You're now a full-fledged member of the LoL community
So, you finally hit level 30? Congratulations! After ~300 games you still enjoy the game and have some basic knowledge about champions and the game mechanics. Now you have full access to it's features including:
Full access to rune pages and all 30 points in masteries
Finally you can build up your full rune and mastery pages. They give you strong bonuses to your champion, so you should pay serious attention to them from now on. Masteries are free and you can set all 20 pages whenever you want, but for runes you need to pay. You start 2 free rune pages and buying another one is expensive, not to mention full set of runes. It's good to have those 2 pages filled though, because as i said before they give you strong bonuses especially at the start of the game. I will show you best setups for smallest amount of cash later. Now we should move on.
Access to ranked games
This is the main reason i made this guide. LoL is competitive game and the moment you hit level 30 you can try climbing up the ladder. The only other restriction besides level is that you need total 16 owned champions - F2P champions don't count. There are 3 different queues: 3v3 team, 5v5 solo/duo and 5v5 team. You can play solo/duo queue immediately, while for 3v3 and 5v5 team you need to create/join ranked team. Ranked uses the League system.
League system and how it works
You can find easy explanation by Riot here (click). Other things you should know about it:
First 10 ranked games you play are placement matches. Their purpose is to put you into the league system based on your performance.
You need to win majority of the promotion series to get up division/tier.
You can jump 2 divisions at once, ie. from III to I.
You cannot drop down a tier from losing games, only by inactivity. It is possible to drop down a division by losing games (need 0 LP to trigger demotion).
Sometimes in division I of any tier you will earn less LP than normally. Quote from Riot league FAQ:
Since tier upgrades are permanent in the League System, you have to demonstrate you can maintain a higher level of play before the system will allow you to start a Promotion Series. In rare instances, this means that your LP earnings will be normalized until you meet this bar, so you may need to win a few more matches to trigger your Promotion Series. This is most likely to occur if you're closing in on a spot in the Challenger tier, since you have to outperform a current member of that tier to be promoted.
So don't feel cheated if that happens. Besides the league there is also MMR:
MMR (Matchmaking Rating)
This number is hidden to you, but surely exist. The team you are matched with is based on MMR. Every queue has separate MMR, with only ranked solo/duo queue having a impact on others (not sure about 3v3 and 5v5 ranked). How many LP you gain is based on this rating and your placement, so if you find yourself losing more LP than winning it's your MMR being lower than your league.
To clarify - MMR matches you with people with similiar skill as yours. There are two exceptions: first is when people duoQ together, but even then your whole team MMR will be similar to enemy one. Second is on brazilian server where matchmaking is kinda broken.
SoloQ meta
So before you start ranked it's better to know what you're going into, right? You probably know it already. There are 5 roles in this game: Top laner, Mid laner, Jungler and AD carry with Support on bottom lane. So what does a certain role do? :
Top laner: Typically a semi-tanky champion which excels in 1v1 battles. There is wide variety here though, what i said is most common type.
Mid laner: AD or AP champion with high burst damage to single target or powerful AoE abilities.
Jungler: Often a tanky champion with a lot of crowd control, who can be useful without high amounts of gold. Again - what i said is most common type.
AD carry: ranged champion whose primary damage comes from basic attacks (AA).
Support: champion who helps his team by providing vision and has a high amount of utility skills in his kit. He's good even with the small amount of gold he has.
Additional information - Support does NOT kill minions to gain gold. He leaves all of them to AD carry. There are situations when he kill minions and those are:
when pushing (to push faster), even then he doesn't last-hit the minions.
when ADC isn't around and the tower is attacking enemy minions, meaning that gold would be wasted
laning phase is over and nobody cares who takes CS. Teamfights and objectives are important right now. Mind that when you hold huge minion wave and someone else is coming, it's better to leave minions for them
Now you know most important facts about level 30 and ranked. Time to prepare for climbing the ladder.
You know soloq meta, now it's time for you to choose the role you will master. Because in ranked game you want to win, picking the champions, roles and lanes you have the most success with is highly recommended. You should be able to play at least 3 roles and one MUST be a support.
To clarify - EVERY role is necessary to win games and EVERY can carry. No exceptions.
Champions
You know what roles you will play in soloq? Good, it's time for you having decent champion pool. 3 for each role is enough, but avoid champions who are often banned (click). Because i am preparing you for your first ranked games, you will start somewhere between bronze and silver tier.
So which champion should be in your pool? The one you're best with, that's sure. Every champion can work, so even if you feel comfortable with your unpopular pick but have success with him - he should be in that pool. Of course there are champion who may help you win the game much easier than others.
If you need more champions in your pool, I would advise to learn these:
As i said before, runes are expensive and requires lots of IP to spend on. If you want to play ranked, you need them. Don't worry, i will show you the basic runes you should purchase initially when you are short on IP. So first of all, take a look at this graph (click). All you're interested in is basic rune page, don't mind advanced. Depending on roles you choose, build 2 full rune pages out of it. Mind that you don't require to have runes for support, you can use the ones for AP champions to save IP.
If you would like to have good set of runes for almost every champion in this game, you can use this setup (click). Sadly, you need to buy another page for that. Now lets move on.
Mental attitude
I bet you have heard lots of scary stories about soloq, people being aggressive, hatred all over the place, bad teams or the famous elohell. Not fun at all, right? It's good to prepare yourself for any of these scenarios . I won't teach you that, because i know a guy who explained that way better. Just gonna redirect you to reddit thread (click).
It's good to remember that this is only a game and only 1% of players got a chance for real, competitive. Second thing worth to note that even if you fail, you ALWAYS got option to climb.
When it's best time to start ranked?
If you accomplished everything i prepared you for, you can jump into ranked. But you may want to wait with that. If you want great start you should:
win or tie in lane every time
got more wins than losses
you can achieve over 60 cs EVERY time as Top/Mid/ADC
If you're ADC/Top/Mid, you need to maintain all them. For support you need only 1st and 2nd point, without 3rd. For jungler you need to win your teammate lanes and secure objectives (like dragon, baron, towers) and have more wins than losses. If you achieve those, you should end up at least gold tier - only 15% of whole player base are there!
Prepare yourself!
You accomplished preparations for ranked, but last one awaits. Ask yourself a questions:
Do you feel well?
Are hungry, thirsty, sleepy or drunk?
Are you ready?
If the answers are YES, NO, YES, then you're finally ready! Feel free to hit the soloq button!
You finished basic stuff. You can play ranked now or read further about advanced knowledge - how to succeed in competitive ladder.
