Let’s face it, you’ve probably played a streak of League of Legends games entirely on autopilot, spiraling into an endless downfall of LP and tilt. You’ve probably thought about playing just one more game. The loss was unavoidable, your play is fine and it doesn’t matter. Afterwards, you probably managed to take a single win, only to see your ranking collapsed and your thoughts probably towards closing the game for the next year.

In short, you are probably reading this guide to try to get some idea of how to improve and break out of tilting. We sat down with Dignitas' own Frank “Tomo” Lam so he could share some valuable advice and general improvement ideas to help improve that.

Image Source: LTA North Flickr

Play Meta or Comfort?

Tomo: “I think League right now is in a state where anything is viable as long as you're good at it. So, I would recommend focusing on what you enjoy playing, because you'll be more inclined to learn and get better, so sticking to comfort picks is good.”

Stick to your comfort picks and try not to get too jumpy on the latest buffed Champions that are dominating the metagame right now. It’s really simple advice, play what you enjoy playing and what you’re good at. Games you lose can still be plenty of fun if you’re playing Champions that you enjoy.

But really, you’ve probably seen the OTP (One trick pony) streamers of the world, playing their Champions at a high level with knowledge beyond the average player. Oftentimes, they usually enjoy the Champion enough that they went out to become an OTP. It goes into the same mindset, where limiting your pool to champs you want to play will make you more inclined to improve at them. You’ll probably want to look at streamers and high-level gameplay of your Champion and be able to relate more to them because your understanding improves much easier by focusing on a select few.

Like, think about it. It’s fun watching Baus do his Sion gimmicks or viewing old Uzi Vayne clips with nostalgia as he shreds through a team. There are OTP players for every Champion, or highly skilled pro players that you can easily model yourself after.

What Can You Get Away With in 2v2 As a Bot Laner?

Tomo: “I think people can get away with a lot in Solo Queue. I think Solo Queue players should just focus on gapping the enemy laner, 2v2 is still very important just because even if you are to focus on objectives, maybe your team is more focused on themselves, so I think you should always focus on yourself as well in Solo Queue.”

Solo Queue is chaotic, to put it lightly. There are games out there where everyone is playing the flavor of the month, and other games where your Support is a roaming AD Shaco and your lane opponent is the feared kill lane of Pantheon Taliyah. A lot of innovation comes from players playing unorthodox picks and succeeding with them, enough to catch the eyes of analysts and pro players. Even in the highest ranks, players play all sorts of picks because that’s what usually got them to their rank.

Now let’s put it into the perspective that you did not want to play with the roaming AD Shaco, and Pantheon Taliyah is an incredibly oppressive matchup where Shaco is not likely going to do much in this scenario to help you control the wave or get kills. You’re probably thinking: But what can I do?

Consider what Champion you’re playing and what your options are. To focus on yourself is not necessarily ignoring your lane partner but trying to understand what the win condition is. In an ideal world, gapping the lane opponent and turning a lead into a win is what most players want, but you have to be always adjusting how you play relative to the game state.

For example, a roaming AD Shaco Support is probably aiming to assist their Jungler in invades or roam into mid/top for pressure. His level 1 is nonexistent outside of some box setups. His level 2 isn’t terrible, but your opponent's level 2 all-in is something to be wary of. Try to find the win condition here, in which case it would be playing safe against the kill lane and farming gold when you can.

This may seem like the antithesis to the whole “gapping the enemy laner in 2v2”, but gapping your opponent isn’t necessarily beating them in lane but contributing more to the win. There will be games where your goal is simply to survive the lane phase and help win teamfights in the late parts of the game. Some strategies like Taliyah Pantheon are entirely based around aggressive laning and roaming, which by denying them kills gives you windows to catch up.

Focusing on yourself is also analyzing what you can do at all stages, both past, present, and post-game. You want to be in the mindset of “What can I do better in this situation? What should I be doing right now to get closer to a win?,” which means breaking out of the autopilot mindset and thinking about objectives.

I say objectives broadly, and not necessarily whether you can take Dragon or a tower. Consider windows where your opponent is vulnerable. Look at windows where your opponent uses an ability, or walks up to a minion wave and autos, and that is a small window to punish them. Consider how your Jungler is pathing and purposely slow down your minion clearing to make the opponent more vulnerable to a gank. Keep track of the knowledge from your team of where the enemy jungler might be, and that will make it easier to determine when you’re in a 2v2 or a 2v3.

Objectives are simply small or large goals of what you can do to give yourself a larger lead or advantage. Even small things like singular autos on the enemy support or the health setup of a minion opens up angles for plays.

