Punish in the sidelane isn’t actually unconventional but rather more of unpopular due to lack of awareness of some players regarding its use. In some of my soloQ games, I get flamed whenever I take Punish for sidelane. Worst case scenario is the would-be jungler changing role, forcing me to jungle instead (no matter how I spam “not jungling just want jungle item”) while I get flamed and reported for “trolling”. The sad thing is most laners that can take Punish aren’t optimal junglers. Because of this, I usually just pick Heal and switch Talent in the last seconds of hero select. Though this allows me to pick Punish, I have a feeling that some of my teammates get tilted at the start of the game (which is very bad for a team game). Because of this, I decided to make this writeup to spread awareness about Punish in the sidelanes. For this, I will be citing some of the pros and cons of taking Punish in sidelanes.
PROS
Map control. Having Punish allows you to secure “last hit” on nearby monsters. The usually heavily contested scoutbird can be easily stolen if you time it correctly. Having full control of vision in enemy jungle is very beneficial to your team’s jungler. It can also give you information whether it would be safe to invade. Speaking of invade, you can also try a level 1 sneak buff steal. This would be incredibly backbreaking to the enemy jungle and will force them to look for plays early on just to recover. Late game, you also have the ability to properly secure slayer and dragon.
Double Burn. For tanks, this opens up the double burn build option. The combination of Leviathan and Mantle of Ra provides very fast clearing speed which could allow the laner to better rotate around the area. Thus, proxying becomes a possibility which can further give you control of the map.
Pseudo-Harass. The tier 2 jungle item changes your Punish to Frostbite. This gives a 30-second-cooldown spell that deals damage and slows the target which could be useful to heroes with limited cc like Arthur. You’d have to time it though with monster respawns, so keep in mind that normal monsters resp every 1:10 secs, seagle at 1:00, and spirit sentinel at 2:00.
CONS
No “combat talent” early game. Pre-Frostbite, Punish doesn’t give any combat potential. Basically, using Punish is like announcing to the opposing laner that you will just farm. Good players can abuse this window and even bully you out of the lane.
Suboptimal item stats. Jungle item components give poor stats, making them awkward early game. Let’s compare Gnoll Cleaver and Heart of Incubus. Heart gives 180 armor and 50 (+2/lvl) per sec burn passive, while Cleaver gives Frostbite active and no stats. In dueling, Cleaver is like having a burst every 30 secs while Heart gives a potential 1500-damage output for the same duration. Even tier 3 jungle items, by themselves, have meh stats. If fully stacked, they often give higher stats but then, this would require time.
Bad when behind. Since they don’t provide early combat power, it feels awkward being shoved by the enemy and forced to towerhug with Punish. Forcing to finish a jungle item is even worse, especially without the ability to get stacks properly since your jungle might end up getting taken by the enemy.
Stacking system. Since the item requires killing jungle camps to stack, you might end up competing with your jungler for them You’ll be put in a dire situation especially if you’re behind and your jungle gets cleared by the enemy. You will end up with a very expensive item for its raw stats. If you can somehow find a way to steal some from the enemy’s camps, you can sort of mitigate this disadvantage and somehow pass it to the enemy jungler. The jungle change could make stacking even harder as the stat values from stacks would decrease in exchange for larger max stacks.
CONCLUSION
Punish in lane has its merits, but you have to be able to take advantage of its use. If your playstyle and hero pick revolves around dueling and trading with the enemy laner, take something with combat/outplay potential instead. Taking Punish means that you will be taking a more farm-centric type of play. You should try to take enemy camps but avoid fights and being collapsed upon. With good execution, you’ll not just be outfarming your enemy laner but gimping the opposing jungler as well. Take note though that if you’re going to take Punish in lane, NEVER EVER TAKE YOUR JUNGLER’S FIRST BUFF. Heck, don’t even touch even the neutrals unless you’re certain that they have spawned once your jungler rotates to the area. If you do, you’ll just end up being a liability to the team.
As always, observe, formulate, adapt.
The Omniscientist 