Prioritizing objective defense, and when to help out your teammates

A reoccurring theme I’ve found in 5v5 since I’ve been playing is a fairly lackadaisical willingness to help out teammates, or to shrug off errors which, in the beginning seem not too bad. They tend to be more harm late game.

In particular, turret defense, tending to the help of fellow laners. Now, I don’t mean your carries per se, just those occupying the lanes. It’s been far too often how many times I’ve seen a carry or squishy in a lane, doing their best to defend, when they get dog piled by two or three extra enemy heroes and even with an amass of pings and “I need help!”, most won’t budge.

I expect that, early game, maybe the loss of a turret or two doesn’t seem like a big deal. Maybe it isn’t to some. Maybe it just isn’t and I’m wrong in feeling it does. But it’s hard to be on the defense with another player in the lane, and when one of us needs to heal, or retreat, we lose an objective. I feel this is a problem because I will sometimes check around the map after someone’s made it clear they need help - I can’t always rush to help, either, sometimes I’m occupying my own lane and I’m facing down an opposing hero - but when there’s two junglers farming with nearly full health, unoccupied by any real threats, why won’t they help? Why is the captain not helping?

I’ve been trying my best with every role in 5v5 so far and I’m not going to sit here and say “fucking junglers, they won’t help” and blame it entirely on them, it’s also not entirely the fault of the captain. I am just seeing laners in distress be totally ignored. Here’s a scenario:

  1. Lane is occupied by a carry, and the opposing lane also has a carry.
  2. Opposing carry gets the reinforcement of an enemy jungler, or captain.
  3. Mass health loss, carry needs to retreat. This usually is where there is a request for help.
  4. No help comes. Suddenly there’s another jungler in the lane because they realize this turret can be pushed.

Then, we have these outcomes:

  1. Carry tries to defend. Dies. No help comes. Turret gets destroyed.
    1.a. Carry tried to defend. Dies. Help comes too late. Turret gets destroyed, help dies.
  2. Carry leaves. No help comes. Turret gets destroyed.
    2.a. Carry leaves. Help comes late. Turret gets destroyed.
  3. Luck strikes and there’s retreat on the opposing side.

I understand 5v5 is new, I’m not saying that I expect every player to be totally at attention of the beck and call of other players. I’m not going to expect that every play will be perfect, but defend your turrets. Protect your objectives. I’ve seen too many games trickle into defeat because players are not focusing equally on these defenses as well as their offense.

If anyone has anything else to add, any other perspectives in their respective roles such and how to approach defending your objectives, please share.

Edit: TL;DR: Work together to defend your objectives and each other, try not to ignore your teammates if they’re in distress.

You’d think at least half these people (AT LEAST HALF) would have played league for a bit before playing Vainglory. This is literally the same as league (mind set wise).

You’d think with the pressure in defending your turrets in 3v3 that by now this concept would be ingrained in everyone’s head.

“We have 9 turrets you say?”
”The Vain crystal is a turret as well, you say?”

Alot of your points can be boiled down to one point: Map Awareness.

I don’t think it’s a case of ignoring your team, they’re simple too focused on getting cs, farming, pushing that particular lane and to a lesser extent, lack strategic knowledge.

For those not familiar with 5v5 moba, they simply think, “hey, I’m doing something, gimme a break”

Knowing the ideal pathways to get to your team in trouble is another learning curve. Map familiarity comes with experience through many hours of play.

I think your points are valid. It’s just a pity it’s not common knowledge.
I really wish 5v5 players took some time to watch the showcase matches and also read guides.
Otherwise, it’s a matter of time for 5v5 to settle in (maybe months later)…

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Me and my team actually do let one of our laners die if we can gain something of greater value. For example, if our top was already getting snowballed, but we can shut down the enemy bot, we’ll take the trade.

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Pretty much this. And it’s not exclusive to 5v5, either. I see a lot of lack of map awareness in 3v3 too, which is arguably even worse. I’m certain it’ll improve over time, I have hope it’ll get better.

That’s a completely reasonable trade off, and it makes sense.

I’ve played league for 4 years now :slight_smile: and I’ve learned that smart adc’s know how to hold lane very well without assistance (most of the time they are ahead tho)

Unfortunately not every game has a smart carry.

I am casual at best, but I like to play as Celeste a lot. Usually, I stay with the turret and try not to engage. I try to ping when I need help.

If no help arrives, I simply hide behind the next turret, because when I visited the old forums, there were a lot of complaints about feeding the enemy team.

My primary objective is to simply stay alive. If a turret goes down because of it, then its better than trolling, I think?

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Well firstly celeste best hero in game so you are going on the right path :slight_smile:

About the turret, if you dying ensures that the enemy doesn’t take that particular turret, then imo it’s worth sacrificing.

But tbh I don’t see that happening, because one you die and help doesn’t arrive immediately then that turret will either get destroyed or take a lot of damage.

Need to make a flow chart on when to help. Losing turrets isn’t so much of a big deal. So long as your vain is still standing you have a chance.

What really hurts your team is the lack of gold. A starved laner falls behind on items. Come team fights or even trying to hold their turret, they bring no damage. That is disasterous. When the enemy carries have 3 T3s and your carry has 1, good luck trying to make any ground.

Always think about it in terms of gold vs time. Losing a bit of ground hurts as it’s hard to make a push when you gotta battle 2 waves to even get to a turret, but being behind on items is the killer.

As for helping allies, you should always be. Maybe not that second, but you should be adjusting your play to plug any leaks. If that means babysitting bot or mid, then so be it.

As a roamer, I pick the slowest clearer in relation to who he is paired into. If he proves to be able to hold his ground, then it’s a freebie and I can move to a more advantageous position. If nobody needs help, then it’s essentially a winning situation where only fuck ups will cost you the match.

But you should always be helping. You will lose 5v5 if you can’t teamwor. It’s far more punishing than 3v3.

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