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Are There Any Tips & Tricks to Playing PVP for the First Time??

LimbicPastry·10/24/2014, 1:09:23 PM·3 votes·9,406 views

Okay so I am starting to play PVP games because AI games are becoming boring and easy for me. I feel like I have become comfortable with a champion and I want to start playing PVP games. However the first game I played I got my *** handed to me and my team mates didn't help at all they just said stop feeding which I wasn't, I was trying to get my CS up and play near my turret. I played top lane as Olaf and I was against Vlad and I just couldn't level up to save my life. The Team ended up surrendering asap anyways so I didn't get to get much of a build going at all to even see if I could make a come back at all.

Are all PVP games pretty much you're on your own, teammates don't really help and if you get some deaths - which i had about 4 from vlad by 10 minutes in - they won't come help at all??

Am I still needing to play bots possibly if I died that much in that little bit of time???

Also is there any coaching programs out there other than LoL University?? I looked into them but there site said it was under construction. I am not looking for a boost just some coaching so I can improve my game play.

Thanks for any advice, Tips, Tricks...

15 Comments

Potatofaktman10/24/2014, 3:07:00 PM6 votes

Just.keep.playing. You may feed every game, you may go 0-10-0, you may be having the worst time ever but my only tip is to just keep playing the game. Don't go back to bots, once you hit lvl15+ you should be playing pvps almost exclusively, maybe one bot game with an entirely new champ just to get to know his abilities and stuff but other than that it should be pvps only.

The reason I say this is because it is much better to lose in a PvP game rather than win a bot game. Yes, winning is better, yes, you get flamed a lot less and it is a lot less stressful but you will never learn from your mistakes and get better at the game if you just keep playing bots. I know from experience because this was my mistake when I started out.

Now this also heavily depends on what your goal is when you hit lvl30, if you want to immediately get into ranked and start climbing that ladder then yeah, it has got to be pvps for you from now on. If not however, and you are just playing this game for fun and don't really want to play ranked until way later then you can continue playing whatever you feel like and just enjoy!! (while you still can :p)

Anyway yeah, that's the biggest tip I can give you, if you want specific champion guides and builds there are hundreds of sites out there and thousands of videos, all of which google will help you find with ease.

Good luck!

Jakethenight10/24/2014, 5:32:44 PM3 votes

The best advice out there is to turn off all-chat and keep it off.

Harmony1110/25/2014, 10:07:29 PM2 votes

As someone who played a lot of bot games before finally settling on PvP, I understand where you're coming from. I'm not going to sugercoat things: it's going to be very very rough at first. You're level 21 and many level 21s have experience in PvP. The game may put you with these players at first (depending on how initial MMR works) and you will likely be shat on a lot if you're not careful. Bots will not punish mistakes like players will.

However bad that sounds it does get better, trust me. Whether you win or lose the game will get an idea of your skill level and will match you with players of equal skill, even if they're a higher or lower level than you. Recently I went up against a level 30 Bronze 5 when I was 26, which shows more his skill than mine I feel.

A few tips to help you get better faster:

