To all League of Legends Summoners, current and future REDUX

[Colonel-Gilgamesh]

I have decided that, since we are taking on many new members, that I shall state my personal Finer Points speech in here. This starting bit is for newcomers, but I haven't forgotten about the current Veterans. As I've been round the block a few times, I am more than willing to give my analysis on any character in any fashion. Some definitions will be stronger than others(I don't own EVERYBODY), but if anyone has other suggestions, please feel free to correct me and speak up.

Now, as my little monologue is about finer points, those brand new to the game should watch this. Those who have played Dota before or are fairly familiar with this type of game may skip this and go to the bottom for what's more useful to you.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orbHJ3-49K0

Now that you have a basic understanding of the game, lets pick a champion out for you to start.

Champions are divided into 5 types(well, more, but I summarized): Mage, Melee, Ranged, Tank, Support, with a decent amount of Champions also being hybrids of the above classes

-Mages are the most common and usually most influential type of Champion. They use their abilities from afar, dealing high damage and being high priority targets. Because they are so common, most vary in many regards, but most of them scale of of Ability Power Items. Mage's high damage output and ability to do so instantly from afar is important, but be willing to pay the price: You will likely be singled out in fights and most mages don't have the greatest escaping power.

-Melee champions focus on letting their fists do the talking with their close range auto attacks. Melees stack some combination of Attack Boosting Items, and Attack Speed Boosting items. Most fighters have some way to jump on a target they want to attack, have generally very good but short ranged abilities, and also have a decent overall life total without any items to boost. Melees can carry cames much easier than Mages can, but getting to that point is VERY difficult. As stated, Melee fighters have to get into the action immediately, often putting themselves in very bad situations in order to get to a target. If you choose a Melee champ, be expected to lose your life more than your other companions. In addition to that, Melee Champions are harder to build Items for. Most Damage items are very expensive, and Melee units have to get up close to kill enemy creeps.

-Ranged champions build the same as Melee champions, but differ in a few ways, mostly in that their damage is dealt from farther away. This provides a minor safety net for them, but at a price. Ranged units often survive a lot better than their Melee counterparts, but most Ranged units on average have abilities that are less than useful in a fight, usually only being one or two really good abilities. Like Melees, Range Build attack Damage and Attack Speed Items, but unlike Melees, their Auto Attack comes from a distance and is easier to farm creeps.

-Tanks, as with other games, exist to soak up damage and help reduce(But not eliminate) enemy effectiveness with heavy disabling abilities. A tanks goal is to find the most important enemy target and disable them so your team can kill them, to the point where it MAY be suicidal, but that's why you build Armor, Magic Resist, of Health items(Though Health is usually better depending). Tanks rarely kill and almost never carry games on their own, but are equally important nonetheless. Their main weakness is that they usually can't do anything by themselves and are also usually hard up for gold due to lack of kills.

-Support champions are the least common champion types. They focus on buffing their allies with increase to stats, healing, etc. Most supports have at least one shield or healing spell, as well as one strong-ish damage spell, and usually one disabling spell. Support champions are Hybridized the most often, as pure support champs are both hard to use effectively, and harder still to provide adequate support in a teamfight.

So now you have a champion who fits your playstyle. What now? Time to start a game. Games in League of Legends are divided into 3 areas: Early, Middle, and Late Game. Early game(More commonly known as the laning phase) is where each team goes to their respective lanes to push against another pair of enemy champions, as well as farm minions, in an effort to level up and push enemy towers. Mid Game starts usually when all parties are Level 6 and have their Ultimate Moves, at which tme, lanes may go around ganking other lanes to kill enemies, earn gold, and finish off towers that have been damaged already. Late game occurs usually after everyone hits 12-18. Everyone groups together and 5v5 Team fights start happening. This is crunch time, where one good push or win can mean victory.

Starting your game, you head into your lane, but you come across your designated enemies. What should you do? Start by assessing the situation. What kind of fight are you looking at? 1v1? 2v2? 3-5 vs 3-5? These are the most common types of fights. But until you get much better at the game(and even then), do NOT do any of the following: Engage an enemy group with more champions than you, attack an enemy with 3+Levels on you, or attack the tank(Though this can't sometimes be helped).

