f13.net

In an impromptu and possibly ill advised attempt to not be fifth pick every time, I decided to try out ranked.  Rather than shitting up the LoL stories thread with my every exploit, I'd like to see how documenting the games here would go.  Consider this a running journal (or cry for help).

Some background:

LoL is my first MOBA. I was unsure at first I would even like the game.  I'm not very competitive.  My APM in competitive games is pretty low (this was a serious issue with SC2).  I don't like shitty communities.   But, for whatever reason, LoL has really captured my attention.  I find the community mostly ignorable, the APM level is within my comfort zone, and my foray into ranked SC2 last year got me over my fear of being competitive.

I'm not very good.  Let's get that out right in the open.  I have major mechanical flaws with how I play.  My minimap awareness and summoner spell usage are both poor.  I have a hard time hitting f for some reason.  I most often hit g instead.  My awareness in team fights is abysmal.  I get lost all of the time.  I don't last hit particularly well.  My judgement in team fights can be suspect.

My strengths are more on a meta level.  I don't counter pick myself.  I don't first pick something easily countered.  I know how to build.  I know when I'm stronger.  I know what I good fight is, and I know what a losing fight is. I ward.   I don't rage at my team mates.  I call MIAs (when I don't think you should really have to).  I know how the game flows and when objectives are important.  I face check less bushes than most people.

Roles I'm comfortable with:

Top:  Gangplank and Irelia are who I have the most experience with lately.  Can also play Kennen, Rumble, Wukong, Singed, Cho'gath, Udyr, Yorick, Sion

I like GP and Irelia because they're pretty safe and can carry hard against the greatest variety of team comps.  GP's global ult helps a lot, and Irelia has great initiation and burst.  I don't get to top a lot, so I'm not very imaginative with who I choose.

Mid:  Ryze, Swain, Gragas, Annie (long ago), Kennen, Sion

I like playing mid, but I'm not as comfortable with a lot of mid champs.  I have a bunch of mids on my account that I've never played (Aniva, Kassadin, Karthus, Twisted Fate)

Support:  Taric, Nunu, Soraka, Lulu, Sona (I have some experience with Janna, Alistar and Blitz, but not much)

I play the most support out of everything.  This is mostly a product of usually being 5th pick during normal draft combined with an aversion to jungle/ranged AD.   I don't mind playing support, but it really sucks when a) your ranged AD is bad and b) you need someone to carry.  You're not going to carry with a support unless you're playing one that is more viable out of the role.  I've seen a support Lux or Yorick take over the carry role when their partner is insufficient, but you're not going to see an enemy team shrink in fear from a Nunu that had been building GP5 / aura items.

Roles I'm not good with:

Ranged AD:  Cait, Urgot, Trist, Ashe.  Only one I'm not completely horrible with is Cait.  Urgot is mostly untested at this point.

I don't position very well in team fights, and I don't last hit well.  Plus, it really bothers me when I get a shitty support.  Last Soraka I got paired with basically threw the game.  I was up early and should have snowballed through the game, but they kept getting caught and feeding kills.

Jungle:  Udyr, some Noct.  I would likley also be comfortable jungling Warwick, GP, and Nunu.

Not a lot of experience jungling.  Not a great ganker.  Jungler takes too much shit.  You have to deal with everyone's idiocy at the same time.  However, if your team is rolling, you have the easiest job ever. My main jungler has strong ganks but not a very strong initiate.  You can just run away from Udyr if you see him coming.  You're not going to have to dodge some skill short or DIE. 

First game already bagged. I'll put it up shortly.

Game 1: HOLY SHIT, I'M FIRST PICK



I nearly pooped myself when I saw that I was first pick.  I just kind of panicked and banned Kass first, even though I had no intention of playing mid.  They kept yelling at me to ban Shen, when I couldn't even find Shen.  If I don't have Shen and if they don't have Shen: I CAN'T BAN SHEN.

Bans were: Kass, Rammus, Morg (WHY DID I BAN 2 MIDS).  Shaco, (drawing a blank on rest).  I should really screenshot the picks.

I first pick Irelia as it looked like no one was strongly claiming top.  Irelia is safe.  We get fairly standard looking team, if I bit odd with a support Volibear.   Support Volibear was not playing 0 CS support, which worked out fine here, but could prove to a problem.  He built straight tank, and was awfully proud of his multiple warmogs. 

During load I notice, hey, no jungler on their team.  GREAT. 

me: "I'm going to have a 2 v. 1 top. Just ignore me for a while.  Shit on bot and mid.  I'll be ok"
ww: "LOL. Sure."
me upon arriving to lane and seeing Cait and Xin:  "WTF IS THIS LANE?".

So, basically I just let them push lane to tower and last hit there avoiding harass as much as possible.  My main goal is to avoid getting jumped on by Xin.  Cait was bad, but I made sure to stay behind minions to avoid taking a peacemaker to the jaw. 

Meanwhile, Annie is pooping on Brand and bot lane is doing fine.  At level 6, they push Brand out of lane and Annie comes up top.  We get a double kill.  Game is over.  Once I have my wriggles and boots, I'll be good to farm up there and then turn on them whenever.  I've lost all trepidation for this lane and for the game in general.  They're feeding Annie like crazy. 

Around mid game, we start throwing a bit.  People are getting caught.  I got caught one face checking top tri-bush into 4 of them.  Annie is basically diving everything that moves at this point.    I can no longer farm because the game is now a gigantic roaming ARAM.  We win pretty much every team fight (still some deaths) and the game just steam rolls.  None of their surrender votes go through as Xin and Cait think they can still win. This is entirely possible, the game is going on long and they have a non trivial amount of kills.  However, they are not tanky at all.  They are not farmed at all.  Brand's build is nonsensical.   We eventually take Nexus and win.

Derp of the game:

Cait, nearly dead, flashes forward like 6 feet to face check Annie and gets a fireball in the mug.

What I did poorly:

I took this game a little lightly once I realized how bad they are.  Shouldn't do this, it's always possible to throw. Missed one early MIA call, but this is difficult when you're in a 2v1 and Xin is constantly in the river bush. Took blue late and didn't bother giving it to Annie.  The rest of the team was dragoning so I was going to steal their jungle.  Annie got mad.  Sure, I should I have possibly given it to them, but I wasn't even looking.  We were going in to finish, and I really didn't care.  If I was going to be a dick, I'd say "go take ours so we can win even harder. Nice thornmail".  Instead I just said I was taking their jungle and wasn't paying attention.

What I did well:

Knew when to engage for the most part.  Picked targets well.  Communicated with team well during champ select and through most parts of the game.  Got them to actually baron and push after winning fights.

3 in a row.  WTF.


Picture is all you really need.  They were all pretty awful.  The Irelia was pretty much just a troll.  It was 4/19 at one point with all 4 kills belonging to me.

Trundle dove to give up FB and double buff to Malz.  Then a low Malz hung around to give it to me after a flash/ignite/q.  Probably could have stopped that entire sequence by igniting earlier, but Malz had heal and Trundle took like 4 tower shots.   :roll:

So, onto the next game.  SHAKE IT OFF.

I got Ryze again, but last two picks gave me pause.


Rightfully so, it seems!


THE FEEDING.  I think Malph and I had the same thought going through our heads, "for fucks sake...".  Nunu was nice and gave us a good pep talk before the game in broken English.  He kept talking shit to bot once they started the chow train.   He just probably shouldn't have said anything with the quality of his play.  I had the river bush warded and Jarvan pops into it.  So what does he do?  RUNS STRAIGHT AT JARVAN.  At least it got me a kill, but, goddamn.  Kat is right there as well and Jarvan can see  you running at him.  "WTF is this crazy yeti doing?".  

I played alright.  Not my best, but Jarvan jungle + Kat mid can put the fear in you.  Blissfully over at 20.  I probably should have reported Nunu, he was on everyone's ass the entire game.  Including his two solo lanes he never ganked for.

Continue on with the pain train.  


FML.  Thanks assholes.

Gangplank and Irelia go bot..  :uhrr:  I have to go top, where it's a 2v1 v. Panth.  Easy for him since his fucking passive.  And so the two players that need the most far, are top.  This is like my first game, I don't like it at all.

Gangplank was just retarded. Him and Irelia got destroyed by an Urgot/Riven lane.  What fucking level of ELO hell have I fallen into?

Top went bad.  Nasus didn't do anything and no one bought any wards (cept me, yay).  Annie was a bit of a loud mouth and a bad sport (aren't they all?).


For this stretch, I'm not really sure what I could have done except maybe carry harder the first two, and just jungle on the last one.  I should have known no one would jungle and that 2v1 lane just sets up a level discrepancy and mid/bot will have it rough. Combine that with no one wanting to go ranged AD either.  Guess I just picked the wrong role that no one wanted to play.   :oh_i_see:

ENTER SORAKA: SLUT UNICORN OF ASSISTS.  

Well, they say that if you lose 3 in a row, you should take a break.  Fuck that, it's only 11pm!


Well, at least my team comp didn't make me want to off myself.

You wouldn't know by looking at the score, but they had us down to our two nexus turrets and we basically won only with an ace and rushing to finish.

