[NA] TeamLiquid Practice Group - Page 39

On January 22 2013 14:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
10:11 - You micro your champ too much, it's slowing you down when you last hit. I'd suggest not trying to be mechanically professional at the game until you have a stronger general sense of gameflow.

On January 22 2013 14:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:

8:27 - Hmm okay I'm not sure if that's standard but I think I'd probably be going madred's over spirit stone. If someone who mains jungle Vi tells you otherwise sure but personally I would go for madred's. It's not like you have sustain issues. 4 pots is kind of overkill, probably a ward would be much better.

On January 22 2013 14:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
I would suggest that you learn a much easier jungler with better ganks. Learning to gank would help. It's great that you can pve without dying to jungle minions for 20 mintues but that's not the hard part about jungling. Get someone who has strong ganks and just own face because everyone at this elo is bad.

On January 22 2013 21:39 Scip wrote:
I didn't watch the replay, so I can't say I really disagree with anything, except for this part:

that is generally a very bad piece of advice. You see, the thing is, the general sense of gameflow depends upon your mechanics, and with imperfect mechanics you get imperfect sense of the game. For example, because you can't move and autoattack at the same time properly, you might think that you have to play defensive as Jax vs. Irelia in lane all game; but that is wrong, it's just your mechanics tricked you into thinking the wrong thing. If it were at all a decision one could make, improving mechanics before improving gamesense would be the optimal choice.

On January 22 2013 14:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
DON'T BE OFFENDED, IT'S NOT THAT I DON'T LIKE YOU

I'm not gonna filter my thoughts very hard here, don't take it as me insulting you. I'm here to help you improve.

-----------------

0:00 - Know what you want to buy or be able to figure it out fast. You should be out of the fountain and covering invade spots as soon as the game starts and so should your whole team.

1:00 - Everyone else is moving around the map, albeit retardedly. It's 30 seconds til minions spawn you are missing crucial times to do invades and cover against invades. There's a blitz on your team! You should invade!

1:40 - Do wolves before blue, it's free and it speeds up your clear speed by a lot.

2:10 - They gave you a smiteless blue and you smited it anyway. You could have used that damage that they put on it to kill it without smite and go straight to red. If you did wolves before you did blue that would let you be level 3 with both buffs when everyone else is level 2.

2:50 - You should be chugging those initial pots to stay high in case of counterjungle or an easy lane kill.

3:18 - Don't double queue pots like that unless you know you 100% have to. If you had kept it smooth and constant you'd be high enough to gank right now and probably force Shen out of lane. It's doubtful that you'd get a kill, but he would at least blow his summoners and that would set you up to circle around and gank again. Putting pressure on lanes as a part of your natural jungle flow is really important.

3:47 - You walked into Shen's vision, let him see you, then went into the bush. Don't let people know you're going to gank then sit and wait.

3:55 - You shoved Shen out of lane and got negligible amounts of damage on him but you stole a full health creep from GP. I prefer not to lane tax unless I forced the other team to miss creeps, but this wasn't bad. You should have just left and let the creep wave push and your potential presence alone would have zoned Shen. If Shen doesn't zone himself you just come back and gank again (this time without letting him see you then walking backwards into the bush).

4:16 - Holy fuck enemy Soraka warded their own tower outside of their bush. Real.

4:58 - Ahri gives up FB 1v1 to Fizz because she doesn't understand mana management or burst estimation. Not your fault, but I think I might have told her I could cover her lane while she heals and gets items, especially vs high burst champs like Fizz who can full combo a squishy. Again, though, not your fault.

5:00 - You had enough for Madreds + boots but instead you bought parts for philo. I think this is a mistake. Especially on someone like Vi who has an autoattack reset and built in steroids you want razors instead.

5:30 - Shen is overextended with low HP and he hasn't bought yet. I think a gank is better than golems here.

5:50 - Don't try for a long-range falcon punch, just walk up and apply red buff. Use Q to gapclose when it's hard to miss. Also holy shit this GP is bad.

