6 Tips to Help Play as a Melee versus Ranged Matchups

Sometimes you end up bringing a blade to a gunfight…

One of the worst experiences you can have in League of Legends is when you’re playing a melee champion, and the enemy picks a champion with range. This can be extremely difficult to play and really frustrating.

In this Mobalytics guide, we will provide some useful tips and tricks to help you handle these one-sided matchups to ensure you stay caught up and stay in the game from the get-go. While you might not be able to win the lane, there are many different things you can do to help you early on.

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1. Know the Matchup

First, understand the matchups you might face on your champion. You need to know what the enemy does, have a feel for their cooldowns, and also know when they’re strong and weak.

If you don’t know what each champion does, then you will find it hard to lane against a champion as you’ll never know what they can throw your way. By knowing their cooldowns and what each ability does, then you will have an idea of what the enemy can do to you.

There are a few ways to know the matchups you’re in. First off is just by naturally playing the game and learning by feel. This will probably be the best way of learning matchups: for me, learning by doing is much easier than just reading. Reading and doing research on matchups is another option. You can look for gameplay by high ELO players and see how they play in certain matchups. This is a viable option if you one trick a champion, as you can just learn all the matchups that way.

If you’re into reading, you should check out the Mobalytics Champion Page for tips and tricks to play as and against every champion in LoL. If you’re a premium user, we also have unique, situational information to help you play as a champion vs another.

2. Adapt your Runes

You should consider changing your Rune page as well. You may not want to change your keystone or first tree, but you should consider swapping your second line for the Resolve tree instead. The Resolve tree has multiple different defensive choices to help you survive. My favourite is Bone Plating.

Many different champions can do this. But if you want to know if your champion can, head over to the Mobalytics Champion Pages to see what other combinations you can use.

Yasuo is a good example of a champion who can use Resolve secondary to protect him from incoming damage and poke. It’s super important to take this against a ranged champion.

Similarly, you may want to adjust and opt for additional armour instead of adaptive damage in the minor rune section. You don’t have to go double armour, but it is an option open to you.

3. Change your Starting Items

For most champions, another thing you might want to change is your starting item. Instead of opting for a Doran’s Blade, you could get a Doran’s Shield. Doran’s Shield blocks incoming damage from attacks, helping you take less damage.

Similarly, it gives better stats to help you survive the laning phase and keep you alive against all-ins. This is one of the most significant changes you must make when playing any mele champion.

4. Get Early Defensive Items

Another great option is to opt for early defensive items that provide armor and health for AD champions. These will help you survive and make it harder for you to get killed. You could buy many different items, but most commonly, you would want cloth armour, ruby crystal, or something similar.

Many champions can also upgrade their boots early. Getting a first item, Plated Steelcaps or Mercury’s Threads will help you against poke and enemy ranged attacks. Not sure what items your champion can buy? Head over to the Mobalytics Champion Pages to see what items work on your champion.

A Qiyana might opt for Plated Steelcaps to protect her from damage, which would help her. But she may benefit more from Boots of Lucidity and instead buy a different armour item when playing against a ranged mid laner. If she were against a Tristana, she would probably go Plated Steelcaps, but against an Ahri, she might opt for Boots of Lucidity.

5. Utilise Wave Management

When you’re playing at a range disadvantage, you need to keep the wave in a favourable position so you will not get killed or denied by the enemy. The best place for you to keep the minion wave is close to your tower but outside of the tower range. This is because it is close to your tower, which will prevent you from overextending or getting zoned by the enemy.

It is essential to emphasise that you need the wave to stay outside of your tower range to prevent it from bouncing, resetting or messing up your ability to farm. If you play under the tower, your tower will suffer, and you may lose your tower if you die. Also, if you’re under the tower, you cannot follow up and help your Jungler if they decide to gank you.

For the wave to remain on your side of the lane, you need to keep it frozen. We’ve already made an in-depth wave management guide, which goes into detail on how to freeze appropriately in Season 14.

6. Make Sacrifices

In a tough matchup, you must be prepared to sacrifice some minions in the early game so you do not fall too far behind. Let’s suggest that you try to take every minion early on. Not only will you be in range of the enemy, but the likelihood of you getting contested for each minion is relatively high.

In the early game, health is much more valuable than gold. If you don’t have a lot of health, you have to play safe so you do not give the enemy a lot of gold and then fall behind in XP while you’re dead. It is better to sacrifice some CS and pick up the XP instead of taking a lot of damage from the enemy.

When deciding whether to leave a minion or give it up, you must calculate whether it’s worth taking the enemy’s damage for the one CS. If it is a cannon minion, it may be necessary to go for it if you can sacrifice your health.

In Conclusion

When playing in an out-ranged matchup, you are at an inherent disadvantage from the get-go. Be prepared for an “interactive lane” where you have to buy items that counter the enemy. After all, some matchups will be bad for you—that’s the life of a League of Legends player. Just play through it and try to come out even or ahead.

For more articles like this, or for articles to help you on your climb, why not head over to the Mobalytics Blog for more!