Best Scaling League of Legends Champions For Late Game

Highlights

• League of Legends constantly changes, making the best scaling champions unpredictable depending on patches and meta shifts.
• Champions like Sion, Yorick, and Master Yi are strong options for players looking to dominate in the late game.
• Azir, Veigar, and Vayne are also formidable late game champions with unique abilities and scaling potential.

League of Legends has a champion for just about everyone, with over 160 to choose from and a wide variety of play styles. Some champions are at their strongest at level one, and look to do as much damage as they can before minions spawn, while others only truly come into their own after 30 minutes of farming and scaling.

Plenty of characters in League of Legends have infinite scaling, but this is no guarantee they’ll out-scale other champions unless the game continues for an unrealistic amount of time. Often the best scaling champions are those who can utilize their levels the best, or get enough stacks to become relevant by the team fight stage. Here are some of the best champions to try out for players looking to become raid bosses in the late game.

Updated February 11, 2024, by Joe Grantham: League of Legends is always changing, with patches every two weeks shaking up the meta and occasionally introducing larger updates. As such, the best scaling champs in League are constantly in flux depending on their own innate strength and how powerful their counters currently are. Furthermore, the newest addition to the League roster, Smolder, happens to have incredible scaling thanks to his passive stacks, which further enhance his abilities. Here’s an updated list for the current League of Legends meta.

12 Sion

Can Stack Health Infinitely

The first champ on the list with infinite scaling, Sion is perhaps the best late-game tank out there. With infinite scaling HP in his kit, and often building Heartsteel, he can easily scale to have more HP than the whole enemy team combined.

Sion’s threat however comes in his ability to split push and shred towers very quickly. Paired with his passive that still does massive tower damage, leaving a Sion unattended can be a very easy road to defeat. With tank slayer items he is possible to counter, but will usually require multiple members to take down, leaving the rest of the team outnumbered.

11 Yorick

Late Game Split Push Power Is Often Overlooked

Yorick is a less popular champion, and one not generally renowned for his scaling. However, his threat of ending the game with little counterplay once the game goes late is unparalleled. His split push potential with his Maiden and Mist Walkers can shred through towers, and snowball a lead very quickly.

Like many split-pushing champions, Yorick’s threat comes in the fact that any opposing team will have to send multiple members to deal with him and his summoned units, leaving the rest of his team with a numbers advantage. Allowing him to push uncontested can quickly spell disaster, with multiple towers and inhibitors falling.

10 Master Yi

Late Game Yi Is Unstoppable

Master Yi is every low elo player’s nightmare and is one of the most well-known late-game threats, able to 1v5 almost any fight after 30 minutes if he can get ahead. His movement speed, untargetability, and huge damage make him very hard to counter if he can get on top of a team.

His ability to snowball a lead makes him particularly powerful as even in the mid-game, particularly with Duskblade, he can often one-shot an enemy before they can react. Add to this his ability to split push and shred towers and objectives, and he is a force to be reckoned with as the clock runs later.

9 Azir

With Damage & Attack Speed, Late Game Azir Can Clean Up Any Fight

Fans of LolEsports will be intimately familiar with Azir, as he has consistently been one of the most popular champions with pros. He has an incredibly high skill ceiling and can scale into a terrifying threat in the late game, capable of shredding through opponents and objectives faster than almost any other mid-laner once he has some levels and items under his belt.

Azir might not scale infinitely, but with the average game becoming shorter and shorter with each passing season, his late-game spike is almost perfectly timed to win the deciding fight for any team. Along with this, his mobility and disengage make it easier for him to use his powerful kit, and much harder to counter.

8 Veigar

Can Stack AP Infinitely

One of the best-known infinite scaling champions in League of Legends is Veigar, whose simple kit and incredible late-game damage make him a force to be reckoned with at any rank. Veigar’s stacks convert directly into AP, and he is one of the easiest champs to collect stacks on.

Veigar only falls so far down the list as he is heavily countered by enemy teams with range. When outranged, it can be incredibly hard to get damage down while playing him, and in this case, all the AP in the world won’t help him. When a game reaches the late stages, however, one misstep by an enemy will quickly leave them looking at a gray screen.

7 Vayne

Late Game Vayne Shreds Through Health Bars

Like many marksmen, Vayne excels in the late game, particularly at three items, but she is arguably the biggest threat in her class once in the late game and fully built. Her massive attack speed scaling, invisibility, and true damage make her a very hard threat to deal with even alone, and with a good frontline to play around, she can become absolutely unstoppable.

