as a midlaner and toplaner i find myself more discouraged to make plays in a losing botlane

ALL MłGHT·Mar 21, 2018·11 votes·881 views

If my botlane is losing, I refuse to help them especially if I am winning. Sacrificing TP for a botlane gank is sacrificing my tower to help get my botlane, who put themselves behind, but be barely even in their lane. this is just not worth it. especially since getting towers is so easy now I always make the decision to not TP.

As for my botlane getting behind, it is their own fault. it is not my responsibility to make a power play in a lane that has the disadvantage and incompetence. everyone gets 2 free wards, use them. look at your map frequently. if their jungle is top side, then you can CS more relaxed. if you dont' know where their jungler is, ALWAYS ASSUME that they're in the tribush. listen to my midlane pings. If I ping midlane missing, dont try to flash for the kill botlane.

and if you're a jungler, dont give midlane double buffs and then ping me question marks as to why I didnt follow in their jungle for your mistakes.

League isn't about getting ahead it is about which team makes fewer mistakes. Fewer mistakes, fewer consequences.

42 Comments

ViciousSummonerMar 21, 20185 votes

You shouldn't gank for your team in solo-queue unless you absolutely know you will get something out of it. Even then most people are too crosseyed to notice the easiest of free advantages in front of them.

ALL MłGHTMar 21, 20182 votes

finally some reason on the boards

FCJAAAAGOOOOMar 22, 20182 votes

So many times my junglers are so obviously stroking their ego in front of me, waiting in a bush either to die to an enemy jungler or towait there as if the other laner will walk into me for no reason and become even remotely gankable. Often times right when I go in or the other laner puts themselves in a bad spot my jungler who's waiting there up and leaves. It is so infuriating.

Junglers can punt games the hardest, by far. That is one of the most obnoxious things about League right now.

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20181 votes

Junglers can punt games the hardest, by far

I had a jungler that was trying to counter jungle. Enemy midlaner rotated on him taking a short route, I had to take a longer route to avoid tower/being caught out. He proceeded to die to their mid, gave double buffs. He went back to the same spot to try to counter jungle AGAIN and died to my mid laner again. You would think they would have learned from their first mistake but nah

woodvsmurphMar 22, 20181 votes

I'd say it's a toss up between jg and bot. I don't know how many times I KNOW a decent jg could come to a lane - mine or someone else's - and just grab a free kill like every 2 min or so. Either counter-ganking and winning the 2v2 to snowball, or just tower diving and forcing the enemy jg to come to lane and take a losing 2v2 fight... and snowball. But instead, they worry about... farm efficiency. Because everyone knows you'll carry the game if you just get those 2 whole camps up on your opponent. That counter-ganking a low health enemy obviously only playing agro because his jg is coming to gank, grabbing an easy 2 for 0 or 2 for 1 and THEN farming your jg a whole 15 sec later will cost you the game lol. Too many jg are slaves to farm efficiency at cost of opportunities. Too many think you can only gank through the river and have 0 clue about WHEN to gank. Minion wave timing and ability cd's matter. Waiting a whole 7 sec to get off a successful gank isn't asking that much. Or they'll go and take cs when a laner dies and end up giving their opponent a lane freeze - like thanks... I just got 3v1'd. I could recover and be fine, but let's just give my opponent a free extra level lead and 40cs advantage before I can safely even start farming lane again. Hope that extra half minion wave you took for no reason was worth it. Not like you ever gank my lane or even help secure vision for me.

