Everyone makes mistakes in solo queue, and nobody's perfect. However, watching out for key mistakes is definitely important to climb consistently and efficiently. Let's check out some of the most common mistakes in solo queue below! Feel free to add your own in the comment section ^_^
Introduction
Everyone makes mistakes in solo queue, and nobody's perfect. However, watching out for key mistakes is definitely important to climb consistently and efficiently. Let's check out some of the most common mistakes in solo queue below! Feel free to add your own in the comment section ^_^
Objective Errors
2. Forcing Dragon Fight - Other than the 5th dragon buff, the first four are not worth getting aced and losing multiple towers for. Oftentimes, teams will suicide into an ace for something silly like 15% damage to towers and buildings.
Do some simple math. 3v5 = You're probably going to lose that fight.
3. Failure to Group - Likewise, if your team is fighting 3v5s and you're off split pushing, yes, it's true it's their fault for not noticing you're gone (or noticing you're gone and fighting anyway), but in solo queue it's always the odd man out that's going to be the target of rage.
If you're going to attempt a strategy that leaves your teammates high and dry, make sure to communicate that beforehand. The worst is when someone split-pushes, dies, and then complains that their team isn't taking objectives. (See "Raging" below.)
Gameplay Errors
4. Not Watching Minimap - The minimap shows you all sorts of useful information from enemy movements to certain incoming damage. Not watching it is like closing your eyes and walking into traffic hoping someone will shout "CAR" in time for you to dodge it.5. Tower Diving Early - Junglers do not pack armor early. Do not tower dive at level 3 hoping for a kill. Do not do it. Repeat. Do not do it.
Even if you get the kill and an execute instead of a death to the enemy laner, You just blew your flash and negated the benefits of your double buff for no reason. Worst case scenario, you die to the enemy laner on the tower, your teammate tries to salvage your failure, and you both rage quit to the 2-0 Irelia with double buff at lvl 3.
6. Trying for "Big Plays" - Lee Sin flash kick. Janna flash ult. Thresh flash hook. If you're in a league that you can do it, you're probably also in a league where they're not going to let you get away with it easily. Save it for the YouTubers making highlight reels.
Social Errors
7. Begging For Ganks While Losing - If you're losing your lane horribly, don't ask for a gank. Let your tower die and farm at second turret. By the time you're 0-5, if your jungler comes you're both going to die. You should have started playing passive by 0-1 and it really doesn't matter if they're tower diving you at this point. The good news is, by the time you're worth no gold, you can now split-push to your heart's content.8. Raging/Verbal Abuse - I think it goes unsaid that for every letter you type, it's a spell you're not casting. Communication is key, but raging never helps. If you're a big rager, try duo queuing with a friend (or fellow rager) on Skype. This way, you can safely rage to each other and your team will remain blissfully ignorant of their pathetic ability to land skillshots.
9. Taking All Buffs Late Game - While in some cases this is okay, a Lee Sin taking every blue and red simply because "my team sucks" is not going to curry any favor nor be particularly useful. Worst case scenario your allied Anivia who really wants that blue buff is going to make good on her "If you take blue buff one more time..." promise and drop your chances of winning drastically.
10. Going on Tilt - Tilting is likely the worst thing you can do to yourself, and involves both playing champions you're not comfortable with as well as raging. If you feel yourself on tilt, taking a break will definitely help. Winning a single game is not going to put you off tilt instantly, and will likely put you on stronger tilt with your next loss.
Got more tips to add? Drop them in the comment section below!
Be sure to share this list with your friends if you think it's helpful!
I see teams feed 20-25 kills in mid-game because they have no vision in the enemy jungle as they try to get the inner turrets down. If you are the support and it is mid-game, you need to have three wards and a pink ward in the enemy jungle at all times; preferably all three wards in the same quadrant. I cannot emphasize this enough. This keeps your team from getting ganked and allows you to pressure mid as well as the side your wards are on. It also opens up safe Barons (by warding enemy top jungle) and Dragons (by warding enemy bot jungle). And if you want to be a real bro as the jungler, pick up a sightstone and put three more wards in the enemy jungle so you can have both sides warded!
ReplyDeleteGreat article! Just a small typo though, not curry. I think you meant carry.