Early game:  We dominated.  Bot lane was me and Ashe v. a derpy Garen and a scared-of-his-own-shadow Ziggs.  Ashe got caught a few times but otherwise, she was solid.  Her arrows were awesome.  She hit almost every one.  Jax kind of shat on Sion top.  AD Sion's early game is garbage.  He was getting some kills via ganks and Jax being over confident.  Not good.  Vayne was also getting the odd cleanup kill.

Mid to late:  We got a lot of kills, but got caught a ton.  All the kills were getting funneled to Vayne and Sion.  BAD TIMES.  We lost a lot of team fights.  We could not push at and started to lose towers and then inhibs.  Things got snippy.  Olaf and Jax just doubled down on the stupid and would go for these retarded engages.  Was looking grim.  No one built defense to counter Sion/Vayne.  

Late, late:  I build a Randuin's, Veigar gets a Zhonya's.  They engage and lose.  We win fights and are able to push some out but we're down to our Nexus turrets.  One final ace and we push to base.  Jax melts the towers (two warmogs, really?).  During this time we were able to sneak in a baron, because Oracles had divined that they had ZERO wards.  Nobody buys wards at this level.  AT ALL.  I'm only the third support champ that I've see in 5 games.  WTF, did these people just hit 30 and slam into ranked?

A win is a win, but nearly lost it when we started to throw.  Olaf thought he could axe kite 4 of them when they had a Maokai.   :facepalm:  Luckily extreme late game Veigar and Jax are just ridiculous and Ashe continued to hit those arrows.  I was a bit concerned at being a support champ in a very late game, where everyone has enough gold to carry.  However, aura items and Shureli'as/Randiun's proved to be game changers.  If there had been just another champ here, it would have been one hell of a throw, I think.

Whew.

I like your story, but can you explain some of the terms you are using for a noob reading this like myself? What is jungling for example?

The game has 3 lanes (top, mid, bottom) that cross the map. 

(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091228052831/leagueoflegends/images/thumb/b/b8/SummonersRift.png/725px-SummonersRift.png)

The area in between in the lanes, where you see the trees, has a number of neutral monster camps that can be killed for exp and gold.  Typically the current meta has 1 player on each team in top, 1 in mid, 2 in bottom and one "jungler".  The jungler mainly levels and gets gold by killing these neutral camps.  The mobs that go down the lane going in waves and the neutral monster camps have set respawn times.  The jungler also tries to assist the other lanes in killing their opponent in between killing neutral camps.  The jungler has a big presence in the game as they are all over the map from the very start. 

Yes, I did.  :why_so_serious: But seriously, I think a lot of people do and fuck's sake, is it a completely different game in ranked. At my shittastic ELO (hovering around 1000), it's as bad if not worse than unranked solo blind queue, only the douchiness is higher, the bitchy whining is worse and when you lose, fuck me, do you lose hard.

I like reading this, keep up the good work!

Also, when do you play? If you want a partner, Ill duoqueue with you. I'm maybe 60 games played now, with an elo ~1100.

Nice write ups! I tried playing a game last night but I just didn't have much fun. If I get back into it, I'll be sure to look you guys up.

I start playing pretty late, usually around 9-10pm PST.

That's a lot of words about League of Legends.

I joined one game in the last 6 months. They must have some sort of ELO Decay thing going on. I was playing with fucking idiots.

For the next few weeks I guess I just play Kassadin if I get back into it. Just terrible.

Yes, it is.  I wanted to do a blog, but I don't think anyone would read it.  Plus, more effort.




Kassadin is usually banned.  :why_so_serious:

Oh my god.

My ELO is 1400?

I actually don't care about ranked. Too many tryhards. I just don't want to have to pull myself out of random shit hell.

1244 actually.   :awesome_for_real: http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/19564624

Although it looks like you have no games this season, so you might be back in placement.  You may be living the dream along with me.   :oh_i_see:

Only real reason I'm doing ranked is that Normal Draft fucks over solo players in regards to pick position.  Otherwise, the games were much nicer there. This is likely because I'm not even placed yet and these mongoloids I'm playing with are also doing placement games.  I'm guessing most had just done blind exclusively to this point, because over half of the time the team comps and lane comps have been completely retarded.  I'm not just being a stickler about meta, these lane comps just don't fucking work in any way.  

I'm guessing that if I place low enough I'll end up playing a game that will be objectively worse than my normal draft experience.  At that point, I'll just fuck off and live with 90% 5th pick.

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/2722

Apparently the bottom is 1200.

ELO Decay makes me not want to play. I just played another and ugh, I might just sell my account.

Well, technically you got reset as part of Season 2.  You're in a land between ELOs until you get 10 matches in. Placement matches are like a trip in the way-back machine.

Dumb.

I had to google the terms, ELO Hell and Feed. As expected it comes down to people being assholes.

My ELO is shit (5W/10L with an ELO of 983). It truly is more of a crapshoot than normal solo queue, only with the added benefit that you're likely to be playing 1) WITH a team full of people just as bad as you only convinced that your poor play is the ONLY reason the whole team is down 4-19 in the first 10 minutes and 2) AGAINST a team of pros playing together on Skype. The people in ranked are more whiny, with the only benefit that most of them will actually just surrender at 20 when it's obvious the team is fucked instead of holding out hope for 3 enemy disconnects.

By comparison, normal solo queue (non-draft) feels like I'm playing against (and with) quadraplegics.

Episode 6:  No one wants to jungle or "good guy Rasix"


"Anyone want to jungle? Buehler, Buehler... "

So, again, I get a team where no one wants to jungle. I figure me jungling Gangplank for the first time is better than having to deal with a 2 lanes getting raped and top unable to snowball because of level diffs.  

Everyone had decided what they wanted to play before even seeing the other team.  Hard core meta strategery going on here.   Second pick was adamant he play WW top.  First pick instalocks Annie v. their first pick Galio  :|  Since last pick shouted "I NO JUGNLE" and fourth pick wanted to only Blitzcrank... Yah, I wasn't brimming with confidence.  So, no time than the present to learn how to GP jungle.

Went cloth 5 since no one at this ELO can apparently leash.  Annie autoattacked (not even a fucking Q) once while Blitz and Sivir (who originally was going to Kayle bot with Blitz, sprinted toward top at the start, and took quite a bit of all caps to get her in the right lane) sat at their tower, unmoving.  Sivir, I don't think, was a native English Speaker; just a hunch.

Things went fine as you can see.  Warwick and I abused top.  At one point he was dominating Akali bad enough that he told me to just leave him and deal with other lanes.  Despite giving up first blood, bot was able to roll Teemo and Sona.   Annie was a bit of a problem, as she was getting really smacked around by Galio.  Luckily with bot tower going down early and Warwick having no problems, we were all able to take turns babysitting mid.  

I played pretty well.  We got the only baron and every dragon.  I'm not sure they even got a tower down.  Every blue went to Annie, and it wasn't long in before we were taking all of their jungle.  I put down a lot of wards, since no one was and the only way we were dying were from jungle/mid ganks.   My build wasn't great.  I went Wit's End due to concern over Akali and Galio, but a better idea might have been to just rush warmogs/frozen mallet and just get tanky.  Although, I was concerned that with blitz and warwick, we were going to need me for more damage.  I was torn, but based on my 2 deaths I had, I could have been tankier.  

A few bad ults, some face checkery (that worked out for us, "/all WORTH IT!!!"), but overall a not bad effort with my first effort at jungling with GP.

A nice gem from champ selection:

Sivir: "We have no jungle" <- I'm sitting in champ select with Flash/Smite.  :awesome_for_real:

Episode 7: Dat Throw


top and bot do work
fortune and mu too heavy
mumu with the throw

First pick instalock Amumu. 4th and 5th pick said they are going bot together (Fiora and Alistar).  Third pick wants to go bot, but said she can mid with.. MF.  We ask if she can play an AP mid since we're AD heavy, and her best answer is "I played Lux once against bots".  Miss Fortune it is! I had already picked Irelia to counter GP.  I assume he is going top, but they have a Trynd too. I'd be fine against Trynd as well.

It's GP and I go like 3 or 4-1 in lane.  About level 7 I start pulling ahead in CS and forcing him out.   Game goes well, but all of their kills are going to Cait.  All of their farm too.   We push down middle and inhib.  Their Karthus is a complete retard or just has really big fingers.  Guy keeps firing off his ult randomly like when no one is even around.  We're maybe up 9-10 kills when it's time for a baron.

Well, they start to set up for baron and we're getting over there.   Then Amumu just inits.  Right into all 5 of them when only myself and one other are near.  That threw it.  It was all down hill from there.  We had to deal with Tynd backdooring and Amumu and MF dying like retards.  Then Amumu and MF start arguing over MF buying two IEs.  

Another team fight lost and it's over.  Fiora had a few DCs so let's blame it on that.  But really, this is one of the few instances where I've seen a team completely dragged down by two players.  Usually it takes 3, but I suppose two are adequate for a throw.

Derp of the game:

I go down with GA (an item that revives you) at their inhib (where we could have won if 3 of our team didn't run away).  Karthus is hovering over me with very little life hoping to get the kill with his defile. I pop up, hit W, and he dies before they can gang me down.  The rest of his fat fingered ults are a close second.  Mumu's bad inits are too painful to nominate.

Why would someone pick ALISTAR when Amumu is first pick? I... that's just retarded. Even worse, it sounds (and looks on the stats sheet) like Alistar was the superior tanker by far.

