What is the difference between a kill steal and good teamwork?

Question

I'm just getting into the LoL scene, and I have really been enjoying myself. However, I'm noticing people are quick to call you a "ks'er" or "kill stealer" whenever you get a final blow on a champion.

My question is, where is the line drawn in such a team oriented game, when good teamwork is considered kill stealing? I don't want to be called a noob or a ks'er just because I decided to lend my damage to a champion's death.

Answer 1

Whether a kill is a "kill steal" or not is very subjective. The main time this really matters is if it is a support player who might get the kill or if a carry is currently behind, then you want to try as hard as possible to not get the kill as the support player and to allow your AD carry to have the kill.

However, the game is fast paced and many champions have tricky escape mechanisms with cooldowns you can't always keep track of. For this reason "ks-ing" is sometimes referred to as Kill Securing where everyone focuses on killing the enemy champion before they can escape without concern for who gets the kill credit.

In a solo/duo queue game it's usually quite obvious when people are trying to actively Kill Steal as they will save some skill with Burst damage to make the last hit with. This is generally not considered good teamwork or polite.

Answer 2

Honestly brah, don't worry about being a kill stealer if you aren't in a serious game (normal games with random people). Only time kill stealing should be an issue is in ranked games or attempt to play at a high level. Even then, shit happens and if you think that your team mate will not be able to pick up the kill; then you need to make sure that punk dies.

and if your team mate gets mad at that you just say "you mad bro?"

Answer 3

My friends and I have two meaning for "ks." there is "kill steal" and "kill secure."

when your teammate is in a 1v1 and they quite obviously have the kill or have been doing loads of damage and just need you to throw in an exhaust, you really shouldn't take the last hit because that's a kill steal.

Another popular form of KSing in solo queue is when the support in bottom gets the last hit during a kill. While some AD carried are quick total this a steal because they output most of the damage, sometimes the support is unsure if they are going to get the kill, so they just keep auto attacking, or they really did just get the last hit from luck.

One example of a "kill secure" is when the mid lane is fight one on one and they are both low, then one side starts going back and the other is two low to tower dive, so the nocturne on your team swoops in to get the last hit. It was obvious you weren't going to get the kil, so he just came in to"secure" it for the team.

Answer 4

To my mind, the only real kill steals are when someone deliberately hangs back and doesnt help, lets you die or get close to dying, then swoops in to get the kill, at no risk to themselves. In my whole time playing LOL i have only encountered 3 players who did this (but they did it all game).

Most of the times when someone calls "KS" they are just being a sook.

Answer 5

Most people simply think that the kill has to be theirs so they call ks but what i learned is that in league if you are in a full random team it is hard to pull of good teamwork because people go like lone rangers and think they can carry solo all in all it is a team oriented and as you level up later you will find much less of people like that and eventually you may even find your own team with which you can do all the teamwork in the world ;) good luck in them games

Answer 6

Ive ran into this as well and there is no way to avoid it the best thing to do is just keep helping your team out and just mute that player.

Answer 7

Technically would say the KS is not a bad thing, due to the amount of gold earned by the team. Cause when you do the most part of the damages u will gat 0.5833333 * gold earned by the killer.

So 1.583333 * 300 gold is earned for the team (475) but if he just had done let say 1 auto attack would have been 0.293333

so 1.29333 * 300 gold (388)

So it would be better if My friend do all the damages and i KS him and then I do all the damages and he KS me :-D

Anyway the more the people yell the funnier it's to KS :-D

Just tell you're last hitting the big creeps ;-) (Only in normal game !!!)

Answer 8

I would like to counter-argue to a previous posting stating that if someone is clearly winning a 1v1 and you take the kill, it's a steal.

Actually, this form of stealing actually nets your team MORE gold as it gives you both a kill AND an assist. This is why if I'm soloing someone and my jungler suddenly jumps from a nearby brush and kills them, I write "gj" instead of whining about ks.

Ultimately, it's a team game and I find that most people that whine (yes, WHINE) about ks are players who want to brag about their individual stats instead of winning as a team. You'll very often find these players (who want all their kills to themselves) blaming the team for "not helping" should they ever lose out in a fight.

The ONLY time I think you might consider something a real ks is when someone uses a summoner spell or an ultimate skill just to take a kill someone else could have taken with no risk to themselves or the team. Of course, not all players do this on purpose, but some do. However, the main issue here is not really the steal, but more the fact that that very summoner spell or ultimate skill vould probibly have seen a better use somewhere else, and it was, practicly speaking, wasted. However, this isn't so much about stealing a kill as it's about being a general ass :P

There are many good players and casters out there who do a great job of communicating that players should be less focused on kills, steals and stats, and more focused on enjoying the game and making it fun for the other players, and I find it weird that Riot seems to do so little to stop this trend of shouting "KS!" everytime a team-mate scores a kill instrad of confratulating him/her on a job well done.

Truly, I think "There are no such thing as kill stealing in a team game" should be a point of its own in the Summoner's code... But alas, I can only hope that some day the game will be more about enjoyment for the team and its players and not so much about jealosy over whoever scores the most kills on a team.

Answer 9

In my experience there is a range between killstealing, killassisting, and killsecuring. For example, I tend to play ADC, and don't mind giving a kill or two to my support when we're in lane (typically about 1/5th is the best ratio in my experience). I lose 150 gold and provide the support with an extra 150 meaning that they can do their job better and not risk becoming a feed for the enemy ADC if I get smoked by happenstance. (Meaning that, as a player, my kill streak may be less, therefore not awarding the opposing team a shut down bonus, along with scaling more beneficently with my support).

However there are exceptions to this as well; I don't mind our jungler popping in and landing a hit to grab some gold from the assist, but whats annoying is when they pop in, take a kill from the lane when it already was secured, and then leave when the opposing jungler appears. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen Warwicks use ults to suppress a target when there at 1/8th health and my Caitlyns ace in the hole is locked on. (They should have just tossed a light hit at them to grab some minor gold) rather then those shenanigans. These types of behaviors mark a kill steal.

Similarly, about level six, Darrius (and Garren via proxy) becomes a huge problem for this if you have the displeasure of being laned with him. I met a couple who take the assist using the ult to break high armor... but this is an exception not the rule. typically then after forcing his lane mate to become weak wonders why his team is losing. To Darius players, ult cool down ain't that bad. 100 seconds is a minute and 40 seconds. That means you're going to have it in EVERY TEAM FIGHT ALREADY, so use it to secure kills your team mate would have missed, OR use it to open fights. If you don't think like this, you become more of a gold pool for the enemy team rather then a help too you own. If you're curious what kill stealing looks like, just lane with a bad Darrius and it becomes apparent.

The best way though, ultimately, to find out who kill steals and who does not, is conveniently found on the STATISTICS page at the end of a match. Sure a first place kills with 17/5/2 looks good at first glance, but when you see that the player who got this is 3rd to 5th in total damage dealt to champions you can be completely sure they spent most of the game kill stealing rather then legitimately assisting the team. Therefore they took gold away from useful team mates. It's best to realize that the person with the most damage, most likely brought the team the most gold via tower kills, assists, ect., not necessarily the person who had the most kills. I've had matches where my teammates didn't understand that taking a tower nets the team 5x150 gold (that's 750 gold, more then 2 champion kills unassisted). Of course, there are exceptions to this. 0/15/2 should still make you wary even if they did do the most damage.

There's a lot to say on this topic, but it very much boils down to this "you know when you see it".