LoL Movement Speed Guide: Soft Caps, Stacking and Slows

Movement speed has two soft caps, a floor, and a stacking rule that quietly deletes part of every speed item after your second. Here's the full math, plus why only the strongest slow on you counts.

League of Legends Guide

Movement Speed

Caps, Stacking and Slows

Movement speed is game-distance units traveled per second, and it's the easiest stat in the game to picture: a Teemo hat is roughly 100 units across, so 300 speed is three hats end to end every second.

What makes it complicated is everything on top of that number. Two soft caps, a floor, an ordering rule, and slows that don't behave the way they're written.

Base Speed Flat Before Percent The Caps The Floor Slows FAQ

415First soft cap

80%Value above it

490Second soft cap

50%Value above that

220Where the floor starts

1Slows that count at once

Champions do not start equal

Base movement speed is a per-champion number, and the gap between the slowest and the fastest is worth roughly a boots item before anybody buys anything.

Slow champions never close that gap by buying speed, because the fast ones buy the same items. It's a permanent property of the matchup rather than something the shop fixes.

Flat bonuses go on first, and that's why boots come early

The game adds every flat bonus to your base, then applies percentage bonuses to that larger total. Percentages never touch your base alone.

So boots don't only add their own number, they raise the value of every percentage boost you pick up afterward. That's a real reason the first back is usually boots even on champions who want damage.

Most percentage bonuses then add together and get applied once, so two 10% sources give 20% rather than compounding. A small set of effects are multiplicative instead and land separately on top, and those are where the genuinely fast moments in a game come from. Stacking ordinary percentages is fine and never explosive.

Two soft caps eat the top of your build

Raw speed	What you actually keep
Up to 415	All of it
415 to 490	80% of everything in that band
Above 490	Half of everything above the line

Nothing warns you about either. The stat panel prints the capped number while the item tooltip prints the uncapped one, so the difference simply vanishes between them. Work out 600 raw speed and you move at 530, an 11.7% haircut on the whole figure.

Which is why the third speed item is a much worse buy than the first, and why speed is best taken in bursts from actives rather than carried around permanently.

The floor works the same way in reverse

Below 220 raw speed the game gives half of it back, so being slowed to a raw 180 leaves you moving at 200. Heavy slows are worth less than their tooltips suggest for exactly the reason heavy speed is: both ends of the stat compress toward the middle.

And nothing can fully stop you. If enough slows push the raw number below zero, the floor keeps you moving at roughly 110 speed, which is why a fully slowed champion still walks at about a third of a normal pace. Roots and stuns are a different mechanic entirely, which is why chain slows feel survivable and a single root does not.

Only the strongest slow on you counts

Slows don't stack. The game finds the single biggest one currently on you and ignores every other slow until it wears off.

That changes teamfights from both sides. Piling three slows onto the same target wastes two of them, and being hit by a fourth slow while already at 40% costs you nothing at all.

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Frequently asked questions

Is there a movement speed cap in LoL?

Two soft caps. Above 415 you keep 80% of what you gain, above 490 you keep half.

Do slows stack?

No. Only the strongest one applies.

Can you be slowed to zero?

No. Below 220 raw speed the game hands half of it back, and once the raw number goes under zero you still move at roughly 110.

Why buy boots first?

Flat bonuses apply before percentages, so boots raise the value of every percentage speed effect you pick up later.

Do percentage speed boosts multiply?

Most add together and apply once. A small number are flagged multiplicative and stack on top separately.

The short version

Boots early, two speed items at most, and treat anything above 490 as half an item. If you're being kited, remember only the biggest slow on you is doing anything, so the answer is usually one cleanse rather than more resistances.

For the stat that decides whether the chase was worth starting, our resistances guide covers effective health, and our tenacity guide covers the crowd control speed can't outrun.

What's the fastest you've ever been in a game? Let us know in the comments below.