- Layout and Lanes
- Lanes and Champions, square pegs and round holes
- Neutral Objectives you
- Champion Types and Roles
- Last Hitting and Getting Ahead
- Getting the Most Out of Ganks
- Teamwork and Pings
- How do Towers Work?
- Smartcasting
- Watching the Minimap
- Defensive vs Aggressive Play
- Just. Don't. Die.
- Warding and Vision
- Threats During Laning
So your dastardly mates refuse to play Overwatch with you? Won't shut up about this "LoL" nonsense? Well, sometimes, you've gotta climb down into the muck in order to see what it's all about. Hopefully you can gain a little insight into the gameplay elements that make League of Legends such a compelling game. Essentially, apart from the toxicity (of our city), and flame wars worse than Vietnam; League can be a rewarding experience. Winning a game of League requires teamwork, planning, reactions, detailed in-game knowledge, and high levels of mechanical skill. Similar to other competitive games like StarCraft, playing League of Legends to a high standard is difficult, which is part of the reason that both improvement and victory are so rewarding. Hopefully by reading this guide you can learn some of the theoretical basics you'll need to survive in your first 10 games.
Good luck Summoner, I'll see you on the Rift.
There are a whole bunch of terms and shorthand which you'll often hear thrown about. It's a good idea to get a handle on these first so you can get to grips with the rest of this guide. :)
AD stands for Attack Damage. Attack Damage empowers your basic attacks and any moves which scale with your total AD score. You can find it on the top right of your character details panel in-game. AP stands for Ability Power, AP only empowers abilities which scale with your Ability Power score. If you hover over an ability on your action-bar, the tooltip should specify what the ability scales with by the colour of the bonus damage. Green is AP scaling, orange is AD scaling, yellow is armour scaling, blue is maximum mana scaling, purple is magic resistance, red is maximum health, white is your character level.
Attack Damage Carry. Characters who deal a lot of their damage from their basic attacks, generally by attacking quickly, or by having abilities which boost their attack strength. The vast majority of ADCs are ranged champions. Examples of easy to learn ADCs are Ashe, Caitlyn, and Vayne.
Baron Nashor (Baron) is a large and very difficult to kill monster which spawns in the river between mid and top lane. When killed, Baron gives the team who landed the killing blow a large buff, allowing them to recall to their base more quickly, as well as giving them raw stat benefits. If you have baron buff, friendly minions will become empowered while you are near, and have longer ranges, more health and higher damage.
CC stands for Crowd Control and applies to any ability which inhibits your opponents ability to act, this includes slows, stuns, roots, blinds, knock-ups, charms, fears, taunts, stasis, and suppression. CC is considered a vital part of an effective team composition in order to lock down key members of the enemy team to prevent them doing damage, or to kill them quickly before they can escape.
CS is your Creep Score. It's a counter of how many minions you've got the killing blow on. Only minions you've successfully last-hit count towards your CS. Enemy champions don't count towards your CS, but neutral jungle minions do (more on these later). A high CS indicates that you've earned lots of gold with which to buy items and get stronger.
Dragon is a neutral monster which spawns in the river between mid and bot lane. There are 4 different dragons which spawn, which each give a different buff when killed. Only one dragon spawns at a time. Each dragon buff can stack up to three times, and lasts the remainder of the game. After the 35minute mark in the game the four initial dragons will stop spawning and be replaced by the Elder Dragon, who is much harder to kill.
- Fire Dragon: raw AD and AP boost.
- Earth Dragon: Do more damage to towers.
- Air Dragon: Move faster out of combat.
- Water Dragon: Regain health and mana faster.
- Elder Dragon: Lots of stats, and doubles the bonus of previous dragon buffs.
The fountain is the spawn point for each team. You heal much more rapidly while in the fountain, and any enemies who step in the fountain are automatically targeted by a big laser which does lotsa dmg.
