How come nobody slow pushes?

TehNACHO··3 votes·1,643 views

So I'm usually a Jungle main but I'm working on a sort of personal project of getting a huge array of champions up to Mastery 7 in every role, and right now I've been playing Naut, with one Rank 7 shard from top and one from Support, and I've noticed that a lot of people, like 90% of the Top Laners I play against and all the ADC players I play with, they all continuously auto attack the wave no matter what.

If you're winning the lane or you at least have more lane pressure than the opponent, the easiest trick in the book is to just put yourself right next to or in front of a minion that's about to die, and whack the opponent the moment they try to come up for CS. Do it enough times and with enough force and you can potentially zone them entirely off from the wave while you dip back every few seconds to grab your own CS. In this situation, you're inevitably going to push in due to the imbalance of you CSing and your opponent not, but that's okay, because if you focus on only last hitting minions and letting your minions die to enemy minions, your opponent doesn't get to CS at all. Meanwhile if you start shoving the wave now that you have the advantage, you forfeit your lane pressure and all of your minions that would've died to enemy minions are now shoving into the opponent's reach to CS.

And it's not just starving the hell out of your opponent. Once a cannon minion is in your side and you kill theirs, that lane is shoving forward all on its own, but if you slow pushed and only attacked minions to last hit, that's a monster wave of some 10+ minions and a cannon slamming into your opponent's tower. That's a billion and two opportunities right there. You can waltz right past your opponent and proxy farm, you can leave and deep ward enemy Jungle camps, you can kill Scuttle and set up for Rift or Dragon, you can gank mid because your jungler damn well isn't.

All of this is because you let the wave build up slowly, many of your minions dying to enemy minions and denying CS to the enemy laner, the rest of them buying time for you to do literally anything else. Compare this to auto shoving with constant auto attacks; you're going to kill the opponent's minions before those minions can kill yours, your wave is going to push forward much smaller than if you let it build up, and hell if you screw it up badly enough, which I have seen been done too many times, the opponent is just going to freeze your pitiful minion wave just before tower, free farm, and give you zero opportunities be it to abuse your minion advantage or to leave lane.

I just don't see the reason for constantly auto attacking the wave, especially if you're/we're already ahead. It gives up so much and you gain nothing that way and it annoys me to see it.

6 Comments

CeIeryStalk1 votes

I'm pretty sure a lot of players literally dont know. Like you dont really need that knowledge till you get in upper plat/diamond I think. At least thats what I've seen streamers say. You dont need that knowledge to win games even though it helps

Baron Barian1 votes

People think pushing hard means lane control/dominance. People are often bad at the game, to the point that they often win because the other team is slightly less bad.

I myself follow the Keegun method, at least when I'm top laning. Fast push the first wave to reach lvl 2, slow push the 2nd and 3rd until your wave is forced into the enemy tower, then either roam for scuttle or river fruit, or go back for an item. Makes the most amount of gold while also giving junglers like you more room to properly gank my lane.

But that's just me. Someone who likes learning how to play properly. :3

MrHaZeYo1 votes

If I'm ahead or want to roam or back, I hard push. If I'm behind or am afraid of a gank, I only Auto for CS or to trim waves.

DepressedAhri1 votes

Just because of the question, I had to look up your rank, assuming you were bronze. But because you are in Gold 5, it could be due to a multitude of boosted accounts for ranked rewards. If you progressed up to Gold 4, you should start seeing more slow pushes and lane freezes, because it isn't really a complex strategy. I also could be wrong and it could just be one of those things that is completely overlooked in Solo queue and only used in pro-play.

AlienPrimate1 votes

I only hard push if my enemy is absent or if I am against a tank I don't want to deal with in which case I hard push so I can roam and/or get deep wards to catch the enemy jungler out.

Enascent1 votes

I love this post. I have been constantly thinking about the same issue. I understand the early game push, race to level 2 spike, but hard pushing isn't always the best idea. I have seen professional players slow push, just enough to get a larger wave going, so whenever they fight the opponent they enable the jungler to gank and the surplus of minions to give them an advantage. Which seems like the right strat in that scenario, given your jungler has map presence and you want to fight. I would only hard push if I have my flash up and river warded, since I do not like getting ganked.

From my point of view there are pros and cons to each:

Hard Push

  1. More time for vision/assistance to river and dragon
  2. Can out cs since hitting mage minions under turret can be difficult (opponent harassing) or tower taking cs
  3. Vulnerable to being ganked
  4. Enable support to hard ward (ward their jungle)
  5. Harder to cs

Slow Push

  1. Have surplus minions for fight
  2. Get more experience if the opponent is boxed out
  3. Higher CS %
  4. Safer from ganks

I've always imagined slow push when you want to fight, and fast push when you want to have more map presence/can properly harass/control. However I am just a noob climbing the ladder, so I'm sure there is much more I can learn.

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