Blogs
The Means to Carry - Part Two: Towers and Bot Lane
The various pro teams have always had varying opinions on which map objective they deem more important to their success: enemy towers or dragon. Season Two saw the Korean teams focusing on super-early towers, with most of the Western teams placing more emphasis on contesting and winning early dragons to create success elsewhere.
In Solo Queue, though, there is generally only one option: if you are given any opportunity to damage or kill a tower, you must take it. The unorganized nature of Ranked Solo Queue means that any object that actively insures victory (towers and inhibitors) should be more of a priority than objectives that passively offers victory (dragon, neutral buffs, and Baron Nashor). Essentially, towers and and inhibitors open up huge chunks of the map that actively allow you and your minions to push for victory, while also removing some potential for you or your teammates to be caught out of position.
Quick approximation of the zones that open up with downed towers.
This isn't to say dragon and Baron Nashor should be ignored. The gold and buff offered from the pair are worthy of your attention, but only in scenarios where enemy contention will result in your victory of claiming the monster and in any potential fight that may ensue. Many times, early attempts at dragon have completely shifted games by forcing team fights before a team is prepared for them; this happens frequently in organized play, and is even more of an issue in Solo Queue.
Baron Nashor presents a similar issue in that it creates a false sense of victory; I've had games where actually destroying that Nexus is possible with the length of death timers on the enemy team, and yet people will focus on Baron/shop/whatever and waste the potential for immediate victory.
I bring this up in the bot lane article, as that lane has the easiest time getting the team's first tower. An AD Carry has the most damage relevant to tower destruction, has extra damage from his support, and can even bring in the jungler to take quick, efficient towers whenever the opportunity presents itself.
With this in mind, let's review the champion selection and general rules I discussed from the previous post:
For picking a champion:
- The champion must be able to farm safely and efficiently.
- The champion must be able to lane effectively against most opponents.
- The champion must not rely on jungle support to win/survive the lane.
- The champion must be fairly straight forward.
- You must consistently play the champion well.
General rules:
- Push a lane if the enemy laner is either killed or forced to back.
- Push the lane if another tower is being taken (either yours or theirs).
- Pressure the lane if another lane is ganked by the jungle.
- WARD YOUR LANE.
- Minimize lane phase deaths to below two.
- Only put yourself in a position to die if something will come out of it (IE two kills for your team or a tower).
- WARD AFTER THE LANE PHASE.
All of these still apply when playing bot lane, specifically about applying lane pressure. The smallest opportunity can open up the potential for an easy tower or dragon. It's also important to minimize deaths, and always equalize it with a kill when escape is impossible. The amount of gold required to be effective as an ADC throughout the game is staggering, and any loss of farm, kills, or towers not only makes you weaker; it makes your enemy much stronger.
Here's a list of things to consider when picking an AD Carry:
- Base Stats
- Attack Range
- Level 2 Potential
- Poke
- Enemy Synergy (when are you naturally stronger than your opponent?)
- Support Synergy
- Spell Reliance
- Escape Mechanism
- Fight Positioning
- Ultimate/Team Fight Synergy
An AD Carry needs to know a lot about their team and the enemy team in order to make an effective pick choice. Unlike a position like mid, where comfort with a champion's abilities is vital to success, playing ADC is more strict in what the role is attempting to do; essentially, shoot/arrow/spit at stuff until it's good and dead. Thus, most of the preparation for champion select comes mostly from what you and your team needs to make you an effective killing machine.
That's not to say you can't have comfort champions in the role. If you have never played Kog'Maw or Tristana, you probably shouldn't bust them out for the first time in a ranked game. An ADC player needs to be comfortable in champions that meet different criteria based on their team comp, while simultaneously finding their personal what they like out of their champions (which I'll go into later.)
With that in mind, let's go over the various qualities of the Support champions:
- Engage versus Disengage
- Active versus Passive Abilities (Sona Ult versus Alistar Ult)
- Crowd Control
- Sustain
- “Tankiness”
- Poke
- ADC Synergy
- Team Synergy
- Enemy Team Synergy (can you fight your lane opponents?)
- Ultimate
- Gold Reliance
- Carry Potential (and the risk/reward involved with it)
Like the ADC, a Support player needs to consider what makes him compatible with their lane partner and the teams. An aggressive support with a passive/poke ADC (and vise versa) will not be as successful as a bot lane that meshes well. While you can tailor certain champions to work out of their natural comfort zone, this requires coordination that you likely won't have in solo queue. If someone is playing Leona/Blitzcrank or Draven, they are likely going to be aggressive no matter what, so picking to match that works best. Some examples of simple synergy are Lulu/Caitlyn (super pokey lane dominance and disengage), Leona/Draven (for devastating early game damage/kills), and Miss Fortune/Sona (for the ultimate wombo-combo).
Level Six? Prepare to Die.
