League of Legends is one of the largest MOBA and esport games in the world that puts players in control of champions that are trying to destroy the opposing team's nexus. Alongside the player's team are minions that charge straight into battle towards the enemy base and it falls on the players to help them make it past the opposing champions and minions.
In League of Legends, players earn gold by defeating enemy minions, but only if they land the final hit. This means that with their own minions also fighting them, it takes quite a bit of skill to successfully last hit every minion that comes before the player consistently. Pros seem to make this process look like a cakewalk, but it is a whole lot tougher than it looks. Here are a few things to keep in mind when trying to elevate to the CS level of a pro.
Last Hitting Under Tower In League Of Legends
Last hitting minions under tower can be one of the most difficult things to learn in League of Legends. The key to successfully last-hitting in these situations is to understand the damage dealt by towers and the damage dealt by the player's champion. Here's each basic minion and what it takes to last hit them under tower:
- Melee Minions - Melee Minions at full health can take two shots from the tower before needing to be last hit by the player.
- Caster Minions - Caster Minions at full health can only take one shot from the tower before needing to be hit by the player. This will take one auto-attack with an AD champion and two auto-attacks with an AP champion.
- Cannon Minions - Cannon Minions can take several shots from the tower and will be prioritized by the tower as a target. The player should use abilities to ensure the last hit of this minion.
Make sure to try and get all of the CS, even when it seems safer to just take the ones not being targeted by the tower. If the player doesn't make attempts at clearing odd wave states with their abilities, they will never get any better at it!
Freezing A Lane In League Of Legends
Freezing the minion wave means putting the minions into a position that is safe for the player to farm and dangerous for the opposing laner to move up to CS. Players can freeze the lane if they are more powerful than their opponent, if their lane opponent's roaming threat is not high, or they need to safely farm near the tower. To freeze a lane, players will need to attack minions as little as possible. This will ensure that the player's minion wave dies first and puts the enemy laner into a position where they will need to overextend for the farm.
Pushing Other Waves In League Of Legends
Players should always be looking for waves of minions that need to be cleared. If there is a minion wave crashing into a tower in another lane after a team fight, a back to reset, or a roam and no one else is there to take it, make sure to go get it! Every little bit of gold helps and players shouldn't be afraid to eventually move to other lanes, take enemy jungle camps, or even their own jungle camps (with the jungler's consent of course).
Practice Last-Hitting In League Of Legends
League of Legends has a practice tool built into the game that is perfect for practicing last hitting minions. First, try going into a practice game with no runes that affect attack speed or damage and don't buy any items. Then try another game with full runes and the champion's starting item. Finally, through some bots into the mix and build items as one normally would. If players do this over and over again, they are sure to see improvements. Once players feel warmed up, there is no better practice like the real thing. Head into some games of Summoner's Rift and continue to practice those last-hitting skills!
It may seem like there is too much to take into consideration when trying to achieve high CS in League of Legends, but the key is to focus on the health of the minions in front of the player without totally disregarding the surroundings. There may be times where players will have a large percentage of their health knocked out due to focusing too hard on the minions. Players need to readjust when things don't go according to plan. When the player's health is low enough to possibly get killed in a gank, a solution is to try and keep the wave closer to their tower and notify the team of the possible roams from their laner. Then once the other laner has reappeared elsewhere, push the wave as hard as possible into their tower and back. These scenarios and the skill need to last hit minions consistently will come naturally with more and more practice.
League of Legends is available now on Windows and macOS.