How should you engage the enemy then? Fighting the opposing team consists again of 3 phases: Pestering, Initiation, and Team Fight. Pestering is where you and your opponent use their respective abilities to deal damage to each other, whittling them down until you are ready to initiate on them. Initiation is that time when you know you can kill an enemy if you wanted to: this is usually signified with some for of disabling move or move to close the gap between you and your opponent. Which brings us into the third phase, the team fight. This is where both sides use as many abilities as they can to kill, main, or run from enemies. This is where your choice of character really has an impact, as what you should be doing in a team fight is based on who you picked.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that this game is 5% skill, 25% Character Matchups, and 70% experience. You just need to learn your own capabilities as well as your opponent and you'll succeed.
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Now, as a service to any players old or new, I will be willing to dissect in as much as possible any item, rune build, mastery and any character in detail. Character dissection will include Skills, what order I'd prioritize them in, Item builds, how to handle yourself, and who to watch out for.

Have fun and happy hunting.

Oh, and a final word to our New Crowd, ALWAYS BUY AT LEAST ONE HEALTH POTION AT THE START OF THE GAME AND ALWAYS BUY BOOTS EARLY.


Edit: I have also decided to upload any profiles on LoL who wish to disclose them here, so we know who in our communty plays. Lots of people play at different times, so it's quite likely you will be able to find someone to play with.

Colonel-Gilgamesh profile: ColonelGilgamesh

Shinryuu/Ramiel Profile: xShinryuu

DREW: RotaryTuner Profile: RotaryTuner

Haruhiist: Same/PinkPaperClip

Rebellion: zRebellion/aRebellion

JMRV Profile: JMRV

Aveot Profile: Same

VOID Profile: Gugido

liljp profile: Same

Lycoris Profile: Kilarin

Wedge Profile: Green Squiggly

Judah Profile: Nystagmus Crux

Kumo Profile: KitesoKumoe

Meoark Profile: Same

SSJKiego Profile: Yolie

Nexus Profile: NexusNemesis

Hallabaloo Profile: Hallabaloo4

Zodiark: ZodiarkSavior

[Haruhiist]

Haruhiist's pointers

Out of the current group, aside from Colonel, I believe I have the most experience in DotA-based games (DotA, League, HoN) in general so I'll be leaving some of my own pointers here. CG's post focuses more on the basics of games and MOBA's (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) but what my post will focus on is the more advanced tactics - at least, for beginners. Most of this stuff should become second nature to you by the time you're ready to go into competitive play, or at least get serious.

I'm not as friendly as Colonel and I won't go into a practice game with you for you to try out a champion.

However, I do arranged with friends regardless of level or skill so don't be afraid to approach me for those. I can also do 1v1s if you want critique, or play with you in an arranged for criticism but I'm a bit harsh sometimes and rage more than CG (who doesn't rage, really) so, yeah.

I may be a bit unclear as my writing skill isn't good, so you can just visitor's message me (or post here) if you have a question.

#1: Last Hitting

Simply enough, minions are the creeps of League. They spawn in waves of 6, with 3 melee and 3 ranged. Once in awhile, a siege minion - represented by a large cannon - will spawn and it gives a bit more gold than regular minions. They spawn at intervals of 30 seconds and just run down the lane to die. This is the most common method of getting gold in the game, but auto-attacking will not suffice in higher levels of League, or any MOBA. What you want to do, is to get the very last hit on the minion so that your damage kills it, thus giving you the gold. This is called last hitting. There are several ways to do it, some more creative than others. The basic 2 would be:

- Running around the lane keeping in range of the minion that you want to last hit, and then when you see it's hp reach low levels you go in for the kill.

- Hitting the minion you want until it's hp is a little less than half, then waiting for your own minions to damage your target and then deal the last blow.

