I am more than familiar with stratagey and mechanics to 5v5 SR. But I recently started playing bot games of 3v3 Twisted Treeline and was wondering if anyone could fill me in on the mechanics/strategy of it In a PVP environment.. It has my interest and I would like to learn more before diving into ranked.. And bot matches are not a true testament to a mode.
Thanks!
Well......since there is no real ranked, and not many people play truly competitively on 3v3, the 'meta' is basically non-existent.
The two most common things you will see are:
1 in each lane + jungler (its harder to jungle cause no buff, and counter jungling / gank jungling is easy and rampant....but ganks are amazing, and you get a small exp and gold edge over the other team)
1 top, 2 bot.
Next, roles.
Generally, you need an ADC. This is because tower pushing is a thing, and do it from range is more efficient. Next, you need a tank. Helps with Vile-Maw, can tank turrets, helps initiation. The last slot is kinda in the air....generally, either a good cc support or a strong initiation bruiser like xin, vi, udyr, or ww, etc.
But it can be tricky. Even kill lanes can be a thing, kinda, plus no wards+small map means you need faster and better communication.
each lane almost MUST push together. If, say, top is pushed hard, but bot is losing, it is very easy for top to get 3 v 1'd with no way out.
Finally, Altars - oh god, get these. Their are three teirs of altar bonuses, based on the number of them you have (there are two altars, you probably know that)
0 - Nothing for you. You are bad.
1 - Additional Gold every kill. VERY IMPORTANT. You never want less than 1 altar, because gold lead is a thing.
2 - 10% (yes percentage) additional ad and ap. If a team has this plus Vilemaw, they basically have baron buff. do not engage, try to turtle into getting an altar back.
I tried to make this as easy as possible to make the thread useful for anyone who looked. Feel free to ask more questions, I will do my best to answer them. If I did something wrong, or you have advice, please respond, I need the help too!
ok as this is my main game mode I can you that there is a meta in it that doesn't truly show itself till you get to the gold plus mmr. The meta is usually ad bruiser top ad or ap bruiser jungle with good early game clear and pressure and an apc bot lane. cc is a must on pretty much all top tier picks and while hard cc is best there are a few soft cc champs that are contested because of their high damage out put. In terms of the way the game goes it's usually first does my team have a better lvl 1 if yes 3 man invade to get first blood if no wait in own jungle till enemy team shows them self in both lanes. Next junglers start their pathing at 1:40 and try to hit lvl two wraiths + wolves as fast as possible then look to see if a lane can be ganked if yes gank if no clear golems. Now that the jungle is clear look for ganks or wait fro the 3:00 mark to capture your alter. Alters are extremely important as they give you team bonus gold per kill and if you control both bonus ad and ap by percentage. One of the hardest things to do in 3's is being in sync with the lanes you want the lanes to be pushed equally otherwise it makes it easy for the enemy team to collapse on your over extended laner with a 3v1. Mages will typically have good wave clear so they can shove wave and roam top or roam with the jungler in search of a pick on the enemy jungler. when your team hits lvl 11 depending on your jungler you can risk going for an early vilemaw this is risky because he deals a lot of damage and it can be easily interrupted by the enemy team force an unfavorable fight. When you hit late game this is usually around the time mid game hits in 5v5 you need to look for picks and turn them into objectives such as vile alter or towers. If you can manage to get both inhibs down you pretty much won because it is extremely difficult to recover from that but not impossible. So yeah this is how 3's is played at high plat low diamond elo how this helps.
I've played TT since season...1? Basically, since TT was called TT.
That said, the new TT has a much different feel than the previous one. You could follow this formula and win most of the time with decent teammates until you get to higher-level ranked play:
Get a bruiser, a tankier bruiser, and a high-cc mage on your team. Send your bruiser up top, have him capture the altar (while being watched, in case of 'contestation') or grab golems between wave clears. If he's having problems going against the enemy top, have him sit under turret, clear waves asap, take golems/altar. If he's doing well against the enemy, have him clear waves in the middle, then retreat, doing the same. He should be able to get enough gold by level 6 to be useful to the team (a couple lvl 6 strats incoming if you scroll down a bit).
The other 2 ppl bot, having the mage grab most of the cs gold, poking enemy (if they have 2v2 bot, just poke, if 2v1, pressure). After each wave, until around lvl 6, have your tankier bruiser check jungle camps to make sure there's no invade, and help with altar, etc. At lvl 6, have him shift to jungle, ganking whichever lane EVERY JUNGLE CLEAR.
After lvl 6, every 3rd wave/clear or so, your team should be organizing counter ganks as a team, or taking altars and forcing fights where YOU want to fight. Bush camping, invading jungle, whatever. Just make sure you are in positions that one of your guys won't get cut off from the other 2. That's easy to do on 3v3.
After lvl 14, your strategies should shift to forcing enemy positioning away from a minion-pushed turret. Your objectives are easier to manage with altar buffs, but you don't need them as much if you have smart team play. If you can manage to take 1 inhib, while keeping at least your inhib turrets up, you should win. If you do this without wiping in the process and are able to regroup, a loss at this point would mean you should switch back to SR or get better teammates.
Ranked play is similar, but there are different early-jungle clear strats, full-team roaming strats for early game, etc, that Gold teams do, claiming that if you don't have such strats, or a full-time jungler, you won't ever be competitive. From what I have seen, although I never have been able to find consistent teammates for 3v3 ranked, I would probably value early 2v2 or 2v1 bot lane and shift into the fulltime jungle strat later. It's just as effective if you clear waves quickly and clear jungle camps together in-between, and I feel it defends against invades a lot better. It also forces all team members to be aware of what's happening in the jungle, making it easier to assist other lanes as well, and ensure altar buffs. But that's me, I guess...
