I'm in this exact same position. But after I've spent so much money on this account I don't want to start a new one....>.>

 

Learn to jungle if you want to climb ranks quickly. Don't play support. I've seen plenty of people climb from <950 to 1500+

 

^ That. Take it from someone who did that exact thing Wildfeather. It harmed my play if anything. First couple levels your like 'lol noobs'. But then you start running into smurfs/idiots on your team and you lower your play to take their derps into account. Sure you still end up 1v5ing and acing. But all you've learned is how to 1v5 a team that doesn't comprehend a cc chain or how to focus a carry.

Its your account so naturally you can do what you want but expanding your game is going to be infinitely better then getting back to flawed basics.

 

It turns out, everyone else likes to jungle too. >> Been playing jungle as my main role the entire time i've been playing post 30.

 

People place too much importance on elo, and too little on their actual play.

A player's skill does not exist at "1600 elo" or "1370 elo". Your skill is a range, by the very nature of how "solo elo" is calculated in a team focused game. Your "proper elo" will actually be a range of approximately 100 or so, such as 1350-1450.

Your elo will fluctuate, it is inevitable. Sometime you will have bad streaks and drop 300 elo, sometimes you will have winning streaks and gain 300. Your deserved elo range will only be found after probably hundreds of games, because League is a lot like poker. Everyone will have unwinnable hands, sometimes you have unlosable hands, but eventually, the best players rise to the top by virtue of their being better.

Also, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is highly relevant, particularly to League.

Having a proper and unbiased understanding of your own skill will help you deal with the fact that sometimes you are going to lose and become a better player. When you lose a game, calm down and think about the game, because it is highly likely that someone on the other team may have outplayed you, and if so you did not "deserve" to win.

The only time you "deserve" to win is if you literally made not a single mistake and your team dropped the ball. It happens, but is a lot rarer than you think.

 

Hmm, so my friend sent this to me earlier today, and since nobody posted it here yet, I thought I would share:
@Yeagen(go right ahead and link it then)

 

Ah, thanks Fen. Here is the link.

Learn how to play every champion within 15 seconds!

 

Hmm. Then I'd suggest picking up a top laner. You can get some last hitting/dueling experience as well as pick a better understanding of good ganking/counterganking cues to improve your main role off of.

 

I play all my favorite jungles top anyway. Skarner is a bit weak but I'm not great at duels and last hitting anyway. Luckily. He clears like a beast and in a lane where I was 0/2 vs. A Garen I was still ahead on CS. Later on Skarner becomes monstrous if you aren't being focused all game. And he can counter jungle hardcore.

Jarvan is just a straight tank in either spot. I like him the most, but he is really niche. Jax is still amazing, but of the three he is my least skilled overall. I recently switched from cloth/pendant/scepter pots to boots pots, so I need to relearn some paths and timing, but it helped my tanks coming out of jungle a lot.

I bought Mundo also, but I haven't played him much. I liked the idea of Mundo much better than actually playing him -hp regen is like my favorite stat/mechanic if all time- but maybe that, like Morde is because I'm not skilled enough to play him well yet.

Smart casting is new to me, and also one of my favorite things I learned since I started. Too often was I a second too late with the second click to activate a skill.

 

I like one of the comments:
http://i.imgur.com/2vK2U.jpg

 

I much prefer this. A bit outdated now, but a few of those are amazing.

 

I am really liking ARAM Proving Grounds these days. I just found it because I had taken a break for the game that shall not be named (D3).

 

I've had the worst luck with games lately.
Every time I go top, it's vs a duo queue with the jungler where I get camped all day. The other lanes don't carry and I end up underfarmed and lose.
Every time I go mid, I get hard-countered or end up in a farm lane where I just sit and wait for my allies to lose.
Every time I go bot, I either get a assfuck retarded carry or a jackass "hurrdurr im gonna support <bullshitchamphere>"
Every time I jungle, the lanes lose or push up too far for ganks constantly.

I hate team games at the moment. I want a version of league where lanes are on lockdown for the first 20 minutes. You pick a lane and are stuck to it and the base.

I mean I just played a game where I zoned out Karthus as FIZZ and interrupted his ultimate with my ultimate TWICE to save the sidelanes. I outfarmed him, killed him a few times, ganked their jungler twice, and double killed bot twice, getting our AD carry fed. Somehow vayne/karma shit all over blitz/vayne, despite me putting the enemy ridiculously far behind.

Game culminates in me ganking karth in their jungle, making him WASTE his ult to attempt a counterkill. Since I just picked someone off and made karthus use his ult while his team is nowhere near ready to engage, it was obviously the best time for my team to tower dive and get aced while I went back and healed. The enemy barons then starts to push mid. We still have a pretty great team. They have no initiation and we have a blitz, which means a few good pulls let us get back in.

