League-of-legends – What are the advantages and disadvantages of Duo-Queuing

league-of-legends

Recently I watched this video that tells to never do duo rank games.

But I find few advantages on duo rank games:

  • It's nice to play with a friend.

  • Good communication via Skype or other voice chats.

  • It's one less troll in your team (assuming your friend isn't one).

  • I think I win more games while Duo-Queuing.

In general, what are the pros and cons of playing duo ranks?

What are the optimal conditions in order to maximise the advantages and lower the cons of duo ranking? (Maybe playing with someone lower in rank than you, but having same skills (someone who is climbing quickly the ladder for instance))

Best Answer

Duoqueuing can have more advantages than disadvantages but you have to do it right. I'll first tell you some of the Pros and Cons of Duoqueue.

Pro

You have already listed most of the positive aspects of duoqueue. Now there are still some that are important:

  • Map Awareness - Two people watching the map are better than one. This is especially true in combination with the improved communication per voice chat. This improved map awareness can win you games since there are 2 people in your team where the risk of getting ganked/caught is reduced.
  • Insane Roaming - Coordinated ganks are extremely effective in soloqueue. If you pull off a good 2 man gank against a laner you will be able to snowball extremely hard.

Con

Unfortunately there are a lot of negative aspects when playing Duoqueue most of them can be avoided but as mentioned above: you'll have to play accordingly.

  • Stronger enemies/Enemy Duo - There are two options: Either you will face another duo in the enemy team or the enemy MMR will be higher. The first option is the one you should prefer since your entire team will be facing off against stronger enemies (as described in the video). Unfortunately there's no way of avoiding this when playing duoqueue.
  • Everyone hates you - I can't blame them. Most duos are toxic and think they can carry games themselves since they have superior communication but they ignore the MMR disadvantage. If you really want to go botlane don't write "Pre bot with Player X" but you and your buddy should just both write "Pref supp" and "Pref ADC". This increases your chances of getting the lane without demoralizing your team. During champion select you should see it as a soloqueue game and ignore your duo partner.
  • Risk of you/your duo feeding - It's almost impossible to have the same MMR and most duo players don't even have the same elo. One of you will always be lower unless he's really skilled for his elo he will perform worse than the rest of the team. This is a big problem because people tend to ignore the fact that their partner fed and blame others. Again this demoralizes the entire team and your chances of winning decrease drastically.
  • MMR Inaccuracy - Playing duoqueue will cause the matchmaking to find a mean value of your combined MMR. If you are Platinum 1 and your Partner is Gold 5 (both normal MMR) you will most likely play against a lot of platinum 5 players. This is a problem since winning multiple games like this will provide the gold player (who is usually carried by the platinum player) with a higher MMR than he's actually at. If he starts playing again he will most likely lose since he's not used to the higher skill cap needed for the above elo. When climbing elo solo you won't make any progress unless you improve. The same goes for the platinum player who has a lower MMR after the games than before and he won't progress as fast as before when playing solo.

How to duo correctly

  • Pick roles you're comfortable with - Most duo partners want to go premade botlane, since it's the only duolane in the current meta. Going bot is usually the least benficial lane as a duo team unless you're Support and ADC mains. Toplane, Midlane and Jungle have a higher impact on the game most of the time. Arguably the best combination would be Mid + Jungle since it offers you a great overview of the game and roaming is easy. But again: Pick whatever your main champion is and respect the pick order. Being a duo team doesn't automatically allow you to go wherever you want to.
  • Respect the other teammembers - Flaming is extremely harmful in soloqueue. If you or your duo partner does a mistake and gets flamed don't flame back or defend him. Tell your partner to mute the flamer and do the same. Also if your partner does the same mistake over and over again, don't be afraid to tell him (without flaming) where he could improve.
  • You need synergy - This is especially true when playing duo bot but it's applicable to every lane. To play duo queue effectively you're gonna need the best synergy possible. Don't play with the dude who added you after a good game. You don't know him and you don't know how well he plays over the course of a few games.