Let ' s tackle this question from different angles . First of all , minions . What happens to the wave after the deaths . If Lucian has 20 CS at his tower and you kille ach other , I would take that trade any day of the year , since he will lose a kill worth of CS during his death and you will abrely lose anything . Secondly , scaling and implications on the game . Trading kills means both of you get to accelerate your item builds . Now , this means you will get to your three items faster and have less downtime midgame but he will also be ahead of the curve evenmore than he already is and might use that to snowball the mid game . Generally , scaling champions want slowpaced , farmheavy games without fighting . Worst thing for a conservative late game scaleris a clown fiesta . Because if you have 300 CS by 28 minutes and everything was pretty calm so afr , you are now a monster . If everyone was fighting nonstop , you are worthless . Your 001 score 300 CS don ' t compare to the 1015 fed enemy and even the terrible players , that are 4108 are ahead of you because of all the kill and assist gold they racked up . So if the game gets bloody and out of hands , you have to join the fiesta to stay in the game and that ' s what you do NOT want . So , tldr Farming up and scaling through slow paced farming rather than fighting and trading kills is preferrable , but it might be worth if he is losing a lot during his respawn .