Are you just starting League of Legends and are looking for quick ways to improve? Or maybe you’re a veteran that just needs a quick refresh on what to focus on? Well, these tips are sure to help you hone your game and improve your results!
No matter one’s skill level, we can all appreciate some clean and decisive tips! And today we’re going to be providing just that for you! Our tips are going to be mainly geared towards new players and lower ranked players that might be confused as to what they should focus on to amp up their game. But we encourage veteran League of Legends players to give the list a read too, as you might find something to focus on that you may have been neglecting!
Creep score is one of the largest talking points for any player to improve regardless of role and, likely, you’ve heard this talking point repeatedly from other guide makers and other resources. And there’s a reason for that, because it genuinely is the best way to improve your game-to-game consistency and relevancy. Minions and Jungle camps are the safest and surest ways to generate income in League of Legends. And while kills may be enticing and highly rewarding, especially when you’re on a snowball focused Champion, not every game is going to present you with players that will just consistently throw themselves into you.
In fact, in these passive lane states, it's CS difference that truly breaks the stalemate between lane opponents. Whichever side has managed their waves appropriately, claimed more last-hits, soaked more EXP, and is up item components, almost always is set to win a duels, skirmishes, or larger fights when things start getting spicy on the Rift.
Additionally, upping your CS game can help you stabilize games that might be going awry. For example, let’s say an early trade went south and you were forced to back, or you were killed on a gank, while your opponent might gain an advantage from your misplays, you can stem the bleeding from your disadvantage by focusing hard on CS without making risky plays. Maintaining your resources and maintaining your farm at even or greater can allow you to walk into duels or assist with ganks with more confidence, especially since the usual case where an opponent becomes over-aggressive after their first win can lead them to forsake their most consistent income, CS, themselves. Further, should you be moving towards teamfights, if you are at or even with another member of the enemy team despite being behind against your direct opponent, will still result in you outputting a significant contribution to your team’s results.
Powerspikes are key moments in every game where your Champion comes “online,” meaning they’re at a point where they have full access to the most deadly and efficient portions of their kit. Playing towards this moment with awareness is a huge thing to be aware of as the moment that this powerspike occurs, you can totally shift your play pattern in the game and really cause your opponents to play off-foot while creating an advantage for yourself.
For example, perhaps the most notorious Level 2 Champion is Leona. Leona, at Level 1 typically opts for her Q, Shield of Daybreak, which is her primary ability and stun. This ability is super impactful as it quite truly is a simple point and click CC ability. Its simple and powerful effectiveness can greatly change the outcome of the lane if it disables a primary target that Leona is facing. However, unless an opponent boldly facechecks into Leona, she has a hard time getting this ability off, as enemies can just play around the fact that the ability is a simple auto-attack enhancement. But at Level 2, Leona unlocks Zenith Blade. Zenith Blade gives Leona a short range skill-shot that slices through enemies and snares on the first Champion it hits. It then drags Leona to her opponent and allows for her to quickly Q her target and set up an early all-in for her ADC.
This is considered Leona’s first powerspike, and you’ll often see great Leona players work alongside their ADCs to manipulate the pace to quickly achieve Level 2 over their opponents, instantly creating this powerspike to give them an immediate threat in lane. Should opponents not respect the powerspike, then Leona likely walks away with having blown an opponent’s Flash, Heal, or other important Summoner Spell or netting a kill for her ADC. It’s odd to consider that, at Level 2, a Champion could easily just take over the tempo of an entire lane phase, but there are a few Champions in League of Legends that excel at doing just that. So, if you are a main of one of these Champions, it’s best to be aware of these powerful moments and play towards your early game advantage.
However, this also works with more scaling-oriented picks at well. Aurelion Sol is perhaps now the most infamous Champion in League that focuses on scaling and his powerspikes do not occur until far later in the game. So, it’s not odd to watch an ASol player play extremely passively or being more focused on farm than dueling through the early- and mid-game phases due to his reliance on obtaining a certain amount of stacks that cause his kit to expand and unlock in damage and range. With this typically occurring at later stages where his higher scaled abilities are simply just harder to interact with for your average opponent, ASol players simple win by being more in control and conservative with their in-game tempo.
This skill is an overlooked one since League doesn’t possess similar deny mechanics to competing titles like DOTA 2. Instead of being able to literally deny your opponents from CSing, League’s form of denial comes from understanding aggression and what advantages you have over your opponents.
