Sup y'all, Konduit here. Today I'll be covering the next topic in the Effective Teamfighting article series - Frontlining. (The first one was on Patient Ability Usage, you can check it out here.) Without further ado, let's jump right in.

Playing a frontline role is can be an exceptionally complex task in League of Legends, arguably more complex than playing either of the carry roles. There's a great deal of decision-making required to effectively frontline in a teamfight, and each of these decisions has the potential to determine the fight's outcome. Thus, it's extremely important to be able to read the flow of the fight, understand where it's going, and react efficiently.

Broadly, your job as a frontliner can be divided into two parts - diving and peeling. There's a great deal of nuance with regards to each sub-role (not to mention with respect to each champion's execution of these two directives), but your mindset should be to always question yourself in a teamfight: "Should I be diving the other team's backline, or should I peel for my own carries?"

Sejuani can both dive AND peel effectively - the role you take on is situational.

The reality is that these roles are very rarely set in stone at the beginning of a match, or even at the beginning of a fight. At any given moment in any given teamfight, your 'subrole' can switch between pressuring the the enemy backline and peeling for your team. The two determing factors for determining your initial role AND when to switch between diving/peeling are: 1. Your specific champion's capabilities in your team composition, and 2. The flow and progression of the teamfight.

Some champions simply excel at diving and starting fights (teamfight initiation would fall under diving here). Gnar is disgustingly strong at cc'ing the enemy team, and it'd be a shame to put him in a peeling role at the start of a teamfight, simply because his diving potential (and payoff) is so high if he can get off GNAR! into Wallop. Gnar represents one of those rare cases where you essentially will always begin the fight by making some kind of dive attempt to disrupt and pressure the backline (naturally, this is reversed for other champions, like Tahm Kench - an excellent peeler). However, even with Gnar, the diving role is not set in stone for the whole teamfight.

Let's talk about switching between diving and peeling. You've probably performed this switch more often than you think. Below is a list of the most common situations in which you'll shift FROM diving TO peeling:

- You've killed the other team's carries and turn back to your team to help peel off their frontline

- You've pressured the enemy carries hard, forcing them to disengage completely from the fight or run to such a distance that chasing would be infeasible

- You've forced the other team's carries to use critical cooldowns on you, diminshing their threat level significantly (e.g. Malzahar Ultimate, Twisted Fate's Gold Card)

From the last point, we can see that even for a brief few seconds, it can be the correct move to switch roles. Twisted Fate's Pick a Card is down for roughly 4~ seconds; during this time, he's MUCH less of a threat to your own carries. For this brief period, you can frontline more effectively by moving back to peel and disrupt the enemy team's bruisers rather than stick on TF, who's waiting on cooldowns. You must be careful, of course - keep an eye out, know your ability timings, and make a move to resume pressuring the backline when necessary.

Here are a few common situations in which you'll shift FROM peeling TO diving.

- Your team has killed the other team's frontliners and is moving to clean up the fight

- Your carries seem to be in a good position at the moment and are handling the enemy's divers - here, you are more benificial to the teamfight by diving the opposing carries, applying pressure so that they can't get their damage off freely

- You've forced the enemy frontliners to back out and retreat, leaving you with room to move forward and apply pressure

Let's talk about the last point. It's a common misconception that (espcially among newer players), as a tank or diver, you must stay in the fight until you die for your team. This is actually extremely suboptimal; the reasoning behind this is that you buy extra time for your carries, but more often than not you'll actually buy MORE time for your carries if you start to retreat from the fight when you're taking too much damage or focus. Really take note of this practice when you watch professional games - you'll see the frontliners disengage from diving when they get too low. The enemy team is looking to finish off the kill, so they'll expend further cooldowns (gapclosers, important damage abilities) trying to take you down - all of which aren't being used on your own team's carries! The mark of a great frontline diver is having a plan to get out when they get low (whether by using flash or a mobility skill). Certain juggernauts like Garen and Darius don't care as much about this, but this principle is applicable to most champions out there.

Renekton, with smart Slice and Dice usage, can dive the backline, apply pressure, and get out efficiently if he's taking too much damage.

Which role you start the teamfight out performing depends on two factors - the enemy team's actions as well as your own champion's natural capabilities/tendencies. Peeling is inherently a reactive move - so if the other team is on the defensive, you won't really be peeling! Conversely, if the enemy team is hard engaging on you, you should be strongly considering the peeling role to begin the fight in order to give your carries some breathing room. The other point to examine is what your champion does most effectively; for example, Nocturne is a born diver, so you'll most likely be starting off every fight (even if the other team initiates on you) by using your ultimate to pressure the backline. You need to balance these two considerations (what the enemy team is doing, and what your champion excels at) when you consider to how to play a teamfight as a frontliner.

In all of the above scenarios, it's critical to understand the flow and dynamic of the fight. If there are certain carries that NEED to be disrupted on the enemy team (e.g. Cassiopeia, Azir, Vayne, etc.), you may need to give higher priority to making a diving effort to pressure the backline. On the other hand, let's say one member of your team is absurdly fed - in this case, forget diving - try to keep that person alive for the teamfight and he/she will carry and clean up. Every decision you make is situational - don't be set on one particular role coming into the match; be flexible, adaptable, and open to whichever strategy is optimal at a given moment.

Nocturne's play patterns heavily lean towards diving - however, that doesn't mean you can't be an effective peeler.

There's a great deal more to frontlining than what we've examined today, of course; the goal of this particular discussion was to get you actively thinking about your role as a frontliner during the teamfight: "Should I dive, or should I peel?" Maokai is probably the best example of the complexity in this decision-making - his skills are exceptional at both pressuring the backling and peeling. The role you take as Maokai in a teamfight is completely situational. I encourage you to take a second or two to consider what you should be doing as a teamfight starts - consistently going where you're most needed in a teamfight will show in your results as you play more games.

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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