Tag: pusher

LoL: The push strat

Heimer doing some jungling.It can get a little boring running the same teamfight strategy over and over, so I like to switch things up. Lately I’ve been running a heavy push strat with a couple friends, and though we’ve been taking our time learning it’s still been a lot of fun. Here’s a quick run down of a few of your options.

When you’re going for a push strat you want to have at least one tower down under the five minute mark, but preferably a second if you can manage it. Your team comp focuses on early game durability and push. When four people surprise push a lane it’s very hard to counter without a lot of ports or quick action. Alistar is a must for keeping creep waves healed and his ability to rip up a turret. You should also take Sivir along for obvious reasons. Personally, we’ve been rolling with a Heimerdinger as well to keep up the push. He is great at mowing down minion waves to set things up. From there it’s pretty much your pick. Janna is great for AOE crowd control on your opponent and her AOE heal can grant you some extra push time. You can take Warwick then for his global attack speed buff or Taric for heals/aura and Radiance for pushing.

I’ve not tried a game with Taric yet, but the Warwick game does seem to work well. I’m planning to try Taric at some point this evening and I’ll drop some comments when I know a little more.

As for summoner spells, you need to have a few rally flags for the early game push. It keeps everyone healed up and gives you the extra damage you need to push. Taking Clarity and Heal can also keep a push alive. Basically you want your mid toon, in this case Heimer, to push the opponent back to turret. At level three you rush four people middle to take the first turret and the second if you have the health. Then it’s back to lane for farming and leveling until you have a minion wave prepped to take another turret.

If you can get an inhibitor down in 15 minutes you’ve done your job. The super minions are extremely difficult to manage at low levels which forces the other team to clear them, giving you the time to push at will. In the end it’s all about coordination. If you communicate well and move as a team you should be able to give your opponent a painful game.

LoL: The state of Heimerdinger

Heimerdinger.I had a nine-game winning streak going just the other day. Nine games. It was great to look at my summoner profile and see so much green. Unfortunately the tenth game I drew a 20-minute 0-6 Taric. You can imagine how things went from there. I decided to end my quest for the elusive ten-game streak and go on a Heimerdinger bender. Here’s what I found out.

As great as Heimer used to be in mid, he was always easily shut down. The old turret system required too much time to be effective and was easy to counter. You were also dead if you left those turrets for any reason. Now things are different. The ability to drop red turrets at will gives you great DPS if you’re in a pinch and allows you to set up lanes much more quickly.

I like to start off mid by alternating turrets and rockets. I’ve had a little trouble with some of the ranged DPS, but once you get to level four you can push minions back easily and place turrets as you will. I tend to bury mine in creeps to make them a little harder to target and keep them close enough to attack as many enemy creeps as possible. By level five you should be pressing your opponent to his tower with little trouble. Start watching for ganks – they’ll be coming if the other team is intelligent.

From there you’re just trying to burn down that mid turret. I can easily take a turret before the ten minute mark. If your opponent leaves you alone, keep pushing. Encourage your teammates to join you if you can. I recently had a game in which I had aegis by the eight minute mark. We were knocking down the nexus before 19. It was insane.

For teamfights you should be trying to stay out of the mix. You want to be dropping as many turrets as possible for both the damage and the MR/AR reduction and the potential slow. Whatever you do, do not underestimate that slow. It will save your ass. It will save your team. It will get you kills.

As it stands, Heimer is an excellent pusher. I think he’s a great candidate for heavy AP builds, but I really prefer to run around blowing up turrets at level 5. If you were a Heimer fan in the past, give the new version a shot. I’d be shocked if you didn’t like it.

LoL: The state of Sivir

An original Sivir skin.I decided to try something new recently and give Sivir a go. I’ve always hated her, mostly because I’ve seen her pushing power completely dominate a game. She’s always seemed like an unstoppable force in the right hands, so I figured I should see if it’s really the toon.

Let me just say that I think Sivir might be the best character for mid in the game. She bulldozes creeps for very little mana and has no trouble with champions that aren’t built for extremely high survivability. I’ve faced casters, tanks, and carries all mid and had very little trouble, even against the good players. Some of them slowed my farm, forcing me to take Spell Shield over Boomerang Blade, but no one has been able to completely shut me down.

As of this post I’ve won 80% of my games as Sivir. My losses were actually in premades during which I suffered from unskilled teammates. In one game I was paired with a level 13 Annie. We lost. Badly. In the other games, though, I’ve been such a force mid that I have to wonder about her balance. I don’t think she’s particularly good for solo queue. Without solid team coordination she has too much pushing power that, when coupled with a move speed modifier and a spell shield, gives her the survivability to truly own a game.

Really, I think this latest patch has caused most of the problems. She has always been strong, but with the heavy prioritization on farming, Sivir can easily level gap people in ways only the best gankers could previously do. The upcoming patch should help, reducing the range at which she can farm and increasing gank XP. I’ll update this post with a little more in-depth match detail when I’ve spent more time with her.

LoL: Learning to play mage

Ryze putting a hurt on Singed.We’ve all been on the receiving end of an ability power beatdown, the kind where you can’t seem to leave your tower without getting insta-gibbed. There are few things that make me want to play mage more, but it’s not always a walk in the park. Mages walk a very fine line between blowing up the opponent and dying themselves because of low defense and a tiny health pool. Played well, though, mages can be very rewarding.

Playing a mage well requires you to plan further ahead than any other toon in the game. You should have a constant awareness of how much damage your skills will do by the number, not just how much you think you can pull off you enemy’s health bar. A Malphite at half health is very different from a Tristana at half health. For Malph, you have to break his shield before he actually takes damage. Trist, on the other hand, can jump away in most cases. Whichever you choose, you better be confident your spells can either take them down or hurt them badly enough that they’ll run. Part of being a mage is putting yourself into compromising positions for kills. If the kill doesn’t go off, be assured that you’re the next target.

If you’ve come up through the ranks playing mostly physical DPS toons or tanks, I would highly recommend making a smurf account to learn your mages. The playstyle is radically different from the other champions in the game, and learning at a high ELO can be difficult. Once you have a general feel for being the squishiest thing on the map, pick up a few games with friends before heading into the solo queue. The extra experience will give you the edge necessary to enjoy early success

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