For those that prefers to read, you can find the transcript of the video below.
What Type of character fits in the offlane?
Offlaners will have to play a 1v1 on one extremity of the map so there is a few things we look for a character to be suited for the offlane. First you would like to have someone that can fight and dominate 1v1 scenarios at some moment in the game. Also you would like a character that can survive gank by himself since nobody is here to help him. And last a character that can benefit from having the most experience on the map.
All these criteria means that usually bruiser (which means tanky damage dealer) are well suited for that lane. With tank being a good second choice and a few assassins can find success here as well. As a rule of thumb, it is easier to execute a team composition that have front liners and offlane is a very good place to get some. So, I would recommend to go in the bruiser or tank route but keep in mind that offlane is the most open when it comes to character selection.
What to do in the Early Game?
As we have seen in the “How to win your Predecessor game” guide the goal of the early is to maximize your farm and minimize the enemy farm. Behind this simple principle, offlane is the lane where it can become the hardest to apply because there is a lot of concepts to know about. It is not as straightforward as to walk up to the wave and don’t miss last hit. Of course, consistent last hitting is needed, you need to be good at it even under tower, but it is important to respect the big concept of damage trading.
What is damage trading? Simply the fact of exchanging damage with the enemy offlaner, it’s simple but the whole offlane dynamics revolves around it. If you understand damage trading you will be able to always maximize your farm while minimizing the enemy farm. First offlane is not about taking no damage, no, offlane is about taking less damage than your opponent, hence we always want our trades of damage to be positive for us. There is a lot going on behind that principle but just remember that this is the goal of the early game.
To trade damage efficiently there is a couple simple ways to do so, first is if your abilities are up and your opponents are not, you should be winning the trade if you take advantage of that window. If you have a level advantage, you have more base stats so trade can be beneficial. If you have an item lead or an item that counter your opponent, same principle.
If you get an early level lead that means both base stats and number of ability available would be to your advantage. Which means in offlane you should pay close attention to the early level 2 and level 3 transition because those are huge power spike that can completely destroy a lane if they are not respected. This is the biggest source of mistake for new players in offlane so look out for them, which mean if you can’t level up at the same moment as your opponent you need to back out and accept to lose some CS. Which is a very important concept for offlane, if you are not in a situation to damage trade efficiently or at least evenly, it is better to concede some CS than going up to get them and ending up having to recall or burn your flash.
Other mistake I see new player in offlane do a lot, is when they get aggressed on by the enemy offlaner unleashing its whole kit, new player usually just walked away scared because they lost half of their life. But remember, the whole kit of the opponent is down which means we are now in a window where we can trade efficiently because we have our ability up and the opponent does not, so we should at least trade back before they recover their ability. If a trade is made with ability and not punished afterwards, a lead will be gained by the person that manage to use an ability without being trade back.
Which bring me to my last point of damage trading which is: know your match-up. Each match-up have specific moment that even if fully equal on level and item one character as the advantage over the other. This will come from experience and playing a lot but the principle remains the same: ask yourself “Can I damage trade efficiently in the current situation?”.
So this was a big chunk of information and it is not finished for what you should do in the early game as an offlaner. I told you, there is a lot that’s going on in that lane but it is almost finished. The last two points is about wave managements and playing around junglers.
Wave management is a deep topic that require a guide especially for it but here we will keep it simple. First, try to farm as close as possible to your tower because that way you are less exposed to gank and you force the opponent to be more exposed to gank. And second if you want to go for a recall the best is to do it after you crash the wave under the enemy tower. Which means trying to push as fast as possible so the wave ends up under the enemy tower. Be careful, proficient offlaner will try to catch the wave which means taking aggro of it so it does not go under tower to be able to farm themselves close to their tower, try to pressure them so they can’t do that. You will have yourself and the minions so this should go smoothly because the minions will help you win the damage trade if they stopped it from going under tower.
And finally, pay attention to both jungler, don’t go for a all in if the enemy jungler can be next to your position, don’t go hard pushing the wave if your jungle is around looking for a gank. Talking about ganks, they are setup by the laners not the junglers so try to put all the chance on your side. Also if you keep overextending and the enemy jungler keep coming to kill you, that’s on you, you should respect the enemy jungler and it is not your jungler’s job to win your lane. Keep in mind that if your jungler come to your lane and the gank is not successful that put your team behind but the opposite is true. Everytime you get ganked and you survive even if you are not getting ahead yourself, your team is.
how to keep going in Mid Game?
We survived the early game, we got decent farm, we did some good damage-trading, we did not die from enemy ganks so what’s next. Well keep your farm up, especially on bruiser or assassin’s pick, you need to have an experience lead to keep being a big threat.
