Hey guys!
RTO here, bringing you the 5th video in the series 60 things that EVERY top laner should
know to climb the ranked ladder!
This fifth video will cover 5 tips on Wave Management , and everything that follows this
topic.
Now is a perfect time to click that Like, Sub and bell notification button if you haven’t
already!
What is, and how to improve, wave management ?
Wave management, in its simplest terms, is about how you manage the wave of minions.
It is one of the most crucial skills to learn, and is a requirement of every lane - not just
top lane.
Wave management can be a source of frustration, but learning to manage it correctly and apply
it to every game you play, can see great success in all your games.
Improving at wave management means that you know how to use it, and when.
As we know, every game is different, every player and play style is different, thus making
our decisions every game different.
The core fundamentals of wave management is knowing when, and how, to push, freeze, build
a slow push, trim the wav, shove the wave, and why we are doing it.
Following up on that, improving at wave management only comes with knowledge and experience - slip
ups happen, and they happen to the pro’s as well, no matter how good you are the game,
or how long you’ve been playing, it’s not always going to be simple.
This video is designed to help you learn the basics of simple wave management, and how
to implement them into your ranked games.
What is slow pushing, when, and how to do it?
Creating a slow push in League of Legends allows you to open up the map, and potentially
turn a game into a 5v4.
A slow push is where a minion wave is gradually building up, causing us to have a large, tanky
allied minion wave, pushing into the enemy's territory.
To start building up a slow push, you want to take out all 3 caster minions, and leave
the frontline minions.
The melee minions can tank more hits, and are tankier towards turret shots, but they
deal less damage.
If an allied wave is pushed up, the enemy reinforcements will reach the wave earlier,
and create a temporary surplus of minions.
Those extra hits fired until the allied reinforcements reached the wave as well, will cause the wave
to push back if minion numbers are even.
If one wave has a surplus of 4 minions or more, it will continue to push because the
firepower is greater than the effect described previously.
It will push until it reaches a turret, which will quickly decimate the wave.
Slow pushing can be advantageous if you want to dive an enemy player during laning phase,
as the minions aggro onto the enemy, meaning more damage against them.
Another advantage is during the mid game, creating pressure on enemy turrets while you
take an objective on the opposite side.
This creates a win-win situation, where the enemy team will have to make a choice of thinning
out the minion wave, and fighting 4v5, or leaving their turret to get chunked out - winions,
anyone?!
How to Freeze the lane & when?
Why do we want to freeze?
Shouldn’t we be trying to push the tower down asap?
Although taking towers is one of the main points to win a game, we don’t always want
to be forcing that as soon as we begin laning phase.
Freezing a lane means to stop all minion push, balancing your minion wave with the enemies
- preferably in the small area between your tower and the river.
You kill the number of minions that your opponent kills, so the waves are even and can't push.
There are multiple reasons we want to freeze a lane;
You force your opponent to overextend past the river in order to last-hit minions.
This is one of the easiest ways to help set up a gank for your jungler.
It keeps you safe from getting ganked by the enemy jungler, since you should be right next
to your tower.
This allows you to farm safely.
You can start a slow push, meaning multiple waves of your own minions start to build up,
which you can use to out-trade with minion aggro, or simply to hard push - which creates
map pressure.
Now we know why we want to freeze, but how do we do it?
Start by counting the number of minions in your and your opponents wave . As your enemy
pushes, you want to match the number of minions they kill, so you don’t end up with a huge
enemy wave crashing into your tower.
The goal of freezing, is to get the minion waves to meet in that small area between your
tower & river, remember?
To do, so you clear all but the magic number of 3 caster minions at full HP and hold them
just outside tower range..
Once left behind, these extra minions actually hold your wave long enough for the new waves
to meet in this prime position in front of your tower.
To keep the wave here, you need to control the wave - this is done by either pushing
if the enemy pushes, or just last hitting minions, if that's what the enemy is doing.
