r/summonerschool • u/Reasonable-Name-8069 • 1d ago
Discussion Using Auto-Attacks instead of Abilities
Hello everyone :)
This may sound like a weird or dumb question, but I really want to know how I can improve in LoL regarding using Auto-Attacks.
I mainly play AP Champs with a medium range (Mel, Malzahar, Ahri, Lux, Morgana to list a few) and I play mainly Mid and Support now.
I started with toplane and Mordekaiser, followed by Illaoi. Then I played Teemo for a while and really got excited about the mid range and the mobility, which led me to switching to midlane and enjoying the distance, especially with Teemo being mainly a toplaner and having melee champs as enemies that I can poke easier with Auto-attacks because of the distance.
Now, whenever I play my old champs, I’m extremely annoyed with the immobility and the close range I have to reach to be able to AutoAttack. Some of the champs I listed also don’t have a lot of mobility, but because of the mid-range, you can escape easier.
I also tried some assassins like Akali and Katarina, but I figured I’m not fond of the in&out technique, having to wait for the perfect moment and being so squishy.
I noticed that I don’t use a lot of auto-attacks though, so I’m always mana-hungry, especially in the early game. I found that Mel’s passive-execute helps with last-hitting minions, but with Ahri for example I mostly use W to last hit, and with a Caitlyn or Sivir I am completely lost (I don’t play ADC tho, but it’s the same with AD midlaners)
I also noticed that I’m kinda “afraid” of auto-attacking (?), so I just don’t use them as much. This is causing me problems, most of the time in ARAM. When I can’t pick a champ that fits my style, I’m kinda useless and getting kills by coincidence, or not getting a kill where an auto-attack would’ve been enough. With Mel it’s easy to see, so with her I’m more confident in trying.
Also I’m kinda lost with champs or augments that state things like “on your next attack…” because I know I mostly don’t attack.
So I want to improve using auto attacks more, couldn’t hurt my last-hitting as well. I even programmed a button on my mouse to the “move aggressively” option, but I’m not using it as much as I thought.
Did someone have the same problem and can help me out a bit? I know it’s a low-elo problem and some of you will probably be amused by it (I just got bronze 4), but I wanted to ask for some tips that maybe change my way of thinking about it and get better at the game.
Thanks in advance!
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u/driftkingnunu 1d ago
You mean you use abilities to last-hit minions?
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u/Own-Impress-3463 1d ago
Weaving autos between spells is the whole deal with those champs, especially Ahri and Lux where you get free damage off while the enemy's rooted or charmed
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u/Reasonable-Name-8069 1d ago
Yes exactly, eg Mel E and then Q for a wave. At the start not so much because of Cooldown and Mana, but I prefer to use abilities
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u/NetNGames 1d ago
Weaving in auto-attacks is good for maximizing damage, especially early game. That extra 50-100 dmg does a lot when you only have like, 600 hp to start with. I assign Attack-Move-Click to middle mouse so I can potentially alternate between right-clicking to move and middle-clicking to attack. There is also an option to Attack Move near cursor since the default method is attacking the closest enemy to your champion.
I also have Target Champions Only bound to a side mouse button, but that only works with Right-click (at least, it used to, don't know if they changed it). There is an option to toggle it, but I prefer it to be held so you don't forget when you want to attack a minion or tower. But it's useful for clicking through minions/tower to only hit the enemy champion with an auto-attack or targeted spell.
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u/Isario 1d ago
I’ve mained teemo for most of my time playing league. When starting out I used right click to aa. But after missclicking when kiting that resulted in moving towards the enemy insread of auto attacking them, I switched to the “attack move click” option. But using the A button always felt awkward. So with Teemo’s E being passive, I used E for attack move click. That worked great. I believe my gameplay improved quite a bit from that alone.
But I had a problem later when playing other champs. WTH do I use as attack move click now? I want space to center camera, I tried binding the E ability to D, but it wasn’t optimal. I eventually bought an azeron cyborg. That actually fixed everything. I just wish it was a bit cheaper. The shipping and import tax was as much as the product itself lol.
If you can find a button on the keyboard to bind attack move click to, that’s easy for you to use then I suggest that and just get used to AA more, or if you’re like me, looks for something like the cyborg, with lots of easy to reach buttons.
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u/Reasonable-Name-8069 1d ago
With Teemo that’s actually pretty smart :D especially since we’re able to set key binds for one champion only.
