By Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis
So you’ve heard casters
and other people talk about what a champion is good at, what certain team comps
are good at, and finally, champion power curves. This is some complex stuff
that I find a lot of people grasp, but do not truly understand. Everyone knows
that Tristana has a strange power curve, and it has to do with her passive, but
do you know what specifically about her kit makes this true?
This kind of logic
applies to all champs and teams, and I feel a huge part of trying to climb the
ladder comes from understanding what you and the rest of your team are good at.
Now, many people try and memorize things like match-ups or where a champion's
strengths lie, but that takes a lot of time. Time that could be better spent
putting a plan together for the game. The better thing to do is apply logic and
draw conclusions from that.
First of all, this
requires understanding champions. I’m not saying you need to memorize every
skill and every cooldown, although the more you do, the easier it is and more
precise you can be. It’s important to look at what the basic champs skills are.
Let’s take an example, since that’s the best way to get a handle on these types
of things.
We’ll take Caitlyn as a
first example. Caitlyn’s known as a lane bully ADC that dominates in lane and
falls off in comparison to other ADCs as the game continues. I’ve seen a lot of
people take this to mean she doesn't do damage late game, and that’s not true.
First, what makes her strong in lane?
·
Her 650 range is the highest base range in the game.
·
She has a very easy time pushing the lane at level 1 with her Q
·
Her Q also is a great way to farm and poke at the same time
because it passes through targets
·
Her E lets her escape ganks on the off chance she gets her range
closed in on.
·
She can self ward with W
·
Her Ult is guaranteed damage and can be impactful in non-sustain
lanes
Some of this is pretty
obvious stuff, some of it not as much. The more you’re able to piece together
from experience, the more you can strategize. Now, since we know what her
strengths are; what are her weaknesses?
·
Ultimate can be blocked, and forces her to stand still and cast
·
Only one basic skill does meaningful damage
·
She has no built-in steroids
·
Her only self peel is slow and has a long CD
So how do these points lead to Cait having a lackluster late
game? First, her ultimate can be intercepted by other champs. The cast time is
long and the target is obvious. Using this in a teamfight can not only mean
death if used at the wrong time, but lowers your DPS because you’re no longer
attacking the enemy. It’s best used in between fights, but once late game comes
around, ADCs are known for constant DPS in teamfights which means her Ult has
little to no use in that aspect. Add in the fact that the long and obvious cast
time means someone else has a long time to jump in front of the bullet and tank
the shot. Late in the game people are almost always moving in groups, which
means the tankiest person can usually take the shot and you’ll get the least
out of your skill.
Next, her W and E come into account. When you compare
Caitlyn to other ADCs, most other ADCs have more damaging skills. Kog has his W
Q and ult(which I’m counting because it can be used multiple times in a fight),
Draven has everything except his E, etc. Caitlyn has one basic skill that can
be used in a teamfight outside of her auto attacks. Not only that, but it loses
damage as it passes through targets and forces her to stay still to cast it.
Her W and E are of no use to her in teamfights outside of trying to get away
from people.
Finally, and in relation
to the last point, she has nothing in her kit that boosts her damage output.
Think of every ADC that is known for late game power: Kog Maw, Twitch, Vayne,
Tristana. What do all of these champs has in common? They all have something in
their kit that inherently boosts their damage output. Whether it’s percentage
health damage, attack speed boosts, or a range increase. Caitlyn has nothing of
the sort that can give her more damage other than building items, which means
her possible damage is inherently lower.
Now I went into a lot of
detail, but as long as you can understand the bullet points, you can apply this
to any champ. Look at where they are strong and where they aren’t strong and
you can piece together what you as a player and team need to avoid and what you
need to exploit.
The common things you
need to look at are:
·
Range
·
CD length
·
What Abilities do
·
How well they scale (do they do % damage/have high ratios or fall
flat)
·
Where does power spike and where does it die
You don’t have to know specifics, but have a general idea.
I’ll use Shaco this time to demonstrate my point since he’s a champ I don’t
know as well.
Strengths:
·
Mobile from Q which is a flash
with invis
·
Great at setting traps and bursting with surprise while feared
·
Very slippery
·
Passive and E give a lot of damage
·
Ult creates clone for confusion and procs all on-hit and can
attack on its own
Weaknesses:
·
No immediate CC on command
·
Dangerous/Slow early clear
·
Very squishy and revealing in wrong location means death
·
Usually needs to gank because he will not clear well until he gets
items
·
Teamfight potential is weak because invis time is low and W needs
to be pre-set to be of much use.
·
All single target damage
These are the reasons
why Shaco is known for devastating early ganks, but can’t teamfight well unless
he gets far enough ahead to burst people. His dueling potential is also great
especially if he puts a trap down in advance when the game is still running as
planned. As you can see even though I’ve never played Shaco, my experience and
understanding of the fundamentals of his kit let me know what he does and what
I should do in response.
Now if you’re trying to
find what a team as a whole is built upon, you apply the same process times 5.
You’ll look at the positives and weaknesses of each champ on your team and the
other team. Compare the similarities and you’ll see what both teams
compositions are built for and are weak against. You can look and see where
each player gets their power spike in terms of levels and items once you get
really good at it.
This is a massive part
of becoming a successful jungler more than any other role. It lets you know
who’s weak and when, and that’s huge when you’re affecting every lane and
contemplating invading the other jungler.
So let’s take it all
full circle and look back at Trist and how her power curve works. She’s got a
good early game, poor mid game, and a disgustingly strong late game. Her good
early game comes from the fact that her base damage on her E skill is pretty
good, and it’s magic damage on top of that, which most bot lanes don’t itemize
for early. Her E also gives grievous wounds, meaning that she should regen from
the trade better. Once you get to mid game, the damage from that falls off
because it scales off AP which you won’t build. In fact, all of her
skills have AP scaling, which is why she falls off very hard past early game.
Her saving grace, actually, has nothing to do with her early game power and is
why she has a strange curve. It’s actually a combo of her passive and Q. Her
passive gives her range per level and her range gets to be higher than anyone
in the game late besides an ulting Twitch. Throw in a whopping 90% attack speed
boost on her Q and you've got a lot of damage hitting from very far away. The Q
attack speed means she can build more AD and hit harder. The final part of her
kit that makes her unstoppable late game is the safety she gets. Her ultimate
is low cooldown and blows people away from her as well as having a long range
jump that resets on a kill or assist.
Analyzing champions is a
huge skill of League of Legends that takes some time to fully understand on its
own. However, you don’t have to start memorizing everything about every champ.
With 119 champions in the game that is nearly impossible. The important thing
is to understand the basic idea of what each champ does and plan around
everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. If you apply this to your own games, you
can look past the idea of just trying to CS and following a similar pattern
every game, and start strategizing on how to pull an advantage through
logically understanding strengths and weaknesses.