komoterdon1
Malware Reverse Engineer
LEVEL 1
400 XP
Hey there, this is my first guide so take it easy on me! xD I will be describing in detail how to succeed on a solo mid lane. In no way do I claim to be a pro at LoL, I'm just trying to spread around the knowledge I've gained over the MANY games I have played ^^
I started playing LoL about a year ago. From the get go, my friend with his basic knowledge of the game decided to pit me against the cream of the crop on mid lane. I mained Ashe for a very long time, a previously very popular mid pick. Through learning the game on mid lane, I have learned some ways to succeed and win my own lane.
Most recently the "Meta" (Meta in this case refers to the general way a game works) is to have a Jungler, a solo top laner, a solo mid character, and two bottom characters. As a side note: the reason for two bottom and not top is to have an increased player presence around the dragon.
My goal with this guide is to not only improve your laning, but through that improve your teamplay and through both of those, your win/loss ratio.
Terms You Might Want to Know ^^
Mid - Middle lane
Top - Top lane
Bot - Bottom lane
Jungler - The character chosen on a team to kill jungle creeps
CS - Creep score (last hits)
EXP - Experience
AOE - Area of Effect
CC - Crowd Control; skills that inhibit a character's movement/playability for a period
Skillshot - A skill that travels in the direction you aim it, but has no dedicated target
Creeps - The tiny purple or blue AI controlled soldiers
Harass - To damage an enemy without killing them
Deny - To hinder or stop your opponent from performing an action
Push - To cause your creeps to build up and fight closer to the enemy's base than yours
Gank - To attack a member of the enemy team that is on lane, by leaving your lane/jungle
Baron - Baron Gnasher, the giant purple worm creature that gives global gold and buffs (powerful, take care)
Dragon - A fairly strong AI controlled creature that provides global team-wide gold
What is Mid Lane? Why Mid?
Mid lane is the lane that provides the most direct path from your base to the enemy's base. On mid lane, players will go alone to play against another solo laner. Because you are solo on your lane 95% of the time during the laning phase, you will gain experience at an increased rate over mostly all Junglers and your bottom two laners. All of the creeps (the small minions that clash at the middle of lanes) will also be yours to last hit. Last hitting is an ENORMOUS aspect of middle lane and I will go further into last hitting later on, but for now, just know that because you have all the creeps to yourself you can last hit MORE than most other lanes.
You might say, "Well why should I learn how to play on mid, or a mid character?†the reason is simple, others ask the same question that too. Then you could end up in a lobby with 5 people who have no idea what to do on mid. One of them will get thrown against someone who actually does know what they're doing, and your teammate feeds, resulting in a loss.
Why else would you learn mid? On mid lane, you have the potential to not only have a very large influence on the game with your increased experience and last hits, but also the ability to deny the enemy mid laner success. Also, the characters picked to go on mid lane are generally chosen for the reason that they excel compared to others with more last hits and EXP (experience).
What do I bring to mid?
On mid lane, you will more likely than not be playing a caster character. By this I mean someone like Annie, Malzahar, or Brand. The current meta pits one caster VS another on mid lane the majority of the time. Because of the limited character type variety, you should know how casters work: they wait for you to step an inch out of line, and then you're dead. This lane can be very dangerous for this reason, but also because there are multiple ways to be ganked by a jungler. Because of the many paths you can be attacked from, wards are necessary.
To go into further detail, there are two types of mid casters: Those with sustain, and those without. The characters with sustain like Morgana and Gragas tend to beat out other mid lane characters without it, such as Anivia and Veigar. I recommend looking up a build for your mid character, but if you decide not to, most of the time for characters without sustain you will want to bring boots or a sapphire crystal and health pots. For characters with sustain you can survive with Doran's ring.
Another very important thing to bring to mid is knowledge of your opponent. You want to know if they have long range harass, good sustain, and CC like hard stuns. For example, Brand has great harass with his AOE skills, but to stun you he needs to hit you with a skillshot AFTER he has hit you with one other skill first.
On occasion your jungler will not need his blue buff (large golems) to jungle effectively, so he hands it off to his mid lane character. If you do kill blue buff and take it, you can usually establish lane dominance, even if you aren't as strong at harass or sustain. Keep in mind that if you die to your opponent on mid while you have blue buff, they will receive it from you. Along with having given them a kill, you will go back to your lane and most likely be out-harassed for the next few minutes.
Phases of League of Legends
Early Game
Part of the Laning Phase
Champions all go to their lanes, starting at level 1. This phase consists almost entirely of farming on all lanes. On mid you will be trying to farm as much as possible with the occasional harass in here and there.
