While it's easy to just lump the difference between Gold and Diamond as being players just do everything a little better, I did find that there are certain components that really stuck out and/or made games super easy to blast through.
Gold vs Diamond Elo Differences
Hey everyone, haven't been streaming/posting much lately as I've been hiding away on a smurf for the last few days and busy with some life things. I did however have a chance this weekend to hop on a rarely played smurf sitting at around Gold 3 and hammered out a few days of ranked games.
While it's easy to just lump the difference between Gold and Diamond as being players just do everything a little better, I found there are certain components that really stuck out.
What I will say is that the level of Gold players is way higher than I remember back when I last logged onto this smurf, and if you're "hardstuck" in the same division year after year, just know that you're definitely improving.
That being said, let's check out some things that gold players could improve on that are easily abused:
Lane Poking
This one is an oldie but a goodie. Players tend to be very vulnerable when going for CS and can be easily poked down when they do so. The higher the division you go to the tighter the window for you to get free poke in. Enemy supports are also often wise to the fact that you're trying to poke their ADC when there's a last hit available and will retaliate on you in higher divisions.
On the other hand, if none of this happens you can continuously score free auto-attacks and spell harass literally every time they go for a last-hit without taking any damage whatsoever.
Fear of Baron, Love of Dragon
Unlike Platinum division where they hard force Baron every chance, gold players have this irrational fear of Baron and continuously ping off of Baron when the only person up is the enemy jungler. Actually, it's possible that they're all former Platinum players that have demoted with PTSD...
On the other hand, junglers have this strange inclination to do dragon solo even when their lanes have no priority. Sneaking Baron and warding Dragon is very effective at this division.
Flash Distance Danger Perception
Gold players are quite good at measuring the range of enemy spells and staying just outside of the danger zone. However, they don't consider enemy summoner timings and generally aren't ready to be engaged on offensively with flash.
Flaming Teammates
Flaming is an artform and technique that really does separate players by divisions. Generally, higher division players tend to flame from a safe spot on the map. For some reason, I see a lot of gold players pick the oddest spots to stop and type...like right next to an unwarded bush or when a giant minion wave is crashing into their turret.
Scuttle Crab Control
Based on a limited set of games, it doesn't seem like most junglers are prioritizing scuttle crab as hard as they should be. Where higher division games continuously skirmish around scuttle crab early game, rarely do you have scuttle crab battles in gold and I've never taken double scuttle as often as jungling at higher divisions.
Recall Timing
This is one of those things where higher division players just happen to do it slightly better perhaps through experience. Players will kill the enemy laner then instead of pushing, they'll continue last-hitting until it hits the enemy turret and ping off the support when they should be shoving the lane.
Sometimes, they'll shove the lane and wait behind river line for their wave to reset and continue CSing. While it's good to play safe if you think the enemy jungler is near, there's no reason not to shove and recall. Buying additional items lets you continue pushing your advantage. Otherwise, you're just laning with lower health and mana for no reason.
Wave Management
Even diamond players have trouble managing waves properly so it's no surprise that gold players do a little worse in this regard. However, it's rare for a laner to hold minions close to their tower and you're almost never punished for leaving your wave in terrible locations. If you get these freebies it's very easily to get an easy half-wave CS advantage each time, if not more.
Itemization
In diamond it's rare that people deviate very far from two or three core items per champion. However, at gold it seems like players build all sorts of...odd things. Picking optimal items is a very easy way to give you a quick and consistent advantage.
Reacting to Nearby Skirmishes
This is something that improves drastically even as you climb in diamond, but the speed at which your team reacts to fights nearby dramatically improves as you climb. It's rare to ever see someone die alone in the river at higher divisions but happens quite often at gold.
Identifying Smurfs
This one isn't unique to gold/diamond or any division in particular. However, players do tend to really be harsh against their teammates that die too much, even when it may not be their fault there's a skill gap. Again, not unique to any division but it does happen quite often.
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