Before we start, i need to clarify few things. Previous chapters were suited for new 30 level players, but this one is for everyone. From 1st level to challenger, but i don't think that the second one gonna read this. Sometimes i will talk about certain league range: low elo - from bronze to silver III, mid elo - from silver III to gold I, high elo - platinum and above. Lets get started:
Destroying enemy nexus
Yes, you win the game by destroying enemy nexus. Sounds obvious, but a lot of people forget that, mostly low elo players. They insist on killing each other over and over like LoL was team deathmatch. No, this is not freaking Call of Duty, amount of kills doesn't matter in the long run. Only which nexus gonna go down. This is your primary objective.
When we're talking about objectives, it's good to say few words about them. Turrets, dragon, baron and inhibitor are objectives as well. By destroying or killing them you slowly get to the primary one - nexus. All of them give not only you, but your whole team advantage in gold or control. Don't forget this!
Forcing enemy to surrender
This is only alternative to win the game, enemy needs to admit their defeat and surrender before the nexus goes down. If they do that, your team is WAY ahead of them. If the difference is not so big and they still can win this, but they surrendered... well, why? Because they had issues in their team or communication. Most likely rage spread among them and they were sick of each other. And this is what you want - you want enemy to rage. Even if they won't surrender, they gonna make lots of stupid mistakes allowing you to wins easier. Also, their morale is down, making them play poorly.
You can do while maintaining sportsmen behavior or not, depending on technique. You can spread rage by:
Stomping enemy in lane/camping the lane (laners/jungler) - So all you need here is crushing one lane. The laner rages at his team, and his team rages at him for feeding (but he didn't do that intentionally). You can initiate flame war in all chat, making it even worse for them, but may cost you a few reports.
Killing jungler in his own jungle - Stronger version of destroy the lane, because it enable your team to be aggressive as much as they want to. Harder to accomplish too though.
Stealing buffs/dragon/baron - Junglers worst nightmare, they gonna be blamed for any bad smite or stolen buff. You can be douche and ask them where did their buffs go (you may be reported for that). Rage incoming.
Using emotes - the /j /t /d /l commands (in chat) may piss off enemy. Abuse it. Personally i got all of them binded on ZXCV.
I don't think there is more techniques to spread rage without being reported. Lets focus now on you and your team.
Teamwork
This is a team game, you just cannot win alone you know. Teamwork is important, even in soloq. If you help your team, you help yourself. Working together will make you stronger than playing alone. So track position of your team and help them if they're in trouble. When your jungler wants to gank your lane, tell him where wards are. When someone initiates fight, don't stare and make plays together. It's rare when it's better to leave someone behind to death.
Good communication is part of teamwork, so inform your mates about everything important - by pings or chat. If you're confident you may try to be a leader in your team. Works great especially in low and mid elo, where people don't know what to do. If they do, they probably don't know when. But be careful, as you need great knowledge about this game to fulfill this role and have your teammates look up to you.
Attitude
It's extremely important to keep high morale in the army. LoL is a clash of two, 5-men armies. Because there's no general to keep that army in good mood, you have to. You want to spread positive attitude among your teammates, making them play better, cooperate with each other and rage less. I think we all know how to be nice, right? Use smiles :) , try to end any argues among your teammates, say "GJ guys" whenever you did good action. Eventually they will look up to you, so you can lead them as i said in previous point.
Also, i recommend you to watch this clip (click)
Vision/Map awareness
Information is powerful, wards give you that for only 25 gold/minute. Get those. It's better to buy them than give free 300 gold to enemy, free farm and a turret. And no - EVERYONE needs to buy wards, with exception of ADC as he got support by his side. You can win games by warding in low-mid elo ALONE. I'm not joking.
With enough vision, you can ambush all enemy team or avoid being ambushed, catch their carry wandering alone. All because of simple ward, you can destroy enemy.
Mind that because you bought wards, placed them, doesn't mean you magically will know when enemy is coming. Look at minimap. Remember to ping if you spot enemy heading towards your or other lanes, you may save a life.
Presence
This is most important thing on jungler and support, you NEED to have presence in order to succeed. You CANNOT stay in the jungle forever or hide behind your ADC. Have you ever played with Blitzcrank support? This guy is true definition of presence, you fear to not get grabbed when you don't see him. Fed Evelynn is MIA? You hug your turret to don't expose yourself for easy gank. Those champions got natural pressure on the map/lane, but you need to maintain it on every jungler or support. Mid laner should have huge presence as well, as it's best lane to roam.
Exploiting your strengths
Every champion got some kind of strength. Twisted Fate is great pusher and can easily roam, Mordekaiser is godlike farmer, Lux got HUGE range on her abilities and brings lots of utility. Why don't exploit it then? It's important to abuse that thing what makes certain champion strong.
Same goes to your playstyle, you want to pick champion who fits it - you like to fight a lot? Pick Xin Zhao who is suited for that. Maybe you prefer to stay untouched and kite people around? Take that Ashe. Maybe you like to be a douche? I think you should play Teemo. (SCREW THOSE SHROOMS)
It fits to you team composition as well - exploit enemy weakness and abuse your strengths.
Aggressive playstyle
It's sad to say but it's most rewarding one. You don't need to be aggressive to win, but you surely got higher chance if you dominate your lane. When using it, put your wards further to have a chance to flee when enemy jungler comes gank you. Remember, it's not only killing a champion, but farming too.
Mind that not every champion is good for this. It's good to note that the lower elo, the easier and more reward it is. Once again - you DON'T need to be aggressive.
Because we talk about playstyle - passiveness doesn't mean you won't attack enemy at all. Don't let them hit you for free, trade if you got opportunity. You may even win trade due to minion aggro.
Individual skill
Lastly, you need to improve yourself in order to get to higher. Remember, skill is not only tied to mechanics. It's knowledge, awareness, teamwork, experience, creative thinking and other small factors too. Personally, my mechanics sucks but my knowledge and teamwork is at really high level. So if everything above fails, you want to work on your skill to climb the ladder.
Mind that average skills can easily get you out of low elo, as it's often what those guys lack.
Leadership skills and good initiations is what mid elo biggest problems
High elo is weird, i can't really say whats problem in here.
Right now you should know what really wins this game. Now lets talk about effective tactics you can use.
Now lets talk about most common strategies that can win you game
Splitpush
I won't advice you to do it unless you know what you're doing. It works great in every league tier, BUT:
There is real problem on low-mid elo with teammates understanding it. They will just flame you for not sticking with the team and other nasty stuff. Enemy will try to kill you with 3-5 man ganks, chasing to the end of the world, while your team... They gonna try to help you instead of taking free turrets/inhibitor or baron. All time flaming you for feeding and begging enemy to report you.