ReplyDeleteAfter winning a team fight going for jungle camps instead of objectives
ReplyDeleteNope, curry is right
ReplyDeleteGreat article ! Sums up pretty much the errors i see in silver.
ReplyDeleteThis or recalling after an ace while having 40 sec to push
ReplyDeleteI think you should add "Unless you're 100% sure you can get out with the tower dive and you don't have double buffs to lose"...I mean, it's not uncommon when I used to play Irelia where I would have 75% max HP and they're under turret with only 100 or so...
ReplyDeleteBut to add to that being 100% sure also means that you should know the general whereabouts the enemy jungler is, for say you recently saw him/her fking around at bot lane or something and you're all the way up top...
I like early champions, and splitpushing. Then I 1v1 or 1v2 anyone that comes for me, while my team takes baron or turrets. Is that fine? (We are supposing i get 5/10 kills early
ReplyDeleteCan I have my little rage here please
ReplyDelete*RAGE WARNING*
The baron one is so true, I swear that sometimes I've got the stupidest teammates who insist that baron is the jesus of solo queue and try to force baron when the whole enemy team is up and we have no vision. I keep pinging danger and they still go for it and lo and behold the enemy realises we're all MIA and and head to baron to kill us. They then get mad at me for not helping take baron and claim that me and the teammates that didn't take baron through the game. A lot of games that I've been very far ahead in have been thrown by one stupid teammate calling baron and all the other teammate sheep not thinking about the call and instantly joining in leaving me and one other person who didn't take it pinging like crazy.
*RAGE OVER*
In all seriousness the points here are all very true and I'm very guilty of 6 and 3 listing all these will help me become aware of when I'm doing them. Thanks for the list :D.
I think "the blame game" is missing from the social errors section. The first step of improving is realizing the need to improve. If you have the mindset of "oh I always get bad teams, that's why I'm stuck in bronze" you will never analyze your problems and improve upon them.
ReplyDeleteTL;DR Don't blame your team, you are responsible for your own mistakes.
1. Not recognizing your team's win conditions. Are you a siege comp? Maybe built for the split push or a pick comp? Try to recognize this during champ select and be vocal with your team.
ReplyDelete2. Know your team's power spike. If you are on a team with Lucian, Lee sin and garen, you probably want a game against nasus, kog an vlad to be over well before the 40 minute marker. Likewise, if you are on the other side of that you shouldn't be trying to force a surrender at 20, unless of course you get way ahead.
http://matchhistory.br.leagueoflegends.com/pt/#match-details/BR1/504772792/381637
ReplyDeleteThis match was the perfect example to how 'stop flaming' and 'team work' can change your game drastically. We were losing big time all the match. The team started the flame wars, surrender attempts... hell on rift. Later, with lots of patience and coordination we won all team fights (Fling... :D), objectives and it was a great comeback. They probably started to 'harass/blame' like we were doing in the beggining but anyone there calmed them down, even with the ridiculous advantage they had each other. And in the end was fantastic :D
Tower diving early. I remember the days of Bronze division. So much dive. So much giving free kills. wow.
ReplyDeleteI once read a guide to Twisted Fate which gave me this gem of advice. I've done my best to follow it, but it's a difficult mentality to have. I truly think that this is one of the best things to think about as a League player.
ReplyDelete"Every loss is your fault. This is a philosophy that I adopted and after doing so I quickly raised 200 Elo. Some of you might say "But Ucazean, I just went 30/0/5 and I just couldn't carry! I had a 0/X/0 on my team!" I don't care. It's your fault. You should have prevented their team from capitalizing on your weak link, whether that be by warding for him, ganking for him, or just plain out sitting in his lane with him as a support. Do something to fix a mistake. If you don't you're in no place to point a finger and say "Your fault." This philosophy is taxing on oneself mentally because it's hard to see how to do better when you have double CS of your lane and you go something like 10/0/10. While you played well, their team played better. Maybe after your third kill you should have tried to give your kills away to give weaker players gold. Maybe the 10 assists you have you should have stolen the kill to keep the gold where it will be in use (away from your weaker players). They don't call it Solo Queue for nothing."
I think the only exception to number 5 is Pantheon with the triple passive stack
ReplyDeletei strongly disagree with point 9 if it is yoloqueue we are talking here.
