How does a Support in bottom lane handle Caitlyn's Traps?

Question

When I am playing Support in bottom lane vs. Caitlyn (plus her Support) and she keeps putting her Traps in the brush, how do I react to that? Should I try to take them out in a safe second (by walking over them) or, is it better to just leave them there? I mean, at the moment I'd rather clean the brush when it's safe, because with my Alistar, I can just heal up again and so those traps won't be in the way if there is an emergency. But I just want to know if this is really the right way to go, or if I should instead leave them there?

Asked by Toby

Answer

I usually consider the following:

• Is the trap in a real bad place ?

That is to say, it impedes your placement near your tower or prevents the carry from having a good spot to farm. If YES, remove it ASAP.

• Is the trap in a bush ?

Usually bushes are a frequently used place for traps. In there, you need to consider having vision on it. In fact, even with a ward up, you're more likely to get caught inadvertently. It can be a good thing to remove those traps, but only if it is safe and you can afford loss of mana/health do to so.

• Is the trap here to prevent gank ?

If YES, that could mean the area is not warded. If you are sure of this, it could be useful NOT to remove the trap. If the jungler is aware of its position (verbally or visually with a ward) it could provide a better surprise effect for ganks.

• How many traps are visible ?

Caitlyn can set up a maximum of three traps. Sometimes it's better to see the three traps rather to risk being caught in hidden ones. Example, if three traps are in the two botlane right bushes (or on the field), you can safely go in the river bush to put some ward.

In summary, if the trap is a real threat to your carry: remove it. Everything else is trivial and depends on your play-style. If you have to make extensive use of trapped area, you should consider cleaning so as to acquire full efficiency.

Answered by M'vy

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How does a Support on Botlane handle Caitlyns Traps?

Question

When I am playing Support on Botlane vs Caitlyn ( + her Support ) and she keeps putting her Traps in the Brush, how do I react to that? Should I rather try to take them out in a save second ( by walking over them ) or better just leave them there? I mean, at the moment I rather clean the brush when it's save, because with my Alistar I can just heal up again and so those traps won't be in the way if there is an emergency. But I just want to know if this is really the right way to go or if I should rather let them there?

Asked by Toby

Answer

I usually consider the following:

• Is the trap in a real bad place ?

That is to say, it impedes your placement near your tower or prevents the carry from having a good spot to farm. If YES, remove it ASAP.

• Is the trap in a bush ?

Usually bushes are a frequently used place for traps. In there, you need to consider having vision on it. In fact, even with a ward up, you're more likely to get caught inadvertently. It can be a good thing to remove those traps, but only if it is safe and you can afford loss of mana/health do to so.

• Is the trap here to prevent gank ?

If YES, that could mean the area is not warded. If you are sure of this, it could be useful NOT to remove the trap. If the jungler is aware of its position (verbally or visually with a ward) it could provide a better surprise effect for ganks.

• How many traps are visible ?

Caitlyn can set up a maximum of three traps. Sometimes it's better to see the three traps rather to risk being caught in hidden ones. Example, if three traps are in the two botlane right bushes (or on the field), you can safely go in the river bush to put some ward.

In summary, if the trap is a real threat to your carry: remove it. Everything else is trivial and depends on your play-style. If you have to make extensive use of trapped area, you should consider cleaning so as to acquire full efficiency.

Answered by M'vy

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Ranked duo queue elo gain/loss?

Question

Finally convinced a friend of mine to start ranked, we've been doing duo queue and have gone 5/0. Before this I had played some 20 odd games, starting at ~1.1k elo with her. Because it's her first games her elo gain is very large, she's climbed to 1369 while I'm still beneath 1200.

How is it going to affect her and my own elo gain/loss when we queue together with such a gap?

Asked by user1090190

Answer

For reference: Any player with less than 10 wins will get a considerable amount of ELO gained, or lost. This usually is ~40, and will eventually diminish to your normal ELO gains/losses you see ~11.

As for duo queuing, if you chose to queue with a large ELO gap, you need to keep a few things in mind:

• You're more likely to be last pick.

