The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 471: Calculated Risks

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven, Jerks and Velcas. [00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Four Wards. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Podcast here to help you move forward in league. Hello and welcome to episode 471 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Sohman and I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Freeshooter. [00:00:49] Speaker C: Hello, I'm here. [00:00:52] Speaker B: We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:55] Speaker A: I have returned like always. [00:00:59] Speaker B: And somehow Crush you has joined us for his second week in a row. [00:01:04] Speaker D: Let's keep that streak going. Y. [00:01:07] Speaker A: It might actually be salty that. [00:01:09] Speaker B: He'S not first in the introductions anymore. [00:01:11] Speaker D: Nah. Okay. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Guys, we are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out, play games with us, chat about your games, ask for help. We got all sorts of stuff going on in there, so Link is in the episode description. We look forward to seeing you there. We also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jacksonman where it's a lot of Path of Exile. Currently Free Shooter is at Twitch TV free eShooter. That's right. There are three E's in free and it's been. I'm assuming now it's going to be some Monster Hunter, but it's been mostly Elden Ring. [00:01:48] Speaker C: Actually I'm probably gonna keep this streaming to just Elden Ring. Monster Hunter is a game that I like. Just kind of turning my brain off playing with friends, not worry about streaming and all that. [00:01:58] Speaker B: So fair enough. Lots of Elden Ring. Yes, Mike can be found at Twitch TV mikeofmanynames what have you been streaming lately, Mike? [00:02:06] Speaker A: I've been gone to do streaming. I've been back and forth between sicknesses for the past month, so I haven't bothered streaming. Hopefully I'm past that hurdle where I'm gonna lose my voice again. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Hopefully no losing voice. It's bad for podcasting. [00:02:22] Speaker A: We were barely able to get that done before my voice was gone. [00:02:25] Speaker B: True. And Crush streams at Twitch tv. Crush you. What are you streaming lately, Crush? [00:02:33] Speaker D: Nothing. I end the busy with other stuff. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Well, he will stream there when he gets going again. [00:02:39] Speaker D: That's true. [00:02:39] Speaker B: All right, shout out to Codex, Ninja Pillow Pet and Robegon for supporting us at the shout out tier on Patreon. If you want a shout out, head on over to patreon.com theforwards podcast $10 a month gets you that shoutout $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show, which is also included in the $10 a month tier. And then $1 a month just tells us that you love us. Last but not least, listeners, we always need more questions. We didn't get any this past week right into the 4 wards podcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show without your questions. What the hell are we going to do for the back half of the episode? Every episode? Seriously. Write in the 4Wards podcastmail.com or join the Discord and drop them in the Q and A channel. [00:03:32] Speaker C: Ask more than happy to go look funny. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I prefer email because it's less work for me. But if the Discord is easier for you, I'll take it because it means we have questions. All right, so our topic for tonight, we are going to talk about Risk. We're not the board game. I know, I know. Everyone's disappointed. They were eager for a three hour podcast about world domination that's only like two turns. [00:04:01] Speaker C: The first game I ever played it at, I misunderstood how to play so everyone could only move one thing per turn. We never finished that game in like 40 hours. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I bet. So what I mean by evaluating risk is we're, we've been talking a lot in the last like couple months worth of episodes about like objectives and when to give objectives, when to go for objectives, when it's worth committing to, like a fight you don't think you can win, to try to steal the objective, all that kind of stuff. So today we're going to talk about how to determine when those are the correct decisions and when they're not. Just as a broad sense, just any risks that you take in the game so that you can make sure that you are taking the risks where the dice are most weighted in your favor is kind of the, the idea of the goal of what we're talking about tonight. So let's kick it off, starting about the really simple stuff. You're playing jungle or you're playing mid, or you're playing support and you have an opportunity to go somewhere else and make a fight happen in another part of the map. Ganking, roaming, etc. How do you decide when to gank, when to roam, when not to gank or roam and where to go for these things. [00:05:28] Speaker D: So from the perspective of jungle deciding where to gank, one of the hard and fast rules I've found has been if you think you can 1v1, the enemy laner, top lane or mid lane, you can gank that lane. If the state of the wave is such that you can 1v1 them and kill them right now. Yeah, go do that. If you can't or are unsure, it doesn't mean you can't gank or shouldn't gank, just that you have to consider other things, context and so forth. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Yep. So if you think you can 1v1 the enemy laner, that is a low risk. [00:06:12] Speaker D: Gank mostly. The reason why that's the first criteria you look at is in solo queue. You cannot trust your teammates, unfortunately. So, yeah, you have to assume that you're going to be 1v1 against that enemy top laner when you go gank them. [00:06:35] Speaker A: So my first bit of advice for anyone doing any form of ganking, any type of roaming, first things first, hit tab. Check your items versus their items. If they even if they may have had a kill streak, they're on four kills but they haven't spent their gold and you now have equivalent items, you have a chance. That doesn't mean you can always win. This is your first step because you don't necessarily want to go, Yeah, I think I can. 1v1 them. Oh, oh crap, they have a new thing I didn't see. [00:07:13] Speaker B: We've all been in those situations where you go to 1v1 the guy and you're like, I'm fed. Surely I can do this. And it turns out he's like three levels above you. [00:07:21] Speaker C: That was what I was going to say actually is not just the items. Check their level. I don't know how many times it happens to me. I'll go to fight someone, be like, I'm sorry, he's level one. Oh, like even as an ad carry, I'll be like, oh, like I can just like be in lane against this person. Poke them. I'm you know, level 12. They're level 17. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Remember as. As a jungler and the bot lane, you're almost always going to be a lower level than the mid and the top laner. Solo lanes get more xp. So it's not a just static rule. Don't gank someone if they're a higher level than you. You're going to be a lower level most of the time because most of the people who are ganking are the jungler. And the supports what to take away. [00:08:09] Speaker B: From that is if they have more items than you or if they are higher level than you, the risk of the play goes up because they are more likely to be able to Turn it around. Other things to consider. How good is their champion at fighting multiple opponents? Like if you're a melee champion and you have a melee laner, you probably should not be ganking a Heimerdinger or an Illaoi unless they are very exposed. [00:08:36] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:08:36] Speaker B: Because those champions are notorious. Notorious for being able to turn around 1v2s and kill both of their opponents. [00:08:45] Speaker D: Yeah. Mordekaiser is a similar one. It's why the. The rubric is can you 1v1 him? Because you're gonna have to. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Well, and Mordekaiser, it's not just can you 1v1 of. It's can you 1v1 him in the death realm where he steals 10% of your stats. [00:09:01] Speaker D: Right. Yeah. [00:09:02] Speaker A: As long as you can survive the 1v1 realm. That also still works if you can live for like 30 seconds and not lose your entire health bar. This exaggeration doesn't last 30 seconds, obviously. [00:09:19] Speaker B: But yeah. So the other side of this is when to recognize that you are vulnerable and maybe give up that cannon. Maybe don't go for that plate. Maybe don't try to duel your lane opponent because you're in a position where the enemy sees you as a juicy target. That play becomes higher risk even if you're the one who's ahead if the enemy knows it's coming. So like, if they see you on a ward, please bring sweepers or control wards or both. Or umbral Glaive if your champion is an appropriate champion to build umbral glaive on. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Or if you're one of the people who has the red trinket talent that allows you to see a ward every one and a half minutes or something. [00:10:07] Speaker B: Yes. Making sure they don't know you're coming is huge. Not because necessarily that the lane is actually going to react in time appropriately, but because if they know you're coming, they then other people on the map can start rotating over to where you're about to make the play and show up in time to fuck you over. Other stuff that I just thought of when Shen's Level 6 and has his ult. Don't gank other lanes unless you're certain your top laner can prevent Shen Ult from going off. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Or you can blow them up that hard. [00:10:45] Speaker B: True. But like plain and simple, if. If they see you coming. So Shen has time to back off the wave. Shen's just gonna Ult the moment you have committed yourself. And then you're outnumbered and the person you wanted to blow up has a giant shield and you're just dead. [00:11:05] Speaker A: We've missed the two most obvious things is positioning in lane and health. Total of champions. Which are like the major things to check on for ganks. Are they really over pushed? Are they at half health when they can't safely do that? [00:11:23] Speaker B: God, the number of times I have seen someone get baited by a low health opponent and think that that means they can gank them and then go under turret to gank them with no minions to set up the dive and then they die because the person has. Has one CC spell. [00:11:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:39] Speaker B: That's all it takes because they're just tanking the turret the moment they come under the turret. [00:11:44] Speaker A: This is. This is one of those things. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Evaluate the risk. [00:11:47] Speaker A: I think we need to. As a separate topic in a different format, we're going to need to have discussion about when and how to tower dive because that's. That's a much people. [00:12:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:01] Speaker D: We're. [00:12:01] Speaker B: We're going to table that part of it for another episode. But it's been written down in the document. For future episodes we will talk about tower diving. So speaking of risk, one of the things that I think gets overlooked a lot is when you're doing really well. You're destroying your lane opponent or you've had three successful ganks in a row and you now have a bounty. You're now worth 600 gold instead of 300. If they kill you, that means you. [00:12:37] Speaker C: Have a new job. [00:12:39] Speaker B: Yep. Because you have now become a wincon for the enemy. If they kill you, not only do they get a big chunk of gold, but they take your team's potentially most powerful person out of the fight and they can then do whatever the hell they want during your death timer. I have seen so many games lost because the most fed player on the winning team gets his ass killed doing something stupid. And it hands the losing team a Baron because now his team can't stop them from doing it. [00:13:10] Speaker A: This also does not mean play absolutely like a complete and utter coward. Once you have a bounty, you're still powerful. You need to know this. This is more of a know your limits and know when it's okay to sell your life. Which is much more difficult for the bounty. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Not just when it's okay to sell your life, but understanding the risk of like do I go for this play? What do I stand to gain and what do I stand to lose? It's not worth turret diving the dude who's 04 the gain if you succeed. And you'll probably succeed because he's 04 the gain is very low. He's not worth very much. But if you fuck it up or if you misjudged and someone else is also there and you die, you give over a ton. The risk versus reward makes it not worth it. You have to push your lead in a different way. [00:14:06] Speaker A: This is. This is not something I advocate because it's incredibly difficult to guarantee if you can actively give your bounty to the support. It's a thing that you can try for so that your bounty is now off the table. But don't try and do that assuming. [00:14:28] Speaker B: That the support is not a mage support who scales well with gold such as Xerath or Lux. [00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah, this is not something to guarantee. But like, if you're going for fights heavily and you have the chance of. We're all gonna be gone anyways. We can't push a bunch of things. Let me get my bounty off the table. It's a. It's a potential useful thing. [00:14:51] Speaker B: I don't advocate when you wind up in those situations where, oh, I'm surrounded and I'm about to be collapsed on by four people. Their support is under turret. I'm just gonna dive to the support and die to the support and give over an unassisted kill to the support versus giving over an assisted kill to one of the carries. [00:15:14] Speaker A: That's. That's a. That's a great one. The other one is run. Run and make them chase you, because they will chase you. They will chase you forever. [00:15:24] Speaker C: Yep. [00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially if you're a champion who's really good at getting between lanes or through walls. Like, oh, my God. It's so funny when, like, Remus or Kayn just leads people on a wild goose chase. [00:15:37] Speaker A: Nidalee. [00:15:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Any of those champions. There's a lot that meet that criteria. Just if you can run faster than they can, they will commit a lot trying to catch. I've had games where I got multiple flashes blown to try to catch me. Whether or not they did it was worth it because I bought like 30 seconds of time for my team to do something and multiple flashes when I was in a situation where I should have died regardless. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Oh, God. This is. This is an ancient game where we had. We were doing Clash and I was with. With Crush. Leona's Great Escape. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Explain for the listeners who haven't seen the. [00:16:21] Speaker C: We. [00:16:21] Speaker A: We had done a Clash game where we were having a good lane on Bot Lane and I had gotten a kill because they'd been trying to dive Crush and I was able to steal it from him and Keep him alive. And then I. I tried to sell my life so that he would get away. And then we got a kill off of that and I started running and they chased and then I kept running and then they just kept chasing me down past two turrets and I survived with less than 100 health. [00:16:52] Speaker B: That's fucking hilarious. Also in that same note, if you are certain you are going to die and you're trying to make sure you give it over to the right person, also make sure you go in the right direction. Don't lead the enemy team to your team that's currently doing Baron when you're doomed. [00:17:13] Speaker C: Yes. [00:17:14] Speaker B: Because you've now massively increased the risk of the death because now your team is forced to turn and fight a losing fight or try to finish the objective and try to escape. Whereas if you lead the enemy away, you get the objective. I have seen so many times where people run to their teammates and make things so much worse than if they just died. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah. It's almost always you're doing an objective, they're taking everyone to you and suddenly, oh hey look, a smite. Yoink. [00:17:45] Speaker C: This kind of transitions well though to another part of risk evaluation, which is when you are that team doing the objective and you see the enemy team coming, when to finish it and when to turn off and fight them. Because I see this mistake get made a lot in both directions of committing to the fight when the Baron or whatever is so low that they can just come in and take it. Or committing to finish when it still has like over half HP and you get slaughtered in a fight. [00:18:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Or there are the worst case. Yeah. [00:18:24] Speaker C: Splitting and doing both. [00:18:26] Speaker A: There are two main things that you need to know as a team like about this is when are you trying to take an objective? Is this really early in the game? Are objectives dangerous to you still? Are you 30 minutes in fighting Elder Dragon. It doesn't hurt you per se, but do you try and rush it down and then there's. What level of health is that objective at? Those are the two main contributing factors to whether or not you should peel or not. Can we get this down? Can we push this? How much damage are we going to take doing this? Because sometimes it's still worth it to just commit it. Because in the early game we've taken too much damage. If they come here and try and fight us, we're still doomed. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Yep. So I think the other big thing that people don't take into account versus for commit to objective versus peel off is what can the enemy still do? I'VE had situations where our Jungler dies. Four people on their team die. Okay, Jungler's dead, but it's four on one. We can just do Baron and just push that person off. And my team does not give us the space to wait out the cooldowns of the one person who's left. And Lux lasers the Baron and steals it. And it's like, dudes, if you just stopped hitting it for two seconds, we already had our mid laner had jumped over and kills her a second later. [00:20:02] Speaker A: If you want to see a master class in stealing, get the objective. If you want to see a masterclass in stealing objectives, as someone not the jungler, you're going to Want to watch SKT vs I think it's DRX 3 years ago for Worlds, the finals. [00:20:20] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:20:21] Speaker A: You see, you see Zeus, Not Zeus Guma steal three Barons and a Dragon. [00:20:28] Speaker B: Yep. That was a wild finals. [00:20:34] Speaker C: Yep. [00:20:37] Speaker B: I'm so glad I got to be in San Francisco for that one. [00:20:40] Speaker A: I'm so mad I missed that one. [00:20:44] Speaker B: Anyway, this isn't an esports podcast. It will definitely transition to being one if we let it. So let's not. [00:20:50] Speaker C: That's what the pre show's for. [00:20:53] Speaker B: True. Listen to the pre show if you want to hear our thoughts on lec. So on the topic of objectives and team fighting and all that, let's talk briefly about when to join a team fight. This is mostly about teleport use in the mid to late game, but also like when to walk with your team and when to be like, nah, fuck, you guys are stupid. I'm gonna go split push. I think the easiest part of it is if the team fight is going to result in the game ending, if you lose it, you have to join it. You don't have a choice. There's only risk of the lost fight is game over. [00:21:41] Speaker A: There's only one way you can do that and you need to be one of the premier pushing champions. Basically with Baron in their base. These are not something that you can safely get away with unless you can actively push to win the game while your team fights it off in a corner, you need to be there. [00:22:03] Speaker D: And. [00:22:04] Speaker A: This is like you are need to be a NASUs with 400 stacks or. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Trinity is very low. [00:22:10] Speaker A: I know, 800. Yeah, yeah. [00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah. One of those champions where you can walk up to the turrets, delete them in two seconds and if left alone for literally 15 seconds, you win the game. Because it'll take that long for your opponents to get to your Nexus pretty much. [00:22:28] Speaker A: And they will Almost always be able to outpush you. It is almost always a you will lose that push game. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Yep. So other than that, straightforward situation of the game is lost. If you lose the fight, you don't have a choice join it. When should you join a teamfight versus when should you just keep splitting? [00:22:51] Speaker D: So there's a very. There's another very simple rubric for this, the one you must have in place before you can ever consider anything else. Can you make it to the team fight before the team fight is over? [00:23:06] Speaker B: True. [00:23:08] Speaker D: If you can't, then there's nothing you can do. Do not waste time trying to go. By the time you get there, either the team the team fights gonna be over. Either your team won or your team lost. If your team won, okay, you get to push a tower down. Whereas if you stayed splitting, you'd push a second tower down. If your team lost, congratulations, you feed another kill over to the enemy team. Like this happens. [00:23:36] Speaker C: I end up in this situation a lot in my solo queue games somehow of like I'm a carry in the late game, but I'm just like, okay, I'm just going to like pick up a wave in bot lane right now while like they're just setting up a push top. And then I'll like rotate up to meet them and I take that wave. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Like a lull game state. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Yep. And then all of a sudden there's a 4v5 top side that my team somehow wins. And I'm like, cool. Two towers for me. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Yeah, you get those. [00:24:06] Speaker B: I get. All of a sudden there's a 4v5 team fight top lane where my team instantly loses to where like, even if I had old teleport, I could have never made it in time. [00:24:18] Speaker A: No matter what, your team will blame you. [00:24:20] Speaker B: Blames me for not being there. [00:24:22] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:24:22] Speaker B: It's like, but why were you guys fighting there? There was no objective. There was nothing to fight over. You just randomly decided to brawl. [00:24:29] Speaker D: Because fight. Because must make them die. [00:24:36] Speaker B: The so many people play this game like it's fucking code. [00:24:41] Speaker D: The. So that's like, that's number one first off. Can you even get there next? If you get there, will you have a positive outcome on the fight? That one's harder to figure out. Like, this is the hard part of figuring out whether to join a team fight or not is is will your presence actually help? [00:25:12] Speaker A: There are champions who don't benefit in team fights. You're a better person doing something else. [00:25:18] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. It's sort of like, are you Ziggs with bombs that you just kind of throw at them and maybe do a little bit of damage and maybe do a little bit of cc. Might be better served just continuing to split, push and take a tower instead. Like. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Towers fast. He's one of those champions. [00:25:36] Speaker D: Yeah, it's like Ziggs is one of those where it's like, oh, I see all five of the enemy team on the map and they're not in this lane. I get a tower, let me throw. [00:25:45] Speaker A: My alt two waves away and go get a tower. [00:25:49] Speaker B: Quite literally, when you're at like four items on Ziggs, you can delete a tower in three seconds. [00:25:53] Speaker D: Yeah. So like, sometimes it's like, sure, you could go to the team fight and as Ziggs and do some damage, but that's not really positively affecting it. You're getting a higher positive effect if you just stay in your lane and kill the tower. There's, there's. And then you have, as a, as a counter example, something like, if you're playing Sona like, or some other support that has a whole lot of CC and doesn't really take towers very well, you should probably be joining the team fight because your entire purpose is to help and enhance your teammate. Teammates win team fights as Sona, your ult turns a team fight. As Seraphine, your ult turns a teamfight. Like Renata, all of these champions who have teamfight changing ultimates, you should probably be at that team fight. [00:26:50] Speaker C: In general, if you're the support, you should be at the team fight most of the time. [00:26:55] Speaker D: Yeah, like, general rules that the support should be at the team fight. The ad carry should be at the team fight. And after that kind of depends. [00:27:07] Speaker A: I mean, the next portion of this one is where do you go to get to the team fight? There are certain champions who can go behind and come in from the back end. Certain champions can't do that. [00:27:20] Speaker C: Yeah, don't be the flanking Caitlin. [00:27:23] Speaker D: You could be a flanking gin. That's a FPX special. I still remember the one time, the one time I got a solo later to listen me to me as I was ad carry, I was like, there is a bunch of farm in the bot lane. Please go take it. Talon, you can go take that and push it up. Sure enough, as soon as he went there and wiped the wave, a team fight broke out mid he, because he had pushed the wave, was now in a position to come in behind the enemy and just murder the ad carry. Like, it's like, yes, that is exactly what you're supposed to do in this situation. That, that is why you push the side lane. Thank you very much for listening. It was very nice. [00:28:13] Speaker A: So I mean what we're really saying is what is your champion designed to do? Know what your champion should be doing. [00:28:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Because the risk goes up if you're trying to teamfight on a non team fight. Champion like Fiora is just not great at team fighting. [00:28:33] Speaker D: And like me personally, I have started taking the opinion that I should avoid team fights basically 100% of the time. Like if there's any farm for me to pick up anywhere, I probably won't join the team fight it. I. It comes down to team fights are messy. Team fights are chaotic. I would prefer to go and 1v1 someone and beat them instead of. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Fights are high risk. [00:29:07] Speaker D: Yeah. Instead of taking that huge high risk. [00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So team fights are how the losing team makes comebacks. You're never going to make a comeback as a losing team through split pushing or through farming because the enemy team's ahead. You don't have freedom to do that. Really. [00:29:24] Speaker A: That really depends on how bad the enemy team is at objective control side landing. Because we've, we've, we've lost plenty of games where we were winning to them. Split pushing. [00:29:33] Speaker B: I, I would argue that if the split pusher is strong enough to affect a win on their own. You weren't in a losing state in the first place. [00:29:46] Speaker A: The. [00:29:47] Speaker B: The team that's in a losing state means they don't have agency. They can't just have one dude just go beat the shit out of anyone who comes to fight him. Because if they could, they wouldn't be in a losing state. They'd be in a neutral state or a winning state generally. Like there, there certainly does happen extreme exceptions sometimes in solo queue. [00:30:10] Speaker A: A lot of times just the champion is now online. It. It doesn't matter how bad they were doing. They have hit their break point. Ding. Now I can do my job. [00:30:23] Speaker B: Yep. So a lot of, A lot of the risk of a team fight is just that's how fights are. That's how games are lost. So if you have the choice, pushing your lead by taking turrets, taking objectives, taking farm, denying farm is just a reliable way to win the game. You don't need to take the high risk team fight. The low risk play is just continue to bleed your opponents out. Starve them. War of attrition wins games reliably. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Unfair team fights where you have already gotten a pick and now it's a 4v5. Those are almost always something that are. Those are very Low risk team fights. That's not the same thing that we're talking about. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Yeah, we're talking about just straight up 5v5 from a neutral starting point. [00:31:14] Speaker D: Yep. Yeah. Like, and it's not like I'm saying you should never team fight, even though I'm kind of on that train sort of. It's just that when you pick the time for a team fight, you should be picking the time. You shouldn't be forced into it. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Don't let them dictate it. [00:31:40] Speaker D: Yeah. Comes down to that first question of can I even get there? If. If your team or their team starts a 4v5 and you can't join, then it's like, okay, I can't do anything about this. I'm just gonna go and continue to do my own thing. Like, trying to push and join the team fight, even though you can't be there in time to make a difference, only hurts you. So that's why I sort of default to not joining team fights unless I be like, okay, I can actually join this and make an effect. It's one of the reasons why I play Nocturne. It's because he can join team fights very easily. So then I have to just decide, is this something we can actually win? Does. Does me being here change that? And then I just join. If I. If the answer is yes, it's like, yeah, okay, if I join, then we can, we can. Can win this or no, if I join, nothing happens. So just keep farming. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Nocturn is a prime example of one of my. This is another portion of EV evaluating risk Nocturn. When he goes in, he goes in. There's no way out. Once he presses that button to go in, you need to know, am I going in to go get a kill? Am I going in to go deny things? Is this worth pressing the second part of that button? Cuz you can just hit alt and never go in. [00:33:09] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Know knowing when to go in and is it worth it to kill the ad carry, kill the support, and then sell my life for those two? There are times when, as the jungler, you are strong enough to be literally your team. And only getting two kills isn't enough. [00:33:30] Speaker D: Yep, relatively unique Nocturne. Twisted Fate can kind of do it too. [00:33:36] Speaker B: I was gonna say, like, Nocturne is the worst example of that, but he's far from the only one. Twisted Fate can kind of do it too. It's really easy on Shen and Gallio to think that you're gonna save someone, and instead you're just feeding another life to the wood chipper of the Fed opponent. [00:33:52] Speaker A: The single most dangerous time to press an Ult and just. It's happening as if you're Briar. Because now you don't have a choice. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Yo. [00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. [00:34:06] Speaker B: It's so funny when Briar fires an Ult, misses the target she was aiming for, and finds herself randomly flung into a different lane under a turret in a bad situation. [00:34:15] Speaker A: The funniest thing I've ever seen is Briar hitting someone in the last quarter second of a back and jumping into the laser. [00:34:23] Speaker B: Just. Oh, I haven't seen that. [00:34:27] Speaker C: Old. It's like the old 1v1 snowball thing. [00:34:30] Speaker D: Yes. [00:34:31] Speaker B: I was going to say it's literally like froggin. Oh, that's what you. [00:34:35] Speaker A: There was the old. The old teleport thing where you could cancel teleport's channel time and instantly TP as someone's jumping on you. [00:34:46] Speaker B: There was that bug. But what me and Freeshoot are both referring to was an all stars event where Froggen accidentally snowballed himself into a fountain in a 1v1 three times in a row. The next two times, and the third time it was decided. Now he just loses. [00:35:01] Speaker C: Yep. [00:35:03] Speaker A: You idiot. [00:35:04] Speaker C: It was so funny. [00:35:06] Speaker A: The frog has Lee syndrome. [00:35:08] Speaker B: Times was the funniest. [00:35:09] Speaker A: He had depressed that he was playing Olaf. [00:35:11] Speaker B: He was playing Olaf. Like you hit the snowball, you just murder your opponent. It made sense why he thought he could do it, but he kept just. [00:35:19] Speaker C: Hitting it in the light that last quarter second where damage doesn't stop it. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yup. It was so funny. Absolutely one of the funniest moments of pro play ever. [00:35:31] Speaker C: For sure. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Okay. Do we have any other thoughts about Risk? Anything else we want to talk about for the podcast tonight? [00:35:37] Speaker A: Well, I mean, we need to. We need to talk about when it's time to push for the win. [00:35:42] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Because this is something that is absolutely one of the biggest evaluations you need to know. Can I just win the game? [00:35:57] Speaker C: So there's a couple factors that go into this and we're. This is generally you've just won a fight. It doesn't have to be like a full ace. Could be you killed their three strongest or their four strongest people. But it's okay. 90 of the time the decision is do I go take Baron as a team or do we go try and end the game? Assumptions are you're mostly healthy and your jungle jungler is alive. That's kind of what makes it an actual choice. Like you can do Baron without your jungler. If theirs is dead and so on. But the biggest thing to look at in this situation is where are you on the map and where are your minions? Because if you're like at their base but your mid, like your closest minions are back at your tier 2, you're not ending the game go. Unless their Nexus is already exposed, which is kind of unlikely with the respawning towers. Just go take Baron, win another fight, end the game that way. [00:37:03] Speaker D: There's, there's, there's games that I play that slay the spire is one of them. Where I usually have a bunch of stuff I can do and then I just look up and go wait. I could just win the game right now and just kill them. Stop. Stop fooling around. Stop playing around. You have them dead on board. Just kill them. [00:37:23] Speaker C: Yep. [00:37:25] Speaker A: And this, this is consistent. What One person on your team might walk away and that'll cost you everything you need to know. If we go and he doesn't follow us, can we win? [00:37:39] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:37:40] Speaker C: Yep. And it depends who walks away. Like if the jungler starts walking toward Baron but your Fed ad carry is walking with you to end the game. All the Fed Eddie carry go in the