1200 is average. Anyone below that just doesn't have their Elo publicized to spare them the shame.

8-10: Out of place(ment)

Game 1:

First game Olaf!  My score doesn't reflect it, but I played pretty well for not being that well versed in his mechanics (didn't know the axe wouldn't go full distance unless aimed so).  I had my lane won until bot and jungle started to throw it.  Then I was just camped and the teamfights went really poor.   I offered to jungle, but Xin said he would.  

After his sixth really bad death, "first time jungle, can you tell?".  Man, if it's your first time, maybe you should just own your own jungle instead of invading all the damn time and feeding kills.

Twitch was pretty useless, all of his kills were late KSs.  

Game 2:

Nearly lost it in this this one. Bot lane was ridiculously bad and tanked the entire game.  About 8 minutes in, Shyv tries to steal their blue but gets forced out by top and jungle.  I see that mid is wandering over and bot is too for the nice 5 man gank.  I do some chipping but stay safe.  Bot just hero modes in and all 3 kills go to.. MALZ.  Thanks guys.  Fucking perfect.   Despite that, I was actually doing pretty well against Malz and could solo him, but my team kept feeding him kills.

"mid mia"
*pings a thousand times toward top*
An ally has been slain!

Shyv was good (despite that episode) and Talon wasn't bad, but that Ashe was one of the worst I've ever seen.  Talon and Shyv were all over her.  Talon was just crying like a bitch at the end, bemoaning his fate in elo hell.  

We really could have won if the bot lane had even be slightly less terrible, but Graves was so fed he could basically 1v3 us at the end.

Game 3:

After about 5 failed queues, this game comes up.  I can see why there were all of the dodges.  I second pick GP to go against Fizz.   We get to fourth pick and need someone to go support.  Fifth pick is already jungle Nunu.  Well, 4th pick starts off as Nasus.

"wtf, no"

So he picks and locks Renekton.  FFFFUUUUUU. I think this guy did this in all of my previous queues, and that's the reason it took 30 minutes to get a game started.   I have a solution that I propose and is accepted.  I'll jungle, Nunu will support, Renekton the asshole will go top.

Their Fizz dcs. So Renekton gets Lux top at start.  Fizz comes back about 5 levels into it and has a rough time.  Bot is rolling.  Mid is having problems.  Mainly, mid keeps charging into Veigar's stun and gets obliterated time and time again.

I played a solid, if unspectacular jungle.  We're rolling except every engage someone gets destroyed by Veigar.  

me: "Get some MR."

Ez: "I'm not disrupting my build for defensive items."

This guy is bitching the entire time that Veigar is going to carry it and we're throwing.  The thing is, no one else on their team is a threat at all, but Nunu, Ezreal, and Ahri keep invading their jungle and getting caught.  

One ace at inhib and they're done.  I feel a bit sorry for Veigar.  

So, that ends my placement at 4-6 and 1133 ELO.   I'm not sure this is an ELO I deserve, but there's not a whole lot you can do about some of these people you get stuck with.  

Some observations on the entire experience:

- No one wards.  At all.  Not even support unless you're playing it.
- 0 CS support is a rarity.  Pure support champs are a rarity.  The team with the better support often wins.
- Mid is almost inconsequential.  Top for the most part as well.  A really bad jungle/bot lane is a death sentence.  If your AD carry is awful, you will not win.
- It seems like a good quarter of the people I'm playing know one or two champs, and that's it.  
- No one counter picks.  They have a champ and role in mind, and, fuck you, I'm first picking Nasus.
- It's hyper, hyper aggressive, especially bot lane.  Fuck CSing, TRADE TRADE TRADE.  
- Everyone loves Lux.  So much Lux.
- A good jungler is really rare. Most think they have to invade constantly and always gank.  They'd be better off if they didn't most of the time.  Most don't have the ward coverage to support this style of play.
- You see a lot of  Dorans at the start.  Often on support or in zero sustain lanes.  /sigh  If you see an AD carry with boots 3, they're probably going to beat the fuck out the other team.

I'm continually amazed at how little farming seems to be important to the players in ranked. I mean, I'm bad at last hitting a good bit in ranked, but some of these people don't seem the slightest bit concerned that their CS is shit and that's why they can't buy good items. They just want to constantly engage in fights.

You guys should duo with me. I was 1450 for a while but I went on a huge losing streak (I had like 3 games in a row where we had 2 people top lol) so now I'm 1290 or something.

You guys should. Margalis is a bad mofo, plays pretty much any spot needed, and rapes as Cass mid :)

11-12:  CARRY HARDER


Mid/late game Ryze strong!  Team that dies a ton, weak. That Vayne was just terrible.  To be fair to her, she had a support Fiddlesticks. But really, can my AD carries quit running Swiftness boots?

Team did not buy wards.  That's why you see a super fed jungler. 

Their GP had a quadra right by inhib turret that finished us off.  Just disappointing to play really well and see your team fail to materialize.

Game 2:

This is where I display some questionable manners. 

I'm sitting at third pick in champ select:

5th pick: Top.
Me: I'd prefer to top.  You're 5th, guy.  So, you may not get top.

Yes, I could have been diplomatic, but 5th pick should be aware of how shit works and just not call their slot.  You're bottom bitch, ask nicely.    So, 3rd pick comes around, they have Warwick, so I pick Yorick.

5th pick: WTF, fuck you.  Fuck this elo.   WAH WAH WAH WAH.
*5th pick locks in Gangplank*

Rather than explain to him that I actually expressed an interest to top and chose before him, I say that I'll play support Yorick.  Griping ceases and everyone is happy.  Yay.  :roll:  First time Yorick and it's support.  Figures.

GP carries hard.  To be fair, I think an abstract painting of a penis could have beaten that WW top.  Plus, oranges.   Not sure about those boots either. 

The game is close, however, mostly because our first pick AP Ezreal was terrible.  Just terrible.  Quote someone on my team, "To make AP Ez work, you actually have to hit your fucking skill shots".   The guy was just getting destroyed by Ahri.  Anytime he went mid, she either chunked him out of lane or flat out killed him if her ult was up.  Ez refuses to go mid anymore and so we tend to rotate coverage while he runs around being useless.  We also have the problem of Graves NEVER LEAVING LANE EVER.  Guy wasn't bad, he just wasn't much of a factor in the game outside of the laning phase.

Game ends when we catch WW out front.  Noct lands a fear.  We kill.  Noct jumps and we get another kill.  Pop Shurelias and there's another kill for Noct. 

Noct: "Time for a quadra!!!"

I make it into their base a bit behind Noct and he's in trouble v. Ashe and someone else (maybe Lux). Everyone's low health.  So I ult him, and we score the ace.  Both kills going to me.    :awesome_for_real:

Noct: "NOOOO. YOU STOLE MY QUADRA!"

Actually buddy, it might have been a penta! :why_so_serious: I didn't have the heart to tell him.  We tear through the end of the base with little problems. 

We really roughed up our lane early, but the Ezreal being such a drag messed up the flow the game.  A non retarded mid and I think this one ends up a stomp.

Sure thing.  I think I could hang at 1300.  In the past, however, I never seemed to play well with you.  But, that was when I couldn't support or jungle at all and was still leveling. Would be interesting to see the elo spread and what it would do if we're 150-200 points apart.

I wish my playtime meshed better with you late players. I'm usually done w/ computer about 9-10ish CST. I've got 10 days off starting Friday however, so I'm sure I'll be up later and wasting time. Expect to be bothered for games. Margalis, are you margalis on LoL?

(I'm Bann11)

13-14: CARRY THE HARDEST

So, I have an issue.  I'm 0-4 with Ryze, possibly my best champ.  All games I played well, 2 of them carrying, but unable to carry the team.  So what do you do when you're faced with first pick and someone's called top, but mid is available? FIRST PICK THE SHIT OUT THAT RYZE.

random dude on team, "First pick mid countered hard"
me (internally): Fuck you.  I WILL CARRY THIS SHIT.  JUST YOU WATCH.  I WILL QWEWQEWQEQWEQWEQWRWQEWQEQWRQWEQWEQWEWQEQWEWQ their team into the cold depths of oblivion.  
me (externally): "I'll be fine"


Success.  I guess all I have to do is not die at all and destroy what is possibly my worst match up.  I do well against his early aggression and a few pretty decent Lee ganks help force him to b.  I help Lee pickup FB on their jungler and we're on our way.

What proceeds is the text book Ryze snowball, where every back you end up picking up another core item and returning to lane ridiculously strong for your level.   About a minute or two before the surrender I get a triple kill at dragon that possibly would have been a penta if the rest of their team hadn't bugged out.   It was getting to the point that they were afraid of even staying under tower.   All I had to do was root someone and Graves and I could chunk them down before they could react.  Love this type of game, it makes you feel 10' tall.

Plus the fun part with Ryze is everyone underestimates just how non-fragile you are.  There's a point in the game that they aren't going to kill you without a 3 man gank.

Game 2:


I was 1/3/5 in lane.  I got dove a ton by Maokai/Wu.  Despite that, I stayed even/ahead of Wukong in CS until the laning phase ended.  After that, I mostly focused on protecting carries, securing objectives, and just making sure people stopped getting caught.

