Backdooring is a way of playing applied on all the MOBA’s. For some it’s a coward move, but for others it’s just a strategy. Let’s see what it actually is and the different opinions.

Definition

As a general term for all the MOBA’s, backdooring is considered a strategy which consists in attacking the enemy team’s structures/Titan without a minion wave, just you or maybe with your own generated minions, such as Bastet’s cats or Nu Wa’s minions (which we will talk about later). In addition, some people confuse this plan with splitpushing, which is similar but involves pushing with minions.

Normally, this strategy is only successful in casual games and low Elo ranked, where people aren't careful and don't have enough map awareness, but if you think about how to execute it with precision, fortune will smile on you in medium to high ranked games.

Advantages

You force an enemy to go defend his structures/Titan instead of helping their team which may be in a teamfight. That's the most important advantage, even though your team is in the same situation. Furthermore, if nobody on your team can carry the game, you can do it for yourself.

Disadvantages

Like the enemy who is defending his structures/Titan while you’re backdooring, it’s clear that you also have to leave your team, so they're fighting down one man. However, there are times when you can’t mitigate that like when you're playing a non-teamfight god like Loki.

In addition, you can lose a lot of health by applying this strategy if you aren’t playing a god who can properly push a tower alone.

Countering - wards

The main counter to backdooring is placing wards. Mainly these should be sentries, so that you can detect and destroy enemy wards before the enemy uses teleport on them. If he doesn't have the teleport active, you should be fine with normal ones. There’s a Conquest map below which shows where to place them to avoid backdooring.

Blue dots correspond to the order side and red ones to the chaos side.

The other way to counter backdooring is safer. In this case you group up as a team around the base.

How to backdoor

First of all, be sure where the enemies are by placing wards and you also need at least one penetration item (Mace tree items for Physical gods and Obsidian Shard for Magical). Finally, let the enemy lane minions pass away from you so the enemies don’t detect you before attacking the structure/Titan.

Gods who can backdoor more easily

- Anubis: He is strong, but only when backdooring the Titan. His abilities do tons of damage per second, which quickly destroy it.

- Apollo: He is a good example of backdoor capacity without god generated minions since he can do it by using his ultimate like a teleport. His 2 gives him bonus armor for a limited time and passive also help, but you lose a lot of health doing this. So while Apollo can backdoor, he is a much better splitpusher.

- Bakasura: He is a god who can apply this strategy by using his ultimate which generates minions who can tank the structure shots and Titan attacks.

- Bastet: A god who can apply this strategy by using her ultimate which generates cats that have much more health than the lane minions. This is the reason she’s one of the best backdoor gods. You can find below one of my videos playing Bastet.

- Chronos: When activates his 2nd ability in section IV of his passive, it gives him +35% Magical Power Contribution to basic attacks, allowing him to destroy the structures or the Titan very quickly.

- Kali: She can tank the structures/Titan a bit with her ultimate, but I don’t recommend using her this way since it’s so risky.

- Loki: He can hit the structures/Titan without lane minions as long as his decoy (2nd ability) is up, but once it explodes he starts losing a lot of health due to his squishiness. While he can backdoor, he is much better as a splitpush god. You can find below one of my videos playing Loki.

- Nu Wa: She was much better as a splitpusher in Season 2 because you could get maximum cooldown reduction faster and spawn the minions with her 2nd ability more frequently.

- Skadi: She's the best backdoor god at the moment, since Kaldr (her wolf) can resist a maximum of 5 tower/phoenix shots and her ultimate turns him immortal and restores Kaldr’s health. Her main problem is she has no ability.

Thoughts and controversy

I think backdooring is just a strategy like any other (splitpushing, camping...) so it should be considered as one. While it's true that when an enemy does it, I get so upset that I call it unfair, but that's not what I really think about it. However, some players, who are mainly casual ones, consider so very unsportsmanlike and wrong that they report the players doing this. On the other hand, most professional players aren't against this because they consider it like a plan to win a game.

Dignitas Store

View All

Dignitas Hoodie - Black

noblechairs Hero Dignitas Edition Gaming Chair