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A Twisted guide to the Treeline ~ General Guide: in-depth
A Twisted guide to the Treeline ~ General Guide: in-depth
Build Guide By Aseafy
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96,257
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46
3
96,257
Views
63
Comments
Build Guide By Aseafy
96,257
Views
63
Comments
Build Guide By Aseafy
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Introduction
Hello Mobafire, this is Aseafy with a guide to the Twisted Treeline and some of the better picks to help players win. While gameplay and mechanics remain the same as on Summoner’s Rift, there are significant changes to playstyle. Many champions that may be just mediocre on Summoner’s Rift can play to the strengths of Twisted Treeline and become very strong picks. I will go over what it takes to make a good pick and the reasons why .
I will also be talking about common thinkings as well as team compositions and mistakes that people make while playing ranked 3’s. Note that I am not claiming to be an amazing twisted treeline player, I got a lot of my information from researching and talking to high elo ranked 3’s players. While much of the content is not original, I will present it for the community.
Every ending game screenshot found is this guide that displays gameplay or item builds and picks will be from a high elo ranked 3’s game taken from the highest elo teams. This is to bluntly show that what I am saying is true, because some of the things in this guide are pretty odd and would probably just be labeled as “noobish”.
Because I cannot include guides on every single champion that is a “pro pick”, there will be links below to smaller guides explaining the build. There will be tips and tricks, but you will have to refer to this guide for the overall gameplay. Not everything will be released at once, and the list of champions below will increase over time.
Updates
January 20th, 2013: 'Tier' list added thanks to Laggermeisters suggestion
January 26th, 2013: Made minor edits around the whole guide after learning a bit more about the map in general.
The Map
The map itself is quite an interesting thing. While the lanes are around the same length as top or bottom lane, the bush positions and lane entrances allow for quick ganks. This puts champions with mobility in an advantage, allowing them to gank more, as well as run away from ganks.Now believe it or not, the ideal goal of this map is to farm. Because creeps actually give more gold, and the jungle is so accessible, the faster someone gets his or her items the better off they will be. Now this map would not be very fun if it was just a farming game, where people would just last hit. This map is action packed because of how easy it is to disturb someone from simply last hitting. By giving the enemy a chance to solo farm his frozen lane, they will have a noticeable advantage when the team fights break out. In fact, many teams pick a late game carry and have him sit in lane to farm creeps, while the whole team plays defensively.
The two most important parts of the twisted treeline are the early game plays and the late game synergy/counters. While early game leads usually lead to victory, it often occurs that a late game team will counter another and just simply win, even though they were behind. It is very important to pick your champions wisely so your early and late game balance out, and that you do not counter pick yourself.
I will talk about Picks in the next section.
Speaking of picks, Because of the smooth income, gold per 10 items do not need to be bought unless they are actually part of the items being built. That means you should not buy a kage’s lucky pick(haha, see what I did there?) or philosopher's stone unless you are actually going to build it into another item. Also, the map also has more tight areas which can allow for some tide turning ultimates, like
Amumu or Rumble. Finally, this map has no wards and has to be played by someone with prediction skills and map awareness. You cannot tell if the enemy is in your jungle, and the wolf camp is conveniently placed so that you could be caught while doing them.
Strong Picks
MOST OF THE TIER LIST IS NOT UP TO DATE!
Team Compositions
A warning about team compositions based on one strategy is that they will never work consistently. If you pre-pick 3 champions based on one strategy, you will not go far. It may work a few times, but every comp has it's counters. Below are two screenshots of victories. As well, these 2 games were played consecutively, using the exact same 3 champions.
Spoiler: Click to viewThey then pick slight variations over the course of many games depending on the enemies picks and bans. The best comps abuse a champion’s kit and utility, finding a very hard to counter team comp, and they then outplay the enemy team. These are totally different from knock up or aoe stun compositions, that abuse utility, and not kits. A team needs to have damage to back up utility, not just the utility.
Some team comps that may look really “overpowered” usually just get countered. I have one example here, but if you have some specific team composition you are really having issues with you can comment below. If it is a general problem I will add it to the guide as well, if not I will just answer with a comment.
Aoe stun team - Amumu, Annie, Galio, Kennen, Wukong, etc. While a comp with Annie may work because of her insane damage, these teams rely on their cc in the mid game to snowball extremely hard and win. Their late game fights are very strong if left uncountered.
