Despite many tips and pointers scattered across the web I’ve never found a solid guide to farming – one of the quintessential skills in the game. I felt it was time to right this wrong and so in this article I’m going to run through 20 quick-fire tips to help newer players CS like gods (or at least like slightly more experienced players!).

1. It is easy to farm when you are doing more damage

Farming is all about last hitting, it doesn’t matter how much damage you do to the minion so long as you score the last hit but more damage does make life easier. For example, say this is a minions HP bar:

[|||||||||||||||||||||]

this will be dropping continuously from outside damage (turrets, other minions, AOE, etc.). If you do this much dmg:

||

then your time window for last hitting is quite small (only two ticks before you miss the CS) meaning there is a high chance of it being lost to outside factors. If you do this much dmg:

|||||||||||

then your window for last hitting is very big because the minion can takes lots of ticks of outside damage and you can execute it at any point within the window. Regular minions don’t have much resistance so building flat AP or AD statistics will help you do the most damage to them (penetration is not so important).

2. It is easy to farm when you are attacking faster

CS is lost when you are unable to attack a minion before it is killed by an outside factor. If you can auto-attack quickly (or if you have low cool-downs on your abilities) then there is a much smaller time window when you cannot attack. Building Attack Speed and Cooldown statistics help you to attack quickly and avoid missing out on CS.

3. It is easy to farm when you can spam

Your champions abilities provide plenty of damage for farming but they are usually restricted by Mana. On champions which require abilities to farm you should consider buying Mana or Mana Regeneration statistics early on so you can spam abilities frequently without having to return to base.

4. It is easy to farm when it’s just you versus minions

The biggest risk to CS is when there are lots of high-damage outside factors around during farming. If you can advance up lane to meet a minion wave in isolation then this will ensure that you get 100% of the farm because there is nothing around to steal it. Bear in mind though that this will mean tanking the damage from the wave and without proper ward coverage you are vulnerable to ganks.

5. Know your Foe

Minion waves start spawning at 1:30 and continue to spawn every 30 seconds afterwards. Most importantly the waves are MIRRORED on both sides of the map so you can guess where the enemy wave is by looking at the position of your own wave on the mini-map. Use this information during the mid game to ensure that you can reach a wave before it’s lost to a tower or to your own minions.

In every 3rd wave there will be a Cannon Minion and you need to pay close attention to where this guy is shooting because he is a real b****rd for stealing your farm.

6. Focus minions which are not under attack

You only risk losing a CS when a minion is taking damage from outside factors, if a minion is not under attack then there is no risk of losing CS.

When a minion is under attack you should be patient and avoid attacking it until it is low enough to execute

When a minions is not under attack you can damage it freely to speed up farming as there is no risk of losing the CS

Take care when multiple minions are taking damage or are low health. You need to plan so that you always have an attack/ability available when they are about to die

Use AOE abilities to execute multiple minions at once

7. Stay Ahead of the Curve

Minions grow stronger and stronger as the game progresses; gaining health & damage every 3rd Wave. This means that if you fall behind in items and/or levels then your attacks will be doing less damage relative to the strength of the minions and as we know from (1) less damage means harder farming.

8. Prep then Execute

On champions with high damage, AOE abilities it is often a good idea to “prep” the minion wave with auto attacks (getting them to med/low HP) and then execute them all at once with your high damage ability. This lowers the chance of you missing any CS and is a reliable way of perfectly farming a wave.

9. Dealing with Turrets in the early game

You never want to be forced under your turret early (even LCS pros frequently miss CS under turret) but when it happens there are some general rules of thumb:

Melee minions can tank two tower shots and are left with low enough HP to be executed by even the most pathetic auto-attack

can tank two tower shots and are left with low enough HP to be executed by even the most pathetic auto-attack Caster minions can tank one tower shot but need to be prepped with at least one auto attack beforehand for you to execute them afterwards. These guys are the trickiest until you have built some damage

can tank one tower shot but need to be prepped with one auto attack beforehand for you to execute them afterwards. These guys are the trickiest until you have built some damage Siege minions can tank about 4-5 tower shots but it varies (especially if they pull aggro from your wave) so you just need to gauge this and time your attacks as best you can

Note that the turret will always focus the siege minion first and then the melee minions afterwards so early in the game it can be worth prepping or cleaning up the caster minions while they are tanking. Also pay attention to the aggro of your minion wave as you will need to factor this in along with the turret. For example if a melee minion is being focussed then this might take it low enough for one tower shot to adequately prep it.

10. Avoiding turrets in the early/mid game

One solution to the turret problem is to tank up the minion wave yourself just outside of turret range. This is known as Freezing the lane because (assuming you don’t kill all the minion before your wave arrives) it provides the added advantage of keeping the minion waves pushing towards you. Freezing the lane also means we are alone with the minions (see (4)) so we are guaranteed 100% CS. The obvious downside is that we are tanking the minion damage and early in the game when the minions hurt this might not always be such a good idea.

