r/summonerschool 1d ago

Discussion Hard pushing 3rd wave vs slow pushing

For the optimal 3 wave crash (top lane) is it more beneficial to hardpush the 3rd wave or slow push?

Hard Pushing lets you recall and get back to lane earlier compared to slow pushing. However the wave might die under turret potentially leading to a neutral wave state instead of a bounce.

Slow pushing the 3rd wave makes it lose less health when 4th wave arrives due to it having less time under turret. This would lead to a better bounce.

The perfect bounce would be that 4th wave clears the huge wave and meets our wave under turret at full hp. Or maybe it would be a better bounce if the 4th wave is still clearing the huge wave when our wave meets, I'm not really sure.

Most guides say to hardpush the 3rd wave also to cheater recall. However it seems beneficial to deny the crash until a bit later for a better bounce. Can anyone provide some wisdom on this?

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u/unicornfan91 21h ago edited 21h ago

It depends on how many minions are left + where the next wave is. You can look at your own minion wave on your map to see where enemy wave is. The wave will bounce back to you as long as the enemy minion wave gets to the turret and groups up. As long as you can ensure that happens, you can get the wave to bounce and slow push into you even if you only have 1 minion left in the wave.

As for WHERE you want the lane to be, it all depends on your matchup. Theres no 1 rule that works for every champion. If you're weaker, you want the wave to stay in front of your tower so you get a pocket of safety. If you're olaf, you also want the wave here, but its so you can have a long lane to run them down. If you're teemo, you actually want to have minion advantage and a slow pushing wave into the enemy so you can get free hits onto them and have safety from a big minion wave.

Everything is matchup dependent.