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Lets Talk Splitpushing

Brain Errör 404··116 votes·8,260 views

To those of you unfamiliar with the term, let me explain:

Split pushing is the art in which 1 person separates from the team to create pressure on the opposite side of the map.

Split pushers or split pushing, for that matter, is an important strategy, and is also very effective once you realize that you have someone doing it.

Split pushers will likely not have great scores, they will have high farm, be able to 1v1 anyone who comes their way and will likely provide so much pressure on the team that they bring 3-4 people to them.

There are some champs whose role are primarily to split push. People like Udyr/Trynd/Fiora just to name a few. If you have one of these champs on your team, know that unless they are extremely far ahead and your team isn't super behind, they will NOT group. SO DO NOT ASK FOR GROUPING.

I'm sick and tired of people saying "Oh, we could've won if you just grouped with us". NO. NAE. NAI. NEIN. There's a reason these champs don't group. Their kits are terrible for teamfighting.

Now, lets talk about you people who don't understand split pushing and what you should and shouldn't be doing.

DON'TS:

  1. DONT JUST SIT AROUND TWITTLING YOUR FREAKING FINGERS, DO SOMETHING. If you see 2 people top lane chasing after your Udyr, GET SOMETHING. You now have what we call advantage in numbers. If you can't abuse the number advantage then you're worthless.

  2. DO NOT GO TO HELP. For the LOVE OF GOD. Don't go to him. He's split pushing for a reason. He's ready to die, BUT don't let his death be in vain.

  3. STOP WASTING TIME. Your teammate is providing you valuable time to do something, to catch up and to cap objectives. They can only dance around for so long. MAKE USE OF IT.

  4. Don't flame your split pusher and ask them to group, it's pointless. They won't group and they know why they won't group. When they DO group and you guys ace the team, it's because they KNOW what their doing. So you forcing people to group in unsatisfactory situations will NOT help you win. You do your job and they will do their job. When they group, you know it's time for a show down.

DO'S:

  1. Shove the lane furthest away from your split pusher. Split pushers normally shove side lanes, not mid lane

  2. Try to group as often as possible with all the other members of the team. This is actually the best time for you people to go mid and do useless shit. Except, it's not a waste of time, it's buying time

  3. Provide equally as much pressure with the other members of your team as your split pusher is providing for you

  4. Cap Objectives. Towers are open, dragons are open, barons are open

People have their own play styles. You can't control it. Accentuate your play style and adapt to your teammates.

split pushers are valuable to this game and I can't count how many games I've won because of them. Being a split pusher myself, I'd rather you not worry about my KDA and worry more along the liens of how much we actually help by providing pressure.

Edit: Be aware that this is purely for the basis of split pushing -- this is not an answer for all your problems. There are some games that can't be won, some games that are better won by grouping and some games where it's not wise to split push. Just putting this out there!

Edit2: Here's some things FOR the split pushers as Battlecast Janna and Monkey Madness stated

{quoted}

Here's a list of tips that I've gathered on split pushing throughout my 5 years of playing this game:

  • Don't split push if you are significantly behind
  • Don't split push if the enemy has a split pusher that is better or more fed than yours
  • Don't split push if your enemy has an inhibitor advantage in a side lane (especially bot)
  • Don't split push if your vision is being systematically denied/if you have no vision control
  • Dont' split push if the enemy team has a teleport advantage (time those TPs) _
  • Be cautious when split pushing if the enemy team is highly mobile/has multiple Air Drakes
  • Be cautious when split pushing against a team with a stealth champ (ie twitch, eve, rengar) for obvious reasons _
  • Do split push when you are contesting an objective and you want to force the enemy to either split up to contend multiple objectives simultaneously, or concede one entirely (ie send your splitpusher bot side when you start a baron dance)
  • Do split push after securing a pick (it will be free towers for the split pusher and a 4v4 for the rest of the team)
  • Do split push if the enemy team has a very defensive team comp that excels at breaking your siege and clearing minion waves. This combined with proper rotation will eventually allow you to break their defensive position, at which point they will be hard pressed to fight you.

These are very good points as well. Don't disregard any information you get. Vision and map awareness plays a vital role in split pushing.

155 Comments

Need Gold 4 Tent23 votes

But there's that dilemma sometimes, when you DO have the great score on your team. Yet that 7/0 easily turns into 9/5 as their team dumps every single nuke and cc on you, and your teammates are weak as fuck when you try to teamfight. And when you don't, they so weak they die under the turret and lose inhib anyway. Some games are not meant to be won.

A game where the splitpusher is losing but has another lane winning is a lot more salvageable than a game where the splitpusher is winning hard, with a different lane losing. All the winning lanes need to do is to group because a 0/4/0 Trynd is still a threat to the turrets at top, that will keep the 4/0 Renek from leaving to murder the rest of your team as long as he does not die.