In high elo it's much more effective. Almost no curses, your team will try to not engage and use the advantage if enemy chases you.
Roaming
Works everywhere. You should ALWAYS push and roam if you dominate the lane (if you don't zone, but i talk about it later). Helping your teammates is helping yourself. Again, works on every elo range. There's nothing else to add.
Poke
What's funny in low elo? That half of the game is like ARAM with ability to go back to base to heal. They just NEVER engage, they're afraid to do that. If someone actually engage, rest don't follow and he dies before they react. Otherwise it's just classic ARAM on summoners rift. Taking a champion with poke and/or high range is recommended, to simply win that joke. Possibly a champion who won't die if get caught while poking. If you're Caitlyn or Tristana you can easily AA them when they get nearby. Remember to get Statikk Shiv
Mid elo actually engages sometimes, making it less effective but still works great. Be really careful with AA poke, make sure to be ready to blow your escape (skill or flash)
In high elo they actually know how to deal with that. Still working with champions really suited for poke (Nidalee, Ez etc.). Don't AA poke because you're gonna die.
Team composition
Building a team centered around one of these 3 tactics i told you before works great. We all know how 5 AoE ult team wrecks, especially in low-mis elo where people don't know they gotta split themselves. So generally you can build whole team around splitpush, roaming (dominating champions with decent wave clear) or poke. Besides them there's also next one:
All-in centered - powerful initiation and great teamfight abilities, probably contains lots of burst damage.
Mind that you can build your bot lane around that too, ie. Graves + Leona. Works great but risky in soloq. If you duoq on bot together, because why not?
Harassing and zoning
We all know what harass is, you hit enemy with ability or AA to hurt him. Repeat few times and when he's low enough, you engage. But people often don't zone. Yeah, it's cool you got advantage in the lane but if you dominate, you better make enemy suffer. Zone him, make him afraid to get that CS. Even be a wall that denies his gold and exp if you're ahead enough and after your minions finally reached his tower, kill him with jungler and deny all of it. If you can't kill him under turret, just destroy it and then slaughter. If you still can't kill him, just roam. It's always good to help your teammates.
Generally your choice is to screw up enemy by zoning OR pushing lane fast and roam. Mind that the first greatly draws attention of enemy jungler, be prepared.
How you harass/zone enemy highly depends on lane, but i can teach you easiest way to do that on bot lane. You need to AA enemy ADC when he goes for CS. They can land AA on only one target - minion or you. Works best with Caitlyn and Ashe (because of high base range) as ADC and poke supports.
After few hits they gonna learn that every minion cost them health. Enemy ADC will freak out and will blame support, and support will blame jungler. Perfect for you. Just zone them later, prepare for jungler to come and win that. I didn't list it in previous chapter because i wanted describe it in details here (where it fits).
Mind that it's good way to initiate fight too, as you can easily land skillshot that way. This tactic works perfectly in every elo range, especially low-mid.
Sacrifice
Risky, yet effective if done correctly. So you got that ARAM on mid lane, nobody does anything for 10 minutes and you're support/jungler/something tanky. What you're doing? You get caught, enemy use all skills to kill you (thats why you need to be tanky). Then your team needs to get in, eliminate their carries or that one fed guy when they cannot strike back - they used almost all skills on you after all. You probably won't live thanks to that, but if you do - you're damn lucky. Just make sure you're tank or other low priority target. Besides, it's better when your team is ahead of opponent one.
It's different version of bait, way more risky. Be REALLY careful with that, especially in low-mid elo.
Supporting
I can count that as tactic, works best in mid elo, mediocre in low/high elo. Almost nobody plays support right, people are forced to get it and they often suck. It's almost 4v4. So if you're the guy who's good support, that makes this game 5v4. I think everyone knows math here, 5>4.
Beware of bronze tier, where you better take AP carry/support like Lux, Zyra or Orianna to eventually buy standard AP itemization if things go wrong. Sightstone is a MUST, Mejai can be part of your build. You can always pick normal support, but if things go wrong you won't be able to carry them.
In high elo almost everyone can do it, but there's still low population of support mains.
That's all for this chapter, lets head to the last one.
You finally achieved your desired league with my advices? I hope so, but i'm sure not everyone will succeed. Soloq sometimes is tough to deal with, we were all victims of that few times. People tend to blame all losses on their teammates, being the only ones who were good there. I'm gonna show you it's not as they claim to be.
Elohell and bad teams
I think it's most common excuse. Elohell, place where all you got are noob teams and all they do is feeding the enemy. I say yes, it happens sometimes. SOMETIMES. When those all 4 teammates go 0/5 and you're a victim of that. OK, i had few times situation like that, but what's probability of that happening? About 1-2%. In low elo people are bad, but enemy is like that as well. When they're fed, they will probably die few times and give back the advantage anyway. In mid-high elo it's kinda hard to say people are bad, they're ~20% of best people in this game anyway.
The myth of elohell will exist as long as people won't accept they are the reason why they stuck. Second most common excuse is:
I cannot carry alone!
Oh no, you cannot do it in high elo. You can have huge impact on the game in mid elo, but still won't win it solo. But in low elo? You can do that easily. Told you before, safe champions with poke can do wonders. But you need to get fed, average mechanics are enough for that. Tactics you know already, apply them to the game. Try to get your teammates fed too, helping them is helping yourself. And OBJECTIVES.
Bad players, trolls, flamers and leavers
Not every 0/5 guys is bad, the enemy is just better. Maybe he got that score because jungler visited him few times and destroyed him completely? Maybe he just made mistake once and now he's punished for that? Maybe he simply got bad day or wanted to play normal game but forgot to change queue? Maybe it's his roommate downloading something and they really got that 2k ping? You don't know. Don't assume they suck when you don't know the reason. There are people really bad at this game, i agree. But if you're playing with them then it most likely mean you're at the same level. I'm rough but that's true.
Now about trolls... I met like... Hell i don't even remember when i seen one last time. Guy who is 0/10 is not a troll, but 0/50 Shaco with mobility boots suiciding on turrets yep. Picking Sion or Heimerdinger isn't a sin, but revive+clarity Garen is. Nope, you won't see many trolls in your life. Just stop assuming that everyone on this world want you to lose.
Even flamers and other toxic players aren't common. You see them a lot because nobody likes to lose, and normal people are mad because of that last game or someone else bashed them or other reason. But if you maintain positive attitude straight from champion select, you will RARELY ever seen them. Those real flamers are stubborn enough to not let anything pass through their hate barrier and will continue bashing under any circumstances - and you mute them. Just be positive, spread it among teammates and you'll find the real toxic players.
