One of the very first streamers I ever watched on Twitch was foggedftw2. He's participated in many, many twitch rivals, but sometimes hasn't been drafted and even when he was, his teams usually haven't performed well. This time, his team's gone 7-0 so far and that's quite exciting to me and is always a breath of fresh air to see his team perform remarkably well.
He's still someone who I watch as often as I can, even though he streams during a time where I am usually asleep or when he does have evening streams, am away at work, have other obligations, etc. I still learn from watching him even though he's primarily a toplaner, and while I learn plenty from watching pro matches, sometimes it helps to see champions in action from a streamer.
Like, to put it another way--seeing a champion perform in pro play doesn't teach me how that champion works. Playing a champion in ARAM is supposed to help teach you how that champion works, but since all I end up doing when on those champions is button mashing, I don't really learn from playing them in an ARAM. But watching a stream (or youtube video), I get a much better sense of how a champion works, and details of the game are often easier to observe.
This is one of the reasons why I actually think I've gotten better at the game in spite of playing it a fraction of the time. I watch League streams, and videos, and professional matches, and see the game from multiple angles. Now, obviously. I play Normals, not ranked, and I am an Iron-level player in Oceania a traditionally-considered-weaker region. So I am far from skilled.
But most of that is due to coordination issues. By which, I mean. Reaction time, more or less--pressing my buttons and mouse in the areas they need to be pressed, at the times they need to be pressed. I am dismal at it right now. I miss skill shots I have absolutely no right to miss. I occasionally accidentally send volleys backwards rather than forwards, or worse, enchanted crystal arrows. I press the wrong buttons, or press them at the wrong time, have poor coordination, just, all-around lack of execution.
And that is what I need to work on, though I don't actually know how to fix it, how to improve on it. But like. I usually understand how many champions work. I have fairly good awareness of the map, most of the time. I usually have a fair sense of what is happening, what needs to be done, and so on and so forth. Just, a fair idea of where the enemy is, what the enemy is doing, how winnable a fight is, and such.
Granted, being good at those things doesn't mean I am great at them. I can be overly focused on my lane and forget to think about the map. I can be engaged so much in a fight on one section of the map that I forget to check on the other side of the map. I can be focused on farming and forget to check around for the enemy champs.
And then there's other things that I am not good at. Like, I am horrible at wave management and while pro play and streamers always talk about wave management and the exact details of it, talking about it doesn't mean I am good at actually executing it and this is one of the main things that try as I might I just can't learn.
And then you throw in the added execution errors, the coordination issues, I get, and that means that even if I do have the high awareness, I can't do much.
To summarize--I am still trash-tier. Utter garbage at the game. I have poor coordination, I have poor wave management, and while I have excellent situational awareness most of the time, I can occasionally have lapses of it which end up costing me/my team a fair amount.
But while I am that bad, the worst of the worst, I still feel like in spite of my (lack of) skills, I am, overall, still improving as a player and I attribute it at least in part to watching pro games and watching streamers like fogged. It's just, some things I may never be able to absorb, and some things absorbing doesn't mean I necessarily know how to execute on them consistently where I'll botch what I was trying due to bad coordination, but like...a fair amount of that knowledge does sink in and give me a much better feel for the game.
Anyway, another thing: apparently, Legends of Runeterra does in fact have a windowed mode, and I launched it and confirmed this to be the case. So I am going to try and play some of it now for a while.
He's still someone who I watch as often as I can, even though he streams during a time where I am usually asleep or when he does have evening streams, am away at work, have other obligations, etc. I still learn from watching him even though he's primarily a toplaner, and while I learn plenty from watching pro matches, sometimes it helps to see champions in action from a streamer.
Like, to put it another way--seeing a champion perform in pro play doesn't teach me how that champion works. Playing a champion in ARAM is supposed to help teach you how that champion works, but since all I end up doing when on those champions is button mashing, I don't really learn from playing them in an ARAM. But watching a stream (or youtube video), I get a much better sense of how a champion works, and details of the game are often easier to observe.
This is one of the reasons why I actually think I've gotten better at the game in spite of playing it a fraction of the time. I watch League streams, and videos, and professional matches, and see the game from multiple angles. Now, obviously. I play Normals, not ranked, and I am an Iron-level player in Oceania a traditionally-considered-weaker region. So I am far from skilled.
But most of that is due to coordination issues. By which, I mean. Reaction time, more or less--pressing my buttons and mouse in the areas they need to be pressed, at the times they need to be pressed. I am dismal at it right now. I miss skill shots I have absolutely no right to miss. I occasionally accidentally send volleys backwards rather than forwards, or worse, enchanted crystal arrows. I press the wrong buttons, or press them at the wrong time, have poor coordination, just, all-around lack of execution.
And that is what I need to work on, though I don't actually know how to fix it, how to improve on it. But like. I usually understand how many champions work. I have fairly good awareness of the map, most of the time. I usually have a fair sense of what is happening, what needs to be done, and so on and so forth. Just, a fair idea of where the enemy is, what the enemy is doing, how winnable a fight is, and such.
Granted, being good at those things doesn't mean I am great at them. I can be overly focused on my lane and forget to think about the map. I can be engaged so much in a fight on one section of the map that I forget to check on the other side of the map. I can be focused on farming and forget to check around for the enemy champs.
And then there's other things that I am not good at. Like, I am horrible at wave management and while pro play and streamers always talk about wave management and the exact details of it, talking about it doesn't mean I am good at actually executing it and this is one of the main things that try as I might I just can't learn.
And then you throw in the added execution errors, the coordination issues, I get, and that means that even if I do have the high awareness, I can't do much.
To summarize--I am still trash-tier. Utter garbage at the game. I have poor coordination, I have poor wave management, and while I have excellent situational awareness most of the time, I can occasionally have lapses of it which end up costing me/my team a fair amount.
But while I am that bad, the worst of the worst, I still feel like in spite of my (lack of) skills, I am, overall, still improving as a player and I attribute it at least in part to watching pro games and watching streamers like fogged. It's just, some things I may never be able to absorb, and some things absorbing doesn't mean I necessarily know how to execute on them consistently where I'll botch what I was trying due to bad coordination, but like...a fair amount of that knowledge does sink in and give me a much better feel for the game.
Anyway, another thing: apparently, Legends of Runeterra does in fact have a windowed mode, and I launched it and confirmed this to be the case. So I am going to try and play some of it now for a while.
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