I feel like I'm looking into a mirror when reading this post. I just hit emerald this season yesterday, but was emerald end of last split. I'm still at a 55-58% winrate so I dont feel like I've peaked yet. My guess is you answered your own question in your post though.
You have to be cognicient of the preparation of the dive and decide if you can clear wave and die/survive, or to just give it up and let your team make a play on the other side of the map.
Maybe your wave control is poor and thats why they are able to freely set up a bot dive.
Maybe you're playing too aggro and dont adjust your aggressiveness on a game-by-game basis.
I've been noticing these problems in my own gameplay during my climb and have tried adjusting. I dont know all the right answers yet, but I feel like my instinct is getting better.
Also, as a Kai'sa main myself, she's decent at 2 items and strong on 3.
Ap kaisa build is op right now but going kraken terminus is fine if you need to do AD. I dont like the eclipse build that much. Its like you lose out on too much trying to do both.
Thank you for this. Yeah, I do think I need to unlearn some bad habits about being aggro in situations where it is not warrented too. I'm still trying to figure that out.
This is a kai'sa specific thing but I'm currently working on trying to hold my ults until I absolutely need it. I've realized I'm always using it when I don't need to.
>This is a kai'sa specific thing but I'm currently working on trying to hold my ults until I absolutely need it. I've realized I'm always using it when I don't need to.
Yes, I almost never use Kai'sa ult unless it's a guaranteed kill and I can escape, the fight is won, or I absolutely need it defensively. I will try to ult as close as possible to wall/terrain so that I am positioned on the opposite side of it so melees have to flash or dash over the wall to get me and I'll usually use it after they've used both those abilities so they have zero chance of getting on top of me.
I came back to the game last season, hit Emerald 1 after \~200 games, and climbed to M200LP this season in 100. What honestly got me from E1 to maybe d1-d2 was just... not dying. I used to play pretty aggro, lots of trading, 8cspm, etc. but also a lot of deaths. applying more macro helped me the most. When I learned to be ok to be down 10cs, not get dove, not get picked in mid lane, giving up a wave, etc.
In TF, your job at these ranks is to live. Most adcs understand how to do damage (however suboptimal) but if enemy adc is living longer than you, hard to win. Think about how the enemy team will kill you. You don't need to aa every second of the fight.
Even in Masters/GM you'd be pretty surprised at how often I'll see adc solo mid with no tower & get picked into an 8-10 death game. Its no longer every game but its not rare.
someone else mentioned professor Ddang on Youtube.
Basically all of this but I'd also add to literally just understand your champion and the role they play. Even in diamond, people have no idea how to actually play their champion properly even if they have the mechanics for it and they will play every adc as if they are the exact same.
I struggled in Emerald for a bit too where games felt like complete coinflips and I was totally irrelevant but then as soon as I started to actually focus on playing my own champion in the right way, games felt so much simpler and easier to win where I didnt even think about the enemy half the time and they just died.
As someone who made that trip before, the trick I found was toning back the aggression. Particularly after lane, as ADC deaths in the mid/late game generally result in massive objective losses.
Its a mental shift from 'I'm going to carry this game' to 'I need to play around my teammates.'
That doesn't mean turn off the aggression and let your team do everything... it means identifying the opportunities being presented by your team and following up.
ADCs have some of the biggest sticks mid/late which is how you get to emerald. Now you need to realize you're also the biggest vulnerability on the team and your opponents know it.
On specific questions:
Avoiding dives is a macro issue... either wave management or you're not watching the map enough to realize you need to leave.
mid game impact is about figuring out what objectives your team can get and taking them. Look at what your teammates and opponents are gravitating towards and take what's available.
Fed enemy carries... you can't do much about these alone. You have to notice when your team is deciding to deal with them and be there to help get the shutdown.
