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Is having great CS an excuse to not get kills?

EZ Viktory·3/19/2018, 1:48:30 PM·5 votes·1,464 views

Hi everyone! You may have seen me around on the boards asking questions like "how do I do this?" And "how do I do that?" But I want to try a new way of asking my question. I'll say what I'M doing, myself, instead of asking what I need to do to "be good". You can look over what I'm doing and tell me if I'm doing it right or wrong, maybe.

So recently I've gotten back into Darius top. And despite having mastery 7 for half a year I only realized recently my W refunds mana and half it's cooldown on killing something. It can be used as a great farming tool! And my CSing on Darius grew. Alot.

Now most games I reach 10 cs per minute, the lowest I've been at is 40 cs what I "should" be at (280 cs at 32 mins, for example) but I've been able to get cs leads of 60-100 on my opponents, making that worth maybe 4-9 kills (not exact because I usually gauge 15 cs = 1 kill, since you get an average or 20 gold per minion, 20 x 15 = 300.)

Now while I've been focusing on CSing well on Darius, I haven't been getting as many kills. Sure I'll GET them, but not as many. Is it worth sacrificing my main focus of getting kills so that I can get great CS? (I am currently Silver 5, almost S4)

(If I may, I could probably find a balance between getting cs and killing, I'll need to practice doing this "great CS" a bit more first)

19 Comments

Onecimus3/19/2018, 2:15:58 PM7 votes

Knowing how to get good CS has far more consistent value. Those minion waves will always crash, and you should always be there to greet them. Not to mention that learning to CS is of value for everyone who doesn't support. (I actually support for this reason alone. Pure poke, no CS. It's great)

On the other hand, sometimes your laner will just be far beyond your skill level and you will not be able to get kills. Well, not a problem, you can at least out farm the goomba.

There is a balance though. (I don't play Darius) As far as I understand, Darius likes to crush his lane opponent. So once you really get your CSing down to the point where it's second nature, then start to throw in some pokes and jabs at your lane opponent when you are in a CSing downtime or he goes out of position.

But learning to interact with the other laner, while paying attention to jungler positions, and CSing like a boss all three will come with practice. And once you do, say hi from plat.

NekoniClaws3/19/2018, 2:32:00 PM4 votes

If a kill is free, take it. If a kill / forcing a back gives you map pressure / lets you take an objective, go for it. (Remember too that a kill with your jungler can net 450 gold for the two of you- that's a lot of CS for an instant powerspike)

Other than that, KDA doesn't mean diddly.

Damage to champions is kind of important too- if you're fed off CS but won't teamfight you can lose your games that way.

Btw best name.

Meep Man3/19/2018, 2:41:42 PM3 votes

Go for kills when it's easy and quick, like during a gank. Otherwise only try and kill your opponent if it's a gimme or to defend yourself. Even just poking your opponent out of lane is fine if you do it when you can. CS will win you the game though, as it's a low risk, high reward way of getting gold.

Primeval Void3/19/2018, 4:26:44 PM2 votes

Here's my general rule of thumb

You don't trade to kill the opponent, you trade in order to get access to your CS. Kills are a nice bonus, but shouldn't be the focus. It's just a less reliable source of gold.

Ashen Rider3/19/2018, 4:16:58 PM2 votes

While getting CS puts you ahead, killing your enemy specifically puts them behind, as they are unable to get gold a substantial amount of gold while dead. There's a tradeoff.

Mcsquzzy3/19/2018, 4:33:56 PM2 votes

only if you don't have a lot of deaths and your lane opponent does not get to free roam causing trouble for other lanes.

webstar19953/19/2018, 2:20:58 PM1 votes

Just focus on freezing the wave in your advantage now. Ask for a gank. Then kill easily (or they use all sums). You are half way to being a really good top laner haha.....finding the balance between farm, bullying lane oponents, and roaming is tough. I have a plan when i top. Usually top, i top with a champ with a very strong lvl 2-3 (teemo, panth, garen, renek, olaf, rumble, naut) i let them push into me, freeze the second wave (this puts my jg in a position to gank if in the area), then i clear minions quickly and go all in. Since they wont have minions, in the early game especially, i win the fight 95% of the time. Having first blood and farm advantage takes it very easy to snowball out of control. TPing bot after first blood buy and lvl advantage on bot is brutal as well. Have the jg hold top for a sec or 4 man bot. THESE MOVES TILT OPPOSING TEAMS SO MUCH IN LOW ELO! They start flaming so fast.

EZ Viktory3/20/2018, 1:51:54 PM1 votes

I appreciate the (surprising amount) of feedback you all have given me, and I think I have an idea of how this should work.

CS is your main gold income. Getting kills is getting kills, it's an extra 300 or so gold. But the focus shouldn't be killing your opponent over and over (unless somehow you can immediately kill someone the second they get to lane)

The main focus should be getting ahead of your opponent and making them less useful than you late game. For example, I had an Illaoi the last game I played. She was able to be killed like. Alot. Seriously not one minute she was in lane she was dead most of the time. I wound up with 20 kills. But I did have less than 10 cs per minute (It was a ~35 minute game. I had maybe 280 CS, maybe 70 or so off my 10 per minute goal). But I usually only get 3-6 kills. I surpassed that and got over 10 more kills being aggressive, but keeping a relatively good CS score.

Now while I don't really know how to take "good trades." I'll have to try, and die. I'll probably mess up or take a bad trade, but I'll learn and note what happened, and learn how to take decent trades. After that, I can try using my CS knowledge and trading knowledge to pressure them out of lane.

I think I got this relatively correct, right? If any of this doesn't look "correct" then feel free to let me know, I would appreciate it, as this is probably the mindset I'll be going into games with, to practice and all that. Wow being decent and having a plan is really exciting! Thank you for the knowledge everyone! You all helped a ton!

Galiö3/19/2018, 9:16:14 PM1 votes

A wave an a half is a kill of gold AND it creates pressure on the map where killing a champion doesn't accomplish much pre 30 minutes.

Tuition Fee3/20/2018, 1:54:10 AM1 votes

When I play ADC, my teammates tell me I'm a "waste of cs", so probably not.

Jokes (I wish) aside, csing is just as important as kills as long as you're not afk or inting. CS=easier/more kills.

SB Arneeman3/20/2018, 12:36:43 PM1 votes

CSing well is very important. However, when you learn to cs near perfectly while also pressuring the enemy laner and keeping track of the rest of the map is when you've truly got good at laning. Keep focusing on farming until it feels natural to you. Then you don't need to pay much attention to it and can instead go for favorable trades/fights in lane, while keeping the good cs. Keep in mind that a cs lead should make you able to fight the enemy much easier, also getting you kills. Farming is a reliable way to get gold, kills is not. When you have a lead, always try to deny the enemy as much gold and xp as possible. It doesn't help much if you farm really well in a good matchup, when they do the same. As you climb higher, you will face enemies that are farming nearly perfectly so you have to actively zone them off farm, force them back and/or kill them to get a cs lead.

Sp33d Zer03/19/2018, 2:42:18 PM1 votes

Yes it is.

FurriesAreHot3/20/2018, 1:05:29 PM1 votes

If you can get a kill without sacrificing too much farm, keeping your opponent out of lane and thus not getting gold, and you can push thier tower, is massive. Gold itself doesnt matter, but gold lead over the enemy is what matters.