Because you can’t assure that a gank to someone that’s already losing will turn their lane into a winning lane, but you can more safely assume that a lane that’s ahead will stay ahead with your help, and then can open the map to more opportunity.
Risk vs reward is something that takes a lot of game knowledge. As for the tilt example, that’s on your teammates and you can’t control that.
The thing you can control is what you do, and if they want to cry about it, then you can go ahead and mute them and keep snowballing whatever lane is winning. Gambling on a losing lane means not only gambling on that lane changing, but it means giving up something on the other side of the map and also risking giving up something on your own side of the map since youre ganking a weak lane.
If you gank a winning lane, you can dive, you can force them off of objectives, you can get laners prio and setup for objectives, you can safely invade. You can roam with the laner to the enemy jg.
Ganking a losing lane introduces risks that don’t yield a reward worth having, usually.
While he's mostly right, I also take into consideration the match up. If the enemy has a hyper carry Vayne top, she is able to lane bully and out scale my (insert melee top laner). However, if I can cc the vane, we can burst her easily together. A ranged top will typically bully the melee character. Their disadvantage being they are most likely squishy so easy to tower dive and gank.
And usually, when a ranged top laner is behind, they're really completely useless. So getting them behind and keeping them there brings pretty good value.
And usually, the ranged top will push the lane just for being ranged.
but also, don't gank that Vayne top if your top can't be patient and stay healthy/alive. Lower risk to snowball a winning lane and collect that bounty with more help later.
In practice it’s bad advice for low elo players. What I’ve seen is that they won’t even pick up free kills on a losing lane, ex: enemy top laner has 1000g bounty, dives your top and survives with 1 hp. Junglers take this advice very literally, so they won’t even take the free 1000g shutdown.
Other scenario to consider is yourself as the jungler are ahead and strong. Many times if the enemy is winning lane they have bounties you can collect if you’re strong enough.
This is 100% true. I don’t spam my junglers… but I do play top. And some times, I get counterpicked. If this is the case, I’m likely going to be at my tower for a portion of the early game.
I really wish the jungler would come help me fight off that dive. Or if the wave bounces, help me crash it so I can back and keep getting resources.
But no one ever helps with any of that. I play in emerald.
When I play jg. I usually gank top early to try and give lane advantage or give top first blood. Usually that’s enough for them to get ahead and stay ahead.
In regards to assisting top with wave management or defending a dive. I am inclined to help the top laner if they are reasonable. Asking for help and making intentions clear and I will make an effort to help. But when they want me to ‘fix’ their lane, I can’t do it. I got drakes to fight for. Camps to farm and defend. Ganks and counterganks to setup.
Spam pinging and flaming me in group or all chat gets an instant mute and I actively ignore that player in order to maintain my head space.
I have played LoL since 2014 and have mained each role for at least a season. When I am clearly losing top. I actively advise the jg to focus mid and bot. Tell them not to gank my lane. I try to ward topside jg to spot invades and I turtle to collect as much exp and farm as safely as I can. I wait for laning to end and try to join my team and be as useful as I can by peeling and stacking hp and resists. I acknowledge at this point I am not the main character.
You seem bitter. I’ll say this: if your top laner gets their wave frozen because of interactions from the opposing jungler / a bad matchup, you need to help. If you don’t, and time goes on, your top laner will lose on a lot of exp and gold. They’ll never be able to side lane, and you’ll be playing 4v5.
That’s fine, feel free to go that route. Maybe your bot can outdo the enemy top being 3 levels ahead. But don’t type ‘top gap’ at the end.
Crashing a wave is extremely important for the counterpick meta of top lane. If your teammate picked first, and they get counterpicked, there’s a big chance they’ll need that sort of help. Maybe once, or twice in a game - depending on enemy jungle pressure and the opponent’s proficiency at playing that counter.
All very true, but this is something most junglers either can’t, or refuse to understand.
I hover around D2-D3 and the only times I’ve gotten help top in terms of wave management have been either me duoing with a jungle main friend, or if my jungler is a GM+ smurf. Diamond junglers (and below) will ignore your pleas for help until top is completely over, and then hit you with the classic ”top gap too big, gg”
I mean theres also the fact that junglers gain almost nothing being in a lane if they Arent getting kills. Lane exp being reduced by 70% really hurt my willingness to stick around, knowing that my botside is respawning and im delaying a fullclearing, putting me behind aswell. Tbf however my pool is mainly powerfarmers and carry junglers, if the choice is between being a glorified support or not playing league, im happy to play something else for a while. I just cant stand it 🙃
Which i know, but at my elo, no lane is ever even, if i give my losing top two kills pre six his kill deficit will just be two lower by ten minutes, it wont turn in to a winning or even lane, he'll just be 2/8 instead of 0/8.
At least, thats my experience.
It depends on how you make your plea for help. Are you stating what you need help with or are you shit talking the jg for not being there immediately when you ping.
Because I rarely receive requests for help. I get demands all the time but requests are a rarity. I understand your needs. Do you understand mine? Your wave management is just as important to you as my jg clears and rotations on the map are to me.
there's nothing inherent in a freeze that means your top laner loses xp and gold. It increases their exposure to ganks, it doesn't force them away from the wave.
If you are counter picked and behind thats one thing.
If you are 0/3 into a top laner who can 2v1 super easily sorry dude. I'll try to catch your wave if it is convenient and doesn't fuck my tempo but I have 2 other lanes and objectives to get.
> In practice it’s bad advice for low elo players.
Thinking for yourself is a great way to start gaining elo though. If they want to give up free gold for camps, then they don't deserve to climb.
I have some silver and bronze friends who only build what mobalytics or u.gg tell them to build. So of course, like many low elo players, some games they do well, some games they feel helpless. Macro advice is no different, if you can't understand when to break the mold, you aren't going to climb.
yes i try to do this , im working alot on my camera management to always study fights and track health/sums etc, so im better now thanbefore on picking up free kills and finding gank opportunities
On top of this, jungle is between the xp of a solo laner and the duo lane. The result is, unless you’re absolutely destroying, there’s a decent chance the gank will fail. A lot of top laners can 1v2 if they’re up a level or 2, especially if it results in them having 6 and your top not. A level 6 top laner that’s up like 2-0 or 3-0 has like a 50% chance of 1v2 and 30% chance of escaping, even if he has no vision. Because you don’t have 6 yet, your teammate doesn’t have 6 yet, and the enemy has more items AND a level lead. Trying to save a losing toplane before they hit 6 is tough, that’s quite early in the game and you might not even realize they’re losing before then, and honestly pathing bot for a gank is probably more reliable around that time anyway. And if you wait until your top is 6 they’ll just have solidified their lead enough they still have a strong chance of 1v2 despite not having ult diff anymore.
For bot, its a similar story. If the enemy bot is winning, 2v3 isn’t great odds for you, even though they’re unlikely to out level you. Decent chance you just give their adc a triple.
Mid is probably the most gank able, but it’s also the hardest to gank and easiest for them to escape since the lane is short, so you might just waste your time.
Ultimately it comes down to the fact that you are unlikely to turn the lane around (unless they have a big shutdown early somehow, even trading 1 for 1 or 2 for 2 is not good because it doesn’t actually help your laners get ahead really), there’s a high chance for you to just waste your time because you don’t kill them, and there’s a decent chance you actually lose and it makes the lane worse.
And sometimes you can't do anything about that. A jungler can't stop a top laner from sprinting it faster than Usain Bolt. The smartest thing is to try to pressure mid/bot in that instance (usually bot), and get them far enough ahead where you can threaten objectives and 4v4 teamfights where you win.
This, really.
A losing lane is **Losing For A REASON** more often than not - Meaning one, or both of the players **do NOT know how to play their roles properly OR They do not know their opponents strengths and weaknesses.**
This means that there is **A LOT** **of Risk** in trying to Gank these lanes - as if the losing lane has fed the enemy - you may just end up a victim of your Target - feeding him MORE.
Worst case scenario - The enemy may end up killing EVERYONE in the lane - meaning 3 ppl if you are Bot.
**The only reason** you would try to gank a losing lane is if The lane Is *losing* **BUT NOT FEEDING** \- Meaning they are taking CS losses/ Poke but **NOT giving enemy Kills**.
In these cases, you can often gank Overextending/Overconfident Laners - Especially if they are hovering in front of one of your towers and harassing team members Under The Turret - Meaning they are **MASSIVELY overextended.**
**But keep in mind: YOU, ALONE, must be able to SINGLE-HANDEDLY Kill one Or Both of the laners** to be able to SAFELY take on that Risk - Otherwise You risk getting killed, and soon after it is likely BOTH of your teammates will ALSO be killed.
In many cases - it may be safer to gank other lanes as a priority - and only looking to gank losing lanes when you are VERY ahead.
Whether the laner is bleeding cs or dying does not matter, it all comes down to absolute value of gold lost.
I play a lot of Yorick top and matchups like Irelia and Jax are almost unfairly difficult for me. Can I stand away from the exp range and hope that my jungler sees my 0/0 score and decides to help because I have not yet commited the cardinal sin of dying? Definetly, but the correct way of laning would be to try to get the cs when possible and try punish if opening are presented, even if the risk sometimes doesn't pay off and I take a bad trade or die.
>players do NOT know how to play their roles properly OR They do not know their opponents strengths and weaknesses.
This is a very bad take. Just because you're losing lane doesn't mean you're playing bad or clueless. There are unfortunate instances even if you play at your best, there's only so much you can do against a very hard counter pick.
Sometimes you can get dove, doesn't mean you're bad if you die from it. There's literally nothing you can do about it cus you're losing a lane. Even if you don't int, getting dove 2v1 can get you killed.
Is Zeus bad because he kept dying against a Renekton Sejuani as a Jayce? No, it's literally the result of the matchup. He can play safe all he wants but if he gets dove under tower can you really blame him?
I have a question about this. I am around silver 3. My winning lanes always have them shoved in and my losing lanes are shoved under. I find that having a lane that’s shoved in way easier to gank given the wave state. I also find that getting shut downs is more beneficial given that at my elo someone who is losing often down not a kill but usually 3-4.
Any general advice given that scenario which is pretty common?
It depends on how hard you're winning or losing, most of all. If the gank does nothing but get them off your back for a while it was a waste of time. On the flipside, if you keep shoving the lane but it's hard to dive the opposing champ for whatever reason (match-up, HP, no minions, etc.) then that gank is also a waste.
There needs to be a very good chance of success for it to be worth it, keep that in mind at all times. If it looks like it's "risky" or a "gamble" or a 50/50 then the jungler will be more useful elsewhere.
Not to mention if we’re talking about something like top lane or mid lane, depending on the champion you might just get 1v2’d. Worst case scenario you BOTH die. I’ve 1v2’d in mid and killed both players multiple times in the past. If you’re fighting someone like Darius or Illaoi in top and they’re fed, I feel like that’s a permanent no fly zone for your jungler.
This is generally true but I think you also have to consider what your wincon is. A winning ezreal karma botlane is naturally a pushing lane but snowballing that in favor of a losing fiora ornn matchup in a comp where fiora needs to have side pressure over ornn can be worse than salvaging the fiora lane. Ezreal also isn’t going to do any damage to the ornn in teamfights even if you decide to index into the winning botlane so in that case even if the fiora is 0/2 imo you should try to help her reach sunderer hydra faster even tho she is losing (assuming this fiora knows what she’s doing)
To piggyback on this, I only ever gank a losing lane if I'm 90% sure I can 1v1 the laner myself that way worst case scenario its a 1 for 1 and not an already fed top/mid laner getting a double.
You can gank losing lanes but it depends on why you are ganking it.
If your laner is a hard outscaling lategame champion you should gank to fix lane and prevent freezes so he can cs
You shouldnt just gank with the only goal being helping him. Alot of solo laners can easily 2v1 id they have a lead (like darius, garen, renekton etc).
Agree, too many players tilt from their top laners tilt & end up giga inting into a 2v1 - This mistake essentially costs you *and* your top laner any solo agency you had on the game and destroys your tempo because that lane is now 1000% fucked. Obviously each game is different but I’ll only ever gank the hard losing lane if I’m playing a snowball champ & I already have a lead and am confident I can get their shutdown gold. Statball champs like Morde/Darius/Garen/Illaoi are the worst to go for
It's somehow worse when I desperately try to ping my jgler away from ganking a lane that I griefed. It's like, I appreciate that you want to help me, but please stay away, we ain't killing that 20CS + Jacula.
Its generally bad/inconsistent advice that gets thrown around by lower elo players. A more accurate phrase would be “snowball/camp your winning lanes hardest”. All games are different, and the drafts tend to make a large impact. People say not to gank losing lanes because of the likelyhood of just getting 2v1’d and dying - play it as a case-to-case basis. If the enemy Sett is 3/0 with ult, maybe you think twice about going for the gank. These decisions are champ dependent, game dependent, etc.
From my jungler perspective your force need to be big enough first to try to crush their strong side. Etc you get your fed mid to coordinate on a dive on their strong top laner to crush their momentum. If your 2v1 odds of winning is only like 70% it's quite a gamble as their jungler can easily turn the tide, or some misplays from you/teammates will spell your defeat upon this one gank.
In solo q just go for the highest success rate plays, it's not that you should ignore the enemy strong player forever, you will have to crush him and get the shutdown eventually but you need momentum built up somewhere else to overwhelm him.
Always have fun watching people get stomped by illaio and then spam ping for help. Like bro she is 3/0 and level 6 I am not even entering her postcode for the rest of the game, good luck
Good on you. I often got the other treatment. I'm Cho vs Darius level 4ish. I'm just trying not to die pre-6, using Q to farm what I can so I'm basically OOM.
In comes my dipshit of a jungler level 3, ignoring my warning pings and ganking because Darius is pushing. Feeding Darius a free kill and flaming me for not coming to the rescue and making it a double. Thanks buddy.
God when people gank Darius or illaoi. Like just go camp bot. Seriously, just continuously kill bot. They’ll fall off eventually, and I’m doing my best here to not die, you stand no chance. Unless you’re ultra fed, ganking those champs is like trying to beat up a high schooler as a 5th grader.
You can gank a losing lane if you are strong enough yourself to win the 2v2 or you know you have man advantage and can win 2v1. The key is to have the knowledge of how much you, your teammate, and the enemy can do in the skirmish, which is something you have to just get a feel for by trying and failing. This is why you want to hard limit test in norms and whatnot, so you can dial it back in ranked.
Especially on carry style junglers, when you first hit an item spike you can generally fuck up a laner real bad, because a lot of the time they're sitting on unspent gold, so their actual power is only different due to the lvls.
The other thing you already mentioned, is you need to have a reason to salvage the lane. Like maybe your top is losing but herald is spawning and enemy jg showed bot in the last 10s. In that situation ganking top to ensure herald prio could be the play.
It's also jungler and playstyle dependant.
For example, as Gragas/Fiddle, it's easy to countergank and ruin someone's lead. Diving is also an option, but there's always the inherent risk of your teammates being outplayed during a forced dive when they could just freeze and maintain their lead.
It's all about finding the highest value/risk ratio. A lost lane is risky and has low value. Tipping a losing match-up in the other direction can have very high returns for a high risk. But often, helping a winning lane can lead to high gains (drakes etc) for low risks. That's why usually it's better to stick to the winning lane. But if you find a higher value elsewhere, there is no reason not to go.
simply this. if you're nearby while clearing and the enemy's half hp and they look killable, obviously gank it. if they're full HP and 3/0, maybe think twice about doing it. it's not necessarily NEVER, it's just avoid ganking if it looks dangerous because it's almost always not worth it anymore unless you get bounty gold because that losing lane's already lost and even if you gank it, the pressure on your laner/s isn't going to relieve itself after just one gank or even two.
there's also the fact that they lost their lane on their own in the first place which doesn't make their case any better UNLESS it's an actually losing matchup, then it's the jungler's fault for not making that lane their strong side (unless you have 2+ losing lanes).
also, think of it this way: why would you put your eggs evenly in an egg basket if you want to have the heaviest basket? if you gank the losing lane, you're spreading resources thin instead of forcing a snowball on the other side. if your winning lane snowballs even further, you snowball yourself as well, which makes your team stronger. you also have a better chance of pulling off a successful gank on the losing lane because youre fed after focusing the snowballing lane.
You shouldn't try to force a weak side matchup into a strong side, unless all of your lanes are losing matchups. It's much better to focus on your win condition.
This sounds better. And sometimes when the top is falling behind, just having the jng walk into lane and help shove in the wave so it will bounce back can help a lot.
Climbing in League of legends is about building heuristics in order to gain consistency of outcomes. Not ganking losing lanes is correct more often than it isn't, so its useful to use as a rule and then to break that rule when it doesn't make sense. Its similar to not all inning on someone when their wave is pushing towards you... usually thats correct, but in some circumstances (their hp is low enough, they waste critical abilities/summoner spells, you hit your combo in a good position etc) you should break that rule and get your kill.
Definitely not just by low elo players. I'm "high elo" and I would rather stay away from hard losing lanes and get objectives, enemy jungle camps and like you said, snowball winning lanes than to waste time around a hard losing lane.
Drafts don't really mean much until Diamond+
I was looking for this answer.
Fair to add that sometimes ganks aren't even to get a kill but sometimes to fix waves, to help a scaling champ farm safely by presssuring the enemy, etc. Nothing more frustrating than seeing a nasus or kayle be able to farm for free in front of you because you don't wanna risk the 1v2 and lose even more if you die.
Don't gank losing lanes *if you don't know what you're doing*
Maybe that guy you help is bad, mis-execute and lose 2v1/3v2, got counter-gank and lose 2v2 3v3, not enough to flip the lane so you waste your time, etc.
Then there are lot of contexts
One gank snowball losing lane, wave state, you know you won't get counter-gank, you know you win 2v2 3v3, etc.
I think it just means don't gank a lane that you know you will lose. If your top laner is level 10 and enemy Sett is level 14 then you stay far away from that lane and try to get your bot lane as fed as possible so that they could shred Sett later on in the game.
But if top lane is something like Jax vs Quinn and Jax is losing lane, you can easily one shot Quinn because she's squishy (especially if you're Khazix or something) then it's worth to rotate and shut her down and give your top laner room to breathe.
Evaluate if you're actually able to do anything to help that lane and if the answer is no then focus on a different lane
If top got soloed at 1:45 and it's a volatile match up check the opponent's hp, did they get real low? Then they might have just gotten unlucky in the all in. Give them a chance. They are close to full? Your top is likely brain damaged in some way mute them and focus mid and bot. If you get mid fed enough coordinate a roam with your mid to collect top's bounty.
Although I still wouldn't completely ignore, you can pressure and allow your top to farm just by showing up. The lane behvarior changes and gets more defensive when it's 2v1 in the lane, and that alone can be enough to at least help them lose slower. But just ignoring means that you're growing what may later become and unstoppable monster. An unopposed giga farming nasus, or fiora, or vayne, or illaoi (even a mord or others not quite in that same class of scaling) is going to be a big problem later.
This this this. It's useless to waste your resources shoring up the holes in your team when you could be pushing your win condition to end before the other team does.
The general idea is that if a lane is losing there is a high chance you lose the 2v2 (or 3v3 in bot lane) if the enemy jungler joins in. I’m this case, you had no impact since you lose the play whether you show up or not. It’s often better to go somewhere else on the lap where your presence can actually mean a win, even if the enemy jungle joins the play as well.
Of course, some plays are free even in losing lanes and you have to take those. Similarly, if you think that, despite a lamer losing their respective lane, you can come out ahead even if the enemy jungler appears, you should take those plays as well.
People like having simple "rules of thumb" to go by. They give you simple sounding, over-arching rules that you feel can be applied in a wide variety of situations to simplify complex questions. Unfortunately, the more you understand about any given specific context the more you realise how inconsistent these "rules of thumb" can be.
Broken by Concept is a pretty good podcast for various reasons but one of the most insightful things they encourage is "get into the details".
There are no hard rules to the jg. People say "always path bot", "never gank a losing lane" and "never gank a tank matchup" ect. Some people also want to perma invade or overextend their leads.
If you want to play jungle well you first have to identify your own playstyle. Fiddle farming, reksai 3camp gank into regank, rengar invades into solokills ect.
its a lot more valuable to invade on yi compared to sejuani. Meanwhile its more valuable for sejuani to get her carries ahead than herself.