Counterpicks - Dr. Mundo, Singed, basically anyone who is tanky. After the enemy team has used their cc you can rip them apart. Asides from picks, you can try to catch them, they are powerless when left alone (usually. don’t try to 1v1 annie though. Amumu is really overpowered too as well). Actually that is pretty bad advice because it is only situational. Instead, you can simply not clump up as a team like 900 elo players. You can also buy items like wooglet’s witchcap to mitigate the damage they deal while you are stunned. Banshee’s veil stops hard initiates like annie’s tibbers, and
Quicksilver Sash is another strong item choice.Champions that can disengage like janna, hecarim also can waste the enemy teams ultimate and allow you to push while they wait for their cooldowns to come back.
Remember, this is one of many examples. If you want to add another specific "strategy comp", you can just say so in the comments section. If it is significant, I will add it to this. I will also add your name in the credits. (:
Map Quests
Altars
Spoiler: Click to view
Ghost Relic
Spoiler: Click to view
Vilemaw
Spoiler: Click to view
Early Game: Why it's so important and how to amplify your success
Early game is usually the most important part of the game, because the players who get kills will usually snowball to be their team’s carries. Much of the time, the team that wins the early game will win the late game because they have more gold, (This is not always the case) which is why it is important to learn how to play your early game.Play styles of every player is different, however the goal of the early game is the same. You want to farm up on either creeps or gold, and then proceed to win the game. You can do this is two cases, patiently last hitting every creep and clearing the jungle, or ganking and killing your enemy in lane. Both are perfectly fine ways and the choice is simply left up to the player.
However, I cannot tell you what to do. There is no way I can simply tell someone to ‘play better’, and it is usually the team who outplays the other that will take the early game lead. While I can tell you the thought process, (which I said in the paragraph before) skill comes from actually being good at the game. So what is this section for?
Many people do not know how to push an early lead or, in correct terms, to snowball the game. Many people simply end up throwing the game and losing their advantages. Please remember that games can be thrown extremely easily, because one late game ace can lead to a victory. Anyways, what I wanted to talk about was builds.
When you get a lead, you do not want to build certain items. I will give a few examples and the reasoning behind it, so hopefully you can catch on to what I am trying to say.
Philosopher's stone: is one of these items. Unless you are going to immediately build it into a
Shurelya's Battlesong, there is no point in buying a philo stone. If you are already winning, a philo stone is a waste of 700g when you could be buying items with more kill potential. Hextech Revolver: While the item does give you sustain, you want to have more lane presence. Building something like a rylais crystal scepter would make you tankier and a bigger threat because you have a slow. Hextech revolver only gives you sustain, which you should not need if you are already ahead. While I cannot say that it is a bad item, there are better item choices when you are ahead. Vampiric Scepter: Unless you are immediately building this into something, you usually do not want to buy this with a lead. Build your longsword into something else, because sustain is not what you want when you are ahead of the enemy. You can buy this later if you want, but early game gold is worth a lot more, and you want to make sure you have the biggest advantage possible on your enemies. Rod of Ages: While this item can be good on many champions, like Singed, there are better items you can buy with that gold. Rylai's Crystal Scepter comes to mind, because it forces the enemy to either keep attempting to run (while slowed, taking free damage), or turn around and fight (and you should win because you are ahead).There are many other examples, but hopefully you get the gist of what I am trying to say. When you are already winning , you want to build more aggressively to make your lead even more.
Maintaining your Lane
When I play blind pick for twisted treeline, no one ever maintains their lane properly. While it does not bother me that much, it does bring me to a point where I need to write a chapter on this. If you want to play at a higher level, you MUST learn how to maintain your lane. The biggest issue that players fail to realize is how suicidal pushing your lane is. Remember, as shown in the picture below, even when the enemy has pushed their lane more than you have, you are still overextended.
Am I overextended?
This is a question I would like to answer with a simple diagram, showing which areas are safe and which areas have risk. However, the only truly safe place in the Twisted Treeline is under your turret. The bushes are placed so that you can be ganked while you are anywhere else, as you can see in the beginning of this section.
So how do I know when to retreat?
