Previous Newerth Adventure Blogs
1500+ Edition
Part 1 - http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=321358
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Razer Equipment - Blackwidow Ultimate, Naga Hex
The Game
Tonight I played a few games of HoN with my friends. Due to the games I've played over the past couple of days, I'm going to outly something that can cause players a lot of grief. This is the "Selfish" mid.
Our "Selfish" Players
Valkyrie
Pandamonium - Kangamonium Skin
Wretched Hag
Game 1 Replay - Game ID 83901802
For this game our selfish mid is Valkyrie, he plays against Torturer in mid. It should be noted that Valkyrie is a very good ganking hero with a variable up to 5 second stun via skill shot. Further to this our lanes worked out to have a solid set up stun in BOTH lanes. Our Valkyrie could have successfully ganked from 3 onward with absolutely no issues.
I'd like to put more screenshots in this game, however nothing much actually happens. All lanes exchange blows but do no real damage, and bloodlust comes from Plague Rider on Vindicator just after 10 mins. When bloodlust falls, our Valk is in the well at level 8.
At 11.30 mins he moves out for his first gank. Level 9. Our opposing mid is already 2/0 However the valk then moves back mid and continues farming.
We lose this game as well. However upon reviewing the scoreboard i note that he has actually got the most kill involvements for our team. An interesting point being that it felt (in-game) like he had very little impact on the game.
Game 2 - Replay - Game ID 83904400
This game our mid is Pandamonium. He plays against tremble, by no means an easy hero to best. This game bothered me less than the other games mentioned in this blog. The Panda struggled early and called for a gank, which I obliged. I played Revenant this game and Zedar(Slither) and myself had a pretty successful time in lane against a solo Vindicator.
However it's when someone gets to level 6 as a mid, that they must without excuse gank. Some people cry for wards when they can't gank. Not so in this game. I had placed ward at the rune, and in the jungle to protect us from the jungling Cthuluphant.
Level 6 - Not Ganking
Slither ganks mid again, they get a double tap between them on Monarch and Tremble. The Kangamonium is now level 9 and still hasn't ventured from lane to gank. I will say that this game annoyed me less than the others as we maintained high activity from roaming side lanes to the mid, which ensured the panda got good farm and was able to carry towards late game. Another point is that the side lanes weren't losing their lanes either. at the 12 minute mark the scores are 5-9 in our favour. It's more a factor of staying mid to farm, rather than doing 1-2 roams to gank.
Level 9, Still in mid
The Panda gets a gank attempted on him by both Tremble and Vindicator. He kites them back to the tower, turns it around and kills both of them. Impressive display I might add.
Kangaroo's really can jump!
His first leave of mid game was at 16mins and 44 seconds. He was level 12. Now this is usually a non-factor when you're winning all lanes, which in this particular game we were. However if your team starts viewing you as useless then they start to get down on you. The game is all about trolling, and unfortunately that need for a scapegoat often falls on a team member.
Why people do it makes no sense to me. It makes a lot more sense to me to encourage and help your team, someone who is being ragged on for having a poor game is gonna get in an even worse mood and thus play worse. It's a rather steep spiral. My team in this game started to rag on the Panda player in this game, yet we were winning all lanes and he was farming at 300GPM.
Game 3 - Replay - Game ID 84103666
Our mid this game is Wretched Hag, Int hero with Blink and the ability to carry out late game with sufficient farm. Very gank oriented hero. He mids against pebbles, which means sitting mid is going to be even less effective and put more of an emphasis on ganking. Moreover we have Caige in jungle on Legionnaire leaving me on Berserker to solo bot. All of this points to heavy gank play, ESPECIALLY at bottom.
Granted 5 mins into the game we have no wards up still, this however doesn't mean you can't guess where the rune spawns and gank. The other thing about that is it doesn't mean you can't drop a ward yourself. In HoN a ward is 100 gold (2 Creep Kills), noone is above warding for themselves. 10mins into the game, a Legion ward is STILL yet to be dropped. The Pebbles now has 2 kills and 3 assists.
He did participate in team fights though
A few more team fights erupt early due to the BH and Pebbles having an early window to get on top of everyone, and at 16 mins into the game it's all over due to a non active mid. The point in this particular game is with the circumstances we had, the Hag should have been ganking from level 3+ Ganking is even more important when there is a jungle hero and a solo suicider. If you can ensure the bottom wins while giving the jungle good farm, you basically win the game, regardless.
Conclusion
Believe it or not this post isn't about ragging on selfish mid players. It's more about the perception of the game being won in the middle lane. It's simply not that way at all. The mid lane is usually a position for ganking, but it's also a position for farming in a one on one minimal harass situation. Admittedly the way mid makes decisions can affect the whole game, a player that comes to a losing side lane and successfully ganks provides momentum to the players who are struggling, and slows the players that are winning the lane. Similarly if you have heroes in every lane winning, why not take a bit of the farm for yourself.
I know at this point I'm going to try and keep a more positive outlook on our mid players. Maybe I'll purchase that ward and place it for the mid who's trying to get wards. Maybe I'll roam to mid to try and get the jump on the opponents mid. The one thing I definitely will do in the future is defend the player who is getting ragged on. It's very easy to get down on someone, and it literally affects the whole team.
The only game that was adversely affected by the Mid's decision making was Game 3. Whereby midding against a Pebbles was never going to go well and he should have been more active on the map.
Be positive!!