Thread: League of Legends (LoL)

LoL is a dota spinoff, and it's a very good one. If you like fast paced micromanagement based group PvP, this game might be something worth trying. You get to select a champion (there are TONS) and eventually customize your "summoner" (you as a player) with runes and masteries (talent tree knockoff from WoW). Your summoner also levels up over time, and you earn IP (influence points) which can be used to unlock more summoners/runes/etc. It's progressive enough to get into for people who want games with depth.

Here's coq's basic rundown of the game. I suggest you play a few matches or at least the tutorial so you have an idea of the terms he uses:

Originally Posted by coqauvin

general rule for team comps are 1 carry, 1/2 supports, 1/2 tanks, 1 mage

the metagame changes every couple months it seems. It went from massive AoEs to CC to poke comps to heal comps to tanky dps and now it's something i haven't quite put my finger on, but to be fair I only play occasionally and casually.

biggest thing is learning the general genre all champs fall into, which is generally obvious enough by looking at them. melee/ranged dps, mages, supports and tanks. There are hybridizations, but they tend to lean more towards purer roles for more effectiveness in general anyways.

general phases are: laning phase, ganking/roaming phase (midgame) and teamfight/ganking(late game). Plenty of games end before the lategame, but those are more for entire teams who know what the hell they're doing.

for laning, denying (killing your own creeps) has been removed, so it's just balancing last hitting with harassment/deny (current denial is pushing the champions far enough from the creeps that they receive no xp) and avoiding getting ganked, either by mid or the jungler. sometimes you can jump in for a kill, if they overextend. don't casually autoattack the creeps - this pushes your wave too far. just last hit them. if either of your opponents leaves for any reason, tell your team. calling mias is both crucial and polite. most importantly - don't die. first blood is 400 gold (which is a huge early advantage, something like 3 or 4 full creep waves, assuming you last hit all of them). regular kills get you 300, and there's a bonus if the opponent has been on a killing spree. assists also net gold, so your death ends up giving the enemy team 550 gold or so for first blood, as well as making you lose out on experience while you're away from your lane. Whatever you do, don't die.

midgame comes after the first tower falls, usually one of the duo side lanes. one of those champs will stay and defend/farm and the other will jump between the other lanes either to push them down or gank anyone hanging around. you want to watch the minimap to see who's missing to make sure you don't overextend by, say, attacking a turret with a creep wave when 4 of the enemy team are in the fog of war. buy wards and place them in bushes, emphasizing the river and buff monsters as well as choke points (these mostly overlap, you'll only really need to place 3 at a time or so). map vision is cery important, but nobody wards until you get into mid or mid/high elo games.

sometime between midgame and lategame you should, especially if you're support, never go anywhere alone. hang out with the dps or the offtanks all the time. going out alone is generally suicide, until you get a feel for where the enemy is likely to be (usually buffs or between lanes). If you are going out alone, it's only to kill some creeps that are pushing your lanes past the river, and you only push them to the river and only if you know where most of the other team is.

late game is just trying to ace the other team and push down turrets when you have the player advantage, either by killing one of them off (forcing a 4v5) or just straight up killing all of them, then bumrushing the nexus.

I found the easiest champs for me to learn were support or off-tanks.

Janna is a solid support, as is Soraka. Nasus is my favourite off-tank and I'm currently working with Udyr.

Best thing to do, if you're brand new, is to make a game with only you and 1 bot in it. Go to any lane and time your last hitting and get a feel for the damage you do when you're trying to kill people. 90% of the time, you're just looking to unload a combo on them, then run away. learn how to chase and when you've got a feel for quickly dropping your target. if it takes longer than 5 seconds to kill someone, you're probably doing it wrong and would get ganked in a real game.

my summoner name is Maugrim Faustus. it's pretty homosexual, but it's also too late to change.

tl;dr: concentrate on having a good early game by last hitting and not dying. after the first tower falls, stay with your team all the time. someone will tell you what to do and you might even win.

As a new player, I struggled with the importance of three things:

1) Don't die. Your opponents will flourish if you "feed" them and you will ultimately lose if you die too much.
2) Gain XP. Constantly be near minions dying until your team is powerful enough to travel as a group.
3) Gain gold. Coq mentions "last hitting" minions, and its something that I find very annoying and tedious, but it's an integral part of the game. Get good at it.

Feel free to post your LoL summoner name here and me/sycld/coq will add you and play games with you.