Road to silver? Gold? Plat? Dia? Make fewer mistakes

[Eloah881]

With the end of the season coming, and just normally throughout the year, there's always a bunch of tips on the Thread. "Just do this and you'll get to x elo" So there's always a ton of stuff to talk about when talking about what to do. But I wanted to go over a ton of stuff that you should NOT do. Or simply stop doing. The first thing I wanted to go over is a general mindset. The goal of a game of League is to destroy the enemy nexus, and to do that you'll need to kill towers, inhib and so on to reach it. So in order to reach that Nexus you'll have to go through certain objectives. But a lot of objectives or other things are merely distractions from ending the game. If there is a simple win condition, you follow that simple win condition and you don't go looking around to do other stuff. Examples of these kind of mistakes: (For the sake of the examples, assume you are ahead in gold by a significant margin since we're talking about ending games here) 1: Baron. There's a ton of people that have no clue how to set up a baron. There's a random ping on baron and depending on how tunnelvisioned people are on their distractions "omg I saw a champion pop up on the minimap so let's chase that guy instead of following the ping!" or "need this farm first" or "need this jungle camp first" An example is of a game a few days ago. Starts off with this: "Ey shyv, don't show top so we can 3 man baron" Expected result: "Shyvana doesn't walk to the minions top to farm them, comes to me and shaco so we can do the baron Actual result: 20:10= Shyvana walks top. Farms the top wave. 20:20= Shyvana sees another wave gets that one too. 20:40= Shyvana sees enemy gangplank. Chases Gangplank and manages to kill GP. 21:00=SHyv.... u gonna come baron or what? 21:10= Oh yeah but I killed gangplank so stfu 21:20= do baron after a minute of me and shaco spamming emotes to eachother while waiting on shyvana The first order of business when you can do baron. Is to set up vision in the river and enemy jungle, and place pinks/sweep the area to avoid enemy vision. Once you do that, you can either bait the enemy team into coming into you or you can start the baron. Now for the mistakes. A ton of you simply don't go to the baron. You simply do not pay attention to anything other than what just popped up in your head. You might think, nah that's not me. But I see this happen in every single silver/gold game and plenty of plat/diamond games and d1/master is no exception (happens less, still happens). So if you CAN do a baron. Do it, but do it NOW. Don't do X or Y first, or "just gotta do this first". Because that's how you turn a free baron opportunity into a 5v5 you can't win. 2nd point on baron. If the enemy team shows up while you're doing baron. STOP DOING BARON. Even if you're 5k gold ahead, if you use all your abilities to damage the baron, while taking extra damage from baron on top of that. You're not going to win the fight, even if you do manage to get the baron buff. Not worth getting aced. So you're doing the baron and enemy champions show up? TURN. (Doesn't count if there's just 1 support or whatever, but if you have the vision and see an enemy mid/adc/toplaner or any other 2 to 3 guys, just turn, kill them and then think if you have enough health/time/dmg to kill the baron) Right, so now we've killed the baron great! Here come the next awful and annoying mistakes. After getting the baron buff, a lot of people seem to think they are now gods. They have purple shit flying around them, my god, I am purple and amazing, COME AT ME BRO. Mistake: You are not a god, you're just slightly more powerful, but the reason you got the baron is to take down towers. Not to look for kills. So I see a ton of people right after they get the baron, dash over the baron pit (leaving behind their team members who can't) to engage 1v5 or 2v4 over the edge of the baron pit. They die, get upset that the other team members didn't follow them (how by flashing or wallhacking?) and there goes at least a minute of your precious baron buff. Other examples are, we have the baron buff and an open inhibitor bot. LET'S LOOK FOR KILLS IN THE ENEMY JUNGLE INSTEAD BY MYSELF! Reading this you may think, well surely that doesn't happen that often? But no that happens every single silver/gold game. You get a baron buff, one or two excited people go wander off into the jungle and look for kills. They have no vision, no backup, and wander willingly into a 1v5. Best part, since they are ahead in gold they kill one or two people. Call it worth. And leave you waiting for them to respawn until you can do what you came for. SIEGE AND END THE GAME. There's the simplest win condition of them all if you have a baron buff, and that's grouping up as 5 people and slowly taking down the tower and the inhib. You don't need to split (can be helpful but in the lower elo you're going to do it wrong anyways so just group up as 5). You don't need to dive. You don't need to look for picks alone or with a buddy in the enemy topside jungle if 3 of your people are bot. You don't need to suddenly take a wander alone from the bottom tower where all 5 of you are to the midlane for whatever reason. All you have to do is walk those minions towards the tower. Damage that tower, and end the game through there. 