Bot lane is just as bad though. Blindly shoving w/o wards when they have 2 people to ward as opposed to 1. Arrogantly tower diving, blowing sums to chase one more kill instead of be happy with a winning trade and exploit their advantage via... getting tower or something. They get warned 5x top, mid, or jg is mia - or even that they're heading bot - and they still decide it's time to go all-in and try to kill their lane opponents. Great... great job. Even if you trade 2 for 2, it's not worth. They don't push advantages properly - either passively trading farm even if they're 2v1 - when ahead. Pushing tier 2 tower instead of rotating for a SAFER push onto enemy mid after pushing bot lane in. Overstaying... yeah you might be fed or be behind and REALLY need that juicy minion wave coming to your tower, but the enemy can literally 1-shot you from your current hp for staying. Then you miss that cs, lose your tower, and feed them 2 kills. Not worth. Just leave. They play like they need to snowball and get fed in lane. Dude - you're in the one lane that doesn't even need to go even to be relevant. Just play safe, play smart, don't feed and you will scale fine. People can't always immediately gank or camp your lane nor SHOULD they. Kills and kda alone don't matter. Objectives, map pressure, etc. These things matter. If top is winning, mid is winning and jg might be winning - you literally just have to stay close to even in lane. Trying to snowball generally just results in you feeding to the point your team has 0 chance to win. Don't throw the game away just because you aren't getting fed and hard carrying. Don't try to solo or duo push when the other team has fed assassins or others who can delete you; just group. Don't sit bot afk farming at tier 1 or tier 2 when the enemy is 4 or 5 man shoving your mid inner or inhib tower - rotate. I don't care if you've got half the farm of your lane opponent because you intentionally fed all laning phase and NEED the farm. You created this mess and you are half or all of the team's SAFE waveclear - so go mid and waveclear for the team. A fed adc and a gold-starved adc blow up just as nice - don't sit on the frontline. Especially when the enemy has tons of cc, burst, and dps to catch you out.

Sp33d Zer0Mar 21, 20184 votes

I had a game not too long ago where I was off to a really rough start on Ezreal. My support had gotten caught out twice, and I died trying to save him. We were around 0/4 combined at around 5 minutes or so.

Our Jayce mid with ignite walked down (so he had no way to teleport back to lane) around 9 minutes and fed me over the two kills instead of taking them for himself. I was suddenly able to get back into the game and took it over massively, snowballing myself to 25k damage above the closest person to me in about a 33ish minute game.

If Jayce had stayed mid, we likely would have lsot because of how ahead the enemy Jinx was and how I weak I was with just a tear versus her BF sword and boots. This is the reason you should still try to help out your bot lane. You have to remember that if your bot lane is losing but there is still time to salvage it, you have a good chance of coming out ahead. Same with top and jungle. Same with mid. If they are drastically behind and just need to afk farm, sure don't roam down. But you can easily be the deciding factor that puts your losing teammates (regardless of the role) in a position to get back ahead.

While you are correct that league IS about making as few mistakes as possible, it is also about looking for oppurtunities to make advantages. Making a 2v1 invade with your jungler to catch the enemy, looking for that sneaky roam as support to go mid, forcing the enemy to come top lane to then tp to your team for the fight and objective; these are all super crucial to actually winning games. You will never win if you don't take a risk.

ALL MłGHTMar 21, 20184 votes

Why should your midlaner come bot to get you back on your feet for your mistakes? Why could you not play more efficiently with minimal mistakes/risk. When you pick a champion and see the enemy team champions you know what position you've put yourself into. I play Ryze mostly and any time they pick an assassin I have to be VERY careful. I don't try to "RISK" to try to get ahead because assassins innately have the early game over me.

Especially on Ezreal who has one of the best abilities in the game to re-position himself to a more safe position.

Currently in this meta you make opportunities via pressure and CS. The game is just too volatile in terms of kill gold and bot-lane is too unbalanced to lose.

Sp33d Zer0Mar 22, 20181 votes

Because I would go to help my team out. You don't always have the ability to play around every little thing. Just because you will scale does not mean your entire team will so you should play to help them get their leads by helping make their risky plays safer by power of numbers.

Like I said, I died trying to save my support who was getting caught by the enemy.

You say that this meta is about making oppurtunities via pressure and CS, but you aren't making pressure from the sounds of it.

Craft ZeppelinMar 22, 20182 votes

Personally in most of the cases, I find out that the enemy adc is fed out of proportion that it nigh unkillable. I'm even playing damn Leblanc and cannot kill the adc.

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20181 votes

It's even worse when playing Ryze

Craft ZeppelinMar 22, 20181 votes

Like how I'm supposed to kill a 5 kill + carry, while I only have 2 kills on average.

