posted in the original Vainglory Forums on 4 October 2016 by @Ahumana, archived by @HipsterSkaarf on 8 Feb 2018
Everyone knows that in Vainglory the team with the greatest net worth is favored to win and as the gold disparity grows so does the likelihood of the richer team winning. While this is common knowledge i have found that players (even pros) neglect ways in which they could maximize their worth relative to that of their opponents.
1- Lane CS
You have heard, i’m sure, that to be top laner you need around 9-10 cs a minute. While there is some merit to this statement it is mostly a fallacy. In reality, to be a top tier laner, you must consistently outfarm the enemy laner. How do you outfarm the rival laner? Try Freezing the minions close to your turret but not so close that they are in range of the tower. This makes it risky for the opposing lane to farm and he will miss substantial cs over the course of a game if you practice this tactic.
In Dota2 one can kill their own minion to ‘deny’ an opponent a last hit. While this cant be directly applied to vainglory you can employ similar tactics. When the opponent is trying to last hit a lane minion close to your turret (especially the big one) You and your roam should engage the enemy laner to try and make things difficult for him to get the last hit. Also while playing as adagio you can heal the minion the enemy is trying to last hit (this is surprisingly effective)
2- CS inflation can be VERY Detrimental
Sometimes it is better to avoid cs if it means more cs for your enemies. This is hard to notice and even harder to correct in game but i beleive its the right play.
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Example #1- Your team just got an ace and both teammates are getting the gold miner. You take a turret and sweep down into their jungle but there are no jungle monsters to clear so you decide to take the minion miner instead (WRONG). If you take the minion miner you get 4 cs and 150 gold. When the other team takes it back they will most likely get 263 gold(150 + 113 ambient) making it a poor trade. This combined with the fact that atleast 5 cs worth of puny lane minions will die before your laner has a chance to farm them equals a total of 313 gold given up in networth differential because you were selfish and took the minion miner. The enemy minion miner should only be taken to force taking turrets and never because you wanted gold. That reasoning is both selfish and flawed.
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Example #2- There is a massive clump of lane minions on your side of the map. Lets say 9 friendly and 11 hostile minions. If no teammate is around and you clear the wave super fast then you have just donated a lot of money to enemy team. You made 360 gold and handed the enemy team 440 or 770 gold depending on how many enemies dealt with the wave. Obviously sometimes time is of the essence and one has no choice but to farm quickly and move towards a new objective but this is surely something to contemplate while playing.
3- Kraken
Your team just aced the other team at the 16:00 minute mark and they still have 4 of their turrets. The laner takes a turret and the other 2 teammates get kraken. With the kraken’s help you take another 2 turrets. Success right? Only 1 turret left to deal with and since pulling kraken the gold earned by both teams (excluding other variables of course) equals 2100 gold for your team vs 1500 gold for them(+600 gold differential). What if your team had instead ignored kraken and simply went for two turrets instead? 1800 to 0 (+1800 in gold differential) with 2 turrets to deal with still. Pulling kraken can surely be tempting because there is always a chance that it will end the game but the likelihood of doing so with 3-4 turrets remaining in high tier play is low. Im not sure how you guys compare the two situations but i think the 2nd scenario is far more favorable.
4- Chasing Kills
If your team is winning and decides to spend time in a prolonged engagement with the enemy then chances are your team is not adding to their gold lead but simply maintaining the current difference. When you have backed the enemy team off, under their towers, it is time to claim victory and take their jungle as a reward. Turret diving and an insistence on finishing hard to get (riskier) kills sometimes works out, but often this kind of team behavior backfires and can erase a well established lead. Over the course of a match, almost all games of vainglory have their swings in momentum and i believe it is in part because the winning team begins to play recklessly, with less of an emphasis on increasing their gold lead and a greater emphasis of trying to '“win the game on the spot” by killing the enemy team.
Conclusion
A lot what l i covered here is situational but i am a firm believer that the best playstyle is one that optimizes gold for your team and minimizes gold for the other team. While the theory is simple, its implementation is a bit more difficult to grasp and may feel counter-intuitive a good portion of the time.
Strive to get to the 20:00 mark with a sizeable gold advantage and proceed to end the game at that point. Going for a home-run or a knock-out punch before then may be all it takes to let the other team back in the game.