Quoting pacov,

reply 1273

Something might be up with matchmaking lately.  Most games are just stomps... unless I play teambuilder as support, then my entire team will inevitably be LCS teams vs bronze 5.  I'm sure that's how it works.   I was very proud of myself for just stomping left and right with irelia with my incredibly low experience... turns out I was only against diamond Vs though, so my ego took a beating as well.   Also, I went to the dentist and now my face is numb... so I've got that going for me. 

 

Anyway, I really haven't figured out the pattern with skill level lately, though.  So, I use op.gg to look at my game history and typicaly go by what they say my game's mmr level is at.  Now, their calculation could be off, but from what I've experienced, if its a stomp, the mmr is lower than what I normally play at.  I'm currently playing between 1720-1800 mmr in ranked solo/duo.  However, in normals, the dip is like rediculous lately.  It SEEMS to be creating matchmaking based on the elo of the mmr of of the lowest person in your group.  Like, there won't even be one guy on the other team at 1720-1800 mmr for me, there will literally be an entire team that's at like w/e the lowest guy I'm queued up with is at.  Eg he's 1500, everyone on the other team will be around that. 

Another thought -perhaps riot made another change to how normal mmr is calculated vs ranked mmr.  All I know is that most normal games have been big mismatches.  I just looked up the stats for one normal queue irelia game for me where i went 7/3/10.  op.gg calc's the game mmr at 1555.  I've got the highest mmr on the team.  Everyone  on the other team is gold or lower.  Anyway, its hard to judge as I'm playing with people of various mmrs... I just THINK I'm seeing a trend where something is up based on the lowest elo person you are queued with (eg a pal you invited). 

I don't buy any of this really.  I think that this is almost entirely confirmation bias.

There are so many assumptions you have to get through before you would get to the point of "Riot has suddenly changed matchmaking".  Should MMRs converge to the same score in two queues where play patterns are completely different?  Probably not.  Is op.gg's calculation of MMR all that reliable?  Probably not.  etc.

I mean, even if there was a change in normall MMR on op.gg, a far more likely explanation would be that op.gg changed their formula for normal MMR, not that Riot has done something suddenly and without announcement.  To put it another way - your data is crap.  Don't overinterpret it.

And I'm giving you the most likely explanation for the phenomenon.  Yeah, its not the most exciting one.  But thats how these things work.

In any case, I took a quick glance at your games.  The simple thing to do is to look at your Boaz games since he is pretty bad.  His normal MMR when he plays by himself seems to be around 1380 according to op.gg.  Yet, when you last played with him (not that long ago) you were still playing in the upper 1500s.  So I don't see your theory in practice.  I don't see anybody else that you play with who is low enough to really throw off the MMR of your games to make any other statements about this in the last few days.

Also, your win/loss in normal games over the last two weeks is 19/18, so I don't see any evidence there of things getting too easy.  I guess I can't speak to whether or not those games are more "stompy", but if the matchmaking system is keeping you right at .500, it seems to be doing something right.

You have been playing more Team Builder lately, which is a VERY stompy queue.  So, you might just be getting that in your mind.

If you are getting "mostly silly easy games lately", why is your win/loss in normal games right at .500 over recent games?

Why, when I played with you like 3-4 nights ago, were we both complaining about how hard the games were due to our teammates?  And we lost a bunch of games.

Why is your normal MMR right at where it was when op.gg first started posting normal MMRs?

If you give them five high CC champs with good engages like that, it shouldn't take much of a build to chain CC you into oblivion even without good scaling for ability damage.  It should be much safer to give them low CC/mobility champs so they can't shut down, escape, or pursue.

I could build Taric into a hybrid bruiser killing machine against a bad team, and some of the others even have decent base damage and ratios.

SoloQ MMR affects your RANKED TEAM MMR if you have never been on a ranked team before. Doesn't do anything with normals. One of the "old wise tales" about Meteos was he was actually one of the highest Normal MMR players in the world, but had massive ranked anxiety (and was actually like Bronze or something). It took Hai or Balls to encourage him to actually play ranked...

