What is Stealth and How to Counter it in League of Legends

League of Legends, over the years has introduced a wide variety of abilities that players can use at their own disposal. This can be in the form of damaging skillshots, menacing crowd controls, empowered attacks that can surely take a chunk of your health, or buffs that can help their allies. These abilities can be crucial either for offense or defense, or maybe both.

Stealth is one of the strongest abilities in League of Legends. It does not deal any damage at all, nor does it boost it. Champions basically just become invisible for the duration, that’s it. This may look simple, but dealing against opponents capable of going invisible is actually a terrifying experience. Some players even argue that Stealth has zero counterplay

Having that said, knowing all about stealth and how to counter it is crucial to increase your chance of winning against them.

Here’s everything you need to know about Stealth in League of Legends.

What is Stealth in League of Legends

League of Legends is a 5v5 game with players vying for victory inside the summoner rift. Aside from the attempt to outsmart and outplay your opponents, one thing they should deal with is the fog of war. This includes areas that are hidden from your sight, which also conceals the location of your opponents.

Knowing your opponents’ whereabouts gives you a significant edge, which also explains the need to buy wards and highlights the importance of position-revealing abilities like Twisted Fate’s ultimate. This allows you to read their move and subsequent ones, prepare yourself and predict any plans they may have on their sleeves, and simply just be aware of where they will attack from. However, this is exactly what champions with stealth can avoid.

Champions are only hidden to the enemies’ sight if they are hidden in a bush, behind a terrain or outside their line of sight. But, some champions like Evelynn, Twitch, Shaco and more are capable of making themselves hidden at their whim.

In League of Legends, dealing with stealth can be challenging as it’ll leave you guessing where they are and where they’ll strike next. Stealth essentially renders a champion or unit invisible and concealed for a certain duration. And for the duration, these champions are ghosted. This helps them for both offense and defense.

Stealth allows champions to sneak around the map, and remain to be unseen. They can remain to be undetected, leaving their target unaware of what’s going to happen next. Some champions are also capable of disorienting their opponents during active combat by concealing themselves, and reappearing in some strategic location that no one will expect. This is entirely the reason as to why only damage-dealing champions especially assassins, can undergo stealth. This further allows them to be in a better position when attempting to eliminate a key target, which makes it fighting against them a lot more frustrating. This alone frustrates some of the players, and some actually considers it as overpowered. In addition to that, not being visible on the map puts a lot of pressure on your opponents. If the enemy Evelynn is missing, there is a chance that she may be lurking around your area, waiting to execute her gank, and you’ll have no choice but to respect that by not engaging in or towerhugging, unless you have your control ward placed.

However, it is also worth considering that although they are capable of dealing damage, most assassins are squishy and  have no other defensive or self-peel tool that they can use for themselves aside from stealth.

Two kinds of stealth (with examples)

Invisibility

Invisibility is the most common type of stealth in League of Legends. Invisibility usually lasts for a shorter period, unlike Camouflage. When invisible, units are ghosted. Invisibility can be used to play mind games with your opponents by going invisible before combat to sneak in or mid-fight to reposition.

Invisible units can only be revealed by true sight.

• Akali's Twilight Shroud
• Kai'sa's Evolved Supercharge
• Kha'Zix's Void Assault and Evolved Void Assault
• LeBlanc's Mirror Image
• Neeko's Shapesplitter
• Qiyana's Elemental Wrath
• Shaco's Deceive
• Talon's Shadow Assault
• Teemo's Guerrilla Warfare
• Vayne's Final Hour
• Wukong's Warrior Trickster

Camouflage

Camouflage on the other hand is quite similar to invisible but they can be under this effect for a longer duration. However, this has a few limitations that invisibility does not have.

Before going into camouflage, there will be a quick delay which makes it more ideal to use before going into skirmishes to either flank, ambush or to dodge stealth detecting traps.

Unlike invisibility, when a unit is camouflaged, they must be mindful of their distance from any opponent. A circle indicator will appear around a camouflaged unit. When an opponent is within the stealth radius, they will be instantly revealed.

An indicator will appear on the camouflaged unit’s indicating whether they’re seen or not.

• Akshan's Going Rogue
• Evelynn's Demon Shade
• Pyke's Ghostwater Dive
• Rengar's Thrill of the Hunt
• Senna's Curse of the Black Mist
• Twitch's Ambush
• Viego's Harrowed Path

How to counter stealth

Being able to hide by stealth is indeed a nuisance to your opponents and can be overpowered when used by the right hands. Countering stealth on the other hand can be countered using several techniques and knowing each of them is crucial.

True Sight

True sight among all sight in-game is the best counter against stealth. This is because true sight reveals units a standard sight, or normal wards cannot see. That having said, wards and items giving true sight can reveal even units under stealth. Additionally, you can use champions’ abilities that provide true sight to reveal them.

• Caityn’s W and R
• Illaoi’s E
• Garen’s R
• Karma’s W
• Kled’s Q and E
• Lee Sin’s Q
• Le Blanc’s E
• Lulu’s E
• Morgana’s R
• Rengar’s R
• Thresh’s Q
• Twisted Fate’s R
• Zyra’s W
• Jhin’s E

Presence detection or obscured vision

Presence detection does not totally and directly reveal opponents, but gives you information about an enemy. Take note that it does not make them targetable, but you may be able to land non-unit-targeted attacks on them. This can either highlight, reveal their silhouette or trigger interaction with their abilities indicating your presence.

Map and game awareness

One of the greatest counter against them is by predicting their movement, hence having a great game sense and awareness. With zero ability of seeing these champions, one can only rely on their ability to read their movement by being observant. This includes regularly checking the mini-map and making sure that you are not isolated.

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