The Effects of Playing from Behind and How to Mitigate Them

A few weeks ago, we saw Team Dignitas kick off their set with Cringe Crew with a bang, with 6 kills at 4 minutes. The beginning of the game was ridiculous, with jungle invades, camp steals and full team rotations. The immediate effect is obvious: a large number in the kill column and gold column. But there are long reaching effects of an early lead such as this and we’re going to explore some here. Furthermore, we are going to discuss what steps you can take to mitigate these effects.

We'll be taking the roles from left to right on the Order Side

ADC

For a role so reliant on farm and items, an early setback can be absolutely fatal. In some situations, a couple of chained early deaths can spell the game, causing a loss before you can even reach late game and equalise. These early deaths obviously put you behind in levels but have a few knock-on effects. Due to the way you level your abilities, with your steroid after your main wave clear ability, you lose your ability to box completely. And this doesn't just mean the enemy ADC. Because your steroid is such an important increase in damage, you can't even fight the enemy support. You should avoid fights whenever possible.

Furthermore, being behind means that you are restricted to one active. Due to the changes to actives, they are now limited by level, with the second active only available at level 12. This means that if you get far behind, you won't have access to your second active. This means a system of diminishing returns, where you keep dying because you need two safety actives, and you can't get two safety actives because you keep dying.

Changes at the start of Season 3 now mean you have a hard limit on when you can get your second active or "Relic"

So how can you mitigate all these effects? The answer is counter-intuitive, but with some thought makes sense. In these situations, your support should leave your lane as soon as possible. Now this may seem like suicide; your support's job is to keep you alive, why should they leave? It comes down to the way smite treats experience. When there are two players in lane, both of them are getting less than 100% of the available experience from the minions. In a situation where you are behind, you need ALL the farm you can get, so your support needs to leave you as soon as possible.

Obviously in these situations you need to strike a balance between staying safe and having your support be with you, and getting farm and being in lane alone. Once alone, you should play exceedingly safe until level 12, where you can get both of your actives. Afterwards, just farm up. Your team needs you to buy the big items and carry the late game, so getting there is paramount to your success.

SUPPORT

Being behind early on support can be depressing. You're getting picked off, your damage is irrelevant, your crowd control has a short duration and you're just less useful overall. However, there are some additional effects to be noted. Because the enemy team being ahead pushes the game state forward, you are less tanky than your team needs you to be at the current state of the game. This means that your ability to zone and initiate by yourself are greatly diminished. Furthermore, your low gold will slow down your build, especially for your aura items, which directly impacts your team negatively as well.

So what can you do to avoid this? Well as a support it's difficult to say. You need to share farm with a lane but every lane is desperate for farm when you're behind. The best choice will be the midlane, as its central position allows you to rotate around the map and the midlander is the least dependent on experience of all of your carries. At the same time, you have to remember to take back camps and minds when you can to try and mitigate your losses. Also, consider buying items that are cheaper than you normally would. Avoid things like Mantle of Discord and consider purchasing Spirit Tobe.

Spirit Robe is a very cost effective defensive item, a good choice when you're trying to make the most out of your gold

MID

We've already spoken about the mid role a little bit but there are some specific things worth noting. As you get further and further behind, the value of your burst damage becomes less and less. Why do we often say that Zeus is bad from behind? It's because all he does is damage, so when you take away that capability from him, he does nothing. You also have the dangerous relic cycle like I mentioned in the ADC section, so you have to play extra careful and make sure you have vision around your lane, especially because of its central map position.

Also, you share duties with the support in making sure your vital area of the map is warded, which can set your build back early on. One thing you also have to remember is that you will now lose control of your jungle by default, and it is up to you to keep up the pressure to make sure your team gets the XP and buffs, even while you're behind. There's also the question of mana. During a fight, you will, on average, cast 2-3 less spells than the opponent's mage simply due to how much less mana you have and this is further impacted by your extended cooldowns.

