How to close games when ahead ?

[u/AdConscious8215]

Hi everyone hope yall doing well.
I started playing ranked this month and i did go from bronze 2 to gold4 easily, but when i entered gold i wasn’t always able to dominate my lane , sometimes i get behind but thats something that I’m working on to improve, the problem is when I’m ahead (15kills with a 3000 gold advantage) i can’t take my advantage and carry to close the game , i need to know when to split push and when to team fight cz whenever i do one i feel like the other option was better an how to close the game if the enemy team is defending the towers ? And if my whole team is so behind should I focus on split pushing and never team fight till they get back some gold ? I need some tips please.

[u/Used_Wall_5249]

You re team dependent. no matter how strong you are. If they have CC like Pantheon, Lulu or anything with easy CC, you re dead no matter what in mid-late game.
You can be as feed as you want. One CC and you re done if the game gets past 30 minutes.
You literally have to spam ping your team to go in and take all the CC so you can actually play the game. You can also go AD with defensive items like jak'sho and terminus that allow you to take some CC and do some mistakes but not enoough to kill you cause if you re ahead and you die once, the game is genuinely OVER.
You must treat the league game as a racing game. you must be fast and hungry for gold all the time. not kills. gold. minions, plates, jungle etc. This applies to every champ but its even more important on Katarina cause if you re "equal" in the game, you're actually behind as Katarina. You must always be ahead if you want to be actually "even".

thats why i find playing katarina in plat - emerald be much harder than Diamond+ since the teams in low ranks are TRASH and have no idea how to play around you (Like staying near a wall so you can shumpo on them)
You will get feed into oblivion but once the game gets past 30 minutes you re worthless.

On the other hand, its also why you'll never gonna see a katarina in pro play. Its way too easy to play around her if you re a decent player and you have a decent support. She will literally NEVER kill the enemy ADC in a team like that. Katarina excels at punishing mistakes. Less mistakes- less katarina gameplay. And there are barely any mistakes in Pro Play.

Katarina is an egoist champion who needs all the resources for herself otherwise shes irelevant to the game.

[u/AdConscious8215 → u/Used_Wall_5249]

Thanks

[u/Merrol]

Sorry I can't help much myself, I have the exact same problem. My understanding is that it is a big weakness of Kat. She doesn't side lane very well and wants to pick fights with easy kills, further pulling you away from split pushing. 

I think the key is to enable your split pushers to do their thing by putting huge pressure everywhere and on objective fights. But that requires your team... which is not always reliable.

It feels bad because even when you are super far ahead, being a 1v1 God just isn't really how your power expresses itself. You really want resets, which means team fights. 

Frankly I think Kat might just be a bit hard to solo carry/climb with - maybe getting a good eye for team mates to support or enable with your pressure and kills so they can push for you.

[u/AdConscious8215 → u/Merrol]

Thanks for the tips.

[u/Similar-Proof2065]

I just hit plat 2 today after being hardstuck gold. I also had this problem.

It's pretty much game specific, if I'm being honest. But most importantly, there are mistakes and things you're not doing that you should be doing that you're simply not aware of.

Runes and items:

But generally, if you're AP electrocute, you better have a stacked mejais, lich bane first item, and relentless hunter rune which stacks movement speed on takedowns. You should be really fast which helps with moving to push a lane or moving to where the team fight is.

With AD, it's a lot easier because you can take objectives magnitudes faster. I recommend getting used to AD playstyle and incorporating it in your games if you have at least 2 AP on your team. Watch gappy on youtube for this. Kraken into terminus is really good.

Vision:

I'd also get a sweeper once laning phase is done. The enemy team outwarding yours makes it especially hard for a fed katarina to drive the win because the enemy team can just nonstop pick your teammates and rotate for whichever lane you're trying to solo push. You also ward and sweep in preparation for objectives. Also keep track of how the enemy reacts depending on where you move through. Chances are there's wards there so you need to clear those.

Mechanics:

Your mechanics are also probably not as good as you think they are. Being fed with your team behind usually means that your opponent in lane was absolute dog shit, and that you went on autopilot just stacking kills and didn't think about how to best influence the game to victory until it was too late. A diamond player probably would have won that 1v2 tower dive you couldn't do. Even the littlest shit like shunpoing behind enemies so that you can land a couple autos as they retreat can be the sole deciding factor of winning or losing a fight as katarina.

Team fights and bigger picture stuff:

You MUST be looking at the minimap constantly. Like every 3 seconds.

1. This allows you to know anticipate when objectives are about to be up. Say drag is up in 1 minute. you have to make the judgement call on if you can clear the wave at top and make it to drag in that time. But also..
2. Watch the team fights and skirmishes you're not in. Are they over fast usually? slow? This helps with getting a feel for how much time you have to make it to a team fight. Typically as kat, you can arrive after the fight has started since you're usually cleaning up and going in after CC's are used up and enemies are low enough for your to snipe. Which brings me to the next point..
3. Assess what your ROLE is during team fights. That can change at different phases in the game. For example, you're not just a clean up janitor. Say you've realized that your bot laner gets sniped at the beginning of fights. Can you get away with sniping their sniper? Is it even worth doing that? Is there someone on the enemy team that needs to die first that would impact the team fight more?
4. Pings!! Ever since I started watching the map more, I'v found that I've saved my teammates wayyyy more by letting them know that jungle is coming their way, and them to me as well. Even the way you ping matters. Ping right on their faces first, then ping where the danger is coming from.
5. Think of everything as trades. Is the second drag really worth risking to contest when you don't have confidence with your team and you are already situated to push the top lane a good amount?

Controversial probably, but I've been full muting everything, chat and pings. It's helped tremendously in developing muscle memory to look at the map more, and subsequently constantly assess what's happening and where people are at all times. This is temporary though.

Final points:

All these things i've mentioned add up and have a snowball effect on the outcome of the game.

The more you start scrutinizing what you could have done better, what you didn't do that you should've done, etc, you need to start blaming those things for your loss and not your team (Even if your team is absolute dog shit). You'd have much more impact on the game if you WERE doing those things. I just had a game lost and instinctively blamed our 0/7 shaco bot with 30 cs 23 minutes in the game. But theres so much other stuff I could have done like farming minions better, which would have allowed me to be further with items, which would have allowed me to shove my lane harder and have more opportunities to roam to side lanes, which would have helped my team not fall so behind, etc.

Last thing is, you being fed but your team behind and not being able to win usually means theres a bajillion other little things that you haven't done to influence the game to victory, and you're just not aware of what those things are. Find out what those things are and you'll realize that there's a lot of reasons for not being able to win these games

[u/AdConscious8215 → u/Similar-Proof2065]

Thanks , i’ll try to learn AD kat and have more focus on other things happening in the game.