Dawngate Post-Game: Vex Tactician

[youtube link=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn0TjIpNI74″ width=”590″ height=”590″]

The Good, The Bad, The Plays:

Alright guys. As many of you know who watch the stream and these videos, you will hear me say that I don’t play carry. Well this time, we give it a shot and try to carry our team to victory.

First things first. Let’s talk lane match up for a minute. While we may not be able to crank out damages at the same level as our lane counterparts Freia and Cerulean, we have a clear advantage…range. It is true that Cerulean could easily flip us into the Freia melee range where she could hit us with a couple spells and really hurt thought, hence us staying back as far as possible. This is where a knowledge of other shapers comes in handy. As a carry, you should know what can lock you down, what the ranges are on those lockdowns, etc. so you don’t get caught in a bad situation. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk plays and build.

On Vex, we max our third spell (E) first. This does a number of things for us including decreasing the cooldown for safe last hitting (the range on the spell is greater than our basic auto attack range) as well as harassing, especially with enemy shapers. We max our second spell (W) second since it provides extra damage on auto attacks and our first spell (Q) last as it offers mostly utility. Obviously we take our ult every chance we get as well.

We can see around the 5:36 marker of the match we make a mistake and get too close to the Cerulean. While our lane partner does a great job of silencing him, the Cerulean still manages to flip us and we take a huge chunk of damage that probably could have been avoided. Avoiding plays like those separate the good carries from the average carries.

Our first kill comes courtesy of a gank from our jungler about 8:39 into the match. There are a few things to note about this kill. While it was guaranteed for the most part that someone would kill the Cerulean, notice how we walked towards the Cerulean between each auto attack. That is to ensure that we maximize the number of attacks we can get. This is referred to as Orb Walking. While the name isn’t all that important, know that moving between attacks to stay in range will increase the number of auto attacks we can get off while chasing or kiting.

On our first back, after dying (by the way you shouldn’t ever stay in lane with as much vim as we had as a carry), we pick up a Destruction (power spike to amplify our damage) and a Consumption (sustain in lane). While these are good items, it probably would have been better for us to pick up something from the haste tree instead to help with attack speed and movement.

So as the game continues we get caught once or twice when we shouldn’t have and pick up a double and a triple kill along the way. Overall, we didn’t carry hard but we were of use to the team.

Let’s talk wrap up. As a carry, it is highly beneficial for you to harass a dual melee lane if you are ranged. Punish them for trying to step up to take last hits. Also, move in between auto attacks. It is a tough mechanic but it can mean the difference between dodging a skill shot and getting another kill, or dying yourself. Hopefully this proved to be a somewhat enjoyable attempt of us trying to carry our team.