Another excuse are leavers. Are they really in your every game? I don't think so. Just gonna leave a chart with leaver frequency (click), it's on the bottom. Excuse busted.
My teams fault
Yeah, i agree they're not so great, did a lot stupid mistakes, bad build. They throw, position badly, get caught, don't ward. Lose lanes, don't follow, AFK farm. But hey, remember, you're part of it too! Maybe you're not so great after all...
Before you judge your team, judge yourself. What YOU could do better, what not. Realize your mistakes and correct them. Learn all the time. Lets head to another point:
You are the reason, improve yourself
Nope, it's not elohell, not trolls, not leavers, it's you. If you stuck in certain league or division and can't get out after ~100 games, then you just need to improve yourself - your skill. I described what is it already, so work on it. You got plenty of other guides regarding champions or youtube videos, so when everything failed - try them. I would advice you to check those sites:
Solomid.net
Gbay99 YT channel
First one contains a lot good guides, be sure to read only featured or approved guides (less but you can count on it). Second teaches you a lot general knowledge, kind of what i did here. You can navigate similiar YT channels from there, learning you how to play. Mind that you cannot read most important thing - experience.
How to succeed?
I think you should know it already. Nope? Apply everything i learned you in this guide to your gameplay. It may be a while until you adapt to everything, but surely you don't leave with empty hands. This is last chapter, last point of this guide. You can read further though, for the tips that may help you. #6 is not continuation of this.
I want to thank you for the time you spend reading it. I put lots of work in this and seeing you climbing up the ladder will be the best reward. Hope you'll achieve what you're aiming at!
Thanks for the guide. It was rather informative. As for your English, I wouldn't worry too much about it - your English is on par with many native speakers I know. Only saw one thing I think you may want to change. Post #2, "Prepare Yourself" section, point 2 - "Are hungry, thirsty and sleepy?" - I think you mean "Are you hungry, thirsty, or sleepy?", as any one of those is detrimental to your gaming ability. You might also want to add drunk and hungover to that list...
Thanks for the guide. It was rather informative. As for your English, I wouldn't worry too much about it - your English is on par with many native speakers I know. Only saw one thing I think you may want to change. Post #2, "Prepare Yourself" section, point 2 - "Are hungry, thirsty and sleepy?" - I think you mean "Are you hungry, thirsty, or sleepy?", as any one of those is detrimental to your gaming ability. You might also want to add drunk and hungover to that list...
Feedback appreciated. And yeah, that's what wanted to say. Changing right away.
didnt read all of it tbh, but seems pretty good. the one thing i dont like is advising champions. it would be better imo to just talk about which roles play commonly in the lanes + one examplforeach role in each lane. and i dont know if its smart to advise ppl to lean uncommon champions ( nami). its great if someone can play her, but most adc that just hit 30 have never played with a nami and have no idea what she can do. especially for the support role, new players should stick to common things.
Hey! Cool guide, I've never seen any guide being so big as this one. Do you mind if I translate it to my language? I have some friends which would appreciate it. Thanks :3
Hi Dankaw, I am a bronze 3 player with only about 20 games of ranked under my belt. I am afraid of ranked because of the pressure and stress that comes with it. I also over think everything and am always hesitant. Most of my friends are silver+ and tell me I need to start playing ranked. I want to but I just don't have the mentality for it.
The section #5 Results and soloq problems basically explains what scares me.
didnt read all of it tbh, but seems pretty good. the one thing i dont like is advising champions. it would be better imo to just talk about which roles play commonly in the lanes + one examplforeach role in each lane. and i dont know if its smart to advise ppl to lean uncommon champions ( nami). its great if someone can play her, but most adc that just hit 30 have never played with a nami and have no idea what she can do. especially for the support role, new players should stick to common things.
Nami is no longer uncommon champion. Just look at the featured games (the one you can spectate), you will her often. I didn't like to put that too, but had in case someone had no idea what else to pick. Ie. he chooses Teemo because he is categorized as support. Soraka or Janna wasn't option too, she's just too passive and can't carry games so much as the other supports i recommended. Nami... well she can do that and people start to realize she's really good.
Tried my best to advice both safe and dominant champions. Didn't force anyone too.
Hey! Cool guide, I've never seen any guide being so big as this one. Do you mind if I translate it to my language? I have some friends which would appreciate it. Thanks :3
No problem, just make sure to involve my name in there :)
Hi Dankaw, I am a bronze 3 player with only about 20 games of ranked under my belt. I am afraid of ranked because of the pressure and stress that comes with it. I also over think everything and am always hesitant. Most of my friends are silver+ and tell me I need to start playing ranked. I want to but I just don't have the mentality for it.
The section #5 Results and soloq problems basically explains what scares me.
I had similiar problem as you. On my first rankeds i hesitated to click that soloq button. Ended up gold in S2 thanks to that (21 ELO away to plat).
Environment out there maybe is kinda scary sometimes. Applying positive attitude should be enough to get rid of most toxicity. Even those negative guys wants to win this. Train that on normal games and play normal draft pick, of course solo. If you're afraid of how you will play, then it's worse problem. You cannot be sure how you will do. Don't force yourself to ranked if you don't want to. If you skipped first 2 chapters, then read Mental attitude, Should you start ranked immediately? and Prepare yourself! in chapter #2.
Personally, in S2 i just said YOLO to myself and dived into ranked (had ~1350 ELO back then, played occasionally), achieving 1600 with ease. Then i got sick or sth and when i came back, wasn't sure again. In S3 i lvled another account (achieved 16 level by playing with my low level friends) to 30 and played ranked. My reaction was - how the hell i achieved platinum in a week?
It's important to remember - it's NORMAL GAME, just counts. Even if you fail, you ALWAYS got option to climb. Game with unlimited lives? I like that. There's really no need to worry, it's a game after all.
This is really good. I hope you don't mind, but I moved it to this sub forum and stickied it at the top since it's so well done.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Early man hunt deer, man with biggest club kill deer, man who kill deer get woman. Woman no hunt deer they stay in cave. Today, man build Trinity Force and do tons of damage. Woman no build triforce, have slow fingers as didn't hunt, woman have to play support. It's all in the evolutionary biology.
This is really good. I hope you don't mind, but I moved it to this sub forum and stickied it at the top since it's so well done.
