Improving your game: A guide for lower elos

 

There are many different ways of practising: you can play normals, ranked, customs, bots or even play on a smurf account to get the grips of the game once again. Each of these has their own benefits to improving at the game but which is the best? The answer is: there isn't one! For some people a few of these methods may not be the best for improving and it's completely personal on what you choose. I will be going over the methods on how you can improve so you can choose which you think is best for you.

Normals
Usually the best mode for trying out new champs, new items, abilities etc. This game mode can also be useful for testing champions that may not be in the current meta or just for having fun. If you're not looking to learn a new champion in this game mode or you want to improve on -for example- last hitting, then the best thing to do is to set a goal or compare yourself to the rest of the team and keeping up. If you want to improve on map awareness then perhaps you may want to practise jungling and whenever you see the enemy jungler, take their buffs, golems, dragons or even counter gank if you can.

Draft is similar to normals yet is more structured and allows you to think a bit more about team compositions and counter playing.

Ranked
This is best for improving your skills on champions you already know or just want to improve in general. In ranked you are playing with people who know their champs a lot more than the average person in a normal and therefore should be more of a challenge. This is the best way to improve in general and become better at all skills needed in League of Legends. Similar to draft the positive thing about this is that if you're last pick, although you may be forced into a lane you do not necessarily like, you can improve at whatever you are given and thus become more of an all rounded player. It also gives you more of a chance to play what you want if your computer does not load the quickest and hence is a lot fairer for people.

Customs
This is best for learning about last hitting, working on your laning phase and working on champion mechanics as well as dodging skill shots, hitting skill shots, timing your summoner spells correctly or abilities in general. Although most of this can be done in normals it allows a more relaxed atmosphere. 

Wards 
One of the most important things you can learn in normals or ranked or even any game at all is where to place your wards. With every ward you can reveal the enemies' positions which you can use to kill them, save yourself/your teammates from getting ganked and killed or steal buffs from them (if you have wards on their blue and red).

The placement of wards is important, there are different places you can choose to ward. These include: dragon pit, baron pit, blue buff, red buff, both sides of the river and the bushes around the map. Choosing how far down you want to ward can be a big thing. Do you want to ward at the far end of their jungle, closer in your jungle or down river to secure your own safety? When deciding you want to look at how strong their team is compared to you and how far ahead/behind you are. Learning this can be key in winning the game for you and your team mates and gives you an advantage in positioning.

Last hitting
This is key to winning a game. On average a minion is worth around 20 gold and killing around 15 minions this is equal to about 1 kill (300g), 7-8 minions is equal to an assist (150g). When looking at the score you may be behind in kills to the enemy laner but if you outfarm them by 20, 30 or 40 cs, you could be much further ahead than you think. Trying to deny your opponent cs while keeping yours as high as possible allows you to carry the game and win. 

Personally I prefer to learn last hitting in customs, either being alone or against one other person as a lane opponent. Why? Because it allows you to focus purely on last hitting and beating either your target goal or the person you choose to 1vs1. You can see how you last hit, practise and just refine your skills on last hitting (or even better, ask your friend to give you tips on what you're doing wrong).

There are quite a few factors that you can do wrong while last hitting and these are: hitting too late, hitting too early, hitting the wrong minions, poking instead of hitting the minion and not correctly hitting the minions under tower. The first three are self explanatory and mainly just common mistakes. However, when hitting under tower you need to know when to hit the minions.  The melee minions can take two turret shots and live, meaning if the minion is at full hp you should not hit it until the turret does so twice. This will leave it with enough health for you to deal the finishing blow and kill it easily.

The caster minions can only take one turret shot. Your damage determines whether or not you have to hit these once or twice. Usually you only need to hit these once after a turret shot. However, if you are a tank or just behind you may need to hit them twice. You want to know which minion the turret is going to attack and hit that minion before the turret shot lands (unless you have attack speed). This way after the turret hits the minion, you will be able to finish it off. You need to think about how much damage you do and the hits you do under turrets and not just blindly hit them hoping you'll get maybe 1/6.

Finally, there are siege minions. These can take a total of five turret shots and require a bit more thinking on how to last hit. Last hitting under tower is key and practising with friends or alone (with bots) can always prove to be benefical in your early game.

Positioning and objectives
I personally think that watching streams of professional players is the best way of learning about where you should be in team fights, on the map and also when to go for objectives. Objectives can be situational and learning what is best in which situation allows you to make the smartest choices.

Some things are better learnt from others than from game experience and by learning from the best you will be able to employ what they do in your games. For example if you aced their team, do you baron or do you push? Where is everyone on the map? How much health do you have? How far are you in the game? Should you engage on their team? Should we poke them or just full out attack? These questions are what you need to think about in game and from experience you can make the best decisions.

Laning and ganking
In lane it is always best to have the most kills, least deaths, most assists and most cs. Tips for laning are mostly given above and consist of warding so you know where their jungler is, last hitting, positioning in the lane and just outplaying opponents. If behind, you can always ask your jungler for a gank or if you are a jungler then you need to know when and how to gank. You want to make sure that you have enough HP so that you don't die to the laner and that ganking is risk free. You don't want to gank and end up giving their laner double buffs! By helping your teammates win their lanes you will in turn win the game.

If you are laning, you do not want to waste your jungler's time. If you need help winning lane then that means your jungler is spending less time helping other lanes and more time on you. If you are able to win your lane, then it relieves a lot of pressure from the jungler and allows him to help your team mates. Junglers are a part of the team and not a tool for helping you get an extra 100 gold! Think about if you really need a gank or if it is more beneficial to farm. Just because your jungler hasn't given you a gank in ten minutes does not mean the end of the world. Think about the game and just try to help your team as much as possible by doing as well as you can.

Good luck!