The slow boat to ELO hell

[Bann]

In this thread my intent is to chronicle my experiences on a fresh level 30 account in League of Legends. Im going to shoot for 1 ranked game every day or two, and then write up a short after action report. For background, I have another account at level 30with an ELO rating is in the 900's. I am doing this because I am hoping to get some constructive criticism out of this. I also think limiting myself to 1 ranked game a day or so and then writing it up might encourage me to think about how I'm playing, instead of rattling of 8 losses in 11 games on a lazy Saturday and having it all be a blur when trying to think back on it.



I splurged over the weekend on some riot points to pick up a few champions and an IP boost. In trying to prepare for ranked, I have put together a few different rune pages and been working on a few different roles. I've currently got a generic page for AP casters (mostly mpen and regen), A generic AD page, and a specific page for jungle Rammus.

As far as roles go, I feel like I can always support. When I get the champion I want, I can solo top, mid, or jungle. I am not great at ranged AD.

Support
I am comfortable on 3 different support champions. Janna is my most comfortable, followed by Alistar and Soaraka. I also have Sona on this account, but do not have much experience with her.

Solo Top
I spent most of my level 28 - 30 playing Sion. I am confident in building either AP or AD Sion, although I feel like AD Sion has a much higher ceiling. I also have experience playing Gangplank up top, but have yet to pick him up on this account.

Mid
This is a role I figure I will not end up playing that often. The champ I have used the most here is Morgana, whom seems to get banned quite often. I also have Annie. I've used her about 10 times awhile ago.

Jungle
Rammus. I've played alot of Jungle Rammus, and feel pretty comfortable on him. My only concern with him is that I feel he is really dependent on starting at blue, and I feel like most opponents know that. I'm not really all that comfortable in the jungle with another champion right now. I've done alot of Shaco Jungle on my other account, but it has been a highly variable experience.

Ranged AD
Easily my weakest role. The only champ I own for this role is Ashe, and I do not like her kit all that much. I would much rather be fast or have an escape then abilities that slow my opponents, so maybe she is just a bad fit. At this point, I would consider a dodge if this was the role that fell to me during champ select.


So that is where I am at right now. I think my Short term plan right now should be to pick up a champion that can slot into 2 different roles beside support so that I can have a little more depth during the draft. Anyone have a reccomendation? My first thought is to pickup gangplank on this account. I know how to run him top, and I figure I could learn how to jungle with him.

[Rasix]

Nice, I look forward to reading this.  I keep wanting to chronicle my play, but I'm having a hard time deciding on the format.   Figured if I blog it, no one would read it.  Figured if I put it here, it might end up looking a bit disjointed with content intermixed with comments. 

Some suggestions:

Ranged AD: you can get Trist for free.  Does the FB thing give a code or link to email?  You could always have someone else like League of Legends.    Also, Sivir is 450 points and IMO is very solid despite the whining you'll get from some.

Mid: Ryze is cheap and the biggest faceroll champ there is.

Solo top: there's a few viable and cheapish solo tops you can get.  Trynd, Garen, Cho, Nasus (seems to get shit on nowadays), Singed, Jax, Teemo.   AD Sion is really nasty late game. God I hate those.

[Mosesandstick]

Good luck Bann. Don't be afraid to play a support. Generally I prefer Sona or Soraka with randoms because they're not so reliant on communication. Definitely pick up Sivir, she's possibly OP, and Ryze is a good hero to learn and master.

[Bann]

Ok, Second game under my belt. (first game was a superlate Janna loss last night.)


Not alot to say about this one. Their bottom lane was Sion and Yi. I got graves rolling and we knocked down the tower after racking up a good number of kills. Their whole team was a pretty weird comp. No jungle, Sona and mumu top. Shaco was all over his ganks.  I felt like my team could have won even if I slept through this match.

I went ahead and picked up Ryze, played him in one practice match today as well. It did not go well. I was mid against Morgana, and was getting pushed around early. Once I started to push back a bit around 6, I ate 2 deaths to their jungle GP in succesion. It was all downhill from there. Must practice more.

[Bann]

No ranked games yesterday. I tried 2 as Ryze and 1 as Sivir. I still need some-alot of practice before I'd consider drafting one of them. Ryze I am starting to come around on. His ult seems to suck (I use it mainly to quickly duck over and clear out our ghosts or to heal up.) My thought on him is that you need to play to not lose early, and you can win with him later on. My Sivir game was one where I ended up muting my entire team around the 15 minute mark, and spent the rest of the game just trying to  get familiar with her abilities.

