One of the very first things that players want to learn when it comes to improving is
how to get 10 cs per minute like all the professional players do.
But if you pay attention those same players are not only farming like crazy, but they
manage to have a ton of pressure on the map at the same time.
We're constantly talking about how to maximize your farm as an ADC, but for this guide, we're
going to be going over how to appropriately balance your time in game between selfishly
farming to scale and grouping with your team to make plays happen.
But before getting into things, here's our quick question of the day.
This time we're just interested to hear with what you're struggling with as an ADC.
We'd love to know what you personally find difficult when it comes to climbing, so that
we can make better content to help you out.
So just let us know if there's a type of guide you'd like to see in the future.
Alright, as one of our ADC viewers you're probably aware of all the concepts we constantly
go over to maximize your farm such as: Learning when and how to farm side lanes in solo queue,
Knowing when to take your jungler's camps, etc
Those kind of tactics are great for learning how to CS more and more, but something we
don't discuss enough is learning how to balance all of that while also having a ton of presence
on the map.
More importantly, how that balance changes based on your own playstyle, elo, and even
region.
For example, here's 2 of the ADCs we usually try to teach from when we're talking about
maximizing your farm every game.
Here's one of Deft's accounts.
Take a look at his CS averages.
Most of them are around 8 to 8.5 Next, let's look at one of Rekkles's accounts.
His CS averages are all above 9 with some even going above 10, which is what we'd obviously
consider the ideal.
We're not about to use that information to say that Rekkles is somehow better than Deft
or the other way around, but that their priorities in their games are probably completely different
based on different factors.
10 CS per minute on average is something extremely rare to have in solo queue.
Very few players get it and a big reason for that is that most players have different values
when it comes to either pressuring the map or scavenging for farm.
What will make you a better player is learning how to balance farm and map pressure based
on the specific game circumstances that you're facing.
Before getting into how to balance those things though, let's first take a look at what an
ideal situation would be in your games.
For that, let's quickly watch one of Deft's replays to show you what we mean.
During this game, Deft had a lot of opportunities to go for plays where there were conveniently
large sources of farm.
For example, as he's invading the enemy jungle he can take both raptors and red buff while
waiting for the enemy Diana to show up.
See what we mean?
He has both pressured the map, and kept his CS numbers up at the same time.
Right after that, Deft cancels Samira's base with his ult and helps score yet another kill.
Not only that, but there's a source of farm for him to get right after as well.
These are some simple examples of ideal choices you want to try to make in your games.
You will want to gravitate towards plays like these that give you the best of both worlds.
In fact, this game was so perfect in that regard that Deft went on to have nearly a
kill per minute along with around a 12 cs per minute average.
This was an absurd game that is nearly impossible to pull off, but he kept finding perfect situations
like the ones we saw before where he never had to make a choice between map pressure
and farming.
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Okay, so we know what an ideal macro situation looks like.
What's next is learning how good players adapt when they don't have such easy choices to
make.
Our goal here is to help you see when it's appropriate to focus more on farm, and when
you should probably stop to help your team in some way around the map.
Let's start things off with another one of Deft's replays.
After pushing the bot lane wave into the tower, Deft rotates towards middle.
This is where he made a balancing choice between farming and map pressure.
We'll come back to this moment in a bit.
By drawing Lee bottom with his push, Deft hopes to get a numbers advantage fight in
mid lane to go his team's way.
Sadly, his team was very far behind and they barely manage to trade 1 for 1, but when you're
playing to catch up, going even with your opponent can definitely be seen as a win.
Okay, so going back to our decision moment that we mentioned, Deft had another option
here.
He could have very easily gone to Gromp, then wolves and by then Lee Sin probably would
have pushed the wave back into him.
He could just rotate back bottom to keep farming.
That would have been a good option to maximize his CS.
But the decision Deft made was based on the specific game that he's in.
Look at the score board.
It's 33 kills already at 15 minutes.
There's a ton of aggressive champions with CC on his team, and he's playing in Korean
solo queue.
This region is known for going really aggressive and making non-stop plays to end games fast.
In this situation, it's completely fine to sacrifice a bit of farm for the chance of
making a play with his team, even if it's not guaranteed.
Let's compare the decision Deft made to the typical type of grouping we see from ADCs
in low elo.
As this Miss Fortune's team summons the Rift Herald, she decides to tag along with them
to take the mid lane tower.
We're obviously reviewing this, since this was a terrible choice.
As she pushes, she gets caught out by Mordekaiser and dies a slow and painful deserved death.
Keep in mind that even if she and her team had claimed the tower without dying, we would
still be critiquing this play.
The problem is how so many ADCs get baited by their team's bad macro, instead of choosing
to optimize their farm.
Take a look at the start of this clip once again.
Miss Fortune's team has no business pushing mid, because their Gwen is taking the top
lane tower for free.
Pushing with Rift Herald in mid is literally giving their opponents a numbers advantage
willingly.
