Lessons learned from Season Three roles

I am working on a detailed analysis of changes to masteries, but since Season Three is officially over and, by all accounts, roles will be fundamentally altered, I wanted to do a write a small homage to what playing each roles has taught us—as well as some advice on what to practice in the off season.

There's been a rash of people who specialize since the professional scene picked up speed and exposure.  Very few top players are jacks of all trades these days who can play any role well or better than anyone else.  Examples that people list are often Madlife, Voyboy, or Xpecial, but often, if you ask these players, they'll tell you that's flat out wrong.

Well.  Maybe not Madlife.

While I'm not much of a comedian, I'd say that certain types of players gravitate toward each role, but I don't even think that's the case.  I think the habit of constantly playing the role of your choice will develop certain skill related to the game while others stagnate.  For example, AD carry mains often claim they have worse game knowledge and higher mechanical skill because the champions they play typically aren't play-makers, but they rely on the player's ability to get out of CC-locks or get in range to do damage when they probably shouldn't be able to do so.

I don't really agree with the title, since he gets hit by everything, but he still rightclicks the fuck out of bitches.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about why you need to know how to play every role before you can advance to a high enough level to specialize.  Namely, why you probably shouldn't "main" a role until you've absorbed valuable lessons from each one.

Marksman teaches mechanics

The Marksman role has taught us mechanics.  Since this set of champions doesn't typically do the most burst damage—yes, I know this is a Graves clip—they can't rely on blowing all their cooldowns to do as much damage as quickly as possible before dying.  These guys have to stay alive throughout the entire fight to maximize their destructive capability, which means, generally, avoiding getting hit and continuing to attack at the same time.

To add to this, AD, Crit chance, and attack speed are some of the more expensive stats per point in the game, with AD being twice the price of AP (I'm using LoL Wiki calculations here, though I think the true prices of AD and AP are different, and I'll get to that in a future entry).  So they also have to be able to get really high creep scores in order to be effective.

I chose this clip because, even when Captain Jack doesn't avoid the Lay Wastes and stands in Defile, or gets knocked up by Blitzcrank, he continues to move and do damage.  At the end, he even gets the farm.  This is good right-clicking.  He is constantly moving and putting out damage.  This nets him a double kill even after Lustboy shits the bed.

By all accounts, this role is looking less important in Season Four (Doublelift has mentioned that he'd consider switching roles, but he also said that last season), so it's worth mentioning here that this role requires some heavy mechanics to master.  That's why, if you want to improve your mechanical skill or your creep score, play some normals as an AD carry.  You won't make the plays, but you'll get better at farming, dodging, and delivering the sustained damage, or you'll force your entire team to lose.

This is useful in all roles for obvious reasons.  Having a good creep score is important in mid and bottom lane.  Dodging skill shots is a tool that will put you ahead in all roles.  Being able to dish out auto attacks can catch your lane opponents off guard and increase DPS output on any champion.  Of course, your auto attacks won't do as much damage as an AD carry's, but isn't that the point?  If there's more pressure on you to be mechanically skilled, you have to learn to do it quickly.  Then you can carry that ability over to other areas where it's still applicable, though not quite as pressure-intensive.

Support teaches you to play from behind

This one is less obvious.  Or perhaps more obvious.  I don't know.

Now, in the above example, Curse isn't behind, but they do end up losing the game!  Does that count?  No.  Well, the point is, that what Edward used to get a gold advantage here for his team was a ward, which cost him 75 gold.  This same play could have been made had Curse been 10,000 gold down.  In fact, it probably would have been easier to predict because supports are pretty much in baron pit warding it 24/7 after the fifteen minute mark.

