Farming And Wave Management

Greetings Summoners,

Because I didn't say it before; welcome to League Of Legends' season 5 revision of Summoner's Rift:

For those reading for the first time, this blog follows my efforts in the bottom lane of Summoner's Rift, shown here:

I wanted to discuss a topic that I have found difficult to communicate to newcomers, and that is, Farming, and Wave Management.

Farming

In the early game, or laning phase, enemy carries compete for the gold and experience necessary to overpower one another later in the game. In this phase of the game, one of the best methods of earning gold and experience is to farm, that is, to land the killing blow on enemy minions to collect the rewards. 

It is the job of the ADC to get as many minion kills, or the highest "Creep Score" (CS), possible (alongside enemy champion kills). It is the job the the support to facilitate the ADC in farming, by warding to prevent ganks, and harassing to deny the enemy farm.

3 types of minions will spawn before inhibitors fall, spawning Super Minions. The 3 early types are:

Melee Minions

Blue Melee Minion

Red Melee Minion

3 melee minions spawn with every wave, and are worth 19.8 (+0.2 / 90 sec) gold, and 64 exp.

Caster Minions

Blue Caster Minion

Red Caster Minion

3 caster minions spawn with every wave, and are worth 16.8 (+0.2 / 90 sec), and 32 exp.

Siege Minions

Blue Siege Minion

Red Siege Minion

Siege minions initially spawn every 3rd wave. After 20 minutes, they will begin to spawn every other wave. At 35 minutes, they will spawn with every wave, and are worth 40 (+0.5 / 90 sec), and 92 exp.

As ADC, it is your job to land the killing blow, or "Last Hit" on as many minions as you can, prioritizing siege minions over melee minions, and melee minions over caster minions to optimize your gold and experience income.

There are 3 micro-management techniques that an ADC can use to help farm successfully:

1. Stop Orders - When safe from enemy retaliation, the ADC can use the 'S' hotkey after every last hit to issue a Stop Order, which causes the champion to do nothing until the next order is received. This is great for dealing as little damage as possible to the wave. Simply resume the attack by right-clicking a low-health minion.
2. Holding the right-click button - Using the mouse, the ADC holds the right-click button, and moves the cursor to continually issue move orders. When a minion is at low health, hovering the cursor over it will cause the champion to attack, hopefully scoring the last hit. This is a great way to farm under pressure, as the moving target is more difficult for enemies to hit.
3. Alternating move and attack move orders - By rapidly issuing move (right-click), and attack-move orders ('A' + left-click), the champion can use auto-attacks at full speed, while simultaneously re-positioning after each one. This is great for pushing the lane, or for making an offensive retreat, known as "kiting". 

As support, it is your job to facilitate and enable the allied ADC to farm. There are a couple of support functions you should perform to fulfill your expectations:

1. Warding - Using Stealth Wards and Vision Wards allow your carry to farm more safely by giving vision and awareness of enemy positions, particularly when the enemy jungler arrives to gank the lane. Ideally, the minion wave should never be pushed past ward coverage.
2. Harassment - A good support will deal damage to the enemy champions whenever possible to discourage them from farming, allowing the allied ADC to farm without competition. Supports with good CC effects are valuable for this, as well as during fight initiations, and escapes.
3. Heals, Auras - Supports with heals in their ability kits make sustained farming easier, while building items with supportive auras take things a step further.

While supporting, it is usually preferable that you DO NOT contribute damage to the minion wave, allowing the ADC to farm in peace, and push the wave as comfortable. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, including:

1. Pushing the wave out from allied turret. Losing CS to allied turret benefits no one on your team, so it is generally acceptable for the support to help push the wave out of turret range.
2. Farming while the ADC is out of lane is acceptable, as this CS is lost to the ADC, anyway. Besides, the support still requires gold and experience to stay relevant, too! Just try not to push the lane out of the ADC's control.
3. While the ADC is obviously trying to push as hard as possible. Sometimes, it is preferable to push the lane, and pressure an objective, to farming. In these cases, it is helpful for the support to contribute some damage to the wave, so that the lane advances that much faster.

Supports still require gold and experience, however. The mechanics of doing so are just a little more subtle than that of the ADC. Here are some ways to get ahead as a support:

1. Gold and experience runes and masteries - Supports should have runes and masteries to help them keep pace in the resource race. There are a number of runes available that give gold, and masteries such as Greed, Scavenger, Wealth, and Inspiration are fantastic additions to a support's mastery-tree.
2. Gold items - There are a number of items available for purchase that can increase gold income, particularly for champions who are not farming. Relic Shield/Targon's Brace/Face Of The Mountain, Spellthief's Edge/Frostfang/Frost Queen's Claim, Ancient Coin/Nomad's Medallion/Talisman Of Ascension, and Avarice Blade can all be used on champions who are not farming or carrying for income.
3. Kill assists - Assisting your carry in killing an enemy champion can be a great source of gold and experience for a support.
4. Ward clearing - as support, I almost always purchase the Sweeping Lens/Oracle's Lens trinket. Doing so allows me to inhibit enemy warding, tampering with their vision, and awarding the support bonus gold on every ward destroyed.

With some farming basics in mind, we can move onto the more advanced topic of wave management.

Wave Management

Every 30 seconds after the 1:30 mark, each nexus will spawn a wave of 6-7 minions per lane. Left on their own, minions will meet near the middle of their lane, battle for a short time, and kill each other out, almost exactly evenly. This is an extremely delicate balance. Any action by enemy or allied champions that affect minions (ie. damage, heals, buffs) upsets this balance, and advances the wave, so that the minions will meet and battle further along in the lane. This is called "pushing the lane".

When farming in lane, it is important to remember this balance, so that you can control the location of the minion wave, keeping it where it is most beneficial to you.

I like to think of the lane as divided into zones. I've roughly marked out the different zones in lane here:

Keep in mind that these zones are hand-drawn, and especially in the case of the turret ranges, may not be exactly to scale. This should be enough to give you the idea, however.

Assuming that we are playing from the blue side of the map, there are 5 zones from left-to-right. If you are playing from the red side of the map, the opposite of the following is close to accurate,

The first, in yellow, is inside the allied turret's range. Farming while the minion wave is battling here is extremely safe, as you are not vulnerable to attack from the tri-bush entrance, in-lane bushes, or the river. The downside is that your carry will be at risk of losing farm to the turret, which benefits neither the carry or support, and should be avoided.

The second zone, in green, is arguably the best place to farm in. Getting CS while the minion wave meets here exposes you to minimal risk of attack from the tri-bush entrance, or the in-lane bushes.

The third zone, again in yellow, is akin to No Man's Land. Here is the default place for the minion waves to meet, and exposes both the red and blue teams to equal risk of attack from river and in-lane bushes.

The fourth zone, marked in red, is the Danger Zone. Farming here puts you at risk of ganks from everywhere. You can get attacked from tri-bush, from river, and/or from behind the enemy turret. What's more, you are the furthest you can be from the safety of your tower. Only the most aggressive or mobile of compositions should farm here.

The fifth and final zone, marked in orange, is inside the enemy turret's range. Farming here is as dangerous as in the red zone, if not more so, due to the tower, but does offer the benefit of putting the enemy team at risk of losing CS to their tower. If you are supremely confident of your character and lane control, and map awareness, farming here can be an easy way to outpace your lane opponent. However, expect retaliation from the rest of the enemy team.