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Advice to Get out of Bronze

K54·8/12/2015, 7:47:15 PM·1 votes·1,437 views

I'm not trying to toot my own horn here so 1st off let me say, I'm a B5 player because I suck. But I don't think I deserve to be in B5. I'm very very very far from the best, not even remotely close. But I know for a fact, that I'm better than Bronze. I feel I should be floating between S4 and S2. I've duo'd with my college friends who are Silver and Gold players and have been able to perform better than I do in bronze. I actually perform best in gold, 2nd best in silver and worse in bronze, I think this is due to the fact that I try to fix my team's mistakes.

The reasoning behind these thoughts are that the only wins I have, I carried. I legitimately have to single handed destroy 4 or 5 turrets myself, solo push 3 lanes, kill dragon, kill baron and have 17+ kills to even remotely have a chance of winning.

No joke, if you look at my match history, I'm not allowed to have a bad game, if my play is off, we lose.

I've been studying pro, challenger and diamond games restlessly. In short, League of Legends is a game of intelligence, chess.

Rule #1 Don't die. It's simple. Better to recall, give up some turret damage and some CS, than to give up a kill. 2 The opposite of #1, don't chase unnecessary kills, take advantage of free lane if opponent has to retreat. That means CS and turret damage. 3 WARDING (self-explanatory) always upgrade trinket at level 9 (that 250 is always worth sparing) 4 Team communication and synergy. 5 Don't over carry. From spectating pro games, I've witnessed ADCs do 70% damage then back off so an underfed top lane or jungler can get some kill gold. 6 Timing is essential, been plenty of times I've seen winning teams not pursue dragon because they were at the inhibitor turret. 7 You don't have to win your lane. This goes with rule #1, if you can keep the lane stalemate or just slow the progress, this is better than dying. 8 They don't give a fuck about KDA, they only care about deaths. Again going back to rule #1, low deaths are the best stats. This isn't Call of Duty or Mortal Kombat. Individual stats are irrelevant. At the end of the day, the only important statistic is Win/Loss record.

Those are just a few things I've learned and applied to improve my performance from complete garbage to not so garbage in just 1 season.

Unfortunately, this isn't enough if only 1 of 5 teammates understand these concepts. High tier players perform well because your whole team understands these rules. In bronze, it's rare to get another teammate that does.

So I'm not so much looking game play advice, I'm looking for tips to carry myself out of bronze. I see plat smurf accounts duo'd friends out of bronze by playing jungler to cover all lanes or always having summoner 4 summoner 12 whenever he's in lane to save his teammates and keep his lane pushed.

Unfortunately, I'm not good enough to go into a match with flash/tp because I legitimately don't have the map awareness (which could be the actual reason I'm a bronze player, but when I was playing gold matches, I really only had to pay attention to myself, because my teammates were able to hold their own). I'm always too focused on what I'm doing, not always seeing the teammates health bar depleting or having the wards in the right spot to prevent getting ganked violently.

With all that in mind, is there any advice you could give me to further help me, or do I have it figured it out and just need to learn to apply it better?

33 Comments

OhBoyItsaMegaman8/13/2015, 12:06:24 AM5 votes

Spectating Talon Wukong's Lee Sin game:

Things to consider going into the game: In any other division, I'd say that someone who went Lee Sin support was actively trying to lose, but I believe that it is your intention to win (you're in promos, after all) so I will comment as though it's a real game. I will mention just this once that it is to your benefit to learn a real support champion so that you can assist your team when you get forced into a support role. However, familiarity with a champion does go a long way. If you are very familiar with a champion, it's better to play them instead of whoever is considered "in the meta". You must take flash though. You cannot play without flash. This is a mistake.

Right off the bat, you go to lane with MF. This is bad. Your jungler is starting at Gromp and you have no vision in your red buff jungle. It costs absolutely nothing to stand in the tri bush or by the raptor camp to watch for an invade. Standing at the tower at the beginning of the game is 100% wrong. It did not hurt you in this game, but it WILL ABSOLUTELY cause you to lose games if you do this every game. At 1:30 you walk blindly into your jungle to place a ward at red buff, and that would be a dead Lee Sin if their team had invaded. You absolutely should not take this risk.

I'm honestly kind of at a loss to describe how the beginning of this game goes. They have a Karthus afk at his tower and Graves afk in base. But even if they stay afk for 20 minutes, their team can still come back in Bronze V just by stalling for long enough. You have to play like you're in danger of losing a 3v5, or else you just might.

http://i.imgur.com/r25DvhJ.jpg

So let's talk about this death. Graves is finally in lane and hit level 2. Just as the last of your minions dies, and just as their new wave is pulling up, you land a Q on a minion and Resonating Strike in. As a Lee with no damage items and no ult, there is nothing that you can do with this except AA Graves. There's no potential for a play here at all. You give away a kill for free. I'm not going to say that you aren't allowed to make any mistakes, but this is more than just a misclick or a whoops. Instead of running away, you fully committed to staying on Graves as though you thought that you were a threat to him.

