You all know "that guy". He ignores the fact you're the carry and takes the center. He curses everyone out and ragequits at the drop of a hat. He's immune to reason, logic, and any other form of rationale that would require higher thinking. He'll get killed by a turret rather than joining your team-fight. His Kill-Death Ratio (KDR) is 0-Over9000-0. He's a feeder. A leaver. A noob. He's "that guy".
I've played my fair share of games, and most of those were not premade. This guide is more targeted to those players not on premade, though a lot of the information here can still be useful if you're on a premade team. Admittedly, a lot of this is common sense, but I've run into a few people who seemed to be lacking in that department so I thought I'd write a guide for those who are tired of being "that guy". So here we go with a guide for being a better teammate.
Note of Warning - This is really long. Reeheeheeheeeaally long. If you don't have the patience to read/are a pansy/like your teammates cursing your name until late in the night then don't read this guide.
Pregame
1) Picking your champion - Everyone has a favorite champion or two to play. That's a good thing, because it lets you build up skill with a character and learn how best to play them. I tend to play Sivir and would like to think that I play a pretty good one, too. However, every so often during champion select it will be glaringly obvious that your team is missing a tank/stun/carry that will make things difficult for your team. Thus I suggest that you become at least proficient with another champion that plays a different role from your main champ. For example, beside Sivir I also practice with Alistar and Morgana so if I end up on a team full of squishy assassins, I'll play the tank Alistar or the support Morgana instead to better balance the team. This is also good when someone happens to beat you to the punch in champion select and you have to go with a different champion.
2) Who the heck's going where - Too often I've gone into a game where 2 or more people rush to the center and bicker over who's going to be in the solo lane. This is bad, don't be that guy. You have 90 seconds before the game starts, and some more time after that before minions spawn. Use it. Figure out who will be going into which lanes. If the other player's are mute/idiots/nincompoops and don't talk to you (language barriers or computer issues aside), tell yourself that it's their fault if your team loses (it makes the agony of defeat just a little more bearable).
3) Masteries - If you play a champion that is flexible in what masteries they utilize and no one else has picked Clairvoyance as a mastery, it's something to consider picking up. It is useful for watching your flank, checking brush for yourself and allies, and watching your allies backs. Heal and fortify are also decent for backing up allies, but if you want strategies for utilizing masteries then you best look for some other guide. Note, this is only really if your Champion doesn't have 2 masteries that fit them incredibly well.
During The Game
1) Don't die - If you die in the first few minutes of the game, you are either a complete fool and should walk the plank into shark-infested waters or your opponents got the better of you. Do not feed your opponent so many kills that he becomes a MFing Cho'gath in a matter of minutes. Don't be that guy. Getting killed sets your team back because your enemies get to push that lane harder and more easily harass/kill your teammate (if laning with a partner), gives your enemies a sizable amount of gold and experience, and prevents you from gaining xp/gold. It's possible to come back from such a set back, but it's much easier just to not die. If you find yourself playing your best but still being slaughtered, I would suggest finding someone to switch lanes with or see if you can call out a gank if the opponents overextended. As for advice for on how not to die, I suspect that would take a whole other guide to cover everything. Every so often you end up with a bad game and end up feeding the enemy, but don't be that guy who does it consistently and doesn't try to fix their mistakes.
Here's some tips to help break a chain of deaths/feeding.2) Communicate - Talk with your fellow teammates as if your life depended on it, because often times it will. I'll split this into a couple of sub points for clarity.
-If you find yourself taking a beating, retreat to your turret. While it becomes harder to farm gold, you can still maintain your experience and have a better time of surviving.
-One of the phrases I hear that I think is generally good advice is "Never cross the river alone." This refers to the fact that your chance of getting attacked/ganked/killed increases quite a lot once you cross the river diving the map in Summoner's Rift because you've extended past the relative safe retreat of your turret and you've left your rear exposed.
- Call out missing champions - If you die because you were ganked from an enemy champion from another lane, the blame generally falls on you because you should always keep an eye on the mini-map. However, a good teammate will do your team a favor and call out whenever a champion is missing from his lane. You can do this through a number of ways, though the fastest is simply to say "top/bot/mid mia", meaning that whatever lane your in (top, bottom, or middle), the enemy champion is missing. A good time to call mia is when a champion recalls or dies in your lane but fails to come back in a reasonable time (it takes a bit of practice to judge this, and if he ends up coming back you can alway type "nm" or "nvm" to inform your teammates. Basically, if they're missing and you're not sure why, call missing. It's better to err on the side of caution in this respect.
- Calling out ganks - If you're going to gank someone or need help ganking someone call it out. Don't be "that guy" who swoops in from nowhere without forewarning to tower dive the MFing Cho'Gath, only to get eaten alive. Tell your allies that you want to gank someone in their lane. Even a succinct message "gank" while pinging the target gives your allies at least some heads-up and time to get their CC (Crowd Control ex. stuns, slows, silences, etc.) off of cooldown.
- Signifying intent - Your allies are not mind-readers (if they were, that would be both awesome and disturbing). If your going to engage the enemy rather than harassing, signal it in some way. Even better, inform your ally before hand that when you ping an enemy, you want to engage him. Conversely, it's always good to remind your allies when to strategically retreat (run for their freaking lives) if you notice something they don't or if you don't want to engage by typing "b", but don't be that guy who spams "b" and then cusses you out when you're unable to get away despite taking warning. Sometimes, you just can't run away fast enough (or Blitzcrank deems you unworthy of living and grabs you).
3) Courtesy - Don't be "that guy" who's every third word is an obscenity, veiled or not. He insults his allies and proclaims to the world (as in your opponents, too) that his team is the most sucky team in the Universe. Cussing out and insulting your teammates, however poorly they performed, is counterproductive to being a good teammate. If your allies are doing poorly and you have some spare time (like when your dead because your Alistar partner decided to buy only potions), give them suggestions on how to play better and encourage them to play practice masters. Unless they happen to be "that guy", they'll learn to improve. If they are "that guy", please refer them to this thread, which brings me to another issue.
4) Take advantage of situations - If you've just emerged victorious in a team fight and sent the entire opposing team back to Timbuktu, now's not the time to go back into the jungle or passively farm minions. You're team is set up for a push: take advantage of it. Unless you're at poor health or happen to have a huge glut of gold (and I'm talking fricking Scrooge McDuck here), you should be attacking vulnerable turrets; don't let this golden opportunity go to waste. It's an insult to your allies and your own intelligence if you don't take advantage of opportunities your allies hand you, be it a clear lane thanks to an allied gank or an Aced that allows you to team up with your allies and push to their base. (Thanks to NukedWhale for the suggestion)
5) Dealing with "that guy" - Sometimes "that guy" is on your team. If you can get him to become a good teammate, that's great, but some people become "that guy" for the rest of their lives. There's not much you can do about it, but I've found ignoring them works the best. If someone refuses to cooperate and when you cooperate with them they get you killed, it's sometimes better to just acknowledge to yourself that they might have cost you the game, and take heart in that. Then send them to this thread.
Don't be "that guy", follow some, if not all, of the above advice. Everyone wants to team with a good teammate, the only people who want you to be a bad teammate is your opponents.
Please comment, and if you have any good suggestions for additions or formatting I'll be sure to add them. (Sorry if it wasn't as long as advertised. Please don't hold it against me =D)
~Sadness Assassin
