How to improve your CS as AD Carry
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2 Dec 16

Guides

Alusi0n

How to improve your CS as AD Carry

The most important thing as an ADC is CSing, all explained in this article.

The most important part in doing your role as an ADC is to know how to CS. Most people ask themselves how people like ForG1ven and other LCS top AD Carries rack up so much CS in such little time. Well it's simple, practice makes perfect. Start by doing CS alone, with no one on the map so you know when and how to kill a low hp creep, after this advance with someone on lane, so you have a little bit of pressure while you farm. Mostly your attention as an ADC should be on killing creeps and depending on the champ you play to take the decision of going in or backing off. Also, after you learn how to CS, you have to learn how to FREEZE the lane, it's either done by you, or your support. Freezing a lane is very important because you can farm pretty much safe, without having to fear certain ganks.

The numbers you should have in mind when you're killing creeps should be +/-8 CS per minute. Usually at the 10th minute you should be at around 80 - 100 CS on your lane. Midgame at 20 minutes you should be around 180 - 200 CS (220 after you master CSing and killing jungle camps while support freezes your lane). When killing a wave and freezing one focus on killing the ranged minions because they usually tend to go berserk and follow you around. Keep the health bar of the minions full when you're trying to freeze your lane, always kill the minion at it's lowest hp 50 - 70 HP.

At the start of the game, you have a hard lane to play against stay and farm in your tower, it's simple and I will explain it. Melee minions after 2 hits from the tower should be in a AA to be killed, and the ranged minions should be around 2 hits after 1 from the tower, so ask your support to hit the one that gets a shot from the tower or prefire it when you're killing the melee ones. For cannon minions it is best to watch the cannon minion take a turret shot so you know how much damage the turret will do to it, then manually adjust its hp using auto attacks. The cannon will usually be damaged in some form or another before it reaches the turret or while underneath the turret so knowing the number of turret shots is not as helpful. Keep in mind that lower AD champions will have to adjust these rules to compensate for lower AD.

Pro level players get about 10 CS/minute regularly (note this is only possible after 11:00 unless you farm jungle or other lanes). If they can get 10 CS/minute in pro games with their jobs on the line, and you can't manage to do it without this pressure, then how can you expect yourself to carry yourself very high up the ladder? If you're determined to improve, then surely you can spend 5 minutes every once in awhile improving your fundamentals. There is no excuse not to if you truly want to improve. And of course don't forget about this scoresheet.

Don't be greedy in lane and overstay when you get the amount of gold you need, it usually happens to me, like when I want 2 or 3 more CS and I get ganked. So if you have the gold you need go back and buy whatever you need. Also, if your lane is easy and you know you can win it, don't push hard to the tower, you're always going to feel the enemy jungler's breath behind you, that's what usually happens to me.
When your game got past the laning phase don't stop CSing, either push the lane where your team stacks or go on another lane that needs help and do CS. When you stop CSing you usually get behind, even if you get kills, you'll still be somewhat behind. Always focus on killing the cannon minion, that's the best gold you get out of the lane minions and it's the most important for you as a ADC besides kills.

But keep in mind, don't keep your whole attention on killing minions, because if you lose your focus on the lane plays and the jungle movement you'll probably get ganked and die very easy. Use whatever skills you need too to kill a minion, let's say you've got 3 minions low hp and you can't kill all 3 of them, use a damage skill, like Caitlyn's Q (Piltover Peacemaker), Graves's Q (BuckShot) or Jinx's (Pow-Pow) Etc. Always celebrate and motivate yourself when you're doing better than your last game, try making a notepad with how much CS you're getting at 5/10/15/20/25/30 mins throughout 5-6 games and see if you're improving or not.

Do not forget about minion damage! Fighting your opponent near large enemy minion waves is typically not a good idea. Although caster minions may only wind up doing 10-12 damage a hit, when there are 5-6 of them hitting you at once that damage quickly adds up. Use this information to your advantage! I guarantee practicing this will improve your last hitting. The gold lead accrued by your superior last hitting will become a foundation that you can use to improve on all the other aspects of your game. Remember, no matter what happens in a game, there is always be CS to be farmed. If you guys want more tips or request something else hit me up at facebook.com/Alusi0nx or private message me on my team-dignitas.net profile.

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