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Translating a CS lead into more advantage

Ridley Prime·4/17/2015, 7:15:34 PM·4 votes·2,238 views

So when I asked people when I started playing "How do I get good?" The universal response was "Learn to last hit."

And I've really focused on that. Most ranked games I play I pull ahead a good 30 to 40 cs in the beginning of the laning phase (I usually have 80/90 to their 40/50).

I play mostly top lane, so I play it safe, focus on not feeding or giving up kills, and denying my enemy laner cs. I do not get to concerned about killing them. I usually wind up 1/0/1 or 2/1/1 or something and they are like 0/2/0 or 1/3/0 or something, and I have a pretty good CS lead on them. I take tower, and go to roam for a bit. They counter roam other lanes or try to take my junglers farm/life, and then when we get to teamfights, I have a few more assists than I did laning phase. but they have 5+ kills and one or two deaths now. They're still barely able to fight me, but I guess they did all right enough to fight my other teammates alone.

What do I do in these sorts of scenarios? If I focus too much on denying farm I end up pulling a ton of jungler pressure and risk giving up kills, or end up missing farm myself. I'm not very good at denying farm outright, but I'm pretty good at zoning (I also play a lot of leona support). If I get too thirsty for blood and run in for kills and dive I usually end up dying and killing them, but no one is better off from where we started.

I like to play champions like renekton, garen, shyvana, nasus, and maokai top lane. The opponents I mostly refer to are snowbally champs like Riven, Darius, and Wukong. I figure starving them early is the best way to deal with them, but am I wrong about this?

Babysitting my enemy laner feels silly, as I'd rather focus on, say, TP'ing bot and taking down the fed enemy adc or something. But then if I leave them alone they get a double kill on my midlaner and jungler when they go to gank mid or something.

I don't want to be that guy who just blames my team for giving up kills to an otherwise starved laner. They're my lane opponent, I should be able to do something about this.

I guess my broader question would be, how do I help carry (not solo carry all by myself) my team from the top lane? Dive enemy carries? Peel for mine? Ensure the enemy top laner doesn't get to do anything all game? Game-by-game basis and I just have to feel it out? I'm really at a loss here.

9 Comments

Apex Liar4/17/2015, 8:11:28 PM4 votes

Ok, so the first thing I want to address is that you say you have a 30-40 CS lead in your lane. You didn't say when exactly you had this CS lead; was it at 20 minutes, 15, 12, 10? The over-all goal is to try and get 10 CS per minute, this is really good even for the LCS. If you have 90 cs by that 10 minute mark, great keep it up. On the other hand, if you're telling me that you're at 90 cs by 20 minutes... then it doesn't matter what your opposing laner has. What if they have a Vayne bot lane with 180 cs to your 90 by that 20 minute mark? Even though you shit all over riven, Vayne will destroy you and carry that riven to a win.

It also seems like you have an understanding of the game though reading your paragraph. So you know that objectives win the game, if the enemy laner starts roaming, lets say you have that 90 cs by 10 minutes; start pushing out top lane. Pay attention to the mini map, count enemy champions that you can see, "Who is fed on the enemy team and where is the enemy?" Get use to asking yourself that. If 3 people are not accounted for on the map, get in a bush or something and recall, that Tier 2 tower can wait.

You need to start contesting objectives now, (depending on how far you're into your game) Inhibs, Tower, Baron, Drag, etc. 20 minutes into the game and you're still pushing that T2 top tower, your team needs to look into getting drag or bot tower. If your team starts drag and you see enemy players try to contest it and Garen comes top to stop you, you're now split pushing.

2 Scenarios to look at when split pushing:

  • A) Focus on pushing that tower ESPECIALLY when you have TP up. Tell your team that, so maybe they fell more comfortable attempting drag. If you see an opening to flank the enemy team with TP via: ward, tp in and try and kill them. You will have a small window'd opportunity to try and zone the enemy carry before garen arrives (assuming he has tp).

  • B) Garen doesn't have tp and he's trying to help with drag. Perfect! You can now push that T2 tower with little to no resistance. This is also where a difficult decision comes into play. If they end up catching out the person that's fed on your team, lets say Vayne is 6-2-4, if she gets immediately deleted, there is little to no point to TP'ing into that fight, it's already lost. Push that T2 top tower and try and go for that inhib tower, salvage something from that fight. Depending on the ELO you're in, your team will bitch at you or praise you. If they bitch at you just ignore them.

This is just scratching the surface, there are so many way's something can play out and your best bet is to play them game and learn. It seems that your over-all laning experience is good, but you know that is only 1 part of the game. You now need to focus on split pushing and juggling objectives. You're laning phase rank may be that of a Gold player but your team fighting and obj control could be that of a Bronze player and that could be why you're in silver (just an assumption, I dont know your rank).

Slamurai Jack4/17/2015, 10:15:18 PM1 votes

Generally, I prefer to translate that CS advantage into vision control by buying alot of wards, placing them relatively deep, and then push like crazy. The enemy jungler will feel compelled to try and gank you since you're pushing, but they will be unable to because you have so much vision. This will waste alot of their junglers time and give your team opportunities to be aggressive and get ahead.

r11na4/18/2015, 12:31:02 AM1 votes

I think the problem is you play relatively immobile champs in the top lane so it is hard for you to get around the map. Sounds like you will be better of playing mid lane or using a champ like Hecarim in the top lane.

I play Hecarim almost always in top lane and it is very easy for him to shove the lane, Recall then homeguard TP bot to help cleanup the enemy ADC, recall back home and homeguard charge back to top lane just as the enemy top laner has pushed back out the lane. Giving the enemy toplaner little opportunity to roam while you are gone.

demolition8r4/18/2015, 6:03:08 PM1 votes

After gaining an advantage you have a few options:

  1. You can push and ward (easy to do with upgraded trinket) but you have to make sure that your team will get an objective (turret/drag/baron if you push bot) if the other team sends two or more people for you.
  2. Group with your team/flank after shoving into a turret so they have to give up farm/turret damage in order to fight 5v5.
  3. Teleport ganks work very well if your team can get deep wards, this way you can snowball other lanes. I may have missed/been wrong on some things but this is what I can think of off the top of my head. Hope you can find success with these. :)
Spiritflare8684/18/2015, 8:47:15 PM1 votes

Ive found that the best way to use a cs lead, is to turn it into a item lead and force fights while youre ahead. The more often you can force them out of lane the lower level they'll be and the more cs you'll get. You don't need a kill to win a fight, as long as you can stay in lane after it, you won.