How to get the perfect sensitivity settings for your mouse.
Our League of Legends mouse guide covers the best DPI and sensitivity settings so you can get a better idea of how to optimise your mouse for your own playstyle.
Just as it is with every other popular MOBA, playing League of Legends requires more mouse clicking than you’ll be used to in other competitive gaming genres. Rather than using the familiar WASD keys to move your Champion around the screen, you’ll be positioning and re-positioning your character constantly using increasingly deft clicks.
It’s not just Champion movement you have to consider in this regard either. The way that you position your mouse also impacts on the directions your abilities travel in, and who they’ll – hopefully – connect with as a result.
For this reason, spending a little time optimising your mouse setup, and getting the settings just right for your own playstyle and ability, is a crucial part of getting better at the game. If you want to keep climbing, keep optimising and practising with your evolving setup.
That’s all well and good, but it’s quite possible you’re the kind of person who’s never really tinkered around with in-game settings, and certainly not tweaked your mouse setup. We’re here to help you make those essential tweaks.
Although you might find the prospect of making changes a little intimidating, it’s really not that hard to get started with small adjustments at first. Once you’ve found the mouse settings that work for you, you’ll really notice a difference in your performance.
In this essential guide to optimising your mouse DPI in League of Legends, we’ve pulled together step-by-step instructions for changing your settings for the better. Let us know in the comments if you have any questions about the process, and we’ll do our best to answer your questions.
Turn Windows mouse acceleration off
If you’ve never delved into your PC’s mouse settings, then it’s guaranteed that you’ve still got mouse acceleration turned on. So before we get into anything else, we’ll be switching it off.
To explain things simply, having mouse acceleration on subtly alters mouse behaviour every time it moves, which isn’t ideal when you want complete control over your point and clicks.
Windows has put mouse acceleration in place with the intention of helping people achieve a greater level of pointer precision. For daily tasks such as browsing the web, we’re sure this comes in handy, but when you’re playing a mechanically intensive game like League of Legends it could mean the difference between winning or losing a teamfight.
Turning mouse acceleration off will stop Windows tampering with your mouse, and ensure that every mouse movement produces a consistent, reliable result. This will help you to develop effective muscle memory, as any inconsistency in your aim will be down to you and not the computer (sorry about that).
Here’s how to switch mouse acceleration off:
- Type “mouse settings” into your Windows search bar.
- Select “Change your mouse settings”.
- Click “Additional mouse options”.
- Select the “Pointer Options” tab.
- Uncheck the “Enhance Pointer Precision” box.
- Click “Apply” in the bottom right corner.
- Click “Okay”.
- 1. Beginner Champs – LoL: Best Beginner Champions guide
- 2. Hotkeys – LoL: Best hotkeys and keybindings
- 3. Fast Levelling – LoL: How to level up fast
- 4. Mouse Settings – LoL: Best mouse DPI and settings guide
- 5. Aphelios – LoL: Aphelios guide
How to find the best DPI setting for you
Before we get into this section, you’ll only be able to change your DPI if your mouse is compatible. If you’re using the sort of mouse that comes bundled with a PC, or one that hasn’t got any side buttons or external software, then you’ll want to invest in a dedicated gaming mouse.
No matter how expensive or inexpensive it is, the main benefit of having a gaming mouse is the ability to customise its DPI settings to your liking.
DPI stands for “Dots Per Inch” and determines how many pixels you’ll cover with each movement of your mouse. Someone with 400 DPI might have to swipe their hand across the mat in a broad arc to click an enemy, whereas a player with 1200 DPI will only have to flick their wrist to achieve the same result.
You might be questioning why you’d bother going for a lower DPI if it’s clearly more effort. Surely you want the highest possible DPI setting so you don’t have to move the mouse much right?
Well, not necessarily. It’s all down to personal preference, but lower and higher DPI settings generally have their own advantages and disadvantages. Below we’ll take you through them all.
Low DPI (400-800)
Having a lower DPI setting means that you’ll often need to sweep your mouse across the mat in order to click on your targets or survey the map. Low DPI settings range from around 400 to 800, and they’re great for accuracy and precision.
The only downside is that it takes longer to reach your destination and you might lag behind the frantic pace of League with all the broad arm strokes.
High DPI (1000-3000+)
We’d say anything ranging from around 1000-3200 DPI is high, with anything above 3000 getting into ridiculous territory.
Having a higher DPI means that you can pull off all your moves and mouse clicks with a flick of the wrist – no sweeping arm movements required. However, you’ll generally sacrifice accuracy in the process.
Conclusion
It’s difficult to definitively say, “You must set it to this DPI” as this rule won’t be true for every player. Value accuracy above all else? Or perhaps you want a faster response time? It’s important to try both out and see what suits you.
Having said all this, we would recommend giving a slightly higher DPI a good whirl. League of Legends requires a crazy amount of clicking, and personally, we’d rather keep arm movements to a minimum.
Do be aware that playing for an extended period of time at high DPI can cause hand and wrist strain as you’ll tense to increase accuracy. Keep your arm, wrist and hand movements as relaxed as possible no matter what DPI setting you’re using and take regular breaks too.
In-game sensitivity settings
We know that one of – if not the best players in the world Faker has gone beyond mouse software and tinkered with League of Legends’ in-game sensitivity settings. From what we’ve gathered though, it’s best to leave the settings on default as you’ll be complicating things otherwise.
League’s in-game sensitivity system essentially tweaks your Windows settings, so all your hard work turning off mouse acceleration will be undone. It’s a very fiddly affair and we feel that this kind of extreme tinkering is best left to the pros.