Mid Game
Dragon and Laning Phase + Small Skirmishes
At this point in the game, to put it very bluntly, s*** will hit the fan. You will be between the points of getting a big item and desperately trying to lane off just a Doran's item and boots. Another main aspect of the mid game is teams competing to take dragon. As mid, you will want to try to continue get as much farm as possible, all the while being aware of your opponentâ€â„¢s position/being aware of your opponent leaving. If they do leave, I strongly recommend letting your team know by typing "Mid MIA" in team chat, and furthermore trying to know where they are and following them if need be. You also can't forget moving down to help your team if there could be fight over dragon.
Late Game
Team Fights and Baron
By now, everyone that needs farm will have farmed a decent amount at least. Teams will mostly tend to cluster together and maraud across the map, decimating stragglers from the enemy team. The main focus will be "side pushing" other lanes, while the majority of the team will poke at each other on a lane or near Baron until someone steps out of line and a team fight ensues. Your purpose as a mid laner during late game is to be a primary damage dealer in team fights and to keep yourself alive as you melt your opponents. If you die alone during late game, sometimes it isn't too big of a deal; but if you and your top laner die, for example, your team will probably be cleaned up by the enemy team. This gives them to take Baron for the buff and gold. For this reason, to ensure your team's survival, play cautiously during late game; the respawn timer always seems longer than it really is when you're watching your Inhibitor go down.
Winning Your Lane
I briefly mentioned earlier the importance on winning your lane. Well, what does that mean? Winning your lane means establishing lane dominance through one of many ways. Some of these ways are:
Harassing
Harassing your opponent on lane without losing health yourself provides with you an advantage; it forces them to play more defensively because:
1. Your jungler could gank and kill them more easily.
2. You yourself could combo them down more easily.
3. They have less leeway to attempt in killing you due to the fact that less of your spells need to hit to kill them.
4. They may have to base if you harass them low enough, and this causes them to miss CS and experience. It also gives you the opportunity to push their tower.
Out CS-ing
By farming more than your lane opponent, you will end up having more gold. With this extra cash you can buy more items which increase your effectiveness. If you farm up enough, you can see a noticeable difference in your personal strength compared to your opponent's.
Pushing
Pushing your lane means killing the enemy creeps faster than yours are dying, causing your creeps to build up and continue killing enemy creeps until you reach the enemy tower. When your creeps reach the enemy tower, it will begin to unload on them, killing them relatively quickly. This makes it very difficult for your opponent to last hit some of them; impossible even. The creeps will usually do some damage to the enemy tower, making it easier and quicker to push down in the future. When your lane is pushed it provides you with a general time bubble for how long it will take the enemy to push your lane back to your tower, causing it to take damage. In this time bubble, most champions can go back to base and make it back to lane before your tower takes damage and you lose too many creep kills. NOTE: when you push your lane, you become VERY vulnerable to ganks from enemy junglers and laners. Because of this I STRONGLY recommend only pushing if you have wards on both sides of your lane, to ensure safety from enemy ganks.
What if your lane opponent is pushing the lane towards your tower? If the enemy champion decides to do this it causes their jungler to have a harder time ganking, but if the creeps make it all the way to YOUR tower, is causes you to lose CS and probably take tower damage. To counter this, observe their behaviour. Are they constantly using auto-attacks to kill the creeps? Are they using spells to help them kill creeps faster? Both? If they are auto-attacking you can mimic that action with very little cost. If they are casting spells to kill creeps you can determine the spells of yours that will help you farm, and proceed to do so aswel, or try to auto-attack them back from your tower. If this doesn't work, remember that they are putting themselves in great danger pushing your lane, therefore calling to your jungler or another lane for a gank would most likely turn out very well. It's a good idea to take note as to if they're warding, and if possible, where. That way if they green ward and push your lane, you can pink ward their wards and have them ganked.
Last Hitting (ZOMG IMPORTANT)
Last hitting is possibly the most important section of this guide. Previously I spoke of last hits for mid lane characters. Well what do last hits do? What is a last hit?! A last hit is when you kill a creep with your attacks, whether they be spells or auto-attacks. The one mandatory thing: YOU must be the person to finish the job. When you do so, a small golden number will appear above their heads. This represents the gold you have earned by "last hitting" the creep. By receiving more last hits, you receive as a result more gold; by receiving more gold, you can buy more items when you go back to the store, and you can buy them sooner. Therefore through performing more last hits, you actively gain the upper hand over your lane opponent. Characters that go mid are usually very last hit demanding, and have a direct relation between last hits and spell effectiveness. If you have the choice to harass, or get a last hit, choose the last hit. In the late game, your performance varies directly with your CS and your number of kills. Because of this, you should learn good methods to last hit with each character that you choose to play. For example, at level 5, Morgana's Tormented Soil spell with 3 levels put into it will straight up kill the ranged creeps in a wave.
