Is Kill Stealing a Thing?

TheNonMan·5/2/2019, 4:33:02 AM·5 votes·5,917 views

I'm fairly new (level 14 right now), but I've been playing a lot of Ziggs and having tons of fun.

Ziggs has all AoE skills, and when I see an ally being ganked I'll usually drop my R on the enemies while they're distracted. However in a match recently one player was telling me to stop 'stealing kills' and to not try 'going for the kill' at all.

This is confusing to me, because as I see it...

I can get a decent number of kills without feeding, so why not?
We both get experience and gold if the enemy champion/s die to me or my ally.
Your 1v2 might not go as planned.

Is accidental kill stealing actually heinous or was this just a salty dude only interested in having the most kills? I wasn't robbing this guy blind, he had a few more kills than me, and I had a ton of assists from helping out teammates.

33 Comments

Sir Prepuzius5/2/2019, 7:29:35 AM8 votes

well, 9 times out of 10 kill stealing isn't a thing.. it's just the other player that is salty but, in the remaining case.. it could be.. like imagine jumping on a fight and last hitting an enemy that you know would be killed aniways by your teammate that bringed him down, after a succesfull engage.. and imagine you being a support player.. in that case the right move would be let him get the kill, so, kill stealing could be a thing in certain scenarios

Sona Ping5/2/2019, 4:35:19 AM5 votes

Kill Stealing is not a thing in this game.

Frontline Fury5/2/2019, 4:43:50 AM4 votes

Welcome to League of Legends!

To answer your question, "Is kill stealing a thing?"

Hahaha no. Kill stealing is not a thing. Even if someone calls you out on it, ignore them - "stealing" a kill is not punishable and is generally only SOCIALLY unacceptable at very low levels of play (to put it bluntly: only really bad players complain about kill steals.)

I suggest you use the mute function on the scoreboard for players that complain. Hold TAB and click the little speech bubble icon in the corner of their champion + items section. Whatever you do, don't chat with them - don't try to defend yourself or apologize. Just don't say anything at all (perhaps sry to pretend it was an accident) and keep playing.

http://i.imgur.com/15cQiN2.jpg

Shinji lkari5/2/2019, 4:54:55 AM3 votes

Kill stealing is a legimitate thing. Unless it is a Pyke, you get LESS GOLD. Countless of times I watch the enemy have a Zed ult or Kayn ult, about to die and someone flashes to take the kill. Guess what, it's wrong, you're wrong, and if you lose because you pissed off a laner, you took the kill now you gotta carry.

The Highest Noon5/2/2019, 1:59:59 PM3 votes

There are only 2 reasons why someone complains about kill-stealing:

They only care about KD and are probably low ranked
They're hella behind and the shutdown would've helped them compete in lane

So yeah, it's a thing. Most of the time it's just pointless whining, though.

LiberalWithFacts5/2/2019, 5:13:25 AM3 votes

kill stealing isnt a thing in my opinion, if the enemy team is dead we can move for objectives

Snarfuractu5/2/2019, 4:35:46 AM2 votes

well nowadays with how high bounty can get, if you last hit a 1000 bounty target i THINK you get the bounty regardless of the damage dealt by the other player.

ModDaenrysTargaryen5/2/2019, 4:44:34 AM2 votes

This is a tricky subject because of context, lets get some things straight right off the bat, Technically kill stealing is a thing in this game, if you kill someone you get more gold then the people who also helped kill said player. another thing is the bounty of a champion only goes to the player who killed the other player. (I define kill stealing when someone does 80-99% of the work alone and you take it) It is all in opinion.

Ight, if the dude you are targeting is at full health at the time you cast your ult or something and you kill him then in my opinion that is not considered kill stealing, you were trying to prevent a gank by putting damage out and happen to get the kill if the dude is at low health and your allies have it under control and you cast your ult and you did no damage before hand then in some circumstances that would be considered a kill steal for me. (its all based on perspective, if you did it to try to stop someone from dying in your mind then I would also not consider that a kill steal as you were trying to save someones life, I do it alot as a support for that reason only)

Regardless in this game there is no punishment for kill stealing as some people do it because they think they can carry a team by being the strongest player on the team so to be honest it does not really matter.

Meteora7075/2/2019, 1:21:06 PM2 votes

Is accidental kill stealing actually heinous or was this just a salty dude only interested in having the most kills? I wasn't robbing this guy blind, he had a few more kills than me, and I had a ton of assists from helping out teammates.

the other guy was just a salty boy, to answer the "is kill stealing a thing" tho, yes it is.

Project Xayah5/2/2019, 5:34:32 AM2 votes

Some people will find any excuse to bitch about their teammates. Just ignore them and report post-game.