ReplyDeletethe moment you trust your teamate, unless they are really faker level farm and kills, never give buffs to anyone, just dont.
at least you can trust yourself not getting caught.
at least i have trick backing me up on this one, but seriously though, if your teamates arent doing well, please, never give the buff to the mid.
This is a great tip, I started last season in b2 and got as low as b3. Making this part of my mindset has helped me climb tremendously and this season I have been able to continue my climb all the way up to g2
ReplyDeleteHowever if you have an adc such as Lucian or ezreal or a top like lissand4a you can also consider giving it to them
ReplyDeleteHey SSJ, can you make a post about Kennen support?
ReplyDeleteI personally think the key is not to flame\ go afk if someone flame u, and ppl cry about op champions while they dont realize that the mute button is the most op thing in the game
ReplyDelete40 mins into the game:" we got an open inhibitor wave is pushing and we scored an ace! Hmm i know....let's get drake!" Happened to me and we lost the game, 30 secs to end but no..
ReplyDeleteI only would give a buff to someone who is either good, a passive player, or someone who is doing very well to help them snowball.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the 6th one, making big plays is good, but make sure you don't fail it ! :p I main Leblanc, and sometimes every players say "OMG LB O_o" because of a big play ! :D It makes you porud of yourself !
ReplyDeleteThe 8th one was so funny :D
Nice article, it will help a lot in my elo :>
PS: "will shout "CAR"" ?
You mean care right ? :p
Nope I mean car, specifically the ones in traffic :)
ReplyDeleteSadly a lot of the time even if you pull off a "big play" lime a flash Janna ult your team isn't quick enough to follow. Also if you are big enough on LB to go for a "wooooow leblanc" play you are probably worth a lot of gold and risk =/= reward
ReplyDeleteAh ok, thanks. I misunderstood the sentence ^^
ReplyDeleteAnd my english level doesn't help a lot too x) (frenchs suck :p)
u sir, are not Trick.
ReplyDeleteLee Sin with blue while your 8-0 Anivia goes without is just plain stupid. I agree though, don't hand out blue to the 0-8 Ryze or the 1-5-1 Lucian since they're likely just a buff transference vector. So really, it's situational.
So much this.
ReplyDeleteReally dovetails nicely with the whole "minimap" awareness thing with regards to placing wards at good times. Enemy jungler just showed up bot? Not a good time to go try to ward the tri bush. Awareness is king.
ReplyDeleteYUP!!!! I hate these things.
ReplyDeleteahahah pulling is the worst thing in league,some didn't even see the ping on blue buff even if you are spamming it at the point you get a report for spam :D
ReplyDeleteonce i had the blue buff up for 40 minutes because my midlaner never cared about my pings D:
well you make a flash-grab with tresh and your team don't follow...gg
ReplyDeletein yolo queue is better do things slowly cause the reaction time here is next to 0
this reminds me of this shitty thing; people dont know what pulling dragon means, or they never do it, never seen it by anyone. gotta attack it, retreat some distance. then kill it, so enemy cant easily see you/come ownage you from the back of pit.
ReplyDeleteyour anivia 700-0 ask for blue buff and you are a manaless jungler...what are you gonna do?
ReplyDeleteThank you for some agreement. As a former support main mostly rotating between Leo, thresh and blitz I can say that for every team fight you win by flashing to initiate you lose one. Pretty much removed that from my game except in chase down situations to secure an objective.
ReplyDeleteSorry, my english is not the best. Can someone explain me what "going on tilt" means ?
ReplyDeleteGoing into a game with a negative attitude. Mid on your team gives up first blood and in your head you have already lost. That kind of thing
ReplyDeleteOh! thanks LOL.
ReplyDeleteZzzz... z.. z.. Huh? reactionwhat?
ReplyDeleteI will curry my team to rice on the ladder!
ReplyDeleteKind of, not exactly. Tilt is when you lose many games over and over, you will feel worse and end up doing worse. The longer you stay on tilt, the more you will make mistakes from and the worse you will feel. Resulting in more losses and more raging.
