hue

I'm off to bed, but let me put a few thoughts out and see if any of you early morning/late night folks have some thoughts.  I'm tired so this won't be completely thought out - sry.  before i start - some of this will just sound common sense but roll w/ it.  Also... tis a rant and scatterbrained... no edits - pacov away

k - so I'm trying to switch to Hyper aggressive objective focused play and trying to think about perfect scenarios (eg lets say I know everyone and control all champs - I rotate everything in the most efficient way, etc). That's not realistic in premise or execution, but its where I'm starting.  

So lets skip any invade discussion and jump to the start of the game.  The best setup for most games is to have top and bot swap (provided the other side stays as norm).  You need a decent 2v1 top laner or to call in jung supp as needed.  Anyway, the top and jungler split some xp in the jungle.  For instance, if red side, jungle/rotated top start gromp and share xp (kill can go to jungle) and then share blue - kill can still go to jungle.  Both hit level 2 here.  Jungle is set back, but top goes to bot lane with a slight adv + easier ability to farm vs 2 for a bit.  Anyway, if bot goes well, then jungler isn't needed.  Otherwise jungle comes down to assist in a pinch.  

If all goes well, there is a proper rotation where top lane goes to bot and bot goes up to top and farms some xp/gold that was likely missed. Having tp, can still get into a fight at drag to join, etc.  And can easily defend the existing top tower... "easily" - enemy top lane might be even/ahead,etc.

blah... I'm too tired to flesh this out much more - let me toss out some q's.

1 - what scenarios can you think of where you can use dragon as bait to get a tower objective?  I know its a bit abstract, but the most common urge is MUST DEFENDED drag - when its really a big op unless your team is a bunch of goofs and all just died - to get a turret somewhere.  Any thoughts on non OBV - setups?

2 - i'm going to sleep. This is stupid.

Night all!

I think most 2v1's are played out because the team that wants the 2v1 feels that there adc/support will lose to the other teams adc/support OR they have a hyper late game carry adc (jinx, vayne, kogmaw). If this doesn't sound like your current adc/support you should opt for the 2v2 lane. Some times it is beneficial to swap if the other team is running a hyper carry top laner (jax/nasus come to mind). Some top lanes don't really care if they don't get farm because they will always be relevant (lulu, mao kai, sion, malphite etc...) these champions will always have an impact due to there low item needs and massively important ults in team fights.

The other scenario is if you are running tristana. Her absurd ability to take early towers and sup par laning phase make swapping her into a 2v1 lane a great option. I feel caitlyn can also be played this way but she IS a lane bully and can shut down most other ADCs in lane so playing her 2v2 is the way to go. Trist does the early push better.

But if you are the team with the 2 bot lane you should try to take dragon at some point while the 2v1's still exist.

After one lane loses its tower that teams ADC/support should 100% swap to the lane that still has its tower so you can save the tower from the other teams duo and push to take the other teams tower.

IMO this is how all 2v1's should be played obviously a dive onto the solo top laner can also be arranged with almost any comp but having a tanky support/annie/morgana is a better bet for securing these kills.

A very easy way is taking advantage of awkward roams or backs by the enemy team. I often do this in solo queue since brand is pretty slow when following up on enemy mid lane roams. I stay mid, clear the waves as fast as possible and I try to take turret. You can do this in other lanes obviously as well.

Another easy way to take a turret is if you are in a 2v2 bot lane and you force the ADC or support to back because of a bad trade or gank. If you put the enemy support or ADC into a 2v1 scenario it is very easy to zone them off the creeps and push them into tower. You might not get the turret by doing this once but by the second time it should fall unless they get help. If your jungler is on your side of the map and can assists with the turret it should be a free tower.

you can snow ball this tower pressure by rotating your adc/support to mid lane and putting your mid bot and or just taking 4 mid immediately after with the jungler to take mid lane. You can also rotate the adc/suppor to top and do the 4 man push with our top laner and jungler.

Anyway after one enemy tower goes its VERY easy to move your ADC and support around the map to get the rest of the outers.

still can't figure out teambuilder matchmaking... I keep playing morg and the matchmaking adjust keeps staying on.  My magical pacov idea is that I'll play enough as a champion and then start being grouped with people that have also played enough with champs to get out of that adjustment/lower skill cap stuff. team builder can be pretty infuriating as a support.  Had a vayne just straight up feed and then afk after 10 min or so.  Super fun. 

Another game I had a decent kog with me.  I missed a black shield (eg to be fair, he maybe should have attempted to dodge a max range hook by moving to the left or the right...), then he ran his mouth.  Funny thing about supports.  Probably good to not harass them (I know, I know... dr pacov has done the same thing).  Anyway, I then left him be while I roamed across the universe for a bit.  It's really not worth busting folks balls in games in chat.  It's not like someone instantly has a flawless game when you bitch at them.  Quite the contrary.. so you are really just setting yourself up for a loss -or in that guys case, some quality time in a 2v1 lane for a bit.  I did go back after a wee bit, but I muted the fella assuming any thing he had to say would be rubbish. 