If you really cared that much if he/she minded, wouldn't you ask first? :>
Very good guide, informative and well thought through, trying to find something I disagree with, but was only minor unimportant things (,and I like to nitpick). Got through and read it all, even learned some new stuff. Only Silver sumthing, been a while since I played ranked, and I got good inspiration for starting now! ^^, Thanks!
Grammar update in chapter #1 and #2. All thanks to noblepesant
Should you start ranked immediately? is now When it's best time to start ranked?:
If you accomplished everything i prepared you for, you can jump into ranked. But you may want to wait with that. If you want great start you should:
win or tie in lane every time
got more wins than losses
you can achieve over 60 cs EVERY time as Top/Mid/ADC
If you're ADC/Top/Mid, you need to maintain all them. For support you need only 1st and 2nd point, without 3rd. For jungler you need to win your teammate lanes and secure objectives (like dragon, baron, towers) and have more wins than losses. If you achieve those, you should end up at least gold tier - only 15% of whole player base are there!
Now it should encourage to ranked. Also slight change in Mental Attitude, same reason.
It's good to remember that this is only a game and only 1% of players got a chance for real, competitive. Second thing worth to note that even if you fail, you ALWAYS got option to climb.
3. Added Aggressive playstyle in chapter #3.
It's sad to say but it's most rewarding one. You don't need to be aggressive to win, but you surely got higher chance if you dominate your lane. When using it, put your wards further to have a chance to flee when enemy jungler comes gank you. Remember, it's not only killing a champion, but farming too.
Mind that not every champion is good for this. It's good to note that the lower elo, the easier and more reward it is. Once again - you DON'T need to be aggressive.
Because we talk about playstyle - passiveness doesn't mean you won't attack enemy at all. Don't let them hit you for free, trade if you got opportunity. You may even win trade due to minion aggro.
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ModeratorOK, i finally finished that almost 5000 words monster. Before you start reading:
Contents
#1 Level 30 and it's features (basic knowledge)
-fledged member of the LoL community#2 How you should prepare for ranked game
#3 What wins the game?
#4 Tactics
#5 Results and soloq problems
#6 Other tips
#7 Q&A
Changelog:
05-06-13 - Guide published
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Moderator#1 Level 30 and it's features (basic knowledge)
So, you finally hit level 30? Congratulations! After ~300 games you still enjoy the game and have some basic knowledge about champions and the game mechanics. Now you have full access to it's features including:
Finally you can build up your full rune and mastery pages. They give you strong bonuses to your champion, so you should pay serious attention to them from now on. Masteries are free and you can set all 20 pages whenever you want, but for runes you need to pay. You start 2 free rune pages and buying another one is expensive, not to mention full set of runes. It's good to have those 2 pages filled though, because as i said before they give you strong bonuses especially at the start of the game. I will show you best setups for smallest amount of cash later. Now we should move on.
This is the main reason i made this guide. LoL is competitive game and the moment you hit level 30 you can try climbing up the ladder. The only other restriction besides level is that you need total 16 owned champions - F2P champions don't count. There are 3 different queues: 3v3 team, 5v5 solo/duo and 5v5 team. You can play solo/duo queue immediately, while for 3v3 and 5v5 team you need to create/join ranked team. Ranked uses the League system.
You can find easy explanation by Riot here (click). Other things you should know about it:
So don't feel cheated if that happens. Besides the league there is also MMR:
This number is hidden to you, but surely exist. The team you are matched with is based on MMR. Every queue has separate MMR, with only ranked solo/duo queue having a impact on others (not sure about 3v3 and 5v5 ranked). How many LP you gain is based on this rating and your placement, so if you find yourself losing more LP than winning it's your MMR being lower than your league.
To clarify - MMR matches you with people with similiar skill as yours. There are two exceptions: first is when people duoQ together, but even then your whole team MMR will be similar to enemy one. Second is on brazilian server where matchmaking is kinda broken.
So before you start ranked it's better to know what you're going into, right? You probably know it already. There are 5 roles in this game: Top laner, Mid laner, Jungler and AD carry with Support on bottom lane. So what does a certain role do? :
Top laner: Typically a semi-tanky champion which excels in 1v1 battles. There is wide variety here though, what i said is most common type.
Mid laner: AD or AP champion with high burst damage to single target or powerful AoE abilities.
Jungler: Often a tanky champion with a lot of crowd control, who can be useful without high amounts of gold. Again - what i said is most common type.
AD carry: ranged champion whose primary damage comes from basic attacks (AA).
Support: champion who helps his team by providing vision and has a high amount of utility skills in his kit. He's good even with the small amount of gold he has.
Additional information - Support does NOT kill minions to gain gold. He leaves all of them to AD carry. There are situations when he kill minions and those are:
Now you know most important facts about level 30 and ranked. Time to prepare for climbing the ladder.
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Moderator#2 How you should prepare for ranked game
You know soloq meta, now it's time for you to choose the role you will master. Because in ranked game you want to win, picking the champions, roles and lanes you have the most success with is highly recommended. You should be able to play at least 3 roles and one MUST be a support.
To clarify - EVERY role is necessary to win games and EVERY can carry. No exceptions.
You know what roles you will play in soloq? Good, it's time for you having decent champion pool. 3 for each role is enough, but avoid champions who are often banned (click). Because i am preparing you for your first ranked games, you will start somewhere between bronze and silver tier.
So which champion should be in your pool? The one you're best with, that's sure. Every champion can work, so even if you feel comfortable with your unpopular pick but have success with him - he should be in that pool. Of course there are champion who may help you win the game much easier than others.
If you need more champions in your pool, I would advise to learn these:
Top: Renekton, Jayce, Vladimir
Mid: Lux, Ahri, Kennen
Jungle: Xin Zhao, Cho'Gath, Sejuani
AD carry: Ashe, Caitlyn, Tristana
Support: Sona, Nami, Lulu
As i said before, runes are expensive and requires lots of IP to spend on. If you want to play ranked, you need them. Don't worry, i will show you the basic runes you should purchase initially when you are short on IP. So first of all, take a look at this graph (click). All you're interested in is basic rune page, don't mind advanced. Depending on roles you choose, build 2 full rune pages out of it. Mind that you don't require to have runes for support, you can use the ones for AP champions to save IP.
If you would like to have good set of runes for almost every champion in this game, you can use this setup (click). Sadly, you need to buy another page for that. Now lets move on.
I bet you have heard lots of scary stories about soloq, people being aggressive, hatred all over the place, bad teams or the famous elohell. Not fun at all, right? It's good to prepare yourself for any of these scenarios . I won't teach you that, because i know a guy who explained that way better. Just gonna redirect you to reddit thread (click).
