5 Tips to Reduce Your Death Risk in League of Legends

5 Tips to Reduce Your Death Risk in League of Legends

Having a low death score in League of Legends is incredibly important. Not only does dying make your KDA look bad, but it also leaves you at a severe disadvantage as a whole.

When you’re dead, you will miss out on gold and XP which makes you fall behind. You’ll also be giving the enemy gold, which can allow them to win the lane or start a snowball.

In this Mobalytics guide, we will break down some tips and tricks to help you die less and increase your survivability in League of Legends.

Here are the topics we will be covering:

• What is death risk in League of Legends?
• Examples of weak champions
• Examples of strong champions
• How to reduce your death risk (5 tips)
  1. Optimize your combos
  2. Do not ward alone in the later parts of the game
  3. Respect the enemies power spikes
  4. Avoid constantly pushing the minion wave
  5. Check the minimap before initiating a fight

What is death risk in League of Legends?

Death risk in League of Legends is how often and under what circumstances you die. For instances, do you die while overextending? Do you die in 1v1 fights? Or do you get constantly caught out of position? Having a high death risk tells you that you’re dying way too much while having a low death risk is generally seen as a good thing.

Utility Supports like Soraka, Yuumi and Janna should have a lower death risk as they need to play safe. If you have a high death risk on one of these champions, you’re miss positioning a lot and dying too often. However, some champions (theoretically) have a higher death risk if they’re a tank or need to be in the frontline like Malphite or Dr Mundo as they need to initiate fights and get onto the enemy.

Examples of champions with increased death risk

Squishier champions have a higher chance of dying as they are pretty easy to kill. This means that you need to be incredibly careful when trying to trade with the enemy, and you need to avoid going for risky fights; otherwise, you’ll come worse off. Champions who are immobile, bad in the early game or vulnerable alone will also be at an increased risk of getting killed.

Nami

Nami is super squishy and easy to take down. She has low base stats and doesn’t build any defensive items. While she does have built-in sustain, she is still incredibly vulnerable.

Ryze

Ryze is a weak early game champion and can easily be abused. You mustn’t fall behind on him. Otherwise, you’ll find it hard to come online during the mid and late game.

Brand

Brand is the Support with the most deaths, and it’s easy to see why. He is super immobile and incredibly vulnerable. One bad trade or one misplay and you’re dead. Blow your Flash early and you’re going to get killed over and over again.

Examples of champions with lower death risk

Generally speaking, champions who are tankier should have a lower death risk as they are tanky. Mobile champions will also die less often as they can escape skirmishes. Strong 1v1 champions should also have a lower death risk. But, no matter how good your champions character traits are, they are only going to help you so much. If you misplay, you’re going to find it hard to stay alive.

Janna

Janna has a heal, a shield, disengage tools and is super fast. With good positioning in the lane, you should rarely die on her.

Learn “with ease” how to master Janna with Janna’s champion page.

Nautilus

Nautilus has a lot of tanky stats, has a shield, gets bonus defensive stats when he activates Aftershock and has good kill pressure. With good wave management and when playing around your Aftershock, you shouldn’t die too often on Nautilus.

Become stronger when playing Nautilus by looking at Nautilus’ champion page.

Sejuani

Sejuani is a tank and will also build tanky items. While she doesn’t have built-in sustain like some other champions, she does get increased defensive stats with her Passive. This increases her survivability in fights.

Learn the ways of the Poro rider with Sejuani’s champion page.

How to reduce your death risk

To reduce your death risk, you must understand the stats related to your performance.

You can check this out at any time by plugging your Summoner name and seeing your GPI scores, as seen in the image below.

With these stats in mind, you can see how frequently you get taken out by the enemy.

1) Optimize your combos

Poor trades with an enemy champion will result in you coming worse off from the trade. You may lose tons of health or even die in the process of fighting them. One way you can reduce your death risk is by optimizing your champions combos so you can deal as much damage to the enemy as possible in the shortest amount of time.

For instance, if you can perfect a combo on your champion, you will be able to perform that combination of skills consistently. If you don’t know any combos for your champion, you may not understand the best order to use your abilities.