2 Grouping: When I went through gold on a new account I managed to lose 2 games. Both of those games were lost by 1 simple thing. Nobody groups. And this isnt me going: "Let's go bot!" and 4 people going top and me bottom. No this is me saying "Let's group anywhere, please I BEG YOU PLEASE GROUP UP ANYWHERE" And 1 guy jungling, another going top, another going into the enemy jungle to look for kills and the support hesistating on which guy to follow. There's also a ton of people that have heared at one point or the other that their champion is "a split push champion". And throughout the years I've had idiots like this turn a 5v5 game with a huge gold lead into a 4v5 game because they are "a split push champion so that's what I'll do" No matter that as a 5 man group you can just roll over them, but as a 4v5 you just barely can't. I've even had games where we try to follow the split pusher so he's forced to group (a shaco in this case) and the guy just cutting through a jungle without vision to the other side of the map. After a while our team saw the fun of it and we just ended up following shaco around for the rest of the game until he finally gave up trying to get rid of us and he went into a lane which we towerdove straight up to the nexus and ended. But it did turn a 20 minute free win into a grueling 45 minute flame fest. So you may be "a split pushing champion!!!" but you should probably just group. Random rotations: In professional play you've probably heared this line spoken a million times. "Well they have the Trinity Force powerspike and they're moving to the midlane to siege it down" What this translates to a lot in games. Is for whatever reason my adc and support leaving behind their tower at a random point in the game. To go to my mid lane. To "help" me siege down the tower. Expected result? "I'm a strategical mastermind and we'll get the mid tier 1 tower, I'd be in the LCS if my team didn't hold me back!" Actual result: Lose your own tier 1 bot to the enemy adc, lose the entire bottom lane farm (a third of your income, from minions) to share the gold in the middle lane between 2 carries and the exp between 2 carries and a support. And the joke is you'll often not even get the mid tower because you either can't dive it with a janna support or the enemy midlaner is a viktor that just E's the wave and looks at you like you're crazy. Another random rotation is one I mentioned earlier. You have a baron buff, 5 people with you at one lane with minions coming. And one or more of you suddenly decide that the area smells funny or something and decide to leave that area and wander off into the jungle or another lane. I really have no idea, absolutely zero idea, what it is you're trying to accomplish. Farm a jungle camp? There's a baron buff and a tower to be killed and a game to finish, what are you doing? Next one is not grouping or walking through dumb area's when you do. You usually see this one either against rengar junglers, or when you've just killed the midlane inhibitor but you need another lane's inhibitor to actually end the game. What happens: "Group bot as 5" Expected result: "5 people walking from the fountain towards the bottom lane, as a neat orderly group" Actual result: 3 people go to the bottom lane, 1 guy sees the blue buff up and goes for that one first. Another guy sees theres a minion wave in the midlane so better take that one as well. Then in case of the rengar game. One of those 2 solo birds gets killed. And now you have to wait for the guy to respawn since you can't 4v5. In the case of the game without rengar, you'll see the 3 people in the bottom lane waiting (if you're lucky) on the other 2. Who cut through the enemy bottom side jungle without vision. They get caught, and you'll have to wait for them to respawn and regroup. And the last thing that can happen is the 3 people get too triggerhappy and just randomly decide that the plan was for us to go bot. So it doesn't matter if 2 people aren't with us. We'll just walk up to the enemy team and wait for our 2 stragglers. OH MY GOD WE JUST GOT ENGAGED ON BY VI/NOCTURNE/RENGAR/ALISTAR AND STEALTHLINKS MOM. And you lose the 3v5 fight and now you have 3 of you flaming 2 guys for not being there and 2 guys flaming you for fighting 3v5. Lane stuff, per lane: Bot: ADC/Sup ADC's. Be active in your lane. So many of you simply stand there waiting for a minion to get to low health. Last hit the minion. Wait for a minion to hit low health. Last hit the minion. There is SO much stuff you can do. Zone, harass, trade. You're not some 2 year old that knows how to do only one thing. Go and make something of your lane. (This is especially annoying to see if you have a soraka support who can heal you up so you can take bad