Game was really close for most of it.  Turned when we decided to do Baron with no ward coverage and no Oracles.  I just felt we were stronger and could turn.  About 3/4 through baron, Cait shows up (pretty much alone) and we gib her, finish Baron, and push down inhib turret.  

From then on, we slowly whittled them down.  Had a few bad fights, which made me nervous, since an ace and we could easily lose with Cait getting rather big.  However, surprisingly, Viktor toward the end just got scary and could pretty much instagib anyone on their team.   At one point Cait stepped too far forward at bottom tower, and he just melted her.  You barely even saw the spells go off.

7/1/x out of lane is something I'm happy with.  I tend to play Irelia really well in lane, but so-so outside of lane.  I did have to switch priorities on my build once I realized we really didn't have a tank other than myself.  I think I'm building triforce a bit too much with her, but I can't completely ignore damage and that helps a lot.   My farm numbers were a bit low, but I never really went back top to farm after laning phase was done.  I left all of the wave clearing and cleanup to the carries.

Yay, back to even.

edit:

This this was funny: in post game chat, Graves called Viktor a "try hard" because he only died twice.  It's ranked.   :facepalm:  And.. wtf is that Janna build?

My last two ranked games last night were almost like this except instead of carrying the team, I was one of the better players but the rest of my team was incomparably horrid. In ranked, I feel good when I'm not the guy they are yelling at for feeding. But it's really bad when not only am I not feeding, I do better than anyone else and most of my deaths are because I'm up against someone fed by another lane, like an AP Sion.

I'm starting to not want to play ranked anymore.  The title of this Radicalthon is becoming prophetic.  Just got trolled really hard in two straight games.  It's not fun. So pissed I even forgot to screenshot one of them.

edit:

Game 3: AP Yi mid.  FML.

Jesus.

I stopped playing Ranked a few months back and am afraid to atrophy my ELO below 1400.

That being said, I'm on during the day for the most part and would be happy to duo to at least lessen the retard level by 1.

Grand update:  Getting trolled.  This ELO is grand.

Game 1:

No picture.  I went 2/7/18 as support Nunu and got trolled hard by a first pick Nocturne.  Guy at half health dives into bot lane while we're pushed to tower and they're full health.  He did this all game and ended like 3/15 or something like that.  Fucking ridiculously bad and just caused the game to be pretty much unwinnable due to diving and getting caught all of the time.  Plus, like all guys that are feeding uncontrollably, he was berating people the entire game.

Game 2:

TROLLED AGAIN.


Volibear, calls top.  Olaf selects top.  Olaf explains that he's second pick and Voli is 4th and just deal with it.  Voli goes off the rails.

Voli is a cranky fucker the entire game.  Bot lane gets annihilated and blames it on me.  Olaf does pretty good as I was able to gank for him.  Bot lane doesn't realize that being dead or nearly dead all of the time doesn't make for great ganking potential.  Ganking for mid was a waste of time as he couldn't hit his skillshots if Zig was standing still.  We had a dragon where we get aced because he basically wiffed on his entire ultimate and just spent the entire fight missing every shot.

Bot lane informs me that they will be tanking my jungle the entire rest of the game because obviously I'm not jungling.  OK, whatever kids.  I was really happy when this one ended.

Game 3:  

AND AGAIN.


Not a great game from me.  But top lane was a bit of a back and forth affair, with me having the benefit of my jungler not being a retard.  That Xin was ridiculously bad. Every attempt at counter ganking was met with him hitting the floor.

We were up huge, and then bot lane just started to feed.  And then at some point in the game, bot lane and Yi would totally split off from Udyr and I and go balls deep jungle invading.  It'd always result in Graves picking up multiple kills and AP Yi getting a kill or two and running off. They just ignored the entire map and spent most of the game dying around enemy red.  

For someone with a shit ton of kills and a full build, AP Yi just does nothing late game.  He goes in, Soraka silences him, and their team just dogpiles on.  Lux did nothing.  Trist did no damage.

To kick it off, our surrender vote goes through just as their Graves DCs and we pick up a few kills.  Thanks, whomever hit that last yes when he had an obvious advantage.

Game 4:  

THE FUN TRAIN MARCHES ON.

Missing picture.  Every lane gets destroyed thanks to bot lane of Sona/Ashe somehow getting mauled by Kayle/Alistar.  Then top lane feeds like crazy (actually apologized for playing so badly) and I get to deal with 4 man dives for the rest of my time in game.  Not a fun game.  

I would have won my lane, but end up going 2/5 on Ryze.   Jungle Olaf and Sona go afk for the rest of the game at the 12 fucking minute mark.  Yah, 3 on 5 for 8 minutes.  

Game 5:  

CCccccc-combo breaker.


Standard Soraka game, even if I was a bit rusty. Ashe was pretty horrid (in her defense, we were against a hard kill lane), but top/mid/jungle all did very well. Fiddle could have carried even if someone else slipped up.  He was really solid.

Post game chat was kind of funny.

Game 6:


Everytime Garen left lane he got a kill or two.  Thanks guys.   I really didn't play that poorly, but when your lane opponent gets that kind of boost, Yorick's lane advantage goes away.

This was pretty much your standard snowballing romp.

Game 7:


Fuck Vayne.  And fuck Skarner that tower dives at lvl 2, thus starting the snowball.  She wasn't that much of a problem, but she got a lot of kills out of lane and our Cait did not harass at all.  Vayne had an easy time and was just an unstoppable beast late.

You know what's also super, when your first and second pick both instalock mid champs.  Swain just did nothing top.

Game 8-9:

ALL BOW BEFORE THE SLUT UNICORN DEMI-GOD OF ASSISTS.


Vlad romped.  He had like an 11 minute warmogs.  Even with that misguided build, he was dominant.

Corki played rather solid.  We were up against a tricky kill lane of Blitz/Xin.  Blitz was solid.  Guy hit a lot of pulls.  Caught me a couple times.  Mumu was pretty awful, but it didn't matter.  All 3 carries were playing well.  


Only reason this game went on for so long is that Jax dc'd for about 10 minutes mid game.  Team was hyper aggressive, so I had to really save a lot of ass.   Probably my best Soraka game of the bunch, but the team made it pretty easy.

Double Shurelia's with Vayne and Sejuani = no one gets away.  Ever.

Soraka gets so boring though :(

I am convinced that the lower your Elo, the more the matchmaker tries to set you up with the shittiest players who are also shitty human beings. The level of skill on the opposing team is almost always of a higher quality than my own team and my team is full of complete shitcocks.

Yah, she's pretty boring.  Horrendously designed champ.  Her only downside is lack of CC.   

I tend to pick her because I have no faith in my bot lane partner not being a complete moron.   Other support either require your bot lane to be competent in avoiding harass in a non-sustain lane, or require a level of coordination that just won't be there.

Oddly enough, with the amount of sustain nerfs that have gone in, they've just made Soraka's sustain that much more powerful.  She can't heal stupid, but she'll handle most harass like a champ and win you that bot lane. 

The lower my ELO dips, the worse the teams are.

These points I mentioned earlier, just seem to get out of control:


People go apeshit when they don't get their lane or champ.  The Sejuani in my last game was yelling at the enemy Malph the entire game for picking Malph.  I even told her that it was a good likelihood that Malph would get picked because we just had a dodge and someone on my team was all "I PLAY MALPH JUNGLE".

If you're naming your champ and lane before the bans are even done, perhaps you need to broaden your horizons. I can see if you're comfortable in a lane, but if you're only comfortable in one fucking lane, maybe you should learn how to counter pick it. 

And man, if you can't get your lane, thems the breaks.  Unless you're first pick every time, get used to disappointment.  Not everyone wants to play support because 5th pick is "MID OR FEED".

None of what you described sounds like any fun.

Ranked often isn't fun because people take it "seriously".

Yeah, this. Also, a veritable shitton of the players I've seen in ranked are TERRIBLE TERRIBLE players - and I say this as someone who is a terrible player compared to most of the people I've played against in ranked. But because they are in ranked, they seem to think they are somehow decent players and certainly better than anyone else. Which always makes me want to go "I'm sub-1000 ELO, fuckface. You didn't get in this game with me by being GOOD."

I don't mind people take playing seriously or going into tryhard mode (always on for me). I do mind when they take everything that happens along with losing super seriously.  I suppose I get the rage if I put myself in the shoes of a teenager or early college student (I'm not sure I was that much better 15 years ago), but mostly the behavior is inexcusable.  Just because there's a visible number attached, doesn't mean you need to be a complete cockhole about every little thing.

It's hard to reconcile just how touchy everything is with how much worse the play is overall.  The quality of play of my normal draft games are a lot higher.  This also may be a result of my normal draft games having a lot more built in cooperation due to all of the premades present.  However, I do think my normal "hidden" elo is currently maybe a 100 or so points higher.




You have your moments.


But then again.. you also have your moments.

Soraka Again.. ZZZZZZ


I didn't really want to play her, but I felt like she's a viable counter pick to Lulu.  Your silence is longer range than her CC and shield (not worried about that Q, honestly), and you can out sustain her aggression pretty easy.  The only annoying part in the lane was waiting for MF's heal debuff to wear out while your AD carry is polymorphed. Soraka + Graves = massive lane bully.

