In traditional sports, it’s not odd to see players who are aiming to be the best seek out and find personal coaches to improve their progress. This can range anywhere from strength and stamina coaching, coaches that focus on techniques and game philosophy, or even mental health coaches to help the player balance their mental loads to improve their progression. League of Legends can be viewed quite similarly, as it’s not uncommon for players to seek out coaches who can help them overcome whatever’s blocking them to achieve their ranked goals. But, that begs the question: Is getting a personal coach worth it? Let’s discuss.

Why Coaches Are Worth It, and What They Bring

You can find almost anything you want or need to know about League online. There’s no limitation to the amount of information available to you, and while the client itself might not tell all, sites like sources like the League of Legends Wiki, YouTube, and even Twitch are full of educational materials and exact information that can really sate whatever it is that’s brewing in your mind. And if you’re good at parsing out what’s needed to know, you can probably get by with never getting a personal coach. But we’re not all wired that way.

One of the biggest advantages of coaches is that they can help give an outside view of yourself as a player. With no emotional stake into your progression, a coach doesn’t have feelings of pride or anxiety limiting their analysis, and they can take an objective look at your gameplay to isolate issues. From there, they can devise practice plans that will help you overcome what it is they believe is holding you back and can discuss with you how best to work through these plans.

Additionally, the best Coaches are not only great at analyzing what you’re doing wrong and setting that plan up, but they’re also great motivators and negotiators. Even if you seek out a coach with some amount of hesitancy, a great coach can set your reservations aside and challenge your assumptions on the game and yourself to help you break through. They’re ultimate motivators if you’re lacking that source and can really help make climbing the ladder for you an engaging process.

From identifying ways to capitalize on your strengths, setting up the structured plan, providing personal feedback, and challenging you to expand beyond your comfort zone based on your personal ability, a good coach can really round you out as a player. And this is ultimately what a fantastic coach can bring to the table for you. However, there are some situations where coaching might not be the look for you.

When Personal Coaching -Isn’t- Worth It

One of the traps of hiring a coach is that it seems like one of those ‘fix all’ approaches. As if to say, simply hiring a coach and working through a few sessions is going to ‘fix’ you and make you a Diamond player overnight. That’s unfortunately not the case. Coaching only works when you can commit to the process of improvement and step back from your own bias and take a look at yourself as a person and player, so let’s talk about scenarios where getting a coach isn’t worth it for you.

The first, and perhaps biggest waste of a coaching resource is when you’re just utilizing your coach’s time to complain and vent about your climb. Coaches, while they’re able to be uplifting emotional support for you, are more about directing your emotions towards progression and understanding of yourself. If you find that your sessions with your coach are less about you absorbing information and more about you complaining about balancing or just something that’s entirely beyond your control as a player, then it’s not worth the time for you or the coach. You have to set aside your own gripes about the game and be receptive to what your coach sees beyond what you can see.

When you seek out a coach, you already want to be at a step where you realize, “I’m the hangup here. I’m holding myself back.” If you haven’t come to this realization yet, then you’re likely going to be too emotionally charged to parse through the feedback provided by your coach, and you could even come into conflict with your coach. You want to respect both your time and theirs by doing your best to remove your personal perceptions and complaints about the game, so that you set yourself up to adapt and learn from their feedback. “Be like water.” as the saying goes.

Secondarily, personal motivation is a huge determiner for if getting a coach is worth it for you. If you’re just following a trend or the examples of others that you know that have personal coaches without having any real motivation to maximize what a coach can bring to the table, then you’re wasting your resources. When you seek out a coach, it’s because you want to genuinely obtain something that you’ve had personal struggles with reaching towards. If you lack the proper gumption to stay true to the plan and absorb your coach’s knowledge, then you’re better off pursuing other avenues or accepting that you think about the game in a more casual mindset overall, which isn’t a bad thing.

Lastly, if you have unrealistic expectations and are ultimately pessimistic that a personal coach will work out, you should avoid the route entirely. Similar to a lack of motivation, it’s incorrect to approach the hiring of a coach as a ‘fix all’. Coaching might help you see some immediate improvement, but rarely does one go from being a Silver player to a Diamond player overnight just because they picked up a coach. Coaching, like climbing, is a process and a grind. Every season is a marathon, and one of the biggest ways to conquer a marathon is to pace yourself and have realistic checkpoints and mile markers to measure your progress. You can’t sprint right out the gate and achieve your goal immediately. If you have a personal aversion to coaching entirely, just avoid the situation outright. One can find many reasons to doubt another person’s information and feedback, so if your time with your coach devolves into you analyzing their analysis, just save your money and time by dropping the idea entirely.

What a Good Coach Looks Like

One of the best things about League of Legends is that coaches are a dime a dozen. There’s plenty of one-tricks and high ELO players out there that are willing to sell their time for your personal improvement. But not all coaches are made the same. Let’s unpack what you should look for in a good personal coach.

First and foremost, you want someone that’s knowledge, skills, and proper experience to help you achieve your desired goals. Often this will come down to if the coach is a current high elo player maining your role, has shown they can climb consistently each season, and if they’ve already got a successful resume of clients that have achieved success through their approach. So, ideally, you want to find someone that’s already well established within the coaching scene to help plan your approach.

However, don’t neglect new or upcoming coaches, especially if they have experience that you highly value such as recent Challenger seasons or Pro-Play experience. Additionally, don’t neglect those coaches that aren’t mains of your role entirely. While the ideal might be to pair yourself with a coach that mains your role, there’s value in getting coaching from individuals that do not play your role as that can help add a layer of perspective that you or a main of your role might not otherwise see. So, be open to taking coaching from an off-role especially if that role is tangential to your own, such as receiving Support coaching from an ADC Coach or Mid coaching from a Jungle coach.

Finally, a huge green flag for me personally is if your coach is willing to set time aside for a session zero. What is a session zero? Well, those familiar with D&D will view this as the session where you come together, create characters, and receive the information that’s necessary for you to plot out a bit of background or build up your party. Session Zeros within coaching spheres are often the same thing but in the twist of you approach your coach with your expectations and goals, and then have a discussion over if the coach’s methods can line up with your expectations to help you achieve them. Additionally, a session zero is always a great point to just get to know your coach as a person. While it might be nice to just focus on the game entirely, building a relationship with your coach beyond the game can really help you unlock that extra bit of motivation that you might need to succeed, and having that session zero to identify if your coach is someone that matches your wavelength is invaluable in my opinion.

Closing out, Is Getting a Coach Worth It? And Where Can You Even Find One?

So, is a personal League of Legends Coach worth it? Ultimately, yes. If you’ve found yourself on this article, then I think you’re already at a point where you’re looking for takes beyond your own experience to improve. So, take some time to do research on popular coaches in the scene. You can find plenty of coaches that make themselves available on websites like Fiver, Twitch, and Twitter. Take the time, read reviews, watch coaching VODs and streams, and really do your research to find someone that you think will be an asset to your personal League of Legends progression.

With that all said, thanks for reading and good luck in your climb for the remainder of this season.