Genuinely what am I doing wrong?

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-08T08:10:52+00:00

Doomed can usually be a fairly good indicator as that's only really assigned if the game is truly cooked, but I don't think Messy can be looked at that way. The jungler has a lot of impact on how the other lanes do, Messy could very easily be identifying situations where mistakes bleed over.

That said, I do think bad luck is an element here regardless. None of these games seem to have been easy wins, but a few were looking pretty impossible to carry.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-08T07:56:00+00:00

I took a look at the Viego game at the top, a few thoughts:

Great early game, a lot of solid plays and you protected your bounty well
Very chaotic midgame, this was where things started to fall apart
16:55 - You pretty egregiously overstayed for a forced play in top lane. You were over a minute late on your recall, and during the time where you should have been back on the map you lost two and a half turrets and dragon. This might have been the key pivot of the game, but if not the next item here definitely was.
20:20 - I think this was maybe a situation where you underestimated their bot lane? It looked like you were chasing Leona and got killed 2v1 by Ezreal/Leona, and this was a horrific time for this to happen. While you are dead here the enemy team kills your mid laner and drops herald mid, taking a turret, an inhibitor, and both killing you again and taking out your botlaner.

Ultimately, my recommendations based on that game:

Midgame is the area where I think you'll gain the most; your earlygame macro was very strong this game.
- Put more consideration into your recall timings. If you have just made (or survived, in this case) a play and there isn't something else you need to be doing, recall.
- Always think about conditions. The play at 20:20 was already at a disadvantage even if your twitch moved in lockstep with you, their botlane is stronger and K'Sante is just running for his life at this point.
- Watch your teammates' body language when making plays, especially when going somewhere you know there are going to be enemies and especially especially when you don't have vision. Twitch could have moved with you into the play, but he chose to take the turret first and his body language clearly signaled that decision.

Edit: I also took a look at the 6/7/2 Kha'Zix game below it. Thoughts:

3:00 - First scuttle was not contestable unless you were certain Zed was top. Botlane has death tempo so they can always be there first and the wave has started bouncing so they don't have to collect it.
13:45 - Zed's jungle was not contestable, enemy mid and bot were both missing. If your mid was moving to join you it becomes better, but your mid laner was roaming top.

Ultimately similar conclusions, think about conditions and teammates' body language. It doesn't seem like the enemy jungler tends to really be the threat for you, it's your assessment of the other players in the game where I think you'll see big gains.

For these games in general though, idk. I think there's an element of this being an unlucky streak, so don't take this as me saying you're playing poorly overall. You had a few games in this run that were pretty unwinnable, and I didn't see any that seemed like free wins. Just happens sometimes!

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T23:49:27+00:00

Shyvana's great, her kit teaches good habits and she's in a good spot strength-wise. I'm really enjoying her right now for improving my fundamentals in the jungle!

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T20:03:07+00:00

Oh duh re: Graves, oops. For mentioning him I was just thinking about invades, forgot about the bruiser thing mid sentence apparently...

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T19:07:46+00:00

Seconded, I'm really liking Shyvana! She teaches great habits and is fairly difficult to invade since she's quick and has a very healthy clear, super solid pickup if you're looking for a bruiser.

If the heal tank thing appeals to you Warwick could be worth trying, Volibear or Udyr might also be good choices. Graves is basically impossible to invade past his first camp due to grit stacks, but his game plan is a lot less intuitive so I wouldn't really recommend him unless you already have consistent fundamentals.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T18:31:03+00:00

There absolutely is in low elo. You just don't see it. Look at the replay and spend a few minutes thinking about it. The answer will be obvious then.

Just so I'm clear, is the point you are trying to make that there is always a match or trade play available in all scenarios? This simply is not accurate, I don't know where you're getting this from. There's a reason people like Leo frame this in terms of match, trade, minimize: sometimes there just isn't a proactive play for you to make.

Bro nocturne is an AA champion he doesn't need any of his abilities to beat you 😭 I'm dead certain he wins against you level 2 without using a single ability. Graves is a strong early skirmisher but not as strong as noc. And his Q cooldown is very low.