Here is an example Mordekaiser combo which you can find on Mordekaiser’s champion page.

By looking at Mobalytics champion pages, you can see lots of different combos for your favourite champion. Head into the Practice Tool and try to perfect them before taking them into a game. The more practice you get trying to perfect your champions combos, the better you will be at them. Learning combos does not only help you reduce your death risk; it helps in so many different aspects of gameplay.

If you’re not sure how to practice the combos, check out this separate guide on how to practice learning champion combos in League of Legends.

2) Do not ward alone in the later parts of the game

In the later parts of the game, avoid going to ward major objectives alone if you’re unsure where the enemy team is. If you do not know where they are, you could be walking into a trap. If you die, the enemy could force a fight with the remaining members of your team, or secure the objective with the numbers advantage.

Communicate with your team via pings or use the chat to ask your team to ward with you. If they refuse or if they’re not in a position to help, do not ward unless you know where the enemy is. If the enemy shows somewhere else on the map, you can ward as they cannot be in two places at once.

It’s not worth it to check Baron alone and without vision, if you know the enemy is around that area. However, if you are going to check the pit, make sure you take roundabout routes through the jungle’s top side instead of predictable routes closer to mid lane.

3) Respect the enemies power spike

Some champions are not as strong as others- that’s the nature of League of Legends. Some champions like Ryze or Kassadin have incredibly weak early games, while champions like Renekton or Darius have rather strong early games.

Wukong example power spikes. Find more tips on how to play around certain champions power spikes via their champion page.

It would be best if you respected the enemies power spikes at all times. If you do not, the enemy will crush you if you decide to fight them. Here are some power spikes to be on the lookout for.

Level 2

• Many champions like Leona, Thresh or Alistar have very strong level 2 all-ins.

Level 6

• Some champions Ultimates are powerful and offer them increased kill pressure. This includes champions like Urgot, Darius or Syndra.

If your level 2 or level 6 isn’t as strong as the enemies, you shouldn’t fight them or look to trade with them at this time. If they get the level advantage, back up until you hit the same level as them so you do not die.

If you want to know when a champion is strong or what other power spikes champions have, check out this Mobalytics article on how to understand power spikes.

4) Avoid constantly pushing

When you’re pushing the minion wave, you’re putting yourself in an overextended position. If you’re playing a weak champion or if you’re behind, generally, it’s not a good idea to constantly push the minion wave as the enemy could freeze it near their tower. Once it’s frozen there, you will have to overextend for farm or miss out on gold. They may also try to chase you down once you walk forward and try to secure minions.

Try and keep the minion wave closer to your side of the map to reduce your chances of getting killed by the enemy. Playing near your side of the map will make it difficult for them to kill you (pre-6 in particular) as the tower offers you extra protection.

For you to keep the minion wave on your side of the map, there needs to be more enemy minions in the lane than allied ones. For it to be near your tower, there needs to be up to 3 additional enemy minions.

Wave management is a powerful tool and if you can master it, you will not only reduce your death risk, but you’ll also increase your chances of getting kills too. Here’s the best and most in-depth wave management guide in the world to help you understand how to manage waves properly.

5) Check the minimap before initiating a fight

How many times have you started a fight with the enemy and suddenly the enemy Jungler shows up and kills you? The reason this occurred was because you didn’t check the minimap before going in.

Checking the minimap for the enemy Junglers location before starting a skirmish is very important as it will help you stay alive in the lane for longer. For instance, delaying a fight until the enemy Jungler shows in a different part of the map is not a bad option if you don’t know where they are right now. It’s better to be safe than sorry in the long run too.

If the enemy Jungler is nearby, hold off from overextending or picking a fight with the enemy laner as they may come and join the fight and kill you. If your map awareness is poor, or if you struggle to keep an eye on the map, give this guide a read. It will give you some tips and tricks on how to improve map awareness in League of Legends.

Conclusion

Decreasing your death risk in League of Legends is honestly quite easy. You need to keep your wits about you. Checking the minimap constantly and asking yourself questions like “where would I be if I were the enemy right now?” will help you out in the long run.

If you have any questions or want to learn more, check out PicklePants’s stream.

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