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Farm versus kills, the great debate

SolusInCadere·8/18/2015, 8:02:20 AM·4 votes·701 views

So I main Support, mostly tanky kill lane support, but conversely have always been a believer of the poke/farm bot lane (think ), where one would harass their enemy laners consistently to deny them exp and farm by forcing backs, shoving waves under towers, etc.

The issue I see is that one kill can snowball the kill lane and undo many minutes of careful work the poke lane has done. Whenever I see a farm heavy strategy, it is always with a specific champion like Sion, Nasus, or Singed (and maybe the new GP too). The first two scale a stat off of farm automatically in addition to gold, where as singed is a farm god and meany to merely give the team a gold/exp advantage via farming and drawing enemies away from objectives. As with GP, he earns more gold and also earns the special gold via Q, so a farm war can quickly put him ahead. He also has excellent wave clear.

So my question to you is: do kills or farm dictate lane? (Not just talking bot lane here, either)

17 Comments

Phife8/18/2015, 8:26:07 AM3 votes

Its not a debate, 20cs = 1 kill. Stay ahead by this much and you have 1 kill worth of gold against your lane.

Got a kill + some CS?? well now you got more than before!

Debate over!

SaltyKracka8/18/2015, 8:11:02 AM2 votes

Farm better, then learn how to kill the opponent.

NemeBro8/18/2015, 8:22:10 AM2 votes

You can outfarm your opponent and still win lane even if no one gets kills. But if you get some kills but your opponent is CSing much better than you to make up the difference, you aren't winning lane.

If you're getting kills without at least being even in farm (and you should honestly have more), then you're not winning lane.

ZT Xperimentor8/18/2015, 10:04:18 AM1 votes

Killing the enemy champ denies them the experience & gold the entire time they've been forcibly removed; and thus kills more often than not, outperform farm. Along with shut-down gold making a dwindling difference as the spree grows, further preventing a comeback.

Hullabaloo9078/18/2015, 10:21:51 AM1 votes

Your just looking at the lane, when the game is about more than that. A lot of times when a champion has low kill potential in lane, they make up for it in being awesome late game or in team fights. When looking at supports specifically, the squisher supports usually make up for not being a tank by having a ton of utility. If your team already has a tank or two, usually a squishy support brings more in terms of utility when having another tank isnt neccesary.

OperationDEEZ18/18/2015, 11:22:37 AM1 votes

There's a reason why 95% of supports are Blitzcrank , Thresh , and Leona . With the occasional Morgana to counter said champs. (People don't play Janna until plat, btw.)

Cheeseyoger8/18/2015, 11:52:48 AM1 votes

I think ultimately kills and farm are like two halves of lane dominance. Having just one is still good, but incomplete. What you want is to have a gold and exp lead over your opponent, farm and kills each give you that, but it doesn't get to a crushing lead until you have both.

So the advantage that dictates the lane is whichever most helps you get the other. Are you a champion who can put the hurt on with half a level lead early game? Push the wave and then pound them the second you level for an early kill. Do you need botrk to get your power spike? Try to slowly eek out a cs lead until that point, and then turn on the heat.

So what dictates the lane is determined largely by when each champion in the lane hits their various power spikes, and how the players respond to those spikes--taking advantage of opportunities and respecting when opportunities are closed.

GLHF

disregardable8/18/2015, 8:03:33 AM1 votes

You won't win if you have one without the other.

ABlueQuaker8/18/2015, 12:08:44 PM1 votes

I generally just play Blitz/Naut/Thresh 90% of the time and stay passive until I can kill someone. Sure, other Supports make up for not having a ton of kill potential with their Utility and Peel but that's all a lot less meaningful in Solo Q.

IcyPepper8/18/2015, 8:08:39 AM1 votes

Really depends on the type of laners you've got.

A poke laner should focus on getting a cs advantage while bullying the enemy out of lane if possible. A kill is nice, but the key is to bullying them out, getting a cs advantage, and then killing them. Sometimes. Others like Caitlyn have no problem just finishing them off.

But really, it does depend on the champion. Take Riven and Nasus, for instance. The Riven wants to kill the Nasus early to deny him farm, and doesn't care as much about getting farm herself because he infinitely scales, she does not. Her priority is to kill him, and/or deny farm. Farming without killing him won't achieve as much. Nasus, on the other hand, wants to farm. Killing her would be nice, but if he goes to lane, kills her, and has to recall immediately and loses farm, it's not as worth it. Then again, a behind Riven is a useless Riven in that case and the Nasus should be getting stacks soon enough, which shows that kills can help get the farm just like vice versa.

So really, it depends. Both are nice, both have influence, and that influence differs on every champion.

SwapShadows8/18/2015, 8:52:18 AM1 votes

Kills are factually much more important, if you can kill the enemy jungler while hes doing red instead of taking those 6 minions then by all means do it because it's completely worth.

Farm is still important tho