Teamfighting
This is another large section, but don't worry, it's also the last. I've broken it into three phases, to provide a more effective
play-by-play. There's been an underlying theme running through this whole blog:
you are going to instantly start winning more games if you play better as a
teammate and as a team.
Teamfighting is where all the other sections come
together.
Think of your favorite teamfight memories. That chained CC where the
enemy backline was on lockdown for six seconds of face-melting burst from your
team's midlaner and marksman. Health bars disappearing as you all sliced
through the enemy team.
That happens when a team maximizes its synergy and everyone
knows their role. It's a beautiful thing, I'd say if this were a 1950s B&W
drama and not a blogspot site. Here's how you can make sure it always happens.
1) The Vision Game
Before any teamfight breaks out, a good team is going to
secure vision of wherever the assault is planned. Proactive deep wards enable
picks and skirmishes in narrow corridors where the team that seizes initiative
can have a powerful advantage. The jungler and support should both have
Oracle's by this point, and you
can set up traps on the enemy side of the river
as well as your own.
Moving as a unit is important while you clear wards during
the mid and late game. Because of the possibility of a teamfight at any point,
you need to be ready to react to a surprise engage. Generally, stacking your
team so that the squishiest member is between one frontline tank, the other
squishies and the other tank or offtank is preferable when moving through unlit
areas. Know which way you want to scatter if you're facing any sort of AoE that
could wreck a clumped team.
One last note on warding: don't be afraid to toss out a ward
because you think someone else is about to. While it can be a minor waste of
resources, there are a few situations in which it's beneficial to have multiple
wards in the same location. As Sun Tzu never said, "You can't have too
many wards on the battlefield."
2) The Engage
In solo queue, an aggressive, surprise engage can lead to
by-the-book teamfight victories. Because of a general lack of cohesive tactics
among solo queue players, the team that seizes the initiative can often
springboard that into a clean ace with little more than an extra split second
of entering "shit-we're-in-teamfight-now" mode.
Having a tanky
initiator who can competently engage a mid or late game throwdown is so
beneficial, I'd say that learning how to do it right might have a better effect
on your ranked tier than any of the other topics I've covered in what will eventually be this 15,000+ word opus.
As initiator, you're playing the minigame
"catch-the-squishy," trying to create positioning mistakes with your
aggressive dives and feints towards the backline. Your goal is obviously to
isolate or crowd control-lock one of the opposing team's damage threats.
But,
and this part is often forgotten because it's dangerous (or useless) at the
highest levels of play, there are situations in which engaging on a tank or
off-tank can be the right move. For example, if a damage threat shows in a
different lane, or if any champion without a teleport rears his or her head in
any lane away from where your team is standing off with the enemy.
In that situation, going in on a tank is still fine, because
you're 5v4, and even blowing a few cooldowns is worth making it a 5v3, which is
statistically unwinnable for the downsized team (don't tell Uzi, I know).
2b) The Counterengage
As a result of the same issues I raised in the opening of
the Engage section, the ability to counterengage competently and effectively is
almost as valuable as being able to start a fight. It loses points because
counterengaging implies that your team has already taken a substantial amount
of damage after the initiation, and so the counterengage is inherently weaker
than perfecting your engage.
Still, doing it well means hitting Mikael's on the
caught-out target and speed-boosting him or her to safety. Or it can mean
separating the assassins and fighters from the tanks and other squishies,
allowing your team to jump on isolated members of the enemy team.
Timing is everything for counterengage, too early and they
have follow-up gap-closers. Too late and your carries have already been
deleted. Depending on the champion you choose, your counterengage is going to
be about either preventing damage (shields or heals) or re-positioning
(displacement effects, crowd-control).
If you plan to re-engage, preventing
damage is usually going to be an initial priority to insure you have the health
bars to brawl in a prolonged skirmish.
3) Who's the Beatdown?
I'm borrowing a concept from Magic: the Gathering of all
places for this third section. This is the part where the frantic
button-spamming and mouse-clicking happens, and one of the easiest ways of
improving your standing is through knowing how to win once the CC starts
chaining and the AoE starts raining.
I've mentioned it over and over again, but
I'll bring it up here, too. Knowing your role wins games.
Assassins and fighters built for damage need to be
gapclosing to the backline and blowing up or zoning the ADC, AP or AD caster.
The support and tanks need to peel and protect their marksman and other
squishies. And the sustained DPS or AoE needs to position immaculately and pump
out the damages.
I'll repeat this again here from earlier: if you are the
marksman, or you are playing alongside a marksman, please keep in mind that the
person they need to be shooting is the highest priority target within safe
distance.
Don't like that your ADC never seems to attack the enemy carries?
Practice creating firing lanes or safe zones for them to position into in order
to isolate those less-resilient champions. Practice peeling and bodyblocking.
If they can't position correctly, the team can reposition around them, as well.
That leads into the last point. It's no one individual's
fault if the teamfight goes south. That's why it's called a teamfight and not a
ZionSpartan. The concept of who's the beatdown applied to teamfighting is
understanding tempo and aggression.
Does your team have an item or experience
advantage? You need to be aggressive and dive harder than they are expecting.
Keep in mind that a raw gold advantage that hasn't been translated into items
does not signal that your team is the beatdown--you have to consider base stats
and relative skill.
If you aren't the beatdown, then you need to identify
defensive schemes that will minimize the opposing team's current strengths.
Baiting a turret dive with a mobile damage dealer might be worth pulling the
tankline back a little.
Or maybe it means investing more in wards to make picks
and avoid roaming death squads.
In any case, teamfighting in solo queue is often wild and
chaotic and decided as much by misplays as great maneuvers. That only increases
the value of practicing and mastering the art of synergy, as you'll see results
immediately, reinforcing the benefit of the work you put in.
