League of Legends: My Leap into the PVP Deep End and never looking back!

My original plan was to play on CO-OP vs AI till I reached level 20 then to jump into PVP so that I would only be 10 levels away from level 30 for Ranked. However the lure of PVP got me after I hit level 12. I realized that at level 12 I got all the summoner spells that were available so why not now. Plus after watching almost every single LCS NA and EU Summer Splits and talking with my friend GeneralFoamy08, that I realized the bots in CO-OP don't play like real people. Now a lot of you would already know this or think "no kidding".  But I am writing this for people like me who don't know or are just beginning to enjoy this most addictive game that is League of Legends.

So in watching the LCS for the past month or so, you start to see how the game is played by the best in the world. Go into lane, farm farm farm, harass the other champion in your lane, jungler sets up a gank then back to farming, buy and build, then teamfight, oh did I mention farm, then win or lose ROTFLMAO. Now when you play in CO-OP vs AI this is what happens, go into lane, other champion places himself between your minions and their minions, the try and kill you every time they get a chance, you trade shots at each other, you try to farm, no ganks from the bots, then you either snowball or get snowballed. So I knew from watching and talking that I had built my play-style to match what was going on in the LCS, that gave me the confidence to go ahead and make the plunge into PVP.

I can admit that I was nervous about going into PVP for the first time. I realize that I would be playing with people that I have never or will never meet in person. With the sheer number of people playing on League of Legends, I would probably never play with them ever again. But you still don't want to be the one to cause a loss, to get yelled at or raged on. Some people play just to have fun, while others play to get better and be as competitive as possible. I am the later but I want it to be fun. I replay every match that I play in to find out where I can be better and improve my game play. I watch a ton of videos that people have put up on YouTube in order to learn any little trick or tip that will improve my play. I read build guides from Mobafire, LOLpro and others as an example. I think about new champions that I can play later on as I level up. I can say that it lets me use my mind and think about a ton of strategies that I can come up with. 

Like the title says once you go into PVP, you won't ever want to go back and play CO-OP unless if you don't get your First Win of the Day bonus ROTFLMAO. I played my first couple of games and instantly knew that all the work that I have put in (which I know is not even a tenth of what other people have put in) has helped. My last hit skill was good not great yet, but was above average. I had to fine tune my build order and ability level up order which would take time. I got to experience my first team surrender that I voted against. I experienced my first champion in my lane feeding me and I experienced at least twice a horrible match up for me in lane. I saw what would happen if I was left unchecked and I snowballed. I saw what happens when the other team snowballs. I would always look at the champions on the other side that I went up against or that had snowballed and see what spells they had and why they did what they did. 

This game is such a great way for you to be able to think on the fly, to use strategy and build hand and eye coordination. I will say that I can't wait to people up a team of 5 that we can just play together and build our own strategy and tactics. Like with any of the eSport games right now, I feel like you can take a group of people and put them on a team (regardless of age) and they would be able to compete on an upper level with the right training and tactics. The whole idea that these type of athletes have a special type of skill or some genetic ability to me is not true. I am look to see if I can prove that with in the next year or so. They will have to be dedicated to wanting to excel at improving their game-play and compete at the highest level. 

Follow along with me as I set out to get to level 30 then move into ranked play. What would the LOL world come to if they saw a 40 yr old playing on the main stage at LCS???

