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Could I get some general gameplay/mechanics advice?

Takatsuki Yayoi·10/31/2016, 1:21:46 PM·8 votes·1,630 views

So I'm bad at this game, for starters, and considering how long I've spent playing it and plan on continue playing it I think it's about time I get a bit better! Here's some things I'm having trouble with lately;

  1. How can I be a more efficient jungler? I mostly play Zac, Rengar, and Evelynn, and have started adding Hecarim and Ivern into the mix as well. I feel like I clear so much slower than most other players, and I never really feel like I can get my attention onto every lane equally. I also find it really hard to clear jungle camps efficiently without losing a lot of health. (Except with Zac and Ivern obv)

  2. How do you keep a lead going? I've had games where I'm playing Top/Mid/ADC and end up with a three kill lead or so, but it feels like I'm just not taking down the other tower fast enough or not helping my team enough for that lead to really matter.

  3. When I'm feeding hard, what should I do to help my team out? Using the same Top Lane Poppy example up there, if I take a few deaths from Riven or Darius, should I just hang out under my tower and hope they don't kill me under it? I feel like if I'm behind, teleporting bot/mid to try and help there could potentially make things worse and I could die down there as well as lose my tower now that I've left lane; and having the jungler gank more often could just lead to BOTH of us being behind. I especially get a bit nervous about this when I'm the ADC, as it feels like once the other ADC gets rolling, it's very hard to stop them.

  4. What's the best way to deal with very mobile characters? I absolutely DREAD going up against a Talon or Zed in midlane because I tend to play people like Aurelion, Taliyah, Annie, Karthus, etc. It's a problem when I'm jungling too, because when I try and gank, it feels like they always slip away and I've left my laner just hanging there.

If anyone has any advice on these things, I would appreciate it extremely!

EDIT: Wow, I didn't except such a big response to this! Thank you to everyone, especially those who wrote out very in depth posts, it's really helped me understand a lot more stuff!

17 Comments

Bhagswag10/31/2016, 2:26:53 PM5 votes

On jungle monsters, make sure you're not interrupting your auto attacks with your spells. For example on Hecarim, do AA - Q - AA, don't Q if your AA is about to happen.

For 2 and 3; don't die. If you are feeding as a bruiser-ish champ, build full tank. Armor, health, MR, everything. You are too weak anyways to kill anything anymore. So just be a huge distraction and soak up the damage for your team.

EndlessSorcerer10/31/2016, 2:44:47 PM4 votes

I have some general tips for jungling and I'll post them below. To address your specific questions:

[1] Evelynn and Hecarim benefit from Hunter's Potion on their clears to keep their health and mana up. Rengar should use his Q as an autoattack reset and almost always use his Ferocity on Empowered Q to clear the camp quickly to save health.

For Evelynn's first clear, you should probably do the following: Clear Krugs/Gromp and both buff camps, spam your Q while running past Wolves and Raptors to regain health. Liquid Moon has a video on Youtube showing this if you need it.

Don't try to gank every lane equally. Identify which lanes you want to prioritize (i.e. Which enemies are vulnerable, which ally needs help, who needs to be shut-down or snowballed) and focus on them.

[2] When you have a lead, use it to punish your opponent. For example, setting up a freeze and denying your opponent gold and experience while you free-farm is often far more advantageous that just killing your opponent again. If they try to contest it, you can easily beat them in a fight (either killing them or forcing a recall) and shove to tower then. For mid-lane, I would recommend roaming to side-lanes to use your advantage to snowball your allies and get them ahead.

[3] Try to stay useful and stem the bleeding. Even if you fall behind, you want to try and get whatever CS you safely can and prevent your opponent from snowballing further. Poppy is rather good in this situation since she can just build purely defensive items and her ultimate makes her difficult to finish off (since she can just knock you away).

[4] When laning against assassins, I would recommend taking Exhaust and don't let them get early kills. Against AD assassins such as Zed and Talon, I would recommend building 2x Doran's Rings into Seeker's Armguard before proceeding into your normal build. When trying to gank them, save your gap-closer for after they have used theirs or try to time your gank so that it is on cooldown (either because you saw them use it against their opponent or immediately swinging back around after they just used it to escape).

