For the love of all things holy, stop obsessing over boss camps. If the enemy is 4 down, you can push harder than a boss could. If the enemy is getting boss and the objective is not up, it’s extremely easy to defend against the boss rather than take 4 deaths trying to stop the enemy from taking it.
I mean, this could go for merc camps in general, but man am I tired of watching people play baby’s first MOBA and not understanding getting boss is not the end of the game.
Buildings are boring, the boss is fun!
Yeah, if you can wipe the team, yeah, you can often do a lot more damage by pushing than bossing. However, if you have an open lane, and the boss becomes a win condition, taking it out isn’t the worst idea.
In your second example though, if they’re taking boss and it’s even numbers, you should in general be able to attack in a favorable angle to punish them while they waste CDs/time tanking the boss while you can use yours on the enemy. Assuming you’re going to die when you have the advantage is very odd. Giving the boss freely if you can contest it, unless they have a comp that has reliable displacement or CCs to secure the capture is a bit silly.
I think people do it because sometimes the optimum goes wrong due to disagreements, so it is the safe play.
Same as taking the boss during curse.
So the optimum is to use the advantage to push out, and then sweep PvE.
Unless you want to deathball, in which case starting on your side is better.
Also depends on the heroes, how quick can you capture or defend.
Sometimes the opponents just sneeze at a full mercenary push and it deletes itself. In which case deathballing is better.
You can’t reason with people who obsess over taking boss. Let em die and then laugh
I should clarify in a specific example that this team was so obsessed about making sure the enemy didn’t get a boss that our healer rushed passed our tank into the bushes to get mauled immediately while the rest of the team trickled in.
I’m talking they rushed down to boss the SECOND curse ended to try and get it despite the entire team being up.
Mind you, we had all our forts up while the enemy was down to their keeps. We also had level advantage and the objective wasn’t remotely close to ready. There was no reason to worry about the enemy team getting a boss. At worst, it would take a fort.
This is the level of obsession people have with boss in this game. Bosses on their own aren’t that good. If your team isn’t ready to gank for whatever reason, it is a smarter strategy to just defend against the boss.
I think those players who obsess over mercenary camps, might be somewhat a territorial thing. I understand your frustration when some players fixate on the boss, when you could simply end the match and kill the enemy core instead, but boss, or camps, some people really are laser focused on taking mercenaries and miss the chance to win or do structure damage.
As others have noted, taking the boss can be the right move, if it’s late in the game and the enemy taking a boss will end the match, as that lane is open, and your core is vulnerable, that’s a fair call.
The thing is, if I can’t get players to not fixate over taking mercenary camps in ARAM, then there is no stopping them in a random QM, where camps can offer some value. I’ve seen players lose so many games, or make them last longer than necessary by taking useless camps in ARAM. A prime example of this is when I was in a Gul’dan mirror game in ARAM, my team couldn’t understand that by taking the camps, you were essentially bringing more potential “food” (sustain) for the enemy Gul’dan team.
Camps, gotta get them all!
Honestly, contesting boss is not a bad idea by default. Usually half the enemy team will keep attacking the boss instead of defendig themselves. And when you show up, the enemy won’t be full health.
But winning the game is even more fun 
In theory, It would have been ok to delay them while their lanes got pushed. ANd you had talent advantage so you could expect to win the fight. The issue was just your healer’s suicide.
Or destroy a keep while the enemy gets a boss that will destroy a fort.
This is all true. It was more that my team was treating like the end of the world if the enemy got boss.
We had level advantage, but we weren’t exactly close together because we split to take advantage of the curse. So the team decided that the best option was to trickle in one at a time, take 4 deaths and let them get boss anyway.
This is as opposed to just letting them have boss and kill the thing before it even takes a fort.
Usually the people I encounter that are obsessed with camps, especially boss camps, are the ones that contribute the least to the team. At least the ones that demand assistance anyways.
My most recent case was a butcher that was mid teens in their meat count at the end of the match, died a lot, spaced out a lot in lane, and kept pinging the top boss in warhead junction which they kept throwing hands with which was at least half of their deaths.
Oh, if the enemy was taking it during the curse then yeah. Just let them while you wreck all their structures. In your first post I thought you were talking about your team wanting to Boss during your curse.
There was absolutely no point to your team contesting it then. Huge misplay.
Ironically, Butcher can solo the boss.
They started boss about 10 seconds before curse ended, healer b lined straight towards them, got mulched. The other 3 trickled in; desperate to stop them from bossing.
Late boss is a comfort solution not an absolute, but it’s also the right choice if you will expect them to respawn, because you can then taxi the boss to the core to do some progress damage and hunt for kills.
It really depends on the scenario though.
Push yes, but often you can’t end the game and there’s no guarantee that you will win the next team fight.
Start thinking of the boss as distraction, not just brute force. As you’re already winning, potentially controlling most of the map, continue to build up your advantage and throw everything at once at the enemy team during the next objective phase.
I’d rather not risk rushing the core over being short on damage, having catapults respawn on top of someone and taking half of their health instantly. The only way you can waste the boss is by running ahead of it.
You don’t need to cap the boss immediately especially once the enemy team had already respawned. There’s an axe hanging over their necks so they will be afraid to defend the lanes which in turn allows your team to box them in. 5v5 with a threat of boss is a serious situation, but risking anyone’s life ending in 3v3 is can be even harder for the defending team if it is late enough into the game because of all the other worries on the map.
Not really. The winning move generally (and thus leading to a higher rank in the long run) is just agreeing to help the team with the Boss capture no matter how stupid or unoptimal it is.
Then hope they will push with it instead of allowing it to die to towers and a single defender.
Just ignoring the team or gloating in their ‘wrongness’ will generally lead to loss…
Though if they can safely capture it as 4 and the enemy team is dead, you may as well ignore them and start pushing the lane the Boss is about to spawn on to make the game end faster.
Who says the goal of every game is to win, son?
“Teaching a lesson” or “making a point” rarely works.
People are stubborn and just tend to do whatever they feel is right in the moment and changing their mind is close to impossible.
It’s better to take the 200 rank points and run 
Who says you’re trying to teach them anything? 50% wr corrects
Believe me, I’m very aware of this.
I’m not nor have I ever even insinuated boss is useless. Boss is a great tool on the battlefield, but it is just that: a tool. If you’re not going to make use of it, it’s not going to be remotely effective.
Conversely, it’s not a game ender and it’s not worth trying to steal boss if your team is not prepared to do it. The scenario is, again, that it was our curse and the enemy tried to steal boss a little bit before it ended. Rather than play it smart and take advantage of the curse, our healer decided to go ‘steal’ the boss play by themselves while the rest of the team trickled in.
This is also before they obsessed over the boss at every scenario.
Curse is gonna curse with or without your help. You don’t need to take “advantage” of it if enemies aren’t going to defend against it because they’re wasting time doing a boss early. If they do this, you should notice it, and trying to stop it and potentially get an easy boss and kills is the right call.
What isn’t fine is dying for it. Honestly, as the healer, I would have gone to the boss to to contest too. Ideally, I would have hopefully been more careful. Face checking bushes is really the issue here than obsession with bosses. Taking down a boss isn’t instantaneous and some healers have a lot of tools to keep themselves alive and be annoying, especially if the enemy is preoccupied with the boss.
If the boss was almost dead, that’s actually on you guys for not noticing sooner that zero people are defending during a curse. That’s super sus.