MunchCrunchLunch8 votes

yeah i've always said splitpushing is rarely the reason you win. you need your other lanes to actually win or go even at least to be able to splitpush if they are behind the enemy team has no problem sending the 5 man goon squad top lane to 5v1 you because the rest of your team isnt a threat

Need Gold 4 Tent4 votes

I agree with you regarding the winning part, but not for your reasons. If they are somehow dumb enough to send a 5 man good squad top, it still frees up another lane for pushing. They WILL, however have enough man power to stop both you and your team from pushing.

Most splitpushers as you said, are duelists. It would be dumb to send the feeding top laner back to solo the guy who's been killing him all game. Yet if they sent the fed ADC or mid, you, a fed Trynd/Jax/Nasus will typically have no problem killing them either meaning they will have to send at least 2 people top. The problem is, your feeding team (in the case of you winning/others losing) is so weak that they usually lose even in a 3v4, and unless you are way more fed than the enemy (who are likely quite fed too), you cannot 1v2 without dying or being sent away.

In any case, splitpushing on its own (or the need to splitpush) is already a bad indicator for the game, because it means either the splitter or his team is doing bad. That being said, the splitter does not need to do well. He can feed all he wants as long as he keeps a good cs score, and applies so much pressure pushing that the fed enemy top cannot utilize that gold to help his team to snowball. I've had a 0/5 Trynd push all the way to the inhibitor while I, Shen was busy helping the team. Then, the ADC made a mistake of underestimating him based on score, failing to see the near 300 cs + items, and died to him. That's the classic scenario of a good splitpush run.

If all the lanes won and you're still splitpushing, you're doing something wrong because you could pretty much just group and end it already (splitpushing not needed).

JQKAndrei2 votes

N3ac3y disagrees with you, with all the 100 games to diamond he made with different champions, he won a lot of those just by splitpushing.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

yeah sure a master/challenger can beat plats and diamond lmao. he himself says that split pushing doesnt work in high elo

JQKAndrei1 votes

He never said it doesn't work, hell they even use it at worlds. He just says that people are more aware of it, just as any other strategy in the game.

Team's crap = splitpush. Team's good = group.

for soloq that is.

BeeCuz13 votes

Split pushers rank turrets as the most valuable target on the map. It's quite effective for winning games.

Brain Errör 4044 votes

I know right. It's sad when I see my team chasing enemies through the jg when I'm trying to get towers. -sigh-

TequilaZombie10 votes

My last game: Me: Hey Nunu, let's sneak drag while the enemy team is farming top/mid. Me: Nunu? Drag is open man, lets do it! Me: they have 2 top and 3 mid, but no wards, DRAGON IS OPEN! Me: We can even get bot turret after it because the wave wil be pushed to tower.

20 Seconds later Nunu dies in the enemy top lane jungle chasing for a kill with no vision and 3 mias. Enemy gets dragon due to no smite left on our team.

This was just my way of saying that I hate people who value kills more than objectives.

CrazyBear19878 votes

Interesting Stuff, especially for SoloQ and non-veterans or non-pro's

But to be fair, speaking from the other side of the table:

As a "split pusher" state to others your doing it, things are not automatic, can't help it if some want to help, some don't even know what your doing and most just want to be helpful and speed the push.

You are correct in strategy, but if the whole enemy team is pushing mid, while you push top and you team (assuming following your instruction) push bot, who would reach your inhibitor first?

Do they pull back? recall and stop the split to defend? Engage in a 4v5? what if they lose? what if the enemy get the tower and inhibitor while your pushing?

What if they split push and do baron or Elder dragon? I understand the strategy, but its not one sided and does't mean split pushing is a sure win strategy.

as you said "People have their own play styles. You can't control it. Accentuate your play style and adapt to your teammates." that includes you as well.

i'm not saying your useless or wrong, just be mindful that there is a time and place for strategies like these, it may or may not always turn out the way you want. Give your teammates a break, not everyone is on the same level as you.

Brain Errör 4043 votes

Hey man, that's some fair points.

These are just minuscule details. All of what I've typed is very general and all depends on how the opposite side interprets. I'm very aware of team comps and know a lot about seige comps/split comps/engage comps etc. If we have a weaker engage, then I expect my team not to engage, defend and wait it out whiles I try to split. More than likely I'll have a zz'rot shoving the opposite side lane anyways.

Not all games are winnable, I know this. And not everyone reacts the same way to a split push. Some people understand, some don't.

Split pushing isn't the one all answer to everything, it's just the mindset.