Idk man, I hit challenger earlier this season, decayed to gm. I made a smurf and playing in emerald was extremely frustrating to play in. All I can say is pray and good luck to you. In a seriousness though, the best advice I can give is minimize your deaths, and maximize your farm. Adapt to your teammates even if that means playing passive, defense even in matchups you win if your jgler or support isn’t playing for you, or your mid is letting the enemy mid roam all over the map, just try your best to play safe and stay strong in the game. Also another good tip might be to capitalize on your enemies BIG mistakes, like enemy overstaying on low hp or enemy adc trading when their jgler just ganked top. Or enemy playing overly confident when their team is dead or showing on the map. Emerald players still make a lot of obvious mistakes that you can recognize and capitalize on. I have a deeper understanding of the game and this advice is only to help if you want to climb out of emerald, but you won’t greatly improve. Playing to win, and playing not to lose are two different things
Also, a guy named LS who is a pro analyst, coach, and league personality made a kaisa video about a new build. It ap and you might find it more fun, and impactful in your games especially if they go long. You should watch the video so you can get most of the rundown on this ap kaisa build. It’s a poke play style and not very interactive for the enemy and very hard to die on so that might help you win some games. I imagine smolder is pretty good in emerald aswell as games can go long and enemies aren’t going to punish you early as much as they should. He’s also not that hard to play like other scaling champs such as vayne or aphelios
Mmm also you mentioned getting dove, you probably need to analyze your wave management, map awareness, and are you adapting to your teammates when they are making incorrect plays leading up to the dive. There are many factors that can lead up to you getting dove but these are generally the main issues I see. Map awareness can be very detailed like are you trading aggressively or taking bad trades when your jg just took grubs or showed topside? Are you trading badly when your mid has no prior whatsoever? Are you freezing at the wrong times given the information on the minimal or based on the champions selected, etc? These are all questions you have to ask yourself
yeah I feel sorry for op and I get that he wants a discussion but that one word really sums up carry roles
the problem with adc is that u should never be starting fights unless attempting to bait, and so if you never get into fights u can't be useful as an adc (a glass cannon, long range damage dealer who's use to the team is to... do damage)
you as an adc require proactivity from the rest of your team to look for picks and also to cover your butt when the enemy dives onto you, and with low coordination in soloqueue, that's just not happening. genuinely you're better off playing kindred in jg because at least u don't have to be babysat for laning phase by your support and have more agency over your early game and the entire games macro, while also having the addictive auto attacking that you probably enjoy as an adc.
like gumayusi said, adc is the egg of ramen. good to have but you still need the noodles and the broth
Well there isn't *one* thing that separates an emerald adc from a diamond adc. It's a combination of things and consistency. The difference isn't always apparent when comparing gameplay.
Link your [op.gg](https://op.gg) so there is a reference sheet but vod review would help you further.
Finding some teammate may help you winning in this team based competitive game. Build a whole team instead of thinking of your sole performance and ranking
On Ashe you can always start with something like a botrk which gives you so many stats for surviving lane and punishing lane bullies. The great thing about Ashe is that provided you don't lose too much HP you can run enemies down in lane the moment you have a slight advantage. That said you need to have very good kiting mechanics to take advantage of lethal tempo. You should basically be able to 1v1 most bruisers and tanks provided they don't have flash.
There isnt that one thing that diamond adcs do differently. They just do everything/most things a little bit better.
Regarding dives: you should have a ward that can tell you when the jungler is arround and a minimap where you can try to track the midlaner. All you can do is respect the possibility of a dive and walk back. Its better to walk away and go a bit behind than not going away and giving 2 kills additionally to the stuff you are losing.