[pxib]

Ryze's ult is for clearing minions and getting a small heal for your trouble. It's got a pretty short cooldown so use it whenever it comes up. If you have it available during an gang attack, absolutely hit it because the extra AOE on your nukes is good for a laugh, but it doesn't really have enough range to be a reliable killer on its own.

Sivir is ALL about clearing minions, and her ult is probably the best in the game for dropping towers.

[Bann]

Third game down. Janna again, another win.


Found myself picking 5th, and noone wanted to play support, so I picked Janna. I should have taken this game a little more seriously. It opened with the enemy team arguing about who would take top, and eventually Taric went up there because neither Trynd or Poppy would budge. After a quick first blood, I decided it was  time and detoured over to pick up a Mejai's. That was dumb. I felt like it put a bullseye on my back, and led to me getting focused first in fights. Probably not a bad thing as long as I got a shield on MF first, but still. Gragas was awesome for us. We managed to engage fights on our terms and that was pretty much all she wrote.

Still working on Ryze and Sivir. Ryze is coming along better at the moment, but I've played more games with him. Still do not feel like I should draft either of them yet.

[Rasix]

I swear I just did a Tribunal case with that Poppy.  Either that or they've been in one of my blind pick games before.  I remember them specifically being an asshole.

Man that's a lot of kills on that Gragas compared to CS.  Looks like him and the GP had a field day.

[K9]

I'll enjoy reading this, any chance of some in-match screenshots? (I'm not sure how you do this in-game, I think you can use steam for it by launching the game through Steam as a non-steam app though?)

[HaemishM]

It's nice to see someone with an avatar name of TylerDurden get shit upon so effectively. 

[Rasix]

I'll enjoy reading this, any chance of some in-match screenshots? (I'm not sure how you do this in-game, I think you can use steam for it by launching the game through Steam as a non-steam app though?)

F12, I think, takes TGA format screenshots.  But they're overwritten with every game.  The screenshot utility I use for post game snaps doesn't work in game.

[K9]

Are you launching the game through Steam? I know F12 is the default screenshot key for steam games, and steam seems to handle screenshots pretty well. YMMV.

[Rasix]

Nope, have not been launching through Steam.  I'll give it a shot.

[ezrast]

Take care - I've had issues with the Steam overlay causing keyboard and/or mouse (can't remember) input to stop working in LoL.

[K9]

Oh, that's an arse. I would check for myself but my machine which I would run LoL on is currently bereft of an internet connection.

[Bann]

4th game. Decided to go outside my comfort zone a bit and try Sivir in a ranked match. Notched another win.


I was 1st slot on my team, so this was also my first time banning. The opposing team had first ban/pick. Everyone on my team had a plan on what they wanted to play with the exeception of ranged AD, so while they were figuring out their 1st ban, I said I'd give it a shot. The bans went Leblanc, Singed, and Amumu for them, and Trynd, Kass, and Morg from me. Picks (in order) went Xin, Sivir, Annie and Galio, Nasus and Karthus, Olaf and Caitlyn, then Soarka and Shaco. I liked my lane matchup right away - I figured I could farm all day long with soaraka backing me up, and that proved to be true.

I had been exclusively taking Dorans Blade as a first item on Sivir, but I decided that with Soaraka, I could afford to skip and go boots + 3 heal potions. They made a weak attempt at our blue, but were met with some resistance and did not force the issue. Once we got Shaco away safely, we moved into our lanes. I kind of got some tunnel vision at this point. I was spending alot of attention on just trying to get last hits without moving the creeps past our side of the river. Olaf and Caitlyn made this really easy with their line attacks, and I was farming my brains out safely on our side of the river. Their jungle never paid us a visit during the laning phase. Shaco came down twice, but we were only able to force flashes instead of converting for kills. I was pretty happy with how the match opened. I was slightly ahead of the combined CS of the enemies in my lane, and at least 1 level above them. I maybe should have started trying to harrass more at this point, but I opted for more of a passive farming route. When I finally sensed a lull in the lane and recalled for my first shopping trip, I was able to pick up a bloodthirster and a dagger. I went back out and kept trying to farm safely. I started to pick up some kills at this point. I saw shaco had found Xin in our jungle, and I made it close enough to finish him off with a Boomerang Blade. Shaco paid bottom a visit while Olaf was to close to the river bushes, and I got another. From there we pushed the lane up to the tower and knocked it over. The rest of the game just sailed pretty smoothly from there.

