CSing is crucial, but few people practice to improve at it. Today, I will share everything you need to know to enhance your CSing and reach the level you desire. It’s common for me to come across people with CS numbers like six to seven minions per minute when I coach. They often ask me what they need to do to improve at CS, despite already having an understanding of wave management. So, let’s skip the small talk and go over how to get better CS in League of Legends.
Key Factors in CSing
CSing consists of four things:
- Knowing your attack damage, which is highlighted with red whenever you auto-attack the minion.
- The distance between you and the minion.
- Projectile speed or the effective time your auto-attack will take to reach the minion.
- The damage rate of your minions damaging the enemy minion.
When we last hit, we all think about these four things consciously or unconsciously. But what if you can completely take out two factors and only have to think about the remaining two?
If you CS right next to the enemy minion, you don’t have to think about the projectile speed or the distance to the minion. This is why it’s easier to CS with melee champs. So, get close to the minions and CS when the enemy is away from the lane. This soft tip will help you to avoid losing one to three minions a wave that you normally would lose, especially if you’re CSing under a tower.
However, this trick is helpful in almost any case when you are trying to last hit and will dramatically increase your CS, by one to two minions a wave. If you speak about 10 waves on average, that will grant you an extra 600 gold every 5 minutes.
Practice Tool
The best way to CS better is to go into the practice tool and simply practice your last hitting against minions with regular starter items. There is absolutely no need to practice against real players as long as you keep a low last-hit level.
Once you get to the point of 10 CS per minute, we need to make the challenge even more difficult. Do the same, but this time no skills, no items, and only auto-attacks are allowed.
The main reason why it’s a great way to practice your last hit is that it will teach you how to manage every auto-attack you do, so you will still have time to plan how much time you need before the next auto-attack to make sure you can do an executing hit to that minion.
Using the S Key
Another important tip is that you need to use the “S” key to cancel your auto-attacks. Attacks can’t be cancelled once they are cast, and your attack will be on a so-called cooldown, which we normally call attack speed.
Because of this, if you attack too early, you’ll miss that minion, but if you press the “S” key before the attack is cast, you can cancel that attack. The main advantage it gives you is that you can re-attack right away and still get the minion you’ve been planning to last hit.
Get used to cancelling your attacks and re-attacking at the right time. This gives you enough time to prepare for the other CS, and with more time, you can CS better under the tower.
Pro players always do this to CS easily under the tower with extended time to get more minions.
Tower Mechanics
We all know that the tower targets cannon minions first, but which of the other two minions does it target after the cannon minion?
The center of the tower’s aggro range is not actually at the center but in front. That’s why the first minion who is getting focused is closer to the top.
Knowing the order of minions getting tower aggro can help you get better CS per minute.
Mastering Wave Management
Another thing that you might learn on your way to getting your CS numbers high is mastering wave management.
When I say that you need to master wave management, I don’t only mean that you need to learn how to slow push or freeze.
What you need to understand is the reason for pushing a wave. You should also know exactly what you are doing it for. Additionally, consider what actions you can take while enemies are caught under the turret clearing the wave.
There’s nothing difficult to learn how to manage the waves, but it’s essential to understand what this knowledge brings you and how it can be used in a real game.
Getting Good Resets
Ideally, you need to create a massive, slow-moving wave of minions toward the enemy tower. This will give you time to recall. Try to farm every minion you can without sacrificing too much for it.
Don’t roam before you have the lane pushed. Unless you can return to the lane by the time the wave is crashing under your turret, it’s risky to do so. There is a significant difference between having 10 CS per minute at the 10-minute mark and having 10 CS per minute at the end of the game.
You can also increase your average CS score by farming jungle camps. However, it’s better to take them in the mid to late game as in the early game you might lose a notable amount of HP.
On top of that, you should keep an eye on your jungler’s role so you don’t steal the camps that your jungler plans to farm.
Best Recall Timers
So, what are the best recall timers we are looking for? We want to find the best recall timers to get as much farm as possible during the early game.
When I play the games myself, I usually use waves 3, 6, and 9 for recalls with minimum CS lost. Those waves consist of three melees, three ranged minions and the cannon minion. So, it takes longer for the enemy players to push the wave back.
In case you’re a support player, that’s one of the best timers you can use to gank. Use this to gank an enemy mid-laner after the first time you recall. In the highest ranks, people underestimate the importance of support roaming after the first recall. Rarely do they expect you to do so.
Analyzing Decisions
I know that phrases like “set proper priority” sound too abstract, but if you had to choose whether you want to help your team get this Drake or want to get four waves under your turret, what would you choose?
I’m not saying that you should never help your allies, don’t get me wrong, but what I’m trying to say is try to analyze your decisions before you make them. Is it worth it for you to go there? What happens if you don’t go there? What do you have to sacrifice to go there, and what will be the consequences?
Maintaining High CS Numbers
To successfully maintain high CS per minute numbers, you need to know where to seek for the farm after the laning phase is finished and players are starting to group. Here are three simple rules that you need to follow to find farm:
- Get the jungle camps when there is nothing to do, for example, when your jungle is dead or just reset. When objectives are respawning, so you don’t need to take care of waves when your allies are already pushing the lane you’ve been initially assigned to.
- Clear enemy jungle camps whenever you win a team fight if there are no objectives that have higher priority than enemy jungle camps before you reset.
- Move to the lane that is the most suitable for you. For instance, ADC and support are usually going to mid so they have pressure on both objectives. A solo laner with teleport can go to the opposite part of the map from the objective that you are planning to contest so they will join a fight when it’s time, and the other solo laner who doesn’t have TP can stay on the lane that is closer to an objective.
Common Mistakes
Mistakes like taking bad trades which result in losing HP, poor wave management, and bad reset timers can make you lose CS every time you base. Not understanding the damage you do with your autos and spells in the early game is crucial. The most essential is the early game, as in the mid and late game you can one-shot waves.
10 CS per Minute Concept
Firstly, you should not aim for a specific CS (creep score) amount in the game without considering variables out of your control. These include matchups, jungle matchups, and in-game events. Instead, our goal is to have as many minion last hits as possible. Ideally without sacrificing too much on the map.
Conclusion
I hope this brings some clarity to what I mean exactly. You don’t have to give up all your resources just to play with your team. However, you should consider how important that play is and what your team can gain if you join your allies. I hope this post helped you to learn and fix any issues, so you can consistently achieve high CS numbers.