I would suggest watching videos by high-ELO and/or professional junglers (i.e. Nightblue3, Stonewall008, Valkyrin, and foxdropLOL). They will typically provide a lot of useful tips while playing and you can often see or hear their decision process and some optimizations throughout the game.

Off the top of my head, some basic optimizations may be:

  • Use hard-CC when the monster camps are about to attack you to cancel that attack and delay their next.
  • Each of the smite buffs are quite useful in different situations. Be sure to take proper advantage of them.
    • Raptor's buff is great for ganking and invading since you will know you haven't been seen
    • Gromp buff provides extra damage during clears and fights, especially for champions with a lot of health
    • Krug's buff reduces the damage you take while clearing and lets champions without CC kill Scuttle Crab faster
    • Wolf buff is useful when you are being counter-jungled or invaded (or after your initial towers have fallen).
  • If you have a weak early clear, Krugs -> Raptor's -> Red Buff is probably the route that conserves the most health.
  • Kill the little Raptors and the little Krug first on single-target clearers. They deal a significant amount of damage for their health value, so you will be healthier if they die early.
  • If you think the enemy jungler will invade you early game, it can be safer to start on a buff camp rather than a little camp since you are less likely to be where they are looking.
  • Attack Speed is extremely efficient at clearing on most junglers. I'd recommend using about 15% on champions when you need to speed up their clear even if they don't use the stat much later (with a few exceptions, such as Nidalee and Evelynn).
  • Keep a pink ward out (or in your inventory) whenever possible. This is important for every champion, but I thought I should emphasis it. There isn't really a good reason not to.

As far as ganking is concerned:

  • When possible, conserve your gap-closer while ganking. If you can get to the enemy champion without using your mobility spell(s), then you can save it to catch them after they try to escape (Flash, dash, blink, etc).
  • You should should try to stay between the enemy and their escape route. You should be trying to move backwards (towards their escape) in-between attacks so that you can body-block them and slow their escape. This also leaves you closer to them if they try to dash on blink past you.
  • Use Raptor's smite buff to determine if you have been spotted by wards when ganking to reduce the risk of them escaping or receiving a counter-gank.
  • It can be risky to gank top-lane while Dragon is up since the enemy team can just group and take it 4v3. I'd recommend ganking top-lane early if possible (after your initial clear) and when Dragon is down; that lane can be quite snowbally due to isolation, so you want to get your ally ahead.
  • Learn to recognize the general times when buff camps spawn during games. If you see the enemy gank bottom lane while their top-side buff is up, you can go steal it from them.
  • Watch when top and bottom lane initially go into lane. If that lane has leashed for their jungler (missing health, mana, or showed up to lane a bit late), then you know where the enemy jungler has likely started and where they will end their clear (where is closest for them to gank).
  • If you have killed the enemy laner, you can either allow your laner to freeze or shove the lane into the enemy tower. If you shove the wave under tower and the next minion wave is coming up, it can be helpful to proxy it to ensure that the wave fully resets and the enemy laner misses as much as possible. This is very situational though and you will have to learn when through experience.

Other tips:

  • Whenever possible, walk up to the enemy champion during a gank and save your gap-closer for after they use their escape abilities.
  • Watch the enemy laners when they go into lane. Whichever lane shows up later and/or missing mana will likely indicate which side of the jungle the enemy jungler started on (which is useful for predicting gank paths and for counter-jungling).
  • When against aggressive early counter-junglers (i.e. Shaco) it can be a good idea to start on your buff camp and/or to start on a different side than you usually do. If he invades your buff, you've already taken it and/or you aren't there to be killed.
  • Watch the minimap to see when and where the enemy goes to ward, which laners are pushing, which laners are vulnerable
  • Know, roughly, how most laning matchups go so that you can prioritize which lanes are the easiest to gank or require an early gank to decide the matchup.
  • If you have blown an enemy's Flash during a gank but haven't killed them, swing back around immediately after an gank them again. Many people don't expect it
  • If you've killed an enemy during a previous gank in top lane, kill them again immediately after they return to lane. They likely won't have wards up yet and a second back-to-back death can be enough to completely crush any chance that opponent has to recover the lane.
  • Top laners rarely bother warding the lane bushes. As such, lane ganks can be quite surprising and effective.
  • When you kill an enemy laner, shove the minion wave into the tower so they miss gold and experience and so that the minion wave will reset to the middle of the lane. If you can get away with it, clear the upcoming minion wave as well to ensure the reset and maximum missed minions.