ReplyDeletebut.... the big plays are fun.... and honestly a janna flash ulti is a pretty normal play, hell, i use flash to win trades all day, but its no big deal, in the end it just gets rid of your most reliable escape for a long ass time
ReplyDeleteand i love the minimap advice, i hate it when despite pinging and saying "mia bot lane be careful" in chat, i still get flamed when the 1/2/0 lb gets a double and forces a flash from our jg
my fault for feeding and not communicating, am i right? xD
on a serious note, i hate the leaverbuster system, you have no idea how much trolls make me wish i could quite games, but welcome to the summoners rift (flaming is not near as bad on other maps)
could be wrong here so my bad if i am but i always thought the term for tilt was talking about pinball and how if you "tilt" the machine the flippers would lock and you would just insta-lose
ReplyDeleteUnless you're a jungler that NEEDS blue why the hell would you not give it to your mana using midlane, that's the dumbest thing I've heard in ages. Fair enough if he's just dying over and over but that pretty much stops at a certain level.
ReplyDeleteSame with red, when past midgame and your grouping the ADC get's more use out of it, makes sense that the member with the highest AA dmg on the team get's the AA buff that can be applied from distance and used to peel for oneself. I try not to expect anything from my team but you can't win without them.
IMO the only junglers that can single-handedly win the game are aggressive early game junglers, Shaco, Lee Sin, but they tend to disappoint because they don't have enough of an early impact. And the devourer cheese (that's what it is) doesn't scale well up the ranked ladder.
Communication and Cooperation does.
Going on tilt is where you lose a couple of games and get frustrated and stop thinking clearly. You're more likely to rage at the littlest thing, more likely to play too aggressively and get yourself killed and more likely to make stupid little mistakes you wouldn't usually make, like bad positioning or forgetting to ward ect. If you feel yourself getting frustrated or feeling sad at losing go play something else for a little while or take a walk to get yourself back in that winning mindset
ReplyDelete#11
ReplyDeleteRealising that throws happens every game and if you know how to exploit the throws you can win so many games that you are behind.
#6 You shouldn't be afraid to do big plays. That's what seperates a good player to a really good one. You shouldn't force big plays that's the difference just let them come.
This. /ignore add is your best friend
ReplyDeleteToday played yolo queue ranked match, LASTED about an HOUR! Epic fun match..... crazy stuff, scary also in the end. Enemy had malphite, alistar.... tankyness like hell. and they had YASUO!!!! who i faced mid lane, I was playing Swain and owned him pretty much, and died zero times in lane.
ReplyDeleteI did some ownage and won us many teamfights by bursting/sustain damaging a squishy down and making them ''never move'' lol. But they were scary cuz they are so tanky and still do dmg, and yasuo can combo from the ultimate of malphite, so they ALMOST were able to win teamfights but always someone from our team was able to alone finish most of them off, so they couldnt have time to push, to our inhibitors.
We won that game. Felt like we are going to throw it and lose in mid-late game but then I just owned and my team was good too. GG WP
The rule I'd pitch is knowing what to pick in champ select. Take for instance the first
ReplyDeletefour picks decide to be squishy hyper carries with very little to no cc. So as last pick maybe you're support or jungle or something. So do you pick another squishy champion then can be instantly deleted or do you go something tanky that can peel for your team?
Just on a personal note I have to ask why people pick Vladimir in mid lane. I've never had a Vlad mid win their lane. Seriously what goes through a person's mind when they want to be a champ who has limited mobility, barely any cc, and (as far as AP carries go) weaker than a lot of more practical picks.
what is the meaning of "going of tilt"?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification, it use to happen :/
ReplyDeleteam i the only one faceplalming hard for all of those that did not read the part where i say if the laners are doing good?
ReplyDeletedude 700-0, why are you not ending the game.
ReplyDeletethen again, its like anyone still plays lee sin in this meta.
ReplyDeletebut this one gets it, he gets the point, give them blue or red only if they are doing good.
oh and btw, i hsve single handedly won the game with a sej ult or mumu ult, your point being?
ReplyDelete"unless they are really faker level farm and kills, never give buffs to anyone, just dont." What you're saying is unless you're laner is crushing his opponent don't give them shit.
ReplyDeleteFirst off there are more options for a lane to go than 1. complete victory or 2. complete loss. There's 3. slight disadvantage through CS, 4. slight advantage through CS, 5. slight disadvantage through lane/kill pressure, 6. slight advantage through lane/kill pressure, and plenty more.
You're saying to only give up buffs when the lane is already won, why would the laner need a buff if he can kill his opponent whenever he comes to lane?