11. Basic Wave Control

This post is not about minion wave manipulation so I’m not going to write too much here but since we’ve mentioned freezing we may as well quickly skim over some other wave manipulation techniques:

If you kill the caster minions in a wave but leave the melee minions alive then your wave will begin to slow push the opposing wave. This can allow you to build up a big horde of minions which will eventually slam into your opponents towers, doing massive damage if left unchecked.

the opposing wave. This can allow you to build up a big horde of minions which will eventually slam into your opponents towers, doing massive damage if left unchecked. If you run out to meet an enemy wave, pull aggro, lead the wave towards a single one of your minions, THEN drop aggro so they all focus that minion (phew! 🙂 ) this will push the wave against you . This can be useful if you want to later freeze the wave and attempt to deny farm from the enemy laner.

. This can be useful if you want to later freeze the wave and attempt to deny farm from the enemy laner. If both you and the enemy clear your waves then the next waves will meet again perfectly in the middle. This is called resetting the lane

12. Basic Damage Trading

Whilst CS-ing is a full time occupation, there will be times when no minions are low enough to execute and you have attacks/cooldowns available. This can be a good time to attempt to damage your lane opponent, especially if they do have minions waiting to be CS-ed. Why? For many reasons, firstly it’s a good use of your time and time efficiency is always important. Secondly you are putting your opponent in a lose-lose situation because either they try to focus on their CS and you apply “free damage” (you give damage but don’t receive any) or they give up on their CS to trade back with you and lose the precious gold.

13. Stay out on the map

On of the main reasons for losing farm is when you recall: if you are in base then you are not farming minions. If you have life steal then you will get HP back from farming and if you have decent mana regen then you will get this back too in time so just farm something while your vitals regenerate instead of wasting time at home. Only go back when you have enough money for a big item, when you completely lack the stats/regen to farm, or when it’s too risky to stay out.

14. Don’t keep switching lanes

Similarly to (13), Monte Christo might love his rotations but while you are running around between lanes you are not farming efficiently. Only rotate lanes when there is a strong reason for doing so (protecting a tower, grouping for an objective, a big team fight, etc.). Also if you know that you are going to arrive late for whatever is occurring then the time is probably better spent farming minions than running across the map trying to avenge your team mates.

15. When not to Farm

It makes me sad to say this but there will be times when you have to kiss that CS goodbye. Common ones are:

If you will take too much damage or have to risk your life for a CS then let it go, it’s not worth it. Wait for the wave to push to a more favourable position or if they are freezing ask your Jungler to come and help reset the lane.

If the wave is pushed too far into enemy territory and you are lacking decent ward coverage then it’s usually better to let it go rather than being ganked into oblivion for a few CS. High mobility champions can circumnavigate this one to some extent.

If your team is challenging an objective elsewhere on the map or defending a tower then focus on helping them rather than farming. The only exceptions are when you are too far away to help in time or when they are off on some stupid suicide mission

When you are full build (or close to full build) then go fight for objectives, you don’t need the money any more!!

16. Champions which are easy to farm with

Not all champions were made equally and some make the job of farming far easier than others. I’m not going go through every champion in the game but here are some good ones for starting out with (and remember that AD/AP/Attack Speed/CDR/Mana/Mana Regen are all good early game stats to help you farm).

ADC: Sivir’s Ricochet ability makes it extremely easy to clear waves and combined with a Static Shiv she can out-farm most other ADC

Ricochet ability makes it extremely easy to clear waves and combined with a Static Shiv she can out-farm most other ADC TOP: Shyvana the dragon lady can farm easily with her burnout, especially if you complement it with a Ravenous Hydra.

the dragon lady can farm easily with her burnout, especially if you complement it with a Ravenous Hydra. MID: Ziggs can continuously demolish waves with his EQ combo and an early Athenes Unholy Grail keeps you spamming out the bombs.

17. Champions which are difficult to farm with

Rather than call out individuals (don’t worry guys, you’re safe) here are some traits which make farming difficult:

A melee into ranged match-up is always difficult as the melee can be poked down whenever they go for a CS.

AP champions lacking spam-able abilities are often tricky because their auto-attacks do so little damage that you have a tiny window to hit your CS.

Pure tank champions can be tough for the same reason, especially in the later game unless you pick up a bit of damage or a sunfires cape

Champions which rely on Crit can sometimes miss CS due to the random nature of the stat.

Champions with damage over time effects like Fizz or Brand can sometimes make farming harder, especially when farming under turret

Blitzcrank’s Static Field passive is always fun for ADCs everywhere /endsarcasm

18. How much farm should I have?

In general a pro player will usually aim to hit 10cs every minute. Note that this is not consistent all through the game and they may start off a bit under then climb above it as the game continues. The minions move faster down the mid lane due to this lane being shorter so if you want to get the most CS then this is the lane for you, the mid is also close to multiple jungle camps which can be taken to enhance you creep score! If you are a jungle player then don’t feel too bad, your CS will be much lower in the jungle and will vary depending on the style of champion you are playing and how much time you focus on ganks.

19. What’s the most farm I could get?

The theoretical max CS at 20 minutes is around 387 for a mid laner assuming they could also kill the Wolves & Razorbeaks as soon as they spawned and the current world record for hitting 300 CS in competitive play is held by European mid laner xPeke who managed to reach it in a staggering 21 minutes 52 seconds!

20. Can I get away without farming?

Yes you can! The support role does not require you to farm although it is still best to find an alternative way of generating gold, either through the masteries in the Utility Tree, or through Gold Generation Runes, or by purchasing one of the Support Items in game.

I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any suggestions or amendments then please leave a comment.