Also like an ADC, a support needs to be flexible in their champion choice. Certain champions can mesh with various playstyles, like Taric and Sona, but finding a few champions that each meet one of the three main support roles (Engage/CC, Disengage/Poke, or Passive/Sustain) gives you a good enough range of choices to meet any requirement.
Of course, part of this comes down to personal preference; if you and your support are most comfortable playing an Engage pairing, then that should be the priority placed on champion select. Staying in comfort zones is important in ranked, and meshing with a focus solely on the bot lane mash up can work. Being flexible enough to fit into different uses depending on the team comp is a helpful skill, though, and taking time to learn the subtle differences in the types of ADCs and Supports can save some hassle when dealing with strangers in Solo Queue.
How do you decide what champions to play in bot lane, then? Here are some questions to run through during champion select:
- What is the range of the enemy ADC?
- Does the enemy ADC have any gap closers or escapes?
- How engage heavy is the enemy support?
- How engage heavy is your support/ADC?
- How aggressive can you be against your opponent?
- Does the enemy team have multiple lock-on/instant engage spells?
- Does your team need more CC?
- Does your team have multiple AOE spells?
- Where will the junglers gank from most frequently?
- How much peel does your team have for the ADC?
There are more questions you can ask based on personal preference, and not all of that information is going to be available by the time you pick. Use what you can to formulate your opinion of what your team needs, and pick accordingly. Each ADC and Support has levels of safety, aggression, and utility that can make the lane phase and team fights more successful if they mesh well with their team.
Beyond that, measure what you want from your champion that are common among the roles. For example, here are some of my ADC preferences:
- The champion needs to have some form of over-the-minion poke.
- The champion needs to avoid dips in power that cannot be avoided through farming.
- The champion's ult needs to synchronize with the team.
Over-the-minion poke is one of the safest means of dealing damage to the enemy team. Caitlyn and Sivir's respective Q spells deal ridiculous damage with levels, and are super safe in terms of positioning. Ezreal's Q, on the otherhand, requires a clear line to the intended target; this is more micromanagement to deal with on top of positioning and farming that I personally don't want to deal with in lane.
By “dips in power”, I refer to hyper-carries like Kog'Maw, Tristana, and Twitch. In Solo Queue, I tend to shy away from anything that requires extreme input from my teammates to be effective; this is difficult to achieve as an ADC, as your success is dependent on your team peeling, engaging, and protecting you long enough for you to kill everything that moves. Champions like Kog'Maw without a strong front line have a difficult time reaching that potential, so sticking with someone who will have better success early on, I find, works best with my play style in Solo Queue.
I have a similar list for my support picks:
- The champion needs to have or stave off early aggression.
- The champion needs CC.
- The champion's ultimate should mesh well with their team.
Essentially, I stay away from squishy sustain supports like Nami and Soraka due to the current aggression that's found in bot lane. Sona is an exception in that her ultimate and poke give her some breathing room and huge utility in team figths.
To keep things simple, I've divided my bot lane picks into three sections: safety, aggression, and poke.
For my “safe” picks, I go for Sivir and Taric. Sivir doesn't have a dash/flash escape, but her spell shield is easy to master and her ultimate/passive gives her a decent amount of move speed to get out of sticky situations. She has trouble with ultra aggressive Dravens, but otherwise she can safely farm and poke until her Q becomes a super nuke. Taric's safety lies in his jack of all trades nature. His stun/shatter is crazy burst, his heal is an okay pick-me-up for your ADC, and his ult gives awesome stats.
My aggressive ADC is Miss Fortune. She has trouble with multiple gap-closer teams, but she is a huge bully during the lane phase. Double Up's damage is crazy strong, the healing debuff helps secure kills in sustain lanes, and her ultimate destroys entire teams. My go to aggressive support was Blitzcrank, but he's essentially permabanned at my level of play. Leona is ridiculous in early fights, and Nautilus is also effective against squishier lanes. Taric can also be played super aggressive, but requires good follow-up from the ADC. Alistar used to be my personal champion for this, but constant bans, nerfs, and changes to his W's range have made it somewhat difficult to play him consistently over the past couple months.
Finally, if I want to poke someone out of lane, Caitlyn is the best option. She can auto-attack any ADC safely in lane, and her Q is ridiculous harass. She also disengages nicely with traps and her net. My go to poke support has been Sona, as of late. Her ultimate is in the same boat as Amumu and Malphite; they help make teamfights easy for the the general disorganization that comes from Solo Queue. I've also been testing out Lux support; she's risky, but has the potential to act as a secondary AP Carry if she can get kills/assists in her lane.
Overall, the bottom lane is very focused on the needs of the team, both in terms of how and where the AD Carry needs to deal damage and how the Support needs to keep the team safe and effective on the Fields of Justice. By considering what these conditions are on a game per game basis, you can effectively play champions that meet your personal needs in terms of champion skillset while simultaneously meeting the needs of your teams composition.