A gank is where another player comes to a lane, to tip the odds in the favour of their laner. For example, the mid lane champion may run to top lane in order to engage in a 2-on-1 fight against the enemy top lane champion.
Inhibitors are structures within your base that sit behind the outer base towers. There are three in each base, corresponding to each lane. Inhibitors cannot be targeted or damaged until the towers in front of them are destroyed. When an enemy inhibitor is destroyed, you will begin spawning "Siege minions" with your normal minion waves in that lane. These minions are more powerful and much harder to kill. Inhibitors will respawn after a cooldown, and that lane will stop spawning siege minions.
The jungle is the space between the lanes on each side of the map. Generally divided into 'top' jungle (between the mid and top lanes) and 'bottom' jungle (between the mid and bot lanes). Neutral minions spawn in the jungle, and can be killed by any player on either team. Each team will generally have a Jungler, whose job it is to farm the jungle minions and help out their laners.
The main map in League of Legends is Summoner's Rift. The Rift is a square map with the opposing teams bases in the top-right and bottom-left corners. The top lane is the lane which runs along the left and top sides of the map. Bot lane is the lane which runs along the bottom and right side of the map. Mid lane is a diagonal lane which runs directly from the base in the bottom-left to the one in the top-right, it's worth noting that mid is the shortest of the three lanes.
Masteries are analagous to the Talent Trees of WoW, and are selected before a game starts. As your account levels towards 30 (the maximum level), you will earn one mastery point per level to spend in the mastery trees. The talents have various in game effects, from more raw damage or defensive stats, to causing your third damaging attack on an enemy to do bonus damage. The optimal masteries for each game will differ depending on the champion you are playing, the lane you plan to play them in, and the playstyle you want to use in game.
The Nexus is the large building in the center of your base. It is also the target your enemies will attempt to destroy. If you destroy the enemy nexus, you win the game. Each Nexus is protected by two towers. The nexus cannot be targeted unless both of the protecting towers have been destroyed AND at least one inhibitor has been destroyed.
The River runs from the top-left of the map to the bottom-right of the map, bisecting mid lane. The River separates the jungles of each team, and contains 4 neutral minions. Two scuttle crabs, dragon, and baron.
Runes are flat stat buffs which are contained in Rune Pages, and selected before the game. Runes pages contain 9 slots for 'Marks' (also known as Reds), 9 slots for 'Glyphs' (also known as Blues), 9 slots for 'Seals' (also known as Yellows), and 3 slots for Quintessences (also known as Quints). You'll unlock slots as you level your account to 30, and you don't need to worry about them yet.
Scaling is the concept that things get better with the addition of more of a variable. For example, when I say that a champion has good scaling with time, I mean that the longer the game goes on (the more time we apply) the stronger that champion becomes, relative to the other champions. Outside of this use, it's commonly used to identify what stat will increase the strength of an ability, for example, Wukong's Q scales with AD. The more AD you have, the more damage it does. Other abilities may scale with other stats, like AP, health, mana, armour etc.
A Skillshot is an ability which is cast directionally, and does not require a specific target. For example, Ahri's Q is a skillshot, an orb is thrown in a straight path, dealing damage to enemies standing on that path. Skillshots are called skillshots because they require skill to land, you may need to throw your skillshot where your opponent will be rather than where they are now.
True damage is a kind of damage which is neither physical damage (which is reduced by armour) or magic damage (which is reduced by magic resistance). True damage is not reduced by any stat and deals its full damage to the enemy health pool. Much strong. Very wow.
Summoners Rift is the main League map. The Rift is a square map with the opposing teams bases in the top-right and bottom-left corners. The top lane is the lane which runs along the left and top sides of the map. Bot lane is the lane which runs along the bottom and right side of the map. Mid lane is a diagonal lane which runs directly from the base in the bottom-left to the one in the top-right, it's worth noting that mid is the shortest of the three lanes.
