Best strategy: Lane vs Jungle

Vainglory is a numbers game. The numbers you should be most interested in are gold and experience points. Gold and experience are award by killing (aka "last hitting") minions in both the lane and the jungle. The team with the most gold and/or experience points has a much higher probability of winning - i.e. the team with the bigger guns wins the fights.

In the lane and jungle there are a fixed amount of minions; however, the minions in the lane can only be killed by the appropriate team while the minions in the jungle are up for grabs by anyone. If a team was to take a larger share of the jungle minions, that gives them a gold and experience advantage while denying that gold and experience from the other team. This makes the jungle a valuable objective by itself.

If I'm playing in the lane and the enemy team is placing two opponents in the lane against me, here's how I view it:

  • My jungle is well-protected since the enemy jungler should not feel welcome invading. This means the enemy team (at worst) has the same exact gold/experience opportunity as my team.
  • My junglers, if smart, should take advantage of this and invade the enemy jungle, stealing as many jungle minions as possible. If they kill the enemy jungler, that's a bonus, but the real objective is the minion camps.
  • As a laner, my primary objective is to make it all worth it by not losing my tower in the process. I try to foresee when I'm going to need help and call my team over when I need it. Oftentimes, this is when I need to go back to base for health/energy and buy new items, but sometimes this is when there's too many minion/heroes for me to handle.

Generally, there's a few things I do here to make sure I'm self-sufficient in a 2v1 lane:

  • Expect to be huddled next to my tower and learn to work as a team with my tower to get last hits on minions. With practice, the timing becomes easy.
  • Focus on sustain against the inevitable harassment damage from the enemy heroes. They want to force you out of lane. This might mean picking up an early Book of Eulogies and possibly upgrade it to Barbed Needle. This might mean buying some defense/health regen. This might mean tons of heal potions.
  • Focus on wave clear. If you can clear a wave of minions fast, then the 2 enemy laners can't stick around and attack your tower. This usually involves focusing on upgrading the abilities that help me most in this area. If clearing waves requires you to burn through energy too quickly, then get an Energy Battery or Void Battery so that you don't run out and get forced out of lane.

Some other lesser known details:

  • Gold and experience are only awarded when a hero kills that minion. Even in the lane, if you let your tower or one of your lane minions perform the last hit for an enemy minion, you gain absolutely no gold or experience point, even if you're nearby.
  • If a teammate is nearby when you last-hit a minion (whether in the jungle or in lane), they will receive 33% of the awarded experience points and you will get 66%.
  • Gold is not shared if you're nearby when a teammate scores a last-hit. However, if you happen to have an Ironguard Contract item, you will get 20% of the gold as a bonus. Unlike with experience points, you are not taking a 20% share of the gold from your teammate - it's free bonus gold for your team.
/r/vainglorygame Thread