Greedy Goblin

Friday, November 4, 2016

Take a break after carry

I suggested to take a half an hour break after a defeat, because your brain needs regeneration after having to deal with feeders, AFKers, trolls and random morons and slackers.

Today's suggestion is to take a brake after a victory when you were the most successful player. Why? Because as a carry, your job is to use your advantage in gear and level and kill as many opponents as you can. If you are properly ahead, you can jump into a possible trap and live. You can chase an enemy and if he get support, you likely get a double kill. This habit won't end in minutes. If you enter the next game with a "carry" mentality, you likely get yourself into trouble.

Like in most action games, most of your brainpower is used for micromanagement, while the game isn't made or broke over pressing Q the millisecond it's up. It's decided on proper strategic decisions, but the urgent short-term decisions can block them out. You'll still decide on strategy, just with unconscious heuristics. The result can be far from optimal. After a carry game where you get used to "if I can catch it, I kill it", you should take some time out to reset your brain to the normal, cautious decision making.

I realized it when I already decided that I need to go defense as I'm behind, yet when the shop screen came up, I bought yet another offensive item, as I use to when carrying.

"The social" isn't a distant enemy, it's lurking in everyone's brain. It needs constant effort to not be one of those losers who let it manifest.

9 comments:

maxim said...

How do you win in LoL when you are behind? Can you do it if the opponent doesn't make mistakes?

Because if i can't win anymore when i'm behind in LoL, then prolonging the inevitable is kind of pointless and its better to get offensive items and either try to get ahead again or lose faster thus saving time.

Gevlon said...

@Maxim: just because YOU are behind, your team is not. And you can win if you don't feed, protect towers while they push, support them with CC and tanking in teamfights

Anonymous said...

@maxim:
Additionally: both you and your opponents are highly likely to make Mistakes.
Even at worlds finals no team played perfectly. So it is safe to assume that almost every single game contains a lot of mistakes of either side.

Due to random factors (crit etc), actually LoL is not even solvable. All you can do is push the odds in your favour.

And as such: Making less errors if you are behind helps your team. Going all offensive will cause you to make more mistakes. Being defensive and only acting on mistakes of the opponent will give you a good chance to catch up again and win.

maxim said...

All of these sound to me like effectively taking yourself out of the game.
Let me paraphrase: how is anything you do when you are behind better than just sitting in your base afk?

Gevlon said...

@maxim: absolutely not. You are just taking yourself out of being the carry. You are still playing, protecting towers and help the carrier. Check out my last game on http://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=gevlon
Me: 7/4/10, Syndra 17/7/10. Despite I was NOT behind the enemy jungler or the "team average", I realized that Syndra is carrying more than me, so I built Spirit Visage and Guardian Angel after the core Jungler-Lucidity-Wits instead of my usual Ruined King-Visage-Guardian Angel and Ultied into them to let Syndra massacre them. We won.

So when I'm behind, simply I play "tank/CC support" instead of the usual "If I see them, I jump on them" Warwick. We win, if the carry is one of our team. Of course I try to be that one. But if I fail, I don't keep trying, but support the carry.

maxim said...

Would it be fair to say that you change your focus from hero-hunting to tanking and last-hitting, and getting items that give you more defensive staying power and therefore improve your ability to both go for last-hits in presence of enemy hero and tank for your carry?

Gevlon said...

@maxim: I play jungler 90% of the time. The other 10% I play top where I go for tank from start.

The traditional role of jungler is ganking: hunting enemy champions. When I'm behind, I rather team up with the carry and play a role more similar to the "support" of bot lane than a jungler. Tanking and CCing.

Unknown said...

I am currently playing on top-lane and I cant emphasis more how CS is important. The reason why champions like Irelia feels so powerfull is because she is god-like in farming. With her E she can easly takes 6 out of 6 minions from each wave. Even when she is under tower. This gives her strong advantage over low-elo opponents who are not master of last-hitting. Simply having 30+ CS is like having 2-3 kills over Your opponent.

This is also why I hate when people wants to force teamfights instead of stalling the game and farming. When You are on defense most of the time You will kill minions waves that wants to destroy Your base. This is great income source and catch-up mechanics, because when enemy team is roaming through map looking for kills or "dance" before tower waiting for someone of Your team to do a stupid mistake, rest of Your team farms.

The good example here is, when I was at top-lane and my enemy scored 3 kills early due to my teammates mistakes (My midlaner and jungler on med-health went to their jungle after enemy jungler). Despites this huge advantage he couldnt carry the game later, because while he had 60 CS I had already 120 wchich translated into more items. Despite that till then I was 0/1/0.

I would also like to add, if the enemy team have carrier and Yours dont, the best strategy is too waste enemy carrier time. Try to stall him from taking any objectives, dont engage enemy when he is around, make him chase for kills (great example is here chasing Bard support. He is extremely hard to catch, if he knows what he is doing and he will waste A LOT of enemy time) etc. This way You give Your team time to itemize against enemy carry.

Oh and this is also very important. Always itemize against enemy carriers. Do their carry is AP? Stack up magic resists. Does they carries rally on attack speed? (Xin Zhao, Irelia) Buy Frozen Hearth and Randuins. Does they carry rally on burst? Buy Sterak/Maw/Zhonya. Does they carry rally on healing/life steal? ALWAYS CARRY ITEM WITH DEEP WOUNDS (geez, how many games i losed because my team didnt want to buy 800g executioner call against Vlad).

All-in-all, remember that You dont have to win 100% of games, but like 60%+ to climb up. So statistically some games are gonna be losed no matter what You do and it sucks but is okay, cause at the other times You gonna have these game that You gonna win no matter what You do.

Darkgold said...

It's worth noting that, with the amount (=high rate) you're playing and your winrate, you really should pick up at least one other champion. Warwick is a very specific type of champion: a jungler with healthy clears who can't gank until level 6, and is mechanically perhaps the simplest champion in the game. This may help you understand the general idea behind jungling, but you miss out on a lot of important concepts. Warwick is very simple- you q when it's off cooldown, you run in to finish off weaker enemies if you can, and then it's just a question of "should I ult?". Your potential item builds are also limited. This lack of decisions to make really limits your potential.

I'd suggest that you pick up an easy laner. Malphite is your best bet- he's quite strong now, very tanky, and he has a point and click initiation that keeps things simple. He can teach you how to be a laner, how teleport works, how to initiate with AoE (Warwick initiates single-target), and how to top lane. I don't think top Nunu is teaching you very much, and your winrate seems to agree with that.
If you want another jungler, I'd try Amumu, and Annie would be a good mid. Avoid bot lane (ADC + support) because neither has a significant impact on the outcome of the game.