Rotations by Trevor Boyer.6524

A pretty well made post I saw by mentioned player about rotations I thought people might find useful not burried in a reply to an OP.

In higher tiers, 1/3/1 is still the "preferable" split, but if often can't be done optimally due to a number of reasons. Players who insist on repeatedly pushing 1/3/1 will top out at hovering around gold 3ish high plat 1ish. What brings you past that hump is being able to see the game differently and it's a simple matter of:

Fully understanding the current meta and patching.Being able to size up the capabilities of your team comp vs. the other team comp.Interpreting where enemies will go on the initial split and adjusting your team's initial split to counter their split or at least engage them on equal grounds.So let me toss a couple case examples. Let's consider all of the players are of the exact same skill level or MMR.

A winning 1/3/1 for your team - You have on your team a Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge/Chrono/Your Spellbreaker. The other team has Bunker Druid/Scourge/Scourge/Chrono/Spellbreaker. The comps are relatively mirrored aside from the fact that your team will have more team fight presence but less side node bunker/peel power, due to your Firebrand vs. the Bunker Druid. Let's say your team splits as: Chrono home, FB Scourge Scourge mid, your Spellbreaker to far. If the enemy team tries to engage 1/3/1 vs. your 1/3/1, they're going to be behind after the initial split. Their only options to engage you optimally, do not include any 3 man configurations to win the mid fight vs. your Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge and they don't have any options to easily/quickly kill in 1v1s and win side nodes either. So as long as your team can at least stall the side node fights while the mid fight is won, your team will be ahead after the initial split and be in control of the next rotation.A losing 1/3/1 for your team vs. those same enemies - Let's say that enemy team chooses to not engage you 1/3/1 vs. 1/3/1, but rather they pull a 1/1/3 split where their Spellbreaker caps home, the Bunker Druid goes mid to engage your Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge to stop them up and delay mid cap, and the Chrono/Scourge/Scourge push far to kill or run off the guy capping your home. They can rotate on an initial split like this very quickly due to blink and portal entre, both Scourges get there fast. They did this because they knew the probability of your Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge/Chrono/Spellbreaker trying to play 1/3/1 was high. Now they have created a difficult situation for your team to adapt its rotation to. You'll be in a Spellbreaker vs. Spellbreaker on their home node, god knows how long that will go on, the node is still neutral. There is a single annoying Bunker Druid stalling the mid cap and drawing numbers to his 1, who at worst, can fallback to home and assist the SBer vs. SBer if he has to, which will do a couple things: It will allow an easy finishing of capping their own home node and if your team wants to stop that from happening, they have to send players from mid to the enemy home, which is removing numbers from mid, allowing those 3 guys at far who have already ran someone off if not killed him, to start creating a snowball rotation. They are definitely in control of the next rotation. Now your team has to make a choice of how to handle that situation and no matter what you chose to do, it won't involve keeping that Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge in the same place if you want to keep up in point ticks. The enemy team has effectively launched a rotation around the 1/3/1 power play and separated the Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge center of power. if they can keep up those type of rotations, they will maintain control of the match and every rotation there-in. <- That is the kind of stuff that happens in higher tier play, that makes the difference between good players and good players who really know how to work rotations.So in my opinion, what holds most players back, is that they view that initial split rotation and all rotations in general as: What should I be doing? Where should I go next? I am doing rotations right on MY class, why are we losing? This is a limiting mentality because they have developed tunnel vision on how their class must always function or rotate. This is a symptom of the early advice new players receive, AKA: "Your Thief should be worried about harassing far all game" or "Your Firebrand should always stay in the team fight." ect.. ect.. This will bring them to a gold 2ish gold 3ish level in time because for the most part, what they are doing is -usually- optimal, but they will never beat the better players they are trying to outplay to achieve plat 1/2+ levels. They need to develop the ability to identify when those mundane usual tactics are not going to work in a given match, be able to see around it, and form counter rotations with the team, not alone.

The last important thing to mention in my opinion, is that rotations regardless of solo que or 5 man que, are something that was meant as a term for team plays, not individual actions. This is something that has confused an enormous amount of the player base and it is largely responsible for players not understanding how important it is to rotate with your team, not individually. In a single short example:

You still are on that team of Firebrand/Scourge/Scourge/Chrono/Your Spellbreaker. Your team decides to 1/3/1 split again and declares it safe. Then when the gate opens, for some reason one of the Scourges decides he is going to rush the far node instead of letting the Spellbreaker do it. You have to make a decision: (A) Let him go far and get chewed up by the obvious Chrono that is currently capping it. Do you think that your team can pull ahead while allowing him to die like that? When the snowball happens, the Scourge dies and the Chrono comes mid, do you have realistic chances of winning this initial split? Can your team maintain control while allowing him to die or will it hurt you? Sometimes you have to (B) Acknowledge that the only way to possibly maintain control of the current rotation and the next, is actually follow the kitten to the far node and make sure he does not die. Will doing this allow your team to pull ahead in the current play? If it seems as such, this is the correct thing to do. Just bail on the initial idea of 1/3/1 and adapt to cover whatever weakness is exposing your team at the time. Point being: The team must rotate as one, even with mistakes. If they do not, you're going to be 4v5 the entire match and at an incredible disadvantage, despite the 4 players who aren't messing up at all.To answer your question very directly: There is no "best split", there are only splits and rotations that counter other splits and rotations

There can be no preferred openining because you don't know what the other team will do and you are limited by what you have. You need to be able to adapt. For solo rated that is. Thats what makes it so frustrating at times there is no way to compel five solo people to work as a team.

@"HadrianBlackwater.5736" said:There can be no preferred openining because you don't know what the other team will do and you are limited by what you have. You need to be able to adapt. For solo rated that is. Thats what makes it so frustrating at times there is no way to compel five solo people to work as a team.

Good luck with that when most players don't have team chat activated and think "X marks the location" like a treasure map when you're pinging the minimap..

Thief calls home, Druid follows, 1 heads far and I adapt and follow far, pinging mid with X just to watch the poor guy 1v42-1-2 splits OP lmao

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@"HadrianBlackwater.5736" said:There can be no preferred openining because you don't know what the other team will do and you are limited by what you have. You need to be able to adapt. For solo rated that is. Thats what makes it so frustrating at times there is no way to compel five solo people to work as a team.

You should shout "ayeee" and "dead man tell no tales" in map chat after drawing the X and "loaded to the gunwall" if you win