You will learn a lot through experience, but these tips should help you at the start.

Weathered10/31/2016, 1:41:32 PM3 votes

I wish I could write out a huge response but I'm lowkey in a class.

Have you tried to work on kiting? For Evelynn, for example, you should be trying to move around in circles so that buffs are constantly trying to walk up to attack you while spamming Q.

If you feel like you can't help lanes equally, that's normal. You should be trying to camp lanes where the enemy doesn't have flash or just doesn't have mobility in their kit (like a Velkoz mid). Also try to gank lanes with objectives in mind. Would killing bot lane give you time to do drag? Could you and your top laner kill turret if you kill the enemy top?

In my experience, keeping a lead going is difficult. Often times people build more damage, but that doesn't work for all champions. Try building defensive when ahead, you'll die less often and still be doing well from being ahead in levels.

Nameless Voice10/31/2016, 2:59:58 PM2 votes

I'm just going to give one general piece of advice: always remember that staying alive is more important than killing your enemy (in most cases.)

If you and an enemy kill each other 1v1, neither of you really gains anything, and you are potentially making a stronger opponent for your teammates to deal with. However, if you can make them recall without dying yourself, you get a farm and level advantage for yourself and they get nothing.

This goes double toward killing one of two enemies and dying to the other - you get 300g and their team gets 450g due to the assist.

Of course, there are times when it's worth it to die for a kill, if that kill allows your team to win a teamfight or secure an objective, or stops the enemy team from doing those things.

That's different. I'm specifically saying that a kill for a death is almost never worth it on its own, when nothing else is at stake... unless you were going to die anyway, in which case by all means take them with you if you can.

Umbral Regent10/31/2016, 2:35:52 PM2 votes

As a heads-up, this may be a bit long, and I'm not sure how to summarize it so I'm afraid there'll be a wall of text and no TL;DR. Sorry 'bout that.

So, I've spent quite a while playing, and developed myself into a small bit of a jack of all trade, and while I'm not overall qualified to give advice, I thought you might find it helpful nevertheless to hear my two cents.

1) The two biggest marks of Jungler efficiency as I've seen so far is Clear Speed, and Gank Frequency. Improving your clear speed can be somewhat difficult, as it involves several factors; basic abilities, items, (currently) Smite buffs, and so on. The best way to optimize clear speed that I know of involves this:

1. Choose your first camp based on your champion; While Smite buffs are still around, choosing your first camp can help a lot. The usual camps I take are Gromp for Mages and Tanks/Juggernauts (Champions like Fiddlesticks, Sejuani, etc.), and Krugs for high-attack speed champions (Xin Zhao and Master Yi being good examples.) - it may take some time to find out which camps work for you, but I'm certain if you work towards it, you'll get it down.

2. Experiment with Basic Abilities priorities; As anyone would know, and I know you're no exception, the basic abilities you choose first in order (and, even moreso, which ones you max first) can impact your clearing speed as well. Kha'Zix, for example, could take (Q) Taste Their Fear first for extra solitary power (as well as being able to take Gromp easier), or take (W) Void Spikes for early stability due to the heal.

3. Figuring out what items help clear speed the most; it may go without saying, but I know for some people it can be an issue, but Junglers can optimize around their clearing over ganking and still be a terror to see show up in lane. While more often than not, just buying out your Jungle item and Enchantment suffices, some Champions may need a little extra work to get their clears up to snuff. I wouldn't myself have any recommendations, so it's wholly up to personal study and practice to nail it.

As for gank frequency, that's also partly measured by some other factors, like gank pressure, successes, and map awareness. In some cases, you won't be generally successful with a gank; your ally might die and your target will get away, or the enemy Jungler will be just near enough to counter-gank, and so forth and so on.

Gank Pressure - Being brutally honest, there's no real way to apply gank pressure without being an extremely mobile champion (like Hecarim), or without being a champion with a unique mechanic (Ivern's Brushmaker, Kindred's Mark of the Kindred), and without stuff like that, your biggest method of keeping pressure is to camp. Nobody's going to like it, but it often has to be done.

