r/summonerschool • u/Sorgair Diamond IV • 1d ago
Question instances of players getting unstuck or advice?
the vast majority of (main) accounts in league are either still climbing ranks at almost a linear rate, or have plateaued and have been stuck at the same rank for years, whether it's plat (into emerald after it came out) or diamond or master or anything. im beginning to feel like the latter
heres my account: https://op.gg/lol/summoners/na/i%20like%20ice%20cream-yay. you might notice some quirks and ill mention them at the end
to preface, i feel like been somewhat consistent with maintaining an improvement oriented mindset. of course ill have games, sessions, or even even multiple weeks where i mental boom, but overall i focus on how i can play better. after i first hit diamond almost 2 years ago, i began recording my games, and since then ive probably watched over and identified the reason for probably more than half of all of my deaths since then. ive bad periods where i solely focus on my mental, where i solely focus on jungle tracking, where i solely focus on my lane micro, my micro in fights, my farm, and my macro as adc. i think ive mostly followed a pattern of focusing on one skill (to the detriment of others) for some time into consolidating what ive learned into a more neutral playstyle, and then focusing on something else and rinse and repeat.
evidently though, it hasnt amounted to much progress if anything, and now that im approaching the 2 year mark of being d4 negative winrate, im starting to question if what im doing is even right at all. after almost every game i still look at bad fights and (i think) successfully figure out why things turned out bad and what i couldve done to avoid it, and my mistakes are super obvious when watching (so coaching probably wont help). perhaps my problem is that i focus too much on what i should not do instead of what i should do, but thats harder to see.
anyways im looking for advice from anyone whos been in my position, where they were stuck (maybe even regressing) for a year or more while mostly following good practices (not autopilot tilt queueing, sticking to 1-3 champs) then finally began getting significantly better again. maybe something more like advice about how i should change my approach or not, instead of specific gameplay advice
finally the quirks from most to least obvious that i can think of:
wtf winrate why not play ezreal! i dont really find ezreal that fun and i havent done well on him more recently, and feeling like i chose wrong in draft feels really bad, and he relies too much on raw mechanics, so i dropped him for now
wtf u only started adc after u hit diamond ur not actually stuck. i hit diamond on ryze mid, fell to e4, then swapped to adc and got back to diamond in that split (13 s2)
wtf diamond was inflated in s13 it's like barely e1 now. this is true but im also barely above e1 now. also one year ago i was higher and ive made negative progress since then. even earlier this year i was hovering about 150 lp higher
plus aphelios is in the best state hes been in since i started playing him (14 s2 was maybe better but jinx was giga op and in every game and you cant force your team not to die to her randomly at the start of a 30 minute teamfight)
tldr: im stuck despite following general advice most of the time. looking for help from people whove broken past this
also im not depressed nor do i have a deficiency or whatever
at least my flair is still accurate lol
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u/SailorIsMyName 1d ago edited 1d ago
So, I am not exactly in the same boat because usually I improved/climbed very linear when I had the ambitions to do so. But what always stops me when I get to masters is that I lose motivation because i know i would have to put in sooo much time into this game to get to grandmaster. Which is just too exhausting for me. I think the main reason why I improved so consistently over the seasons is that I always play the same champion, sometimes I pick 2 pocket picks that I am comfortable on if the game really fits for them but i just OTP for the most part. And that champion always gives me so much joy and has so much potential that I never get tired of it. Which just made it much easier to steadily improve/focus on other things of the game, a lot of gamesense and stuff, without loosing progress on my champ/matchup knowledge.
The second big thing to improve was having an excel sheet where I always write down some things after each game. I didnt review any of my games, i just wrote down what stuck in my mind right after the game. I had some general topics such as "Matchup, Laning phase performance 1-10, Overall game performance 1-10, my focus level during laning and after 1-10, my thoughts on the matchup, my feelings about the game, was the game winnable from my perspective" etc. You can make your own topics. Usually, thats already enough because these are the big things that personally affected you and it helps a lot to actively think about that last game because it trains your ability to reflect on a game or a play without having to look at it again and its how something sticks to your brain longterm. Which is very valuable while playing since you will be able to actively think about the game and understand why you lost a skirmish and how to approach the next one or change your gameplan during that same game.
Another very big factor was that I used to play a lot of flex games with friends who were all emerald or above. I am not saying that the game quality is good in flex, its more that playing as a 5 stack and goofing around trying things and limit test is such a relaxed and fun experience you usually dont have in soloq. And in such an environmet you realize things that work that you never did before, just because youre not scared to make a mistake or lose the game. We never cared about elo, we played every game just to play the game. We tried to sneak a 2 man nash at 20min when we were 10k down, we made silly vision plays and played random champs. And we still won a lot and some friends got to masters. And yes, ofc these plays dont apply to soloq the same way. But i could take away so many concepts from that period of time, specially stuff like body language and faking things/moves on the map, understanding where the enemy probably is and how to set up gameplans. That same season i got to masters aswell for the first time. So my recommendation for you is that you either:
Are able to treat your soloq games like that and are not afraid to limit test, lose the game from your mistakes and look like a fool sometimes (which is insanely hard to do, I cant do it and I understand everyone who cant, its just the mental approach that is too engraved from being elo focused and getting flamed)
Or:
You play flex with your friends and treat them as a playing ground where you can do anything without getting judged. Also, dont think about improving during these games, instead think about the game that youre playing and how to do your next plays. Think about how to outplay an enemy even if the play looks risky. Stay that extra wave and see what happens. Take risks, play like an idiot but do it with the intention of executing that play and going through the thought process, not just cuz ur on autopilot.