Because of the difference in ELO, it's harder to find a suitable team of which you two fit evenly into. The result is the lower player is typically last pick, with the remaining teammates chosen to make up for the gap between your ELOs.

• Your ELO gains/losses are affected

A player whom wins a ranked match and is higher ELO than his opponents will naturally receive less ELO after a win. As you would imagine, that player would also lose more elo upon receiving a loss.

The same can be said for a player that finds them self on the low end of the match. They would recieve more for a win, and less for a loss.

I highly recommend reading this entire article: League of Legends ELO Breakdown

Answered by Michael Capobianco

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What is this Bountifull Treasure buff?

Question

Apparently jungle creeps accumulate gold and exp somehow and eventually receive a Bountifull Treasure buff, letting you know they've maxed out. How does this work exactly? The more details that can be provided in the answer the better, pretend I started playing yesterday and educate me.

Asked by Ender

Answer

Basically you've already described what happens. When the jungle camps spawn the gold and exp rewards are set to a certain amount. If no one kills them for a while, the reward on the biggest monster in the camp goes up gradually over time. When you finally do kill it, your gold and exp gained will be higher. At a certain point, the reward doesn't increase anymore and the Bountiful Treasure buff is shown on the biggest monster.

The point of this is so going to gank someone and not getting the kill doesn't hurt your jungling too much. If the gold amounts didn't change, going for a champion kill and failing would reduce the gold you would end up with by a lot and it would be more risky. This way, it's almost always worth it to try ganks frequently (depending on your team situation and the champion you're playing).

More info from Morello can be found at http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=17938707#17938707

Answered by Aaron Brown

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Why buy a Ninja Tabi?

Question

Seeing a bunch of high elo games with the new spectator mode (games include hotshotgg, chu8 etc..), I have seen more people are using the Ninja Tabi boots over Mercury Treads.

Tanks, bruisers etc.. are not even picking Tenacity items, is this a common meta on such elo nowadays?

Isnt tenacity a must have item on all Elos?

Asked by camiloqp

Answer

Tenacity only matters if you get subjected to a tenacity-able CC effect. On teams which favor mostly knockups or suppressions as their hard CC, for instance, Tenacity is useless (as it doesn't reduce knockup or suppression duration).

This brings us to our second point: don't go into games with your heart set on a specific pair of boots. Adjust your build to best combat the team you're fighting against. Folks don't buy merc treads because Tenacity is useless, they're buying the Tabis because they are more useful against the opponent team.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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Is Deadliness and the similar Runes or Mastery skills worth it?

Question

With 4 points invested, deadliness gives .5 dmg per level. Thats 9 extra damage at level 18. Many runes do something similar, (very small per level bonuses). Are bonuses of this nature actually worthwhile in any way? I don't see how 9 extra damage endgame is going to matter. (Exceptions made for the magic resist and cooldown reduction versions of these bonuses as their endgame final addup is easily viewed as worthwhile)

Asked by Ender

Answer

The Deadliness masteries gives 9 points of damage at character level 18. Think of it as a free Longsword

It does not seems a lot, but it represents more than a 3% AD increase on most fully geared AD carries or bruiser, as neither is nowhere near 300 AD, which is quite efficient, as far as masteries go.

To compare, assuming you go into Utility tree deep enough to grab the Greed masteries, you'd need no less than 34 minutes and 10 seconds for the Greed Masteries to pay for the free Longsword, without even taking into account inventory room and power gain through your leveling.

Not only are the Deadliness masteries efficient, but they are compulsory on attack characters. AD / level runes, on the other hands, are dubious. Take either Flat AD or Armor Penetration.

Answered by Johan Buret

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How to fix League of Legends loading on dual screen?

Question

I have dual screen and sometimes when the game loads it sort of loads in the middle of both of them making it impossible to play.

I already have it set to windowed borderless and I´m not going to "turn off my monitor" since that defeats the whole purpose of having dual monitors.

Is there any way to fix this?¨

Here is an image of it happening:

My taskbar being on the right screen which has a slightly lower vertical resolution

Note: I'm running League of legends in Windows 7

Asked by Richard

Answer

Since the launch of spectator mode this has been happening alot more and with more time for me to actually find solutions I´ve figured out the following.