Map Awareness - Another necessity in the Jungle is keeping your eye on the map as much as possible. Between all five roles, the Jungler must make the best use of the map for tactical purposes. Ganking a lane that's pushed up often won't yield any results, whereas ganking a lane that you see your ally starting to fail on would likely benefit you more. (This also plays in to gank pressure; if you see an ally dropping to low health constantly in-lane, you're probably going to want to camp that person out.)

Defining "Success" - One of the most aggravating parts of Jungling is ganking and coming short of what would have otherwise been a good gank, and sometimes you'll only be able to come in and perform clean-up detail after your ally dies. When it comes to defining success, I personally prioritize like this; Personal survival > Ally survival > Enemy death > Pushing. It sure as hell ain't perfect, but keeping such a mindset helps soften the impact of a normally bad gank.

Bonus Points: Objectives - The other big thing that Junglers do is usually marked near the corners of the map; taking Dragon, Rift Herald, and Baron Nashor. And often, you won't be able to take those objectives alone, so the only option is to free up your allies with a gank and request help. Just bear in mind that this may very well garner the attention of other lanes and the enemy Jungler.

As for keeping your health during clearing, that's a difficult thing in general. You'll probably only get so far with it, but I often use Health Potions (I don't particularly see the use in Refillable Potions going into Hunter's Potion) and - in the cases where I'm starting with Krugs - I often reserve my second Smite for the Brambleback.

2) Keeping a lead is often hard, but just having it increases the chances you'll keep it. (note; the following may likely not qualify as valid advice because the majority of my time top lane has been spent as Yorick. Take this with a grain of salt.) Once you have a lead, keep your general points of entry warded; having a kill lead over your opponents means you're growing to become a target for every last member of the enemy team. Knowing where your opponents are coming from will help the most, since you'll be able to decide whether or not you can take them on.

One good tactic that I like to use is to bait out ganks; push up slightly, and wound your opponent - preferably just below or around the 40% mark. Unless their Jungler is either too smart or too stupid, there's a good chance they'll gank you to give their ally the "surprise" edge - wherein you'll stop holding back on your opponent and then turn on the Jungler after they're dead. It's really fun to pull off.

3) Getting behind sucks, especially against champions like Darius and Riven who are notorious for chunking down people's health bars regardless of class. The only advice I can give is to be careful, keep vision (as with 2, giving a kill lead makes you as much a target as when you're getting one), and avoid confrontation with your opponents for until your Jungler shows up.

Depending on your opponent, you may actually want to get more aggressive. Taking Darius as an example, you can actually screw with him by doing some aggressive hit-and-run tactics; rush in, close on him until his Decimate can't heal him, do as much as you can in close quarters (Poppy's Iron Ambassador and Hammer Shock can work well enough), and then jump out before you reach max Hemorrhage stacks. (may be a little easier said if he has yet to use his _Apprehend). Just know your opponent, and advise yourself as to whether or not you should go on the defensive and focus creeps, or go on the offensive and fight back.

4) Mobile champions are definitely hard to deal with, especially those like Talon and Katarina with instant-movement engage tools (like Shunpo and Cutthroat), and in terms of combating them, often the only two things that can help are Crowd Control and threat of extreme damage. Aurelion may seem like one of the biggest victims of Assassins, but he can actually play around them with a little work and a little knowledge. Aiming to land Star Surge and Celestial Expansion are often his biggest tools (and only tools, for that matter) until he reaches 6.

But, in overall terms of fighting Assassins (and mobile champions in general) is to apply Crowd Control as frequently as possible. As for Jungling and having your opponent slip away, that is a twofold thing - one, I can refer to the priority list above for gank success, and two; pay close attention to the mobile champions. Most mobile champions on bottom lane (with the exception of Sivir and Jinx) have a dash ability; if you see it used, that's roughly when you should gank, if possible.

I apologize that this was so long, but I hope it helped you!

TheHappyReaperz11/1/2016, 12:30:33 AM1 votes

1.) Can't really help ya here, not much of a jungler. However, the easiest way to deal with ganking lanes is to either be proactive or reactive. If you're not sure where the enemy jungler is, put yourself into their mindset, and look at your lanes. Which ones are pushed out, or recently burned summoners? Be proactive and migrate towards those juicy targets for the enemy jungle, to better counteract his/her ganks. Reactively, look at your lanes that have been ganked. Say Bot has been ganked, nothing major came out of it, but then top got ganked and your top laner was killed. React to this situation, and try to spend more time there, as most players go for the easier kills.