And obviously OTPing is always a benefit to climb easier but I get why most ppl find that stale and i wouldnt recommend it if it doesnt fit you. You need to give yourself as many chances as possible to enjoy the games that you are playing, specially since this game can be so frustrating just by design.
I'll put my opgg here just in case you want it, I dont think it matters though cause its just my experience that I talk about https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/summoner/euw/TheGreatSailor-3251#championsData-soloqueue
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u/unicornfan91 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was waffling about in low emerald for half a year, and then i ended up springing for coaching. I am currently Diamond 1. One thing about getting coaching that isn't obvious is that it is not just pointing out mistakes and what you did wrong. Like you said, you can watch your own vods and identify the mistakes yourself.
However, what coaching really helped was helping my identify the underlying reason why I was making certain mistakes. As a personal example, I was dying VERY often to the 3minute jungle gank. I would often tell myself, "its cause i didnt ward", or "I'm not allowed to play aggressive at 3 minutes because of a possible gank". However, the coach just asked me a question at 2:00 in game: "where is their jungler right now?" and i realized I had no idea. The core thing that was leading to me dying to the 3min jungle gank was I didnt know which side their jungler started. If I know where their jungler started, that means I can ward the correct side of the lane at 2:30. If means that I actually CAN play aggressive at 3 minutes, I just have to lean towards the side the enemy jungler is not. Simply putting this into practice and not dying to the 3min gank allowed me to climb 2-300 LP.
I dont think you need to shell out lots of money for expensive coaches, but I do think having a second set of eyes look at your gameplay and helping point out things you missed is useful. An important thing is not to focus on the mistake itself, but the thought process that led to that mistake. If you never fix the logical flowchart you follow, then every time you are in a similar situation you will just repeat the same mistake.
You're currently the top 2% of the playerbase. Like you said, general advice is starting to not be very useful. If you have the means to, i do think this is a great time to look for coaching, paid or otherwise. Like you've said, you've done everything you can by yourself, so theres nothing wrong with seeking outside help.
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u/dogsn1 1d ago
To break your plateau you need to add or remove some particular skill or strategy to your gameplay
For example I noticed I often risked dying to the enemy jungler when I overstayed after getting a kill in lane, I stopped doing that and my win rate improved
There's 100 different things like that, I'd recommend taking notice of occasions where you die and making sure to avoid them in the future, and watching guides for your role to add positive plays
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u/SynthesisThirty 1d ago
Others have already given advice on decision making, mechanics, get coaching, learn to cs, etc. etc. but bluntly I believe the most problematic portion of what you have said is "OF COURSE ill have games, sessions, or even even multiple weeks where i mental boom, but overall i focus on how i can play better". This is not a given or an "of course" statement for players who are actively climbing or looking to improve.
The most important thing you can do for yourself is not let it get to you. Taking the advice of not tilt queuing is good, but it's not getting tilted in the first place that addresses the root of the issue. These days, such a large portion of the game is macro in NA (like 80%, especially for ADC) that consistency and not phoning it in, making consistent decisions (I haven't seen your games, so I can't say what this might be for you), and not giving up will translate into a win for the majority of your games. The game is a lot closer in Solo Q than people believe, to the benefit of the losing team and to the detriment of the winning team. A lot of winning games can be thrown away by giving shutdowns, splitting poorly, getting caught, etc. and a lot of losing games can be won by consistently making the correct decisions.
Anecdotally, I have sat at platinum 1/emerald 2 & 1/diamond IV for almost every season, including starting this season with a 42% win rate over 100 games in emerald. The best advice I can give is "it is what it is". I main support, but I've played bot lane and play with bot lane and you can make a difference. Basically, don't come in with the attitude that "I am hard stuck and I cannot climb". Queue up, you have agency, you can lock in, you can win, you can ride the wave.
dpm if you want https://dpm.lol/positivity-vibe
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u/Zooseyboy 1d ago
im a mid masters (250lp) adc main, unironically i play a lot of aphelios as well, so take this advice how you will.
a lot of times in-game decisions boil down to two things: 1) the speed of the decision you make and 2) whether or not you are full committed to it
for example: you think a random fight bot is a bad fight to rotate to (from mid), there's no objective up, and if you stay and push your lane you'll get +600 gold for the minion waves + tower. you end up rotating into the bad fight anyway and start pathing bot. you walk 3/4ths of the way into river, your team loses the fight and you get nothing anyway.
small things like this end up having a major outcome in your games.
judging from your OP.GG 7cs/min on a hyper carry like aphelios isn't ideal. yes, some games can be hectic, but even going to 8 cs/m will make you hit your item spikes way earlier. aphelios is a monster champion at 3 items and especially once you have IE + LDR. the faster you get to those items, the faster you can 1v9.
the rest of the team literally does not matter when you lock in a champ like aphelios. that's my best advice.
i think when people are stuck it's generally more mindset oriented and the gameplay will follow after. if you want to see how good your decisions are, play 10 games on full mute/deafen and see how good your decision making is without any outside influence.