Learning about minions and how they are programmed through wave management is one of the best investments you can make in your League career. That knowledge can be applied to any lane and help you dominate match-ups. LoL players are queuing up for Summoner's Rift every single day to wreak havoc on the opponent's base, however many neglect wave management completely.
Wave management or manipulation is a skill that requires focus and persistence, which can be hard to do when enemy Darius is in your face. Therefore you must be proactive and learn how to handle waves properly. Practice and failure are the two best ways of learning this crucial gaming technique, so make sure to have a go at it as often as possible.
We have put together the League of Legends Minions guide in order to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of minion manipulation. If you like this blog, please head to our blog website to find many others like this one. Have an LoL account for sale or want to buy one? Look no further as we offer sell and buy LoL Accounts services for the cheapest prices online.
League of Legends Minions Guide: Types, spawn times, recalling
The Summoner’s Rift map is set up in a way where at 1:05, the first wave of minions appears from both sides of the map and continues to spawn every 30 seconds for the remainder of the game. It takes 22 seconds for the wave to reach the center of the mid lane and 32 seconds for it to reach the side lanes’ centers. Each wave consists of 6 minions, 3 casters, and 3 melee minions. This wave is called a standard wave and it spawns twice at the beginning of the match.
On the third wave, a cannon minion joins the standard wave and makes it into a cannon wave. Up until 20 minutes, these three waves reset every 90 seconds and become progressively stronger in health, resistances, and damage. The cannon minion spawns at 2:05 with the third wave and continues to spawn after two standard waves up to 20 minutes of game time, at which point it begins to spawn with every second wave.
After a match reaches the 35-minute mark, each wave turns into a cannon wave. If you destroy any of the three enemy inhibitors, for the next 5 minutes, each wave on that lane will be reinforced by a super minion. In case all three inhibitors are destroyed, two super minions will spawn. Note that no cannon minions can spawn on the lane where the enemy inhibitor is destroyed.
Riot has made it slightly easier to close out games by making minions stronger for the winning team. In that sense, all waves apart from the standard wave will have an extra minion to aid them in destroying objectives. Also, having a higher average team level and having destroyed more turrets in a certain lane will give a damage boost to your minions.
In that sense, the winning team’s minions will also have resistance against minions increased by the number of turrets destroyed in a specific lane. Minions can also become enraged and deal 90% bonus damage to minions and receive 7 flat less damage from minions if the winning team’s average level is higher than 3 in addition to having destroyed at least two turrets in the lane.
You can optimize your back timing if you know when and where the minions will appear on the map. Having a good idea of their whereabouts enables you to back at the proper moment and avoid losing experience and gold. Looking at your minion wave on the map will help you locate where the enemy wave is, as all waves spawn simultaneously. To get back to the lane, it takes around 25 seconds for the mid lane and 30 seconds for the side lanes without buying boots.
Missing minions due to poor recall knowledge can help the opposing laners to get the upper hand and as a result, win the matchup. A general rule of thumb is to avoid recalling on a cannon wave, as it offers the most experience and gold. Make sure to back once you push out the wave into the enemy tower. This will allow for the enemy wave to push slowly towards your tower or reset completely and not make you lose gold or experience. In case pushing is not an option, try to freeze the lane near your tower. We will get into freezing weather a bit later so hold tight.
League of Legends Minions Guide: Minion focus
Minions are programmed to walk down a lane and focus on the first enemy they encounter until it is destroyed, they die, or a more important target approaches. This means that minions have a priority order they follow if there happens to be more than one enemy nearby. This is what minions prioritize from the highest priority to the lowest:
· Enemy champions attacking champions.
· Enemy minions attacking allied champions.
· Enemy minions attacking allied minions.
· Enemy turrets attacking allied minions.
· Enemy champions attacking allied minions.
· The closest enemy minion.
· The closest enemy champion.
It is commonly mistaken that only champion auto-attacks draw minion aggro when instead, target spells (point and click abilities), as well as auto-attack abilities, also attract minions’ attention. When focused by minions, they will chase you as long as you are in their line of sight so consider this when setting up a freeze or a push.
League of Legends Minions Guide: Freezing
Freezing is the first of three wave management techniques and one of the most difficult to master. Freezing requires focus as you have to constantly pay attention to your enemy’s actions as well as the minion wave. It is recommended to try this technique while you are ahead or if you are even with the enemy. You need to zone them off of minions and force them to overextend if they do not want to fall behind.
To execute the freeze properly, first decide where you would like to create it as you have to manipulate the wave. Generally, you will have to match ally minions and enemy minions in terms of numbers and health status, however, if you want to freeze closer to your tower, which is the best place to set it up, you need to save more enemy caster minions to fend off your minions that will arrive sooner to reinforce the wave. Once you have set up the freeze, only attack minions right before they are about to die to prevent pushing of any kind.
