u/EvanDreemuur7598

‎Been playing EXP for almost a decade, also played all lanes, and mostly played soloque in almost all my years.

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‎(This post also doubles as a rant)

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‎If you're planning to play EXP, I hope this post could help you transition to the role like a glove.

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‎Understand that the role of the EXP is not too similar to Roam or Mid, where Roam tries to fill in for whatever the team needs to compliment and synergize with whoever, while Mid provides either magic damage or utility for the team to play better, EXP's role is to fill in any gaps that the team is lacking that the enemy team might try to exploit its weakness.

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‎Keep an eye on the enemy team's composition for you to make your picks. If they have too much mobility like dashes and blinks, you can pick a character to either take advantage of their overreliance on mobility like Minsithar or Phoveus. If they have tanks and lots of heals, play a character with CC and utilities like Kaja, Terizla, or Lapu. If you think their composition is bareable to play against, you can play assassins or real tanks like Belerick, Julian, Dyrroth, Paquito, or Argus.

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‎Generally speaking, most of the heroes you're going to play against early game follows these three roles; fighters, tanks and assassins. Matchup follows rock-paper-scissors where tanks beat fighters, fighters beat assassins, and assassins beat tanks. This is a good way to generalize matchups in lane where you're either in an advantage or a disadvantage, it does not mean that you'll automatically lose your lane in the early half of your games, but it's best to prepare yourself for the worst when push comes to shove.

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‎A good advice I could give for people starting out on EXP, especially people playing soloque, is that you can't force your team to play for objectives and potential teamfights. More likely than not, your team would try to find their own opportunities to make plays for, and if nobody follows them, they'll throw a tantrum and afk the entire game. One way you could make them do a play you want to commit to, is by using the signal on the map, but it only works about 30-40% of the time, and they would just ignore it while they farm the enemy jungle as the enemy team five-man the turtle/lord. Another way to make them follow your play is to make it obvious on the map that you're close to an enemy or an objective while your team is close to you, if they see the map (hopefully they do), they'll think that it's an opportunity for them to get kills or an advantage that will help them in the long run.

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‎(The last advice also works in general for roams)

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‎And now for some other helpful advice in order, from early to super late game:

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‎- Pick easy characters to play instead of meta. Meta is good, but if you're not confident, don't bother playing them in the first place.

‎- Build for unique passives, never for stats.

‎- Actually read and understand the heroes, emblems, and items you're about to pick before you play them.

‎- If the enemy lineup has more than one or two magic damage dealers (not counting supports), build magic def.

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‎- You are alone. Always.

‎- Always assume your enemy has a gank for you.

‎- If you can sustain, tank, or deal more damage than your enemy laner, you can proxy their minions.

‎- Always be paranoid about ganks.

‎- Don't just look at your map. Guess where everybody else is going.

‎- Look for fights that are managable for your hero to handle.

‎- If your jungler is doing farms instead of objectives, don't go for objectives, even if they said attack the turtle/lord, even if they're incredibly close to the objective, it is a red herring.

‎- If your jungler actually commits to objectives, kill the enemy jungler if possible, and keep the enemy team away from objectives.

‎- If you destroyed your enemy lane's outer tower, or you're 3/0. Roam and help out your team.

‎- If you lost your outer tower, or you go 0/3, play def for the rest of the game.

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‎- Always look for an opportunity to get a shutdown on the opponent.

‎- Let the jungler go first in every teamfight, then follow.

‎- Take care of your marksman/mage's flanks if possible.

‎- I cannon stress this enough, always be paranoid both in map and on screen.

‎- If the enemy team is doing lord and your team isn't even close to it, especially if your jungler isn't. Let them get it.

‎- Always put pressure on their lanes by clearing minions and letting it crash on their towers, keep them busy with other things while you occupy their spaces and jungle.

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‎- If the enemy mage/marksman is in your base, or if they're separated from their team, kill them on sight.

‎- Your life is more important than everybody else. But if your team is winning, your life doesn't matter

‎- Try not to die if possible.

‎- Always look for and set an opportunity for your team to get kills or objectives by occupying space in the map.

‎- It's better to be safe than sorry and to get the lord, if the enemy is wiped out and they're about to spawn one by one.

‎- Always go for their damage dealers.

‎- Pay attention to the map, especially for minions.

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‎That's as much advice as I could give as a soloque warrior. Some of these advices can be taken with a grain of salt, and are up to interpretation. Don't let somebody tell you what to play just because it's the hip and cool thing to do. If it doesn't help you or your team in the first place, don't do it at all. And most importantly, have fun :)

That's all.