let me know! Thanks in advance, and happy leaguing <3

-- Junsui

35 Comments

RiotPhreak11/18/2014, 12:14:37 AM10 votes

Some random thoughts:

  1. I wouldn't ever take advice like "Oh play this (type of) champion." The most important thing you can do is play champions/roles that you enjoy/play well.
  2. A positive attitude and teamwork are pretty useful. Look to play roles you're comfortable with, but also getting your teammates on comfortable roles is helpful, too, since they'll play better and you'll ultimately win more if they're playing roles/champions they know. For example if first pick says "Mid or Top" and third pick says "Mid only" you just say, "Hey first pick, play top please." That way they both get main roles. Similarly, keeping your teammates on-task in the middle of the game helps them perform well instead of talking about that gank that didn't work three minutes ago
  3. The single best way to climb is to improve as a player. If you find that you're stuck, look for ways to improve. Check out fan sites for rune/mastery/build/skill order information. Make sure you're set up optimally. Then look to improve your decision-making, warding, mechanics, etc.
  4. Shot calling is helpful. Because you have a little bit more downtime as a support, you can start looking for signs when your team should push, or Dragon, or Baron. Just keep it in the back of your mind every time you win a fight: Are any lanes pushable? Is an objective up? Making sure something happens every time you win a fight is really helpful
GnomeDigest11/17/2014, 4:31:12 PM4 votes

First off I would avoid mechanically difficult champions when you play ranked. So instead of taking say Jayce, Riven, or Yasuo top, take Ryze or Maoki. Right out of the gate you are already better off in lane because Ryze or Mao is much easier to play mechanically so you can more easily split your focus to watching minimap for example, to better avoid ganks. Less room for mechanical mess ups less room for bad stuff to happen in lane. Those are also champs that better help set up ganks for your jungler.

This applies to bot lane as well. Avoid Thresh or Nami generally speaking. Much easier to get the same general effect with Leona and Sona and they are much easier to play. Seems those were champs you were already using anyway so shouldnt be an issue for you.

I would try amumu over sejuani. He is a stronger jungler and especially if you have flash up his ult is near impossible to miss. If he gets banned or taken you can always fall back on sej. Malphite might be a better fallback though as he has a simpler less likely to miss ult to use and he is generally tankier. One of my own personal weaknesses is mechanics so I have found it very helpful to avoid mechanically difficult champions in favor of ones that are harder to mess up for climbing ranked.

As too supporting focus less on trusting or not trusting your ADC and instead start trying to read them. Do they get to lane and start harassing the enemy at the expense of farm? If their harass works, make sure you dive as soon as you hit 2-3 with Leona or try to mirror their aggressiveness with sona so its hard for enemy to trade back to your ADC. Does instead the ADC just farm and seem to have no interest in harassing? Then play more passive an focus on keeping them safe. When the enemy adc moves up to CS feint forward like you are going to attack to see if they back off and miss the CS. But don't dive because you already know your ADC's priorities are farming. Save your dive for if your jungler shows up to gank. This will make for a boring lane but its better than forcing your ADC to take fights they dont seem to be looking for.

Also keep in mind the issue of sustain. If you are playing sona and the enemy lane has no heals you can afford to trade more just make sure to pause in between trades to heal up.

One thing I noticed when I looked at your profile, match history, etc is that your rune options are pretty limited. I main support as well and I have several different pages depending on which support I am using and how I expect the lane to go. For example when I play Sona into a high burst lane like vs a leona or thresh, I run a very buiser heavy rune page. I run armor reds and quints, heal seals, and scaling mr glyphs.

The Leona's then dive me expecting me to blow up but instead I can eat their engage well and dish out damage in return. Within no time I and my ADC are healed up with W and now Leona or her ADC injured generally are afraid to re-engage. If instead I am facing a vayne while playing Sona I will switch out the armor reds for magic pen so I can harass vayne harder and bully her out of lane, especially if she doesnt have a heal support.

So in short, play the mechanically simple champions, have a couple for every role. The more uncomfortable a role you are put in the more safe and passive you should play so even if you lose lane, you dont feed so hard that you make it impossible for your team to carry you. Get a few more rune pages and supp champs so you can adapt to the matchups. If you are against a draven/leona and your adc is immobile like Ashe or Varus, playing Taric over Sona will make sure you survive the laning phase. Just save your stun for when leona dives your carry and stun their adc. Plus the heal keeps your ADC safe to farm.

