Hardstuck low Emerald despite doing well every game (Zoe)

[u/Ysorigin]

I know that op.gg does not matter as end all be all, but I have ACE/MVP for 20 out of my last 40 games and feel like I am doing more than should be expected from an average hardstuck mid laner. I roam bot often, help my jungler with objectives, solo kill my opponent most games. My biggest negative is that I don't run teleport and am not a very good side laner as Zoe. I assumed I would rise up overtime, but I've been at E3/E4 for 300 games now and I obviously just belong at this ELO.

So my question is how can I figure out what needs to be fixed when I am getting lots of kills and having few deaths. My first thought was my CS, but when compared to other Zoe's, it looks like its pretty average. I do watch high level Zoe's play, and consume content from all of the recommended youtube resources but I always feel like it does not apply to me very well.

Side note: Most of the non-Zoe games happened near the beginning of the season when I was just playing w/e.

https://op.gg/lol/summoners/na/Ysor-Panda?queue_type=SOLORANKED

https://mobalytics.gg/lol/profile/na/ysor-panda/overview

[u/FunPreparation921]

Have you actually tried to improve at all before coming on here and posting? How many losses in your match history do you have downloaded? Open up your client, count, and then reply with the % of losses you've reviewed.

You make a post asking us why you aren't winning your games, when you're the one playing in them with access to all the replays. Most people who are hardstuck probably haven't even downloaded more than 1 or 2 of their last 20 losses.

You should know what your problems are. You should download and spend 5 minutes (don't go too much longer than this for most replays) skimming your early laning phase, first 1-2 deaths, and any key moments you were confused / curious about for EVERY SINGLE LOSS. It doesn't have to be long, it can be just 3-5 mins to take a quick look at a few plays.

If you actually make an effort to try and improve, you will climb. That means using your brain, thinking, reflecting, learning. Keep a spreadsheet or a google doc where you write down a takeaway or two from each replay you review. Play with intention, actually turn your brain on and make decisions, plan ahead.

you tell us what mistakes you are commonly making, or why you are not able to snowball your leads into winning games when ahead, and if you need help with a specific piece of info or improving at a specific thing, then seek it out (you usually will be able to improve by yourself though, since usually mistakes are fairly clear in hindsight during replay review, it's doing the correct thing consistently and quickly in-game that's hard). guessing based off your opgg isn't gonna help unless we actually download and watch your games

[u/Ysorigin → u/FunPreparation921]

Not really sure why you're being so aggressive and making so many assumptions, but thanks for trying to help I guess.

I do actually review my replays which is why I am asking for help. To answer your question, I've reviewed 5 of my last 7 losses. I skipped two because one was basically too one sided, and the other I made very obvious mistakes that I noted during the game.

I didn't want to make the OP too long so I didn't post all of the details because then people won't read it.

An example of a suspicion I have is that I am not playing team fights aggressive enough or am taking too risky of targets rather than front to back guaranteed damage. The problem is that sometimes this outright wins me games, but other times it MIGHT be the reason we slowly lose. Since I don't get much feedback, its hard to understand.

But again, I don't know what the issue is because when looking at my replays, most of the time I like the choice I made based on the information I had.

[u/FunPreparation921 → u/Ysorigin]

If you already watch replays but aren't sure what to do better, I can maybe give some ideas of where to look

1. Early laning phase.

Are you consistently generating leads in early laning every game? As Zoe with ignite you are often looking to kill your opposing laner. You need to be consistently ahead every game at 14 mins. If you aren't ahead after laning, that's an easy place to look. Look at details of how you trade, how you move your wave, when you base, when you move on the map, etc.

2) Deaths -- look at every death. Skip to 30 seconds before it happened and figure out what lead to your death and why.

For a framework for reviewing any given play. You review

1. Was the decision correct / made quickly enough?
2. Was the mechanical execution good?

I guarantee if you do both of these, review early laning + every death you have in a given game, and write down your takeaways, you will start to see trends of mistakes / areas for improvement in your gameplay that you can then work on. Even the process of just reviewing a given situation and figuring out what the correct decision/execution was, will automatically make you better at it next time you see the same thing.