The base contains the Fountain, the Nexus, the two towers protecting the nexus, one inhibitor per lane, and one tower protecting each inhibitor. You must protect your nexus while destroying the enemy nexus.
Each lane contains two towers, before it arrives at the base, where it meets an inhibitor and a tower protecting the inhibitor (often called the inhib tower).
A common mistake for new players is assuming that any champion can play in any lane. Whilst there's some wiggle room, and many champions can play multiple positions on the map, there is an established meta, which it's probably best to stick to unless you're playing in a premade 5. The basic meta is as follows:
-
Bot lane: This is a duo lane, meaning each team has two players here. Generally the each bot lane team comprises an ADC (Attack Damage Carry) and a Support. Supports can fulfill a range of roles, from dealing extra damage and poke, to locking down opponents with CC, or gaining lots of health to block damage from getting to the ADC. ADCs are predominantly ranged, but Supports can be ranged or melee.
-
Mid lane: Mid lane is generally the most aggressive lane on the map. Populated generally by mages (mostly champions who rely on their abilities to deal damage, and primarily build AP), and assassins (champions who are generally melee and try to kill their targets as quickly as possible).
-
Top lane: Top lane is the lane for everyone else. It's mostly tanks/bruisers with the odd mage. The saying goes that top lane is an island, and that the fight happens on the rest of the map, while two huge tanks are slugging it out at the 25 minute mark. Top lane is complex, because it's often run as a duo lane, similar to botlane, but with no support, just two huge bruisers/tanks. So, I hear you ask, if this is a solo lane, what does the 5th player do? Well...
-
Jungle: The jungle is the position of the 5th player if top is a solo lane. This is generally the accepted optimal playstyle at all skill levels above absolute novice. There is a lot of variety in the style of jungle champions, from bruisers and tanks to assassins, mages and ADCs. The job of the jungler is to gank lanes and help his team win across multiple lanes.
At this stage, it's not too important to understand the neutral objectives on the map specifically, just understand what they do. In the top river is Baron Nashor, in the bottom river is Dragon.
-
Baron Nashor: Baron Nashor (Baron) is a large and very difficult to kill monster which spawns in the river between mid and top lane. When killed, Baron gives the team who landed the killing blow a large buff, allowing them to recall to their base more quickly, as well as giving them raw stat benefits. If you have baron buff, friendly minions will become empowered while you are near, and have longer ranges, more health and higher damage.
-
Dragons: Dragon is a neutral monster which spawns in the river between mid and bot lane. There are 4 different dragons which spawn, which each give a different buff when killed. Only one dragon spawns at a time. Each dragon buff can stack up to three times, and lasts the remainder of the game. After the 35 minute mark in the game the four initial dragons will stop spawning and be replaced by the Elder Dragon, who is much harder to kill.
- Fire Dragon: raw AD and AP boost.
- Earth Dragon: Do more damage to towers.
- Air Dragon: Move faster out of combat.
- Water Dragon: Regain health and mana faster.
- Elder Dragon: Lots of stats, and doubles the bonus of previous dragon buffs.
Finding the right champion to play is a difficult decision, both in terms of a champion who you find fun, and a champion who works well in the team composition of each game. I recommend watching Champion Spotlight videos, and just browsing the available champions and the free week champions to see if anything appeals to you.
When picking a champion, it's often the case that you will find champions easier if you already play a champion with a similar role, or of a similar type. The official types of champion are: Assassin, Fighter, Mage, Marksman, Support, Tank.
-
Assassins: Assassins are champions, normally melee ranged, who try to close with their opponent as quickly as possible and kill them very quickly, sometimes within just a few seconds. The weakness of assassins is that they often have low health pools and are vulnerable if they don't manage to kill their target with their initial burst of damage. Assassins are also commonly weak in the early game, finding their power spike in the mid game. Assassins are strong against Marksmen and Mages, especially if they immobile mages and marksmen like Xerath (Mage) and Kog'Maw (Marksman/ADC). Assassins tend to be a more mechanically intensive type of champion, but good assassins to get started with are Fizz or Katarina.
