League of Legends is a complex MOBA teeming with unique concepts that only leave the new players in a state of astonishment and confusion. Since concepts such as CSing, laning, and teamfight are separate concepts that require time, dedication, and game knowledge to be fully understood and mastered, simply jumping into a game and perfecting them is out of the question.
The best approach to understanding these key League concepts is first to get a rough idea of the basic principles—definitions, general rules, and tips and tricks. Once the basic principles have become an unconscious habit demanding little to no effort to execute perfectly, then you can dig deeper to discover exceptions to rules and match-up-dependant guides.
Although each League concept takes both time and dedication to comprehend and apply to your gameplay fully, CSing is unquestionably one of the most time-consuming skills to polish since it drastically changes from a champion to a champion. CSing, on top of that, plays a large role in gaining experience and gold. Since CSing is an irreplaceable skill heavily tied to your champion’s power and even your success in a single match of League, here is the breakdown of CSing fundamentals and tips and tricks on how to improve your average CS.
What is CSing?
Unlike MMORPG games, League doesn’t have a meaningful progression system that handsomely rewards consistency and dedication since it’s a MOBA game functioning on the principle of 30-minutes-long matches where all your hard-earned powers only last the duration of the match. While players in MMORPG games gain gold and experience from killing monsters, players in League gain gold and experience from killing lane minions that usually meet in the middle of the lane to defend their territory.
So, the act of last-hitting and executing lane minions in League is called CSing. While CSing refers to the act of killing the lane minions, CS typically refers to the amount of already executed minions that have given you gold and experience. The general term used to refer to the act of killing creeps for gold and experience is farming. In other words, farming includes champions killing both lane minions and jungle monsters to gain gold and experience.
How to improve your average CS?
The ideal CS per minute score is 10. Although ideal, this is highly unlikely in real-time scenarios with tons of unexpected game-changing factors such as ganks, lack of lane pressure, and Summoner Spells. So, the best practice is to outfarm your enemy laner since you will always have the upper hand in skirmishes, teamfights, and trades with your bonus experience and items.
Since CSing is a rather mechanical skill that takes champion understanding and clever cooldown utilization, the best method to improve your average CS would be to practice and limit-test your champion in the practice tool. The most common exercise in practice tool includes buying a starter item and intentionally CSing under your turret to last-hit as many minions as possible. Another exercise that will come in handy in your future matches is the hyperfocused CSing in practice tool as you try to reach 10 CS per minute.
On top of all of this, understanding the wave management, roaming timings, and ability to track the enemy jungler also impacts your CS numbers. Although roaming timings and tracking the enemy jungler to avoid or outplay ganks does affect your average CS, proper wave management can win you the laning phase and even the game.
Proper wave management includes understanding when you should push, freeze, or slow your wave. The most common scenarios that entail pushing the wave are:
- Imminent teamfights and skirmishes around objectives.
- Roaming and ganking.
- Trying to break a freeze.
Freezing the wave is the best option when you want to bait the enemy laner into a gank or if you’re planning to engage on a weaker enemy laner. Slow pushes are typically the best choice of action when planning a back or if you want to dive the enemy laner with your jungler.
CSing tips and tricks
Although each champion has a unique CSing style, there are, in fact, general tips and tricks that can serve as the guiding principles.
- Avoid using your spells to CS because you never know when the enemy might open on you unless you need to break a freeze.
- If you’re CSing under your turret, remember that melee minions need to take two turret hits before you can last hit them. Caster minions, on the other hand, need to tank only one turret shot and an auto attack before you can last hit them.
- Constantly pay attention to the minions’ health and position appropriately. If the desired minion is low on HP, approach the wave. If the minion is full HP, step away from the wave.
- Learn the champion’s animation and understand their attack speed.
- Set yourself a desired goal each match and try to beat it.
- Think about the wave positioning constantly and respond to the enemy’s wave management
