Getting better at League is actually quite easy if you are a new player or someone who is low rank. Once you get to the higher elo brackets, you might notice that it’s harder to improve. However, whether you’re hard-stuck in iron or pushing for diamond, this ultra compilation of tips will for sure help you take your gameplay to the next level.
General Tips:
Tip #1: Ping everything & Don’t waste your pings on spam pinging your teammates, use them to communicate actually valuable information, whether it’s indicating that you’re about to go clear the raptors camp or that you’re about to set up a tower dive bot
Tip #2: Look at the mini-map when you counter jungle, if you see enemy laners immediately disappearing from the map, you’re most likely in trouble and should back off immediately
Tip #3: Never hit the dandelion seeds unless you have a specific reason for doing so, more often than not hitting the plant out of habit will only result in you exposing your position
Tip #4: Leave one creep behind when you counter jungle so the camp doesn’t respawn.
Tip #5: When you die, start thinking what you could’ve done better, don’t immediately start blaming your teammates for not blocking x skill shot for you or not landing y spell, you can’t control your team, ultimately, the only thing you can control is yourself, so focus on that.
Tip #6: Supporter’s full build is 6 items including control ward.
Tip #7: If you are laning against a roaming mid like twisted fate or galio, put wards in the middle of the lane, not the side bushes, so when they go to roam, you exactly where they are heading.
Tip #8: Don’t show off your mechanics in front of jg creep. Look around the map and check top/mid/bot. Whose lanes are shoved in, whose lane looks easy to gank.
Tip #9: If you don’t hold up well to insults, just /mute all.
Tip #10: If you are low with a shutdown, don’t be afraid to suicide to the enemy support. It’s much better to feed the bounty to the support so you can play without having to constantly worry about preserving your shutdown gold in the future. Unless that support is damage-oriented like Vel-koz or Zyra.
Tip #11: Laners try be there for scuttle skirmish, scuttles are vision control. However, if you know a skirmish is lost just by looking, don’t bother wasting your time rotating at all, just be decisive.
Tip #12: Try not to flame teammates, it doesn’t help to win the game at all.
Tip #13: Stop blaming your jungler if you get solo killed in lane, no one forced you to 1v1 the enemy laner who is 2 levels upon you.
Tip #14: Always check enemy inventory before engaging, so you avoid getting surprised they have QSS/ZHONYA.
Tip #15: Before the game starts, analyze your team comp and play around it. If your bot lane is in a volatile matchup and your top is just a farm lane, camp bot, and vice versa with top.
Tip #16: early drake is certainly valuable, but generally rather overrated. Unless you are playing a giga-early game comp vs a scaling comp where you have to rely on a 20-minute soul as a win condition, it is totally fine to give up the first or even second drake to avoid risky plays.
Tip #17: If you are playing an assassin mid laner with decent escape, don’t be afraid to swap out yellow trinket for sweepers after the first few minutes of the game. The ability to sweep out vision is much more valuable for your roaming playstyle and enables you to set up surprising bush cheeses much more easily. The safety yellow trinket offers isn’t as crucial for you as it would be for immobile mages as you have the mobility to escape from ganks.
Tip #18: Minions and turrets are more valuable than kills. Rather than chasing for kills that you may or may not get, it’s better to go for the safer, more guaranteed option – minions waves and turrets. This is why you see that pro players always have insane cs count in their competitive games, since all the players’ skills are close enough that absolute pub stomps rarely happen in the pro scene, most teams prefer to play the game around farm and objectives over coinflipping kills perma.
Tip #19: If you are winning, build survival items, if you are losing, build as much damage as possible. This may sound counterintuitive and you may have been hearing the complete opposite your whole life. However, if you and your team are already winning, and you have your core items, you don’t really need that extra bit of damage, it’s much better to build tankier so that the enemy team doesn’t get your bounty and come back into the game. On the other hand, if you and your team are losing, go all-in on damage or items that can help you catch mispositioned enemies. This is because if you are losing, you don’t have enough gold to be both tanky and have damage at the same time, so now all you can do is to build full damage and hope that the enemy team makes a mistake and you get a chance to get their bounties or at least trade 1 for 1.
Tip #20: If you are playing adc, always prioritize your safety over everything else. And I don’t mean just dodging skillshots and staying relatively back, I mean if there could be a fed assassin hiding in a bush somewhere between your team and you while a team fight is erupting, STAY AWAY, do that until you know for sure they are not a threat to you anymore (i.e. you see them on the minimap somewhere else, etc), but until then, do whatever it takes to stay away from them, wait a few seconds, walk around, or even straight-up ditch your team and go collect some free farm somewhere else.