Here's some advice; stop thinking of it as "Kill Stealing" and start thinking of it as "Kill Securing", because that's what it is unless your teammate should have literally no trouble getting the kill on their own.

Malix Farwin5/2/2019, 6:03:14 AM2 votes

I mean if you are being completely objective and not just doing blanket statement and saying no then you are in my opinion not really trying to answer the question or be helpful.

KSing is not really a black and white thing.

You have to think of some core things,

Will the gold you stole be more effective on you or the person you stole it from. For example: if you are support and the option is either give the AD the kill or take it what would you do?

How much effort you put into stealing that kill. I cannot count how many times ive seen people burn summons just to take a kill that was already secured only to not have to summons later when they needed them and could have otherwise took someone else out to prevented a death.

If they would of lived or not if you did not take the kill or is it worth risking their survival. This is the big one, in a lot of cases if you feel that there is a chance they will live its better to kill them.

How important their death is. If you have say, for example, a 14/0 Riven running around murdering people, your primary though should be just taking her off the map as oppose to who gets the shutdown.

In Summary, Yes Kill stealing is a thing but there are several situations where its justified and not.

Hawthorn Tree5/2/2019, 11:15:39 AM2 votes

It really depends. There are two kinds of champions that you generally would want to concede kills to, one is stuff like Pantheon Zed Khazix who need a big snowball to function at all. The other is champs like Vayne KogMaw MasterYi who basically get infinitely stronger with gold without any diminishing returns. If your teammate isn't playing one of the above, then you can just /mute them because they're r%%%%%ed.

cuddlykitten45/2/2019, 4:38:40 AM2 votes

I mean, it can have slight affects on teamfights depending on who has how much gold in what role, but ultimately, screw what they say. If you don't get the kill and the enemy flashes away only becuase you were letting an ally get the kill then they'd blame you for that too. Do what you honestly believe will get the win. Anyone whining about KS is probably someone who can't stand the idea that maybe, just maybe, that game they won't be the guy everyone is saying "oh wow, you carried us so hard" to. It's almost exclusively an ego trip.

Warpes5/3/2019, 12:29:26 AM1 votes

if you're playing ziggs mid, you should absolutely be going for the kills, as you are the "apc" (ap carry). likewise with something like his ult, and his artillery burst dmg.. you shouldn't be holding back, and it's not up to you to do so if your teammate who believes "you shouldn't be going for the kill", it's on them.

if you're playing support bot lane however, alongside and adc - for one you'll eventually learn that in more serious matches people frown upon ziggs support.. i often play it myself, but only if im fooling around with friends in normals and never in ranked. and for two, when playing the support role seriously, if you CAN give up a kill, you should. but if its ever even remotely in question about whether the kill can be secured, you should absolutely take it to make sure they don't get away. even more so if you're playing something like a mage support/kill lane, as the kills benefit you about as much as the adc (tho i myself don't like this style of play)

you have to use your own judgement, you'll eventually learn what champs can escape or when they just used flash and have no means of getting away so you can just free give the kill to your adc and funnel gold to him like you should as a support.. or times where theres a chance they might flash/dash or get help, and you need to secure the kill as quickly as possible.

as i said though this is only for support, as when you're mid and you're ulting. you dont worry about a ks. now.. if you were to walk down to bot lane when bot has already pretty much assuredly gotten a kill, and just walked up and last hit auto'd an enemy that was clearly already dead, that's what "kill steal" really means, and you should pretty much never do that. especially given that toxic players will generally lose their shit over it and make your game hell a lot of the time.. best to just avoid it, but if your "ks" was justified (an ult from river to help) and they bitch about it, just take the kill and ignore them.

AlienPrimate5/2/2019, 4:48:53 AM1 votes

Just remember that KS = kill secured, always. Even if two tanks are having a 1v1 in river for 30 seconds straight and you come along and get the last hit with an auto attack, it is still a kill secured and that is actually better for the team anyways. Solo kills are 300 gold. Assisted kills are 450 gold. Do the math and tell me which is better for the team.

5050BS5/2/2019, 4:53:26 AM1 votes

You are all on the same team. If they helped kill the target they got Assist Gold and thats not bad gold.

If someone screams about you taking the kill then they are bad.

The Ecdysiast5/2/2019, 5:24:37 AM1 votes

It's less of a thing now than it was before, since supports have many more options to spend their gold on useful items. But you shouldn't go out of your way to last-hit an enemy your ADC desperately needs the gold from.

Similarly, if you're already at full build you should probably do what you can to let someone else get kill gold.

