I agree that I think it would be more important to drop the tower and help out a lane that isn't going well. Getting some extra farm bot is good, but it doesn't really make up for hardcore zoning/underlvl/farm of another lane if you could help set up a gank. Hard to find good junglers sometimes.

yeah - their team didn't even have a jungler, but they were hurting top so much that they were able to have one and even 2 roam at points... yet my teammate just wanted to farm and keep us committed to the lane and create more opportunities for their team to gank.  Anyway, I thought I had it right. Just wanted to see if I was being silly or not.

I've been learning a lot about the finer points of various roles lately.  I think my jungle rammus has improved quite a bit - particularly in my paying attention to lanes and trying to help out as needed/appropriate.  I'm not great yet, but I'm getting better and do fine with the ganks anyway.  I get the feeling he'll be nerfed sometime soon, though. 

I'm feeling like I must be meh still as a support, though.  I've had games where I've been decent as support, but by and large its my weakest role now.  My best is still gragas in any lane.  I'm usually pretty spot on with my ult, but he's just not as useful late game, imo, as other ap folks.  He's the only character that I feel like there is no chance that I'll get forced to base ever.

So I was thinking about how I learn and get better at games.  With Demigod, it was just through repetition (eg playing a ton).  Once in awhile I'd see someone using a different favor item and then I'd try that out.  Probably about 95% of my builds were just what I decided to build and go with.  And I'd occasionally watch a replay here and there.  Anyway, mostly I just got better by playing ALOT. 

With LoL, I feel like I get better by primarily by watching live streams or recorded videos of folks using a character.  I feel like I'm particularly good at emulating an individuals play style after watching them for a little bit.  And I'm really only watching folks with extremely high elos, so I know I'm learning from solid players.  I find its MUCH easier than just playing a game and trying to pick up things that other players do well.  That said, I was in a game with karl when he used rammus and I did my best to pay attention to where he'd go, when he'd try to gank, etc, and that helped alot in and of itself.  I still read a lot of guides for input on builds - then, after trying all that crap out, I eventually come up with what I feel works best.  

It's a lot of that situational stuff that I don't get and that's hard for me to figure out and put into practice.  I understand that we should all group up at X time and occasionally have someone split push.  What I don't get is when should you really split push.  Me, I see the logic putting 4 folks at the middle to draw attention while someone else would push a lane to try to drop a tower, but that only really works if the group of 4 chooses not to engage.  But then that leaves 4 people doing next to nothing or (what typically happens) is that they engage and then someone decides to yell at the guy that was clearly not there. 

Other things I haven't quite figured out - when to focus a tower vs grabbing baron or dragon.  When I'm playing with some of you more experienced folks, I typically defer to you, but the reasoning doesn't always make sense to me.

When should you push a lane if its 2v1 or 2v2... I get the basics, but not everything.  For instance, let's say its 2v2.  My teammate and I kill one and put some hurt on the other.  The other guy is either waiting around unseen, or has tp'd or will tp back to base.  Do we push the lane and use our current advantage or just last hit?  Stuff like that I'm not sure about.  I get solo lane logic very well anyway.

Random question about rammus - If I'm using my q and use my flash, will I still stay in rolling form?

Yes, you stay powerballed if you flash on Rammus.

Getting better means playing against better players.  If you play against poor players, you get negative feedback a lot less often.  This means that if you do something wrong, they are unlikely to punish you for it.  So you dont realize that its wrong.  Against good players, they will punish you for it, and you get better fast.

Right now you play almost exclusively low ELO normal.  The easiest way to get better competition is to queue with only higher ELO normal players at times, or to play more ranked so that you can get a reasonable ranked ELO while still being able to play with lower ELO people in normal.

To put it bluntly, I think that playing at low ELO doesnt really help people get better much.  It really just reinforces a lot of bad habits.  I know that I always end up playing more sloppily when I play a lot of lower ELO normal simply because it doesnt matter too much if you are a little sloppy. 

