League of Legends (LoL) Question: Map Awareness

Playing jungle helps, but if you'd rather not spend time doing that, think about wave positioning when you decide to push or freeze, and when you decide to harass or all-in aggressively. How safe are you with the vision you have available? Where could the enemy jungler be right now?

Good players don't always know where the enemy jungler is, but they know how to capitalize when the jungler shows up somewhere else and they know how to minimize risks when anticipating a gank. You can learn to expect ganks based on probable jungle movements (their jungler handed off blue at a certain time and will be on a certain side of the map farming) or the behavior of your lane opponent (suddenly playing more boldly or attempting to freeze).

Basically you have to look at your map and that just takes practice, but if you learn to think about what information you have besides simple ward coverage, you can make smarter decisions without needing the whole map lit up with vision.

As for Teleports, you could try practicing with Shen or a playmaker like Malphite and get used to recognizing opportunities for a tp play. Check around the map (especially bottom lane) when you're pushed and have nothing to do or in between last hits and see if there are any useful wards. Watch for aggression and you can catch enemies all-inning and you might even be able to use minions to make a tp play. On Gnar, be attentive to when you're near (or in) mega form with ult because that's window where your tp will have the biggest impact.

It's kind of hard to get into the mindset of having strong map awareness and thinking about this stuff during the game, but it gets a little easier as your mechanics improve. The less concentration you take to last-hit and trade, the more attention you have to spare to look at your map.

Also I suggest increasing your minimap size to the maximum possible size, it helps a bit. ^_^

play shen and tf.

As a TF player(AD TF btw, not AP) I can only say that you need to keep your eye constantly on the map, literally, only look whats happening on the screen when a (team)fight is going on or to lasthit a creep, secondly, watch your ward timer, when its off CD, use it, anywhere is good as long as it provides alot of vision in the area and is in a bush(most outside corners of a bush are a good spot in the jungle), ward on a lane only if your tower is destroyed and you need to see if the enemy is rushing your base.

The ward upgrade is also REALLY useful, a ward every 40-60 seconds is epic, even if it doesnt find any enemy on the map, it means that the enemy IS NOT THERE, which in turn decreases the possible locations where an enemy could be.

When enemies are missiong from the minimap, try to guess(based on what champions they picked) where they would most likely be(e.g - is that Udyr going for our blue/is that Nidalee going for Dragon or coming bot?)


TIP: When you hover your ward placing crosshair over a bush and outside a bush you will see that it changes colors, green means that it shows whats inside the bush, blue means that it doesnt, try to always place a ward inside the bush :)

Make this a habit if you want to become a god of map awareness:

Every time you go for a CS, look at your minimap;
How much of the map can you see? do you have vision in the river at all? Do you have tribrush warded? Is the enemy mid on the map? Where is your jungler? And although this may not seem very relevant, on a scale of 1 to 10 how aggressive is the enemy laner(s) playing? Where are they positioned?

The reason why you want to look at the minimap every time you go for a CS is because something may be happening that you are unaware of. Trading usually occurs when going for CS so they can be sometimes used to disguise an enemy gank. It's also just good in general to be aware of the positions of all of the champions in the game.

If you don't have any vision of river or tribrush, which is where a jungler would usually gank from, then it's in insanely bad idea to push up and play aggressively. The lack of information can get you killed and is something you get better at after learning how people behave when they are getting help.

Looking at the minimap also helps you remain aware of objectives or fights that you could possibly teleport in for. For this reason, before you back, if you can help it, push the enemy lane up to turret and then back since it will give you times to walk back to lane. By the time you get back, the wave will have reset and will likely be in the middle of the lane unless the enemy top pushed it in. Doing this and only teleporting to lane when absolutely necessary will allow you as a top laner to keep pressure around the map. A fed Gnar teleporting unexpectedly into a skirmish to turn an advantage is very strong.

To do that you need experiance... i am looking at some vids in youtube to get better at csing.