League of Legends General Discussion Thread

[Deceptus]

The best lesson there, as a jungler, is once you get a kill, force a flash, whatever, continue to lean on that lane. You can really snowball your solo ahead that way.

Story of my life - I duo ranked with Jaje, I have Lee Sin, I stick to the top lane and as a result our lane has first blood on a silver plate, then harass their Cho some more. Garen still loses the lane, blames on me for "stealing his XP" and "not ganking", while in a really freak accident I die in a gank with Kennen, so I'm now free to be "the one who completely ruined the game for us, report him".

Not that it isn't good advice, I just recalled that game now because it was awful from all sides. -.-

And speaking of ranked, I can just have it on the record in this post that thanks to Jaje's help and a whole bunch of support games (sic), I am gold rank now. :D

Poor Jaje still has some games to go.

[Speaker]

Playing Garen in Co-Op vs AI should be considered cheating.



I had a penta kill, but I guess there was too much time between kills because it registered as a triple kill and double kill. After the game, Ryze Bot said, "gg I'm in Elo hell with all these feeders and baddies."

[ssmagus]

I wanna do a ranked game with Sullla and everyone else just once....

Oh well, it's a hope....

[VarisNox]

Well, after playing ranked for a few days, Sullla and I have achieved gold ranking. After each game we played, my belief in the fact that Elo hell does not exist was reaffirmed and is now stronger than ever. I think we might even be able to rise higher, but we won't know that until season 2; I'm not going to play anymore games this season, since I rather want that free Jarvan IV skin

[Tyrmith]

Magus, I feel like ranked 5s are a bit stressful, because 4 other people you know are relying on you not to screw up. Solo queue on the other hand, it's really just you (or you and a buddy you're queued with), so while you care while you win or lose, it's really, for the most part, just your individual loss that matters, and so probably more enjoyable. If you see me online sometime ask and I'll queue with you. Personally I think it's more interesting/fun because I feel like people (on average) decide that winning matters (instead of only complaining that they're losing like in normal games), and so worry about being where they should be in teamfights, or toss down wards, while often in normal queue they just complain that no one else is doing the right things.

[Jowy]

Well, after playing ranked for a few days, Sullla and I have achieved gold ranking. After each game we played, my belief in the fact that Elo hell does not exist was reaffirmed and is now stronger than ever. I think we might even be able to rise higher, but we won't know that until season 2; I'm not going to play anymore games this season, since I rather want that free Jarvan IV skin

Really? I was watching some of your ranked videos on YouTube and the players there were terrible. You're not really feeling the full effects of ELO hell because you are duo queueing (which is what every pro player suggests you should do when you want to rise your rating). Just the fact that you have a quaranteed TWO very highly skilled players in one game is a huge asset in your favour. The chances of the enemy team having two players as good as you are very slim. You should have the advantage every single game as duo queue through ELO hell. Thing is that most people suffering from ELO hell might not be as good as you (I'd say you're about 1800-1900 rank players in skill, but anything over 1400 is out of ELO hell) and they might not have a high skill friend to help them out. Even worse, they might have fucked up their first matches just after hitting lvl30 like many do, and it'll be painful to rise up. If you really wanna see ELO hell, get to like 500 rating and work your way up solo. You'll eventually make it, but it will be "hell".

[VarisNox]

Really? I was watching some of your ranked videos on YouTube and the players there were terrible. You're not really feeling the full effects of ELO hell because you are duo queueing (which is what every pro player suggests you should do when you want to rise your rating). Just the fact that you have a quaranteed TWO very highly skilled players in one game is a huge asset in your favour. The chances of the enemy team having two players as good as you are very slim. You should have the advantage every single game as duo queue through ELO hell. Thing is that most people suffering from ELO hell might not be as good as you (I'd say you're about 1800-1900 rank players in skill, but anything over 1400 is out of ELO hell) and they might not have a high skill friend to help them out. Even worse, they might have fucked up their first matches just after hitting lvl30 like many do, and it'll be painful to rise up. If you really wanna see ELO hell, get to like 500 rating and work your way up solo. You'll eventually make it, but it will be "hell".

Yes, really. While it's true I may have lost a few games more on my way up, I know for sure that I would've been able to carry my team to victory if I had played at my best. People say that to see Elo hell you need to go to "such and such" rating all the time. I'm told that sub 800 Elo is hell, 1200~ Elo is hell, under 1600 is hell, and so on. The items that constitute Elo hell exist at all brackets of play. You will always have feeders, lesser skilled players, players having an off game, disconnects, trolls, and otherwise no matter what rating you're at. That's just the nature of a solo queue environment. True, Sullla and I gamed the system by duo queuing in order to raise our rating high enough Elo for gold before season 1 ended. However, I feel that if we had enough time, we both could've easily risen as high while solo with little difficulty. If you are incapable of carrying 1v5 ( with your other 4 team mates helping in some way as meatshields or similar), you are probably at your correct Elo level. In the majority of my games, I, or Sullla, carried very very hard, and I was extremely unimpressed by the skill level of both my team mates and the enemy players.