6:05 - Now that you know Shen is bluepilling, you should help GP shove the wave to the tower. This is the correct way to lane tax. If you leave the lane now GP might get himself killed by a countergank if enemy Vi is smart and shoving the wave to the tower would give GP a huge advantage over Shen because Shen missed 3 waves of xp and GP shared it with you and still got to buy.

6:42 - You haven't had to use any of the pots you bought. Madreds instead of the sustain items is clearly a better choice .

6:50 - Your bot lane Caitlyn feeds because she's bad. Not your fault, but holy shit this game LOL.

7:08 - Practice using Q. You have yet to hit one all game.

7:15 - Don't counterjungle when your buffs are coming up. Generally, I don't counterjungle unless my escape summoners are up and I have nothing more important to do on my side (blue buff, in this case), and I rarely do it against global ults unless I know they're down. It's a risk/reward thing, you denying one wraith camp at the risk of feeding really easy is not a good trade. Once enemy Vi shows up, you know you can't win a fight with her, though you can bait a Shen ult. Shen ult comes down and you should IMMEDIATELY FLASH OUT and run like hell because if you get hit by anything you're dead. Just let GP freefarm top and disengage.

7:25 - That was dangerously close and they only missed it because they're really bad. Holy shit GP is walking to mid from top to counter the Shen ult. /face

7:55 - I probably wouldn't give any buffs to anyone at this Elo if I was jungling, so good call, but at some point you're gonna have to start sharing .

8:27 - Hmm okay I'm not sure if that's standard but I think I'd probably be going madred's over spirit stone. If someone who mains jungle Vi tells you otherwise sure but personally I would go for madred's. It's not like you have sustain issues. 4 pots is kind of overkill, probably a ward would be much better.

8:41 - Use this time to take stock of the situation. All of your lanes are losing because they're bad. GP's lane has the most promise, especially because Shen can't ult himself. You should camp top.

8:57 - Your smite was up and the entire red side of your jungle was up. You should have went straight to red, or at the very least, not smited the big wraith so you could have some buff control in case it somehow got contested (and because it's just faster). Oh. GP just walked from top lane down between their mid inner towers and fed. Cool.

9:20 - At least they're letting Ahri freefarm and take tower.

9:40 - She doesn't. (Meanwhile, in top, you were doing the right thing covering the tower, but you ulted too early and missed another Q so no kill and you lost that entire giant wave of CS that you could have went for instead.)

10:11 - You micro your champ too much, it's slowing you down when you last hit. I'd suggest not trying to be mechanically professional at the game until you have a stronger general sense of gameflow.

10:20 - Ahri ults in and flashes out in mid, almost killing herself with no effort on Fizz's part. Their Vi has DC'd, which is a good thing for the other team, because now she can't feed you. It would be a good idea to ward things.

10:40 - Instead of going for a max range falcon punch, you should probably just take the free CS/xp in lane. Especially against a Fizz who can probably just turn around and kill you.

10:45 - Okay, when you cover a lane for someone and their lane partner is still in the lane, don't indiscriminately shove that giant wave of CS/xp at your teammate's lane opponent. That gives Fizz a bigger advantage than the one he already has. Just last hit with auto attacks and do your best not to push the wave while zoning out Fizz. If you trade damage with Fizz it's fine (as long as you don't overextend or get killed) because now Ahri's coming back and you're gonna base anyway.

11:00 - The game is totally lost at this point, based on what I have seen of your team and the enemy's composition. Even with a DC'd jungler, you guys have no way to deal with Fizz and Ezreal is huge. Vi also just reconnected or something and now has a Brutalizer, which means she's putting out more damage than you after sitting in the spawn for 5 minutes to farm.

11:15 - Holy shit, nobody but Fizz has any idea what is going on with items. Ezreal has a bloodthirster and no boots, which might be bad because your bot lane is garbage and they will probably get wrecked.

11:35 - Fizz kills himself along with Ahri for no reason. Hey! Your team got a kill! (Meanwhile, in bot lane, you deny your team 2 whole waves of CS and put them out of position instead of calmly last hitting to hold them near a tower where blitz could like, hit a hook on no boots ezreal and ruby sightstone raka... or maybe you could just gank as they're pushed up to your side of the map!)

