I am relatively new still, and play pretty excusively against bots for now. With that said, often see teammates post in chat about kill stealing and people get really angry...

My question is two fold. First off, what constitues a kill steal? To me I feel like a teammate standing in the brush not helping in bot lane only to jump out and kill an ignited champ with 10 health left is a "kill steal". Other than that I'm sick of people complaining about it when the guy accused (occasionally but not usually me) is just doing more damage, timing things right, getting lucky, etc. as in normal team play.

My second question...who the hell cares??? If it's a team game and a teammate gets a kill and you get an assist isn't that good enough? Aside from the previously mentioned case where it is meant to be annoying or bad team play, is it really somehting I need to make sure I don't do ACCIDENTALLY? If I am tanking am I SUPPOSED to let my AD carry get the kill so he can feed even when it might result in the enemy getting away?

I am just a little confused and frustrated because I don't know if people are really just as petty as they seem, only wanting to pad their own stats, or if it's something thats seriously important. Bottom line I have no problem wearing down an enemy so a teammate can get a kill, but I will pretty much always go for a kill if I think I can get it unless a teammate is 100% assured of it already. Is that so wrong?

Kill Stealing is basically where someone takes a kill from the carry in a situation that doesn't require it. The thing is that in LoL the person that actually gets the kill is the one that gets the most gold from it, in addition to any gold that comes from breaking a killing spree. This means that you want the carry to get the lions share of the kills in the game, so that he gets lots of gold and can carry even harder.

It generally isn't a big deal in low level play. While you shouldn't be taking obvious kills off your carry, it's by far preferable to take a kill off your carry by accident than it is for an enemy to get away with 100 hp left because you hesitated to finish him off. If you aren't level 30 at a respectable elo it doesn't really matter who gets the kill.

Kill stealing is something nobody should ever worry about. Either you're new enough to not be able to judge, or you're skilled enough that you're playing with players who can make the call.

Either way... <inb4 Sara quoting me>

dont worry about kill stealing, it is better to have a kill and assist than just a kill you get more gold out of it

I literally lost 2 kills yesterday because someone was worried about "kill stealing" me Fact of the matter is if their not dead you should be trying to kill them (assist gold > no gold) not trying to hold back so your carry can get that 4 minions worth of extra gold (the difference between the assist gold and kill gold if split between two people)

In short, Kill stealing is something idiots who play this game complain about. Good players know that KS = Kill Secure.

I have the same problems as the op. People are always going on about kill stealing (I play vs bots), and I really can't tell the difference between what's teamwork, and what's kill stealing, most of the time. If someone like the ops says, jumps out at the last minute to grab the kill, then it's obvious, but other than that, it's all teamwork imo.

I wish there was a system that removed even the possibility of kill stealing, and just shared the gold or something, make it so people work together rather than against each other.

Often times I'm so afraid to accidentally get a kill, and be yelled at, that i just focus on the minions and don't go near the enemy champions.

Never worry about.