trades and come out ahead, and then your adc simply refuses to trade) The other side of this coin is AFK supports. Those guys that stand behind their ADC and are waiting for their ADC to make some godlike play to win the lane. Well that isn't going to happen when you're effectively playing a 1v2 lane. BE active. Harass. Threaten to auto people. Actually auto people and so on. Another thing is warding bot. Especially early on. If you are pushing in, there really is no need for a ward in the lane brush. The enemy botlane isn't going to surprise you by going invisible and appearing right next to you. What's going to surprise you is the jungler showing up while you're almost under the enemy tower. Ward the river, not the lane brush if you're pushing up that far. And another one for supports, if you're a tanky support like Leona/Alistar/Braum/Tahm. And you see a skillshot coming the way of your ADC? Bodyblock it. I've laughed so many times where you see a full hp tank support standing in front of his ADC. And there's an ashe arrow or whatever incoming. And the geniuses think: OH MY GOD A SKILLSHOT AND IT'S COMING MY WAY. RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN. flash Expected result: "Haha, I'm safe! I'm a god, my reaction times are amazing! I'd be in diamond if it wasn't for my team!" Actual result: ADC gets hit by 3 second stun, gets killed, lose the fight since it's now a 4v5 And more support mistakes, is by not keeping your team alive. This is usually on the playmaking supports. But it happens on others as well. Supports don't realize that they're exactly that "supposed to support somebody". You see the threshes flashing in to flay and hook and engage and even janna's flashing in to R somebody into the team. While all you have to do is keep enemy champ X or Y away from your carries to win a team fight. These guys go straight for the frontline, forget they have an ADC or squishy midlaner to protect. Go for the godlike engage. Then realize all their teams damage has been killed (or simply don't realize it) and ask "omg why are u going for Fiora? I hooked Jinx, GO FOR JINX U IDIOTS" And as not to forget the ADC's. What a ton of you suffer from (including myself, but to be fair, I know I'm a godawful adc. I'm bad at the role and I'm impatient) is "Frontline ADC Syndrome" You see these Vayne's tumbling forward, lucian E'ing in. CAit netting herself forward and so on and so on. What are you doing standing in front of your entire team just so you can get an auto or 2 on an enemy champion while completely opening up yourself to get instakilled by the entire enemy team? Just stand behind your frontline and hit people. Another ADC special is the lure of minion waves. You are getting pushed in and you have no vision besides your base and tier 2 towers? Well that's no problem, Ill just go into this dark bottom lane because there's a huge minion wave around the destroyed tier 1 tower. Better go grab it! Expected result: "GOLD, TONS OF SOFT, YELLOW, FABULOUS GOLD, I'M RICH" Actual result: Gets destroyed 1v3 and you lose a tier 2 or inhib because your team can't defend it without you Mid/Top: Usually make the same kinds of mistakes. Especially if they are behind early on. Because if you die once, the enemy laner was just lucky. I'm sure it'll go better next time. Welp he got lucky again, let's just try another fight to make sure! And at this point there is no amount of ganks that will help you win this lane. But that doesn't stop you from spam pinging for help from your jungler/other laners when you're down 0/3 ;D Getting ganked once? Let's say in all chat how the enemy jungler is a noob or how he should set up a tent. Expected result: "Ha I'm so witty and good at this game they have to camp me. Well at least that guy now knows I would have destroyed him 1v1, what a noob lol" Actual result: "Set up a tent...hmm.... well...sure" - Enemy Jungler 2015 What goes along with this is the mindless agression. 0 wards. You're more than halfway up the lane or even under the enemy tower. And you get ganked. First thing you do at that time? Reflect on your mistake of pushing with no vision and buying a ward? Hell no. "Omg this is the 4th time I got ganked and you just farm Krugs Gragas? U fucking stupid? Come gank mid" .... right There's also the delayed roam follow. You don't pay attention, your enemy laner is gone. And he suddenly pops up in another lane on the minimap. If you don't have tp, DONT FOLLOW IT. You're already too late and it'll take you 20 to 30 seconds to get there and by that time all your friends will be dead. Push the lane and get some damage on the tower or take it. You already made the mistake and there's nothing you can do about it now. Jungle: The first one I'd like to go over is one we mentioned above. Solo laners losing their lane, then spam pinging for help. I've literally just yesterday played a game where a renekton top laner somehow got destroyed by a Nasus (gold smurf). At this point our midlane is winning and our bottom lane is winning but Renekton is losing. And