League of Legends: it a heck of a drug!/LOLesports.com

I think this should just be the start of every post I do about League. Cause that is the only way I can describe the hold this games get over you if you are a competitive person and always strive to be in the top tier of everything you do. I have had some really good runs with both Ryze and Kayle. Now I have been concentrating more on Ryze just cause you see more Kayle bans than you do Ryze. However you are starting to see Ryze bans on the LOL pro level but hat is more for a certain player on the opposite team that plays Ryze and plays him well ie VoyBoy, Balls, and Pobelter. Also again after hours and hours of YouTube videos and watching competition play on LOLesports.com, I have been able to increase my play drastically. Now again as I have said many times before, Yes it is still CO-op vs AI. But it is up to you to play the game the way you want to do better. Most people play AI to either get their First Win of the Day bonus or to just go HAM and feel better about their play. I however have been playing it with the way that I plan on playing in PvP. Yes I know the bots don't ward and they will not play the way a human will, however they will react to your movement faster than any human and also it really is for me to tune movements. Plus and this has helped my hugely has been that since I stream my matches on Twitch.tv, I go back and look at how I did whether it was a win or lost and see mistakes that I made and take notes. One of the biggest mistake that I did was to click Attack click move instead of right click chasing a enemy champion toward their tower. As soon as I get past the minions then press Attack Click Move, I would spin around and attack the closest minion instead of continuing to run after the champion that always needed just one more hit to kill it. Plus I found many other things that I needed to work on, so before logging in and starting to game, I go over the 2 sided piece of paper where I wrote down everything that I needed to improve on so that it is in my head. Another thing that I saw a lot of the pros do is, hang around in the lane building up gold instead of running back every time you got enough to buy what you needed to start a recipe for an item. What I use to do is, if I was building lets say Guardian Angel, as soon as I got enough money to buy just 1 piece of the recipe I would run back without any regard to what was going on in my lane. Now I stay in till I push up to their first tower or kill the bot in lane or I die, then get what I need and more. Now this works best for early game, but mid to late game I will go back earlier time cause what you build later in the match the items that make up what you are trying to build has more of an impact on your strength in the match. There are a ton of other things that I did wrong that I am currently working on and I think I will post a blog as what I have learned so far and what I have done to help me with advancing my skill (but I am no way ready or the best at all)

So because of my hectic stressful last week getting ready for the Miami Homestead 150 race with Lionheart Indycar series and getting ready for the ATC 40k Tournament, I didn't get hardly any play in. However the last game I played I went 6/0/9 on bot. I had read or saw a video about how with this game being so muscle memory and tactical, that you should really try not to go more than a full day between playing. So I was a little worried that it had been days since I got on last, when I got on last night. In a video that I watch regarding CDR (cooldown reduction), I found out that you can only have a CDR of 40% and I wondered how much I was using. So we I go to the Rift with just my Masteries, I am at 5% CDR. So I added to my item set last night to bring in more CDR and added The Spirit of the Ancient Golem and Ionian Boots of Lucidity. So game 1, I get an invite from a friend of mine to get in a game. And the weirdest thing happens, I can see the Platform but no one else, no gold..nothing. So I tried everything I could think of till I finally had to exit game then reconnect. And it worked, however everyone was at least level 8, while I was level 1. So this was going to be fun. But I slowly and cautiously I fought my way up to level 13 before we got the Nexus. One thing that I had to work on what my Last Hit timing, and let me tell you by joining the game finally so many levels down compared to everyone else, you make sure you get every last hit you can so you can level up quickly. I think I finished 2/3/9 the first game and the 3 deaths came from just being at a 7 level deficit starting out. Then the second match I did to me real well. That is the match I went 8/0/6 mid against Annie. I stayed in lane, farmed like crazy, poked and harassed, waited to get multiple items instead of running all the time, constantly moved instead of just attacking standing in one place. I also did another item build order which included Spirit Visage and Spirit of the Ancient Golem as the new adds to my list. Now I know it is bots, but I was the first to level 18 had 13.5k gold (which is the highest I have ever gotten) finished with 179 minion kills and I was taking damage and the HP was barely if at all moving. So even if it was bots, I know that my play is getting better just by I increased all of these stats. 179 minions and the 13.5k Gold means my late hit has improved. The more Gold means building better items quicker which means dealing our damage and taking damage. After watching Scarra play Ryze, I paid very close attention to his ability order which I tried to copy. I just need to focus on knowing by feel when the cooldown is over.

PLEASE CHECK OUT AND FOLLOW MY TWITCH.TV/BCUTLER2003. Just stop in see what is going on. I will be setting up more about it here in the future including overlays,voice and graphics.

Thank you again for taking the time out of your day and reading this.

My slackness last week blogging was EPIC but to me understandable.