It's good to remember that this is only a game and only 1% of players got a chance for real, competitive. Second thing worth to note that even if you fail, you ALWAYS got option to climb.
If you accomplished everything i prepared you for, you can jump into ranked. But you may want to wait with that. If you want great start you should:
If you're ADC/Top/Mid, you need to maintain all them. For support you need only 1st and 2nd point, without 3rd. For jungler you need to win your teammate lanes and secure objectives (like dragon, baron, towers) and have more wins than losses. If you achieve those, you should end up at least gold tier - only 15% of whole player base are there!
You accomplished preparations for ranked, but last one awaits. Ask yourself a questions:
If the answers are YES, NO, YES, then you're finally ready! Feel free to hit the soloq button!
You finished basic stuff. You can play ranked now or read further about advanced knowledge - how to succeed in competitive ladder.
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Moderator#3 What wins the game?
Before we start, i need to clarify few things. Previous chapters were suited for new 30 level players, but this one is for everyone. From 1st level to challenger, but i don't think that the second one gonna read this. Sometimes i will talk about certain league range: low elo - from bronze to silver III, mid elo - from silver III to gold I, high elo - platinum and above. Lets get started:
Yes, you win the game by destroying enemy nexus. Sounds obvious, but a lot of people forget that, mostly low elo players. They insist on killing each other over and over like LoL was team deathmatch. No, this is not freaking Call of Duty, amount of kills doesn't matter in the long run. Only which nexus gonna go down. This is your primary objective.
When we're talking about objectives, it's good to say few words about them. Turrets, dragon, baron and inhibitor are objectives as well. By destroying or killing them you slowly get to the primary one - nexus. All of them give not only you, but your whole team advantage in gold or control. Don't forget this!
This is only alternative to win the game, enemy needs to admit their defeat and surrender before the nexus goes down. If they do that, your team is WAY ahead of them. If the difference is not so big and they still can win this, but they surrendered... well, why? Because they had issues in their team or communication. Most likely rage spread among them and they were sick of each other. And this is what you want - you want enemy to rage. Even if they won't surrender, they gonna make lots of stupid mistakes allowing you to wins easier. Also, their morale is down, making them play poorly.
You can do while maintaining sportsmen behavior or not, depending on technique. You can spread rage by:
Stomping enemy in lane/camping the lane (laners/jungler) - So all you need here is crushing one lane. The laner rages at his team, and his team rages at him for feeding (but he didn't do that intentionally). You can initiate flame war in all chat, making it even worse for them, but may cost you a few reports.
Killing jungler in his own jungle - Stronger version of destroy the lane, because it enable your team to be aggressive as much as they want to. Harder to accomplish too though.
Stealing buffs/dragon/baron - Junglers worst nightmare, they gonna be blamed for any bad smite or stolen buff. You can be douche and ask them where did their buffs go (you may be reported for that). Rage incoming.
Using emotes - the /j /t /d /l commands (in chat) may piss off enemy. Abuse it. Personally i got all of them binded on ZXCV.
I don't think there is more techniques to spread rage without being reported. Lets focus now on you and your team.
This is a team game, you just cannot win alone you know. Teamwork is important, even in soloq. If you help your team, you help yourself. Working together will make you stronger than playing alone. So track position of your team and help them if they're in trouble. When your jungler wants to gank your lane, tell him where wards are. When someone initiates fight, don't stare and make plays together. It's rare when it's better to leave someone behind to death.
Good communication is part of teamwork, so inform your mates about everything important - by pings or chat. If you're confident you may try to be a leader in your team. Works great especially in low and mid elo, where people don't know what to do. If they do, they probably don't know when. But be careful, as you need great knowledge about this game to fulfill this role and have your teammates look up to you.
It's extremely important to keep high morale in the army. LoL is a clash of two, 5-men armies. Because there's no general to keep that army in good mood, you have to. You want to spread positive attitude among your teammates, making them play better, cooperate with each other and rage less. I think we all know how to be nice, right? Use smiles :) , try to end any argues among your teammates, say "GJ guys" whenever you did good action. Eventually they will look up to you, so you can lead them as i said in previous point.
Also, i recommend you to watch this clip (click)
Information is powerful, wards give you that for only 25 gold/minute. Get those. It's better to buy them than give free 300 gold to enemy, free farm and a turret. And no - EVERYONE needs to buy wards, with exception of ADC as he got support by his side. You can win games by warding in low-mid elo ALONE. I'm not joking.
With enough vision, you can ambush all enemy team or avoid being ambushed, catch their carry wandering alone. All because of simple ward, you can destroy enemy.
Mind that because you bought wards, placed them, doesn't mean you magically will know when enemy is coming. Look at minimap. Remember to ping if you spot enemy heading towards your or other lanes, you may save a life.
This is most important thing on jungler and support, you NEED to have presence in order to succeed. You CANNOT stay in the jungle forever or hide behind your ADC. Have you ever played with Blitzcrank support? This guy is true definition of presence, you fear to not get grabbed when you don't see him. Fed Evelynn is MIA? You hug your turret to don't expose yourself for easy gank. Those champions got natural pressure on the map/lane, but you need to maintain it on every jungler or support. Mid laner should have huge presence as well, as it's best lane to roam.
Every champion got some kind of strength. Twisted Fate is great pusher and can easily roam, Mordekaiser is godlike farmer, Lux got HUGE range on her abilities and brings lots of utility. Why don't exploit it then? It's important to abuse that thing what makes certain champion strong.
Same goes to your playstyle, you want to pick champion who fits it - you like to fight a lot? Pick Xin Zhao who is suited for that. Maybe you prefer to stay untouched and kite people around? Take that Ashe. Maybe you like to be a douche? I think you should play Teemo. (SCREW THOSE SHROOMS)
It fits to you team composition as well - exploit enemy weakness and abuse your strengths.
It's sad to say but it's most rewarding one. You don't need to be aggressive to win, but you surely got higher chance if you dominate your lane. When using it, put your wards further to have a chance to flee when enemy jungler comes gank you. Remember, it's not only killing a champion, but farming too.
Mind that not every champion is good for this. It's good to note that the lower elo, the easier and more reward it is. Once again - you DON'T need to be aggressive.
Because we talk about playstyle - passiveness doesn't mean you won't attack enemy at all. Don't let them hit you for free, trade if you got opportunity. You may even win trade due to minion aggro.
Lastly, you need to improve yourself in order to get to higher. Remember, skill is not only tied to mechanics. It's knowledge, awareness, teamwork, experience, creative thinking and other small factors too. Personally, my mechanics sucks but my knowledge and teamwork is at really high level. So if everything above fails, you want to work on your skill to climb the ladder.
