We all hit a wall at some point with our Ranked League of Legends climbs. And sometimes it’s hard to get over that hurdle since we can’t see what we’re doing wrong. But, sometimes taking a step back and adapting a new strategy into our repertoire can really up our game and get us over the hump! So, today, we’re going to be covering some advanced tips for each lane that’ll help you do just that!

Tips for Top Lane - Don’t Worry About Giving Up CS and Play Towards Your Spike

Now, hold on there before you run away. I know tips usually relate to dominating your lane, but sometimes we need to know when to concede to better set ourselves up for success. And when it comes to Top Lane especially, I know you guys want to fight for every crumb of a Minion the wave has to offer. But hear me out first.

Every Minion in Top can be considered its own micro-objective. Each last hit nets you gold that leads to your establishment towards winning or losing. You naturally want more than your opponent. We train ourselves to naturally push our advantage whenever we gain a kill too since during our opponents respawn time, they’re losing out on both gold and experience. However, you can push yourself to a fault in this mode of operation.

The idea comes from understanding your own ability to all-in your opponent and resource management towards that. Often, players overlook their health bar as a resource to manage, it’s simply there until it isn’t for too many established and inexperienced players. The best players come to manage their health in an adaptive fashion and coincide that management with their power spikes. If they know their Champion comes online at level three, they’re not afraid to give up early waves if they know they can cover what they lost from kill their opponent. Or, if they’re great at managing the wave, they can create a state where if and when an opponent dies, they’ll lose far more than they ever lost when they were attempting to pressure.

The entire modus of this tip comes down to being aware of your health, viewing the large goal of your lane and spikes, and not risking that moment simply for CS that can be recovered after the fact. So, think about your powerspikes and play towards that instead of gobbling up every piece of CS you can get, especially if you’re in a Melee vs. Ranged matchup.

Jungle Tip - Always Take Something in Response

Now, Jungle is all about adaptation. Be it adapting to which of your lanes is winning at any given moment, adapting to who you see on the map, or even adapting your path to better clear you towards the best objective. It’s all about these quick adjustments and decisions that can really affect your overall map impact of the game if your opponent is also matching you for each measure.

But an often-overlooked concept that players don’t take advantage of is trade plays both big and small. Say you and your opposing Jungler started on opposite sides of the map. You (Blue Side) go Red Buff and clear your way towards Top, while they (Red Side) clear down from Red and towards Bot. You both evaluated that this was your intended initial clear for whatever reason, but unlike you, your opponent’s Champion wants to make a cheeky early play. Say they’re on a Jarvan, a notorious level two ganker, so you keep your eye on that as they’re clearing, and you see them gank Mid. Instead of rotating up towards red to clear the remainder of their Top Side, they flush down river towards Blue to clear Bot. As you path your way towards Top Side, you can now reasonably theorize (based on your laners positioning) your ability to successfully sneak those first clear camps for yourself, netting you two additional bumps in income over your opponent. A small play like this can lead to you having a massive tempo lead over your opponent and the item or component it nets you on your first back might be the difference in an early duel or teamfight because of it.

Another major situation would be to take Herald or make a dive play Top whenever you see the enemy Jungler ganking Bot. You move yourself to make a play where there are less players involved so that you’re always getting something. To leave your Bot Lane to lose the 3v2 while you simply clear your wolves doesn’t progress you towards victory, it just allows your opponents to move you towards defeat. So, you want to always be thinking about, “What play can I make in response here?” Sometimes it might be as big as Rift, sometimes it might be as small as Scuttle, the point is to take what is given freely and constantly be asking, “What can I take?”

Mid Lane - Early Priority Mid

The first three waves in Mid are probably the most important waves that you can establish control over. If you can control these waves, you better set yourself up to harass your opponent or enable your movement to assist your Jungler if an early skirmish breaks out. So, you want to grasp this control ASAP, especially if you suspect things to get spicy early.

You do this by simply walking up and auto attacking the wave before your opponent does, and before minions meet. With your damage going down first, you immediately have push against your opponent since when waves crash, your minions will have a health advantage. By continuously auto-attack prior to the crash, you force your opponent to make a decision: either they use their abilities and risk positioning to match your effort, or the concede the effort and priority to you to maintain their mana and HP.

If they opt to match with abilities and autos on the wave, you can punish them with your own, creating a health advantage for you with minimal risk since you’ll be expending your abilities on them while they attempt to stabilize the wave by attacking it. And overall, it allows you to CS quite easily since you are not experiencing any pressure from them as these early waves unfold.

Bot Lane - Never Be Afraid of Splitting

When it comes to ADC, your income is the most important thing. You want gold in the bank because gold equals items which equals damage. This tip works especially well when you’re recovering from a lost lane so, let’s unpack it.

Say you’ve fallen short in lane by one or two kills, you’re down a wave or two, and things are looking bleak. The enemy team comp is a big teamfight focused composition, so the enemy Bot moves to Mid and starts pressuring that lane since it's most likely to open their comp up to success.

Instead of matching the enemy Bot Mid (who is already ahead of you which would just maintain your losing matchup status), you can stay Bot and continuously pressure their Bot Turret and minions onto their side of the map. As an ADC, you present yourself as a viable split threat since your champion design is all about sieging and taking down objectives through quick DPS. This can net you objective bounties and valuable gold, especially if you can do so without threat of being assassinated. After you’ve caught up to the enemy, or have achieved an item status that allows you to genuinely contribute, then you can regroup with your team and look for more active team focused play.

Support - Trade With Your ADC, Punish Last Hits

Ranged Supports often find themselves entering a greed mindset when it comes to their Support Item Quest. They’ll step into waves, move forward in lane, and generally greed for harassment on whichever lane opponent they can reach to push that gold income up on their item so they can get to their wards that much faster. While it's intended for you to harass your opponents to work you to your wards, like in our Top Lane tip, it’s hardly ever worth trading your health bar away for the gold that you’d gain.

But, unlike Top, in Bot you have the assistance of your carry. So, watch the spacing between yourself and your ADC as you look for a trade. If they can reasonably assist in some form of damage for your poke, then it could be a worthwhile angle to look at. (As long as you’re not a Sona walking into Blitz hook range or something along those lines.) If they can’t contribute, and your positioning would otherwise put you in a 3v1 against the enemy duo + their entire wave, then it’s better for you to opt towards preserving your health bar for a better opportunity.

A way to sneak in damage for your quest is by punishing last hits. As the enemy AD steps forward to farm, position forward but not in range of their attack. As their animation starts up, go for your poke. They’ll either have to cancel the animation to respond back with damage on you, or they’ll be forced to commit and go for the CS. Either way, you’ve created a situation that nets you a positive. Either they lose gold while you gain it, or they stick to the gold and put themselves at an HP disadvantage towards a potential skirmish.

Closing Out

So, there you have it folks! Some advanced tips to help you improve your moment-to-moment gameplay! Good luck on breaking into your desired rank before the end of the season!