Not the mention, by the time you hit level 30, you have already a few hundred normal games (unless you leveled purely on bots). That's plenty enough to build out a proper MMR. Seems odd they would need your ranked games.

i did have a typo there, sure. Doesn't make my point invalid.

ERMERGERDDDDDDDDDDDD! got my first ranked pentakill on Brand today! Its been a long time coming!

5's team:

Had fun playing 5's last night. Competition was right around our skill levels looking at the opposing teams solo queue ranks baring a few exceptions (2-3 silvers players). I think hunny on ADC worked on really well for us as a dedicated ADC was part of our problem last season.

Hedgie's Gnar was stellar and definitely kept us in the game on that last game? (which ever game it was that we almost threw).

A few questionable baron/dragon calls were made but that is sort of typical for us. We need to make better judgements for those two objectives. Also I wouldn't mind having a discussion about dragons in general.

Dragon to me is no longer that high of a priorty. If we manage to secure the first dragon I am fine with never taking another one (unless its really easy and we wont be contested). I would rather secure towers than taking a dragon given the option. Global gold is far more important than the next dragon buff. If we are ahead as a team and want to team fight at dragon we should let the other team start it and then collapse onto them (if we have decent vision). Taking the 2nd or third dragon if we are behind and could of gotten 1 or even 2 towers instead makes no sense to me. The global gold from the towers will help catch us up on items that we desperately need the medicore buffs of dragon 2-3 are not worth it, I would rather have a completed item instead. Knocking down towers also helps us get control of the map again and allows for getting easier jungle wards.

I am not saying that we shouldn't do dragon. I am just saying that dragons 2-3 are not really worth fighting over or making bad calls for when there are safer/less greedy options (sometimes even backing to buy items after a team fight is a better call then doing an objective when everyone is at 1/3 health and the enemy team can just push in a lane or baron because everyone HAS to back on our team).

The thing about dragon is that it gives you the opportunity to force neutral ground fights (i.e. not under enemy tower) in the early/mid game.  This is a very good thing if the enemy team outscales you.  So its not so much the buff as it is the opportunity to be forcing something at neutral ground with a team that is stronger at that phase of the game.

Last season we didn't really have to worry about getting outscaled much.  We generally had Irelia top and WW jungle, so we could go with the general mentality that as long as we didn't lose early very badly, we would probably win late.  This also fit in with Cow's general mentality that he likes to play a very slow early game.  But, if we are doing things like Graves bot and Pantheon jungle, we might want a fairly different mentality.  Those kind of lineups typically want to build leads in the early/mid game or they could get into trouble.

I can play junglers that scale better (or have very neutral scaling), but the point is that dragon is probably a piece of a larger puzzle.  Its really about the level of team aggression, and we should be on the same page there.  Pacov and hunny tend to be very aggressive, Cow is very passive early.  I'm all over the place depending on what I'm playing.

Assuming that either Cow or myself is going to be playing mid, we will almost have a low-mobility AoE mage with a lot of zoning potential. Similarily, Pacov and Hunny tend to play more early-game focused ADCs (more often Lucian/Caitlyn/Graves rather than Kog/Twitch/Trist). Pacov also tends to be rather gank-focused bot lane, and tends to purchase a lot of pink wards, etc.

i think that means that we are often going to be in a position where we will be advantaged for the first dragon or so.

For myself, i can certainly play a few different styles, but my champs tend to be more teamfight focused:

1- Gnar

2- Rumble

Champs i have worked on a fair amount but may not be as consistent as my Gnar:

3- Hec

4- Kennen

5- Renekton

Rumble is pretty crazy when it comes to dragons. Gnar is pretty good if the team is ahead. Can be difficult if we are behind though, because probably won't be able to build rage. Hecarim and Kennen are worse than Rumble for the first 2 dragons but equal/better later on.

