League of Legends: Official Thread

Marcus · 2011-08-25T10:04:58.000Z

So does anyone have a good guide for a newbie trying to figure this game out?

MarinusWA · 2011-08-25T10:12:55.000Z

Just came from a game with an Annie who went 0/5/1 in 10 minutes time feeding their AP Soroka. She kept complaining how her stun didn’t work.

Then the insight came when “OMG Tibbers didn’t stun again” line appeared. The rest pointed out that Tibbers doesn’t stun, her passive does.

But no, the rest of us had no idea what we were talking about to the point that we should play ourselves Annie to learn how to play her.

Needless to say at this point (10 min) she was mentioned 0/5/1.

With friends like these, who needs enemies.

skyride · 2011-08-25T10:18:15.000Z

Harkonis:

Played around a bit with the new guy, he’s pretty much exactly my style.

I thought you never play OP champs?

McKnight · 2011-08-25T10:33:38.000Z

Marcus:

So does anyone have a good guide for a newbie trying to figure this game out?

Try the links in the OP, play a game or two against the AI and then come back to us with thoughts and we will try our best to help ya out :)

peacedog · 2011-08-25T10:41:06.000Z

Marcus:

So does anyone have a good guide for a newbie trying to figure this game out?

Learn to last hit. That is the practice of waiting for a creep to be down to it’s last few hp and then finishing it off. Last Hitting is the primary source of gold (for many champs, but this advice is sufficient for someone starting out). Generally speaking you don’t want to just mindlessly auto attack creeps. That pushes the wave, and you usually don’t want to push unless you have a good reason to.
Learn to keep an eye on your auto map. You need to use it to see what is going on elsewhere in game. This is an important skill to learn, and it will take you awhile. Just like it took everyone elseawhile.
Understand that it’s going to be a rocky road for hundreds of games. You will continually be running into champions you have never seen before, and never mind the wildly different quality of players in your games.
You will run into a lot of douche bags. Bring a thick skin. /ignore all is frequently a good idea when in solo queue, as well.
Try different champs. This will help you get a feel for what you like. And it will help you get comfortable with how to face those champions.
YEs, there are many items you can buy and the recommended items for each character are usually not that great. Don’t sweat it. If you like playing a certain character mention it in this thread and we’ll suggest some items for you. Don’t sweat needing to be able to do a proper, “full” build or anything.
Do you see any of the enemy team on the automap? No? DO NOT WALK INTO BUSHES WHERE YOU LACK LINE OF SITE.

As a general rule, if there are any missing enemies, avoid bushes where you lack line of site. But especially when they are all missing. Face checking = fail.

If an enemy leaves your lane, it is courtesy to tell your team in chat “bot MIA” or “so and so is MIA”. But everyone is responsible for their own map awareness, ultimately (people can genuinely miss an MIA - too busy dealing with their own immediate problems - and lots of people don’t even bother to call them).
At lower levels, expect the middle lane to be the solo lane and the “side” lanes to be 2v2. The Middle lane is “safer” - the distance from the turret to the middle of the lane is shorter, and it’s harder to gank that character. It is generally better to send a farm dependent character mid - they level up more quickly and get more gold.

In more advanced play, the top lane will be solo as well, with the 5th player in the jungle/ganking. Don’t sweat this kind of thing overmuch at first. And there is no one hard and fast formula that always works.

Carries are characters who are farm dependant. Think DPS, but they’re not as good early and they have to grow into their damage. And they won’t grow into it without proper farm. Tristana, Ashe, Miss Fortune, and Caitlin are just a few.

Some casters are like carries. But casteries tend to be burstier (as opposed to sustained damage), often have hard CC (crowd control), and some of them scale into late game better than others. Casters tend to have an advantage over carries early in a game. Annie, Viegar, Brand, and Malzahar are a few casters.

You will see the term Tank frequently. It’s misleading. Tanky characters are hard to kill but very few characters can force someone to attack them. Initiators are characters who usually get fights started. They are often melee and often tanky, because they will take quite a bit of fire. They usually have some form of CC. But there are quite a few initiating abilities (e.g. Ashe, a ranged carry, has an ultimate ability that is really good for initiation).

Jarvan IV, Alistair, and Singed are examples of this type of character.

Support characters are sort of in flux at the moment (riot just modified a number of them in the recent patch). But they tend to have abilities that buff other players (or themselves) and heals. Sona, Soraka, and Taric are a few examples here.

Not all characters fall neatly into one category, as you might imagine.

Mike_Cathcart · 2011-08-25T10:42:26.000Z

Marcus:

So does anyone have a good guide for a newbie trying to figure this game out?