You also have to look at each loss for what you did to cause the team to lose. Was top or bottom struggling while you're winning mid easily? Push to tower and gank one of those lanes to help them win. Sullla showed how effective that was in our game with Karthus/Singed. Did you die needlessly due to being unaware of the map state or being out of position? These can cause your team to be baited into saving you, further causing an ace or an unfavorable exchange. In both games we lost, I would say we deserved it. My unfamiliarity with Orianna caused me to be rather useless beyond my own lane; even though I survived, I farmed poorly and used skills ineffectively leading to my contribution to the loss. As Kogmaw, I was 20/7/X. However, kills don't win games. I picked bad engages once or twice and was caught while retreating from a push, leading to the enemy team winning the match that we could've won. Sure, situations will sometimes be out of your control to the extent where anything you do has no effect on the eventual loss, but that's Solo queue for you. As a fact, Playing certain roles gives you an advantage over other people of the same Elo. However, if your highest Elo player is a support and the opposing team's highest player is a carry or jungle, you're at a slight disadvantage and will have a harder time winning the game.

As a third point, while I'm confident I could climb my way out of 500 Elo without difficulty, why would I even try? It would honestly be boring to be in the midst of such a skill level after seeing what 12-1400 has to offer. Playing against lesser skilled players does not improve me as a player. Only by playing against more, or similarly, skilled players is when I improve my game play and skill. In fact, I feel that I've learned less from these last few ranked games than I have when we inhouse and I'm against a few of the more skilled players on RB.

Finally, I have no sympathy for the people who decide to start ranked as soon as they hit 30, or soon after, and proceed to tank their Elo. Sullla and I have played many normal and custom games, watched and learned from Pro game play and streams, and learned some of the intricacies of playing the game (When to push, how to ward, when to baron, etc.) that allowed us to be extremely prepared for the ranked games of the initial 1200~1500 level. While I don't mind people that do decide to begin their ranked career soon after reaching level 30, I understand that those same people will be crushed by the people at that level with more experience, causing them to lose their initial few games and tank their Elo. That's their own fault for charging in to ranked play without the experience necessary to carry at that level. Once they gain experience, and if they desire to learn more about the game, they will eventually rise higher. However, I've seen several players play tons of games on lower level streams, but remain at their Elo level because they refuse to learn from their own mistakes and learn more about the game, even though they should now have the game experience to understand it after the amount of games played. I realize that people have a variety of opinions about Elo hell's existence, but these are the reasons for why I believe it does not exist.

TL;DR - In my opinion, Elo hell doesn't exist.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Any suggestions on how to build Karthus against this team:

Alistar
Ashe
Garen
Jax
Miss Fortune

You're laning against Ashe (weak player, but will get the most farm for the opponents). Garen, Jax, and MF are feeding off your side lanes.


I ended up trying:
Sorc Shoes
Archangels Staff
Rod of Ages
Frozen Heart
Thornmail
DeathCap

but there wasn't really a plan in place.

[Enoch]

Hard to say without knowing how the enemy was building and how they were playing but an hourglass would have probably served you well there. If there was another mage both of you getting will of the ancients can be really effective if teamfights can be drawn out. Their team comp suggests they were diving in and killing though so Zhonya's hourglass would give you a nice window of safety while your defile will keep doing damage.

[Sullla]

I think Varis has already said everything that needs to be said on the subject of "ELO Hell", but here are three more quick points nonetheless:

- If we are winning because "the other players are terrible" then why isn't everyone else cleaning up at the same ranking level? It's one thing to claim the other players are bad, another thing entirely to translate that into a win. (And please don't tell me "they were all bad but my team fed too hard to win.")

- It's pure nonsense to claim that "you haven't experienced ELO Hell because you haven't seen 500 ELO" (or whatever similar low number) because by definition a skilled player will never reach that point. Look again at those early placement matches where we were against 1200 newcomers. If we lost a majority of those games, then we DIDN'T deserve to rise in rank, and we would have been correctly placed. If you can't carry 3 or 4 baddies when playing against 5 baddies, that's not ELO Hell, that means you are in the right bracket already and can't correctly assess your own abilities.

- Speaker likes to use a famous line from the movie Rounders that applies well to solo queue: "If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker." Very true indeed.

On a final note, I hope no one is going to claim that Varis and I went 9-2 in 11 matches due to luck or coincidence. Our stat lines for those 11 games:

Sullla
Janna: 2-1-10 (win), 1-4-13 (win), 0-1-15 (loss), 0-1-7 (win), 0-0-10 (win), 0-0-10 (win), 2-1-11 (win), 5-8-76 (6 wins, 1 loss)
Karthus: 12-4-8 (win), 5-2-12 (win), 4-1-7 (win), 21-7-27 (3 wins, 0 losses)
Rammus: 1-3-3 (loss)
Total: 27-18-106 (KDA 7.38)

Varis
Kogmaw: 13-0-4 (win), 20-7-4 (loss), 14-4-5 (win), 5-0-5 (win), 6-1-4 (win), 6-0-6 (win), 64-12-28 (5 wins, 1 loss)
Nocturne: 12-0-10 (win), 6-3-10 (win), 18-3-10 (2 wins, 0 losses)
Singed: 9-3-5 (win)
Brand: 4-3-6 (win)
Orianna: 2-3-2 (loss)
Total: 97-24-51 (KDA 6.16)

I mostly played support and ended up with 106 assists in 11 matches. Varis mostly played AD and ended up with 97 kills (almost 9 kills per game). We both kept our death counts low (around 2 per game for both of us) and ended up with ridiculously high KDA ratios. Playing as a team, I'd say we carried 9 of the 11 games, and in the other two, we lost one (Orianna/Rammus didn't work) and won one (Varis' Brand game where we won without being spectacular). Pretty much what one would expect from the system, right?