User blog:YourPrivateNightmare/A madman's guide to elohell

Hiho, it's-a me Mari- uh - I mean YPN... This time I might even be talking about something useful. I have recently been showing more interest into ranked since I saw the possible rewards for being gold elo next season (Elise skin asdf). So now after I have miraculously been transfered from Silver V to Silver III (Is that supposed to happen?), adn I have been observing some stuff which I thought I might share with others, simply because I have nothing else to do.

So unceremoniously I will begin to list a few points I found memorable, and NO, it will not be stuff like: "map awareness, last hitting, huahuahua" because that's stuff you should know by the time you are actually taking interest in this wiki.

Here we go:

Ingame Psychology
It's a big advantage if you can predict what your enemy will most likely do, and I'm not talking about stuff like "huahuahua, Elise just went mid and I saw her heading for the lower bush, she is going bot now, I figured that out with detective work" I'm talking about tracking the jungler's movements beginning with checking which buff he's waiting at at the beginning + guessing from his lvl and cs (if he was seen at some time) which creep camps he might have done already/ which he might be heading to, so your jungler can perform a counterjungling easily.

Other stuff in this section would be observing your enemy laner adn find some sort of a behavioural pattern. It might sound ridiculous but imagine the situation:

You are and of course you wanna grab the enemy marksman. You start to notice that the enemy is mostly trying to dodge your grabs by moving to the left. Next time you aim slightly to the right and, voila, he actually runs right into your arm(s).

Okay this maybe was a bad example, casue a situation like this might be unlikely, but I hope you get the point. Know your enemy, and exploit their weaknesses.

Another example: Many champions use combo and some combos you can use in different ways. Some people have a habit of using their combos in the same way all the time. If you notice this you can maybe outplay their combos with one smart move, a good example here would be: Some players use their Q first in order to have an easier go with their E. Others use it the other way round. In a sticky situation you can use this to, for example, flash over her Q and due to her reflexively casting her E avoiding most of her damage and come out ahead in a brawl or trade.

The last example for this section: The common "baiting". This seems like an easy thing to do, but baiting is an art. It's true that especially at this elo (Silver and below) most people are going nuts at the mere sight of a possible kill, but there are smarter way to bait than just running around in circles with 300 HP just waiting for the enemy to get the greeds and towerdive you while you will just use your barrier and let your  jump at her from the across the map. Real baiting is a sort of acting, for example knowing where the enemy has warded and recalling exactly there or clearing a creep camp in the vicinity while your team waits in a brush where they haven't warded. Baiting is made best with enough map control. Vision is power and nothing's more satisfying than being two steps ahead of the enemy.  "I see what you are doing right now and I know where you won't expect me..."

Champion knowledge
This always was a big issue for me. I've heard so many times how people complained about the most plain champions being overpowered, unbalanced, underpowered, wahtsoever. We tend to get intimidated easily if we see someone outplaying us and in our endless pride we assume that it's the champion and not the player behind it.

Take me for example, I had a huge hatred on and thought her to be the most op shit ever. Then when she was free to play, I tried her and at first I thought myself verified, because even when I played bad, I came back by simply grabbing kills all over the map. However I also realised her weaknesses (and I'm not talking about her weak pre lvl 6) and the next few times I played against her I used this knowledge to my advantage. Once you play a champion (once you play him properly) you will get a feeling for their CD patterns, most likely reactions to your actions, and the moments when they are the most vulnerable. Knowledge is power and if you ever have problems with a certain champ...play him, buy him, try him on a friend's account or when he's free to play.

Spawn timers
This is especially useful as a jungler. If you know the exact respawn timers of the creep camps and objective monsters you can easily counterjungle and steal monsters. It goes to that extent that you spend half of your time in the enemy jungle, denying him completely and occasionaly kill him to steal whatever buffs he might have snatched. Counterjungling can create a huge advantage for your team, but in elohell almost noone does it correctly (or they don't do it at all, becuase they are too scared/bored/dumb) Once again, knowledge is power.

To farm or to fight?
As soon as midgame hits, the bloodlust of all players will rise and they will try to put up teamfights...lots of teamfights. Especially ADCs/Marksmen will then sometimes put the priority on being around the aggressive areas to participate in any teamfight that might arise...and then they don't farm properly, same with junglers who put ganks over clears and then happen to be left with 20 cs after 3 successive unsuccesfull ganks. Fights and kills are important, but you can't fight 24/7 and farm is way mroe important than it might seem. Especially marksmen (cause expensive items) and junglers (low budget) cannot miss farming opportunities. Whenever you feel like no team will engage a fight, look for a solo lane or some camps and farm. Especially in ranked, farm equals win. So don't lust for kills all the time. Keep calm and farm like the chilled-ass mofo you are.

Wards > items
This is a biiiiig issue. I see so many deaths because people were too lazy to buy wards  "Hey I can get a but I won't have any money left for wards. NVM it's not like their  can pull off any good ganks huahuahua"

And then you die...like...a lot. You do not deserve any higher elo than Bronze if you do not put wards above your build. safety first and I rather buy w wards and a bunch of potions then dying and losing farm and experience. This has probably been mentioned many times before, but in my opinion it's the best approach to outsmarting your enemies.

Very demotivational
Okay this is an easy one: DO NOT FLAME! In elohell your teammates a unstable psychopaths. give them the slightest cause and they will happily troll your game, ragequit or simply ignore you and throw the game. I had this. I don't want it to happen again, so wahtever happens I try to stay cheerful (or at least pretend to be). Keep your team together at any cause or play. United we stand, divided we fall... Or whatever you want to hear at this point...

You'll hear it very often, because it's true, teamwork is important. And for fuck's sake people, you want to win these rankeds, and you don't have to care if your teammates are the most mentally disabled, most asocial, and worst people in the world...you play rankeds...for yourself...so you have the GODDAMN DUTY to try everything to win them.

Le grand finale
Now after a whole movie of excessive smartassery (Is that a word? It is now!) I shall finish this post with a last smart advice:

Admit it you sleazy bastards, you want a pretty gold frame and the awesome rewards. So get off your lazy asses and EARN your promotion. We can all reach gold, but we have to do something for it, and if it requires smashing your keybord with a hammer to blow off steam...then so be it. It's a long and hard road.

I actually wanted to end this with a comic that I once found on dA. It featured a plaer enthusiastically starting a ranked as with the words "Let's win this shit!". In the next panel we see and  derping into a tower and getting themselves killed. Then the enraged player yells at the screen asking why he's put with these people, to wich it replies with a riotfist into it's face saying: "Because you have to EARN your promotion, BITCH!"

I not only found this comic funny, but also very true. Take it as a an encouraging speech. You DO have to earn it.

YPN out.

8====D (because I can, sue me)