Bot lane Teemo?

Lord Graves III·6/30/2014, 9:37:43 PM·3 votes·2,222 views

Why does nobody play Teemo in bot lane? I feel he has strong potential there.

He has high early game damage, strong lane dominance, a blind, and better than average late game single target sustained damage.

Teemo is an AP marksman. He uses the fighting style of an ADcarry but with the damage and build of a mage.

He out trades loads of marksman early game and he dominates them individually come mid and late game. He turns bot lane into a poisonous mess post 6, and with a support can push bot lane farther than most other marksman are able.

His only real weakness is that he can't make good use of lifesteal, and this is possible to account for and minimize with the right early game build and support pick.

Why do we never see bot lane teemo?

13 Comments

RiotPhreak6/30/2014, 10:52:05 PM9 votes

A few things about bot lane dynamics and what-not:

It's actually fairly hard to force long-duration engages, meaning the blind isn't actually amazing, since your opponents are likely to get 2 attacks off before the blind takes effect. This is about how long trades are in the first place, so his unique CC isn't very useful. His damage in the trade would be decent, though.
Teemo is remarkably short-ranged. He's basically got the same reach as Vayne, and you'll have a similarly difficult time in lane, but a harder time in team fights, since she kites better (Awesome Shroom gameplay notwithstanding)
In general, without some way to clutch-save yourself or extremely long range, it's hard to be an auto-attacker in a team fight. Kayle functions with her targeted slow and ultimate, Kog'Maw makes do with 700 range, and Ashe just has no much CC it's worth it.
That said, Teemo is still a better choice than many other champions in a bot lane pairing. He's able to Shroom up for Dragons and such, plus he can blind someone like Fiora, Yi, or Tryndamere to ruin a team fight. Don't let difficulties dissuade you: Every champion has a down-side. And as long as the upsides are worth it, then Teemo bot can totally work :)

RiotRiot Sotere7/1/2014, 10:56:26 PM2 votes

I tried this in days past with decent frequency. I found my main weakness to be burst. He has a lot of tools for protecting himself from one target. Not so much from two, especially if the enemies are spell based.

The Yetii Rider6/30/2014, 9:55:10 PM1 votes

Teemo is squishy like a mage. Mages don't do well in duo lanes because of their poor early health sustain and susceptibility to ganks. Teemo can blind one of his enemies, but he can't blind 3.

Linna Excel7/1/2014, 5:44:55 AM1 votes

Support teemo perhaps? Run around the map after laning and drop teemo shrooms everywhere.

IMO it'd work better if you were running an AD mid or a strong AD jungler because you don't want the other team to get only one resistance type. However, if fed, Teemo can get pretty nasty.

And as Phreak said, his lack of mobility is a liability in lane. You'd need someone with ranged hard CC like Lux or Morgana to pull it off better.

Fires of Justice7/2/2014, 10:12:08 PM1 votes

Phreak. Please, I beg you. Stop saying What-Not. Please!!

Cerbearus7/1/2014, 2:11:02 AM1 votes

No poke, short range, no escape, only does well in sustained trades, is Satan, many reasons.

Sir ArmaMalum6/30/2014, 10:45:58 PM1 votes

There are a few reasons, but the main bits being the trade-off is not worth it most of the time. You either replace the support and lose a lot of cc and/or range or your replace the adc and lose a lot of sustained physical damage.

The reason any adc will outdamage Teemo is two-fold. Physical damage burns towers a lot faster, which leads to easier objectives, and Teemo's DoT actually limits his sustained damage, as the DoT only refreshes. Granted he does also have an on-hit in his E, but most of the time an adc simply getting a crit will do better.

Now I'm not saying it can't work, in fact I've done it occasionally, but it's imply not as good as a normal bot lane match up.