The former helps to ensure that your damage does not give your minions an advantage, thus pushing the minion line towards their turret where they gain a slight advantage in terms of freedom of movement thanks to the safety of their turret. The latter pushes the minion line towards their turret, so you might only want to do that if your objective is to get exp faster than the opponent, to make it safe for you to return to base, or just to push down their turret.

#2: Ganking and the Brush

There is magical grass in the game called brush. These little patches will make your champion invisible to any enemy who is outside the brush. However, if you attack from inside the brush, you will be visible to enemies even if they are outside the brush. These are located along the lanes and have little patches at the entrances and exits of the lane. In lane, you can hide your champion inside the brush and this will pressure your opponents into playing defensively, cutting down on their last hitting as they have to be careful since you can jump out at any moment.

Ganking is basically going to a different lane with only the objective of killing the enemy champion in mind with the help of your teammates whom are already in the lane. There are many champions with skills who supplement this act, especially those with high frontal damage (e.g. burst magic) or stealth skills. The reason I'm listing this with the brush mechanic is because brush will help you sneak up close to the enemy and surprise them, rather than running straight up to them which is an obvious tell that you're trying to kill them.

Ultimately, ganking skill will come from experience, but this is just the basic stuff you should know if you plan on ganking.

#3: Map Awareness

This will be short. You have a little mini-map at the bottom right of your screen, use it. You can see the basic map layout and the other champions in the game. If you see that your ally is being chased by 2 champions and you are able to get to him and maybe save him, go there. If you see your ally icon being chased by 5 enemy icons and he's running towards you, run the hell back unless you have some sort of ability that will save your ally such as a binding/stun skill. If your team is amassing at middle and enemy icons are nowhere to be found, be careful. Your team may charge ahead, but you don't have to die with them when your enemies suddenly burst out of the brush and blow up your team.

There are these magical items in the consumables tab in the shop. They look like a green and purple eye. You can buy these for 90g/150g apiece and plant them wherever on the map you want, granting you vision of the map. These can save your life by letting you see if the enemy is ganking or obtaining crucial objectives (Baron Nashor, Dragon, Neutral buffs) so you should get used to buying these. Often times if you're queueing solo and you are serious about winning, you can buy up to 15 of them (my record for a single game) regardless of your role.

Youtube - GO GO MAP AWARENESS!

#4: Babysitting and Zoning

Especially when you played ranged, support or caster champions, you will want to take note of zones. At the very basic level, each champion has a zone of control which is determined by the range of their attacks. What you want to do is impose your zone onto the enemy and in a way, control their movements and actions. The video at the end of this section will tell you more about zoning, but the voice is a bit annoying (the poor girl was sick when she made the video) so, y'know, bear with it. If you're good at understanding stuff, you can probably watch it without sound.

Babysitting is when you are a ranged/support/caster champion and the other allied champion in your lane is a melee, or a weaker champion than yours in early game. Examples of weak early champions are those with low health and defense such as Veigar. What you want to do is keep your enemies away from your allied champion and give them the last hitting opportunities, sacrificing your own. Ways to do this include:

- Hiding in the brush of either team. There are generally 2 long brushes for both teams in each side lane, if you hide inside the brush the enemy cannot determine where exactly you are and so they will be more wary. Occasionally they will just rush at you so you, too, have to be careful.

- Harrassing them. You can do this with normal attacks or spells, just give little pokes at them, taking their health away little by little. They will either get annoyed and direct their attention at you instead of your melee or shrug it off until they realise they have very low health. Either way, you're doing your job as a babysitter. But if you attack enemy champions while both you and the target are in range of enemy minions, the enemy minions will attack you. Try not to take damage from these guys, while it seems little, it builds up very quickly to do massive damage.

One thing to note is that although your main objective is to keep your lanemate levels, gold and farm, you too have to get some gold for yourself so make sure you get a few last hits of your own. Try to give your lanemate the kill, though. And it is not okay to die as a babysitter. You're feeding the enemies gold and experience which is never good.