2.) I have the same problem, it really can depend on the champ you play, but it most situations, you will want to transition from lane dominance to teamfight presence. If a skirmish breaks out, try to be there, or, more likely than not, it will go badly for your team.

3.) The best thing to do when feeding hard, is to farm and play safe. Lure people who think they can kill you into your team, protect people when you can how you can, and try to avoid tilting. An important thing to remember is, DON'T KILL PEEPS IF YOU'RE FEEDING. All this does is give you a bounty and makes it profitable for the enemy to kill you again.

4.) When dealing with mobile people, as an immobile champ, is to be patient. If in the early game Talon and Zed don't get any kills, it severely impacts their late-game impact. You on the other hand, don't really need kills. You don't need to chase people, or blow escapes or cc trying to get them. Remember, the most powerful abilities you have, are the ones you haven't used yet.

4.5.) Separated dealing with and catching out mobile targets. To catch out a mobile target, wait for them to use their major escape. Zed's shadow has about a 20 sec CD rank one. Simply wait for a good opportunity to gank, then go in.

Mishli11/1/2016, 5:29:18 PM1 votes

as a fellow poppy player, in the situation vs darius... sadly the best thing you can do is leave your tower to die and try and impact the game elsewhere. once he is level 6 with 2 kills over you, darius literally does not care, he will just murder you on sight. Your best bet is to try and help bot lane get kills and take tower, or take dragon. then when he gets to your second tower, hopefully you've got some health so he can't instantly kill you. and your team can collapse on him if he sticks around.

I wish there was another way, but i've only ever seen poppy go even with darius once in lane, and that was with excessive jungle help, and she built mostly damage and managed to kite him out. I'm no expert, but i've never managed to pull this off and frankly won't even try anymore.

If you're feeding, the BEST thing you can do is build defensive/utility. even if you are playing syndra and you're 0/5, you can at least build crystal scepter to slow opponents to try and peel (and a bit of hp so you don't instantly die). or max your cdr to try and get more stuns off. most champs have at least some sort of utility you can try to play around. if you're behind, stop trying to carry, help other people on your team carry instead

for hyper mobile champs.. sadly in my experience the best thing you can do is try to punish them. you may not be able to catch/kill them (riven, yasuo,jayce) but if you can manage to punish them for being greedy, you should be able to curb some of their aggression. if you punished them once, you can do it again, and if you pull that off more than twice, you might be able to get a klil too. or your jungler can help. but if you're at an extreme mobility disadvantage, sadly most of the pressure is on your opponent to screw up unless you catch them off guard

Swiftstrike411/1/2016, 6:55:22 PM1 votes

A lot of good advice in the threads, my apologies if I sound like a parrot.

I can probably play all the roles at a Low gold level, but I am mainly a high gold Top and mid gold support.

First I will say, it sounds like you play too many roles and too many champions. Limit yourself to 2 roles in ranked and a 3rd role that you can play adequately. I play Top as my main, support as my secondary, and Mid as a flex pick if it is requested. I am not a great mid laner, but I typically don't feed, I just don't win lane either.

**You should play about 2-3 champions per role and 1 champion should be your main in each of those roles. **

E.G. In the top lane I almost exclusively play Nasus and if he is picked or banned I will play Trundle or Chogath. Typically, I simply dodge the game though because I know I am not great with any top laners besides Nasus in that elo.

At support I will play Leona Sona mainly and sometimes Brand and Morgana. It really depends on the match-up and my ADC though.

Mid I will play Morgana Lux or Brand. I don't like mid that much but if someone in pre game lobby requests a swap I will usually accommodate.

On Jungling

Kite your jungle camps that's how you stay healthy.

Don't worry as much about ganking - A lot of silver players focus on ganking and I would if you are jungling this SHOULD NOT be your sole focus. You should gank when opportunities present itself, it is more important to secure objectives (dragons, towers, rift etc) than to simply attempt to assist a lane

Counter ganking is better than initiating a gank most gold junglers gank around the same time about 5 minutes in the game. You can if you want rotate to one of the lanes you think will get ganked.

