Wave management is one of the most important parts of laning in League of Legends. Killing enemy minions gives you gold and experience, which lets you buy items that make you stronger. Wave management is important in every lane. Most players know what wave management means, but they don’t know how to manage a minion wave properly.
The ULTIMATE Guide for League of Legends Wave Management
A player can do many things with a minion wave, such as push it or freeze it. In our guide, you’ll find out everything you need to know about managing waves.
What are Minions?
In League of Legends, minions are one of the most important elements. They are sent out by the Nexus and controlled by AI. They must attack any enemy target or structure and only use basic attacks. When a minion dies to a champion, it gives a certain amount of gold and XP depending on what kind of minion was killed.
Also, they let you safely hit enemy towers, which are the towers’ main targets. You can use minions not only to farm experience and gold, but also to improve your trades and do other advanced things. To get the gold and XP from minions, you only need to deal them their final blow.
There are four kinds of minions:
- Melee Minions
- Caster Minions
- Siege/Cannon Minions
- Super Minions
Melee Minions
These creeps give you more gold and XP than Caster minions but less than the rest. In a minion wave, they stand at the front. They also have more durability than the Casters but less than the rest.
Caster Minions
The Caster minions are at the end of a wave of minions because they have ranged attacks. They are the weakest minions and use basic attacks on any enemy target or structure, just like any other minions.
Siege/Cannon Minions
Cannon or Siege minions are the second most durable type of minion. They also have ranged attacks and don’t show up with every creep wave. They give you even more gold and XP than Caster and Melee minions, making them much more valuable than either one.
Super Minions
Super Minions are the strongest and most durable kind of minion. In fact, they are so strong that they can go toe-to-toe with weaker champions. They only show up after you destroy an inhibitor. This makes inhibitors an important goal in League of Legends.
Wave Timing
In League of Legends, the minions show up in waves. Each wave is controlled by AI and appears at set times. The first wave of minion spawns at 1:05, and each subsequent wave spawns 30 seconds after the last. They give most of a player’s gold and experience in League of Legends.
Before 20 minutes into a match, each wave of minions is made up of 3 Melee and 3 Caster minions, and every third wave also has 1 Cannon minion. After 20 minutes, every second wave will include a Siege minion. Also, once 35 minutes have passed in a match, every minion wave becomes a cannon wave.
What’s Wave State?
Wave State is the condition the wave is in at any given time. The position of a wave, the number of minions it has, the number of minions the enemy’s wave has, and the health of the minions are all things that can be used to judge the state of a wave.
Understand the Wave State
To understand the state of a wave, you have to look at how it is. A wave state can be figured out by looking at how many minions each wave has, whether or not it has a cannon minion, how healthy the minions are, and where they are in the lane.
Pushing a Wave
‘Pushing a wave’ means killing the enemy minions to help your minions reach the enemy tower faster. This is done in certain situations to help you out. For example, you have a lot of unspent gold and want to recall without losing any minions. In this case, you can move your wave to the enemy tower and call it back. By the time you get back to the lane, you would be just in time to collect the next wave of minions.
You can also push a wave, forcing the enemy laner to stay under their tower and collect the gold from the minions while you move to a different lane and help your team with a player advantage. You can also stack a minion wave to stop the enemy from trading with you and push that large wave while you have the option to roam or recall safely.
There are two ways to move a minion wave:
- Slow Pushing
- Hard Shoving
Slowly Pushing a Wave
Slow pushing in League of Legends is when a player slowly kills enemy minions and builds up a big wave of their own, which forces the enemy to stay under their tower for a while.
If the enemy fights you while you are stacking a big wave, all of your minions will attack them. You will automatically have a big advantage because the minions’ damage will add to your own.
Hard Shoving a Wave
Hard-shoving means killing the enemy’s minions as quickly as you can to push your minions into the enemy tower. This is mostly done in two situations: when you need to remember something and when you need to roam. Hard-shoving means using your abilities on the minions to help kill them faster. Some champions, like Ryze and Viktor, are great at pushing waves because their kits let them do it easily.
Freezing a Wave
Freezing a wave is an advanced way to manipulate waves. It means to let the wave state be frozen at one point in the lane. When done well, it can stop your enemy from farming minions, forcing them to walk a long way from their tower and leaving them open to ganks from your jungler.
This works especially well if you can kill your opponent in the lane if they get caught out of position. Champions such as Darius and Irelia are great at this.
How to Freeze a Wave?
To freeze a wave, you must first let the enemy push his minion wave towards your tower. After that, you have to thin the minion wave if you have to, which means you have to kill any extra minion that is coming toward you. Once four enemy minions meet your full wave right outside of your tower’s range, you can say that you have frozen the lane.
Holding a Wave
Holding a wave is very similar to freezing a wave. You do not have to freeze a wave to keep it on your side of the lane. The benefit of holding a wave is that you can move the enemy into a position where you can either kill them or make them vulnerable. It is a common strategy in the higher ranks of League of Legends, and you should learn how to use it in your games as well.
Some other relevant terms
Some terms we often hear in League of Legends, like “CS” and “farm,” are explained below:
- Last-Hit: Last-hit means to deal the final blow to a dying minion or target.
- CS: CS means “creep score.” It is the number of minions you have killed during your match.
- Creeps: Creep is another word for minions. Creeps is the plural form of the word “creep,” which means “more than one minion.”
- Farm: Farming means to last-hit minions.
- Wave: Wave is the name for a group of minions that spawns together from the Nexus.
Manipulating the wave is not easy, but it can be learned. Wave management is one of the most important parts of being a good League of Legends player. Every player needs to know at least the basics of wave management, so we suggest you tell your friends to read our article to learn more.
What do you think of the guide? Would you use some of the mentioned techniques in your games? Did this article help you to become a better player? What do you think of the newest patch? We love hearing from you, so tell us what you think in the comments section below!
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