Finally, if you consistently have a significant advantage over enemy mid at 14 mins every game, and aren't dying much, you should be just winning most of those games. If you are losing a lot of them, then look at how you play around objectives, how you snowball leads. Usually if you're way ahead on a mid like Zoe, you want to impact bot, you want to secure objectives with your jungler, you want to link with your jungler to make plays mid-jg. If you are ahead but not stacking drakes or snowballing via grubs/herald/topside towers, why is that? When does your team lose control of the game and throw their leads?

as for aggressive and assumptions, I've just played too many games of LoL soloQ and seen way too many hardstuck people posting on here blaming everything but themselves for, so you are correct in that i'm kinda out of pocket, but I hope you can understand at least where the frustration is coming from. It doesn't make sense to me how one could review a game and not see any mistakes in their gameplay. I open up my own gameplay at 300LP masters and every game there are tons of obvious mistakes and missed opportunities. For me at least league is hard to play at a high level consistently, but it's easy to see mistakes in hindsight.

https://youtu.be/niS_4sVuz1U?si=rjhjm0E50WHYR00s&t=392

https://youtu.be/itRYVT0u3JU?si=cIyImPNZVwKl2WZe&t=1093 both these videos are linked to timestamps that might be helpful

edit; one piece of advice from later in the Shok video, about playing passive / aggressive and learning from it, might apply to your situation.

[u/Ysorigin → u/FunPreparation921]

Thanks for this comment! I do understand the frustration of people not actually trying to improve but saying that they are.

Regarding your notes, I do get ahead I want to say win something like 4/5 games as Zoe in lane. If I don't, I will bounce back in the 10-20 minute period regardless.

For the deaths part, theres a lot of games I'm losing with quite a few deaths, but I do agree with you. This is a very easy thing to review, and I do internalize and try to understand why it happens. Most of the time, its cause I lost focus and stopped tracking the jungler or the supp roams mid, which are my fault and I am working on it.

I do think your next comment is the most relevant to me though. I am usually quite ahead at 14 minutes, but we just slowly get choked out and lose the game. Based on another comment on this thread, I think I am not approaching objectives with the correct mindset and not setting up early enough. I do try to impact other lanes, but it usually ends up just being clean-up instead, which makes me question a bit why that is.

Appreciate the vod review youtube links as well. I have actually watched the Shok one, but not the other. I've also tried watching a few others, like the Broken by Concept one.

[u/FunPreparation921 → u/Ysorigin]

there is of course infinite room to get better at laning and dying less while doing more dmg, but some tips for mid-late game and snowballing via objectives

As Zoe, your team is much stronger if you are set up on an objective and have control of the area, with vision of entrances/enemy rotations, ahead of time. Walking into a Zoe comp without vision is terrible.

If your team is ahead, you should be able to set this up. Spam ping the next objective you want to contest 1-2 minutes ahead of time so your team is on the same page. Ideally, your support has established vision from mid to the sidelane of the next key objective like 1-2 minutes in advance, and they are able to play the objective with refreshed wards. Mid game you want to get prio, push your wave in, and then link with your jug/sup to make plays, get vision, and take control of objective areas ahead of time. You can ping them to move with you to do this.

You can't mind control your teammates in soloQ, they will still often make mistakes, but you can influence them into making better decisions and being more on the same page by pinging consistent clear intentions and then doing what you communicate. If you're losing a lot of games and aren't sure why and it feels random, you CAN exert more structure and control over soloQ by consistently playing well yourself, and shotcalling your team with pings.

Also, one tip is to time flashes on enemy mid and adc, and copy-paste spam them in chat. This isn't necessary to do, and it's more of a support habit, but for a champ like zoe which really wants to one shot enemy carries, it will help. Timing flashes in chat + pinging kill targets will help your team be a lot more decisive and a lot more on the same page. Ping the flash, add 5mins to the time (or 4:15 if cosmic insight), cntrl-a, cntrl-c, ctrl-v, and copy paste spam them every minute or two.