Having blue can have an impact on the lane even if it doesn't involve kills for example getting the lane from a situation 3 or 5 to 4 or 6, or from a 4 or 6 closer to a 1.
I realize that what i'm saying doesn't really count for lower ELO's where mid usually either get's fed or feeds. But at some point you pretty much stop seeing situation 1 or 2 anymore, the feeding kinda stops and blue can change the lane even if it doesn't result in any kills.
I'm not saying to give buffs to a lane that's in the dumpster, I'm saying giving buffs can prevent it from happening.
My point being you haven't. I'm sure that you've landed some huge ult's, locking up their whole team which led to a won teamfight and game. But unless you're a 20-0 Riven and you get a 1 v 5 penta, you have never singe-handedly won a game.
ReplyDeleteI know i haven't, I've made plays instrumental to a win, a TF changing charm on the ADC, a 3-man tibber's, 5-man shockwave, life saving lulu ult on the ADC, zoning off the carries as a big fat dragon.
My point is those things might have led to a win but without the team doing whatever they're doing it wouldn't have won the game. Another example, me on AP fizz (pre nerf) 50s DT's lategame, someone get's picked off, mistakes are made, my team loses 4, they lose 2. Enemy heads to baron, I land a 2-man fish, Q - E, 2 dead, couple W auto's, and i won a 1 v 3 and finished the game off of that.
Now did i win the game? Yeah. Did i single handedly win the game? Fk no.
Did my team mess up getting caught? Yeah, but they killed the 2 tankiest member's on their team, if they'd killed 2 others instead I probably wouldn't have been able to 1 v 3.
You can never win single-handedly, even my 20-0 Riven example is flawed. Even if you lock up 5-man taking baron aggro as Sej or land a 5-man ult from full AP Amumu I doubt you won those fights without your carries doing any dmg, Sup shielding etc.
You don't ever really win a game by yourself, ever.
Isn't it good if somebody's reaction time is close to 0 seconds?
ReplyDeleteI think its something to do with like losing 9 games in a row and on your tenth your like omg im so gonna lose this.
ReplyDeleteif you got a player like that you don't even need to do flashy grab for win the game ^^
ReplyDeleteIt just means getting mad
ReplyDeletebecause my adc is 0/1000
ReplyDeleteThe biggest, most vicious indirect mistake in lower elo : failing to spot the windows when you can closely finish the game (or even steal it) before the 30min mark. Exemple: going for a baron instead or even worst...a Drake. But it can goes the other way, forcing a finish rush and being rkd when you had the time to get one turret, a baron and a 5th drake... This is basically game vision. The same goes when it's time to roam your mates lanes or continue to afk farm, the decision is trickery.
ReplyDeleteJust playing with a negative mindset. Just take breaks in between games and you'll be fine.
ReplyDeleteOk, in that case, one shot baron and end
ReplyDeleteyour jungler is dc and they have nunu jungler+shyvana top with smite
ReplyDeleteeasy answer for that vlad question... LCS
ReplyDeletegg afk ff 10000
ReplyDeleteNo, he meant SION!
ReplyDeleteTIP 7!!!
ReplyDeleteI get so many people begging for ganks AFTER they have fed the enemy adc 7 kills. You should put a side note to junglers not to gank fed lanes no matter how much they cry. I'll feel sorry for them, go down to help, they get blown up in one hit then kill me, or i get blown up and they still die. And before people attack saying I'm just not good jungler when I play lane if I feed I never call for help. I build Sightstone and build other support/tank stuff. I'm the type that will basically only beg for jungler help when I'm "winning" bot and it's now 2v5 in the bot lane. lol. It's like "Please help me or take a tower/dragon/buffs/SOMETHING!
P.S. WARDS WIN GAMES!! If you are behind BUILD SIGHTSTONE! Buy a pink or 2.
Sometimes I'll get so angry at my team for making stupid mistakes, usually involving above mistake
ReplyDeleteMy team went for Drake when we could've pushed a couple inhibs... the other team respawned, won the next teamfight and we lost i cri
Also I'm still angry about my last game, I finally got Tryndamere top, was destroying in a 1v2 lane, and then my team surrenders because our outer turrets are down and they are up by 5 or 6 kills and I'm like GUYS WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SURRENDERING and we lost...