Thinking In Gold, Not Kills: A guide to being rich in LoL

When people try to describe what League of Legends is, they're likely to talk about how players need to destroy turrets and inhibitors, kill monsters and minions, and of course kill everyone that stands in your way. While killing other players is a part of the game, we all draw attention to the fact that in order to win the game, you need to break the Nexus.

When it comes to playing however, many players focus on kills more than anything. Objectives aren't pushed and kill leads mean less and less. Games that seemed easy are starting to slip, and those that seemed impossible are starting to work out. What's happening?

When watching pro games or spectating it's easy to see who is at an item advantage by looking at the gold count. There are even times where a team will have more kills but will still be at a huge disadvantage simply because the other is getting more global objectives. Kills are part of League of Legends- but only because the enemy is standing in the way of everything else. 

Instead of thinking in kills it is best to have a gold-oriented view of the game. Keeping track of ways you can get fed outside of kills leads to objectives, items, and eventually the Nexus.

 

What Gives Gold?

In order to think in gold, a look at what actually gives it is in order. This is a very brief overview on the biggest factors that grant gold:

Minions:

- Melee: 19g (scales by +0.5g per 3 mins)
- Caster: 14g (+0.2g per 90 seconds)
- Siege: 40 (+1g per 3 mins)
- Super: 40 (+1g per 3 mins)

Farming well is absolutely critical.  As 12 or so minions will be equal to a kill depending on game time, knowing how to last hit is important. This is the entire point of a laning phase!

Jungle Monsters: 

 

Wraith: 
- 35g (+0.47 per level) 
Lesser Wraith:
- 4g (+0.05/lvl) 
Giant Wolf:
- 40g (+0.58g/lvl)
Wolf:
- 8g (+0.11g/lvl)
Big Golem:
- 55g (+0.76g/lvl)
Golem:
- 15g (+0.23g/lvl)
Wight:
- 65g (+0.94g/lvl)
Ancient Golem (Blue Buff):
- 60g (?/lvl)
Lizard Elder (Red Buff):
- 60g (?/lvl)
Young Lizard:
- 7g (?/lvl)

Don't forget to farm as a jungler! Ganking should not be your only source of income in most cases. Assuming most ganks end in sitting around or burning an ult/summoner, you aren't getting much passive experience, and you certainly aren't making money.
 

Turrets and Inhibitors:



- 100 global gold
- 150 gold split between members who participated in dropping the turret
- Inner Turrets grant 120 gold, 30 exp, and 100 gold split evenly among those who assisted
- Inhibitor Turrets give 100 gold, 175 exp, and no split gold

- Inhibitors themselves are worth 50g for whoever kills it. No assist gold.

Turrets may be a non-renewable source of gold, but that's exactly why they are so important. You can keep killing everyone until kingdom come, but turrets are what's stopping you from hitting the Nexus. This does not mean you need to rush to every turret possible; it's ideal to have some sort of laning phase so you can farm. While everyone is dancing around mid not doing anything you can get someone to splitpush and apply pressure elsewhere.

Baron Nashor:



- 300 gold
- 600 global experience
- 800 experience to those who assisted 
- Grants a huge buff, Exalted With Baron Nashor. It gives 40 ap and ad, as well as health and mana regen.  

Dragon:



- 180g (+20 per lvl, +25 to killer)
- Gives variable experience depending on player level.

Do not undervalue neutral objectives! Sometimes Baron and Dragon are worth getting over pushing a turret that can go down in a few minutes. Baron and Dragon require careful timing and strict map awareness, and ignoring an optimal time to get them in favour of something else isn't as helpful. 

How signifiact is around 180g  to each player? This is before and after Dragon for red side when Udyr decided to solo early:

That's a whole extra 1k!

Baron in particular not only grants a lot of gold, but the buff is as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. 40 ap and ad is nothing to ignore, and it's no wonder games are turned around from killing Baron. To compare, 40 ap is the same as a Blasting Wand, and 40 ad is 10 short of a BF Sword. 

Kills:


(Chart from here. On the right is your bounty,
on the left how much you're worth per death.)

- Your bounty resets whenever you kill a champion, or tally up more assists.
- Kills are worth 75% of its base value at the first 2 minutes of the game, and go back to 100% after 4 minutes.

Assists:

- 50% of the kill gold is divided among those who helped kill the enemy champion.
- If you have x more assists than kills, you get an additional:

2 assists: 30g
3 assists: 45g
4 assists: 60g (cap) 

Taking a look at gold, it’s quite clear that kills are actually less valuable the more someone dies. This is likely a reason why people start to fall behind when they have the upper hand. They see a bunch of picks and go for them because they know they can. However, instead of using that gold lead to force objectives, they just kill people and recall. Use your numbers advantage to do something before everyone is alive again!

Let's use an example. The enemy Yasuo is worth a measly 58 gold. Instead of running to Dragon or a turret, all five of you run to pick him off. The killer gets 58g and the rest of you get 7 gold. A Young Lizard is worth more of your time.

 

 
Worth!...7 gold.

That’s not to say that picks aren’t useful. Making sure key members die is quite important in securing objectives and goals. Going after the poor Yasuo that has died for the 11th time is likely not going to be an immediate threat to you.

Shutdowns are also more impactful than people realize. Suddenly getting caught out means the killer gets 500 gold, and the rest of the team sharing that amount. On top of the bounty gold you’re worth, the death timers also get longer. Take reasonable risks instead of thinking you can easily solo an entire team when you can not. 

Here is a picture of the same game. Red team secured all five dragons as well as had a considerable turret lead, and went to Baron while all five Blue Team members went to chase someone in bot lane. This is the gold difference before and after Baron:

 2k gold just off of Baron.

Despite the kills being equal, it meant pretty much nothing to the objective focused Red team. Kills only started to pile up for them after continuous Dragon and turret control, building the gold lead from just playing the map correctly. Had Blue team focused down these objectives instead of ignoring them for other things, the game would have been much closer.

 

More Money, Less Problems

Seeing kills as an indicator of how the game is going is not always accurate. Finding other ways to gain gold beyond kills and assists means it is easier to get back into the game. Global gold means your whole team can get fed, and it also applies map pressure. Making an effort to become an objective oriented player will increase your chances of winning and closing games out.