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Tips to help a S5 Toplaner with mid-lategame decisionmaking?

RetroRage96·10/12/2015, 1:48:08 AM·1 votes·652 views

Hello, I am RetroRage96. I play mostly top in ranked, and want to get to Gold by the end of the season. I play a lot of tanks at the moment, but I think I will try to shift to more juggernauts/offtanks, building one or hybrid items and then tank. I am comfortable playing and I am working on playing My earlygame / laning phase is good - I have decent farm, wave control, etc. But when I get into mid-lategame, I just feel like I'm making bad decisions. I guess I just don't know what to do at times when all of the lanes are pushed and the enemy team isn't doing anything, or when they just took dragon/baron and are recalling - stuff like that. I know how to teamfight, once we start it, but I just don't know when to start it, how to force a teamfight, how to control the game once I am ahead.

So here I have some basic questions about mid-lategame tactics and objectives:

What do I do when all of the lanes are pushed and Dragon/Baron aren't up?
When should I go into their jungle?
When should I stick with the team, and when should I split?
How do I get both teams into situations where a teamfight can start?
If my team is backing, should I automatically back with them?
What should I do when the enemy team is taking Dragon/Baron and some of my team isn't there?
What is the chain of importance for objectives? (Baron, Dragon, Turret, Inhib)
Should I ever get into a solo fight when both teams are mobile?
Is it worth it to chase for a kill or get an objective faster?
Should I start a teamfight if my health is not 100%?
After losing most of my health in a teamfight, should I stay and peel for my carries with the risk of dying, or recall?
If I have a poke comp, should I try to delay a teamfight and for how long?

Most of these are mainly situational, but in an average game with balanced comps, what would you say? You don't have to answer all of them, please provide numbers to the ones you do answer though.

Thank you all!

2 Comments

The Sword Saint10/12/2015, 5:32:07 AM2 votes

When all lanes are pushed and drag/baron are down you use that time to either rotate and get damage on a turret (since the minions are pushed up) or you put wards down for later - in the enemy jungle if you are ahead and in your own jungle if you are behind, or near the drag/baron if it's down but will be up withing 3 minutes (the duration of green wards).
Go into the enemy jungle as a team carefully when you need to get vision or you're trying to setup a pick - for example you would send 1-2 people to top or bottom inner turret as bait and when the enemy tried to walk through the jungle to cut them off and gank them then you;d spring the ambush and if successful push a tower/objective with a number advantage.
Stick with your team in all cases except when you are strong enough to kill any single member of the enemy team who comes to stop you AND you also have teleport to join a teamfight if your team gets engaged on 4v5. Special case would be if you are someone with a global/semi global ult like tf, panth, shen, etc. then you can splitpush without teleport as long as you are in range for your global in case a fight starts and you have wards so that you don't die to a gank cand cause your team to be down a man.
To force a team fight you have to have a specific goal in mind that the enemy team must either respond to or automatically lose ground. Dragon/baron/towers are easy places you can take your team via pings or chat and the enemy will have to respond or let you take it for free. They can only give so much ground before you're in their base or have super powered minions, so they will come at some point even if they are behind or they will just slowly lose the game every time they don't come. Simply walking down any lane as a 5 man group to push until the enemy tries to stop you is enough to force a team fight to eventually break out, at that it's all about who initiates on who or who gets picked off.
If your team is backing you should back with them unless you are strong and healthy enough to kill everyone on the enemy team who is alive if they show up at the same time. If you can't do that, just back off and farm jungle or recall. If you can then push up minions and damage a tower then recall when it starts getting risky.
Use your judgement, vision is important here. If they enemy is low enough to kill with less people or they're grouped up for a wombo or something then go in when the objective is about to be finished and cc the enemy jungler so you can try and smite steal with at the start of the fight. Otherwise it's not worth to contest at a numbers disadvantage just for the sake of not letting it go easily. There is every possibility that they are just forcing a fight and will all switch on you if you come and aren't a full team. Any dragon below 5 is not worth getting suicidal over, and even baron is just a buff to minions that makes it hard for you to turtle so it's not worth a potential throw to go in on that without a full team if you know that you would win a full 5v5 later since the baron doesn't give a combat boost like it used to.
Nexus > Nexus turret > inhib > baron > 5th dragon > turret > not 5th dragon > wards > cs > blue/red buff > kills > assists > scuttlecrab > heimer turret/zyraplant/gp barrel/ etc.
Past lane phase, only get into a solo fight if you are sure that you can either kill them before any teamates arrive (that includes time for you to recall safely before they show up and kill you), or your teamate is closer, or you are sure you can kill them and their life is worth more than yours (top lane tank/fighter for late game adc/mid game burst mage is usually a good trade)
Get the objective - position to threaten low enemies if they try to come back in for a steal or something but it's enough that they are forced to be zoned from the objective, you don't have to kill them to come out ahead
If you're a tank and you have more than 40% health, stick around if you're an initiator like malphite whose job is basically done if they ult a good target and its fine if they die after that. Otherwise you should probably go heal if a fight isn't about to break out or you can't instakill a target so that there is no fight.
Peel. Your carries (if they are decent and have gold) are far more valuable to winning a fight. If your life can buy a late game adc even 2 seconds more time thats enough for them to kill someone and lifesteal up to full.
If you have a poke comp its not about delaying a fight, it's about not fighting. You siege a tower and force them to be busy dodging your poke in order to get a few seconds here and there for your adc to safely poke down the tower. Ideally you can nidalee spear a carry or something and force them to recall and heal, but mostly you just want to not get initiated on because a poke comp will 100% lose a straight team fight to a standard comp even if slightly ahead in gold.