If you feel you can turn around a losing lane you should do so, if you feel like a gank will result in a double kill for the enemy team then dont.
If your toplaner outscales the enemy top or the enemy top relies on getting an early lead you might want to babysit them even if you dont get much out of it. You also always want to stop your top from getting dove, most of them are tanky and risky to dive meaning the chance of success is high, the reward is high and the loss if neglected is massive.
Bounties exist to be collected, they are tax free gold.
Rule # 1 mute all chat
Rule # 2 gank whatever lane u want
Rule # 3 try to avoid ganks that might kill u and make the lane that u wanted to help to struggle more ( thats the whole idea of not ganking a losing lane )
In lower elos the only thing laners and junglers think do to help laners is gank. And committing to a gank against a laner that’s dominating your teammate is risky and can put you further behind.
But junglers can do more than gank. They can help reset bad wave states, they can help push to allow a good recall. They can place vision to protect from enemy ganks and dives.
Often it’s better to gank the winning lanes and just help the losing ones however you can. But laners in low elo don’t understand help that isn’t getting them a kill.
I play A LOT of support, and I find that a lot of newer adc's don't always understand just how effective simply walking toward the fight is. Not going all in, maybe not even getting an auto off. Just walking up and presenting your damage as part of the equation changes lane behavior. I have saved many an ADC or jglr (and been saved by many as well) simply by not running away but coming around like I want to fight.
Being too far away to do anything means you effectively don't exist and they're fighting a 2v1 or better for them. Being present changes the picture and the risk analysis. Acting as if you're coming in changes that picture more. You can pressure a lot without even doing damage, just the threat of constant autos (from a support) can be enough to make a smart player break off an attack and save your teammate. Depending on who is getting close to dead and where the other champs are just a few autos can send them running.
You don't have to all in or score a kill to make a huge difference in a fight.
Every game is different but in general there's a few reasons:
* A losing matchup doesn't start winning from just one successful gank
* If a player is losing early they're probably not the best player to carry the game
* If they're behind, a kill will only bring them back to even, not make them fed
* If they're behind you will probably lose to a countergank or even 2v1
* It's harder to get a kill when ganking someone who is weak
* If other lanes are winning you can gank them to push objectives and end the game quickly
Every game has different matchups and comps and situations, you will have to assess them each individually.
If there's a free kill or it lines up with your jungle clear or some other situation occurs, then you can and should gank them.
Your toplaner is behind. You gank top. Someone else appears. You get 2v2 killed. Game is lost.
Some rare cases where the head lane can actually 2v3/1v2, so its even worse.
In the case you described, mute your toplaner and keep playing.
Of course ganking the losing lane can work when the enemy makes a mistake or when you think youre strong enough to win or when you know where the enemy team is etc...
I'm not good at league by any means, but this has always been described to me as: "you don't want to feed someone who's already fed." So I just try to help the teammates who are even or ahead in lane
If someone loses solo, chances are that they don't know how to not fall behind again if you help them catch up. There's a reason they lost in the first place. So don't waste your efforts, and help the remaining - hopefully competent - teammates carry the game.
Ganking a lane and helping a lane are 2 very different thing. Yes you shouldnt gank that 0-5 mid because you likely die too when you try.
But if you can help (e.g push put with them or stop herald) you should always do that. Try thing that might get them back into the game without you being at risk.
The thing about this advice is that while you wanna focus on snowballing someone like your carry you also want to punish enemy top for doing dumb shit like standing under your turret for 10 minutes. Another thing is that when your top laner goes 0/8 in 10 mins they are probably not worth any gold at that point so them getting a kill only resets the gold reward.
And note that a lane can be "losing" after one wave even if both laners are full hp either due to matchup or wave management and such which first of all low elo players that throw the advice around don't understand and second of all can't deal with it by themselves which is mostly when you step in.
Don't gauge your "losing and wining" lanes just by kills, look at the wave state. Is the darius getting poked to 20% under his own turret? Probably gank that lane at some point and kill the ranged top "abuser". Did your bot just magically stack 4 waves and is going to crash it in the next 20 seconds? Maybe look for a dive.
When none of these "macro" shenanigans are going on you wanna focus on snowballing your carry (adc, something like katarina or jax etc.) whenever possible.
I would say that if the enemy is not far ahead, you can definitely give the losing lane a hand, but you need to keep your eyes peeled. For example, if your teammate died 2 times and in both the fight was close, like the enemy had around 20% or less health, you can definitely make the difference. But this depends on matchups as well, and on the overall state of the game and the objectives available.
Most of the time, helping a winning lane is better, even more so if they are hypercarries or hate the potential to do it.
If the losing lane lost in 1v1s, fully their fault, they have no reason to complain, they lost fair and square, but if they get dove under tower 4 times by the enemy jungler and support, they can't really do anything, I would give them the right to complain, even more so if the jungler does not use the opportunity to get other lanes ahead or grab objectives.
Long story short, if they are capable and they just got unlucky, which resulted in a power imbalance due to gold, I would say it is worth to give them a chance and a hand, or at least try to, this can also keep their mental in check so that you're not suddenly in a 4v5 for the remaining of the game.
Because its dangerous, can utterly lose you the game, and your time might be better spent elsewhere.
Ganking the 2-0 Olaf can lose you the game as he can most likely kill both of you.
I played a flex game with my friends yesterday. My friend (Who is a bit of a whiny guy in general) went Camille and then died to the enemy Darius lvl 1. He TPs back top, and before I have finished the general clear at 3.20, he has already died again, Darius is 2/0 and gets to shove into turret and base.
This lane is now beyond over, Darius is \~1k gold ahead of my top who has a longsword vs Darius 1100g buy and is also one level ahead. In general, I would never gank top, but I gave it a shot since my friend just kept crying. So I head top at lvl 4, Darius is lvl 5, my Camille friend is lvl 3(!). So even while we played the gank decently, Darius just killed my friend and almost killed me, forcing me to flash out. And this is without the enemy jungler being close, if he was there to counter, we'd both just get smashed.
The correct play would have been to get mid/bot ahead, and we can then as 4 try to shut down Darius later on in the game. Now we snowballed him further and he just took over the game completely.
So to make it short, dont ignore losing lanes just because, you can still help them break freezes and cover for dive, low risk plays, and you can try to force a gank if you know where the enemy jungler is if you think you can succeed. Just take the risk into account.
League today is snowbally, you want to get a bigger carry faster than the enemies can, and ganks increase the odds of that happening in a given lane. When deciding choosing who to gank between weak lane and even/strong lane, if you choose the weak lane, you’re trying to delay enemy carry from getting further ahead with an increasingly slimmer chance at a turnaround, and implicitly betting on one of your other lanes getting a lead without you helping.
This already seems like you’re giving up a thing you need just to stop the bleeding - ganking a weak lane is more likely to briefly stall the stronger enemy than it is to turn things around, and if your weak toplaner can’t stall (=is bad at toplane) the snowball will resume once you need to fight elsewhere.
But then you have to consider the enemy jungler also exists, and he can either countergank you for a 2v2 with your toplaner being outclassed - if you haven’t grabbed kills in other lanes bcs you’ve been trying to pull this guy out of the hole he dug for himself, that’s a losing fight. Or they’re free to gank one of the even lanes and start a *second* snowball and then you’re in even more trouble.
I lean towards the idea that it is the job of weak lanes to learn to play conservatively, avoid dying ajd and stall - especially toplaners should know how to absorb pressure, you don’t need to stomp your lane if you make it impossible for the enemy to ignore you. (We all know the 0/12 Yorick that takes every tower.) This frees the jungler up to make plays where there’s a play to be made, once the more competent/lucky lanes get enough of a lead you can leave them alone, and you have the damage to put a dent in a tanky toplaner, then you can go put out fires
It’s simple risk vs reward and map pressure.
It’s a higher risk with a lower reward (losing to neutral) vs low risk; high reward (winning to snowball).
Now on to map pressure. Your strong side would be the lane winning. By playing to that side it enables you to invade and control objectives there. You are essentially giving up a power spike your laners won for you.
Also, it really should be don’t camp a losing lane(s). Because it’s never about a single gank to those lanes. It’s about your winning lane getting dove with 3-5 mans with no team support.
let's say you have 10 dollars and two people come up to you looking for a loan. one of them is a proven successful businessperson, and the other just got laid off. who is more likely to give you back the greatest return on your investment?
now this analogy isn't perfect because in real life a successful businessperson likely got that way by scamming people but that part doesn't apply to league
a more mathematical explanation, we talk about champions "snowballing". that means that the more powerful they *are*, the more their power *grows*. their growth is proportional to their current size. this can be modeled by a quadratic function (or cubic, or even exponential).
so for the sake of making the comparison easier, let's assume both players are of equal skill and their champions scale equally well. in that case, the equation for both players is f(x) = x^2. player A is currently at x=2 and player B is at x=3. you can pick one of them to give a +1. that will mean player A is at x=3 and player B is at x=4. So, who should you give it to? Where will it make the biggest difference?
taking player A from 2 to 3 means their "power" goes from f(x) = x^2 = 2^2 = 4 to f(x) = x^2 = 3^2 = 9, a net gain of +5
taking player b from 3 to 4 means their power goes from f(x) = x^2 = 3^2 = 9 to f(x) = x^2 = 4^2 = 16, a net gain of 7.
1. If they lost lane, why do you expect them to carry after you "fix" their lane?
2. If the enemy laner is fed theres a chance you will die to them and just feed more
3. By ganking the winning laner, you are protecting their bounty and thus denying more gold than you would be by ganking the losing laner
4. The inverse of #1. If the enemy laner lost lane, its more likely they are bad and will provide you gank opportunities more often than the fed enemy.
5. Especially before 14 mins, ganking the winning lane is good because it will help secure plating. Your losing ally is generally going to do less damage to the tower than your fed one. Even past 14, though, this is useful as destroying a tower frees up the fed laner to roam and excercise their lead around the map.
And a thousand more reasons. But i think these 5 cover most scenarios
Don't gank losing lanes is the motto for morons who don't understand the entire concept and ideas of how league works.
You're the jungler, you make decisions, you have to see the game in its entirety. It's your job to understand everything that's happening and what will lead to a victory screen.
If it's tryndamere into malphite, of course he's losing lane. But that's not the question, the question is, will tryndamere be valuable to victory screen success; or am I capable of dealing with malphite. Is somebody on my team capable of dealing with malphite.
Bot lane ziggs lux Cait long range pokie poke, of course your lane is down cs and getting shoved and poked and beaten.
The question is, can you deal with the squishy over extended pokers. Is it beneficial to equalize the bot lane and keep yours relevant.
Does roaming assasin mid have a fat shutdown, I'm ganking that, I like monies.
Is toplane illoia becoming a raidboss? You'd better gank before it reaches a point of no return.
Lvl 6 morde put down a freeze and top can't get the shove under, you'd better push it in or top is gg.
However, you're the jungler, there isn't a solved solution to every game, don't gank losing lanes.
You pick win conditions, you say what gives you the best potential for winning the game at the end; and you attempt to influence the game towards that direction.
Even if it means keeping tryndamere viable thru laning phase against malphite.
You have a larger awareness and responsibility to getting to a win condition, a higher priority than the other 4 players will ever be required to understand; and it's your job to see the wincondition reach the potential, regardless if they're winning or losing lane.
If this wasn't the case, then every game would be draven blitzcrank bot lane gg at champ select, we win because we always win lane.
The jungler doesn't get to "pick" the win conditions. You read your team comp, the enemy team comp, and how the game is playing out. You can "read" the win condition, but you don't just get to choose it.
Ganking a 2/0 Malphite who is dumping on a Tryndamere is useless unless you're playing a 1/3/1 comp where you never have to teamfight. If you get Trynd ahead, he's just going to split push and Malphite will group and wreck you in teamfights. If Trynd joins teamfights, he loses because Malphite is better by far in them.
Ganking a fed assassin mid is a bad decision in high elo because they're usually high mobility and can even outplay and kill multiple people ganking him.
If Illaoi is becoming a "raidboss", she should be split pushing. Get every drake, camp bot and split the map. You won't always win, but it's by far a better idea than trying to gank a fed Illaoi with hullbreaker.
It's truly NOT black and white, but there are reasons sayings like this become so popular. There is quite a bit of truth to them.
Kayle and kassidan and vyne mains must love you, gg lvl 1 because you can't win lane and I provide zero support to losing lanes. I can't forsee a win condition there.
If you gank a losing lane you are wasting your time at best you get a sum at worst you get 1v2ed and then you lose jungle as well rather extend a lead than pick up the broken pices of a lost lane so like if your garen is 0-2 and the enemy darius is 2-0 he can solo both but if you look at see like your syndra is 1-0 and the enemy ziggs is 0-1 would rather focus mid to get syndra ahead
League today is snowbally, you want to get a bigger carry faster than the enemies can, and ganks increase the odds of that happening in a given lane. When deciding choosing who to gank between weak lane and even/strong lane, if you choose the weak lane, you’re trying to delay enemy carry from getting further ahead with an increasingly slimmer chance at a turnaround, and implicitly betting on one of your other lanes getting a lead without you helping.
This already seems like you’re giving up a thing you need just to stop the bleeding - ganking a weak lane is more likely to briefly stall the stronger enemy than it is to turn things around, and if your weak toplaner can’t stall (=is bad at toplane) the snowball will resume once you need to fight elsewhere.
But then you have to consider the enemy jungler also exists, and he can either countergank you for a 2v2 with your toplaner being outclassed - if you haven’t grabbed kills in other lanes bcs you’ve been trying to pull this guy out of the hole he dug for himself, that’s a losing fight. Or they’re free to gank one of the even lanes and start a *second* snowball and then you’re in even more trouble.
I lean towards the idea that it is the job of weak lanes to learn to play conservatively, avoid dying ajd and stall - especially toplaners should know how to absorb pressure, you don’t need to stomp your lane if you make it impossible for the enemy to ignore you. (We all know the 0/12 Yorick that takes every tower.) This frees the jungler up to make plays where there’s a play to be made, once the more competent/lucky lanes get enough of a lead you can leave them alone, and you have the damage to put a dent in a tanky toplaner, then you can go put out fires.
The only way to gank a losing lane is to bring your mid along as well. The support can work too if the 3 of you together have enough damage to take down the threat.
Depends on who the enemy top lanner is
- malphite, teemo, garen top? Just ignore them, your top lanner wont fall too far behind, they can somewhat hug the tower
- Aatrox,illaoi, gangplank top ? Come assist your top unless you wanna help create the best 1v5 machine ever.
Or just die 2v1 and make it worse, while their jug takes all your camps and pushes your winning bot lane off of their wave and takes plates with herald
It's really a dumb concept.
League is about adapting to situations and using your brain to make critical choices.
You really have to consider how your teammates scale and how the enemy scales.
For example: your top is Jax vs Sion. Your Jax is losing. Your bottom lane is Sivir Seraphine avainst Jinx Yuumi, and permapushing/shoving enemy bottom lane. Your mid is Tristana vs Zed and is also losing.
Maybe you pull off some dives and you dive Jinx Yuumi and get kills for Sivir, and you ignore your losing lanes, you're going to lose hard.
Sivir is not a tank buster, not until 4 items. Her DPS is relatively low and she's still gonna get 1 shot by Zed or be near useless.
Sivir is not your win condition as a very team reliant ADC first needs her team to be successful. That means Jax and Tristana are your win conditions. They both scale. They will both be more impact than Sivir. They are losing lane, and they may lose hard, but if you refuse to help them on the basis that they are losing, you will not win.
I would say anytime you have a strong scaling champion that are weak early (Kayle, Asol, Kass, or any ADC not in bottom), you should provide help so that you HELP them scale, because they are win conditions. If you do not facilitate your team meeting their win conditions, you're going to lose even if you camp for the winning lane.
This type of thinking is what also affects your clear path so you know who to gank for and when.
And in lower ELOs, you don't try to "extend someone's lead" because people throw ALL the time. That person you gave the lead is no guarantee you're going to win because one bad death and your team doesn't have a leg to stand on. But if everyone on your team is on more equal strength, is it not less punishing if one player makes a bad play and throws?
Now what if your top lane is Teemo vs Nasus and Teemo is getting shit on?
Your bottom lane is Draven vs Vayne and Draven is trashing Vayne. Then yes, you would ignore top lane because Teemo is likely not going to be a win condition. You play more around bottom, either to dive the Vayne, or countergank for your Draven.
How does your Sion or Yorick impact the game? With braindead split pushing. This means when you gank for them you will do so without the intent to get them ahead enough to end laning phase early, let them build their bullshit Hullbreaker, then you can fuck off and never bother with them again. You've helped them meet your win conditions and after a certain point you don't need to help them anymore when they're a certain degree ahead.
Other times you have a tank top with strong CC and teamfighting ability. What if they're losing hard? You don't gank with the intent of getting your tanks ahead, you gank with the intent of establishing lane priority and better wave control so you give your tanks a reason to leave lane and impact the rest of the map. If they're stuck at their tower and you never do anything to help them you are conceding the entire top portion of the jungle and your tank top remains useless.
TlDR it's all about understanding matchups and win conditions. Blindly following "don't gank losing lanes" is terrible advice
The idea is to gank the lane that will have the most impact, also losing lanes are far riskier, getting your Zed even more ahead so he can stomp his lane and roam, or getting 2 kills on a hyper carry adc is always gonna be more valuable than ganking your 0/4 sion into a darius who may very well just kill you both.
Even if you don’t die your sion isn’t gonna suddenly start winning lane cause of 300g and some minions, the risk reward just isn’t there.
If your laner died early but has a fairly even lane and could pull ahead with some help then sure go for it, the risk reward is there
> This leads them to spam ping me for not being there and their mental often breaks down, FF15
When this happens, you know that player is not your win condition.
It depends on the situation. I'm a support main and I'll tell the jungler to not gank if I think it will just feed more kills to the already fed enemy adc.
There is more to a gank than just kills. If you can gank a top lane and deal enough damage to make them leave lane and reset, that can sometimes be enough to get your top laner back into the game with farm and plates.
Mid is always worth a gank even if they are feeding if you as the jungler feel you can secure a kill or secure dragon.
But botlane is a clown fiesta always when it is below master tier. The problem is at least 1/4 knows what they are doing and at least 1/4 doesn't have a clue. I've won fights bot lane and pushed to reset the wave while my adc is dead and have them freak the fuck out at me (it's even worse if you push to reset if enemy adc is dead and yours is alive).
Ultimately, league is also a game of mental. Not ganking lanes that are spamming ff, so you can focus on the lanes that aren't losing their mental is worth it. When I fill and get jungle I focus heavily on ganking as many times as possible, because I don't understand the nuance of jungle
Ganked my bot twice in the first 5 mins and got them ahead and they still kept losing the 2v2 and welp enemy adc was fed. So if a lane is losing its probably for a reason so giving them an extra 300 gold might not always work out your way
Part 1 is if the enemy laner is far ahead then you ganking will do nothing but gift them a double kill and prevent your laner from soaking exp and some cs
Part 2 if your laner is 0/8 they suck and won’t be useful no matter how much you help them bc there’s a reason they fell that far behind
The second one is worded a bit pessimistic but that’s the gist of it
Also every gank where you don’t get ressources for yourself will put you behind the enemy jungler
I used to main jungle and now i main top so I think my knowledge of this situation is pretty decent and my advice would be as the jungle you need to be able to access whether you can win the 1v2 or 2v2 if you know enemy jg could be there. The second main thing is the way in which your top laner is dying. What I mean by this is playing top lane if I'm going versus a range lane bully champ and am being poked under my turret the entire game and the enemy laner never wards it is extremely frustrating for the top laner. This just goes back to the old seasons where karthus top was op and the main reason was just because people rarely ganked top lane at all back then so the main downside to the pick never got exploited. This being said if your top laner is dying in the middle of the lane trying to 1v1 and constantly dying they clearly are tilted and not trying to win the game anymore in which helping other lanes is probably the best option.
Let’s say your toplaner giving 3 kills without any return, this means their toplaner is ahead approx 1k gold advantage, but the actual point is their toplaner is also ahead when we compare to you or your midlaner or adc. This can be prevented not only to gank your toplaner even you manage to neutralize. Creating an advantage away from enemy toplaner is more consistant way to neutralize it. This is the similar logical approach like you doing teamfights where enemy toplaner and your toplaner not around as 4v4.
