[RANT] Communication

Rant hat trick! Yay!

So, my biggest issue with solo queue always has been and always will be communication.

Let's assume that's you're going for a League qualifier to get yourself up to the next shiny badge. You're current score is 2 wins, 2 losses. You're team is mostly decided except for you and one other guy. Both of you want the same role but the only other role open is one you're comfortable with just not *amazing* with and, although you don't know it, the only other role is open is one that the other guy doesn't play at all because they're nowhere near comfortable enough with the mechanics of that role.

What do you do?
We'll assume you have pick order over them for this.

If nothing was said in chat and you lock in the role you wanted and the other guy gets stuck playing his absolute worst role which we'll assume is top-lane for this. He picks Nasus or something that's good at being passive and defensive early on. Well, Riven who is now 2 levels above him just dove him with her ultimate and he died a third time. Everyone else does meh but no one really comes out ahead except Riven for either team.
What could've been done to prevent that? Sure, Nasus could've played further back early on but we'll say the second death was to a jungle gank so he had more to worry about. He isn't comfortable enough with the mechanics of top-lane to know when to farm and when to sit at tower or how easily it can snowball so are you just gonna flame and blame him all game? What good does that do? They already know they didn't do well, you telling them that isn't going to help.

What could've been done to prevent that is communicating with them. Ask them if they're comfortable with the other role that you know you can play at least okay.
Now, some people will think that they're just gonna say they're bad at the only open role because they want their first pick for role. That'll happen, yes, but most of the time you would be surprised how cooperative people can be when given the chance to be.

Now let's try that again. You're in-game as Mundo against Riven. Not your greatest matchup early on but you can sit back and chuck cleavers at the creeps for a little while. The other guy is doing okay in his role, you may have been able to do better, maybe not. Everything in the game is nice and even for about 50 minutes until the enemy team manage to pull off a really good fight and win the game.
Is it anyone's fault? Yea, someone probably made a mistake but it's also entirely possible that losing would've happened either way.

Not everything has a happy ending, some times you just have to take what's dealt to you and do your best. This doesn't mean you could've done better if you were replacing them or you could've done better than them doing whatever. You're not trying to be better than them, you're trying be better than yourself.

For the longest time, I never tried exceptionally hard in ranked. I just kinda played whatever champion I felt like at the time and didn't really care if I won or lost. I ended up mid silver because of that and clamped my League Points harder than you'd think a Silver player possibly could.
At the end of Season 3, I decided to try winning. I played my best champions or whoever I could get my hands on that was ridiculously strong at the time if I knew how to play them and I carried myself out of Silver II, into Silver I, and then got myself to Gold V after one failed promotion series before grinding up to promos again and winning them. This was all with a huge LP clamp until the lost promo when my LP gains went from 5-8 to 15-19.
It's now Pre-Season 4 and I've managed to pull two divisions in two days, getting from Gold V to Gold III with minimal effort by playing champions I'm comfortable with and communicating with my team. Not everyone is cooperative, it's true, but not everyone refuses to cooperate. Some people want to win just as badly as you do and they're going to give it their all the same way you should.
Just be open with your team. My personal preference is to let them know what my top two choices are for role and let them know which role I play the worst(prefer mid/adc, can't jungle too well).
If you end up getting the role you're not great with, tough luck, maybe next time. That shouldn't stop you from giving it your all.

I swear I'm not Canadian.

[BONUS RANT] Carrying

I ended up missing a blog post yesterday so it's time for a bonus rant!

Recently, I've decided to really give it my all in ranked. Currently, if I play normal games, I'm consistently matched with high platinum and low diamond ranking players. That'd be normal if they were playing with friends of lower rankings or I was playing with higher ranking friends but that isn't the case and due to it's consistency, I've started to really believe I can do better.

I started focusing on my main roles(mid and AD carry) and just trying to play them as much as possible. Most of the time, people are fairly accepting of the fact that those are my best roles and are fairly cooperative. At least in champion select.

This isn't me complaining about how I can't carry trolls and feeders or how I blame my teammates all day, every day. This is me trying to send a message to all those players that fall behind. This is a plea to those who have a really fed/farmed ally that is almost unstoppable.

My singular request being made is that when one of your allies is really ahead, let yourself be carried.

Yes, let yourself be carried. If they say 'group up', try to group up. If they say 'push, don't chase', maybe you should try pushing instead of chasing down that 100 health Singed that has 50 more movement speed than you. Chances are, if they've managed to make it that far ahead, they're going to have *some* ideas about handling the game.

If 4 members of the enemy team are dead and an enemy Shaco is trying to backdoor a tower that's already really low, don't chase him, try to get objectives.

If the enemies have a lot of divers and your backline is really, really fed, maybe you should try protecting them instead of diving in return.

If you're jungling and the entirety of your team is respawning but the enemy is taking Baron, go for the steal since there's not much else you can lose.

At the end of the day, you're not the only person trying to carry yourself to pro status so don't think you're the only one capable of doing it. Some times the best way to win a game is for an ally to do it for you.

Especially if you're a Riven that would rather dive onto an enemy support than protect your 18/4 Draven.

I swear I'm not bitter.

[RANT] Doran's Shield

Alright, here's the deal.
I love what they've done with supports this season although I'm kinda iffy on the jungle changes while mid-lane and AD carry haven't changed drastically, just slight shifts.
What I have problems with is top-lane.
Ever since Doran's Shield was reduced in gold with the June 13th 2013 patch(the release of Aatrox) farming/splitpushing top-laners with weaker early games have received a massive buff. None more so than Nasus due to his innate lifesteal being able to keep him in lane and farming much longer than he should.
Nowadays, the only hard counters to most sustain based top-laners is either an AP top like Rumble or Vladimir or going with an AD caster like Pantheon or Renekton who don't focus on auto-attacks.
This wouldn't really bother me so much if the champions that buy Doran's Shield weren't complete monsters late-game. If a game goes longer than 10 minutes without Nasus dying or losing his tower, you're pretty much screwed. If Volibear receives the same treatment, you're going to have an AoE monster of a frontline coming your way. Shyvana just doesn't care about damage by the time she gets her ultimate.

Truth be told, none of this would really bother me if it weren't for the fact that this was only really possibly in Season 3(from a solo-queue perspective) since Pre-Season 4 patch hit, we've been having consistently longer games which only make these farming late-game top-laners even stronger.
Although Nasus and Shyvana are already really strong and Olaf is situationally powerful, I honestly don't believe any of these champions need a serious nerf.
All I ask for is to remove one of two things from Doran's Shield. Either remove it's damage block so more sustained poke champions can be viable top-lane again(think Nidalee, Gangplank, etc.) or remove it's health regen so you're not blocking all that damage to just heal most of it up by standing behind your minions.

The same applies to mid-laners.
As you may have seen in my first blog post, I love the idea of an AD carry mid and it's awesome. Until an enemy buys Doran's Shield and then it's a massive pain in the arse.

Now, if you're thinking 'Well, that's been since June of last year, why is it such a big a deal now?'
The answer is because of the mastery changes. For the defence tree, it's easier to block a large amount of damage from enemies without follow too far down the tree and you'll get some nice health thrown in as well for a simple 9 points. Now, if you want to go even further down the tree, we start getting masteries that increases your health regeneration and general sustain while below a certain health threshold and increased armour and magic resistance while there are multiple champions nearby.

I love Doran's Shield, it's a great item, but I think it's just too much of a good thing... I also want to be able to play Nidalee top again and deal more than 10 damage to someone with auto-attacks.
I swear I'm not bitter.