It feels like people really don't know how to play from behind

TehNACHO··56 votes·4,446 views

Like they REALLY don't know how to play from behind

  • Laners who continue to build full damage into a losing lane, running straight to lane to get one cs, poked/traded to a pulp, and then dived under tower if they haven't already died.
  • Carries that refuse to build Statikk Shiv or Luden's Echo or any other items that can help their champion's natural waveclear, meaning that if they fall behind and are undeniably behind the enemy carry in raw combat stats, they have little to no waveclear to defend our now losing sieges.
  • Fighters and some tanks that are in the wrong place during sieges. Actually, I take it back, nobody knows where they are supposed to be during a siege. The carries who aren't building enough waveclear are too far back to defend the tower while it gets chipped away. The fighters who can't defend sieges for crap are placing themselves in front the turrets hoping to catch the minion waves, basically painting giant target signs on their faces yelling "Hey, poke me for free!". I can't decide what's worse; when a team queues a teamcomp that can't siege but tries to siege anyway, or when a team actually has a decent siege comp but still loses a defensive siege anyway!
  • Everybody reacts. Nobody knows how to initiate action or plan ahead. I've honestly been abusing this strategy far too much personally, and it's a terrible strategy so I can't believe it's actually working on people. Build waveclear, build movement speed, shove one lane, and the moment you see an enemy coming near you, run off to another lane and shove that lane. Is the enemy team gonna 5v4 my teammates knowing I'm being dumb? Hell, even 5v5 us because I'm not building for combat anyways? Maybe get Dragon or Baron while I'm dicking off on the opposite side of the map? No, I'll have people chasing me around while I run much faster than they do and clear waves more efficiently then they can.

What happened to the days when it was common sense to build SOME defense if you're losing lane. To sit under tower or even just leave lane and roam somewhere else to be useful? And not even waveclear, why does it feel like people are still too anal about their cookie cutter builds right now, during the preseason when everything is in flux anyway cough Executioner's Calling? Why does nobody seem to know their place during a siege. Why are people still reacting poorly to the stupidest splitpushing strategies when splitpushing is so weak right now?

I'm 100% convinced that the only reason why games are decided so early is because nobody knows what to do after that first misplay or loss and just watch the snowball form.

EDIT:

Thank you PrismalDawn, I just remembered something else that pisses me off

Fighting in the middle of nowhere. Near the dragon pit when Dragon's not spawning for another 3 minutes. In the middle of mid lane with no towers anywhere nearby. Chasing enemy champions into unwarded territory to get killed even though there was nothing to gain for killing somebody there and then anyway.

Less to do with people not knowing how to play behind, but MAYBE the game won't feel so damn snowball-y if teams stopped getting aced for literally no reason.

EDIT:

Ooh, another thing.

When a laner dies before the Jungler even has a chance to clear their second buff and are spam pinging the Jungler to come save their lane for them. At the same time though, they seem to be doing everything in their power to make it as difficult as possible for the Jungler to gank, all while blaming the Jungler for anything that happens all throughout game. These guys are almost always the same people in my first example - building damage, getting into fights they already should know they can't win, and then losing lane even harder than before. They can't manage their waveclear, they can't call out warded routes, and excuse you if their laner came to your lane without any warning or MIA pings.

On a similar vein, people expecting their supports to cover for their shitty plays. I realize Braum's theme is Stand Behind Me but can you stop sacrificing him to the enemy team every 5 minutes?

61 Comments

Very Hard Engage31 votes

shiv/ludens is a terrible item to build when behind. not only do you screw up the whole wave and fail to last hit minions under tower because you just offset the turrets capabilities to last hit minions, now with your now cripplingly weak auto attacks... you also mess up your whole build if that wasn't reason enough.

secondly, YOU HAVE to build damage when behind, because when everyone in the room builds damage theres a chance you can win. when youre AHEAD you build tanky to stay ahead, when your'e behind you build DAMAGE to become able to kill the ahead laner. - source QTPIE

lastly, the secret to actually winning the game from behind is to pick off a carry before the team fight starts, you can not win from an overwhelming stat disadvantage, you NEED to give yourself an artificial gold equalization, by removing a carry, which is doable if you pull off a goon squad moment sitting in enemy brush and whacking him as he walks through. your only alternative win condition is to steal the baron. its very unlikely you have a good team fight comp such as amumu/miss fortune, thats rare, but if you have it go for it.

