Turret dives are a way you can punish enemies and snowball a lead in League of Legends. This article will go over how to execute a turret dive and go over the factors that go into turret dives.
Turret dives are a way you can punish enemies and snowball a lead in League of Legends. This article will go over how to execute a turret dive and go over the factors that go into turret dives.
A turret dive is when you go under the enemy's turret in an attempt to kill the enemy. The purpose of turret dives is to either propel a lead that your team already has or to punish an enemy that is mispositioning. Turret dives can be seen as risky especially in the early game when champions are not able to tank much turret damage, however with proper understanding early game turret dives can go very smoothly. In Solo Queue, tower dives can be very difficult to execute since there is no live communication when the dive is happening which can lead to misplays. However, when playing with a group you can use voice communications with tower dives can be a great way to accelerate the game in your favor.
Turret dives are best when you have a clear advantage over the enemy you are about to dive. This can be a summoner spell advantage, numbers advantage, or an item advantage, but the main point is if you have some type of advantage over the opponent, you have a better chance at properly executing a tower dive. Another large factor in turret dives is the number of minions you have at the tower. Minions can soak the first few turret shots and allow you and your teammates to properly position for the dive. Minion damage can also add up in the early game and block enemy skillshots which can help make the dive safer as well. It is possible to dive enemies when there are a little to no minions, but a safer dive would have around 9 minions total or diving with a cannon minion. Turret dives are also easy to execute when you have a Stopwatch, since it can reset the turret's damage and easily swap the turret’s aggro to someone else.
Now that we understand when we should turret dive, it is important to understand when you should not tower dive. The reasons you would not turret dive are basically the opposites of why you do a turret dive. If you have no spells up, you are outnumbered, or if you are clearly behind, these are all reasons to not turret dive. Some examples of this are if you saw the enemy jungler nearby, the enemy has Teleport advantage, or if the enemy you are diving has a clear item advantage. However, the largest factor into whether you should turret dive is the champions in the game. There are certain champions you should never be diving due to how they can handle situations through crowd control, high mobility, or damage, or being able to easily escape. In a later section we will be going over champions you should turret dive with and champions you should not be turret diving.
After knowing when and when not to turret dive, it is time to breakdown how to turret dive. You do not want to immediately start tanking turret damage since you will be pushed to low health too quickly and eliminate the possibility of being able to successfully execute the dive. Try to surround the enemy and quickly burst them down through damage and crowd control, while managing the turret’s aggro to make sure no one on your team dies. These next sections will give a more in-depth explanation to turret diving and breakdown various sections.
Turret dives involve a lot of aggro juggling and resetting the turret's damage. Turret dives can also happen in phases due to the importance of resetting turret aggro. Turrets will deal progressively increased damage to someone if they are tanking multiple turret shots. This means that the first shot will deal a base amount of damage and the damage will increase by 40% for each shot taken in the same aggro, up to 120% increased damage.
If there is a ranged champion, have them take aggro first since they can take at least one shot and should be the closest to leaving the turret’s range to reset the aggro. Afterwards, try to have either someone tanky take aggro next or someone else who can quickly swap the aggro. An example of someone tanky would be Leona tanking with her W - Eclipse, and an example of someone who can swap the aggro would be Elise with her E - Rappel.
The target dummy on the right is blocking off the enemy from running towards their base and the arrow is showing the gap between the turret and wall that can be used to trap the enemy.
As stated earlier, try to have a ranged champion take aggro first so they can quickly drop the turret’s aggro. This can be easily done through a basic attack, or you can use a longer ranged damage spell while in turret range to deal maximum damage. This can be something simple such as a Mantra - Q from Karma or a fully charged Varus Q. If you do not have a ranged champion to take aggro, start the dive with crowd control so the rest of your allies can get in range of the enemy. If you have multiple allies with crowd control, make sure to properly layer the crowd control so you don’t waste seconds of lockdown and let the enemy slip away. If you have gap closers, you can use them in the initiation of the dive to get onto the enemy quickly, but if it is a more mobile champion such as Ezreal then it may be best to have someone save either a gap closer or crowd control ability to help stick to the target.