game. [00:37:51] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Yep. [00:37:52] Speaker A: How many towers are there left? Do you already have both mid lane towers and you're just pushing down inhib into Nexus and it, it is fine. [00:38:02] Speaker C: To be like you start going for it like hold tab and check the death timers. If you're not at their Nexus towers when they have like five seconds left, it's okay to be like hey, let's maybe back off here again. Especially with Nexus tower respawning being a thing. It's not worth getting wiped to take their Nexus towers to lose Baron because they'll probably be, probably be back by the time you're back in their base. [00:38:29] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:38:30] Speaker A: There, there is another one. And this is how unlikely was it that you won that team fight? If you pulled off a miracle fight and you're you, you were dead. Losing everything before, you're probably going to lose the next major fight. You either need to win the game now or do so much damage that you have a chance at the next fight. [00:38:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:56] Speaker C: It's like wouldn't the gamer take all the inhibits? [00:38:59] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:02] Speaker B: And sometimes those happen. I've had games where I'm down, my team is down like two items a piece. But we win a team fight when everyone is level 16 plus so the death timers are just long enough. We just win. It doesn't matter that we're down a massive amount we somehow won the miracle fight. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Well, we've also had the one enemy who's definitely strong enough is chasing kills instead of trying to win the game. [00:39:25] Speaker C: Yep, yep, that happens a lot. [00:39:30] Speaker D: One thing I want to mention is that we're not offering a whole lot of like hard advice here because a lot of this is stuff you have to play a bunch of times and gain experience to figure out when you can and when you can't end. And like pros get this wrong too. So it's not an easy question. [00:39:50] Speaker A: This is, this is one of the hardest skills in the game. [00:39:53] Speaker D: Yeah. So like there's some easy ones. Like if the Nexus towers are down, if the inhib is down and they have all or 30 seconds or more on their death timers and you're already in their base. Yes, you can win the game. Just win the game. Don't, don't dance at the Nexus. Don't. Go take Baron. Go, go take Dragon. Just end the game. [00:40:16] Speaker C: I think the big, the biggest like decision point factor I see is because I don't know why team fights always end up here is like right, like on the enemy side of the map at mid lane, like just past the. [00:40:28] Speaker A: Bushes, the channel, past the river. [00:40:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, because that's where it's like we're close enough to Baron that we could just run there or we have just enough time where we could probably push down their base and end. And that's why honestly, looking at your wave state is one of the biggest like hard facts you can look at of do I actually have like good waves in a pushing position? Because if you don't, you should not try and force an end off of that. If they're like in hip towers are still up. [00:40:57] Speaker D: A common thread through all of this discussion has been information gathering. You should be looking at the mini map. You should hit tab to see the state of the game, like try. Those are fundamental skills. You should have those down before you start worrying about high level, higher level concepts. Like you should be able to look at the mini map and, or you should be able to know how many people on the enemy team are on the map and how many are off the map, how, where they were last spotted and so forth. Or at the very least tell you. If I ask you, you can tell me like how likely is it that they're going to be here? Have you, have you seen them on the map recently? Are they even alive? Stuff like that, like fundamental things of where is the enemy team, what are they doing right now, are they dead? If they're dead sure, that's also an answer. So you need to have all this information before you can make a good decision. So making sure that you've got that fundamental down of you know how to get all this information that you need is important. So. [00:42:12] Speaker A: And the basic of doing that is train yourself to look at the mini map starting every 30 seconds. Every 30 seconds, look at the mini map. Take a look every 30 seconds, push tab. You don't need to do this all the time, but these are things that you need to start training yourself to do. How quickly can I hit tab and learn everything that. [00:42:33] Speaker B: That's what I was gonna say is what you should be learning to do is to press tab and quickly absorb the pertinent information you need to know, which takes a lot of practice. It's learning what all the items look like on site. It's being a fast reader. It's knowing what you're looking for. So when the screen comes up, you're already looking in the right part of the. Because you're pressing tab going, I want to check on the top laner. So your eyes are already on the enemy top laners portion of that window when it appears. [00:43:05] Speaker A: When it's safe to hit tab. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:08] Speaker D: Which, thank God, Riot automatically sorts the list. [00:43:11] Speaker C: Now, most of the time, you should still check at the beginning of the game. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Yeah, you should. [00:43:17] Speaker D: Exception. [00:43:18] Speaker A: You need to know specifically where people are when you hit tab and assign them to the correct role if they're not where they should be. Because sometimes people flip and then they've completely messed up what Riot thinks of. You can in fact, drag and move people to change them. If you didn't know that, you used. [00:43:39] Speaker C: To have to do that. [00:43:42] Speaker D: Ancient knowledge. [00:43:44] Speaker A: But, yeah, hitting tab and checking down to your mini map, these are things you need to train yourself to do and train yourself to do often. [00:43:53] Speaker D: Yep. [00:43:56] Speaker A: And train yourself to do efficiently, because looking at the map and not knowing what that means doesn't mean anything. [00:44:07] Speaker B: All right, so do we want to get our trinkets done and get our. Our listener question, the one we have left over from last week, because none of y'all wrote in. Write in your questions to theforwardspodcastmail.com so that we can answer them on the. [00:44:22] Speaker C: Sure. [00:44:24] Speaker B: All right. This is inspired by yesterday, when we're recording this, the Fnatic versus KC semifinals in Europe. [00:44:32] Speaker C: Spoilers. [00:44:36] Speaker B: I'm kind of gonna specify who did it. I'm not gonna specify which game it happened, but if you're playing a champion with a Hard CC ability in the jungle and you don't yet have that ability, you probably should not be ganking. If you're volibear and you don't have your Q yet, you're not ready to