Sujiren4 votes

{quoted}

shiv/ludens is a terrible item to build when behind. not only do you screw up the whole wave and fail to last hit minions under tower because you just offset the turrets capabilities to last hit minions, now with your now cripplingly weak auto attacks... you also mess up your whole build if that wasn't reason enough.

secondly, YOU HAVE to build damage when behind, because when everyone in the room builds damage theres a chance you can win. when youre AHEAD you build tanky to stay ahead, when your'e behind you build DAMAGE to become able to kill the ahead laner. - source QTPIE

lastly, the secret to actually winning the game from behind is to pick off a carry before the team fight starts, you can not win from an overwhelming stat disadvantage, you NEED to give yourself an artificial gold equalization, by removing a carry, which is doable if you pull off a goon squad moment sitting in enemy brush and whacking him as he walks through. your only alternative win condition is to steal the baron. its very unlikely you have a good team fight comp such as amumu/miss fortune, thats rare, but if you have it go for it.

This guy gets it.

Pierce The Veal2 votes

This. I get what the OP is getting at but he's a prime example of people not knowing what to do when behind.

One thing to do when behind (or even when ahead for that matter) is try to form a web of the players on your team. What do I mean by this? You should try to be able to reach the nearest champion to you within a few seconds. Essentilly what this means is you will be able to collapse on people who would otherwise murder your teammates in a 1v1, thereby turning it into a 5v4 or a 5v3, then force objectives/teamfight then and there to have a chance to get back ahead.

Wínters Dawn10 votes

as a jungler, the laners I encounter want to whine about everything. *I'm not even lvl3 and my top laner has died now he's bm'ing in chat how jungle has no map awarness,, IT WASNT EVEN AN ENEMY GANK"

Lauchmelder10 votes

It's a side effect of that retarded "QQ I lost my lane, game's over, ff@20" mentality.

Dasdi968 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shuriman God,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EOWnyp9l,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2017-12-11T11:49:58.720+0000)

It's a side effect of that retarded "QQ I lost my lane, game's over, ff@20" mentality.

Yeah, when one lane is doing well, another is going even, then we have that one lane who keeps spamming ff because “wah I am gonna do the least damage in teamfights because I am behind I can’t have that since that is called getting carried I would rather lose than get carried because it will my e-peen shrink.”

LXII4 votes

To be fair, if that lane is Bot lane you probably really did lose the game already. Lol

deadlychuck2 votes

Which is the side effect of riot designing their game with a highly aggressive with a risk/reward philosophy. It chased out the majority of the people who didn't have that mentality, because when the average high risk/reward outcome is remarkably higher than the average low risk/reward outcome.

The result is what feels like an arms race rather than a strategic battle.

Aggro sets the tempo in league, and riot has done nothing for years to address it. Though all of the marksmen, assassin, tank, fighter, and even support metas of the past few years, the game has always been an aggro meta.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shuriman God,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EOWnyp9l,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2017-12-11T11:49:58.720+0000)

It's a side effect of that retarded "QQ I lost my lane, game's over, ff@20" mentality.

Yeah I had this game earlier where our botlane was a little behind and so they gave up and basically inted by forcing stupid fights. We had a chance for a long time but they continuously whittled it down until we didn't stand a chance.

abca986 votes

Wanna know what's even better? https://youtu.be/U81zn6rHeFU Both of them fed, both of them are adc', but hey let's gank!

Titanium706 votes

Dont know how? lol.

It feels like people don't know it's possible to play from behind! x'D

Durzaka6 votes

Your first 2 points are absolute horseshit.

You don't recover a lane from behind by building defense, because defense is never efficient if you start doing it reactively. ESPECIALLY top lane. If you weren't planning on going defensive, switching to a defensive item while your lane opponent probably already has 3/4 of a Black Cleaver built is just going to cost you the lane even more. And besides Top and Jg, no one else can actually build defensive early. No mage (except Ryze) can get away with it and still be relevant at any point in the game.