Now it is time to examine the other side of turret dives which is when you are about to get turret dove. Once the dive starts, it can be difficult to get out of, so it is best to stop the dive from happening at all. The simplest way to stop dives is to ward spots you can be flanked at. This can be in the bush by Krugs or in the tri-bush near Gromp. This way if you see an enemy moving around to flank you, you can start to run away before the enemy can get the jump on you. One of the biggest situations that causes people to get dove is being too greedy.
The biggest culprit is trying to farm a large minion wave that is coming in. Obviously, the best-case scenario for an incoming minion wave is that you can cash in the whole wave unscathed. But, if enemies are nearby, then that is highly unlikely. What typically ends up happening is you end up getting dove and killed, and you also lose out on the huge minion wave. This is a massive loss in time, gold, experience, and so many other small factors that greeding for the wave is not worth it. If you do have enough mobility or survivability, you can try your best to farm the wave from a safe distance or you can just stay within experience range and at least gain some of the benefits of the wave. You may have missed out on a lot of gold, but it is better to live and get some gold and most of the experience, then to die and miss out on everything and potentially more.
The two warding spots to spot a dive early.
This next section will go over champions that are good for diving turrets. As stated in earlier sections, you want champions with high burst damage, crowd control, or ways to manipulate the turret damage. With these three factors in mind, we will be looking at champions that can do most of these things during a dive.
Elise covers all three of the factors since she has crowd control from her Human Form E - Cocoon and she can drop tower aggro with her Spider Form E - Rappel. She also has high burst with her Human Form Q - Neurotoxin and Spider Form Q - Venomous Bite, making her one of the best turret divers in the game. Since she brings everything you already need for a turret dive, it would be best to pair her with other champions that have high damage or can swap turret aggro since she is squishy. These champions could be Renekton, Camille, Yone, or Lee Sin.
Alistar brings lots of crowd control from his Q, W, and E, so he can keep the enemy in place and prevent them from escaping. He is also able to tank a lot of the turret damage from his R since it reduces the amount of damage he takes by a flat percent. Even though Alistar brings in crowd control and tanking abilities, he lacks the needed damage to take enemies out. Alistar would pair best with high damage champions such as Varus, Lucian, and Jayce.
Twisted Fate may seem like a strange choice since he does not have very high damage and only has one form of crowd control from his W. However Twisted Fate can move to side lanes very quickly from his R and join his team in turret dives, and his crowd control is one of the easiest to hit in the game. He also fills the role of being a ranged champion, so he can quickly swap turret aggro. Twisted Fate would work best with champions that have high damage or someone tanky to soak the turret damage. These can be champions such as Volibear or Dr. Mundo.
The next section will be looking at champions that can survive tower dives. Champions that have lots of crowd control, mobility, or wave clear are best for surviving turret dives. Crowd control can keep the enemies in turret range and force them to tank the turret longer than they want, mobility can help with escaping the dive, and wave clear can clear the incoming minion wave which can make the dive more difficult to execute. We will now look at two champions that can fulfill these needs.
Ezreal has high damage from constantly using his Q and chunk multiple enemies while clearing the wave with his R. Ezreal does have some mobility with his E, but due to its high cooldown early you should try your best to bait out as many spells as possible before using it to escape or try to cover as much distance from the enemy before the dive begins. Ezreal does not have the crowd control to survive dives, but his positives from the other factors still make him a fine candidate to survive dives.
Ornn is an incredibly tanky champion that has wave clear and crowd control that is very useful for preventing dives. All Ornn’s spells deal area of effect damage which is useful for clearing the wave and his E and R have knock ups that can Ornn more difficult to dive. Ornn’s E is especially useful when getting dove since you will almost always be near a wall, and you can quickly knock up the opponent. Ornn’s W also prevents him from being crowd controlled which allows him to bait out spells to make the dive awkward for the enemy. Ornn does not have the damage to kill enemies that are diving him, but he relies on surviving the dive if possible and relying on turret damage to take down the divers.
