TL;DR: Don’t be a control freak.
There was this story that I’ve seen many times in social media about a guy (or a girl in other versions) telling a priest/pastor that he does not want to go to church anymore because he is disgruntled with the other attendees. The priest/pastor asked him that before he totally leave the church, to try and carry a glassful of water and walk around without spilling it. The guy did so and upon returning to the priest/pastor, he told him that he didn’t lose a single drop. The priest/pastor then asked him, if he noticed the people around him, to which he replied, No.
I won’t be talking about religion here so I’d stop at that. I just thought that this could be applied in our games. How many times have you tunnel-visioned in raging on your troll teammate that you didn’t notice your large minion wave doing the fighting for you?
Focus on the glass.
The “glass” contains your main goal, which is winning (unless you have other things in mind), and with this comes stuff that you can control, not just your hero but objects and occurrences in the map. The other stuff that you have no control like teammates, lag, etc. are the “people around” you.
For example, from my experience where I mostly play support, there are times when a laner roams all too often or decides to just leave the lane and play second jungler. In this case, I can’t control my teammates to clear the waves and save the turret unless they will listen to my pings. But what if they didn’t?
In cases like this, I take matters into my own hands and clear the waves. I would then quickly go back to supporting the teammate that needed it the most. Sometimes I would even get Heart of Incubus in order to speed up my clear. I will also try to get items that can boost my MS. This way, I can go for a very quick sweep and scoot. From this, the pseudopush tactic was conceived. Why not go push then? I actually would if I am using a hero with decent turret takedown capability like Omega. If not, just clear the waves as forcing a turret will do more harm than good if your hero lacks turret takedown potential.
In the end, it’s still a matter of focusing on what your hero does best. Always play to your strengths even though you have to do stuff outside of your role. Don’t force a push if your hero lacks tower takedown potential. Chances are you’re just herding a creep wave for your opponents to slaughter. If you’re playing a hero who excels in splitpushing and sucks in teamfighting, avoid teamfights and observe the waves while planning for a splitpush. If you’re a teamfighting hero, don’t go solo. All it takes usually is one good fight to come back to a game. Focus on controllable stuff and don’t blindly grasp on things that you have no control of. In the end, you’ll only get miserable if you tunnel on uncontrollable factors and miss on things that really matter.
As always, observe, formulate, adapt.
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The Omniscientist 