When you respawn, you leave base with 650 in pocket. I can't overlook this. The correct move here is to buy a Ruby Crystal and a ward and maybe a couple more pots, but you didn't even get boots or Targons. You left base with nothing.

http://i.imgur.com/z5BRltr.jpg

Here is another situation where you went in with no real plan. You walked completely up to Graves in a cannon wave, used E, and followed him autoattacking. Karma doesn't even remember to shield him and you guys still lose the trade by a lot. You W out with 289 health. You just got back to lane and you handed over your entire life bar. This isn't how you play a melee support. Graves sticks around, you miss your Q as you run up to him, and while your ignite does kill him, you also hand over another death.

You buy a Pickaxe and Longsword, which means you're rushing Hydra as support Lee. Naturally, this is a huge mistake, but why didn't you buy pieces of it after your first death?

http://i.imgur.com/27Slakx.jpg

For a third time, you do a walk-in engage when you have no conceivable advantage, and lose almost all your health again. You have a nonsensical lack of respect for the Karma, who is chunking you like crazy with a NLR. When you are low on health like this, you're just asking to die. You're also just asking to get ganked, and haven't warded the river even once. Rengar is 6.

You land a Q on Graves under tower and decide to go in with 285 health. You have no escape plan. You kill him and die. Do not deliberately trade 1 for 1 kills if you want to get out of Bronze. It is not worth it. Not even if it was a shutdown. Value your own life more than the life of any ally or enemy.

After respawning, you roam top. This isn't terrible, except that you have no boots because you chose to finish your Tiamat AND you are ganking a 0/5 Gangplank. Darius doesn't need help from you. Your presence in top lane right now is a pretty big mistake. The fact that you did kill GP when he otherwise would've gotten away does not really excuse it.

http://i.imgur.com/9NZqQJU.jpg

Here, you've come mid to help Fizz. You W yourself for a shield before the turret is even targeting you (which means you don't have it available to escape), and then you just AA the turret while Karthus and GP kill you. The tower survives. Even if it didn't, even if you had taken the tower, it's NOT WORTH IT. The tower was at less than a quarter health. Your team would have taken it soon anyway. To suicide to take out the tower is senseless. If you had managed to get the tower just before dying, what immediate benefit would your team have gotten from it?

Again, you leave base with 650 gold without buying anything. If you're going to get a Hydra next, you would want a Longsword right now. Don't leave base with money. I also notice that you are maxing your E first. Is this for wave clear? As a support, even support Lee, clearing minion waves is NOT your job. This is a pretty classic case of sticking to the same build and skill order without being able to adapt to the situation. You do not understand how you can help your team.

http://i.imgur.com/7hs26Mp.jpg

Again, you walk (not Q, but literally walk) directly up into a fight immediately after leaving base with no thought of what the consequences will be. You don't use any abilities except 1 E after Karthus dies, and as you are retreating you have ample opportunity to W to a minion to get out of range of Graves and the GP barrels, but you don't. You die here.

http://i.imgur.com/kbXIUd1.jpg

Here you are sieging a tower by yourself as level 9 no-items Lee vs two champions and with no ward coverage. What you're doing here makes no sense; there is nothing to gain from it. You cannot stop Graves from killing these minions. You cannot damage the tower. You are a walking sack of please-kill-me money, and Rengar shows up to cash in. He misses his bola, giving you the opportunity to safeguard to the approaching minions and get away, but you turn and fight him for the last second of your life instead of thinking about how to get away.

While attacking mid inhib tower and inhib, you could use abilities to trigger your passive for faster attacks, but you stand there AAing for a loooong time without thinking to do that.

I have held back while writing this, but I must say this clearly (and not to be funny or mean, but to ensure that you understand the point of this post). The idea that you would be able to function just fine in a Gold or even a Silver game is a joke. You are absolutely thoroughly Bronze right now. I can say this with certainty even though this was just a game where you were stuck as support on an inappropriate champion.

  1. You have no idea how to play Lee Sin. I don't believe you wardhopped once. You almost never hit your Q, and almost always engaged fights by walking up instead of using Resonating Strike or Safeguard. You had no knowledge of your damage or tanking capability and frequently lost trades vs a bot lane that had an afk for the first few minutes. You did not utilize your passive when it would have benefited you. You did not max the correct skill or build the correct items.