This next list of champions are champions that are good at both diving champions and surviving dives. The previous champions can fulfill both roles as well, but these three champions that will be discussed have most of the qualities of a diver and someone who can prevent dives.
Gragas is great at surviving turret dives since he has tons of area of effect abilities to hit multiple enemies and clear the wave out. Also, his Q, E, and R spells have crowd control to help with slowing the dive down. He also has the option of trying to E away from the enemy and using his Q and R to prevent the enemy from chasing him. Gragas’ W also makes Gragas take less damage which makes it more difficult to kill him.
As for when Gragas is diving someone, all his spells can combo into each other and makes it easy to layer his damage and crowd control. A combo when diving with Gragas can be starting with W to tank the initial turret damage, then using E to stun followed by R to knock the enemy towards your team. Q can be used after knocking them away or it can be used at the beginning to take turret aggro first. Gragas also can build a fair amount of damage, but he would still be best diving with someone to bring more damage to ensure the dive works. This can be someone such as Viego or Irelia.
The big reason Tahm Kench is good at diving and surviving dives is due to his E and R. Tahm’s E allows him to soak a lot of damage and shield himself afterwards based on the damage he just took. This is useful when diving because he can tank for a very long time without needing to reset the turret’s aggro. As for when you are getting dove, it makes it very difficult to burst through Tahm since it is almost as if the enemy needs to burst through Tahm twice which makes diving him very risky.
Tahm’s R can be used to either reset the turret’s aggro on an ally or to eat an opponent and stop them from doing damage to you. While Tahm cannot reset the turret aggro on himself, he allows any ally to initially tank the turret and remove the aggro from them whenever Tahm wants. This gives a lot of flexibility when diving and can allow anyone to tank the tower at first, then can set up Tahm to tank afterwards with his E. The other use of diving someone with Tahm R is using it to reposition the enemy away from their turret, so your team does not need to tank the turret as much. This situation is a bit more specific since the enemy would need to be further away from the turret and not be able to quickly escape, but it can be useful to reposition the enemy for your team. When getting dove Tahm R loses value when alone since you cannot use it to save a teammate and you can prevent the turret from hitting an enemy. However, Tahm can make the enemy tank stop tanking and force a squishier member to tank the tower, or he can eat the damage dealer and force the tank to try and kill the Tahm.
Maokai has lots of survivability built into his kit, as well as having crowd control on all four of his spells making it easy to lock enemies up. When getting dove, Maokai’s Q and E can be used to either slow the enemy or clear out the wave to prevent the dive. Maokai’s W also makes him untargetable when in the air, allowing him to dodge certain spells and root someone in turret range. Maokai’s R can also root the enemy up, however since it would typically be used in a closer range the root will not be lasting as long, compared to when you would use it to engage. Maokai’s passive is also very useful when getting dove since it will heal you for a percent of your health and the cooldown of the passive is lowered whenever spells are used around him, which is often a lot in the frantic moments of a turret dive.
When diving someone as Maokai, you can use your crowd control to hold the enemy down for your team. Maokai has a lot of zoning tools with his E and R, making it difficult for the opponent to position and can push them into awkward positions. The biggest positive of Maokai is his ability to reset the turret damage with his W since if timed correctly Maokai can root the enemy while dodging a turret shot to reset the turret's damage. Maokai does not have damage, so it would be best to dive with champions that can bring big damage such as LeBlanc or Sylas.
A final tip to finish off this guide is to utilize the target champions only feature. The default key binding of this setting is set to Tilda or “`”. Targeting champions only makes it so you do not accidentally hit the turret when trying to hit the opponent such as using Twisted Fate’s W or just auto attacking the enemy in general. This feature can be used in other scenarios such as fighting in a creep wave or during teamfights, but it is most useful when diving since the turret has a large model, and it is very easy to misclick the turret during a dive.
Overall, turret dives are a great way to push leads and punish the enemy when they are playing greedy or are behind. There are some champions best suited for diving the enemy and there are some champions that are very difficult to dive. Now it is up to you to use this knowledge and begin to play around turret dives!