IfnethMar 22, 20181 votes

I mean, if someone has 5+ early kills on a scaling champion, they’ve kinda earned the ability to carry.

IfnethMar 22, 20181 votes

Ryze is a roaming mid. He can Realm Warp behind the enemy botlane from fog of war, root an enemy with a point-and-click to initiate, and follow up with bouncing damage and a shield. If you wanna be really fancy, then you can even ask your jungler to ride the Realm Warp with you.

I could understand if you were playing a laning or scaling mid, but Ryze, like Galio, Twisted Fate, Aurelion Sol, and Taliyah have no excuse for being unable to roam. They all have strong waveclear, hard crowd control, and lots of damage with high snowball potential.

IfnethMar 22, 20182 votes

Because no-one always wins lane. We all make mistakes. Spitefully refusing to help, when you could turn a lane around or keep it from snowballing, is throwing.

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20182 votes

You don't have to actively win lane, just don't lose it. Everyone makes mistakes, winners make the fewest or learn from their mistakes. My bot-lanes never learn from their mistakes.

IfnethMar 22, 20181 votes

If someone’s winning lane, someone else is losing it. Sometimes your bot-lane will be ahead, sometimes even, other times behind if you play enough games. Solo-queue tests your ability to dive for your winning lane, roam to your even one, and save a losing lane with an outplay or huge pressure.

2Charmnot2CharmMar 22, 20181 votes

Spitefully refusing to help, when you could turn a lane around or keep it from snowballing, is throwing.

Why should we trust you to not screw up that gank when we come to help when you already fed your ass off?

The game is already done anyways unless the jungler manages to snowball BOTH Top and Mid so they have a chance to deal with your mess.

IfnethMar 22, 20181 votes

Bitterness won’t win you the game any more than spite will.

Champions rarely get fed enough to reliably win a 1v2 or 2v3, especially if they’re surprised; the shutdown gold from a sucesssful roam or gank or both can stop a lane from snowballing. And while some players are trying to feed or throw to de-rank a smurf, most would be on main accounts and desperate to rejoin the game.

The game isn’t over if botlane feeds, and abandoning a lane to snowball the others only works if they’re in a position to exploit the advantage enough to take their turret and rotate. Often, the best move is to just stop the snowball to let your team scale.

2Charmnot2CharmMar 22, 20181 votes

Bitterness won’t win you the game any more than spite will.

This has nothing to do with bitterness its common sense.

If someone died 2/3 times to their lane opponent the worse thing you can be doing is ganking that lane. Why?

Because

A. The enemy jungler will be there to counter gank because they expect you to help the weak link.

B. Your laner is behind in both Items and Levels, so the chances of that enemy winning a 1v2 if you're not strong yourself is high.

C. That ally has already proven that they make too many mistakes so the enemy team can easily punish that player once you aren't there to hold their hands.

IfnethMar 22, 20181 votes

A) Ward an intersection in the opposite side of the enemy jungle and wait for him to show. He has to farm that side sometime.

B) That’s not usually the case. Only champions designed to duel and splitpush can 1v2 and win; e.g., Darius, Camille, Fiora. The rest will have to back off—letting you break a freeze or prevent a dive—or flash to escape if they overextend. This relieves pressure and gives your laner a chance to recover.

C) The game continues after laning phase, and comebacks are not impossible. A mistake in a matchup like Camille vs Darius can get Camille killed or zoned, and one more can get her killed again, but she can still threaten turrets with safe splitpushing and pick mispositioned enemies during skirmishes.

Ganking or roaming losing lanes will never generate huge leads. But if you just refuse to help anyone who’s died more than once because you feel that they don’t deserve it or just assume they will not help the team anyway, then every time they do, you’ll be conceding the turret and enormous pressure, even when helping them would have been possible and the best available play.

It’s rare for midlaners that staying in lane, ignoring the team, and pushing the outer turret are the best option, and it’s never a good thing. The same goes for power-farming as a jungler. It means that things have gotten so bad they’re basically helpless and can only hope to maybe make a difference by getting a little more gold and experience. A lane going 0/2 isn’t that.