1. Switching ingame settings around from fullscreen/windowed seem to reset it to the correct position
2. Moving around the taskbar resets it to the correct position
3. Going into the task manager and rightclicking and selecting maximize resets it to the correct position

Answered by Richard

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How do I fix league of legends loading on half my screen?

Question

I have dual screen and sometimes when the game loads it sort of loads in the middle of both of them making it impossible to play.

I already have it set to windowed borderless and I´m not going to "turn off my monitor" since that defeats the whole purpose of having dual monitors.

Is there any way to fix this?¨

Here is an image of it happening:

My taskbar being on the right screen which has a slightly lower vertical resolution

Note: I'm running League of legends in Windows 7

Asked by Richard

Answer

Since the launch of spectator mode this has been happening alot more and with more time for me to actually find solutions I´ve figured out the following.

1. Switching ingame settings around from fullscreen/windowed seem to reset it to the correct position
2. Moving around the taskbar resets it to the correct position
3. Going into the task manager and rightclicking and selecting maximize resets it to the correct position

Answered by Richard

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Do Spectator Controls work while replaying a LOLReplay file?

Question

League Replays is by far the most famous replaying system on League of Legends, it has a nice set of controls like fast forwarding, slow motion etc.. However the imbued controls on the spectator mode are far more intuitive to use and more useful in my opinion.

Will a recorded match made as an spectator, which is replayed later on, using LOL Recorder enable the very same spectator controls as if on a Live Game?

Asked by camiloqp

Answer

As of right now when i post this message, LoL Replay does not work with spectator mode. I have messed around with it to see what you can and cannot do with it, and the people who make LoL Replay are working on features that work like spectator mode, like a rewind and possibly a HUD that allows you to view who buys what/gold earned etc. but they have not announced a release date or an ETA as of yet. Just keep your eyes peeled to the site for whats going on :D

Answered by Kirkalirk

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Madred's Bloodrazor on Riven

Question

Normally you should play Riven totally on AD ( since all her Spells stack with AD ). But I was just wondering - when I play vs a tanky team with many HP ( Warmogs and stuff ) I usually go for Madred's Bloodrazor when I play AD Carry ( e.g. Ashe ), because of the 4% Dmg from the max. health.

Now my question is - would it be reasonable to go for Madred's Bloodrazor with Riven too? Because normally you wouldn't try to get Rivens Attack Speed up... If no Bloodrazor, what would be another option for her against targets with much HP ?

Asked by Toby

Answer

Why you shouldn't use Madred's Bloodrazor on Riven:

• Riven scales badly with bonus attack speed, because she should aim to attack only after every ability use. This means not only bonus attack speed from Razor is wasted, but also you won't be using Razor efficiently, since the item procs do scale with attackspeed.
• Riven has no magical attacks, and thus has no need to use Magic Penetration/Reduction. Which means Razor procs will hit enemies full Magic Resistance, making the item even worse.

What to do instead:

• Stack AD. Riven has great AD scaling, and you can always use more of it. Remember that it also makes your shield stronger!
• Stack Lifesteal. Since Riven's passive-boost on autoattacks counts for lifesteal, this can make enormous difference, especially in 1v1. Also, lifesteal scales with the AD you're already stacking. Stacking Bloodthirsters can be legitimate tactic on Riven. If you want advantage earlier in the game, stacking Doran's Blades is also very good.
• Don't forget some Armor Penetration/Reduction. Brutalizer gives good flat bonus for early game, plus some AD and some CDR. For late game, Last Whisper gives percentage-based bonus, and yes - more AD!
• If you are in a teamfight: don't focus the HP stacking opponents - go for the squishies instead. Other people in your team should be better prepared for clearing out the tough guys later (maybe even by having the Bloodrazor, if they can use it better and if the situation warrants it).

Answered by Delf

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Move a strong early game into the endgame

Question

Recently I've played a few games as jungle yi, and have had a fantastic time ganking and really building myself up with a very strong early game. By the 15-20 minute mark, I am much strong than anyone else in the game with a lot more gold and experience and can pretty much take anyone one-on-one.