  2. You have no idea how to lane, at least not as a support. You frequently sought to fight in lane without any regard for your ADC's positioning, the presence of minions, your opponents' cooldowns, your opponents' summoners, or the possibility of an incoming gank.

  3. You have no idea how to not die. You either misjudge your chances of surviving an encounter, or (more likely) your odds of dying don't even cross your mind. You push lanes alone with no backup or vision. You don't take escapes that are available to you, and you enter games without picking up flash.

  4. You have no idea how important vision is. Even though you listed it as an ALL CAPS bullet point on your list, you placed only 6 trinket wards. You did not buy a trinket upgrade or a Sightstone or a pink. In situations where you had no vision, you did not play as though you had no vision.

I will watch another game if you would like but I'm going to see more of the same. I beg you to go to your op.gg profile and watch the recorded replay of that game. See that everything I'm saying is accurate. Your goal of carrying yourself out of Bronze is unrealistic unless you're willing to take a more critical look at how you're actually performing in your games.

OhBoyItsaMegaman8/12/2015, 8:36:44 PM4 votes

Why did you delete the previous thread? That's a forum faux pas. People were nice enough to respond to your thread; don't disrespect them by removing your post and their responses to it.

You absolutely have to accept that your current division is accurate before you can get better. You have played 300 games this season and lost more than half of them. There is zero chance that you are a Silver level player accidentally stuck in Bronze because of your teammates. As long as you cling to the idea that you're currently doing things right, you will not be able to climb.

I will be available to spectate in about an hour. If you're still on League, I will watch a game and post my observations here.

OhBoyItsaMegaman8/13/2015, 1:23:28 AM3 votes

Sorry guys, I do not normally fall for trolls like this. When I went to spec another game, I came in to him raging in /all at his support. The next time he overextended and died, he blamed his support in /all again and then ragequit.

There's nothing I can do for a troll, but hopefully someone else can benefit from the review that I gave him.

Exta5y8/12/2015, 8:38:01 PM2 votes

common sense is not so common

  1. Dont pick champs in a rank game which you have no prior experience
  2. WARD plz WARD, buy a pink upgrade trinket
  3. If behind farm under turret, ping for assist and wait for jungler to arrive dont go non meta champ picks. Teemo + Yasou jungle doesnt work
GroundRuleDouble8/12/2015, 9:19:58 PM2 votes
  1. If you're in B5, don't say you don't belong in Bronze. You do. (I'm in B5 right now as well).
  2. Focus on what your role is supposed to do. If you're an ADC, focus on your team fight positioning. If you're a support, don't try to single-handedly carry the game. Play someone that can set up your teammates for kills. Remember, even though your teammates are in Bronze, so are your opponents.
  3. Every game is winnable. Don't give up 10 minutes into the game if nothing is going right. EVERY GAME IS WINNABLE. Focus on helping teammates, verbally lifting them up, never be toxic.
  4. Focus on CS. If you master CSing, you will outfarm and outgold your bronze opponents and snowball very quickly.
  5. Capitalize on their mistakes. It's bronze...lots of mistakes are made.
  6. Know when to group up. Many games are turned around midway through when one team groups and starts picking off the other team as they go solo.
  7. Back to number 1. If you're in Bronze 5, don't say you don't belong there. The system is put into place to put you into the correct division. I have a Silver V account where I got into Silver V after placement games, and I am steady in Silver V. I haven't climbed and I haven't dropped. But I know that I'm still a Bronze 5 player because I haven't climbed out of Bronze 5 yet.
ME PLAY TETRIS8/13/2015, 2:39:56 AM1 votes

Well first off your playing lee sin in Bronze V If you are actually planning on climbing stick with the basics like Garen

Teslyn8/13/2015, 2:47:58 AM1 votes

just do the 2nd half of your 2nd paragraph at your header.. and you should be fine..

also .. stop dieing.

also.. trolls are at every level .. difference in the levels is how hard a mistake is punished.. but mistakes are made everywhere.

Teslyn8/13/2015, 2:51:27 AM1 votes

and if you are worried about using TP.. what i do with it is ..

if i am top when i back .. i walk down to bot lane.. try for a kill /drag / turret.. may or may not work out.. then i just TP back to lane.

i am bad with TP so i just use it that way.

it gives my lane time to push back into me.. and it helps me avoid getting ganked by the jungler because i am not there. ...

