Hello, and welcome to my roaming guide. I was inspired to make this when I saw all these other multi-champion tutorials showing an important aspect in the game, like Jungling 101, Rune Tips, or Ward Helper. I noticed there was nothing like this for roaming. I know many experienced roamers may think this is a bit silly, but I've seen people actually roam badly. This is my way of combating that, because roaming is something I believe shouldn't be something you just jump into with no advice.

Roaming is basically walking around the map, helping every lane and picking off wanderers. It helps the team by trying to put every lane ahead, and KEEPING it that way. It also helps control the map, ensuring your team gets dragon, making sure nobody gets ganked without your warning, and even giving your life for someone who is getting attacked by 2 or more people. Everyone knows that a good early game leads to a better late game, and as a roamer, it's your duty to make sure a good late game happens. Roaming can be done by just about any champion, but some excel more than others. (We'll get into it)If the roaming phase(the laning phase for everyone else) goes badly, the team will probably not have a good chance of recovering, which is why roaming can also be a risk. Thats why you must be cautious and strategic, because doing something like tower diving mid lane and getting both you and your teammate killed isnt helping.

Roaming helps put your team ahead in kills, ahead in farm, ahead in the lane in general, and ahead in the entire game. If roaming is done correctly, you can be a huge asset to your team. Volibear is actually an awesome example of a roamer, and he's a pretty powerful killer and tank, and has all the attributes a roamer needs. Some champions just plain do better when they roam instead of when they lane, because some are too weak or incompetent to be able to withstand somebody like Garen or Yorick. There's no downside to roaming, unless you start doing badly or are not really helping each lane as much as you should. It's pretty fun to kill unsuspecting victims as well, especially when you're a stealth champion.

Many people don't know what to feel about roaming, because the current meta goes against it, but when you think about it, that very feeling can be used to your advantage. If people don't expect a gank, they all the more vulnerable. If you can get a kill on a lane, that's good, but pulling off another gank as soon as they return to the lane.... that just completely dominated that lane and will allow your team to control the lane to their whim. Sounds appealing doesn't it?

You need to be ganking. Ganking is the reason you roam. You need to be able to catch the opponent off guard. You need to be able get your teammate kill or assist at least once every 5 minutes. You need to scare your opponent, and keep them effectively zoned by the tower out of the plain fear that you might be there. (Above are some amazing gankers)Instilling fear allows your teammate to happily farm with no interference from the enemy. In a way, you're helping your team out just by making your presence known, so that's exactly what you must do, whether you kill them everytime you gank or not.

Like I mentioned before, you need to be smart about roaming. First of all, you must let your team know that you're roaming before even picking the champion that you want. This is so that Sona that was happy to get Amumu as a lane partner isn't stuck dealing with a Talon and Karma. Choose wisely when to start roaming(Getting to it). Secondly, you have to know when to enter a certain lane, and know the capability of your teammate and enemy before jumping right in. Be aware of everything, figure out if you can actually take down the person/people you're trying to gank. I've personally had a few ganks blow up in my face, and it only makes it way worse for your teammate.

Spend time in each lane equally.
You can stay to push down the tower a bit, but dont spend your time farming(And stealing exp from your teammate)when other lanes are getting destroyed, harassed, or ganked. Where you spend time must be chosen wisely.

This depends on the champion. Evelynn, a champion considered to be underpowered, truly shines if she roams correctly, but she doesn't start or initiate roaming right away(Depending on playstyle). When you start out with boots,you'll have to lane, or gank really early. This is ok, but the early gank is risky, and can lose you a lot of Exp if you don't get a kill. Laning is too tough on Evelynn because she cant fight anyone directly. This is why Evelynn starts roaming right away, because she's too weak when it comes to dealing with someone with early power. If you told you told your team that you were roaming, you can even go to the opposite lane of your original one. This usually comes as a shock to most players, not expecting such an early gank from the player they saw in the opposite lane a few seconds ago. This is especially effective if the enemy was able to push your team back to the turret early on, which often happens. This is why any roamer can prey on anybody at any time. A good roamer has to be aware of the entire map, and know where a good gank will really screw up the enemy team.

One gank can keep a duo lane back on their tower for a good while, because they can be afraid of that brush on the side, or even if someones right under their nose and they didnt even know it... A gank that wasnt expected will put that specific lane ahead in one way or another, like a very item dependent champion getting underfarmed. A good thing to remember is, you always want this kinda thing to happen:
A good idea is to gank as soon as the enemy moves in on your teammate, when they are most vulnerable to your CC. You shouldnt be initiating a gank when your enemy is tower hugging and pretty much ready for any attack.

Now the current metagame is as follows : A jungler, a strong solotop(either a carry or a tank), an AD champion with a support bottom, and a carry of any kind middle(usually ranged).

