u/NoSeaworthiness7490

Hey there! I've been having moderate succes with Yasuo botlane, but I do struggle on some points and I have a few questions:

1. Is Thresh a good synergy with Yasuo? I feel like it should be, but whenever I see Yasuo's synergy deltas on Lolalytics it's always pretty low with Thresh and I also don't see him mentioned that often.
2. How do I do late game teamfights? I feel like I'm too squishy to go in, and I don't deal as much damage as a traditional ADC. I feel bad taking the spot of a sustained high damage marksman just to deal zero damage and be inconsistent with damage for the entire late game
3. How do I decide what item I should build first. Which teamcomp benefits which item?

Hey! I love playing assassins, but I am unfortunately a botlaner due to the group of people I play with. I looked up whether it's at all possible to play assassins botlane, and the answers I found were along the lines of "Assassins thrive on isolated single targets, which isn't what botlane is all about.

But then why do I see supports playing Rengar, Pyke, Sylas etc?

If you can play Senna ADC and Sylas support, why can't you play Sylas APC and Senna support?

This is probably a really stupid question, but I've always wondered this

Hey everyone! I've always been a pretty casual player that enjoys characters with skill expression or generally a high skill ceiling. Recently however, my brother started actually playing League and even weirder actually started to enjoy it (despite never seeming to love League before). And it's all thanks to duo botlaner. He really likes playing Karma and Nami and I'm very happy to see him enjoy himself so much.

Now he's asking if we can try climbing, which of course I said yes to but the thing is, I'm not much of a ranged character kind of guy. I can play them, but I don't particularly enjoy playing them. I tried a lot of ADCs that play a little more up close like Vayne, Kai'sa, but none of them really felt the same.

I eventually found three characters that I do enjoy, Samira, Nilah and ESPECIALLY Yasuo.

How viable is it to main Yasuo ADC? Are there any matchups I should absolutely avoid playing into as Yasuo? And if so, can those matchups be played on one of the other two instead? Or do all three share the exact same counters/weaknesses? I'm not just asking for low ELO because the plan is to of course get consistent and try to end up as high on the climb as possible.

Hey! I know the advice is generally to focus on playing one champion with a backup in case of bans, but what about when you play a champ that's easy to counter? My friend tells me you should have one good blind pick in case you have to pick early, and only play said champion if you're last pick. Is this true?

Hey Sylas mains. I'm a huuuuge Sylas fan, but due to my stupid brother (love him) I'm forced to Duo botlane with him, and I'm absolutely not the support. Now if I can't play Sylas, you can bet your chained cheeks I'm forcing him to play Sylas support. I only recently discovered Sylas support is even a thing, and now I need to convert him if it's the last thing I do.

To entice him I wanna try some fun combos, I was thinking maybe Yasuo would work since both love to go in level 3. But I wanted to ask the real OG's which synergies would work well with Sylas

Hey! recently picked up Yasuo, and I noticed something that REALLY increases how smooth the champion feels to play, which is animation transitions. Meaning that when you Q for example, and start walking straight after, Yasuo's blade doesn't just snap from a stretched out position into his sheathe, he twirls it around for a bit and then sheathes the sword. This is such a huge difference from my previously played champion Kai'sa. When Kai'sa hits the last stack from her passive she jumps into the air and shoots from mid-air. This is a GREAT animation, however it can come off as a bit jarring because if you walk right after, she will snap from the air right into a walking animation.

Animation transitions aren't exactly something that makes a character feel janky when it's missing, but it almost always makes champions feel smoother to play when they are there. I know mentioning this this isn't exactly breaking new grounds or anything, but I would love to know which champions you found to have this smooth feeling due to animation transitions. I've noticed them on Zaahen, Aphelios, Yone, Yasuo.

What champions do you think feel smoother because they have these animation transitions? Does your main champ feature them? Let me know!

Hey there! This question might make me seem really stupid, but I've been told there's no such thing as stupid questions.

I've always heard..well literally everybody say that the only job of an ADC is to deal damage. To me this makes a lot of sense because looking at the average ADC's kit they offer little to nothing else. They usually don't have any CC, no utility or anything of the sort, just a kit tailor made for damage.