On top of that, start looking at damaging and taking your tower if you can, taking this tower will give you a nice boost of gold for yourself but also your team and more importantly will open the map for you to start roaming, which is the act of leaving your lane to impact the rest of the map. But be careful when pushing the tower, in mid game jungle, midlaner and support can appear so always keep an eye on the minimap. Remember any unsuccessful ganks on you put your team ahead.
Depending on how strong you are you can look to invade the enemy jungle but what really matters is to rotate for objectives, especially Fangtooth. Usually offlaner are the strongest during the mid game and having your offlaner for a Fangtooth teamfight while the enemy offlaner is not, result usually in a free objective for your team, so you should be looking at first setting up your wave, which means simply push it as far as you can and then rotate to the other side of the map to help. The reason is, if the wave is pushed, enemy needs to come to defend and also will give you time to come back to defend your tower after your rotation is finished. Of course if your team is getting hard pressured on mid or duo, probably your rotation goal will not be to do Fangtooth but gank to relieve pressure on other lanes.
Last it is important that you understand what your role in teamfight is. There is no one fit all answer here, it depends on your own pick, your team composition, enemy team composition, and how well farmed everyone is. But keep in mind that there are two important things for successful teamfight, thinking about your positioning and your role and for that we have a simple algorithm to follow. First you have to answer if you are a tank/bruiser or an assassin.
If you are a tank or a bruiser your job is to initiate the teamfight, walk in front of your team and start the battle which means you need to pay attention about two things. First do not get poke too much while looking for the engagement, try to be decisive with it but pay attention if your teammates are in position to follow up your engage. You might be tanky but if you tank all 5 members of the enemy team alone you are going to die. Then once the engage is done you usually have two potentials roles, either keep pressuring their backline if you can kill them while staying alive or fall back to your backline to peel for them.
If you are an assassin, you should try to look to position yourself out of vision from the enemy and be ready to jump in on the enemy squishy character once the teamfight has been initiated either by them or your team. Then you need to all in, which mean try to do your best to one shot that character. Once this character is done depending on the state of the teamfight you can either jump to next target or disengage for a short while to get your cooldown back up to either re-engage and kill another target or reset because you are not in a position to fight anymore.
Teamfights will come with experience but if you really want to get better at them you need to watch their replays and ask yourself what should I do at every point in the teamfight while reviewing it. Remember the 50/50 rule from the “Perfect Mindset” video.
how to close out the Late Game?
We have secured some Fangtooth because of good rotation and teamfighting so how to keep the pressure on as an offlaner. Well first, you don’t have a lane anymore, what I mean by that is don’t stay in your lane but go where you are needed. And one of your role is to setup wave. Late game is all about map control and one way to get map control is to have minions’ wave in the enemy territory and that’s one of your job. Your wave clear is fast and you are hard to kill so perfect for this job especially on the side lanes.
Then you have a decision to make, should I stick with my team to help them teamfight and secure big objective or should I split push. Once again, no clear algorithm on what you should do, but if you are the sole frontline of your team, it is usually better to go with them teamfight, and when it comes to it they are similar to your mid game teamfight with the difference that you will probably be less tanky because enemies’ carry start to have a lot of damage, so you have to take that into account.
If you decide to go with the split push, keep in mind that enemy team can collapse on you, so it is all a question of timing, if they collapse on you and kill you and your team was not in a position to use the space created then your split-push was useless. The best in soloQ is to match the pressure of your team on the other side of the map and not commit while you don’t know where the enemy team is. Once you have full information and you know you can win the 1v1 or 1v2 you can finally commit to it and try to get towers. Once again if the enemy team ganks you but does not kill you your team gets ahead. Funny how simple concept can be applied throughout the game.
Conclusion
We are at the end of this guide, and there is a lot to digest here. Keep in mind to practice while using the isolation training method, you won’t be able to apply everything immediately so just focus on one step at a time. Luckily for us, offlane is pretty great for that so I would recommend that you follow this order and once you feel confident on the current topic move on to the next in your games:
- Get better at damage-trading
- Focus on paying attention to the junglers
- Improve your farm through better CS-ing and wave management
- Secure your tower and rotate for objectives
- Improve your teamfighting
- Impact the map correctly in late game
Thank you for spending the time on this content and I hope it has provided you some clear direction on what you should work on to become the best offlaner in Predecessor. Keep in mind that everyone around you also progress, and so if you want to rank up you need to progress faster than the pack. Following what we have seen in this guide will definitely allow you to do that, because very few play games with an understanding on what they should do. So go out there and feel free to share your success story in the comments. For me, I will see you in the future with more educational content to help you towards becoming the best at Predecessor.
Mugi out!