Midlaners can’t just sit there and expect their sidelanes to win and their jungler to dominate. They have to win lane to gain mid priority, gaining objective control and letting their jungler invade while keeping himself safe from invades. They have to relentlessly pressure their opponent to shut them down. They have to roam to the sidelanes, fed or feeding, and snowball them or turn them around.

This is why I keep mentioning spite and bitterness. Mids have to step up regardless of whether the game is already going their way. Lock down the win or save the game.

HayaishiMar 22, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Why should your midlaner come bot to get you back on your feet for your mistakes? Why could you not play more efficiently with minimal mistakes/risk. When you pick a champion and see the enemy team champions you know what position you've put yourself into. I play Ryze mostly and any time they pick an assassin I have to be VERY careful. I don't try to "RISK" to try to get ahead because assassins innately have the early game over me.

Especially on Ezreal who has one of the best abilities in the game to re-position himself to a more safe position.

Currently in this meta you make opportunities via pressure and CS. The game is just too volatile in terms of kill gold and bot-lane is too unbalanced to lose.

Lmao enjoy losing games then.

ReySolomonMar 21, 20183 votes

Well said!

As a mid main I always watch my team getting devoured as I try to survive in my own lane while my enemy laner having the 2 item advantage due to support AFKING in front of Blue entrance giving my enemy lane a nice Gold advantage/item.

Ganking bot is always a ''Will I be able to pull off a 2v1?'' ''will my JGL gank with me even if I ping assist as he's 1v1ing frog/Blue buff'' ''Will I get reported by the 0-3 draven 0-5 blitzcrank if I missplay'' it's always a serious decision when it comes to botlane.

saltranMar 21, 20182 votes

As a adc main I agree: I remember a game a few months ago where a Jax on my team was really ahead and instead of split pushing (and he was feed enough to 2vs1 the top and jng) he tried to roam bot and use tp to us, and we were not even losing, it was a passive botlane when everyone was farming and he didn't get anything from the ganks but lose a lot of time.

nm1010Mar 21, 20182 votes

it is not my responsibility to make a power play in a lane that has the disadvantage and incompetence.

It is if you want to win in this meta.

ALL MłGHTMar 21, 20181 votes

I don't think you understand. Ganking botlane has more of a negative effect for me than a positive effect for the team. I expose myself to botlane, giving their jungle to freely go top and gank top. Or it leaves my lane open to siege. What do I get out of trying to get my botlane back into the game? Nothing. Well, there is potential gain but potential gain is not worth certain gain by continuing to win my lane.

nm1010Mar 21, 20181 votes

In the current meta adcs are so strong when ahead they become borderline oppressive. If you do not intervene in bot lane when the enemy is ahead, they will likely (unless they suck) take all of your outer towers, neutral objectives, invade your jungle, and have complete vision control. The amount of a gold lead this creates will be the end of your team.

That is why high elo is nothing but high wave clear, high roaming potential mids. The best way to win currently is going through bot lane.

ALL MłGHTMar 21, 20181 votes

You are looking at the problem after it becomes a problem. Why is it that your botlane gets behind? They did it to themselves by trying to play risky but it not working out. Proper opportunities are made from small advantages, not trying to flash for a kill or underestimating their bot-lane.

nm1010Mar 22, 20181 votes

Sometimes shit happens, stop worrying about how things happen and focus on how to win games. That is the ultimate goal in league, that is why a meta exists, everyone wants to win the game in the end. That is why I never said it should be your responsibility to gank bot, I said if you want to win you will gank bot.

JbelsMar 22, 20181 votes

What I prefer to do is back, walk into bot lane, sneak in to the bush, and gank that way. THEN tp back to lane. That way I don't miss as many minions and I don't lose tower

Glory97Mar 22, 20181 votes

Nice teamplay dude. Keep that attitude of not helping teammates that struggle. As midlaner I like to roam botlane for selfish reasons. Once you are ahead 2-3 kills your lane opponent starts to play safe. And then you can zone him and get a cs lead of maybe 20-30, but if you roam instead you can potentially get a double kill, the botlane turret + a drake.