There may be times you need to trim the wave, which is when the waves end up getting too
large to freeze, and tanking them yourself before they reach your tower would cause you
to take too much damage.
This is where trimming the wave comes in.
You want to kill off the majority, if not all, the minions that are not at full health,
enabling you to tank the wave safely, and proceed to freeze.
Remember!
We need map pressure, and freezing the lane does not offer this, outside of a jungle gank,
where you successfully eliminate the enemy, and can hard push the lane, or use rift herald.
What is shoving, and when to do it
Shoving is another word for pushing, but with a little more “oomph” - and it means to
kill all the minions as quickly as possible and not wait to freeze or build up for a slow
push.
Shoving’s motive is to “shove” a lane as hard as possible.
One of the main reasons to shove a lane in quickly is when your opponent has recalled,
died or has roamed.
It punishes them by denying them CS and XP, and it generally resets the waves, meaning
they will become as they were when they first met (in the middle of the lane).
You can also shove a wave into the turret, making it hard for the opponent to last hit,
setting up for tower dives, and you also have the lane priority.
When shoving, you will have XP advantage, and also have the ability to roam - although
you do grant your opponent a small opportunity to catch back up during this window.
Another good time to shove is when you have Teleport up, and you want to take an objective
on the opposite side of the map.
This means you can shove in the bottom wave if a wave is pushing towards your tower, threatening
the enemies tower and giving them a choice of whether to answer the falling tower and
fight 4v5 over Baron as you Teleport, or leave you shoving into their base (known as split
pushing).
This brings us to our final tip…
How to use Teleport
As I stated previously, you can use Teleport to split push effectively, splitting up the
enemy team and forcing a 4v5, or taking down turrets while knowing your team can secure
objectives without you.
If they can’t secure objectives without you, you can use Teleport to go to them just
before, or just after, a fight breaks out.
This means you get the best of both worlds, having shoved in a wave just before, then
going to help secure the major objective.
Another use of Teleport that is mostly used during the early laning phase, is heading
back to lane quickly so you don’t miss out on CS or XP.
There are opportune moments to using Teleport to get back to lane, such as if the minions
have been shoved to your tower, and if you walk, you’re going to miss out on a lot
of gold and potentially an entire levels worth of XP.
This will generally happen if you’ve been killed, as normally we shove the wave before
we recall to prevent this from happening - we can then walk back to lane as normal and save
our teleport incase we do die, or need it to roam.
Roaming is a brilliant use of teleport, and a perfect example is when your botlane is
getting ganked or dove.
If your laners have placed a deep ward, you can Teleport to it and surprise the enemies
from behind, or Teleporting to a tower can potentially scare them away, leaving your
botlane safe from the dive, and you can then turn it into either a Dragon secure, or even
a tower push.
You can also use Teleport in the opposite way, running down to botlane from recalling,
securing a kill and/or objective (no one expects the toplane gank from base!), and then teleport
back to toplane before the minions reach your tower, providing you with a kill, assist,
objective and not missing out on the valuable XP and CS.
Teleport is a very valuable Summoner Spell for map pressure, and these are just a few
ways that you can utilize it.
Using Teleport at the wrong time is a huge mistake, and you end up without a vital Summoner
for 5 minutes.
You cannot cancel Teleport anymore, so you need to make snapshot decisions about if you
should Teleport to a fight, and where.
I often see so many players teleport into the middle of a fight, just to get instantly
locked down and die - it doesn’t make you invisible, nor invincible!
Thank you for taking your time to watch this video, and please please leave your feedback
and any tips I may have missed in the comments below!
The next video in the series will be covering laning phase - bonus info; how to play against
troll picks, laning against smurfs, roaming, how to tower dive and how to get carried..
If it is already released, I have it listed here and if not I have another video here
that I have hand picked for you to watch until it comes out!
Make sure to be subscribed and have the notification bell clicked so you don’t miss the next
one!
Deuces boys!