However, I am ALWAYS outdamaged by midlaners, sometimes by junglers too. I'm not exactly a stat chaser by any means, but I do wonder if I'm not playing well. I've always been told it's super important for botlaners to focus on farm, and I average about 190 CS (lots of room for improvement I feel), I am however feeling like I focus too much on fighting and I'm not contributing enough to damage. How do I balance the two properly, I don't want to feel like I'm not contributing anything to the team but mages always just completely outclass me in damage, which is essentially all I'm bringing to the team.

Hey! I am very much canine poop on Yasuo, and straight up fed a couple of games. However, I think giving up when you don't immediately find succes isn't any way to grow. And I would prefer to actually invest more time trying to learn it rather than giving up because I'm not immediately good at it. So here I am once again reaching out my hand hoping some strong samurai will grab it. I have some questions in regards to trading, itemization, ability use etc, so here goes.

1. In regards to trade, how do I decide which botlaners I can out-trade early on? I tried doing some short trades by dashing in, auto>Q and then dashing out, but I usually lose a bit more health than I chip away. What are some good ways to trade, how can I tell how long I should trade and which champions I can out-damage? Or is it more of a one-size fits all situation?
2. I fed the living hell out of a Senna/Vel'koz botlane, how do I play around lanes that can just ignore windwall? Do I play safe and hug the tower? Or do I change my figthing habbits around these people? I'm always really scared of falling behind so I end up trying to fight, which just makes me fall further behind, if I farm safe, will I even be able to out-scale someone like Senna late-game?
3. When do I ult? I don't want to be trigger happy and press R every time I see a bunch of knocked up people. I played a lot of Kai'sa and I used to just use my ult to go in, and only recently discovered that it's actually pretty dumb to use it that way in 9/10 sitations, and that I should use my ult for respositioning instead. Are there any specific uses of Yasuo ult I should know about?
4. When are my power spikes? When should I look to fight?
5. What supports should my duo play? I keep seeing such varied answers from Senna to enchanters to engage tanks. He plays Galio, Fiddlesticks and Nami. Are those decent picks for a Yasuo lane? What makes them good/bad and what are some alternatives if they don't mesh well with Yasuo

I hope you guys could help me out with my skill issues. Of course I understand practice makes perfect, but blindly playing isn't as good of a practice as trying to analyze how to improve.

Hey Yasuo mains! A couple of days ago I made a post about Yasuo in the botlane, and whether or not it's easy to counterpick. I got some really great replies with a lot of in depth explainations. I am however, very much canine poop on Yasuo, and straight up fed a couple of games. However, I think giving up when you don't immediately find succes isn't any way to grow. And I would prefer to actually invest more time trying to learn it rather than giving up because I'm not immediately good at it. So here I am once again reaching out my hand hoping some strong samurai will grab it. I have some questions in regards to trading, itemization, ability use etc, so here goes.

1. In regards to trade, how do I decide which botlaners I can out-trade early on? I tried doing some short trades by dashing in, auto>Q and then dashing out, but I usually lose a bit more health than I chip away. What are some good ways to trade, how can I tell how long I should trade and which champions I can out-damage? Or is it more of a one-size fits all situation?

2. I fed the living hell out of a Senna/Vel'koz botlane, how do I play around lanes that can just ignore windwall? Do I play safe and hug the tower? Or do I change my figthing habbits around these people? I'm always really scared of falling behind so I end up trying to fight, which just makes me fall further behind, if I farm safe, will I even be able to out-scale someone like Senna late-game?

3. When do I ult? I don't want to be trigger happy and press R every time I see a bunch of knocked up people. I played a lot of Kai'sa and I used to just use my ult to go in, and only recently discovered that it's actually pretty dumb to use it that way in 9/10 sitations, and that I should use my ult for respositioning instead. Are there any specific uses of Yasuo ult I should know about?

4. When are my power spikes? When should I look to fight?

5. What supports should my duo play? I keep seeing such varied answers from Senna to enchanters to engage tanks. He plays Galio, Fiddlesticks and Nami. Are those decent picks for a Yasuo lane? What makes them good/bad and what are some alternatives if they don't mesh well with Yasuo

I hope you guys could help me out with my skill issues. Of course I understand practice makes perfect, but blindly playing isn't as good of a practice as trying to analyze how to improve.