Don't die. I'm not kidding don't die; it's better to recall/back at low health or a dangerous situation than risk feeding the enemy a kill, especially if you have no way of winning a fight. A very easy example is if you're low health (let's say <25%) in lane with no pots and your opponent is healthy (lets say >80%). Better to back and give up a few CS than to get killed and give them 300+ gold plus free cs.
Don't overstay your welcome. This is related to #1, For instance, during mid-game you are splitpushing and 1 enemy is trying to stop you. You look at your map and see your team is all spread out far from you, while the enemy team is all alive but are all missing (except for the one guy). If you have no ward vision around you, take this as a cue to get the hell out of there; the enemy team may be heading your way for an easy pick-off. Unless you're super ahead and can 1v2 or even 1v3 the enemy team, you're just setting yourself up. If you leave and see 2-3 enemies appear out of nowhere, you did your job (your team can push another lane with a number advantage) even if you didn't get a kill/tower. I say this because I've seen so many players split-push with no vision, overstay their welcome, and give the enemy team easy kill/assist gold that wasn't needed.
Buy wards. Just do it; vision wins games. With the vision change one player can only place 4 wards on the field at any time (3 green 1 pink) so it's impossible for 1 player to light up all the key points mid game. By lighting up your jungle (losing), or the enemy jungle (winning) you can keep track of their movements and make informed decisions. On top of that, if you're Top you need to keep yourself safe from jungle ganks during laning. If you have 75-400 gold in base (except starting) and an open slot, buy at least 1 ward and pick an important spot (if you don't know any, buffs and river are often smart).
**Analyze your mistakes. **Win or lose, think about what you can do better (there is always something). Did you miss a lot of CS? Did you take a lot of unnecessary harass damage? Did you not ward/play safe while the enemy had a jungler? No matter what, figure out how you can improve, even if you go 15/0/18. Download a recording program to help (LoLReplay or BaronReplays).
Read guides. Solomid and LoLPro are great, but don't take them as scripture. A lot of good (highly rated) guides will give you alternative builds and strategies depending on the situation. At the least there is usually a good "default" build to try and reasons why X item works better on your champ than Y item.
This is the single most important rule: have fun. No matter how bad things get, how toxic your teammates are, and how long a losing streak lasts, always remember that this is nothing more than a game. You're playing to have fun, not prove a point. If your teammate wont stop being an asshole mute them and report them after game. If you keep losing take a break. Just never stop having fun.

Good luck out there!

Merxamers10/24/2014, 1:31:26 PM2 votes

The two biggest tips i have are:

Learn to last hit like a boss. There are tons of guides out there to last hitting, and learning how to cs under your turret will help a lot. (not saying you always need to be a passive laner; part of learning the game is knowing when to be aggressive and when to be passive).
Ward. In my first games in pvp no one bought wards (it was udder chaos! ) The more games you play, however, you will see that the teams that buy wards win. Whenever you back, if you have the slot (and you should), buy a ward or two. Placing them at key locations in the river, your jungle, or the enemies jungle gives invaluable info on where the enemy team is.

I'm pretty sure vlad is a tough matchup for Olaf, tho i'm not sure. I recommend looking up some Olaf guides online and some youtube videos of pros or streamers playing him, just to get an idea of how the top players use him. Remember to have fun! You will have games where awful teammates will unhelpfully tell you to 'Stop Feeding', but these shouldn't be most of your games. If people do harass you, just mute them (press Tab, to the far right of their portraits is a word balloon; click it and you won't see them in chat :) )

Raja Chachki10/24/2014, 2:05:06 PM2 votes

Yeah when I first came out of bots at level 13, things were rough. I feel like maybe you played bots for quite awhile to get to lvl 21...but anyways, it just takes practice. Don't push too much, don't freeze too much. Ward, and try to pull your team together with objectives to get an upper hand on the other team. Once you get just a bit higher in elo, you will start facing lvl 30s, and that's pretty much hell...For me, I usually queue with about 4 lvl 30s spread out between both sides. Whichever one has more lvl 30s wins the game, which sux. So, get used to either being shat on, or being carried to heaven....

Kolinichu10/24/2014, 5:00:12 PM2 votes

Hey LimbicPastry, I got one important advice for you, and that is not to take this game or others players too seriously; after all, this is all but just a video game! :)

You may have bad/hard times but you'll get better eventually (You can check pro matches on youtube to see how people managed thier lanes, or go read up some guides to help you! :) )

But the most important thing of all!; Some players will rage on you, they will insult you and try to make you feel bad for something you shouldn't. Don't take these mad tryhards seriously. (You can mute them by clicking the speech bubble next to them in the [TAB] key menu.) If you don't wanna mute them, (Just like myself, but muting them is still an effective solution) just take what they are saying with a pinch of salt, they may speak truth, but most of the time, they are not or they do not do it properly; this is their way of complaining, and you're the only judge to whatever this is a legitimate complaint or not. (If they went too far, remember to report them after the game with the report icon next to them ;) )

But of course, stay open-minded and take every little bit of criticizing you can. (excluding the swears and rage if there is of course.) As you may know, the best way to learn is to play. Errors and good plays will both tell you about what you should work on! :)

On this note, I wish you good luck on the fields of justice and remember to have fun! :)

Lumus Avatar10/24/2014, 1:14:26 PM2 votes

PvP matches rely much more heavily on team communication than bots games do. Players don't fall for the same baits that bots do, but they also don't react as fast as bots. It is luck of the draw when you're joining with random players. You may just get dumped into a game where the opposing team is just that much more skilled than everyone on your own team.

