How To Get Better At League Of Legends

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25 Tips to Make You a Better LoL Player

If you're a competitive League of Legends player then you should be continuously looking to up your game and improve. With so many different aspects of League of Legends to consider it can be hard knowing which parts to improve on. Here are some top tips on how you can instantly become a better player in League of Legends.

Buy More Wards

Wards are very important in League of Legends yet their importance is often cast aside by newer players. Why? Mainly because they cost gold and why would you buy a ward when you can save up for your Rabadon's Deathcap? Unknown to newer players wards give you a great advantage by giving you vision on your enemies. This can help massively during a game as it helps prevent ganks from enemies and also gives you vision of important objectives. This helps your team know when the enemy is trying to take the baron or dragon.

Learn One Champion Inside Out

Let's face it with over 130 different champions it can be hard to learn every single one of them. If you really want to improve as a player then learning one champion inside out is crucial. By learning a champion inside out it allows you to focus on the potential matchups and item builds for that champion. Having an extremely in-depth knowledge of a champion can make you as a player and is better than having an average knowledge of 50 champions.

Now it might find you a while to find a champion you can enjoy playing constantly but after a while, you should find the perfect match for you. Whether it's a top laner, mid laner, ADC, support or jungle champion learn everything there is to know about it.

Play More ARAM

aram map

Although ARAM might be a lot more casual than summoner's rift (as there is no ranked version of it) it shouldn't be dismissed so fast. There are plenty of benefits of playing ARAM and it can actually make you a better player. How so you may ask? Well for starters the games are much faster and usually last around 20 minutes, 30 minutes can be considered a fairly long game. Compare this to summoner's rift and the average game time is already much shorter. This is a good thing as it allows you to finish games faster and get onto the next one with new players and new champions to play with. This makes ARAM a great game mode for practising!

The game mode also forces you to play champions you would never necessarily pick, who knows you might end up finding your next main role! The map itself is also a lot smaller as it's only one lane meaning there is a lot more action and team fights. If you want to practise a champion as well as team fighting then ARAM is definitely the place to do it!

Test Your Ping Before Game

Making sure you're not lagging before a game is vital before you dive into a ranked match. Have you ever joined a game and then noticed your ping is super high and causing you a lot of trouble? By checking your ping before you decide to join a ranked game you can avoid the terrible situation of lagging, letting your team down and almost certainly losing the game.

Using a website such as Speedtest.net allows you to check your internet connect for any problems before you join a game. If your ping is super high then it's best to not play a game and investigate the reason why your connection is so laggy. It could be that some program is automatically downloading in the background and causing your internet to be slow.

Practice Your Last Hits

Last hitting is an important skill in League of Legends and can make all the difference when in lane. The best way to learn how to last hit is through practice! If you want to practise your last hitting then the best way is to practise in a bot game. By doing this you can learn the basics on how to improve your last hits such as visualising how much health an auto attack will do to a minion. Once you have a very high CS rate you can start to practise more in normal games against real players to see how well you can perform under pressure.

Don't Play Ranked on Tilt

If you've just experienced a streak of losing games then it's probably best to take a break and play something else for a while. Playing whilst you're on tilt can be disastrous for your ranking as when you're in a losing streak it can be hard to break out of it. Swapping to unranked games or playing a different game altogether can be a great way to break out of a losing streak. The thing to do is to continue playing when you're on a winning streak and to stop immediately after you have continuously lost 3 matches.

Play With Your Friends

A great instant tip to improve your win rate in League of Legends is to play with a friend, or as many friends as possible. By playing with a friend you know that's instantly one less noob on your team and you're already likely to do better. How many times have you joined a game and someone is AFK or constantly flaming?

By playing with somebody you know you instantly reduce the chances of this happening. In addition to this if you know the person well then you can communicate with them easier using voice communication. If you can play in the same room then that's even better! But after all would you rather play with some random strangers or your friends?

Stop Blaming Your Team

lol players blaming
If you're having a really hard time finding friends to play with, then you might run into another issue – blaming your team. It's easy to free yourself of all blame and pin it on someone else, especially when that someone else is a complete stranger. This is seriously negative for two reasons; The first is that when you blame someone else, they will probably spend their time arguing with you. If they're arguing, they'll play worse, and by playing worse, they will confirm your belief that they're trash.

In essence, arguing with someone takes the game from a 5v5 to a 5v4, or worse. In some players cases, simply seeing someone moan is enough to ruin their morale, so think before you type. If you do wish to insult their mothers, try to do it in real life, where they can't hear you.

The second reason it's so bad is that it stops you from seeing your own mistakes, after all; It's all their fault! If this Jungler ganked more it would be GG already. Right?

It's so hard to learn from your mistakes though, especially during a stressful game. Don't worry, we've got just the strategy to help you improve.

Watch Your Replays

lol replay

You can't pay attention to the mistake you're making while playing – Perhaps you'll notice some if they're obvious, but people hate noticing mistakes under the best circumstances, and being raged at is not the best circumstance.

If you're someone who's been struggling to climb the ranked ladder for a while, you should definitely watch your recordings. Try to watch the defeats if you can; It will be painful to watch yourself getting crushed over and over – however, you'll learn infinitely more than you would if you watch yourself rekking noobs.

