What are the advantages and disadvantages of Duo-Queuing?

Question

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))

Jutschge · Accepted 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.

Realitätsverlust · Answer

Your points are valid. But there also are disadvantages:
Less/Far too much LP
Less LP is a horrible feeling. I was in Diamond II, 95 LP in Season IV and gained 1 LP per match (Non-Duo). When i was at 98 LP, the game had the audaciousness to give me 0 LP for that win, which was the point I went into completely ragemode. The same can happen when you queue with someone who is lower than you. The game will give you less LP in a win, but also more LP loss in a defeat. Your friend has the advantage to gain more LP and lose less, but if he doesn't play on that level, he is screwed once he plays on his own without you.
Nobody likes premades
It's tough, but in reality - almost everybody hates premades, including me. They tend to flame everyone else except themselves (e.g. botlane pre usually flame the jungler), will never criticize each other, so there is no constructive progress and 99% of them think they can carry on their own without playing with the team. So you will most likely get flamed if you mess it up. I wouldn't mention it in game if I were you.
Friendship on the risk
Yes, you might laugh at this point, but I saw friendships ending because of a game. Maybe this will not happen to you, but there might be a few arguments which might escalate.

Tim B · Answer

Essentially there is one huge disadvantage to dual queuing - which is that your team gets an ELO penalty compared to the other team.

In other words if the opposing team does not also have a duo then they will be individually more skilled than your team.

In order to make duo worth it you need to bring advantages to the table that outweigh that penalty. This means that you need superior teamwork, game knowledge, and ability - not just for your lane but for the whole game.

So duo bot makes sense in terms of winning that lane. You are (or should be) on voice comms together. You are (or should be) used to working together and know how to get that synergy you need to dominate in lane.

But the price of that is both the other lanes potentially being outmatched. You've traded one winning lane for 2 losing ones. Unless you are able to take your bot lane and really dominate, start taking dragons, roaming to mid, etc, then your team as a whole has lost out.

Doing mid or top+jungler is actually a fairly strong duo combination as well. You can work nicely co-ordinating ganks or invasions. But you still have the same problem, you've gained in one lane to lose in two others.

If you go top+mid, that's even worse as now you're extra co-ordination is really weak in the early game. It can work but only if you both start roaming early.

So that's the trade-off with going duo queue. It's not enough to win your lane. You need to use the extra co-ordination between the two of you to win the whole map. For example a successful jungle+mid will:

Steal an enemy buff, defend own buffs, ward map and invade on enemy jungler. As soon as you hit 6 you'll both move together to do a 4 man gank on enemy bot lane then take dragon, etc.

You need to get your team ahead, not just yourselves.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Duo-Queuing?

3 Answers

Pro

Con

How to duo correctly

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