**Don't do jungle camps early on in order **- While this is the most gold efficient path, it also leaves you suceptible to getting your camps stolen, getting invaded and killed at a camp, or making it so the enemy jungler knows where you are most of the time. I typically do Gromp, Blue Buff and then Red Buff in that order OR instead of Red buff I will do the enemies raptors. Just make sure you skip a camp or two so that the enemy jungler does not know where you are

Don't gank losing lanes - gank lanes that are winning or "even." When you gank a losing lane, unless the enemy is low with no mana and very shoved, it is not a good idea. Even if you help them they may throw away their lead anyways and usually if they are losing it will take more than one gank to get them back in the lane. The losing lane hasn't demonstrated that they can win, you want to gank capable players.

**Always do at least ONE camp prior interacting with your team in the mid game. **This is simply to keep up in gold and xp. For example, if you died while attempting a gank AND you then immediately go to a lane and die again without doing a camp) you will be incredibly behind and remain useless for a while. Just make it a habit to always do one camp at least to not get behind.

On Laning

**Learn how to farm under tower - **Yep most silver players don't know how to do this effectively. Then they take unneccary hits from teh enemy laner in order to keep the wave away from their tower. Just learn how to do it so that if the opposing laner shoves you, you are not tanking minions or enemy laners skills in order to prevent your turret from aggroing the minions.

Don't Engage an enemy if you are more than one full level behind - Silver players do not respect level advantages at all. While the differences in levels is more neglible in the later game in the early and mid game the base stat differential is pretty noticeable. If you are two full levels behind DO NOT fight them

Towers don't protect you after level 8 or 9 - Just a general rule of thumb. Towers really don't do that much damage to kill someone and you can be dove if you are low AND not a tank or lack a really hard cc.

**Give up towers if you are level 8 or 9 and the tower is less than half health and you are BEHIND **- Again you will be dove

Avoid trading focus on CS - Silver players often expend their mana early to "trade" but they frequently miss CS while doing that, which is why a lot of silver players CS is garbage. Even if I have died once or two times I usually have more CS than my opposing laner. I am not saying "Don't Trade" but it is more important to last hit a minion early in the game than to attack an opposing laner and miss it. Most players don't even begin to "effectively trade" until about mid gold low plat. Most silver players just miss the CS.

Focus on wave management - Figure out where the wave is heading when you lane and keep the wave from shoving you too much under tower if possible. Also recognize to shove a wave out if your opposing laner is dead. Avoid shoving the wave early if your champion is easily ganked. DO NOT AUTO THE MINIONS WHEN YOU GO TO LANE (if you are top). Let the opponent shove the wave and thin out the wave when it is going in your direction. You will have to be careful about the level disadvantage early, but if you can stay only 2 minions behind it isn't that bad.

General

**Assign a button for retreat it is the yellow exclamation mark. **This is a form of communication that most players understand and if it is easily accessible to you, you can more effectively communicate with teammates. I have mine assigned to my mouse wheel button. Helps a lot.

Ward - If you are a support you should average 1 ward per minute of game play, anything less than that is not very good. I looked at your stats, your warding looks OK. As a top laner you should be in the mid teens in an average game. I ward a bit more than the average top planer in gold (about 19 in a 30 minute game). Your trinket should never have two charges.

After any enemy death always ask your self, 'can I take a tower or an objective?' that should always be running through your mind. Don't chase kills pretty much ever

**Don't use flash offensively **- silver plays burn flash for offense ALL THE TIME and never get the kill. Just use it mostly for defense. If you flash and they get away you lose out completely

Avoid playing Ivern - This champion no one knows how to play and it seems his kit stinks. Play him in normals if you want, but don't take him into ranked games. He has a 40% win rate and no one really knows how he should itemize. He is a terrible jungler I think.

Noblewind10/31/2016, 4:12:08 PM1 votes

I'll advise for top lane but this general idea is key for all roles in some way.

If you are losing your lane and your enemy can outright kill you 1v1. Sit back and farm under your tower. Why?:

  1. You being down by 30 CS and kills isn't the end of the world, there will be a number of future situations where things can change. You can either keep it that way or make it worse, the strategic choice here should be obvious.

