Help With My Cousin

[Zergin8r]

Hey guys, I was just wondering if you could help me out with some advice on problem my cousin is having on LoL. Basically she just hit level 30, and since no one ever played support while leveling she has done probably around 90-95% of games as support. Now she is good at support and on the advice of friends she made while leveling she decided to try ranked because she was told she was pretty much guaranteed to get the support position.

Anyways, she won 5 or 6 out of 10 placements as support and had to play a few games as other roles at which she has no practice at in pvp, so she played a few games vs bots to get a feel for the other roles mainly ranged/middle/top. However once she started playing normal games as these roles she usually dies alot and gets yelled at by her teammates, even though she specifically says in chat that she is practicing a role she has little pvp experience with. She just copies and pastes a message at champion select along the lines of "Hey guys, I am practicing (insert role) here since I leveled mainly as support so please don't get mad if I do poorly". From what she told me I think she is actually a little afraid of playing now since if she is actually getting reported she might get banned, and since she does not play that often, it took her several months to reach 30 and she does not want to lose everything.

She already knows how to look up guides and whatnot, its mainly the inexperience at the roles she is trying to learn that is causing her problems. The main problem she actually is the amount of people yelling/threatening to report her though I have spectated a few of her games and the odd person actually tries to help. Is there anything else I can do to help her out other that ask her to again look at online guides?

P.S. please do not ask for skype/vent/any other contact info as she is only 12 and I will not give out any personal information.

[Isrozzis]

The best thing to do if you are trying to learn a new role is play with people who understand that you are trying to learn a new role. So, if she has some friends that are playing the game, it would be best if she Qd with them.

Other then that it really just takes practice to understand how things go. One of the most important things for all non support roles (with the exception of jungling) is knowing how to last hit properly. If she is messing up with that, then I would tell her to make custom games were she just sits in lane and last hits as much as possible. When you can reach 90-100% with no one else harassing you in your lane, it starts to become something you just do. And that transfers into normal games. If you can out cs your opponent even if you aren't that great, then you should start to get an item advantage.

She could also watch some streams. Wingsofdeath and Scarra (when he streams) are both very informative players. I would say they swear occasionally and may be crude, but hell if she is playing league then that's kind of a moot point. The best thing to do is just practice it though. People will get mad, and she probably will get reported by people because they are mad, but if she doesn't lash out at people for calling her bad or anything, then it is very unlikely that she will ever get a tribunal response. You can get banned for a lot of things, but being bad at a role isn't one of them.

So, tl;dr, play customs to practice cs, watch streams (they are super helpful), and find friends if possible. Also it's very unlikely that she will get banned for being poor at whatever role she is playing.

[Zergin8r]

OK thank you, I already pointed her in the direction of some streams, however she is unable to play with people she met while leveling. They play so much more than her when she plays with them she get absolutely crushed in lane due to playing against opponents with a much higher experience level. She will be happy to know that the option to report someone for being unskilled means next to nothing though.

[Isrozzis]

OK thank you, I already pointed her in the direction of some streams, however she is unable to play with people she met while leveling. They play so much more than her when she plays with them she get absolutely crushed in lane due to playing against opponents with a much higher experience level. She will be happy to know that the option to report someone for being unskilled means next to nothing though.

tbh I'm not really sure what it's there for. I think it's more for ranked, so the system can pick out someone that obviously got elo boosted or something. Idk really. If she is going like 0/20/x every game she might want to figure some things out before she keeps playing normals, but as mad as people get sometimes, I don't really think you can get banned for being bad.

[Axethor]

OK thank you, I already pointed her in the direction of some streams, however she is unable to play with people she met while leveling. They play so much more than her when she plays with them she get absolutely crushed in lane due to playing against opponents with a much higher experience level. She will be happy to know that the option to report someone for being unskilled means next to nothing though.

Report unskilled is really just there for people to vent at unskilled teammates without them getting banned. It is also supposed to lower their "hidden ELO" in normals, so they play with people more at their skill level.

Another thing you can have her do, is watch other players from the support role while in games. While they won't be as helpful as the streamers, it's certainly an option.

Also, I'm sure there are people here who would be willing to play with the two of you and help out. No voice chat for the obvious reasons, but at least she won't get yelled at.

[dangelo37]

Following up on what Axe said, I've played support probably 40% of all my games and I've recently delved into ADC. I think that the experience I got from just watching my carry last hit/time ignites and flashes has made me better at it. ADC is an important role and needs to synergize with the support and with her experience playing that role, ADC would probably be the next easiest for her to learn. At least the laning phase part of it.

