ELO Hell

Advice for ELO Hell

- Why do you do the things you do?
* Why do you use the runes you use?
Are you using MP5/Level seals because you feel you need that advantage late game in the case you can't get blue or baron?

Are you using ArP instead of AD marks because you feel that the level 1-3 dominance is more important than a useful rune stat?

Are you using CDR glyphs instead of magic resist per level because you don't feel you need that 24 MR at level 18?

These are all basically the questions I want you guys to ask yourselves. I personally forego offensive stats for defensive stats because I've noticed a difference in the laning phase or late game when I get caught in a bad situation.

This isn't a matter of what's most effective, this is a matter of why you're doing that. Are you doing it because you want more frontloaded offense? Early game defense? Or are you doing it because a guide told you to?

* Why do you use the masteries you use?
This is much the same as the last section, which masteries are you using and why are you using them? I don't actually want you to tell me, I want you to think about it. A ranged AD Carry is going to go deep into the offensive tree, taking up to 21 points that increase their damage potential, while a bruiser will most likely build into the Defensive tree because they're not meant to carry the game, they're meant to be a bulky threat.

Are you playing a mage? Are you deep into the Utility tree? Some can, but you probably shouldn't. It's customary to take 9 points in Utility to get increased buff duration if you're ever going to be getting red or blue, and furthermore it's significant if you ever get baron increasing the duration by 48 seconds.

Think about what will benefit your champion the most and try to play to those strengths. Not many people main every champion, and you want to know the champions you do main inside out.

* Why do you buy the items you do?
Do you buy double ruby crystal right after Wriggles?

Do you buy double blasting wand after double doran's just because you were short on gold for Needlessly large rod?

Do you build Frozen Mallet ahead of Warmogs?

Do you build Atma's Impaler after just one Giant's Belt?

Do you build Avarice Blade early game expecting it to be beneficial?

There's no set in stone item path, you buy items that help you in the current situation. If you plan to build phage/warmogs, there's no problem with going double ruby crystal after Wriggles.

Wasting gold on a second Blasting Wand because you were short is a bad idea, in that case you get a third Doran's Ring or just go back to lane. Even getting a Chalice is a better idea in most situations. Early dominance items are a bit of a gold loss as the game rolls around, but they add a lot of strength.

Atma's Impaler is best gotten after either Warmogs and Phage or Frozen Mallet. Buying the chain vest early might be a necessity instead of hard health just because you're laning against a gimmicky critplank.

Also, Avarice blade just sucks. If you really have the extra inventory space when you're intending on making Youmuu's with The Brutalizer already purchased, you're either not warding or completely skipped some other beneficial items. It needs roughly 15 minutes to pay for itself, which is a long time to sacrifice an inventory slot if you could use the critical strike chance.

Anyways, ask yourself why you buy these items. I got a little preachy near the end pointing out bad examples, but you ideally want to purchase items that will help you now and build into items that will help you in late game without wasting inventory spots that can be devoted to health potions or wards. Simple as that. That means getting an early Negatron Cloak against Cassiopeia that will build into Abyssal Scepter. It means getting a Chain Vest against Riven that will build into Atma's or Warden's Mail.

* What do you want out of this game?
This is the hardest question in my opinion. Do you want Fame? Glory? Babes? It's proven that chicks dig ELO. Do you just want to have fun? Do you want to completely decimate enemy teams using flavors of the month? Do you want to help people get better? Do you want to become a professional streamer and make more than your high school drop out parents without ever having to leave the house?

Figure out what you want out of this game before you commit yourself to ranked matches. To raise your rank is more than getting good groups, it revolves primarily around how much time you can put into the game. The more time you spend, the better chances you can break out of the 1400 elo ceiling.

* Why did I have to pose these stupid questions to get you to pose the same questions to yourself?
This is the easiest question to answer, most people go blindly through life without questioning their motives. Don't just follow other people's advice as if it were the only truth in the world, find your own niche, know why you do things, don't just do it because.

- Communication, I taught you about it in the last two sections.
* Politely requesting your lane.
Just requesting your lane without demanding it, with possible alternate lanes will make somebody that wanted to play that lane more likely to say; "Hey, you seem like a nice person, you can take it instead."

* Politely suggesting counter picks.
Assuming your team consists of people that play many champions but haven't really played those champions as often to know what hard counters there are, you can suggest potential champions if it's taken them 20 seconds to think of something to help guide them to a proper choice. This is the hardest part of the game because if you pick a bad champion you can potentially throw the game.

* Politely picking somebody else's champion first to trade.
If your support in summoner slot 4 requets that you first pick take up Sona because he's a master at Sona, you ask him if he has potential champions that you'd like to play and then you take Sona for him. This works in any other scenario with people higher on the list that play less counterable champions such as Ranged AD and Support that can't be countered as easily. The less counterable picks taken early the less chances to be countered.

* Politely being a polite bastard.
Sometimes you've just got to tell somebody he's a bastard that should be put back into his mother's womb, but that's not the way to communicate in society. Yes, this is the internet where rules don't exist and internet bullying is darwinism at it's finest. This doesn't change the fact that this game enforces team based operations and there's a matchmaking queue in place to help you get into and enjoy your games quicker. Can you imagine if you had to sit in a chat room, spouting "AP MID, WANT TO PLAY WITH OTHERS" for 20 minutes just to find a group?

