How to Fight Baron Nashor

The Raid Boss

Baron Nashor is a large creep that spawns at 15 minutes into the game, and has a large health pool that increases with the duration of the game. The "raid boss" title is a running joke in that it usually takes a full group to take him down and it has some gimmick mechanics tacked on. Killing Baron gives your team an "Exalted with Baron Nashor" buff for 4 minutes, which radically increases health regeneration, mana regeneration, and provides bonus AD and AP. Alongside the buff, your entire team receives some global experience and 300g each with a little bonus gold for the person to last-hit Baron.

The buff alone is enormous. It gives your team insane advantage in terms of poke battles (Whittling each other down from range without engaging), allowing you to whittle the enemy team down on their tower and force them to give it up or engage on them with advantage. The gold alone is what makes people dive in and suicide in the attempt to steal baron, though, as that's essentially 5 kills worth of gold for the team that gets it, along with some free experience.

I'm going to go over some basics of baron, and then go more in-depth and explain when to fight baron and more importantly how to fight baron.

 

When Do We Fight This Thing?

Baron is a large objective on the map. It supercedes just about every objective besides inhibitors and nexus towers I'd say. It comes with some massive drawbacks, though, which make it a bit more complex of a decision to make. First off, never ever fight Baron without some type of advantage for your team. Advantages include:

- A key member or members of the enemy team are down for a long enough period of time that they won't be able to contest baron. Downing the opposing team's jungler, especially, is a large advantage as enemy smite is out of the picture.

- Your team is stronger in a straight up battle. Baron dishes out a large portion of damage to anyone tanking it. If you're even with the other team, or the carries on your team aren't performing as well as the enemy carries then you'll be at a disadvantage and probably wipe and/or give away Baron. A gold advantage will put this back in your favor.

- You clear sight of the opposing team on Baron either forcing the enemy team to check and re-ward Baron, or allowing you to take it uncontested.

- A member or members of the enemy team are seen out of position to contest baron in time. If you see their ranged AD bottom, for instance, then if you fight baron you force the remaining enemy team members to fight man-down or give up Baron. Be warned if the enemy team has advantage and it's a support that's out of position you might still be in danger, or teams with heavy amounts of poke abilities could stall your progress long enough to make the teams even.

- Certain key abilites are down on the opposing team that can even out teamfights. This can range from Ashe's ultimate to summoners. Judge how strong the enemy team is without these, and if you think they could still beat you, then Baron is a bad idea.

 

Why Are We Doing This Again?

There are actually multiple reasons to fight Baron. You'll often hear people saying "force a fight at Baron." This would be because when you start or clear sight on Baron the enemy team is either forced to contest it, or you guys get a free Baron. The main reason a team would want to force a fight at baron is because other objectives aren't available, lanes are pushed, and/or your team is generally just stronger and you want to snowball that advantage. By other objectives not being available what I mean is say Dragon is down and you're not in a position to successfully push towers or contest enemy blue/red buffs.

I once heard on a professional's stream that every moment you spend not pushing objectives or farming is time wasted. This is doubly so for teams in the lead as this downtime can let the enemy team regain some momentum.

(Edited picture courtesy of wgrd)

 

Ok Then, How Do We Fight This?

In my solo-que experience it seems people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how to fight at Baron. First, one must know how Baron works. There's a couple of mechanics to it that perhaps some people aren't aware of, so I'll cover my bases:

- Baron melees the person that is closest to him when engaged.

- He does an AoE knockback in a short range to knock anyone inside of his model or very close to him away so he temporarily swaps targets to hit.

- If you see green bubbles under your feet you can move within ~2 seconds or you'll get damaged and popped into the air.

- Sometimes Baron will do an AoE magic attack to people in or near the Baron cave applying a stacking debuff that increases magical damage taken.

- Baron also applies a debuff that reduces AD by a significant amount.

Unless you have someone particularly tanky most teams will want to swap tanking Baron by standing closer to him than your teammates. Spreading out the damage and the debuffs will make your team overall more healthy. The last thing you want happening is your jungler dying to Baron and losing your team's smite, or alerting the enemy team to what you're doing. If you swap tank Baron you'll find that even when fairly low if the enemy team doesn't contest you can still take Baron.

