Paving the Path to Pro: Interviewing a Diamond Player – “Bear Hands”

In League of Legends, it is a well conceived goal to climb the ranked ladders to a higher tier. Some people are fine with being Gold. Others want to get to Platinum. There are few however who want and actually make it all the way to Diamond. What does one do? What mind-set does it take to climb from the depths of this ‘ELO Hell’ to the mountaintops of the ranked solo queue ladder? I’ll be asking a close friend about his thoughts and trials on the road to Diamond 5 division.

[#1] Most pros say you can pick one champion and one role to keep climbing. Did you do that?

Bear Hands: “Actually, yeah, I stuck with jungler and used Hecarim when he was pretty OP as a jungler. By mid and late game, he can dive and tank the enemy team all he wants. He’s also real good about getting around the map and running past wards.”

[#2] Was your climb up the ranked ladder pretty slow and gut-wrenching, or did your climb go along pretty steadily or fast?

Bear Hands: “It was pretty steadily. Win some, lose some. You’re going to always have bad people to play with. It just happens.”

[#3] So, that’s just how it is, eh? Getting back to preferred roles to carry with in solo queue, what do you think would work best right now?  Just for those reading to have a few hints or ideas.

Bear Hands: “Vayne is ridiculously strong as an AD carry right now, and her nerf coming up doesn’t really change that. Feed her a couple kills, and it’s all she wrote. Good tops are, like, Ryze and Elise. Good mids are probably Ryze again, Ahri, or Lissandra. They all have some early harass and are also super-powerful in all points of the game.”

[#4] So, what’s the most OP item, right now? Something you used during your rise up, or something right now that is just all appealing in solo queue right now?

Bear Hands: “Sightstone. The oracle nerf in combination with the free vision it provides totally shifted the jungler’s participation on the map. It just sucks. It made the game a lot slower overall unless you do these crazy three-man pushes you see in the LCS.”

My own experience, I would have to agree on the note on Sightstone. The meta also has shifted to force junglers into a tankier role, and this has mitigated or removed the presence of the more carry-typical junglers.

I’ll come back again with questions from the lower tier players, completing a two-side interview for the trials and opinions of players from League of Legends.