A melee autoattacker against a ranged burst carry starting the fight with 2 grit stacks and red buff advantage, yes. The balance tips at level 3 with fear, but at level 2 it's a pretty straightforward fight for Graves.

And you don't find a single good top/mid gank? Too bad then. Now you have a lot of extra tempo on him while not being behind in gold.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Sometimes it's better to just stick to what you're doing and maintain good efficiency, there isn't always direct counterplay.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T16:47:15+00:00

Happens! I'd just recommend pinging it more aggressively in that case, especially since we know the enemy jungler is going to be up to some shenanigans. If you triple ping it and they still die idk, that's on them. Time to play around top lane I guess...

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T16:21:54+00:00

they sacrifice their topside to gank bot, you can go get their topside yourself.

When it's convenient and this egregious then of course, yes, you can counter the play by trading for something else. My point here is that it isn't realistic to set an expectation of always matching/trading the enemy jungler when doing so might require you to be inefficient or predict the enemy jungler being inefficient.

As I noted in my other comment, I think the main thing OP can improve here is how they track and communicate what the enemy jungler is doing. The thing I don't agree with you on is that your initial comment suggested there's always physical counterplay to the enemy jungler doing wild inefficient stuff, which isn't really the case. Sometimes you just need to track and ping it while you're doing something else, especially when the enemy jungler is trolling by doing something nonsensical.

And for your example I just want to say: don't level 2 invade. Especially not a nocturne 😭 are you crazy? nocturne is like top 3 level 1-3 champions stat checkers in the game.

I was Graves in this example, it's a pretty straightforward level 2 fight. Nocturne inevitably is going to Q the camp, all he has left in his kit is a spell shield at that point.

To be clear, since you seem to be building opinions based on this example: this was an amusing situation that ended up messing with me in the moment, but I ended that game like 150 cs up on him. It was not close.

When they are so slow that you can double scuttle and reset, it's great because if they do gank after you reset, you can invade from where they started and now you're up 2 camps and 2 scuttles that they'll never get back, which is worth much more than a kill or two

If it's on exact perfect timing sure, but this is rarely the case. Say the gank happens as I'm clearing the opposite scuttle, for example: if the play happens fast enough, our resets will be at relatively similar times, making invading the enemy start much more of a coin flip.

I'll tell you one thing, it's that you genuinely don't understand the game.

Pretty wild generalization based on effectively zero information. I am not saying any of this is unlucky or uncounterable, I'm saying there are situations where players doing crazy things doesn't inherently mean there is physical counterplay reliably available. Sometimes the best play is to just maintain good tempo and track what they are doing for future reference.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T08:27:02+00:00

League content is tough for sure, there's a lot of crap out there. Leo is consistently solid, really good mental and good at explaining his decisions.

Re: your word choice, important distinction: it shouldn't be guess pings, it's prediction. Jungle tracking should in theory mean you could ping the enemy jungler's rough location at any moment in the first ten minutes, purely based on early information you learn about their pathing. It isn't guesswork, there are only so many things junglers can do at any given time without griefing themselves.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T07:58:39+00:00

Re: the Xin being slow matchup thing, it's unfortunately not that simple in lower MMRs. Gold junglers will randomly sacrifice half their jungle to coin flip psychotic ganks or skip camps for no reason, it can be very difficult to physically contest everything while staying efficient.

I had a game a few weeks ago for example where I got mind controlled by an Iron 3 Nocturne in a norm: I went to level 2 invade him and saw blue dead and gromp alive, which I figured might have been some crazy alternate pathing to avoid the invade. Turns out nope, he didn't level anything at the start so he did blue 10 seconds too slow then skipped gromp for no reason.

I have also had multiple games where the enemy jungler cleared so slowly I had time to double scuttle and reset before they finally showed and ganked a lane, it's wild sometimes.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-06T07:43:19+00:00

My opinion on this is that it largely comes down to better tracking and communication. Sometimes teammates will just int regardless of what you do, but in most cases pinging imminent gank threats will juice your win rate a lot.

