League of Legends solo queue tip: playing around Baron

Role of the tank

Your job as the tank is pretty self-explanatory. You want to tank the Baron. Since you aren’t being relied on to do damage, that reduction Baron puts on you isn’t going to be that meaningful, plus it doesn’t really matter if you get whittled down before a big team fight.

However, there is one other job that you should have depending on the type of tank you’re playing. If you are playing a tank with some heavy CC (Sion, Braum, Taric) or disengage (Alistar, Poppy) you need to make sure the enemy jungler does not get into a position where he can smite steal. Knock him away, CC him, do whatever you can do keep him out of the Baron pit.

Make no mistake, if you allow the enemy jungler to get off a 50/50 that’s on you. It sucks when your jungler gets out-smited, but that is always going to be a risk if the enemy jungler gets the opportunity. If you have the ability to do so, your job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.

If you are the mage/assassin…

Mages and assassins can operate in one of two functions around Baron. If you can do high DPS to Baron Nashor (like a Cassiopeia, Kassadin, Ekko) your goal should be to play around Baron the same as an AD Carry.

However, if you’re a champion that is going to do a lot of high burst or needs to wait on multiple rotations of spells to do damage over time, you’re probably not going to be of use damaging the Baron. Instead, you’re better off performing the same task as a tank.

Since you don’t have the same CC abilities of most tanks, instead you’ll want to try and zone the enemy jungler or try to use your burst to get them low enough to make a Baron steal impractical. Your damage might not be enough to get Baron to half or a quarter HP, but you can definitely do it to the enemy champions.

Have any other tips for playing around Baron? Let us know in the comments!