[Zergin8r]

Ok, thanks again for the replies guys I will pass on the information to her.

---------- Post added 2012-12-14 at 07:43 PM ----------

tbh I'm not really sure what it's there for. I think it's more for ranked, so the system can pick out someone that obviously got elo boosted or something. Idk really. If she is going like 0/20/x every game she might want to figure some things out before she keeps playing normals, but as mad as people get sometimes, I don't really think you can get banned for being bad.

She never goes 0/20/0, most games she does die alot, but she at least tries and tends to get a few kills and alot of assists.

[Vespian]

If you don't mind me saying, but 12 is an age of which I'm pretty sure you're just staring at your screen going on about how awesome everything is, but you usually don't come to the point of 'skill' until you start growing into adulthood. But than again, that might only have counted for me.

That said, if you want to get her a crashcourse, you will have to get someone, or yourself, to be her support and guide her every bit of the way through skype/voip in the ADC role. You need to make clear that you'll be asking questions that aren't meant to hurt her, but to make her better and all questions need to be "WHY?"

"You just died, why did you run in, instead of moving back?" Let her explain it. If she can't you immediately know what to work on. If she can, you need to be realistic and be able to acknowledge that the idea could have been good, but analyse, analyse and analyse why it went wrong anyway and discuss this with her.

I'm not sure how skilled her support role is, but point out why you are warding for her and point out why in that specific spot. Make clear when to push, when to go back, when to be careful. Always explain why. For every action performed, there has to be a reason. What I'm basically saying is, take her by the hand and lead her to the... No, let's not start writing down song texts.

I did the same with a friend of mine. He's really getting better and better. His map awareness is still crap, but he manages to know why he's doing things and his overall game awareness became tons better. The only issue he still has left, is the fact that he likes to place all blame elsewhere So yeah, after 10 days, you'll likely be able to let her go into a role that's not ADC and let her solo a lane. She will still lose 50%, as we all do, but she will gradually grow.

P.S. Yes, this will mean you both need to insta lock your choices. Don't go Draft pick.

[Hanyuu]

The best advice I can give you is to just run both bot and pvp games with her. Bot games tend to not even follow the meta and really let someone learn a champion or three in a low pressure situation. In PvP games, I'd start with her as the carry to expand her roles with you supporting, ideally a support with a heal. (Taric comes to mind since you can use your stun defensively, though if you own Nami, she might be good too since you can help set up kills with your stun/snare/ult).

The second point is many players in this game are very toxic. You have to be a bit thick skinned to play. If a player goes off on her (or you), don't give them a response if they are too belligerent. If you want to, just try to say positive things like you tried and when trying to convince them team to do something (even simple things like grouping up), use suggestions not commands. If someone is being pigheaded and cursing or being a jerk, you report them and move on. You don't even tell them that you are, you just do it at the end of the game. I've used the whisper command to get other teammates to do it too.

The ideal situation is to get that playgroup. Now, that she's at max level, she can probably play non ranked games with regular people once she makes some friends. If you guys have any real life friends that play, that's even better. (My list is pretty bare, I only have 17 people and most I know in real life or are friends of friends.)

I am helping teach a friend to play (she's only played 3 games, but she's doing better at basic things like buying gear). I just try to be patient and we are taking it slow on beginner bots. The trick I've found is not to put too much pressure early on and let them do their own thing and slowly guide them to the proper choices by letting them ask. Another friend was playing without a mouse (painfully slow), but I slowly got her to learn how to use smart casting and really operate her favorite character (Sona) better to take advantage of powercord. You could do the same type of thing. If your cousin say really likes Ezreal, learn him yourself inside and out, and then show off a few games and then teach her the ins and outs of the character. The same is true for almost any role.

The actual teaching process should seek to explain your actions. We don't push the land because we don't want their jungler to have an easy time ganking us. Buying gear makes us more powerful and since it is difficult to kill champions in pvp, last hitting minions is more key. That type of explaining helps her understand why choices were made. Especially with the gear changes, you might have to explain why X item is good or bad too.

[Cludo]

A) Get her to make a new account, Learning ADC/APC/Top at level 1 will be alot easier and forgiving than at level 30. Where most people have a tad more skill. I think this would be a very beneficial way to practice the roles she needs/wants to learn.

2) Queue up with low level people, Join the new player/noob channel and ask for lowbies to queue with her. That way she will be brought down a few levels.

Other than that, Just keep doing what she is doing. Practice! Best of luck to her.