YouTube - League of Legends: Zoning Tutorial

YouTube - The 3 Aspects of Basic Laning

#5: Jungling

Certain characters (notably Olaf and Warwick) can jungle. In between each lanes there are forests with neutral minions. These only attack you if you attack them, and often times for the better junglers you can keep up to pace with solo lanes or at least better than the side duo lanes. I'm not too experienced in jungling as my only jungler is an unorthodox one, but what I want to say is:

Before jungling, please watch a video about it first. And I don't mean ANY video, one specific for your champion that you want to jungle with. Because there are different jungling routes for each champion, if you try another one with the one you picked you may get screwed over. Another very important thing is masteries and runes for jungling. Some champions absolutely cannot jungle without a certain rune and mastery set-up, and thus cannot be used for jungling until a certain summoner level is reached. An example is my jungler champion, Akali, who needs her quintessences to jungle.

Examples of great Junglers:
Olaf, Warwick, Shaco

Other champions who can jungle, but may not be optimal:
Cho'Gath, Nunu

Leaguecraft (a link at the bottom of this post) has many guides, including those with jungle routes and even videos attached so check it out.

General Pointers

- Try to round out your team, every team needs a tank and preferably at least one caster along with a ranged or melee.

- Do not rage at your team unless you're sure you know what you're talking about. Even then, do your best to be nice.

- Ignore the people who insult you all game long, they start to become more cooperative if you don't insult them back.

- If you can, ensure your team places at least one melee/tank champion in the bottom and top lanes. This is to prevent a single lane from being too easily killable, which your enemies might take advantage of and feed on them.

[Haruhiist]

Champions that are easy to learn for each category

Mage: Annie, Ryze

Note: Please read your skill descriptions thoroughly. For example, you may be finding Annie running out of mana fast and thus leaving you defenseless and getting you killed - but maybe it was because you didn't notice her Q (Disintegrate) allows you to have a net loss of 0 mana if the damage from Disintegrate deals the killing blow. This allows Annie to endlessly farm in lane. So, basically, mages tend to have slightly more complicated skills in comparison to the other types of champions so you want to make sure you understand the mechanics of your skills.

Melee: Master Yi, Garen (melee build Garen will work in earlier levels, but not later)

Note: If you're dying a lot as Master Yi, maybe it is because you're not taking note of the situation. Just because you bring high damage and can kill things quickly, if the enemy team can kill you before you reach them, you're as good as useless. Make sure that you go in when the time is right, which is the most important thing when playing melee champions as you are often put in dangeorus situations. Focus on the fights, especially, since you may lose your champion in the chaos.

Ranged: Tristana

Note: Tristana is probably the easiest ranged DPS character you can play at low levels. She has fast attack, high range, natural steroid and powerful nukes coupled with an escape spell. However, as you go into higher levels, you may find your Tristana scores becoming worse. This is because this champion actually has a relatively difficult playstyle in higher levels when people start learning how to go about playing the game, who to target and all that. At this point you either have to decide whether you want to keep learning Tristana's intricates (where to rocket jump, positioning, how to do your nuke combo and not die) or pick another champion.

You may want to try Ashe - whom is an offcarry with good utility spells, meaning her damage may be lower than the other ranged champions but her spells make up for it - or Teemo - whom is rather simplistic in nature if you play him with attack damage, but his ultimate (His Toxic Shrooms) is a rather difficult spell to learn how to utilize properly. Either way, ranged is a hard role to take on once you're at higher levels because people will start focusing you in fights.

Tanks: Rammus, Nunu, Garen (tank is the better build in later levels)

Note: Don't expect too many kills unless you're playing Garen. Build tank items that give you resistances, but do not ignore the HP stat. Optimally, what you want is at least 150 magic resistance and 150 armor as well as over 2500HP. Out of these 3, Rammus is the most difficult as his Powerball will be a bit difficult to use if your enemy knows how to dodge you.

