Mobile Legends Solo Ranked to GL Guide

Mobile Legends Solo Ranked to Glorious Legends (GL) Guide by ZenithGod

Pre-context: I’ve made a thread about tips and tricks to climb rank, and since then, I’ve made a new account to kind of “prove” that you don’t need teammates to climb (it was also fun to set a challenge for myself too). This post basically embarks my journey and what I learned from it, and potentially you could too! Take from this what you want, you don’t need to follow exactly what I do. I’m just listing down points that I did and were successful to ME, which could vary per person. Take away what you need and leave behind what you don’t want, it’s up to you.

NOTE: Proof/Screenshots are down below! To “prove” that I didn’t have pre-made teams with anyone, I used the achievement BFF (counts how many matches played with friends) and kept it at 0

My ADC Build: Nimble Blade (Tier 2 Jungle Attack item), Endless Battle/Tooth of Greed, Swift Boots, Blade of Destruction/Thor’s Sting, Blade of Destruction/Thor’s Sting, Blade of Despair.

Sell Boots for Immortality when you have enough gold OR sell Nimble Blade for Tooth of Greed/Scarlet Phantom, and do the other option after, and sell Thor’s Sting after that for another Blade of Despair.

My Mage Build: Enchanted Talisman, Arcane Boots, Dominance Ice, Flame of Fury/Frost, Flame of Fury/Frost, 6th item anything you want. I also sometimes go CDR Boots, hit 30% CDR, and leave it there, skipping Dominance Ice. Sell boots for Immortality/Mage item if you don’t need movement speed.

My Tank Build: Hunter’s Knife/Pillager’s Axe (Depending on matchup), Cursed Helmet/Warrior Boots, Cursed Helmet/Warrior Boots, Bloodthirsty King, Demon’s Advent/Dominance Ice/Brute Force Plate, Demon’s Advent/Dominance Ice/Brute Force Plate. Sell Jungle item for another item of your choice, and slot in Immortality for boots when you can.

Warrior, Elite, Master: Fairly straightforward, not much to be said. You’ll meet lots of AFK’s in this rank, but that’s fine. You’ll also meet a lot of teams with no composition. That’s also fine. There honestly isn’t much difference between these ranks, except for the fact that there are more trolls in Warrior rank.

My personal tips in this rank:

• Pick ADC, Balmond (Tank build), or Alucard. Doesn’t matter if your team already has 4 ADC’s, pick it anyways. The reason why you would pick Balmond/Alucard is because their clears are insanely fast in the jungle.
• Take Retribution. It will help with farming speed and allows you to jungle efficiently.
• Because your teammates probably doesn’t listen/doesn’t know what to do, you have to take the initiative to switch lanes. If your team has 3 top, move yourself to bot/mid, don’t expect others to and rage at them after. The default set-up is 2 top, 1 mid, 2 bot.
• Tying onto how your teammates don’t listen, don’t expect them to anyways. If they do that’s great, but if they don’t remember that they’re not good at the game.
• At the start of the game, shove lane wave and take 1 of your jungle camps. Rinse and repeat after you clear a wave. If you do this, you’ll be sure to stay ahead of the game.
• Don’t group too early or else you’ll be losing a lot of valuable EXP and gold. I’d say group once you’re level 12-ish while everyone else is level 8-10.
• If you’re ADC, use your allies as meat shields. Almost never be in the front lines. This is because most players in this rank will just be using their ults on your “tanks” (could be your other fellow ADC’s too, just take cover from anyone you find). Positioning is important. Try targeting their back line, as most of times their front line will just be fighting your front lines, leaving the back line vulnerable. Best times to go in and fight their back line is when their back line targets your front line, because most people don’t shift targets/check their health bar, allowing easy kills.
• Counter jungle, invade your opponent’s jungle whenever possible. Almost no one takes their jungle consistently so it’ll be up most of the time after 3 minutes in the game. The key to counter jungling is to not get seen going to their jungle, but at this rank almost no one looks at mini-map so you should be fine most of the time.

Grandmaster: Gets slightly harder, team composition becomes a little bit more important. I’d say GM III+ would be when you can’t always pick ADC, and try to focus on what the team needs. Balmond (again, TANK build), is usually really good because it allows you to carry while having a tank for your 3 ADCs. I would ALWAYS build Pillager’s Axe (2nd Tier Defensive Jungle Item), simply due to the fact that you can counter-jungle very easily.

My personal tips in this rank:

• Counter jungle is always very effective. You have to be a little bit more careful, as there might be players like you that take their jungle consistently to get a similar edge.
• If you want an early edge, don’t group early, try to stall out laning phase as long as possible.
• Take Retribution, it just immensely helps with clear speeds.
• As always, if you’re ADC, use allies as meat shields.
• Watch where your teammates are on the map. Don’t always expect them to know where you’re going (basically, don’t expect follow up unless they’re heading your way already or nearby)
• Pings are more important, and some teammates actually listen now.
• Ganks are very important too, always look for opportunities. Know which targets are easily to gank (Layla, Eudora) and which ones are harder to gank (Alice, Akai).
• YOU HAVE TO NOW START KEEPING AN EYE ON JUNGLE TIMERS. You don’t need to know and keep track of every second (you can if you want, I personally don’t), just keep track of your usual time of when things respawn. For example, if I take jungle in the beginning of the game, I know by the time I’m ¾ EXP of level 3 (to level 4) the jungle will respawn again. This holds true for the enemy as well if they take jungle in the beginning, meaning you can quickly shove wave and take theirs while they’re taking wave (a lot easier to do with retribution), as long as you know when they’ll spawn.
• You also have to keep an eye out on skills used / CD times. Let’s say you’re Akai and there’s an enemy Nana. Don’t be stupid and jump in the team fight when Nana hasn’t used her morph yet! Try to bait it out (either by teammates or youself), and jump in after. Have a general idea of what the CD of each heroes are so you know when to engage or when to disengage.
• Honestly, you don’t need Lord in 80% of the games in this rank. A trick to end games is to just all hide in a bush (in front / behind lord) and wait for enemies to walk by and check on Lord. Chances are, people in this rank don’t know that you can see the Lord’s animations if it’s in combat.

