Skip to main content

League of Legends: Best Bottom Laners guide

The best botlaners in the game.

The bottom lane in League of Legends is where the Marksmen and the Support champions like to live. Facing off against an opposing duo there’s a close back-and-forth as they look to out-poke each other, gather more gold and try to secure a cheeky kill or two.

When picking who to play in bot it’s often best to consider how both champions will synergise together as a duo in order to give you the best possible advantages in the lane. These champions below, however, can excel in many situations, making some of them the best bottom laners in League of Legends.

Best Bottom Laners

Kai’Sa

Kai’Sa is considered the best marksmen in the game right now, so finds it easy to nab a spot on this list of the best bottom laners. If her use in Worlds hasn’t made it clear, she’s a versatile champion who can zip around a skirmish applying damage to multiple targets with ease, while also handling herself comfortably during the laning phase.

She has the long range poke with Void Seeker to get some early damage on her lane opponents, while also applying stacks of Plasma to the target. With smart positioning, you can also use her Icathian Rain ability to ensure all of its fired missiles hit a specific target for some impactful burst damage. Increasing her movement and attack speed with Supercharge can make her even more lethal when a fight kicks off proper – plus it can also grant a brief period of invisibility. Kai’Sa can also launch herself into team fights using her Killer Instinct ultimate, which proves particularly useful when late to a brawl or when waiting for the right time to turn a battle in your favour.

It’s this complete kit and near-universal use that makes her such a force in the bot lane.

Lucian

Currently, Lucian is another excellent pick for bot lane as he can crush opponents during the laning phase, and doesn’t have too many hard counters. He’s simply a solid and well-rounded champion that can fit into many team compositions.

Use Piercing Light from the right angles and you can start poking your opposing Marksman or Support in the lane right from the off – even more so if you line it up off of a minion to keep you safe from trade damage.

Making full use of Lucian’s Lightslinger passive is even more vital at gaining an advantage when damage trading. If you can use an ability and then immediately follow up with a double auto-attack you can steadily build a serious edge over your opponents. Once you spot weakness you can then go aggressive and move in with Relentless Pursuit to apply more damage looking for a kill, or to at least force them to leave the lane briefly.

He can be paired with many different support champions and remain incredibly effective, so is definitely one to consider when you next venture into the bot lane.

Draven

A champion for those looking for a bit of a challenge in the bot lane, Draven can be a monstrous pick when played effectively, soaring ahead with a significant gold lead and dealing devastating damage right from the early levels with his Spinning Axes.

He’s definitely a tough champion to get to grips with, though, as you’ll have to learn how to control and catch Spinning Axes to get the most out of him. Practice makes perfect, here, but just remember that axes will fly off in whichever direction you’re facing after they connect with a target. Cleverly use this to your advantage so you can somewhat direct them to where you’re headed so you can keep the damage bonus live.

This is even more important to keep in mind as it directly feeds into his League of Draven passive. With every axe catch, minion kill, monster kill, or tower kill, Draven earns stacks of Adoration. These are then cashed in when he kills enemy champions, granting you huge chunks of bonus gold. If you farm efficiently in the lane and manage to secure a kill it can go a long way to giving you a significant gold and item lead over your opponents to dominate in the later stages of the match.

Pyke

Onto the support champions now and Pyke sits near the top as one of the strongest picks in the role at this time. He’s able to catch out enemies who have strayed from safety while using his other abilities to keep targets locked down or finish them off with a powerful ultimate that shares the kill rewards with other players.

The key part of Pyke’s kit is Bone Skewer, and it's this ability that offers the most kill potential for your bot lane partner. If you manage to catch an opponent with it you can pull them towards you, giving your Marksman the opportunity to follow up with additional damage and potentially secure an early kill – or even first blood if you’re lucky. Other skills such as Ghostwater Dive, which camouflages Pyke temporarily, allows you to find a better position to attempt a grab while remaining undetected.

These opportunities will be mostly what you’re looking for in the early laning phase alongside keeping your duo partner safe. Once you acquire your Death From Below ultimate a level six you can play even more aggressively for kills as there’s less concern of stealing your marksman’s bonus gold. Enemy champions below a certain health threshold are straight up executed by this move, while full gold for the kill is also granted to any ally who has assisted with it. Basically, everyone’s a winner!

Morgana

Though not traditionally considered under the umbrella of support champions, Morgana has done a convincing job of establishing herself in the role thanks to some brutal lockdown potential, deceptive damage power and impactful utility skills to assist her lane buddy.

Similar to Pyke, a lot of Morgana’s strength lies in her ability to catch out opponents for her marksman. Dark Binding offers some hugely impactful crowd control that will keep a target frozen in place for long enough that your duo partner can apply some considerable follow-up damage. Morgana is more than capable of dishing out some punishment herself too. Anyone caught by her Dark Binding is also in prime position to sit on top of her Tormented Soil ability for a dangerous stretch of time as it slowly ticks away their health.

Meanwhile, she can keep herself and allies safe from being locked down with a well-timed use of Black Shield. This ability provides a shield that absorbs all disabling effects on the chosen target while active, so you can completely nullify any attempts from opposing players to focus down an important teammate.

Added to all that, as you enter the mid-to-late game, you can crush in team fights with Morgana’s Soul Shackles ultimate, providing the set up needed for your allies to obliterate any opponents caught by the snare effect.

Nami

Where the previous two supports on this list are focused on securing kills for your team in the early laning phase, Nami is instead a more versatile pick who can bring all sorts of assistance to the team. Just to list a few things Nami is capable of: she can heal, poke, buff, stun and slow. Not bad!

All of these possibilities mean she can be partnered with many Marksmen champions and remain effective. One key ability in her kit is Ebb and Flow, which can be targeted on enemies or allies for different effects. On an opponent, it deals damage, whereas hitting an ally will heal them. One thing to keep in mind with this ability is that it bounces between enemies and allies too, so with clever positioning, you can get multiple uses out of a single cast.

Other abilities such as Aqua Prison can be used to stun targets and give allies the chance to land some follow-up damage or it can be used as peel if they are being chased down. Tidecaller's Blessing, meanwhile, buffs their auto-attacks to deal additional magic damage and slow targets they hit. Casting this or any of her skills on allies also grants them a Surging Tides buff, increasing their movement speed for a short time.

Finally, Nami has some big play potential with her ultimate, Tidal Wave. This wide deluge of water knocks up, slows and damages any enemies it hits while granting a significant movement speed boost to any allies caught in it. It’s a powerful engage tool as the game transitions more towards team fights and just another of Nami’s many versatile tricks.

Watch on YouTube

Video by xFSN Saber

Read this next