Tip #21: Team fight with elder, push towers with baron
Tip #22: Don’t mindlessly take every inhib as while they provide wave pressure in one lane, they also guarantee free farm for the enemy team
Tip #23: 1 early kills don’t mean the game is over, this goes both ways. If your team got an early free kill, stay focused and play normally, don’t go overly aggro or disrespect the enemies just so you don’t throw your lead. Conversely, if the enemy team got an early cheese kill from a lvl 1 invade, no need to get tilted just because of that, the game is still totally winnable, just play normally.
Tip #24: If your champ can be flexed in multiple roles, hover other champs in that role before locking in your champ, this way the enemy team might try to counter pick your champ in that other role you’re hovering for, reducing the chances of getting counterpicked.
Tip #25: People get way too obsessed with statistics and tier lists, while they are a helpful tool, they are not to be treated like the words of Jesus, play whatever you feel is strong, and if you just can’t seem to master a champ that’s said to be s tier, don’t play that champ, it’s simple as that.
Tip #26: When engaging on an enemy during a skirmish or bot lane 2v2, ping who you want to focus on first, helps to communicate with your teammate so you don’t spread out your damage and cc on different targets.
Tip #27: It’s okay to get tilted, but learn to recognize when you get tilted and take a break from the game if you do tilt. Go for a walk, do something else, or sigh really hard if you need to. Treat your body well and eat healthy, League of Legends is a game, not your job. Plus having a clear mind helps you make better decisions in-game.
Tip #28: When warding dragon or baron pit, ward the entrance of the pit so that enemies can’t sneak it just outside the pit, it also helps spot enemies walking through the river.
Tip #29: Sometimes you don’t have to necessarily win lane against certain mid laners, if your champ has the ability to shove waves super fast, you can limit the enemy laner heavily despite not being able to outduel them, for example, if you are playing galio against LeBlanc, you can hard shove the wave, and if the leblanc wants to force a fight with you, you have a massive minion advantage, and if she wants to effectively clear the wave, she has to use her w, which is a massive portion of her damage, meaning that either way, she poses little threat to you if you hard shove the wave.
Tip #30: Riot intentionally makes new and newly reworked champions overturned in order to bring up their play rate, which gives them the statistics needed to properly balance the champion. Therefore if a champion is newly released or reworked, consider banning it so that the enemy team doesn’t abuse it and your team doesn’t int on it.
Tip #31: Right before a team fight (ex. 30 seconds until baron or elder, etc), ward as a team. This goes both way. Supports should only go out to ward when your team is there to back you up, and the rest of the team should group with the support to escort them.
Tip #32: Towers aren’t as safe as you think, many champions are totally capable of diving you if they have a lead.
Tip #33: Stick to a maximum of 3 champions. You can’t learn mechanics, macro mechanics, and macro, if you’re too busy worrying about executing your champion’s combo.
Tip #34: Stick to one role, 2 max. The macro is different for all 5 roles, so it will extend the amount of time it takes for you to improve if you switch roles every 2 days.
Tip #35: If your champion can play either AD or AP, a state in the chat during champ select as early as possible so your team can balance their comp better.
Tip #36: Just because you got counterpicked in lane doesn’t mean the game is over, play safe, scale up and make sure you don’t feed them, it is still totally winnable.
Tip #37: During early game, timing key ultimates can be very useful (ex. Galio R, Shen R, Rengar R, etc)
Tip #38: If you see the enemy laner using a global ult and don’t have the means to interrupt them, try to chunk them instead if possible, this will limit the amount of impact they are able to bring with their roam and your team could even potentially turn the fight around.
Tip #39: 90% of the time, first rift herald > first dragon.
Tip #40: As the laner, if you see that your jungler is vertical jungling on the other side, play extra safe and don’t die, keep in mind that the pressure you’re absorbing on your side of the map is also being applied on the opposite side, so if you manage to survive the jungle pressure, you are already putting your team at an advantage.
Tip #41: As the jungler, if you are vertical jungling, tell your weak side laner to play safe, and your strong side laner to play aggro so you can further extend their lead.