Sometimes I can give people a break, other times it's obvious that they simply don't know what's happening.

CrazyBear19872 votes

Well I learnt something XD

But I Feel like split pushing as well as Jungler mechanics are not common knowledge in other games. There is no tutorial for these things and it's read good info imo.

Brain Errör 4042 votes

Well, hey, glad you learnt something. It isn't really common knowledge so much as it is experience. The best thing I can say is to hop on Trynd, the god of split pushing, and play a few games. Try grouping in some and then try splitting in others and you'll quickly find out why he stays in one lane and shoves all day.

Other than that, it also helps with map awareness and lets you see how people react to your splits.

Some games, I'm uncontested, others, people are chasing me for days. If you see people correctly reacting to split pushing, then maybe your teammates aren't providing the pressure you need and splitting is not the best idea. Even if the champ kits don't provide for proper teamfights, grouping is fine and flanking and trying to take out that pesky adc/mid laner before dying is beneficial to your team.

Never be afraid to die if it's for a greater good. You can't win games unless you're willing to make sacrifices.

MonkeyMadness5 votes

Here's the problem: a split push strat almost entirely relies on one very key concept: the 4 non-splitpushers MUST be able to contend a 4v5 with the enemy team. If this condition is not met, split push = freelo for your enemies, as they will see your "splitpusher" away from the rest of the team, and immediately initiate on you for a free "ace". Now, at this point, all the trynd mains are screaming "well just don't engage on them" or "don't get caught". Well, unfortunately, it's not that simple. Like OP said, if you are doing nothing while your splitpusher is split pushing, they will simply feed off the splitpusher and then force down objectives with their numbers advantage. For a split push strat to work, the 4 other teammates must be pressuring elsewhere, which means their asses are hanging out for the enemy team to engage on. They WILL force a fight, and if your team can't manage to contend a 4v5 either by being fed or by having a carefully-selected and well-coordinated disengage, you will lose the fight. They will then take the remaining teammates they have left, and one of three things will happen, depending upon the specific outcome and which champs survived for both teams:

  1. a base race between your singular split pusher and any surviving enemies
  2. your split pusher is forced to recall to stave off the push if it's too strong
  3. free barons/dragons

While split pushing is an entirely valid strategy in virtually every meta, understand that it requires even more coordination than your average 5 man aoe teamfight comp. If all 5 members of your team are not on the same page, the risks of split pushing far outweigh the rewards, and you would be better served to just group up and try to fight as 5. Also, keep in mind that vision control is of paramount importance for a split push strat. If the enemy can see you split up, you are easy prey for picks and unfavorable teamfights. In the same vein, if you can see your enemies, you can much more easily avoid these unfavorable engages and picks.

Also, OP, you are entirely wrong about how splitpushers should be dying. If your split pusher dies more than once per turret taken, they are actually doing a disservice to the team (some exceptions, but in terms of turret gold, this is a good rule of thumb). Understand that when you are dead as a split pusher, the enemy team has a 5v4 and complete freedom to do whatever they want until you respawn.

Another requirement of split pushing is that you MUST have global mobility (ie teleport). Some champs (shen, panth, tf) have ultimates that accomplish similar goals, but the point is, if you cannot rejoin your team to sway the outcome of a teamfight at a moment's notice, the risks of splitting far outweigh the rewards.

Here's a list of tips that I've gathered on split pushing throughout my 5 years of playing this game:

  • Don't split push if you are significantly behind
  • Don't split push if the enemy has a split pusher that is better or more fed than yours
  • Don't split push if your enemy has an inhibitor advantage in a side lane (especially bot)
  • Don't split push if your vision is being systematically denied/if you have no vision control
  • Dont' split push if the enemy team has a teleport advantage (time those TPs) _
  • Be cautious when split pushing if the enemy team is highly mobile/has multiple Air Drakes
  • Be cautious when split pushing against a team with a stealth champ (ie twitch, eve, rengar) for obvious reasons _
  • Do split push when you are contesting an objective and you want to force the enemy to either split up to contend multiple objectives simultaneously, or concede one entirely (ie send your splitpusher bot side when you start a baron dance)
  • Do split push after securing a pick (it will be free towers for the split pusher and a 4v4 for the rest of the team)
  • Do split push if the enemy team has a very defensive team comp that excels at breaking your siege and clearing minion waves. This combined with proper rotation will eventually allow you to break their defensive position, at which point they will be hard pressed to fight you.

Edit: Please note that backdooring is an entirely different strategy that pretty much disobeys all of these rules, as it relies almost entirely on the element of surprise, and is high risk, high reward play in most cases.

Brain Errör 4042 votes

Hey, this is good information and you are very much correct.