For example, a Champion like Caitlyn, who possesses an extremely high base range of attack in comparison to most other ADCs, can utilize her range to apply ‘pressure’ against her opponents by auto-attacking them whenever they step forward to last-hit their Minions. This play pattern can condition an opponent to refrain from stepping forward as to maintain their health pool, or they can play through the damage for the CS, still netting Caitlyn an advantage over her opponent.
Another example of punishment and denial is where you set your all-in timer off of the health of your own Minions. Cannon Minions are one of the biggest baits in League of Legends, and no one wants to miss out on the chunky income they offer. So, say you’re playing a Champion that has a highly effective laning kit, someone like Renekton or Talon who can easily gap-close and burst their opponent down. Taking in mind what your Champion can do and what your powerspikes are, you can play towards the dwindling health of your Minions and instantly go aggressive whenever they move forward to last-hit. However, unlike creating an incremental advantage like in our previous example, your Champion’s kit allows you to more reliably net a kill for yourself or, at worst, a Summoner Spell advantage for yourself for the next powerspike or moment of aggression.
This tip might come in a bit of contrast to our previous suggestions of deeply understanding your Champion’s strengths and playing towards them but hear me out. While League Champions might be designed to archetypes that possess certain play patterns with clearly defined strengths and advantages, you can do more than just play to those patterns in-game. In fact, being aware of how to manipulate your Champions kit in the moment is a sure sign of genuine mastery of not only your Champion but also of your overall understanding of League as a game.
For example, you’re playing a Champion like Xin Zhao. Now, Xin’s play pattern points him towards being aggressive early by pathing through his camps quickly as a Jungler, utilizing his knock-up, gap closer, and damage enhancements to gank with a high possibility of netting kills or major spell advantages for his laners. And when this strategy goes off, Xin is simply one of the best and can take over entire games by becoming not only an amazing damage source but also a deceptively tanky fighter that can disrupt and soak a lot of damage instantaneously in the mid- and late-game.
But say that early game doesn’t work out for Xin. Say he makes a play, and his lane opponent leaves him high and dry without support and he’s collapsed on - dying 2v1. Or he overestimated his own strength and invaded an opponent who was able to out play his more simply executed kit. Ultimately, his play pattern is disrupted and doesn’t execute the same way for the remaining moments of the game after this since he couldn’t secure his desired early game advantage. For Champions that focus highly on one phase of the game, they can often feel useless if they can’t execute on their desired outcomes.
But an adaptive Xin player wouldn’t count themselves out. Not only would they be not dismayed by a simple early-game slip, but they’d also understand that their Champion can function as a respectable counter-engage source too, not needing to rely entirely on aggression. They’d scan their team comp, evaluate who has the highest probability to carry the game, and play towards that person rather than requesting everyone play towards themselves to increase their odds of victory. They’d evaluate what role they needed to play in their team composition. Maybe the allied Leona might serve as a more reliable pick and fight setter, or the allied Ornn can be the more forward presence in fights. So, this may mean instead of utilizing his gap closer to scrap and pick, Xin waits for a counter opportunity and utilizes his knock-up and ultimate as peel for a carry being dove on the backline, or he makes it his goal to just simply get on top of a priority target and utilize his CC to disrupt their ability to impact a fight - caring less if he kills them and more on if he delays their damage output.
Mindsets like this one can be applied to any Champion, and when you take a moment to consider your game’s unique perspective, you can find ways that your Champion can adapt their typical play patterns to their atypical ones should things start falling apart in your games. So, do your best to be aware of what secondary role your Champion can play with the unique tools of their kit and never limit yourself to simply playing one style and one way.
Typically I sign off with my pieces here and wish you good luck, but I’m going to encourage you with one last tip. Focus on your Champion Pool. This is a dead horse for many content creators but it’s an excellent tip for those that are looking to have more consistent performances in their games. Having your Champion pool centered around a core of three to five Champions with, ideally, similar intended play patterns can help you be more aware of the advice we’ve offered earlier in this piece. If you’re a Leona player, you’ll likely also like Nautilus for his effective level-2 all-in, and you can play him as adaptively as you could for defense and peel as you could offense and engage - just like Leona. So, think about your pool and get you a solid handful of Champions that you enjoy. If their styles are different, it gives you a bit more to focus on from game to game - but that’s okay since not every game might require what your main two to three Champions can output.
So, focus down your pool, improve your CS/min, understand your powerspikes, deny and punish your opponents farm and positioning, and ultimately, be adaptive from game to game! Well, that’s all we got folks. Best of luck for the remainder of this split fo the ranked season!
