League of Legends is always evolving, but roaming champions always make their presence known regardless of the meta. Being in the middle of the map, midlaners have a chance to impact both bot and top lane with their roams. Thus, choosing the best roaming champion is crucial to dominate your SoloQ games.
Table of Contents
Choosing a perfect Roaming champion
Each game has a different set of champions in them. With so many variations, some champions are better than others in certain situations. Not to go too long into this, here are some things you should focus on.
In order to roam successfully, you should always have priority in the mid lane. First step to achieving this is having a stronger champion than your opponent. There are different sites you can check if enemy counters you, but main question is, can you push the lane. If you can do it, you’re ready to go.
Furthermore, take in account team compositions. If your team consists of mostly physical damage, avoid picking another attack damage champion. Instead, opt for an AP one such as Galio.
Without further ado, here are the best roaming mid laners.
Galio
Pros:
- Easy to learn
- Good Waveclear
- Semi-Global Ultimate
- Has many winning or even matchups
Cons:
- Scales bad
- Weak when behind
Gameplay
We start off our list with one of the simpler champions in the game, Galio. While The Colossus is not the flashiest and most fun champion to play, he’s extremely reliable. His ultimate provides his team safety whenever they find themselves in a pickle. Season 11 was not very kind to him though.
Majority of his items got nerfed and his build path got awkward. The good thing that came out of it was a rise of Predator rune set which allows him to roam even more around the map. If he had a better scaling and a decent build path he’d find himself higher on this list.
Aurelion Sol
Pros:
- Easy Roams
- Good early game
- Scales good
Cons:
- Difficult playstyle
- Hard to 1v9 with
Gameplay
The Star Forger was expected to be a popular champion. But his kit didn’t rise to the occasion and very few players ended up picking Aurelion Sol as their main hero. He is not a hard champion to play mechanically wise, but there is no other mid laner who uses same tactics as him.
This makes him unique and often frustrating to play against. His E “Comet of Legend” allows him to pass through walls and gank other lanes at the moments notice. If you want to play a galaxy dragon, I definitely recommend picking him up!
Talon
Pros:
- Strong Lane
- Easy Roams
- Can Splitpush
Cons:
- Hard to find openings when behind
- Gankable until level 6
Gameplay
If you ever faced Talon, you know how easy it is for him to pick up first blood at level 2. If you get ahead as Talon you can comfortably take over the game. Your E gives you ability to parkour over the walls and find unsuspecting targets for easy kills. Before you know it you’re already 10/0 and enemy is voting to FF.
He’s one of the few champions on this list that can work even in Challenger. If you are considering a new roaming champion, he’s the one I’d go for.
ALSO READ: Best Talon Skin
Katarina
Pros:
- Strong Teamfighting
- Needs just 1 kill to get going
- Cheap Build Path
Cons:
- Weak Lane
- Hard to CS with
Gameplay
Katarina is one of the champions that has been constantly terrorizing soloq for as long as I can remember. There never seems to be meta where she’s completely forgotten. A lot of mobility and burst damage makes her extremely fun to play.
Even if you shut her down, she needs just 1 kill to pop off. And once Katarina’s going, it’s hard to stop her. She’s a walking highlight reel so if you want to show off you know who you are picking.
Pyke
Pros:
- Stealth
- A lot of damage
Cons:
- No laning phase
- Needs many kills
Gameplay
We covered a lot of unique champions in this best roaming mid laners guide, but Pyke tops our list. He doesn’t lane like other champions, instead he gets boots on his first recall and just roams around the map.
Passive on his ultimate Death From Below gives him a chance to get 600 gold from each kill. Now that’s pretty good if you ask me. Just don’t fall into a bait and start caring about your CS numbers, because they will be extremely low. Pyke isn’t there to farm minions, he’s there to farm champions!
ALSO READ: Self Mitigated Damage Explained
Pantheon
Pros:
- Strong lane
- Good Burst
- Splitpush
- Global Ultimate
Cons:
- Scales bad
- Countered by CC
Gameplay
Pantheon is the most similar to Talon on our list. He is a strong duelist so getting early kills in lane as him is more than doable. Spartan can quickly join the action no matter where he’s on the map with his R Grand Starfall. He falls off in the late game quite hard so try to finish the games before they hit 30 minute mark.
His strongest points are when he completes his first item, and then when he completes his second item.
Zed
Pros:
- Kill Potential
- Split push
- Good Teamfighting
- Safe Lane
Cons:
- Hard to play
Gameplay
The Master of Shadow has been tearing up SoloQ and competitive play recently. His W and R make him extremely slippery and hard to kill. Just like Katarina, he has many tools to make outplays happen. In the past he was often countered by tanks and a lot of shields, which doesn’t seem to be the case in Season 11.
Both Eclipse and Prowler’s Claw give him a strong 1 item spike where he can start taking over the game. In my humble opinion, I believe Zed is the strongest assassin in the game at the moment.
Conclusion
There are many roaming champions that are good in the mid lane at the moment. Give them all a try and stick to the one you had the most fun playing. Do note that it will feel different if you play simpler champion such as Pantheon for the first time, compared to playing Zed for the first time.