Anyways, back to my original point, if you want to tell somebody he's bad? Suggest ways he can improve. It's like telling your Vayne not to buy The Black Cleaver and instead focus on getting Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge before 20 minutes.

Want to tell somebody that ArP runes are inferior in every way shape and form to Attack Damage? Ask them what they're using for runes and pose counters based on their performance. Getting crapped on in bottom lane? Armor seals are great.

Polite suggestions aren't often mistaken as trollish criticism, while it does happen it doesn't happen as often and making an attempt to guide somebody without shouting at them will make them more likely to improve and more importantly -want- to improve on their own. Key word there. If you make somebody want to become better because they cost the game for a nice player you've done your job.

Map Awareness .
Knowing what is happening is a very important factor to victory. Pay attention when somebody is losing a lane and suggest a lane swap if you're doing okay or exceptionally in your lane. If they're getting dominated in middle lane and your champion can rough house the enemy middle lane out of their lane then try to do it.

Furthermore, always pay attention to where your jungler is. Not all junglers understand the delicacy behind pinging a champion when sneaking into a primary ganking position. Sometimes your jungler gets ganked by an enemy jungler at low levels, and those fights are always close so you want to be there to turn the tides or clean it up and get a double buff.

Train yourself to look at the mini map. Always make a chat note about map objectives respawn timers, it's 5 minutes for buffs, 6 minutes for dragon and 7 minutes for Baron. Being aware of the map is important because if your jungler has been ignoring his Golems, it's time to take them, that's an extra 70~ gold every minute that would have gone to waste otherwise.

If an enemy laner is holding a wave to pile one up to push your ally's tower while they've been screwing off in the jungle, tell them to get back to lane because they're about to lose their tower for being gone.

I can't express how important it is to just know what's going on. This doesn't mean clicking on their lanes or positions on the map, it means glancing at the minimap often to know where everything is. Tell yourself which champions are missing in the fog of war. Counter ward your enemy's jungle to coordinate ganks or stealing buffs.

Map Vision .
Having map vision is a very powerful advantage. If you've got river warded, you remove a large portion of the pressure from a missing mid. If you've got Claivoyance rolling continually keeping eyes on the enemy jungler, they lose almost every last bit of pressure.

If it's late game and you're losing, if you place wards in your jungle you can catch people out of place, most people split up and steal camps and split push while only grouping up for potential group fights.

Counter warding the enemy jungle early on allows you to continually steal their camps when they're on the other side or just flat out gank them. Starving a jungler essentially makes them worthless in late game. This is not an exaggeration, the largest part of their gold and experience income comes from successful ganks, if you remove their only other source of experience and gold to lure them back into your jungle to even out and kill them, you'll force them into a lane where they'll lower the effectiveness of another player or back into their jungle where they'll fall off.

People complain that wards cost too much, but spending 75 gold every 3 minutes is nothing. The only acceptable time to stop warding is if the enemy team has two Oracles that they're protecting and you're in a losing advantage, otherwise set wards as traps and collapse on them to force them to waste another 400 gold.

If you control vision of the map you win. This is also why taking middle towers are the biggest priority because middle lane is the largest weak spot for both teams, having that vision at outer turret amounts to a lot.

Warding Locations
Let's start with top lane, you don't have to actively ward as much as I insist with the following minimap example, but the more you ward the further you protect not only yourself but your middle laner as well.

The ward in your enemy's tribrush is there to protect you from overextended ganks coming from the enemy jungler, if you're purple side you're better off placing your ward at the closest opening just outside of blue buff, this provides protection from the enemy jungler coming from out of their jungle, this doesn't prevent in lane ganks so just keep your minions at extended brush to provide sight there.

The ward in your river brush further down right outside of mid and the first alley way into your top side jungle is there for protecting of yourself as well as the middle lane. This helps to counter gank and counter counter-jungling, that's a lot of counter uses.

Finally the buff outside of purple side's red buff cove is placed when you expect that red to come up so you can provide vision of the area and gank their jungler while they attempt to get it. This works best if you have your support do it ahead of time if the enemy doesn't start at red, because a level 2 gank can completely destroy a jungler's rhythm.

Alternatively, if you're purple or blue side, you can ward the brush for blue side's blue buff. I don't actively do this unless I'm purple side to give myself an idea of when to steal it, these buff wards are more for protection, so you can place it further down, just to the right of the middle are between wolves and blue.

Middle lane wards are simple, you ward the enemy's wraith inlet platform, this provides an amazing amount of protection and sight of the enemy jungler, which becomes very important for protecting your dragon or baron attempts from the enemy team since that's the shortest route from base.

The other ward location is the alternate side of their wraith camp in the brush in the river, this means that both sides are effectively protected, along with top lane and bottom lane protecting the pathways by warding the outlets from enemy jungle in the river.

Bottom lane wards are amazingly simple. You can place them in outside brush to protect that brush from enemy occupation, but I often feel that's wasted gold. That's why I place Vision Wards outside of Dragon's Cave and only one in tribrush if I'm purple or river brush if I'm blue. The river brush is less required because dragon ward should always be up unless your enemy team is contesting it.

Finally, wards for counter jungling would be the same as suggested for top lane, place them in the middle of blue and wolves and just outside of red buff's cubby. How you make use of these wards is basic, if the enemy is doing red, go take their blue or wolves depending on which is up, or just lie in wait and call for mid to help gank. Sometimes as the jungler you have to be the active warder, in which you'll want to place them on the enemy wraith platform and in the river outside of the big objective coves.