My intention isn't to make people think that splitting is the answer to all of their problems. I just want them to understand what good splitting entails.

If I got into all of the points of split pushing, this post would turn into a book. But I like your compact points, I have trouble putting words to my thoughts and this is very well composed. I hope it gets seen as more do's and don't for split pushers rather than the team.

MonkeyMadness2 votes

Ya I get what you're saying, but as a plat 4/5 player that plays predominantly soloQ, I see split pushing strats causing a lot more harm than good. Too often I see would-be splitpushers hide behind their false concept of this strategy to justify what basically becomes afk farming top lane, and when you ask one of these types of players to group up, they will frequently become overtly toxic and offended and frequently cause a great deal of tilting by effectively holding the other 4 players hostage to their preferred strategy instead of coordinating with the team and performing the role that the team requires of them.

Brain Errör 4042 votes

Yeah, I can see where this type of split pushing can quickly become a problem. What I like to do is split until I can draw 1 or 2 people to me and then run to my team for us to force a fight. I find split pushing is effective for different reasons rather than sitting top playing whack-a-mole. If the team is behind as a whole, and I'm capable of 1v1ing everyone of their team, then I find splitting to be better for obvious reasons.

It gives my team some breathing room to farm and shove out lanes, and opens up objectives on the other side of the map. The problem with split pushers is that they don't back off in time when enemies are starting to show up. I'm guilty of this sometimes myself, lol.

Forcing uneven fights, I find, is the best chance of a comeback when you're completely behind as it gets. Decision making/map awareness/match up knowledge/team comp knowledge are all attributes to have when considering split pushing. Unfortunately, even I freeze up and split incorrectly myself sometimes. You can't execute the same strategy every game and expect to win, so yeah.

Ale non è male1 votes

{quoted}

Here's a list of tips that I've gathered on split pushing throughout my 5 years of playing this game:

  • Don't split push if you are significantly behind

That's one of the worst advices you could give. There are actually a few amount of situations where splitpushing is a viable strategy...and being significantly behind is one of these situations. If you can't have a significant impact in those fights and you are going to lose 5vs5 fights, you'll better going push a side lane so that 1) you can get farm, XP and gold to catch up in power 2)provide something useful to your team in terms of map pressure 3) make the enemy waste time on chasing a useless person, giving to the people that can do something on your team the time/possibility to do something The thing is, you got to learn how to properly set a pushing wave without going too far away from your base (before gromp/krugs bush in a side lane, river in mid lane) in these situations so you don't get caught too much out of position dying which would make your splitpush even more of a tragedy for your team, and then proceed beyond that point only if you are safe to do it so. I have seen too many times people that were capable to push from a top inner tower to the enemy top inner tower without building a pushing minion wave, with the result that when they backed off or get caught and die the enemy top lane was still pushing while the team lost fights and objective in their absence

  • Don't split push if your enemy has an inhibitor advantage in a side lane (especially bot)

Meh, that's not always true, this really depends on how is the mid situation is going and the big objectives situation (being drake/baron up or down, have your team the possibility to stop or contest it or not, etc..). If the enemy can't get to your mid inhib fast and they are going for a dragon/baron that you can't contest, you send someone people clear the side lane with the inhib down, another on the opposite lane split pushing, and the others clearing mid. Then when the enemies get back focusing on mid or on the lane where the inhib is down, you have two lanes pushing for you and so if they can't immediately win the teamfight or you can stall them they are going to forced to back because of the pressure you have put on them or they risk to lose towers/inhib for free which can open you a road for a win that you didn't previously have

MonkeyMadness2 votes

You understand that this is for ranked, right? A queue that is famous for people refusing to communicate and otherwise being toxic. If you are behind and trying to split push, you WILL lose almost 100% of the time unless your communication and coordination are impeccable, and this is simply not possible without voice chat. Here is what will happen in 9 out of 10 games if you do this: enemy team sees a split pusher, enemy team engages 5v4, enemy team gets the "ace" and completely ignores the underfed split pusher that is basically slapping their tower with a pool noodle, enemy team runs down mid and ends the game. Note that I also said "significantly behind". If you are down a few kills or towers and want to secure more map pressure, the risks may be worth the rewards. But if you are just split pushing until death (which is pretty much a guarantee if you are very behind) you are not really helping your team.

Ale non è male2 votes

{quoted}

You understand that this is for ranked, right? A queue that is famous for people refusing to communicate and otherwise being toxic. If you are behind and trying to split push, you WILL lose almost 100% of the time unless your communication and coordination are impeccable, and this is simply not possible without voice chat. Here is what will happen in 9 out of 10 games if you do this: enemy team sees a split pusher, enemy team engages 5v4, enemy team gets the "ace" and completely ignores the underfed split pusher that is basically slapping their tower with a pool noodle, enemy team runs down mid and ends the game. Note that I also said "significantly behind". If you are down a few kills or towers and want to secure more map pressure, the risks may be worth the rewards. But if you are just split pushing until death (which is pretty much a guarantee if you are very behind) you are not really helping your team.

