Hey All! I put together this guide to benefit the entire community around the "hook" mechanics in League of Legends. Reading this guide can help you improve your ability to land hook abilities, and/or your ability to dodge/predict hooks.

A special note, many of the thoughts shared in this guide can also help with landing/dodging a wide variety of skillshots. Hooks are an excellent skillshot to analyze because for the class of champions with hooks, being able to land your hooks will make or break your success in your games.

With that out of the way, let's get started!

If you are brand new to hook champions, you'll want to start with a baseline of hook best practices. I could start with "See enemy champion, throw hook at enemy champion", but taking that as a given, let's break down hook fundamentals.



When you start off your game, first start by creating a mental "Hook Priority Checklist". This checklist you make should consider a few factors: How beefy is the champion (squishy/fragile to tanky/unkillable), how mobile is the champion (immobile to speedy/dashy), how dangerous is the champion if given access to your team's backline (not scary to big yikes), and how important is the champion at this point in the game (must be stopped to basically a minion).

Hook Priority:

Dr. Mundo: He is very beefy, medium mobility if his ult is available, variably scary to your backline depending on how fed he is, and generally is low value most of the game unless he is the main fed member of the enemy team.

Graves: He is generally squishy, decent mobility from his E and his ult, only scary to your backline if he is ahead and your team can't block his attacks/lock him down, and he will be of most value when there are objectives such as Baron or Dragon available.

Zed: He is mostly squishy, high mobility thanks to his shadows and his ability to dodge skillshots with his ult, very dangerous to your backline if given the opportunity to reach them, and will be generally important throughout the game, the highest point will be the mid-game where many assassins thrive.

Kog'Maw: He is mostly squishy, very low mobility, only scary if he is well-protected by his team, and his importance to the game scales as the game goes on.

Brand: He is mostly squishy, very low mobility, can be scary in teamfights if given the chance to cast abilities on the whole team, and will generally be fairly important throughout the game since he controls a majority of the vision and can do decent damage.

All in all, the priority list would look roughly like this (adjust based on some of the notes above):


***Additionally, the who greatly depends on the why as well, so later in this section we'll address the why considerations.



If you're brand new to this style of champion, this question seems inherently straight-forward. You might feel that "If I can land a hook, then that is the time to throw the hook!"

However, you will want to consider what happens after the hook is thrown. For now, we will simply assume that the hook you throw will land. Consider these questions anytime you get the urge to throw a hook:

1. Am I in danger if I throw this hook? If the answer is yes, do not throw the hook.
2. Will an ally of mine be in danger if I throw this hook? If the answer is yes, do not throw the hook.
3. Will we get anything out of this hook? To clarify, this question is looking at whether the hook results in something tangible (i.e. a winning trade, summoner spells burned by the enemy team, a kill, or the ability to get an objective off of the hook). If the answer is no, do not throw the hook.



A later section will go ham in addressing the where, so for now as someone new to this style of champion, throw the hook where you see the enemy champion will be when the hook is expected to reach them. To do that, consider how long your hook takes to reach a champion (i.e. a Blitzcrank hook will reach an enemy before a Thresh hook does), as well as where the enemy you target will be after that much time (aka. Will they be standing still at that point in time, will they be walking somewhere, etc)



As a baseline, you need to look for hooks based on a reason for doing so. Keep in mind, the community knows the hook champions for their hooks mostly. If you're playing Blitzcrank, no one is looking at you and thinking, "They picked Blitzcrank so they could run real fast with their W."

A good way to determine the why in the moment is to ask yourself, "What am I hoping happens if I throw this hook?" Some common reasons to start with are as follows:

1. Our team can get a kill
2. We can blow a Flash or other summoner spell from the enemy champion
3. We can apply CC (Crowd Control) to an enemy that will benefit our team or hurt the enemy team
4. We can bait out a key ability/item from the enemy team (such as Sivir's Spellshield or a Zhonya's Hourglass on the enemy mage)



Another concept that will be explored in great depth, for someone new to hook champions, you may be thinking, "A hook is a hook is a hook." While that thinking is not necessarily incorrect, some hooks are generally better than others. Below is a list of common hooks, in order by least effective to most effective.

When you play a hook based champion, you naturally have great pressure throughout the course of the game. Additionally, you exert more pressure on certain parts of the map. For example, enemies will be more fearful in lane if they don't know where you are or if they know a pull from you will put you in a dangerous spot, such as under a turret with no minions.

Depending on the champion, a lot of that pressure will go away once your hook is on cooldown. For this reason, whenever you are looking to hook someone, you need to compare the benefits of landing the hook against the costs of missing the hook. That consideration should also factor in the likelihood of landing the hook. The best scenario is that you get many benefits out of a high-likelihood of landing hook, and that hook has very minimal risks.