The problem that I am having is taking this advantage and turning it into a strong/winning late game. There are a few different problems I have, including weak teammates (not passing the blame, it just happens) or not being able to press the advantage while their stronger team build farms up and eventually wears us down. As well as this, sometimes my very strong one-on-one game doesn't translate well into team fights.

I'm curious about what I can do to keep my early game advantage going and pushing it to carry our team to the win rather than becoming less relevant as everyone else catches up to me, often resulting in a loss.

Asked by Tim Rosser

Answer

There are often cases when one of the teams has a really strong player that can win 2x1 or even 3x1, while the rest of his teammates are considerably weaker and underfarmed. Usually this is a sign of overfarming yourself (I'm not saying that you steal kills, but if you do have a considerable damage output, it just "happens") or sub-standard team play. I'm not sure there's a champion that can sustain a 5x1 against a semi-competent team in any part of the game, regardless of equipment, so overfarming yourself at the expense of your teammates is hardly the best strategy to win the game.

Take a look at your assists at the end of a typical game and compare yourself to the rest of the team. I make it a point for myself to have the higher number of assists among my teammates (I play tanks and supports 90% of the time), and that correlates well with whether we lose or win a game. I've won games with 0/9/22, and lost games with 17/4/8. If I have less than average assists, I have failed my teammates.

So, the best thing to do is to strengthen your team play (I know this is not always possible without premade teams, but at higher levels of play you can get a lot of stuff done with people you don't know).

Some things you might want to consider if you find yourself earning more than you should, but still losing the game:

• Participate in ganks fights with them, don't just wander around in a hunt for a weak unprotected carry or support.
• Leave your teammates to deliver the death blow when a kill is inevitable, and kill yourself only when the target would escape otherwise.
• Push in coordination when you have advantage of two or more alive champions at a given time.
• Be careful when attacking. Master Yi can blink in and out of battle quickly, but some of your teammates might not be so mobile. Don't attack just because you think you can escape, your teammates are likely to commit to an attack and die, when your purpose was only harassing.
• Being overfed, you are more likely to be focused, so don't get cocky and avoid situations when you are alone against an overwhelming opponent, even if you are likely to kill one or two before dying.
• A dead carry is often the cause for being steamrolled and losing the game -- the opposing team can often crush the final towers in a minute or so while you wait to be revived.
• Relieve your support from buying wards. Pure supports are notoriously cash-strapped all game, and while their cores are cheap, they could always appreciate some extra punch in terms of equipment. Plus, if they purchase team buffs (which they often do), it will be a good investment for your extra money.

Answered by mindcorrosive

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What order should I build Frozen Mallet, Atma's Impaler, and Warmog's Armor?

Question

I see the term "Fratmogs" thrown around in League of Legends.

What order should these items be built for top lane champions that would utilize them?

My opinion:

1. If you are agressive > Atma's Impaler
2. If you are being pressed > Warmog's Armor
3. If you are going for combo jungle ganks > Frozen Mallet

Asked by eric f

Answer

The term Fratmogs actually means to build all three items (Atmas, Warmogs, Frozen Mallet).

Fratmas, by contrast, means to build Frozen Mallet and Atmas

and Atmogs, means to build Warmog's and Atmas.

The order of the build depends on the game.

However, usually, if I'm building a bruiser, I will build a health item first (Warmog's or Frozen), and then follow that up with Atma's, and then finish of the trio with whichever health is remaining.

What health item I pick depends on a number of factors, but it kind of boils down to one of 2 things:

1. Do I need a lot more health and regen (Warmog's)
2. Do I need more CC (Frozen Mallet)

Answered by Joseph

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two *tank*plank builds for top lane or jungle?

Question

I go Philosopher's Stone>Wriggle's Lantern>Mercury's Treads>Spirit Visage>Frozen Heart>Thornmail.

Sometimes I get Ionian Boots of Lucidity. That gives me a ton of sustain and cooldown reduction to spam Gangplank's ult.

The other way I see tank-plank built is Warmog's Armor + Atma's Impaler.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each build?

