General Guide to Laning

[meteo]

Draft. Not finished yet
Still in the making so please point out mistakes and tell me what should be included as well.


Introduction:
Welcome to my laning guide. Some of the information should be known already but everyone has things to improve
Feel free to discuss or add information as you see fit. I will edit the guide later if needed.

Wave control:

• Freezing: Trying to keep the minion waves at a fixed spot (the best spot is right outside your tower range but be careful. This allows the enemy to prepare a towerdive!). This allows you to farm safely and can be used to zone the enemy once you are ahead of him. VERY detailed guide.
• Pushing: Trying to shove the wave into the enemy tower with the goal of making him miss lasthits and/or an early tower kill. Caster minions have less health and deal more damage than melee minions. If you want to push a lane, it's easier to focus the ranged creeps first. This opens your lane for a gank from the river!
• Letting the wave push towards you: Sometimes it's better to miss a few cs (only 2 or 3. That's more than enough!) on purpose so the wave pushes in your direction. You should freeze the lane before it reaches the tower. Can be a good idea if you have a hard lane paired with an aggressive jungler. Obviously you don't have to miss lasthits on purpose if the enemy pushes. The wave will come closer to your tower on its own. Only do this if you would be unable to farm safely because it sets you back a bit.

Zoning and Zone Control:

• Legendary zoning tutorial from Shurelia. The voice is annoying but it's a very well made video. Worth enduring that voice
• Quick Summary: Imagine every champion with a circle around him with a radius equal to the champions autoattack and ability range. If someone is in that zone, you can attack him. Standing in a bush increases your zone because the enemy doesn't see you and doesn't know where you stand as long as it isn't warded. Use your zone to prevent lasthits or punish him if he goes for a creep.

Warding:

• Great Guide on how to use wards properly
  TLDR: Use wards to cover gank routes and try to cover as much area as possible with a ward.
• If you have a ward in the inventory and you fight near a bush, instantly place the ward and keep fighting instead of having to walk in the bush. Buying a pink ward for you lane allows your jungler to gank your lane and forces the enemy to play less aggressive.
• Special: Use pink wards in lane against champions with stealth. Either drop it in lane if they have a stealth they use often (e.g. Eve [place it in her half of the lane so you know if she is there and in which direction she is roaming to warn your teammates], Akali [counter her shroud so she cant avoid harass or zone you by sitting in it], Shaco [you can see him deceive in and run around which allows you to react faster to a gank]) and you want to counter it in lane or have one in your inventory and use it when you need it (e.g. someone ganks your lane and the enemy tries to get out by stealthing. For example Rengar with his ultimate).

Harassing and Trading:

• Try to autoattack the enemy champion when he uses an autoattack to lasthit a minion. He will either attack you back and miss the lasthit or get the lasthit and take some free damage.
• Always watch the minions. They are very strong early on and they can decide a fight. They will attack you when you attack the enemy with an autoattack but not when you attack with an ability. Minions can be a curse and a blessing at the same time. Always try to drop minion aggro after an autoattack by either walking back a few steps or entering a bush when harassing or bait the enemy to attack you once when he is standing in your minions. He will surely regret it.
• Whenever the enemy uses his abilities to farm or misses them, try to be a little bit more aggressive as long as his abilities are down. If you fight right after he used them, he wont have them ready when you attack him. You will either deal more damage to him than he will to you or he will back off and most likely miss cs and exp from it.
• If you have more sustain than the enemy (higher regeneration from items/abilities, more healthpots) try to force trades. If you keep doing it the enemy will eventually run out of health and has to recall and fall behind.
• This comes with experience but it's very important: Try to get an understanding of a champions strong and weak points. Try to know what you can and can't do. Generally the guy with the level advantage is stronger (Generally the strongest advantages are earlier level2 and earlier level6) and items play a big role as well. Try to abuse an advantage (e.g. if you hit level2 earlier you can usually force the enemy to lose a few lasthits or he will make a bad trade with you.) to increase it even further.

