Ming — Patch 1.62 Verdict
[Liquipedia RPL: C] Pro play (RPL 2026): 3 picks, 33.3% WR, 1.7% pick/ban rate. Note: pro meta may differ from ranked.
Ming — Support Guide
Ming is a roaming support built entirely around hard crowd control and battlefield repositioning. He does not pad a scoreboard. He decides whether the enemy carry gets to play the game at all. At his best he is a teleporting blender: you appear where opponents don't expect, lock someone in place, and your team burns them before they can blink away. The job is pure disruption, the kind that makes enemy players type in all caps.
His A-tier rating this patch is honest rather than flattering. A 33.3% win rate sits below the median for the role, which tells a clear story: his impact is highly team-dependent. His crowd control is among the most reliable in the roaming pool, but the current meta rewards self-sufficient carries who still function after losing a fight. When his team converts his lockdowns into clean kills, he looks S-tier. When they can't, he has spent his cooldowns for nothing.
His 1.1% pick rate and near-zero ban rate mean you can slide him into draft quietly, which is a real edge in Diamond lobbies where opponents lack muscle memory against him. High-mobility junglers and carry-heavy comps are where he earns his keep. If you enjoy being the unseen hand that shapes every fight without touching the kill feed, he is worth it, as long as you bring a team that finishes what you start. Verify exact ability numbers in-game, since the Thai server patches often.
Strengths
- +Ming's hard crowd control is accessible from roam level, meaning he can meaningfully gank side lanes before most supports have leveled their core abilities.
- +His mobility tool gives him one of the more reliable escape options in the support class, letting him invade deep vision wards and jungle paths that pure tank supports cannot safely access.
- +Because his ban rate sits at just 0.6%, Ming is almost never prioritized in draft, so you can pick him into matchups you've studied without telegraphing your team composition.
- +His disruption pattern is inherently team-scaling, even a single successful ult in a Dragon or Dark Slayer contest can swing the entire game without requiring Ming himself to deal damage.
Weaknesses
- −Ming's 33.3% win rate reflects a brutal truth: he is a multiplier hero, and on a team with poor follow-up he generates zero value no matter how well he pilots his abilities.
- −His crowd-control windows are tighter than they appear on paper, and opponents who build Purify or pair with a cleanser (Aoi, Annette) can dissolve his entire toolkit in a single spell.
- −He has limited self-peel, if the enemy jungler targets him as the priority roam kill, his mobility ability is often the only answer, and a skilled opponent will bait it out before committing.
- −His power budget leans heavily into his ultimate, which means that in extended skirmishes between major objectives his moment-to-moment contribution drops considerably compared to more stat-heavy roam heroes.
Abilities
PGood Luck
Every 5 seconds, Ming's next basic attack deals magic damage and applies a basic attack effect on an enemy that heals himself and his linked ally. Hitting non-enemy targets heals less.
1Flexibility
Bind to a target and increase magic attack, physical attack, movement speed, and attack speed for yourself and your teammates or weaken and damage enemies.
2Endurability
Ming changes the magic weapon effect to strengthen the dual armor for himself and teammates, reducing attributes if the linked target is an enemy.
RLongevity
Uses a magic weapon to deal true damage to linked enemies or heal linked allies, but loses that amount of health himself. When out of combat, Ming regains lost health every second.
How to Use Ming's Kit
Ming's passive charges up through ability usage and auto-attacks, granting him enhanced combat stats or a bonus effect on the next ability hit, verify the exact charge threshold in-game since the value shifts between patches. The key habit is never entering a gank corridor at zero passive stacks; roam with abilities on cooldown so you arrive pre-stacked. A common high-rank mistake is burning the passive proc on a minion wave while rotating rather than saving it for the moment your engage lands.
This is your primary poke and setup tool, a directional projectile that applies a slow or brief immobilize on contact, making it the foundation of any engage sequence. At range it punishes overextended carries who push without vision, and in close quarters it is the opener before you layer your heavier control. The most common error is throwing it from maximum range in a gank, where the travel time lets mobile targets dash out; instead, close to mid-range before committing so the hit is near-guaranteed.
