Mastering Caitlyn with DIG Tomo!
Tired of leaving the fuzzy cuffs at home? Well, come with us as DIG’s Tomo helps us master League’s number one police officer - Caitlyn!
Caitlyn is one of League’s most popular ADCs, and thanks to that, she’s almost always going to be a relevant Champion within any meta. But there’s a lot to learn and master behind Caitlyn to really bring the most out of her. So, today we’re going to focus on League’s best sniper alongside DIG’s LCS ADC, Frank "Tomo" Lam!
Capitalizing on Caitlyn’s Strengths
When you’re looking to climb, Caitlyn is a great Champion to main for yourself to a certain point up the ladder. Her range is the one of the highest in the game, which makes both farming and poking super safe for you. Whenever you can hit your enemy without them being able to hit you back, you can already consider yourself winning, right? So, a lot of her gameplay revolves around attacking your opponents as they step forward to farm since most other Champions can’t match your autos to make trades even. So, abuse her attack range as much as you can.
So, right away one the key things to understand about Caitlyn is her passive - Headshot. Caitlyn’s passive is what really makes her auto range something to be feared as with every auto-attack, she gains a stack of Headshot. At 6 stacks, Headshot activates and enhances Cait’s next auto with bonus damage. So, through the lane as you’re weaving your autos between last-hitting minions and harassing your opponent as they step forward, you want your Headshot auto to be your primary tool to deal heavy damage onto your opponents as they step forward.
Secondarily, Caitlyn’s traps and net also make auto-attacks towards the targets affected by them act as Headshot attacks even if Caitlyn isn’t stacked up. As a bonus, if a target is under the effects of her trap or net, she gains increased range towards these debuffed targets for a short period - allowing you to get into range to pop that extra damage in.
Lastly, an often overlooked aspect of Headshot is the fact that the stacks double when you are auto-attacking from a brush. So, if you position yourself towards brushes in lane or in teamfight situations, you’ll activate Headshot faster, which will allow you to pump as much of Caitlyn’s enhanced damage out as you can.
Her next biggest strength is playing for push. Caitlyn’s Q is a great pushing tool since it can quickly damage the wave and get you into situations where you’re pressuring or sieging at the enemy turret. And once you’re there, with her traps and the pressure of her Headshot, Caitlyn can lay down a lot of turret damage and poke damage with her autos and Q if people just mindlessly step on her traps to clear them out. So, she’s one of the best at getting and maintaining lane priority - especially when paired with a Support that can really set her up.
As we mentioned before, Caitlyn’s W, Yordle Snap Trap, applies a debuff to the Champions that step on them, enhancing her auto as a Headshot towards that Champion while also increasing her range towards them. So, you’ll often see Caitlyn players setting up traps around the turret to limit movement options for her enemy, and of course taking advantage of the damage if they decide to eat one of her trap’s cupcakes.
But, Caitlyn’s traps can also be utilized as a tool to guard gank pathways, or set immediately at her feet if there are opponents looking to dive atop her. So, as you fight through lane or in the Mid to Late game, consider where your traps might be best placed and utilize their snare to set up your team or protect yourself from harm!
Cover for Caitlyn’s Weaknesses
One of her bigger weaknesses, I’d say, is her reliance on her Support. Caitlyn, as I said, is great up the ladder to a certain point. In lower ELO, people play whatever they want, so the safety and range can help you play towards her pretty strong late game, but in higher ELOs, people can really punish you if your Support doesn’t synergize with Caitlyn well. So, it’s something to be aware of if you start to feel yourself sandbagging a bit on your climb.
Besides Support requirements, Caitlyn’s Mid Game is notoriously bad in comparison to other Champions, which is odd considering her reputation as a lane dominant ADC. The nature of Caitlyn is unlike many ADCs who come packaged with tools or techniques that make them more valuable to their allies when in neutral. Caitlyn herself is just an auto attack machine, and if her auto attacks are enhanced through an item lead, you really have to be aware of how much (or how little) damage she can crank out through this phase of the game in comparison to other Champions like Jinx, Ashe, or Aphelios who are Champions that come close to matching Caitlyn’s range, but possess more Mid Game tools to help their team.
So, through this phase of the game, we come to rely on Caitlyn’s traps to compensate for her Mid Game weakness if we haven’t secured ourselves a lead.
Cait’s traps are a great tool for setting up plays around Baron or Dragon. As Caitlyn, you can lay your traps in the pathways towards Dragon or Baron, and force your opponents to walk through them if they want to get to the objective in time, which can let your team quickly turn on them since they’ll be snared for a short period. Or it forces them to take the way around your traps or use abilities to get through them without being CC’d. This buys time or gets rid of tools for them to fight with, so you can take your objective quickly or just win the fight afterwards without much worry.
Other ways to compensate for Caitlyn's Mid Game weakness is to simply focus on farm. Caitlyn comes back online with the late-game, through her three item power spike. At the late stage of the game, Caitlyn has her Mythic, Infinity Edge, and Rapid Firecannon, which really brings the heat in terms of DPS and range, and there are few Champions that can keep up with the amount of DPS she can lay down. Paired with her traps or a Support that can help set them up, Caitlyn at three items can wipe out almost any Champ if she gets a full combo of her kit off.
Supports to Pair with Caitlyn
Caitlyn’s Support reliance is a big weakness, but the Supports she pairs with can really make the most out of her kit. The most obvious two synergies are with Morgana and Lux, who just easily set up Caitlyn’s traps with their bindings. Any hit snare almost always becomes a kill or Flash if you can get in range for them. Otherwise, these two are just also good picks to make Caitlyn even safer. Morgana’s Black Shield being really good against engage tools and Lux’s shield being able to absorb a lot of damage.
Additionally, as most ADC’s have come to be buffed by Annie Support, so too has Caitlyn! Annie’s stun operates a lot like Morgana and Lux’s snares where Caitlyn can easily lay a trap under the stunned target for her combo damage to lay out. And with Annie’s shield increasing her movement speed, she can even get into range faster than before to follow up.
Caitlyn also pairs extremely well with Bard! Bard’s synergy is more towards level 6 where his ultimate locks enemies into a Zhonya’s-like state where Caitlyn can just lay traps down underneath them and follow up the stasis with a hail of bullets. But he is also packaged with tricky stun that can set up for Caitlyn’s traps if she’s quick, and Bard’s fountains are great at improving Caitlyn’s lane safety as he goes out for milk - erh, I mean, meeps! Don’t worry! He’s definitely coming back to lane soon! I’m sure of it!
Anyway, here are Caitlyn’s most synergistic duos as of Patch 13.6 as provided by U.GG:
Teamfighting as Caitlyn
Caitlyn, I think, has a pretty standard teamfight pattern. She’s very reliant on her auto-attacks, so she likes a simple front to back teamfight comp to really bring the most out of her. Her traps and net are her self-peel tools in the middle of teamfights, but they can also be used to follow up on a target if they went into Zhonya’s. So, always be sure you have one loaded if someone goes golden in front of you. Otherwise, you just want to approach the fight with an eye towards threat assessment.
Threat assessment is a concept that many ADCs overlook or even tunnel vision on to their detriment! Threat assessment is all about figuring out who on the enemy team can access and kill you easily, and who you can access and kill without putting yourself at death’s door! Often, this boils down to being aware of the positioning of the enemy Mid, Jungle, or Top - which are the roles who likely have some sort of dive potential on you.
Of course, your Support should also be aware of these threats to your person, since it’s their duty to keep you safe! But, so that you’re both on the same page, it’s never a bad idea to tell your Support in chat which enemy diver concerns you the most! Especially since that Champion is likely going to hit your queue of targets at spot number one the moment a fight breaks out!
Additionally, it’s a great idea to keep traps around your flank! Assassins like Talon and Akali often look to take angles from the side or back of a fight since they have sneaky tools to get in from odd angles! For divers like Vi or Kled, they have no qualms about simply rushing you through your team. For them, your E, 90 Caliber Net, is probably going to be your best self-peel tool.
Translating a Lead as Caitlyn
If you’ve got a lead through lane, Caitlyn’s is one of the best Champions in the game at sieging and taking turrets. Her additional range and Headshot can really tear down a turret in seconds, so if you’ve taken your lane over and taken your turret down in Bot, you immediately want to transition yourself to Mid to take the turret there if it’s still standing. Doing this will open up the map and allow for your team to more easily roam between objectives and make more aggressive plays in the enemy jungle. Afterwards, you go to Top and knock down that turret if it’s still there. Basically, you just hop around the map until the outers are gone.
Caitlyn can also apply this great damage potential towards objectives like Herald, Dragon, and Baron! While she might not have the same level DPS as someone like Jinx or Vayne against these targets, she’s still a Champion that deals primarily with her auto-attacks. So, if your map is void of any turrets to knock down, take advantage of her monster slaying DPS to secure teamwide benefits! Don’t be afraid to ping objectives early and often to get your team on the same page!
Additionally, Caitlyn’s traps are great tools to support side-lane sieges and Jungle picks! By blocking out alleyways or setting traps through corridors and in visionless brushes, your team can quickly jump on and kill opponents that are looking to stop your siege or transition themselves from one lane to the next. And even if you’re not looking to make picks, simply setting a trap in a brush is a great way to get a little map-wide info since Caitlyn’s traps do reveal the target that steps on them! So, as you’re exiting after a push, never be afraid to throw down a stray trap or two. For some reason, enemies just can’t resist the cupcakes, so you’ll get keyed in on where they could be before your next play!
Recovering from a Loss
Caitlyn’s ability to come back from losses is pretty garbage, I won’t lie. But you can never count yourself out when you’re behind, and this goes for every ADC. Playing for farm is the surest way to get you online. It doesn’t matter if you’re 0/30, if you have your items, you’re still going to do damage. But also, don’t just strictly play for farm. Skill-check your opponents consistently. That’s my approach at least. I want to put my opponents to the test and make them fight for their leads, because you never know when they’ll just misplay or over-commit into something and your team is lurking or you’ve got just enough damage or cooldowns to beat them.
Aye! Farm is the surest way to retake your advantage! But perhaps the most obvious answer to recovering is - always play with your team! When the game starts slipping from your ability to influence it, you want to pair yourself with others as your collectively layered damage and abilities is more likely to net you a positive play than you are to gain a positive play by being on your own! Unless you’re soaking a positively huge side wave, you almost always want to be paired with your Support or Jungler - helping them take Scuttles, clear wards, or pepper turrets with what damage you can to set up the next big play for your team! The great thing about ADC is that no matter what you can always come online. So, play for your items, play with your team, and always be ready to contribute what you can to duels and teamfights!
Closing Out
Alright, so there you have it! There’s a bit of everything you need to know to clean up your Caitlyn game! Thanks to Tomo for sitting with me! If you’d like to follow Tomo, you can catch him at the following links:
