League of Legends

[getTwitchRail scgame=”League of Legends”]
Created by: riotgames.com
Game Site: leagueoflegends.com
ESRB Rating: T for teen
Support: support.riotgames.com

Hellcat5 Connect: hellcat5#NA1

[WORK IN PROGRESS]

I started playing league of legends back in 2009 when they released it, on October 27th, 2009.  I introduced it to my son shortly after and we played together for years.  He drifted into playing other games.  League got too frustrating, and I understand why.  A lot of people don’t understand what’s going on with the mechanics.  They don’t things, and because they don’t, the enjoyment of the game for other more experienced players on their team is far less.  I’m going to bridge that gap with information i’ve never seen given anywhere before.  At least, not in the words I’m going to use.

roles revised

Way back at the start of LoL (that’s what we commonly abbreviate League of Legends as, lol.)  The roles in 2009 were: Jungle, Nuke, ADC (attack damage carry), Tank, and Support. These roles were mostly misunderstood, and never really explained clearly.  At one point I read where someone tried to say that the Tank was the initiator, but Tank and initiator are two very different thoughts for new players.  Many times I see Tanks wondering around in circles waiting for someone to start the fight when it’s their job to start the fight.  But, let me talk about the roles and lanes separately.

Assassins

These champions have skill sets that let them get in, kill a squishy, and get out.  Zed is a great example of this kind of champ, same with kha-zix.  Or you might think of Pyke.  You can find all these located at the champions list link below.  Assassins are generally not champs you want to try to learn when you first start League of Legends due to difficulty of kill and  escape mechanics.

Fighters

These guys have more beef than assassins, don’t do as much burst damage, but do a good amount of sustained damage over a fight.  Their skill sets typically involve crowd control of some sort, and sometimes a stun to help stop enemy champs from attacking the back line champs like the mages and marksmen.  The act of stopping enemy champions from attacking your marksmen and mages is called peeling.  This should be a priority at all times during a team fight for fighters.  I’ll talk more about that later in a section about team fighting.

Mages

These guys usually do heavy crowd control or massive burst damage, usually both once the game gets moving.  They’re masters of controlling where the enemy team can move during a team fight, through either direct effect or fear of getting turned to goo.  Malzahar, Veigar, Neeko, and Lux are all examples of mages you’ll encounter.  Mages should not engage with crowd controlling skills (pulls, skill shot traps, etc.) without being very advanced at using them so as to not needlessly waste mana.  Instead, they should hold those skills to peel for themselves or for first their marksman and then other teammates.

Marksmen

These guys are your mobile towers, and you should treat them like that.  That means protect them will your dying breath, because they’re the primary source of constant damage during a team fight.  While mages burst damage then have to wait on cooldowns to burst again, the marksmen attack constantly with basic attacks as their primary source of damage.  their skills focus on enhancing their ability to damage the enemy team.  They often have skills that can enhance their own movement speed (like miss fortune’s W), or cause enemy champions to stop moving for a short time, like varus’ ultimate skill.

Supports

The backbone of the Marksmen.  Supports helps the Marksmen with sustain through healing or shields, and helps peel enemy champions from the Marksman.  The support role comes in two flavors – Jungle Support, and Marksman Support.  The bottom lane marksman support should never leave the marksman, and should only use skills for other champions only if the marksman is safe, and during team fights.  Many times Support is a Mage also, who can use skill shots to trap or damage an enemy champion.  Support Mage should not spam skills, but instead hold the skill shots for counter plays when enemy champs move on your team’s marksman.  The rule of Mages from above applies here.

Tanks

These guys start the fights.  They run right in, and pick on someone, and still manage to be a threat even though they don’t do much damage compared to a fighter or marksman or mage.  Tanks can take a TON of damage, and the threat they carry is being able to beat you to death slowly while eating your bullets.  usually a bad idea to fight one of these alone as a marksman unless you’re very fed.  Think about Ashe trying to kill Chogath.  That’s not going to work out too well unless Ashe is super fed.

 

Positions

If you play Blind Pick, this is what people fight over constantly (top!! I want mid!, etc), and this usually ends up creating a bad team vibe unless people get to play what they want to play.  Nobody likes to play something they don’t want to.  I really think Blind Pick is outdated since they have Draft Pick mode now, and didn’t have the technology to create draft mode earlier.   Ranked functions the same as Draft now, whereas at the start of league there was no pre-position selection possible.

Top Lane

Talk about the possible roles to play here.

Mid Lane

Talk about the possible roles to play here.

Jungle / Team Support

This guy right here.  This is the guy who can break your team in half with a rolling snowball.  Either you have a great jungler who doesn’t mindlessly farm creeps in the jungle while your lanes get torn to shreds, or well.  You know how the other side goes.

Starting in Jungle usually puts you at either red buff or blue buff golem.  The blue buff gives you mana regeneration, and the red buff gives you an attack burn damage over time.  Which you start at is your own preference, and might be dictated according to the champ you play.

The problem here, during the first minute and thirty seconds of the game, lies in the jungle team fight.  Learn what champs can pub stomp in pre-game team jungle fight.  Play those or avoid them like the plague if you see them on the other team, usually Champs with pulls like Blitzcrank, Pyke, Nautilus, etc.  Chances are if you see one enemy champ, there’s more, and if there’s more, and they all rush you, guess what? easy first blood.  Use those trinkets wisely at the start, and carefully.

Jungler Priorities

  1. help team mates first – always always always help your team mates over killing jungle creeps.  Scuttle crab near dragon or help midlane who’s down to less than half life and enemy team yasuo could potentially kill your lux mid, and you have a nice nunu jungle to help kill that mean nasty yasuo mid.  Yea.  Go mid.  Their yasuo will be ANGRY that his jungler didn’t come mid to counter your jungler’s move by coming mid, instead killing scuttle crab.  Yasuo lost the lane, and that helps secure lux as a helpful ally later.  Friends help frends.

  2. scuttle crabs! – yes, I just said these little guys aren’t priority.  But, they’re priority if you don’t need to help a lane.  Always try your BEST to secure scuttles over ANY other buff you might while in jungle because they provide VISION.  VISION is THE most important aspect of winning a game.  VISION CRAB VISION CRAB VISION CRAB.  Kinda like a babble fish.  Just ask the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  3. blah blah blah

Bottom Lane

Bottom lane consists of two roles typically.   Traditionally the team marksman and the marksman support.  However, there are quite a few non meta roles that end up down here from time to time, just not in high ranking / professional games.  

the real basics of lane phase

I played through the 2020 tutorials.  They’re far too simple.  talk about creep score, lane control, plays and counter plays, ganks.

creep score

 

lane control

Freezing

Pushing

 

peeling

peel threatening

crowd control

suppression

taunts

objectives are chess pieces, the map is a chessboard

 

how to play when your team is behind

So many people think this game is won from kills alone.  Yes, kill count equals income.  But, I’ve seen many games won by a smart tactician, who instead controls moving the enemy team around the map.  Talk about that whole process here.

how to team fight

Talk about the mechanics of team fighting here, starting with the initiation.

 

 

 

Core Resources:

 

meta analysis tool and summoner name lookup – op.gg
complete list of champions – champions list
league of legends lore – lore list
league of legends server status – status

 

Community Resources:

 

 

 

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