The Graves, while dominant, was a gigantic asshole.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/lol/loljerk1.jpg)

I could swear his name sounds familiar.  Sounds like a name someone here would use.  Better not be.  :angryfist:  Not only did he pull that crap in champ select, along with saying "support me Rasix, like the bitch you are", he trolled the team the entire game.   I'm not sure what his deal was, I think he's either playing on someone's account or purposely dropped ELO. His top ELO isn't too much higher, but his recent game history is absurd.   In games previous to mine, he's duo queuing with a 1510 ELO player.  So, yah, something's up.

Free win bonus, free elo, 20 minutes only, went and played ME3 afterwards.   Just didn't feel like getting that asshole in my games again.

To be fair to my moments, that team we played against was SUPER shitty. I absolutely ABUSED that Singed early on and got rolling. My typical ranked game I'm usually up against someone who lanes the fuck out of me or feasts on me like it's Thanks-goddamn-giving.

Next time someone talks about their drug habits in chat, I need to dodge.  8/6/5 Vayne complaining how the game of her life was wasted.  Plus, this is one of the only times that I've seen a Vayne become less scary over time.

Posting just to say that I am enjoying reading this.

Hell! I befriended Rasix last night because it's so fun to read!

I dusted off Soraka in honor of this thread.

2-0-22 did not disappoint.

LOSING STREAK.. HO

Game 1:

I won my lane like a boss in this game.  If I would have taken ignite, I probably would have had another 3-4 kills.  Fucking Lee Sin was ping ponging all over the place. Guy would not hard engage at all.  Anytime he got low, PING PONG, SHIELD, REGEN, here comes their jungler.  As is, I zoned him pretty bad, out farmed him by a lot, but in the end it was for nothing.

Vayne, as you can see by the clever name, was a stoner.  At one point she was apparently "tripping balls" and had to base for a few minutes.  8/6 was the game of her life as well, and we wasted it.  :oh_i_see:  Like I said earlier, I've never seen a Vayne get less scary as a game goes on, but this one managed to.  Some how all kills and all farm on the other team went to their 2 carries.  Made life a bit miserable in team fights.  I really needed to get a Randuin's but Fizz was gibbing folks as well.  

Skarner was terrible. He just blew up in team fights. Ahri got pooped on mid.  It was a solid loss, we mostly got outplayed.

Game 2:

No picture, I was too frazzled. I got fucking worked.  0/4/0 Lee Sin top.  Half of the farm.  Lost my lane hard.  About lvl 2 Xin Zhao just jumped on me, and I had no answer.  We lost something like 2-20+.  So I wasn't alone in getting slammed.

In retrospect, I could have started cloth 5.  Played cautiously early.  Perhaps, leveled cripple for when he jumped in or been better with safeguard.  I'm not sure it would have mattered: every lane lost hard, I got outplayed, and our jungler did nothing but die.

Game 3:


THIS IS WHY YOU BAN SHACO. This is also why you don't capitulate to assholes that only want to "tank" and "play Naut" and then lock in and say "top" when you were supposed to go top.  Fucking trolls.  Don't know why I picked Lulu without knowing my lane partner, but I had to choose fast.  


For a guy that managed first blood, he was terrible.   He did nothing and Lee / Shaco abused him hard.  Shaco was just everywhere.

This Graves was awful.  So passive.  So dumb.  I hear Shaco.  I ping to go back.  I hear Shaco drop more boxes.  I toss a ward onto the bush with Shaco in it and his clone out.  Graves rambos into that shit.  We get the kill, but Ashe cleans us up.


Game 4:

We were winning this one hard.  I had Garen owned.  Every lane was winning.  Karthus (last pick, not pictured) was just rolling.  Then Karth dcs at lvl 9 and never comes back.  We held on for a long time and even pushed down an inhib.

So, a possible 20 minute win turns into a loss.  Sucks.  Their Anivia was a complete troll, but she could contribute CC, some damage and an extra warm body.  

The Shyvana, while good, made some really awful calls at the end that lead to getting caught over extended and eventually pushed down.  Riven got reasonably fed and was just too much.  Their bot ended up being a GP/Karma.  So no ranged AD, but we still had trouble initiating and a late game GP is kinda nasty.  

In the end, it's just a 4v5, and you don't usually win those.  If maybe Lulu dc'd, we could win, but not with the fed AP mid gone.

Game 5:


Virtually identical score as last game.  Olaf does not really work well v. Vlad.  I first picked Kass for someone else and decided I wanted Olaf, before seeing the Vlad.  Then after seeing the Vlad, and having someone on my team say "you sure about that?", I STILL WENT OLAF.  Really, I could have gone Kennen or maybe Rumble.   My Kennen is awful, and I haven't played Rumble in forever.

Early levels were OK, but once he hit 6, my ass was zoned. Once his cooldowns get better, you just can't trade anymore.  I got zero ganks.  All game.  OHH WELL. I still did fine.  Built intelligently and did a lot of damage in team fights.  

We won with no farm.  AD Lulu + Warwick + Kassadin is a hell of a lot of guaranteed kills.  Just a ton of damage once we got in.  WW got fed really early and was a terror all game.   Kassadin played kind of dumb and got caught a lot, but he's Kassadin.  You expect that level of hubris from someone that finally gets to play Kassadin.

Ohh, and triple AP with support Ryze is just a little weak early game.  Heh.

Just a quick look at my stats shows the following:

Win/loss in role:

Top: 3-7
Mid: 1-5
Support: 6-3
Bot: 0-1
Jungle: 2-1

This is showing that I'm either best when I'm playing a mostly support role and enabling my teammates or that I've just had a bad run in solo lanes.   My Ryze results are really, really odd.  I've had mostly good games with him or games where at least I'm not the issue.  But I just don't win.  I also think I get a bit of tunnel vision when I'm in lane and don't attempt to make plays in other lanes.  To be fair to myself, farm is important. But without good wards or good map sense, a MIA opponent will start getting kills and changing the game more than some guy that's getting a hefty CS lead.   I've done 2 "first time" top lanes, which probably isn't something I should do in ranked, but who knows if I'll ever get the role I want in a normal.

This also might be showing that a lot of players aren't really comfortable with support or just aren't good at it.  When I take a solo lane, they're usually relegated to support or another role they are not use to.  When playing support, they often do not do the things you need to do in order to win games.  In particular, the ward coverage is very poor.  They also seem a bit lost in team fights.   Additionally, guys that reluctantly jungle, usually end up feeding like crazy.  Fuck, you don't have to gank all of the time.  And for god's sake, stop counter jungling when you have no vision.

Champ bucket (comfortable with):

Olaf, Soraka, GP, Yorick (I think I can play him), Ryze (CAN'T WIN), Taric, Nunu, Lulu, Irelia, Udyr, Caitlyn.  

Reluctant to use: Rumble, Kennen, Swain, Gragas, Wukong, Urgot, Blitz, Alistar, Noct, Jax, Sion, Singed.   Really rusty with these champs.  Some are hard to play with unorganized teams.

Would love to work in some:  Karthus, Poppy, Anivia (I might suck too bad with her), Twisted Fate (ditto), Lee Sin (double ditto), Shen,  Teemo

I'd really like to work in some more mids, but I haven't been able to mid in the last 10 games.  That's usually the one role that some jerk on your team is going to throw a shit fit if they don't get it.  For top, I need to work in an AP just to have some better success against other AP tops and fucking Garen.  Even if I beat Garen in lane, I tend to lose.  Garen scales well into end game at this level because no one builds armor other than fucking thornmail.  

I think the problem with support is that since no one wants to fucking play it, the person usually stuck with it is either last pick and annoyed at having to play it, or the only guy who didn't pick another role and is reluctantly playing it anyway. Whenever I've done support, it hasn't been my first choice but because I didn't say I wouldn't do it, I got stuck with it. I am really bad about not warding. Other people are fucking CLUELESS about warding, as in they have no idea where to put them and don't ever bother to do it anyway. I have to train myself to do more wards, better last hitting and less "FREEDOMMMMM!!!!!" charges.

I enjoy playing support because if you are motivated you can actually feel like you make a difference.

Or totally worthless when the yorick/shen combo go 41/0/45 together.

I think my best win % in ranked is Sona, and I'm not even that good with her. I think it just has a lot to do with warding and not giving up bad deaths.

This is probably why I'm 6-1 with Soraka.  My lane DOES NOT GET GANKED. Plus, I'm in back, so I don't eat a lot of deaths due to an aggressive support initiating on to me.

Also, Soraka provides a high amount of idiot insurance.  You can save a lot of morons that aren't dodging skill shots, going in for bad exchanges, or just plain ignoring your retreat pings  (jungler inc, moron).  Plus, you can back up a lot of ballsy play from your AD or jungler.  I don't even think I'm going to take flash with her anymore.  Dunno, still thinking on it.  CV/heal too stronk!  But there are a few situations where flash saves my bacon or where a flash/silence actually has merit.  

The problem is, as mentioned, is that a kill lane that makes it to late game is going to out-scale you by a ton.  

The one thing I like about Soraka is that you don't really need to synergise with your lane partner. I'd definitely ditch the flash.

As a jungler, I say don't ditch the flash. I make a living off, and terrorizing, those who don't have escapes. Soraka with her silence and all.

I play a pretty aggressive Sona, but if I get an idiot bot with me I start leveling up the heal big time.

TOP AND FEED

Game 1:
I'm really having a rough go of it lately up top.  