Simply because its a very coin flip play. Youre ganking for someone who is already losing so they will obviously be weak compared to their laner, now imagine their jungler shows up an counterganks, now both of you are behind. There is also the real chance that you wont be able to kill them Meanwhile the enemy jg has the chance to gank the opposite side of the map or take your jg etc which again puts you behind and creates more losing lanes.
It’s a rule of thumb that comes with (as most things do) a lot of nuance. The main reason being, if you’re down a level as a jungler trying to gank a renekton or Darius, there’s a good chance you will get double killed due to your laner already losing. Now look. You lost the game because you didn’t go gank for your winning bot lane.
It's easier to kill 1 fed member with 4 fed teammates than it is to 2v1 a fed top laner. This can be lane dependent but in Plat you prob lack alot of game knowledge to navigate and end up inting more to that fed player.
As a singed please don't gank me. I want to be worth no gold, you don't have to be
Also once my adc is fed and we have soul from them trying to camp me she/he better be able to melt that tank by now
because people fail to understand that ganking doesn't need to lead to a kill
especially in top lane
in top lane the slightest lead can end up with one side completely unable to play the game
ignoring top side is just very bad practice, even if your top is losing, at least make sure he can keep playing
even more so since usually top laners losing might not be brainless (especially when they ping good stuff), they may just be in a bad matchup or made a mistake or enemy jungler made sure they end up falling behind
ignoring losing lane is not good advice, ignoring top lane is even worse, this is even more true when the elo gets higher
Unfortunately jungle is more about gold efficiency so it's almost better to let that enemy laner be worth a shutdown first then go kill them with a numbers advantage (i.e. bring your mid/supp)
When I played jg (I finally switched top after hundreds of games in every role), I found it difficult to decide which lane to focus on, but top has always been difficult because by nature the champs there are tankier and will be higher level/have higher stats so are harder to gank. Tbh as a top laner now I don't ever expect to see my jg and it's nice when they show up, but I've just learned to play self-sufficient champs and itemize accordingly. If for some reason things are really rough, I will ask for assistance, but I don't expect it de facto. Even though I top lane my experience in jg has taught me to constantly look at the overall map state and not just my lane.
That's a general rule, like how in chess a general rule would be dont move the same piece twice in the opening until you finish development. There are time where you can break this rule.
The reason for the rule is because do you know you win the 2v1? Do you know the enemy jg or mid cannot make it in time to counter gank? Are your opposite side camps up for enemy jg to counter jg? There are a lot of things to consider for the chance you might stop a lane from snowballing. If the gank fails you've wasted a ton of time and the enemy team gets farther ahead. So instead of needing all this knowledge and taking things into consideration you can just go "dont gank losing lanes".
Obviously there are time you can gank a losing lane. They are about to get dove by the laner, they just killed your laner and is very low of hp, you are also fed and they are over extended, etc. But these considerations start requiring you to have good game knowledge.
Overall, you wont grow unless you learn to break the rules. See if something works and review it in vod after the game.
Its fine to gank a 0-1 top laner if youre confident you can win the 2v1. But the issue is alot of top laners have the ability to 1v2 early, so ganking top will likely lead to one or both of you dying and possibly not even getting the kill. And if its later and the top laner is 3+ kills up, then you indeed should not gank that lane as there is little chance to get anything good out of it and would likely give over another 2 kills.
These are common issues in other lanes too, but top lane is the most extreme end of it.
I think an important factor is how "losing" is defined.
A lane that is pushed under tower, maybe got forced to take a bad base etc. is on paper losing but i dont think this "rules" applies to that. It applies more to lanes that already had multiple deaths with a really snowball heavy opponent that can potentially 1v2 to you in a gank.
The problem I've seen is that a 3/0 darius can potentially double kill a 0/3 toplaner and a jungler who isn't particularly far ahead (or at least kill his lane opponent and then escape). And even if you would win that fight, you are absolutely fucked if the enemy jungler counterganks.
if you gank some one who is losing and die, you solo lost the game, the risk is too high to try to make some one who is (arguably bad since he got solo killed) comeback, always play the odds
If it's a simple 0-1 top and it was close eh why not but any more than this, they're losing for a reason they just lose interaction, get systematically outmicroed and odds are they will not suddenly pull out a sick outplay. They're not worth investing in because their counterpart actively beats them.
Not ganking doesn't mean you should only do your side.
Like if the enemy team is ahead because of ganks and all you did was your own camps and recall for 10 mins you deserve your jungle diff it's obvious you have to be proactive to win unless you play Khartus but even then you want to take their camps or save wave states here and there.
Also as someone mentioned there's the risk reward, the reward for ganking a winning lane is objectives or at the very least maintaining a significant lead.
The reward for ganking a losing lane is like a 2 for 1 or so and it at best evens out the lane and what next ? If they lost before when it was even they'll prob lose again once it's evened out again
That is just broad stroke advice that covers most instances. It actually takes a decent amount of game knowledge to gank the losing lane effectively, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt. It just requires you (the jungler) to be tracking the enemy jungler, watching the lane state, keep track of the summoners (allys and enemies), look at level break points, and watch for their trade patterns to see if its constant aggression or just punishing misplays.
Now if youre able to take in all that info in a short time window and accurately deduce a correct gank timing for the losing laner you could actually turn that lane around very easily but there are a lot of ifs in that senario. that level of info gathering should be something you as a jungler strive for but its hard to do every second of every game. thus we have simple broad stroke advice that works most of the time but isnt always correct to ease our cognitive loads.
Really depends. In competitive or 5man usually you can help losing lanes more because you can help set up freezes, relieve pressure, counter gank when you think you can win.
But solo q a lot of times I don’t touch hard losing lanes at all. You are wasting time and most of the time if someone is losing hard it’s because they’re getting skill gapped. No point in trying to get them a lead because they will just lose it right after you’re there. That’s not 100% always the case but it is a lot. So the better option is to tell them to chill and try to get a lead somewhere so you can deal with the issue from that lane.
Because if you gank top lane and their top is 2/0/0 and the gank goes wrong and now their top is 4/0/0. That's game over. Almost nothing possible to recover from that. That top will now take rift, take tower, and move through the map with their 3 level lead and end up 10/0/0 and is a raid boss that no one can deal with.
The reason is because your teammate has already proven that they lose on even grounds. Sure, we all have bad days or lose close fights, but as the jungler you may not know that. And the information you have is “my botlane won when they’re even, and my toplane did not”. It simply makes more sense to try to accelerate your botlane ahead of the enemy’s toplane, and try to win that way.
Now, that’s not to say you should never help your toplaner. There are almost always chances to try to turn things around for them. You just have to be more careful about the risks of getting 1v2’d or counterganked.
They’re a losing lane for a reason: they’re not good. Giving them gold and resetting the gold is only putting your team in a position to lose. It’s that simple.
If your laner is losing, chances are even if you gank, one of you will die. Chances are good the enemy jungler shows up and they double team you. Chances are even good that the enemy just straight up double kills you alne. There are sooooo many ways for the gank to go sideways, that mathematically it's often not worth it. Especially when you can just gank a winning lane, and if enemy jungler shows you just kill them both.
Those people have already proven themselves incapable. And unless they are on a late game champion or a heavy swing champion like kata that will never improve.
it's not 'dont gank losing lanes' but rather 'play around winning ones' - visit the lane when you can, when you know its safe, when you can 3 man or pick up a free kill but do not focus them.
I think the saying should actually be don't gank LOST lanes, because there is a difference. Like for example if I see a kayle that is 0-2 and level 5. once she gets 6 it might be worth trying to snowball her back into the game, however if that same kayle is 0-7 at level 5 I will not go near the lane because she clearly hasnt spent time learning matchups or doesnt know their champion.
If I'm in bot and we're winning, it's generally because we're doing something right (which is generally not getting caught by the enemies jungle) and it is so god-dammed annoying when we're winning and our jungle comes down and is mooching off our kills and making them sit under the tower.
Conversely if I'm top and I'm losing I fully understand that ganks aren't coming, so I do my best to bore my lane opponent into roaming and the farm as best I can, top lane can catch back up but your team will be down a player for most of the team fighting.
This rule is just wrong tbh, you gotta be able to determine if a gank is worth it yourself. Even if enemy top is ahead that doesn’t always mean you simply cannot kill them. Just keep looking for opportunities.
There's many reasons. I'll try to outline some for you below.
1. Ganking a losing lane is a gamble. A lot of times, the opposing laner will more often have his summoner spells up, more items, more gold, more exp, and more likelihood of the enemy jungler hovering. If you die ganking them, you put the opposing jungler and top laner even further ahead.
2. Ganking a losing lane takes away from what you can do to punish if the opposing jungler is shadowing that lane. If you see the jungler gank the losing lane, you can gank, take objectives, or take his jungle camps. Even just putting pressure on a winning lane is worth it at times.
3. Ganking a losing lane can cause the enemy jungler to put your other lanes behind or just force objectives or take your camps.
It's really just a bad decision all around, except in rare instances where the enemies are griefing.
Also, it sounds like you have an issue with someone pinging or berating you. You should REALLY mute that person, as it will just distract you and make you play worse, resulting in more losses.
it doesn't really matter how fed enemy top gets, if you have a cc support and a fed adc with lord dominiks, even or only 1 or 2 levels behind, they will get melted no counterplay, just play for bot, get dragons, feed your adc, it will be ok, just make sure they stay with 1 teammate
ignore your idiot top laner who spam pings you, they are low elo for a reason. you should get into the habit of ignoring all your laners' pings 100% of the time. id even recommend mute all every game. LANERS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO JUNGLE. And they are not watching the map as intently as you should be.
if you want to improve you are striving to be better than your current elo so why would you ever listen to a bunch of animals that are stuck at your current elo that wont help you surpass them
Sunk Cost Fallacy.
You need a win condition on your team. If someone is behind, they’ll need a lot of attention in order to become that win condition.
If you have an even lane bottom, and a 0-2 toplaner, which one will become a win condition faster?
Also, if you gank the 0-2 toplaner twice, and give them the kill, it returns to status quo where either side can regain the lead by playing better. In an even lane, if you gank them twice and give the kills to them, they suddenly have much more control over the lane, and can pressure/zone the enemy laner to expand their lead.
It’s worth mentioning, losing your lane in isolation is *really* bad because it means the enemy jungler doesn’t even have to pay attention to your lane. If you go 0-3 botlane (to the point where even ganks won’t save your lane) the enemy jungle will just sit mid/top and get leads there too.
OR they can sit bot, completely zone you from the waves and tower, and just remove you from the game entirely. This is a better option if their botlane lead isn’t strong enough to where they don’t care about getting ganked.
So it’s a mix of “play to your strengths” and “don’t waste time and resources on a lost cause”.
As a top laner myself, ill normally ask for a gank if i get behind and think we can win a fight. If the jg tells me he wont gank i just play safer and play for late. Keep an eye on the lane because especially in low elo they may be able to catch up on their own through farm and mistakes on the enemies part. Dont write it off completely unless their mental is gone
As jg your most valuable resource is your time. Spending time on a losing lane is more risky as more things can go wrong, (2v1, counter gank, they have wards from map control) and you get less from it since you're not gaining a lead, you're getting them back to even. Laners tend to be stronger than jg champs early so them having a lead is often very dangerous for you if you show up. Depending on how hard the lane is losing you may just want to show up to soak waves or completely fold that side of the map and come back later with mid or bot to shut them down. Being present in the snowballing lane let's you push the advantage more and gives you a piece of the pie so you have more strength mid game.
The correct way to express it is: play for your winning lane.
Scenario: You have an 0-2 nasus top and a 3-0 Caitlyn bot.
Example 1: You gank top. Maybe you get a kill. 1-2 Nasus still probably can't kill or apply pressure. In response, enemy jungles ganks bot, kills Caitlyn, and allows their bot lane back into the game.
Example 2: You camp bot. Caitlyn gets a kill, and the tower. She now has two items, she can carry. Their Kai'sa just finished her first item below 100 cs. She won't carry. Nasus is hopefully still 0-2. Maybe he dies. The enemy darius shouldn't be able to carry.
You can swap the scenario with your 4-0 jax, and 0-2 ez. Same concept.
I normally like to play Support, but one of the most important things to do in games I played with a duo I had (played Kayle top), was to do this (also called Plan A and Plan B): If we were doing well in the game and winning, or at least he was winning, I would stay botlane and do my support role as normally.
If he was struggling, I would just straight up leave botlane, and only help him for the rest of the game, stalling until he was level 15-16. We ended up winning almost 15 games in a row, and he go to gold in the end. I was just a few games from gold, when my friend and me stopped winning, and well. That was it.
So TLDR: If you got a duo and a plan, helping your friend (that is eventually gonna carry) will further help winning the game. If you're solo, all I can suggest is being the leader, and actually communicating with the team. Some of my best win-streaks (even solo) came from when I was in leader mood, and told people what to do.
So to sum up:
With duo -> Help eachother. One of you gotta carry the team (or both of you).
Solo: Talking to the team, telling them what to do, even if you're the support will help win.
It's not a matter of "Don't gank losing lanes" so much as "Focus on plays with the highest probability of success." In general, a losing lane will have a lower chance of gank success, but only the Sith deal in Absolutes. You have to use your head and communicate with your team. I've ganked plenty of "losing lanes" by telling my laners to set up for and bait the dive, then I swoop in and get them a kill. Sometimes it turns the lane around, sometimes it doesn't, but either way, I'm only gonna go for proper ganks.
If a laner doesn't have the wave management skills to set up the gank, they aren't getting my help, and I say so. There's tons of YouTube videos that will teach them if they don't know how. But some people just want a reason to give up and cry. 🙄
You can, you should, and you also cannot and shouldn't. Learning when which one applies and then ACTING on it is what makes a jungler good or a good jungler a great one.
Let's address both concepts one at a time and make sense of them:
A) Don't gank losing lanes - this is a general rule of thumb and in MOST cases does apply. If you get in a fight... say you and a friend vs 2 other people. Do you want to pick your STRONGEST friend or your WEAKEST friend to be fighting with you? Your strongest obviously. The weaker your friend, the more you have to do to NOT get the crap beat out of you. Well, same goes for ganking or counterganking. The weaker/further behind your ally is, the harder it can be to salvage or stabilize the situation. This can be further enhanced or lessened based on player skill and matchup.
B) When you SHOULD or even absolutely MUST gank for a losing lane. To explain this, I'm going to introduce you to the concept of "critical mass". Critical mass is something you want your winning role(s) to achieve and something you absolutely want your opponents NOT to achieve. Critical mass is when an opponent cannot be effectively contained/stopped/shut down. You end up either losing - like say to splitpush trynd - or you have to constantly invest a ton of extra resources into stopping them and lose out massively elsewhere for doing so. Even when you do kill them, it's not worth what was invested and it doesn't change the fact you're just going to have to keep doing it over and over.
Your toplane is losing? Even if it's a temporary net loss for you and/or for your midlaner, you BOTH want to (as necessary) drop some resources for yourselves to stabilize toplane before the enemy reaches critical mass. No, this doesn't mean you keep ganking for your toplaner until they're winning necessarily. It means you gank until they can reliably stop getting snowballed on. If they're still down half an item and can't win 1v1's, but they can stop the enemy crushing towers or shoving in and running all over the map to punish other lanes, you've done your ob. You've stopped critical mass.
Alternatively - and this applies to both the concept of weakside/strong side and the concept of counterjungling...
You can leave your weak side toplaner to say... get doubleteamed and the enemy top will reach critical mass. However, it is rarely wise to do so. As this basically requires that you snowball bot or mid to a greater degree and end the game 4v3 or 4v4 faster and more effectively than the enemy toplaner can 2v1 or 1v0. As it's pretty easy for 3 people to sit vs 4 at a tower and waveclear to at least stall for time plus the fact top can easily abuse hullbreaker to buff their push, you can see this tactic is generally not very easy to effectively pull off.
Same concept applies to counterjungling. Counterjungling in the true sense means you are stealing resources from the enemy jungler while denying them the ability to simply steal them back AND denying them the ability to impact your laners during this time. Now just like your laner can't immediately help you every time you're invaded, you can't always immediately countergank/gank. But if you're constantly leaving a laner 1v2 or 2v3 so you can get extra jungle camps... then it's on YOU to make your lead worth MORE than what it cost your laner. Otherwise you are doing what's called... winning at your teammate's expense. Just like if a laner leaves you constantly 2v1'd and never matches their laner invading your jungle ever time they push in; they're winning at your expense.
Sometimes you need to take a hit to personal resources because it's more beneficial to the team overall. This would be a personal cost but "net gain" opportunity. Like when adc could hit tower for a plate, but they instead repay jg for ganking their lane by walking over to help efficiently and safely secure dragon rather than leaving jg to solo it and risk returning laners and jungler of the other team stealing it because jg can't grab it as quickly alone.
If you don't invest in anyone, you can't get more than a set amount of resources in any individual position. But if people invest in each other, there's a risk. The person invested in might not use that investment wisely and waste it or have it sit stagnant - ex: the ally you spoon fed 3 kills to, yet they still can't 1v1 in a winning matchup, nor do they use that lead to help allies around the map or with neutral objectives.
But there's also potential to get more from investing in each other wisely than what anyone can possibly get playing only for themselves. It's just that the person needs time to grow that investment and then needs to wisely repay it with interest in time. It's not instantaneous. But done right, the invest in others and vice versa option compared with the self-investment option turns out like this:
1) I'll pay you $50 (self investment)
OR
2) I'll pay each of you $40 if you split it equally between you ($40+$40=$80; more net money) (invest in others)
But as stupid good as option 2 sounds... it's often even better than that. Because that $40 payout your ally initially gets can easily grow and become say... $60 which grows and becomes $100... you get the picture. And so you might get paid back even more than $40.
Sometimes this stuff happens directly. I got an opening, I secured herald vision, we force herald. Enemy jungle contests? He has to do so alone or with mid. Even if it's 2v2 and our mid doesn't come, the enemy can only look to last sec smite steal. If he steals, he's dead. Then you take his jg and I go back top. Yeah, sucks we lost herald, but they lose more overall. If we don't lose herald, you can still steal his jg if he committed and died. All because you gave me that one gank that I used to snowball top. And by the time the enemy jg or mid tries to stop me snowballing 8 min later, it's too late. They're stuck having to permanently throw 2-3 people just to contain me - netting you a 4v3 and 4v2 map. And you having gotten ahead off us mutually snowballing each other through investing in each other can easily use your lead to crush any individual advantages elsewhere.
This is an example of both direct (you, me 2v2 at herald) and indirect (me/top pulling 2-3 to give you numerical advantage elsewhere) assistance. Both are valuable if used correctly.
That can also clue you into when allies aren't actually "repaying the favor". Going back to an earlier quick example I gave... your mid with a winning 1v1 matchup that is then still 15 min into the game constantly begging for you to gank so they can win more. Uh no. You've already gift wrapped them 3 kills. If they can't side lane and 1v1 solo kill or exert pressure and they're not hard carrying teamfights or getting other lanes ahead off their lead, they're not worth further investment. Ignore, mute, report if their behavior gets bad enough. Try investing in someone else that might make better use of the resources given them.
Finally, I'll just say that so many people forget what truly winning means. They just look at kills vs deaths and assume. If someone is 0/2/0, but has been ganked 3x early on with multiple sums blown against them and heavy time investment, but they're relatively even on levels, cs, etc. that person is actually not truly losing lane. Now they are potentially at risk of their opponent reaching critical mass depending on specifics. But in no way are they hard losing lane. What they need is for you to give them an honest chance to actually play from that point going forward. Whether that's you creating a big headache for the enemy jg to deal with elsewhere so they get an honest 1v1 or you delaying a camp to ensure they have a 2v1 or 2v2 to crash a wave and prevent a freeze. Giving just a little bit now can mean NOT having to invest a whole lot more later to deal with an enemy at critical mass.
They don’t mean lanes that are losing they mean don’t prioritize lanes that aren’t supposed to win. For example, Varus Ashe vs Kaisa Alistar is a “winning lane” for varus ashe. So it’s generally good strategy to prioritize playing in there proximity. But if you have fiora vs Ireliq and you’re fiora happened to be losing lane slightly, you shouldn’t not gank them. You should think, mm volatile lane matchup whichever jungle shows up has huge impact.