You are assuming your team is 9 times out of 10 not coordinated BUT their team always is, which is...meh...questionable at best (if not just straight out a HUGE contradiction in your own reasoning)? Enemy team is as much coordinated as yours, namely very little, so they can take drake/baron at wrong time or miscalculate the effect of their dive, or just have a guy doiung his own things while the other guys group

If you are 100% losing 5vs5 when grouping, you can't force grouping yourselves, you are shooting in your foot because on the very next teamfight you are going to lose just like you were doing earlier and so on till they close it

You got to do something to break the pace, and splitpushing is exactly that thing you can do alone if you can't get other objectives or picks - which are thing you are not capable to do when you are significantly behind - ...which does not mean splitpushing until death, because it is clear that sooner or later the enemy will dive 5vs4 or send 5 people at you and quickly back to fight 5vs4 your team, and would represent a wrong application of splitpushing strategy

You got to dance while splitpushing in those situations, and probably you shouldn't even get to the point when you are attacking the tower because the enemy has too much routes to get behind you (unless you have set up perfectly vision or you know the current location of enemies), but it is your minion wave that is doing that for you

The problem is that people can't understand this simple reasoning, that's why there is flaming and why splitpushing can often fail... but if you recognize the situation, that's the only thing you can do if you want to try to win rather than just surrender and move on to the next game. You say to your team to stall if the enemies aren't immediately close to mid inhib, and pray they don't die immediately like dumbasses because they engage or are getting engaged 4vs5 while you can't help them because you haven't even had the time to set up the pushing wave (and you could need to wait because your incoming minion wave is in a disadvantage situation with your enemy incoming minion wave)

MonkeyMadness1 votes

You don't need superior coordination if you are ahead, that's what I'm saying here. You are making the case that split pushing is a valid strategy to catch up after you've fallen behind. I'm saying this may be true if you are behind in map pressure, but if the enemy team is downright fed, split pushing will virtually guarantee a loss for you.

Brain Errör 4042 votes

There's a saying. When you're so far behind a win seems unattainable, then it's better to go balls to the walls rather than play it safe because you're not gonna gain anything anyways. Better pray for a victory rather than stall for a defeat.

MonkeyMadness1 votes

There's also a saying that if you are losing in League of Legends, ff@20...

Let me be abundantly clear: if you play "balls to the walls" while behind in League, you are ensuring your victory. If you find yourself behind in this game, the ONLY way to make a "comeback" is to force a late game in which both teams end up approximately equal. After playing this game for 5 years and reaching the plat level, I can say from experience that making ballsy plays while behind is usually a death sentence.

Brain Errör 4041 votes

You think so? Lets put this scenerio out.

Your teamcomp:

Ahri Blitzcrank Evelynn Vayne Riven

Enemy team comp:

Brand Ashe Malphite Zyra Amumu

Based on these team comps, say you're behind, the enemy team is just stomping and grouping, are you saying that if you stall out long enough your team is going to straight up win?

I think not. At this point, you guys lost at champ select. The BEST way for you to win is to take as MUCH risky plays as you can and pray that they work out. Because if you don't, you're guaranteed a loss either way.

This is just my opinion, but do you really think things would be looking at the plus side, that your team has any snowballs chance of coming back from, lets say, a 4k gold deficit?

I'd run a 3-1-1 or 1-1-3 at this point, go for picks and avoid teamfights at all cost. There's only so much you can do, yeah ff-ing is the save time/save face option, but maybe the team doesn't want to. So the only thing to do is try. Scratch KDA, scratch grouping, scratch trying to come up with some kind of super strategy and stalling out. This is where you have no choice but go balls to the wall, lol.

MonkeyMadness1 votes

This game is only lost in champ select if you are bronze. This is easily winnable unless you literally have 0 skill at positioning. Any team with a blitz survives on getting picks. Ahri can also secure picks easily with her charm. That the problem with wombo combo teams, if one of them dies before the fight starts, the wombo is broken. All you need to do is not clump up for the malp ult and ur good, as this will be their primary initiation along with ashe arrow. Amumu ult might also be used as primary engage, but given that the malp ult and ashe arrow are both easier to hit and safer, he will likely follow up on the stunned targets.

Brain Errör 4041 votes

But all of what you said is just proving my point. The second team comp isn't such a huge "wombo" as you'd think. They have plenty set ups and missing one of their champs aren't going to mess up their comp as much as the first team comp missing, say, their blitz would be.

