One of the most mechanically expressive parts of League of Legends are skillshots, both in how you avoid them and how you use them. In this guide, you’ll learn the fundamentals of skillshot accuracy, and pick up some training methods to improve your game.
As their name would suggest, skillshots offer some of the greatest levels of mechanical skill expression in League of Legends. Whether you're dodging them or throwing them, understanding how to hit skillshots is a sure way to increase the effectiveness of your champion in fights. No matter if you simply don't want to embarrass yourself on Xerath, or just want to hit some nutty Madlifes on Thresh, this guide will help you improve the overall accuracy of your skillshots.
There is a progression of fundamental skills related to skillshot accuracy that every player will develop in order. Understanding these fundamentals and how to improve them is sure to improve the effectiveness of your skillshots, as well as allow you to make montage-level Flash and dash predictions.
These 5 skills are:
Keep in mind that, just like any other skill, these fundamentals can always be improved. So don't just skip to the fundamentals you don't know yet; make sure you understand each one, and how to improve that skill.
At the most basic level, your skillshots need to go where you want them to go. And since you aim with your mouse, you have to ensure that you can move your mouse quickly and accurately. Nothing else in this guide will help you if you physically can not control your mouse.
If you were 100% accurate with your mouse, you would be playing like a scripter. That just means there's always room for improvement!
Depending on your current skill level, here are some exercises and games you can do play to improve mouse accuracy:
If you've ever played a champion with a slow, long-range projectile, such as Lux or Thresh, you may have noticed that it is much harder to hit a moving champion at max range than if they are right in front of you. Thus, you quickly learn to aim in the direction the champion you're trying to hit is moving, and not at their immediate location.
Every time you do this, you are essentially compensating for the movement of your opponent and factoring in the cast delay of your spell, in order to estimate where your opponent will be by the time your skillshot connects. Although that sounds complex, it's something that you naturally learn the more you play a champion.
To practice this skill, it's usually best to just play your favorite champion more often. You'll get better with practice, and the best practice you'll get is when you're duking it out on the rift.
But if you insist on doing drills, challenge a friend to a Dr. Mundo 1v1! The rules are simple; load up a custom, both of you pick Dr. Mundo with the same runes and items, then run to Baron or Drake pit at level 1 and level up your Q - Infected Bonesaw. Place down pink wards to divide the pit in half, then assume positions on either side of the pit. Nobody can cross the center, and nobody can leave the pit until somebody is dead. The last Mundo standing is the winner of the cleaver royale!
Unfortunately, compensating for enemy movement isn't enough to hit everything. Good players will vary their movement to make it more difficult to predict where they will be, and as a result be able to dodge your skillshots.
If you're used to compensating for enemies moving in a straight line, it may become frustrating to play against players that turn around every time you throw your spell, and just barely avoid an otherwise certain hit. When they're moving right, and you think they're going to continue moving right, you'll obviously miss if they suddenly begin moving left. If you want to be able to account for your opponent's dodge, you need to understand their available dodge options.
But what is a dodge option? As the name suggests, it's the options present to your opponent to dodge your skillshot. Usually, we'd include spells like Flash, but for the sake of consistency and simplicity we won't account for dashes.
Let's take Vel'Koz, and evaluate how the average champion would be able to dodge his Q - Plasma Fission. The initial projectile fired by Vel'Koz is quite slow, and easy to dodge reactively. But the recast is much more difficult to react to, as it travels faster and Vel'Koz can control at what point he would like to split the bolt.
In this situation, each red line demonstrates a potential path the Vel'Koz Q can take, depending on when they recast it. Let's choose one of these lines and see what Udyr's dodge options are. Keep in mind that everything isn't 100% to scale, and is meant to be a theoretical demonstration.