Tip #42: Some pay-to-win skins do actually buff your champ (ex. Mafia Graves, twitch, blackfrost anivia, iBlitz, pulsefire TF)
Tip #43: The 10% attack speed rune is good on not only ad champions, but also mage mid laners as well, since in the early levels your primary damage source is going to be from your autos no matter what, having the extra attack speed can allow you to shove the minion wave faster and therefore gain lane prio, it lets you weave in more autos between abilities when trading, and you can harass with your autos instead of necessarily having to use your abilities and spend your mana if you’re against a melee.
Low Elo:
Tip #1: Never rely on your team to do anything. Play with the expectation that your team WILL int, and they end up not doing that, great, if they do, that’s alright as well, you’ve been expecting that to happen anyways.
Tip #2: Hog all resources, save your high-damage spell to last hit kills, take farm from everywhere on the map. Only by doing this can you maximize your chance of winning and take control of the game to yourself.
Tip #3: Stop complaining about bad teammates, in this elo, everyone makes way too many mistakes, all you have to do is recognize and take advantage of them
Tip #4: as previously noted, early frames are generally overrated. This is especially true in low elo, your farm is far more important than the minuscule stat increase for your team. A good rule of thumb to follow is: 3 jungle camps/1 normal wave plus 1 canon wave > pre-soul point drake
Tip #5: Avoid picking team reliant champs like galio or ashe unless you are very good at your champ, it’s much easier to climb in low elo with snowbally champs like zed or talon as opposed to utility champs like galio
Tip #6: Never listen to people who are telling you how to play the game in this elo, 99 percent of the time they are hardstucks who think clueless teammates are the sole reason they are where they are. No point listening to “coaching” from someone who is no better or even worse than you at the game. And in that 1 percent chance where the person is really a Giga smurf, they probably can win the game regardless of your performance.
Tip #7: Your team comp doesn’t matter. Always play the champ you are most comfortable on. You’d rather play a champ you are already good at into/with a bad team comp than play a champ you barely know how to play that suits your team comp well or counters the enemy team. Players in this elo are not competent enough to properly punish bad matchups or team compositions, so you’ll be fine.
Tip #8: ease out on the pink wards. You may hear people tell you to buy more wards or see pro players have insane vision scores, but none of that applies in your elo. You team won’t know how to capitalize on the vision you provide, so just the bare minimum amount of wards to provide a proper vision for yourself is more than enough. Think of it this way, it costs 75 gold to buy a pink ward, that’s almost a Canon’s worth of gold, and the enemy gets another 30 gold by clearing it, as well as a bit of xp, it’s really not worth if your team never looks at the minimap anyway.
Tip #9: If your team has a better lvl 1, consider invading lvl 1 as it is extremely common for players in this elo to afk in random bushes or under tower. Invading lvl 1 often results in either a free kill or a free buff for your jungler.
Tip #10: limit test in normals to improve your mechanics. Go for tower dives and solo kills even if they seem unfeasible. Only by making aggressive, risky plays can you take over every game that you play.
Tip #11: For runes and items, just copy what the high elo players take. Don’t innovate, don’t question – high elo players that are educational streamers will include variations with when to take those variations as well, so you don’t even have to know how they got to that conclusion. You can worry about understanding why after you achieve Diamond. Any modifications you make will most likely harm your optimal. Just use the modifications that they include themselves in their builds – executioner’s calling against Mundo/Soraka/healing/etc. Armor against AD, Randuins against Crit, Second Wind against poke. They will make these modifications, so seek out the specific matchups that you are wondering about and copy what they have.
Tip #12: In low elo, there is no such thing as a playstyle. No one has gotten down the fundamentals of the game yet, so there is only the optimal and the suboptimal. Mistakes or correct play. Wrong and right. Opportunities taken and opportunities missed. People throw around the word playstyle to excuse their mistakes, saying “it’s just my playstyle.” Make sure that everything that you do is as close to optimal as possible in the pre-game so you can go into the game with the best state you can possibly have.
Tip #13: Don’t spend too much time worrying about your mmr or dodging bad lobbies, yes they do matter, but you are better off spending that time actually improving your gameplay. In this elo, bad comps or teammates who were previously on a loss streak don’t matter as much, so just focus on playing your best.
Tip #14: Don’t watch high elo gameplay/coaching videos as you need to master the fundamentals first, watch low elo tutorials instead.
High elo:
Tip #1: Respect your teammates and enemies to a proper degree. This isn’t bronze elo anymore so you don’t have to play like you have to 1v9 every single game, especially if you are playing a champion that doesn’t scale or snowball particularly well. By the same logic, your enemies aren’t going to be total dummies that make blatant mistakes all the time, so play with more caution as anyone who is in this elo has to know what they’re doing to a decent extent.
