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Advice for establishing lane control?

Pikmints·4/7/2015, 2:49:00 PM·1 votes·685 views

I began maining support at level 3 and still love the role to this day. In the last few months I've taken up learning mid and top lane, but my inability to establish lane dominance limits what champions I'm willing to try out. Because of this, I often stick to Malzahar who can farm a whole wave by landing 1 ability on a wave, or Nasus who has no problems farming under tower.

When I go into a game with the intention of establishing lane control, I often find myself barely winning early trades at the cost of a lot of mana. When farming is my priority, I feel like I lose all control over the lane and subsequently get zoned from the minions. I feel like trading between cs grabbing is my best attempt at this, yet I always emerge from trades thinking, "That wasn't worth it".

I've tried playing Cho`Gath top lane, Galio both mid and top, Ryze top, Malphite top, and the Malzahar and Nasus I mentioned before, with the only noteworthy successes being on Malzahar and Nasus.

6 Comments

Waffletimewarp4/7/2015, 3:29:58 PM2 votes

Play Heimerdinger.

"This is my lane now"

Nybx4life4/7/2015, 3:01:17 PM1 votes

You support right? Here's how I do it: WARDS. Can't get blindsided by any abilities if you have the bushes warded. Use trinkets on the bushes, have your adc help ward lane bushes as well. Use regular wards on jungle bushes.

Pressure. Coordinate with your adc. If they plan on staying near their tower and farming from there, there's nothing you can do. Stay back, and let them farm. If they want to hold the lane and trade, use your abilities sparingly. Some ap supports like soraka and sona need their mana, so going ham early will leave you mana starved when trades start, or with your abiliites on cooldown when they're needed. Instead, poke every now and then, leaving enough time for your mana to regen.

the best way to dominate lane is to leave your opponent away from farm. if your adc can hold lane and you can keep them pushed away a sufficient amount, it'll give your adc the advantage.

Aurelius Maximus4/7/2015, 3:24:36 PM1 votes

kill them

ZergReap4/7/2015, 3:34:33 PM1 votes

1v1 lanes require knowledge of most match ups. I main top and it can be tough to be 1v1 vs a melee champion who is strong against you like Renekton vs Irelia. IRenekton has better lane control because he can harass and cs with his Q while Irelia is forced to keep autoing minions instead of Renekton to keep up on wave clear. You have two options upon entering the lane; push or let him push. Hitting level 2 first as you know (since you main supp) means you can almost always out trade them. This is risky to do vs hard match ups but can work if it forces them to use their abilities to CS in order to try and keep up. This can give you some of that control. Although, if you push early you want to make sure it hits tower so they can't freeze.

TehNACHO4/7/2015, 4:41:50 PM1 votes

I'd like to point out a lot of the champs you chose are short ranged or straight up melee. Guessing from the line "I feel like trading between cs grabbing is my best attempt at this", you try to trade while there are a lot of minions.

Don't do that.

When there are a lot of enemy minions, especially early game, trades are going to suck ass. Especially in a solo lane, minions hurt a lot and proper minion manipulation can very legitimately decide duels. Guessing from how you used to play support, you think lane dominance is harassing all day. Yeah, it can work for some champs, but for the majority of top and mid laners, that's just going to get you killed.