Constantly getting ganked as Lucian

BaconAndEggsUSA·Jan 15, 2019·1 votes·1,501 views

Experts,

I can play bot with virtually any support and we always win lane in the early game. And then the ganking starts and it's all over. How do I stop getting ganked as Lucian? I think I need more than "just place a ward and watch the mini map." I've done that but Lucian is sooooooo slow that he can't get away. And if I've used the "E" already because I was in a fight, I can't get away with E and Flash.

Maybe I need to understand when to pull out of bottom lane and go hunt the jungler instead of being hunted.

Welcome any thoughts to an old guy n00b who's son has roped him into this addiction!

4 Comments

Talon GerrardJan 15, 20192 votes

Learn jungle pathing. Once you get the feel of where the jungler most likely is you'll know when you need to start falling back and saving your abilities.

Elite4RunnerJan 15, 20191 votes

I'm going to second Talon Gerrard's comment, but I want to elaborate a bit more.

Most of the time, before minions spawn, players are preparing to leash for their jungler, invading, or keeping an eye out for invades. A lot of times this can give you information by spotting an enemy champion in your jungle or their jungle. Otherwise you may see the top laner or bottom laners get to their lane late and / or with missing health. This will give you a good indication for where the jungler is starting. Also you need to keep an eye out for when / if the enemy jungler appears on the map through vision or to gank early. Most junglers start with a buff or take the buff second. If they have the red or blue buff, .. or both, .. this will give you more definite information for where they started / have been.

The next thing to learn is who the enemy jungle champion is and what type of clear they are best at. Does that champion have a better single target (Red, Blue, Gromp, Skuttle) damage or mulit-target (Krugs, Raptors, Wolves) damage?

Most of the time a jungler will move across the map from where they started and look to apply pressure there.

So if the enemy jungler started at their red on top side and they have better single target damage, they are likely to go Red, Gromp, Blue, Scuttle (not necessarily in that order) and look for a gank bottom or mid lane. They also might not do all of those before looking for a gank if they are good at ganking without being level 3.

Playing jungle really helps to figure this out, but if you don't want to do that, hit YouTube and watch jungler players to figure out common clear / gank paths and times.

CaptainMonk and Foxdrop are great YouTubers for this.

BaconAndEggsUSAJan 16, 20191 votes

Wow, thank you for that. This is much more than I ever would have thought of. I played some more since reading this and I have been ranked less. The pathing makes perfect sense as I play Master Yi as my second. What I'm not sure of at this time, is when to push and/or stay in bot lane and when to do something else. How do the experts figure out when to change phases of the game or to continue to take down the first tower in bot.

Maybe that's a good question, Is taking down the 1st tier tower in bot lane my first priority as an ADC?

Elite4RunnerJan 16, 20191 votes

From my knowledge, laning phase generally ends when the first tower falls. The reason for this is because it is more often better / safer for the "winners" of that lane to apply their pressure to other lanes, leading to more outer towers, and generating more control of lanes around objectives.

I say it is "safer" because trying to press waves into the inner towers without strong jungle control (keep in mind, this is the enemy's jungle) will make it easy for the enemy jungler to catch you out of position.

By swapping with top or mid, the laners that are already ahead are able to continue to snowball their lead as well as forcing the team that is behind to react to their pressure. This can create a vacuum effect, drawing stronger / more enemies away from allies that are behind, allowing them to catch up and apply free pressure on other objectives.

For example, you win your bottom lane first tower then swap with top, your top laner is then able to hold minion waves off of a tower with little pressure because the enemy team would need to play around a contestable portion of their jungle, without the protection of an outer tower. Meanwhile the jungler / mid laner can assist with contesting that portion of the jungle or assist in applying pressure top or mid. Now the enemy team needs to decide if they want to try to match pressure across the map against a team that has a lead, or focus their strength on one side of the map or the other. So in this example, they need to either send more players to the bottom side of the map to match pressure by taking objectives, tower or dragon, .. which will most likely cause them to lose objectives top, tower, Rift Herald, or Baron. OR, do they send players top to defend the objectives top side, giving up control over that portion of their own jungle and giving away a free dragon.

Before all of this though, ... I'm going to give you another YouTuber, SoloRenektonOnly. This guy is honestly my preferred 'lane management' YouTuber. He often talks about when is a good time push, when to back, when to roam, and why. He is a top laner, so there are some tiny differences, but the overall concepts apply.