Views: 3390 Positioning: Zoning/Punishing
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All the points below will be from bot lane point of view once again.
Let's start off with a story first to make my point clearly. I've been wanting to climb ELO and I wanted to see what I didn't do properly. I took the chance and played few matches with and against few Diamond I/Challenger bot lanes. I obviously lost every single time more or less, because of positioning.
I was playing quite fair lane
Draven, Thresh vs Miss Fortune, Leona.
The more I got punished for mispositioning, the more frustrated I got --> Loosing cs, overcommitting, making more mistakes --> Dieng, loosing tower + objectives. This was clear difference between me and my opponent. I knew when I should poke and how to avoid getting poked, but there are so many chances to punish/avoid. He simply used the chances better than I did. Learned a lot that day and I'll share even some basic ones which may seem obvious to some.
Let's get to it. I expect you to know bot lane locations, but I'll just make a quick explain in case I use different terms than you. Locations and situations are from BLUE side.
(Red bush = 2nd bush furthest from your tower)
(Blue bush = 1st bush, closest from your tower)
(River bush = Bush closest to enemy tower at the end of river)
Good ADC zoners / pokers / punishers have high damage and/or range.
Good supports for this job are high CC, tanky, high poke supports.
Also: Wards. Denying vision and having vision is the easiest way of zoning.
Keep this in mind while doing this: Minions > Small poke
Here are few very simple ways of zoning/punishing;
So you know they have mana hungry jungler and will start at blue. Depending on how good ganking potential the jungler has, place a ward at river. Have your support be placed at red bush to either land CC/poke OR zone the enemy towards their tower or force ward there. Then just push the lane as hard as you can and keep the red bush vision. Basically what this does is you achieve level 2 faster. With your stat and ability advantage, you can either go trade off with the enemy if they go contest minions or they will back-off and you are denying minion gold.
This is where things get tricky. Let's assume you are even at lane and both supports are not doing anything special to control over the bushes. Basically having control of enemy bush is the base of zoning, but you can't do that at the moment. Poking with abilities is OK, but you can punish the enemy for taking CS, within limits of not loosing CS of your own while doing that. Look at your own minion wave HP, if you see he is going for your melee minions which are low hp and he has full hp minion wave, FIRE EVERYTHING. At least hit 1 auto-attack. It's not worth it if you loose minion on the way. The most important minion deny is the big siege minion one. Time it right.
This is really easy and can often lead to burst of summoner/loosing resources/dieng.
The most simple rule is when either your enemy has only ADC or support at lane, go kill/poke/zone. Deny everything you can by simply containing red/blue bush control depending on where your lane is. Second situation is where support leaves lane to ward. Either punish ADC by zoning/poking or try to kill support on the way.
Let's start off with a story first to make my point clearly. I've been wanting to climb ELO and I wanted to see what I didn't do properly. I took the chance and played few matches with and against few Diamond I/Challenger bot lanes. I obviously lost every single time more or less, because of positioning.
I was playing quite fair lane
Draven, Thresh vs Miss Fortune, Leona.- Every time I mispositioned, I got punished by basic attack.
- Every time I went to get last hit, I got punished.
- If I was late from my lane, opponent was level higher and punished.
- Support went warding, I got zoned.
- I was alone in lane, I got zoned.
- Every time I lost vision, jungler ganked and I got zoned.
The more I got punished for mispositioning, the more frustrated I got --> Loosing cs, overcommitting, making more mistakes --> Dieng, loosing tower + objectives. This was clear difference between me and my opponent. I knew when I should poke and how to avoid getting poked, but there are so many chances to punish/avoid. He simply used the chances better than I did. Learned a lot that day and I'll share even some basic ones which may seem obvious to some.
Let's get to it. I expect you to know bot lane locations, but I'll just make a quick explain in case I use different terms than you. Locations and situations are from BLUE side.
(Red bush = 2nd bush furthest from your tower)
(Blue bush = 1st bush, closest from your tower)
(River bush = Bush closest to enemy tower at the end of river)
Good ADC zoners / pokers / punishers have high damage and/or range.
Good supports for this job are high CC, tanky, high poke supports.
Also: Wards. Denying vision and having vision is the easiest way of zoning.
Keep this in mind while doing this: Minions > Small poke
Here are few very simple ways of zoning/punishing;
Enemy is assisting at blue
So you know they have mana hungry jungler and will start at blue. Depending on how good ganking potential the jungler has, place a ward at river. Have your support be placed at red bush to either land CC/poke OR zone the enemy towards their tower or force ward there. Then just push the lane as hard as you can and keep the red bush vision. Basically what this does is you achieve level 2 faster. With your stat and ability advantage, you can either go trade off with the enemy if they go contest minions or they will back-off and you are denying minion gold.
Lane farming
This is where things get tricky. Let's assume you are even at lane and both supports are not doing anything special to control over the bushes. Basically having control of enemy bush is the base of zoning, but you can't do that at the moment. Poking with abilities is OK, but you can punish the enemy for taking CS, within limits of not loosing CS of your own while doing that. Look at your own minion wave HP, if you see he is going for your melee minions which are low hp and he has full hp minion wave, FIRE EVERYTHING. At least hit 1 auto-attack. It's not worth it if you loose minion on the way. The most important minion deny is the big siege minion one. Time it right.
Enemy is left alone in lane
This is really easy and can often lead to burst of summoner/loosing resources/dieng.
The most simple rule is when either your enemy has only ADC or support at lane, go kill/poke/zone. Deny everything you can by simply containing red/blue bush control depending on where your lane is. Second situation is where support leaves lane to ward. Either punish ADC by zoning/poking or try to kill support on the way.
How to prevent getting zoned ?
- Have sustain
- Have high CC support
- Man-up. Know when you can win the trade in stead getting poked 24/7 for nothing
- Have jungler ganking. No matter if river is warded, just CC enemy bot lane.
- Have vision and deny it
- Against Thresh and Blitzcrank especially, keep lane bushes warded, or risk getting zoned hard (maybe even costing your teammate's life).
- Keep on the move, don't stand still or you make a sitting duck.
- Move eyes constantly between map and the current view.
- Analyze poke/kill potential.
- Poke with AAs when it's safe.
There's a few I have written in my head.
Résumé: I think I buy her because I "feel good" when playing her and I am going to try to be more active in lane - not only csing and ignoring the enemies until the support or jungler does sthing. Thank you for advising :P.
Have a nice day!