Grow up in an abusive home, develop a deep hatred for yourself and everyone else, have good situational awareness and a decent APM.

peacedog · 2011-08-25T10:44:37.000Z

MrCoffee:

I think its…

Normal sword, killed by autoattack.
Moving Sword, killed by ability.
Sword stuck on ground, killed by ultimate.

Apparently they are kill, kill streak, and streak broken respectively.

Quitch · 2011-08-25T11:16:12.000Z

476MB of patch to go, estimated time is 10 hours. Yay!

JoshV · 2011-08-25T12:16:53.000Z

instead of /ignore all, usually just /ignore enemy will do the job.

Sir_Digby · 2011-08-25T12:29:16.000Z

Marcus:

So does anyone have a good guide for a newbie trying to figure this game out?

Play with people who are friendly and have VoIP; there are currently two mumble servers (EU and US) with lots of people so just for access and come play. If you are playing on EU add me (Digby) and I’ll gladly play with you and show you the ropes.

Harkonis · 2011-08-25T12:47:51.000Z

skyride:

I thought you never play OP champs?

since I like him, we’ll probably find out he sucks.

Walter_Yarbrough · 2011-08-25T13:10:03.000Z

Hanacker:

Is Leona the character under Soraka? If so, it’s too bad Archaon messes up the Support/Tank theme.

Also, panther lady rules, but she’s really tricky to play since you have to be careful turning into a panther since you tend to be squishy. But being able to solo blue at level 6 and heal up immediately after is awesome for an AP carry. Panther form is really just for farming, chasing, escaping, and landing the killing blow when you’ve softened them up a bit first.

If I could get some of the brain trust to chime in here.

My daughter exclusively plays Nidalee, and does quite well with her. Great at harassing, great at taking a solo lane by herself, good at finishing fights in cougar form, and lands the occasional skill shot.

I’ve counselled her to follow the recommended build (except for Guardian Angel), and I urge her to ‘finish team fights, don’t start them’

Any other advice for Nidalee?

Note - recommended build is:

Doran’s Ring, boots of lucidity, Lich Bane, Rage Blade, Guardian Angel, Death Cap

AaronSofaer · 2011-08-25T13:12:56.000Z

Get the Rageblade before the Lich Bane, I’d say.

McKnight · 2011-08-25T13:30:38.000Z

Yea get it early or not at all. I’d also nearly always get merc threads over CDR boots and rely on the Blue Buff I need anyway for my CDR.

guppy · 2011-08-25T13:31:33.000Z

Yeah, Lichbane isn’t really all that useful until you’ve built up some AP. I generally like your starting choice, depending on the anticipated lane matchups; I haven’t played Nidalee in a while, so I’m not sure what’s in vogue for her for boots.

The rest of the loadout looks like good Nidalee items. Don’t get married to a build for anyone, though, a lot comes down to situation.

Nidalee’s hard to play, it’s pretty neat that your daughter’s good with her. She’s also not always a good fit for her team since she brings no CC, etc. But I gather your daughter is young and that’s not a discussion you want to have. :)

Walter_Yarbrough · 2011-08-25T13:41:50.000Z

guppy:

Nidalee’s hard to play, it’s pretty neat that your daughter’s good with her. She’s also not always a good fit for her team since she brings no CC, etc. But I gather your daughter is young and that’s not a discussion you want to have. :)

She’s 12 yrs old and level 28. I’m level 30 with a good w/l ratio, so when she plays with me we match up to tough opponents and struggle - we do well in 3v3 (normally with her solo top) and struggle in 5v5.

Then she jumps into a random pubbie game and goes 10/4/1 or so.

Edit: She played two Twisted Treeline games this morning - 10/8/5 and 4/4/6 both victories.

She’s just now branching out into looking into alternative item builds - later on we’ll get into situational items to match opponents.

She could stand to jungle more (particularly blue) and could stay in lane longer (she b’s early and often) and she could buy more wards, but yeah, she’s pretty solid.

AaronSofaer · 2011-08-25T13:43:53.000Z

That’s so adorable I don’t even have words for it.

idrisz · 2011-08-25T13:57:00.000Z

Maxle and me invites her for some three-s. err 3vs3…

forgeforsaken · 2011-08-25T14:05:03.000Z

Walter Yarbrough:

she could buy more wards.

Well this is a problem for 90% of the player base as well.

Walter_Yarbrough · 2011-08-25T14:12:10.000Z

She’s pretty good about knowing exactly how much cash she needs for each item.

I have tried (with some success) to get her to add 75 to that number before she ports back and add a ward to it.