07
June

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When it comes to hitting Challenger rank or climbing up the ranked ladder in League of Legends, mechanics such as slow pushing your lane have an absolutely crucial role to play. Developing a good understanding of the mechanics, you'll find throughout your games is essential to maximize your play-making potential, develop a strong advantage over other players, and play the game to your fullest potential.

 

Among all of the different mechanics  that you could focus your attention on, input buffering in LoL is one of the most overpowered things that you can put to use in a huge variety of situations to gain an immediate advantage and catch your enemies off-guard.

 

However, surprisingly few people know about input buffering, and even fewer people actually take advantage of this mechanic to win more games.

 

Let's take a quick look at how it works, why it's overpowered, and how it's done!

 

What Is Input Buffering in LoL & Why Is It Useful?

Input buffering is the practice of queuing up an ability to be used so that it fires off instantly after certain other abilities or summoner spells.

 

This works because the enemy you're trying to cast your ability on isn't in range, and by performing another action over top of the ability cast, it essentially places your ability into a queue to "wait for its turn," which happens once you're actually in range. A good example of a buffer ability is a summoner spell like a flash.

 

The instant cast happens before your enemies can react to it, which basically guarantees that you'll be able to get your ability off before they can dodge it or reposition themselves in a more advantageous manner. A good example of some beneficial use-cases is using Vayne's Condemn to deny enemy gap closers, or lining up Veigar's stun before you're in range for an automatic stun once the enemy is within the ability's radius.

 

How To Input Buffer Your Champion's Abilities

The easiest way to figure out how to input buffer your abilities is to illustrate the mechanic with a solid example.

 

Let's say that you're playing Annie, and you want to cast her ultimate (Tibbers) on the enemy team or a specific location that's just slightly outside of her ability range.

 

In this scenario, you'll cast your ability, indicate where it should be cast, and then immediately flash to get in range. This will result in your ability being cast on the indicated location in sheer milliseconds after you flash. Obviously, this is practically impossible to react to.

 

However, if you flash and then press R, it will still have the ability-input delay before it casts, making it easy for your enemies to reposition or dodge it altogether.

 

Closing Thoughts

If used correctly, input buffering gives you a huge advantage throughout every phase of the game by allowing you to land your abilities without giving the enemy players a chance to react or even see it coming.

 

While it's not an incredibly complicated mechanic to pick up, mastering it takes some time, and you'll definitely need to put in some practice to really get the hang of it.

 

We recommend that you jump into some ARAM games or make use of the handy practice tool to give it a shot. Best of luck!

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