Team Strategies

[Nutronic]

Howdy ya'll! So it's occurred to me that we might need a little bit more "thought" in how we all play as a team. I've had a few ideas that many of you may be familiar with, but I thought I should share and post a strat thread here on the forums for everyone to contribute to.

The hopeful outcome of this is that we'll have a few key team play options for whenever we all play together. Not to mention a list of things we can run new members by so that we're all on the same page.

TEAM COMPOSITION
Tank, Off tank, DPS, Carry, Support. -
This in my opinion is the most basic and well balanced team composition. I must add that to me Damage Per Second doesn't exclusively mean physical to me. The reason being is that there are many magic DPSers in LoL and it seems silly to refer to only the physical ones as Damagers.

That aside. I think having a tank is an absolute must in most teams, but that goes without saying considering the meta game. I really love off tanks, and they fill the role of additional beefy person, so the tank isn't soaking ALL the damage (because a dead tank can't tank). They also do their own thing and help the team in team fights. I think it's important to have a hard carry, but having a strong DPSer who can either gain agro from the enemy team, back door, or just anyone who is strong at 1v1 will help support the carry in doing their job. For the last one, call me biased, but a good support either keeps everyone alive, or makes getting kills very difficult for the opposition.

I just think of this make up whenever I want a balanced team, that is as a default, but other ideas that I've had would include:
Tank, Off Tank, Anti-tank, Off Tank, Tank
Carry, Carry, Support, Support, Tank
Off Tank, Off Tank, Off Tank, Anti-Tank, Support

I know at first glances some of these might not look like they work, but our own MW proved that all tanks and one anti-tank works well. Of course all of us may not share the same definitions for characters who would fit those roles, but these are things to discuss.

The most important thing we have to worry about though, isn't always team composition, rather who we play when the game begins.

EARLY/MID GAME PLAY
I think we can all agree that the main object is getting down towers. But we all have little goals we try to achieve before doing that. For some it's getting fed, for others it's just farming. Me personally, I farm first and kill only if it's opportunistic. That isn't to say I don't harass (many of you know I harass recklessly sometimes) but my main focus is always to get gold, and xp early game.

Now the idea I had for this, is to try a mix of jungle and laning. I figure if the appropriate champions were used, a balance of in lane and jungling could occur with a positive gain in overall XP and gold for each lane partner who stays put, while the quasi-jungler levels at the same pace.
Before it's shot down, this is just an idea for a coordinated team play.

Another idea is to have the whole team head to the enemy's Golem camp, and secure it for a solo laner (defaults to mid or our carry {if they are not the same}). This should safely give our whole team an edge early game if anyone gets a kill, or at the least deny it to the enemy.

Warding seems to be an issue, but I think this can be fixed by simply holding EVERYONE to buy at the least a single ward (provide they have space for it) every time they go back. This spreads out the cost of the ward, and means we should always have map awareness.

In mid game, we should focus more on ganking or tower killing. The reason this needs to be either or (rarely both, but if the game is good...), is due to the sway of the match. If we're losing on kills, we need more map control, and towers. If we're ahead on kills but behind on towers, we need to be getting a kill every time one is available. The one note I want to make here, is I've noticed that we tend to lean towards kill dominance more than anything else, and seemingly give up if we're behind.

This is very bad, because when people feel they have no other options they give up, and a game that may possibly had a turn around simply ends like a quiet whimper. This brings us to late game.

LATE GAME
If things are going well, and the enemy team has not adapted, there is no need to switch things up. If things were going well, but the enemy has learned to either counter us, or their late game carry now has his items, or their back doorer has finally gotten his groove, this is what we need to have plans for.

I feel that many of us know who to shut down a late game carry, but should say we find our selves in an unfavorable position where the enemy late game carry is winning team fights and gaining their team towers. I'd like to think I know a lot about them since they are the only types of carriers I know how to play. The biggest problem I have is obviously being killed, but more than that is having to carry a team that maybe gave up 2 team fights ago. The best way to make that happen, is to open them up, and deny them additional income and buffs. Forcing the enemy team to make mistakes or split up, isn't done by accident it's having 2 people push a lane, 1 person wipe out all their jungle, and the other 2 in another lane. It's making them run around, and spreading them thin. The problem is the carry, but the way to deal with it is still taking down the team.