And as always wards, wards, wards. This is especially usefu when you are NOT supporting as it will be a huge boost to get an extra ward or two from you each back considering at your elo's i imagine there is not much warding.

Those are some of the strategies I used to get to Gold mostly supporting.

disregardable11/17/2014, 1:45:52 PM2 votes

Just throwing this out there, if you like MF, you'll probably like Varus as well. Their kits are pretty similar. He's still free today, you should give him a game.

MasterGroudon11/17/2014, 2:05:16 PM2 votes

duo with a good adc http://i.imgur.com/c4ZhAv9.png << can anyone tell what is happening to this account?

Easyyy11/17/2014, 2:07:30 PM2 votes

Just play hyper carries like akali and they pubstomp in bronze-gold because nobody wards

buster kiton11/17/2014, 2:09:16 PM2 votes

Just grind and always play to improve. There will be many games you just can't do anything about.

IMT Durant11/18/2014, 12:02:30 AM2 votes

Play Akali Amumu Fizz Jax Katarina Katarina Katarina Khazix Maokai Annie MasterYi MasterYi Pantheon Ryze Ryze Sona Sona Sona Soraka Leona Tryndamere Vi MonkeyKing XinZhao , for some of them you won't have trouble mashing buttons..

Don't be a typical bronze Darius Fiora Teemo Blitzcrank

Don't play high skill champs Jayce Riven Yasuo Zed

Try to always play champs that wreck teams (in teamfights especially) I climbed out of bronze by spamming wukong and kassadin (pre-rework)Ahri Amumu Jax Kassadin Katarina Katarina Malphite Morgana Orianna Rumble Ryze Ryze Twitch Vi MonkeyKing MonkeyKing MonkeyKing if you manage to be decent with him, then Yasuo Focus on improving your farming Push for objectives Don't chase for kills Ward Ward and Ward Aim to die less than 5 times Punish your enemy laner for their mistakes, or when they go to cs - bronzies cant handle it

KwangoTango11/18/2014, 3:02:32 AM2 votes

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jimmylism11/17/2014, 1:41:23 PM2 votes

Duo-queue with an reliable adc friend. Contact better by using skype. Duo-queuing not only drastically reduces the chance of queuing with a troll/feeder, but also ensures a solid bot lane for you. Solo-queuing with support at low elo is hell. If you're adc is a potato, then you are screwed. And the adc could use you as a punching bag and a scapegoat. So my tip is, either duo-queue with adc friend, or play adc your self to carry your team out of bronze.

DiamondSamurai11/17/2014, 1:32:41 PM2 votes

Bump because i'm curious as well

Chillub4511/18/2014, 2:19:18 AM2 votes

Don't listen to the people that say you cant climb by playing support! I climbed from Bronze 3 to Platinum 5 by maining support Zilean. The most important thing is to be very comfortable playing the champion you are playing. Even if your opponent is playing someone that counters you, because you have so much experience playing your champion you can still win. Support and jungle are actually the easiest roles to climb with. Good luck to you!

MexicosFinest11/17/2014, 6:31:58 PM1 votes

Looks like you and I are in a similar situation(B1 -> S5). I have to say, I would not main support in these ELOs as you are simply at the mercy of your ADC. Ive had quite a few games were I've gotten my ADC fed in lane just for them to toss the advantage. It's good you know how to support but for now before you continue in ranked I would suggest you practice the other roles. As for duo queuing I would suggest you don't duo bot lane. As good as an idea as it may seem you are now only responsible for 1 lane which leaves 2 lanes to chance. Unless you can get fed early and spread the advantage there is just too much left to chance.

Practicing normals is a great way to practice these other lanes. As you've said you will get toxic people in normals who want to blame you for everything. The best fix for this is just muting them. If someone starts flaming, do not respond and just mute them. Go about your business and communicate through pings. Also, if a game feels like its a loss and it feels as if there is no way to win DO NOT surrender. There is a lot to learn from these games and comebacks happen all the time. As much as we love stomps and free wins they do not make up a majority of games. So if you're behind in a normal try something different. Say to yourself what could I do right now to turn this around. Sometimes you will succeed and sometimes you'll fail but in the end you will gain some experience from it. I know i'm not high ELO but these are just some common tips that helped me rank up. I started in the pits of B5 this season and am now B1 so something must be working lol