Yep, just got wailed on.  I haven't played against a Tryndamere in FOREVER.  This all got out of hand when I got in a lvl 2 fight with him, got exhausted,  and then got baited by his heal.  And I forgot to ignite..  :facepalm:

Bot didn't fare much better.  Amumu wouldn't surrender because "Lux is getting fed".  Great, so she'll be able to wombo-combo one person and then stand around and do nothing.  No help at all, just them bitching.  Lux just went bot for free kills, while Malz farmed up and got kills of his own.    It was a stomp, so I don't feel that awful, but I don't like getting owned this hard.

Game 2:

Palette cleanser.  

Hat pinged me toward the end of the previous game, so we decided to duo a normal draft.  After about 3 or 4 dodges we get a game that goes through.  I first pick monkey, just because I hadn't played monkey in forever.  In a previous game I was going to play Rumble, but didn't feel like going triple AP (we knew the last pick was going to be jungle Fizz).   Plus, FP Rumble.. I dunno.

I beat Irelia pretty soundly and mostly on my own.  Bot lane needed a lot of help and with Wu's escapes, I was doing OK.   Even more than the kills, I forced Irelia out of lane a lot.  Pushing your lane post 6 with Wukong's ult is not smart.   I never really felt pressured or in danger in lane.

We were up big at the start, but a bad fight at dragon led to an early ace and a lot of kills going to Irelia/Graves.  We recovered.

Team fights went really well and we just out pushed them.  Hat was right, that Lux really did nothing but farm.  Total non factor.

It was a fun game, but a lot closer than it needed to be.  It didn't feel like we'd lose at any point, but if we had a bad fight, it was certainly possible.  

Game 3:

I got camped.  Looking at their match histories, the WW/Noct were a duo queue.  Even with oranges, I really had no shot.   I had one derpy play early on, where I was lining up an ult for bot lane and then got jumped on by WW and Noct.   I think I could have won this lane, but even mid would join in the ganks.  Having a Karthus on the other team and WW in lane kind of skewed my build badly, and I think I should have just gone a standard wriggles build first with the merc treads, instead of rushing the hexdrinker.  

Got outplayed and that Noct was a beast.  He got a quadra at the end to seal it.  

My first time against a WW top, and I didn't play it right after he hit 6.  But then again, not sure I could have done much against getting camped so hard.

Game 4:

champ select goes somthing like this (I'm first pick):

second pick: I'd like to top.  
me: ok
fourth: I can jungle
me: Ok, I'll mid.  Ryze I think (since I'm first pick on purple)
third pick: lol, no, I'm mid.
me: really?
me: Fuck it, I'll support.

Pro-raka to the rescue.

Ashe was fucking awful, but it didn't matter.  Their Zilean was pretty useless, and .. OOH SHIT, Irelia just killed Garen again while typing this.  I didn't think it's a great matchup for Irelia, but good god, she destroyed.  Even with the questionable Sunfire Cape (imagine her with an atma's on that), she was just a mauler.  She did go a bit ballsy in the late team fights, but luckily I could keep her up.

I didn't go flash here, and it didn't hurt me.  They didn't have a hard initiate with their jungler or really any hard CC in lane.  So, I was fine.  I had a funny moment were Garen tried to kill me after a team fight, but he just ended up escorting me back to tower.  It was their tier 2 bottom tower to our tier 1 and he couldn't do more than take a little HP off (that was quickly healed back). Poor fella must have been feeling crappy at that point.  

We had some good plays with myself and LeBlanc as I was able to heal her up in between her dives and allow her to keep putting a lot of pressure on them.

There was a really odd moment in game where I was holding bottom tower alone for like 5 or so minutes.  They'd rotate people in trying to pressure it down, but I could hold them off with little problems.  But I was effectively out of the main action for a while.  It was pretty weird.

Easy win that went on for far too long, but people don't like to surrender in ranked.  If there's the slightest gleam of light, they'll hold on.

My experience is the exact opposite. The ranked teams I've played with seem ready to surrender after the first death.

STILL NOT PLAYING WELL

Game 1:

I honestly can't even remember what happened in this game, other than me dying a lot more than I usually do on Soraka.   

I think I remember the end.  They're doing Baron, we attempt to contest.  Everyone focuses Kennen, he pops hourglass, and Vayne kills everyone.  I just remember focus in team fights being very, very poor and the team getting caught a lot in the later parts of the game.  Jax had a very bad early game. 

Game 2:


Problem during this game: 

1.  Mordekaiser got super fed.
2.  Mordekaiser destroys his lane.  Zilean has to switch lanes.
3.  Morde proceeds to fuck every other lane.
4.  Jungler still thought he could solo Morde. 

I did OK in lane.  Got some ganks but Akali got away every time.  Then I got camped and pretty much couldn't do a thing.   It was too risky to CS away from tower and got zoned pretty hard. Died every team fight.   Made a mistake early on where I bought the wrong item and that set me back some. 

That Sona build isn't very helpful. She got shit on all game and ragged on pretty hard from the team.

Just a bad team comp that got worse when Zil and Sona locked at the same time.  Perhaps Zil was picked to counter Akali, but he ended up mid.  Probably should have switched.  Zil's kill were pretty much all suicides aided by his ult.  Zil ulted Zil and pretty much no one else.

Game 3:

BIG SIGH.
Must people be twats before the game has even started? I could tell this game wasn't going to go well.  Trundle was just on everyone at the start.

I had some fun with the 5th pick.  He was crying about mid from the very start of champ select.


So, luckily enough, he wasn't that bad.

The Trundle and Olaf lost this one hard.  Cait positioned very badly in team fights.  Despite early problems with Sion, Ahri turned into quite a force.

Trundle and Olaf got caught ALL of the time.  Trundle thought he could 1v1 everyone, the problem being that Trundle takes forever to kill anyone.  He fed Sion bad early with some really awful gank attempts.

I think this one ended with Trundle trying a fucking retarded Baron steal and getting himself and Olaf dead.  Then it was just a matter of them pushing us down from there.

Game 4:

CCCCCCcccombo breaker.

Played a normal blind with Phry.   After maybe 4 dodges, we finally get a game.  I jungle because no one else will.  No one will play a ranged AD either.  I LOVE BLIND. 


First time WW, so I just played to get the hang of him.  I farmed well and did some OK counter ganks. I was way too passive.

This game was terrible, however.  Malphite had connection problems and probably dc'd 4 times.  Their Ashe ragequit after going O-2 at level 4.  Everyone was raging really hard.  It was fucking obnoxious. 

This is why I hate blind.  There's just so much rage for what should be fairly relaxed. 

Game 5:


Easy?  Yah.  Jungler was kind of a muppet.  He started in turtle.  :|

Everyone was all over our first pick for choosing Trist.  My only words to Trist: "Hey, don't go hyper aggressive early on.  Wait until I get a few points in heal." She said "ok", listened, and we did.. well.  I kind of wanted to play a different support, but Karthus pick kind of forced my hand.

The other team was just flaming each other to death.  Jungle Wu got a lot of crap.  Karth got a lot of crap (and gave).  Everyone was mad at everyone. Didn't help that our mid and jungle were egging them on.   Hell things were snippy early with our team when Nasus gave up a really early FB.  He had disco'd, not derped.  He came back and did fine.

Kind of needed an easy win.  I did make some decent plays.  I got focused hard in some situations and had to use all my wiles (heals) to keep myself alive  long enough for the cavalry to get around to killing everyone.

Going for early/lane dominance can really win you a game in solo queue. Everybody just wants to blame each other.

I'm finding the derpiness is strong in normal draft. Got trolled last night in normal draft. After 4 queue dodges, I was just finally glad to get a game. I should have known the guy causing the queue dodging was our first pick because he kept picking the same idiotic list of banned characters. Evelynn... WUT? I mean, it was just a retard list, then he first picks Mundo and proclaims he's jungling. I'm like, ok, but he doesn't have smite so I think maybe he knows more than me since I've never played Mundo. By the 3rd time he got killed, I realized he wasn't just a retard, he was intentionally trolling the game. After he says in all chat that his team sucks, I looked at him and informed him he had no kills and 2 deaths. He says something stupid like "But I bought oracles!" He ended with like 12 deaths, and we surrendered at 20. I think everyone reported him.

Yah, it's all 90% early game dominance which relies on a lot of hyper aggression and early ganking.  Both facets of the game I don't do that well with.  

It's been difficult adjusting to just how balls deep the top laners at this elo go.  They don't really care about farm, last hitting, countering, builds; they just want to kill you at lvl 2.  And one lane losing badly early on just cascades.   Everyone leaves lane and ganks a ton.  My normal drafts were a bit less chaotic than his.  Might be due to the prevalence of premades in normal draft.

Plus, I don't play enough. I'll willingly admit this.  I like to play mid and top, but there's champs I won't see for weeks or months just because I play 2 games day and half of those are support. I haven't played mid in more than a week.  

I found it wasn't that hard to do decent in ranked, just by learning a top jungle character. A good jungler can really dictate how a game turns out, and sure, some idiots will blame the world on you (DUDE I DIED, WHERE WERE YOU?!? FAIL JUNGLE). Overall, you can usually call jungle and get it.

That is if you find jungling fun.... now I read your first post - well, Udyr was my ticket to 1500 ELO. Try to watch Saintvicious play him, or maybe youtube it some. He is what changed me from Tiger Udyr to a way better Phoenix Tank Udyr.