Your range of pressure is the length of your hook from the perceived location the enemy believes you could be. This distinction is critical, and it becomes apparent if you've ever been in the below scenario:

IMAGINE your team is in base, the enemy team was generally seen heading towards Elder Dragon, and there is no vision from your base to the Elder Dragon. While the enemy Pyke is only ever in one location at any given point in time, your team is concerned because your perception is that Pyke could be hiding anywhere in the Jungle with his allies looking to set up a pick on your team.

For this reason, as well as assisting with seeing where the enemies are so you can look for hooks, it is critical that you set up good vision control in the areas that you/your team would want to look for picks, or where the enemy perceives you want to look for picks.

As noted in the last chapter, an enemy team going through a vision-less area to a key objective will be very wary of your hook and actively looking for your hook. If a medium level of attention to hooks can make hooks challenging, then there are two ends of the hook awareness spectrum that you can abuse when looking to land your hooks.


Players who are hyper-aware of your hooks are constantly looking for you to hook or are in a situation where a hook means a likely death for them. While this initially seems bad because they might make it harder to land your hooks, there are a few quirks to these moments that will benefit you greatly.

IMAGINE you are playing Thresh, and you are level 1 invading the enemy team and come across a lone champion, we'll use one with no mobility abilities level 1 such as Diana. From the Diana's point of view, they know you are coming to hook them, and as such they might expect you to hook them any minute. Instead of hooking right away, if you are in range you can go for an auto-attack first and see how they respond. Some players will use Flash as soon as they see any type of motion come from Thresh in this scenario. This scenario gives you a free Flash, or even allows you to follow up with a Flash + Hook or just a hook if they used Flash to the side to "juke" instead of purely getting distance.


There are certain situations where players will have reduced awareness of your hooks. The reason is simple: When there is less going on, a hook is a very important ability to be aware of in general. However, there are many other factors which can result in the enemy team forgetting about your hook. I'll list out some examples below:

• The enemy Top/Jungle/Mid laners may be less aware as a whole since they did not have to lane against you
• Players performing actions critical to their role (aka. "Tunnel Vision") may be focused less on you (i.e. a Jungler getting ready to Smite an objective, an ADC trying to deal damage during a teamfight, someone chasing a kill)
• Other abilities the enemy team needs to worry about that are scarier than hooks at a given point in time (for example, if both teams are grouped up for a teamfight, the enemy might be too focused on watching for Malphite ult)
• Certain abilities force the enemy team to have reduced vision. These include Nocturne ult, Graves W, and Quinn Q as a few examples.

When looking to cast your hook, you need to determine how the enemy plays around your hooks. In general, there is a hierarchy to hooks that generally correlates with player skill (Fun fact, there is a behavioral model called "Cognitive Hierarchy Theory" that these list exemplify in League.)


Baseline: An enemy plays the game as normal, showing general disregard of other game factors. Throw your hook right where these players are observed to be to start.

Tier 1: An enemy runs away when your champion moves closer to them. Throw your hook where they are running to start.

Tier 2: An enemy champion is aware that you will hook them when they run away. They will always go to dodge your hook when you throw it. Throw the hook where they will dodge to as a starting point.

Tier 3: An enemy champion knows that you are looking for them to dodge your abilities. They expect you will always hook to where you think the enemy is looking to dodge. These players will generally alter their strategy, first continuing to walk/stopping their champion, then adjusting based on what you decide to do. Throw your first hook to figure out what they default to, use the second hook to see how they adjust their strategy, then develop a hook strategy to account for how they are deemed to adjust.

For example, if you throw a hook to where they dodge, and they first continue walking, then you have two options:

1. Throw a hook to see if they change strategy and simultaneously make them think you always throw hook to where they dodge (so you can use your third hook to actually hit them)
2. Adjust your second hook to where they walked the first time (you'll find out if they adjust their strategy for the second hook, and also you let them know that you'll adjust your hook based on the previous hook, which means your third hook should then be the same as your second hook).



Hooks become a lot more challenging against champions that have blink abilities. If you've ever seen some League highlight reels, then you've most likely seen the predict-hooks, the one's that were always aimed at where the blink-champion was going to be the whole time. In this section, you'll have the knowledge you need to pull off these massive predictions for yourself!

Let's use Ezreal as our example for a blink champion. Please note, more experienced Ezreals can "break" your hook, so the below might not apply to them if they can consistently break your hook, but this mindset can apply in many other situations, anywhere a champion has a blink/dash/ Flash available to them.

Baseline: Ezreal is not paying attention to you, and/or is too slow to cast his Arcane Shift. Use your hook right at him.

Tier 1: Ezreal sees the big-scary hook champion coming for him, and so he Arcane Shifts away from your hook. Be sure to walk close to him, then hook directly at him so your hook can reach him where he lands behind his previous location.