  2. You can likely stay safe by your tower and survive relatively easily to not die. This KEEPS your opponent in lane, basically taking them out of the game during a window where they are ahead and can use their advantage most.

  3. Because they are ahead they will likely push waves harder than you who are sitting back. Your jungler will hopefully spot this eventually, be patient and scale as best you can. If they leave to try and use their gold advantage, take their tower.

TeCoolMage10/31/2016, 4:30:56 PM1 votes

  1. Probably kiting camps is the biggest thing to learn for clearing. When you auto attack there's a delay between each one, and it's usually the time when the jungle camp attacks you. You'll start out sacrificing speed for health and vice versa, but eventually you'll be able to do this without wasting any time (keep in mind if you're a melee jungler it only works on other melee camps): attack, walk backwards then into range, attack again, repeat.

  2. Top has to rely on waveclear + good TP ganks or has to delay the enemy's catch up for long periods of time by killing them repeatedly or zoning them off until teamfights start. ADC doesn't even push an advantage, they simply gain one and live off the fact they will get their late game build eventually, while stalling the enemy ADC's late game build. The only time their kill lead matters is when they can 2v1 while the support roams for ganks, or if they're fed enough to roam themselves. Usually what matters for bot lane isn't the gold advantage, but the time spent respawning where dragon's up for grabs. Mid is easy to push an advantage as you scare the enemy jungler, you can roam, take tower, etc.

  3. Playing from behind is an extremely important skill that every player should learn, possibly before getting into ranked. The first most important thing is to stay under tower as you said, but also know when you can TP. Always push the minion wave by killing all the caster minions on the back and one or two melee minions if you don't expect to be back in lane soon, and neither will your enemy laner. Otherwise, just shove into or directly in front of their tower before doing anything else. ADCs that are behind can't do much but rely on their supports to stop them from dying. It's important to simply be present so they can't take dragon.

  4. As a jungler your laner should tell you when their flash is down, and almost all laners, even mobile ones, can't escape a gank without flash if they push hard. As a laner, you can't really do much other than reserve your crowd control and sacrifice damage just to interrupt their mobility spells, but keep in mind that kills aren't always the most important thing, making them back can be just as good. Always remember to move forward in between each spell cast too, it can cover more distance than a mobile laner and catch them off guard

Valeckserai10/31/2016, 7:05:08 PM1 votes

  1. I don't jungle a lot, but kiting is key in having a healthy clear. Learn your champ's aa timing is key to this. If you just stand there, there will be time that your champion will just stand there waiting for their aa timer to reset. Once you auto, move away from the camp. This will force the camp to stop its aa animation and follow you a little bit. Once your movement is done (keep in mind it should be a pretty short distance), your aa will be available again immediately, so aa them and move back again. This doesn't lower your damage against them at all since if you time it right you are giving the same dps to them, but it lowers their damage to you since they wast their time walking at you to get back into range and will have to cancel several aa to get to you. For faster clears, don't interrupt aa with spells, time them in between so you don't reset your own animations and lower your overall dps. This is mostly for early clears, as mid/late game camps are a joke, but still a good idea to use throughout the game.

