How to leverage a lead as Pyke support

FlashistDiktator·Oct 24, 2018·1 votes·915 views

I just played a game as Pyke and I was doing pretty well, and by around 20-25 minutes i was 12/3. However, I main support, and before picking up Pyke I mainly played Soraka and Rakan, so I have no idea how to carry a game as a fed assassin. I had started with a tank build, and changed it up for some damage late game, but by that point their whole team was so tanked-up that I couldn't do much but harass them and hope my team could lower them enough to start an ult chain. Any thoughts or tips?

5 Comments

Tr4shB4NSYST3MOct 24, 20181 votes

I just started playing pyke a lot (mainly a midlane player, play a decent bit of yasuo and also play assassins).

Biggest way to use your lead as pyke is roaming. If you get ahead botlane use it, be agressive in lane and force them back/kill one then roam mid w/ your jg if their mid backs off, cool your mid gets priority and free farm and you can help jg take dragon and enemy team can't contest.

If your mid is a champ who can solo lane in a side-lane (yasuo, ekko, assassins), try to take the botlane turret asap so you and your adc can rotate mid, this unlocks your roams even more since you can roam to both sides of the river to support your JG, or roam top/bot.

B/c of his execute ult pyke and an ally with damage will be able to have kill pressure on pretty much any enemy champ (unless theyre both super far behind), and you can easily force flashes etc.

But yeah, pyke's best way to use a lane is the same as a midlane assassin who gets ahead, roam and get the rest of your team ahead. However as i said at the start, try to avoid doing this at the expense of your adc.

FlashistDiktatorOct 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I just started playing pyke a lot (mainly a midlane player, play a decent bit of yasuo and also play assassins).

Biggest way to use your lead as pyke is roaming. If you get ahead botlane use it, be agressive in lane and force them back/kill one then roam mid w/ your jg if their mid backs off, cool your mid gets priority and free farm and you can help jg take dragon and enemy team can't contest.

If your mid is a champ who can solo lane in a side-lane (yasuo, ekko, assassins), try to take the botlane turret asap so you and your adc can rotate mid, this unlocks your roams even more since you can roam to both sides of the river to support your JG, or roam top/bot.

B/c of his execute ult pyke and an ally with damage will be able to have kill pressure on pretty much any enemy champ (unless theyre both super far behind), and you can easily force flashes etc.

But yeah, pyke's best way to use a lane is the same as a midlane assassin who gets ahead, roam and get the rest of your team ahead. However as i said at the start, try to avoid doing this at the expense of your adc.

I've been trying to work on that, and I've been making ok progress (I'm in mid bronze so it's not too hard to force flashes and the like with some cheesy pyke play), what would you recommend once it becomes kind of an ARAM? We had good objective control, pushed turrets onto two inhibs, and then I kind of hit a wall where I'd try to roam to get an inhib or tower, run away from a 2 or 3 man response, and find that they'd regrouped by the time I returned. I'm thinking this specific case was just due to how tanky their team was, it was a Vlad and a Leona, with an Akali that I was having trouble pinning down. Do I just need to work on mechanics and positioning to be able to solo kill two or three people once I'm that far ahead? Sorry if I'm being repetitive or unclear, I've been playing for a couple years and I'm just now trying to get into a lot of the macro play and map control aspects, rather than playing reactively.

Tr4shB4NSYST3MOct 24, 20181 votes

Pyke certainly does have a tougher time in the full 5v5 as well as against tankyer champs even if he's ahead b/c his low hp pool makes him pretty easy to burst down if focused.

If the game becomes an aram imo you have 2 decent options.

The safer bet (especially if you arent super ahead) would be to play a thresh/blitz style and fish for hooks on an out of position target and use that to help your team slowly work the enemy hp down, as well as be a secondary engage (if your team has an Ornn or Sion top for example), even with aftershock pyke is way too squishy to be the main engage for a teamfight, but as a secondary engager he can layer his CC with others and be a big factor in the teamfight.

The second option is far more risky (and you dont wanna do this unless youre confidently ahead)- Looking for a backline flank and trying to blow up a carry, this works especially well in a midlane aram b/c you can use your W to dip into the jungle and get behind the enemy team, and when theyre distracted trying to poke at your allied 4man, or better yet if they blow cooldowns and try to engage you can easily hook and jump into the backline with your E and be a huge disruption in the fight, and even if you don't get an execute on their adc the disruption gives your team an opportunity to counter engage.

Unfortunately like most supports even with his good damage potential and CC pyke needs his team to help him carry and some teams are just destined to lose.

FlashistDiktatorOct 26, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Pyke certainly does have a tougher time in the full 5v5 as well as against tankyer champs even if he's ahead b/c his low hp pool makes him pretty easy to burst down if focused.

If the game becomes an aram imo you have 2 decent options.

The safer bet (especially if you arent super ahead) would be to play a thresh/blitz style and fish for hooks on an out of position target and use that to help your team slowly work the enemy hp down, as well as be a secondary engage (if your team has an or top for example), even with aftershock pyke is way too squishy to be the main engage for a teamfight, but as a secondary engager he can layer his CC with others and be a big factor in the teamfight.

The second option is far more risky (and you dont wanna do this unless youre confidently ahead)- Looking for a backline flank and trying to blow up a carry, this works especially well in a midlane aram b/c you can use your W to dip into the jungle and get behind the enemy team, and when theyre distracted trying to poke at your allied 4man, or better yet if they blow cooldowns and try to engage you can easily hook and jump into the backline with your E and be a huge disruption in the fight, and even if you don't get an execute on their adc the disruption gives your team an opportunity to counter engage.

Unfortunately like most supports even with his good damage potential and CC pyke needs his team to help him carry and some teams are just destined to lose.

Aight that makes a lot of sense, thanks man! I'll keep that in mind, Pyke's pretty op so i usually don't need to worry about tough teamfights when I can blow up laning phase and make my team take a strong lead but its good to prepare for the cases where I need to think around the enemy team

Tr4shB4NSYST3MOct 26, 20181 votes

Ya can't always keep all your team-members from feeding ;) LOL