This is simply a question of map awareness. Because there are no wards in this map, ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY ‘WARD’. If you have map awareness, you will know when you are in trouble. However, this does not mean that every time there is an enemy mia, you run like a wussy to your tower. You have to use common sense. If you and a teammate are at bot, and there is one enemy at top, one enemy at bot, and one enemy missing, only your top laner has to be careful. Even if the missing enemy ganks bot, it’ll be a fair 2v2.
You can also use common sense to predict your enemy’s location. If he leaves his lane around 20% hp, he’s either going to be clearing his jungle or recalling. You don’t have to spam the “retreat” ping button to your team, because if that 20% hp enemy decides to gank your duo bot lane, well, that’s a free kill for your team isn’t it? Do not worry if you do not learn how to do this instantly, this is a skill a player gains over time as he/she obtains more ‘game instinct’.
Spoiler: Click to viewWhile pushing your lane in summoner’s rift is okay as long as you are warded, this is obviously not the case in the twisted treeline. By pushing your lane, you will always be under the fear of an enemy gank. Because of the bush placements, even if you push your lane slightly, there is a possibility you will be ganked. In order to avoid this, we do something called ‘freezing the lane.’
Freezing your lane is making sure the enemy minions kill your own minions, and only last hitting the enemy minions. When done properly, this causes the enemy minions to continuously push on your side, which is the equivalent to the enemy pushing.
When you freeze your lane, there are barely any disadvantages. You can go to your lane whenever you want to farm, and you can also push it slightly to go and gank. When you get back, it’ll be back to normal. You basically get free farm. The biggest advantage, however, is the disadvantage it brings to the enemy. If he wants to farm, he is forced to overextend, making him an easy gank target. HE DOES NOT GET TO FARM FOR FREE and you will be a bigger threat as time passes. Here is a quick video if you want a more indepth explanation.
So please, NEVER push your lane by nuking a whole wave in the early to mid game. While it is satisfying to hit a whole wave with
Tantrum and Despair or whatever aoe abilities you have, it will not be worth it in the long run. Be patient.
Jungling
This is a topic that many people like to argue over because some people think it is essential to have a jungler, while some people say it is better to have a duo bot lane. Both answers are right depending on who you are playing. Jungling gives you a farm advantage and puts more fear into the enemy players because one of you will always be mia. However, it puts your team down 1 summoner spell, which is pretty important considering your team only has 6 in total. This means you would have a disadvantage in a straight up fight with even gold. However, have a jungler means that you will have 2 solo lanes, and it may be hard to manage your lanes if the enemy team does not have a jungler (you will need to babysit your 1v2 lane).
While having more money sounds good, it takes a lot of practice to become a good twisted treeline jungler. Something that happens commonly (more in low levels of play) is one team who thinks that they ‘know’ more about the twisted treeline will take a jungler. The other team simply sends 2 of their champions bot. The 2 players crush the enemy solo lane, and end up with more money than the team that has the jungler, and they are now up a summoner spell as well.
Don’t jungle until you are confident of your skills. Not all teams have or need a jungler, and this is true in high levels of play as well.
The jungle camps are nothing special, and consist of 3 camps. Similar to summoner's rift, these camps are the wraiths, wolves and double golems. They can all be cleared relatively easily, meaning you want to clear your jungle as much as possible. There is only a limited amount of gold you can get from you lane, so you want to maximize the gold from your jungle as well.
Why should I gank?
Why not?
The reason why ganking is so important in this map is because it has no penalty. In summoner’s rift, you waste a lot of time with a failed gank. This time could have been spent farming in lane, or jungling, which is why you cannot gank 24/7. However, the distance between lanes and the jungle is so little in the twisted treeline that it makes no difference whatsoever. You can be farming your lane one second, and ganking the other lane in the next.
To get ahead.
Many people do not want to leave their lanes so that they can farm. They are so focused on getting every last hit that they won’t see a good gank opportunity even if it is there. This is a mistake. By ganking, you can get your team more gold. Also, an early gank can simply win the lane for your ally, and make your enemy spend the rest of his game crying.
It forces the enemy to fear.
