League of Legends solo queue tip: the objective order of operations

Step 3: get vision

Once you have the waves managed, your next goal should be to put down wards and clear out wards from the area around the next objective you will go to. Say there is one last outer tower in mid, you want to sweep out and drop vision around that middle outer turret before you just start pushing blindly.

This is to make sure that you and the rest of your team can spot out enemy players and know whether you can take a fight successfully and how to navigate it. Vision is criminally underrated in lower MMR brackets, so having it near the next dragon, Rift Herald, or tower can be crucial in catching someone out and winning the fight before it even starts.

Now, if you’re behind in the game, you want to do this around the objective you can best defend. For instance, if you have an outer tower still up, but your inhibitor is down, you can’t really try to get vision around that outer turret safely. The goal should be to get vision around your base to protect it as best you can, advancing the line of vision slowly towards the next objective you can defend.

Step 4: get Rift Herald (if it’s available)

There’s a lot of debate as to which objectives in the early game should be prioritized in the early game: towers, Rift Herald, and Dragon. Personally, I’d place outer towers at the highest priority because of how much gold they give between plating and first turret gold.

Rift Herald is not quite as valuable because the Rift itself doesn’t guarantee that you will get the first tower or any tower, but just gives you the tools to do so. In that regard, it’s less valuable (in my mind) than just taking down a tower that’s available.

However, Rift Herald should certainly be prioritized over Dragon for the simple fact that Dragons will respawn, but Rift Herald will not after being killed. If you get Rift Herald, the enemy team will not, whereas you can easily lose out of the benefits of the first Ocean Drake but then get them six minutes later when another Ocean Dragon respawns. So, when you can, you should try to get Rift Herald to crack the first tower or take down one of the remaining inner towers.