Honor level 3 is neutral, not a middling score, and the two levels below it exist only for punished accounts. Here's what each level actually changes, how the voting works, and why your pings might be getting swallowed.
League of Legends Guide
The Honor System
Levels, Votes and RestrictionsEveryone starts at Honor level 3, and that's the neutral standing rather than a mediocre one. Levels 1 and 2 are not quiet accounts, they're penalized ones.
That single fact clears up most of what people believe about the system, and the rest of it is a short set of rules about voting, restrictions and what level 5 actually gets you.
The ladder is two thirds punishment
| Level | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1 | An active penalty above a warning, with the heaviest restrictions. All chat, champion select chat and end-of-game chat are gone, and pings drop to two per five seconds |
| 2 | Still penalized, with lighter restrictions and no seasonal reward eligibility |
| 3 | Neutral. Full access to everything, and where a perfectly ordinary account sits |
| 4 | The first reward level, and the point at which your standing becomes visible |
| 5 | Emblem, recall decal, Honor skins, and the one reward that changes how you play |
You cannot arrive at level 1 or 2 by being boring or by never voting. The bottom of this ladder is a status, not a score, and it means the account is in trouble rather than insufficiently friendly. A penalty does not walk you down a step either. It drops you to 1, and a suspension freezes progression on top of that, so the climb back to neutral starts from the bottom whatever you were before.
Losing champion select chat is the restriction that actually costs games, because that's where a team agrees who's going where. The punishment is aimed at communication and lands on coordination.
Your ping limit is a behavior setting
Two pings per five seconds at level 1, four at level 2, six at neutral, seven above it, with emotes running on their own smaller counter alongside.
Almost nobody knows this number varies at all. If your pings feel like they're being swallowed, that isn't lag, that's the account.
Four votes, and you can spend them on the enemy
There's a sixty-second window after every matchmade game except Arena, and up to four other players can be honored, allies and opponents alike, one vote each.
The enemy half is the underused part. The opponent who played a clean game and didn't type anything is exactly who this was built for, and hardly anybody votes across the scoreboard.
Votes are banked rather than lost, up to a cap of four, and you earn them three ways:
- One for finishing a full game, which a remake doesn't count as.
- A second for receiving at least one vote from somebody outside your own party.
- A third, at level 5, simply for being there.
Skipping the honor screen doesn't throw them away, so a player sitting on a full bank has been skipping for a while. Collect three or more in one game and it's announced in chat with a pip beside your name, which is the only public part of the entire system.
What the top and bottom are worth
Levels 1 and 2 cut off Honor rewards and seasonal rewards together, and level 2 also stops the recurring pass experience drops that neutral accounts collect. That's the real cost of a chat restriction, and it's the part people discover at the end of a season rather than at the time.
At the other end, level 5 makes your ally status pings visible to the whole team instead of only your party, alongside the emblem, the recall decal and the skins. It's the only Honor reward that changes gameplay rather than appearance, and the system's top prize turns out to be being easier to play with.
Not being negative is the slow way up
Progress is weighted. Playing without doing anything disruptive moves you the least. Giving and receiving votes moves you more. Communicating constructively, with chat, pings and emotes used the way they're meant to be, moves you the most.
Penalties cut progress based on how recent they are and where you currently sit, so a bad month costs far more than a bad game. Playing Riot's other titles on the same account earns you nothing here, though a penalty picked up over there still counts against you.
Frequently asked questions
What Honor level does everyone start at?
Level 3, which is neutral and carries no restrictions at all.
Why are my pings limited?
Because ping frequency scales with Honor level, from two per five seconds at level 1 up to seven above neutral.
Can you honor enemies in LoL?
Yes. Up to four players from either team, one vote each, inside a sixty-second window.
Do you lose Honor votes by skipping the screen?
No. They bank up to a maximum of four.
What does Honor level 5 give you?
An emblem, a recall decal, Honor skins, and team-wide visibility for your ally status pings.
The short version
Three is normal, below three means a penalty, and the fastest way up is talking to people usefully rather than saying nothing. If you want to do one thing differently after reading this, honor somebody on the other team.
For the rest of the client's invisible systems, our matchmaking guide covers how your lobby gets built, and our rank distribution guide covers where you actually sit.
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