If you do a successful gank, the enemy will play in fear. Even while you leave your lane to clean up the mobs in your jungle, they will see your icon disappear on the mini map and run back to their turret. This gives your team an easier time because the enemy will play less aggressive, which means your lane will end up free-farming.In the next section there will be various gank routes. These will all be shown from the blue side perspective, meaning you can simply flip it around on the map if you are on purple side. Gank routes are listed from easy to hard.
Gank Paths
Speed Shrine Gank:This gank can be pulled off when the enemy is pushed through their lane. By using the speed shrine boost, you can reach the enemy fairly fast. This is an advantage over ganking from bushes, because you have the element of surprise.
Spoiler: Click to viewAltar Bush Gank:
This area is the usual route taken when attempting to gank. By going to this bush, you can head towards the enemy top lane or bottom lane, as well as their jungle and altar. Even if you aren't ganking, you may want to visit this area to check on the enemy jungler.
Spoiler: Click to viewGolem camp wrap-around gank:
This gank uses the opening from the lane to the jungle which is near the turret. This gank can be used even when the opponent is not pushed. However, it reveals you earlier on in the gank because of turret vision. The enemy will be closer to the turret while ganking like this, so you need to have some kind of burst/cc.
Spoiler: Click to viewWolf Camp wrap-around gank:
Similar to the golem camp wrap-around gank, except for bot lane. Note that if you are going to gank this way, you will most likely take 1 or 2 turret hits depending on how durable the enemy is.
Spoiler: Click to viewVilemaw Gank:
This is a gank for top lane that is less expected. Usually the laner will feel safer along the vilemaw side of his lane, so by coming from vilemaws nest you may get more successful ganks. There are really no disadvantages to ganking this way, but you may have to use other paths depending on the enemy playstyle.
Spoiler: Click to viewLane Ganks:
These ganks take the most patient but are most often the most surprising. If you successfully set up for one of these, you will usually get the kill/flash burnt. A lane gank requires you to walk into the bush when the lane is pushed. This way, the enemy has not seen you due to the fog of war. The next time they walk into this bush, they will walk straight into you.
Spoiler: Click to view
Sieging a Turret
Sieging a turret is very important because it allows you to take, essentially, a free turret. However, it may take a long time and requires you to not be impatient. In order to siege a turret, you have to whittle the turrets hp down every time one of your minion waves comes.1. Obviously you need a ranged champion.
2. You need champions that can push.
However, the enemy will not sit there and let you take a free turret. They will be clearing your minion waves, and looking to initiate on you.
3. Poke them if you have any poke skills.
4. Disengage when they try to engage (unless it is a good engage for you). You have to keep your distance.
Whatever you do, do not try to fight under their turret, unless you actually have a big advantage on them. In that case, you are probably going to win the game either way. Turret diving is an easy way to throw the game, and as my friend once said:
“Don’t test our strength.”
Goals during the Game
Early Game:
Your goals for the early game should be to farm up so that you are a threat later. However, you need to do this in a way that allows your team to farm up as well. If you take farm from all the lanes and jungle to yourself, you will be the only threat on your team. The usual routine is to farm your lane, and gank once and a while. This method gives you farm and map presence.
Gank from the enemy jungle. While farming is important, the gold you can potentially get from ganking is much more instant and can give your team momentum to destroy the enemy team. However, ganking is hard to pull off against a competent team and is unreliable for a gold source. You should gank enough to make the enemy scared when you are mia, but you still need to farm your lane. Gank routes will be covered in a later section.
Interrupt enemy farming. They have the same goals as you, and they also want to farm up to be a late game nightmare. You can interrupt them by zoning in lane, pushing your creeps to their turret (usually not recommended as it makes you an easy gank target), taking their jungle, or simply killing them.
While you should not be focusing on taking down turrets at this point, you may try to whittle the health down if you can. Do not take extra harass trying to damage the turret however, because the turret will be going down anyways once you gain a temporary advantage over the enemy team. This will be covered in the next section.
Mid Game:
You want to keep doing everything you have been doing early game, but now that you have some items and more damage you can take turrets relatively fast. Turrets are the most vital things on this map, because it only takes 3 turrets and the enemy has an open nexus. When you get an opportunity, (your team gets a kill or the enemy is visible on another part of the map) take a turret. It only takes a little time once you are into the mid game.