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20181 votes

Team play? What about the team play that got my botlane behind? What about my pings for them to play safe or warning before game starts? Once I'm ahead 2-3 kills my laner plays safe yes, but as soon as I leave lane to help botlane this allows my laner to catch up on CS. You keep talking about potential successes in ganking bot-lane but that compared to certain successes in my lane. If I win lane, I negate my opponents potential to have an impact on the team. I have an impact on the team by making it 5/4. Other lanes and jungle can do the same but they don't think that way. They do not think about how their actions can HEAVILY impact the game.

Glory97Mar 22, 20181 votes

Of course teamplay. This is a teamgame after all. Surely if you think that staying mid gives more overall benefits (in gold exp,) then it's the right thing to stay midlane. But if you don't move botlane because "well my botlane lost it and now they should deal with it", then it's quite awful.

JackMcSnipeyzMar 22, 20181 votes

i mean, you ARE silver 1 with sub 50% winrate, so maybe you SHOULD reconsider your strategy. If you arent using your lead to influence other lanes, you arent contributing to the team, it's a team game. But you do you i guess

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20181 votes

Look at the champion I am playing, look at the champions win rate in my elo. I've found more success recently by IGNORING bot-lane and playing Ryze top and just forcing my toplaner to be useless. I keep split pushing until enough pressure is top side for bot to get their tower and dragon.

JackMcSnipeyzMar 22, 20181 votes

No one said you should throw your lane out the window and focuso nly on ganking. But you are dealing in absolutes, ignoring a lane will lead to said lane spiraling out of control, if you have a lead and CAN impact the match positivly WHILE helping your team, you should do it, 3 kills bot and a drake is worth more than losing "MY TURRET!"

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20181 votes

Why is the other lane losing? In champion select you get to see which champions they pick and you can adjust runes and summoners accordingly. You keep talking about the problem after it becomes a problem instead of encouraging in preventing that problem. That is where you start, not to send the midlane/toplane to the handicapped botlane vs a fed ADC/support.

The smart jungler/mid/top will gank lanes that are already winning to push the success further. If you gank a losing lane there is little to be gained. I watched a challenger tier Ryze mid vs a Viktor. The jungler got 1st blood on the Viktor and came back 5 MORE TIMES. Why would jungle go bot where he doesn't know the outcome. To win you gank winning lanes not losing lanes. If you lose lane, it is your fault. Everyone has wards and has the ability to purchase a red ward. Everyone gets pings and must listen to pings. If I ping that you need to be careful because of the jungle potential being somewhere and if you die because you ignored it, I will simply mute you and keep trying to win my lane. Your ignorance is your own downfall I wont try to pick your dumb ass up after I already tried to help.

JackMcSnipeyzMar 22, 20181 votes

You cant effect how dumbass people pick and counter pick, or how they use their runes or champion in lane. Im not saying you should save their lane to be their HERO AND SAVIOR and get praised for your good will towards men. Im saying you should help other lanes to prevent the enemy team to get fed off their mind, if your botlane or any lane is a dumbass and cant win lane you should start doing damage control, get fed in your lane, start impacting and pressuring the entire map, if you turn a blind eye you can lose a lot of map control and pressure that you COULD effect if you play it smartly. Im not saying go over to a losing lane and start spoon feeding them kills, go to that losing lane, shut down the enemy YOURSELF, get the GOLD you need aswell, while at the same time trying to stabalize the team wide power dynamic.

ALL MłGHTMar 22, 20181 votes

they're changing the way solo gold and team gold works so I don't have to roam to my idiot bot lanes anymore. Honestly if bot-lane, with 4 summoner spells, a babysitter champion, and ranged loses then they deserve to lose lane. It is easier to try to play a 2v3 jungle gank than a 1v2 jungle gank. Don't @ me

JackMcSnipeyzMar 22, 20181 votes

You do realise that the enemy botlane is facing thhe exact same scenerio? it's not like your side has 2 champs and the other has 1, it's 2v2, the power dynamic is the same, that point is pretty bad.

idk who hurt you, and why you're so butt hurt, but like i said at my first post, you do you, if you really think in a team game you should ignore everyone else, go for it, im sure you'll reach for the stars.