The blue circle is the available area Udyr has to run before the skillshot would hit him, and the green-yellow circle is Udyr's approximate hitbox (A hitbox is the area around a unit that detects if the unit has been hit by a spell). As you can see, if Udyr were to try to dodge by moving to the right or left, he'd still get hit, because the red line would still intersect with his hitbox no matter how far he runs. Thus, his only option is to move upwards or downwards, as that is the only way he can move his hitbox out of the way of the incoming projectile.
Knowing that Udyr is certain to get hit unless he moves upwards or downwards, a good Vel'Koz player will attempt to guess the direction Udyr will choose to dodge, and compensate for his dodge option. This is what I like to call the Vel'Koz 50/50, where when dodging an incoming Vel'Koz Q, the Vel'Koz has a (theoretical) 50% chance to predict your dodge option, and thus hit you.
This 50/50 isn't limited to just Vel'koz, however. Oftentimes the same concept applies to other linear and circular skillshots, such as Vel'Koz E, Xerath Q, Thresh Q, Zed Q, etc.
If you understand dodge options, you'll start to see patterns in the way certain players choose to dodge certain skillshots. For example, in the case of the Vel'Koz 50/50, many players make a habit of choosing to move downwards to dodge the recast. As the Vel'Koz player, if you notice this habit, you can just assume your opponent will always dodge down, and use it to easily hit the enemy over and over again.
Watch this video and see if you can recognize the dodge options Udyr employs to avoid hits:
Here's an example of what a successful 50/50 prediction looks like on another champion (Thresh):
Zoning skillshots: while you use it as a joke after you whiffed another hook, it is a very real use case for skillshots on any champions, especially if it has a form of cc attached to it.
To use a skillshot to zone somebody is to force them into a lose-lose situation. It's using a skillshot to force your opponent to either get hit, or end up in an equally unfavorable position. These cases most often occur when your opponent is fleeing a fight for one reason or another, usually because they are low on hp. Keeping in mind any nearby terrain is also important to identify situations to zone your opponent instead of outright hit them. If you were to think about it in a technical way, some of the opponents’ dodge options would put them in danger regardless of whether they hit the skill shot or not.
Zoning skillshots also work better the more threatening your skillshot is. For example, your opponent is much more likely to be fine walking through a Nidalee spear or Sylas Q than a Cho'Gath Q or Varus R.
Keep in mind that using a skillshot as a zoning tool is circumstantial, and there won't be many situations in an average League game where it's even possible.
Let's go over a few examples so you can get a good grasp of what a zoning skillshot looks like. Keep in mind that these examples are staged, and thus may be a little exaggerated. They are there to help you get a basic grasp on what zoning might look like, and how terrain can remove your opponent's viable dodge options.
If you were to evaluate Singed's dodge options to avoid Xerath Q, he'd either have to continue running through the choke point, or turn around and run back towards xayah momentarily. As you can see in the clip, turning back and running into Xayah, or going left and running towards Xerath gets him killed, due to his very low hp. So the only dodge option he has that guarantees his survival is to keep running forwards through the choke point.
Meanwhile, if we consider this situation to be similar to the Vel'Koz 50/50, Xerath can target one of Singed's dodge options; either Singed dodges upwards or downwards.
If Xerath targets the downwards dodge, and Singed just keeps running, he will make it to safety. If Singed dodges down, then he'll get hit by Xerath Q and die. If Xerath makes the choice to aim downwards, there is a (statistical) 50/50 chance that Singed survives.
If, instead, Xerath targets the upwards dodge, and Singed just keeps running, he'll get hit by Xerath Q and die. If Singed dodges downwards, he avoids the Xerath Q, but (as you see in the clip) runs back into Xayah and dies anyways. If Xerath makes the choice to aim upwards, Singed will die no matter what.
If you're still confused, here's a chart:
As you can see, if Xerath aims up, Singed dies no matter what; if Xerath aims down, Singed could feasibly survive.
This is a prime example of how you can use skillshots to zone opponents and ensure favorable outcomes. Without Flash or some other dash, a well-placed Xerath Q will ensure he dies in this situation no matter what.
