Around the Rift: Importance of Semi-Global and Global Abilities
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7 Jul 16

Guides

Artyom

Around the Rift: Importance of Semi-Global and Global Abilities

In this article I'll be writing about what I think of semi-global and global abilities in League of Legends.

As many of you reading this know, global abilities have the potential to be exasperating and hard to play against. I'm going to be talking about what I think of these types of abilities and some things you need to keep in mind to be successful with a champion that has such skills.

Global abilities have a massive impact on the game itself for the most part. You can be rendered useless to be certain, but even then depending on champions you will still be a big help to your team. For example, when playing someone like Shen and you get behind early, giving up 1 or 2 kills to your lane opponent or jungler, you may have trouble staying in lane. You should be looking at your map for fight opportunities constantly. You grant a nice shield for whoever you ult and force your opponent in lane to either follow your Teleport or try and push in, which you can answer with a Teleport back to Tower/Minions.

Zig uses Stand United on his allied Ryze to force summoners and still end up with a kill.

Now, I just mentioned it in the last paragraph but the most important thing to do while playing a Champion with global abilities is to keep looking at your map for fights, I can't stress it enough. If you don't look at your map, you'll never know when a fight is happening unless you're in voice comms with the rest of the team. So from minute one, check the mini-map every couple of seconds. Just to get used to doing it so you'll be ready when you can pull the trigger on a big Ultimate.

Champions with global abilities have very obvious strengths. They can kill or assist from around the map and a lot of times people will forget about them early on. Some stronger than others in certain situations. For example, Bard's Ultimate Ability is far more useful than a Jinx ultimate when trying to set up a team fight, but you're going to be taking Jinx 100% of the time when you're trying to predict the enemies movement and snipe them from across the map for a kill secure.

Ganking with these champions can be very simple, as the opponent hardly has time to react to someone just popping into their lane. Be it a Twisted Fate or Nocturne, you can probably bet on blowing a couple of Summoner Spells at least and you may come out with kills in a lot of scenarios. Most champions with global abilities need follow up. In the early to mid-parts of the game, they don't yet have enough damage to get a kill swiftly by themselves, so be ready to engage at the drop of a hat to make the most use of them.

Global pressure has a massive influence on games. People have to contantly have them in mind or get punished for it, as I have been many times. The thing about globals is every single one of them can punish you hard, no matter the champion you always need to think of them. For example, if Rek'Sai uses her Ultimate ability it lets everybody know she just did that, and they have to be thinking about if she could be coming for them in a couple of seconds and if they don't they are prone to getting ganked quickly. Another great example would be Twisted Fate. As soon as he hits 6, every enemy needs to be mindful of opportunities they present and try to minimize them. Don't push up too far, always keep an eye on him, and even then if someone over extends for a second they will get ganked from half way around the Rift and get punished hard.

APX Keane finds an enemy Nami split from her team, and takes the opportunity to pick up a quick kill at the end of a fight.

People sometimes overlook supports, and their abilities, but when it comes to Global Abilities, Soraka is as annoying as they come. You can be fed and winning a fight, let's say top lane, trying to abuse your lead, pushing for a fight and your enemy gets 300 HP out of nowhere and is now competitive with you again. In team fights the effectiveness of her Wish is incredible, with the ability to heal the backline and frontline at the same time so the divers get more time to deal damage to opposing Backline threat while Soraka's backline gets more life to kite away from threats.

There are some AD Carries that have these global abilities, Ashe is one. She is an excellent option for AD Carry players that like to set up fights, ganks, and skirmishes. Her Crystal Arrow is an amazing set up for follow up CC onto tanks and squishy targets alike. She's also quite popular in professional play at the moment, being picked or banned in 39.2% of games so far. With the stun duration scaling up with the distance traveled, a snipe from across the Rift could easily end up in a swift execution for the poor soul caught. Other than her AD Carries have killing ability, like Jinx with her Execute, or Draven with his potential 2 hits.

Doublelift fires off a Crystal Arrow resulting in Procxins death.

One champion I haven't mentioned yet is the notorious Karthus. His ultimate has been the butt of many jokes, with how he just needs to tape down his R key to win and so on. Karthus has been in and out of meta over the years, and in a couple different roles. He mostly sticks to Mid but there was a time when Karthus jungle was popular. He works best in team comps that can get him into the middle of the enemy team, to make the most out of his Defile and the ability to spam Lay Waste with a higher chance of it hitting targets. Karthus can be a real pain if he gets in the middle of a team, he will do too much damage for squishy opponents to run over his Defile, and split them off from the enemy frontline.

So overall, most of the time there will be a champion with global abilities in the game. You need to learn how to communicate with them to make the most out of their kit. Communication and map awareness are the two keys you need to success with these champions, and obviously a bit of game knowledge and mechanics will take you even further. Sometimes they define the meta, other times they are a small part of the meta, but there will always be strong global abilities and with that comes different things to play around and to outplay.

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