Try to watch for one specific thing; How could I improve my last hitting, how can I position better, am I rotating at the right time? Not only will this make you feel less stressed, as you don't have as much to focus on, you'll still notice other errors anyway! Perhaps you should have flashed sooner, or maybe your map awareness was off because you were having a row with the Jungler.

Learn The Meta

Meta is an acronym for the "most effective tactic available" and in the gaming world it related to the most common strategy or build used by a player. In League of Legends, the meta can change every patch update. An item that was really strong before might have been nerfed and is now weak. So over time these meta's can change. Learning the meta and keeping up to date with it is important if you want to know how to counter it.

A while ago the meta for summoner spells on ADC's was Flash and Ignite, but recently the meta has changed to Flash and Heal.

To research the meta for a certain champion or role be sure to check out the following websites:

Lolclass.com
Lolnexus.com

These websites bring you the latest match results from thousands of players all over the world, including pro players. This website allows you to inspect their item build and summoners spells. If you see a reoccurring build or theme then you've probably just noticed a meta.

Keep Up To Date With Updates

lol patch notes

League of Legends is a game that continually evolves with updates. Riot is always looking to improve the game and in order to do this, some changes need to be made. It's important to keep up to date with the latest updates as some new patches can have really big changes. These changes can be anything from mastery or runes reworks to individual champions getting the makeover treatment.

It's important to know which champions have been buffed or nerfed after every patch as this can have a big effect on the game's meta. A good website that keeps up to date with the latest champion changes is Nerf Please. Be sure to check their website after every patch to see which champions have been buffed or nerfed. If a popular champion gets nerfed or reworked then a lot of people might decide to stop playing them in game as they are not seen as strong anymore. This means players will look to swap preferences to a stronger champion.

Learning the meta is important if you want to stay one step ahead of your competition.

Know When to Take Objectives

You need to take objectives in order to win a game. If you don't take objectives then your only chance of winning is the other team surrendering, which is unlikely to happen during ranked. Deciding when to take a tower and push the lane or recall back to base can be a tough decision. Do you take the tower and get the gold but make yourself more vulnerable to ganks or do you leave the minions to die to the tower and deny them gold while you recall? Obviously, we can't give a solid answer as it depends on your situation in game. Are you winning the lane comfortably or are you losing? Is your jungler doing a good job and communicating or are they nowhere to be seen?

If you're really winning the lane then it's probably best to take the tower and start to push. Whereas if you're losing on CS and kills then it's probably best to play it safe and keep the tower up as long as possible. Knowing when to take objectives can be a real game-changer, telling your team to do baron with the enemy team still alive is not the best idea. Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until most of them are dead first?

Be Nice to Your Teammates

When someone on your team makes a bad play you should really think twice before you start flaming them. Saying something bad to them can really annoy a lot of players and make them tilt, troll or just generally play worse overall. To stop this from happening in your game, try to only say positive things and stay away from negative criticisms. There's no point moaning about how somebody missed their skill shot. That's in the past, move on. Like your mother probably once told you, if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all.

Review Your Games

If you really want to improve yourself as a player then reviewing your matches can be an incredibly valuable tool. Not only does reviewing your past games help you understand where you went wrong but can also help you see how you can improve. By reviewing your plays and strategy of every match you can start to work out what needs improvement and what worked well. This might involve reviewing your build, in lane strategy, team composition, masteries and runes to see what you could have done better.

If you keep reviewing your games you'll start to notice patterns such as which strategy works well against certain champions. You can then use this information in the future to help crush your enemy in lane.

Get Your Win of the Day

Getting your daily win of the day is vital if you want to save up IP to help unlock new champions and buy runes. If you're not getting your win of the day every day then you're throwing away value free IP that could help you become a better player!

If you're really struggling to win a game and happen to be on a terrible losing streak then a good tip is to play a bot game on summoner's rift. It might sound a bit nooby but it will secure the win of the day for you so the timer can start to reset. Each win of the day gives you 150 bonus IP so if you log in every day to get it that's 1050 free IP a week!

Focus on Yourself

When playing League of Legends it is important to focus on yourself as you really have no control other the rest of your teammates. Your focus should be on yourself only, if your mid laner keeps dying then that's something you're just going to have to deal with. You can try to change your gameplay and strategy around helping the mid laner but you can't control how the mid laner plays.

By focusing on yourself it directs your attention to where it should be. If you play really well you might be able to have an impact on the game and push it in your favor. Instead of flaming, worrying and moaning about other players who you can't control, focus on the things you can.

Upgrade Your PC

battlestation setup

If you're looking to improve your performance in League of Legends then you need to make sure your PC is up to date. How do you expect to win your games if you're constantly lagging and freezing? Not only is it super distracting and annoying, but it also takes your focus away from the moment meaning you're likely to perform worse. If you want to take League of Legends seriously and actually get a good rank, then you'll want to make sure your PC can run the game smoothly.

Whether you buy a brand new PC or upgrade your old one is up to you. But make sure you get a fast graphics card and CPU as they'll be doing most of the hard work. Also, ensure you go for a super fast SSD instead of a regular hard drive, you'll instantly notice the difference!