Epic + Legend: You’ll probably lose some games in a row, especially because there are tons of duos in this rank. Best bet is to wait 10 or so minutes after each loss so you don’t pair with the same people (I don’t do this, but for people that are desperate to climb it could potentially help). Watch out for profile pictures too, they help identify hard people to face and vice versa. Usually 2 or less ADC’s are seen in this rank, although I still see 3+ ADC’s every 6 games or so. With the recent nerfs to Nimble Blade and buffs to Retribution, it’s up to you whether or not you want to build it, I would still take 250g jungle item though regardless. Legend is just basically a harder version of Epic, you just need to reinforce the tips and tricks to a higher level.

Tips and Tricks:

• Team composition is fairly important. I’d say 2 ADC’s max in this rank, and tanks are VERY important to have.
• By this rank, almost everyone jungles in the beginning. If you ping jungle after shoving in a wave (which you should do when jungle respawns), they will most likely listen to you.
• You should know what matchups are good/bad for you, and play aggressive/passive accordingly.
• Similarly, you should be meeting with familiar faces once in awhile. You should have a general idea of how they are (in terms of skill level) and also play aggressive/passive accordingly.
• Because you’ll be meeting familiar faces, don’t argue or flame your teammates or enemies. It might cause them to troll when they’re with you.
• Map awareness is VERY important in this rank. Look for potential ganks to make, or help out teammates that get caught out. It also helps you stay safe from ganks, wasting your enemies’ time.
• Counterjungling becomes more challenging, but somewhat more rewarding than other ranks. They will see you more often (on the mini-map) and if they catch you out, it’s a big mess. On the other hand, if you manage to successfully counterjungle, you are not only increasing your own exp, but also reducing their potential exp, because unlike other ranks, more and more people will use the jungle to farm.
• There are ways to counterjungle even if they know you’re taking it. One example is shoving in their wave, so they’re forced to stay by tower and finish off minions.
• If you’re counterjungling, always bring them to bushes. This reduces the chance of enemy heroes seeing you, and also decreases the chance of them stealing the jungle you’re taking, as they can’t target it.
• Know what each hero does and what they can do. If there’s an enemy Fanny (no matter where she is, as long as she’s in the game) and you’re sitting at tower with low HP without recalling, you deserved that death.
• Manage Risk VS Reward wisely. If you believe you are better than others, why would you go 1 for 1 trades? Your life is much more valuable than some random noob’s health. On the other hand, if you recognize someone from the other team and you know that they’re better than you, go for it.
• There are tons of other things to keep in mind regarding Risk and Reward. To generalize, you have to think, “what happens AFTER I kill him?” and “what happens AFTER he kills me?”. Examples of specified questions to ask yourself are “Can we take Turtle/Lord after his/her death?” and “Can we take down turrets after his/her death?”. If you can’t remember these questions, that’s fine for the time being until you reach competitive, but remember the next tip.
• Probably the most important tip for Risk vs Reward. LOOK AT MINION WAVES. Think to yourself, “How much EXP/Gold will he lose if he dies?” If a whole wave crashes into tower after he dies, that’s a very good kill. If he dies without losing out on any/very few minions, that kill did practically nothing. Good players know how to manage this well.
• Probably the one that pisses me off the most. IF YOU CAN END, GO END! 4 out of 5 enemy heroes dead in the late game? GO END! It triggers me to no end (no pun intended) when people ping Lord when I’m constantly spamming “Attack!”. Pleaseeeeee, just end the damn game :(
• Know your team composition and how to play the game. This comes with experience. Some simple examples are whether or not your team is meant for team fighting or splitpushing. Have a Fanny/Nat on the team and you’re losing pretty badly? Try to stall enemy team and let that Fanny/Nat splitpush. Have a Franco on the team and the teams are pretty even? Just wait till Franco lands a hook on an important target, then play out the team fight.
• An example of a somewhat complicated one that comes with experience is to see who’s fed on their team or not. If there’s only an enemy Clint that’s demolishing your team, chances are you guys can still team fight – provided that you guys focus on that Clint. That’s how I lost a majority of my games, when I was the only one carrying, and once they focused me with CC (most annoyingly, Yun Zhao), the game was over.
• Don’t get caught out. This often means game over if your teammates try and help you and everyone ends up dying. This relates to watching the mini-map.

My progress on [Zenith] (this is for ranked WR only):

Warrior to Elite: 100% Overall WR

Elite to Master: 100% Overall WR

Master to Grandmaster: 100% Overall WR

Grandmaster to Epic: 5 losses, 91.53% Overall WR

Epic to Legend: 7 losses, 87.37% Overall WR

Legend to GL (Only 17 stars): 1 loss, 88.29% Overall WR

GM to Epic: http://imgur.com/a/dEGcS

Games I’ve lost from GM to Epic: http://imgur.com/a/ZMWP0

Epic to Legend: http://imgur.com/a/XVH7V

Games I’ve lost from Epic to Legend (it repeats the GM losses after 7th screenshot): http://imgur.com/a/MHrGU

Legend to GL: http://imgur.com/a/owTpd

Good luck climbing, if you have any questions let me know :) I’ll probably be making a few video guides later on to show what I’m actually describing and what to do.