While gaining 44 mana a level may not seem like much, it definitely adds up when the enemy is a few levels ahead of you

So what can you do to help mitigate this? Well, while not an actual in-game tip, consider picking mages that have more utility, especially if you have a late game team which is bound to fall behind early game. For example, Janus' portals will always be able to take you around the map and save your teammates, even if you are a few levels behind. But Zeus' ult will do absolutely nothing when used while you are a few levels behind, because its damage will be irrelevant and it does nothing else. That's why you see the meta being much more favoured towards utility/burst mages.

But can you do anything if you're on a pure burst mage and behind? Well it all depends on how much usefulness you can extract from your abilities. Save your high damage ultimate for securing objectives to boost your team's gold and experience. Also consider purchasing more utilitarian items, like anti-heal and protection shred, just so you can get as much impact as possible from all of your abilities.

JUNGLE

The Jungler really suffers from being behind due to the nature of the role. With the jungler's available farm always being less secure than any other lane, being behind early on opens you up to invasions and then exponential gold loss. This also means that your rotation timers will be way off, due to you not knowing when your own buffs will respawn. This will cause your ganks to be rushed, with you often making dicey decisions which don't work out because of how behind you are.

Being as behind as you are, you will often have to leech experience from other lanes, which roots you and limits your ability to travel around the map and have a good early game impact. This is especially true of early game gankers like Serqet, who struggle in teamfights already. If Serqet gets behind early, doesn't make an impact with her ganks and then suffers even more in teamfights, her overall game impact will be almost nothing.

So how can get yourself out of this awful situation? Well, the solution for the jungler is different for each game you play. The main thing is that you have to work with your team a lot more. Consider splitting your buff camps with your team, not just to help them out with experience, but to help you secure it and ward off any potential invasions. While it may be tempting to secure camps yourself to get all the XP, the enemy has probably warded deep in your jungle because of how far ahead they are, so doing this is just opening yourself up to getting attacked.

Also consider changing your build progression. On junglers like Thor and Hun Batz who build tanky eventually anyway, buy your tanky items earlier than normal, as it will keep you alive for longer, and when you're behind every second that you're earning gold and experience is valuable. You will still build your damage items, but later on in the game, when you've stabilised your team's condition and can afford it. It should be said that even on junglers where you normally wouldn't take a tanky route, consider buying some bridge items, like Winged Blade, which will increase your survivability enough for your damage to matter

Winged Blade is a very efficient item for assassins, giving them some survivability while still giving them the damage stats they need

SOLO

The solo lane is probably the easiest to get behind in because it's very often left alone by everyone else for the first 12-13 levels. There may be some gods that outright lose lane in solo and get outfarmed and it is more acceptable here due to the nature of the lane. However, there still can be some effects that you want to avoid. For instance, if your opponent gets far ahead of you by killing you a few times, you may be forced into more physical or magical protection items than you really want, making you squishier to the opposite form of damage when you get to teamfight phase. Your opponent may also use his lead to constantly steal away your mana buff, forcing you to change your build to include a mana item. Losses in the solo lane are all about what your opponent can force out of you.

The things the mana buff provides means losing it can be very detrimental to your laning phase

So how can you counter this? Well in the solo lane it's all about prediction. If you're playing Amaterasu, a god with bad early wave clear against Chaac, who can clear at around level 3, don't take an aggressive stance in lane. Chaac will clear before you and then fight you with his minions poking you as well, making it easier for him to kill you. You have to have an understanding about your win condition. On a god like Amaterasu, you have a bad early game but you are a late game powerhouse. Your win condition is coming out of lane even or ahead of your opponent. These win conditions still work even if you're behind. If you've died once or twice early on, it's never too late to change your lane stance, become more passive and look towards the future instead of fighting now. Farming under tower means that, yes, you lose lane, but a lost lane isn't a lost game. Furthermore, always be prepared to adapt to situations. As the solo laner, it is your job to be the jack of all trades.

So there we have it, a by no means complete guide. I hope it has enough advice so you understand what needs to be done in each role to mitigate an early lead by the enemy. I hope you enjoyed reading and gained something from it!

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