Teams often find themselves in the following situation. They’ve just won a team fight near mid and now they must decide: do we go for baron, or do we take the enemy inhibitor?
The answer is almost always Baron, and here are the top reasons why:
1. Higher chance of teammates dying
When the enemy team re-spawns, they will be much closer to you and your teammates if your team chooses to take the inhibitor that is inside the enemy base as opposed to baron, which is halfway across the map. Being much farther away from where the enemy respawns coupled with the additional empowered recall that baron grants makes taking baron a much safer option.
2. Taking inhib leaves a huge window for enemy to baron right afterwards
Your team just fought a hard battle and might have even needed to tank the tower a bit to get the inhibitor. Now your teammates are going to want to back to base because of health or gold reasons right as the enemy team is respawning. This obviously leaves a huge opening for the enemy team to counter by going for baron. In fact, there’s a good chance that after taking the inhibitor, not all your teammates backed. Some of them might’ve gotten greedy and tried to take enemy jungle camps like blue and red buff, which often gets them killed and results in a potential enemy baron.
3. Baron throws happen way more often than “inhib throws”
Baron is generally way more risky to take when the enemy can possibly contest it. There are generally two ways a team can throw while doing baron as opposed to only one while taking inhibitor. Teams doing the baron can either get baron stolen from them by getting out-smited OR focus too hard to finish off baron and gets punished for it when the enemy engages. There is, however, only one way to throw when doing the inhibitor, which is by focusing it for longer than they should. This is much less likely to happen because it’s far easier to stop attacking an inhibitor turret or inhib as opposed to baron.
4. After taking inhib, your team might get greedy and overstay in an attempt to end the game or baron
This is actually a pretty common mistake, where after a team takes the inhibitor, they aren’t sure what to do next…end the game? do baron? take second inhibitor if it has no turret? just back? Often times they will choose the greedy path, which ends up costing themselves the game when the enemy team respawns and kills them.
5. Baron throws are far more consequential than “inhib throws”
Almost everyone has heard of the infamous term “baron throws” or the phrase “throwing at baron” but they rarely ever hear the terms “inhib throws” or “throwing at inhib”. This is because throwing at baron is generally far worse than throwing at the inhib. After a baron throw, the enemy team not only gets baron but they are also much closer to your base than they would be if they killed you at their own inhibitor.
6. Baron is simply a more important objective than a single inhib.
Baron gives you gold, empowered recall timer and minions, and better fighting stats. Often times the inhib your team will be taking after a huge team-fight is the mid inhib, which is frequently very easy to defend. Generally, if one team has baron but also has an inhib down, they still have more map pressure and are more likely to push than the enemy team.
Caveats?
Of course, sometimes taking the inhib is better because after it’s taken, you’re left with far more options. You could take another inhibitor, go do baron/dragon, or even try to end the game. These are options you simply don’t have after baroning because you’re too far away from the other important objectives. However, taking baron when it’s free is generally a better option because it is actually the most dangerous option when its contested. Have fun gaming and remember, NO BARON THROWS PLEASE!
