Off The Wall Theorycrafting #1 - High Mobility Poke Comp

The poke comp concept

It tends to happen during the mid to late game stages of most matchups in League of Legends. One of the teams will have grouped in one of the three lanes to lay siege on one of the turrets. The other team will typically respond with all their members to try to stop the siege. The frontline of either team will line up in front of their squishies and the anticipation filled minutes of trying to dodge enemy skill shots while landing your own will begin. In these types of situations, it’s the poke comp that will tend to have the upper hand.

The poke comp,is a team composition that focuses on laying siege on enemy (or neutral) objectives through the use of long ranged poke. The idea is that the long ranged poke will drop enemy health bars so low that they are forced to back or get easily picked off, resulting in an imbalanced full engagement and a successful taking of the objective. Having crowd control makes it easier to land skill shots and also can assist in the disengage if the siege is going south. It’s a team comp that requires high levels of communication, positioning, skill shot accuracy, and patience.

Adding high mobility

There are multiple variations of the poke comp simply due to the various long range skill shots, crowd control, and disengage available in the game. In this issue of OTWT (Off The Wall Theorycrafting) we will look at a high mobility poke comp. The addition of high mobility to a poke comp provides a few benefits both offensively and defensively:

• Gap closers
  • Offensively: Can quickly move towards an enemy that may have gotten caught out by CC and pick them off. This way the team isn’t simply relying on their long range poke to secure a kill.
  • Defensively: Can jump or move away from the enemy team if they begin to engage.
• Team wide speed boosts
  • Offensively: Can be used to collapse on the enemy once you have numbers or health advantage and allows for a more efficient way to switch objectives if the opportunity arises.
  • Defensively: Can be used to disengage. 

 
Some possible objective switches made faster by a team speed boost for the Blue Team after taking a Tier 1 or 2 Tower

How to build it

Top – Maokai: The frontline role will be filled by Maokai. He provides three forms of CC that are very useful in allowing for the rest of the team to land their skill shots. His Q is a medium ranged skill shot that slows. It can also be combined with his E, a dash root, to knock enemies into range of his team. His E is relatively long range and slows on detonation. All of this CC can be used to disengage and peel as well. His ult is a damage reduction aura which will help in any situation that involves an engagement and with the amount of spells being cast around him, his passive is almost always up. 

Jungle – Nidalee: Her Q in her human form provides excellent long range poke which can provide bonus damage dependent on the range from which it lands. She can also sustain the engagement through her human form E and has a dash in her cougar form W that provides much needed burst of out of position enemies or an escape from sticky situations. 

Mid – Karma: Her Q adds to the overall poke of the team while her W provides a potential CC for out of position enemies. Her key in this comp though is her E, especially when combined with her R. This potentially team wide shield and speed boost can work wonders in both picking of the low health enemy team, sustaining the poke, disengaging, and quickly switching objectives.

Support – Janna: She is in the comp primarily for her amazing disengages through her Q and her R. Her Q can also provide some CC or play mind games with the enemy during the poking phase. She also has a shield with her E that improves the poke.

ADC – Ezreal: He provides excellent poke with his Q and W. His R can be used to land the killing blow on enemies or as additional poke. His E provides a blink to either engage or disengage as necessary.

The core 5 of this OTWT #1: High Mobility Poke Comp

Some Alternate Ideas – Jayce provides poke, a dash, and a team wide speed boost. Gragas provides a frontline, a charge stun and excellent disengage. Sona provides poke, sustain, and a team wide speed boost. Alistar provides a frontline, a dash, CC, and sustain. Caitlyn provides poke, a dash, some potential disengage, and a way to finish off low enemies at long range. Corki provides poke and a dash. Sivir provides poke and a team wide speed boost.

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