Guides
Richard Heimer
18thSeptember 2018Edited at: 6th February 2023
If you want to improve your chances of winning in League of Legends, then you need to improve your creep score.
Almost every role in League of Legends relies on collecting gold in order to buy powerful weapons and items. Without enough gold you’ll slowly fall behind, giving your opponent a significant advantage. To stop them from destroying you in lane, you need to make sure your creep score is up to scratch.
You might have already tried to improve it in the past to no avail, but now’s the time to turn yourself into a CS god. If pros can do it then so can you!
We’re sharing our top tips to help you become the CS master you’ve always wanted to be. It won’t be an easy journey, but we’re confident you’ll notice an improvement in your CS. Before we jump straight into how to improve your CS, why is CS so important and why should you care?
Why Is CS So Important?
When it comes to multiplayer online battle arenas, creep score is one of the most important factors of the game. Not only is it your source of experience from killing minions, but it's also your primary income source.
Every time you last hit a minion and kill them, you receive a fixed amount of gold. This gold is added to your inventory which can later be exchanged for powerful weapons and items. As you can probably work out, no gold equals no damage.
To put it into perspective for you, a 5/0/0 Akali with 100 CS at 20 minutes is eventual to a 0/0/0 Graves with 175 CS. That 75 creep score difference can have a huge impact on your game and what your champion can afford. By learning how to improve your CS on League of Legends, you instantly stand a much better chance of winning the game.
Although it sounds easy to tell everyone just to improve their CS, how exactly do you go about doing it?
Practice Makes Perfect
You’ve probably already received this advice before but we’re going to give it to you again anyway: practice makes perfect.
Unfortunately, you cannot improve your CS just by reading a blog post. Instead, you have to get out there and put everything into action, preferably in a bot game first. Our advice would be once you’ve finished reading this post, load up a bot game on Summoner’s Rift and pick a lane. You can then practice improving your CS with the tips we’ve got coming up. There’s no point trying a real game as you won't get the practice you need. Since you need to start from the very beginning, playing against real players can be distracting.
By practicing in bot games first, you can get the basics perfected which you can then start to build on. Enough of the chit-chat, let’s get down to the tips!
Last Hitting Exercises
You don't put the boxing gloves on and step into the ring without spending days in the gym first, and LoL is no different. If you really want to wreck people at higher rankings, then these exercises can help you get there!
Basic Bot Practice
Start off by loading up a custom game and going against a single bot. This should be an easy enough challenge, all you need to do is stay back, and only go in for minions when they're about to die - this will teach you how long it will take to get into range for a minion, and how much damage you can do to it.
Advanced Bot Practice
Now it's time to spice things up a little; Add an extra bot to the lane so that you're 1v2. Now I want you to farm as you did before, but with a few extra challenges; Push the first minion wave toward the enemy and then let the second wave push toward you. This will teach you lane control, and how to freeze it if need be. The second important factor is that you need to glance at the minimap every time you secure a last hit.
Now that you've made a good start, let's take a look at what else you can do to improve your CS in LoL.
Time Pressure
If you give yourself the goal of reaching 100 CS in 10 minutes then your farm will be better than if you had chosen to aimlessly AA. Don't set yourself unrealistic challenges though, Faker might be able to get every single CS while blowing up the enemy team multiple times, but you aren't Faker...Yet. Once you feel confident at this, you can then transition to normal games, and eventually ranked!
With all that being said, there's plenty of in-game tips to watch out for. These helpful pointers are guaranteed to up your win rate!
What To LookOut For
When trying to improve your CS, there are a few things you’ll want to look out for. These little tricks will help you decide which minion you should attack and when to get the most CS. When you’re standing in your lane waiting to last hit minions, be sure to ask yourself these questions:
Which Minion IsBeing Attacked?
The first tip is to always check which minion is being attacked. Since minions can get delayed and set off course, it won't always be the first minion in the group that’s being targeted. Sometimes 2 minions will be attacking 1 minion, while the rest focus on an entirely different one. Being able to see which minion is being attacked will help you decide which minion you should attack. If 2 are being attacked simultaneously, then you’ll have to keep track of both so you know exactly the right time when you should last hit them.
How Much DamageDo I Do?
Once you’ve worked out which minions are being attacked, the next step is to work out when to attack them to guarantee a kill. Attack too early, and you’ll lose it to a minion, attack too late and you’ll also lose it to a minion. So how can you work out precisely when to attack?
The best way to do this is to attack other minions that are on full HP to see how much damage you deal. Depending on your current items and champion, this damage will vary. By attacking a minion with full HP, you can work out how much damage you will deal. To do this watch the health bar of the minion before and after you attack them. This will give you a good visual indication as to how much damage you will deal.
Be sure to try them on both melee and ranged minions as they both have different health and armor. This means the damage dealt on ranged champions will be a lot more than melee champions. Be sure to keep this in mind when attacking each one.
How Can I CollectCS On the Go?
When the laning phase is over, many players will start to roam around the map from lane to lane. Just because you aren’t in your lane anymore doesn't mean you shouldn’t stop CSing. In fact, this is the perfect time to show off your skills.
When traveling around the map you should always be looking for minions to kill and maintain your CS score. Remember, 75 CS can make up for several kills. So when you’re roaming the map be sure to attack neutral minions as well as minions in other lanes.
Take Your Practice toThe Next Level
Once you’ve practiced the tips above in a bot game, it’s time to take your CSing to the next level. Understanding the basics is essential if you want to improve your CS, but once you can do it easily against bots, you’ll need a harder challenge.
Most people find it easy to CS in bot games as most of the bots are passive and won't attack. However, in real games, players constantly poke each other and try to put them off missing CS. Once you’ve mastered the basics and get easily last hit minions, you’ll want to practice on games. Remember, you’re still practicing but this time you’re trying out more advanced techniques.
Instead of just attacking minions you’ll be trading blows with your opponent, moving around a lot more, and checking for ganks. It might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but just like we said earlier: practice makes perfect.
Eventually, after enough practice games against real players, you’ll be ready for the grand finale. Playing a ranked game. If you’ve practiced your CS skills enough then your training should easily kick in. If it does turn out to be an epic fail then you can always go back to practicing in normal games. No matter how good or bad it turns out, if you want to continue to improve your CS on League of Legends then remember to practice!
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Richard Heimer
Content Writer
Richard is our resident League of Legends player. He knows everything.
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