Building Shiv is a TERRIBLE thing to do if you are behind. You basically give up every single fight you can possibly have from that point on because the enemy has a MASSIVE damage advantage. So they can force every fight and you either need to give up (getting farther behind) or you die. You don't need more waveclear as an ADC if you are behind. Youre going to be pushed into your turret anyways. if youre still defending bot and not team fighting, you have time to get the CS. If youre team fighting/getting sieged, you let your mid laner deal with the waves.

Your second and third point are true, but have nothing to do with playing from behind. That is true of all games, and is part of what makes higher level player just that, higher level. But they are not playing from behind mechanics. Because if you assume both teams are competent, the team that is ahead will do the same things and outmatch you at every turn.

PrismalDawn5 votes

This is very true. Also people are very stupid and go full retard ARAM mode after the laning phase is through. Pretty retarded to see people do the backwards waltz for 40 minutes.

GripaAviara5 votes

The game does 0 effort to educate you into being a better player

JoeMG1 votes

{quoted}

The game does 0 effort to educate you into being a better player

That's a big point. Most of what I know I learned from Halo - things like when to push objectives, when to regroup and stuff. But even after almost 4 years of league I still feel like there's a lot I don't know about gameplay tactics.

Even if I did know, actually coordinating with 4 other people is a task in itself.

Marshbouy5 votes

I honestly think that people not understanding how to play from behind anymore or giving up instantly contributes more towards quicker games than any thing else.

deadlychuck1 votes

Probably, but it's not accurate to say people don't understand how to play from behind anymore, because the people who currently don't know how to play from behind never knew how to do so. Riot just neglected all of the players who would play from behind (the long game players) to the point that the community is now comprised of people who were never interested in learning how to do that.

Succubús GF4 votes

Generally if I'm getting stomped on, even if I am not dying, but just know I wont be 1v1ing my enemy laner (As a mid lane main) I just sit under turret farm, grab raptors, continue to farm and make picks where I can. People forget how essential farming is. You don't HAVE to kill your laner to win lane. A good example is Diana, you sit back and farm and let the picks come to you.

LordForrest1 votes

Very true. One of my favorite things to do whenever I played Top and the enemy was a snowballer, was to pick a champ who was difficult to kill and literally just needed to live through the lane phase to win.

Nothing was more satisfying then seeing salty bitches rage because you wouldn't fight them or hell ended up flipping it on them and snowballing off of them.

Handy Sandy 4 votes

i mean if you're like 0/3 you might as well build dmg so you're at least some type of threat at least

Barkley4 votes

I think I love you for this post. Please accept this wedding band, and my seed.

No?

Ok how about just a pat on the shoulder and a thumbs up, then.

I'm gold 5 and my biggest struggle right now as far as figuring out how to continue to climb is that I don't know how to make my team stop doing dumb shit, and I am a tank player - so its really hard for me to go split lanes by myself, or secure objectives by myself.

The only way I've found so far to combat this is to start playing champs who can, and its .... well.... its not bad, but it could be going better. I still need practice. Jarvan's been working well for me. Hopefully by the time S8 hits, I'll have a few champs in my toolbox that can handle the macro game on their own (or at least better than tanks can)

Julius Evola4 votes

The reason no one knows what to do is because the people that knew what to do quit because of this retarded season.

In past seasons, you could compensate for Riots shitty game balance with Rune choices. Now, you are left with gimmicky choices and anyone that wanted to win, left the game. Enjoy playing with Teemo and Heimer top every game. HEHE xD

Herbie RL4 votes

I completely agree with every point.

What baffles me the most is most teams when behind continue to just take fights when you're obviously behind where the only way to win is to AVOID fights and farm up while playing safe.

One thing I think (maybe) could possibly fix this is adding voice comms? Obviously there could be a lot of problems that come with it but I think it could add extra coordination which can prevent these super snowbally games

Sun Wu Ryuumoku3 votes

Like they REALLY don't know how to play

[sg-lulu]

LittleDemonTrist3 votes

I like when i have someone picking veigar and then wanna ff cause he fed early as veigar.

The Space Cowboy3 votes

+1 the game being snow ball prone is just exposing the problem with low elo meta knowledge. I think of blizzard moba mods and everyone knows the macro in those. This game is more accessible and people play it like it’s call of duty chasing kills instead of turret. So should we tone the game pace down? Yes. But the players will still FF when they aren’t ahead. Go play Starcraft for a second folks. Try the mod star battle, it’ll learn ya good.