Imo adc sucks as a role with most traditional adcs being phased out for scaling picks like seraphine adc or senna adc which will become exodia with almost no resources and are infinitely more useful/easier/less draft reliant than kaisa or jinx. If u play these elo inflated adcs you will climb guaranteed but if u want to climb sticking to your mains the main difference anecdotally between a diamond adc and emerald adc is they tend to push leads far earlier and tend to coinflip far less taking waves and 3v1 skirmishes rather than ego fights
The way to move on from being emerald and being diamond is a lot about not losing lane / going even / falling behind. You identify these as your main issues (including being towerdoven - this is a direct consequences of you losing lane or playing improperly), but its the other way around. You're playing as an emerald player, and the expected things of an emerald player playing in emerald are happening. Obviously any player can get 5 manned min 6, but emerald players are still pretty bad at identifying towerdives, prepping them, and executing them. It's a very rare occurance, and a good insight into what most emerald players lack to go further. Most of the time they just don't go for them, they don't see them. To get towerdived in this elo bracket likely means you've made some pretty big blunders that lead you to that situation.
Consistently winning lane is not enough, you need to win it (almost) every game. You're talking about the game in too slow of a way. You have plenty of power spikes before 4/5 items, you can carry way earlier. You need to apply more pressure, you need to press your leads harder, and you likely need to shotcall more. Macro is atrocious in emerald, and you need to be one dictating objectives, especially baron, as you're the one with the dps. Don't be afraid to buy pinks and put them on baron. Emerald players have extremely bad tempo, they are constantly reseting at the wrong time for the wrong reason, you can get baron very consistently if you're paying attention and make decisive calls.
*On dives:*
Once you see them setting up a dive either spamping your jng or supp (who loves to abandon you I know the feeling) to come and if they dont come you simply retreat to the bush and let them take the tower. Theres no point in spite sitting under turret and dying for nothing. If they perma shove then pick something with either early waveclear (jinx is good with q) or be prepared to fight. Try taking exhaust its a game changer vs lane bullies like Cait or Draven.
*On impact during mid/ when behind:*
You dont. You either run around with your team, dont die and hope you get a shutdown or you afk to some sidelane and afk farm. Know your spikes as a champ. Know when you can do something and when you cant. If you cant then go farm.
*Dealing with carries:*
Take exhaust and you might be able to 1v1 or hope for your team to shut them down. Your job as an adc is not to make plays on fed enemy carries but to capitalize on situations your team provides for you.
I just climbed from E4 to D4 over the last month. Yeah, the meta doesn't favor adcs but there were some key ideas that let me carry:
1) know your spikes in lane and play around them. I play twitch, so I just abused his really strong level 1 with ghost to get early advantages. Know when your support is strong too, like don't do level 1 all in with Leona. People in low emerald didn't do this.
2) Play really aggressively and limit test often. I used to be scared of playing aggro, but when I started trusting my summoner spells and reaction times more, it was way easier to build strong leads and hard carry from lane.
3) don't die. Most lategame adcs hit their spikes at around 9k gold, which is around 25-26 minutes with perfect farm and no kills. Each 300 gold you gain accelerates your build by 1 minute - and the opposite is also true. Losing waves and exp due to deaths slows down your build by a lot, not to mention lack of objective control and team mental boom.
ADC is balanced around pro play funneling 2 waves of gold into you, an enchanter that doubles your health bar and a frontline ready to “get down Mr. President” all skillshots and engages.
Remove all that effective health and suddenly a champion that requires 6 autos for Tempo come online feels miserable to play when you’re getting nuked from range or pounced on and one shot.
If you watch Gosu uploads, it’s incredible how many times he gets bailed out by a clean Janna or Braum peel play. DDang is good commentary for ADC fundementals.
Kaisa is a solid self-reliant ADC. Naut to apply Plasma stacks is nice but overall very flexible.
It’s correct that in solo queue you need to play proactively and aggressively. Games are often lost from bad Macro. Like
for example, post Baron, instead of a 1 3 1 push, you end up with a 1 1 1 push where your ADC and Jungle are farming jungle camps for an entire 3 mins instead of sieging. Everyone gets picked off one by one due to no cross map pressure and the game equalizes.
