A Singed who runs past your tower at three minutes isn't lost. He's farming your waves before they ever reach you, and every second you spend chasing him is a second he planned for. Here's how the top laner and the jungler take that plan apart.
League of Legends Guide
Singed Proxy Farming
How Top Lane and Jungle Shut It Down
A Singed who runs past your tower at three minutes isn't lost. He's farming your waves before they ever reach you, and every second you spend chasing him is a second he planned for. Here's how the top laner and the jungler take that plan apart.
The short version is that a proxy is a bet. Singed is betting that you'll either chase him somewhere bad or sit under your tower forever, and both of those are fine for him. Most of what beats it is knowing exactly which rules of the game he's leaning on, because every one of them cuts both ways.
What a Singed Proxy Actually Is
Proxy farming means standing between the enemy's outer and inner towers and killing their minion waves there, before those waves reach the lane. It's done almost exclusively in the top and bottom lanes, because they're long enough to leave a gap between the towers worth standing in. Singed is the champion everyone associates with it, since his poison clears a wave while he keeps walking (he barely has to stop and swing at anything) and his movement makes him miserable to catch.
So picture the lane from your side. Your waves leave your base and walk straight into him. His waves, meanwhile, meet nothing on the way down and arrive at your outer tower on their own. You're stuck at that tower collecting them while he takes yours.
| What Singed gets | What it costs you |
|---|---|
| The gold from your waves, killed out of reach of any tower. | Nothing directly, as long as you last-hit his waves at your tower. Gold-wise it's pretty much even. |
| A lane opponent who can't leave, because his waves keep arriving at your tower. | Every roam, every early back, every river fight your team wanted you at. |
| A standing invitation for you to chase him through his own poison. | Health, Flash, and sometimes your whole lane if you accept. |
Read the right-hand column again. A proxy is mostly a tempo play (the gold is a side effect). If the idea of tempo is new, tempo explained covers why being pinned to a tower costs more than any number on the scoreboard shows.
The Rules He's Leaning On
None of this is Singed-specific magic. He's using ordinary game mechanics, and the same mechanics are what you'll punish him with.
Your minions will hit him
A minion with no enemy minions around targets the closest enemy champion, and a champion standing in a wave's path draws it. When Singed is between your towers he has no wave of his own with him, so your minions go straight for him. He clears them fast, granted, but he's taking hits the whole time he does it.
Your towers don't reach him
A tower's attack range is 750 units. The stretch between your outer and inner towers is wide enough that he can stand in the middle of it and neither one touches him. It's why he picks that spot.
XP needs you nearby
A dying minion gives experience to champions within 1500 units of where it died. The waves he kills behind you only pay you XP if you're close enough (from your outer tower, you often aren't). His own minions dying at your tower still feed you, which is why staying there isn't a disaster.
Towers punish champion damage
If an enemy champion damages you while you're within 1400 units of your tower, that tower switches onto him the moment he's in its range. His poison counts. So does his throw. Fighting him near your inner tower is a very different fight from fighting him in the middle of the gap.
One small rule helps at your own tower. Minions that are already attacking a turret ignore the signal that normally turns them onto a champion who hits their ally. When his wave is chewing on your tower and he walks back up to it, you can trade with him there without his minions turning on you.
How to Deal With It as the Top Laner
For some reason the first instinct in solo queue is to run after him. Your first job is to stop giving him what he wants, and he wants a chase. Almost every common Singed build runs Rylai's Crystal Scepter, so his damage slows you as well as hurting you, and his passive speeds him up every time he passes close to a champion. Following him through the trail is the worst trade in the matchup. Everything below is some version of refusing it.
Take every minion that reaches you
His waves arrive at your tower with nothing to fight. Last-hit all of them. As long as you do, he isn't actually out-farming you, he's farming a different wave. Losing these to the tower because you went hunting is how a proxy turns into a real gold lead.
Walk out with your own wave
When his wave has died at your tower and yours is about to walk into the gap, go with it. Now he's fighting you and a full wave at once, and the minions hit him because he's the only enemy there. If he damages you in front of them, they turn on him even harder.
Fight him near the inner tower
Stand toward your inner tower's side of the gap. To land Fling [E] he has to walk right up to you, and if you're inside your inner tower's range when he does, the damage turns the tower onto him. Out in the middle, the same throw drops you in his poison and nothing punishes him for it.