I have the space bar set to 7, so I put Zhonyas or other activated items on there. D/F are for Flash and Ignite/Teleport. I also don’t like having to press a button for an auto attack like with Cassiopeia or Zeri where you just spam press those, that’s why I set it to a button on the mouse. I thought that would have the same result as you got but I still find myself not using it
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u/Isario 1d ago
D/F for flash/ignite never worked for me. There’s no way my fingers would move fast enough to flash aa Q ignite with that binding. I’ve always kept summoner spells on mouse sidebuttons. Same with FPS games. Sidebuttons are reserved for crouch/prone.
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u/Mesmer_Malzahar 1d ago
I think that if your goal Is to lasthit well in lane the 'attack move' Is not optimal cause It Will let you Attack the nearest targhet and not the Minion with the lower HP so you should Just learn 2/3 champs and learn how to lasthit Minions clicking on then manually, Attack move Is more yousefull of you have to autoattack wile kiting other champs
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u/Ok-Swan8644 1d ago
you first need to find a main or a champ pool that contains 2 or 3 questions and then ask about them
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u/ironicperspective 1d ago
You can’t use abilities primarily for farming. You’re running yourself out of mana, putting yourself at a disadvantage for being able to trade (they have spells and you don’t), and still losing push to anyone who understands basics of wave control (auto attacks are a large part of that). You just have to sit down and practice it. You will hit a wall eventually regardless of anything else if you just can’t get gold income or can’t trade from wasting spells.
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u/Reasonable-Name-8069 1d ago
Yeah I noticed these problems, still I find myself not auto-attacking for some reason. I’ll continue practicing :)
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u/Beasstvg 1d ago
Hmm, first thing i would do is play around in practice tool and learn how to last hit minions with autos. In league its important to know how to manage your resources, so ideally you want to aa to last hit whenever you can. You can start with mel, as you said she has an easier time last hitting due to passive. After you get comfortable with mel move on to lux or ahri. A good benchmark would be 80 cs at 10 minutes. You wont reach that number in actual games, since farming in an actual game is much harder than in practice tool, but as long as you keep playing you will improve so no worries.
Now regarding using autos in fights, i think you should just play ashe adc until you start getting the hang of it. You will suck at first, adc is a hard role for beginners, but learning how to use autos will make you better overall, regardless of the champs you play. I would not play sivir or caitlyn (especially not caitlyn, shes one of the hardest adcs to play properly).
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u/Reasonable-Name-8069 1d ago
Thanks for your answer! I played Ashe a couple of times in ARAM and noticed the difference, but because I’d be bad I never tried her in normal games :D
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u/FleefieFoppie 22h ago
The way that I got better at it was by thinking of AAs as just a 100% AD ratio point and click spell bound to left click (I use AA move on left click just to help my brain distinguish from movement and casting an auto). Looking at it this way as a mage main really helped!
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u/ocsoo 14h ago
You kind of just have to force yourself to play those champs and get used to it after many games. I was in the same boat as you because I started this game by playing mages, and I didn't even grasp the concept of most champions doing a lot of damage with their auto attacks. Whenever I did play an ADC, I assumed their Q or poke ability was their main damage tool because I was so mage-brained.
I think something that could help is moving into champs that sort of sit on the line ability casters and auto attackers. On the more ability-cast-y side of that group would be Viktor, Zoe, and Neeko, and then you can slowly move into champs like Diana, Gwen, and Ekko.
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u/Reasonable-Name-8069 11h ago
Thanks for the tips! I just played an Ashe in ARAM and tried to incorporate some tips, and I was slightly annoyed of needing 4 auto attacks to cast the Q :D I used a lot of W but tried to get in more autos :)
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u/RedshiftOnPandy 1d ago
I use attack move click on space bar so I can attack the nearest thing to the cursor quickly and use my mouse to move around
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u/Coco6420 1d ago
out of curiosity do you have anything bound to center camera then?
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u/detroitmatt 1d ago
I have AMC on A and I have Target Champs Only on space. For centering I just double tap Y
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u/-KoDDeX- 1d ago
OP is a bot. Bot username and 30 day old account
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u/Reasonable-Name-8069 1d ago
I am not a bot, I made various posts and comments. I just made a new account
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u/_supershy 1d ago edited 1d ago
You just need more practice.
If you always use your abilities on the wave, you will run out of mana ASAP, as you have already noticed. You'll also leave yourself open to windows where your lane opponent can choose to punish you by trading hard against you. It also means you likely mismanage your wave state because if you're using your abilities to shove, you're usually pushing your lane and leaving yourself vulnerable to jungle ganks. Of course, in Bronze sometimes these mistakes don't get punished, but if you want to improve then you need to keep these in mind.
Try loading into a bot game with you and Lux bot on the enemy team and CSing against it. It'll help to just practice! Also you can press c to look at your auto range in game. That can help too.