Voice Comms in League of Legends
When you enter a game of League of Legends, a lot of the time you will find that it is very difficult to communicate and coordinate with your teammates. This can be challenging especially when you are a new player that still needs to learn how the game works. While the game does have a chat system, many players will not check the chat. Furthermore, some people just don't like to type out messages and prefer to speak. As a result, voice communications, or voice comms, are often used to communicate and coordinate with other players in League of Legends.
League of Legends and Voice Communications
Since 2022, League of Legends has a built-in voice chat for premade groups. If you queue with at least one friend, you can use push-to-talk voice directly in the client — no third-party app required. You can find the option in the audio settings. This was a long-requested feature that Riot finally delivered, and it works reliably for duo and premade groups of any size.
For solo queue — where you're playing with four strangers — built-in voice is not available. In those situations, players still rely on third-party tools. The most popular option by far is Discord, which offers excellent audio quality, low latency, and the ability to stay in a server with your regular group across sessions. TeamSpeak is another option, though it has largely fallen out of favor. If you're serious about climbing and play with a consistent group, setting up a Discord server and being on voice every game is highly recommended.
Why Voice Comms Are So Important
In competitive games like League of Legends, communication is essential. When you are doing something as important as coordinating with your team during a team fight or calling for ganks, text chat is just not enough. In these situations, being able to call out things quickly can be the difference between winning and losing a game. More specifically, let's take a look at a few specific examples of when you will need good voice communication.
Calling Dragon and Baron: Every five minutes, the Dragon will spawn, and it is very important to be able to call this out to your team so you can coordinate a kill attempt. The Baron, while harder to kill, follows a similar process and you will want your team to be coordinated when going in for a kill. The best way to communicate around this is through voice comms.
Coordinating Team Fights: Team fights can very easily become chaotic. It can be difficult to coordinate and keep control of everything that's happening, and all too often, teams will just rush into a fight without any strategy. With voice comms, however, you can call out targets, coordinate engage, and make sure that everyone is focused.
Ganking: Ganking is an important part of League of Legends, especially for the jungle. When your jungler is going to gank a lane, it is important for them to communicate with the laner, so that the laner knows to play aggressively and set up the kill. Using voice comms for this makes the whole process much simpler. Trying to type out a gank can also alert the enemy team if they have spotted your jungler in the river.
Summary
League of Legends now has built-in voice chat for premades, and Discord remains the go-to for full team coordination in solo queue groups. Whether you're using the client's native voice or an external app, communicating vocally with your team gives you a significant edge over opponents who are only pinging and typing. If you want to climb, get on voice.