I've been playing LoL for awhile now but only in 5v5 normal blind picks solo queues. I've been keeping pace with my wins/losses being equal for the most part which I think is good considering all the maroons I run into on a nightly basis.
I've always wanted to join the ranked games but have been afraid I would be a hindrance to my teammates so I never really pursued it much. Until last night.
I played two ranked solo 5v5s last night. Both as Singed and had very different outcomes. The first game was kind of sad. We had a troll Gangplank on our team that was just god awful. I ended up going 5/6/5 before our team captain pretty much gave up and started surrendering every chance he could. My 2nd game was much more productive from a team perspective. I was the pseudo-tank and it worked out well because for some reason the other team focused on me every freakin time. I ended that game 7/3/17 and 2 of those deaths resulted in our team acing the other team. Well worth those deaths.
Do any of you guys duo queue? I make no claims to be the best of the best but I would love to start playing some more with the PC Gaming crowd here and hopefully learn some things. I have any kind of communication medium needed and willing to use whatever else would be required. My username is WaldoJ. I think I have some of you on my friends list already but can't remember names vs the AT names.
I play solo rank. Used to do quite a bit of it in fact before the reset. I've done 8 games since with 4 wins and 4 losses. 3 of the losses were from pure trolls. The last one was just poor team comp that led to poor late game decisions. That loss I can live with. It happens. The other 3 I might as well not even played. I even knew going in that I was going to lose on two of those occasions at the champ select. Still I went ahead because a queue dodge counts as a loss regardless and I am not guaranteed my next time queueing would result in no trolls. So better to play I say regardless and learn from the experience as best you can than to dodge.
I will say that before playing ranked you should try the following if you are serious about winning. Master, or at least be very comfortable with, several different champs. If you are last pick you may be forced into a roll you are uncomfortable with otherwise. Especially considering there are 4 bans and 9 other people picking ahead of you. So having proficiency with different champ types in different roles is a good thing to have when trying rank. At least one champ of the following types: AD/AP Melee, AD/AP range, Tank, Support, Jungle. Having at least 3, preferably 4, rune pages is also good. I have an Armor Pen based page, a Magic Pen based page, a Tank based page, and a Support based page. That is a bare minimum in my opinion to cover the majority of champs. Additional pages can be used to fine tune different champs, such as a crit based page for trynd for example, but are not needed. Trynd can be still played well with my Armor Pen based page.
Mastering several champs of each type is also good if you can handle it, but at least one is sufficient. Personally here is what I play for each role
AD/AP melee: Xin, Yi, Trynd, Nasus, Gangplank, Riven, and Jarvan.
AD/AP range: Vayne, Sivir, Teemo, Karthus, Annie, Ryze, Anivia, Morganna, and Veigar.
Tank: Leona, Jarvan, Amumu, Singed, and Rammus.
Support: Sona, Kayle, Morganna, and Janna.
Jungle: Xin, Yi, Amumu, Rammus, Nasus, Gangplank
Even with those listed some I'm still better with some than others, but I am proficient with all those. I can play other champs, but since I play them less the muscle memory for them isn't the same.
Of course you don't have to go to the extreme I did when it comes to being proficient with that many different chars. Still I found it helps when it comes to playing against many different chars.
Last but not least when it comes to playing rank. LEARN TO DODGE SKILL SHOTS. That is the most important and valueable skill as a player you can learn in this game. So many champs rely on skillshots that if they land they will royally screw you up. However, almost every champ that uses skill shots has a "tell" that you use to dodge. There are only two exceptions I know of to this which are Ezreal and the Caitlyn exploit trick. Ezreal has almost no animation or cast time for his skill shots (minus his ultimate). The fact that he can also use a "teleport" to move in a direction you can't predict before letting you have it with a skill shot makes doding a proficient Ezreal damn near impossible. Also Caitlyn with her stupid netshot + piltover pulverizer shot combo makes her skill shot impossible to dodge right now as well. Still, learning to dodge skill shots goes a long way. I'm not saying you will be able to dodge them all, because I certainly don't, but being proactive in your dodging attempts goes a long way to winning games. I would say it has been my experience that the majority of players that lose their lanes during the laning phase do so because they can't dodge skill shots very well. So I highly suggest doing plenty of normal games with the idea in mind you are going to practice actively dodging skillshots made by your opponents. Not to get most kills, or to get a ton of last hits on minions, but to actively dodge. You'd be surprised at how much better your game play in the end will be.