So last week was what I would call a huge stressful week to where I had to prioritize certain things in order to accomplish what was first, second and third in my life. I was planning on taking a week break from training every 3 months so to give my body a chance to fully recuperate and rebuild. Last week I got to the gym on Monday had a 5 minute warmup as usual on the bike then did 60 minutes on the light green to green zone cause I did really push it last week. I thought to myself that I would take it easy and just concentrate on time in the seat not pushing the cadence at all. So 60 minutes at 80 rpm was to me a good idea. The only thing that I noticed was as soon as I got to the gym my heart rate was elevate and already pushing mid to upper blue zone or Zone 1. Now the week of stress had started for me the night before. I had started to practice for the iRacing Indy 500 that they rescheduled for this weekend. So me and my teammate Jon had put up a practice server to go ahead and get a fill for the up coming track. Get some telemetry data so that Jon can work up a good but quick setup for us during the race. We had a 2 hour practice session that I feel let us gather some great data and I am excited  to see what the setup guru Jon has come up with.

I realized with practice, race on Wednesday plus getting ready for the ATC Tounament that was in Tennesse this past weekend that I was going to have to just go ahead and use the rest of the week to take a break and give my "body" a rest from trainning. And that was the hardest thing for me to do was not to train for the rest of the week. I was surprised how hard that was for me to handle. Which is an amazing thing to feel! It made me realize what a huge infrluence training has taken over in my life. How missing one day has such an impact over my mood and just my well being. So I would be missing 2 workouts. Now cause of the workout on Monday and how my pulse was already so elevated before even getting started I know it was the best decision to make for this week. And I was right.

Tuesday night I got in a practice race, practice then another practice race for the iRacing Lionheart Series Miami Homestead 150. The practice went as well as I could hope for it to. When I jumped on to what I thought was going to be a practice session, however the practice session and qualify was already over. When I joined in it was grid time for the practice session ROTFL. So I will recap what happened with that and the race on the next blog. Which I know is very late but again I had to prioritize this past week. And Wednesday was the race, so far this whole week up to Wednesday I was getting in bed at 2. So again I was happy in a way that I did take the whole rest of the week off from training.

Thursday night was what I call, Painting night with League of Legends chromecast to the big TV. 16 men to paint and get ready for a 2 day tournament to Tennesse. The second largest one in the US. So 4 hours of LOL playing on the tv and 16 men completely done later and 2:30 am getting to bed. Friday night headed out to Tennesse. 48 painful, brutal and unhappy hours later and I got back home last night so very happy to be back in my bed.

Well that is it for right now. Please be on the look out for a recap of the Miami Homestead 150, thoughts on LOL, and training this week. Thank you again for taking the time out of your bust day and reading this blog. Can never say enough how grateful I am that you do.

League of Legends: First experience of AFKers and first loss!

Help me! Help me! It is always on my mind the more and more I get into it! Now to the subject of the title. So if you read my last post regarding LOL, you would know that I am playing CO-OP vs AI Beginner till I reach level 10 then going to Intermediate till level 15 from then it will be PVP to level 30 then Ranked from there on out. Now with everything I do when it comes to getting better by learning, I take every scenario as if it is the real thing. So before I get people saying to me I am spending too much time in AI battles, I am looking at these as ways that I can approve. And I have heard the horror stories of people playing in PVP games or Ranked games and there teammates either sitting at platform or just disconnecting. I never thought I would experience both of these things in a Bot match. Oh how wrong was I! I have been streaming every game that I can (if it doesn't mess up like it did last night for 1 game). And here is the recording address http://www.twitch.tv/bcutler2003/b/545522459. Please if you want to look at it and see what happened feel free to do it. Plus if you have any advice, also let me know. I have started writing down what happens in the game and I just went back and looked at a Kayle match and a Ryze Match of mine and took notes of what I did wrong. The most common thing which I knew as soon as I did it in the match what I did wrong. Is when chasing down a champion that I can take out with one more hit, DO NOT HIT ATTACK CLICK MOVE!!! 5 times in 2 games, I hit that button (which I have as A) and my champion turned around from from the champion and attacked a minion instead. 5 Fricking Times!! There was more than half of a page each side of notes so I have lots to work on. As in this game, we had 1 guy that kept disconnecting and another 2 that just did nothing at all until half way in. I had to run sacrifice on our base once they got into to it. Why would people do that in a Bot game? It makes no sense to me to go through the process of picking a champion and waiting for it to load just to not play. My 7 winning streak broken cause of nothing that I could do myself. I am not going to give up and surrender just do what I can. So needless to say from that game I took away don't give up. I have absolutely embraced this game and hope to make it to Challenger Tier. And for the first time I had 3 players honor me and 2 added to my friend list. So I am growing. Yes I know that I should probably be in PVP right away but this is how I am doing it. If you want please follow me on twitch.tv @ www.twitch.tv/bcutler2003.

