Quick Tips: Fundamental ARAM Strategy
Konduit covers some of the basic (but often counter-intuitive) fundamentals of All Random All Mid strategy.
ARAM is a gametype with its own subtle nunances that, in fact, have massive ramifications on how players need to approach the game. Regardless of which team comp you happen to roll in champion select, knowing how to approach the game (this will involve drastically shifting your current method of thinking) will greatly increase your odds of winning. Sure, sometimes the other team may have 'higher ARAM-tier' champions than yours, but playing the Howling Abyss (or Butcher's Bridge) correctly will push your winrate over 50% as you play more games. Here are 5 quick tips that you should keep in mind for your next ARAM game:
1. Don't be afraid of dying. This is a difficult habit to break, as in almost every situation on Summoner's Rift you want to keep yourself alive to go back to base. Well, you can't go back to base in ARAM unless you die, so get used to throwing yourself into the enemy team headlong! One situation in particular you want to avoid is using important summoner spells to survive, especially early on. Let's say you get engaged on, and Flash away to survive with a sliver of health. On Summoner's Rift this might be a very strong play, but on the Howling Abyss this move is highly questionable. What benefit are you going to be able to offer your team when you're at 10% health (assuming no sustain or ability to contribute with long-range poke). You won't be able to contribute to teamfights nearly as effectively, having to play far back and keeping safe at all times. You're also easy pickings for your opponents to kill, and when you're down they can make a strong push for towers. You're better off dying and saving your Flash to make a decisive, proactive play in the fights to come.
2.Corollary to tip #1, make effective use of your deaths. You shouldn't be afraid of dying, but be sure to suicide to the turret or to the enemy team at the right time. The best example is when both teams crash into each other, and yours comes out on top with everyone alive with 10% health - a fantastic teamfight execution. You push and take towers all the way to their nexus turrets, but the enemy team is spawning. Many players would think to retreat and run back, so let's talk about this scenario; you retreat all the way back to your own turret at low health, playing safe. But the other team hard engages on all of you, and wipes you out for the ace - because your entire team was at low health, there's little chance to fight back! They then reverse the momentum and make a game ending push.
Because the enemy team died, they had the ability to heal up and buy fresh items. The team with the item advantage, as in Summoner's Rift, is very much favored to win fights, break turrets more easily, and make more aggressive plays. If your team instead died to their nexus turrets (or dove into enemy fountain), the game would be 'reset' with both teams having been back to base to buy, but your team has the massive objective/tower advantage. In this situation, it was the correct play to suicide after you have won a teamfight. And if you've determined that you need to die to buy items, it doesn't matter all THAT much whether you get an execution or die to a member of the opposing team. Remember, even though they've killed you, they won't have a chance to spend that gold until their next death. All they get before the next teamfight is a little bit of XP from your death. By dying, you come back with shiny new items while your opponents are sitting on gold.
Coming from traditional 5v5 Rift games, you might have trouble embracing this strategy - but I guarantee that you'll see results if you strategically die when needed. I see many players dominate with a poke champion throughout the early mid-game, not going back to buy for the first 20 minutes. Sure, it's pretty fun to go a full game without dying, but if you're trying to win this is facepalm-worthy move - as soon as you have 1 or two major item purchases, go jump into a turret! You'll come back super strong and ready to deal out more pain.
Nidalee's a pretty terrifying champion on ARAM gamemodes. But decisive engages and aggressive pushes can be effective in limiting her influence in the game.
3.Try to start teamfights on the opponent's side of the map. Oftentimes you'll find yourself fighting at your nexus turrets when pushed back; when you win the fight, you find that you're unable to push and take the next turret because of the sheer amount of walking distance to the next objective. Meanwhile, the other team has respawned with full healthbars and items. This is a very difficult situation to come back from, and it'll require some skillful maneuvering for your team to successfully make a push; but the takeaway here is that you garner a huge advantage by fighting on the enemy's side of the map. The benefit is twofold - if you lose the fight, the opposing team will find it hard to make a strong push all the way across the map (and be unable to get much, if anything at all on the back of the teamfight). If you win the fight, well, you're near if not right in front of the enemy base and can easily push for towers/end the game.
If at all possible, you want to push your opponents back before you fight. Posture forward aggressively, and intimidate your opponents to fall back (this is easier if your team is favored to win a fight, but it can still work even when you're behind!); put some psychological pressure down (the threat of an engage) and you'll be surprised at how readily your opponents will give up ground. On the flipside of the coin, in order to avoid falling to this strategy, you must really know and understand the strengths of both team compositions and determine how and when you can best fight. Don't give up ground if you're confident you can win, meet the other team head on!
As a side note, you can use this same strategy to push poke teams back during the early minutes of the game. If poke champions have bush control, their poke is much harder to dodge, especially when you're all sitting around your tower. Push up against poke comp, take bush control, and develop a more aggressive position to minimize how much of their poke will land.
4. Don't underestimate the value of CS. Gold values are different on the ARAM maps: first blood is worth 200 gold, while normal kills are only 140g - very low compared to Summoner's Rift kill rewards. This means that farming a couple waves of minions will basically net you the value of a kill. I've had games where I basically just farmed for 10 minutes (admittedly by doing this, I hogged all the farm, but uh...), hardly participated in fights, and was the strongest member on either team anyway. Really make sure to grab all the cs you're given (don't let a minion die without someone getting the last hit), or direct it to a teammate who really needs items to scale (an AP Kogmaw for example).
Mark/Dash allows many champions to engage effectively. Don't be afraid to play champions like Darius or Xin Zhao, as you can now reliably initaite for your team.
5. Make decisive, coordinated engages. Now you might say this is something that you'd do in any gametype; and certainly, you should strive for decisive engages in your 5v5 games as well. But in ARAM this principle is even more important, particularly if your team is primarily melee range and the other team is the god-tier ARAM poke/AoE CC comp. In most cases, you'll take towers (or have towers taken from you) after a won or lost teamfight. Thus, coming out on top in fights alllows you to push for objectives reliably. Sieging is a fine strategy, but due to the clustered nature of the map engages are prone to breaking out - it's important to make these teamfights initiations confidently and with coordination. Keep track of your summoner spells (Flash is extremely important for your team's AoE CC champions), ultimates, and opponent's ultimates and stage a teamfight when these conditions are optimal for your team. Winning a decisive teamfight can quickly turn the game in your favor, allowing your team to make a massive push despite being poked down/behind/on the back foot the whole game. It doesn't matter if the other team's Nidalee and Lux have been poking you for 20 minutes if you win a clutch teamfight on their side of the map and end the match.
That's all for today, I hope you enjoyed the article. If you'd like to discuss anything League, have comments/feedback on this article, or just want to say hi, feel free to tweet me @k0nduit (with a zero instead of an 'o') and I'll get back to you.
Until next time.
konduit
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