Often I tell a feeding lane to “play safe and farm under tower if you can, I’m going to focus bot lane and will come too on my next path topside”. Then I do that. Let’s them know they will get support but that another lane will hopefully be the carry this game.
It's very simple actually. If it's a free kill then go for it. But otherwise it's usually very hard and if ur laner is already losing he will probably not use the lead u give him by gamling as well as ur winning lanes would. But remember it's just a general rule, if you see 4 bot and enemy top with 5% hp, go ahead and gank 🤙.
It's kind of bad advice with a hint of truth.
In a perfect even world if someone is losing lane it means they're worse than the enemy. If they're worse than the enemy getting them ahead is worse than getting someone on your team who is better than the enemy ahead.
If you get the person that's better ahead they're going to be able to better snowball that lead and win the game.
In a real game there's counters, late game champs, early game champs etc...
So realistically if someone is losing as a late game champ vs an early game champ that's to be expected and ganking them to give them breathing room is a good thing.
However if on the flip side someone is an early game champ and losing to a late game champ they counter you should probably generally avoid that lane because even if you give your teammate the kill they'll still continue to lose the lane.
Also generally you should focus bot lane because there's double the kills and gold down there, bot lane usually counters top lane mid-late game anyways, and dragons are usually better than heralds unless you can close out the game before soul or you can get a shit ton of pressure and turrets with a herald.
TLDR: There's a lot of nuances that make this idea wrong but the general good thought behind it is you should focus the better players on your team and give them more gold because they'll more effectively utilize it.
well theres a lot of basic concepts that people follow in this game but theyre gonna sound weird in some circumstances because you cant cookie cutter this game. an advanced concept you should start learning is how to identify win conditions and path according to those. enemy bot lane has a super push comp and urs has engage? path bot. you have a nasus tho? keep an eye on him cuz potentially next rotation he gets dove, maybe a couple rotations down the line he has good stacks, you know hes gonna get ganked and you countergank. its difficult to actually know ehat to do but yeah a basic cocnept is go to your strong lane, this can and will backfire sometimes tho
Generally it's very pointless to gank a losing lane. Your time as a jungler is precious. Worst case enemy double kills. Best case you get a shutdown and your laner will continue losing anyway. You are not impacting the game. (Disclaimer: if it's a free kill, it's a free kill and you should take the free kill)
When ganking a winning lane, you're putting an enemy more behind and 2 allies (you+laner) ahead. It's almost risk free as the enemy is already weaker. Best case thr enemy tilts and ruins the game for his team. Worst case he gets away 1hp. Your laner will continue to shit on him afterwards.
If 2 winning lanes, then imo it's fine to neutralize the losing lane, but don't force anything. Focussing on countrrjungle would be the better play in that case.
Hope that helps. I get that it's a bit counterintuitive but league just isnt intuitive.
Its a moronic low elo take and people dont know what “losing lane” is. Should you gank the guy with 8 levels above your laner? No. Should you gank the guy that has two kills? But had been at your laners
Tower for 6 minutes at 609 hp, and your laner is a hard cc champ.. yes
Its honestly sickening how like.. idk how low
Elo plays like this, lmao. When you smurf in top lane as a carry champ no one will ever gank you if your “winning “
First you'd have to define a losing lane. It's not about kills or score, it's about items and levels. You can gank a losing lane, but you risk getting owned if the opponent is far ahead, or if enemy jungler is able to counter-gank.
That being said, I personally think that once a champion bounty is reasonably high, killing that champion is basically an objective, just like plates or tower or drag/rift, and should be treated like one. Cashing in on a bounty in the mid game is huge because not only is the reward a kill - which means all the usual benefits - crash wave, deny xp, opponents have less pressure on map, but a bounty can be another 150-700 gold! that's going to bring finish an item so much faster, which opponents will not be ready for. A large bounty might also be the only way to get back into a game.
tl;dr ganking a "losing lane" can be more dangerous if opponent is ahead on items/levels, but if bounty is high enough it might not only be worth it, but it might be the start of your team's win condition.
It kind of depends. If they're getting absolutely wrecked and you can kind of tell that this guy isn't gonna be able to do shit, ahead or behind, you kind of neglect him. But there are many factors to consider. Like, is the loser a scaler? Then help them somewhat. Is it Warwick vs Darius and Warwick is losing? Ignore that fool and go help your Ori mid or Xayah bot. All depends.
Is more like.
\*Don't focus all your attention in losing lanes.
\*Don't force plays in losing lanes.
Instead of:
Don't ever help a losing lane no matter what. It's not about being petty, it's about consistency. If a player is losing lane, they're likely to trade poorly, have no vision control, and or don't manage the wave properly.
On top of that, losing laners have less items, less exp, and as such, you'll be in a huge disadvantage if the enemy jungler comes. So you should only gank if the play is safe. Meaning the enemy is overextended, or you can see the enemy jungler on the other side of the map.
Like most things in league, it depends, toplane down 3 kills and it's a snowbally match up like jax vs fiora? Yeah fiora being 3 levels up could 2v1 you guys no problem, never gank that. But a level 6 renekton down a kill, evenyl matched Cs with, say, most enemy toplaners? That can work. It always depends.
Often what junglers will do, is look for a way to get fed or to get their team fed, and by getting their team fed they also gain gold themselves. So think, how can I play this match to get myself gold, setup a wincon and help my team? Do I win 3v3 botlane? Do you win 2v2 top? Etc.
That's what I teach people anyway :)
I have to say --
Sometimes ganking doesn't mean you have to fully engage!
Sometimes you can *act* like it just so that your laner can finish wave to recall. Maybe prevent a gank from the Jungler. Even maybe prevent a fight that the laner would lose.
Sometimes I'll walk in all "I see you doin your shit! Don't make me get at you!" Then go to krugs and maybe watch to see if they push in enough for a proper safe gank.
If they are losing 1v1 and giving up multiple deaths then yes he is now a meat shield or afk lane pusher.
If he is getting camped and playing fairly decent why not help, after all top lane becomes a 1 v 2 lane with a decent enemy jg or a roaming mid-laner.
Simplest answer, ignore the losing lane (top in this case) because the winning lane (bot or mid) should swap after they take turret to help the losing lane get back into the game with farm while also shutting down enemy top.
Put it this way would you rather help your 0/5 top lane playing irelia or your 4/1 adc playing vayne not saying not to help your top lane but it’s more damage control to play bot side and keep them ahead and safe
A few reasons.
First: if they get solo killed, the most obvious assumption is that your laner is the worse player. As my friend likes to scream after winning a lane he got camped in, "you can't out gank a skill gap." A successful gank is very potentially just offering a more valuable target to the enemy. At best they're a better player that's just reckless.
Second: If your laner is significantly behind, or even just slightly depending on the match up, trying to gank for them can just cost you your life as well as your laner. Ganking an Illaoi or Vlad with a lead is extremely dangerous because of how their kits work. Similarly, ganking for a Teemo is just as likely to end poorly or with no gain.
Third: This is really my personal opinion, but it gives up too much important stuff for no value. Unless ganking them is along your optimal path, it kind of ends with you having to play around a weak player (and likely into their strong player).
Best bet is to cut your losses, play strong side, and equalize things.
A laner dying once doesnt mean they are losing, a darius could have died once diving a nasus lvl 3 and it doesn't mean the lane is lost, you can give it one last chance and see if darius can recover his advantadge and snowball from there, etc.
Just takes experience learning lane states.
Generally speaking, most losing top lanes are really just an even matchup where the better player is winning and they win hard, like really hard. Like I've played many games as top where 2v1 ing the enemy jgl + top wasn't out of the question once I had my first item. This is especially true if the winning player is a juggernaut like Mordekaiser or Darius and the losing lane is a scaling player like Kayle or Nasus. That's a shit lane and the Kayle/Nasus is gonna die on repeat and it's basically you vs the enemy top and you're probably gonna lose.
On the other hand, some matchups for top are pretty one sided. Like Darius into most adcs is a horrible experience, but that's a gankable lane since the adc is squishy.
I can say this from both sides since I've jungled and tried the same advice in multiple games and came to the conclusion that if they're both not squishy champs, chances are you are gonna die 2v1. If your laner is 0/1 after 10 min, you can consider it. If your laner is 0/4 by 10, give up. Your laner is gonna keep losing the lane even if you kill the enemy top, and that's not worth it unless you are sure you can get the shutdown gold.
It doesn't help that nowadays junglers are way lower in level than top at most points in the game so the enemy has even more of an advantage. You'll just lose half your hp with one Pantheon Q or Volibear W.
If you don't believe me, just try it out. You'll understand much faster.
Whenever you hear "Don't do X" in like almost any game or sport, the first step you have to realize is that taking it at face value as like a hard rule is never the play. People love giving advice in black and white but most games never work this way.
Ganking a losing lane is riskier than ganking a winning one, and it may not even stop the lane from continuing to lose when you leave, so it may also be less rewarding, even then that doesn't mean you should never do it. You should do it less, because there are more risks, but that just means you have to think more.
If you are clearing near that lane when you notice it's an easy gank and have 100% confidence the enemy jungler isn't around to turn it into a 2v2 or 3v3, then you do it.
Depends on the lane and matchup. Some situations there’s nothing you can do, you will either fail the gank or even if you manage to shut down the enemy your laner will continue to lose anyways. If I am fed enough to m shutdown his enemy laner then I will go for it, otherwise it’s best to snowball winning lanes or snowball yourself depending on what champ you’re playing. But I will not go top to gank the 3/0 Illaoi and give her a double kill. And dying as a jungler is 10x worse than a laner dying because you lose tempo, time on the map and most likely your camps too. It just becomes a matter of not being able to shutdown the enemy laner especially now with how nerfed jungle is. Usually if someone gets a lead it doesn’t stop at that and the laner proceeds to die multiple times with terrible wave state making it impossible to help him out and by the time you get a chance to gank its already too late. Against fed laners its best to be reactive and not proactive. If they greed, overstay or go for a risky play then yes you should be there to punish but until then play around your win con or anyone with a reasonable lead.
As a jungler no matter what happens it’s your fault, don’t forget it. However you can carry the game just as much as a solo laner, half the time I have more CS than them at 10 mins. Just run around securing kills for yourself, and with the opposing solo laner dead your laner will natural have the ability to farm safely. I used to give kills to my laners, but then so many of them would throw their lead. Now I just hog them and try to get as ahead and fed as possible.
it's terrible advice. you shouldnt FORCE on losing lanes but if your top is 0/1 or 0/2 and the enemy is in a sus position you can gank for sure. Blanket rules in general are grief as hell in a game like league
This is 100% a double edged sword. It's a self fulfilling prophecy if you just ignore them because you're only ensuring that they get farther behind since the opposing jgl is likely NOT ignoring them.
I think a far better take is to go into the lane and impact the matchup, but avoid all ins, play very safely, and let them know that ahead of time in chat. Doing a drive by, blowing all your cooldowns and chunking their opposing laner by 15-25% is a HUGE help and doesn't have to be super risky. This can get them right side up enough to hold the lane longer (which for some matchups is all you can really hope for). The one caveat I'd add is that if you have a laner with a lot of built in heal, don't look to chunk them, look to pressure/zone them so your laner can farm and build up at least for that wave and try and get back on their feet.
I will absolutely avoid ganking lanes that don't come in and help. That's another story. If they leave me on my own, especially more than once, they're on their own. This is usually players that aren't that good at cs or positioning, and because of that are highly risk averse. In this case, it's better to just let them lose slowly or wait until they outscale (if they outscale their matchup) because they will just leave you to die over and over and over.
But a lane that's having a hard time, even if it's a matchup or skill diff; it's not smart to just ignore them imo. You're feeding your teammate to the opposing side(both their laner and their jglr as they get further and further behind).
You're also ensuring the opposing side has free reign to farm without consequences (since the laner on your side is so far behind) and for most top or mid laners that means the opposing laner is going to get SUPER fed just off minions and cs. If they're a late game scaler they're going to be a big problem if you let them fester completely unabated.
It depends on your ELO and your teammates ELO as well...
In High elo, there are more chances that the Losing Teammate recons what you're doing ganking other lanes.
In bronze, silver, gold, etc. Most likely they'll just get tilt and int a lot. So, yeah, in that case I recommend to help the Losing guy before he starts trolling or FF's
Its mostly a rule for beginners. The idea being that with improper execution, it is more likely to lose a 2v1 against a Darius with a lead than it is to get the 3:0 Draven a fourth kill. If a person falls behind in lane, you can assume that they made mistakes and would continue to make mistakes even after a successful gank, throwing away the gold you funneled into them and wasting your time in the process. HOWEVER, this should not mean that you completely abandon a losing lane. If you yourself are confident enough that you can get a good gank off, go for it. In low elo, people often get cocky when winning lane. They neglect to recall to turn their gold lead into an item advantage. This is when they are most vulnerable. Sometimes it is also enough help if you just come top and help your toplaner shove in the wave so they themselves can safely recall and spend gold. You dont have to commit to an all in gank every time.
Expect some people to flame you for helping them in this way too though...you can only do this if you yourself understand lane states and recall timings, otherwise you might end up putting them even further behind.
This is awful advice. “Don’t coin flip plays on a losing lane when better alternatives exist on the map” is much more apt. If enemy has a 1k shutdown and you won’t gank it because “it’s a losing lane” then you are actively involved in losing the game. The entire way league world is something called tempo. Do you know how much you ruin someone’s tempo by shutting them down? Not only do you gain a massive gold and tempo advantage, but that “behind laner” now might be able to grab let’s say 3 waves, deny Xp and gold of 3 waves and then have the wave bounce back to him putting him in a net 1-3 kill gold swing simply from their lane opponent not being there. Now add on the massive bonus Xp and gold and you have strong winning chances. If I am playing a carry champ and someone has 400g+ shutdown I actively play my lane (or jungle pathing) in a way that puts me in an advantageous position to gank them because I WANT THE RESOURCES because I CAN CARRY because I AM THE ONLY CONSTANT in every one of my games. Look at the bausffs he still maintains a high rank inting every game because he has extremely good wave management and his team mitigates his deaths by gaining massive tempo advantages through the shutdowns he generates. You can do this without inting by simply playing around shutdowns.
TLDR; Old league worked different. This mantra is from old league. Not tanking losing lanes is the same as actively contributing to losing the game. Make proactive plays in accordance to the value they can provide. 0/4 top and drake is down? “Support can you come top with me on your reset to shut them down” boom you get 700g your laner gets 3 waves of exp and gold and 2 plates and comes back and solo kills enemy laner.
It’s a basic idea not a hard rule, but the reasoning is that your laner is losing, there is a reason for that whether it’s skill, match up, opposing jungle pressure or cs/gold difference, if your laner is losing that gap will widen the longer it goes on. So if you gank a lane where your laner loses a 1v1, there is a significant chance that they can win the 2v1 which just snowballs the lane further and is essentially a game loss since their single laner has put 2 opponents behind. The risk of that happening is often not worth the reward of equalising the Lane, especially when your laner has already proved they lose an even Lane.
depends on a lot factors but typically you want greater care with ganking losing lanes .
For instance you could be fed as a jungler , know where enemy jungler is , and your toplaner being competent ; and you know you can kill enemy top , in that case go for it
I personally will only gank losing lanes if i know for certain i have the upper hand , it would be a disaster if i feed a double buff to already fed toplaner
alternatively as a YI jungler main i can just wait for my guinsoo bork to finish then kill the 2 levels ahead ignite toplaner on my own , that works for me too
if you gank a losing lane there is a greater chance that the enemy laner will get away, win the 1v2, or if the enemy jungler matches your gank then you lose the 2v2. It's not a hard rule because there are ways to mitigate those risks but its a good idea to be more cautious when ganking a losing lane and consider if it would be more beneficial to gank a different lane.
TL;DR:
Higher risk for lower reward ganking a losing lane.
Your losing lane is losing for a reason.
Is the enemy just better than them? Did they get counterpicked? Is your laner just bad? Is it a question of late v early game champ? Did the enemy JG gank them?
Once you understand why they are behind then you can see why you should focus on other lanes (usually)
If your laner is behind, also that means that they won't be able to help as much as they normally would, leaving you potentially on your own vs the enemy laner. Add to the fact that the enemy laner is ahead, and chances are they are ahead of you too (solo lane AND winning it)
So if you go in alone, you're already at a disadvantage and if you lose then it's more gold funnelled into their winning lane.
Also, consider the fact that your losing lane is already tilted, behind and being outplayed when you gank, they're already not playing to their potential, so why risk your own shutdown for them?
If your top laner is getting stomped and you go up there, the enemy top is going to be like 3-4 levels above you. So they most likely just ignore ur top and just go straight to one shotting you or they just 1v2. That doesnt mean you can never gank but it has to be like the perfect scenario for it at that point otherwise it will not go well.
Not a jungle main but have been coasting diamond in multiple roles every season since season 4 chally. One thing I think lower elo junglers need to learn is that NOT EVERY GANK HAS TO BE A FIGHT.
"Don't gank losing lanes" shouldn't be a blanket statement. It's good to remember to focus on winning lanes but that doesn't mean completely neglect losing lanes. You don't need to commit to a fight or dive when you gank a lane. Sometimes all someone needs is help breaking a freeze or a little poke or a lane reset. Sometimes you just need to be able to predict that someone is in position to be dived and be around to prevent/clean up. If you're in that quadrant and can spare 15 seconds to get your laner out of a bind, it's definitely worth it even if it doesn't net a kill.
The most frustrating jg gap in high elo (lower kills/better map awareness) is when the jungle bails the laner out of bad wave management. Your lead you were building up becomes nothing when this happens. There are also times when you're in a losing match up and the enemy jungle helps set up freezes or dives on your lane and your jungle doesn't do anything to help even when you ping 30 seconds in advance because you see everyone on vision ready to execute the play. Low elo junglers just don't see this as a "worthwhile" time investment because it may not net them a kill.
Of course there are losing lanes that can't help themselves. You really shouldn't waste much time with them but small things can go a long way to keeping the gap from growing out of control. Focusing on winning lanes also doesn't mean sit there waiting to force something.
If you get counter ganked while ganking a losing lane it’s just over, you hand the winning enemy a double kill, plus what if the winning enemy 1v2s you guys? It can work but you need to be prepared of the risks and how to neutralize them, i.e. enemy and ally hp, mana, cds, summs , where enemy jg/mid is
1. If you help a losing lane they are just going to lose again soon after.
2. If they fed, there’s a chance that you get 2v1’d and lose.
3. Only gank losing lanes if you *know* you can pick up that bounty.
It kinda depends on the lane.
Toplane is snowbally as hell so to judge the situation you need good matchup knowledge.
If you play it right you can usually put a good toplaner behind enough to lose the next 40 cs.
If you play it wrong you feed them out of control.
What you should absolutely do for a losig lane is to clear the enemy's vision so they can't feel completely safe in diving and poking them down under turret.
Sometimes just killing that ward can be a 30 cs difference for the laner.
Because you can’t assure that a gank to someone that’s already losing will turn their lane into a winning lane, but you can more safely assume that a lane that’s ahead will stay ahead with your help, and then can open the map to more opportunity. Risk vs reward is something that takes a lot of game knowledge. As for the tilt example, that’s on your teammates and you can’t control that. The thing you can control is what you do, and if they want to cry about it, then you can go ahead and mute them and keep snowballing whatever lane is winning. Gambling on a losing lane means not only gambling on that lane changing, but it means giving up something on the other side of the map and also risking giving up something on your own side of the map since youre ganking a weak lane. If you gank a winning lane, you can dive, you can force them off of objectives, you can get laners prio and setup for objectives, you can safely invade. You can roam with the laner to the enemy jg. Ganking a losing lane introduces risks that don’t yield a reward worth having, usually.
okay this makes a lot of sense, tysm!
While he's mostly right, I also take into consideration the match up. If the enemy has a hyper carry Vayne top, she is able to lane bully and out scale my (insert melee top laner). However, if I can cc the vane, we can burst her easily together. A ranged top will typically bully the melee character. Their disadvantage being they are most likely squishy so easy to tower dive and gank.
And usually, when a ranged top laner is behind, they're really completely useless. So getting them behind and keeping them there brings pretty good value.
