Most of my recent writing has been editorial, looking at sweeping changes to the different games I play and what it means for the development of the title. I love writing that stuff, but I also miss writing stuff like this, so here we are. Today’s pro tip is something simple, but often overlooked, even at higher ELOs.

The other day I was laning with my brother. We always have a good time playing together but something felt different. I was having trouble last-hitting creeps, something I never struggle with, to the point that my friends usually ask me to stop last-hitting so well. The problem wasn’t me. It was him. He was last-hitting like a fiend, building up his creep count and working toward a really nice early game farm.

If you want to immediately improve your game, learn to last hit. Farming is the most important part of your early game, even more so than ganking. If you’ve ever left lane to attempt a gank and returned to find your opponents out-leveling you and crushing your creep count, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve ever seen a Miss Fortune with Infinity Edge at 14 minutes, you also know what I’m talking about. A successful early farm allows you to leap past your opponents’ gear levels and sets you up for a strong end game.

A strong farm is more than just last hitting creeps, though. You should always be looking for ways to maximize your gold. Jump out of lane to briefly grab jungle creeps while the lane pushes back up. Learn when you need to help your team defend a turret and when you can avoid the stalemate and go farm a side lane. Learn when you need to abandon a tower because the defense is crippling your farm.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask your teammates to let you farm. The other day I was playing Zilean, laning with a Mundo player. That’s a great lane team, right? Well, it was, but Mundo didn’t want to zone our opponent. Instead, he was chucking his cleavers at creeps, often killing them from 30 percent health or more. Not only was it pushing our lane, it was ruining my farm. I asked him to let me farm. He wasn’t interested, so I just started bombing every creep I saw. I know, that’s not a great example, but it illustrates the point that farming is a team effort. If you aren’t cooperating with your lanemate, you better hope you have better farming skills or get out of lane. If you’re lucky, though, you’ll get a teammate who knows how to zone with abilities and last hit with attacks and who will compliment your own skillset.

The last thing I’ll say is don’t sweat it. Creeps take very predictable damage, so you’ll get better. If your opponents are beating you by 5-10 creeps, no big deal. When they go up 30-40, that’s when you need to worry. With a little focus, though, you should be able to push your creep count up, buy high-tier items early in the game, and help carry your team to victory.

I know that many of you have probably seen this video, but it’s so good I had to share it. I’ve played most of my games over the past couple days with a guy named Everett and we’ve been winning a ton. We even took down a high-tier TakashiX/Elementz combo, albeit largely because the rest of their team lacked synergy. In the games that we’ve been able to lane together, we’ve done an absolutely brutal job of zoning our opponents with combinations like Sion/Ezreal. With so much nuking power and Ezreal’s extreme range, we have effectively shut our opponents out of early XP, making the rest of the game very difficult for them.

Zoning is basically using your skills and position to keep your enemy away from creep lines, thereby denying them XP while still farming yourself. It is a rough tactic, and though some champions can counter it, most will struggle if you can do it well. Shurelia does a great job explaining the various aspects of zoning so I’ll save you the trouble.

On a side note, I may start a weekly learning series, in which I cover some aspect of the game, much like this. If you have any questions or a topic you’d like to see covered, drop a note in the comments. I’d also be open to guides if you need help with a specific hero. As always, you can find me in game as “The Wiggin Boy.”