The Art of Peeling: An Unappreciated Technique

What is peeling?

Peeling is the act of using crowd control (CC) abilities on enemies to stop them from damaging or impeding allies. Some champions are especially suited for this role and I see too many players making a beeline for the enemy team's carry (or worse their tank) so as to apply some crowd control without any consideration for their own carries. This is more often than not the job of many bruiser type champions such as Olaf, Irelia and Jax or assassins such as Akali and Fizz.

Peeling gets more and more important as the game goes on assuming your AD carry is doing his job and farming. Often late game team fights will come down to which team can keep their AD carry alive the longest and therefore it is an extremely useful strategy to keep in mind especially if your AD carry is doing well. Also remember that in later stages of the game, the AD carry's job is to more or less shoot at whatever they can and not endanger themselves. By crowd controlling these nearby targets, you make your carry's job very easy as they can melt down these potential aggressors swiftly and move on to the rest of the enemy team.

In this article I will be looking at champions that excel at peeling as well as good tips for protecting your carries. Note that many champions naturally peel in team fights through massive area of effect crowd control, however I'll be discussing champions that can be put on full time bodyguard duty and do not need to land those essential AoE abilities on as many targets as possible. Remember that positioning is essential to peeling and you need to be in the right place to help your carry at the drop of a hat.

 

Exceptional Peelers

Maokai

Maokai is an incredible peeler as well as a great initiator. Just like many champions to come later, I feel that too many Maokai players purely focus on his initiation capabilities, stick their blinders on and Twisted Advance that enemy carry. Don't get me wrong, in many situations this is the right call, however in full blown team fights good carries will not allow you to do this and more often than not will pack a QSS or Cleanse (both good pickups versus Maokai). Good Maokai players will also know of those tragic moments where Twisted Advance is baited and Maokai ends up in the middle of the enemy team, a mile away from his allies.

Maokai's W allows him to instantly reposition in a team fight on top of whoever is looking to damage or crowd control his carry, an often understated facet of the ability which will allow you to gap close and do your job as soon as necessary. Furthermore Maokai can drop his ultimate on the part of the teamfight where it is required and reposition to snare anybody.

Often Maokai wants to drop his ultimate where the enemy AoE abilities are going to be targeted and hopefully not where your carry is. The snare is lengthy and once finished Maokai's Q (which you should be maxing after 2 levels in E due to its non scaling mana costs and great 48% slow at max level) will slow and knock back your target as well as any other nearby targets closing on your carry further impeding their progress.

 

Skarner

Skarner is a fantastic initiator and all League of Legends players have learnt to dread getting impaled by the purple crystal scorpion, however what makes him a great initator also makes him one of the best peelers in the game.

Skarner's iniatiation is often reliant on positioning mistakes on the enemy team's part or whether or not he has flash off cooldown to catch unsuspecting prey to drag it kicking and screaming into the middle of your team. His peeling however is totally and utterly effortless as the ability to reposition an enemy bruiser or assassin is a simple button click away. Following this, Skarner's carry can increase the distance between them and the impaled enemy or alternatively Skarner can hold them in place long enough for the carry to kill them. Skarner does decent damage built correctly (Wit's End people!) and coupled with a permanent slow from his Q it becomes very difficult for even the likes of Irelia to make it to his carry in one piece.

 

Jarvan IV

Jarvan has access to another ultimate which I too often see used as initiation. Once again I will say that it is a fantastic initiation tool however AD carries will love you for holding that ridiculously fed Olaf (I'll talk about this guy later but remember to check if he has Ghost up or not!) in place long enough for them to book it or kill him. If you manage to trap two champions going for your carry then you have successfully allowed your carry to have an easy fight or certainly force some Flashes.

About Flash, if they do Flash out of your ultimate then you need to land that flag and knock them up as soon as possible, this requires fast fingers but becomes second nature with practice as you know exactly which direction they will Flash in: towards your carry. You can even leave the ultimate behind as a wall to impede more aggressors but remember to get rid of it if its getting in your team's way.

So with a fantastic ultimate, a 35% AoE slow, an AoE knock up AND a armor/attack speed buff for your AD carry, Jarvan makes a fantastic underrated bodyguard.

 

Trundle

Trundle is a very underplayed champion that excels in certain jungle matchups but I digress as this isn't the topic. The Cursed Troll is an incredible peeler purely because of Pillar of Filth, an incredible skill that creates a small obstacle (remember to cast it right in front of the target so as to knock them back as well) and some numbers that you may have forgotten: Pillar is a permanent AoE slow (so no amount of CC reduction is going to help, another Irelia counter) that lasts a whopping 6.5 seconds! Not only that but Trundle is going to rob what is more than likely a bruiser (so a tanky DPS) of both their tankiness with his ultimate and their DPS with his Rabid Bite. This makes their contribution to the fight effectively moot and with no armor, Trundle's AD carry will shred the target in a matter of moments.

 

Dr. Mundo

Cleavers, loads of cleavers. Mundo's peeling is decent if you only need to stop a single person from reaching your carry. With only a little bit of cooldown reduction (usually in the form of a Spirit Visage) you can throw cleavers all day at your target while dealing great damage through the rest of your skillset.

