Great Gamers Steal: Outsourcing Your In-Game Decisions to Pro Players

Mar 30, 2016
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Before I make a purchase of any kind, no matter how inexpensive, I first spend at least 10 minutes looking for an expert’s opinion on the product online. I don’t put much value into Amazon reviews because I can’t trust those people. For all I know, the coffee maker Jon Doe just rated 2 stars sucked because he failed to set it up properly. This is something I don’t have to worry about with an expert who has used dozens of new coffee makers just this year.

This guy is a hot tub expert. He seems to know everything there is to know about hot tubs. After listening to this guy talk for 30 seconds you will understand why his opinion is worth more than dozens of Amazon reviews.

Experts know everything about the entire category of products they are reviewing and their comparables. They know what to expect from an average coffee maker, and what a coffee mug needs to stand out in order to be great. I would be crazy if I trusted an Amazon review by a casual Jon Doe, who will probably only own 4-5 coffee makers in his entire lifetime, over a professional reviewer.

In League of Legends, just like real life, everybody has an opinion, but few are experts. Just hearing one piece of wrong information can set you off track for months before you realize what you’ve been doing is sub-optimal. For example, when I first purchased Lee Sin way back in the day, a teammate mocked me for leveling Safeguard/Iron Will (W) second during my initial clear. His condescending sarcasm signaled that he must know what he was talking about, so I adapted.

If I had just spend a few minutes on YouTube I would have discovered dozens of Lee Sin tutorials like this which show how to optimally clear the jungle.

For my next 50 Lee Sin games I leveled Tempest/Cripple (E) second during my jungle clear and proceeded to get DESTROYED by my own jungle monsters. I grew to believe that the first clear was just extremely hard until I saw a Challenger player level Safeguard/Iron Will (W) second…

Outsourcing Your In-Game Decisions

Skinny Guy
This is the face of a man who is ready to lift weights. By “stealing” a routine from an experienced lifter formerly of a similar body type, our determined hero has a greater chance of seeing results. Photo via ReinventAging.org.

One of the biggest mistakes a complete beginner can make when they decide they are going to start lifting weights is to create their own custom routine. They have zero experience, yet they attempt to slap together the ultimate fat shredding muscle-building workout on their own. This is like trying to write a symphony the day after purchasing your first violin. The end result has an incredibly high chance of being terrible, sub-optimal at best. You are much better off outsourcing any and all decisions you can to those with years of experience and the results to show for it.

Mix and matching your own item build in League of Legends is ill-advised for the same reasons if you find yourself a long way from Challenger. You can try out items that sound good in normal games, but in games that really matter, defer to the pros. Pro players develop a feel for items after trying them out hundreds of times. When an item becomes apart of a standard build for a champion, it means it was tested hundreds of times by many top players. It’s gone through rigorous testing at the highest level and proven to be effective.

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You can discover expert approved builds at ProBuilds.net. Pro Builds keeps track of many professional players’ accounts and records a history of what items they built, and what runes and masteries they chose on whatever champion they played. By using Pro Builds you can go into a game with the exact setup your favorite pro uses; a proven, optimal set of items, runes, and masteries.

Outsourcing Enables Focusing on What Matters Most

It should be noted that you may still have to use a little brain power to tweak your build according to your specific in-game scenario. If you are against a 5-0 LeBlanc as an AD champion, you’re going to want to buy a Hexdrinker.

By outsourcing your decision making on items, runes, and masteries, you can focus on improving your mechanics. No matter what goes wrong, it probably wasn’t because of your Challenger tested build.

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Jamie Jacobs is a bot lane main who once won 17 consecutive Janna games. His favorite champions are Thresh, Kalista, and Bard. Jamie writes about competitive League of Legends and the professional gaming scene every week at Esports Edition.
What do you think?
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ayy lmao

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Nice.

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Meh.

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No.

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Whoa!

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