Wait, My Bot Lane Is Good? Gameplay Analysis

Hello everyone. I mostly post ranked toplane gameplay vids on YouTube and some on the boards. But the other day, I got a bot lane that was pressured a TON. Usually, this means my bot lane will end up inting, not ward, not respect ganks even when warned they are coming, and force fights on their fed opponents - resulting in my bot lane being something like 1/7/0, down in cs, and having lost tier 2 tower before any other towers fall on map. But while they were not perfect, my bot lane did some great things in how they handled the pressure - allowing my team to help them out with counter-ganks and/or pressure harder on other parts of the map. So I wanted to examine a few key things they did in this vid and hope it will help more bot lanes do the same when they are pressured by several ganks - including 4v2 tower dives.

1. Don't just sit there last hitting and take free harass from the other team. You can see from minute 1, even if she's not returning the same damage as her opponent, vayne will fight back.

2. Try to coordinate damage with your teammate. Notice how vayne goes agro as janna lands a tornado on draven - that's the best time to fight because you are temporarily 2v1 due to cc.

3. This is a bad thing. Notice how at 2 min when they get back to lane, janna is standing next to vayne. This makes it easier for leona to guarantee she hits ONE of them with her cc. Stay spread out. However, janna and vayne also keep moving - which is good for dodging more skillshots like leona e.

4. Play respectfully. 6 min in, they are a level down on their opponents - with draven at level 6. The wave is pushing to them, so there's no need to overextend. Lee is mia and COULD be bot. Same with malphite - with ult and tp available to gank them. Rather than be up in draven's face forcing a fight, they are playing far back. They are also still WARDING.

5. 8:20 into game, jax ganks bot. They do a nice job of just focusing leona since she fell behind. Partly thanks to a good vayne condemn that knocked her back after jax's stun. If they greeded for the adc who had already basically escaped, they would not get either kill.

6. Even though they get kills, they aren't too cocky. Draven and leona should still win the 2v2 at 12 min, so they play safe - by tower. Again, they don't push past river without warding. And when pinged to warn of an incoming gank, they don't stay for a last few minions or try to 2v2 their opponents real quick; they back off - wasting kat's time. Thanks to this, our entire team is able to collapse on theirs and pull off a winning fight. Again, we work together to secure kills rather than all focus different targets. We also have each other's backs - like yasuo not chasing leonabut instead going back to protect low hp vayne. Keeping teammates alive can be just as powerful as killing enemies.

7. Side note - malphite walks over control ward at 14:44 as jax and I are doing dragon. I know he's going to ult into pit, so I save some cc and damage for this.

8. 16 min into game, janna forgets rule 1. Don't chase kills - protecting your teammates is more important when it is feasible. Sure she MIGHT get the kill on lee, but it could have easily cost jax or vayne their lives. Just a bit later, malphite comes bot. Vayne is dead to rights. Janna tries to save her, but when it's clear vayne is dead, she gets herself out rather than give away 2 kills. Minimizing your losses is a good thing.

9. 19:15 into game bot lane groups up. The time isn't the big deal; grouping is the big deal. Sure they could stay bot and keep abusing their lead, but will they get objectives for this? Can they get more by grouping instead? Do what's best for the team - in this case it was grouping up.

10. Watch the map. 21 min into game, vayne gets some nice farm top which would otherwise go to waste. I'm not wasting my tp for the giant wave when dragon is almost up. She should clear it and then buy and come dragon. She's a bit greedy - farming some jg too, but it works out for our team still. You don't want to be trying to secure vision as dragon is spawned - you want it beforehand so the other team has to facecheck into YOU to get vision. You can't see it on the map, but we had no vision in the top river and I thought they were rushing baron as we did dragon, so we all run there.

11. 23 min into game, my team forces a 4v5. You have control of the baron, top lane needs to be cleared - this will give you baron pressure since they will then need to clear top lane. Don't start outnumbered fights or fights where you have no vision (like their jg for this fight). I manage to save vayne and get us some kills, but my team entirely could have thrown our lead and given the other team baron off this dumb engage. Luckily, vayne has my back, I have hers, she stays correctly behind me to minimize the damage they can do to her, and we pull off a 2v4 winning fight. Then vayne BASES and shops - like a smart person does after baron most of the time.

12. Rotate, rotate, rotate. 26 min into game, the team sees they are being collapsed on mid since yasuo died bot. They could stay pushing mid and die, they could back off mid and we get nothing from baron buff, or they could rotate top and help grab at least ONE tower. They make the best choice of the three considering we are 4v5 right now. We then go back to a 3-1-1 split. Yasuo should have gone mid with rest of team making it a 4-1 with me splitting top. Still, I temporarily pulled 2 top - giving my team a 3v3 mid. They exploit this and immediately force a fight due to our large lead. If we were in an even game, forcing would not be a good idea. The other team can collapse faster than I can though, so my team ends up 3v5. I rotate to help as soon as I can - janna staying to give me more movespeed towards her and the fight. Jax buys time - peeling 2 people and trading kills. While vayne kites nicely. Yasuo also collapses - allowing me to zone kat and malphite from my team as they finish off the rest of the other team. My goal at that point is just to zone kat away from my team so they can kill the tower since vayne is so low. We can't end before the other team respawns, so the best thing to do is get top inhib too. Vayne sees this and comes.

13. Lee syndrome by yasuo. 31 min in, we've got superminions pushing 2 lanes. All we have to do is wait for the other team to send someone to clear them and then 5 man kill bot inhib tower and end. But yasuo goes in on the first tornado hit and picks an obviously losing fight. Have some patience - there's no reason to give the other team a massive chance to come back.

14. Kill the open inhib first. 35 min into game, we could take a 50/50 fight at their bot inhib tower, or we could go mid and kill the open inhib. Vayne and I go mid - with me shielding her from potential engage by the other team. Thanks to some good teamwork, we get a 5 for 1 fight and the win.