u/Chessmund

I generally play PTA Sett almost every game - Conq if they have many bruisers/tanks.

In this match-up I started off aggressively and got first blood.

After that? I couldn't get close without getting poked with his W and occasional Q3 and him outsustaining me.

Another aspect is him using E to dodge or completely avoid my W. Meaning I can't use E or W until his E is used, which he never uses without either poking with his own W/Q3 and then sustaining from minions.

It felt a lot like playing into Gnar or a ranged top laner, oddly enough.

It was just really odd.

Mistakes I've made:
- Bad spacing: I got poked too frequently.
- Poor wave management to continue lane bullying after First Blood.
- Suboptimal uses of my Q onto the wave to keep pushing so that I can gain EXP faster than him. Didn't help and reduced my damage whenever he goes in.

Any tips?

Greetings, I'm Esmund.

In a previous post, I talked about how I'm struggling in Top Lane. And I thought to myself to experiment with the other roles as I have less than 100 games on each of them. Since then, I've become a Taliyah main. Playing her as Support, Mid, and Jungle.

In my games, I've noticed that my mental is very fragile. According to Porofessor, I am a player that surrenders more often than average (when playing Draft - I almost never FF ranked games), I am a player that has a decrease in 5-10% winrate if I had lost a previous game (+5-10% WR if I won the previous game).

Additionally, according to Porofessor I am 20% more likely to lose when behind during the laning phase compared to the average Silver/Gold player (I'm 15+% more likely to win when ahead in the laning phase compared to the average Silver/Gold player).

Upon a few hours of self-inspection, I've noticed that I fall victim to the Sunk-Cost Fallacy. Where, in response to a lost game, I become desperate to compensate for the loss by playing more and winning more. And in response, this desperation likely leads me to make improper decisions.

Not to mention, each mistake, each death, continues to replay in my head as I play a game. Questions like: "Why did I make that mistake? Why didn't I simply wait? Why couldn't I have played smarter? Why am I playing this like an idiot?" and so forth.

Finally, my emotional state, as best as I try to put it "under control" and "mute" them to better focus at the game at hand, is never truly under control. I process my emotions very slowly. So, slowly, that they're a chore. The annoyance is that they don't stop being "noisy" until they've been processed. This makes the emotions I feel during the game: Anger, Shame, Disappointment, Joy, etc. They all become forces of influence that can make or break my performance.

Ideas I'm considering to implement:

- 1) Review every game, every time: Rather than dealing with thoughts of "I wish I did this, I wish I didn't do that" that can distract me when queueing another match, forcing myself to review every death and figuring out what I could've done better allows me to process these thoughts before I queue. Additionally, if I learn effectively, it might allow me to improve in general. But that depends if I can correctly identify and then reapply what I've learned.

- 2) Take a break after each loss: Walk away from the PC, go read, watch a video entirely separate from league, etc. In other words: Distract myself from league and let my subconscious process my emotions passively so that I'm back to my neutral state - not dealing with any distractions.

Ideas I probably should implement:

- 1) Learning not to take it personally: This one's difficult. But taking each mistake, each death, each loss, each loss streak at a personal level just adds an unnecessary amount of mental anguish over what is ultimately just a game. A complicated game with a lot of skill expression, yes; but a game nonetheless.

- 2) Accepting that it's okay to make mistakes and that it's okay to lose: I understand that it's okay to make mistakes. But I have trouble learning from them. I can be found making the same mistakes hundreds of times, and each one just eats away at me. My expectation in myself to learn makes it all the more heavy whenever I repeat the same mistake.

Thanks for reading.

Greetings, I'm Esmund.

Throughout my life I've found my emotions as very distracting and tricky to process.

In terms of day-to-day examples, I can find moments where I can't focus due to the emotions aim feeling. Whether it's a little but of whimsy, sadness, anger, fear, etc.

This difficulty in focus causes me to underperform.

I've tried processing my emotions but often times I get lost in breaking down why I'm feeling the way that I am at a given moment.

So, to prioritize performance, I would deem them as "noise" to cancel out and ignore until it ends.

Any solutions?