Meanwhile in bot lane there's a big wave building that Miss Fortune could have gone to farm,
while also being in close proximity to the spawning Gromp, Scuttle Crab and Dragon giving
her plenty of access to both farm and map pressure on objectives.
Hopefully you see the difference between Deft's grouping and this Miss Fortune's grouping.
Deft teamed up with his team for a genuine reason that gave them an advantage, whereas
MF was grouping for the sake of grouping.
That's not a balance between pressure and farm, that's just a bad play.
Low elo ADCS definitely over-group, but once they learn to start farming side lanes, they
can also take that to too much of an extreme as well.
Like before, let's check a replay of farming done right, and compare it to a low elo example.
Here we have Rekkles playing Xayah and spawning from his base.
Like before with the Deft example, Rekkles makes a balancing decision here.
We'll come back to it afterwards.
What he chooses to do is focus on farm for himself.
His jungle Morgana is bot side, therefore he just takes all of her top side camps.
Then he paths towards top, gets a bunch of waves, gets the tower, and even takes the
enemy Krugs after that as well for an insane spike in gold.
That was beautiful macro.
That's exactly what we're talking about when we say that ADCs need to learn when and how
to side lane.
But let's bring things back to the origin of that decision.
After doing wolves, Rekkles had a choice to go middle here.
It's not wrong to let his Lee Sin be the one to go top, which is the correct lane assignment.
That way Rekkles can be mid, push waves, and potentially score vision control around Baron
river with his support.
If he'd done that, then maybe this weird Baron fight that occurred after he pushed top wouldn't
have happened.
This was only a result from the fact that his team had to concede vision in the river
from him going top.
Had his team had river control from his mid lane priority, they would have never been
here sneaking Baron in the first place.
Okay, so just like Deft's decision, let's make the point here clear.
Rekkles had two options.
To get solo farm, or get correct lane assignments and control of the mid lane area.
Both are reasonable plays, but based on the specific game, Rekkles prioritized farm over
immediate map pressure.
It's not like the enemy team had a good Baron comp anyways.
Not only that, but Rekkles as a player tends to gravitate towards power farming and scaling
as fast as possible.
There's nothing wrong with that, as long as the decisions you're making are solid.
Trading a bit of map control for the huge source of farm he acquired was definitely
fine in our books.
Just like before, let's show you an example of a player prioritizing farm over pressure
poorly.
During this platinum elo game, the Jhin player was under quite a bit of stress.
As you can tell from the score board up top, this game is quite bloody and for good reason.
The enemy team has both a Katarina and a Nocturne, resulting in a very chaotic game.
Jhin has had to play very carefully throughout most of the it to remain alive.
After clearing some minions in mid, Jhin recalls for items and has a choice to make.
His Zed is mid, so he can either go mid and share farm or go bottom and acquire that wave
that's coming in.
Based on what you've seen, what do you think you'd do?
If you watch a lot of our guides, you may immediately be tempted to say that Jhin should
go bottom to not share gold.
Good idea, but not here.
Remember this moment during our Rekkles example?
Do you notice something?
Rekkles is either even or only 1 level behind the enemy solo laners.
This is usually what we recommend in our guides before you can solo lane aggressively.
If you can't go toe to toe with the enemy solo laners, of course side laning will never
work out for you.
This is a huge problem that low elo ADCs have.
We showed you this earlier moment to highlight how Jhin is down 2 levels to the enemy assassins
and has burned his summoner spells.
So when Jhin decides to path bottom for solo gold, he can only farm this 1 wave, and then
he has nothing else here to farm.
There's no jungle camps nearby and he can't push any further without risking his life.
Which means, that he just sacrificed grouping time with his team for a meaningless amount
of farm.
And remember, this Jhin should definitely know that the pace of the game is quite chaotic
due to the enemy composition.
A fight immediately broke out in mid lane, which his team ended up losing due to his
absence.
Jhin rotates over, but his entire team is dead by this point.
He has no one to peel him, so he just ends up dying for no reason as well.
To wrap things up, let's just break all these replays down again really quickly, to make
everything crystal clear.
In our example from Deft, he opted to give up a mediocre source of farm, for a good source
of pressure with a numbers advantage in mid.
In Rekkles's game, he chose to give up some mid lane control for a ridiculous amount of
farm on the top side of the map.
In Miss Fortune's case, she gave up a relatively decent amount of farm bot side, to follow
her team's stupid Rift Herald play.
Lastly, in this final Jhin example, Jhin gave up grouping with his team and countering the
enemy assassin comp, for a single wave in bot.
It's pretty easy to see the difference.
The expert ADCs are trying to make the best choices possible based on the specific games
that they're in.
Sometimes farm is the correct choice, and sometimes pressure is.
It's on you to figure out what's more important in your own games.
What you need to desperately avoid is choosing something without considering the other option.
Blindly grouping all the time, or blindly farming all the time isn't going to make you
good.
It's the balance between both options which will not only help you achieve higher CS numbers,
but also have more map pressure than ever before.
Alright guys, that's going to wrap up this guide.
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