-
Fighter/Bruiser: Fighters are generally also melee ranged champions, but work in a very different way to Assassins. Fighters can often dominate the laning phase of the game, attempting to push their opponent out of lane, denying them experience and gold from killing minions. Fighters work well against assassins, as they generally have higher health pools, and can extend their damage over a longer engagement. Good fighters to get started with are Pantheon or Renekton.
-
Mage: Mages generally have low health pools and rely on their abilities rather than their auto-attacks to do the majority of their damage. Mages come in all shapes and sizes, from having lots of CC and damage over time (Cassiopeia) to being intense burst champions (Vel'Koz) to being mainly utility and map control (Taliyah). Mages are often limited by their mana bar, which is the resource for casting their spells. If you're playing a mage, remember to conserve your mana where you can and try to get the most out of each spell. Good mages to get started with are Lux or Brand.
-
Marksman: Marksmen, also known as ADCs, deal the majority of their damage by using their auto-attacks, as opposed to their abilities. They excel at pushing towers and neutral objectives in the late-game, as many abilities (however damaging) cannot be used on towers and base structures. Many marksman items are very expensive, leading ADCs to prioritise a high CS over getting early kills in many cases. Good marksmen to get started with are Ashe, Caitlyn or Vayne.
-
Support: Supports are a very varied champion type. Supports can provide CC, good engages for teamfights, extra damage, a big healthpool for the frontline, or utility. Supports also provide vision by using wards, allowing their team to spot ganks before they arrive or to farm in safety, knowing there's no gank incoming. Good supports to get started with are Blitzcrank, Leona or Taric.
-
Tanks: Tanks are the frontline of a team. Bringing large healthpools and more often than not either some disruption, engage, or CC, tanks provide something that the enemy team can neither kill quickly, nor ignore for long. Good tanks to get started with are Garen or Malphite.
The basics of playing League of Legends are (despite what you may have been led to believe so far) pretty simple. To win you game you must destroy the nexus, to destroy the nexus you must push the lanes, to push the lanes you must be stronger than your opponent, to be stronger than your opponent, you must be higher level and have bought more items, to be higher level and buy more items you must force them out of lane and get more CS than them.
But that's not quite so simple, so in this section I'll try to outline some of the major threats to your success in lane, and some techniques to try and get you one step ahead of the enemy.
There are a lot of ways to build an advantage over your opponent, but the simplest one is to get more gold than them. Remember, more gold means more items means more damage.
So it all comes down to getting the last hit on minions, or getting gold by killing enemy champions. Now, that's much easier said than done, obviously, so here's one simple trick to get the most out of last hitting (doctor's hate him!):
- Practice practice practice. Last hitting is hard, and the more you practice, both in bot games and real games, the better you'll get.
Last hitting under tower is another particular skill which it's useful to practice. Sometimes you'll find that your laner is pushing you under your tower, and their minions are being killed by your tower, preventing you from getting any gold from the kills, oh no!
Two shots from a tower will reduce a melee minion to very low health, so depending on the champion you are playing, you should be able to get the last hit by waiting for two shots to hit the melee minion, then landing the killing blow.
Two shots from a tower kill a caster minion, but one shot leaves it with too much health for one auto-attack from most champions to kill it (in the early game at least). The solution is to attack the caster minion once before the tower shot hits it, then let the tower shot hit, then land the killing blow.
Those patterns again:
Melee Minion:
Tower Shot > Tower Shot > Attack for last hit.
Caster minion:
Attack once > Tower Shot > Attack for last hit.
The last tip for last-hitting minions is that when you're trying to last-hit in a normal minion wave, don't attack the minion at all until you can kill it with one hit. If you attack the minions before that, they'll die very quickly, and your minion wave will end up being pushed under the enemy tower. Why is this bad? Being under the enemy tower will maximise your distance from your tower, making you much more vulnerable to enemy ganks.