Asked by eric f

Answer

Let's look at each item, and how it affects Gangplank:

• Philosopher's Stone - this is a strong item on many champions. It gives him the mana regen he needs to use Parrrley, HP regen, and GP/5.

• Wriggle's Lantern - provides armor, AD, life steal, a unique passive and a free ward. This is another strong pick, especially if jungling Gangplank.

• Mercury Treads - these boots are considered the default tank boots, due to MR and tenacity.

• Spirit Visage - provides health, magic resist, CDR, and a boost to healing. I don't recommend this item because it doesn't synergize well with any of his abilities.

• Frozen Heart - provides armor, mana, CDR, and an aura debuff. This item is best vs an auto-attack heavy team, otherwise I would skip it.

• Thornmail - provides armor, and deals magic damage when auto-attacked. I don't recommend this item on Gangplank, because a clever opponent will stop focusing Gangplank when they see you've purchased it. Since your goal is to be a tank, this is counter-productive.

• Warmogs Armor - provides the most health in any item, and good health regen. Helpful for staying alive.

• Atma's Impaler - provides 15 AD for every 1k HP, armor, and crit chance. A solid pick if you have extra health from runes/items.

The first build you've listed is very defensive. You end with 229 armor and 55 MR. This build would be most effective against a team that relies on auto-attacks (Master Yi, Ashe, etc). It's going to be weaker vs a team doing primarily magic damage. Warmog's and Atma's provides more health (good if you have armor/MR), and some damage, which helps

If you're jungling Gangplank, it's common to rush a Wriggle's first. If you're top lane, you're going to focus on spamming Parrrley instead, so I'd recommend rushing a Philosopher's stone. Sheen is a common pick, because Parrrley trigger's Sheen's bonus damage. It also builds into a Triforce, an item that boosts all of Gangplank's abilities.

Every game is different, and you have to build vs your enemy team. Of all the items listed, Mercury Treads and a Philosopher's stone are always viable. Wriggle's is very common to see on him, and most of the time will be a good pick. From there, build a sheen if you're using Parrrley a lot, or health, armor, and/or magic resist depending on what's doing the most damage to you.

tl;dr: Mercury Treads, Philosopher's Stone, and Wriggle's Lantern are almost always good picks. Everything else is situational.

Answered by Toast

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About the passive ability from Lux

Question

Okay, so Lux' passive marks an enemie everytime you hit him with a spell, so you have like 6 seconds to hit him with your AA to "ignite" it, which means you will deal some more magical damage.

Now I played quite some games with Lux and also read some Guides, but I still didn't figure these 2 things out ( because when I engage I just bring down my combo without looking for details ^^ )

1. Does her passive get "ignited" only by AA or also by her other spells?
2. Does her Ulti also mark the enemy ?

Asked by Toby

Answer

1. Lux's passive, Illumination, is ignited both by her auto-attacks and her ultimate, Finales Funkeln.
2. Yes, Finales Funkeln both ignites any present Illumination debuff on the enemy and applies a new Illumination debuff after resolution.

Answered by Rilgon Arcsinh

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Spectator's Mode, Fog of War feature

Question

Wouldn't this feature allow for one team who has an active spectator watching the game without fog of war to give advices of incoming ganks, jungle invades, Baron, Dragon kills etc.?

The source of why I know theres a Fog of war feature is here Next Patch: The Full Release of Spectator Mode!

Asked by camiloqp

Answer

There's a 3 minute delay in spectator mode, so the only cheats that people have cautioned about so far would be watching a ward get dropped.

Since a ward is alive for 3 minutes long, a spectator could communicate that to someone on a team, and the team would instantly know that the ward there was now gone.

Answered by Joseph

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What items can you smartcast with?

Question

It turns out you can't smartcast Hextech Gunblade's active ability after the Hecarim Patch. To clarify, you can set it to smartcast, but you'll still have to activate the ability, then click on a target, rather than activate the ability, and move your cursor over a target.

Are there any items with active abilities that can no longer be smartcast? Or is this just a bug?

Asked by Andrew

Answer

It's possible to smartcast all items with an active ability (including Wards).