And... as things are going full circle.... I really like chogath now.  top/mid/jung.  Its a sad day for me. 

Anyway, I'm working on nid jungle - I think we will see some shifts back to her and she's currently not perma banned (sigh... but she will be again I think).  She was getting perma banned before the tank jungle item.  Now, with them nerfing tanks a bit, I think she'll start being more common.  If they continue to nerf tanks next patch... I'm pretty damn sure she'll be heading back towards commonly banned status.  That said, at least now I have a little bit of a window where I can play her.  Still mainful focused on playing morgana in multiple roles.  I might take lulu back up, but IDK.  I'm also thinking more about jungle nunu for that hyper aggressive objective control idea.  A good gank can very quickly turn into a tower w/ bb - all the while providing excellent vision control.

Re: 2v1's

Yeah, it's exactly like Karl and Cow said but that doesn't mean there isn't some sort of alternate way of taking advantage of the strat.  Problem I see, even if you are onto something, is that you're probably going to have a fairly gimped Top (do you call him a Solo Bot at this point?) and Jungle afterwards.  Hopefully you realize that if you ever want to try this strat out, you're going to probably have to volunteer for one of the gimped roles to get people on board.  

Re: Pacov's New Found Love Of All Things Cho And Teemo Related

Bahahahaha!

I'm going to find you some OP.GG replays of Korean Challenger Gangplank so you can start loving him too.

god I hope I don't someday think he's not poop.  I'll give you he can be a hoot in certain matchups, but he's still the kind of champ you shouldn't pick regularly.  I enjoy playing as him as well, but its just not that good for a team imo. 

I do want to explore very specific strategies.  If that's have a hyper carry (in case that's what you are referring to, then cool).  In the scenario you describe, tower control is achieved and our team can move onto the next objective.  Anyway, I'm not all that convinced I have exactly a good plan here - just getting some thoughts out. 

I don't think the best strategy is to count on your lanes to really kill it and be awesome.  I mean, ideally that's it.  Then if you have a little awareness, you take objectives like you said.  There's not really much thought required for bot lane to get a double kill then take bot turret. 

What we can make a strategy for is perhaps deciding when to give up a drag intentionally in order to take another objective.  I'm not really sure the best way to pull that off.  I think alot could be accomplished with a dbl tb comp with a split push focus for such things.  Now, you have very good odds of grabbing a turret, etc.  There are always trade offs for such things, but there are plenty of reasonable comps where dbl tp could be used like that without much of a downside. 

Anyway, as there are a lot of ideas going around, any final thoughts on when we'd want to lane swap?  Is the general view that its a dumb idea if the goal is to get an early top turret?  Would we only want to do that if we have a weaker hyper carry and we want to punish their top lane, etc?  When would we pull out a strat like that?  If were specifically talking about our group, do we have anyone that plays specific hyper carries that would be worth doing this?  Or someone that plays specific tops that would be fine for the most part even if they sacrifice some cs?

ranked 5's and/or a group of 5.  I'm all for trying other things.  The downside is if its not ranked 5's, cow will probably go support aatrox because its not a ranked game.  And if it is ranked 5's, folks probably won't be willing to try out strats because ranked is too serious a place to try things out... smeh.  kind of a no win for someone interested in trying out team strats, eh.  I think I probably just need a different group of folks to try these things out.  And yeah - I know - solo q = no go. 

I just think it would be fun to try things like this out or see if its possible to create a situation where the enemy team takes a dragon and we get a turret that isn't based on reactionary deaths.  Or come up with intentional 4 man ganks at specific times during specific windows.. just something more interesting than I killed my lane and got a tower as a result.  I'd love to to come up with even a simple specific time, intentional rotation after someone gets scuttler to go for gank.  Some things we try in specific time windows... anyway - to me, that's more fun. 

The question remains:  Who will be playing Top?  In all this discussion, no one has expressed much enthusiasm (or even willingness) that I've seen for playing the role that is going to be put "in a position  to fail" with this strategy.

oh I'd gladly do it.  Only thing I need is either a leech with the jungler at the start to level 2 or some solo a camp tp stuff.  And I don't view it  the same way you do.  The idea is to make a trade off for something useful.  The question is whether or not if it is.  If I'm involved, I have no prob being the guy soloing.  

Id be fine if we have a team of 5 that is on the ranked team. I think my champion pool or hedgie's is best for 2v1ing in top lane. Mao, sion and gnar all do fairly well in these situations. 

Tried Strife a while back.  It's got some neat anti-toxicity mechanics to it and is rather fun.  Too many things where it's similar enough but different from LoL where it's hard to adapt.  I have Attack Move Click bound to my left mouse button in game for instance.  Unless I could ever figure out how to do the same for Strife, it would remain unplayable for me.

Watched Cow hit some crazy hooks last night in a Ranked.  His team nearly won after having a Nasus DC early and fall way behind, but three of them threw by trying to sneak their 5th Dragon that the other team wasn't keen on letting them get for some reason.  I guess things don't get that much better in Diamond as far as AFK's and teamwork go.