Welcome back to the Nexus Ranuth
-Soaking just means getting xp from minion deaths. Every hero should do this except divers like Zeratul, Genji, or Tracer Who should be roaming looking to get a gank. Though Zeratul does have decent waveclear as opposed to the other two.
When your team in QM all go mid and fight needlessly, they are doing that because they’re inexperienced. You should never do that.
1. Early game, a kill is worth less xp than a minion wave. (wave: 474, kill: 300)
2. The spawn timers early game are so low that a kill makes little difference in the xp you deny to the enemy.
-The reason you get kills is to deny the enemy of a ressource, or to take something from them while they can’t defend themselves. Usually a structure or the objective (Which will help you take structures) A kill that isn’t followed up with anything to gain value from it is pointless. And going mid to fight early game is also pointless after the first 10 seconds (Once the minion waves reach top and bot lane)
-To answer your question about soaking/ laning. Any hero can do it. Laning does not mean that you have to kill your enemy in that lane. It doesn’t even mean that you should win that lane. All it requires is that you get the xp. You just want the experience. If you get a kill, that’s just gravy.
-Sometimes you up against two enemies in your lane. Unless you think they can destroy your fort, it’s acceptable. Many players don’t realize that if you’re outnumbered and losing in a lane, it means your team outnumbers the enemy in another lane and is winning there.
And by the way. The tank’s job is just to protect his teamates, and move between lanes to prevent the enemy from gaining too much of an advantage. Soaking is everyone’s job.
-The last advice I will give you is on mercenary camps. Taking merc camps immediately after objectives is a bad idea. You want to take camps right before objectives, or when your team intends to hard push a specific lane. After an objective ends, teams go back to laning. And when everyone is laning, they have nothing else to do then kill the merc camp you just took.
And yes you’re right, this game SHOULD have a tutorial.