Well, this is going to sound incredibly dumb but, well, any tips for getting used to smartcasting...?

The whole time I've played League I haven't used it as I enjoy second-guessing myself on champions where I have a gap closer/stun combo such as Leona, Amumu etc. I'm too used to just pressing my ability & waiting on the range, deciding if it's worth it etc. I figure it's about time now I'm probably 2 games from 1400 ELO that I actually... well, improve, maybe. It came to me last night when I noticed how utterly shite I was when playing a few games of ARAM where I got Lee & Irelia and how ridiculously hard to play they are well without smartcasting.

I know smartcasting isn't for everyone and it'll be a pain in the ass trying to remember the ranges and radius's of spells (I can see so many fluffed Leona ults right now in my head) but I feel kind of... well, terrible for never using smartcasting or self-casting, especially when doing it could save my ass because it's much quicker and more accurate. Hell, I barely remember to use my 'champions only' key when I'm playing something like Taric. My logic is if I really want to improve, I can't just rely on improving the basics like looking at the minimap more and knowing basic patterns, predicting jukes and so on.

I think it's mostly because I have small hands (we're talking tiny here, it's awkward just to press ctrl or alt and any of my skills at the same time) and I've spent most of my gaming life relying on clicking or using the same kind of key-range without many modifiers and I've fallen out of practise with the few I used to use back when I played WoW almost religiously.

Everybody's different, some enjoy smartcasing, others like myself prefer the safety and knowledge that having it off provides, but tI figure I should at least try it out... who knows, maybe it'll be better for me in the long run, though I foresee many whiffed ults and gap closers in the near future.

 

Rebind your abilities to make smartcast default and regular cast on the shift modifier, so that you can see ability range if you need to, while also having your abilities on smart cast regularly.

The other option is to use your smartcast based on which characters you play. I think Chu8 rebinds Diana's Q to non-smartcast whenever he plays her.

 

I think there are some abilities that simply should not be smartcast, like Viktor's laser and Rumble's ultimate, because they also need to control where the line lands, not just the first impact. I smartcast Jayce's Q-E combo because it gives a little more speed and an element of surprise. Smartcasting is definitely context sensitive.

My friend only binds q to smartcast because he says it tends to be the most frequently used skill, but I can see the problem with Diana.

I'm also very hesitant with smartcasting skillshots that initiate with the exception of Blitzcrank grabs because surprise, it's motherfucking Blitzcrank. I'd say playing Ezreal is a fun way to practice smartcasting skillshots.

As for small hands, I once played an unofficial tournament with a teammate who had a birth defect that gave him really short arms and only four fingers. He twisted his wrist so that his left hand was perpendicular to the home row, and he was pretty damn good.

 

...What is smartcasting?

 

It's changing skills so that they are similar to Flash. Rather than clicking a skill, and clicking on destination, you click on the skill and the destination will be where your mouse is hovering. This leads to that quicker split second to allow skills to fire off quicker.

 

Even with smartcasting you can still see the range of abilities. If you press the key but do not release it, you can see the aiming reticle on your screen. Check in options, there should be a way to turn it on if it isn't already.

Smart casting is when you don't need to press the mouse for the skill to fire. It will automatically "click" wherever the mouse cursor is when you release the hotkey. However, don't feel like you have to, a lot of professional players don't smart cast anything.

 

Turning on smartcast range indicators negates a lot of the advantages of smartcasting though, especially when you're trying to execute spell combos quickly. That extra delay where you need to lift your finger off the key to actually cast the spell can really screw you over if you're playing a champ like LeBlanc where you not only need your spells to go off as quickly as possible, but you need them to go off in the right order.

Do it like Churchey says. Bind Smartcast to QWER and normal cast to Shift-QWER. Best of both worlds.

 

When I learned about smartcast it was like Christmas came early. Now I simply cannot play without smartcasting. Nor do I understand how people cope without it in stressful or quick-paced situations(teamfights, trades, etc).

On another note: Fuck LeBlanc sideways with a rusty lamp post. Seriously, fuck her.

 

I'm not saying Smartcasting should be used on every champion, but on some, notably melee types with close-range abilities such as Lee Sin, Irelia, Wukong etc it feels silly to play without it. For example on Irelia, having to click who I wanted to stun/slow with my e, things like that can be sped up by smartcasting when required.

Still, I'll give the shift thing a go, it did cross my mind but as I think someone pointed out, generally smartcasting everything can be a bad idea, or at least rebinding everything. My main bug bear would be doing it for every champion, it wouldn't take long at the start of the game but I can see me forgetting after being distracted pre-game and having an interesting first few minutes. Still, thanks for the tips, best go practise them in a few normal games and see how I get on.

 

I need to remove attack on the move from shift. it often screw p my chase fight since I tend to forget to remove my finger off shift in the middle of an intence fight.

 

I'm pretty sure pressing the key down down, choosing the direction by moving the position of the mouse, and releasing the key, works as intended with smartcast. That said, I've never done Rumble, and only Viktor on ARAM during freeweek, so I can't remember accurately.

 

I hate smartcasting Rumble's ulti. It just doesn't feel right to me.