 I got called out in a friendly way for going off to farm when I should have been sticking w/ the team near the end, which was probably a valid criticism. I was very happy with how this one turned out. I was nervous going in, and this was easily the best result I've seen as Sivir outside of a bot match. I think being in a lane with Soaraka had alot to do with it, but I can also feel myself getting more comfortable.


Ill be around tonight/tomorrow if anyone wants to partner up for a normal game or 2. Account name is in the picture, shoot me an invite!
 

[Bann]

5th game down. Gah. Loss. This was a game where I definitely regret picking a support as a solo queue.


It was just a bad news all around. I think Ryze had 3 deaths in the first seven minutes. Caitlyn was absurdly aggressive. The worst was when Trist jumped at her while she was 3/4 health. I used summoner heal, blew my ult, shielded Cait, and then laid down a twister... only to see Cait stand in one spot continuing to plink at Soarka. My team asked for me to pick up heal instead of CV, so I did. Not sure how I feel about it. I certainly didnt save anyone with it this game. Was my team weird asking for it, is CV old and busted and I just haven't heard about it yet?

I was also disappointed that we surrendered right at 20. We were pretty obviously gonna lose, but I still don't like conceding ranked games. Oh well. Been playing alot of Sivir unranked. Feel like Im starting to get better. Had one Hilaribad game as Vlad because free week and why not.  I felt sorry for my team in that one. I do not think Vlad is a good fit for me.

[Mosesandstick]

With the nerfs to CV, the buffs to heal and the meta (imo) switching to requiring stronger lane control, I've seen a lot of the support or the carry carrying heal with CV and flash optional (on the support).

[HaemishM]

Christ, how bad was that Ryze? Was he trying to build AP? How do you go 20 minutes on that character with that low of a CS? Oh right, die 7 times. Please tell me he was solo laning or trying to do something stupid like jungling. I've been playing Ryze again the last few days and doing pretty decent.

[Bann]

Ryze was mid against Gragas. Looking at that screenshot again, I'm surprised at how much damage Gragas was putting out considering that for probably 7 of kills, he was only rocking rings and boots. I've never really tried the multiple Doran items before, Does anyone here do that?

[Rasix]

When I play Gragas I typically get 2 Dorans (usually first back) before rushing my Rabadons.  4 is a bit much.  I'll get 3 sometimes if I need to back for some reason and I've got 475 to spend and possibly having a hard time with my lane.   With Gragas, you've got great AP ratios, a passive that works off total HP, and a vast hunger for mana.  Dorans are fit the bill pretty nicely.  4 is overkill and just delaying your Rabadons, imo.

And you shouldn't die that often to Gragas early.  If you start with boots, you should be able to dodge barrels with little problems. Only at level 6 will a good Gragas just decide to kill you.

[Bann]

Sivir. Win. Ugly.


I think I'm going to try and avoid picking Sivir in ranked but work with her more in unranked. From what Im reading and hearing from teammates, I should be harrassing early alot more with boomerang blade instead of farming so much. Still, a win is a win.

I also picked up ziggs. If hes ever not autolocked before I can do so, he seems quite fun.

[Bann]

Game 7 was a Sion loss. Pretty sure we got trolled by Wu and Teemo, who were an obvious duo queue.


The picks were weird. Our first pick had said nothing, 1st picked victor. 3rd pick had said already they wanted Vlad mid, and the QQ boys had already spoken up for Teemo/Wu bot. Anyone I could have jungled with was already banned, but noone else was willing to jungle, so I just figured we would try a no jungle game. Surprisingly, the other team also went with no jungle. Leona and I were top, and managed our lane pretty well. Popped each of htem once, and were dominating the farm up there. All that sort of goes out the window though when you bottom lane dies around 8 times in the first 15 minutes. Victor got slowly beat by Graves mid. I went down twice to try and gank. Once he must have had warded, the other we just couldn't quite finish him off.

The last 10 minutes of the game were Teemo and Wu mostly taunting the rest of us. Not a pleasant experience. I liked laning with Leona. I think her and Sion up against a squishy AD could really make life miserable on that AD. Thats what I'll take away from this game.