As for back doorers, I think we've lost a few games simply because of either a lack of map awareness for a sneak tower lane push, or leaving the base unattended because we thought we could harass into a team fight knowing they only had 4 people distracting us. The simplest way to avoid it is keeping the lanes clear, easier said than done; but just as they can make us run around we can make them run around. False pushing a lane, planing a gank on a solo pusher, or back doorer. I think these are important ideas to always keep in mind.

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I decided to make this thread because complaints don't turn games around, ideas do, planing does, and morale is most important. I think it's also important to let your teammates know they are playing dumb or shitty (I know I play bad quite often). Obviously be careful how you do it, but offer advice or having a back up plan is the difference between being a good player and a great teammate.

[redleader]

Maybe someone will learn from this, i hope

[gameaholic2k]

Regarding to off tanks, it really depends on what the main tank is and how well does he take damage. Morde, Mundo excels at surviving and vary rarely needs an off tank, where as some tanks tends to fulfill the "anti-carry" role and lack the mitigation other full-fledged tanks have such as Olaf Cho'gath, and Amumu, which needs more tanks/cc to lighten the load from them.

Regarding to Mid game plays, it depends on what the team composition is. If we're heavy on CC, then ganking tends to be a higher priority, where as if we have support, then pushing towers would be more ideal.

[mmmmmmmmmmmmmmww]

tl;dr, tbiria

I agree with a lot of this, but on the warding section, I believe that premades should assign a certain area of the map to each of the members for warding. In doing so, you will have 70% of the map covered if everyone keeps their area warded. That's the ideal situation that I never have done before.. it sure does look nice on paper, though.

[dman22890]

In my opinion, we should always have a jungler if possible, so that a maximum amount of experience and gold can be awarded to the team. That will help us a lot early game and ultimately in the long run. Overall, very good guide Nutronic.

[redleader]

Ya i think ill go jungle Soraka.

[Nutronic]

This, I must see/\

I like the idea of people always being responsible for wards, but the main problem with keeping one's area always warded, is it might slow down our carry/DPSers builds. requiring them to only have 1 per trip (instead of rewarding a whole jungle) seems a little cheaper. However, maybe I read this wrong and it would work out much better?

[slavecontroller]

i prefer to see 2 tanks per team or at least 2 tanky characters. so like blitz and galio, or if not 2 tanks, get like a blitz and a tryndamire, someone who can take dmg and wont die easily and deals dmg while doing it

[Zuab]

I agree with mostly all of this...

There's one thing I'd like to include in early game, and that is *not* pushing towers as fast as you can. A lot of people think that getting a tower down is the "goal" of the laning phase. There is no reason to kill a turret 7 minutes in if you are dominating your lane.... Sit back, farm comfortably, there's no reason to kill the turret early if you are getting fed off of champions. Most teams won't help their teammates in the laning phase, take advantage of it... killing the tower only forces you out of your lane before you are farmed, and lets them farm comfortably way away from your turret. Whether or not to kill the turret should be judged on a game to game basis of course.. sometimes you want the team fights to start faster ( if your team comp is strong early for example) and then you might want to kill the turret early.. but at least consider leaving it up.

I also think that it is important that you mentioned morale. Morale's effects on the game are way underestimated by many people. Of course you won't win if you are convincing yourself that you are going to lose. It brings your teammates down, makes them play worse and just lessens the situation. If you have advice for someone, say it in a nice, polite manner, don't just yell at them for feeding and playing horribly. They won't get anything out of that and you'll probably just start a fight (taking your teammates' attentions away from the game and on to chat)

[Nutronic]

I agree with Zuab, I personally think pushing down the tower is the best option, but being game dependent is really the best choice. Unless you dominated in the laning phase and got fed (3-4/0) then continuing to farm while keeping the tower low might be a good course of action.

I think this is up for further discussion.

[slavecontroller]

i agree with zuab as well. i hate people that push quickly and then come steal my xp :/ forces their lane enemies out of lane and forced to gank which ends upruining the whole process and forcing teamfights way to early esp if ur a carry middle that needs gold.

[Nutronic]

I'm experimenting with roaming. Not very good at it, but I think I have potential. Saw it during the North American finals and it looked great (3 solo lanes!). The best champs at it are alistar, Jana, and Taric, but others who do decent are Kayle, Sona, and I forget. It takes a bit of coordination, and team preplaning, but the benefits along with a dedicated ganker jungler are pretty high if well played. Thoughts?