Luckily a lot of these champs are all reasonably well scaling, especially if the rest of the team is doing really well (Rumble, Gnar, Hec, Kennen). i don't mind playing the "sucker" in the team and not always getting as much attention as the rest of the lanes.

The biggest gap in my roster is a pure-tank that isn't weak early (Hecarim is pretty tanky, but has very little lane presence early game). If we really need me to learn Maokai, i could do that.

A lot of my roster is also very vulnerable to Lissandra or Irelia. Gnar and Kennen both really struggle against Irelia unless i receive jungle backup (since they will push the lane pretty hard). Lissandra is really good against Gnar in lane until i finish Hexdrinker, and can bypass Mega-Gnar in teamfights.

i feel like of the two, Lissandra is the greater evil of the two, and i think that we should be using a ban on her if possible.

I should be getting a dedicated internet account at my GF's place on Wednesday assuming I can pull some strings and be available to sign for it while I'm working. If not then it will be soon and hopefully the connection will be solid even with almost every dwelling on the property having it's own modem.

When I start playing on a regular basis I'd love to fill in for you guys on Support if you want me.  However if Pacov is ever going to be playing ADC in these situations, we would have to figure out a way for us to coexist with me playing Thresh in the bot lane.  

@Pacov: Actually that may be something you would want to iron out anyway if you're still planning on climbing to Diamond this season.  Thresh is a popular, high impact, versatile Support that's currently played quite a bit in higher levels and he is being built almost exclusively with Relic Shield.  Your Graves is pretty damn good right now so that would probably be a great option if you play any Ranked games without Duoing with Hunny.  Talking your team's Support out of playing one of the stronger champions or going on tilt in champ select if you look like you're going to lane with a Thresh isn't going to be ideal in those situations.

My suggestion would be to learn to play Thresh with Relic Shield.  If memory serves, the last time you laned with my Thresh a lot of our frustration came from you trying to get me to proc the passive at what I felt were inappropriate times.  The sustain is an important part of the item's appeal and to waste that by proccing it when we're at full health and I'm not at full charges isn't ideal.  Also, you have to let that E damage charge up over time though so when you insist on me trying to last hit right after harassing it becomes very difficult to pull off.  I think if you learned to play Thresh you'd kinda keep this all in mind better when playing ADC alongside a Thresh and you'd have the funnest Support in your arsenal which would help making playing Support for Cow's team less boring.

I play exclusively with Gold players in Ranked and have experienced the full range of my ADC flawlessly working around my Relic Shield procs and getting near perfect CS to having one threaten to AFK if I caused him to miss another CS.  Getting my CS in without fucking up my ADC's almost feels like a skill unto itself, one that I've got much better at.  

However I still run into some ADCs who don't really work around my CSing at all.  It's not that they're less skilled at ADC... its just like they aren't as good playing with a Thresh?  They tend to obliviously try to take every minion that I'm going for which causes my attack to finish on another minion and then... well, gold get's wasted.  But for the most part my ADC's are getting better at the Thresh CS Game... probably because I am.

I feel playing Thresh with Relic Shield is the optimal way, as do almost all Thresh players.  A small amount go Coin and that's fine, but playing Coin Thresh doesn't help people get better at learning to CS with and around a Relic Thresh.  If you're not into learning that skill, that's fine but waiting for you to tilt as soon as you miss your 2nd CS doesn't sound fun.  I think Pacov/Thunder bot lanes are a no go at this point... as long as Thresh is my best champ anyway.

I'll point some things out that hopefully will help you keep your cool next time you have a Thresh Support you as ADC.  The CS you miss because a Thresh screws up your CSing is offset somewhat.  Pushed against your tower?  You can't get all the minions every time and Thresh can help you grab ones that you would have missed.  In some circumstances you're not going to be able to reach minions without taking massive harass but your tanky full health Thresh can get them for you.  Etc etc.  

tl;dr Sometimes you gotta focus on the dopeness, not the whackness...