Hey! I'm looking to maybe main Yasuo on the botlane, but melee champs feel pretty easy to counterpick. Would one tricking/maining Yasuo bot be a bad idea?

If he's not consistent, where lies the problem? If my support picks something that synergizes is that enough? Or is he very vulnerable to get countered ON TOP of being a bit picky with synergy?

Perhaps I have misgivings about the champion, I'm not meaning to insinuate that Yasuo is a bad blind pick, it just feels that way to me, but that could very well be a skill issue and I just need more practice. What do you guys think about botlane Yasuo as a whole?

Hey everyone! I've never been much of a competitive games player in general, and when I did play them, it was always super casually. I quit Valorant a while back because it felt like it took so much effort to play consistently. Rust built up quick (which to be fair might have been a major skill issue) and after every couple of days not playing I felt like I suddenly lost the ability to shoot people and play the game like anything other than a bumbling buffoon. It was very quickly turning into just getting shot instantly the moment I made contact with any enemy, which again I don't blame the game for, I know it's totally on me.

However, recently I've been actually improving a lot in another game I played in a similar way, League of Legends. (bear with me I'm mentioning this for a reason) The way I did all of this imporiving isn't exactly practice, I played enough already for that, but rather just gathering game knowledge. This is a really good motivator for me, because I get super absorbed into reading/watching material about a game I'm into. I know probably doing stuff like aimlabs and such is a great way to improve, but I find it really hard to motivate myself to do that unless I'm deeply invested in the game. However, for me gathering knowledge is something I very quickly get absorbed in, and I'm actually able to motivate myself through it very easily.

Having said that, I want to actually see if I can become more consistent in Valorant, but I need some reading/watching material to hook me in. It can be anything remotely related to game knowledge. General guides, map intricacies, agent mastery videos, fundamentals etc. What matters is that I can move a bit towards feeling comfortable in the game. I don't know if this is just a thing for me specifically or if it's a general shared experience, but I feel a lot more comfortable in a game when I understand it, and being comfortable is usually how I consistently grow.

Of course the question is, do you guys have any recommendations for me?

EDIT: Yes I understand that the best way to improve at a game is by playing the game. I'm not asking about that, I'm specifically asking where I could find supplementary game knowledge so I can hype myself up about Valorant whenever I'm not able to actually play but have some time for myself

I've read in multiple places that champions like Twisted Fate, Akshan and the like don't work for botlane because of their low attack range. On the one hand this makes sense to me, because it's much harder to farm without getting absolutely blasted by the enemy ADC.

What I don't understand however, is that if that's the case, how come you can play Nilah, Kai'sa, Samira and other low attack range marksmen as ADC, but not something like Akshan?

Hey! I've been low elo for a long time, partially due to the fact that I always played the game so casually I didn't really feel the need to lock in and improve consistently, so it's been at a snails pace. I decided however, that now is the time to lock in. I started playing Duo botlane with my brother, and we decided we'd just do our best and see where we land. I'm trying to hone in on a champion pool, and so far the only thing set in stone is Kai'sa as my main. I love her versatility, the fact that she's not COMPLETELY helpless by herself, the repositioning mechanics of her E (especially after evolving it). Regarding the other champions though, I'm having a bit more of a difficult time to decide. So I have some questions:

1. How big should my champion pool be? I've heard 2-3, is 4 absolutely too much? Or is that still within the boundaries of not making it too difficult for myself?
2. Should my other champions have a similar playstyle to my main, so that I keep consistency and always practice similar playstyles? Or should I spread out and cover my bases more so I can handle more different matchups better?
3. Should I include a botlane mage in my repertoire? Or is it just another flavour of botlaner rather than something that adds a ton of versatility to my roster?
4. How many champions should I learn for my flex role? I imagine I shouldn't also learn 3 champions for toplane, since that would make a total of 6 champs I need to get intimately comfortable on
5. Do you guys have any other great general tips that helped you when you were at the part of the journey where I am now?