Professor Ward3 votes

Honestly one of the key markers of a newer/ lower elo player, this should be pretty obvious by now.

I find this to be one of those things many games dont include.

Two examples of games i feel that people cut their teeth on. (both pulled from my ass) Call of duty: A behind player still performs about on par with an ahead player. Football: Same concept, when behind, playing aggressively isnt punished.(heavily)

League offers a different mechanic, when put behind, you must put all "playing" to a halt, and in turn, "turtle" until the game is on even ground again.

**And you have to understand why this is so hard to comprehend, because lets be honest, its fucking retarded in concept. "D ** People are having to learn an entirely new way of losing games, by allowing the enemy team to do what they want for a little, this feels drab, dull, boring, and counter to the goal, which is winning the game by pressing the enemy.

I fully understand why this happens so often at lower elos.

Lunar Lunacy3 votes

I didn't read this super long post but your title is spot on. People would rather just ff and flame than try to make big comebacks. Farming, turtling, team play, and waiting for the right moments to strike is essential. Controlling minion waves and covering your bases, letting go what you can't defend instead of throwing yourself in and dying is essential. Getting good amounts of experience and gold from super minions when your inhib(s) are down can get your whole team back in the game and even make you stronger than your opponents if you can stop the bleeding. Sometimes it feels like trying to patch up holes in a sinking ship. Actually I think that is a perfect analogy. Warding is a big deal when trying to make comebacks too but going too far out of base and face checking bushes is also dangerous when your team doesn't have map control will often just result in giving over more kills so it's best to kinda just hang back and move as a team I think. Rushing out to contest Baron or drag when you have super minions pushing into your base is a big no-no, if you must contest send only the jungler because he'd be the one trying to smite it away anyway, leave the other 4 to defend. Wiping at Baron in that situation means game.

Battalion2 votes

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Void Baboon RF2 votes

Games end literally at 5 mins when bot lane tower falls what playing from behind.

Oakleaf Ranger2 votes

Dude you just described split pushing and rotating. A strategy used in every elo because it works. If the enemy team is behind then victory by split pushing is a very viable win condition. Forcing a team that is already behind to isolate and rotate themselves is very advantageous for you and dangerous for them.

Its not that playing from behind isn't possible, its that your still very likely to lose. I very rarely lose when ahead (even rarer because of me) because once I'm ahead i throw a noose around the enemy team's neck that i slowly tighten until they choke or break their neck. Their neck breaks because me/team create a team fight that destroys them where we proceed to blow open their base or eventually they choke out because my team builds such a massive gold/objective lead that their defense ends up crumbling under it.

Playing from behind is basically a loss because a competent team doesn't let you play from behind.

PePsiLemoNN2 votes

But muh ''the game is decided in queue'' circlejerk BabyRage

ChuShoe2 votes

mmmm sometimes it is. I mean, do you really expect gold 5's to win against diamond+ matches that sometimes people get paired up in.

Unless you meant champ select, in which you're completely correct.

ChuShoe2 votes

{quoted} Build waveclear, build movement speed, shove one lane, and the moment you see an enemy coming near you, run off to another lane and shove that lane. Is the enemy team gonna 5v4 my teammates knowing I'm being dumb? Hell, even 5v5 us because I'm not building for combat anyways? Maybe get Dragon or Baron while I'm dicking off on the opposite side of the map? No, I'll have people chasing me around while I run much faster than they do and clear waves more efficiently then they can.

Ah, this is the wisdom of AP singed that I've been longing to learn.

vinnythetaco2 votes

Doesn't help that turret damage is meaningless so it hard to defend it. If ur to far they hit tower to close youll get poked then they'll dive u even if u cc them and die and then they'll take tower.

Owyn2 votes

even tutorial teaches us to build thornmail on Ashe, why can't ppl understand it's a perfect strategy for staying behind hmmmm [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Gives No Lux1 votes

Yeah, I've been trying to point this out to folks who are blaming the runes or snowball meta. League was really soft on punishing people for making tons of mistakes and now they don't have the same crutches to fall back on when behind to keep making those mistakes.

