League of Legends: Scaling Explained

league of legends scaling, lol how to level up fast

Updated:

23 Oct 2021

Scaling is a very important factor in the game. Understanding how it works makes a difference between Bronze and Diamond players. Here you can find everything about scaling and how it works.

1. What Means to Scale?

Scaling is a very important component of this game as it allows you to level up and get stronger abilities. Scaling means how well the champion or team composition will perform at a certain game phase. This can be a confusing concept for new players. But once you understand how a game's dynamic changes in different phases, your gameplay will improve drastically. Every champion will scale differently, so it is important to learn which champion is stronger at which level.

There are early game, mid-game, and late-game champions. Champions who are weak earlier in the game will scale better and vice versa. Just because you are losing an early game doesn't mean you can’t crush your opponent later in the game. Every champion has stats that scale through the game, it can be health, health regeneration, ability cooldown, ability damage, and the list goes on. To completely understand this, you must understand champions and team matchups in the first place.

2. How Does Scaling Work?

Scaling is influenced by farm, items, and champion abilities. Every champion has starting stats and a growing stats rate.

Champion scaling is impacted by base statistics. Early game champions have strong base statistics which gives them an advantage earlier in the game. But their base statistics are flat numbers and they don't scale very well. Champions who start weak in the game will scale better and become stronger when gaining experience and building items.

3. Scaling on Different Lanes

Scaling depends a lot on what lane you are playing. Here you will find out how different roles scale:

TOP/JUNGLE - Scaling with these roles is pretty similar. Since most tanks and fighters are played in these roles, their scaling depends on tankiness, abilities that outscale your or your enemy’s health, and dueling potential.
ADC - For this role, scaling is very simple. They possess 3 main factors that play a role in their late-game strength and performance: in-built steroids that give your items extra scaling, range, and synergy with a critical strike.
MID - Scaling as a mid-layer can be much more difficult than scaling as ADC. That's because they have to fulfill more roles, so their strength depends on the following factors: DPS (damage per second), burst damage, and utility.
SUPPORT - For supports, scaling is the least important. Their main role is to provide the team with utility, so they will mostly scale just with levels. Utility means they will provide anything but damage and still have an impact in the fight. They provide the team with shields, heels, CC, etc. The more impact the utility has, the more support will scale.

Top 10 scaling champions

4. Tips to Know about Scaling

Here you will find some useful tips to know about scaling in different situations:

How to play with a scaling champ?

If you are playing with a scaling champ, your main focus should be on reaching that scaling power. To accomplish that, you should never go for high-risk plays, but rather stick to low-risk plays and avoid giving up any objectives and kills while you are ahead. You should always be patient. You may be weak earlier in the game, but that’s the price you have to pay to become a beast in the late game. Try not to surrender and just stay the same way. If you are losing, try to gain as much experience and gold as you can. If you surrender early in the game you are not giving your champion a chance to unleash their potential.

How to play if your scaling champion is behind?

If things are not working out in your favor no matter what you are doing, there are still a couple of things that you should consider. When the enemy makes it hard for you to gain gold and experience, you should switch lanes with a mid-laner. Especially if you play ADC because you will gain solo experience. Try asking for help from another lane. That will increase the chance of killing an opponent, which will give you time to clear enemy waves and gain gold and experience. Getting help multiple times will make you able to get back in the game and outscale your enemies. Grouping up will also help you if the enemy team is stronger. Try to steal some kills and farm to help you get back on your feet. If you are the only one in your game that is behind, just try to help your team take objectives and don’t focus so much on the farm.

How to Play Against Scaling Champion

Since now you understand how to play scaling champion, you should be able to play against one as well. You want to end the game as soon as possible and try to zone them from their farm. That means you will abuse them every time they try to take gold. If you and your team notice in champion select that their team is better scaling, you should pick early/mid game champions since that will allow you to play more aggressively and take higher risks earlier in the game. If the enemy team has only one scaling champion, you will be able to defeat him by split-pushing. That will allow you to put more pressure on the map since they can’t be on all lanes at once.

How to Play When Scaling Enemy Gets an Early Lead

Sometimes late-game champions may take an early advantage. There are a few things to keep in mind if that happens. You and your team should focus on the enemy champion and try to stop his scaling. If the enemy is too strong, you should focus on feeding the champion that scales the most in your team. Sometimes scaling enemies will become too confident and overestimate their current impact on the game. Try to abuse their mistakes and that will put them behind in no time. Make sure that other lanes win since that will enable your team to focus on scaling the enemy. Destroying turrets will give you the freedom to roam around the map and put the enemy behind.

5. Conclusion

If you understand the scaling, most likely you will notice an improvement in your gameplay. You should know how your champion scales in every part of the game, and how to put the enemy champion behind. If you are a late-game champion try to focus on getting as much gold and experience as fast as possible. If you are yet early/mid-game champion try to abuse the scaling champion’s early game weakness and finish the game as soon as you can.