I'm actually NOT a good person to talk to about this - I avoid normals on SR because of these reasons. I stick to ARAM for my PvP because they're more light-hearted. You might be screwed at the beginning of the game just by the champions rolled. so wins and losses aren't weighed as heavily by players.

This is Snake10/24/2014, 1:54:07 PM1 votes

Olaf vs Vlad.

If I was in your position, I would try getting as much farm as I can and build health and Magic Resist. Its also better to give up the turret than die a lot. A fed Vlad is a lot harder to deal with after laning phase than one that isn't. Vlad will then at some point have to extend to get the inner turret, thats where he will be vulnerable to ganks. You could also freeze the lane by last hitting minions, its one way of getting that gold you need because of how well vlad can zone you.

Its also better to go in your options and enable the experience box, so even if you cannot last hit minions due to zoning, you'll at least know you're in the experience range of those minions dying. So you're behind gold, which isn't a big deal but you're also not losing out on levels. If vlad out levels you, its gg.

Champion Skin10/24/2014, 8:34:20 PM1 votes

Well 1: try to have fun and think of it as a learning experience and of you getting better, what did you learn (doesn't matter if you win or lose if you get better) 2: if you are playing top it can be hard playing a melee champion be aware of this and if you are melee you need to give up some CS if you don't you will take too much damage and lose even more CS or die **3: **With experience and time you will eventually learn when different champions become strong and when you should and shouldn't fight (and also in what situations some champions are and aren't strong)

But just try to play the game and try to have fun and learn while doing it

Dark Nephthys10/24/2014, 5:27:58 PM1 votes

Another tip that people haven't covered yet would be to play with friends. It's much easier and less stressful to play with a pre-made than with all randoms. Even if it's just one other person, that way if some thing goes wrong or you really want to know some thing, that other person could help you. I don't mind playing a few games with you if you want to add me.

Parryer2710/24/2014, 1:24:22 PM1 votes

My suggestion is to play very passively and farm. Tell your teammates that your new to pvp and many will be willing to give you tips and help you ( I would be willing to as well). Communication is very important and dont just use pings follow pings up with a chat message as well saying x champ(s) is(are) missing or jungler is starting to gank lanes. Most important of all is buy WARDS it's not just the supports job to ward; if you have enough g to buy wards along with ur other items do it.

doubleguac10/24/2014, 5:38:51 PM1 votes

Get ready to lose a number of matches before you start picking it up. There are a lot of skills you can only practice in PvP that you need to be successful in PvP.

My best advice is to just truck through. I frankly didn't enjoy the game very much when I first started playing (I only picked it up because my brother played it, and would queue with me). It gets much more fun once you start understanding the mechanics, but it can be a pain to reach that point.

Mute your teammates/opponents if they start getting toxic, and try to learn from your mistakes. That's the best advice i can think of!

Also, I would highly recommend focusing on one (ideally straightforward) champion. It's hard to learn basic skills like last hitting, map awareness, lane management, and champion counterplay if you're always trying someone new. Pick a favorite champ for each role and really focus on learning their matchups, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their builds.

FunshineBear198010/24/2014, 2:00:05 PM1 votes

Just give it more time. It takes practice, just like anything else.

Swagicus10/24/2014, 6:41:08 PM1 votes

Unfortunately, you can not escape people who feed, or even worse those who troll or just generally make the game less enjoyable. However, we're human; mistakes will happen, and the important thing is to learn from them and try to grow from them.

My advice is, whenever you get along with someone in a game, add them as a friend and invite them to future games. The more dependable people you play with, the less variables there are.

Best of luck!

Blumonkey10/24/2014, 2:40:25 PM1 votes

I'm only bronze and I have ink played for about a year now, but I can win against people diamond 2 and below it seems. Message me on league if you want tips