No, when you play low ELO ranked games, there's almost always some moron that bitches about everything, typically while sucking themselves...  I'm stuck in the 1k range instead of the 1200's, and it's like junior high.

Useful feedback can be pretty rare, but negative comes aplenty.

Thats why I said that you had to get to a reasonable ranked ELO, which means 1350+ basically.  Even thats a big step down from 1500, but its where you start seeing decent play.

Thanks guys - I appreciate the feedback.  Positive and negative are great.

Just been pugging tonight.  Playing leona (on sale for rp).  I'm digging her (though I don't have all the right runes for her atm).  Anyway, just playing super tanky.  Was running flash/tp, but I'm thinking tp isn't valuable enough, so I'll prob pick something else that might be more useful.

Exhaust is always a good spell to have on a tank.

yeah - i was thinking that as well.  I went promote with mixed results last game.  It's been too weird, though.  As soon as I drop TP, I magically end up at leona mid.  It's a strange, terrifying world.  Man - the low damage output is rough for me, but I'm getting used to it.  Her cc's are very handy.  I think she might become my main tank, but we'll see.  Only played like 5 games total with her. 

OK - here's what I'm thinking.  If I'm trying out new characters or feel like I'm crap with them, I'm going to stick with normal games.  Otherwise, I'm going to start playing ranked more often.  If there is 1 person around that is comfortable going ranked, I'll give them an invite to queue with me.  I generally don't have 5 folks on at the same time that would be willing to play ranked, though.  I really wish my best character was slightly more respected in ranks, though.  I like that gragas pretty much never gets a ban, but he's not exactly recommended for ranked.  I honestly don't think he needs a buff, but I won't complain if he does.  Anyway, sticking with my prediction that rammus will get a little bit of a nerf to either his taunt or speed ball.

Gragas is mid T1 according to Elementz. 

I wouldn't place the entire world into Elementz's view point, but generally speaking if he says a character is strong it's probably pretty strong. Note that he also does it in terms of the current 1-1-2-1 meta and dragon control etc (that is, Shyvana isn't a weak "character" by any means, but her lack of CC makes her a mediocre ganker, and soltop she can be shutdown by a lot of people. So even though she's reasonably powerful and might work great if the meta were different she's 'bottom tier' anyway). 

I mean, Leblanc was kicking ass in the tourney and supposedly T5 P: 

I think gragas is great as well, ofc. 

I would put leblanc into tier 4 or 5 as well.  She's like a brand that can only focus 1 target.  This is great for 1v1 mid, but then its just trying to pick off individual targets.  She's fun to play and I've seen some folks play her extremely well, but i just don't think she's as valuable late game.  

What's Xerath doing in Tier 1? Haven't seen anyone good with him yet...

Downloading initial LoL updates currently... (Hooray)

Well, I'm personally rubbish with him, but I've watched quite a few streams from high level games lately and almost always someone is using him. 

That's peculiar...

I see tons of people USING him, but ALL of them are FAILING.

Maybe because people are playing him like Kog'Maw, and he's really not supposed to be played that way?

My first game went awful...

Vs. AI as an experiment, and I played as Renekton 'cuz he's free...

Our team:

Heimerdinger

Katarina

Vayne

Renekton (me)

Orianna (left and didn't come back in the first 5 secs of the game)

Opposition:

Cho'Gath

Renekton

Annie

Ashe

Soraka

I started out solo top against Ashe and Soraka...

I died 9 times in the lane, getting Soraka to level 13 or so in the process, and she just wiped the rest of the team out afterwards... I managed to push after they left for mid. I smashed in three towers and an inhibitor on top until Cho'Gath and Soraka killed me...

After that it was just everyone running mid and getting killed by Annie and Soraka...

Final stats:

2/24/9

I really STANK!

Is this expected for a first game?

Or am I REALLY BAD?