KingBushwack8/14/2015, 3:53:30 AM1 votes

these are my reactions to ur post as i was reading it hope they help too long cant read also u aren't very persuasive as in the begining u throw all ur ethos out the window by saying that you urself are b5 i believe that if u are b5 especially b5, maybe if u were b2 or 1 u could say otherwise, then u deserve to be there. period if u actually dont deserve b5 or bronze in general then u should carry every game and climb to silver in less than 30 games or so above is my initial reaction to ur article after reading the rest i can say WOAH WOAH saying these things and actually doing them are 2 completely different things first because u need to be at a state where u can perform well mechanically without thinking about ur mechanics, this is to say that mechanics need to come naturally like breathing u know they are there but u dont have to think about it to do it. once u have this only then can u start thinking about half the things u said. also u never mentioned the pros not having to get as many kills to get ahead cause they dont miss cs. maybe if u focused on ur cs then u wouldnt have to get 17+ kills. TSM santorin showed this in his game against some team where there was a 4-1 ellise and he being 0/0/0 or 0/1/0 was basically even with her just because of a cs advantage which goes to show u that like u said kills arent everything. so to add to ur point u need to get kills while not missing any cs. OMG l just read the whole thing and yes u clearly could apply it better and map awerness is extremely important as u probably know though ur research without map awarness and good vision u cant make good decisions blah blah blah "U gotta learn to carry 1v5 to get out of bronze man!!!" trick2g GATES!!! honestly i recommend watching trick2g's videos and stream as well as they help alot in his opinion bronze players are bronze because they dont cs right and they rush all the time focusing on the enemy laner instead of their own farm and honestly its true every time they go in to harras u instead of csing themselves they are slowly losing to u especially if u have the sustain to just keep going which is why nasus is really good to learn with and carry cause people are just so focused on harrasing him so he deosnt get cs that they dont cs themselves and they dont relaize that he just wont care cause he is so tanky anyways this is way too long hope this helps somehow to improve ur league and ur writing organization xD

darkmatchwaldo8/14/2015, 3:35:49 PM1 votes

Start game. Mute everyone. The only thing you're going to get out of chat in bronze is flaming and the occasional "gj" everthing else can be communicated through pings. Ping something 3-4 times not just once if you want anyone to pay attention. Buy wards no matter what lane your in, you know damn well nobody else is going to and if they do? You can never have too much vision. Play Ahri TryndamereMasterYi Talon ZedKennen Nidalee Shaco These guys have a lot of mobility, allowing you to push hard and peel the hell out if you see someone headed your way (which you ALWAYS should see them coming if you have solid wards and a general idea of where everyone is.) Split push like a boss. In bronze you can single handedly carry your team even if its 15-40 by split pushing if you do it properly. However, wards mean nothing if you don't utilize them. You wanna be checking your mini map every few seconds in my opinion. Did the fed enemy kat just dissapear into the jungle walking your way? GTFO, drop whatever you are doing and rotate somewhere else. Focus on YOUR game and improving yourself, you will climb if you focus on your own knowledge and skills. If you blame shitty teammates you'll never get anywhere. Did you lose a game with your top laner going 0/10/2? Don't blow it off saying he's the reason you lost, ask yourself "what did i do wrong?" or "what could i have done better?" And if nothing else is working......Find a good duo buddy to climb with. It'll reduce your odds of afkers/trolls/flamers/people who kinda just suck at the game. It's much easier to carry the game with 2 people working very well together. Good luck!

xShadowBlade8/13/2015, 12:58:20 AM1 votes

first thing is first: even diamond players cant play lee sin well, and youre telling me you think you can? Heres two champs to never play: lee sin and janna. Lee Sin is good early, but has such a high skillcap that most people below plat cant even play him ADEQUATELY, that should tell you something. Another thing is that even in bronze, his damage falls off so hard past 25-30 mins. This is ESPECIALLY true if you cant even land his Q more than 70% of the time. The problem with janna is she is a hands-off support, the only thing she has is a glorified alistar headbutt ult, and a Q that isnt very reliable/easy to dodge. if you want to have any real effect in games you need to play something more active. My recommendation? Alistar and Blitzcrank, learn them and stick by them. Alistar is one of the most broken (in terms of usefullness) champs in the game because he can engage and disengage as well as tank super well. Blitzcrank is just amazing for making plays on people that are bad/out of position, which happens a LOT in bronze/silver and even gold. However blitz requires you to not be bad yourself and to actually see these plays.

Now for the ADC role, I would learn to play either a snowball champion like Draven, or learn a safe yet strong early game champ like caitlyn. One of the BIGGEST things i see that people in below high gold/plat do as an adc is waste time. They are pushing bot past river when their outer tower is dead when they could farm gromp (provided your jungler has already gotten their 30 stacks for devourer if they purchased it OR if they just arent around that side of the map). Sometimes the mid laner goes to base and there a huge wave mid, and the adc is chilling bot, being in a dangerous position and not really doing much else.

If you'd like to add me i can spectate and give you some more advice, or watch me stream at twitch.tv/xshadowblade and ask me question about why i do what i do. DISCLAIMER: sometimes im bad and feed 0/6.