11:55 - This is a bad time to invade. You should stop invading until you learn how to ward.

12:09 - Luckily, their entire team is horrible and you steal a red buff for free LOL.

12:25 - Think about what your opponents' goals in lane are! They want to zone your team and deny them xp and cs! Don't help them! That was like so perfect for Fizz. If you were his jungler, he'd be really happy that you did that. You stole some CS and stopped the wave from pushing into tower range so it kind of just massed up in front of Fizz for him to happily freefarm and zone Ahri more.

12:37 - Holy shit, the only ward in the game allows enemy Soraka to land her first improved CV lol. Gank's not gonna work, abort.

13:00 - What.

13:11 - Don't do extremely risky things after you just did something extremely risky and gained from it. You have to cash out or they'll just get it right back.

13:32 - Okay, you just did two incredibly risky things and got away with it. Now you're gonna try to solo the most fed champ in the game after you just gained a kill and their blue buff. The risk/reward on that is really bad.

13:40 - You should pick an easier jungler, Vi's Q is hard to use. Try Nocturne, Xin, or Lee Sin. They do similar things but they're much easier to play and stronger.

14:04 - Your Gangplank is braindead, but that's no different from anyone else in this game.

14:34 - You should have covered top instead of going to your blue buff.

14:53 - Soraka CV's baron to see if you're soloing it when it spawns in 7 seconds. Real.

15:51 - You push the creepwave just right so that it owns Ahri yet again.

16:00 - Four minutes til surrender.

---------

There's nothing left to analyze, the enemy team has snowballed too hard. This is the best way to win a noob game, just let the other team keep owning themselves and don't change anything until they do. If they keep feeding in lane when their outer towers are up just leave them up and let them keep owning themselves.

I would suggest that you learn a much easier jungler with better ganks. Learning to gank would help. It's great that you can pve without dying to jungle minions for 20 mintues but that's not the hard part about jungling. Get someone who has strong ganks and just own face because everyone at this elo is bad.

On January 29 2013 16:27 Navi wrote:
i'm on the bus right now so i cant watch, but caitlyn has the range such that she doesn't need to bait hooks at all. with a support that can battle vs blitzcrank (like ex. taric) she can just maintain total bush control with traps + taric and take a free potshot at blitz whenever he leaves (assuming you are already suppressing the enemy adc with auto to punish their cs etc etc so that they aren't in a position to all in you at full hp with both). after its clear that you have total bush control, any attempt that they make to leave the safety of their bushes / sides should be seen as an all in or an assist to a gank if you haven't already warded gank paths, so the lane becomes a very straightforward matter of being able to deal with either. otherwise you should cs and pwn him.

best thing about cait vs blitz is that if you spread your traps well, blitz will have to walk through creeps to attempt to get to you (tip of bush, next to bush and the creepwave, 1 more at your discretion) which makes it a royal pain in the ass to hook or attempt any plays.

the biggest factor in that lane, as you might imagine, is whether or not the enemy is blue side (can they all-in you with a fast level 2 and then maintain control regardless of whether or not you get all in'd because of the threat) and your support (if too squishy even more vulnerable to all in fights so need to plan around).

On January 29 2013 15:13 Nos- wrote:
A replay of a normal game I had against a blitz lane as Caitlyn. When I play ranked I always ask for blitz to be banned, and fp usually complies but I do this because I am terrible at laning against blitz. Avoiding the problem isn't gonna fix it, and I'd like some tips or general guide lines on the matter.

