Boards›Gameplay

The importance of stalling

Levi8an··10 votes·1,001 views

Hello everyone!

I just got to level 8 so I can finally start posting on the boards, .. well, .. with this account. Tbh, I have another account at a higher level, but I decided to start over because I need to develop my skills in PVP.

I just wanted to share my theory about why I think lower level games do so poorly, and I'm wondering if anyone else agrees.

I believe the problem is that people don't understand how to stall a game.

Just in case anyone doesn't know what stalling means, basically all you are doing is farming and preventing the enemy from taking objectives. ... Kinda obvious, right? But the difference is, you aren't trying to take them either, just preventing them from being taken.

Of course if you can take the objective without a fight, do it, but if contested back off.

The reason you want to do this is because YOU CAN'T FIGHT.

You are behind, .. so it reasons to understand that the enemy team, or at least a few of the enemy team are fed, meaning they are ahead in kills, gold, and/or levels.

So why would you want to stall?

It seems to me that a very common belief is that if the enemy gets ahead, the game is over. IT'S NOT.

You see, the highest level your enemy can reach is 18, and the most items your enemy can have is 6, so there is a limit to how far ahead they can get. When they reach that limit, the longer the game continues, the less that advantage means anything.

Eventually, you will even out again and you can still win.

12 Comments

Troll for Trump3 votes

Riot doesn't want stalling.

It's a good strategy, but Riot constantly makes it a worse and worse idea. They have encouraged snowballing and powercreep (there are essays on this). Season 2 was probably the stalling meta. Nowadays, even if you freeze all lanes at the 2nd turret, the enemy can still snowball. The games have been pushed to becoming faster and faster, and a lot of stalling type champs can't keep up with the dominance of early game champs.

Elite4Runner2 votes

{quoted}

Riot doesn't want stalling.

It's a good strategy, but Riot constantly makes it a worse and worse idea. They have encouraged snowballing and powercreep (there are essays on this). Season 2 was probably the stalling meta. Nowadays, even if you freeze all lanes at the 2nd turret, the enemy can still snowball. The games have been pushed to becoming faster and faster, and a lot of stalling type champs can't keep up with the dominance of early game champs.

They may not want it, but it is absolutely a way to return from a deficit.

Orangesilk2 votes

No, what he means is, stalling is becoming more and more difficult because Riot doesn't want stalling to happen. It's very hard to stall a team sieging you down with even so much as an ocean drake (to say nothing of mountain and infernal) and with towers becoming weaker and weaker it's just a matter of time before the team that is ahead breaks through them (Usually by diving).

While stalling is often the most viable strategy to come back from a deficit, it's becoming harder and harder to do with each patch.

Levi8an1 votes

My point is that forcing fights and objectives when your opponents are stronger than you is more likely to put you further behind than if you were to stall.

It may not be easy, but it is safer.

And obviously this is something you need to do sooner than later. You can't stall against a team that is all 2 to 3 levels, a full item, two or more towers, dragon, baron, ... etc, ahead of you.

However, if they may be a few levels ahead with one of your towers down, preventing them from taking another tower will really help.

Similarly, not letting them take a free dragon or baron will keep them from continuing to snowball. If you can make it more of a risk for them to finish, or even try to take this objective, you can close the gap. They are also more likely to make mistakes when they are on the offensive and you are on the defensive.

That is all you are looking for.

Stall to prevent snowballing, close the gap when they make a mistake, then take the win with stronger macro control.

KoggyStyle1 votes

irelia tear of the goddess hydra icebourne guantlet....

MagicFlyingLlama2 votes

People also spectacularly fail at this in lv30 silver and gold games.

Attempt to explain why you should defend and the resident riven trash runs down lane and feeds after declared that "pushing wins games".

In almost all situations a defending team has an advantage in fights, in vision, options for retreat and ease of reinforcing allies at different positions, due to being spread out less. They also tend to get better farm in a lot of cases.

Moetaro1 votes

Towers throw paperbullets, gl trying to stall a game. If they have half a brain, they just dive and finish the game off, period.

Plus, if they decide not to dive directly, the limit is not lvl 18 and 6 items. The limit is lvl 18, 6 items, 3 dragons, baron and the ancient. And the other team will have all of this if you decide not to contest anything. GL trying to stop that.

Contrary to what you state in your post, in the current state of the game, once one team is ahead, the game is pretty much over unless total fuck up. And I mean TOTAL.

Levi8an1 votes

It's like you didn't read my post at all.

I never said you don't contest anything, in fact I am saying that you want to contest objectives.

However, you don't want to FORCE objectives.

If they are trying to take an objective, put pressure on them. Paper bullets or not, the tower is still an advantage. If they are ahead enough to dive you without regard to the tower, you and your team didn't start stalling soon enough, or were just doing it wrong. For Dragon and Baron, it is far more dangerous for them to try and take these objectives when there is a risk of being collapsed on, or having the objective stolen. In most cases someone will have to tank damage which puts them at a disadvantage. People are also very likely to be disjointed when deciding to stick to the objective or to pull off and fight. If your team collapses on one of the two groups together, you are likely to win, or at least force them off of the objective, ... = stalling.

I also said if you can take the objective freely, do it.

The point is to make up lost ground, if you can take an objective without a fight, you have every reason to do so.

However, if the enemy shows up to contest, back off of the objective, but maintain pressure.

And aside from all of this, many low level players don't even worry about objectives in these cases. All they do is fight against stronger opponents who just beat them again and again, causing the snowballing that you are talking about.

Moetaro1 votes

I never said you don't contest anything, in fact I am saying that you want to contest objectives.

Of course if you can take the objective without a fight, do it, but if contested back off.

That's not contesting objective. That's to back off. Contesting actually means... contesting.

The point is to make up lost ground, if you can take an objective without a fight, you have every reason to do so. However, if the enemy shows up to contest, back off of the objective, but maintain pressure.

Ok, so, if you stall you can win if your enemy gives you objectives for free? lol, you dont need stalling if the enemy is mentally handicaped.

The only reason for stalling is to do nothing as much as possible in order to wait for the enemy to MASSIVE FUCK UP. If they are not retarded, stalling is worth nothing. No chance to comeback, no chance of reducing the advantage, you only have a chance of the enemy MASSIVELY fucking up, and if they only normal fuck up, you lose anyway. Not worth it 30 minutes of my time, sorry.

Levi8an1 votes

Lets put it this way, ..

If your team is behind enough that you would lose a 5v5 fight, ... why would you want to fight them, AND the dragon at the same time?

Now look at it from the other perspective, ...

Despite being ahead enough that your opponents could win in a 5v5, they may not necessarily be ahead enough to win in a 5v5 + dragon.

Their mistake in this regard comes in when part of their team decides to break off of the dragon to fight you. In most cases, they will not all break off at the same time and 1 or 2 of them will stick to the dragon. This puts them in a 2v5, 3v5, or even 4v5. Then you have a numbers advantage. Or at the very least, 1 or 2 of them have probably been tanking damage from the dragon, or burning through mana to deal damage to the dragon, which puts them at even more of a disadvantage.

So again, if you were already behind before in a straight up 5v5, you would be even more behind if you tried to take dragon, despite them being present to contest it.

InTheory1 votes

[deleted]

Levi8an1 votes

Well that's comforting. Here I was hoping that I would have an easier time after a while.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes