When to Bait Baron

I'd like to bring attention to a widely disregarded subject: the question of when to "bait Baron". Baiting (or "forcing") Baron means that you want to force the enemy team to engage in a fight with you by starting (or making them believe you started) doing Baron. Obviously they will want to prevent that. First of all: baiting Baron is always a risk, but in some situations it is a risk worth taking. Don't forget that the main goal is to start a teamfight, never give the enemy a chance to steal Baron. NEVER. Simply put, this means that you don't want to put Baron in kill range while ANY enemy is around.

You can increase your chances of it going in your favor by following some simple guidelines.

Why bait Baron:

• You have a hard time pushing towers due to your teamcomp (lack of range, none of your champs can easily splitpush)
• You have a hard time pushing towers due to the enemy's teamcomp (aoe waveclear, global splitpusher, hard engage)

When to bait Baron:

• Your team should be noticeably ahead
• You have to be absolutely confident that you can win a teamfight, even after being chunked by Baron
• Know your teams dps
  Even when you are ahead, it doesn't mean that you can actually do baron fast. Some champs are better suited for this task than others (Cass, Karthus, Ryze, Jax, Lee, Udyr to name a few)
• When the enemy team is down a man or two (due to them being either dead or on the other side of the map/going back to base)

When not to bait Baron:

• If there is a serious danger that the enemy can push into your base while your team lingers around in the Baron area
• When your jungler's smite is on cooldown

How to prepare:

• Make sure that there are no wards in the area (oracles or at the very least a pink at Baron itself)
• Ward the entrances of which you expect the enemies to come from, aswell as brushes near Baron
  Warding the brushes makes teamfights a lot easier. Do this in any fight in the jungle if you have wards in your inventory.

How to behave during the process of baiting Baron:
This can go multiple ways.

• If the enemy has no vision, and no skills that provide vision, you might not have to start Baron at all (works especially well if you are on purple side)
  You can just sit in one of the brushes and wait for the enemy to come and check Baron, usually netting you a free kill or two. After that proceed according to the situation.
• If the enemy is too afraid to check Baron or oblivious to what you are doing, try killing Baron as fast as possible
  Don't hesitate on doing that. If you are not confident in your dps or how long you can tank Baron and still win a teamfight, you probably shouldn't be baiting Baron at all.
• This one is absolutely vital and the main reason I decided to write this guide: DON'T HIDE IN THE BARON PIT AS A CARRY
  I don't know why I see this so often. As I said before, the goal is to start a teamfight. As soon as your front-line can engage on the enemy GET AWAY FROM BARON. The purple worm will kill your puny ranged carry ass.
• If the enemy jungler tries to be a hero and wants to solo steal Baron, stop all dps IMMEDIATLY and focus him down
  What usually happens in this situation is that people keep dps-ing Baron since he is oh-so-low, giving the enemy jungler a free chance to smite-steal it, followed by collective blaming of your own jungler. Just.Don't.

Here is the deal about smiting (and I am honestly baffeled that so few people understand this): people always expect the jungler of the team with the higher number of people to get whatever objective is being fought over. This makes no sense. Thing is, your jungler's smite isn't any better than the enemy's. Don't blame your jungler, it literally is a 50/50 chance of who gets it. The only thing you can blame is that you tried doing Baron when there was a chance of losing it, or that your team didn't react accordingly to the enemy's jungler arrival.
If for some reason you can't stop the enemy's jungler from coming to Baron and your team is determined to finish Baron, remember to stun the enemy's jungler when he is still outside of smite range as you can smite while stunned (but not while suppressed). Use displacement abilities like Alistars Headbutt to keep the jungler at bay.

When trying to apply all of this in solo-queue, don't expect your teammates to have the same knowledge as you. Communicate. Let them know what to do. Although all these tipps seem trivial once you know them, most people simply didn't put any thoughts into the subject.

Why Taric's Ultimate is Underrated

No one would claim Taric is a weak pick, but his ultimate is often over looked in favor of his more obvious strengths like his stun and passive armor. Most people consider his ultimate little more than a nice burst for laning phase with a negligible stat bonus. But I would argue that the stat bonus one of Taric's biggest strengths, especially as we get into late game. At level 16 Taric will be able to offer his allies 35 AP and 35 AD for 10 seconds at 1000 range. Lets do some math on what that is worth.

A BF sword costs 1550 gold for 45 AD

1550/45 = 34.4 gold/ad
Therefore 35 AD is worth about 1206 gold

A Needlessly large rod is worth 1600 gold for 80 AP

1600/80 = 20 gold/ap

Therefore 35 AP is worth 700 gold

Now lets assume Taric does no damage, and assume you have 2 champions on your team who utilize the AP and 2 who can utilize the AD.

700 gold x 2= 1400 gold

1206 gold x2= 2412 gold

For a total of a 3812 gold advantage.

In comparison 4 towers are worth 3800 gold.

Or in CS that is about 200 CS at 19 gold per CS.

This is worse case scenario, where Taric doesn't do any damage at all and all of your champions only have 1 type of scaling. The right picks could bring out even more advantage for your team. Champions who scale well of AD and AP such as Jax, Corki, Kayle, Teemo, Kog'Maw, and Alkali will get much more from Taric's ult. 

Taric's ultimate is like a watered down Baron buff, and the best part about it is that no one really understands just how strong it is. The enemy team isn't worried about if your ult is up before a fight (which it always is with its 60 second base cooldown). The enemy team will constantly be underestimating the damage you are capable of doing leading to favorable situations. Taric's Ult is Truly Outrageous. 

5 Tips to Improve Your Soloque Performance

1 Take a Break After a Long Game

A long game can be completely exhausting, especially if you end up investing 55 minutes of your life into a loss. You probably have some pent up stress that will likely lead to a bad start to your next match if you jump right back into que. You want to go into each game with a positive relaxed attitude to preform your best. So get up from your computer and go make yourself a snack, take a shower for a change, or call your mom. After 10 or 15 minutes you will be ready to go at it again. This may seem silly and you might want to brush it off as a tip, but you may be surprised by how much last game will effect this games decision making. Even if you won your last game you may be used to doing lots of damage and being tanky which could lead to a bad decision in your next game. Do yourself a favor and have a fresh start.

2 Reconsider Your DuoQue Partner

Reconsider what you look for in a duo que partner. Instead of constantly bugging someone way better than you on your friends list, consider what a lower ELO partner may have to offer. If they are significantly lower than you there are many perks. Controlling bans, getting first pick, and having a partner guaranteed last pick so they can counter pick is a huge plus. Being first really puts you in a position to craft what your team will look like, and ban important champs that may seem to constantly bring about your demise.

3 Learn to Support

Do not get stuck in the mentality that you cannot affect the outcome of a game from support. There are loads of high ELO players who got there by supporting. Especially in lower ELO games the support on the other team is likely unhappy to be in the position. They will be prone to mistakes and possibly be sub-par at the role. Loads of people don’t even have a support rune page. Take advantage of the potential skill gap between you and the enemy support. Keep timers for your team, watch the minimap for ganks in all lanes, actually peel for your ADC in teamfights, and keep a pink on you in case an opportunity to dragon or baron arises. These are just a few examples of where you can easily outshine your opponent and have a big effect on the game. 

4 Timers are Really Important

Speaking of Timers, they are important. Really important. And a big difference between a top tier and low tier player is knowing them. Knowing when the enemy blue spawns can lead to a nice gank on mid as it is donated. Keep a dragon timer and give your team a 1 minute warning so they can B to heal, buy, and pick up proper vision. Many a game has been turned around by a Baron. If you have the timer and see someone bot, Baron could lead to a game changing turn around. But remember that keeping timers is only half the battle. Call the plays for your team so you are all on the same page.
Just in case you didn't know them:
Red/Blue: First Spawn is 1:55. Respawns every 5 minutes

Dragon: First Spawns is 2:30. Respawns every 6 minutes.
Baron: First Spawn is 15:00. Respawns every 7 minutes.

5 Learn to Criticize Yourself

It’s easy to see the flaws in others, but difficult to see the ones in yourself. Change your mentality. When you die, assume it was your fault and examine what you could have done differently. When you lose, look back at the turning points in the game to figure out what went wrong. You can only improve the performance of one player on your team and that is you. Take all the wasted energy you normally use blaming and turn it inward with constructive criticism for yourself.

Jarvan Bug Fix

With the new patch J4's knock up combo has become bugged. The Riot team has been working to make knock up's more standardized and messed up Jarvan's in the process. His knock up, which should last .75 seconds currently only lasts .5 seconds. Riot has already been made aware of the issue and it should be fixed next patch.

Pre-S3 Support Pick Guide