Support: Sona, Zilean, Taric

Note: When playing supports, expect few kills and high assists. If your allies killsteal you, just leave it be. They need the gold more than you, for the most part. And for Zilean, although his time bomb does great damage in lane, as a support Zilean you want to focus more on buffing your allies with Time Warp and keeping your ultimate FOR YOUR ALLIES and not yourself, unless there is no other teammate that is near death or you're on your own. Basically, prioritize your allies. Sona and Taric don't really scale with AP, so there isn't much to say. But same thing, make sure you prioritize your allies over yourself but DO NOT die senselessly.
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These champions are the easiest to learn for each category, but you may find that their ability is lacking when you reach higher levels of gameplay. At that point you will want to try other champions, or look for guides. Notably, Master Yi and Ryze will become very hard to play if your basics of the game are not sufficient. This is because as you advance in summoner level, other players become smarter and you will die more often and get less kills, whereas in the lower levels you will find you get a lot of kills and die less.

My Personal Recommendations: Higher Level Champions

Mage: Annie

Annie, while at the same time being a very noob-friendly champion, is one of the most reliable casters in the game. She has infinite farming power with her Q spell, a near instant stun through her passive and her E or R spells which deal damage in an area, high burst and a mini-shield which may prove useful in dangerous situations (as useless as it seems). This little fire witch is very much viable in high level games and is often used. Definitely a recommendation from me, not to mention if you really look into her you will be able to find that she's more than meets the eye.

Melee: Xin Zhao

Xin Zhao is currently regarded by many as the strongest and most viable melee champion in the game. With the ability to slow enemies in an area by charging at them with his spear, give himself a steroid by activating his W which also grants him attack speed passively as well as continuously knock-up his enemies through his Q and lowered cooldowns through his W's other passive effect, he brings a load of pain to the table. His R is also an area attack where he sweeps the area around him with his spear, taking away a large percentage of health from enemy champions that are hit. It also grants him a minor AR and MR buff upon use, which is always handy. Being on the tanky side as a champion as well as his ultimate R granting him some MR and AR upon use, Xin Zhao can not only deal a load of damage but take some pain too. He can be built as a beefy dps (e.g. building some damage and some tank items) which can help your team as an offtank AND offcarry. He was also recently buffed through an item that makes his skills pierce a large percentage of enemy armor. Colonel and JMRV play this guy, so you can go to them if you want more information as I'm not too sure about his intricates.

Ranged: Tristana

Tristana is a very simplistic ranged champion. Her Q is a steroid spell which grants the highest amount of attack speed given by any skill in the game. Her E is a farming skill combined with a painful Damage over Time spell in early game. Her W is her escape button, although she doesn't become invulnerable while casting. Her R knocks enemies back while dealing massive damage to them. The only two major skills you need to know when playing Tristana is positioning and last hitting. Positioning is something you will have to learn through experience, though I hope to add on a little section in the advanced tactics section I want to put up. Despite her simplicity, the reason for her being a viable high level champion is that she has very high range, making positioning with her a slightly simpler matter. She also has naturally fast attack speed and is easy to last hit with. Added on with her powerful nukes and slight utility, she is great as a ranged champion. It also helps that you can get her for free simply through a Facebook offer. Check the League main site for more information.

Tank: Shen

Utility, tanking prowess, CC. This guy has it all. His Q is a fairly strong mini-nuke which places a mark on a target. If an allied champion attacks the marked target, he regains some health - although it is rather negligible. His W grants him a shield for a lengthy 2.5 seconds, a lifesaver and makes you a great early game tanking as it provides a rather powerful shield at low cooldown. His E is an area taunt, not really that useful at early levels with a very short duration, but it can save your allies. His ultimate allows him to shield any ally champion for a large sum of damage and teleports him to the allied target, letting him provide support through taunt or harrassment of his ally's pursuer. As Rebellion put it, this guy is pretty much invincible. Assuming you're building right and have basic knowledge of the game, you will find that your deaths will come very seldomly. He is very much viable as he fulfills the utility role well and still can do his job as a tank. However, some people seem to have very low natural compatibility with Shen, so he may not be for you.