League of Legends: You Addictive SOB!!!

So I suggest that on the League of Legends website there should be a disclaimer;"This game is addictive and it will consume your every waking hour!" ROTFL! When you take a game that  incorporates a steep learning curve with a game that can be played a million different ways and you want to be very good at it, it consumes every minute of the day. At least for me it does. This is a game that is so much fun but also so easy to make mistakes. I would ask anyone playing the game if they feel like they have learned everything that can be learned. To me, I feel like there is no way to learn everything there is to learn because the items that can be built and the spells that can be used and the combination of these plus the number of different champions, throw in with that playing solo with a group of people the game joined you with or getting to a point where you start playing with friends and then team tactics come into play. You can tell how complex the game is just by the long run on sentence I just typed ROTFL. When I started playing I had no idea how to play the champion that I picked Ryze. I would go down a lane, run into the minions, skip over them and try and kill the other champion from the other team. Oh wait the other champion is running away chase after them, killed by turret. Okay the turrets will kill you quickly, so back in the lane, chase down the champion, oh he is running at the turret, stop and kill some of the minions just for fun. Oh wait I just leveled up by killing the minions. Okay so I will just kill the minions. Wait a minute how come my teammate is leveling up and getting gold by hitting the same minions I am attacking. Etc., Etc., Etc., ROTHFL. So I could write a novel as to all the things I learned in just my first game or so I thought. So as my typical way of learning games rather it be how I improved my COD: Ghost, Black Ops 2 or Titanfall game, I go to good old reliable YouTube. So have you ever typed in League of Legends on Youtube?? 1,400,000 videos that have League of Legends in the tag words. So where to begin? I found LOLesports.com on Twitter. So like I did with Ghost and watching the pros on MLG or Twitch (in the case of Evil Geniuses), I watch almost every game that was going on in the EU League Championship Series and the NA League Championship Series (LCS for short). As first it was like the commentators were speaking a different language and when all of the champions got into a huge fight I had no idea who was were and what was going on. But I saw how they started out the game at least. I saw what the minions were actually there for. I saw how they "farmed" then made a "poke attack" or "ganked" the other team. So I was starting to get an idea of how the dynamics of the game is played. I started to understand what the Dragon was for and the Baron was for. Then I found www.mobafire.com and subscribed to the websites. Found a Ryze build and a Kayle build. These were the two champions that I decided to use. The funny thing was I had Ryze for the whole first week I started playing. And the whole time he had an exclamation mark on his icon which I had no idea what that was for. So last night I wanted to play Ryze instead of Kayle (which has a mark on his icon now), but he was gone!! So the first game I played with someone that picked him so I thought that was it. Then the next game he was still gone. I had no idea that I had to buy him and that the mark meant he was free ROTFL. So I got him and built him up using a guide from www.mobafire.com. I also have a Kayle build up that I got from that website as well. Now the question is which item to build first. That is what I am dealing with right now. So I am using a notebook to keep track with my KDA, what my item build order is, what mistakes I do or what I do that works. And it is so fricking addictive. I am now thinking about what items to build and in what order. I don't know the exact recipes of the items that I decide to use so my item set is huge ROTHFL. I like the builds I have right now. I am either going even with a huge assist or I am going positive so I feel like I am progressing in the game. From reading I am staying in the CO-OP vs AI beginner till about level 10 then doing CO-OP vs AI till level 15 on Intermediate. I want to have all of the Summoner spells available to me before I go into PVP then on to ranked games after hitting level 30 of course. I am so competitive that I hope I will be finding people to play with on a regular basis to form a team and rank up. You can check out my Twitch feed at www.twitch.tv/bcutler2003 to see my climb up the levels into PVP and then Ranked.

See you on the LOL Addictive Anonymous ROTFL Rift!!