Basically, the 2nd team is a ticking time bomb, whiles the first team --I threw vayne in there to be the saving grace -- is more of a pick/split team. However, teamfights would be the worst thing for the first team to be doing. On that note, having 0 wave clear, they can't really hold out if the first team decides to siege. So the Riven/Eve would have to create as much pressure as they can so the other set of people can nab as much objectives as they can. One bad group could potentially ace the first team.

But you already know all this. This is what you'd call a "you lost at champ" select scenario, but what that really means is that the game is a disadvantage to you, not that it's a guarantee'd loss. If you play to your team's strengths, games could go either way.

MonkeyMadness1 votes

Let me tell you what I would do if I were that amumu (I am an amumu main, btw, so I identify with this enemy team comp) and I saw the riven split pushing. I would start by telling the rest of my team to completely ignore her, and then engage on the remaining 4 members for the free-est of teamfight wins and then proceed to crash on mid towers as a full team of 5 while riven proceeds to get nothing done in a side lane. GG EZ.

Brain Errör 4041 votes

But if they group together they lose anyways. That was my whole point. :P

MonkeyMadness1 votes

If they group but don't clump they stand a good chance in a fair fight.

Ale non è male1 votes

{quoted}

There's also a saying that if you are losing in League of Legends, ff@20...

Let me be abundantly clear: if you play "balls to the walls" while behind in League, you are ensuring your victory. If you find yourself behind in this game, the ONLY way to make a "comeback" is to force a late game in which both teams end up approximately equal. After playing this game for 5 years and reaching the plat level, I can say from experience that making ballsy plays while behind is usually a death sentence.

Sigh, you are really not understanding at all (which is further proof that rank says absolutely nothing about game knowledge). You don't have to take risky moves there or go balls to the walls here, you have to use the " Dead Times" that there are there when teams are going to group and fight to pressure them to give you a chance to win. If your timing is right and your team is not made of morons you should have enough time to back off and get in time for the fight (at least for mid-end of the fight).

Example: the enemy team is ahead and got a pick on your jungler in your jungle, they decide to go Baron/Drake because your inhib turrets are up and you can't contest at all while their waves are slowly pushing What are you gonna do, sit mid doing nothing waiting for a fight and farm your jungle? While they will come back grouped and with a full wave of empowered minions (aka you'll lose the fight regardless). Or estimate the time they'll need to get the objective they want and push 1-2 lane and create pressure in case they can't decisively win the fight? You go for the second option, even if it means you have to rely on your team to avoid the fight for some extra time if the wave situation is not favourable on the push, because the other options mean 100% lose the game

Example 2: the enemy has at least all the inner tower turrets up, they break your side lane inhib after a formation/skirmish and decide to back because they are at around half/60% ho because they don't want to take useless risks to immediately lose the game while their mid wave is almost at your inhib tower. What are you gonna do? Group mid and push all the way to the mid outer turret that you are unable to get because by the time you clean mid and get to the tower they have regenerated and can defend the siege and if you not win decisively the fight and take down the tower (which you won't since you are significantly behind) their bot minion wave will get to your Nexus tower and their top lane wave to you inhib, making impossibile for your to win the game even if you narrowly win that fight getting a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 2? Or you send a pair of guys pushing back bot before empowered minions arrive, other cleaning mid and a guy pushing top to put a potential danger on them and make them choosing between losing some time immediately cleaning it (which give you more time to push mid/bot with the guys on your team that are cleaning it) or leave it alone with the risk that if you can somehow don't get stomped in the next bot/mid fight they can't go straight for your Nexus because your top minion wave is putting serious danger on them and so they have to send someone back giving you time to defend and catch eventually up? You go for the second option, because with the first you lose the game even winning the teamfight

Then, the win percentage when you do that is low, because, obviously, if you are so behind even a minor mistake doing by someone on your team can waste 20 minutes of this little slow work you do to get you back in the game and make it useless when they ace you. But if you want still try to win to whatever reason (do you ff@20 if it is your promo?) rather than 100% lose you got to do that rather than grouping like headless chickens

MonkeyMadness1 votes

If your timing is right and your team is not made of morons

Have you ever actually played soloQ??? Half of the players are either morons or completely ignore the chat, making such coordination impossible. That's what I'm saying. You can't rely on a strategy that requires coordination if there is no coordination. Split pushing is completely valid, if you haven't gleaned that opinion from what I'm saying then you are clearly not reading my posts. However, it is NOT valid in most soloQ games, as the coordination simply isn't there. And rank absolutely does mean everything, because in a plat game, teams will know how to punish lack of coordination and other mistakes much harder. So if you have a disjointed team trying to split push, you will get rekt by anyone who knows anything about the game (which all players in plat absolutely do). Stop with the self-righteousness of the "rank doesn't equate to skill or game knowledge". That's EXACTLY what it equates to, which is why players like me get so fkin pissed when we encounter boosters and DQ animals.