Support: Sona

Currently the best support champion in the game. She brings a heal, an area movespeed buff, a mini-nuke combined with an AP/AD buff as well as an area CC ultimate. Compared to other support champions, she is subpar at babysitting a single champion. Where she shines is at supporting the entire team, her auras, buffs and heals can keep a team running for an entire push. Her ultimate CC is not instant, but is fairly wide and has great use in disabling the enemy team. She is rather bland though, but nonetheless she is, by far, the best support in the game at the moment. Used by many high level players, I recommend her as a high level support champion to learn.

[Haruhiist]

League terms

MIA - The champion is missing from lane or not visible on the map, be wary of a gank.

Re - The champion has returned to the lane

b - Back, retreat, withdraw. Usually if someone senses danger coming (e.g. he thinks your lane is about to be ganked by the enemy team) and he will say 'top b' which signifies that the champions in top lane should retreat to a safer area.

Farm - Last hitting, essentially. Getting gold.

Gank - When 2 or more champions target an enemy champion with the objective of killing him. This doesn't necessarily have to be in lane, but it is most often used in that context. For example, 'Guys I'm going to gank Yi top, get ready' means that the person who said that is going to the top lane to kill Yi and he wants his allies in top lane to be prepared to help out - maybe with a stun or slow so that he can get up to Yi and deal his damage.

CC - Crowd Control. Stuns, snares, slows, blinds, taunts. This isn't all of em, but just a few examples. Generally, stuns are considered hard CC as they completely disable an enemy champion, preventing them from doing anything. Slows, snares, blinds are all considered soft CC as the enemy champion can still function in some manner when under the effects of slows/snares/blinds. Take note that there is a summoner spell called Cleanse which will remove all CC on the champion, so watch out for it. Cleanse does not remove Damage over Time spells such as Ignite or Malefic Visions.

DPS - It's an abbreviation of the term 'Damage per Second'. While it's proper use lies in discussions about the amount of damage a certain champion, skill or item can put out in a certain amount of time (typically 1 second, or 5 seconds for League's calculations), it is often used as a noun/pronoun for champions who deal a lot of damage at once. For example, Master Yi - who puts out a lot of damage - is called a DPS champion because of how much damage he deals. Examples of usage are: "Yi DPS is seriously too high", "Aim the DPS on their team", "Lol your DPS sucks".

OP - Overpowered. Usually used by people whining about a champion that they got killed by in a manner they felt was unfair towards them. Occasionally, a champion rightfully deserves the title of OP, for example Xin Zhao when he was first released.

Nerf - To weaken a champion through official patch changes, such as taking away a champion's HP growth per level or removing an amount of damage from one of his skills.

I'm probably missing a few, so tell me if I forgot anything.

Notable Websites

Leaguecraft - A massive database of champions, skills, custom skins and guides for each champion. You definitely want to check this out before trying out a new champion in a normal game.

League of Legends official forum - There are daily discussions on champions and a lot of strategy chat mixed in with the usual forum nonsense. You can post here for help, there are a lot of helpful people but sometimes you will get trolled.

EpikGamer - A League of Legends team which made it up to the North America WCG Grand Finals. They have a very helpful community and weekly inhouse critique sessions, even the high level pros join in. Go there for advice or to join in on their critique sessions, but don't troll there. They really don't like it, and want to keep their community mature and helpful rather than nonsensical like the League official forums. You can watch their livestream as well, but I haven't done it too much. They build pretty normal so you don't learn anything like new builds, although for beginners watching how they play would be beneficial.

Counter-Logic Gaming - The other team at the North American WCG Grand Finals. They are the victors that went on to become champions of the world. I haven't really gone around their forums or participated in discussions, but if there's anything worth doing on this website, it's watching their livestream. You can pick up a few tips, learn a build or two. Good stuff.

Important for newbies, especially those who have never played DotA or HoN!
This video will really help you out. Well, it is actually an extension of the training map, but if you aren't interested in actually playing it then I recommend you watch this video at the very least.

[Haruhiist]

Fellow League-of-Legend-ers!

Let us pull together in this time of need.. and help me bump my thread so people will stop calling Anivia OP. D;
http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board...d.php?t=506558