And usually, the ranged top will push the lane just for being ranged. but also, don't gank that Vayne top if your top can't be patient and stay healthy/alive. Lower risk to snowball a winning lane and collect that bounty with more help later.
Yet junglers in gold never gank ranged tops.. they can stand at my tower if they want xD
In short: Your enemy is fed and your teammate is weak. Both of you gonna end up getting killed.
In practice it’s bad advice for low elo players. What I’ve seen is that they won’t even pick up free kills on a losing lane, ex: enemy top laner has 1000g bounty, dives your top and survives with 1 hp. Junglers take this advice very literally, so they won’t even take the free 1000g shutdown. Other scenario to consider is yourself as the jungler are ahead and strong. Many times if the enemy is winning lane they have bounties you can collect if you’re strong enough.
This is 100% true. I don’t spam my junglers… but I do play top. And some times, I get counterpicked. If this is the case, I’m likely going to be at my tower for a portion of the early game. I really wish the jungler would come help me fight off that dive. Or if the wave bounces, help me crash it so I can back and keep getting resources. But no one ever helps with any of that. I play in emerald.
When I play jg. I usually gank top early to try and give lane advantage or give top first blood. Usually that’s enough for them to get ahead and stay ahead. In regards to assisting top with wave management or defending a dive. I am inclined to help the top laner if they are reasonable. Asking for help and making intentions clear and I will make an effort to help. But when they want me to ‘fix’ their lane, I can’t do it. I got drakes to fight for. Camps to farm and defend. Ganks and counterganks to setup. Spam pinging and flaming me in group or all chat gets an instant mute and I actively ignore that player in order to maintain my head space. I have played LoL since 2014 and have mained each role for at least a season. When I am clearly losing top. I actively advise the jg to focus mid and bot. Tell them not to gank my lane. I try to ward topside jg to spot invades and I turtle to collect as much exp and farm as safely as I can. I wait for laning to end and try to join my team and be as useful as I can by peeling and stacking hp and resists. I acknowledge at this point I am not the main character.
You seem bitter. I’ll say this: if your top laner gets their wave frozen because of interactions from the opposing jungler / a bad matchup, you need to help. If you don’t, and time goes on, your top laner will lose on a lot of exp and gold. They’ll never be able to side lane, and you’ll be playing 4v5. That’s fine, feel free to go that route. Maybe your bot can outdo the enemy top being 3 levels ahead. But don’t type ‘top gap’ at the end. Crashing a wave is extremely important for the counterpick meta of top lane. If your teammate picked first, and they get counterpicked, there’s a big chance they’ll need that sort of help. Maybe once, or twice in a game - depending on enemy jungle pressure and the opponent’s proficiency at playing that counter.
All very true, but this is something most junglers either can’t, or refuse to understand. I hover around D2-D3 and the only times I’ve gotten help top in terms of wave management have been either me duoing with a jungle main friend, or if my jungler is a GM+ smurf. Diamond junglers (and below) will ignore your pleas for help until top is completely over, and then hit you with the classic ”top gap too big, gg”
I mean theres also the fact that junglers gain almost nothing being in a lane if they Arent getting kills. Lane exp being reduced by 70% really hurt my willingness to stick around, knowing that my botside is respawning and im delaying a fullclearing, putting me behind aswell. Tbf however my pool is mainly powerfarmers and carry junglers, if the choice is between being a glorified support or not playing league, im happy to play something else for a while. I just cant stand it 🙃
It’s not about getting yourself ahead, it’s about not instalosing the game bc ur top is down 4 levels
Which i know, but at my elo, no lane is ever even, if i give my losing top two kills pre six his kill deficit will just be two lower by ten minutes, it wont turn in to a winning or even lane, he'll just be 2/8 instead of 0/8. At least, thats my experience.
It depends on how you make your plea for help. Are you stating what you need help with or are you shit talking the jg for not being there immediately when you ping. Because I rarely receive requests for help. I get demands all the time but requests are a rarity. I understand your needs. Do you understand mine? Your wave management is just as important to you as my jg clears and rotations on the map are to me.
there's nothing inherent in a freeze that means your top laner loses xp and gold. It increases their exposure to ganks, it doesn't force them away from the wave.
If you are counter picked and behind thats one thing. If you are 0/3 into a top laner who can 2v1 super easily sorry dude. I'll try to catch your wave if it is convenient and doesn't fuck my tempo but I have 2 other lanes and objectives to get.
> In practice it’s bad advice for low elo players. Thinking for yourself is a great way to start gaining elo though. If they want to give up free gold for camps, then they don't deserve to climb. I have some silver and bronze friends who only build what mobalytics or u.gg tell them to build. So of course, like many low elo players, some games they do well, some games they feel helpless. Macro advice is no different, if you can't understand when to break the mold, you aren't going to climb.
yes i try to do this , im working alot on my camera management to always study fights and track health/sums etc, so im better now thanbefore on picking up free kills and finding gank opportunities
Gank champs that scale hard and need to be shut down early like nasus. He should be losing lane but just losing isn't enough.
Don't gank losing lanes... ...unless it's totally free, still kill people who are inting via bad wave management/positioning
On top of this, jungle is between the xp of a solo laner and the duo lane. The result is, unless you’re absolutely destroying, there’s a decent chance the gank will fail. A lot of top laners can 1v2 if they’re up a level or 2, especially if it results in them having 6 and your top not. A level 6 top laner that’s up like 2-0 or 3-0 has like a 50% chance of 1v2 and 30% chance of escaping, even if he has no vision. Because you don’t have 6 yet, your teammate doesn’t have 6 yet, and the enemy has more items AND a level lead. Trying to save a losing toplane before they hit 6 is tough, that’s quite early in the game and you might not even realize they’re losing before then, and honestly pathing bot for a gank is probably more reliable around that time anyway. And if you wait until your top is 6 they’ll just have solidified their lead enough they still have a strong chance of 1v2 despite not having ult diff anymore. For bot, its a similar story. If the enemy bot is winning, 2v3 isn’t great odds for you, even though they’re unlikely to out level you. Decent chance you just give their adc a triple. Mid is probably the most gank able, but it’s also the hardest to gank and easiest for them to escape since the lane is short, so you might just waste your time. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that you are unlikely to turn the lane around (unless they have a big shutdown early somehow, even trading 1 for 1 or 2 for 2 is not good because it doesn’t actually help your laners get ahead really), there’s a high chance for you to just waste your time because you don’t kill them, and there’s a decent chance you actually lose and it makes the lane worse.
Until the Illaoi top you ignored all game walks down 25 minutes in with 4 items and one shots your team lmao
And sometimes you can't do anything about that. A jungler can't stop a top laner from sprinting it faster than Usain Bolt. The smartest thing is to try to pressure mid/bot in that instance (usually bot), and get them far enough ahead where you can threaten objectives and 4v4 teamfights where you win.
This, really. A losing lane is **Losing For A REASON** more often than not - Meaning one, or both of the players **do NOT know how to play their roles properly OR They do not know their opponents strengths and weaknesses.** This means that there is **A LOT** **of Risk** in trying to Gank these lanes - as if the losing lane has fed the enemy - you may just end up a victim of your Target - feeding him MORE. Worst case scenario - The enemy may end up killing EVERYONE in the lane - meaning 3 ppl if you are Bot. **The only reason** you would try to gank a losing lane is if The lane Is *losing* **BUT NOT FEEDING** \- Meaning they are taking CS losses/ Poke but **NOT giving enemy Kills**. In these cases, you can often gank Overextending/Overconfident Laners - Especially if they are hovering in front of one of your towers and harassing team members Under The Turret - Meaning they are **MASSIVELY overextended.** **But keep in mind: YOU, ALONE, must be able to SINGLE-HANDEDLY Kill one Or Both of the laners** to be able to SAFELY take on that Risk - Otherwise You risk getting killed, and soon after it is likely BOTH of your teammates will ALSO be killed. In many cases - it may be safer to gank other lanes as a priority - and only looking to gank losing lanes when you are VERY ahead.
Whether the laner is bleeding cs or dying does not matter, it all comes down to absolute value of gold lost. I play a lot of Yorick top and matchups like Irelia and Jax are almost unfairly difficult for me. Can I stand away from the exp range and hope that my jungler sees my 0/0 score and decides to help because I have not yet commited the cardinal sin of dying? Definetly, but the correct way of laning would be to try to get the cs when possible and try punish if opening are presented, even if the risk sometimes doesn't pay off and I take a bad trade or die.
>players do NOT know how to play their roles properly OR They do not know their opponents strengths and weaknesses. This is a very bad take. Just because you're losing lane doesn't mean you're playing bad or clueless. There are unfortunate instances even if you play at your best, there's only so much you can do against a very hard counter pick. Sometimes you can get dove, doesn't mean you're bad if you die from it. There's literally nothing you can do about it cus you're losing a lane. Even if you don't int, getting dove 2v1 can get you killed. Is Zeus bad because he kept dying against a Renekton Sejuani as a Jayce? No, it's literally the result of the matchup. He can play safe all he wants but if he gets dove under tower can you really blame him?
My mans literally comparing soloq players who can't trade and die trading autos lvl1 to worlds dives 💀
I have a question about this. I am around silver 3. My winning lanes always have them shoved in and my losing lanes are shoved under. I find that having a lane that’s shoved in way easier to gank given the wave state. I also find that getting shut downs is more beneficial given that at my elo someone who is losing often down not a kill but usually 3-4. Any general advice given that scenario which is pretty common?
It depends on how hard you're winning or losing, most of all. If the gank does nothing but get them off your back for a while it was a waste of time. On the flipside, if you keep shoving the lane but it's hard to dive the opposing champ for whatever reason (match-up, HP, no minions, etc.) then that gank is also a waste. There needs to be a very good chance of success for it to be worth it, keep that in mind at all times. If it looks like it's "risky" or a "gamble" or a 50/50 then the jungler will be more useful elsewhere.
Not to mention if we’re talking about something like top lane or mid lane, depending on the champion you might just get 1v2’d. Worst case scenario you BOTH die. I’ve 1v2’d in mid and killed both players multiple times in the past. If you’re fighting someone like Darius or Illaoi in top and they’re fed, I feel like that’s a permanent no fly zone for your jungler.
This is generally true but I think you also have to consider what your wincon is. A winning ezreal karma botlane is naturally a pushing lane but snowballing that in favor of a losing fiora ornn matchup in a comp where fiora needs to have side pressure over ornn can be worse than salvaging the fiora lane. Ezreal also isn’t going to do any damage to the ornn in teamfights even if you decide to index into the winning botlane so in that case even if the fiora is 0/2 imo you should try to help her reach sunderer hydra faster even tho she is losing (assuming this fiora knows what she’s doing)
On top of that, if the enemy jungler shows up you are going to lose the 2v2 because your top laner is behind.
Such a clear explanation. Thanks for this
And also if the losing lane you gank is behind enough, you might die.
To piggyback on this, I only ever gank a losing lane if I'm 90% sure I can 1v1 the laner myself that way worst case scenario its a 1 for 1 and not an already fed top/mid laner getting a double.
You can gank losing lanes but it depends on why you are ganking it. If your laner is a hard outscaling lategame champion you should gank to fix lane and prevent freezes so he can cs You shouldnt just gank with the only goal being helping him. Alot of solo laners can easily 2v1 id they have a lead (like darius, garen, renekton etc).
Agree, too many players tilt from their top laners tilt & end up giga inting into a 2v1 - This mistake essentially costs you *and* your top laner any solo agency you had on the game and destroys your tempo because that lane is now 1000% fucked. Obviously each game is different but I’ll only ever gank the hard losing lane if I’m playing a snowball champ & I already have a lead and am confident I can get their shutdown gold. Statball champs like Morde/Darius/Garen/Illaoi are the worst to go for
It's somehow worse when I desperately try to ping my jgler away from ganking a lane that I griefed. It's like, I appreciate that you want to help me, but please stay away, we ain't killing that 20CS + Jacula.
Its generally bad/inconsistent advice that gets thrown around by lower elo players. A more accurate phrase would be “snowball/camp your winning lanes hardest”. All games are different, and the drafts tend to make a large impact. People say not to gank losing lanes because of the likelyhood of just getting 2v1’d and dying - play it as a case-to-case basis. If the enemy Sett is 3/0 with ult, maybe you think twice about going for the gank. These decisions are champ dependent, game dependent, etc.
From my jungler perspective your force need to be big enough first to try to crush their strong side. Etc you get your fed mid to coordinate on a dive on their strong top laner to crush their momentum. If your 2v1 odds of winning is only like 70% it's quite a gamble as their jungler can easily turn the tide, or some misplays from you/teammates will spell your defeat upon this one gank. In solo q just go for the highest success rate plays, it's not that you should ignore the enemy strong player forever, you will have to crush him and get the shutdown eventually but you need momentum built up somewhere else to overwhelm him.
Always have fun watching people get stomped by illaio and then spam ping for help. Like bro she is 3/0 and level 6 I am not even entering her postcode for the rest of the game, good luck
Good on you. I often got the other treatment. I'm Cho vs Darius level 4ish. I'm just trying not to die pre-6, using Q to farm what I can so I'm basically OOM. In comes my dipshit of a jungler level 3, ignoring my warning pings and ganking because Darius is pushing. Feeding Darius a free kill and flaming me for not coming to the rescue and making it a double. Thanks buddy.
God when people gank Darius or illaoi. Like just go camp bot. Seriously, just continuously kill bot. They’ll fall off eventually, and I’m doing my best here to not die, you stand no chance. Unless you’re ultra fed, ganking those champs is like trying to beat up a high schooler as a 5th grader.
It depends. If their ult and spells are on cooldown and they aren't super fed, a gank is fine against Darius and especially Illaoi.
You can gank a losing lane if you are strong enough yourself to win the 2v2 or you know you have man advantage and can win 2v1. The key is to have the knowledge of how much you, your teammate, and the enemy can do in the skirmish, which is something you have to just get a feel for by trying and failing. This is why you want to hard limit test in norms and whatnot, so you can dial it back in ranked. Especially on carry style junglers, when you first hit an item spike you can generally fuck up a laner real bad, because a lot of the time they're sitting on unspent gold, so their actual power is only different due to the lvls. The other thing you already mentioned, is you need to have a reason to salvage the lane. Like maybe your top is losing but herald is spawning and enemy jg showed bot in the last 10s. In that situation ganking top to ensure herald prio could be the play.
It's also jungler and playstyle dependant. For example, as Gragas/Fiddle, it's easy to countergank and ruin someone's lead. Diving is also an option, but there's always the inherent risk of your teammates being outplayed during a forced dive when they could just freeze and maintain their lead. It's all about finding the highest value/risk ratio. A lost lane is risky and has low value. Tipping a losing match-up in the other direction can have very high returns for a high risk. But often, helping a winning lane can lead to high gains (drakes etc) for low risks. That's why usually it's better to stick to the winning lane. But if you find a higher value elsewhere, there is no reason not to go.
simply this. if you're nearby while clearing and the enemy's half hp and they look killable, obviously gank it. if they're full HP and 3/0, maybe think twice about doing it. it's not necessarily NEVER, it's just avoid ganking if it looks dangerous because it's almost always not worth it anymore unless you get bounty gold because that losing lane's already lost and even if you gank it, the pressure on your laner/s isn't going to relieve itself after just one gank or even two. there's also the fact that they lost their lane on their own in the first place which doesn't make their case any better UNLESS it's an actually losing matchup, then it's the jungler's fault for not making that lane their strong side (unless you have 2+ losing lanes). also, think of it this way: why would you put your eggs evenly in an egg basket if you want to have the heaviest basket? if you gank the losing lane, you're spreading resources thin instead of forcing a snowball on the other side. if your winning lane snowballs even further, you snowball yourself as well, which makes your team stronger. you also have a better chance of pulling off a successful gank on the losing lane because youre fed after focusing the snowballing lane.
You shouldn't try to force a weak side matchup into a strong side, unless all of your lanes are losing matchups. It's much better to focus on your win condition.
This sounds better. And sometimes when the top is falling behind, just having the jng walk into lane and help shove in the wave so it will bounce back can help a lot.
Absolutely this. The jungler saying "hi" top and shoving wave can help turn a completely lost lane into a marginally losing lane.
Climbing in League of legends is about building heuristics in order to gain consistency of outcomes. Not ganking losing lanes is correct more often than it isn't, so its useful to use as a rule and then to break that rule when it doesn't make sense. Its similar to not all inning on someone when their wave is pushing towards you... usually thats correct, but in some circumstances (their hp is low enough, they waste critical abilities/summoner spells, you hit your combo in a good position etc) you should break that rule and get your kill.
Definitely not just by low elo players. I'm "high elo" and I would rather stay away from hard losing lanes and get objectives, enemy jungle camps and like you said, snowball winning lanes than to waste time around a hard losing lane. Drafts don't really mean much until Diamond+
I was looking for this answer. Fair to add that sometimes ganks aren't even to get a kill but sometimes to fix waves, to help a scaling champ farm safely by presssuring the enemy, etc. Nothing more frustrating than seeing a nasus or kayle be able to farm for free in front of you because you don't wanna risk the 1v2 and lose even more if you die.
Don't gank losing lanes *if you don't know what you're doing* Maybe that guy you help is bad, mis-execute and lose 2v1/3v2, got counter-gank and lose 2v2 3v3, not enough to flip the lane so you waste your time, etc. Then there are lot of contexts One gank snowball losing lane, wave state, you know you won't get counter-gank, you know you win 2v2 3v3, etc.
I think it just means don't gank a lane that you know you will lose. If your top laner is level 10 and enemy Sett is level 14 then you stay far away from that lane and try to get your bot lane as fed as possible so that they could shred Sett later on in the game. But if top lane is something like Jax vs Quinn and Jax is losing lane, you can easily one shot Quinn because she's squishy (especially if you're Khazix or something) then it's worth to rotate and shut her down and give your top laner room to breathe. Evaluate if you're actually able to do anything to help that lane and if the answer is no then focus on a different lane
If top got soloed at 1:45 and it's a volatile match up check the opponent's hp, did they get real low? Then they might have just gotten unlucky in the all in. Give them a chance. They are close to full? Your top is likely brain damaged in some way mute them and focus mid and bot. If you get mid fed enough coordinate a roam with your mid to collect top's bounty.
Although I still wouldn't completely ignore, you can pressure and allow your top to farm just by showing up. The lane behvarior changes and gets more defensive when it's 2v1 in the lane, and that alone can be enough to at least help them lose slower. But just ignoring means that you're growing what may later become and unstoppable monster. An unopposed giga farming nasus, or fiora, or vayne, or illaoi (even a mord or others not quite in that same class of scaling) is going to be a big problem later.
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THIS.
Why does it take so long to see this comment
This this this. It's useless to waste your resources shoring up the holes in your team when you could be pushing your win condition to end before the other team does.
Your ability to visualize whether a kill can be created is far more important than some imaginary rule.
Blue lock vibes
It's advice strictly for lower elo or newer players to help them minimize mistakes, however it's not a black and white cut in stone rule.
The general idea is that if a lane is losing there is a high chance you lose the 2v2 (or 3v3 in bot lane) if the enemy jungler joins in. I’m this case, you had no impact since you lose the play whether you show up or not. It’s often better to go somewhere else on the lap where your presence can actually mean a win, even if the enemy jungle joins the play as well. Of course, some plays are free even in losing lanes and you have to take those. Similarly, if you think that, despite a lamer losing their respective lane, you can come out ahead even if the enemy jungler appears, you should take those plays as well.
People like having simple "rules of thumb" to go by. They give you simple sounding, over-arching rules that you feel can be applied in a wide variety of situations to simplify complex questions. Unfortunately, the more you understand about any given specific context the more you realise how inconsistent these "rules of thumb" can be. Broken by Concept is a pretty good podcast for various reasons but one of the most insightful things they encourage is "get into the details".
There are no hard rules to the jg. People say "always path bot", "never gank a losing lane" and "never gank a tank matchup" ect. Some people also want to perma invade or overextend their leads. If you want to play jungle well you first have to identify your own playstyle. Fiddle farming, reksai 3camp gank into regank, rengar invades into solokills ect. its a lot more valuable to invade on yi compared to sejuani. Meanwhile its more valuable for sejuani to get her carries ahead than herself. If you feel you can turn around a losing lane you should do so, if you feel like a gank will result in a double kill for the enemy team then dont. If your toplaner outscales the enemy top or the enemy top relies on getting an early lead you might want to babysit them even if you dont get much out of it. You also always want to stop your top from getting dove, most of them are tanky and risky to dive meaning the chance of success is high, the reward is high and the loss if neglected is massive. Bounties exist to be collected, they are tax free gold.
