u/msuppnick123

he's been getting banned or picked so much more often now this patch and I actually genuinely cannot perform as well on other champs ESPECIALLY adcs, I struggle with kiting and the way smolder is played micro wise is so different from traditional adcs, i've tried mages like veigar but it's still not the same, the targeted q really helps me guarantee damage in team fights and he's so much easier to position with attack move click than champs that have high attack speed, im thinking about maybe sona duo support botlane but does anyone have any suggestions on who to play when smolder is unfortunately unavailable

taking a break until then I can't afford the pass and the game is unplayable in x1 it's insane how slow everything is

specifically I play smolder. I'm trying to improve and want to tighten up my knowledge of the really early levels and make it more consistent, and understand when how and why to hit the first wave, or let it come to me to be able to put myself in the best position to play out my laning phase. from my understanding, hitting the first wave specifically as a slow push, causes it to bounce back and eventually slowpush back toward you by the third wave, allowing you to set up a freeze an safely farm. now after that i'm kind of at a loss. not doing that would just cause the opposite correct? I feel like the higher rank I go no matter what I do I eventually get hard shoved under my tower or the wave gets frozen before theirs and I get denied so much cs i'm behind for the rest of my game. I want to be able to minimize this and have intention when hitting the wave. I know it's all matchup dependant but it's frustrating because I feel like no matter how much research I try to do into wave management it never plays out how I expect it to in my head, i'll back when the wave resets, I still lose hella minions. i'll try to set up a freeze, it eventually slow pushes back to them and I get denied more than they were, I get poked down and just trying to cs as much as I can, they have double my cs but on the contrary when it's me and my support with the upper hand, we might have a health advantage but they still have the same cs as me. I just feel like i'm not playing as optimally as I should be in laning phase and I feel like I always am down cs to my opponent. I especially notice this the higher I go, like in diamond lobbies.