gank. [00:44:58] Speaker C: If you're a moomoo and you don't have your Q yet, you're not ready to gank. [00:45:02] Speaker B: Yes. Literally every single jungle champion who has CC on a basic ability, you cannot gank until you have that ability. [00:45:11] Speaker D: Mm. This is true. [00:45:14] Speaker A: That doesn't mean you can't fight. If someone's attacking you, you can still fight, but you can't gank. [00:45:22] Speaker D: Seek. Don't seek fights. [00:45:24] Speaker B: Exactly. It's because if you're. If your laner has their own CC at level one or two, maybe they can set you up. But if you come in at level three when you have that last ability, then they set you up and you chain the CC and your opponent never gets to fight back. [00:45:41] Speaker A: And junglers get level three before anyone else can. [00:45:46] Speaker D: That is true. [00:45:49] Speaker B: So, yeah, don't be like that jungler in the lec. Okay, so our question this week comes from Jacob, who writes, what aspects of my game should I work on as a new player to reach gold this season? [00:46:10] Speaker A: I don't know where you're at, to be honest. [00:46:13] Speaker B: We don't know where you're at. And as a new player, the answer is literally going to be everything. And that's hard. [00:46:19] Speaker A: Are you coming at this from a different moba? Do you have the fundamentals of moving around the map? Do you have orb walking down? Do you understand what we were talking about with tab and the. The mini map down? A lot of these things are really like foundational to becoming a player who can reach gold easily. But I think the most basic one is do you understand the champions? [00:46:48] Speaker B: Yep. [00:46:50] Speaker D: I feel so. I feel like there is only one skill in league that is constant across four out of five roles, and that's farming. [00:47:03] Speaker C: Yup. [00:47:04] Speaker D: You should last hit minions, provided you're not the support player. [00:47:09] Speaker B: The. The biggest difference going from bronze to silver to gold is how reliably players farm. Well, yeah, I've. I've played games in bronze. I've played games in gold. They gradually are better at everything else. They're just as stupid and bloodthirsty in gold as they are in bronze. But in gold, they are averaging significantly higher CS per minute in most games. [00:47:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I've been absolutely hands diff'd by bronze players, but I had double their farm, so it didn't matter after it's 20 minutes. [00:47:47] Speaker A: Just how much farm can you get per minute? It's how consistently do you farm? [00:47:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:47:53] Speaker B: Yep. [00:47:54] Speaker D: The the fastest way to tell that someone is not in their correct elo their farm is super high compared to everybody else in the game. That is a. Almost always a very good indicator. [00:48:11] Speaker A: So if you hit tab as a bronze player and you see they have 10cs per minute, you can tell by CS per minute which is like when you end the game you see how much they have versus how long the game was. [00:48:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:48:24] Speaker A: You can calculate it from that. If they have like 8-10Cs per minute, that person is fairly good at the game. [00:48:32] Speaker C: There's a reason one of the challenges in that like you get progress towards. [00:48:39] Speaker A: Is it's 8Cs a minute. [00:48:41] Speaker C: Having 80Cs at 10 minutes is one of the challenges I typically like unless I'm playing every day I aim for 70. Like that's how I know that's basically like am I having a bad game is if I have less than that. [00:48:56] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Whereas and free. Your rank is you're a plat player. [00:49:01] Speaker C: Platt. I was plat last season. I think I'm currently gold. [00:49:05] Speaker A: So. So that's roughly where we're talking about being in plat. You don't see 10Cs a minute of. [00:49:14] Speaker C: Like masters average and plot is like six. [00:49:17] Speaker B: Yep. [00:49:21] Speaker D: Yeah. So look, that's my advice for if you are a new player trying to find climb as high as you can provided you're not the support work on your farm. [00:49:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:31] Speaker A: In jungle this means knowing when to grab camps versus when to gank. Because. [00:49:36] Speaker D: And just having. And just being able to clear your camps efficiently. Like just. [00:49:40] Speaker C: Yes. [00:49:40] Speaker D: That your your first clear. If you are a jungler should be sub three three and a half minutes like without you should be. [00:49:48] Speaker A: Yeah. If you want to know that without the number before scuttle spawns. Yeah. [00:49:53] Speaker D: Leashless as well like zero leash. No help from anybody else. In the jungle. You should be able to clear all six camps by 3:30. [00:50:00] Speaker B: Almost every viable jungler can do that. The only one that comes to me off the top of my head that can't is Warwick. [00:50:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:10] Speaker A: It's just limitation versus a little slow. [00:50:13] Speaker D: Yeah. The very first. [00:50:14] Speaker A: His start is very slow. Yeah. [00:50:17] Speaker B: And he's like the only one that comes to my mind. But it's also things like if you're playing lane learning how to last hit with your auto attack so you have your abilities free to zone the opponent so they can't prevent you from being able to last hit. [00:50:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:32] Speaker B: If you're Playing jungle kiting camps so that you are as close to the next camp you want to clear as possible when the camp dies. Letting your jungle minion take down the last 10 health or whatever so that you're wasting time as little as possible. There's. These are the kinds of like optimizations that let people get much higher farm numbers. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Knowing when you can back, when you can spend your mana, when you can spend your health. [00:50:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:59] Speaker C: A good thing is to know what. [00:51:01] Speaker A: To reach, not knowing where you are. [00:51:04] Speaker C: One last thing I'll say I guess on the backing thing is try and back when you've like the optimal time to back early on is you've just finished killing a wave and the wave coming in has the cannon minion because that wave will take longer to die meaning you will miss less farm on your way back in. [00:51:23] Speaker B: Or if you can bounce it off the enemy tower, that too. But you don't always get too early game. [00:51:29] Speaker D: For the record, I think I've mentioned a couple times before that there is a list of jungle clears. It's from. Who does this one? I can't remember. I'll have to find it. There's a list of jungle clears that I have and they are pretty good. I won't say that they're like literally the best you can do but they, they do have sub 330 clears for Warwick. But these are people who are pretty good at this. So that's not very common to be honest. [00:52:04] Speaker A: As a jungler. You can just google this one. Google my champion clear. [00:52:08] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:52:09] Speaker B: And the patch Warwick as an example of like he's one of the hardest who is still viable to actually clear all six camps leash lists in 3:30. [00:52:17] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we keep saying viable. This matters. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I'm. I'm excluding champions who straight up do not belong in the jungle. Like karma for example. [00:52:30] Speaker D: So this list has a bunch of off meta junglers. For example, they have Leona as she can clear the jungle in 320 as of patch 25 3. I don't know how I'm not gonna look it up. [00:52:45] Speaker C: But you should post this list in the Discord for that way our listeners can find it. [00:52:50] Speaker A: Only the Discord members get to see this. [00:52:53] Speaker B: They join the Discord. [00:52:55] Speaker D: They have a list of non meta junglers and those are basically all karma's on this list. Her Fastest clear is 338 from people who are trying and know what they're doing. [00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:53:09] Speaker D: Anyway I'm posting this in the Discord. You go find it there. [00:53:12] Speaker B: So how much did you pay attention to the meta in low elo? [00:53:17] Speaker C: A little bit. Don't need to like fully follow it. Yeah, you don't need to fully follow it. Stick to it. But you should know if your champion has a 40% win rate, I. I. [00:53:31] Speaker D: Will go a little further and say the only meta you should care about is what lanes your champion should go in. [00:53:41] Speaker B: I don't even think it's that. The only meta you should care about in low elo is what to ban. [00:53:46] Speaker C: Yes, actually, that's a good one. [00:53:48] Speaker B: You should know what is popular in low elo and ban the fuck out of it. If you're not playing it yourself, that is the most important thing to know because you can play fucking any champion in any lane or role. If it's something weird and you're familiar with it, you're in low elo. I guarantee your opponent has no idea how your champion even works in a lane outside of the one that they're used to seeing it in. And you could just beat the shit out of them through experience. [00:54:16] Speaker A: I will caveat this portion. Don't do it randomly. You need to actively know how to do these things. You need to know how to do the jin jungle. If you're going to take jin in a jungle, don't do this. Yeah, there are, there are reasons. There are reasons. There is a meta and there are reasons that we talk about viability and there are people who are suited to it, people who are better at it. But if you personally are just better at a champion, it is 99% better for you to play that champion than anything else. There is the 1% where you have been nerfed so hard that it's not worth it. But that almost doesn't happen. There are like three champions out of 165 that are not geared for everyone. [00:55:05] Speaker B: Yep. Okay, last question from Jacob. Is, is one trick ponying a champion or two the best way to climb? [00:55:17] Speaker D: Yes, Jax, it is. [00:55:20] Speaker A: Is it the best way to climb? [00:55:22] Speaker D: Yes, Jax, it is. [00:55:25] Speaker A: Is it the most fun way to climb? [00:55:27] Speaker B: No, I'm not advocating for what I do at all. Although I've been closer to one trick ponying than normal and it's hit or miss. I'm on a break right now because Poe. [00:55:40] Speaker D: Fair enough. [00:55:43] Speaker B: The best way to climb is to have a one trick pony. A champion you play when your one trick pony is picked, your chosen counter pick against your one trick pony and a third champion that you can play if your one trick pony is banned or it is a matchup that you find to be completely egregiously unplayable. Three champions. That is the optimal way to climb. And you play your one trick pony. Every game where it is a viable choice to play. [00:56:14] Speaker A: There are exactly 170 champions. I'm sorry. [00:56:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So that is the best way to climb. That's one trick ponying with a backup plan. [00:56:26] Speaker D: Yeah. And I mean I don't even do that. I literally just play nocturne. As long as it's not banned or picked by the other team. I play nocturne. I don't give a what they're playing. [00:56:37] Speaker B: To be fair, Jungle also has a lot less counter pick than lanes. Do. [00:56:42] Speaker A: Do you keep playing if nocturne is banned or picked? [00:56:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Then you do not properly one trick pony. I don't feel like there are people who will just dodge and stop if their champion is gone. [00:56:56] Speaker D: This is true. Usually I'll play something that I that I personally hate playing against this doctor you can play Warwick. [00:57:06] Speaker A: So look, you don't need to master a ton of champions but you should actively know your main champion and probably two more. We keep saying this because otherwise it's not convenient to climb. [00:57:22] Speaker D: There are. [00:57:22] Speaker A: You can do it with just one. There are gonna cost you eventually. [00:57:27] Speaker D: I would say There are only two champions in the game who you probably cannot get away with playing just that champion. And that's because their kid is weird. One is Silas, the other one's Viego. You have to be able to play more than just those two. [00:57:47] Speaker B: You have to know how to use the abilities you're stealing in the case. [00:57:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:51] Speaker D: That's like the only exception I can. [00:57:53] Speaker B: Think pilot the non ultimate version of the champion as Viego for everything you steal. [00:57:59] Speaker D: Yeah. And it's. They're weird exceptions because their kid is weird. But that's. That's literally it. Everybody else you can. You can get away with just playing that one champion and be fine. [00:58:10] Speaker C: So I think to summarize. [00:58:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:13] Speaker C: All your points to reach gold. Ignore the meta pick Lucian in the top lane and one trick pony it. [00:58:19] Speaker D: Exactly. [00:58:20] Speaker C: Yes. [00:58:20] Speaker D: Absolutely. Absolutely. [00:58:24] Speaker B: All right. This has been episode 471 of the Forwards podcast. Reminder. We need questions. That was the last one we had in the hopper. So write in to the4words podcastmail.com and your question could literally be on next week's episode. Join the Discord links in the episode description. I've been Jack Sohlman for free, shooter for Mike and many names for Crush. You have a great night. [00:58:49] Speaker A: Byee Good night everybody. [00:58:52] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the four Wards Podcast. If you liked what you heard and you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com the Fourwards podcast to give us some support. We appreciate you and of course, listeners. Please don't forget to write your questions into theforwards podcastmail.com so we can answer them on the show.