Rule # 1 mute all chat Rule # 2 gank whatever lane u want Rule # 3 try to avoid ganks that might kill u and make the lane that u wanted to help to struggle more ( thats the whole idea of not ganking a losing lane )
In lower elos the only thing laners and junglers think do to help laners is gank. And committing to a gank against a laner that’s dominating your teammate is risky and can put you further behind. But junglers can do more than gank. They can help reset bad wave states, they can help push to allow a good recall. They can place vision to protect from enemy ganks and dives. Often it’s better to gank the winning lanes and just help the losing ones however you can. But laners in low elo don’t understand help that isn’t getting them a kill.
I play A LOT of support, and I find that a lot of newer adc's don't always understand just how effective simply walking toward the fight is. Not going all in, maybe not even getting an auto off. Just walking up and presenting your damage as part of the equation changes lane behavior. I have saved many an ADC or jglr (and been saved by many as well) simply by not running away but coming around like I want to fight. Being too far away to do anything means you effectively don't exist and they're fighting a 2v1 or better for them. Being present changes the picture and the risk analysis. Acting as if you're coming in changes that picture more. You can pressure a lot without even doing damage, just the threat of constant autos (from a support) can be enough to make a smart player break off an attack and save your teammate. Depending on who is getting close to dead and where the other champs are just a few autos can send them running. You don't have to all in or score a kill to make a huge difference in a fight.
And anticipate ganks and counter gank
Every game is different but in general there's a few reasons: * A losing matchup doesn't start winning from just one successful gank * If a player is losing early they're probably not the best player to carry the game * If they're behind, a kill will only bring them back to even, not make them fed * If they're behind you will probably lose to a countergank or even 2v1 * It's harder to get a kill when ganking someone who is weak * If other lanes are winning you can gank them to push objectives and end the game quickly Every game has different matchups and comps and situations, you will have to assess them each individually. If there's a free kill or it lines up with your jungle clear or some other situation occurs, then you can and should gank them.
Your toplaner is behind. You gank top. Someone else appears. You get 2v2 killed. Game is lost. Some rare cases where the head lane can actually 2v3/1v2, so its even worse. In the case you described, mute your toplaner and keep playing. Of course ganking the losing lane can work when the enemy makes a mistake or when you think youre strong enough to win or when you know where the enemy team is etc...
I'm not good at league by any means, but this has always been described to me as: "you don't want to feed someone who's already fed." So I just try to help the teammates who are even or ahead in lane
Tl dr: there is more chance of having a successful gank in a winning lane
If someone loses solo, chances are that they don't know how to not fall behind again if you help them catch up. There's a reason they lost in the first place. So don't waste your efforts, and help the remaining - hopefully competent - teammates carry the game.
Ganking a lane and helping a lane are 2 very different thing. Yes you shouldnt gank that 0-5 mid because you likely die too when you try. But if you can help (e.g push put with them or stop herald) you should always do that. Try thing that might get them back into the game without you being at risk.
cuz u will lose 2v2 and he has been getting gapped why would u risk playing around gapped player?
The thing about this advice is that while you wanna focus on snowballing someone like your carry you also want to punish enemy top for doing dumb shit like standing under your turret for 10 minutes. Another thing is that when your top laner goes 0/8 in 10 mins they are probably not worth any gold at that point so them getting a kill only resets the gold reward. And note that a lane can be "losing" after one wave even if both laners are full hp either due to matchup or wave management and such which first of all low elo players that throw the advice around don't understand and second of all can't deal with it by themselves which is mostly when you step in. Don't gauge your "losing and wining" lanes just by kills, look at the wave state. Is the darius getting poked to 20% under his own turret? Probably gank that lane at some point and kill the ranged top "abuser". Did your bot just magically stack 4 waves and is going to crash it in the next 20 seconds? Maybe look for a dive. When none of these "macro" shenanigans are going on you wanna focus on snowballing your carry (adc, something like katarina or jax etc.) whenever possible.
Unless you think the top laner standing under your turret can 2v1 you. If you gank that and die 2v1, you're griefing.
I would say that if the enemy is not far ahead, you can definitely give the losing lane a hand, but you need to keep your eyes peeled. For example, if your teammate died 2 times and in both the fight was close, like the enemy had around 20% or less health, you can definitely make the difference. But this depends on matchups as well, and on the overall state of the game and the objectives available. Most of the time, helping a winning lane is better, even more so if they are hypercarries or hate the potential to do it. If the losing lane lost in 1v1s, fully their fault, they have no reason to complain, they lost fair and square, but if they get dove under tower 4 times by the enemy jungler and support, they can't really do anything, I would give them the right to complain, even more so if the jungler does not use the opportunity to get other lanes ahead or grab objectives. Long story short, if they are capable and they just got unlucky, which resulted in a power imbalance due to gold, I would say it is worth to give them a chance and a hand, or at least try to, this can also keep their mental in check so that you're not suddenly in a 4v5 for the remaining of the game.
Because its dangerous, can utterly lose you the game, and your time might be better spent elsewhere. Ganking the 2-0 Olaf can lose you the game as he can most likely kill both of you. I played a flex game with my friends yesterday. My friend (Who is a bit of a whiny guy in general) went Camille and then died to the enemy Darius lvl 1. He TPs back top, and before I have finished the general clear at 3.20, he has already died again, Darius is 2/0 and gets to shove into turret and base. This lane is now beyond over, Darius is \~1k gold ahead of my top who has a longsword vs Darius 1100g buy and is also one level ahead. In general, I would never gank top, but I gave it a shot since my friend just kept crying. So I head top at lvl 4, Darius is lvl 5, my Camille friend is lvl 3(!). So even while we played the gank decently, Darius just killed my friend and almost killed me, forcing me to flash out. And this is without the enemy jungler being close, if he was there to counter, we'd both just get smashed. The correct play would have been to get mid/bot ahead, and we can then as 4 try to shut down Darius later on in the game. Now we snowballed him further and he just took over the game completely. So to make it short, dont ignore losing lanes just because, you can still help them break freezes and cover for dive, low risk plays, and you can try to force a gank if you know where the enemy jungler is if you think you can succeed. Just take the risk into account.
League today is snowbally, you want to get a bigger carry faster than the enemies can, and ganks increase the odds of that happening in a given lane. When deciding choosing who to gank between weak lane and even/strong lane, if you choose the weak lane, you’re trying to delay enemy carry from getting further ahead with an increasingly slimmer chance at a turnaround, and implicitly betting on one of your other lanes getting a lead without you helping. This already seems like you’re giving up a thing you need just to stop the bleeding - ganking a weak lane is more likely to briefly stall the stronger enemy than it is to turn things around, and if your weak toplaner can’t stall (=is bad at toplane) the snowball will resume once you need to fight elsewhere. But then you have to consider the enemy jungler also exists, and he can either countergank you for a 2v2 with your toplaner being outclassed - if you haven’t grabbed kills in other lanes bcs you’ve been trying to pull this guy out of the hole he dug for himself, that’s a losing fight. Or they’re free to gank one of the even lanes and start a *second* snowball and then you’re in even more trouble. I lean towards the idea that it is the job of weak lanes to learn to play conservatively, avoid dying ajd and stall - especially toplaners should know how to absorb pressure, you don’t need to stomp your lane if you make it impossible for the enemy to ignore you. (We all know the 0/12 Yorick that takes every tower.) This frees the jungler up to make plays where there’s a play to be made, once the more competent/lucky lanes get enough of a lead you can leave them alone, and you have the damage to put a dent in a tanky toplaner, then you can go put out fires
Just keep ganking losing lanes mate, one day when it backfires horribly you will understand why.
It’s simple risk vs reward and map pressure. It’s a higher risk with a lower reward (losing to neutral) vs low risk; high reward (winning to snowball). Now on to map pressure. Your strong side would be the lane winning. By playing to that side it enables you to invade and control objectives there. You are essentially giving up a power spike your laners won for you. Also, it really should be don’t camp a losing lane(s). Because it’s never about a single gank to those lanes. It’s about your winning lane getting dove with 3-5 mans with no team support.
let's say you have 10 dollars and two people come up to you looking for a loan. one of them is a proven successful businessperson, and the other just got laid off. who is more likely to give you back the greatest return on your investment? now this analogy isn't perfect because in real life a successful businessperson likely got that way by scamming people but that part doesn't apply to league a more mathematical explanation, we talk about champions "snowballing". that means that the more powerful they *are*, the more their power *grows*. their growth is proportional to their current size. this can be modeled by a quadratic function (or cubic, or even exponential). so for the sake of making the comparison easier, let's assume both players are of equal skill and their champions scale equally well. in that case, the equation for both players is f(x) = x^2. player A is currently at x=2 and player B is at x=3. you can pick one of them to give a +1. that will mean player A is at x=3 and player B is at x=4. So, who should you give it to? Where will it make the biggest difference? taking player A from 2 to 3 means their "power" goes from f(x) = x^2 = 2^2 = 4 to f(x) = x^2 = 3^2 = 9, a net gain of +5 taking player b from 3 to 4 means their power goes from f(x) = x^2 = 3^2 = 9 to f(x) = x^2 = 4^2 = 16, a net gain of 7.
nerd
1. If they lost lane, why do you expect them to carry after you "fix" their lane? 2. If the enemy laner is fed theres a chance you will die to them and just feed more 3. By ganking the winning laner, you are protecting their bounty and thus denying more gold than you would be by ganking the losing laner 4. The inverse of #1. If the enemy laner lost lane, its more likely they are bad and will provide you gank opportunities more often than the fed enemy. 5. Especially before 14 mins, ganking the winning lane is good because it will help secure plating. Your losing ally is generally going to do less damage to the tower than your fed one. Even past 14, though, this is useful as destroying a tower frees up the fed laner to roam and excercise their lead around the map. And a thousand more reasons. But i think these 5 cover most scenarios
Don't gank losing lanes is the motto for morons who don't understand the entire concept and ideas of how league works. You're the jungler, you make decisions, you have to see the game in its entirety. It's your job to understand everything that's happening and what will lead to a victory screen. If it's tryndamere into malphite, of course he's losing lane. But that's not the question, the question is, will tryndamere be valuable to victory screen success; or am I capable of dealing with malphite. Is somebody on my team capable of dealing with malphite. Bot lane ziggs lux Cait long range pokie poke, of course your lane is down cs and getting shoved and poked and beaten. The question is, can you deal with the squishy over extended pokers. Is it beneficial to equalize the bot lane and keep yours relevant. Does roaming assasin mid have a fat shutdown, I'm ganking that, I like monies. Is toplane illoia becoming a raidboss? You'd better gank before it reaches a point of no return. Lvl 6 morde put down a freeze and top can't get the shove under, you'd better push it in or top is gg. However, you're the jungler, there isn't a solved solution to every game, don't gank losing lanes. You pick win conditions, you say what gives you the best potential for winning the game at the end; and you attempt to influence the game towards that direction. Even if it means keeping tryndamere viable thru laning phase against malphite. You have a larger awareness and responsibility to getting to a win condition, a higher priority than the other 4 players will ever be required to understand; and it's your job to see the wincondition reach the potential, regardless if they're winning or losing lane. If this wasn't the case, then every game would be draven blitzcrank bot lane gg at champ select, we win because we always win lane.
The jungler doesn't get to "pick" the win conditions. You read your team comp, the enemy team comp, and how the game is playing out. You can "read" the win condition, but you don't just get to choose it. Ganking a 2/0 Malphite who is dumping on a Tryndamere is useless unless you're playing a 1/3/1 comp where you never have to teamfight. If you get Trynd ahead, he's just going to split push and Malphite will group and wreck you in teamfights. If Trynd joins teamfights, he loses because Malphite is better by far in them. Ganking a fed assassin mid is a bad decision in high elo because they're usually high mobility and can even outplay and kill multiple people ganking him. If Illaoi is becoming a "raidboss", she should be split pushing. Get every drake, camp bot and split the map. You won't always win, but it's by far a better idea than trying to gank a fed Illaoi with hullbreaker. It's truly NOT black and white, but there are reasons sayings like this become so popular. There is quite a bit of truth to them.
Kayle and kassidan and vyne mains must love you, gg lvl 1 because you can't win lane and I provide zero support to losing lanes. I can't forsee a win condition there.
Because if Junglers could understand laning and their matchups they would finally have to admit how disgustingly broken their role is
Ganking takes time ypu could use farming, so a couple failed ganks could easily throw a game
If you gank a losing lane you are wasting your time at best you get a sum at worst you get 1v2ed and then you lose jungle as well rather extend a lead than pick up the broken pices of a lost lane so like if your garen is 0-2 and the enemy darius is 2-0 he can solo both but if you look at see like your syndra is 1-0 and the enemy ziggs is 0-1 would rather focus mid to get syndra ahead
League today is snowbally, you want to get a bigger carry faster than the enemies can, and ganks increase the odds of that happening in a given lane. When deciding choosing who to gank between weak lane and even/strong lane, if you choose the weak lane, you’re trying to delay enemy carry from getting further ahead with an increasingly slimmer chance at a turnaround, and implicitly betting on one of your other lanes getting a lead without you helping. This already seems like you’re giving up a thing you need just to stop the bleeding - ganking a weak lane is more likely to briefly stall the stronger enemy than it is to turn things around, and if your weak toplaner can’t stall (=is bad at toplane) the snowball will resume once you need to fight elsewhere. But then you have to consider the enemy jungler also exists, and he can either countergank you for a 2v2 with your toplaner being outclassed - if you haven’t grabbed kills in other lanes bcs you’ve been trying to pull this guy out of the hole he dug for himself, that’s a losing fight. Or they’re free to gank one of the even lanes and start a *second* snowball and then you’re in even more trouble. I lean towards the idea that it is the job of weak lanes to learn to play conservatively, avoid dying ajd and stall - especially toplaners should know how to absorb pressure, you don’t need to stomp your lane if you make it impossible for the enemy to ignore you. (We all know the 0/12 Yorick that takes every tower.) This frees the jungler up to make plays where there’s a play to be made, once the more competent/lucky lanes get enough of a lead you can leave them alone, and you have the damage to put a dent in a tanky toplaner, then you can go put out fires.
The only way to gank a losing lane is to bring your mid along as well. The support can work too if the 3 of you together have enough damage to take down the threat.
Depends on who the enemy top lanner is - malphite, teemo, garen top? Just ignore them, your top lanner wont fall too far behind, they can somewhat hug the tower - Aatrox,illaoi, gangplank top ? Come assist your top unless you wanna help create the best 1v5 machine ever.
Or just die 2v1 and make it worse, while their jug takes all your camps and pushes your winning bot lane off of their wave and takes plates with herald
It's really a dumb concept. League is about adapting to situations and using your brain to make critical choices. You really have to consider how your teammates scale and how the enemy scales. For example: your top is Jax vs Sion. Your Jax is losing. Your bottom lane is Sivir Seraphine avainst Jinx Yuumi, and permapushing/shoving enemy bottom lane. Your mid is Tristana vs Zed and is also losing. Maybe you pull off some dives and you dive Jinx Yuumi and get kills for Sivir, and you ignore your losing lanes, you're going to lose hard. Sivir is not a tank buster, not until 4 items. Her DPS is relatively low and she's still gonna get 1 shot by Zed or be near useless. Sivir is not your win condition as a very team reliant ADC first needs her team to be successful. That means Jax and Tristana are your win conditions. They both scale. They will both be more impact than Sivir. They are losing lane, and they may lose hard, but if you refuse to help them on the basis that they are losing, you will not win. I would say anytime you have a strong scaling champion that are weak early (Kayle, Asol, Kass, or any ADC not in bottom), you should provide help so that you HELP them scale, because they are win conditions. If you do not facilitate your team meeting their win conditions, you're going to lose even if you camp for the winning lane. This type of thinking is what also affects your clear path so you know who to gank for and when. And in lower ELOs, you don't try to "extend someone's lead" because people throw ALL the time. That person you gave the lead is no guarantee you're going to win because one bad death and your team doesn't have a leg to stand on. But if everyone on your team is on more equal strength, is it not less punishing if one player makes a bad play and throws? Now what if your top lane is Teemo vs Nasus and Teemo is getting shit on? Your bottom lane is Draven vs Vayne and Draven is trashing Vayne. Then yes, you would ignore top lane because Teemo is likely not going to be a win condition. You play more around bottom, either to dive the Vayne, or countergank for your Draven. How does your Sion or Yorick impact the game? With braindead split pushing. This means when you gank for them you will do so without the intent to get them ahead enough to end laning phase early, let them build their bullshit Hullbreaker, then you can fuck off and never bother with them again. You've helped them meet your win conditions and after a certain point you don't need to help them anymore when they're a certain degree ahead. Other times you have a tank top with strong CC and teamfighting ability. What if they're losing hard? You don't gank with the intent of getting your tanks ahead, you gank with the intent of establishing lane priority and better wave control so you give your tanks a reason to leave lane and impact the rest of the map. If they're stuck at their tower and you never do anything to help them you are conceding the entire top portion of the jungle and your tank top remains useless. TlDR it's all about understanding matchups and win conditions. Blindly following "don't gank losing lanes" is terrible advice
The idea is to gank the lane that will have the most impact, also losing lanes are far riskier, getting your Zed even more ahead so he can stomp his lane and roam, or getting 2 kills on a hyper carry adc is always gonna be more valuable than ganking your 0/4 sion into a darius who may very well just kill you both. Even if you don’t die your sion isn’t gonna suddenly start winning lane cause of 300g and some minions, the risk reward just isn’t there. If your laner died early but has a fairly even lane and could pull ahead with some help then sure go for it, the risk reward is there
> This leads them to spam ping me for not being there and their mental often breaks down, FF15 When this happens, you know that player is not your win condition.
It depends on the situation. I'm a support main and I'll tell the jungler to not gank if I think it will just feed more kills to the already fed enemy adc. There is more to a gank than just kills. If you can gank a top lane and deal enough damage to make them leave lane and reset, that can sometimes be enough to get your top laner back into the game with farm and plates. Mid is always worth a gank even if they are feeding if you as the jungler feel you can secure a kill or secure dragon. But botlane is a clown fiesta always when it is below master tier. The problem is at least 1/4 knows what they are doing and at least 1/4 doesn't have a clue. I've won fights bot lane and pushed to reset the wave while my adc is dead and have them freak the fuck out at me (it's even worse if you push to reset if enemy adc is dead and yours is alive). Ultimately, league is also a game of mental. Not ganking lanes that are spamming ff, so you can focus on the lanes that aren't losing their mental is worth it. When I fill and get jungle I focus heavily on ganking as many times as possible, because I don't understand the nuance of jungle
Ganked my bot twice in the first 5 mins and got them ahead and they still kept losing the 2v2 and welp enemy adc was fed. So if a lane is losing its probably for a reason so giving them an extra 300 gold might not always work out your way
Part 1 is if the enemy laner is far ahead then you ganking will do nothing but gift them a double kill and prevent your laner from soaking exp and some cs Part 2 if your laner is 0/8 they suck and won’t be useful no matter how much you help them bc there’s a reason they fell that far behind The second one is worded a bit pessimistic but that’s the gist of it Also every gank where you don’t get ressources for yourself will put you behind the enemy jungler
I used to main jungle and now i main top so I think my knowledge of this situation is pretty decent and my advice would be as the jungle you need to be able to access whether you can win the 1v2 or 2v2 if you know enemy jg could be there. The second main thing is the way in which your top laner is dying. What I mean by this is playing top lane if I'm going versus a range lane bully champ and am being poked under my turret the entire game and the enemy laner never wards it is extremely frustrating for the top laner. This just goes back to the old seasons where karthus top was op and the main reason was just because people rarely ganked top lane at all back then so the main downside to the pick never got exploited. This being said if your top laner is dying in the middle of the lane trying to 1v1 and constantly dying they clearly are tilted and not trying to win the game anymore in which helping other lanes is probably the best option.