no matter how many ganks that Renekton gets, he will never get back to a point where he can win the 1v1 against nasus. So ganking for him is pointless, which means you gank for your mid or bottom lane. Expected result: "Jarvan ganks mid/bot, win because every champ of ours is early game vs superlate game on the enemy team" Actual result: "Renekton asks for assistancex800. Jarvan goes top, dies 2v2. Renekton asks for assistancex800. Jarvan goes top, dies 2v1. Meanwhile the enemy jungler buys sword of the occult and farms other lanes like they're jungle camps" Another jungle mistake that's similar. Is by letting yourself get dragged too much into what your team is asking of you. Like the Renekton example. So many times I've heared the line: "Just come to X lane it's free" While they have no vision, don't know if the enemy laner has summoners and sometimes the minions are even in a horrible position. So you show up, enemy laner dashes or flashes out of the gank and nothing happens until you return gank. That's ok. But a lot of the times you'll just get destroyed or the enemy jungler shows up and you lose the 2v2. Don't just swallow up every instruction your team gives you and blindly follow it. It's a team game, not a game of "tell eachother what to do and blindly follow it" If your plan is to get a red buff then gank bot. Gank the bottom lane. Don't blindly follow the "Renekton is asking for assistancex800". The next mistake is the exact opposite. Which also stems from an example of games on that same smurf. Champion select: "Lee, just come mid once I'm lvl 6 and we can run over the enemy champion. Ok?" "Lee: Got it captain!" Expected result: "I'm level 6, Lee will now gank" Actual result: "I'm level 3, Lee is here. Shares a full wave of experience. Wanders off. I'm level 5, Lee is here to share another wave of experience. Throws out a Q at least this time which he misses. Wanders off." "I'm now level 6. And Lee has not once shown up to the midlane from the point I was level 6 until the end of the game." Other examples include: "Come to Drake/Baron/Mid/us 4 Mr jungler" Jungler: "Sure just gotta get this .. gromp.. and wolves oh and a scuttlecrab... oh while I'm here I might as well get the raptors and krugs and look another scuttle" Meanwhile we're playing a 4v5 game until Xin Zhao decides that there really is no other possible camp to farm in our or the enemy jungle so he might as well show up...OH NOPE THE GROMP RESPAWNED BE RIGHT THERE GUYS I JUST HAVE TO.... My favourite jungler mistake is the "blind invade" though. Let's draw up some super obvious scenario. I'm a midlane erm Diana against a Midlane Ahri. My bottom lane is twitch/tahm against Caitlyn/Karma. Now our jungler is a pantheon or whatever, and decides that this is the time to invade. My kassadin is getting pushed in by the ahri, my botlane is getting pushed in by karma/cait. What better time to walk into the jungle with no vision and no mobility to escape than right now? All I have to do is spam ping assistance and things will work out. Expected result: "Pantheon asks for assistancex800, pantheons friends show up, pantheon gets a penta kill because pantheon is an invading tactical mastermind with no equal!" Actual result: Because both his lanes that CAN show up are getting pushed in, the enemy laners will always show up first. And if his friendly laners try to follow the enemy laners, those enemy laners can simply turn around and kill the guys following. So nobody can actually help pantheon... but there's plenty of people to help the enemy jungler. And pantheon dies 1v2 or 1v3 and flames his team. "Why no follow you retards gg ff 20" Lastly (there are a million more mistakes types of mistakes but I want to go get something to eat) Deaths: Don't die. Dying is a mistake. Trading 1 kill for another kill because you made a sick insec play on your Lee sin might be great if it's in the laning phase. But if you have a baron buff and you're grouped under an inhibitor, the last thing you need is your X or Y champion trying to make a huge play. Just kill the structures end the game. DON'T LOOK FOR MORE BIG PLAYS OR KILLS. Besides that there's a ton of random deaths every game. They range from bad positioning in lane. To not warding and getting ganked. To pushing out without wards and getting ganked. To not having summoners ready and not warding. To facechecking brushes. To walking to the drake because it respawned but oh wait we said no facechecking oops too late. Most deaths come either from bad vision or bad positioning. So if you ward and think where you are walking, and what you might find once you walk there. Should be a big step to dying less. You might be 10/10/10 in a game and think you're an amazing carry because you have 10 kills. But to me you're just an amazing feeder because you died 10 times. Die less! Now like I said, there's a ton more mistakes, both specific for lanes or general ones so feel free to add/discuss or tell me I'm full of shit because you never make mistakes! But I'm gonna go get something to eat