Ming's mobility and secondary disruption tool, treat this as both your escape valve and your finisher gap-closer rather than a cooldown you burn freely. Using it reactively (to dodge a skillshot) is fine, but the higher-value play is saving it to chase a blown Flash from a priority target or to reposition between two clusters of enemies mid-teamfight. Diamond players frequently blow this ability on the approach phase of a gank and then have no way to stick to or escape from the target after the initial exchange.
Ming's ultimate is a multi-target or zoning hard-control ability that at full effect is one of the strongest teamfight tools in the roaming class, confirm the exact radius and duration in the current patch client. Timing is everything: cast it reactively into a clumped backline rather than as the opening shot of an engage, because enemies who haven't committed to a fight can simply walk out of the edges. The wrong time to use it is when your team is split across the map; the right time is the half-second after your frontliner forces the enemy to group.
Skill Order
Priority: R > Q > W| Skill | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Flexibility | 1 | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | · | 9 | · | · | · | 13 | · | · |
2Endurability | · | 2 | · | 4 | · | · | · | 8 | · | 10 | · | 12 | · | 14 | · |
RLongevity | · | · | · | · | · | 6 | · | · | · | · | 11 | · | · | · | 15 |
Loadout
Core Combos
Standard Gank Lock
Arrive pre-stacked, lead with Q to trigger the slow so the target can't immediately dash, use W to close or cut off retreat, then land the ultimate on the trapped target, works best on carries who have already burned their escape.
Flash Entry
Use Flicker to teleport directly on top of the enemy backline before they can scatter, immediately drop the ultimate to freeze the cluster, then chain Q and W to extend control on any target who survives the initial lockdown.
Reactive Ult Counter-Engage
When the enemy initiates onto your carry, use W to reposition beside the aggressor rather than the victim, drop R to interrupt their combo, then Q to extend the control chain while your frontliner turns the fight.
Gameplan
Ming's sharpest spike is hitting level 4 and having all three base abilities before committing to a gank; arriving at a lane with a full kit turns tentative trades into confident lockdowns. His ultimate is the obvious second spike, and the window right after it first comes online should go at the highest-priority carry on the enemy team, not a safe objective attempt. He softens in the mid-game lull between Dragon timers, once enemies have built Purify or tenacity. Late game his value rebounds as a teamfight initiator, but only if his team's positioning is tight.
Early Game
Levels 1–6- →Spend the first two minutes securing vision around the enemy jungle entrance nearest your carry's lane rather than standing in lane — Ming's mobility lets him do this safely and the information advantage pays off for the first gank window.
- →Coordinate with your jungler for a level-2 or level-3 dive on the opposing laner who has pushed furthest; your Q slow makes the setup trivially easy if you approach from the river brush.
- →Avoid extended lane trades — Ming's base stats don't support trading autos with tank supports; your mana is better spent rotating than poking.
Mid Game
Post Broken Spear- →As Dragon timers approach, position in the river brush adjacent to the pit 20 seconds before the objective spawns and contest vision; your ultimate is the fastest way to steal or secure Dragon if the enemy collapses.
- →Identify the enemy carry who is snowballing and dedicate two consecutive rotation cycles to shutting that player down — Ming's value scales with how disruptive he is to the win condition, not how many assists he accumulates.
- →Communicate with your team before each ultimate use; a surprise R with no follow-up is a wasted cooldown and a dead Ming.
Late Game
Teamfight phase- →In late-game teamfights your sole job is protecting your carry from enemy divers and landing the ultimate on the enemy carry in the same fight — prioritize accordingly and never split these two roles.
- →Save Flicker specifically for the Dark Slayer contest; a perfectly timed ult in the Dark Slayer pit has decided more high-Diamond games than any lane phase decision Ming can make.
- →If your team is losing late, switch to reactive play — peel for your carry with W and Q rather than trying to force aggressive flanks that leave your backline exposed.
Matchups
Ming is a terrible first-pick in Diamond lobbies because the heroes who hard-counter him, especially Aoi and Annette, are common flex picks pulled out the moment the enemy reads what he is doing. The smart line is to check whether the enemy has a dedicated cleanser support; if they do, Ming drops hard in value and you should pivot to a more self-contained roam. He shines when you pick him after the enemy has committed to a dive-heavy jungle and a burst carry, because his lockdown is most punishing on heroes who need to stand inside your team to deal damage. Stuck against Aoi? Respect the cleanse timing, hold R until after Aoi's shield is consumed, then re-engage.