Other than last hitting minions, you can go all out and kill your enemy laner. This is a much riskier, but often more rewarding strategy, you get a flat gold reward for killing an enemy, and they're forced to wait to respawn while you last hit every single minion in their minion waves.
Generally, if you want to get ahead through kills, I'd recommend that you either play an assassin, or try and draw your lane opponent into a gank from either your jungler or one of your other laners. More on ganks below.
You want to kill your lane opponent, right? But if you're not careful, they might kill you first, so try to wait for the assistance of your jungler or another laner. If you're the one ganking another lane, try to use pings (more on them below) to signal your approach or to get your laner to engage the enemy just before you arrive.
If you're the one waiting for a gank, it's important that you take steps to maximise the effectiveness of the gank. Try to let your opponent push the minion wave closer to your tower so they have further to run to get back to safety. If you can, try to prevent your opponent from walking out of the lane to ward so they can't see your teammates approaching.
If you have any CC abilities, try and save them for after your teammate begins the gank, so you can prevent your opponent from running away.
There are many more tips and tricks to getting the most out of ganks, but when you're just getting started with League of Legends, these few should suffice.
Basic teamwork and communication can go a long way to winning a game of League of Legends. The preferable mechanism of communication (at least, between friends) is a voice chat service, like Mumble, Skype, Discord, or Teamspeak. If you don't have access to those (and you aren't in the same room as them), make sure to familiarise yourself with the system of 'Pings' in-game.
By holding down the 'G' key, and clicking and dragging, you can select from one of four 'pings'. Pings are instant chat alerts that are accompanied by a minimap flare and a sound effect. The four pings are as follows:
- I require assistance. This is used to request help if you're in need of a gank or other help.
- Missing enemies. Used to signal that your opponent is no longer in lane, to warn other lanes that your opponent may be incoming to gank them.
- Danger! Used when you need to alert another player to imminent danger, for example if your laner is moving to gank them.
- On my way! This ping is used to signal that you're on your way to a specific location, very useful if you're intending to gank another lane.
Make sure to keep a lookout for the pings of your allies, if you pay attention they can go a long way towards getting ahead.
Towers are your biggest defender, and your worst enemy in lane. If you're being ganked, or are behind, your tower is your shelter and refuge. Towers will attack any enemy targets in range with the following target priority:
Cannon minions > Melee minions > Caster minions > Enemy Champions
However, if you deal damage to an enemy champion while in range of their tower, the tower will immediately begin attacking you. Towers have a number of interesting qualities which make them different from minions in terms of gameplay.
- Towers reveal stealthed and invisible units around them, including wards and stealthed champions, making them vulnerable to attack.
- Towers attacks deal more and more damage with each attack. If you are targeted by a tower, make sure to get out of it's attack range as quickly as possible.
The difference between smartcasting and regular casting is that the order of operations for a normal cast of Q looks like this:
Press Q > Hover mouse over target > Click > Spell is cast.
Smartcasting removes the requirement to click to cast the spell, so the order of operations is made much quicker:
Hover mouse over target > Press Q > Spell is cast.
Turn on smartcasting by going into the options menu in-game and clicking the arrow icons below the Q W E R buttons.
One of the simplest, but most easily forgotten ways to instantly improve your game is just to watch the minimap. Surviving a gank is measured in half seconds and less. Getting the vital cooldown you need, staying out of range of the enemy jungler, or buying time for our allies to come and help out. Simply put, what's the point of having wards out if you're not going to watch the minimap?
Some good best-practices for watching the minimap:
- Make a habit of checking the minimap whenever you take any significant action. Pushing, going all-in, moving to take a neutral objective etc.
- When you look at the minimap, take note of not just who you can see, but who you can't see. Playing mid and the enemy top laner is missing? Maybe drop a ward in your top river bush or fall back to your tower.