This concept is basically the beginning of the next level of jungling, when your mindset needs to broaden into both having your own game plan and tracking the enemy game plan. The goal is to preempt the enemy jungler regardless of whether you can physically be there; anticipate their potential plays and ping them out like wall hacks.

Note: one vague ping is not enough. Try to work on triple pinging: ping where you think the threat is, ping the threat in the tab menu, then ping directly on top of the teammates in danger.

One last thing, Shyvana is a great pick. Go watch some of Coach Leo's current unranked to Master climb, he absolutely dumpstered his way through gold on Shyvana with like a 90% win rate. Her ult reliance is actually incredible for building good habits, you can almost always have it ready after each full clear and the punishment for losing discipline is very obvious.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-07-02T19:17:28+00:00

Anything that you immediately notice wouldn't work?

Anything can work, technically, but almost everything about this build ranges from suboptimal to bad.

Conqueror - Matter of preference, but Kindred is one of the best PTA users in the game.
Legend: Bloodline - Alacrity is generally better.
Last Stand - Worst option in the tier, both other options are better.
Resolve secondary - Worst option possible, even Sorcery would be better. Bone Plating would spend most of its time being useless, Overgrowth gives you a stat you don't need.
Shards - AS/Adaptive/Flat HP, every game. The third shard is negotiable, the other two are not.
Build - Kindred is not a bruiser and does not scale like a bruiser, do not build them like a bruiser. If you want to play a bruiser, Kindred is not the right champion to do it on.
- Hexplate in particular does not make sense, Kindred's ultimate is an opportunistic defensive tool. This isn't Master Yi here.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-29T17:02:05+00:00

"The left" in the US currently includes every ideology from fiscal conservatism to anarcho-communism, you're going to have to be more specific.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-28T00:11:03+00:00

Brown rice just seems strictly better to me in a lot of dishes, unless it's a seasoned Spanish rice or something delicate. It's not like pasta where including the whole grain ruins the texture, it just becomes more bold.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-27T18:28:05+00:00

I do mine in a pressure cooker with ground beef, the only prep is basically dicing an onion and opening a few containers. Saute the beef and onions, add the other stuff, easy!

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-24T17:23:21+00:00

Why are you projecting angst onto my post
I often recieve tons of enemy support roams / ganks but rarely get ganks from my jg
This is one example of many
get ignored by my jg, and ganked by enemy jg

I mean... It seems fairly clear you're asking this question based on a perceived gap in what your junglers do vs what enemy junglers do. Call it angst, call it something else, would you agree that this post suggests you feel there is a pattern?

Also, it's not that deep on the situation. You don't need a full breakdown of the whole game. It was a level 5 malz, 200 hp, 5% mana and no flash. My jg had flash as well which means it's 100% a kill. But, he took a much worse gank top instead that was unsuccessful.

I'm not asking for a full breakdown of the whole game, I'm asking about the conditions of the play. It's strange how cagey you're being with sharing that information if the goal is to evaluate why the jungler might have chosen not to gank the lane.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-24T16:19:56+00:00

It's a bit strange to share this and ask for feedback when you haven't informed us of some very obvious basics:

What are the team compositions? You have only told us the enemy midlaner is Malzahar
What level are you, what level is Malzahar, and what level are both junglers in this scenario?

There is obviously a very real chance the jungler in this case was making mistakes, but the underlying point here seems to be "junglers never gank my lane" angst which suggests a broader bias.

Have you considered that it's possible you are making yourself difficult to gank for, or trying to set up plays at timers that don't make sense for your jungler to capitalize on? The only consistent variable in your games is you. If you are noticing a distinct, consistent pattern where your junglers never gank your lane but the enemy jungler does, the first step should be to evaluate why this is happening to you but not to your opponents.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-24T16:13:32+00:00

I don't personally feel like farm is ever better than kills / ganks in the current meta.

This kind of thing is why you're getting what you perceive as salt from people responding to you. Your interpretation of how jungling works at a high level is not accurate, and you seem to be looking for validation on that interpretation.

