As simple as it sounds, but is one of the most important and hardest things in the game.
Understanding over it, how to and what it gives it gives benefit especially once again in lower tiers, where cs differences are really great. I shall be using she in stead of he in this guide, because I don't wanna be sexist :P

Last hitting means doing the killing blow with basic attack/ability to kill a minion.
Let's look at the gold value of minions first and let's put it in-game after.

Melee minion
Gold Given: 22.5g (+.5g per cycle)

Ranged minion
Gold Given: 16.5g (+.5g per cycle)

Siege minion
Gold Given: 27g (+1g per cycle)


Champion assist is ~150 gold
Champion kill is ~300 gold


We can draw a conclusion, that 2 minion waves (3 melee, 3 caster)
are really close to a kill in gold value. So ~16 minions = 1 kill.
So if your lane opponent and you are both 0/0/0, but she is outfarming you
by 16 minions, it's the same as she is leading you with 1 kill.

Let's take a example from the world championships to make a clearer image how
important last hitting and gaining cs is. (This is from worlds);

ADC 1; 8-2-17 - 160 minions
ADC 2; 3-2-8 - 278 minions

Obviously you could assume ADC 1 is leading by far, but actually ADC 2
is having the gold lead by 1000, because of massive minion advantage.


So what is the ideal amount of cs ?

In professional level, the ideal is 100 minions in 10 minutes.
I'd say the perfect situation is try to get to 80 cs in lower tiers.
It can't be achieved always due lane and different variations, but
trying to achieve that 80 by first ~10 minutes is really good.


So how do you last hit effectively ? Having problems ?

It's okay to to use even abilities to gain cs, if it doesn't cost too much.
Easiest way to get last hits however is waiting until the minion is low hp.
Minions > Poke, but within limits. You don't want to loose too much to gain 1 cs.
The most common mistakes are;
  • Auto-attacking too late
  • Auto-attacking too early
  • Taking too much damage to get 1 cs
  • Turret taking the cs


What can you do to relief these situations ?

The easiest way to gain a cs is attacking a minion that is not currently
being focused by your own minions. This will however push your lane to tower
and you gain risk of being ganked by enemy jungler. If you are however getting
pushed to tower also, it's okay to go all-out on minions also to keep the balance.
Do care of not taking damage if you decide to push for the minions also. You could
counter this tactic by attacking the enemy ADC, when she goes to last hit, if you
feel confident on last hitting on tower. Let's look last hitting trough images,
so it's easier to visualize and this guide won't be wall of texts only.

DO NOTE: Last hitting takes time to get adjusted to and the more AD you have,
the easier it is obviously. Getting early AD if you really struggle with it
is ok. I've done that when I was just starting my rankeds and played at silver V.
There is no real reason to get frustrated if you can't reach that 80 cs immediatly,
do practice last hitting and get adjusted to it.


These help too


Last hitting in general


Before we continue to last hitting under tower, let's look at how tower focuses
minions as they are pushed to tower's range. So this is how the aggro goes;
  • 1. Targetable traps
  • 2. Clones / controlled minions ( Shaco ulti, Zyra plant)
  • 3. Siege minions (Super minion first, then turret minion)
  • 4. Closest melee minion
  • 5. Closest caster minion

This is what many wonder: How does the turret focus certain group of exact minions ?
Answer: First minion in-range, then from the furthest left, to furthest right!
If minion leaves turret range, simply skips focusing it. Let's look at this trough
picture so you get better view of it.


So let's assume a group of minions of only casters in it and the tower focuses the closest.
The tower will focus minions in order like the following;



So when the minions are grouped up in a line, the tower focuses first from left, first
from right, second from left, second from right until there is only the middle one left.
NOTE: If the minions are in a circle or other formation, like if you have broken the formation, the tower will focus the CLOSEST in stead of left - right. You you gotta guess.


Last hitting under tower


Siege minion: Let the tower hit 4-5 times. Look at what bunch of damage it does
and estimate wether you NEED to auto-attack in between the tower shot once to get it.
It's worth even to use ability to get it, because thats 27 gold right there.

Melee minion: Let the tower hit twice and then auto-attack it once. If the minion
remains to have ~5hp, auto-attack the melee minion once before they go in turret range.


Let it hit twice



Caster minion: Let the tower hit once, then auto-attack it. If it remains to have
low hp, auto-attack the minions once before tower attack them.


First tower hit hp



If the minions have already lost too much hp, so tower would get them in 1 shot, kill them
before they go in turrets range. If you can't kill the minion with lost hp, don't attack it
and focus on getting the full hp minion that you know you can kill under tower. If many
minions are low, It's worth to use some abilities to get them or already kill them all
before they go to tower range.


AA these minions between tower shots



Last hit minion under your minion focus ?

If the lane is even and no minions are going under tower. Minions don't tend to change
focus as long as the minions don't move too much. Only siege minion is a bit tricky that
may change focus, but normally they won't. Minions usually attack in waves and do chunks
of damage. I'll try to make a example using poles as hp (You got 70 AD)

Starting point: |||||||||||||||||||||| (200hp)
First wave hit: |||||||||||||||| (150hp)
2nd wave hit.: |||||||||| (100hp)
3rd wave hit. : ||||| (50hp)

Now you can basic attack it. You could estimate the incoming damage really easily.
I don't recommend looking at the hp that much, because it just confuses you, but
rather focus on looking at the hp bar and hitting when it's low enough. You just
have to get used to this. It takes much time to find a comfortable point of hitting.

Let's take a look at second example, that's already much harder;

Starting point: |||||||||||||||||||| (400hp)
First wave hit: |||||||||||||| (240hp]
2nd wave hit : |||||||| (80hp)
U auto attack: || (20hp)
Minion gets the cs.

This is the most common situation of loosing the last hit. Minions either take the
minion completly or you leave it to very low hp. The only thing you can do is to
attack BETWEEN the minion attacks. This is really hard and causes most trouble.
Let's say 6 minions are hitting the same minion. You must time to auto-attack to
hit before the last 3 minions hit, so you get the cs. You must get used to your
champions attack speed and minions attack speed. Obviously yours is faster.
NOTE: Try last hitting with a champion you're familiar first, so you
get the idea of it. Last hitting with strange champion is not going well, because
of different / weird attack animation like Karthus.


Video coverage (See end of video for tower csing, start for normal last hitting)