Make sure to keep enemy minions out of turret range so that it does not break the freeze and take unnecessary damage. Creating a freeze just outside your turret is beneficial as it nullifies the chance of the enemy jungler ganking you, you cannot get pushed out of the lane and can trade with the enemy more effectively. In addition, the enemy has to overextend to catch experience and gold, therefore they are vulnerable for ally ganks. In case you are behind, freezing is a very effective way to catch up on what you have missed so far.
Just keep in mind that the enemy laner can roam if you deny them effectively so make sure to ping to alert your allies. Also be wary of turret dives as you will be freezing in front of your turret. If you encounter an enemy wave with a lot of minions, be careful as it can quickly take your minions out, do serious damage to your turret, and even cause the wave to bounce back (the wave will push towards the enemy turret).
What you want to do is tank them and pull them away from the proximity of the tower. This will draw their focus which you can use to halt their advance until your wave arrives. Make sure not to walk too far away as they may drop focus and continue walking towards your turret. If you cannot sustain their damage, thin out the wave by leaving only 3-4 caster minions alive to slow their push.
So far, we have discussed freezing in general, however, when it comes to the mid lane, slightly different rules apply as the lane is much shorter and minions arrive faster, rendering the freeze less effective. Champions are generally squishy, not made for tanking damage or waves, and have a lot of damage, which can be very risky when trying to tank. Also, high damage dealers can easily break your freeze, ruining your efforts to negate gold or experience.
Should you find yourself on the opposite end of the freeze, there are two paths to take. First, what you will want to do is look for ways to eliminate the minions that keep the freeze in place. Try using abilities and auto-attacks to have the wave bounce back towards you. You can also look to engage the opponent and attempt to drive them out of lane to take control of the wave.
If that is out of the question, the next best option is to ask your jungler for the pressure that can keep the enemy away from the minions, allowing you to break the freeze. Keep in mind that asking for assistance from your jungler will remove their pressure from other lanes and can cause the both of you to fall behind on experience and gold.
League of Legends Minions Guide: Slow pushing
Slow pushing, in contrast to freezing, is more common at later levels of the game. By accumulating a large wave of allied minions, you can create pressure on that lane and look to roam for jungle objectives or ganks and take a recall. This will force enemy champions to respond to that lane and lose pressure on the other side of the map. If left unattended, the minion wave can take a couple of turrets on its own.
Having a large minion wave creates an advantage against enemy minions, eliminating them quickly without casualties. This technique is very straightforward and requires only to slay enemy caster minions or generally have more ally minions over enemy minions. The best results are achieved when having at least 5 minions more than the enemy wave has.
Slow pushing is more effective later in the game, as early slow pushes can result in you losing gold by missing last hits and even being exposed to enemy ganks. Furthermore, the enemy laner can set up a freeze on their side of the lane negating your experience that way as well. Always look to fast push early as slow pushes are almost always eliminated by enemy laners since the laning phase has not yet ended and the wave does not have time to grow in numbers.
League of Legends Minions Guide: Fast Pushing
Fast pushing is used to describe aggressively pushing the wave to deny the enemy laner gold and experience. It is commonly used to force the enemy back onto the lane as you will be pushing your minions towards their turret as soon as possible. This is done to punish the opponent for their roam or gank on another lane.
Players can fast push the wave by clearing all melee minions as well as the cannon minion with their attacks and abilities. This way, your wave will be much stronger in size and power as there will not be any strong minions along the way to fight. You can opt to push by auto-attacking all minions to make the wave reach the turret faster.
Generally speaking, fast pushing is excellent for diving enemies, especially those with bad wave clear. Furthermore, it is very effective for denying gold and experience once the opponent is backed or is dead, as the wave will bounce back in your favor or reset. Also, you may attract the attention of the enemy jungler and relieve pressure elsewhere. Alternatively, you can create pressure on your lane by pushing fast and roaming to help other lanes.
Remember, the goal is to crush your wave under the turret and make it reset or bounce back. If you do not have enough wave clear or time to do that, simply thin out the wave and create a slow push towards you. Either way, you will be denying gold and experience to your opponent.
When fast pushing, you can either look to take the tower or follow the opponent through the jungle. Keep in mind that you can be tricked into pushing the lane as soon as you notice the enemy laner missing but instead, they stayed in the fog of war on purpose to get a freeze going after your push.
When you want to get minions deeper into the enemy territory, what you do is wave clear, slaying minions with haste. Perform this by leaving 3 minions alive and move to the next wave to eliminate it. This is a risky method and should be executed only if you are ahead of the enemy or they are either dead or shown on the opposite side of the map. Since this is a greedy strategy, keep an eye out for enemy jungler as you will be pushing behind enemy lines.
League of Legends Minions Guide Conclusion
Thank you for visiting another Chicks Gold blog. We hope that you will apply the wave management information from our League of Legends Minions guide and soon climb in rank. Other blogs like this one can be found on our blog site. If you want to trade accounts, visit our sell and buy LoL Accounts website to get one for yourself.