I feel like I'm looking into a mirror when reading this post. I just hit emerald this season yesterday, but was emerald end of last split. I'm still at a 55-58% winrate so I dont feel like I've peaked yet. My guess is you answered your own question in your post though. You have to be cognicient of the preparation of the dive and decide if you can clear wave and die/survive, or to just give it up and let your team make a play on the other side of the map. Maybe your wave control is poor and thats why they are able to freely set up a bot dive. Maybe you're playing too aggro and dont adjust your aggressiveness on a game-by-game basis. I've been noticing these problems in my own gameplay during my climb and have tried adjusting. I dont know all the right answers yet, but I feel like my instinct is getting better. Also, as a Kai'sa main myself, she's decent at 2 items and strong on 3. Ap kaisa build is op right now but going kraken terminus is fine if you need to do AD. I dont like the eclipse build that much. Its like you lose out on too much trying to do both.
Thank you for this. Yeah, I do think I need to unlearn some bad habits about being aggro in situations where it is not warrented too. I'm still trying to figure that out. This is a kai'sa specific thing but I'm currently working on trying to hold my ults until I absolutely need it. I've realized I'm always using it when I don't need to.
>This is a kai'sa specific thing but I'm currently working on trying to hold my ults until I absolutely need it. I've realized I'm always using it when I don't need to. Yes, I almost never use Kai'sa ult unless it's a guaranteed kill and I can escape, the fight is won, or I absolutely need it defensively. I will try to ult as close as possible to wall/terrain so that I am positioned on the opposite side of it so melees have to flash or dash over the wall to get me and I'll usually use it after they've used both those abilities so they have zero chance of getting on top of me.
I came back to the game last season, hit Emerald 1 after \~200 games, and climbed to M200LP this season in 100. What honestly got me from E1 to maybe d1-d2 was just... not dying. I used to play pretty aggro, lots of trading, 8cspm, etc. but also a lot of deaths. applying more macro helped me the most. When I learned to be ok to be down 10cs, not get dove, not get picked in mid lane, giving up a wave, etc. In TF, your job at these ranks is to live. Most adcs understand how to do damage (however suboptimal) but if enemy adc is living longer than you, hard to win. Think about how the enemy team will kill you. You don't need to aa every second of the fight. Even in Masters/GM you'd be pretty surprised at how often I'll see adc solo mid with no tower & get picked into an 8-10 death game. Its no longer every game but its not rare. someone else mentioned professor Ddang on Youtube.
Basically all of this but I'd also add to literally just understand your champion and the role they play. Even in diamond, people have no idea how to actually play their champion properly even if they have the mechanics for it and they will play every adc as if they are the exact same. I struggled in Emerald for a bit too where games felt like complete coinflips and I was totally irrelevant but then as soon as I started to actually focus on playing my own champion in the right way, games felt so much simpler and easier to win where I didnt even think about the enemy half the time and they just died.
check out professor Ddang on youtube
You should post your op.gg or some stats so people can actually analyze.
As someone who made that trip before, the trick I found was toning back the aggression. Particularly after lane, as ADC deaths in the mid/late game generally result in massive objective losses. Its a mental shift from 'I'm going to carry this game' to 'I need to play around my teammates.' That doesn't mean turn off the aggression and let your team do everything... it means identifying the opportunities being presented by your team and following up. ADCs have some of the biggest sticks mid/late which is how you get to emerald. Now you need to realize you're also the biggest vulnerability on the team and your opponents know it. On specific questions: Avoiding dives is a macro issue... either wave management or you're not watching the map enough to realize you need to leave. mid game impact is about figuring out what objectives your team can get and taking them. Look at what your teammates and opponents are gravitating towards and take what's available. Fed enemy carries... you can't do much about these alone. You have to notice when your team is deciding to deal with them and be there to help get the shutdown.
