The importance of wave clear, a guide to not sucking mid

Ad Astra per Asp·11/19/2014, 7:01:16 PM·12 votes·6,196 views

Frequently in ranked games even at plat level, we get people who REALLY want to play mid but just don't understand the roles importance in securing the early game. So I'm going to do a little guide in hopes this will improve:

Why AP/AD casters are mid lane When league started, you'd often put hyper carries like marksmen mid, and attempt to get them fed so they could win the game for you by carrying. The other option was always a caster mid, the understanding is that a caster has a stronger early game but loses to a hyper carry or marksman late game. The reason why casters dominate mid and Ashe, Miss Fortune, etc go bottom lane now is that Marksmen do not need levels to do great damage, they need items. Casters on the other hand, do burst damage and alot of their potential to say, 100-0 an opponent comes from their base stats and base damages which are effected by level. So what can we draw from this?

  1. Casters are stronger early game. That means that you need to be active and try to make an impact early, so playing passive and focusing on farming as a mid laner is completely making your roles strengths obsolete. You're literally farming yourself into a weaker game phase for your role. Every champion and every role has a game phase they are best suited for, if you're not doing well in that phase of the game then your chances of doing well in the phases of the game you are weaker is very limited.

  2. As a caster you need to get other lanes ahead and be map aware. This means you will have your mana and health taxed constantly for skirmishes that break out top lane, bottom lane and in the jungle and river. This is why resourceless champions like Katarina and Zed that have mobility are very strong right now, they can have an inexhaustable impact on early game, which if you get ahead in early game you have a very good chance of winning mid and late game, ESPECIALLY if you are able to get your late and mid game champions ahead. The place this is most obvious is bottom lane. Your Marksman is your late game damage. If you get them ahead, not only did you do well early game but you got your late game champion ahead making for greater success.

Waveclear is very important.
As we have just established, roaming and having a big impact early is mid's primary role. You are there to support or turn around the other lanes because you are smack in the middle of the map. The only person who has more game impact than you is the jungle. And you should be working with your jungler very closely. I can't say how many games I have won or lost because 4 people go bottom, get a double kill, turret and dragon. The game is practically won at that point. And all because of a bit of roaming and teamwork. So what makes it possible for mid to roam?

Waveclear. Waveclear in itself isn't enough to let you roam but it's the safest, least risk and most effective. Lets compare two champions shall we. Fizz versus Orianna. Fizz has mediocre waveclear, and is gated by mana. He is however better at roaming than Orianna. For Fizz to be able to roam bottom lane though he is going to have to have strong lane control over Orianna by out playing her and getting her health low because she is able to clear waves very effectively and Fizz is not. So for Fizz to be doing anything other than farming under his turret and eventually losing it, he is going to have to make some plays on Orianna or get jungler help because Ori should be pushing to stop Fizz from roaming. So in short:

  1. Fizz can't roam if Ori pushes
  2. Ori puts herself at risk to ganks if she pushes but
  3. Ori can gank bottom or force down Fizz's turret or both if she successfully utilizes her waveclear

And that is why wave clear is important. It is not to let you farm easier, it is a balanced part of your champions kit and a very big consideration in how you should play your champion early game. If you have wave clear you should be roaming. Period. If you don't have waveclear, you should gain lane dominance by trying to kill the opposing mid laner.

This brings us to an important juncture however: Different champions are better at waveclear than others. So say you have Orianna verse Ahri now. Both have about equivalent waveclear, Ahri has more kill potential but Ori has more potential to be a lane bully. Ori isn't as great of a roamer as Ahri, but Ori is better at winning trades because of her shield. Ahri is better at all ins because she makes it very hard for Ori to land her ultimate. So this lane will come down to skill. Do you push and try to out roam? Do you try to 1v1 them mid? Do you let them push and call for a jungler gank? All those are viable options. However there is one option I see people do frequently that isn't viable. You cannot just be passive and focus on farming. If you do that, and the other mid does any of the other things above, you will lose and they will win.

Thank you, feedback appreciated.