As Andrew already explained, you can go into the "Keybinding" section in the ingame option's and go to the category "Item Inventory" there you can set "Smart Cast Item 1-6" to your preffered key (i would suggest taking the numbers 1-6).

List of Items that currently have an active targeting ability (excluding consumables):

• Bilgewater Cutlass
• Hextech Gunblade
• Deathfire Grasp
• Wriggle's Lantern
• Executioner's Calling
• Hextech Sweeper (Dominion only)

Note: All items with an active ability that don't require you to choose a target (e.g. Runduin's Omen) are used by simply pressing the corresponding button to the item slot (no matter if you use Item smart casts or not).

Answered by Patrick Stalder

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Can you silence summoner spells on league?

Question

I was wondering if you could silence summoner spells cause it seems like you can but sometimes you can't.

Asked by Ceto BlackWeasel

Answer

It all depends, the summoner spell cleanse can always be cast, even when stunned. The rest of them are stopped on Silence, Stun, Charm and Fear. But aren't stopped when your snared meaning you can't move but can still use your abilities and spells.

Answered by Lyrion

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What is the lore behind Jarvan IV and Jericho Swain?

Question

In Jarvan IV's Relations, it said this quote.

Jarvan IV is the arch-enemy of Jericho Swain.

I looked at their lore.

And didn't find any information about this relationship.

Why they are arch-enemies? When did this occur?

Asked by Michel

Answer

Try reading the first paragraph of Jarvan's lore again; I'll quote the relevant section:

In his most crushing defeat, he was outmaneuvered and captured by a Noxian battalion under the command of Jericho Swain. This mistake nearly cost him his life at the hands of Urgot, but he was rescued by the Dauntless Vanguard, an elite Demacian strike force led by Jarvan’s childhood companion, Garen.

Jarvan hates Swain because Swain captured him and nearly had Jarvan executed.

Additionally, Swain hates Jarvan because Noxus hates Demacia, and the two are each prominent leaders of their respective city-states.

If someone tried to have you executed after embarrassing you and slaughtering all your men, wouldn't you hold a grudge? ;)

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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How can you counter a kill lane?

Question

I asked this question earlier to get a better idea of what a kill lane actually is.

Now I'm wondering, if I'm playing against a kill lane (let's say in draft pick or something so champ select can be part of the question), how can I deal with it?

What champ combinations are good to counter a kill lane?

How should your lane behave against a kill lane?

Asked by Joseph

Answer

It's very rare that you'll have the opportunity to, with certainty, pick against a kill lane. Typically, they will be picked in response to your more traditional bottom lane choices (AD and a support). Moreover, if they picked one early on, it's very easy to confuse their choices with either a top or a jungle choice. In fact, they have the option of switching from a top/jungle choice at the last minute if they feel a kill lane would hurt your team.

That said, if you get the opportunity to pick against one, don't outpick yourself. You already know that they need to survive on harassing you until you're low, then killing you. Failing to do so doesn't optimally scale their champions (usually), and they're not built for farming. To pick against a kill lane, you have a couple of options:

1. Pick a traditional farm lane, but one that can easily escape harassment. Janna and Corki, for instance, would be decent picks (especially if you open with Valkyrie on Corki and Howling Gale on Janna) because of their ability to disrupt harassment and escape bad situations. Kog'maw, on the other hand, would be an abysmal pick despite his range; he has no inherent escapes, and many kill lanes have implicit or explicit gap closers (implicit being a stun, where they can walk up to you, whereas explicit would be a dash). Typically, you'll need a way to immediately negate a gap closer without flash in order to be effective. If you're dealing with a burst kill lane (Sion combinations, for instance), Soraka is usually an excellent choice because of her magic resistance passive and burst heals. However, individual champions aside: Your best bet here is to be able to disrupt their initiation.
2. Pick a non-traditional lane or another kill lane. If you don't feel that you and your support are capable of not dying (even the support dying here is extremely bad), pick a more bruiser-centric lane or a tankier AD (like Urgot). There may be other pick strategies (Soraka+AP comes to mind), but I don't think they're proven enough to mention.

