The Importance of Early Game Autoattacking

Introduction

Earlier today while playing on a smurf account at gold level, I found something very interesting. While marksmen players tend to understand that their main goal is to auto-attack as much as possible, it seemed like a lot of other players rarely, if ever, auto attacked (even when they were in range to do so).


The worst offenders by far appeared to be AP casters, who seemed to rely solely on their spells for harass, even during laning phase. Although this may be the safest route during teamfighting in order to stay out of harm’s way, during laning phase it's a massive damage increase that often becomes the difference between victory and defeat in a 1v1 battle.

Let's check out the top two worst offenders, AP mids and melee supports:

Strength of Autoattacks

AP Mids

Let’s take a simple example. Level 1 Syndra has a base damage of 54  whereas her level 1 nuke deals 70 + 60% of AP in damage (estimated 88 with 30 AP to start). This means that magic resistance and armor aside, every TWO auto attacks effectively deals MORE damage than a single nuke.

Now think about how many nukes you miss in lane trying to harass…wouldn't it be easier to just land two autos instead?

Melee Supports

Meanwhile, let's take Taric for a melee example, as I see a lot of melee supports also fail to put in as many auto attacks as they should.

Level 1 Dazzle	40 damage
Level 1 Shatter	40 damage
Level 1 Auto	58 damage

Every auto-attack you do does MORE than a single shatter! Not only that, but Taric's passive also gives his next attack 20% of his armor in damage! (about 64 total at level 1)

Even the armor reduction isn't enough to make up for that, which equates to about 4% more damage taken from autos (about 3~4 more damage from an average ADC auto). Of course, if you can get in 3~4 autos between you and your ADC then of course feel free. But if given the choice between only a shatter and an auto, the auto actually does more.

Best Time To Autoattack

So you're convinced that you need to auto attack more. Do you just do it willy-nilly? Of course not, there's always times that are better than others to throw an extra auto in.

The optimal time to auto-attack is always when the enemy laner has just performed an auto-attack themselves. The reason why? Because there is a time delay between one auto and the next.

This means there are two times when you should auto:

1. Right when your opponent is about to CS
2. Right after your opponent has harassed you.

Never take harass unless you at least get CS or a chunk of the enemy's health for compensation!

Conclusions

Auto-attacks are much more valuable than many players believe, especially early in the game. Even if they don't "feel" very effective, they stack up quickly and are often the difference between winning and losing an early skirmish.

Thoughts? Comment below!