DUDE.

Game 1:
No picture.

Wasn't very interesting.  I decide to be a good guy and play ranged AD so someone else can play top.  

We got stomped.  We were second pick and DID NOT BAN SHACO.  BAN SHACO.  Dude was a terror, even if he wasn't that good.  Team bickered incessantly. Ended up reporting the Veigar.   First pick gave him mid (and went support blitz) and it's not like Veigar isn't easy to counter pick.  Guy didn't lane a single stun.  

The guy that went top apparently runs boots of swiftness everytime on Akali.  OK. "I need to catch up to them".  Isn't that what your fucking ulti is for?  His other most played champ: AD TF (which he seems to be actually good at, might want to let him bot next time).  

We just got beat.  We were able to zone and deny bot pretty easy, but it didn't matter because they'd just fall back to tower, and then we'd be easy prey for Shaco

Game 2:


Just a bizarre series of events that led to a very strange game.

1. 3rd pick on our team really wants to play Soraka.  
2. I pick Soraka for him if he'll pick me Ryze (or another mid).  
3. He picks Ryze and we complete champ select.  
4.  I initiate trade and he doesn't trade in time.  

So, I'm a little dismayed at this.  Upon entering game, we get the message that he had reconnected.  I start buying my support items, and then he says he'll support anyways.  I notice at this time that I'm still running my AD masteries/runes from last game.  OOOPS.  Nothing like the power of 76 AD bananas.

Game isn't going well, we're getting beat up.  Everyone is losing their lane and jungle Mundo is making questionable plays.  Oh, and I forgot to mention: NO ONE BANNED SHACO AGAIN.  So, Shaco's just killing the shit out of everyone.  I think at one point we're down like 26/10 before we win a team fight and you could feel  like we're starting to get back into it.  

I have to redo my entire item build.  Luckily I hadn't gone too far down the AP Soraka path.  The problem is my masteries/runes and lack of GP items has killed my gold intake.   Bot starts doing a lot better.  Wards help, but we had to go wardless for a little while so I could get my gp10 items.

We start heavily forcing fights, both at baron and dragon.  We tend to win these.  Despite their lead in kills, we're out pushing them, our farming, and getting objectives.  Just a crazy game.  

I have no idea what the hell is up with that Ashe build. At least our team build ok and recovered from the role swap.  Ryze rushed the wrong things but he did fine and was able to get some really good snares.  

Just a weird game, I could hardly believe we won, even when the nexus went down.  Shaco was pissed.  I'd be pissed too if I lost to a team with only one positive k/d player.  

I've found the same thing with Shaco lately. He's like the first guy to ban, unless you are already banning Morgana with the first pick. If either of those two are available and you have first pick, you take them. Otherwise, you ban those motherfuckers with the quickness.

So, sorry for the lack of updates but I've been pretty busy. Son started school, Hecarim patch made everything really buggy as hell, I needed to finish ME3, D3 beta, I got mega sick, and now I'm going to be off to Israel in a week.

This game, however, was interesting:


Team Tryhard v. Team Support.

They all had heal and revive.   :popcorn: I was top lane v. a Janna and Taric.  Luckily I picked probably the best 2v1 champ in Gangplank, and they were kind of idiots. They pushed the lane instead of freezing it.  Granted their strategy going into the game wasn't any more complex than "LOLOLOLOL", but seriously, they just let me hang at tower.   I went Oranges first, which was a must here.  Every time I stepped out to CS I got stunned, slowed and jumped on.  Luckily it was an easy lane to gank for Warwick since only Zilean on their team did any damage.  So, basically I had to hang on for dear life, while everyone had fun killing the shit out of supports.

They did it wrong too.  But I guess AD Soraka is funnier than the legit AP Soraka.  AD Taric would have been rad. 

Still, team fights and getting caught were fun. SO MUCH HEALING.  SO MUCH CC. 

Since the client is still buggy.. that end score was 36/8 at 21 minutes with a manamune Corki going 13/0/9.  To quote Alistar, "I don't think this worked so well for them."

I haven't played a lot of ranked, I think my last 3 ranked games were 1 jungle Udyr loss and SURPRISE 2 Soraka wins.  Heh, I'm 10 and 3 with the banana flinger.   My jungle is AWFUL.  I not enough map awareness and still just not enough reps. 

That's got to be a troll team. AD Soraka? WTF? And all Doran's on Taric? Really? There's no fucking way those guys thought that'd be viable against humans... did they?

My guess is AD Soraka was troll second pick and the rest of the team said "fuck it, might as well have some fun with this."

Personal favourite is the Janna who rushed Mallet.  There is no escape!

AD ANNIE


I wish I would have gotten the post match chat in the screenshot.  My team's strategy was "AD Annie is a hard counter to Ryze" and built on that.  Seemed to work as far as the matchup is considered.  She killed him 3 times before I hit level 6 I think. I just pick Soraka, because honestly, I'd rather not be against Soraka. And, she's sadly my best champ at the moment.  10/3 ranked with the unicorn, and in normals I win more than I lose. 

Our lane was super easy as well; easy enough that MF didn't shop until she could buy IE in one trip.  Skarner tried to gank a few times, and we just made him look silly.  With summoner heal, you can keep an AD carry alive through some pretty sick focus.  Like all stupid Ashes, this one built swiftness boots.  Taric was a bit of a madman.  Guy didn't do much in lane, but he furiously led charges to pick off stragglers once we had downed the tower.

Despite this dominance in two lanes, we were pretty meh with the jungle and top.  Vlad was a non factor and died a lot to Teemo.  Jarvan's ganks were pretty bad.  I didn't see the guy hit an E->Q combo all game.  He was also lvl 28, which I haven't seen in a game of mine in a long time.  I guess it balances out the 1500 ELO Annie. 

Plus, this team was trying hard to throw.  It's kind of sad when your 5th pick support is having to tell you to group up, when to push, and when to do Baron when you have a huge advantage and complete map dominance.   For the longest time they just wouldn't respond and kept getting picked off in small packs instead of grouping up.  I guess they didn't want to listen to the one guy that's not part of the group, but it's annoying when you see a team piss a way a huge lead and make dumb play after dumb play.  For all of the lane success that Annie and MF had, they seemed to forget that an over extended and alone AD carry is dead meat.   Taric would just run up, toss stun, and the rest of the team would dogpile on.

Once I got them to Baron, the game was over.  We pushed down lanes and won pretty easy with only a few hiccups when they WOULD NOT BACK.  "Everyone's up, I wouldn't stay." *crickets* "Fine, I'm going".  AN ALLY HAS BEEN SLAIN.   Throwing this game would have pissed me off something fierce, so I'm glad it didn't happen.


Starting to get better at ranged AD, at least with Cait.  I've won my lane pretty handily my last two games with her.  Last game I was in the zone for CS; I don't think I missed a single one in the first two waves. Top was awful (1/10 Jax that basically let Lee Sin free farm), however,  and the support didn't ward enough. I tended draw a lot of attention as I got 3/4 man tower dived a lot. Also, the free roaming Kassadin got me once or twice since NO FUCKING WARDS.  I also made one really derpy play when I got heal baited under a tower.  So dumb, and we gave up a double over it.  Still, it's looking better, and I'm not quite as hesitant to play it now as before.

TOP LANE SO FED

Game 1:


Zzzzzzzz.  

Only show this game because it kind of fits with the theme.  Top lane just snowballs so hard.  That Wukong jumped on Vlad and never got off for the entire game.

Bottom lane was interesting because I was way under-leveled through most of it.  With dodging (well mostly not dodging) Nidalee spears, Cait Qs, and harass from both, I had to hang waaaay back.  Really annoying, but we handled it well.  Once Kog hit 6, lane was over.  They ceased to be scary.


Game 2:

TEAM FUCKTON OF DAMAGE VS TEAM ASSLOADS OF CC

FIGHT!


Funny enough, I was almost on the other team, but the team I ended up on had a dodge.  

I start off with my usual,  "Not great at ranged AD or jungle, but I'll play whatever".   So naturally, 4th pick has claimed top, first pick is mid, second is ranged ad, and third pick.. locks Taric.  "Hey guys, remember when I said I'm not good at jungle?" "Ut oh".

So, taking a look at all of that CC, I just decide to use Gangplank.  At some point, I am going to need to eat an orange, perhaps several.  Plus, I'm not worried about ganking, because top is the only lane that's gankable at all.  So, I'd rather just help with burst damage and provide some tankiness.

At lvl 4, after getting red, I notice Irelia is pushing her lane hard.  Against Trynd. :yahoo:  Head top, get first blood after some really nice jukes from Irelia.   Next two times I see her pushed up, I gank top and those result in kills for Tryndamere.  "You don't seem to be that bad at jungling".  

In this game, my map awareness was pretty good.  I saved teammates a lot with some key ults.  I passed off blue and did a decent job warding and controlling objectives.  I counter ganked well.  Had a funny counter gank where I had to stop a big push bot and kind of got caught at the tri-bush area.  Warwick ulted on to me, and I just eat an orange and got away.  That was the last time Warwick ulted me for the entire game.

We're up for most of the match.  People, like the always do, start getting caught.  I got baited pretty bad in my own jungle by Irelia and walked into their entire team, WITH AN ORACLES.   :facepalm:  Then I got nailed after warding near mid.   So, we start grouping up better and warding better after they push down all mid towers.  