In the long run people will either adapt and become better players or the ranking system will just take a while to re-filter those that don't.

Teriyaki Bukkake1 votes

Mind if I ask, what elo are you in?

Bârd2 votes

He's Gold 5.

I don't advise that you attempt to hit him for his rank when you're only silver yourself.

Teriyaki Bukkake1 votes

Ok so first of all, I wanted to ask him that because I'm having similar experiences, and was wondering if his situation or points were applicable to my own situation.

Secondly, I don't ever and wasn't going to bash him or try to diminish what he was saying due to rank: If I wanted to do that, I could maybe just LOOK UP HIS RANK. It's not like it's hidden behind a pay wall or locked away like personal details.

Thirdly, you advise against me trying to poke holes in his opinion due to my rank, believing that's what I was trying to do, but then you do that exact thing you told me not to do yourself. You can't tell someone to not use rank as a means to retort, and then literally use someones rank as a retort in the same god damn sentence man. Would your full name be "Bard The Ironic" by any chance? -_-

Lastly, rank in this game does not correlate to the worth of someones opinion/question in terms of face-authenticity, let alone actual authenticity. What if it's a second account? What if I've been playing for four years but don't play ranked too often because I just like the game? What If im just a casual at the moment but have a lot of game knowledge from over the years of playing? Hell I could even know more about the game than you, but you don't know that at all, do you? Exactly.

Please don't post such a presumptuous and almost pretentious comment on a NEUTRAL QUESTION, and please don't downvote serious questions either. People can sometimes have legitimate queries about the game. Not everything you see on the boards is an attempted stab at another person. (however this is)

Bârd1 votes

Saying "Mind if I ask what Elo you're in?" on a post about balance is akin to somebody saying "Mind if I ask who you voted for?" in response to a point someone made on a politics.

This is known as a "Charged question". Such questions, even if asked without the intention to cause trouble, serve only to escalate the situation past thought out points and into meaningless conjecture and personal attacks, as is illustrated by the content, or lack thereof, in the essay you wrote in response to two lines of light criticism (one of which wasn't even that).

Context. It's important.

Teriyaki Bukkake1 votes

Even with your pseudo-intellectualism, you're still wrong lmao

Bârd1 votes

Is that why you deleted your first two attempts at responding?

They still show up in my inbox.

Teriyaki Bukkake1 votes

Nah, I deleted them because you're going to provide your unwanted and unnecessary input regardless of what actually was happening, irrespective of any "context" that there was, and so there is no point trying to reason with you.

So you're either going to continue to attempt to interject for no reason other than... Self validation of some kind? OR, you're just going to leave which would be better for both of us, seeing as you've provided nothing useful.

Adios

Bârd1 votes

Players don't really know what they're doing until they're mid-gold.

Players don't know why they're doing what they're doing until they're high plat.

Players aren't especially good at whatever they're doing until they're at least steady in D4.

The average player is silver. Take that as you will.

SB Arneeman1 votes

Even in diamond many people refuse to play safe when behind, and go for random fights that are not in their advantage and not even close to an objective.

red oolong 1 votes

You're kind of right. I just can't let that cannon minion go if I'm 0/2 in lane lol. [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

SINGLEPLAYER1 votes

Am really happy some has mentioned this and you are 100% correct. It's because 1 most of the players with brains left league and 2 the game itself is not bad but the game favtiousm unbalanced gameplay it's like the game pong compared to the game X/O pong is a even matched game where X/O there is a single strategy to win.. the problem with league is it's a unbalanced game to promote fun so what's the point of a zilean dogeing 500 skills shots hitting every Q W E perfectly yet the zed loses not even a quter go and can still outfarm the Zill and when that zed hits 1 Q the zilean is more then half hp.. after a while the zilean learns general Power and stats beats skills and straight. So every player learns from this all picking the best build.. the best character and all playing a Riven/Yas snowball gameplay that works. So when a team is losing they don't know how to turn it back because even if they tried there skill level so low that power would stomp them.. yes with the right skill maybe but that's how league has evolved.. blame it on Fizz and Assisan fighters in general not because they kill you and that's Op because they have higher stats then every other champion in the game zed with more tanky then rammus at level 1 to 18.

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