I feel like I am getting worse--Thresh HELP

Tearin True·1/14/2015, 6:04:37 PM·3 votes·2,051 views

This might be due to me being 22 and maybe I am playing against better players now, but I just feel like I am getting worse.

My first example is Thresh. I bought him early and was having an OK time. I felt I was getting better as I played, but lately I feel like I can't do anything right. One problem I am having is I cannot accurately communicate what I am thinking to my team leaving alot of Threshes ability on the table. I think my team is all in and then I find myself as the only all in as my team runs away. Sometimes I chase a champ down who has low life only to get owned.

I have watched videos where I see thresh finish other champs off, but my damage always seems insignificant. I am always looking for hooks and I think I fail to see when to flay and where to position myself for the best play.

Any thoughts or links to vids would be helpful.

12 Comments

Vauren1/14/2015, 7:13:48 PM2 votes

As far as teammates following up, don't count on it unless you guys are ahead and you've noticed they like to chase or go all in. So otherwise, I would just peel for your carry if you find yourself alone. Nothing you can really do there besides ping enemies and ask them to follow up if you go in; they can always choose not to listen however which would put you back to the previous suggestion. To avoid going in by yourself, you could always be a follow-up-initiator, waiting for someone else (hopefully a tank and not a squishy) to engage, and then follow up with your superior cc and peel.

Lack of damage as thresh is supposed to be there. He's a support with a lot of cc and utility power instead of damages. I wouldn't worry about not being able to finish enemies off as much; but if you really want to, a frozen gauntlet might not be a bad idea or just make sure you get your souls for more ap = damage. I don't know which videos you watch, but I'll take a shot in the dark that you might be doing vs what they aren't. They might not be auto attacking in the midst of the fight, maybe once at the start and then loading up the flay passive to be able to finish people off when they think they are safe. (Might be wrong here though.)

As far as looking for hooks, when to flay, and positioning, that is a bit trickier.

Always looking for hooks is great. Hooks + good follow up = "An Enemy Has Been Slain". But if your team isn't in a good position to follow up, or like mentioned above, don't like to follow up, then save it to peel.
Flay is often used in a limited way. Q, lantern, Q, Flay. Pretty common right? There are SO many more uses for it than that. You can use it to** position your enemies to better suit your team's needs**. AoE abilities or ults for example, a flay can secure an extra enemy or two to be affected which can tip the scales in your favor just enough to win the fight. It can also be used to **deny gap closers of enemies ** such as an Aatrox jump or Leona Zenith Blade. Deny channeled abilities is another excellent use of it if you can manage it.
```
    **Be careful though,** flay can just as easily displace enemies out of allies' abilities/range in a negative way, hurting your team. **Awareness is key**
```
Positioning with Thresh is everything. Again, Awareness is Key. You need to determine what your team needs more: does the enemy team have a devastating channel that needs to be interrupted? Get where you can flay/hook them. Do they have assassins that can jump your adc? Stay relatively close to them so you can flay them off/hook/lantern your carry away to safety. Are you the initiator? Be in the front and watch for out of place enemies. Etc...

Several of the Big Plays Spotlights has a thresh in them (go figure lol) so I'll link you to one of them that features Thresh specifically and then feel free to look at some of the others to see what they are doing with Thresh and think about why they are doing that as opposed to other things. Hope this helped somehow, good luck!

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/riot-official/wqjL70WW-big-plays-big-flay

BikiniMaster1/14/2015, 7:14:11 PM2 votes

As a main Thresh support, I think I can help a bit.

-Don't go for the big plays only to get a kill or whatever. -Always aim for the carries first (ADC. mid, behind players or cut in bad position). -As Thresh you must give kills to your ADC and team so don't chase dangerously if nobody follows you. -Great ability combos are: Q-E-R (with Q jump on the champ) when you are in a man advantage -Otherwise if the ennemy team is the agressor, be ready to faly and ult to cc them, or if they dive try to hook the one with less HP.

If you have other questions or I'm not answering well tell me haha

Ya Boy Thresh1/14/2015, 7:43:16 PM2 votes

I've been playing alot of thresh myself, and i've come to learn a few things.

