Essential Skills to Master for Mid Laners in LoL
The middle lane of League of Legends can be one of the most impactful roles in the game and mid lane players will tend to have high kill participation and map pressure. A good Mid laner will look to make plays in the mid lane, and in the side lanes too, to help their allies.
In this Mobalytics guide, we are going to break down several things you should look to improve on in League of Legends to make climbing a lot easier and also increase your chances of winning and climbing in LoL. If you work on everything we discuss in this guide, then you’ll see yourself climbing fast in LoL!
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5 Essential Skills to Master for Mid Laners
- Good Map Awareness
- Farming and CSing
- Roaming
- Trading
- Team fighting
1. Good Map Awareness
Having good map awareness is crucial for Mid laners as you can read the map and look for potential opportunities to get kills, save lives and roam and help your allies. Having good map awareness isn’t just for Mid laners though, everyone must have good map awareness in LoL.
There are a few things you can do to improve your map awareness in League. The first thing I would recommend is to have pings turned on, and make the map as big as possible. Naturally, if you hear a ping, you should react to it. And, if you see someone appear on the map (by walking over a ward) you should be able to see them as the map will be huge.
Something else you can do is actively look at the minimap. For instance, looking after you hit a minion and then take a look at the map. Do this every time you hit the minion wave, and then you will naturally improve your map awareness.
Some champions require very good map awareness to play well on. For instance, Twisted Fate and Talon. To be able to follow utilise your champions kit and roam, you need to be good at roaming so you can stay caught up.
2. Farming and CSing
The next thing you need to really work on in the mid-lane is having a high creep score and picking up a ton of creeps quickly. Mid laner items are very expensive and you need to earn a lot of gold quickly if you want to dish out tons of damage.
There are several ways you can get better at last-hitting minions. One thing you can do is use your abilities to last-hit minions. Now I would advise against using your abilities all the time, as you’ll quickly run out of mana, but don’t be afraid to use them to secure minions. For instance, Syndra or Orianna can use their abilities to last-hit minions. Their abilities don’t cost a lot of mana, so it is fine to do it early on occasionally.
Next, go ahead and go into a custom game or a bot game and focus on last-hitting minions on their own. Play for 10 minutes and see how much CS you can get and how much you miss. There are tons of videos online on how to do this, but it’s pretty basic. Just go into a game and last hit minions with starter items, and don’t use your abilities!
We will only touch on wave management in this article, but learning how to manage waves and play under your tower and still secure minions is key too. If you can master farming under your tower, then you’ll be set! Last hitting is really simple: let the tower attack the melee minions twice, and then finish them off with an auto. For the back minions, you need to auto-attack, let the tower auto-attack, and then you finish it off with an auto.
3. Roaming
Roaming is an important skill to master for Mid Laners in League of Legends. Impacting several lanes at once is highly beneficial and will heavily increase your chances of winning the game.
One can roam many ways, but the main point is that you do not miss out or fall behind by roaming. All the things we have discussed so far, including map awareness, will make your roams more effective.
As a general rule, push the minion wave into the enemy’s tower and then roam. The enemy cannot always counter and follow your roam (or they will be delayed) because they have to clear the minion wave before following your roam.
Good times to roam in League of Legends are:
- Straight after you’ve killed the enemy laner.
- When the enemy laner has recalled and is in base.
- After you’ve pushed the minion wave into the enemy’s tower.
Now it is important to note that not every champion should roam. Some champions will benefit more from staying in lane and just pushing. They might not be good at roaming due to them being really squishy (like Vel’Koz) or lack off major CC or early kill pressure like Vladimir.
4. Trading
The fourth thing you must master is trading in the lane. If you go for bad trades a lot, then you’re always going to come worse off and fall behind in lane. Health is a key resource in lane and if you have a lot of health, you have a lot of play-making potential.
First things first, before trading- take a look at the minion wave. If you auto-attack the enemy, every minion in the lane will start focusing you. The minion damage adds up really quickly, and it does hurt. So make sure you avoid auto-attacking the enemy inside a stacked wave and when there is a cannon minion in the lane too.
When looking to trade with the enemy, make sure you check the minimap and see where the enemy Jungler is. If they’re nearby, avoid going in for a trade, especially if you must commit a dash to get onto the enemy. This ties in with having good map awareness.
Playing around cooldowns is another thing I recommend you work on. If you see the enemy uses one of their main damaging spells, you should try to abuse its cooldown and look for a trade. For instance, if Annie wastes her stun, then you can look to fight her while it’s down. If Zoe’s Q is on cooldown, look to fight her.
Mastering trading is all about dodging damage, abusing the enemy’s mistakes, landing skill shots and having good overall awareness of the game and what each champion does. If you work on all these things, you’ll soon master trading in LoL!
5. Team Fighting
The final thing on our list to master is team fighting. Team fighting is crucial for Mid Laners, and you need to learn how to maximise your damage output in team fights to deal as much damage as possible while remaining safe.
There are a few things you can do to increase your skill in team fights.
- You must avoid walking too far forward or too far away from your team. If you’re wondering about the map alone, you’re an easy target to get picked off.
- Make sure you avoid walking too far forward in team fights. Stay in the backline, or do your champion’s job in fights. If you walk too far forward- you’re an easy target!
- Don’t be afraid to commit spells and Ultimates to take people down. How many times have you seen someone escape a fight with little to no HP because someone didn’t want to Ult?
Team fighting, of course depends on the champion you’re playing: a Zed has a different style to team fighting compared to Azir, for instance. So it is key to learn how to properly team fight on each of your favourite champions. You can find a bunch of information on how to play them with Mobalytics Champion Pages.
Conclusion
That about sums up our article on things you need to master as a Mid Laner in LoL if you want to climb in Season 13. We hope these tips will give you the edge over the enemy in the lane to help you climb.
Remember to check out our friends at ONE Esports for more awesome League content.