As a support player, you will always have less gold than the rest of your team—with some notable exceptions, but in an ideal competitive environment in which you're all of equal skill level and doing your assigned job, you should have less gold than the rest of your team—which means that you need to be creative.  You need to find ways to not just be free food or caught out by the enemy when you're in baron pit.  You can't really 1v1 anyone in normal situations unless you're extremely smart, and they're extremely dumb, but that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Now please don't try to 1v1 your opponents as a support player, but if you get caught out by the enemy, some quick thinking can get you away or force them off you.  Your tools will be cheap—typically some wards, an oracle's elixir, and a pair of boots—but that doesn't mean that they can't net your team upwards of 300 gold.  Clever warding will create opportunities, and well-timed CC-locks can help out a teammate.  When you're in a situation where you are behind, you need to think more about what your champion is capable of instead of rushing headlong into someone else and relying on your ability to rightclick and your ten bloodthirsters to kill them.

Playing from behind is perhaps the most valuable skill you can pick up to advance in this game because, chances are, you will find that your team is falling behind at some point in your League life.  If you don't know where good places are to ward so you can get picks, how to escape from an extremely fed Riven, or how to utilize vision to retake control of an area, you're just going to fall further behind.  Practicing support is the best way to learn these skills because a good support thrives when they have less gold than pretty much everyone else in the game; he still manages to carry his useless team.  The best thing about this, of course, is that anyone can buy wards.  You don't have to be a support player to get your team crucial vision that will put them back in the game.  If you get a kill, you just spent -225 gold on your ward.  So think about that next time you type "0 wards OP" to antagonize a teammate, and for fuck's sake, play some support games.

Jungle teaches map awareness

If you assume what I mean by "map awareness" is the ability to look at the map more frequently, then you probably should play a few games in the jungle.  You'll figure out what map awareness really means or your entire team will bitch—and they'll have a right.

Matchups in lanes
Attention to timers
Position of enemy
Awareness

Understanding matchups in lanes can tell you which lane to pressure.  You don't want to waste time on a lane unless it has kill potential, typically, as that will cause you to fall behind.  Attention to timers will tell you which side of the map you should be on.  If the enemy blue buff is about to spawn, and you can contest it—again, a factor in understanding matchups; where is the advantage?—you should probably be on that side of the map.  If dragon is in play, you shouldn't show top, and if baron is in play, you shouldn't show bottom because you carry your team's smite, or objective secure tool.  Finally, knowing where your enemy jungler is going to gank—which of his lanes has kill potential—can allow you to turn a fight or create an advantage for your team on another part of the map.

In the clip, bengi knows that his team has an advantage in an upcoming altercation because SKT will have a numbers advantage and an items advantage since they are ahead.  He was aware of the timer on his own red buff better than Watch, the enemy jungler, as he had just completed it before the clip began.  He also knew the position of the enemies because of the ward and vision on bottom lane, so he could choose that opportunity to engage.  He even landed a blind Resonating Strike—no pun—because of how well he could guess where Watch and Expession might be and the angle of approach they would take. 

As a jungler in Season Three, one would always ask himself which of his lanes and the enemy team's lanes had kill potential pre and post level 6, where the enemy jungler was, and when would be the best time to pressure early objectives like dragon and buffs.  If he couldn't get a handle on that, he would lose control of the map, and his team would fall behind.

There are obvious reasons why this skill is most crucial to a good jungler, but there are also obvious reasons why this skill is applicable to other roles.  If you know matchups, timers, and the position of the enemy jungler, you can make calls and help your jungler make plays, instead of relying upon him to do it for you.  I have a feeling that, in Season Four, this skill will be even more important due to increased roaming and more gold to be had outside lanes, so if you were a Season Three jungle main, you might have an advantage.

Top teaches dueling and fight-picking

Season Two was pretty much all about top laners and AD carries.  Season Three was about mid lane and jungle—it's likely Season Four will be, too, but hey—yet some teams with highly skilled top laners still formed teams around their picks.  The reasoning behind this is that the top lane pick will easily determine which type of team composition is used in a game.  The two types of champions played in top lane in Season Three were almost exclusively fight-initiating tanks and high-damage split-pushers capable of coming out ahead in duels.

Or sometimes a bit of both.