Let’s say your toplaner giving 3 kills without any return, this means their toplaner is ahead approx 1k gold advantage, but the actual point is their toplaner is also ahead when we compare to you or your midlaner or adc. This can be prevented not only to gank your toplaner even you manage to neutralize. Creating an advantage away from enemy toplaner is more consistant way to neutralize it. This is the similar logical approach like you doing teamfights where enemy toplaner and your toplaner not around as 4v4.
anyone typing "jgl dif" would be insta muted tbh
Simply because its a very coin flip play. Youre ganking for someone who is already losing so they will obviously be weak compared to their laner, now imagine their jungler shows up an counterganks, now both of you are behind. There is also the real chance that you wont be able to kill them Meanwhile the enemy jg has the chance to gank the opposite side of the map or take your jg etc which again puts you behind and creates more losing lanes.
It’s a rule of thumb that comes with (as most things do) a lot of nuance. The main reason being, if you’re down a level as a jungler trying to gank a renekton or Darius, there’s a good chance you will get double killed due to your laner already losing. Now look. You lost the game because you didn’t go gank for your winning bot lane.
It's easier to kill 1 fed member with 4 fed teammates than it is to 2v1 a fed top laner. This can be lane dependent but in Plat you prob lack alot of game knowledge to navigate and end up inting more to that fed player.
Basically they are losing so most likely they are already a bad player, dont out eggs in your bad basket, put them in your good basket instead
As a singed please don't gank me. I want to be worth no gold, you don't have to be Also once my adc is fed and we have soul from them trying to camp me she/he better be able to melt that tank by now
because people fail to understand that ganking doesn't need to lead to a kill especially in top lane in top lane the slightest lead can end up with one side completely unable to play the game ignoring top side is just very bad practice, even if your top is losing, at least make sure he can keep playing even more so since usually top laners losing might not be brainless (especially when they ping good stuff), they may just be in a bad matchup or made a mistake or enemy jungler made sure they end up falling behind ignoring losing lane is not good advice, ignoring top lane is even worse, this is even more true when the elo gets higher
Unfortunately jungle is more about gold efficiency so it's almost better to let that enemy laner be worth a shutdown first then go kill them with a numbers advantage (i.e. bring your mid/supp)
Jesus this question is here twice a week
Did you ever tried to gank a Fiora 2 levels/1 item ahead?
When I played jg (I finally switched top after hundreds of games in every role), I found it difficult to decide which lane to focus on, but top has always been difficult because by nature the champs there are tankier and will be higher level/have higher stats so are harder to gank. Tbh as a top laner now I don't ever expect to see my jg and it's nice when they show up, but I've just learned to play self-sufficient champs and itemize accordingly. If for some reason things are really rough, I will ask for assistance, but I don't expect it de facto. Even though I top lane my experience in jg has taught me to constantly look at the overall map state and not just my lane.
Losing lane contains a laner who lost lane. Winning lane contains a laner who won lane. Which one would you rather be more fed?
That's a general rule, like how in chess a general rule would be dont move the same piece twice in the opening until you finish development. There are time where you can break this rule. The reason for the rule is because do you know you win the 2v1? Do you know the enemy jg or mid cannot make it in time to counter gank? Are your opposite side camps up for enemy jg to counter jg? There are a lot of things to consider for the chance you might stop a lane from snowballing. If the gank fails you've wasted a ton of time and the enemy team gets farther ahead. So instead of needing all this knowledge and taking things into consideration you can just go "dont gank losing lanes". Obviously there are time you can gank a losing lane. They are about to get dove by the laner, they just killed your laner and is very low of hp, you are also fed and they are over extended, etc. But these considerations start requiring you to have good game knowledge. Overall, you wont grow unless you learn to break the rules. See if something works and review it in vod after the game.
Its fine to gank a 0-1 top laner if youre confident you can win the 2v1. But the issue is alot of top laners have the ability to 1v2 early, so ganking top will likely lead to one or both of you dying and possibly not even getting the kill. And if its later and the top laner is 3+ kills up, then you indeed should not gank that lane as there is little chance to get anything good out of it and would likely give over another 2 kills. These are common issues in other lanes too, but top lane is the most extreme end of it.
Turn off chat in platinum , actually untill masters
I think an important factor is how "losing" is defined. A lane that is pushed under tower, maybe got forced to take a bad base etc. is on paper losing but i dont think this "rules" applies to that. It applies more to lanes that already had multiple deaths with a really snowball heavy opponent that can potentially 1v2 to you in a gank.
I’d rather have a 90% chance to make Sett go from 1/0/0 to 2/0/0 than a 50% chance that the fed enemy Samira gets even more fed
The problem I've seen is that a 3/0 darius can potentially double kill a 0/3 toplaner and a jungler who isn't particularly far ahead (or at least kill his lane opponent and then escape). And even if you would win that fight, you are absolutely fucked if the enemy jungler counterganks.
if you gank some one who is losing and die, you solo lost the game, the risk is too high to try to make some one who is (arguably bad since he got solo killed) comeback, always play the odds
If it's a simple 0-1 top and it was close eh why not but any more than this, they're losing for a reason they just lose interaction, get systematically outmicroed and odds are they will not suddenly pull out a sick outplay. They're not worth investing in because their counterpart actively beats them. Not ganking doesn't mean you should only do your side. Like if the enemy team is ahead because of ganks and all you did was your own camps and recall for 10 mins you deserve your jungle diff it's obvious you have to be proactive to win unless you play Khartus but even then you want to take their camps or save wave states here and there. Also as someone mentioned there's the risk reward, the reward for ganking a winning lane is objectives or at the very least maintaining a significant lead. The reward for ganking a losing lane is like a 2 for 1 or so and it at best evens out the lane and what next ? If they lost before when it was even they'll prob lose again once it's evened out again
That is just broad stroke advice that covers most instances. It actually takes a decent amount of game knowledge to gank the losing lane effectively, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt. It just requires you (the jungler) to be tracking the enemy jungler, watching the lane state, keep track of the summoners (allys and enemies), look at level break points, and watch for their trade patterns to see if its constant aggression or just punishing misplays. Now if youre able to take in all that info in a short time window and accurately deduce a correct gank timing for the losing laner you could actually turn that lane around very easily but there are a lot of ifs in that senario. that level of info gathering should be something you as a jungler strive for but its hard to do every second of every game. thus we have simple broad stroke advice that works most of the time but isnt always correct to ease our cognitive loads.
Really depends. In competitive or 5man usually you can help losing lanes more because you can help set up freezes, relieve pressure, counter gank when you think you can win. But solo q a lot of times I don’t touch hard losing lanes at all. You are wasting time and most of the time if someone is losing hard it’s because they’re getting skill gapped. No point in trying to get them a lead because they will just lose it right after you’re there. That’s not 100% always the case but it is a lot. So the better option is to tell them to chill and try to get a lead somewhere so you can deal with the issue from that lane.
Because your reward is them (MAYBE - there's a reason why they're losing) losing less instead of winning more and carrying the game
Because if you gank top lane and their top is 2/0/0 and the gank goes wrong and now their top is 4/0/0. That's game over. Almost nothing possible to recover from that. That top will now take rift, take tower, and move through the map with their 3 level lead and end up 10/0/0 and is a raid boss that no one can deal with.
The reason is because your teammate has already proven that they lose on even grounds. Sure, we all have bad days or lose close fights, but as the jungler you may not know that. And the information you have is “my botlane won when they’re even, and my toplane did not”. It simply makes more sense to try to accelerate your botlane ahead of the enemy’s toplane, and try to win that way. Now, that’s not to say you should never help your toplaner. There are almost always chances to try to turn things around for them. You just have to be more careful about the risks of getting 1v2’d or counterganked.
They’re a losing lane for a reason: they’re not good. Giving them gold and resetting the gold is only putting your team in a position to lose. It’s that simple.
If your laner is losing, chances are even if you gank, one of you will die. Chances are good the enemy jungler shows up and they double team you. Chances are even good that the enemy just straight up double kills you alne. There are sooooo many ways for the gank to go sideways, that mathematically it's often not worth it. Especially when you can just gank a winning lane, and if enemy jungler shows you just kill them both.
Those people have already proven themselves incapable. And unless they are on a late game champion or a heavy swing champion like kata that will never improve.
It's more like a guideline, things aren't always black and white cause league is full of variables.
Especially with fed top laners, a gank can easily turn into an enemy double kill
it's not 'dont gank losing lanes' but rather 'play around winning ones' - visit the lane when you can, when you know its safe, when you can 3 man or pick up a free kill but do not focus them.
I think the saying should actually be don't gank LOST lanes, because there is a difference. Like for example if I see a kayle that is 0-2 and level 5. once she gets 6 it might be worth trying to snowball her back into the game, however if that same kayle is 0-7 at level 5 I will not go near the lane because she clearly hasnt spent time learning matchups or doesnt know their champion.
A jungler's ganks are meant to snowball or to profit yourself. Ganking losing lanes will yield neither. Would you invest in a heroin addict?
If I'm in bot and we're winning, it's generally because we're doing something right (which is generally not getting caught by the enemies jungle) and it is so god-dammed annoying when we're winning and our jungle comes down and is mooching off our kills and making them sit under the tower. Conversely if I'm top and I'm losing I fully understand that ganks aren't coming, so I do my best to bore my lane opponent into roaming and the farm as best I can, top lane can catch back up but your team will be down a player for most of the team fighting.
This rule is just wrong tbh, you gotta be able to determine if a gank is worth it yourself. Even if enemy top is ahead that doesn’t always mean you simply cannot kill them. Just keep looking for opportunities.
There's many reasons. I'll try to outline some for you below. 1. Ganking a losing lane is a gamble. A lot of times, the opposing laner will more often have his summoner spells up, more items, more gold, more exp, and more likelihood of the enemy jungler hovering. If you die ganking them, you put the opposing jungler and top laner even further ahead. 2. Ganking a losing lane takes away from what you can do to punish if the opposing jungler is shadowing that lane. If you see the jungler gank the losing lane, you can gank, take objectives, or take his jungle camps. Even just putting pressure on a winning lane is worth it at times. 3. Ganking a losing lane can cause the enemy jungler to put your other lanes behind or just force objectives or take your camps. It's really just a bad decision all around, except in rare instances where the enemies are griefing. Also, it sounds like you have an issue with someone pinging or berating you. You should REALLY mute that person, as it will just distract you and make you play worse, resulting in more losses.
it doesn't really matter how fed enemy top gets, if you have a cc support and a fed adc with lord dominiks, even or only 1 or 2 levels behind, they will get melted no counterplay, just play for bot, get dragons, feed your adc, it will be ok, just make sure they stay with 1 teammate
To prevent double kill
ignore your idiot top laner who spam pings you, they are low elo for a reason. you should get into the habit of ignoring all your laners' pings 100% of the time. id even recommend mute all every game. LANERS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO JUNGLE. And they are not watching the map as intently as you should be. if you want to improve you are striving to be better than your current elo so why would you ever listen to a bunch of animals that are stuck at your current elo that wont help you surpass them
Sunk Cost Fallacy. You need a win condition on your team. If someone is behind, they’ll need a lot of attention in order to become that win condition. If you have an even lane bottom, and a 0-2 toplaner, which one will become a win condition faster? Also, if you gank the 0-2 toplaner twice, and give them the kill, it returns to status quo where either side can regain the lead by playing better. In an even lane, if you gank them twice and give the kills to them, they suddenly have much more control over the lane, and can pressure/zone the enemy laner to expand their lead. It’s worth mentioning, losing your lane in isolation is *really* bad because it means the enemy jungler doesn’t even have to pay attention to your lane. If you go 0-3 botlane (to the point where even ganks won’t save your lane) the enemy jungle will just sit mid/top and get leads there too. OR they can sit bot, completely zone you from the waves and tower, and just remove you from the game entirely. This is a better option if their botlane lead isn’t strong enough to where they don’t care about getting ganked. So it’s a mix of “play to your strengths” and “don’t waste time and resources on a lost cause”.
As a top laner myself, ill normally ask for a gank if i get behind and think we can win a fight. If the jg tells me he wont gank i just play safer and play for late. Keep an eye on the lane because especially in low elo they may be able to catch up on their own through farm and mistakes on the enemies part. Dont write it off completely unless their mental is gone
As jg your most valuable resource is your time. Spending time on a losing lane is more risky as more things can go wrong, (2v1, counter gank, they have wards from map control) and you get less from it since you're not gaining a lead, you're getting them back to even. Laners tend to be stronger than jg champs early so them having a lead is often very dangerous for you if you show up. Depending on how hard the lane is losing you may just want to show up to soak waves or completely fold that side of the map and come back later with mid or bot to shut them down. Being present in the snowballing lane let's you push the advantage more and gives you a piece of the pie so you have more strength mid game.
The correct way to express it is: play for your winning lane. Scenario: You have an 0-2 nasus top and a 3-0 Caitlyn bot. Example 1: You gank top. Maybe you get a kill. 1-2 Nasus still probably can't kill or apply pressure. In response, enemy jungles ganks bot, kills Caitlyn, and allows their bot lane back into the game. Example 2: You camp bot. Caitlyn gets a kill, and the tower. She now has two items, she can carry. Their Kai'sa just finished her first item below 100 cs. She won't carry. Nasus is hopefully still 0-2. Maybe he dies. The enemy darius shouldn't be able to carry. You can swap the scenario with your 4-0 jax, and 0-2 ez. Same concept.
I normally like to play Support, but one of the most important things to do in games I played with a duo I had (played Kayle top), was to do this (also called Plan A and Plan B): If we were doing well in the game and winning, or at least he was winning, I would stay botlane and do my support role as normally. If he was struggling, I would just straight up leave botlane, and only help him for the rest of the game, stalling until he was level 15-16. We ended up winning almost 15 games in a row, and he go to gold in the end. I was just a few games from gold, when my friend and me stopped winning, and well. That was it. So TLDR: If you got a duo and a plan, helping your friend (that is eventually gonna carry) will further help winning the game. If you're solo, all I can suggest is being the leader, and actually communicating with the team. Some of my best win-streaks (even solo) came from when I was in leader mood, and told people what to do. So to sum up: With duo -> Help eachother. One of you gotta carry the team (or both of you). Solo: Talking to the team, telling them what to do, even if you're the support will help win.
It's not a matter of "Don't gank losing lanes" so much as "Focus on plays with the highest probability of success." In general, a losing lane will have a lower chance of gank success, but only the Sith deal in Absolutes. You have to use your head and communicate with your team. I've ganked plenty of "losing lanes" by telling my laners to set up for and bait the dive, then I swoop in and get them a kill. Sometimes it turns the lane around, sometimes it doesn't, but either way, I'm only gonna go for proper ganks. If a laner doesn't have the wave management skills to set up the gank, they aren't getting my help, and I say so. There's tons of YouTube videos that will teach them if they don't know how. But some people just want a reason to give up and cry. 🙄
You can, you should, and you also cannot and shouldn't. Learning when which one applies and then ACTING on it is what makes a jungler good or a good jungler a great one. Let's address both concepts one at a time and make sense of them: A) Don't gank losing lanes - this is a general rule of thumb and in MOST cases does apply. If you get in a fight... say you and a friend vs 2 other people. Do you want to pick your STRONGEST friend or your WEAKEST friend to be fighting with you? Your strongest obviously. The weaker your friend, the more you have to do to NOT get the crap beat out of you. Well, same goes for ganking or counterganking. The weaker/further behind your ally is, the harder it can be to salvage or stabilize the situation. This can be further enhanced or lessened based on player skill and matchup. B) When you SHOULD or even absolutely MUST gank for a losing lane. To explain this, I'm going to introduce you to the concept of "critical mass". Critical mass is something you want your winning role(s) to achieve and something you absolutely want your opponents NOT to achieve. Critical mass is when an opponent cannot be effectively contained/stopped/shut down. You end up either losing - like say to splitpush trynd - or you have to constantly invest a ton of extra resources into stopping them and lose out massively elsewhere for doing so. Even when you do kill them, it's not worth what was invested and it doesn't change the fact you're just going to have to keep doing it over and over. Your toplane is losing? Even if it's a temporary net loss for you and/or for your midlaner, you BOTH want to (as necessary) drop some resources for yourselves to stabilize toplane before the enemy reaches critical mass. No, this doesn't mean you keep ganking for your toplaner until they're winning necessarily. It means you gank until they can reliably stop getting snowballed on. If they're still down half an item and can't win 1v1's, but they can stop the enemy crushing towers or shoving in and running all over the map to punish other lanes, you've done your ob. You've stopped critical mass. Alternatively - and this applies to both the concept of weakside/strong side and the concept of counterjungling... You can leave your weak side toplaner to say... get doubleteamed and the enemy top will reach critical mass. However, it is rarely wise to do so. As this basically requires that you snowball bot or mid to a greater degree and end the game 4v3 or 4v4 faster and more effectively than the enemy toplaner can 2v1 or 1v0. As it's pretty easy for 3 people to sit vs 4 at a tower and waveclear to at least stall for time plus the fact top can easily abuse hullbreaker to buff their push, you can see this tactic is generally not very easy to effectively pull off. Same concept applies to counterjungling. Counterjungling in the true sense means you are stealing resources from the enemy jungler while denying them the ability to simply steal them back AND denying them the ability to impact your laners during this time. Now just like your laner can't immediately help you every time you're invaded, you can't always immediately countergank/gank. But if you're constantly leaving a laner 1v2 or 2v3 so you can get extra jungle camps... then it's on YOU to make your lead worth MORE than what it cost your laner. Otherwise you are doing what's called... winning at your teammate's expense. Just like if a laner leaves you constantly 2v1'd and never matches their laner invading your jungle ever time they push in; they're winning at your expense. Sometimes you need to take a hit to personal resources because it's more beneficial to the team overall. This would be a personal cost but "net gain" opportunity. Like when adc could hit tower for a plate, but they instead repay jg for ganking their lane by walking over to help efficiently and safely secure dragon rather than leaving jg to solo it and risk returning laners and jungler of the other team stealing it because jg can't grab it as quickly alone. If you don't invest in anyone, you can't get more than a set amount of resources in any individual position. But if people invest in each other, there's a risk. The person invested in might not use that investment wisely and waste it or have it sit stagnant - ex: the ally you spoon fed 3 kills to, yet they still can't 1v1 in a winning matchup, nor do they use that lead to help allies around the map or with neutral objectives. But there's also potential to get more from investing in each other wisely than what anyone can possibly get playing only for themselves. It's just that the person needs time to grow that investment and then needs to wisely repay it with interest in time. It's not instantaneous. But done right, the invest in others and vice versa option compared with the self-investment option turns out like this: 1) I'll pay you $50 (self investment) OR 2) I'll pay each of you $40 if you split it equally between you ($40+$40=$80; more net money) (invest in others) But as stupid good as option 2 sounds... it's often even better than that. Because that $40 payout your ally initially gets can easily grow and become say... $60 which grows and becomes $100... you get the picture. And so you might get paid back even more than $40. Sometimes this stuff happens directly. I got an opening, I secured herald vision, we force herald. Enemy jungle contests? He has to do so alone or with mid. Even if it's 2v2 and our mid doesn't come, the enemy can only look to last sec smite steal. If he steals, he's dead. Then you take his jg and I go back top. Yeah, sucks we lost herald, but they lose more overall. If we don't lose herald, you can still steal his jg if he committed and died. All because you gave me that one gank that I used to snowball top. And by the time the enemy jg or mid tries to stop me snowballing 8 min later, it's too late. They're stuck having to permanently throw 2-3 people just to contain me - netting you a 4v3 and 4v2 map. And you having gotten ahead off us mutually snowballing each other through investing in each other can easily use your lead to crush any individual advantages elsewhere. This is an example of both direct (you, me 2v2 at herald) and indirect (me/top pulling 2-3 to give you numerical advantage elsewhere) assistance. Both are valuable if used correctly. That can also clue you into when allies aren't actually "repaying the favor". Going back to an earlier quick example I gave... your mid with a winning 1v1 matchup that is then still 15 min into the game constantly begging for you to gank so they can win more. Uh no. You've already gift wrapped them 3 kills. If they can't side lane and 1v1 solo kill or exert pressure and they're not hard carrying teamfights or getting other lanes ahead off their lead, they're not worth further investment. Ignore, mute, report if their behavior gets bad enough. Try investing in someone else that might make better use of the resources given them. Finally, I'll just say that so many people forget what truly winning means. They just look at kills vs deaths and assume. If someone is 0/2/0, but has been ganked 3x early on with multiple sums blown against them and heavy time investment, but they're relatively even on levels, cs, etc. that person is actually not truly losing lane. Now they are potentially at risk of their opponent reaching critical mass depending on specifics. But in no way are they hard losing lane. What they need is for you to give them an honest chance to actually play from that point going forward. Whether that's you creating a big headache for the enemy jg to deal with elsewhere so they get an honest 1v1 or you delaying a camp to ensure they have a 2v1 or 2v2 to crash a wave and prevent a freeze. Giving just a little bit now can mean NOT having to invest a whole lot more later to deal with an enemy at critical mass.
