I'm Tonda Blaník and I'll teach you how to win with Heimerdinger. First and foremost, this guide is focused mainly on silver and gold brackets. Tactics described here become less and less useful as you begin to climb out of lower tiers of plat. Here are my stats:

Winning is the only thing that matters. Oftentimes you'll find yourself at the odds even with your own team, but who cares as long as you win. You can and should employ everything you can to win the game. One thing I found quite effective is berating your opponents right after they fail. Add that insult to the injury. A single "rekt" in /all channel after you get a kill will go a long way. Smack it to their face, make it personal. It will make them chase you, dive you just to get even. Use it to your advantage, but beware: this goes both ways. Never let them get to you.

Many people in lower brackets play for kills. Kills are nice, but the real objective is to destroy enemy nexus. Notice how in high-level games the players focus more on destroying the towers and inhibitors. That's how you want to play. Destroying a tower gives everyone in your team gold, pushes the wave closer to opponents' nexus and allows easier access to drake, baron and inhibitors. It provides an advantage for the whole team, an advantage in the aggregate.

Pros Awesome pushing power Often turns ganks into kills Decent even if you suck at last hitting Not reliant on blue buff Can solo drake onwards from level 6

Cons Useless without turrets No escape Especially early unable to follow roaming opponent

Right after the game starts, buy the starter items, run to mid and position your turrets like this:
"B-but this will get me ganked!" Protip: Most junglers in silver and gold suck. They won't gank, and even if they do, they will often turn back right after the first salvo from your turrets. Besides, when the gank happens, chances are your lane opponent is low on health and/or mana already, rendering him useless.

When the wave comes, you have to hold the aggro for a few seconds until your wave comes:
This is CRUCIAL for your success in lane. If you fail to do this, your turrets will draw aggro and get destroyed. Don't be afraid to lose some HPs, you'll regen them in no time thanks to your passive and masteries.

Now why are we doing this?

• It forces your opponent to farm under tower, lowering his creep score and making him waste his mana on minions
• Minions get to attack the turret, slowly and steadily eating it away

Now if you are successful, you will either force your opponent out of lane (or outright kill him) or destroy the turret (as early as 6) or solo kill drake (more info below). In rare cases you will accomplish all of this.

Feel free to use rockets to last hit groups of minions. It just goes in line with your goal of shoving the lane as hard as you can. Don't let your mana get too low though. It's also important to poke your opponent with autoattacks when he is busy farming or foolish enough to engage your turret formation.

After the first mid turret is gone you are free to roam, leveraging your early advantage further and further until your team wins the game.

When you hit level 6 you can attempt to solo kill drake. It's a little tricky, but nobody really expects it. You have to be careful though, if enemy jungler catches you, its free kill + drake for them.
Do not let drake splash damage destroy your turrets. After your ult ends, tank the drake. Help your DPS by autoattacking. If you did everything right, everyone is surprised (your teammates pleasantly, adversaries unhappily) and you (with dangerously low hp and mana) can recall after a job well done.

Go for drake if

• You know enemy jungler is in the other part of map
• Bot lane is pushed towards opponents' tower or otherwise doing well
• Your jungler or supp is there with you

Don't do drake if

• You dont have ult and 2 turret kits ready
• You dont have the ap masteries yet

Generally, many factors come into play and only after playing a few and then some games you'll know when it's ok and when not to attempt this stunt.
Another option is to go for it at level 9 with pink ward. It becomes faster and safer.

• Never use grenade to last hit minions. Have it ready for that gank. Also note if you miss it, you are most likely going to end up dead. But hey, no pressure.
• Yes, do buy boots of swiftness with alacrity. Most of the time in lower divisions it's all about outrunning your opponents.
• If you are silver or gold chances are you are not very good at aiming skillshots. For this reason I'd recommend you use turret ult and grenade ult over rockets ult.
• Pre-6 don't leave the lane unless you have a very good reason to. Your jungler spamming you because he invaded enemy red and now is getting his *** kicked is not a good reason.

Q: "My teammates want me to go top/I read somewhere Heimer top is OP/I will go Heimer top what will happen?"
A: Generally, don't. Distance between towers is almost twice as in mid, screwing up your aggressive turret placement and making you easier to gank.

Q: "Is it safe to stay next to your turrets at the start of the game?"
A: Generally, yes. In 300+ games I played with Heimer only once the enemy team got first blood on me before minions reached the lane. Do not stay in vision range of enemy tower though.

Q: "My turret formation is gone. What now?"
A: Well it's no use to try to recreate it now. Place your turrets further apart from each other in the middle of the lane.

Q: "I got ganked and now I'm dead and didn't manage to get a kill. What now?"
A: I won't lie to you, this happens. Sometimes, you'll watch angrily from death screen as both jungler and enemy mid are left only with fraction of HPs. Chances are they will want to do the same thing again, so dont push anymore.

Q: "Should I splitpush?"
A: Generally, no. Games in lower brackets are almost always decided with one 5 on 5 fight. Even if you say, "hey guys Im gonna split, dont fight", 95% of the time the fight will happen anyways. If you are far ahead though, feel free to push that lane. I often got triple kills when all their team decided to gank me. Sometimes even your teammates are smart enough to capitalize on this and push on the other part of the map. Most of times not though.

Q: "Are there any junglers I should watch out for?"
A: Yes, Lee Sin, Amumu, Xin Zhao or Rek Sai like to gank early. Be careful against these.

Push, bully, kill, berate, then push some more. It feels good.