Lots of players believe wave management is something that is only for pro players, it’s actually not true, everyone can learn and try it.
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Why Wave Management Is An Important Knowledge?
In a match of League of Legends, minion waves will spawn until a Nexus explodes, your minion wave will meet the minion waves of the enemy somewhere in the lanes. There’s a skill that allows you to control where these minion waves meet and maintain them at your will, it’s called Wave Management. A skillfully executed and wave management can even turn the tide of a bad match-up, but if the opponent does it better, the result is not gonna be pretty for you.
Enough intros, let’s talk about wave management. This knowledge is based on a really really helpful channel called LoL Analyst, definitely check them out.
PUSHING
It’s easy, the first easy wave management technic: Push. It is performed by dealing more damage ( through auto-attacks and abilities) to the enemy minions than your laning opponents deal, which results in your wave to move forward the enemy tower. This wave management brings many benefits:
- Through killing more minions than your opponents, you will level up faster.
- Because of the number advantage of your minion wave, trading damage is much easier and more efficient.
- Slow down their income by letting their tower kill your minions while you deal some damage to their tower and earn that sweet gold from their tower platings.
- When your wave is high, you are free to move around ( roaming, help your jungler invade,..) while your opponents have to defend or take a longer route if they want to catch up with you.
- You can try to poke your enemies if they try to recall.
- Another thing about recalling, if you recall when the wave is near your tower, you will miss a lot of last hits, plus your tower will take some damage, so before recalling, push the wave all the way to their tower if possible.
- Remember not to let your laning opponents hold the wave while you are gone ( slap some damage to them if they ever go near the wave).
- Take a look at your minimap once in a while, the enemy jungler will try to gank you if you are way up in the lane.
PULLING
The easiest way to pull is to only last hit, and not just any last hit, you should only last hit when the target minion’s HP is really low, like 10HP low. If the enemy notices that you are trying to pull, they will also only take last hits, then you will have to skip some CS in order to deal with less damage. Another way to pull is to get ahead of your minion wave and meet the enemy minions first then draw them to you, walk around a little bit to gather them, and run to a bush to cut the aggro, that way they will attack the same minion of your wave, therefore dealing more damage.
This wave management technique very handy, for 2 commonly known reasons:
- Your champion can’t fight as well as the enemies’ and you want to play under your tower.
- You don’t want to get ganked or you want your teammates to gank your lane.
Pulling waves is even more efficient if you know how to freeze the wave.
FREEZE
Holding the enemy wave right outside your tower’s range and keeping it that way is called freezing waves. If their wave is about to reach your tower, go outside the tower’s range, take some minion damage and hold them there (run around or take them to the side of your tower to meet you wave there to minimize the damage). It is important to keep the number of enemy minions a bit higher than yours, otherwise, it’ll be hard to keep the wave there. If the enemies use their abilities to push the lane, all you need to do is do the same to make sure the wave stays.
The advantages this brings are just like what pulling waves bring, plus this technique helps you secure last hits better. But beware, besides trying to push the wave, some enemies will try to roam, notice your teammates, and things should be fine.
SLOW PUSHING
One but the best way to snowball when you are ahead is slow pushing. Only take last hits but make sure you deal enough damage to push the wave forward, then fast push when the wave is right in front of the enemy’s tower, this will create a massive wave attacking their tower. Call your teammates for a dive, the far-behind enemy should be an easy kill if performed right, plus they will lose all the CS from the massive minion wave.
AFTER THE LANING PHASE
In the mid-game phase, there’s a lot of stuff you can do before joining team fights: If you want to clear waves in the side lane, only clear ranged minions just enough to form a slow push wave, this massive wave of yours will deal massive damage to the enemy towers if go unnoticed. Many players think the minions’ strength is even on 2 sides, they are even, but not after the laning phase. Based on your level advantage and towers advantage in a lane, your minions on that lane will be stronger than the enemies’. With this helpful information, you can predict which lane should be pushed and should be defended.
CONCLUSION
We hope after seeing our wave management post, we will able to somehow help you. Wave management knowledge has many times help the teams in pro-league claim their sweet victories, now it shall help you climb to higher Divisions of the League of Legends.