Play More Games

practice lol games

One of the most underrated tips to make you a better player in LoL is to simply play more games. As simple as it may sound, you'll be surprised how many people play 1 match a day and expect to become good fast. We're not saying its impossible to become good with 1 game a day, but if you look at all the pros out there they spend almost 12 hours a day practicing. If they spend lots of time playing games, then maybe so should you!

If you really want to improve your League of Legends skills then you'll want to set aside around 2 or 3 hours per day where you practice. No matter if this is playing normal games, ranked games or just practicing your last hits in sandbox mode, all of it counts. Just like a professional athlete, putting in the necessary time and effort is essential if you want to succeed.

Watch Professionals

tyler1 pro stream

Taking your League of Legends game to the next level can be particularly hard, especially when you don't have a mentor. Nevertheless, watching professional gamers play is the next best thing to having a mentor. With websites such as Twitch.tv live streaming thousands of different streams every day, you only need to watch one to pick up lots of tips and tricks.

A good tip to become better at LoL is to set aside a certain amount of time every day to watch a pro player play. After watching them play for long enough you'll start to understand how they view the game and what they do and don't do. With this new found knowledge you'll be able to apply it to your own game and copy the same tips and tricks pro players use all the time. By watching a pro player and copying what they do, you'll definitely start to notice an improvement in your games.

Practice Flashing Over Walls

dodging an ashe arrow with flash

The next tip to make you better at League of Legends is to practice your flashing skills. Flash is an essential summoner spell that needs to be mastered. Not only can it help you escape from enemies, but it can also help you catch them off guard. If you've watched enough pro-League of Legends matches, then you'll see them flashing to steal Baron all the time.

In order to get good at flashing over walls and obstacles, you need to put in a lot of practice. To do this, we suggest opening a sandbox game that allows you to practice flashing without having to wait for the cooldown. This means you can flash multiple times almost instantly; this is great for finding those areas that allow you to flash over terrain. By exploring the map in the sandbox mode and practicing your flashing, you will gain a good idea of the areas where you can and can't flash over walls. With enough practice, you'll soon master the art of flashing and be able to escape and engage enemies much better in game.

Practice Last Hitting

champions last hitting

One of the biggest factors which separates an average player from a pro player in League of Legends is their ability to last hit. Being good at last hitting can give you a massive gold advantage in game over and getting good at it can really boost your win rate.

It might not seem like a lot but a few extra creep score here, and there can give you a large gold advantage later on in the game. This means you'll have more gold to spend on items which makes your champion much stronger.

In order to get good at last hitting, you need to put in a lot of practice, similar to that of practicing your flashes. Like we suggested earlier, the best way to do this is by opening a sandbox game and focusing on getting those last hits. It might be hard when you first start out, but as you get more experienced with your champion, it will soon become natural. The primary things to look out for are: how much damage does your auto attack does, and which minion is being attacked. If two or more minions are on low health and are going to die then using one of your abilities is a good way to make sure you get them both.

Over time you'll soon notice an improvement in your last hitting which will do wonders for your when up against opponents.

Learn One Champion Inside Out

assassin master yi

When you first start playing League of Legends, you can often feel spoilt for choice when it comes to champions. Currently, there are around 138 champions available with new ones being released every few months. Players can often be tempted to try and learn as many as possible, but this is the wrong advice. Instead, it's much better to master 1 champion inside out before moving on to another.

Of course, it's always good to have a backup champ in case yours gets banned, but would you rather be an expert at 1 or average at both? If you really want to win more games, then being at expert at 1 individual champion is the best option.

By practicing a particular champion, not only will you learn their skills and abilities, but you'll also learn their builds and individual matchups. Knowing how to tackle different champions is often the difference between an average and experienced player. Using the same build over and over again will only get your so far. By knowing how to adapt and deviate from your original build, you stand a much better chance of beating opponents in lane.

Exercise More

hand exercises

Playing video games all day can often leave gamers feeling lethargic and tired. It's a bad feeling that can have huge problems with your health later in life. If you already spend a lot of time sitting down at school or work, then it's best you get out there and do some exercise. Not only will this make you feel better and look better, but you'll also improve your gaming performance.

We recommend some cardiovascular exercises such as running and swimming to get your heart pumping and to burn off all that Redbull and Cheetos. After a few weeks, you'll notice a big improvement in your gaming stamina, concentration, and focus. Not to mention it will make you a better and healthier person overall. Stop thinking it's normal to be tired and lazy all the time, get out there and do some exercise!

Practice Mindfulness

mindfulness

For those of you that don't know what mindfulness is, then you're missing out on a huge advantage. Mindfulness is a type of meditation technique that can help reduce stress, anxiety and make you a better gamer overall. If you want to improve your focus and concentration without drinking energy drinks, then mindfulness is the way to do it.

To learn more about mindfulness and how you can start practising it, be sure to read this interesting article on the science and magic behind it.

We hope these tips have given you an idea of how to improve yourself as a League of Legends player. To find more useful guides about League of Legends be sure to check out the articles on the rest of our blog!

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