As for the topic a page back, the Sustain start is an excellent way to stay in the game.
Pots, Flask, and a ward will help you last a couple levels. This is where I would advise you to push your lane quickly. Autoattack your creeps while still getting last hits. Trade spells with Katarina. I pretty much always try to shove Katarina to her tower by level 4.
After a trade, try and remember what skills you landed, how much damage they did, how many autoattacks you got in, etc. It will help with future trades, and know whether they or you can go all in.

I actually lost a game as Singed top after I dominated the enemy Kha'zix. I could have killed him many times in lane, but I let him farm and get back into the game enough to feed off my teammates. Mainly because I forgot how much I could do in trades. Once I could 100-0 him with ignite, I should have done that every single time ignite was up.

 

I think my latest Ranked game is a perfect example of how the attitude of your teammates affects your chances of victory. The game began like this:
-Chillin‘ at last pick.
-Enemy first pick takes Akali.
-Tell teammates that can destroy Akali with Morde if they let me.
-They let me.
-Proceed to get ALL the elo 35 minutes later.

See, it makes no sense for the first pick to go mid, or even top, when they can be so easily counterpicked. Unless they ban their counters, which they rarely do (omgnoobbanshenomg). The guys who do that don‘t play with the goal of gaining elo, they play with the goal of playing a certain lane/champion. But that‘s what normals are for. Put the team above yourself, and your elo will soon start to reflect that.

 

Seems my luck wore off playing every few days, winning & finishing. Lost 3 in a row thus far just due to bad teamwork, weird comps & some really nonsensical stuff. Won lane twice as Leona but mid & top never warded, never punished their lanes for roaming and generally just screwed up a lot despite our please.

Third game I went jungle Kayle for lulz, worked well at the start but our comp was too squishy and the Kat penta near Baron should never have happened, but AP Yi man. Play that char & suddenly you're a 1 vs 5 man machine, till Kat kills you, you get caught by Mao & Nunu and she finishes us off. Still, I shoulda played Sej that game I feel, woulda been more useful. Down... 54 ELO in 3 games, gotta keep playing till I win, need that IP.

Edit; Tell a lie, I won lane once as Leona, I remember playing Darius vs Yorick, my Olaf jungle fed Yorick double buffs & then my net dc'd me to death twice so I was 0/4 vs Yorick & something like 30 CS by 10 minutes. Came back into it by shutting down their fed Vayne but we were just behind all game.

 

I don't play ranked much except to get me and friends to gold, but I found that whenever I was first pick and picked mid, I never got countered.

Any time someone actually attempted it, they would just get shit on. Someone picking a fizz/kat/eve into my gragas just got dumped on, because I have more experience with my champ than anyone who would attempt to counter me.

And once again, I don't think it was so much you countering her as her playing poorly. And her jungler playing poorly, because as previously mentioned, morde is the easiest character in the game to gank.

Morde does counter Akali. But entirely 1v1, akali shouldn't have difficulty farming vs morde early. She can last hit with Q from range, has a very easy time farming under tower, and has (some) built in sustain. She can just go gank heavily after 6 if she can't 1v1 you which she probably couldn't. You may "counter" her during the lane phase, but she excels in skirmishes and she can still easily do her job of assassinating the carry in the late game. One or two kills/assists can make up for morde's superior farming.

Until you're at an elo where you are playing against people who not only know how the counters work but also know how to play most characters and have the pool of counters to actually choose from, the whole counterpicking thing is kind of hit or miss. Looking up that Diana counters kat doesn't do anything if you can't play Diana for shit.

 

Maybe it's just me, but whenever I'm first pick I generally call support unless someone else wants it. Not so bad as you don't really want to 'counter' a support early on, or at least people don't try to anyway and it saves my guys getting countered... Not that it matters as they like to pick silly things anyway, but still. It helps in my head, especially as the only lane I'd say I'm remotely competent at is top if I -had- to play a carry role.

 

Are you serious? Every time Akali came near the minions to farm or Q she got an E to the face, while my passive kept my life bar safely full. Rammus did gank me, twice, during the laning phase. The first time I got a double kill and the second time Rammus escaped. Thing is, I constantly bully Akali with my E ad stop her from farming or spell vamping, which means that she is constantly below 50% hp and is forced to stay back. Neither her nor Rammus had enough damage to burst through my full passive before I killed Akali, and after that Rammus knew he had no chance.
She could not gank for the same reason. She was constantly below 50% hp, and every time she left I pushed to the tower and either followed her or counter jungled.
This wasn‘t a sole occasion either, it happens every time I meet Akali, Katarina or similar champs. Morde‘s passive renders him somewhat immune to harrash if you know how to time it, and maxing E forces the enemy to either constantly b and lose the lane or go ballz deep and probably still lose the lane It is important to play somewhat defensively when flash is on cooldown and the enemy jungler is one of those mobile as fuck douchebags.

 

Morde's E is not that hard to dodge. If she is at 50%, she played poorly. If you don't stand inside the creepwave, she can dodge the E and last hit. If you do, she can outtrade you by making you miss the creeps with E when you attack her.

It is a counter lane, but it isn't that bad. The akali and rammus you faced played poorly.

 

Perhaps, but my original point is that she has noone to blame for her situation but herself. If she didnt want that to happen she should have either picked something else and then traded, or banned Mordrkaiser instead of the generic Amumu/Malphite/Darius.
I‘m sure the chat had something like “I‘m first pick I go mid“. Bullshit.