Tomo: “In Solo Queue, just focus on yourself, because you don't know if your teammates are capable. You don't know what they're thinking in the game. They're probably being selfish as well, you should just rely on yourself if you want to win.”

Now another angle to look at Tomo’s advice is that at the end of the day, you’re probably going to be the only consistent variable in the next game. Your teammates and opponents will change, your Champion options differ, and players do erratic and explainable things (especially in Solo Queue). But what you can do is simply focus on what you can do to win.

Perhaps you see your Support, and you don’t fully trust their ability to do anything productive or useful. At some point, you can simply consider other options outside of the 2v2. Consider how you can break out of the laning phase earlier (e.g., following for objectives, pushing in and roaming, freezing the lane to force the opponent to take action or leave). The key factor is that the ADC in the lane is more often than not the main source of controlling the wave. Your support may have understanding (although I’ve seen many, many Supports without a clue of what they’re doing to a minion wave and breaking everything apart), but often your decision to push, freeze, or create a larger wave is your own doing. You have the ability to create a favorable situation for yourself and get yourself gold.

What Do ADCs Struggle with the Most?

Tomo: “I think ADCs struggle to find purpose if they lose lane. I think I would say the average player who loses lane or like thinks [the game is] mostly dictated by the best Support nowadays. Once they have a bad laning phase, and they don't know what to do after laning ends, I think a lot of people fall more and more behind. But I think a good ADC is always able to find angles where maybe they can run to another lane or get a kill, maybe like freeze the lane and tell their team good luck and help the other side, because you're already useless so you may as well get the extra farm. Something like that, something to get back into the game is what people struggle with once they lose lane phase.”

We do go over a lot of finding the objectives to build into a win and playing for yourself, but something to keep in mind is that consistent mindset of trying to win. A lot of players breakdown and tend to lose sight of how they can stay relevant in the game once they’re down gold and lose a tower. Tomo’s advice revolves around the idea that you should always be trying to find things you can do on the map to take any advantage you can.

Tomo: “I think being untiltable is a very hard discipline, it takes a really strong mental player to still play at their 100% even if something goes wrong in the game. A lot of people tend to tilt off like when they see people are trolling at level 1, like this game's over, but games aren't decided from just level one usually, there's a lot of comeback mechanics in the game nowadays.”

You may notice that League of Legends has become a very comeback-heavy game, with objective gold and many anti-snowball mechanics implemented over the years to create a back-and-forth style of gameplay. But to make those comebacks, you have to sort out what is going to give you the ability to come back into the game and make decisions based upon that. Being untiltable is not only being positive and half-heartedly saying “we can still win” but actively trying to create situations where you can still win the game.

The biggest weakness is that players often give up when they are down kills, because the gap is much harder to find a window to take a revenge kill or objective when the opponent is much stronger. This is what separates players who climb consistently and those who stagnate, they constantly look for ways to claw back into the game.

Play to Improve, Not Perfect

Tomo: “I think League is a game where perfection doesn't really exist, unless you're Chovy. I think you should have the mindset where every game you can be improving or you can do more. I think a lot of people struggle with blaming their own teammates for mistakes that they made. They're like pretty much unpreventable. People need to change their mindset where for this game, maybe I could have won a little bit harder if I end up in this place again, then that'll be enough for me to carry. I think people are too like defaulted to blaming someone else, because I do think that every game, even if you think you played perfect, you can do something like slightly better. You know, maybe in the grand scheme of things it might not change things, but just having the habit of seeking improvement is really valuable.”

Now advice to review your past games is one of the most common things you’ll run into, and the general “see what you can do better” is probably the first thing someone will tell you. They’re not wrong, but what you may be asking is what you should be looking for.

For one, consider your decisions at every point in the game. Small things like taking a trade that turns out slightly poorly can set up a worse situation later when you want to find an angle for a play. Things like not fully committing to a teamfight because the odds are low is sometimes the play that makes you look better but throws away that chance to win the game.

For two, try to justify your decisions first. This may seem like you’re defending a poor decision you’ve made, but keep in mind that there always is a reason for why someone clicks a certain target at a certain point or moves in a certain area. If you can justify it, you need to also consider what other options you may have and compare what you can do alternatively.

Watching how your opponent moves can give you insight on what you can do yourself. See when your opponent succeeds in aggressive trades, see how your opponent positions themselves that made it feel hard to reach them, even look at item builds and consider if there was anything they’ve built specifically to deal more damage or stay safer.

Tomo: “I think people just need to realize that League nowadays, just because they're the ADC, doesn't mean the game revolves around you. I think people still think about how broken ADC was in the past, where if you're fed, you take over the game.