- If you see something on the minimap which might be of interest to your team call it out to your team. They might not have noticed. For example, if you see the enemy jungler moving from their blue buff towards one of your lanes, either ping it, type something in chat, or say something if you're on voice chat with your team.
Playing aggressively is an easy trap to fall into when you're new to League of Legends. Especially once you learn how important it is to maintain a high CS to stay even in gold with your lane opponent. However, there are some situations where it's more advantageous to play defensively, to let the minion wave push into your tower and farm there, rather than trying to take the fight to your opponent.
For example, if you're playing Garen in the top lane, and your lane opponent is Quinn. Quinn is a very mobile ranged ADC. She makes the early game very difficult for Garen, because if he attempts to move into the minion wave to CS, she can deal damage to him without giving him the opportunity to trade damage back.
When you're either behind already, or at a disadvantage, it's always more useful to your team for you to play safe and farm under tower than it is to try and make a risky play to kill your lane opponent, which leads me to my next point...
As obvious as this advice is, a lot of new players underestimate its value. When you die, you sacrifice your ability to get CS, give your opponent free reign to farm until you're back in your lane, and give them a flat gold boost for killing you. All that adds up to a big gold lead you give your opponent, just by getting killed once.
It's far better to be 2/1/0 at 15 minutes than it is to be 4/3/0. As long as you don't die, and maintain a small advantage, you'll be in a very strong position later on in the game, especially after you hit your power spike.
Making sure you have decent map vision is vital to reliably winning games in League of Legends. At the start of the game, you should buy a warding trinket (it looks like a yellow totem in the shop). This will generate charges over time which you can use with the hotkey 4 to place invisible wards, giving you vision of the most likely avenues for incoming enemies.
This is something which will kill you when you first start playing League of Legends, and it'll kill you a lot. It's always best to know exactly what your opponents are capable of at an given moment. This means knowing what their abilities do, what their passive is, and their likely goals or playstyle.
This is one of the biggest early knowledge barriers to getting good at League of Legends. At some point a champion is going to do something which kills you, that you weren't aware they could do. That's ok. Just learn what they're capable of for future games.
This comes with experience, but also try and look up the champion your lane opponent is playing on whilst on the loading screen, or while in champion select, it might offer you a little insight into the game before it starts.
Always try and be aware of the enemy jungler. Their job is to make sure that their laner gets ahead, and that's usually by helping them kill you. Use wards to protect yourself and try and keep track of the jungler whenever they're visible on the minimap.
As a rule of thumb, don't push past the halfway point of your lane if you don't have any wards out, unless you can see the enemy jungler on the other side of the map, that is.
Items are the things that will provide the majority of your power for most champions in League of Legends, and it takes a lot of knowledge of the game and the items available in order to make the best buying decisions.
Items in League of Legends are composed of smaller items, combined (plus some additional gold). It's advisable to buy whole big items to combine into larger items rather than buying multiple smaller items.
For example, if you back with 1100 gold and are looking to buy a Youmuu's Ghostblade, it's more efficient to buy a Serrated Dirk (1100g) than it is to buy 3x Longsword's (1050g), even though all of those Longswords are required for a Youmuu's Ghostblade.
A good place to start is to look up a guide for a champion you want to play ahead of time, and see what items are recommended. However, don't fall into the trap of just blindly building those items, try and understand why one might be better than another. For example, on Talon (an AD melee assassin), why is it better to build a Youmuu's Ghostblade first, rather than a Bloodthirster?
Games of League of Legends can be divided into several rough 'phases'. The early game is a part of the laning phase, where you and your lane opponent will both be looking to farm, and take kills opportunistically if they are available.
Gold is the most important resource in the early game. Depending on the junglers being played, you may or may not be able to expect ganks.
Kills in the early game are strictly a bonus for most laners. A good amount of CS to aim for (assuming you're not playing Support), is 100 CS at the 20 minute mark.