Guide · Verified for patch 16.13
How to Lower Your Ping in League of Legends
To lower your ping in LoL: switch to an Ethernet cable instead of Wi-Fi, close everything downloading in the background, play on the server region closest to you, and test your latency before queueing ranked. These four moves fix the vast majority of lag problems.
Step 1 — Measure before touching anything
Run our LoL ping test and note the result to your server. Under 60 ms: your connection isn't the problem (if the game feels sluggish, look at FPS or your machine instead). Above 100 ms to your home region: there's a genuine network issue, and the diagnosis below applies.
Step 2 — Your local network, guilty 90% of the time
Plug in an Ethernet cable, even temporarily, and re-test: if the ping drops, Wi-Fi was the cause — distance from the router, interference, saturated channel. Then close the silent consumers: Windows and game-launcher updates, video streaming on other household devices, cloud sync. A single background update is enough to push a ping from 25 to 180 ms.
Step 3 — Server and ISP
Check that your account plays on the region closest to you: every region hop adds 30-150 ms you can't optimize away. If ping only climbs at peak hours (8-11 pm), the congestion likely sits with your ISP: a router restart helps momentarily, a plan or provider change helps durably. "Gaming" VPNs only help in this precise case of bad ISP routing — otherwise they add latency.
What doesn't work
"RAM optimizers", compulsively killing Windows processes and exotic DNS servers have no measurable effect on in-game ping: DNS only matters at connection time, not during the game. Focus your effort on the trio of cable, bandwidth, and server.
Frequently asked questions
What ping should I expect on my home server?
On fiber, 15-35 ms to a server in your part of the continent is normal; on decent DSL, 30-60 ms. Above 80 ms to your nearest region, something is wrong in your local network or at your ISP.
Ping vs FPS — what is the difference?
Ping measures network delay (your connection), FPS measures display smoothness (your machine). A game can be smooth but late (high ping), or responsive but choppy (low FPS). The two problems have completely different fixes.