With League of Legends adding more and more objectives to the game, falling behind your lane opponent early can do major damage to your mental. Those first three kills going over to the enemy team might feel like a death sentence. Your jungler losing Drake doesn’t have to mean that your lane is doomed. With such a heavy focus on the early game’s tower-taking and objective-slaying, it’s important to remember that there are plenty of mechanics in the game that can help you (and your itemization) recover from a rough start.

Aside from playing safe and farming up, there are a few things worth looking at around the map–and maybe even in your lane. Look out for the differences you can make around the map, even if you aren’t playing jungle. Could you focus on tearing down your opponent’s tower when they back or roam? Maybe you could walk up to help your jungler rush through the Ocean Drake that’s been sitting for the past few minutes if the enemy shows topside.

Taking advantage of these small bonuses can add up and get you to your endgame faster! With a bit of coordination, a little less tunnel vision, and some helpful pings, you might just be able to turn the game around after even the worst laning phase you’ve ever dealt with.

Comeback Experience Scaling

If you are behind your lane opponent in levels, there are quite a few bonuses you can receive throughout the game to catch up. Killing higher level opponents can grant you 20% bonus kill experience per level (minus one). If they are only one full level higher than you, it remains the standard kill experience. Depending on your current champion level compared to the rest of the players’ average, you can earn a scaling experience buff for taking down large monsters. Working with your team and playing safe can often be the easiest answer to coming back from a bumpy early game, but it’s far from the only way to make a difference after falling behind.

Bounties on Objectives

After the game has hit 14 minutes in length, a team that is majorly behind in gold, objectives taken, and experience as a group can earn the opportunity to receive bonuses for killing objectives. They do not appear as soon as a team falls behind and will instead wait a minute before starting. These appear on major objectives like Dragons, Rift Herald, Baron Nashor, and turrets (varying in base value depending on position) and will be split between all members of the team claiming them.The values will increase depending on how far your team is, gold-wise.

The screenshot below shows the following bounty availability, in order from left to right: Turrets, Void Grubs, Baron Nashor, Dragon, Baron Nashor.

These bonuses help everyone on your team with gold, but can often provide buffs to help you knock down turrets more quickly (Rift Herald/Baron Nashor) or get major buffs to your combat stats (Drakes). Turret Objective Bounties do not provide combat buffs but do get you one step closer to taking down the enemy’s Nexus and winning. Regardless of how far ahead your team is, you can get gold for everyone by taking down turrets, but the bonus is significantly increased when you are behind.

Bounties on Players

Bounties can also be attached to enemy player champions, depending on how far ahead they are compared to their direct opponents in lane. “Ahead” in this case is a measure of performance stats, determined by a number of role-dependent factors. You can tell if you are ahead or behind depending on your stats like K/D/A (Kills, Deaths, Assists) or CS (Creep Score, earned by killing minions and jungle camps), and how they compare to the person playing the same role on the other team. How these are weighted will come down to the role you’re in, and what its objectives are.

Getting ahead in kills is one of the quickest ways to earn a bounty on your head. If you have racked up a kill lead over your opponent, every three gold you earn from kills or assists will add one gold to your total bounty. If you’re behind or even and finally take down your opponent, the rate is reduced to 5:1 for kill/assist bounty gold. The system works to bring players up to speed, not keep them behind. Bounties are not actually applied in these in-between amounts, though, so make sure to keep an eye on the scoreboard (hold Tab) to see who you should be gunning for.

A substantial farming lead (in roles outside of Support) will slowly build into a bounty if given enough time. A top laner with a consistent 50 CS lead (even if they never get any kills) might still have a bounty due to the simple gold difference between them and their opponent. Farming leads also follow the pattern of higher bounties for people that are even or ahead: every 20 gold from farming will add one gold to their bounty total.

Capitalizing on Death Counters

One of the less obvious comeback mechanics in league is related to death timers. As the game goes on longer, players will stay dead longer. This scaling happens from both game length, but also player level. Players that are higher in level will be out of the game for longer than players still trying to gain experience. If your lane opponent is pretty far ahead of you, a gank from your jungler can give you some room to breathe.

Even if you’ve been behind in farming, one kill on your lane opponent can do a lot for you. Some options include:

• Farm under your turret to close the CS gap.
• Push forward (safely, with vision) and chip away at turret plates in the early game.
• Rotate to objectives to help your jungler and buff your allies

Being patient and waiting for the right moment to take down an opponent on a rampage can be exactly what your team needs. Use pings and talk to your team in chat (if you don’t mute it) to set up a gameplan.

Wrapping Up

League of Legends currently has plenty of snowball potential, but it goes to pretty great lengths to set players that fall behind up for success, too. Every teamfight is a coinflip. Huge gold bounties can go to the person the enemies fear most. Experience buffs help you keep pace. While people might just tell you to “sit under a turret and stay safe,” coordinating with your team and having solid map awareness can take you off the brink of defeat!