How do I know when it's time to push?

Question

I'm fairly new to League of Legends and I learned of the concept of zoning recently, and it makes a lot of sense, but no source that I visited tells me when I know it is time to push. The most information that I found was "around level 6" which is hardly useful, if at all.

So, how can a beginner know when it's time to push?

Answer 1

Pushing generally refers to moving the battle lines the minions make towards the opponent's nexus, destroying towers and 'pushing' closer and closer with each wave of minions.

You want to push when:

• a) all 5 enemy champions are visible on distant parts of the map
• b) you have just won a team fight, and your team still has a goodly portion of its health / mana
• c) Following a successful gank (or any other situation where your team's champions outnumber the opposing team's defenders.

Both of these situations means you and your minions can attack a tower with impunity, and not worry about being harassed, killed, or countered by enemy heroes.

Answer 2

I would like to add some other situations where it's useful to push beside the 3 already pointed out Raven Dreamer:

You want to push

• in order to set up a "ninja gank" (which is essentially a gank from the brush on your lane near the tier and the outer wall of the arena, not from the river).
• to prevent the enemy jungler from counterjungling. (to do this successfully you should ward your lane sufficiently and expect the enemy jungler)

There might be even more reasons I can't think of right now.