Similar to the Singed scenario, Lux has two dodge options.
In her case, she can only move to the right or left to avoid Viego W. If Lux dodges to her right, she will be pretty much under her tower, and safe from Viego. But if she dodges to her left, due to her position by the Raptor wall, she'll be unable to keep running forwards away from Viego. Instead, she'll have to move back to the right after dodging the stun, dying in the process, or move to the left along the raptor wall. As you can see in the clip, moving along the Raptor wall significantly increases the amount of time it takes for Lux to reach safety (her tower), and she dies to Viego as a result. Knowing this, Viego aims to cover Lux's right dodge option, as that is the only option that allows her to escape to safety quickly.
This is another example of how terrain and choke points are great spaces to employ zoning skillshots.
Perhaps one of the most satisfying plays you can make in League, predicting a Flash is a skill that can be learned, and comes naturally with a good understanding of dodge options and zoning. Everybody has tried to be Madlife at some point; here's how to be Madlife.
Just like zoning skillshots, the circumstances under which you can reasonably predict somebody's Flash (or any other dash) are quite specific. For simplicity sake, we'll only be talking about Flash, although the same thought processes can be applied to any other dash or movement steroid in the game.
If you answer "no" to any of the above conditions, going for a Flash prediction is (usually) a bad idea. Obviously if your opponent doesn't have Flash, there's nothing to predict. If your opponent isn't under much threat from your skillshot, they have no reason to Flash it (Naked xerath Q in lane). If your opponent can Flash out of range from your skillshot, there's likely no reason for you to try and predict their Flash, barring unique cases (Flash predicting somebody who just Flashes out of range of blitz hook). If your opponent isn't anticipating your skillshot, because they don't consider it enough of a threat, or are less skilled, then their first instinct won't be to Flash it.
With that out of the way, we can start talking about how to predict a Flash. To do so, you need to know your opponent's Flash options and assess which one they are most likely to take.
Let's get into our first example:
Admittedly, that was pretty cool. But how did I do it?
Let's breakdown my thought process behind this Flash prediction.
Firstly, I know he has Flash, is in range of Varus Q even if he Flashes, and that he knows he will die if he takes any more damage. Furthermore, because Nidalee is also right next to him and is about to turn back into ranged form, I know Kha'Zix's only chance of survival is if he Flashes my Q to safety. In a sense, I am using Varus Q as a zoning skillshot, because even if he doesn't Flash, or Flashes to an unfavorable location, he will still die to Nidalee or Varus immediately after. By trying to predict his Flash, Kha'Zix is in a lose-lose situation where he will die no matter what.
So in my eye, the only dodge options Kha'Zix could take to survive is this small area here:
And that's how I knew roughly where I needed to aim to secure the kill on Kha'Zix.
Here is another example by me:
Once again, we can break this down.
Once again, I know Jinx has Flash, will die if she gets hooked (without Flashing), and can not Flash out of the range of Thresh hook. If she hadn't had Flashed, she still would have died before Nautilus arrived. Thus, I knew that Jinx would try to Flash my hook. Unlike the Varus example, however, Jinx isn't in a strictly lose-lose situation if she doesn't Flash my hook. A better player could have predicted me predicting Jinx Flash, and instead just kept running upwards and Flashed after my hook goes wide. Therefore, her dodge options for survival in my mind looked something like this.
I took the gamble that she didn't think I would predict her Flash, and was able to successfully land the Madlife.
Here are some other examples of predictions I've made:
See if you can breakdown the dodge options in each of these situations, and determine why and how I made a prediction.
In this article, we went over the fundamentals of skillshot accuracy, including mouse accuracy, compensating for movement, dodge options, zoning, and Flash predictions. No matter your skill level, skillshots are always something that can be improved on, and remain the highest level of mechanical skill expression in League of Legends. I hope that you learned something useful and wish you luck on the rift!