18 Comments

Robert Smith11/19/2014, 8:00:08 PM4 votes

What about champions like Karthus Karthus. He has a Weak early game and I joke about not being in the game until level 11 ,when I start to do some actual damage. His wave clear sucks early game too since it cost so much mana. I also can't roam with Karthus Karthus since I am at greater risk being away from tower. With him I just farm until I am at half build. If I can get a few kills before then that's great but usually does not happen. But late game he can do 1100 damage with his ult alone. There might be a distinction between Early game and Late game casters that you are not taking into account. Champions Ziggs Ziggs fit your description but not champions like Karthus Karthus and Cassiopeia Cassiopeia who are late game caters.

Auroras of Autum11/20/2014, 2:27:42 PM2 votes

Thank you for this very well written guide.

ˆˆºº11/19/2014, 10:59:11 PM2 votes

Never really thought about this in depth so I thank you for the insight. I main jungle but my preferred fallback is mid and I do so with Lissandra and I play very aggressive with her. It's good to know I was at least getting some things right :D

Mahnigguh11/20/2014, 4:39:50 PM2 votes

Malzahar Talon my fave two mids to raom with. to me Fizz Evelynn are is same boat as they risk a lto by leaving lane but man when they magically shwo up it si bad news for other team. (i know eve isn't a mid but sometimes its just fun)

Nick Valentine11/20/2014, 3:42:20 AM1 votes

When I play LB I set the goal of 3 kills on my teammates or 5 kills on me before I can lose my tower. Sometimes I roam even if I am heavily pushed in. It's all about how much advantage you can pull through your lane loss I guess.

Drunk Rummate11/20/2014, 3:31:49 PM1 votes

idk, mids an important lane but i dont think it's necessary you pick a champion with an amazingly strong early game to be useful. most mages have midgame power spikes around when they finish 1-2 items, but they aren't always capable of roaming and pressuring other lanes (think Xerath, Orianna vs. Zed or Leblanc).

in the end i think your midlane choice should reflect your playstyle and attempt to complement your team's composition as best as possible. ex: Xerath is good on a team with a beefy front line, but he's going to struggle without one since he doesn't have a whole lot of burst damage or mobility for hard engages.

Shaman of Storms6/19/2015, 6:00:19 PM1 votes

Waveclear. Waveclear in itself isn't enough to let you roam but it's the safest, least risk and most effective. Lets compare two champions shall we. Fizz versus Orianna. Fizz has mediocre waveclear, and is gated by mana. He is however better at roaming than Orianna. For Fizz to be able to roam bottom lane though he is going to have to have strong lane control over Orianna by out playing her and getting her health low because she is able to clear waves very effectively and Fizz is not. So for Fizz to be doing anything other than farming under his turret and eventually losing it, he is going to have to make some plays on Orianna or get jungler help because Ori should be pushing to stop Fizz from roaming. So in short:

  1. Fizz can't roam if Ori pushes
  2. Ori puts herself at risk to ganks if she pushes but
  3. Ori can gank bottom or force down Fizz's turret or both if she successfully utilizes her waveclear

Thank you, feedback appreciated.

I get the feeling that in this match if Orianna pushes (espessially item 2041 / item 3070 ori) in a fizz, she'l get dove and rekt at ~lvl 3-5 maybe even 2 [ Fizz summoner 4 summoner 14 ] (If he can bait the protect) possible exeption if she has summoner 21 / summoner 7

TheFallenShaw11/19/2014, 8:26:15 PM1 votes

I can honestly say in the last 100 games I have never ever, once seen a Karthus Karthus Jug

NicoNicoREEEEEE11/19/2014, 8:36:08 PM1 votes

I remember playing a soloq game with you, you didn't speak much, but I did ask you about your name, which is fairly obviously latin.

Mat7itan11/20/2014, 2:17:48 AM1 votes

I don't think that wave clear is as important as you make it out to be. Don't get me wrong it's nice to have a champ that can push out a wave and then gank so they aren't really missing out on much and their opponent can't push to their tower as quickly, but on champs like katarina or akali who don't have super great wave clear, but roam really well I will often ignore the position of the wave go bot or top get some kills, and then go back to my lane and even though I missed a wave or 2, maybe even lost my tower, quickly regain control of the lane.

Really it just depends on the champ your playing, and the champ your opponent is playing.