League of Legends Farming Practice Guide: Tips to Improve Your CS
Image Credit: Riot, League of Legends
Farming in League of Legends is one of the core skills every player should master, especially if you’re playing any other role than support. Effective farming (also known as CS’ing or last-hitting) allows you to build up gold faster, which in turn means you are able to buy more items and outscale/become stronger than your opponents. For beginners and experienced players alike, practicing farming is essential. Here’s a guide to help you improve your farming game in League of Legends, with tips, drills, and techniques to level up your CS’ing skills.
Why Farming Matters in League of Legends
At its core, farming is about maximizing gold income by killing minions with last hits. Last-hitting each minion wave is the primary way to accumulate gold during the laning phase, allowing you to purchase items and power up your champion.
CS Advantage: Consistently hitting 10 CS per minute is a solid goal to aim for and can give you a significant gold advantage over your opponent.
Scaling: Champions, particularly ADCs and mid-laners, rely heavily on gold to buy damage items. The more you farm, the faster you scale into the mid- and late-game phases.
Mechanics of Last-Hitting
Understanding the mechanics of last-hitting is the first step to effective farming. Each minion has a specific amount of health and takes damage from allied minions, towers, and your auto-attacks.
Auto-Attack Timing: Learning the timing of your champion’s auto-attack animation is crucial. Champions like Jinx have slower attack animations, while champions like Lucian and Draven have quicker ones.
Attack Damage (AD): Your AD affects how easily you can last-hit. Early on, ADCs and mages have low base AD, which makes farming more challenging until you purchase items, especially when you factor in some of the animations (e.g. Veigar auto attacks travel very slowly).
Tip: Try hitting minions with a practice champion like Lucian, who has a smooth attack animation, before moving to champions with more challenging animations.
Farming Drills for Practice
If you’re looking to seriously improve your farming skills, there are several farming drills you can practice:
Practice Tool: Go to the League of Legends practice tool and set up a solo game. Focus on reaching 100 CS in 10 minutes without using abilities. This drill helps you practice pure last-hitting with no interruptions.
Last-Hit Under Tower: In a practice game, let the minions push to your tower, then work on last-hitting. Remember, melee minions require two tower shots plus an auto-attack, while ranged minions usually need one tower shot and an auto-attack.
CS with Harassment: Practice farming while moving in and out of range, as if you were dodging harassment from an enemy laner (it helps if you can have a friend throw out abilities at you for this). This drill will help you balance last-hitting while avoiding enemy poke.
Mastering Farming in Different Scenarios
In real games farming isn’t always straightforward. Here’s how to adjust your farming technique in common game situations:
Freezing the Wave: Freezing involves last-hitting minions at the last possible second to keep the wave near your tower. This technique is useful when you want to stay safe from ganks or deny your opponent farm.
Pushing the Wave: Pushing is when you clear the wave quickly to force it under the enemy tower. This can help you reset the lane and return to base without losing minions.
Farming in Teamfights: In mid- to late-game, don’t forget to farm in between fights and objectives. Keeping up your CS is important even outside the laning phase to maintain gold income, but it takes some practice to get a feel for when you should be farming and when you should be grouping with your team.
Champions and Abilities for Effective Farming
Some champions have abilities that make farming easier. If you’re playing champions with strong wave-clear abilities, you can use them to secure CS or manage waves more effectively.
Annie: Her Disintegrate ability refunds mana on last-hit, making farming easier and allowing her to scale quickly.
Ziggs: Ziggs’ Bouncing Bomb and Satchel Charge are useful for hitting multiple minions, helping him keep the wave under control.
Twisted Fate: With Pick a Card, Twisted Fate can farm efficiently and poke enemies while collecting gold.
Brand: His flames can burn down a wave super quickly without much thought.
Vel’Koz: Using a combo of basic abilities after you get a few base items can clear an entire wave.
Using abilities for farming takes practice, as you need to balance ability usage with managing your mana pool. Obviously though there are plenty of other characters out there that do a great job at clearing waves.
Tracking CS Progress and Improvement
Tracking your CS per game and setting realistic goals for improvement can make a big difference in your growth as a player.
Goals: Aim for 80-100 CS by 10 minutes as a good benchmark. If you’re new, start with smaller goals, like reaching 60 CS in the first 10 minutes, and gradually increase.
Replay Analysis: Watch replays of your games and check where you missed last-hits or positioned poorly for CS. Analyzing your games helps you spot patterns and improve faster.
Tip: You can use the League of Legends in-game scoreboard to monitor your CS and compare it to your opponent’s to gauge your farming efficiency. If you fall behind, however, don’t get down. Understand there are different factors in every game that could drastically affect the outcomes (including your ability to farm).
Summary: Key Tips for Improving CS Skills
Understand your champion’s auto-attack animation and timing.
Practice in the Training Tool to reach 100 CS in 10 minutes.
Work on last-hitting under tower to handle defensive situations.
Learn when to freeze, push, or leave the wave to secure objectives.
Track your CS progress and review replays to spot areas for improvement.
With consistent practice and attention to the mechanics farming will definitely become second nature. It may seem like a small skill, but mastering CS in League of Legends can make a huge difference in your overall performance.
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