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Wild Rift Mid Lane Guide
Mid lane is one of the most critical roles in Wild Rift, serving as a hub of map control and game tempo. Being in the middle of the map, you have quick access to roaming wherever your team needs you, so having lane priority and quickly moving to fights will give your team a huge advantage. This guide will focus on mastering the mid lane laning phase using precise wave management, vision control, and roaming. In this guide, we’ll break down how to make the most of your early game and set yourself up for success.
Wave Management
Controlling the minion wave is your first step to dominating in the early game. Wave management is the most important laning skill and perfecting it will give you a big advantage in trades, roams, and base timings. The three wave states are: Freezing, Slow Pushing, and Shoving. You need to understand what these wave states are and how to abuse them to get leads.
Freezing
By freezing the wave, you can deny the enemy farm and experience while keeping yourself safe from ganks. Freezing involves last-hitting minions and letting the enemy wave push toward you, keeping it just outside your turret’s range. This is especially useful when you’re in a losing matchup so you can farm safely. However, this can also be a great strategy to set up ganks or look for solo kills, since it forces your enemy laner to overextend for farm, giving you space to chase them down.
Well, this sounds amazing! Why shouldn't I just freeze the entire game?! While freezing is a great strategy it has a major downside, you give up lane priority. While you are freezing the wave, it is very easy for the enemy laner to roam to the side lanes or invade your jungle. So make sure when you are freezing that your team has good vision and isn’t susceptible to invades or dives.
Here is a great example of me utilizing freezing to set up an easy gank. Tristana is forced to overextend to farm minions while having no flash, leading to an easy kill. Keep in mind this game is from pro scrims vs a Sovereign mid laner.
Slow Pushing
Another strategy is slow pushing, which involves building a large wave of minions. To do this, let a big wave build up on your side by last hitting minions and trying to zone the enemy laner from clearing the wave. This is helpful when you’re preparing to roam, as it forces the enemy to stay in lane and clear the wave while you influence other parts of the map. Slow Pushing is quite hard to do in mid lane as most champions you will face have good waveclear.
Fast Pushing
Fast Pushing is when you clear the wave quickly using your abilities, shoving it under the enemy turret. This is best utilized when your opponent is dead or missing from the lane since your minions will be killed by the enemy turret quickly, denying your enemy gold and XP.
You also want to fast push so you can recall without losing too many minions since by the time the next wave comes you will be back in lane.
Most importantly, fast pushing gives you lane priority. While your laner is stuck farming the wave under their turret, you can roam to the side lanes, set up deep vision, rotate to an objective, or help your jungler invade.
Lane Priority and Recalling
Lane priority is the ability to push your wave faster than your opponent, giving you the freedom to move around the map. In the early game, maintaining lane priority allows you to control objectives, roam, and help your jungler with invades or skirmishes. To keep lane priority, you need to carefully manage your wave and ensure that you have enough resources to push efficiently.
Your opponents will often contest lane priority by trading. In losing matchups it’s fine to give up lane priority. Your focus should be on staying healthy, getting minions, and scaling to your power spikes. In winning matchups you want to ensure you have lane priority in key timers like scuttle crab fights, objectives, and invades.
Reset timings are equally important for mid lane dominance. After pushing the wave under the enemy turret, if you have enough gold, you should look to recall and reset your health, mana, and buy key items. You should time your resets around your item powerspikes, so you can be as strong as possible. You also want to time your resets around the first objective, to ensure that you’re at full power when your team is ready to contest Dragon or Herald. To do so, make sure you base after pushing the wave 11th wave which reaches mid lane at 4:25, the next wave will reach mid lane at 4:50, giving you just enough time to clear it out, get priority, and rotate to the objective.
Working in synergy with your jungler is crucial when it comes to reset timings, you need to make sure that your decisions align with their plans. For instance, if your jungler is looking to contest scuttle crab or invade the enemy jungler, you shouldn’t be recalling, you should be preparing to assist them.
Vision
Vision control is critical in the early game for securing your safety and enabling more informed decision-making. As a mid laner, you have easy access to both sides of the map, so establishing strong vision around your lane, in the river, and deep in the enemy jungle is essential for tracking the enemy jungler, avoiding ganks and facilitating roams.
In the early game, you always want to start the game with the Warding Totem trinket, tracking the enemy jungler is one of your most important tasks. If you spot the enemy jungler on one side of the map, it allows your team to play more aggressively on the opposite side or invade for deep vision. For example, if you see the enemy jungler on the bot side near Dragon, you can safely push your wave and look for a roam top or set up a gank with your jungler. Keeping constant tabs on the enemy jungler's location is crucial to ensuring your lane remains secure and that you avoid unnecessary deaths.
As the game progresses, you can swap to Sweeping Lens if you are playing an assassin or heavy roamer or Control Ward if you are playing a mage. These will help enhance your roaming potential by allowing you to clear enemy wards, and control key areas of the map. By denying the opposing team vision of your movements, it is easier to execute surprise ganks or set up objectives without them knowing. If you are behind, stick to the Warding Totem as you have less map control and can not properly defend your control wards.
Here are the best ward placements for the early game in Mid Lane:
Roaming
Roaming in the early game is a powerful way to influence other lanes and snowball your team. However, the key to successful roaming is timing. Before leaving lane, make sure your minion wave is pushed under the enemy turret. This makes it difficult for the opposing mid laner to follow you and forces them to either lose CS or stay in lane. Roaming becomes especially effective when your side lanes are in a good position to capitalize on a gank or a dive.
When roaming, move your camera to the side lanes to gauge the situation. The main thing to take note of is the state of the minions wave. Are they pushed in? Perfect chance for a gank. Are they slow-pushing a big wave? Could be a dive opportunity. Next, pay attention to the health & mana bars of your team and the enemy team. If the enemies are low on HP the roam will be even easier, but if your team lacks HP or mana, they might not be of much help during the roam. After deciding if the wave is in a good state to roam, always communicate with your team through pings to let them know you’re on your way. The Dragon lane is often the best target for early roams since there are 2 champions there, so with a good roam, you can set behind 40% of the enemy team. Roams are even more effective when you synergize with your jungler to gank at the same time. You can time this by paying attention to their pathing.