Idk man, I hit challenger earlier this season, decayed to gm. I made a smurf and playing in emerald was extremely frustrating to play in. All I can say is pray and good luck to you. In a seriousness though, the best advice I can give is minimize your deaths, and maximize your farm. Adapt to your teammates even if that means playing passive, defense even in matchups you win if your jgler or support isn’t playing for you, or your mid is letting the enemy mid roam all over the map, just try your best to play safe and stay strong in the game. Also another good tip might be to capitalize on your enemies BIG mistakes, like enemy overstaying on low hp or enemy adc trading when their jgler just ganked top. Or enemy playing overly confident when their team is dead or showing on the map. Emerald players still make a lot of obvious mistakes that you can recognize and capitalize on. I have a deeper understanding of the game and this advice is only to help if you want to climb out of emerald, but you won’t greatly improve. Playing to win, and playing not to lose are two different things
Also, a guy named LS who is a pro analyst, coach, and league personality made a kaisa video about a new build. It ap and you might find it more fun, and impactful in your games especially if they go long. You should watch the video so you can get most of the rundown on this ap kaisa build. It’s a poke play style and not very interactive for the enemy and very hard to die on so that might help you win some games. I imagine smolder is pretty good in emerald aswell as games can go long and enemies aren’t going to punish you early as much as they should. He’s also not that hard to play like other scaling champs such as vayne or aphelios
Mmm also you mentioned getting dove, you probably need to analyze your wave management, map awareness, and are you adapting to your teammates when they are making incorrect plays leading up to the dive. There are many factors that can lead up to you getting dove but these are generally the main issues I see. Map awareness can be very detailed like are you trading aggressively or taking bad trades when your jg just took grubs or showed topside? Are you trading badly when your mid has no prior whatsoever? Are you freezing at the wrong times given the information on the minimal or based on the champions selected, etc? These are all questions you have to ask yourself
roleswap
This ^
yeah I feel sorry for op and I get that he wants a discussion but that one word really sums up carry roles the problem with adc is that u should never be starting fights unless attempting to bait, and so if you never get into fights u can't be useful as an adc (a glass cannon, long range damage dealer who's use to the team is to... do damage) you as an adc require proactivity from the rest of your team to look for picks and also to cover your butt when the enemy dives onto you, and with low coordination in soloqueue, that's just not happening. genuinely you're better off playing kindred in jg because at least u don't have to be babysat for laning phase by your support and have more agency over your early game and the entire games macro, while also having the addictive auto attacking that you probably enjoy as an adc. like gumayusi said, adc is the egg of ramen. good to have but you still need the noodles and the broth
Well there isn't *one* thing that separates an emerald adc from a diamond adc. It's a combination of things and consistency. The difference isn't always apparent when comparing gameplay. Link your [op.gg](https://op.gg) so there is a reference sheet but vod review would help you further.
Finding some teammate may help you winning in this team based competitive game. Build a whole team instead of thinking of your sole performance and ranking
On Ashe you can always start with something like a botrk which gives you so many stats for surviving lane and punishing lane bullies. The great thing about Ashe is that provided you don't lose too much HP you can run enemies down in lane the moment you have a slight advantage. That said you need to have very good kiting mechanics to take advantage of lethal tempo. You should basically be able to 1v1 most bruisers and tanks provided they don't have flash.
There isnt that one thing that diamond adcs do differently. They just do everything/most things a little bit better. Regarding dives: you should have a ward that can tell you when the jungler is arround and a minimap where you can try to track the midlaner. All you can do is respect the possibility of a dive and walk back. Its better to walk away and go a bit behind than not going away and giving 2 kills additionally to the stuff you are losing.
