League of Legends - My Journey from Noob to Below Average - Entry 2

Ah yes, the journey continues people! Its been about 2 weeks since my last LoL entry and not much as changed to be honest. I am still very much a noob and just grinding away trying to improve. I do feel that I have enough to write another entry in this series as it also serves as a tool to help me review and focus in what I need to be working on in game.

Review and Re-focus?!? LoL is serious business...

Goals from last entry
1. Play against actual people
2. Get better at last hitting
3. Pay attention to the map more / work on communicating with team

Two out of three ain't bad right? I haven't felt comfortable enough yet to jump in a normal game against actual people. I know that I should just start doing it, but I don't know. I really don't want to get yelled at or completely rolled for not playing at a high standard. I mean just from playing against bots I feel I'm surrounded by trolls that consistently want to tell me what to do and what I am doing wrong. Even though they are normally the ones with 10 kills, 6 deaths, and a 35 CS by the 30 minute mark. I can only imagine playing a REAL LoL game and all the bullshit banter that goes down.

When I get the time to play, I normally just want to hop in, practice the basics, and make good decisions. That is what I have deemed more important for the moment and I think that it has paid off so far. A perfect example is that I just finished a game where I wasn't my normal mid lane, but I still thought I did pretty good overall. However, when I looked at the final score I couldn't figure out why my "Gold Earned" was so much less then others. So I took a screenshot and headed over to the Mobafire forums and ended up making a new thread.

Last Hitting is Important Mmmm'kay?

You can check out the thread post and the screenshot from the above link. It got several responses and to my surprise the community basically stated that I was terrible at last hitting. What I thought was decent, was actually terrible for a 33 minute game. Now I don't think that they took into consideration that this was against intermittent bots and that one of the players (Kassadin) was a snowballed super beast. When I would try to farm some creeps, he would come in and kill them immediately with an aura type of spell. The game was never in danger of losing, so I mostly focused on team battles...hints my 13 assists.

HOWEVER! They still brought up a very good point. First off, the reason why the AI team had 3-4k more "Gold Earned" then me was because that is how the AI / Bot team is designed by the developer. Plain and simple answer. Secondly, the point a few of them were making is that I really should focus alot more on my CS.

So the last 5-10 games that I had played I have really been focusing on last hitting and getting my CS up. I am happy to report that I have significantly increased my CS average to about 180-200 by the 30 minute mark if I am rocking the mid lane and ~100 or so if sharing a lane. While I still have work to do, I am pretty happy with my progress.

Middle Lane and the Jungler...

Coordination, communication, and map awareness are all very important when solo in the middle lane. You just can't zone out and not pay attention to the mini map...especially the position of your team's jungler. I know this...but actually doing it and performing the task is harder then it seems. I had a game the other day against bots where our jungler actually seemed like he knew exactly what he was doing. Now, I noticed him pinging and coming into my lane for a potential gank a few times, but I didn't think it was a good time to risk my life for the gank.

Well...I guess after the first 2 passes I just didn't pay attention or coordinate with him and he made sure to call me out on it. I think his exact words were "You are really fucking terrible"

So confused and assuming it was me lol, I asked in chat and it was confirmed that he was indeed talking directly to me. It was at this point where I had to explain that I am playing against bots because I am still learning the game and not a pro like him. When I asked why he didn't type anything out once he realized that I wasn't getting it and he replied "l2play". Very helpful right? I know he doesn't have too, but it would of been nice if he could given me some tips on how not to be fucking terrible. I even asked him after the game was over to help a summoner out, but he never responded. Too pro I guess lol. No worries here though, I have no shame in asking for help for my noobish ways!

I find paying attention to mini map way harder then I realize it was going to be. Now that I am starting to get decent at last hitting, I am going to start focusing alot more on this. Hopefully in entry 3 I will have improved and actually get some games against other players under my belt.

Champions Arise!!

Maybe you noticed that the main picture for this post is Karthus. Well that is because I saw a streamer on Twitch playing him and a few hours later I saw a professional match where one of the teams was rocking him. Even though I am much more comfortable with Malzahar, I went ahead and decided to pay up and buy him. I have only played a few games with him but man...what a powerful and fun toon! All I got to say is that his ultimate is GLOBAL.

Yes, a global ultimate that hits all players...hints the nickname of King Kill Steal. I have yet to get a pentakill, but I am sure after I start playing him more and more that they will come. In fact, I think I am going to play a quick game now with him. Until next time people.