Tier 2: Ezreal now knows it's a poor idea to jump away in a straight line from you, instead opting to dodge back and to the side. This one gets a bit more complicated. My recommendation, to start, is to throw your hook to the location behind & to the side of him, specifically where he has the most options. IN MOST CASES, this means using your hook behind him AND towards the center of the lane (width-wise). That is because the center of the lane offers the most options for movement, as the player can move to both sides of the lane from the center. If the player jumps towards a wall, then they can't move in the direction where the wall is.

If the Ezreal does Arcane Shift towards the wall the first time, then aim your next hook at the spot you think he will land that is near the wall.

Tier 3: Ezreal knows that most Ezreal players Arcane Shift to some form of safety, so the next logical step for them is to Arcane Shift completely to the side OR towards your side of the lane. At first, you'll need to bait out a feel for this type of player, as the first hook can be very difficult to land when they use this strategy and you are unaware of it. Once you know if they employ this type of strategy, you need to throw your hook to the place that is most beneficial for the Ezreal to be after his Arcane Shift. Many times, this location will be where he can get past you and also get to damage your ADC, so try your best to assess what location looks best for him to show up at.

When looking to hook, you will want to carefully examine how the enemy players are responding. Below are a few strategies that, with patience and understanding, are highly effective at catching even the most elusive of fish (yes, even Fizz)

Slow-rolling: Slow-rolling is the act of walking at the enemy champion to make them react to you and your potential to hook, but either casting the hook later than expected or even opting to save your hook or cast a different ability instead. Slow-rolling is particularly effective against enemies who "zig-zag" away from you to dodge your hook, or enemies who have abilities and items that can be baited out from the pressure they feel coming their way.

Cooldown Games: A prime example being Morgana's Black Shield, some abilities can be handled by forcing them out with your first hook, then taking advantage of your cooldowns to catch them with your second hook. This is especially possible for Thresh and Nautilus, both of whom have built in methods of reducing the cooldown of their hooks.

Subverting Expectations: Always keep an open mind to the fishing possibilities. When looking for a hook, keep an eye on each nearby enemy and think about what they are thinking when they see you looking at someone funny. An enemy might feel safe to deal damage if they think you're focusing someone else, so if you first move towards one player, you can then throw your hook at another player who isn't expecting you to target them.

"Clipping": This one comes from practicing your hook champion a lot, but in my experience many hook champions have the capacity to get their hooks to "clip" onto the enemy. This generally occurs in two ways: Either a max range hook will attach to the enemy a fraction of a second after it looks like the hook should have ended, or a hook will attach to an enemy that is slightly to the side of the hook. These hooks are the one's you will hear players complain about (which, as a player who frequently abuses these hooks, sounds like music to my ears).

*Fun side note: I think these occur because the map is always viewed at an angle, but if the map were viewed top-down probably looks like a clear hit.

Trick Shots: The most common version of a trick shot involved using your hook in a way where your hook is aimed at a dying enemy minion, and then the minion dies and the hook goes right through to the enemy champion hiding behind. Other examples include hooking through an incoming wave and hooking through the enemy frontline.

Finally, there are two forms of hooks that leave the enemy with only poor choices.



There will be small windows of opportunity where you can throw a hook that leaves the enemy with zero good choices. IMAGINE you are chasing a Flashless Lulu through a narrow corridor in the jungle. Following closely behind you is your allied Zed.

You have two options: You could throw your hook in front of the Lulu, or you could throw your hook expecting her to try and dodge your hook. Which do you think is best?

If you answered, "Throw your hook in front of her," you are CORRECT! This is because, if you throw your hook in front of her, she either runs into your hook and dies, or dodges back from your hook but gets caught by Zed anyway. On the other hand, if you throw your hook as if she were dodging, she could keep running and get away for free.

The easiest way to process this information is to imagine a green zone of safety and a red zone of pain, death, and suffering for the enemy players. You want to use your hook to reduce the size of the green zone and maximize the size of the red zone.

Let it be known that the example provided is an extreme case (which does come up); however, this mindset can be used for smaller decisions, another example being making the enemy ADC choose between getting hooked or getting to last hit the cannon minion.



An extension of having only poor choices, if you play strategically there are times you can force the enemy team into positions where they have nowhere to go at all. Keep an eye out for champions that are stuck in Dragon or Baron pit, champions who walked between a turret and the nearest wall, champions who were blocked in by terrain-based abilities such as Anivia wall, Taliyah ult, or Trundle pillar, and/or champions who are currently being displaced by another ability such as Lee Sin ult and Sett ult.

In summary, you want to properly decide the best way to utilize your hooks for maximum effectiveness, along the way assessing the skill level of your opponents and implementing a wide variety of techniques to pick apart your enemies and generally crush their hopes and dreams.

I hope that you've gotten some value out of this guide, and if there are any questions you may have please feel free to leave them here so I can assist you directly and update the guide so others may benefit from your insightful questions.

Happy Fishing!