League of Legends (LoL) Question: Would you trade Flash for 3-buffing your opponent's jungler?

2,987

Would you trade Flash for 3-buffing your opponent's jungler?

Asked by utopus on May 19, 2015

I got in this situation in one of my recent games; Everyone i've talked to says that trading for 3-buffing your opponent's jungler is worth it; Personally, i don't think it's ALWAYS worth it; I think it depends on how much gank pressure you / your opposing jungler has in the early game. If I stole a ' red buff, in exchange for flash, that probably would be more detrimental to me, since fiddlesticks has pretty weak ganks until level 6. On the other hand, 3-buffing something like a or a is devastating. They lose so much gank pressure if they can't get both of their starting buffs that it'd totally be worth it.

To make it easier for people to argue their points, i'd like people to respond in 4 different circumstances, that i'll outline below:

You have early game gank pressure | Your opponent has early game gank pressure
You don't have early game gank pressure | Your opponent Does
You have early gank pressure | Your opponent does not
You don't have early gank pressure | Your opponent doesn't either

Thanks

Answers (4)

(1495) |

doesn't need blue for early pressure. o.O

I don't really understand the situation tbh. Are you ing into an opponent's buff to it and then securing your own or something? If I'm 3-buffing someone, I don't need to Flash unless I get caught in their jungle or Flash for a kill. Why does 3-buffing someone need to cost you a Flash at all?

Anyway I would say it's only worth it if you take a valuable buff (Blue from , Red from , etc.), you force them to recall and ACTUALLY set them behind, or you definitely don't need Flash to gank. For a jungler like or , having Flash for early ganks is really huge. For others like , it's not really that helpful.

3-buffing doesn't automatically gain you an experience advantage like it did in past seasons. You need to force the enemy jungler to waste time dead, recalling, or walking past empty camps to turn a 3-buff into an XP lead. Unless the buff itself is valuable, it doesn't mean much if the jungler can just clear small camps.

(1495) |

As a general rule I would say that's not a terrible play, but you could make much more beneficial plays with in most cases. Unless you were planning on escaping without Flashing and ended up having to burn it, in which case I'd say that's fine.

(313) |

You'd be stealing their buffs with , and then you'd be forced to away so your opponents don't converge on you to kill you; The situation I had in mind is a really specific circumstance

(353) |

yes it's worth it all the time b/c
1) u set them behind
2) you get control & knowledge of the enemy jungle that you three buff < most important

with knowledge on the enemy jg you can predict which camps they're going to next and you gain a lot of control over the game w/ knowing if the enemy jg is going to be present for a countergank or knowing which lanes seem profitable to gank for the enemy jg.

in 2v1's you win and in 2v2s you win (b/c enemy jg is behind)

the downside of not having flash doesn't matter as much b/c you can force it from them as well if you play properly

(123) |

No. It is almost never worth it. If all you are getting is the buff you are often setting yourself back in experience if you aren't forcing the enemy jungler to recall afterwards, and most junglers don't even care about their first blue.

(8) |

If you have early game gank pressure and your opponent has early gank pressure then typically taking their red buff in exchange for flash is 100% worth it.

If you don't have early gank pressure but your opponent does then taking any of their buffs for flash would be worthwhile (as long as you use mana, if you don't then red would be the only buff worth taking).

You have early gank pressure but your opponent doesn't, this is more complex as you could be giving your lanes a better advantage in the time that the enemy jungler is farming. If they don't have early gank pressure but clear their jungle fast then I would rather pressure lanes, but if they rely on mana to clear the jungle (like fiddlesticks) then being able to take their blue will make them fall behind massively.

You don't have early gank pressure and your opponent doesn't either, in this circumstance you will want to deny them any buffs you can, by the times you are able to gank effectively you are most likely to have regained your flash so don't worry about using it to slow the enemy down and gain an advantage yourself. Since you can't pressure lanes you should pressure the enemy jungler.