Tower Diving in solo queue goes wrong more often than not. There are many risks you must factor in when going for a tower dive. You must take into account that you are matched with four random players and you don’t even know each other. You don’t have live voice coms so you must rely on pings, instincts, and text chat if you can. When watching pro play, you see tower diving is commonly used and nine times out of ten it is successful. The question is why does it seem to be so hard to execute in solo queue? From taking to many tower shots to teammates going in for a tower dive when it's not needed. These tips and tricks will help you improve your skills and help you successfully tower dive!

Part 1 - Understanding

Tower diving requires the knowledge of champions, minion waves, and enemy abilities. It is is a great skill that can help pros climb the rank ladder. It is a great tool to have in your belt and can help your team snowball games. With a bit of knowledge and practice, you can be executing perfect tower dives in no time. A tower dive is an attempt to kill the enemy when they are under their own tower, without dying. Towers work in an interesting way. Towers will focus minions first. But the second you deal any damage or all your minions die, the tower will instantly aggro onto you. The best way to know how big a turret's range is practice and repetition, you can also go into the practice tool and see an outline of the range. Once a player loses tower aggro, the tower will go back to hitting the minions.

When going for a tower dive here is a list of things you should look at first

State of the minion wave, where is your minion wave?
Do you have Flash? does the enemy have flash?
Think about who is going to take the tower aggro first? It should always be the player with more health and crowd control
What is your exit strategy?

Part 2 - Tower Damage

Towers or turrets are fortifications that attack enemy units within range. They also provide vision for each team. Turrets allow teams to control the battlefield. The goal is to destroy enemy towers to push farther into the enemy base for the win. Turrets have a sight range of 1350 and an attack range of 750. If a turret is destroyed while one of its shots is in mid-flight, that shot will not deal damage.

Part 3 - Execution

When diving you must first look at you and your teams HP and mana. This will let you know if your teammates are able to tank turret shots and if they have the mana for abilities. This goes the same for you. If you or your teammates are to low or have low mana do not tower dive. Its better safe than sorry. For the most part, an enemy can defend a 1v1 you can type in chat or ping for assistance. You do have to remember you are not vocally talking to them so you may not be on the same page exactly. All dives should be calculated risks. It is very important to know where the enemy jungler is so you don't risk getting counter ganked. This has gone wrong so many times and can turn the tides for the enemy team. This is a great video that shows you what not to do!

Defending a Tower Dive

Being able to defend against a tower dive is also a great skill to have. If you are getting dived or they are setting up to dive you, it usually means they feel confident in diving you. It is your job to make their tower dive go wrong and turn the play on them! It is best to save your abilities if you know you are getting ganked. IF they dive you and all your abilities are on cooldown there is no chance of survival. Focus on last hitting the minions to preserve mana and your cooldowns.

Some indications that you could be getting dived are

- The enemy shoves the minion wave
- You are low health and overstaying
- All your other allied lanes are in good spots and can’t be ganked.

It is important to think like the enemy. If you were playing jungle, what lane would you gank? What objective is easy to take… Is dragon up? rift herald? Vision is the answer to almost anything in League of Legends. The best thing you can do is place wards places the enemy jungler would path to gank you. This is also where champion knowledge is a huge factor. It is important to know what ultimates the enemy has and what to look out for. Some players overstay because they have a huge minion wave and don't want to miss the XP this resulting in getting dived by the enemy team.

You as the player has to put all of the possible outcomes and decide what is best for the victory. Is taking the risk and staying and getting the farm worth it? Or do you recall and miss the wave also giving your enemy free tower plating? This is where you need to use your knowledge to make your decision. Do you know where the enemy jungler is? Is dragon up? Are you the only lane that looks like it can be ganked? It is better to play smart and for the team. This is what helps players climb elo. Having a great understanding and making the correct decisions no matter what the game throws at you. It is also important to have item knowledge. This allows you to know what your enemies can do in the tower dive and how many turret shots they can tank.

A great tip is to track the enemy's Flash cooldown. Knowing whether you need to look out for a Flash or not is a big deal. This allows you to predict what the enemy will do. Tower diving is a great way to snowball a lead and take advantage of lanes that are winning hard. You'll never learn how to dive properly until you try. Here is a great video showing you successful tower dives!