Ming gets countered by
AoiAoi's passive ability to shield and cleanse allies directly neutralizes Ming's crowd-control chain, turning his entire engage pattern into a non-event.
AleisterAleister's zone denial and persistent area control make it impossible for Ming to safely reposition with W during teamfights, punishing the approach angles Ming relies on.
BaldumBaldum out-initiates Ming at every stage of the game with superior durability and a grab that operates on a shorter window than Ming's abilities, making early skirmishes heavily unfavorable.
AnnetteAnnette's team-wide buffs and her own displacement ability let the enemy carry simply dodge Ming's Q setup, and her shielding negates the burst that Ming's ultimate is supposed to enable.
Ming synergizes with
VioletViolet's enormous single-target damage output converts even a half-second of Ming's crowd control into a guaranteed elimination, making this the most efficient carry-support pairing in Ming's pool.
LavilleLaville's burst window is short and requires a stationary target, Ming's lockdown is precisely the setup Laville needs to unload a full combo without the target dashing away.
NakrothNakroth's dive-oriented jungle style meshes perfectly with Ming's gank setup: Ming peels the escape route with Q and W while Nakroth closes, turning ganks into nearly unavoidable kills.
Tel'AnnasTel'Annas benefits more than almost any carry from enemies who stand still, and her own slowing kit stacks on top of Ming's control to create a feedback loop that completely immobilizes priority targets.
Pro Tips
- →Track the enemy Purify spell cooldown on your mental checklist, Ming's entire damage-enabling window opens the moment that 90-second spell is down, so plan your ultimate timing around it, not around your own cooldowns.
- →In the current Thai-server meta, roaming supports are expected to deep-ward the enemy blue buff at the 3-minute mark; Ming's W makes this safer than it is on tank roamers, so do it consistently, the information advantage compounds over the game.
- →Against enemies who pattern-read your W escape, deliberately use it to re-engage rather than retreat at least once per game, the psychological disruption of an opponent expecting a fleeing Ming and instead receiving an aggressive one creates openings your team can exploit.
- →Ming's ultimate has far more impact in narrow map geometry (the Dragon pit, the river brush choke near mid lane) than in open areas, mentally catalogue these choke points at the start of each game and build your rotation paths to funnel fights into them.
Ming rewards teams that have their act together. He turns a disciplined, coordinated squad into a CC nightmare for the enemy carry, and he is useless with a team that treats his lockdowns as background noise. The thing to master is ultimate timing: holding R until the enemy cleanser is on cooldown and the fight geometry is in your favor. If you are a Diamond-plus player who likes shaping teamfights from the shadows rather than tanking on the frontline, he is a legitimate off-meta pocket pick in the right draft window.
Ming — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Ming good in the current ROV patch?+
Ming sits at A tier on the Thai server but carries a below-median 33.3% win rate, so he is situationally strong rather than universally dominant. He rewards players who draft him into the right matchups, specifically against teams with no cleanser support and a damage-reliant carry who has to stand still to kill. In a vacuum pick or a mirror comp, his impact is unreliable.
What is the best build for Ming?+
Confirm exact ability scaling in the current patch client, but the principle is to prioritize cooldown reduction first; his value is tied to how often he can apply CC, so CDR beats raw stats. Layer survivability second so he lives long enough to land the ultimate in a fight, and run Flicker as your primary summoner to enable the Flash Entry combo.
How do you counter Ming?+
The most effective counter-play is drafting or buying Purify on your carry and holding it specifically for his ultimate instead of burning it on a slow or Q. Heroes like Aoi and Annette who cleanse or shield allies are the hardest counters at draft. In game, stay out of narrow chokepoints, especially the Dragon pit and river brushes, to remove the map geometry that makes his engages unavoidable.
Is Ming hard to play / good for beginners?+
Medium. His individual abilities aren't demanding, but landing them at the right moment in a coordinated roam needs game-sense and communication habits newer players usually haven't built. Beginners who want a roam support get more consistent results on a tank-class initiator first; come back to Ming once you understand rotation timing and can read enemy positioning at a glance.