Late Game:
By this time, you do not want to get caught alone, because it will leave your team in a 2v3 situation, and probably give the enemy a free turret. Your team should be wandering around together. Depending on the level of play, you can do a few things:
Camp a brush or corner: If the enemy is foolish enough to wander by himself in the “safety” of his own jungle, jump him and pick him off instantly. What I mean by a corner is around some sort of terrain where the enemy will not have vision of you until he is beside you like shown below.
Seige a turret: This is a very long process in some cases and should not be taken lightly. When done well, this tactic can take turrets if you have patience. Turret sieging was covered last section, so re-read that if you missed it.
Revive
FOR FUN
Communication
While this is overall a fun map that people only play for the laughs, it is also a competitive map that is equally or even more important to some players than the Summoner’s Rift. Communication for the team is very important (some kind of online chat service, like Skype or Ventrilo) because calls need to be made quickly. This small, fast - paced map calls for more fighting, and many more little scrims happening around the map.It also helps keep track of ultimate cooldowns, recalls, mia’s and more. If you want a successful team for the Twisted Treeline, communication is essential. However, just playing for fun is okay as well, cause it’s just a game, right?
Cheese Tactics
A “cheese” is a tactic that usually takes little to no skill to gain a free kill or advantage. These unexpected strategies can be countered, and will end up being worse for the cheeser, but much of the time they end up working. I leave this section here for you to decide the purpose. Whether you want to use these yourselves, or just gain the knowledge of these tactics so you don’t get cheesed, I really don’t care.Triple Bush Gank: One of the more common tricks. This will give your team an advantage if you stop it. All team members head to a bush in the bottom or top lane. They wait until minions come, and then jump the enemy champions with their numbers advantage. (either 2v3 or 1v3)
How to Stop: You can use abilities to check bushes before entering. Also, as the game starts, you should check your mini-map to see if all 3 of the enemies are on the map. For example, if you are top lane, you can wait for the 2 other enemies to show up in the bot lane (assuming they don’t have a jungler). You can then proceed to safely farm.
Back-door Strategy: Around mid game, the team pushes one lane, and then comes as a group to push the other one. They keep pushing and wait for the entire enemy team to come to the lane. One of their teammates then goes to the other pushed lane and backdoors the turret. They do not engage on you and continue to push.
How to Stop: If you can, try to push out your lane before coming to help another lane. You get more gold and experience as well this way. Try to engage on the 2v3 with speed boosts or flash. You can buy shurelya's for this. If you can kill 2 of the enemy champions, you can grab their turret before they respawn.
Altar Bush Bait: Inexperienced players will walk into this trap almost always. Bot lane pushes their minions to the enemy turret. Before the first altars unlock (3:00), all team members head to the bush right beneath the enemy altar, beside their turret. They wait until the enemy teams bot lane comes through the bush to capture the Altar, and focus them, instantly killing them. This tactic works better when you push your lane before, because it makes it more likely for the enemy to walk through the bush your team is camping.
How to Stop: Look at your mini-map. Also, check bushes with skill-shots. You can also leave your lane before 3:00 to cap your altar as it spawns.
Altar Recall Bait: Almost the same as the Altar Bush Bait. Your teammate attempts to take the enemies altar, and starts to recall on it. Your team stays nearby and picks off the enemy as they rush to interrupt the capping of their altar.
How to Stop: If you do not have your team nearby, let them have the altar. Check bushes with skillshots, and do not waste abilities/multiple ultimates on one person. If done properly, your team with have a position advantage because the enemy capturing the altar will be out of position.
most of these cheese tactics are baiting the opponent’s into walking into your team. While it takes a bit of strategy, it is a formulaic tactic that does not increase your skill. Notice that this is a pretty short list, because there are limited things you can do in comparison to summoner’s rift.
Credits
I would like to give a small shout out Laggermeister for suggesting that I add some sort of tier list. While I did not make a complete tier list, I completed this to my standards. Thank you!
And finally, I would like to thank YOU for reading this guide til the very ending. (: Unless you just skipped to the conclusion, that's cool too.
Conclusion
While this is a work in progress, the core information is still there, it is just a matter of polishing up the guide and getting more champion builds. Also, as the meta changes I will be updating the guide, which means you may want to check up once and a while!
Once again, thank you for reading
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHave a nice day!
Aseafy
Guide
A Twisted guide to the Treeline ~ General Guide: in-depth
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