Ale non è male1 votes

{quoted}

Have you actually answered to any argument here? Because you have stated the obvious here, that teams in SoloQ are not coordinated (except both teams are more often than not in the same situation in skill level and coordination because matchmaking regardless of rank), you have not given an explanation why when significantly behind you have always try to group and never split, which was your original argument

Of course split is not always possible even when would be the optimal choice here...but still, we are arguing on a different point, namely : do you go for group and fight even if you are losing any teamfight till that point, or are you going to try split and hope it somehow work?

MonkeyMadness1 votes

It's easier to defend a split push than it is to pull one off.

Ale non è male1 votes

{quoted}

It's easier to defend a split push than it is to pull one off.

Sigh. We are talking about the decisione making of the team behind, not of the team significantly ahead. If your team is significantly behind, how the hell is easier to win a teamfight 5vs 5 than Split and then try to fight when one of the enemies is sent to defend the Split? Because if you could have a good chance to win teamfights you would have yet grouped and have success in doing it so, right? If I am ahead I want to force big teamfights if I think I can win them easily and fight, or I can just decide to keep piling up objective until I'm sure I can win fights with no risks. And even if you do a miscalculation once or twice, I have so big of an advantage that I can just shrug it off and don't repeat the same mistake to win

MonkeyMadness1 votes

You don't fight 5v5, you sit in your base under tower and farm the super minion waves that push in. The only time you fight is at towers if they are ballsy enough to dive you. If they win these fights, then there's nothing you can do, so sure, in these cases go ahead and split push, but it's not going to amount to anything.

Ale non è male1 votes

{quoted}

You don't fight 5v5, you sit in your base under tower and farm the super minion waves that push in. The only time you fight is at towers if they are ballsy enough to dive you. If they win these fights, then there's nothing you can do, so sure, in these cases go ahead and split push, but it's not going to amount to anything.

AhAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Game knowledge based on rank my ass. Why they shouldn't dive you if they have asuper/more super minion waves going? I mean, they have minimal risk at that point, if they do not completely screw up in their dive and lose big you are still not capable to defend and push back because you are using your damage spells on enemies to kill them while super minions take down the tower and you have low damage and low health/mana to repel them so you got to lose time to defend and when the enemies respawn you have made no advancement from an objective point of view while your towers (IF they are still up, and they could not be) are getting weaker for the next fight, while the other enemies waves are getting in in the other lanes You are relying in enemy going to ballsy and failing multiple times dives in a row, which is not more realistic than your team being coordinated enough to do their job in a Split situation (and their job can be merely not fight at wrong times and push at good times).

MonkeyMadness1 votes

Have you ever actually played League? What a team SHOULD do when they are ahead and what the ACTUALLY do are almost never the same thing. The point is, when you are behind, you either need to force the enemy to fight on your terms (ie under towers) or you need to wait for them to make mistakes. Stop acting like this is wrong, I've been winning games like this for years. Split pushing while behind is really not split pushing at all, it's backdooring, which I made abundantly clear is an entirely different strategy.

notice me Sin pi4 votes

speaking of splitpushing, one of the reason Faker is considered the best midlaner in LoL history despite feeding in some games is cuz of splitpushing. Over 90% of times faker "feeds" in LCS games, one of the following usually happens: 1) an enemy turret/inhib blows up 2) dragon/baron gets taken 3) SKT wins vision war vision war doesnt rly matter in most of our casual games tho

ZephyrDrake4 votes

and then you see splitpushers that decide to be literally on the enemy tier two turrets while his entire team is at base and then proceed to complain because the enemy send 5 people to kill his ass and the rest of us couldn't get anything on the map. Or when there are no dragons or objectives to take and he still decides to splitpush and die while the enemy has champions that can very easily just get rid of minion waves so they just send two other people kill his ass and then nothing is gained... or when they decide to leave their team and splitpush while the enemy has baron and is pushing with their entire team down mid and they think that splitpushing would do anything and then cry and complain when we couldn't hold down the inhib

Brain Errör 4048 votes

Those are mindless split pushers. Lol.

One important thing for split pushing is map awareness. without it, you're not gonna accomplish much.

BeeCuz5 votes

If the enemy team bunches up then split pushing can punish them for leaving their assets undefended.

DareDevil03101 votes

[{quoted}](name=Brain Errör 404,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=26JNFmAa,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2016-10-27T04:33:22.729+0000)

Those are mindless split pushers. Lol.

