So you want to climb that ranked ladder, playing the game is a good way to improve but not necessarily the most efficient in isolation. If you are serious about improving you should be watching your own replays. Why? I’m glad you asked.
The most obvious and perhaps the most important thing is that it will allow you to identify mistakes. Identifying an error is an important step towards rectifying it and watching a replay can often reveal why you died here, or what cost you that team fight at baron.
No I’m not suggesting that you watch the replay at normal speed from start to finish, this is time consuming and inefficient. What you want to be looking for are your own errors. The replay spectator can help you here as the bar at the bottom contains markers for every kill and every objective. If you move along the bar and see that you died at five minutes, you can skip to just before that point and watch what happened. If it was a gank you didn’t have vision of, you have, come up with a couple of solutions, don’t push the wave (play safer) or ward. I find it helpful to make a note somewhere visible of the things I wish to improve, for example:
- Warding in lane.
- Switch to blue trinket when out of lane.
- Manage waves, don’t constantly hard shove.
Having these in a visible location to refer to when you are recalling or walking back from base can help you prevent making the same mistakes again.
Team fights can be a little more tricky to analyse but there a few general things that you should look for.
- Were you fighting for a reason, ie a tower, dragon, or baron?
- Why did the Team Fight start?
- Did you make any crucial mistakes? Ie, bad positioning, flashing into a wall, bad target selection etc.
- Did you have vision?
- Did either side have a numbers or gold lead?
If you have looked at all of these things for the team fights you’ve lost and come up with an answer to each of these questions, you’ve probably gotten as much out of this replay. It’s time to go and play more games, got to climb that ladder after all!
Did you find this article helpful? Do you have any tips and tricks for efficient and successful replay analysis? Share them in the comments section below.
Hugh Mccormick 