Enemy recalled or you want to recall:
If you want to recall it's a good idea to push to the tower to reduce the amount of minions you will lose.
If the enemy has recalled, you should try to deny him gold and exp by either letting his tower kill the minions or if his minion wave is pushing, you let it push and freeze it outside your tower range.

Jungle creeps:
These are advanced tactics. Make sure you are comfortable with the game before you try to do these.

• Always check the enemies CS when he enters the lane the first time. If he has a few CS already, he has taken a jungle camp and is ahead of you in experience which will allow him to reach level2 far earlier than you will. To counter this make sure to push your lane slightly. This will reduce his advantage.
• When you wont lose CS by not being in lane you can take a jungle camp which your jungler wont need any time soon (Don't enter the enemies jungle unless you see their jungler somewhere else and you are stronger in lane. If you take creeps out of your own jungle make sure that you don't steal them from your jungler. Best time to do this is when your jungler is on the other side of the map. When he finally gets to that camp it will be respawned already.) Some champions can clear a camp at level1 and go to lane afterwards. Only do this when you know what you are doing or you will fall behind from it.

todo: Advantages and Disadvantages of pushing a tower early

[Reluctant]

Minions hurt like hell early game watch out hitting an enemy champ whenn near themm as they will agro onto you.

[Deleted]

Regarding pink wards against stealth champions, it depends on the champ. I love having a pink ward against Akali, it completely removes their escape for only 125g, if you can surprise them with it, you'll make up for it with a kill. I like to use it against Evelynn to be better able to figure out if she's gone from the lane, but it's less effective. I couldn't say how effective it is against Wu or Twitch as I haven't laned against them much.

[Deleted]

Sometimes it's better to miss a few cs on purpose so the wave pushes in your direction.

just no. you NEVER EVER miss CS. there is NO reason to EVER let a minion get the last hit if you can get it from a safe position. heck the lane won't even push in your direction following this tip. over 10 minutes? sure.

the rest of the tips are very situational and requires a bit more insight than the generic information but there's nothing directly wrong with them.

[Axethor]

just no. you NEVER EVER miss CS. there is NO reason to EVER let a minion get the last hit if you can get it from a safe position. heck the lane won't even push in your direction following this tip. over 10 minutes? sure.

the rest of the tips are very situational and requires a bit more insight than the generic information but there's nothing directly wrong with them.

Well, if your against a hard lane I would miss CS for the extra tower protection. You end up better in the end because you will miss more CS from dying than letting the minions push. Also, it opens up gank opportunities for your jungler.

[Duilliath]

Missing the first 2 CS in lane will let the lane push towards your tower. That might be worth it.

[Deleted]

Laning in LoL is 90% a PvE game while you avoid ganks because 2 wards can block the lane from ganking.

Just farm up some CS and then try then roam.

This works in every position.

[meteo]

About missing cs: others already stated what it is all about. Missing 2-3 CS wont lose you the lane but WILL offer you additional protection early on due to a shorter way back to the tower. Obviously you shouldn't do that all the time only if you need the extra security and you only have to do it once and the lane can be easily frozen in a better spot for you increasing your farm (if you can't safely reach the minions or try to lasthit with abilities instead you will lose more than those 2 or 3 creeps).

Perhaps I should go a bit more into detail. Was obvious for me


EDIT: Updated again. If there is something wrong, to clarify or missing please shout as loud as you can so I hear you :P

[Deleted]

Well, if your against a hard lane I would miss CS for the extra tower protection. You end up better in the end because you will miss more CS from dying than letting the minions push. Also, it opens up gank opportunities for your jungler.

if you can get it from a safe position.

I did cover this aspect, you just missed it

[meteo]

What irritates me is that you somehow combine hard lane and being able to farm safely. Clarified it a bit. Better now?

[Rinoa]

This is just the kind of thing I needed, hah. Thank you very much meteo. :-)