Push that tower or kill dat Baron?

A common question asked during the mid to late game phase is whether to push towers, or whether to take Baron. The decision to either push or take Baron needs to be made as fast as possible both to maximise the gain from a situation and to make sure you don’t miss opportunities to complete objectives.

Pushing lanes gains you map control and gold for the entire team, where Baron gives you a buff that gives you massive attack damage and ability power boosts and increased health and mana regeneration (and also 300 gold for each person on your team each kill on him).

Both of these rewards give you an advantage over the enemy team. The main difference between these is that Baron will give you an immediate, short-term advantage that you can refresh every 7 minutes, whereas destroying towers slowly builds up your advantage and comes into play in later stages of the game.

Always feels good to kill a tower

There are different situations in which you should push towers and there are others in which you should take Baron, but ultimately the decision comes down to you, your team, and who’s got the overall advantage in a game.

A commonly confusing situation is what to do after scoring an ace. If you’ve scored an ace on the enemy team you need to decide whether to take Baron or to push down as many towers as possible. While making this decision you need to consider several things. How many of your team survived? Are the tanks able to withstand Baron? Are the damage dealers on your team more suited to Baron killing or turret destroying (if your ad carry is down you lose a lot of damage. Spells don’t hit turrets)? Do you have enough time to destroy an inhibitor before enough of the enemy team respawn to force you off? Or can you win the game off the ace? I’ve seen many a team throw away the advantage by stopping and taking Baron instead of pushing and just winning the game.

If you have just aced the enemy team you can take Baron, or you can push towers. If you decide to push towers you will commit the time it takes the enemy team to respawn to advancing lanes. When they do respawn your team will likely have to recall before the refreshed enemy team rushes out and cleans you up, giving them the opportunity to take Baron.

However, while pushing you may be able to grab an inhibitor, and if you can keep the lane pushed until super minions arrive then you may be able to take baron while your enemy fends them off. If there are no inhibitors down yet, it may be more beneficial to destroy the first inhibitor during an after-ace push than to take Baron. If inhibitors are already down then the decision comes down to Baron or Nexus. If you can take the Nexus then go for it, just be wary of enemy players respawning with full health and mopping you all up.

Dunk time!

If you take Baron first, you are still able to push down towers. By the time you’ve finished Baron the enemy team are likely to have respawned, or be close to respawning, so you’ll almost always have to recall after the fight with Baron. You will have 4 minutes to do something with the advantage from Baron buff, but you could just consider taking Baron merely to deny it from the enemy team while you clear minion waves, collect buffs, place wards and prepare your team for the next big push or team fight.

Another common situation is a general stalemate. Nowhere in particular is pushing well, and neither team has sufficient vision of the other team to be able to commit to a push without fear of being unexpectedly ambushed. You may be looking to take Baron at this point, but it’s a bad idea to try and take it. If you start Baron and the entire enemy team shows up you’re effectively fighting 5v6.

You may want to try and force a Baron fight. If you’ve got the upper hand then you can head towards Baron (and make a show of doing so), deward it and wait in a bush, ready to ambush any unsuspecting players as they wander into your line of sight. This will force them to either give up Baron, or attempt to fight you for it. This will give you the opportunity to kill the majority of the enemy team and gain Baron. This can be risky if you don’t have a good team composition for it or if you’re lagging behind in levels and gold.

If you’ve got an Amumu or Galio then you’ll easily be able to ambush them, but if you’ve got a low cc team then you’re going to have trouble pinning down the tank that rushes in ahead of his teammates and even more trouble with taking out the carries before they annihilate your team.

Can't stop Mundo

However, if the stalemate situation arises and someone shows their face at bottom lane then head to Baron immediately. Unless it’s a Shen or someone with teleport, you’ll be able to take Baron before the enemy team can regroup to contest it.

Then there’s the situation of desperation. There may be a point where you know there’s little chance of taking or stealing Baron, but you’re far enough behind that if you don’t contest it, you’re going to lose, and if you fail to take it, you’re going to lose. Therefore by trying to contest, steal or ninja-kill Baron you really have nothing to lose. It’s always worth a shot and it may be able to provide you with the edge your team needs to drag yourselves back into the game and possibly on to victory.

Always be wary if taking Dragon of the possibility of the enemy team ninja-killing Baron without you even noticing. If they have been warding effectively, but aren’t contesting Dragon, there’s a fair chance they’ve headed to Baron while you’re otherwise occupied.