As they push mid, shyvana ults after vayne. Despite it being a horrid engage, it's do or die. I dive in on vayne, and get her to 15 hp ignited with my fizz dot on her, but she autoattacks minions and lives because she has a full build from being fed bot. I scroll up and my entire team, four fucking people, is focusing down warwick. With guardian angel. 5 for 0 ace and the game ends. Final score? 20-22.

time for some ARAMs =/

 

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=142596&d=1301297812

i'm too lasy to look for it. but where can I find one like this without the tips box

 

Any wallpaper site ever, but here you go, regardless.

wallbase

Here's a late-teens to early-adulthood Annie, for your viewing pleasure, that may or may not have been linked before.

wallbase

 

And in-depth review of Zyra based on PBE play:

TROLLOLOLOL, wut do you attack, me or plants?

Me?

Snare! Oh lookie, the plants are hurting you!


Plants?

TROLOLOL MORE PLANTS, and I'm hurting you too!

Proceed to win lane.

 

Eh. I found Zyra easy to lane against. Very squishy, and can't respond very well to aggresive play. Then again, it could be that those playing her were just bad.

 

^pretty much this. I just got handed my third ban most likely for throwing a fit at people who I hope to god are trolling because they honestly can't be that stupid.

Example: we have a riven go top and feed 6 deaths in 6 minutes. Her excuse is that she told us she cant top lane and while she has runes for sona/soraka she doesn't have any for taric.

Now I don't mind if you are bad, but if you fuck up you better stop defending your ass when the reason you fucked up is because of another one of your fuckups. I mean honestly no runes for taric, but you have them for other supports??? And I get to hear this person keep on making excuses and blaming the team.

I mean honestly, fuck LoL sometimes. Oh and this was somewhere between 1800-1940 elo...

Being bad is one thing, being fuckall stupid is another.

 

How the hell are you even getting bans? DLPers know I rage a huge amount even without voice chat, and I've never been handed a ban.

 

This. Going aggressive against a Zyra who knows what she's doing is asking to get pinned between her plants and her. Which is NEVER a position you want to be in.

Secondarily, her snare is on a fairly short cooldown, so she generally has it up when she needs it, if she doesn't use it as a damaging ability or to spawn slow-plants.

I find that her Plants/Seeds+Q+Ult combo has HUGE burst at level six, and then continues to do damage as they run away. Throw in an ignite and maybe a snare and you're almost guaranteed a kill against a squishy.

I've gone legendary a few times with her, or at least went double-digits kills and low-singles deaths. Maybe it's partly because people don't know how to respond to her.. but I find that people tend to just ignore her plants in the middle of teamfights, allowing them to do huge amounts of damage while she runs around making sure she doesn't get focused and spawning more plants/snaring.

Her huge-range ult-knockup is nasty as hell, too. Great for teamfights where you need to disable the enemy for a little bit. Even if they get out of the ult, everyone ALWAYS scatters, because the Area of Effect is so huge, and they spend precious moments running away from her ult while the rest of the team focuses down.

If they don't run.. they get knocked up, and two Enhanced-Plants are pounding away at them the entire time.

Then, whoever's left is now utterly disorganized. Which should allow for easy pickings by a good team.

She's also capable of shaco-like bush ganking later in the game. Sitting in a jungle bush and putting down four seeds then waiting for someone to come by is both hilarious and absolutely fucking terrifying for the enemy. Two plants do enough damage, four at a time is utterly vicious. I burst down a fed Naut with his shield up from full to dead in 1.5 seconds with ult+four plants ambush in a bush even though I wasn't really that fed nor was my farm incredible.

She pushes like a boss, and is hard to gank because she can use her seeds as warning-traps sort of like Nidalee's traps and Teemo's shrooms. They're basically free wards with less sight range and that aren't invisible. Still good for warding bushes or checking them if you don't want to waste an ability on a bush that might be empty.

I find myself ignoring Phreak's recommendation and building at least one Doran's Ring first, and then getting a second after boots during first return trip. She has fairly high cooldowns to start, and CDR also reduces the time between how fast she gets new seeds, so CDR Boots and items are great on her. She is very squishy, so I've found you want a tanky-ish build.

Something like this.

Dorans -> Boots1/Dorans #2 -> CDR Boots2 -> RoA -> Deathcap ->Rylais -> Zhonya's -> Dependent on teamcomp/game situation.

You can throw an optional third doran's in there if you're not doing well. She has mana issues throughout much of the game even with masteries (though I haven't runed for m. regen on her, so that could solve the problem somewhat). And is squishy, so they're really good on her.

I've actually had best results splitting points between her Seeds and her Q (with typical highest priority on ult). Not trying to max one or the other as quickly as possible. If you don't put points in her Seeds they regen very slowly, but if you don't put points in her plants their damage is pretty abysmal until you do unless you're being fed.

tl;dr, Zyra's abilities flow together very well, she's got great utility, good team-fight presence, long range, high damage, and ganking/ambushing potential out the rearend.

She's my new favorite mid, definitely. Assuming the differences between PBE and Live aren't too drastic.


Edit# >9000: Holy shit this post turned into somewhat of a monster. Every time I finished an edit I'd remember another little bit of pertinent/important info. Hopefully it's useful to the people who try her out when she releases.