Some time ago, I wrote a post regarding the very basics of tanking. This was meant to be an introduction to the role that could be used at any rank, but was aimed at people in the lower ranks, or just learning how to tank. This is a follow up that discusses a bit more of an intermediate concept, making use of vision. Although this is incredibly important for all roles and at all ranks, it is more common in the middle ranks, and mandatory at the higher tiers of play.
Vision plays a key role in both macro play and team fights, and I will be discussing both aspects and trying to provide examples and other references. But first, what is vision, why is it important, and how do you get it?
Vision Basics
Vision is knowing where your opponents are, where they aren’t, and what you can determine about what they are doing with the information you have. The main way you can keep track of vision is by looking at the mini map. I know it sounds painfully obvious, but LOOK AT YOUR MINI-MAP FREQUENTLY. Positions change constantly, so if you just make assumptions based on what you saw 10 seconds ago, you will likely make a bad decision. If you cannot account for an enemy, you can use other information shown on the map such as what camps/bosses are available, where the safe rotations could be happening, and which members of your team would be visible to them, to determine what they are most likely to do next, so you can counter them, or find some other advantage.
Vision is provided by a number of sources, some obvious, others less so. The most common sources of vision are friendly units such as minions or captured mercs or bosses, map features such as watch towers or vision camps, structures including walls, objectives such as tributes or ToD altars, and objects such as Zagara creep, Abathur mines, Gazlowe turrets, or Chrome Time Traps. Remember that if you can see any of the above, the enemy team can see you. Always try to clear things like creep and turrets whenever possible to restrict enemy vision, and never rotate close to an enemy structure or minion wave if you want to have the advantage when it comes to map information, especially if you are trying to pull off a sneaky play like a risky boss steal.
Macro Play
Although most people think of tanking in terms of team fighting, most of the match revolves around rotations and macro play, and the tank’s decisions are key when it comes to giving your team an advantage in this aspect of the game. Anchoring is a tank function that provides vision to your team when they are capturing a camp or boss, or working on an objective. Normally the tank will stay out of enemy vision by sitting in a bush while anchoring, to give as little information to the enemy team as possible.
When your team is rotating, it is usually the tank’s job to make sure the path is safe, known as scouting. Using abilities in suspicious vents can prevent your team from being ambushed. Pathing to avoid sources of vision will also assist in keeping your team safe. And most importantly, you can often influence the enemy team’s decisions by keeping your location unknown. As a tank, staying out of vision is something to always keep in mind as you can give your team a huge advantage by making the enemy either more cautious so they do not push or gank when they could, or by creating a kill opportunity by baiting them into attacking when they think you are elsewhere.
The following example is kind of long, in that I want to explain what happened from my perspective as well as what the enemy could see, to demonstrate not only what I did, but why it ended up being successful, and it was all based on vision.
The map was Battlefield of Eternity, and the match was very close. An objective phase had ended a little while ago, where we killed the top fort, but lost Jaina in the process, where the enemy team had lost their Stitches. Our Fenix had been pushing bottom lane during the top lane push, and was convinced he could kill the fort, even though we warned him multiple times the enemy was likely heading his way. Our Tyrande and Xul were hearthing to recharge after the big fight, Jaina was respawning, and I was simply clearing some minions since the enemy already knew I was there, I was fine on health and mana, and the little bit of extra XP and lane pressure was more useful than anything else I could do at that point. Here is what I saw (hint, look at the mini-map in each of the screen captures):
Compare this to what the enemy team could see:
I knew there were 3 bottom, Fenix was a good as dead, Stitches was just respawning, and Thrall could not be accounted for. My best guess was that he was coming back top to counter the pressure I was putting on that lane, to see if we were going to go for top camp, or just keep me occupied. I didn’t think he would be soloing hard camp (I was wrong) as it was a weird time to do that, as we could easily clear It before the next objective, and with me there and his team bottom, he wouldn’t get any useful push with it.
Sure enough, Fenix died, the 3 enemies at the bottom went for the bottom camp, and to my surprise, Thrall did solo the hard camp. I started to back off, assuming that with Stitches back up, they would hard push bottom before the next objective and while they had a numbers and camp advantage. At that point, Stitches made the move that influenced everything else that followed.
He showed in top lane with Thrall where I could see him because of the minions. Now I knew for sure there were three bottom, Xul and the minions providing vision there, and two were top. The enemy, on the other hand, knew almost nothing about our positioning.
At this point, I had a couple of choices, and decided that the best option was to have Xul stay bottom to clear the camp and defend if they chose to push hard with 3, and see if we could lure Thrall and possibly Stitches into a bad position and get a pick. To make this more likely, I made sure they couldn’t see where I went, and hid in a vent to keep my location unknown. I was almost certain Thrall would check top camp, and there was a decent chance Stitches would be with him to prevent us from taking it, or getting a pick if we got cocky and tried to have someone solo it.
Jaina was our bait, so this is what Thrall saw when he came to check the camp.
Here is what happened as a result of our choices from a neutral point of view, so you can see everything.
Their Stitches played it correctly, you can see where he sent a blind scouting hook into the vent most likely to harbor a surprise. But it did lead to two critical picks just as the next objective was announced, and led to us taking camps at a very good time, creating extra lane pressure unopposed, and getting us the objective and the win.
Team Fighting
In the lower ranks, you will typically see the tank always engage by walking straight at the enemy, then using (or trying to use!) an ability combo. A Muradin coming up to try and land a W+Q on the enemy tank, a Johanna popping her trait and going forth, an ETC with a very predictable Q+W, a Garrosh fishing for a E+Q, all of these are standard openings for people just learning to tank, or tanking in Silver through lower Plat. This generally doesn’t work in matches featuring higher Plats or Diamond+, as it is too easy to avoid or dodge, and it will put you at risk of getting combo’d and deleted by the enemy team before you can get yours off. There are times when posturing as a tank is fine, but it isn’t always the most successful way to start a fight.
Whenever possible, try to use vision to your advantage to see if the enemy team will make a positioning error first. Using structures or bushes to hide your location, while your team provides vision on what the enemy is doing, can work much better as an initiation, especially since it is unlikely you will be tanking for or against a coordinated team. The following videos from NotParadox and Fan explain and demonstrate this much better than I could.
Conclusion
Hopefully this helps a bit in showing a little of what goes on “under the hood” when it comes to making decisions and starting fights on your terms as a tank. A lot of these vision tips apply to any role, so even if you are one of those who hates tanking (weirdos!), it may help you in your future matches.
And once again, LOOK AT THE MINI-MAP!