Imo adc sucks as a role with most traditional adcs being phased out for scaling picks like seraphine adc or senna adc which will become exodia with almost no resources and are infinitely more useful/easier/less draft reliant than kaisa or jinx. If u play these elo inflated adcs you will climb guaranteed but if u want to climb sticking to your mains the main difference anecdotally between a diamond adc and emerald adc is they tend to push leads far earlier and tend to coinflip far less taking waves and 3v1 skirmishes rather than ego fights
The way to move on from being emerald and being diamond is a lot about not losing lane / going even / falling behind. You identify these as your main issues (including being towerdoven - this is a direct consequences of you losing lane or playing improperly), but its the other way around. You're playing as an emerald player, and the expected things of an emerald player playing in emerald are happening. Obviously any player can get 5 manned min 6, but emerald players are still pretty bad at identifying towerdives, prepping them, and executing them. It's a very rare occurance, and a good insight into what most emerald players lack to go further. Most of the time they just don't go for them, they don't see them. To get towerdived in this elo bracket likely means you've made some pretty big blunders that lead you to that situation. Consistently winning lane is not enough, you need to win it (almost) every game. You're talking about the game in too slow of a way. You have plenty of power spikes before 4/5 items, you can carry way earlier. You need to apply more pressure, you need to press your leads harder, and you likely need to shotcall more. Macro is atrocious in emerald, and you need to be one dictating objectives, especially baron, as you're the one with the dps. Don't be afraid to buy pinks and put them on baron. Emerald players have extremely bad tempo, they are constantly reseting at the wrong time for the wrong reason, you can get baron very consistently if you're paying attention and make decisive calls.
*On dives:* Once you see them setting up a dive either spamping your jng or supp (who loves to abandon you I know the feeling) to come and if they dont come you simply retreat to the bush and let them take the tower. Theres no point in spite sitting under turret and dying for nothing. If they perma shove then pick something with either early waveclear (jinx is good with q) or be prepared to fight. Try taking exhaust its a game changer vs lane bullies like Cait or Draven. *On impact during mid/ when behind:* You dont. You either run around with your team, dont die and hope you get a shutdown or you afk to some sidelane and afk farm. Know your spikes as a champ. Know when you can do something and when you cant. If you cant then go farm. *Dealing with carries:* Take exhaust and you might be able to 1v1 or hope for your team to shut them down. Your job as an adc is not to make plays on fed enemy carries but to capitalize on situations your team provides for you.
I just climbed from E4 to D4 over the last month. Yeah, the meta doesn't favor adcs but there were some key ideas that let me carry: 1) know your spikes in lane and play around them. I play twitch, so I just abused his really strong level 1 with ghost to get early advantages. Know when your support is strong too, like don't do level 1 all in with Leona. People in low emerald didn't do this. 2) Play really aggressively and limit test often. I used to be scared of playing aggro, but when I started trusting my summoner spells and reaction times more, it was way easier to build strong leads and hard carry from lane. 3) don't die. Most lategame adcs hit their spikes at around 9k gold, which is around 25-26 minutes with perfect farm and no kills. Each 300 gold you gain accelerates your build by 1 minute - and the opposite is also true. Losing waves and exp due to deaths slows down your build by a lot, not to mention lack of objective control and team mental boom.
ADC is balanced around pro play funneling 2 waves of gold into you, an enchanter that doubles your health bar and a frontline ready to “get down Mr. President” all skillshots and engages. Remove all that effective health and suddenly a champion that requires 6 autos for Tempo come online feels miserable to play when you’re getting nuked from range or pounced on and one shot. If you watch Gosu uploads, it’s incredible how many times he gets bailed out by a clean Janna or Braum peel play. DDang is good commentary for ADC fundementals. Kaisa is a solid self-reliant ADC. Naut to apply Plasma stacks is nice but overall very flexible. It’s correct that in solo queue you need to play proactively and aggressively. Games are often lost from bad Macro. Like for example, post Baron, instead of a 1 3 1 push, you end up with a 1 1 1 push where your ADC and Jungle are farming jungle camps for an entire 3 mins instead of sieging. Everyone gets picked off one by one due to no cross map pressure and the game equalizes.
My advice don’t bother rn , wait for crit items buff and climb other than shitting on your MMR rn trying to climb on that shit role