The general rule is you don't want to let someone get away in an attempt to give an ally a kill, but if an ally needs the gold more than you don't go out of your way to last-hit the enemy.

An accidental kill is not kill stealing. But if the ally clearly had it handled and you just walk up and Thresh Flay them for the last 100 damage, that's a killsteal and a detriment to the team.

2Charmnot2Charm5/2/2019, 7:19:59 AM1 votes

If you don't have the damage or in close enough range to get the kill is it really kill stealing?

It's only annoying when its clear no friendly player life is in danger and the kill isn't getting away.

Jeanne fan club5/2/2019, 1:54:15 PM1 votes

once you get to diamond you will be disappointed because you will still get dipshts btching about that kind of stuff. ignore it, idealy you would let the character with the hardest scaling get the kill because it accelerates the game for your team by pushing that carry into "late game" status earlier meaning that you essentially lock the enemy team out of the game. At the end of the day, if you don't get the kill at all then it really just sucks, better to kill secure unless you are beyond a reasonable doubt that your teammate can kill them.

I mean if ur playing ziggs support or something like zyra or brand support, u are a carry so its not like the gold is wasted. ks'ing only really becomes a thing when you play a tank considering most enchanter supports actually have justification to get gold.

FSRER5/2/2019, 3:04:31 PM1 votes

For me, whoever gets a kill it is worth. I don't care who gets them especially if I get assist for it.

Snowbrand5/2/2019, 4:12:23 PM1 votes

Usually not. I don't really have anything against people taking kills from me, because I usually trust that they do what they think is best for the game and so on. Even if I'm adc I prefer the support go ham and use all his dmg to secure the kill. I had a game where I supported and we were killing an enemy. I thought it was free when he almost had no life left, so I cancled my auto. But, they had a thresh and he throw his lantern and the enemy escaped. But he would've died if I didn't cancel my auto.

With that said, it's usually better if the carry get the kills, so if you can and you are actually sure they can't escape, then give to adc but that's not usually how it goes. Better to secure the kill over anything. I would get tilted if someone intentionally took my kill, like the enemy was alone without flash or a way to escape and I had done most of the dmg and then an ally comes in just to throw a lee sin q or something. But people don't usually intentionally KS so that's why I usually don't care who gets the kill. If the carries can get it, then that's good, but it's not worth dying for.

Sir Saltarin5/2/2019, 4:15:04 PM1 votes

If you are a Supp the gold will always be more worth on your ADC than on you, for me the same reason he/she is playing a champ that scales the best with gold and you a supp that can work without that much gold.

However, sometimes you will take the kills by pure luck in close fights and there's nothing wrong with that, if the Supp needs to take the kill for the situation go ahead.

And if the adc flames you for getting that kill mute him.

But, always remember that it's objectively better if the ADC is the one that takes the kills, just by the nature of the marksmans.

Doge20205/2/2019, 6:30:24 PM1 votes

Some champions, like Draven, Nasus and Veigar have a stacking mechanic that helps them get stronger from a champion kill, large monster kill or cannon minion kill. Draven’s passive gives him stacks when he kills a minion, he can cash in the stacks for extra gold when he kills a champion (or an illaoi spirit). I think he can also get the stacks from an assist too.

Nasus on the other hand needs to last hit the minion for +3 stacks but can stack cannon minions, large monsters, epic monsters (drakes, baron, rift herald, vilemaw) and champion kills to gain 12 stacks. Nasus can only stack by last hitting something with Q, finishing off an enemy with his E, or his AOE R does not give him stacks. So when you have a nasus on your team you want to try and let him get kills with Q and at least give him the cannon so he still gets stacks while he is with the team when y’all are pushing.

Veigar tho is easier because he gains AP by either last hitting minions/monsters with q or by simply hitting an enemy champion with an ability

I think these are the only times that you should not try to “kill secure” but of course that is only if the enemy champ can’t escape. If you think the caught champion can easily escape your team and survive then it is anybody’s game to get it. But let’s say Nasus 1v1ing the enemy lux, got her low she used the zhonyas active, if you helped nasus out slightly then it would be respectable to give him the kill. The dick move would be securing the kill when nasus clearly has it just because you want it.

But kill securing in terms of player behavior is not reportable, so you can secure as many kills as you want. As long as you aren’t toxic or troll in your games then you won’t be punished for kill securing.

Myrmiron5/2/2019, 6:32:11 PM1 votes

Fuck no, only low elos cry about "killsteals". The amounts of times I have witnessed an enemy get away in low elo because the support "didn't want to KS"... tragic.

NEßULA5/2/2019, 9:31:23 PM1 votes

You seem smart enough to already know the answer and just look for reassurance.

So, in your case, no, it's just some salty guy.