Edited by juancuesta21, 22 August 2015 - 09:48 PM.
I started playing LoL about a year ago. From the get go, my friend with his basic knowledge of the game decided to pit me against the cream of the crop on mid lane. I mained Ashe for a very long time, a previously very popular mid pick. Through learning the game on mid lane, I have learned some ways to succeed and win my own lane.
Most recently the "Meta" (Meta in this case refers to the general way a game works) is to have a Jungler, a solo top laner, a solo mid character, and two bottom characters. As a side note: the reason for two bottom and not top is to have an increased player presence around the dragon.
My goal with this guide is to not only improve your laning, but through that improve your teamplay and through both of those, your win/loss ratio.
Terms You Might Want to Know ^^
Mid - Middle lane
Top - Top lane
Bot - Bottom lane
Jungler - The character chosen on a team to kill jungle creeps
CS - Creep score (last hits)
EXP - Experience
AOE - Area of Effect
CC - Crowd Control; skills that inhibit a character's movement/playability for a period
Skillshot - A skill that travels in the direction you aim it, but has no dedicated target
Creeps - The tiny purple or blue AI controlled soldiers
Harass - To damage an enemy without killing them
Deny - To hinder or stop your opponent from performing an action
Push - To cause your creeps to build up and fight closer to the enemy's base than yours
Gank - To attack a member of the enemy team that is on lane, by leaving your lane/jungle
Baron - Baron Gnasher, the giant purple worm creature that gives global gold and buffs (powerful, take care)
Dragon - A fairly strong AI controlled creature that provides global team-wide gold
What is Mid Lane? Why Mid?
Mid lane is the lane that provides the most direct path from your base to the enemy's base. On mid lane, players will go alone to play against another solo laner. Because you are solo on your lane 95% of the time during the laning phase, you will gain experience at an increased rate over mostly all Junglers and your bottom two laners. All of the creeps (the small minions that clash at the middle of lanes) will also be yours to last hit. Last hitting is an ENORMOUS aspect of middle lane and I will go further into last hitting later on, but for now, just know that because you have all the creeps to yourself you can last hit MORE than most other lanes.
You might say, "Well why should I learn how to play on mid, or a mid character?†the reason is simple, others ask the same question that too. Then you could end up in a lobby with 5 people who have no idea what to do on mid. One of them will get thrown against someone who actually does know what they're doing, and your teammate feeds, resulting in a loss.
Why else would you learn mid? On mid lane, you have the potential to not only have a very large influence on the game with your increased experience and last hits, but also the ability to deny the enemy mid laner success. Also, the characters picked to go on mid lane are generally chosen for the reason that they excel compared to others with more last hits and EXP (experience).
What do I bring to mid?
On mid lane, you will more likely than not be playing a caster character. By this I mean someone like Annie, Malzahar, or Brand. The current meta pits one caster VS another on mid lane the majority of the time. Because of the limited character type variety, you should know how casters work: they wait for you to step an inch out of line, and then you're dead. This lane can be very dangerous for this reason, but also because there are multiple ways to be ganked by a jungler. Because of the many paths you can be attacked from, wards are necessary.
To go into further detail, there are two types of mid casters: Those with sustain, and those without. The characters with sustain like Morgana and Gragas tend to beat out other mid lane characters without it, such as Anivia and Veigar. I recommend looking up a build for your mid character, but if you decide not to, most of the time for characters without sustain you will want to bring boots or a sapphire crystal and health pots. For characters with sustain you can survive with Doran's ring.
Another very important thing to bring to mid is knowledge of your opponent. You want to know if they have long range harass, good sustain, and CC like hard stuns. For example, Brand has great harass with his AOE skills, but to stun you he needs to hit you with a skillshot AFTER he has hit you with one other skill first.
On occasion your jungler will not need his blue buff (large golems) to jungle effectively, so he hands it off to his mid lane character. If you do kill blue buff and take it, you can usually establish lane dominance, even if you aren't as strong at harass or sustain. Keep in mind that if you die to your opponent on mid while you have blue buff, they will receive it from you. Along with having given them a kill, you will go back to your lane and most likely be out-harassed for the next few minutes.
Phases of League of Legends
Early Game
Part of the Laning Phase
Champions all go to their lanes, starting at level 1. This phase consists almost entirely of farming on all lanes. On mid you will be trying to farm as much as possible with the occasional harass in here and there.
