Yup. As the title thread states, I usually don´t do that well at this game and feel more like a burden to my teams, rather than an asset. I might have a great game or two here and there, but as it stands I´m what you´d call an inconsistent player.

I´ve already gone to the dark side (No, I´m not talking about playing Kassadin) and blamed others for my own shortcomings, which doesn´t help at all. So instead of blaming matchmaking, an egyptian curse placed on my account by Riot, my teammates, or whatever, I decided to ask for some advice. As I´ve read many times, the only common factor in all of a person´s losses is, well...that very same person. So I want to improve, and start contributing a more to the teams I´m placed in.

Now, as for the mistakes I´ve noticed myself:

- Missing skillshots more often than not
- Not knowing when to engage/disengage
- And I feel I´m making quite a few mistakes regarding itemization, too
- Staying in the top brush after capturing the point
- Chasing/escaping/commiting issues

And since I believe giving specific advice would be a bit hard otherwise, I uploaded some replays for anyone who wants to see them (Warning: It may be painful to watch)

http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/2669481/ (Ahri, hadn´t played with her in ages...we won, but I wasn´t able to go positive)

http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/2669539/ (Pantheon, can´t think of a single thing I did well this match)

http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/1179637/ (Ezreal, this one shows how much I need to practice regarding skillshots)

http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/2669566/ (Miss Fortune, we won but again, wasn´t able to go positive...and this shows the engaging/disengaging part)

I´ve read Sauron/Nekrogen/Painkillar´s guides, and watched quite a few streams, yet I keep making some very stupid mistakes. Anyways, constructive criticism would be much appreciated, no matter how blunt it may be (As long as it´s not something like **** NOOB UNINSTALL QQ MOAR or something like that)

I also have more replays, just in case. Thanks in advance for any advice

I only watched your pantheon game because he was the only champ I'm familiar with.


Itemization : Finish your black cleaver, brutilizer phage is a really meh combo
Thornmail does almost nothing against talon and gp

Engaging : Don't bother fighting when you're outnumbered unless you are certain that it will put your
your team in a better position


I have no idea why, but your team kept on fighting 3v4 for the entire game.

Hmm? Almost all GP's damage is reflected by thornmail, and about half of talon's burst is. It's also cheap armour.

"but I wasn´t able to go positive"

Score Doesn't matter. If you won the game its either you were playing right or the enemy team just sucked or even both. Now if you won and you think you still need to improve than thats good that you know that and try to improve. If you helped your team by defending properly and just playing properly in all aspects of gameplay (skillshots, positioning, defending, assisting with kills etc etc) then you did well. Ofcourse a positive score like 15/3 is visually appealing but don't worry when you don't get those scores. Sometimes your hero might have a harder time than other games cuz your playing agains't heroes that give u trouble (Ex : playing AP carry vs Kass+talon) and might force you to play more defensive etc. This might have an affect on your score. That was just an example. I play AP casters most of my games and Ahri is one of my mains so i know how hard it can be at times.

I second what scumbagz said. Especially if you go bot/play support, score doesn't matter.

If you know what are the things that you do wrong, try realizing when you're about to do them and try to stop. That helped ME a lot.

If you are having issues with skill shots I might recommend a hero that either does not have them or preferably only has one so you can work on hitting with it and still have other abilities to lean on if you are still missing most of them. Ez is pretty much a skill shot based champ so not the best choice if you are struggling with hitting them. Characters like Lee Sin and Blitz who would normally fit the description are VERY reliant on hitting the Q so you might want to save them for after some practice with other 1 skill shot champs.

As for positioning I have seen it suggested before and I will reiterate it here, that if you are having positioning problems consider taking flash/revive instead of ignite or exhaust. Normally I would only go this route if you are playing an ADC or AP that needs some help in situations were you get jumped on. Many champs have built in CC or an escape mechanism to cover this, but there are cases (Ashe,Varus,etc.) where flash will help cover the lack of ways to disengage. This will also help in those situations where you committed to a fight you should not have.

Itemization is a little trickier as some champs have a few viable build paths. There are many places you can checkout for suggested builds, but again these will vary. Since the addition of BFT and the changes made to Cleaver I have found that these items work on almost any AP/AD respectively. So until you decide on what suits you best I would suggest using these items quite a bit of the time. I would say 75% of games I am rushing one or the other of those items out the gate. Also be sure to work 1-2 CDR items into almost all your builds. Depending on the champ you will want 20-30% in items and then some built into your masteries/runes to top it off. If you chose to go CDR boots you can possibly get by with just those and the BFT/BC for 25%, but be careful on which champs you chose to skip the mercs treads because tenacity is very useful and hard to pass on.

As for the Windmill woods camping trips, do not beat yourself up too bad. It's one of the main things people harp on and tbh it is not ALWAYS a bad thing. Now the vast majority of the time you should be elsewhere, however there are exceptions. If your whole team just recalled and you have full life with the ability to poke from there then by all means hang out and wait for them to get back up there or close to it before you head out. Just a few pokes to prevent capping could be the difference in your team showing up to stop their cap, or showing up to a newly capped tower with 1-2 sitting on it already. The spot becomes a problem when you sit there most of the game while missing multiple team fights in the jungle. This causes your team to be a man down most times and leads to you having to dive the 2-3 that survived the team fight you missed only to have them curb stomp you and take the tower anyways.

Best of luck to you in your games, and I hope this helps a little.

For skill shots, you really just have to practice. If you have a friend who plays or someone who would be willing to help (ask in the DominateDominion chatroom maybe) then you could go into a custom game with someone and play a champ like EZ or someone and just practice landing skillshots in all kinds of situations. Practice is the only real way to get better at them. Also, watch how your opponents move, and try to learn how to predict how they will move when the skill shot would hit them. Path prediction, especially for slower skill shots like anivia's Q is one of the most important things for landing skill shots.

As for knowing when to engage or disengage, well, that is really something that you have to learn with time, as there are many many different situations and rulebreakers that come into play that you need to know. As a general rule though, only engage if it is beneficial to you. Do you outnumber your opponents and is your team in a good position to engage? Then engaging is a good thing (of course only a champ that can engage should, such as a tank). For disengaging, it should be done mostly when you know you are losing a fight, or if the enemy is running from you and there is really no point in chasing them anymore.

For itemization, it really just depends on the game. Adapt your builds to your opponents, and look at Saurons tier list for what items are good. I generally agree with the item list.

Keep in mind that dominion is fast paced. When possible, you want to always be doing something, whether it be ganking bot, defending a turret, getting a health pack, going back to heal and buy, etc.

For chasing and escaping, slows and ms are really good stats. I have found that I love frozen mallet bot for this reason on champs like jax or yorick, and zeal -> triforce is good too.

Here is a link to my guide on dominion that is a work in progress. I hope that if you are up for reading it, then you are helped by it. Also you have perhaps inspired me to write a engaging/disengaging section. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...XblN94Ul4/edit