Hey! I'm a low ELO player that has always mained jungle, mainly Kha'zix. Recently I've been playing ADC and I found out I'm really vibing with Kai'sa (maybe because she feels extremely simiar to Kha) I always que up with my brother as support, and he's willing to play whatever works with my champions, so luckily I don't have to worry about synergizing. I decided that (at the very least while I get comfortable with the ADC role as a whole) I'll try to keep my pool small. So I want to OTP Kai'sa (or at least heavily main her). I do have some Kai'sa and general gameplay related questions though, so I was hoping someone with more insight and experience could advise me.

1. So far I've just been following builds from websites like u.gg, op.gg and the likes. But I know that blindly following item recommendations is bad practice, so I want to improve on this front. These item builds of course don't tell you anything about their situational usefulness, whether it fits against the enemy comp etc. How do you decide what items to build and in which order?
2. Should I rush complete items or prioritize evolving skills even if it means delaying how quickly I can finish a complete item? Or is the power spike provided by items better than the one provided by evolving abilities?
3. Are there situations in which you want to change your evolution priority? If so, what are some examples?
4. Is OTPing Kai'sa viable if I have a support willing to flex whatever I need, or is she easy to hard-counter into irrelevance? (I understand that in low ELO you can just do whatever, but I'm trying to not get myself stuck in any patterns that might not translate into higher ELO if I do manage to somewhat climb.
5. What are some enemy ADC's that I should ban or avoid playing Kai'sa into? Does she have counters so hard that I should just pick another ADC?
6. Similar to question 1, how do I decide what runes to use, and in what situations do I deviate from the standard?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Hey! Samira is the entire reason I started playing botlane in the first place, so needless to say I love this champion. I want to hone in on her a bit more and just focus on OTPing Samira to a certain extent.

1. I heard Samira isn't a great blind pick, but that it mostly concerns WHO she plays with, but is she also easy to counter? If I consistently have a trustworthy enage support, does that make Samira more blind pickable? Or can you still get hard countered in lane?

2. If she is very counterable, which champions should I avoid facing, and who should I ban on Samira?

3. What makes her a good/bad blind pick?

Hey! I play a lot of Kai'sa with my brother playing support. Usually we pair Kai'sa with something robust like Leona and rell, and very occasionally we play Pyke/Kai'sa. But my brother loves variety and is looking for a mage/enchanter/catcher of sorts that works really well with Kai'sa, however the only synergy info I can find is synergy winrates (which I don't find reliable information) and posts that only name engage supports, of which he already plays plenty. Are there any amongst the spellcaster variety that match well with Kai'sa? Swain? Senna? Morgana perhaps?

I started playing league around 2013, and ever since then I've casually played on and off. I start out as a support but fairly quickly devoted myself to the jungle. Now, 13 years later I decided it's finally start to expand to other lanes (mostly ADC), but having absolutely no experience laning I have questions. I would also welcome a guide recommendation about these topics, since I had a hard time finding a good guide for them.

-Why is it a good thing to push a wave into the tower? As a jungler I know it's good for priority, but when I'm laning it just feels like I'm putting myself in danger. Not only am I in a prime position to get ganked, if I were to fight the enemy champions I have a tower to worry about, which wasn't as much a problem when I played beefy junglers, but now that I'm a squishy marksman the towers feel so threatening.

-How do I tower dive properly? Are there any tricks to it? On jungler you almost always outnumber the person you dive, so I got away with now understanding the mechanics of it all that well, but right now I feel like any dive, especially early ones just shred my HP bar while I feel like I lack the damage to finish the job.

-How does lane switching work? Do I switch with when I get the tower? When I complete my lane quest? Who do I switch with? Mid or top? Back when I played support either this didn't exist yet, or I was too low elo for it to ever happen, either way it's a very new concept for me and my only interaction with it so far has been watching other people do it without context.

-What do I do after the laning phase ends? Taking jungle camps is of course a good way to piss off my jungler, and everyone else is also trying to catch farm from incoming waves. I can't really pick a lane and push it because I don't feel like I could survive whatever they send to stop me from pushing too far.

I understand this is all just a skill issue, but I want to do better instead of being permanently trapped in the jungle because it's all I can play, so I hope to find some good guides or answers to these topics.

Edit: Aphelios quickly became my favourite botlaner to play, so any and all Aphelios specific tips are also welcome!