Mid Game
Dragon and Laning Phase + Small Skirmishes
At this point in the game, to put it very bluntly, s*** will hit the fan. You will be between the points of getting a big item and desperately trying to lane off just a Doran's item and boots. Another main aspect of the mid game is teams competing to take dragon. As mid, you will want to try to continue get as much farm as possible, all the while being aware of your opponentâ€â„¢s position/being aware of your opponent leaving. If they do leave, I strongly recommend letting your team know by typing "Mid MIA" in team chat, and furthermore trying to know where they are and following them if need be. You also can't forget moving down to help your team if there could be fight over dragon.
Late Game
Team Fights and Baron
By now, everyone that needs farm will have farmed a decent amount at least. Teams will mostly tend to cluster together and maraud across the map, decimating stragglers from the enemy team. The main focus will be "side pushing" other lanes, while the majority of the team will poke at each other on a lane or near Baron until someone steps out of line and a team fight ensues. Your purpose as a mid laner during late game is to be a primary damage dealer in team fights and to keep yourself alive as you melt your opponents. If you die alone during late game, sometimes it isn't too big of a deal; but if you and your top laner die, for example, your team will probably be cleaned up by the enemy team. This gives them to take Baron for the buff and gold. For this reason, to ensure your team's survival, play cautiously during late game; the respawn timer always seems longer than it really is when you're watching your Inhibitor go down.
Winning Your Lane
I briefly mentioned earlier the importance on winning your lane. Well, what does that mean? Winning your lane means establishing lane dominance through one of many ways. Some of these ways are:
Harassing
Harassing your opponent on lane without losing health yourself provides with you an advantage; it forces them to play more defensively because:
1. Your jungler could gank and kill them more easily.
2. You yourself could combo them down more easily.
3. They have less leeway to attempt in killing you due to the fact that less of your spells need to hit to kill them.
4. They may have to base if you harass them low enough, and this causes them to miss CS and experience. It also gives you the opportunity to push their tower.
Out CS-ing
By farming more than your lane opponent, you will end up having more gold. With this extra cash you can buy more items which increase your effectiveness. If you farm up enough, you can see a noticeable difference in your personal strength compared to your opponent's.
Pushing
Pushing your lane means killing the enemy creeps faster than yours are dying, causing your creeps to build up and continue killing enemy creeps until you reach the enemy tower. When your creeps reach the enemy tower, it will begin to unload on them, killing them relatively quickly. This makes it very difficult for your opponent to last hit some of them; impossible even. The creeps will usually do some damage to the enemy tower, making it easier and quicker to push down in the future. When your lane is pushed it provides you with a general time bubble for how long it will take the enemy to push your lane back to your tower, causing it to take damage. In this time bubble, most champions can go back to base and make it back to lane before your tower takes damage and you lose too many creep kills. NOTE: when you push your lane, you become VERY vulnerable to ganks from enemy junglers and laners. Because of this I STRONGLY recommend only pushing if you have wards on both sides of your lane, to ensure safety from enemy ganks.
What if your lane opponent is pushing the lane towards your tower? If the enemy champion decides to do this it causes their jungler to have a harder time ganking, but if the creeps make it all the way to YOUR tower, is causes you to lose CS and probably take tower damage. To counter this, observe their behaviour. Are they constantly using auto-attacks to kill the creeps? Are they using spells to help them kill creeps faster? Both? If they are auto-attacking you can mimic that action with very little cost. If they are casting spells to kill creeps you can determine the spells of yours that will help you farm, and proceed to do so aswel, or try to auto-attack them back from your tower. If this doesn't work, remember that they are putting themselves in great danger pushing your lane, therefore calling to your jungler or another lane for a gank would most likely turn out very well. It's a good idea to take note as to if they're warding, and if possible, where. That way if they green ward and push your lane, you can pink ward their wards and have them ganked.
Last Hitting (ZOMG IMPORTANT)
Last hitting is possibly the most important section of this guide. Previously I spoke of last hits for mid lane characters. Well what do last hits do? What is a last hit?! A last hit is when you kill a creep with your attacks, whether they be spells or auto-attacks. The one mandatory thing: YOU must be the person to finish the job. When you do so, a small golden number will appear above their heads. This represents the gold you have earned by "last hitting" the creep. By receiving more last hits, you receive as a result more gold; by receiving more gold, you can buy more items when you go back to the store, and you can buy them sooner. Therefore through performing more last hits, you actively gain the upper hand over your lane opponent. Characters that go mid are usually very last hit demanding, and have a direct relation between last hits and spell effectiveness. If you have the choice to harass, or get a last hit, choose the last hit. In the late game, your performance varies directly with your CS and your number of kills. Because of this, you should learn good methods to last hit with each character that you choose to play. For example, at level 5, Morgana's Tormented Soil spell with 3 levels put into it will straight up kill the ranged creeps in a wave.
Edited by juancuesta21, 22 August 2015 - 09:48 PM.