But I think the game is a lot more balanced now, where you can't just right click people and just instantly win the game if you're fed. I think you need to maybe branch out in other aspects outside of mechanics. Which does sound pretty weird because you're an ADC right, but I think it's important to have more game knowledge nowadays. I think knowing where to be at the right place and time is very valuable. I think just knowing what your teammates want to do how they're moving is very important.”

While your team may not be as coordinated as a pro team, Champions often have the same intentions throughout the game, especially as you climb into the high ranks. Image Source: LTA North Flickr

One key thing that Tomo mentions that follows this advice is knowing what your teammates want to do.

The game state and your objectives to win vary based on your teammates, your opponents, and how the game plays out. Part of improving is understanding intentions for Champion picks, or movements that tell you that they want to commit. Oftentimes in Solo Queue, you’ll have uncommunicative teammates who neglect pings or engage when they see any random angle. Your job is positioning and playing around that.

Game knowledge also extends to understanding what Champions like to do. Perhaps your Jungler is really good at soloing Dragon early, and likely will position bot side around the time that they do a full clear. Your top laner could be Shen, meaning you have that extra window to play more aggressive when they hit level 6. Things like common paths not only for Junglers but laners can give you an idea of where you can catch someone off guard. League has a lot of smaller moving parts from players making very common decisions that more often than not you can make assumptions to take advantage of. This applies both to your teammates and enemies.

Get Creative

Tomo: “I think creativity nowadays is more important than ever, because I guess a lot of the game is solved out in a sense. League is a pretty old game, people now know what the best builds are, what's the best meta champs to play, I think you should try to do something unexpected that the enemy team doesn't know how to react to. I think that's the best way to have more agency in your play. Try to be more creative, and think about what your teammates want to do, and mental is very important part in succeeding.”

Following up into understanding the moving parts (your teammates and your opponents) is creating those plays to take advantage of them. As Tomo says, League is pretty solved for what is presently a 16-year-old game. But it did take someone to popularize doing the Lee Sin Insec, or the Blue Ezreal builds of old. Unexpected can also be simply seeing opportunities that come.

For example, the thing that catches people off-guard the most is when a player is in a part of the map that they don’t have information on and don’t expect. Typically, this is the Jungler or Support, but there are cases where you as an ADC have the option to roam. Pro players try to do this in pro play all the time with lane-swapping to break out of unfavorable matches, and it tends to be a war of vision and mind games for both teams to figure out lane assignments.

Other ways to be creative is simply finding angles where you can get free damage or sneak objectives/ganks. Knowledge of the game state can give you confidence in what you can pull off. Hitting level 6 as Ezreal gives you a global ultimate that can be used to snipe objectives, kills, or get free damage before you return to lane. The best players try to limit test with their Champions and make decisions on the spot of potential plays.

Get Carried

Tomo: “I think an important skill to have is knowing how to get carried as well. Say your top laner is winning lane really hard, like 3-0 and two levels up and got the whole tower. Let that guy win you the game. Don't kill yourself because your support trolled you in lane and you're trying to get payback on him by inting. You can still win, because your top laner can carry. You should focus on yourself, but you should also realize what your wincon is in the game. Wincons change every game.”

Admittedly, there will be times in a game where your goal in the game is not to be the main win condition, but to supplement someone else. Advantages gained from other lanes often spill into your lane because once towers fall, other laners start roaming around the map and taking objectives.

As a player who falls behind, you want to be trying to play around that win con. Playing safe to deny your opponent from building a bigger lead than your winning lanes, following your stronger carries, creating pressure on other sides of the map to help winning lanes be safer. You still have that individual agency in spite of not being the main win condition.

Part of this advice stems from everything mentioned before. Try not to tilt. Try to find creative angles. Understand your teammates and enemies goals and intentions. You become a better player by working with what you know better than throwing yourself into the current and auto piloting.

Conclusion

Tomo: “I think it's very easy to autopilot as an ADC, because you can always just run to a lane, sit at your tower, farm, and farm again. You can still like, "play", but you're not actually contributing, you're not actually trying to find creative angles, not trying to make an outplay, stuff like that, you know?”

I think as advice, this is the sum of what your goals are to improve. Break out of the auto pilot mindset. Some of the most famous and top players in their regions like Caps are notorious for limit testing in Solo Queue. You may attribute limit testing as a form of auto pilotting (you know, the players who try to do something even if there’s a low chance of succeeding for fun), but in other ways, it’s the best way to improve. Finding those angles to edge out advantages is what separates the best players from the average.

We appreciate Tomo’s insight when discussing improvement and mindset as an ADC. Check out his socials here:

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