Mind that average skills can easily get you out of low elo, as it's often what those guys lack.
Leadership skills and good initiations is what mid elo biggest problems
High elo is weird, i can't really say whats problem in here.
Right now you should know what really wins this game. Now lets talk about effective tactics you can use.
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Moderator#4 Tactics
Now lets talk about most common strategies that can win you game
I won't advice you to do it unless you know what you're doing. It works great in every league tier, BUT:
There is real problem on low-mid elo with teammates understanding it. They will just flame you for not sticking with the team and other nasty stuff. Enemy will try to kill you with 3-5 man ganks, chasing to the end of the world, while your team... They gonna try to help you instead of taking free turrets/inhibitor or baron. All time flaming you for feeding and begging enemy to report you.
In high elo it's much more effective. Almost no curses, your team will try to not engage and use the advantage if enemy chases you.
Works everywhere. You should ALWAYS push and roam if you dominate the lane (if you don't zone, but i talk about it later). Helping your teammates is helping yourself. Again, works on every elo range. There's nothing else to add.
What's funny in low elo? That half of the game is like ARAM with ability to go back to base to heal. They just NEVER engage, they're afraid to do that. If someone actually engage, rest don't follow and he dies before they react. Otherwise it's just classic ARAM on summoners rift. Taking a champion with poke and/or high range is recommended, to simply win that joke. Possibly a champion who won't die if get caught while poking. If you're Caitlyn or Tristana you can easily AA them when they get nearby. Remember to get Statikk Shiv
Mid elo actually engages sometimes, making it less effective but still works great. Be really careful with AA poke, make sure to be ready to blow your escape (skill or flash)
In high elo they actually know how to deal with that. Still working with champions really suited for poke (Nidalee, Ez etc.). Don't AA poke because you're gonna die.
Building a team centered around one of these 3 tactics i told you before works great. We all know how 5 AoE ult team wrecks, especially in low-mis elo where people don't know they gotta split themselves. So generally you can build whole team around splitpush, roaming (dominating champions with decent wave clear) or poke. Besides them there's also next one:
All-in centered - powerful initiation and great teamfight abilities, probably contains lots of burst damage.
Mind that you can build your bot lane around that too, ie. Graves + Leona. Works great but risky in soloq. If you duoq on bot together, because why not?
We all know what harass is, you hit enemy with ability or AA to hurt him. Repeat few times and when he's low enough, you engage. But people often don't zone. Yeah, it's cool you got advantage in the lane but if you dominate, you better make enemy suffer. Zone him, make him afraid to get that CS. Even be a wall that denies his gold and exp if you're ahead enough and after your minions finally reached his tower, kill him with jungler and deny all of it. If you can't kill him under turret, just destroy it and then slaughter. If you still can't kill him, just roam. It's always good to help your teammates.
Generally your choice is to screw up enemy by zoning OR pushing lane fast and roam. Mind that the first greatly draws attention of enemy jungler, be prepared.
How you harass/zone enemy highly depends on lane, but i can teach you easiest way to do that on bot lane. You need to AA enemy ADC when he goes for CS. They can land AA on only one target - minion or you. Works best with Caitlyn and Ashe (because of high base range) as ADC and poke supports.
After few hits they gonna learn that every minion cost them health. Enemy ADC will freak out and will blame support, and support will blame jungler. Perfect for you. Just zone them later, prepare for jungler to come and win that. I didn't list it in previous chapter because i wanted describe it in details here (where it fits).
Mind that it's good way to initiate fight too, as you can easily land skillshot that way. This tactic works perfectly in every elo range, especially low-mid.
Risky, yet effective if done correctly. So you got that ARAM on mid lane, nobody does anything for 10 minutes and you're support/jungler/something tanky. What you're doing? You get caught, enemy use all skills to kill you (thats why you need to be tanky). Then your team needs to get in, eliminate their carries or that one fed guy when they cannot strike back - they used almost all skills on you after all. You probably won't live thanks to that, but if you do - you're damn lucky. Just make sure you're tank or other low priority target. Besides, it's better when your team is ahead of opponent one.
It's different version of bait, way more risky. Be REALLY careful with that, especially in low-mid elo.
I can count that as tactic, works best in mid elo, mediocre in low/high elo. Almost nobody plays support right, people are forced to get it and they often suck. It's almost 4v4. So if you're the guy who's good support, that makes this game 5v4. I think everyone knows math here, 5>4.
Beware of bronze tier, where you better take AP carry/support like Lux, Zyra or Orianna to eventually buy standard AP itemization if things go wrong. Sightstone is a MUST, Mejai can be part of your build. You can always pick normal support, but if things go wrong you won't be able to carry them.
In high elo almost everyone can do it, but there's still low population of support mains.
That's all for this chapter, lets head to the last one.
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Moderator#5 Results and soloq problems
You finally achieved your desired league with my advices? I hope so, but i'm sure not everyone will succeed. Soloq sometimes is tough to deal with, we were all victims of that few times. People tend to blame all losses on their teammates, being the only ones who were good there. I'm gonna show you it's not as they claim to be.
I think it's most common excuse. Elohell, place where all you got are noob teams and all they do is feeding the enemy. I say yes, it happens sometimes. SOMETIMES. When those all 4 teammates go 0/5 and you're a victim of that. OK, i had few times situation like that, but what's probability of that happening? About 1-2%. In low elo people are bad, but enemy is like that as well. When they're fed, they will probably die few times and give back the advantage anyway. In mid-high elo it's kinda hard to say people are bad, they're ~20% of best people in this game anyway.
The myth of elohell will exist as long as people won't accept they are the reason why they stuck. Second most common excuse is:
Oh no, you cannot do it in high elo. You can have huge impact on the game in mid elo, but still won't win it solo. But in low elo? You can do that easily. Told you before, safe champions with poke can do wonders. But you need to get fed, average mechanics are enough for that. Tactics you know already, apply them to the game. Try to get your teammates fed too, helping them is helping yourself. And OBJECTIVES.
Not every 0/5 guys is bad, the enemy is just better. Maybe he got that score because jungler visited him few times and destroyed him completely? Maybe he just made mistake once and now he's punished for that? Maybe he simply got bad day or wanted to play normal game but forgot to change queue? Maybe it's his roommate downloading something and they really got that 2k ping? You don't know. Don't assume they suck when you don't know the reason. There are people really bad at this game, i agree. But if you're playing with them then it most likely mean you're at the same level. I'm rough but that's true.