In any event, the core point is that neither you or your support can start dying. As mentioned in a related question, "What is the idea behind a bot kill lane", the benefit of a kill lane is the indirect ability to leave their lane and assault other lanes or the jungle. Prevent them from killing you, and they have to remain in the lane.

If you've already picked your AD and support bottom, then get a kill lane, there are a few strategies you can employ to reduce their effectiveness. These apply in the above case, as well:

• Maintain wards in your lane bushes (as well as the river; ganks are even worse for you, now). This makes it harder for them to stand in the bush then surprise you for the kill.
• Many kill lanes depend on a skill shot; once you know where they are, keep behind your minions in relation to their position.
• As an AD, you should have excellent damage. Jungle ganks (careful! They are a kill lane, after all) are one way to reduce their confidence and give you some breathing room.
• They must get kills to be effective. Heal baits, especially with a hidden jungler, are an effective way to get an impetuous tower dive.

Once you have a lead, continue to play very cautiously. Like most top and jungle bruisers, many top lanes are dangerous even if you only start feeding them late into the game. Playing against them requires you to be conservative, as their lane is designed to punish over-aggressive play.

Finally, never be afraid of building defensively as the AD carry. If you cannot take the lead in your lane, at least you can not die.

Answered by Deotronic

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What is the idea of a bot “kill lane”?

Question

I'm familiar with the standard bot lane meta, but recently I've been learning about "kill lane" combos.

What exactly is the idea of a kill lane combo?

Could you give some examples of common combos used in bot kill lanes? Maybe even why they would be good choices for kill laning.

Asked by Joseph

Answer

A "kill lane" in bottom is a different strategy of winning your lane. A very general definition of "winning your lane" is that you have generated more gold, experience, and map presence than your lane opponent(s).

In bottom lane, the standard strategy is to get a lane with high sustain and ranged attacks which reduces the potential for being harassed and reduces the impact of harassment by having heals, shields, or other damage mitigation. This is essentially a "farm lane." Your goal is to get as much creep score (CS) as possible, and hopefully some kills along the way to bolster the amount of gold and experience you receive (as well as reduce the amount your opponents receive).

By contrast, a "kill lane" is one where the focus is on killing your opponents. Usually this is accomplished by having two characters with crowd-control, at least one of whom can also deal fair damage. You would normally pick a kill lane to counter a farm lane, which often has at least one character considered "squishy" (low hp, armor, and/or magic resist), making the kills easier. Commonly chosen combinations are Jarvan and Leona, Sion and Nautilus, and (more antiquated due to Taric's lack of damage) Taric and Sion. The reasoning is that each of these groups either have a large amount of CC, burst potential, tankiness (so they can tower-dive and are hard to get out of lane), or a combination of all three.

Sion makes a great choice because of his stun and burst potential. You can also build AD Sion and rely on your extra damage from Enrage in combination with your stun. Leona has fair damage when paired with someone else because of her passive ability, and also has three crowd-control mechanisms at level 6. Jarvan is a good choice with her because he has two crowd-control measures of his own and has similar mobility. Nautilus is prized for the same reasons as Jarvan, but his passive gives him an additional crowd control opportunity (though he lacks the same damage and farming potential as Jarvan).

While it's obvious that you get gold and experience from repeatedly killing your lane, those numbers become less significant as the game goes on (assuming you're even successful). Additionally, at first glance, it seems like you wouldn't be able to generate as much gold for your lane as a strict farm lane could (given the diminishing returns of killing the same player over and over). However, there are important indirect results of the kill lane:

• First and foremost is that your opponents become easy to zone out of experience and CS even if you don't kill them. Killing them of course means they spend more time out of lane. So while you may not be generating as much if you were simply farming, they are generating far less as well.
• Killing your lane gives you the chance to gank mid, top, or counter-jungle which not only gives you some extra gold, but also increases the gap between your allies and their respective lanes.
• Repeatedly killing your opponents gives you more opportunity to push the tower which can be an important gold, experience, and map presence boost early on. It also aids in accessing the lower portion of your opponent's jungle.
• A kill lane plus your jungler should easily be able to take down dragon very early, again providing an important gold bonus to your team and helping to establish control of that objective.

Answered by Deotronic

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