Don't Flash out of the goo
Mega Adhesive [W] grounds you, and grounded champions can't Flash, dash, recall or Teleport. It lasts three seconds on the floor and it isn't removed by Quicksilver Sash. Walk out of it first (it slows you too, so that takes longer than it looks).
Ward the gap, not the river
A ward where he stands tells you when he arrives, when he leaves and whether he's low. It's also the ward your jungler needs to plan a gank (more on that below).
Buy anti-heal if you're fighting him often
Insanity Potion [R] gives him health regeneration for 25 seconds, and some of his builds heal through Protoplasm Harness. Grievous Wounds cuts both healing and regeneration, so Executioner's Calling on an AD champion or Oblivion Orb on an AP one makes a long fight shorter.
Watch his ultimate, too. Insanity Potion [R] has a base cooldown of 100 seconds, and a Singed who's just burned it in a fight is a much softer target for the next minute and a half. That's the window to walk into the gap with your wave, or to call your jungler in.
How to Deal With It as the Jungler
A proxying Singed is the easiest gank in the game on paper. He's deep on your side of the map, usually without vision of his own and always without a wave, and your team owns both towers on either side of him. It goes wrong because junglers run at him from the obvious direction and then chase.
Come from the side he'll run to
He needs a way out: back up the lane past your outer tower, or through your jungle toward the river. Close that route and let your top laner come from the other end (they're usually sitting at the outer tower already). A pincer in the gap leaves him nowhere to walk, and walking is all he has.
Count Mega Adhesive [W] before you commit
The goo is on a 17 to 13 second cooldown depending on rank, and it's the only thing that stops a dash-based jungler from sticking to him. If he's thrown it at your laner in the last few seconds, go now.
Don't camp the lane
Minion XP is split between champions standing nearby. With two of you in range, each gets 65% of the wave's experience instead of your laner taking 100%. A jungler still carrying the jungle item also takes reduced XP from minions until 20 minutes. Sitting at the tower waiting for him costs you both, and it's a cost nobody sees on the scoreboard (it just shows up later as a level you don't have).
Don't chase in a line
Two people running behind him means two champions feeding his passive. Each one can only trigger it once every eight seconds, but that's plenty for a Singed with Ghost up. Cut the angle instead, or stop and let him go.
The other answer is to ignore him on purpose. Most top lane Singeds run Flash with Ghost or Ignite rather than Teleport, so a Singed farming between your towers can't get to a fight on the far side of the map quickly (Ghost is a lot of speed, but it won't cross the map for him). If your laner's safe at the tower, you're playing four against four everywhere else with a free top lane behind you. Take the objective on the other side and make his gold lead a lonely one.
When It's Already Working
Sometimes the gank fails, he gets two kills off it and now he's proxying with an item lead. To be fair, the gank that looks free on paper is exactly the one junglers overcommit to. The mistake now is trying to win it all back in the gap.
Stop going in. Farm under the tower, keep the ward up, and let him spend his time behind your tower while your team plays the map. He's strong where he is and much weaker in a fight where five people are waiting for him to walk in. The wave side of this is its own subject, and wave management explained covers freezing and crashing properly. If you're still in champion select, the Singed counters page has the picks that make the whole matchup easier.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is proxy farming in League of Legends?
Proxy farming is killing the enemy's minion waves between their outer and inner towers, before those waves reach the lane. It denies the enemy laner their own wave, pins them to their tower collecting yours, and it's mostly done in the top and bottom lanes because they're long enough to leave a gap between towers.
Do I lose XP when Singed proxies?
You can. Minions give experience to champions within 1500 units of where they die, so the waves he kills behind you only pay you if you're close enough. His own minions dying at your tower still give you experience, which is why farming at your tower is safe.
How should the jungler gank a Singed proxy?
Come from the side he'd escape toward, with your top laner closing the other end, so he's trapped in the gap between your towers. Wait until Mega Adhesive [W] is on cooldown if you rely on dashes, and don't chase him in a straight line through his poison.
Can I Flash out of Singed's Mega Adhesive [W]?
No. Mega Adhesive [W] grounds you, and a grounded champion can't use Flash, dashes, Teleport or recall. Quicksilver Sash doesn't remove it either. Walk out of the area first.
Top laners, what finally got you to stop chasing him? Tell us in the comments.
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