Flay is an amazing tool to use to peel for your carry. it can be used to get champions like Leona, vi, zac and even Leblanc off of your carries if you learn to time it correctly with their gap closers. Notice i said learn, as it is somthing that takes alot of practice to do.
If you don't feel like your team is following up with you, here is a good way to get a feel on if they will or not. Early in the game, when you go for hooks, start throwing lanterns to your team mates and see if they click it. If you notice that most of the time they don't take the lantern, even if it is an easy win, i would not bet on that team being a good follow up comp, and would actually try to play a bit more passively. You can still go for hooks, but be a lot more cautious about what hooks you reactive and bring yourself into. This could be the cause of them either not paying attention, or just not knowing what the lantern does. In either case, it is more then enough for me to decide how i want to play thresh.
Ward. Ward, ward. warding is the easiest and most efficient way to catch easy hooks and secure easy kills for your team. If you can manage to get 3 kills off a sightstone's wards, it is more then cost effective. Vision control is always an important part of a support's main duties, and more often then not, you will find your hooks and kills earned for your team, increase quite a bit.
Your souls are extremely important for you to pick up, since it is pretty much free armor and AP, which will help immensly in the later game. However, don't over extend yourself to get them, since it is not worth you dieing for a soul or two. If you know that you won't be engaging, or needing to save your teamates from a bad fight, you can toss your lantern at the area that the souls are in to collect them from a safe distance.

I'll edit this post if i can think of anything else, and please, feel free to correct me on anything, since i am learning thresh myself.

Tearin True1/14/2015, 7:42:02 PM1 votes

Thanks for the help! I am still having a hard time of flaying in the right direction. I do better early game than I do late game. In the late game I feel a lot of time I am trying to help a fleeing teammate by getting in the way..flaying all 4 of the entire enemy team and then quickly dyeing followed by a "come on thresh" (not sure what I should do 4 vs 1)

Acidic, I usually try and build according to website suggestions altering if I notice I need to have more MR or AC or what have you. The problem is I don't know all the champs and I don't always know what I need to protect myself. Is there a website with a chart of champs broken up by category that says "This group build MR" This group build AC

Another question is if Thresh is too tricky a champ in a blind solo que without voice talk? I feel things would go so much better if I could just talk to the other team instead of pinging different stuff.

PandaSurferr1/15/2015, 12:56:44 PM1 votes

Go twitch and look at Green tea's play style. It is not yr fault if your team mate are pussies when they are behind. u need the support of yr team mate when u are supporting. if they back off, u back off too. pings also help alot. ping more if they dont listen.

Mikal Pikal1/14/2015, 11:08:46 PM1 votes

Your team not being on the same page as you is a very common problem in solo queue. I recommend pinging before going in.
If your jungler is coming to gank for you, throw him a lantern so he can swing to you quicker before the enemy can react. If the enemy is smart they will back away as soon as you throw a lantern into the river. USE THIS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. If the enemy is pushing too far you can sometimes scare them away by throwing a lantern into the jungle or into the river because they will fear a gank.
I get flay first. This gives you extra damage on your first auto attack which will really hurt the enemy adc. Just walk up, flay him and auto once then back away. You just hit him for 1/4 of his hp.

Sirin Gioro1/14/2015, 11:31:32 PM1 votes

My tips while playing Thresh

Flay enemy to your direction before hook gives you a bigger chance of hooking
If enemy doesn't have champions like Riven or Zed, you can also get ignite for higher kill and snowball potentials. Ignite also counters heal as well since ignite applies grievous wounds (reduce heal regen). I get ignite when I know I'm going to play aggressive (as always) and the enemy don't have champions like Zed, Riven (duelists). I only get exhaust when I need to peel.
I see you're buying Face of the Mountain. Do you know how to use the passive as Thresh? If you do not, I suggest you getting Talisman's Ascension instead. Using Relic Shield is hard as Thresh if you can't kill the minions properly which will mess up your ADC's CS tempo. In order for Relic Shield to work with Thresh, you need to last hit the creep before he's dead. Which mean you can't execute a minion from half hp.
Don't chase into enemy jungle without deep vision

It's probably because you're level 22. Before level 30, players are not really good at communicating through screen, imo. Like after you hit level 30, your ADC will probably know what to do and when to do a certain thing. IDKDIDKDIIDK >_>, you'll get it when you hit level 30. Promise. Good luck.

Tearin True1/15/2015, 3:23:54 AM1 votes

A lot of you made me realize something Do I hook? Yes Do I flay? Yes Do I lantern? Yes

DO I hook, lantern, fly to the champ and attempt to setup combo? No Am I good at flaying backward? No Do I lantern flash? No

I will try and work on those things.

Acidic Puddle1/14/2015, 7:28:26 PM1 votes

Learn to build correctly, nobody knows how to build before 30 and even most of bronze and silver.