My thought process throughout the laning phase was "bait the hook, dodge it, and then counter initiate/trade". Unfortunately that didn't work out so well, so maybe I shouldn't bait hooks and just play more defensive?

http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/1250376

On January 29 2013 16:52 birdkicker wrote:
I know there is already someone asking to get their replay analyzed, so sorry if I am asking for this in an inconvenient time. I am a Jungle main that is stuck at 1700-1800 elo bracket for about one month, and I would love if someone could assist me in telling me what aspects I can improve on to be a better player. I'm not sure how to explain this, but I feel a large inconsistency in myself in every game. Some games, it will feel extremely fluid and natural to me, and my ganks are highly successful. In other games, I feel sloppy and clunky and unable to completely grasp what that inconsistency is that is preventing me from making every game I go into as fluid and as completely natural as some games are for me.

I also came from a highly mechanical background, I used to be grandmaster in SC2 in season 2 and season 3. Disregarding my rank, the method I used to improve in SC was to grind out games HARD to improve and perfect my build and mechanics. I would watch my replays to see what times I'm behind in workers or making too big of an army (I played Zerg). This process of analyzing a replay felt extremely easy and straightforward to make someone a better player. However, in LoL, I can't fully understand how I can effectively utilize replays in order to make myself better. All the many variables in the game makes learning from replays for me much harder.

With all that out of the way, would anyone be willing to analyze one of my replays? Here is my link to my latest game : http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/2737896/
I feel like this rep is good for analyzing purposes because I feel if I were to play better, I could have carried the game.
(I usually start wolves -> Blue, but I thought an invade was coming so I was a bit late. I should have been paying attention and went to wolves straight away as soon as I saw them with only three and backing off.)

It would also be a bonus if someone could maybe enlighten me on how to effectively analyze my own replays so in the future I can do this myself and not be too bothersome asking around for help ^^

On January 30 2013 08:51 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:

I took a look and you're at the level where you just need to work on finesse and some finer points of strategical understanding. It's just experience that will tell you what lanes you can gank and what lanes you can't gank. Probably the reason that it feels so unnatural to you is because you are too rigid in your jungle path and you only gank in a pattern--so when the pattern lines up with a high probability gank it feels very natural, and when it doesn't (this game) it feels very forced and rigid. You're higher Elo than me but I've been a jungle main since S1 and I think I have a little insight into how you can change this.

The aim of a gank isn't to kill the opponent, it's to give your laner an advantage by applying pressure on the enemy such that they have to zone themselves or take damage to gain xp. Some lanes are inherently harder to gank than others (Lee Sin, Kat, Vlad, Fizz, Leblanc, Kassadin, etc.) and some lanes are very easy to gank (Darius, Mordekaiser, Chogath, etc.). You have to think about ganks in terms of risk/reward, and there's a lot that goes into the calculation. It's like where is their jungler? How probable is it that this works? Is there something more important to be doing? Will they burn a summoner? Will we have to burn summoners? What happens if they escape? What happens if we kill them? Where are the wards? Does it matter that it's warded? Will my presence alone force them to zone themselves? Can I double back if they blow flash? Can we towerdive? Is it a good idea? Am I getting counterjungled? What do I do after the gank? Does my laner just want to bluepill and have me cover instead?

And that's just some of the things that should be running through your head as you're going through your jungle path. If at any point your analysis says PROFITABLE GANK or MORE IMPORTANT THAN THIS CAMP when you are jungling, start moving towards that lane. A jungler's role is different depending on what kind of jungler you are, but in any case, your mentality should be team-oriented, not self-oriented. I'm not saying that if your team is going to do something stupid that you should die for them, but if you see a spot where you can make a tactical sacrifice for your team and it benefits you as a whole or hurts the enemy as a whole, don't be afraid to take it.

(This isn't all directed at you, I'm sure you know a lot of this)

But yeah, as far as replay analysis goes, in League you can't always determine what is your fault and what is not your fault, so just go and take a look with the mentality of "I'm going to focus on how my actions affected the flow of the game as a whole and see what there is that I could have done better." It helps if you have a strong basic game sense, but you can develop that by watching pros play and by mass gaming at slightly higher than your own level--very similar to SC. If you want to really improve, you have to step outside of your comfort zone, and that means doing stuff like widening your champion pool and learning new roles.

Honestly, that's the best way to learn how to gank lanes--play the lane you want to get good at ganking for. You'll understand when a gank will be successful.