When you fight Baron you should pay attention to the health of it. Your jungler is probably already doing this, and as a jungle-player myself that's a good thing to get your smite right (Nothing worse than fail-smiting and having it left with just enough HP for the enemy to take it), but don't tunnel vision on the health either. Now lets say the enemy team rushes the Baron pit while your team is fighting the big guy - you'll want to either turn and fight immediately or finish Baron then turn.

This is completely dependent on the health of Baron at the time. There is no set number to do one over the other in terms of health, it really depends on how fast Baron is going down. This isn't a choice of whether you can finish Baron in time or not, it's more that once Baron becomes low enough it's in danger of being stolen by the enemy jungler with a smite.

When you turn and fight you need to do so immediately and blow up the first person in range (Probably the enemy jungler), and then either clean up the enemy team or send them scurrying back to their base while you guys finish Baron. Nobody should stay in the Baron pit, as this will make your team not only trapped in a confined area, but still take unnecessary damage from Baron. Shurelya's Reverie's active, or hard engage moves like Kennen's ultimate are great ways to turn and catch the opponents off-guard from Baron pit.

If you guys see that Baron is low enough to be in danger of being stolen, then when you attempt to finish this the enemy team might try to hard-engage on you guys, or the enemy jungler might try to just pop cooldowns and walk in to steal. If you see the enemy jungler casually strolling into the Baron pit when you guys are attempting to finish it - Blow him up! Do not risk him out-smiting your jungler, as even if your jungler is exceptional the opposing jungler could out-level him and thus have more smite damage.

If you chose to finish Baron, this should be the only distraction. In solo-que there's a distinct lack of communication, and sometimes it doesn't always work as perfectly as on paper. If you see a sudden drop in dps on Baron then try and stick with what your teammates are doing. As the jungler if your team makes a poor decision and stops dpsing a low-health baron stay within smite range and keep an eye on the health, but stop damage on Baron and help them. Only leave the cave with Baron dangerously low as a jungler when you're sure the cave is secure. This means that the enemy jungler is down, or the enemy team is zoned from the cave; but you should still keep an eye on Baron's health because AoE and such might get it down low enough for smite.

 

Zoning

A common technique you'll see amongst players in-the-know would be "zoning." This is mainly a role filled by someone with the ability to either heavily threaten the enemy team while being mobile enough not to get engaged on, or a champion with the ability to disrupt the other team. For supports, Alistar is a great example of someone who can zone well. Alistar doesn't do too much damage, is a pretty tanky guy, and has some heavy disruption abilities (Pulverize and Headbutt).

People who zone want to stay outside of the Baron pit for the most part, often utilizing the small island bush close to mid-lane to remove sight of yourself temporarily. Your main objective in terms of zoning is to keep the enemy team away from your team. An AP like Ahri can also zone well as they have long range attacks that can be threatening, and with her ultimate has a high mobility rating.

Certain junglers pose a bigger risk than others - Warwick and Skarner for instance. These junglers have ultimates that cause "suppression" - meaning no summoner spells or abilites are able to be used the duration of the spell. That means they can disable your jungler's smite and use their own, making them especially dangerous. Keep in mind that suppression abilities are the only thing that can stop smite; silences, stuns, and anything short of death cannot stop a smite cast. Someone like Alistar would want to Headbutt these guys out of the pit to get them out of smite range, and keep them out.

As someone zoning you need to make sure your team has enough damage without you to take Baron in a manageable amount of time, and you need to make sure you don't get engaged on. Someone like Janna is especially good at not getting engaged upon as her ultimate resets fights, and she's great at kiting. Always stay within range of your team, and know when to back off and rely on your team. The person zoning dying makes a precarious situation a deadly one usually.

 

In Closing

In terms of objectives I'd rank them in order of importance with Baron in third: Nexus > Inhibitors > Baron. Do not underestimate Baron and not only its strength for teams with advantage already, but for teams down this can change the entire game if taken successfully. Indecision is the number one enemy for teams when fighting at Baron, so direct your team accordingly.