Many League of Legends players have adapted a specific playstyle for themselves that tends to work in their favor. Some players play very aggressively to create pressure and others play passively and wait for the enemy to make a mistake. There are also players that like to play more selfishly to gain advantages for themselves, and then there are players that like to always help teammates and get them ahead. Roaming is the perfect mix of both, as when you roam to a side lane you are not only assisting your teammates and helping them win their lane, but you are also potentially generating a large sum of gold for yourself.

PICKING THE RIGHT CHAMPIONS

Everyone knows there are champions that are just more effective at roaming, such as Talon, Taliyah, Twisted Fate, and Galio. If you are looking to pick up a roaming playstyle, it is important to have these champions in your arsenal. Champions like these are particularly better than other champions at roaming due to their kits.

Here is a tier list of the typical roaming champions for the mid lane based on how effective they are at roaming.

For now, let’s use Talon as an example. The reason Talon is such an effective roamer is because he has decent wave clear and is extremely mobile. At level 7, if you have a Serrated Dirk and a Caulfield’s Warhammer, using two Rakes, Talon’s W, will clear the wave without any minion or auto-attack interference needed. On just above a six second cooldown, Talon can clear the wave with haste. After doing so, he is then able to roam effectively with Assassin’s Path, his E ability, to quickly get to a side lane to look for kills and or pressure.

This concept is similar with other roaming champions such as the ones listed above. These are things to be aware of if you are against a champion that roams effectively as well. In this instance, you have decisions to make such as counter-shoving the minion wave and matching the roam, doing something else productive on the map such as invading with your jungler or roaming to the opposite lane, or at the very least pinging that the enemy is missing so your teammates can hopefully play safer. This again starts with picking the right champion, but we will dive into that later on.

WHEN TO ROAM

Despite how some players like to play the game, League of Legends is team-oriented. Some mid laners prefer not to roam because they don’t want to miss out on experience, gold, or even give up tower plates. This is fair, however, there are ways to roam without missing a whole lot or even missing anything at all.

Roaming effectively requires a little bit of wave management knowledge to minimize your losses. It is important to be looking at the lane you want to roam to, not just on your mini-map, but also panning your camera there to see if they are building up a wave to crash and dive on, freezing, or just heavily trading. This helps you plan out your own waves. For example, if you see your bot lane is building up a wave to crash into tower, and you think you can dive the enemy bot lane, then you will want to quickly crash your own wave in mid lane and head down there. This gives you time to either recall after the dive, or head back to lane and get there in time for your next minion wave.

To maximize this, try roaming after building up a few waves to crash into the enemy tower or when you know the next wave coming in is a cannon minion wave. This is important not only because it takes longer to clear these waves under tower, but it also takes longer for the enemy to shove a cannon wave into your tower, giving you more time to roam and get back to your lane before you miss too much.

Notice in this image, Taliyah decides to roam bot lane only after crashing the wave in and seeing that enemy bot lane is in a vulnerable position. This allows her the opportunity to create an impact on bot lane and return to mid lane without missing any gold or experience.

One trick you can use that works especially well with champions that the enemy is scared about roaming, but can work with anyone, is just moving out of lane and out of vision for a little bit. If you don’t see an actual roaming opportunity, this is a great option because it still makes the enemies worried about where you are and makes them play safe. A great benefit to this strategy is that it relieves pressure for your side lanes if they are losing and extends their leads if the enemy backs off from farming because they think you are coming.

WHEN NOT TO ROAM

Oftentimes, you will get teammates that are losing their lanes hard and so you are unable to roam to their lane without all of you getting killed. In this instance, it is more beneficial to not roam, but rather have your support and or jungle play around you. This means coming for a gank, diving the enemy under tower, dropping Rift Herald for you to get some tower plates, or even just being near you so you feel safer playing aggressive.

This requires a little bit of game knowledge, knowing what your win conditions are and how to execute them properly. This can and should be assessed in champ select as well, if your team is picking more supportive champions or tanks, picking a roaming champion such as Galio will not be beneficial because you will lack damage. Instead, consider a roaming champion who is more damage based instead of utility such as Talon. You may also decide that this is not a good game to roam and instead pick a less mobile scaling mage, like Viktor.

HOW TO COUNTER ROAMING

In order to counter a roaming strategy, you will again want to start with picking the right champion. As discussed earlier, you have a few options to counter a roaming strategy such as matching the roam, invading with your jungler, or roaming top. Another strategy that is often overlooked however, is just taking tower plates. If you want to play to get yourself ahead and solo carry the game, this is an ideal strategy. Champions that are efficient at this include Tristana, Diana, Akshan, and more. These champions typically have an ability in their kit that makes them proficient at taking towers quickly. For example, Diana has a passive that makes every third auto-attack do extra magic damage as well as every time she casts an ability, she gets a short burst of attack speed. After taking mid lane tower with these champions, you are able to move to a side lane and take those towers easily as well.

If your playstyle doesn’t quite fit those champions in the mid lane, then you can also play champions that just have better wave clear than the enemy so that you can keep them under tower catching their wave and prevent them from roaming. Good examples of this are Anivia, Viktor, and Xerath. These champions are typically weaker early but get power spikes to where their wave clear and damage gets higher. Once Anivia hits level six, she is able to ult the wave and clear it very quickly and once Viktor gets his first upgrade on his E, he is able to out-shove most other champions.

CONCLUSION

Whether you are looking to add more champions to your pool, interested in trying out a new playstyle, or just want some easy LP, picking up the roaming strategy is an ideal option. If you practice all the concepts and strategies above when queuing up for a game, you will master it in no time!