Vayne’s strength comes in her ability to deal with any kind of target, even shredding tanks at an alarming rate due to the true damage in her kit. This makes her incredibly hard to counter in build path, with only a few items providing any decent protection. Allowing a Vayne to go unchecked through the mid-game and build a lead is a death sentence for any team.

6 Nasus

Q Stacks Infinitely, Dealing Obscene Damage

Nasus is one of the better users of his infinite scaling, farming for most of the early and mid-game until he is as stacked up as possible, and the time for team fighting arrives. He is a disastrous champion to leave unchecked to farm up, as even in the early game it can be tricky for his laner to shut him down, thanks to his sustain and disengage.

A Nasus with 1000 stacks can easily one-shot any squishy enemies caught out of place in the late game, and each one he kills only adds to his stacks and his power. Add this to his ability to split push and 1v1 almost any champion, and a terrifying late-game threat is born.

5 Vladimir

Late Game Vladimir Is Unkillable With His Damage & Sustain

By leveling up and purchasing Ability Haste, Vladimir’s abilities end up with incredibly low cooldowns, allowing him to constantly deal damage and heal himself back up. Additionally, when Vlad buys AP, he also gains a maximum health bonus and vice versa. This means that his item power spikes make him even more unstoppable.

Despite not dealing much damage in the early game, Vlad at least has his W, Sanguine Pool, to help keep himself safe from early ganks and aggression. Of course, he can still be punished, as this ability has a very long cooldown early on. But if the enemy lets him scale, he will take over the game.

4 Smolder

Stacks His Passive Infinitely To Enhance His Abilities

There are many ADCs who simply want to play safe early and wait for their late-game scaling to kick in, and the fiery fledgling Smolder is the latest to join the squad. Whereas most late-game ADCs rely on their auto attacks for damage, Smolder’s strength lies in his abilities and infinite stacking.

By hitting enemies with abilities, or last-hitting minions with his Q, Smolder gains stacks of Dragon Practice, which provides bonus magic damage for all three of his basic abilities. While this damage stacks infinitely, the biggest rewards are at 25, 125, and 225 stacks as Smolder’s Q evolves, gaining new effects and AOE damage. The last upgrade adds an elder dragon-like execute, making Smolder a terror in the late game.

3 Kassadin

At Level 16, Kassadin’s Ultimate Is On A Short Cooldown

Perhaps the scariest champion to deal with in the late game is melee mid-laner Kassadin, whose level 16 power spike is well-known and feared among League of Legends players. The incredibly low cooldown and ramping damage provided by his fully-leveled ultimate ability can tear apart an enemy team very quickly and is impossible to escape.

Kassadin is one of the trickiest champions to counter in the late game, as his ultimate can provide an excellent gap close to the enemy back line, or the perfect escape. He only falls to 3rd on this list as he also spikes well at level 11 in the mid-game, and excels in skirmishes around objectives at this time, so he is not just a late-game threat.

2 Aurelion Sol

Abilities Scale In Size As Well As Damage

Newly reworked for Season 13, Aurelion Sol has been transformed from a niche, unpopular pick, to the most powerful infinite scaling champion in the game. By collecting stardust, his Ultimate Ability grows in size infinitely, stunning enemies in a huge area, or knocking them up when empowered, which can have a devastating effect in the late game.

Aurelion Sol is so powerful in the late game because, by the 30-minute mark, he can easily secure enough stacks to make his Ultimate area of effect very large, as long as he has farmed well. His zone control around objectives with his infinitely scaling E ability, and his ability to incapacitate an entire team with his ultimate, make him a serious threat.

1 Kayle

Fully Evolves At Level 16, & Melts Enemies With Her AOE Autos

The best-known and most powerful late-game threat in League of Legends is, almost certainly, Kayle. Her power spike at level 16 gives her massive AoE auto-attacks and a larger Ultimate, dealing massive physical and magic damage to any enemy unfortunate enough to stray close to her.

Beginning the game as a melee champion, and getting range upgrades to her auto-attacks at levels 6,11, and 16, Kayle has a rough time in the laning phase, but at level 16 she becomes a raid boss unto herself, and possibly the most powerful back-line threat available in the game.