Vainglory Rotations 101

posted in the original Vainglory Forums on 21 December 2016 by @Akshay, archived by @HipsterSkaarf on 8 Feb 2018

With the recent release of 2.0, the biggest vainglory update yet, there is a lot of confusion among players about the game. Here is a simple guide to help you give you and edge over your opponents.

Let’s start with some BASIC FACTS we need to know-

There is a basic gold trickle of 5 gold per second starting from 0.25 min.
There is a basic EXP trickle of 0.6 EXP per second starting from 0.25 min.
Exp in lane is gained even if you don’t last hit the minions.
Gold is distributed among 2 teammates as 100% for the killer and 75% for the nearest ally with least gold.
EXP is distributed in the following ways when multiple allies nearby-
One - 100%
Two - 85/40%
Three - 65/30/30%

Lane -

The first minion spawns at 0.06 mins.
The minions reach the center of the fold at around 0.28 mins.
A single minion wave consists of 4 minions. 2 Melee, 1 Ranged and 1 Big minion.
The two melee minions are worth 40 gold each, ranged is worth 40 gold too and the big minion is worth 80. A single wave is thus worth 200 gold.
The minion waves spawn every 24 seconds.
The 3 small lane minions are worth 6 EXP each while the big one is worth 12. A whole wave gives 30 EXP.

Jungle -

The first monsters spawn exactly at 0.25 min.
The two healing treants are worth around 33 gold each and give 29 EXP each.
The backs are worth 78 gold each and give 13 EXP each.
The small minions by the shop give around 24 gold and 13 EXP each.
A jungle clear gives 270 gold and 110 EXP.The backs and the small minions spawn every 48 seconds while the treants spawn every 51 seconds.
The respawn timer increases by 1 second every minute into the game.
Now as we know how the gold and EXP are gained and distributed, we must then look at how to get the most from it. Let’s start with where must the captain (roam) stay during the game to get the most possible advantage to the team.

Where should the Captain go?

This is a very important question to answer and one which requires a lot of details to answer effectively.
It mostly comes down to the comps. In 2.0, due to the removal of jungle shop, a lot of early aggression has died out but it’s safe for the captain to stick with jungler if your team has a krul or phinn, or if the enemy team has a very dominant early hero such as koshka to keep aggression in check and help the jungler clear faster.

It is also worth notice that ranged roams like Lyra and adagio usually stick to the lane and help harass enemies. Lyra, in particular, is a really good hero to double lane. Though her burst heal on reactivation is removed in 2.0, she can still reactivate the sigil for a burst of damage. Pick up a crystal bit and become a nightmare for the enemy carry.

The gold and EXP distribution is also a thing we cannot afford to ignore.

The lane minions spawn every 24 seconds starting from 0.06 minutes, in the first ten minutes, a total of 24 minion waves are spawned and eventually killed. Considering the carry last hits every minion, that is 4800 gold and 720 EXP for the carry. If the captain stays in the lane, he gets 3600 gold and 288 EXP while costing the carry 108 EXP or a whole level. This means that if the captain stays in the lane while the enemy carry farms solo, your carry would be almost a level behind in EXP compared to the enemy carry in around 10 mins.

The jungle minions, on the other hand, spawn around 11 times in the first 10 minutes. Considering the jungler manages to get all the camps in his jungle, he gets 2970 gold and 1210 EXP. If the captain stays in the jungle, he gets 2227 gold and 484 EXP while costing the jungler 121 EXP.

This gives the captain an interesting choice to make depending on the game where he can either choose gold or EXP. It is advisable for roam heroes such as phinn to stay in the jungle not only for faster clear but for the extra EXP which helps him hit his power spikes faster.

Rotation Strategies

There is no single perfect strategy. It all depends on the game. Here are a few rotation strategies and where you might find them useful:

  1. The meta rotation- This is the rotation we are most used to, start with the backs, take the treants and then the bottoms. This is usually the case when you don’t really want to fight early.

  2. The aggressive rotation- In this rotation, we usually avoid the first treant or the small camps in favor of ganking lane or forcing a fight early. This is favorable for aggressive early game comps.
    This aggression, however, comes at the cost of the captain hyper-levelling the jungler.
    Since now the range for both the ambient gold and the experience circle is 14 meters, it costs the captain around 25 or 36 gold to get the jungler to level 2.
    Note:- 14 meters is approximately the distance between the back camps and the mid-heal.

  3. The Defensive rotation- This is a very innovative strategy which requires a bit of coordination. In this rotation, we start with the backs, go to the small camps, take the mid-heal, the top treant and then port.This is usually preferable when you play for the late game and have a late blooming jungle/ captain pair. The carry too must be very careful and play defensively since now he is more vulnerable to ganks.

Now we’re down to the advanced strategies which require Team coordination to pull out. They are not easy to do and you might feel it’s a bit weird but they pay out real good.

The best possible gold/EXP distribution

The laner is called carry for a reason. He usually has the highest damage potential and abusing it might be just what’s needed to roll over the opponents. This is more like a mix of many strategies that used to be prevalent in the old times but kinda died out.

Start with any of the mentioned rotations. Once you get into like 4-5 mins into the game when the captain got his fountain, put the captain more in lane. The carry clears a wave in the lane which gives him 200 gold and 25.5 EXP. The captain gets 150 and 12 EXP.

Now comes the interesting part where the roam stays in lane and the carry rotates down to jungle. The jungle clear thus speeds up and the carry soaks up the ambient gold. After a clear, it ends up with the jungler getting 270 gold and 93.5 EXP while laner gets around 202 gold and 44 EXP. This happens while the captain babysits the lane for the carry. Thus the carry will get forward very soon. If this seems familiar, it is. This is the strategy that made Phoenix Armada invincible.

Another strategy that kinda died out is lane freezing.

Once you have a map advantage over the enemy, put your captain in lane to babysit it while invading enemy jungle. This not only puts the carry forward but since the lane does not push and you only take the last hits, it also puts the enemy carry behind. If you’re the one being invaded, pop a minion candy onto the crystal miner and make it a 4v3.

Concluding Note-

The game is now more versatile than ever, I hope this guide helps you get an insight into the mechanics of the game and help you get better.

Thank you for reading the strategy guide I put together. I’d like to thank Vyzeox and Keldegar from whose works I’ve gathered some necessary information. I hope you took something away from this.