I really wanted to find a clip from MVP Blue Cheonju's Rumble in the finals for 2013 WCG Qualifier, and I'm honestly shocked no one has taken it and uploaded it, but Balls will more than suffice.  In this clip, Balls landed some very nice Rumble ults that both game him an advantage in duels (specifically, a 2v1) and completely controlled fights when paired with Meteos' Zac and LemonNation's Zyra.

Even though the game, of late, at the highest level of play has been more about avoiding fights and taking advantage of teams being out of position to take free objectives, champions in the top lane are designed more than any other to fight.  In the split push style of composition, the top laner will stay in the top lane, defeating anyone who comes to oppose him 1v1 while his team pressures other parts of the map.  In the team fight style, the top lane must know when to initiate, either with a well-timed ultimate, or simply being tanky enough to dive into five members and cause disruption—most often still with a well-timed ultimate.

Because of this, top lane, more than any other Season Three role, taught us how to test the limits of our champions, when was a good time to distract attention in another lane, and when was a good time to start a fight over dragon by teleporting bottom.  Playing top lane gives you the tools to initiate winning fights, so knowing how to pick them is crucial.

Another good thing about this clip, of course, is that most the campions on Balls' team had some sort of AoE initiation tool—with the notable exception of Hai's Zed—so it's clear how this knowledge translates to other roles.  Tools to start fights aren't exclusive to top lane, but top lane is all about starting fights, so playing a lot of solo top will force you to develop those skills and force you to learn when you can beat someone in a duel and when your team should fight.

Mid lane teaches pressure

 I struggled with this at first, since I believe all the skills I've mentioned so far are very important to a good midlaner.  Mid is in the center of the map, must farm a lot of gold and outplay an opponent, must roam, must help secure objectives, often comes with some form of initiation, whether its deleting a member of the enemy team or using an AoE ultimate, and should probably know how to ward and come back from behind.



But the midlaner was in a very unique position in Season Three.  Being in the center of the map, he has nearly as easy access to all objectives as the jungler.  In addition, he'll have as much gold as the other farming roles: mid and top.  This means that, when he shows up in a lane, he brings damage and almost certain death for the enemy laner.  His presence in an attempted buff steal will easily force the enemy team away if he is ahead or their mid laner is not also present.  

This means that the mid laner has the highest potential to create map pressure.  In the above clip, taken from Korean solo queue, Faker creates pressure in several ways.  First, he deletes Karthus from the map, creating an opportunity for his team to take Baron.  Second, he fends off Thresh and Tristana's approach by zoning them away from his team, which has two low health members: Rumble and Lulu.  This splits the team and lets his team take the buff and a kill on Kennen.  Then, at extremely low health, he pulls Lee Sin and Tristana top, which 1) lets his low health teammates escape, and 2) draws them away from the wave of blue team minions pushing bottom.  To top it off, his nice mechanics and kiting net him two more kills.

Now, one can argue that top was the only place that he could conceivably go, and the fact that bottom was pushing was just lucky, but if the enemy team didn't chase him, they could have easily just backed or gone on the rest of Faker's team.  Since he is such a powerful Lissandra, and putting him on a death timer would be so beneficial for the enemy team, he could force them to chase him over meeting other goals.

A good mid laner understands that he has a great deal of power and easy access to most of the map, so he must decide where this pressure is best used.  That means that, if the enemy mid laner is roaming, he is applying pressure, and you need to decide how to counter this.  Pressure sounds very similar to MAP Awareness, but the difference is that, if your jungler shows up to a fight, his low gold totals make him less of a threat than a mid laner with 200 farm and a Deathfire Grasp that can instantly annihilate a single member of the enemy team.  As a mid laner, you need to understand pressure and where to put it.  This will put you in good stead throughout your League of Legends lifetime.

TL;DR

In Season Four, roles may change drastically, so it's important to remember the individual lessons they taught us through Season Three.  Regardless of where the game goes, it's hard to imagine that any of these tools will be less valuable, so take the opportunity in the off season to practice up.  Pick your weakest skill, and head to the rift to practice the corresponding role.  You'll thank yourself later.