This meta is very strict about who is where. This is why many people may ask how in the world roaming fits into this. Well the way I see it is 3 different ways. If you're dominating solotop, whenever the enemy has to go back, you can go into roamer mode. Gank middle and bottom until top comes back. When doing this, make sure top has no time to farm while you're busy bothering the rest of their team. This will put them ahead of you, especially if you let Nasus freely farm, and later crit your team for 100,000,000 every time he uses Siphoning Strike.

Another way to roam is if you're the jungler. This was recently made easier with the new jungle giving less experience, as you can now juggle ganking all day with farming neutral creeps all day. In the builds above, I put two different jungling builds, but just about everybody in that list can jungle pretty easily. This is where roaming can come in. Control the map while taking farm in between.

And if you dont trust that method: Here right after taking blue as jungler I gank top. Play Video
And right after, instead of going back to the jungle, a good damage gank on mid. Play Video
And after that, a scare gank on bottom. Play Video /league-of-legends/champion/sona-60

Anybody can roam, but not everybody can roam. By this mean, Miss Fortune can roam, she just wouldn't roam as effectively as someone like Alistar, who is the CC king. Now there are many champions that would be good at roaming, but they don't have the cooldowns to keep up with it. Somebody like this is Nocturne. He still has his fear, but the staple of his ganking is Paranoia, which doesnt come around too often. This is why someone like Alistar or Rammus whom have CC for days excel. Other people that excel are the stealthy guys. Shaco, Evelynn,and Twitch all have stealth and some type of cc, which is AMAZING for ganking and roaming. This comes back to being smart when it comes to roaming. There are different types of roamers, mainly the CC kings, stealthy, and bursters.
I consider AD roamers to be in between CC kings and bursters depending on the champion. Champions like Xin Zhao, Tryndamere, and an AD Volibear have these qualities.

Say bottom lane bush is warded. If you have stealth,use your stealth ability before walking into the bush and waiting, because the enemy will back off. If you're a tanky person, you can barrel in through the back or where they'll never expect... right past the tower if they're hugging the tower. You can usually get out of a tower dive situation with no loss if you're using a tanky roamer.

Try not to use once in a while gankers. By this I mean champions whos only CC is their ultimate.

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So can I be a roamer?? >:)

No. Get back in the jungle where you belong.

I'll see about that! I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to you!

As you can tell, Warwick is one of the "Ultimate Dependent" roamers I was talking about. Once his ult is on cooldown, all he can really do is walk up and *****slap you... obviously not roamer material.

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Amumu demonstrates everything you want in a roamer. He has good cc, amazing damage, and is very tanky.
I thought you'd never pick me.. :'(

I just wish he'd stop being so sad all the time, brings my mood down.

When I first started roaming, I started with Evelynn. Ganks were easy, but my mindset was "Ok, I ganked mid,time to gank top. Ok top is ganked, time for bottom. Mid again. Top again."
This seems normal, but this isn't how you should be thinking. Over half the time I ganked, the lane was pushed, the enemies were MIA, or it was warded and they saw me. I was also too aggresive and attacked enemies that easily shrugged squishy old Evelynn off. This all comes back to being smart.

Sometimes a good surprise attack can work on a slightly pushed lane, or a 3rd part of a tower dive can come in handy. This is where you're willing to give a life to get money into your team. Regardless you have to do whatever you can to make sure ANY gank is in some way worth it. Worth it means more kills than deaths during a gank, burning more summoner spells than you did, or scaring the enemy so you're friends can farm.

Before you ever consider roaming, you have to have your wits about every, and I mean every, champion that roams and/or jungles, and if you can take them down, or if you have to run like hell when you see them. Dont try to fight Lee Sin with Twitch. Don't try to fight Udyr with Evelynn. Always know your limits when it comes to other champions. This means if somebody looks like easy pickins, make sure you're absolutely positive they're easy pickins.

Ranked Play is different from normal. People will be much more keen to their surroundings, warding, and picking up oracle if you're stealth. All this means you have to be faster, smarter, and more cautious. Sounds simple enough right?

One last thing on ranked play, the champion you pick for roaming and situation have to go together. If you're going to roam with Cho'Gath,you better make sure that nobody's a tank, and that bottom lane is nice and secure before you even think about leaving the lane. If you're Shaco, you should be the melee AD carry, and be jungling on the side. This is why there should be no other jungler if you plan on using Shaco.
(If you use AP Shaco in ranked, I will choke you with a rake and make you drown in a fire)

No matter what happens, League of Legends is a team game. You require team work to win, especially when you have someone like a roamer. Let your team know you're coming. Make it your job to ward for everyone. Let the carry get more kills than you. Let the mana-intensive AP carry get blue. Let the AD carry have red. Remember that your main job is to get the team ahead. Not just you. The Team. Let's make sure you have it. THE TEAM. You have to learn to be a team player instead of being greedy and getting all the kills. Getting all the kills means yo get focused. Getting focused while fed means your team loses. Always remember that assists actually give quite a lot of cash early game, and is enough to hold out on when roaming.