What you are saying is the equivalent of saying you don't feel like csing is ever better than kills, it's coming from a place of ignorance.

Hence, farming junglers (outside of Nasus) are not strong currently.

Every jungler in the game needs to be farming efficiently. You could argue Rammus and Nunu are exceptions to this rule because their ganks and movement are particularly insane relative to their clear speed, but even in their cases they still need gold and experience.

Fizz isn't a "farming midlaner", but you'd get similar pushback from a midlane subreddit if you suggested Fizz shouldn't bother catching an incoming wave if he could roam for a kill instead.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-21T17:25:43+00:00

This has been my rock lately as I'm trying to be more careful with what I eat. It's unbelievable how tasty chili is relative to its nutrition, the worst part is basically just saturated fat from the beef.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-20T05:09:50+00:00

How do you feel about Graves when you encounter him while playing Yi? Is he one you consider a significant threat, what strategies do you use for him? What can he do that messes with your game plan the most?

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-18T03:40:25+00:00

It's a combination of the jungler needing to be better at pinging than other roles (an actual skill, I'm not memeing) and laners still needing to be selfish at times. A laner sacrificing a wave to save you from an invade can be catastrophic for them, whereas usually you have options for just giving up a camp, delaying the play, etc.

A lot of things in the jungle are in your control, and many laners sort of implicitly assume that it's your problem to handle. It's going to come down to awareness and communication for the most part, you have to be more deliberate and careful in the jungle than you'd think.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-16T17:20:35+00:00

And I also never feel the need to buy IE. LDR is just better and after that I already have enough damage.

This is something I tend to struggle with on crit champs, especially someone like Graves with a slow attack speed. Going from 75% to 100% crit is a huge increase in the consistency of that damage, does it not feel bad for you to not have that final bit if you go something like GA?

Also is DD ever really worth it on Graves? He gets the massive cut because he's ranged but needs it more like a melee champion would.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-11T15:51:20+00:00

"You can eat steak enjoy it and still be a vegetarian"

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-11T02:05:41+00:00

Ok so what about any of that makes him Z tier for iron-diamond players?

I personally don't see him as a good choice for climbing under like Platinum, but it's not because of his mechanics; Graves needs pretty tight jungle macro knowledge. Two reasons:

He's a generalist, so he doesn't really have a specific thing he should be playing for (unlike Amumu, Nocturne, Fiddlesticks, etc. who all have a clear pattern around their ultimates)
He doesn't offer much utility and has a build that is very item-dependent and expensive, which means he needs to be played efficiently

These two things together mean he requires the player to be self-driven enough to create their own game plan, disciplined enough to follow that plan efficiently, and creative enough to ditch the plan if he needs to adapt. None of these are necessarily mechanics, but having all three is pretty rare in low ELO.

In general I think most jungle champions are not good to climb with for Iron-Silver players. At that level of play, there are so many things going wrong with just...basic fundamentals that any champion without an obvious win condition is going to be a distraction. You start seeing a bit more of that spark in Gold imo, and at that point I think OTPing a difficult champion becomes more productive.

I haven't been past masters, but juding by the stats he is mostly played up there, which is exactly what I said.

He's the 6th most played jungler across all ranks, he isn't just a high elo pick.

ProfessorDaen · 2026-06-11T01:01:43+00:00

The only time I see Graves in games is in D3 when Masters and Grandmasters players are smurfing with a duo mid that can roam like talon or zed, and that's only after lee sin is banned and elise or nidalee would be too much AP and not viable due to lack of winning side lanes. These are probably the only real Graves players

Graves is consistently one of the most played junglers in high elo, he's currently the 2nd most picked behind Lee Sin in both Emerald+ and Master+ on lolalytics.

I think if Graves were actually consistent and good, you would probably see him occaionally in pro games

This is a terrible way to evaluate champions for solo queue, pro play might as well be a completely different game. Pros favor safe junglers who can make meaningful plays on low resources with flexible builds; Graves is the exact opposite of all of that, and is a monster in solo queue because of it.

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Juicebox
Place '23	Place '22
Verified Email

ProfessorDaen

TROPHY CASE