woodvsmurphMar 22, 20181 votes

It really depends on your rank and the bot lane. I generally calculate the potential gains from a gank or tp play bot vs what I KNOW I will lose via leaving my lane and having to walk back there afterwards. Bear in mind a KEY part of this calculation is that... if bot lane doesn't decide to intentionally feed just because they fell a bit behind, they WILL scale up just fine and have relevant damage for teamfights and waveclear - something that cannot honestly be said about any other lane right now. Thus, I usually err on the side of caution and do NOT tp gank or lane gank bot. Once in awhile if the mere threat of a tp can stop a 3v2 or 4v2 tower dive onto my bot lane, I'll do that. Otherwise it's generally best - as boxerpete says - to leave bot lane alone because chances are they will end up feeding even if your tp play or gank puts them far ahead. That said, I did do a tp play yesterday very early in the match which I was certain would fail; however, it ended up saving my bot duo, netting us more kills than it should have, and bot actually played intelligently and snowballed off it. Sure there were a few setbacks, but unlike most games, they didn't decide to run it down lane forcing bad fights and ruining our chances of winning; they took smart fights, avoided bad fights, and won their lane. They even managed to... make rotational plays to help teammates snowball afterwards - something I almost never see from bot lanes in silver or gold.

When to gank for bot: your lead in your lane is massive - not tenuous when your lane opponent is already there and you cannot get more by splitting when you've taken the outer tower in your lane and shoved a giant wave all the way in to your opponent's tier 2 tower when a dragon is up or about to spawn when you can stop enemy getting first tower gold and pick it up yourself via ganking bot (sometimes worth)

bot lane failures when given a lead via ganks - these are all too common in silver and gold:

After getting a lead, they don't punish their opponents. They trade farm passively instead of pushing in and looking to rotate mid for tower damage or swapping lanes with toplaner.

After getting a lead, they don't focus on killing first tower bot - they keep greeding and taking insane risks for kills. Eventually they end up being preyed upon for their risky tendencies, they feed away multiple kills, and they lose towers when they're dead - putting the other team far ahead.

Bot lane is their universe. They only push bot, only go for towers bot. Why go for a risky tier 2 tower bot when you could do the much safer and smarter option of... pushing in and rotating for dragon or mid tower? The only reason you need to go bot again is to waveclear when it's pushed close to your tower.

No teamwork and no warding. They just run wherever they want, take whatever jg or lane farm they want and refuse to work with their team. They're fed, so they're gonna 2v5 carry the game and no you cannot get any farm. This leads to them repeatedly taking 2v5 and 3v5 fights they cannnot win, throwing away their lead, costing objectives and towers, and eventually the other team has a huge lead even if towers and kills are even due to shutdown gold, objectives like baron/drag, etc. Meanwhile, their teammates are starved for gold and xp and have no desire to work with people who screw over their teammates and flame them just because they're not hella fed. Never mind the fact that top, jg, and/or mid are generally the REASON bot is fed.

*if bot is feeding - don't gank for them jg. If bot takes stupid fights because they won't listen to team or be logical, don't gank for them. Let them feed - it's better for you to gank for a neutral or winning lane or counter-gank somewhere where you COULD be winning if even in numbers than to try to prop up an intentionally feeding lane. Go elsewhere, get a more intelligent teammate (and yourself) fed, and make plays where you are strong. Either bot will realize they need to stop inting and you can use your lead from ganking elsewhere to stabilize them THEN or... they'll continue inting and you at least have a lead elsewhere which can potentially be used to neutralize the fed enemy bot lane or just snowball harder/faster than it.

PyroLuxMar 22, 20181 votes

You don't ever do everything 100% all the time- if it is more beneficial to stay in your lane and pressure objectives in order to win the game, who gives a shit about your team's losing lane. If it's more beneficial to just roam bot- e.g you have your tp up, just killed a turret top and it's crashing into their tower, why not just go bot and collect a few free kills. It isn't your responsibility to win their lane for them, but it is in your best interest to stabilize a losing lane so you have a higher chance of winning a game.