  2. If you get a lead (keeping in mind that leads are in gold, not in kills, if they massively out farmed you you don't have a lead) the thing you need to do is constantly keep vision up, apply pressure and go for objectives while still keeping ahead of them in gold. The two worst things you can do with a lead is to play passively and let the opponent farm up, or to get cocky and make dumb aggressive plays you shouldn't have and get killed for it. Both of these erase your lead very fast. Kills don't win the game, farm doesn't win the game (but if you neglect them you'll probably lose though). Killing your opponent's nexus wins the game. Bully the enemy laner out, slaughter them with a combo, swagger walk at them with Aurellion Sol stars until they die, it doesn't matter. Get them out of your lane so you can get the tower. Constantly keep vision up so that you can avoid ganks, and make sure that you get map control by having more towers and better vision than them. If your team has more kills, but less towers, you are going to have a harder time than your enemies finishing the game. You said that you play Karthus, who I happen to main. If you get a lead on him, always try to throw a q down if a mele opponent is trying to cs. Throw it down before they get there, they will have to chose between taking the harass and missing the cs. Either way, you win. Even if they are ranged, if they are going for cs, q where they need to be to get it. His q has a really long range, and is great for denying cs to enemy laners, who will have a tendency to hang around behind their minion line if he's fed, making their engages and attempts at csing really telegraphed. Either poke them down until they leave lane or until you can kill them and then do so. Keep an eye on side lanes to see if you can ult to help them. it doesn't matter if you get the kill or your team does, just so long as everyone gets gold, it was a good ultimate. This will help to snowball your other lanes too. That map is now YOURS and they need to know it. Keep your cs up, and keep theirs down. Same with any champion you use, just take what they do well, and make sure that you use it to kick your opponent while they are down. Just continue until they are forced to back, dead, or weak enough that you can push under their tower even with them there. One REALLY nasty thing that you can do if you get a massive lead is to let them push a bit and then freeze the lane when it is on your side of the lane. Whenever a fed lane opponent does this I cry internally. Make it so that they can't rely on the tower for safety. If they want gold and xp, they need to come to your side of the lane where it is much easier for you and your jungler to kill them. It's less pronounced against ranged champs, but it still isn't fun for them. While it doesn't help for getting objectives immediately, if you do it enough and at the right times it can make it much easier to get them later by ensuring that your opponent is really far behind. If you can't find a way to do anything in your lane that's useful, try roaming to others to help out there. Overall, just look for good opportunities in lane and across the whole map to get towers and neutral objectives. Kills are just bonuses.

  3. Play safely and build defensively. If you are getting killed a lot as an ap mid, get item 3001 item 3157 or something of the like depending on who you are playing and what you need. If you are adc, get item 3026 a bit early. If you are bruiser, build pure defense. Forget items like item 3748 item 3071, your new best friends are item 3143 item 3065 and all other defensive items. If the enemy is freezing, either push the minion wave super hard and fast to get their tower to break the freeze for them (easier with ranged aoe champs like Karthus, Aurelion, and other mids that you mentioned than most other champs) or try to roam elsewhere if that isn't working. Don't stay in a lane where all you can do is die repeatedly, even if you lose tower, if you help do something useful in a different area you will probably be contributing more to the team than you would otherwise. Don't just abandon your lane, but don't feel tied to it if you just can't do anything there. If someone on your team is carying, try to support them. You don't have to carry every game, just try to contribute usefully in some way. Even if all you do is soak up damage, become a cc bot, or distract the enemies for a while, if you help the person carying win the game, you are doing a decent job. Depending on who you are playing another idea would be to splitpush, this would get your cs back up, give you more xp, and help with map control as well.

  4. Kayle. I picked her up because almost all assassins slaughter Karthus in mid lane. Almost all of the champions that you listed that you play in mid lane have skill shots or some other type of damage source that can be dodged. Kayle's damage is all targeted. They can't dash away from it and dodge it, if they are in your range, they are taking the hit. She wrecks a lot of mobile bursty champions that mages have a difficult time with. For jungleing though, its more a matter of keeping an eye on lanes that you are close to. If you see the enemy Zed or Lucian use their mobility to make an aggressive play, that is your green light to get in there and punish them for it. Most mobility spells have longer cooldowns than average, so if you are decently close (especially on Hecarim or Zac) you should be able to get a good gank in.

Hope some of this helped.

ReadyxPlayerxOne10/31/2016, 8:52:28 PM1 votes

  1. Warding and Counter Jungling. Watch a few videos on them. Bengi and Ambition were ridiculously good at these things. Pathing helps a bit too. For Rengar you wanna use bushes like crazy, zac you want to save movement time with his q, and eve is like slayer said.

  2. Leads aren't exactly snowball city these days but know that the game wants you to win if you're ahead. The biggest goal is to land your skills and skill shots because if you're ahead, they're going to hurt. It's different in each role but you basically want to help your team control the map and steal as many objectives and deny as much gold and farm from the enemy team as possible.

  3. Your 1 and only goal when behind is to get back even. The biggest part of this is making sure you're not feeding more. There's some tricks to it. Grabbing a jungle camp, backing often enough, knowing when to ask for a gank and getting one. Mostly just don't die. If you don't die. You're not feeding anymore.

  4. Mobility can be countered by itemization a lot of the time or proper positioning. In the case of assassins though you may actually need a teammate to help you purely because the assassin is supposed to kill you 1v1.