 

Alistar

This guy needs no introduction but again I see too many Alistar players attempt to W+Q combo the enemy team to leave a Jax in their backline clubbing their AD carry to a pulp. Headbutt is a ridiculously powerful skill that, when used properly and followed by Pulverize, can stop an aggressor from reaching your carry altogether in a fight. Remember to place yourself in such a way that the Headbutt knocks the target as far away as possible from your carry.

Both knock backs and knock ups are totally unaffected by CC reduction which is part of what makes Alistar's “guaranteed” CC so coveted. So whether you're in the jungle or in the bottom lane, consider protecting your big damage dealers in team fights rather than trying to always initiate fights with your combo.

 

Nunu

Nunu has a debuff that inflicts a 25% attack speed and 60% movement speed debuff that he can keep on a target permanently, this in itself makes him an excellent peeler without mentioning his potent ultimate. Absolute Zero when positioned properly is devastating, another 25% attack speed debuff and 50% movement speed that coupled with an Ice Blast renders bruisers like Jax totally useless.

When using this ultimate you want to position yourself between your carry and whoever wants to kill them. Don't worry if you can't find a brush to use it in, any CC blown on you is CC not used against your carry. Nunu also improves your carry's ability to kite further via his W which you should keep on your carry at all times as the statistics that it bestows are very powerful.

 

Janna

Janna offers fantastic protection via both peeling abilities, a shield and a global movement speed buff. Many Janna players will try to flash into an enemy team and try to split them up or something of the kind, this more often than not can backfire stupendously if your team has AoE ultimates from the likes of Galio or Morgana. Instead of doing this, stick to your carry and keep them shielded when needed.

Now when enemies come in range knock up and then slow them, finally once these cooldowns are down you can use your ultimate to knock ALL aggressors back and heal your carry. Again, remember to position yourself between your carry and enemies to avoid those awful mishaps where you knock an enemy towards your carry and spell out their doom. Janna is very good peeler that requires positioning but it's always easier to use the ultimate defensively rather than aggressively and more often than not the safer call.

 

Lulu

Lulu is one of the newer additions to this list of great peelers and boy does the purple yordle deliver. There is nothing more satisfying than turning a ferocious Darius into a bright purple, hapless squirrel for a whole 2.5 seconds. Marry this with an 80% slow (yes 80%) and you have yourself a winning combination and once again I haven't even spoken about the ultimate. This thing is fantastic and in many situations you will be using it coupled with an initiator like Shyvana to knock up the entire enemy team as well as making your initiator thoroughly unkillable.

However it is another great peeling tool which you won't always use on your carry but on yourself. Let me elaborate: it is often better to ult early and stop an enemy getting to your carry altogether rather than wait for them to already be on top of your carry and ult your carry. Once again, for this position, place yourself between your carry and the fight then ult yourself when an enemy reaches you attempting to get to your carry. After this make the call between using W to turn the enemy into an inoffensive critter or speed buff your carry. Generally if your AD carry is going to be autoattacking safely then polymorph an enemy.

 

Olaf, Ragnarok and Ghost: A Peeler's Worst Nightmare

This is the face of pure, unshaven rage. Learn it.

I'm granting this champion a whole section because he can effectively render the entire concept of peeling totally and utterly laughable. Even monsters like Jax and Irelia can be contained with good play but if Olaf has Ghost and his ultimate Raganarok available, there is nothing you can do to stop him getting to your carry besides outright killing the berzerker. Ghost confers massive speed and the ability to ignore unit collision while Ragnarok makes Olaf tankier and renders him immune to crowd control. It is understandable how the combination of all these buffs makes Olaf a veritable juggernaut.

Many great peelers do not build much damage due to being pure CC machines. In the scenario where you have the misfortune of staring down the barrel of a fed Olaf, communicate to your team's damage dealers that they need to nuke him down as soon as he starts moving towards your backline because you can guarantee that once he gets there, the fight can be over in seconds. Do not under any circumstances waste any of your CC abilities on Olaf once he has used Ragnarok as this will only hurt your case.

As a peeler that does negligible damage, what you should do is ignore Olaf entirely and stop his team following up on him with your CC. That might sound insane but without damage there is nothing you can do against Olaf so just buy your team some time to kill him by impeding Olaf's allies following up on him. More often than not this will mean your death but if your team can take him out and he is a significant portion of the enemy's damage then your team may be in the clear.

Another very important point is to keep tabs on when Olaf uses Ghost so as to know how long it will be down for. To do this you need to take the timestamp from when he ghosts and add 3 minutes and 30 seconds, pop a timer into chat so that you and your team have a reference (just like you'd take a Baron/Dragon timer or a Flash timer in a lane you're ganking). When Ghost is down, skills like Jarvan's ultimate and Anivia's wall are invaluable to stopping Olaf. Short of that you can just outright try to bodyblock him if fighting in tight jungle areas – Cho'Gath is great at this due to his massive model.

 

Conclusion

Peeling is an extremely important technique that even at high level tournament play can sometimes be underused. For any players coming from DotA, there is no such thing as Black King Bar in this game (except Ragnarok ironically!) so teams must stop enemies trying to get in range of their carry altogether in order to ensure their survival.

Peeling is a rather thankless job that often goes unnoticed. However, when you hear the words “TRIPLE KILL” and your carry's portrait pop on the screen knowing that you gave them the space to go to work, the feeling is very satisfying. Often the peeler will go down in the process but their death for the life of their carry is a good trade, not to mention what consequences that trade can have on the rest of the fight or game as a whole.