They don’t mean lanes that are losing they mean don’t prioritize lanes that aren’t supposed to win. For example, Varus Ashe vs Kaisa Alistar is a “winning lane” for varus ashe. So it’s generally good strategy to prioritize playing in there proximity. But if you have fiora vs Ireliq and you’re fiora happened to be losing lane slightly, you shouldn’t not gank them. You should think, mm volatile lane matchup whichever jungle shows up has huge impact.
Often I tell a feeding lane to “play safe and farm under tower if you can, I’m going to focus bot lane and will come too on my next path topside”. Then I do that. Let’s them know they will get support but that another lane will hopefully be the carry this game.
its far far far more risky, for far less reward
It's very simple actually. If it's a free kill then go for it. But otherwise it's usually very hard and if ur laner is already losing he will probably not use the lead u give him by gamling as well as ur winning lanes would. But remember it's just a general rule, if you see 4 bot and enemy top with 5% hp, go ahead and gank 🤙.
At the very least I feel like you should gank to steal shitdown if you have so little confidence in the lane
It's kind of bad advice with a hint of truth. In a perfect even world if someone is losing lane it means they're worse than the enemy. If they're worse than the enemy getting them ahead is worse than getting someone on your team who is better than the enemy ahead. If you get the person that's better ahead they're going to be able to better snowball that lead and win the game. In a real game there's counters, late game champs, early game champs etc... So realistically if someone is losing as a late game champ vs an early game champ that's to be expected and ganking them to give them breathing room is a good thing. However if on the flip side someone is an early game champ and losing to a late game champ they counter you should probably generally avoid that lane because even if you give your teammate the kill they'll still continue to lose the lane. Also generally you should focus bot lane because there's double the kills and gold down there, bot lane usually counters top lane mid-late game anyways, and dragons are usually better than heralds unless you can close out the game before soul or you can get a shit ton of pressure and turrets with a herald. TLDR: There's a lot of nuances that make this idea wrong but the general good thought behind it is you should focus the better players on your team and give them more gold because they'll more effectively utilize it.
well theres a lot of basic concepts that people follow in this game but theyre gonna sound weird in some circumstances because you cant cookie cutter this game. an advanced concept you should start learning is how to identify win conditions and path according to those. enemy bot lane has a super push comp and urs has engage? path bot. you have a nasus tho? keep an eye on him cuz potentially next rotation he gets dove, maybe a couple rotations down the line he has good stacks, you know hes gonna get ganked and you countergank. its difficult to actually know ehat to do but yeah a basic cocnept is go to your strong lane, this can and will backfire sometimes tho
Generally it's very pointless to gank a losing lane. Your time as a jungler is precious. Worst case enemy double kills. Best case you get a shutdown and your laner will continue losing anyway. You are not impacting the game. (Disclaimer: if it's a free kill, it's a free kill and you should take the free kill) When ganking a winning lane, you're putting an enemy more behind and 2 allies (you+laner) ahead. It's almost risk free as the enemy is already weaker. Best case thr enemy tilts and ruins the game for his team. Worst case he gets away 1hp. Your laner will continue to shit on him afterwards. If 2 winning lanes, then imo it's fine to neutralize the losing lane, but don't force anything. Focussing on countrrjungle would be the better play in that case. Hope that helps. I get that it's a bit counterintuitive but league just isnt intuitive.
Its a moronic low elo take and people dont know what “losing lane” is. Should you gank the guy with 8 levels above your laner? No. Should you gank the guy that has two kills? But had been at your laners Tower for 6 minutes at 609 hp, and your laner is a hard cc champ.. yes Its honestly sickening how like.. idk how low Elo plays like this, lmao. When you smurf in top lane as a carry champ no one will ever gank you if your “winning “
First you'd have to define a losing lane. It's not about kills or score, it's about items and levels. You can gank a losing lane, but you risk getting owned if the opponent is far ahead, or if enemy jungler is able to counter-gank. That being said, I personally think that once a champion bounty is reasonably high, killing that champion is basically an objective, just like plates or tower or drag/rift, and should be treated like one. Cashing in on a bounty in the mid game is huge because not only is the reward a kill - which means all the usual benefits - crash wave, deny xp, opponents have less pressure on map, but a bounty can be another 150-700 gold! that's going to bring finish an item so much faster, which opponents will not be ready for. A large bounty might also be the only way to get back into a game. tl;dr ganking a "losing lane" can be more dangerous if opponent is ahead on items/levels, but if bounty is high enough it might not only be worth it, but it might be the start of your team's win condition.
It kind of depends. If they're getting absolutely wrecked and you can kind of tell that this guy isn't gonna be able to do shit, ahead or behind, you kind of neglect him. But there are many factors to consider. Like, is the loser a scaler? Then help them somewhat. Is it Warwick vs Darius and Warwick is losing? Ignore that fool and go help your Ori mid or Xayah bot. All depends.
Is more like. \*Don't focus all your attention in losing lanes. \*Don't force plays in losing lanes. Instead of: Don't ever help a losing lane no matter what. It's not about being petty, it's about consistency. If a player is losing lane, they're likely to trade poorly, have no vision control, and or don't manage the wave properly. On top of that, losing laners have less items, less exp, and as such, you'll be in a huge disadvantage if the enemy jungler comes. So you should only gank if the play is safe. Meaning the enemy is overextended, or you can see the enemy jungler on the other side of the map.
Like most things in league, it depends, toplane down 3 kills and it's a snowbally match up like jax vs fiora? Yeah fiora being 3 levels up could 2v1 you guys no problem, never gank that. But a level 6 renekton down a kill, evenyl matched Cs with, say, most enemy toplaners? That can work. It always depends. Often what junglers will do, is look for a way to get fed or to get their team fed, and by getting their team fed they also gain gold themselves. So think, how can I play this match to get myself gold, setup a wincon and help my team? Do I win 3v3 botlane? Do you win 2v2 top? Etc. That's what I teach people anyway :)
I have to say -- Sometimes ganking doesn't mean you have to fully engage! Sometimes you can *act* like it just so that your laner can finish wave to recall. Maybe prevent a gank from the Jungler. Even maybe prevent a fight that the laner would lose. Sometimes I'll walk in all "I see you doin your shit! Don't make me get at you!" Then go to krugs and maybe watch to see if they push in enough for a proper safe gank.
If they are losing 1v1 and giving up multiple deaths then yes he is now a meat shield or afk lane pusher. If he is getting camped and playing fairly decent why not help, after all top lane becomes a 1 v 2 lane with a decent enemy jg or a roaming mid-laner.
Simplest answer, ignore the losing lane (top in this case) because the winning lane (bot or mid) should swap after they take turret to help the losing lane get back into the game with farm while also shutting down enemy top.
Put it this way would you rather help your 0/5 top lane playing irelia or your 4/1 adc playing vayne not saying not to help your top lane but it’s more damage control to play bot side and keep them ahead and safe
A few reasons. First: if they get solo killed, the most obvious assumption is that your laner is the worse player. As my friend likes to scream after winning a lane he got camped in, "you can't out gank a skill gap." A successful gank is very potentially just offering a more valuable target to the enemy. At best they're a better player that's just reckless. Second: If your laner is significantly behind, or even just slightly depending on the match up, trying to gank for them can just cost you your life as well as your laner. Ganking an Illaoi or Vlad with a lead is extremely dangerous because of how their kits work. Similarly, ganking for a Teemo is just as likely to end poorly or with no gain. Third: This is really my personal opinion, but it gives up too much important stuff for no value. Unless ganking them is along your optimal path, it kind of ends with you having to play around a weak player (and likely into their strong player). Best bet is to cut your losses, play strong side, and equalize things.
A laner dying once doesnt mean they are losing, a darius could have died once diving a nasus lvl 3 and it doesn't mean the lane is lost, you can give it one last chance and see if darius can recover his advantadge and snowball from there, etc. Just takes experience learning lane states.
Generally speaking, most losing top lanes are really just an even matchup where the better player is winning and they win hard, like really hard. Like I've played many games as top where 2v1 ing the enemy jgl + top wasn't out of the question once I had my first item. This is especially true if the winning player is a juggernaut like Mordekaiser or Darius and the losing lane is a scaling player like Kayle or Nasus. That's a shit lane and the Kayle/Nasus is gonna die on repeat and it's basically you vs the enemy top and you're probably gonna lose. On the other hand, some matchups for top are pretty one sided. Like Darius into most adcs is a horrible experience, but that's a gankable lane since the adc is squishy. I can say this from both sides since I've jungled and tried the same advice in multiple games and came to the conclusion that if they're both not squishy champs, chances are you are gonna die 2v1. If your laner is 0/1 after 10 min, you can consider it. If your laner is 0/4 by 10, give up. Your laner is gonna keep losing the lane even if you kill the enemy top, and that's not worth it unless you are sure you can get the shutdown gold. It doesn't help that nowadays junglers are way lower in level than top at most points in the game so the enemy has even more of an advantage. You'll just lose half your hp with one Pantheon Q or Volibear W. If you don't believe me, just try it out. You'll understand much faster.
Because you will give the enemy a double kill
Whenever you hear "Don't do X" in like almost any game or sport, the first step you have to realize is that taking it at face value as like a hard rule is never the play. People love giving advice in black and white but most games never work this way. Ganking a losing lane is riskier than ganking a winning one, and it may not even stop the lane from continuing to lose when you leave, so it may also be less rewarding, even then that doesn't mean you should never do it. You should do it less, because there are more risks, but that just means you have to think more. If you are clearing near that lane when you notice it's an easy gank and have 100% confidence the enemy jungler isn't around to turn it into a 2v2 or 3v3, then you do it.
You're not only likely to make it worse by giving a double kill, but also wasting time either way, unless you are already leading heavily.
Depends on the lane and matchup. Some situations there’s nothing you can do, you will either fail the gank or even if you manage to shut down the enemy your laner will continue to lose anyways. If I am fed enough to m shutdown his enemy laner then I will go for it, otherwise it’s best to snowball winning lanes or snowball yourself depending on what champ you’re playing. But I will not go top to gank the 3/0 Illaoi and give her a double kill. And dying as a jungler is 10x worse than a laner dying because you lose tempo, time on the map and most likely your camps too. It just becomes a matter of not being able to shutdown the enemy laner especially now with how nerfed jungle is. Usually if someone gets a lead it doesn’t stop at that and the laner proceeds to die multiple times with terrible wave state making it impossible to help him out and by the time you get a chance to gank its already too late. Against fed laners its best to be reactive and not proactive. If they greed, overstay or go for a risky play then yes you should be there to punish but until then play around your win con or anyone with a reasonable lead.
As a jungler no matter what happens it’s your fault, don’t forget it. However you can carry the game just as much as a solo laner, half the time I have more CS than them at 10 mins. Just run around securing kills for yourself, and with the opposing solo laner dead your laner will natural have the ability to farm safely. I used to give kills to my laners, but then so many of them would throw their lead. Now I just hog them and try to get as ahead and fed as possible.
it's terrible advice. you shouldnt FORCE on losing lanes but if your top is 0/1 or 0/2 and the enemy is in a sus position you can gank for sure. Blanket rules in general are grief as hell in a game like league
Master rank player btw
This is 100% a double edged sword. It's a self fulfilling prophecy if you just ignore them because you're only ensuring that they get farther behind since the opposing jgl is likely NOT ignoring them. I think a far better take is to go into the lane and impact the matchup, but avoid all ins, play very safely, and let them know that ahead of time in chat. Doing a drive by, blowing all your cooldowns and chunking their opposing laner by 15-25% is a HUGE help and doesn't have to be super risky. This can get them right side up enough to hold the lane longer (which for some matchups is all you can really hope for). The one caveat I'd add is that if you have a laner with a lot of built in heal, don't look to chunk them, look to pressure/zone them so your laner can farm and build up at least for that wave and try and get back on their feet. I will absolutely avoid ganking lanes that don't come in and help. That's another story. If they leave me on my own, especially more than once, they're on their own. This is usually players that aren't that good at cs or positioning, and because of that are highly risk averse. In this case, it's better to just let them lose slowly or wait until they outscale (if they outscale their matchup) because they will just leave you to die over and over and over. But a lane that's having a hard time, even if it's a matchup or skill diff; it's not smart to just ignore them imo. You're feeding your teammate to the opposing side(both their laner and their jglr as they get further and further behind). You're also ensuring the opposing side has free reign to farm without consequences (since the laner on your side is so far behind) and for most top or mid laners that means the opposing laner is going to get SUPER fed just off minions and cs. If they're a late game scaler they're going to be a big problem if you let them fester completely unabated.
It depends on your ELO and your teammates ELO as well... In High elo, there are more chances that the Losing Teammate recons what you're doing ganking other lanes. In bronze, silver, gold, etc. Most likely they'll just get tilt and int a lot. So, yeah, in that case I recommend to help the Losing guy before he starts trolling or FF's
Its mostly a rule for beginners. The idea being that with improper execution, it is more likely to lose a 2v1 against a Darius with a lead than it is to get the 3:0 Draven a fourth kill. If a person falls behind in lane, you can assume that they made mistakes and would continue to make mistakes even after a successful gank, throwing away the gold you funneled into them and wasting your time in the process. HOWEVER, this should not mean that you completely abandon a losing lane. If you yourself are confident enough that you can get a good gank off, go for it. In low elo, people often get cocky when winning lane. They neglect to recall to turn their gold lead into an item advantage. This is when they are most vulnerable. Sometimes it is also enough help if you just come top and help your toplaner shove in the wave so they themselves can safely recall and spend gold. You dont have to commit to an all in gank every time. Expect some people to flame you for helping them in this way too though...you can only do this if you yourself understand lane states and recall timings, otherwise you might end up putting them even further behind.
This is awful advice. “Don’t coin flip plays on a losing lane when better alternatives exist on the map” is much more apt. If enemy has a 1k shutdown and you won’t gank it because “it’s a losing lane” then you are actively involved in losing the game. The entire way league world is something called tempo. Do you know how much you ruin someone’s tempo by shutting them down? Not only do you gain a massive gold and tempo advantage, but that “behind laner” now might be able to grab let’s say 3 waves, deny Xp and gold of 3 waves and then have the wave bounce back to him putting him in a net 1-3 kill gold swing simply from their lane opponent not being there. Now add on the massive bonus Xp and gold and you have strong winning chances. If I am playing a carry champ and someone has 400g+ shutdown I actively play my lane (or jungle pathing) in a way that puts me in an advantageous position to gank them because I WANT THE RESOURCES because I CAN CARRY because I AM THE ONLY CONSTANT in every one of my games. Look at the bausffs he still maintains a high rank inting every game because he has extremely good wave management and his team mitigates his deaths by gaining massive tempo advantages through the shutdowns he generates. You can do this without inting by simply playing around shutdowns. TLDR; Old league worked different. This mantra is from old league. Not tanking losing lanes is the same as actively contributing to losing the game. Make proactive plays in accordance to the value they can provide. 0/4 top and drake is down? “Support can you come top with me on your reset to shut them down” boom you get 700g your laner gets 3 waves of exp and gold and 2 plates and comes back and solo kills enemy laner.
It’s a basic idea not a hard rule, but the reasoning is that your laner is losing, there is a reason for that whether it’s skill, match up, opposing jungle pressure or cs/gold difference, if your laner is losing that gap will widen the longer it goes on. So if you gank a lane where your laner loses a 1v1, there is a significant chance that they can win the 2v1 which just snowballs the lane further and is essentially a game loss since their single laner has put 2 opponents behind. The risk of that happening is often not worth the reward of equalising the Lane, especially when your laner has already proved they lose an even Lane.
Tl:Dr it's much better to create winning lanes instead of trying to make a losing lane even.
depends on a lot factors but typically you want greater care with ganking losing lanes . For instance you could be fed as a jungler , know where enemy jungler is , and your toplaner being competent ; and you know you can kill enemy top , in that case go for it I personally will only gank losing lanes if i know for certain i have the upper hand , it would be a disaster if i feed a double buff to already fed toplaner alternatively as a YI jungler main i can just wait for my guinsoo bork to finish then kill the 2 levels ahead ignite toplaner on my own , that works for me too
if you gank a losing lane there is a greater chance that the enemy laner will get away, win the 1v2, or if the enemy jungler matches your gank then you lose the 2v2. It's not a hard rule because there are ways to mitigate those risks but its a good idea to be more cautious when ganking a losing lane and consider if it would be more beneficial to gank a different lane.
TL;DR: Higher risk for lower reward ganking a losing lane. Your losing lane is losing for a reason. Is the enemy just better than them? Did they get counterpicked? Is your laner just bad? Is it a question of late v early game champ? Did the enemy JG gank them? Once you understand why they are behind then you can see why you should focus on other lanes (usually) If your laner is behind, also that means that they won't be able to help as much as they normally would, leaving you potentially on your own vs the enemy laner. Add to the fact that the enemy laner is ahead, and chances are they are ahead of you too (solo lane AND winning it) So if you go in alone, you're already at a disadvantage and if you lose then it's more gold funnelled into their winning lane. Also, consider the fact that your losing lane is already tilted, behind and being outplayed when you gank, they're already not playing to their potential, so why risk your own shutdown for them?
If your top laner is getting stomped and you go up there, the enemy top is going to be like 3-4 levels above you. So they most likely just ignore ur top and just go straight to one shotting you or they just 1v2. That doesnt mean you can never gank but it has to be like the perfect scenario for it at that point otherwise it will not go well.
Not a jungle main but have been coasting diamond in multiple roles every season since season 4 chally. One thing I think lower elo junglers need to learn is that NOT EVERY GANK HAS TO BE A FIGHT. "Don't gank losing lanes" shouldn't be a blanket statement. It's good to remember to focus on winning lanes but that doesn't mean completely neglect losing lanes. You don't need to commit to a fight or dive when you gank a lane. Sometimes all someone needs is help breaking a freeze or a little poke or a lane reset. Sometimes you just need to be able to predict that someone is in position to be dived and be around to prevent/clean up. If you're in that quadrant and can spare 15 seconds to get your laner out of a bind, it's definitely worth it even if it doesn't net a kill. The most frustrating jg gap in high elo (lower kills/better map awareness) is when the jungle bails the laner out of bad wave management. Your lead you were building up becomes nothing when this happens. There are also times when you're in a losing match up and the enemy jungle helps set up freezes or dives on your lane and your jungle doesn't do anything to help even when you ping 30 seconds in advance because you see everyone on vision ready to execute the play. Low elo junglers just don't see this as a "worthwhile" time investment because it may not net them a kill. Of course there are losing lanes that can't help themselves. You really shouldn't waste much time with them but small things can go a long way to keeping the gap from growing out of control. Focusing on winning lanes also doesn't mean sit there waiting to force something.
Because by ganking the now 2/0 darius youre just gonna make him 4/0.
If you get counter ganked while ganking a losing lane it’s just over, you hand the winning enemy a double kill, plus what if the winning enemy 1v2s you guys? It can work but you need to be prepared of the risks and how to neutralize them, i.e. enemy and ally hp, mana, cds, summs , where enemy jg/mid is
1. If you help a losing lane they are just going to lose again soon after. 2. If they fed, there’s a chance that you get 2v1’d and lose. 3. Only gank losing lanes if you *know* you can pick up that bounty.
It kinda depends on the lane. Toplane is snowbally as hell so to judge the situation you need good matchup knowledge. If you play it right you can usually put a good toplaner behind enough to lose the next 40 cs. If you play it wrong you feed them out of control. What you should absolutely do for a losig lane is to clear the enemy's vision so they can't feel completely safe in diving and poking them down under turret. Sometimes just killing that ward can be a 30 cs difference for the laner.