After losing a team fight, the next team fight takes place at baron.  We go 3 for 2 and get an easy mid tower for it.  This starts to swing it back for us.  We have to recall and a very dead Tyrnd was mad at us for not getting baron instead.  I thought it was the riskier of two options.   Since we had to back, their team rushes to baron.  We hustle over and baron is like 85% dead.  I toss a cannon barrage over him and manage to out smite their jungler.  My first ever baron smite steal results in an ace and Vayne getting a triple kill.  The transition into a late game glacial and frozen heart really paid off the team fights since a great deal of their team relied on attack speed.   After that we managed to finish them off.

This was finally a jungle game where I had a huge effect on the game.  I wasn't sure how we'd get past that much CC and tankiness, but we managed to just brute force our way through it.

And finally, WTF is that Taric build? I appreciate he's moving toward a Randuin's Omen but..  

Unranked soloqueue will go right around your win/loss.

So if you're a 1000 ELO player when you start ranked you'll be 1200 unranked which will be 200 effective points above your soloqueue ranking. Ranked will get worse until you're back down to your soloqueue badness.

If you're above 1200 the opposite happens, it starts bad and ends decently.

Re: Schlid

Decay only happens above 1400 ELO [or more]

I play about 1400 soloqueue normal draft[according to lolstats] and atm 1350 ranked solo queue.  I main support and don't tend to duo-queue, but when I do we tend to carry pretty hard. My strongest points are understanding the meta, team fight positioning, and herding/objective control. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

_____

If you think you're better than your current ELO and want to carry i would say that the easiest places to do that, without having to roflstomp your lane* are jungle/support.

Support because it ensures that you have vision and it allows you to be more active in calling/directing traffic. Directing traffic is the single most important skill in ELO elo games. Jungle has the same effect, but it also lets you counter jungle [which is super effective in low ELO games] and snowball your lanes with ganks.

Granted, nothing works all the time,

*If you can rofl stomp your lane then roflstomping your lane is a much better way to carry. Just roflstomp your lane, then go wander into other lanes and roflstomp them. If your ELO drops enough stop playing Jungle/Support. Pick mid/top and roflstomp your lane. You will be able to.

With the new: No ELO loss on dodge, things should be getting easier for low ELO soloqueue people since the people intentionally or unintentionally systematically lowering their ELO will eventually play out of the pool.


Sona/Ashe is really weak to Kayle/Alistar. Alistar is one of the stronger supports, especially against Sona and especially against Ashe. Neither have escapes and both are only strong in raw poke. Alistar can dislocate and kayle will absolutely stomp on the raw damage output once that happens. If Alistar can't get his dislocate on Kayle and Alistar both have sustain[with Alistar's being very strong] to easily counter Sona and Ashe's poke.


Shitty attitudes correlates with shitty play.


With Ryze(easily my best mid champion, since he plays very similarly to an AD carry) one of the things you can do is to push your lane with r and then go roam. Do this immediately after you get any kill. You will have enough MP by the time you make it to the lane you're going to gank. Pick the one thats easiest to get to without being seen and that is furthest pushed. Which means its easier to gank top if you're blue and easier to gank bottom if you're purple.

_____________

A note on summoner skills:

1) If you're not taking CV on your support then you damned well better be taking Exhaust. Exhaust is simply the strongest anti-carry ability in the game. -75% auto attack damage and move speed reduction. Let your carry take heal, they don't want to be within 550 of carries lategame unless it doesn't matter that someone has exhaust.

2) IF you're not going to take flash. You must absolutely take exhaust. Heal will not save you nearly as many times as exhaust will.


AD Annie isn't really a hard counter to Ryze. I mean, a good one is but... Ryze has enough range on his abilities that Annie should not be able to AA harass him. It can work in that you're expecting Annie to come into lane with AP and so you build MR first on ryze. Ryze is very strong against annie in general. That guy just got out played.


High harass on Kennen/Sona bottom lane is very strong vs Taric [especially someone who is weak early like Vayne]. So instead of maxing w and adding armor that isn't going to help vs Kennen/Sona's large amount of magic damage he max's q for sustain and just keeps Vayne up. This eats a tonne of mana for which he needs the chalice[the MR helps too]

CDR boots are standard. The only thing that too weird is the Soul Shroud. Vayne doesn't need CDR, its expensive, and vayne also doesn't need the Mana Manip start. Buuuut, mana manip starts were not uncommon ages ago [even after the AD/AP meta switch]

That's.. quite a post. 

I haven't really played since that last post.  I think I had two miserable games before my jaunt to Israel and then just went cold turkey.   

Made a new smurf account to work on mechanics if I play again (named Bad Mechanics).  Played a game today for a laugh and won a 3v5 when our AP Blitz went 19/0/6, I went 5/1 and our Annie did fine as well. I was horrid, but real noobs are real noobs. I suppose this should be a new radicalthon.

Pre lvl 10 games are almost all populated entirely with smurfs and a few people who get beat up on. Even with on my smurfs i don't soloqueue pre 10. I mainly have them to play with other low level people.

I suppose if no one minds i will continue this

This is me on lolking:
http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/19883872#profile

Mastery used was floating 1, rune page used was MS/AD/ARM/SMR

MOOOOO

(http://i.imgur.com/LQA7x.jpg)

Replay:

http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/531203

Pick Order:
BLUE: Darius
PURPLE: Anivia
PURPLE: Shyvanna
BLUE: Alistar
BLUE: Orianna
PURP: Teemo
PURP: Singed
BLUE: Soraka
BLUE: Graves
PURP: Ashe

From pick selection we should have bottom and top lane tied up. Soraka/Graves is very strong against Teemo/Ashe and signed is super hard countered top lane [which is why darius got so fed].

Boots/3 pots start -> Standard jungle path of Wolves-> Blue -> Gank mid[tough to do because of her egg, but valuable because it will snowball Orianna and i am not worried about top]

Gank fails because i can't get aniv in a spot that is valuable and so i clear wraiths/minis/red and head bottom. Ashe spots me with hawkshot but i've got boots, move speed masteries, and move speed quints and they do not. We catch Ashe and I secure the kill[was trying to headbutt teemo, got Ashe instead]. And then i swing mid and I pick up anivia but get killed on the way out by shyvanna. Its 6 minutes and i am heading top after picking up a Sheen when Darius kills singed for the second time.

Donate blue to Ori at 8:15 and she kills Anivia who does not have blue yet. Shyv comes to kill her in the aftermath after i leave and nearly succeeds, and we nearly convert her dive into a kill too, but she has good jukes.

Ashe prematurely flashes at an 11 minute lane gank.

Next item is boots of mobility and oracles and am now i am a ganking machine.

things to watch for

1) Super pro Wish's Soraka turned at least three engagements with this.
2) Alistar tanking tower like its nothing.

BIG PLAYS.


Didn't get to finish my Ghostblade.  :crying_panda:

I just ran around headbutting people. I hit my combo as well as Hotshot (I can't do it).  So many derpy plays, but it was just fun.  Just working on getting a feel for everything again and trying not to think too hard in the process.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/lol/lol_266.jpg)

Yes, that's me going 14/5 on support Nunu and still building support.  :awesome_for_real:

I got a first blood and a double kill bot when their Xin/Ez combo went balls deep while my ignite was still up.  I KS'd everything (even when I tried not to) and got a lot of kills on cleanup duty after Sivir or someone else derped.

This game was pretty funny as people at this level usually aren't this bad.   At one point our Riven's build was warmogs, maldred and boots.  She was nice, though.  Their ez was pretty bad, we just got super sloppy and got determined at one point to throw the game. Almost every engage, one of our carries got instantly blown up.  Plus, my team was unfortunate enough to have a support Nunu carrying them.

There was one interesting part where I completely set my Sivir up for a penta.  Their team was really low after they got a double kill at Baron, but were too low to finish.  So I blood boil Sivir, hit an ice blast on ez and hit their entire team in my ulti.   Sivir ran.   :facepalm:

Sometimes I look at my times and wonder how these people function. When I'm the best player on a team far and away, I can't for the life of me figure out how these folks made it to 30 without throwing their computers out a window. I played a ranked game where I chose Diana mid,the rest of our team was a Mord top (good player), a Soraka support bot (good player) one of the shittiest Shaco's I've ever seen and a Miss Fortune who had her first 2 or 3 levels sitting in the goddam spawn because her dad was asking her something. I was up against a Karthus, they had a Xin and an Evelynn who I think were both jungling/roaming gankers. I lucked out by having all 3 of them try to kill me mid-lane right at the start of the game. They killed me, but had to turret dive to do it and I got kills on both of them - Xin to an ignite and Eve to the turret. From there I just steamrolled. There wasn't a single encounter I had that didn't involve me getting at least 1 kill or 1 or 2 assists even when I died. By the time it was over, Mord could just barrel into turrets and take them out no matter the opposition, and the entire opposing team just melted left and right. We even managed a Baron steal that got us 3 out of 5 kills on the team as well. As bad as my team was on the whole, the other team was infinitely worse.

I can't wait for the soft elo reset. I'm hoping it at least raises my elo some so that I get better teammates. Maybe even 4 others of at least my mediocre quality or better.