[HaemishM]

Teemo and Wukong dying 19 times combined is just... it's statistically more likely to accidentally be good enough to get one kill than to suck that hard with those two characters together. The combo alone should have just rolled people, at the very least got a sympathy kill or something.

[Bann]

8 is great! Picked off my first win in ranked as Ryze.


It certainly did not start off super well. I was mid against Leblanc. This had me worried, as I've always had trouble laning against Leblanc, and was not sure the best way to go about it. my plan was to keep creeps my side of the river, not worry about harass, and just try to out farm. This was mostly working, except I got caught out of position around lvl 5 and popped. I ate my 2nd death running down to a dragon fight from Leblanc again. At that point, I had about 1.4 gold on me and my tear and decided to rush a veil. Once I got the veil, I didnt really have anything to fear from Leblanc anymore. Nunu was pretty awesome with his ult, and Sivir/Soaraka was a duo queue which was great.

Outside of ranked, I've been playing a whole lot of ziggs lately. I really like the little bastard. I was hoping to try him in this ranked game, but the other team banned him. Is he a common ban right now?

[HaemishM]

I'm seeing Ziggs either get banned outright or picked in almost every game. He appears to be a mean motherfucker.

[Rasix]

His ult. 

[Bann]

Game 9 was a Sivir win. Due to some IRL issues, I didn't get a chance for a screenshot. The short of the match was: their wu-kong fed us and it was never really close.

[Mosesandstick]

You're doing well, keep it up!

[Bann]

Game 10 was a win as Janna.


Morde annihilated nasus top, taking down the first 2 towers before any other tower fell. Their jungle shaco that we all worried about during champ select was a complete non-factor. For some reason, Cait insisted on going mid, so it was I (Janna) and Fizz bottom vs. Nunu and Trist. I tried a slightly different start this time, going faerie charm, pink ward, 2x green ward, health pot. This paid big dividends. the moment I saw nunu ward  the river bush, I popped down my pink ward, blasted his (woo 25 gold!) and then our udyr ganked bot for first blood. I'll definitely consider pink ward start for bottom again.

Allright, 10 game played, and I have received my initial ranking. I think Im going to re-evaluate my rune pages in my next post. I know for sure I need to build a dedicated support runepage, and I'm sure I can optimize my other ones better as well for the champions I seem to be playing most.

[Mosesandstick]

There's pretty much no time now when I don't start with a pink ward as a support. Destroying their ward is hilarious.

[Bann]

11th game was a loss on Taric.


Not the most pleasant team I've ever been apart of. Graves and I managed to snag First blood, and were doing pretty allright bottom. I tried the pink ward start again, and popped an enemy rune. 3 of my kills were unfortunate auto attacks/stuns. The other 2 were basically just out of disappointment towards Kennen. I've not played very much Taric since I picked LoL back up, but that was the support Graves asked me to play. It went pretty well, and Id like to get some more regular games as him under my belt so I feel more comfortable picking him in draft. If anyone wants to queue up with a support, you know how to find me.

[Bann]

12th game. Win, Janna.


I was worried when they picked Rammus, as he seems to be have been a ban in just about every ranked game I've played during this. We decided to jump Rammus at blue. The thought was that Rammus always starts blue when jungling. Well, not this game. We splattered Pantheon, who was guarding blue and then stole it. That may have pushed the other team over the edge already, as the comments in /all started about then. Rammus was so far behind in jungle, and Udyr was converting his on his ganks. We continued to build on our initial lead, and that led to a 20 minute surrender.

In non-ranked news, Im still playing alot of Ziggs. I feel like Im ready to play him ranked if the opportunity presents itself. Been trying to add you guys to my friends list, I'd like to group up for some games if possible. I think I play earlier then alot of you though. on 4-7ish alot CST.

[Bann]

Game 13, Janna win.


I love pink wards. I hate laning against Taric/Cait. We were down a ton of CS early, and our tower was the 2nd to fall (GP was rulin' some ass top.) Vayne seemed to play way more agressive than I would have liked, and ate a bunch of early deaths. GP and Xin carried hard, and we managed to take the late win.

[Bann]

I have abandoned this project. I found myself just wanting to play games instead of writing them up. Thanks for reading and your comments. I like grouping if anyone ever wants a game.