One important thing for split pushing is map awareness. without it, you're not gonna accomplish much.

I'm new to split pushing, so what would you do in those situations? Freeze and farm? Group?

48983507DEL14 votes

[{quoted}](name=Media TM,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=26JNFmAa,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-27T03:24:05.548+0000)

it's because they KNOW what their doing.

Except Yasuo players. I'm pretty sure they legit just want to try and 1v5.

Ariel the Cruel4 votes

On a similar topic: item 3512 item 3060 If I use those near a lane that is pushed to our side of the map, DON'T FARM THE MINION WAVE. I've already done the hard part of setting up for a monster wave. If you farm the wave I just used to set up, you're going to reverse the effect. Our wave will push in super fast then stall either at a turret or at the end of Zz'rot's range. This ends up creating a monster wave for the enemy team instead.

I don't want to count how many times people have farmed the wave, flipped shit when I told them to back off, then freaked out when a 5 cannon minion wave suddenly incinerates our inhib.

For those not familiar with the concept: A monster wave is when multiple minion waves get stalled and start overlapping each other into a massive red blob on the mini-map. They are achieved by giving one team's wave a slight advantage over the other and grow in potency (and set-up time) they closer they start to your nexus. When allowed to grow, they have the same effect as a split-pusher in creating map pressure. Biggest difference between split-pushing and monster-waves: Monster waves split the enemy team without splitting yours, monster waves have to be planned well in advance (minutes if you want that 5+ cannon wave).

EDIT: And yes, it is entirely possible to create enemy monster waves without touching minions by misusing these items. I've seen it done.

devdev4633 votes

On the flip side, people tend to split at the most retarded times where they won't get anything out of it. Yeah go ahead start splitting from the minions at our inner turret even though their only turret left is the inhibitor turret and all their waves are pushing in on us. Do you know how long the 4 man team would have to "distract" the enemy for that split to be effective? A long fucking time, and more often than not the enemy will just take any of the other out or inner turrets or baron if all those are down.

The split pusher and the team with them must be in sync for split pushing to work effectively. It's not always them twiddling their thumbs the split pusher sometimes leaves at a poor time and fucks the team's momentum up.

Villainous V3 votes

Hey my dude. How do you mention split pushers without putting up nasus or jax? Those guys chunk turrets quickly if built right and usually can't be 1v1'd

Battlecast Sona2 votes

To be honest, while I agree with your points I think it's a pretty poor mindset to have.

Yes, there are certain champs that are MUCH better at splitpushing and don't contribute as much to teamfights. HOWEVER, if you've either A) Splitpushed both side lanes to the inhib or B) gotten rekt too many times in a row and now can't splitpush, it is 100% better to group with your team, even if your teamfight IS weaker. I'm so tired of losing games because that Tryn is 0/10 toplane and can't make any progress on that or bot lane. He would be much better served grouping up at that point, instead of just bashing his head worthlessly on the tower for no gain.

Splitpushing is great as long as it brings gains to your team. Splitpushing by itself is not always the answer. Also, something shockingly lacking from your post: buy wards. If you are splitpushing and the enemy's jungle isn't warded you're doing it wrong. If you see a splitpusher one of the biggest ways you can assist them is by giving them vision of the enemy team - a ward or two in top jungle as Tryn splitpushes can make his splitpush MUCH more successful, because he can disengage without dying instead of dying to a gank - either way, the enemy team is forced to rotate. It also allows your splitpusher to make more informed decisions - if they see 5 people go into fog it's hard to decide if they can finish that turret and disengage before the team gets there to kill them, but if they see 5 people hit fog and only 1 is heading towards them the decision gets easier to make.

tl;dr: Stop splitpushing if it's not doing anything, because even a weak teamfighter is better than a feeding splitpusher. And buy wards.

Rakvir2 votes

What about people playing splitpush champions, who ARE splitpushing...but don't understand why the rest of us are actually doing what we should be by taking objectives, and complain and eventually troll and/or afk (eventually losing because it is now a 4v5 game in which we have lost one of our few win conditions (the ignorant member who threw us under the bus) because we AREN'T stopping them from being 4v1 ganked, no matter how much we take for their sacrifice?

Not sarcasm, I'm serious. Had players before not able to understand what splitpushing actually means all the while doing it, say they're splitpushing, but then expect the team to have their back for a teamfight the moment anyone comes up to stop them.

Poorly Dressed1 votes

People in this game only know how to group. "Can we group?" There is no alternative strategy. Group or lose.

Jeddy0174 votes

Correction: It's not "Can we group?", it's "Can waste time & resources ARAM-ing for 15 minutes?"

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