Tip #2: Stop blindly following trending builds. Now this may be an effective strategy for improvement in low elo when you’re just beginning to pick up a new champion, but at this level, the skill gap between players is going to be much smaller, which means you need every little advantage you can get against your opponents, including itemization. Do your own Math, create your own build for your main champs, and adapt them situationally according to the flow of the game.
Tip #3: Watch your own replays. While this is helpful across all ranks, it becomes especially crucial if you want to take your gameplay to the next level. In high elo, people play with their brain more than their hands, every roam is perfectly timed, every jungle path is calculated. To really improve, you need to start reflecting on your own decision-making rather than autopiloting.
Tip #4: Start learning about other roles. At this point, you should be fairly proficient with your main role, so start trying to understand other roles, put yourself in their shoes, and have a clearer picture of how you work with your teammates. For top laners, it may be shoving the wave in even when you have a freeze going so your jungler can invade and/or get objective. For junglers, it may be skipping a camp or two to break a freeze for your laner.
Tip #5: Be extremely patient. Climbing from diamond to masters for example, is nowhere near as easy as climbing from silver to gold. You start getting players who are a lot closer in skill, and you may feel like you’re just coin-flipping every game even though you know you’re improving. This is natural, just keep grinding away and have an ironclad mental, I promise you, one day, it’ll all pay off.
Tip #6: In contrast to tip #12 in the low-elo section, now you should try to discover your own playstyle and take advantage of it. At this point, you have most of the fundamentals of the game down, so it’s important to ask yourself the question “what is my playstyle?” Some people like to play extra aggro and either go 0/10 or 10/0, some people like to prioritize farming up and hog all the resources so they can 1v9 in the late game. You might not make any significant changes to your gameplay after discovering your playstyle, but it’s important to recognize it.
Tip #7: Start dodging. In high-elo, people are much closer in skill-level, so having a tilted teammate or a terrible team comp will seriously affect your chance of winning. You don’t lose any mmr for dodging, so absolutely take advantage of that, especially if it is your first dodge of the day as you will only lose 3 lp and have to wait 5 minutes.
Tip #8: Don’t watch low elo pubstomp videos as they aren’t really beneficial to you, instead, start watching pro players’ streams and high elo coaching videos.
Tip #9: Start forming the habit of recording summoner spell cooldowns in chat, you see high elo players and pro players do this all the time, and for good reason, this is extremely useful for setting up plays and abusing cooldowns. By doing this, not only do you benefit yourself, you also benefit your teammates by providing them with valuable information.
Tip #10: If you’re playing an assassin mid, jungle, or support, I would strongly recommend taking the zombie ward rune from domination tree whenever possible, the amount of free vision it provides is obscene for one single rune, and it’s fairly easy to stack. In certain stagnant games, you might even stack zombie ward faster than eyeball collector.
Tip #11: If you’re playing top, adc, or a mage mid laner, consider taking ghost poro, it gives you some extra free vision, so you are less prone to ganks. However, it is significantly harder to stack than zombie ward or eyeball collector, so only take it if you simply want the vision.
Champion specific tips:
Tip #1: Shaco can ult over thin walls, works for both himself and his clone
Tip #2: Graves can cancel his q w r animation by using it in conjunction with e in the midst of his reloading animation
Tip #3: As pyke, using prowlers claw after your e can drastically increase your chance of landing it, making it almost point and click, super useful for mid game picks
Tip #4: reksai pretty much has no vision when burrowed, so if you see her approaching you while burrowed, and you’re confident that you’re not standing on a ward or in enemy vision, you can simply stand perfectly still and she will be oblivious to your presence until she’s practically right next to you, regardless if you are in a bush or not.
Tip #5: irelia is much weaker if she doesn’t have her passive stacks, try to fight her only when there’s no minion wave nearby
Tip #6: teemo is not a counter to darius bro, just don’t do it pls
Tip #7: always save a non projectile cc vs a samira on the enemy team, she will be very limited if she can’t have that explosive ult damage out, as she has very low range for an adc.
Tip #8: banshees and night’s edge are actually very good counters against ahri, as she heavily relies on hitting her whole combo, especially her e to maximize her damage, and if anyone one of her abilities is blocked by the spell shield, she loses out on a ton of damage