Now about trolls... I met like... Hell i don't even remember when i seen one last time. Guy who is 0/10 is not a troll, but 0/50 Shaco with mobility boots suiciding on turrets yep. Picking Sion or Heimerdinger isn't a sin, but revive+clarity Garen is. Nope, you won't see many trolls in your life. Just stop assuming that everyone on this world want you to lose.
Even flamers and other toxic players aren't common. You see them a lot because nobody likes to lose, and normal people are mad because of that last game or someone else bashed them or other reason. But if you maintain positive attitude straight from champion select, you will RARELY ever seen them. Those real flamers are stubborn enough to not let anything pass through their hate barrier and will continue bashing under any circumstances - and you mute them. Just be positive, spread it among teammates and you'll find the real toxic players.
Another excuse are leavers. Are they really in your every game? I don't think so. Just gonna leave a chart with leaver frequency (click), it's on the bottom. Excuse busted.
Yeah, i agree they're not so great, did a lot stupid mistakes, bad build. They throw, position badly, get caught, don't ward. Lose lanes, don't follow, AFK farm. But hey, remember, you're part of it too! Maybe you're not so great after all...
Before you judge your team, judge yourself. What YOU could do better, what not. Realize your mistakes and correct them. Learn all the time. Lets head to another point:
Nope, it's not elohell, not trolls, not leavers, it's you. If you stuck in certain league or division and can't get out after ~100 games, then you just need to improve yourself - your skill. I described what is it already, so work on it. You got plenty of other guides regarding champions or youtube videos, so when everything failed - try them. I would advice you to check those sites:
Solomid.net
Gbay99 YT channel
First one contains a lot good guides, be sure to read only featured or approved guides (less but you can count on it). Second teaches you a lot general knowledge, kind of what i did here. You can navigate similiar YT channels from there, learning you how to play. Mind that you cannot read most important thing - experience.
I think you should know it already. Nope? Apply everything i learned you in this guide to your gameplay. It may be a while until you adapt to everything, but surely you don't leave with empty hands. This is last chapter, last point of this guide. You can read further though, for the tips that may help you. #6 is not continuation of this.
I want to thank you for the time you spend reading it. I put lots of work in this and seeing you climbing up the ladder will be the best reward. Hope you'll achieve what you're aiming at!
Later!
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Moderator#6 Other tips
To be updated
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Moderator#7 Q&A
What are you waiting for? Ask sth!
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GoldI saw a material mistake right on begining.
This guide does not suck man. Its awesome, considering it is the 1st guide of this kind I saw. I hope new players will see it :P
Here, take a pancake for hard work
Power is not effort, power is control. -C. Starrk, Espada Primera
A Poem of Hashinshin's Return
I'm the Legend in this League - Kayle build guide
Thanks for the guide. It was rather informative. As for your English, I wouldn't worry too much about it - your English is on par with many native speakers I know. Only saw one thing I think you may want to change. Post #2, "Prepare Yourself" section, point 2 - "Are hungry, thirsty and sleepy?" - I think you mean "Are you hungry, thirsty, or sleepy?", as any one of those is detrimental to your gaming ability. You might also want to add drunk and hungover to that list...
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ModeratorFeedback appreciated. And yeah, that's what wanted to say. Changing right away.
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PlatinumI can go through and tweak grammar if you want. I'll send a PM with the updates so you dont have to use this thread for that. :-D
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ModeratorWould be awesome if you do :)
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Platinumdidnt read all of it tbh, but seems pretty good. the one thing i dont like is advising champions. it would be better imo to just talk about which roles play commonly in the lanes + one examplforeach role in each lane. and i dont know if its smart to advise ppl to lean uncommon champions ( nami). its great if someone can play her, but most adc that just hit 30 have never played with a nami and have no idea what she can do. especially for the support role, new players should stick to common things.
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DiamondHey! Cool guide, I've never seen any guide being so big as this one. Do you mind if I translate it to my language? I have some friends which would appreciate it. Thanks :3
Hi Dankaw, I am a bronze 3 player with only about 20 games of ranked under my belt. I am afraid of ranked because of the pressure and stress that comes with it. I also over think everything and am always hesitant. Most of my friends are silver+ and tell me I need to start playing ranked. I want to but I just don't have the mentality for it.
The section #5 Results and soloq problems basically explains what scares me.
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ModeratorNami is no longer uncommon champion. Just look at the featured games (the one you can spectate), you will her often. I didn't like to put that too, but had in case someone had no idea what else to pick. Ie. he chooses Teemo because he is categorized as support. Soraka or Janna wasn't option too, she's just too passive and can't carry games so much as the other supports i recommended. Nami... well she can do that and people start to realize she's really good.
Tried my best to advice both safe and dominant champions. Didn't force anyone too.
No problem, just make sure to involve my name in there :)
I had similiar problem as you. On my first rankeds i hesitated to click that soloq button. Ended up gold in S2 thanks to that (21 ELO away to plat).
Environment out there maybe is kinda scary sometimes. Applying positive attitude should be enough to get rid of most toxicity. Even those negative guys wants to win this. Train that on normal games and play normal draft pick, of course solo. If you're afraid of how you will play, then it's worse problem. You cannot be sure how you will do. Don't force yourself to ranked if you don't want to. If you skipped first 2 chapters, then read Mental attitude, Should you start ranked immediately? and Prepare yourself! in chapter #2.
Personally, in S2 i just said YOLO to myself and dived into ranked (had ~1350 ELO back then, played occasionally), achieving 1600 with ease. Then i got sick or sth and when i came back, wasn't sure again. In S3 i lvled another account (achieved 16 level by playing with my low level friends) to 30 and played ranked. My reaction was - how the hell i achieved platinum in a week?
It's important to remember - it's NORMAL GAME, just counts. Even if you fail, you ALWAYS got option to climb. Game with unlimited lives? I like that. There's really no need to worry, it's a game after all.
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ModeratorThis is really good. I hope you don't mind, but I moved it to this sub forum and stickied it at the top since it's so well done.
If you really cared that much if he/she minded, wouldn't you ask first? :>
Very good guide, informative and well thought through, trying to find something I disagree with, but was only minor unimportant things (,and I like to nitpick). Got through and read it all, even learned some new stuff. Only Silver sumthing, been a while since I played ranked, and I got good inspiration for starting now! ^^, Thanks!
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ModeratorChanges done today:
Now it should encourage to ranked. Also slight change in Mental Attitude, same reason.
3. Added Aggressive playstyle in chapter #3.
Sorry, no tips today :(
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