Hello, this is a bit of a strange problem that I've had lately, so I was wondering if I could get some advice here. I've been playing LoL for a bit under a year and have always been off and on due to the incredibly toxic playerbase. Due to constant insults about my play I've settled on support as my main role, as that way I don't have to worry about complaints about being behind in CS if I'm getting even slightly outplayed. Recently I hit a rough patch of matches where multiple groups of people talked about how I was the worst support they've ever seen and I should never play the role again. Seeing as how it is my best role, this is of course very discouraging as trying any other role would leave me WAY out of my element and even less properly matched up skill wise. Granted, between these matches I was peppered with compliments on how amazing I was, but that doesn't stop the words from stinging.

Now I know I'm not a pro at this game. I'm not even good really. That said, what am I supposed to do? I quit all the other roles because of constantly being berated. It's literally impossible to have a good match 100% of the time, and this playerbase rips in to you if you make a single foolish or mess up a click. In the last 24 hours I've been torn in to for KSing and for not KSing enough (the carry got taken down despite the enemy player being nearly dead before they started). I've been insulted for not dying with my ADC when he clearly had no chance against 4 opponents. When I asked in all chat if he preferred I die with him, both he AND my opponents said yes. Granted, that obviously meant he was wrong, but it's just...

So I don't know. Here I am at my wit's end. I want to enjoy this game, but the playerbase makes it so difficult for me to do so. They've already killed off four of the roles for me (and it's too late for me to even try, I'm so bad at those roles that if I tried them in the matches I'm in now I'd get reported for feeding) and they're close to finishing off the fifth. I quit this game before because of the playerbase and only came back because the honor initiative changed the attitudes of the players so drastically. If it's gonna relapse, I'm not sure how much longer I wanna keep playing.

So basically I'm wondering: How do I just play this game without getting CONSTANTLY berated by my teammates (even if I do the right thing?) or getting banned if I want to learn a new role?

The best thing I found is to find a group of people you either know in real life or have met that weren't toxic, and make a premade.

I'm roughly in the same boat. Solo que for me is god awful but I seem to really do well in 3s. And even alright in 5s. I play tanks mostly, top lane stuff like Warwick and Shen. So upon trying to learn Rengar in PvP, yeah I was "so horrible I actually make Rengar seem underpowered." So yeah nothing new there.

I say go for bot matches, find that special friendly player, add them, and make premades with em. It's a lot easier to take an insult from an enemy then it is a ally.

And by bot matches I'm talking Begginer. I find it a lot harder to find "detoxed" players in Intermediate than Begginer as most people you'll see in begginer are actually new.

If I'm on I'll be more than happy to add to that pool. Im alright I guess, friend thinks I'm some sort of godly Shen though....dunno why. But yeah IGN same as forum. I hope ya find better matches soon man.

Don't worry about other players, especially if you are a lower level, they are just as bad at decision making a you probably are. it gets better when you get with higher level people. Just do your best to learn your role and you'll be fine. just ignore them if needs be.

If you want to learn some other roles have a talk with Ministry, he's been a decent teacher so far. He's got a thread in here somewhere if you want to check that out first.

You're probably fine as support and just ran into some toxic people. It does get disheartening I agree.

I would recommend you stop worrying about the players who dog you about every single thing. I happen to have a toxic gamer yesterday. I pretty much supported him the whole game and he kept complaining that I wasn't supporting him at all. The thing was he kept turret diving and just played like a flat out rhino. He even resorted to talking about my mother in Spanish which I didn't like at all (I know what he said, I watch Spanish movies ). Anyways, I ended up leaving him and helping someone else and they told me I was the best supporter they ever had. They added me to their friends list and that was that.

Of course, players expect you to play a certain way because they believe that is how you should play, especially when it comes to roles. But the great irony is that the game is very diverse in the way you can build or play. Just because Zilean has the word "support" in his playstyle doesn't mean you have to play support with him, for example. Remember, there are only 2 rules to winning: 1.) Don't feed. 2.) Play as a team. If someone is blasting you on the chat it is usually because you break one of these two rules, but it doesn't mean you are going to lose. Just play your game and you'll be fine.

One recommendation - you really seem to undervalue Aegis of the Legion. It's immensely powerful if you build it in the midgame, as your first major item after philo stone, heart of gold, and boots. It makes an enormous swing in midgame teamfights, and provides you with a lot of personal survivability as a support to prevent you from being bursted out.

As for the rest of it - I find that supports actually get more abuse than most roles, not less, because it's harder to make it really obvious when you're playing brilliantly unless people are fairly perceptive. Like at 1400 Elo I've easily carried teamfights as Sona with an ult across all 5 targets, peeled someone off a carry with a powerchord'd E on a carry, helped burst someone out, tanked damage until I was at 5% health and then flashed through a wall, and continued to fight with Qs/Ws through the wall until we ace them without losing anyone, and no one will even notice. Meanwhile, you can deliberately take a skillshot that would one-shot a carry and die, and you'll just get people saying in all chat 'noob support, team too heavy, can't carry' or whatever. You just need to blow people off. Frankly, I think the role that gets the least abuse is top, because if you just farm your lane and never die you'll have zero impact in a losing game but people will find it hard to blame you for anything, even if they really, really should.

Yeah, I think I'm just gonna avoid ranked for the rest of the season, that's where most of the toxicity shows up. Just got another person saying I'm one of the best supports they've ever had, and I considered it a poorly played match on my part.

As long as I continue getting the good with the bad it'll be cool I guess. :P

Once you get to the point where you're confident that you're not horrible at your job, blowing people off is the way to go. Every bad player needs someone they can point the finger at so that nobody blames them for the loss. Sometimes that finger goes at you. If you know you're not doing anything wrong, don't even try to correct them. Don't respond at all, just roll your eyes and keep playing.

go custom/bots to get your farming skills up, and it also helps with confidence. Meet some nice people, go into normals with them and destroy for a bit. Perhaps read up on some build guides and watch videos as well, not saying you as bad as these people say, but it does sound like you yourself admit you need to improve.

as support what type of support were you playing, and what type of adc did your team have? what were your goals as a support? anything you noticed you had difficulty with in particular?