League of Legends

[Coys1882]

So what do all these things mean? Jungler, carry, support - what are you doing when playing these roles?

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Yanda

So I started playing a few weeks ago and im enjoying learning the champions through the Coop AI mode. I have no previous experience in this genre of RTS, when will I know my skill set and game sense are good enough to play other players? How much IP do you get in those matches?

You should add me Yanda - we've both started at the same time. My username is Dyck Marvelous

[Yanda]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

So what do all these things mean? Jungler, carry, support - what are you doing when playing these roles?

This is what ive gathered.

Jungler: One who kills neutral mobs in an attempt to outlevel/outgear those that are laneing in hopes to gank.

Carry: A champion that is better suited for Top or Bottom lane with another champion to assist.

Support: A champion thats role is more Utility than combat. Maybe they come with a heal spell or protective ward type move that is more benefical when around teammates, than off on there own. Or maybe this refers to a Champion that has abilities that help get assists rather than kills.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

So what do all these things mean? Jungler, carry, support - what are you doing when playing these roles?

The way teams are usually arranged you have a solo top, a mid (usually an AP (Ability Power) champion, a jungler and a carry/support bottom.

An ADC (Attack Damage Carry) is a basically your teams main source of dealing attack damage. You want this champion to get geared up very quickly. Your goal as an ADC in the early game is to last hit as many enemy minions as you can so that you can gain as much gold as possible. The ADC is almost always paired up with a support or tank champion on the bottom lane.

A support is exactly what it sounds like, a champion who supports others through heals and buffs. When paired with an ADC the support does not attack or kill enemy minions. You want your ADC to farm those minions. Keep your carry healed and full of mana. Use stuns, knock ups and silences to help kill enemy champions or take heat off your carry. You should also be buying wards in order to detect the enemy jungler and warn you of possible ganks.

A Jungler is a champion who roams the jungle with the goal of killing neutral mobs, setting up ganks (kills) in lanes and warding. The idea behind the jungler is that it allows a single champion to handle the top lane. This means that for the top champion they will earn more experience and gold because they do not need to share it with another. Move through the jungle killing the neutral mob camps as fast as possible. Most junglers get a leash (another team mate hits the mob first to agro them) from their team early game on either blue buff or red buff to help with their first clear. Junglers have to take Smite as one of their summoner spells which does damage to minions/mobs and provides 10 gold upon use.

[Coys1882]

HAHA - so much more to this game than I thought. I've been playing Pantheon and rocking the bottom lane each time. I haven't played other humans yet though - only bots.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

So what do all these things mean? Jungler, carry, support - what are you doing when playing these roles?

Jungler is a bit of a "roamer" role and requires the most specialization in runes and non-standard abilities. A jungler will take charge of killing neutral enemies (the ones in the forest) and will appear in lanes only to support it for a short while or to help get a kill (commonly referred to as "ganking"). If they are more supportive as a champion and can afford it, they'll ward common ambush sites to prevent your team from getting ganked. Often, they'll ask you early game for help to kill one of the buff monsters. Your job will be to get its attention, then leave its attack range so it tries to attack the jungler, then come back when it gets close to them and attack it...a strategy called "leashing".

A support is a role that is more subtle. You don't get kills, but instead improve your team's ability to get kills or to prevent deaths. This often takes advantage of crowd control (CC), improving damage, or healing. Common CC skills include silence (inability to use skills, but can attack), stun (inability to move, or attack), slow (decrease in movement speed, but can attack and use skills), and blind (inability to use attacks, as they will miss). You will mostly buy items that improve everybody's stats. Supports often play bottom lane with a champion that they can escort early game. Supports generally can last a long time in the "laning" phase (medic-esc characters, like Taric, Sona, or Soraka, have sometimes been known to return to base only because they need to buy stuff). Really, just think "boring, yet practical" as a definition.

A carry is a player expected to be the damage dealer late in a game. For balance reasons, they generally start out slow and need babying by a support or tank. Major details of being a carry are to know who you can kill, getting lots of money early game (often I find carry's asking for help in getting a kill), and buying items right so you can start to take over mid and late game scenarios. Generally comes in attack damage (AD) or spell (AP) carry forms.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

HAHA - so much more to this game than I thought. I've been playing Pantheon and rocking the bottom lane each time. I haven't played other humans yet though - only bots.

As I mentioned in response to Yanda, you just need to take the jump into playing against other people. It's really the best place to learn the game. When I started out I had no idea what I was doing but you quickly understand how things are done once you can observe other players. You'll run into some d-bags but I've found that since they've put in the honor system there is a lot less of that verbal garbage being flung around.

This here has been my personal favorite resource for everything LoL:
http://www.mobafire.com/

They have community produced guides for virtually everything. Check out the champion specific guides for item builds, mastery & rune set-ups. Do not buy low level runes.

[BlAcKNoVa]

I found I didn't really understand the mechanics of the game (even months after playing) until I started watching streams of some of the pro players, aswell as watching some of the bigger tournaments.

http://www.solomid.net/streams.php has quite a few League streams up, and a lot of the top tier guys that play from teams like are streamers aswell. It definitely helped my game out a lot. Like mentioned before, mobafire is good and I use it as well. Also youtube has a crazy amount of guides on basically everything regarding League.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

This here has been my personal favorite resource for everything LoL:
http://www.mobafire.com/

http://www.solomid.net/

Honestly though, feel free to ask on CP here what a good build for a specific champion is. Some of the solomid guides are slightly out of date, but some of the mobafire guides are just completely off the wall.

They're usually a good starting point, but feel free to ask. I play a ton of AP (ability power) mid lane champions and Jungler Champions.

Also keep in mind that guides should be fluid - not static. So if you're getting wrecked or very far ahead - adjust your build accordingly. That will come with time.

But seriously watch the streams - you'll learn a ton. WingsofDeathx is one of the featured streamers on the solomid site (playing right now), who will teach you a ton about playing champions in the top lane (usually tanks/bruisers).

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

http://www.solomid.net/

Honestly though, feel free to ask on CP here what a good build for a specific champion is. Some of the solomid guides are slightly out of date, but some of the mobafire guides are just completely off the wall.

They're usually a good starting point, but feel free to ask. I play a ton of AP (ability power) mid lane champions and Jungler Champions.

Also keep in mind that guides should be fluid - not static. So if you're getting wrecked or very far ahead - adjust your build accordingly. That will come with time.

But seriously watch the streams - you'll learn a ton. WingsofDeathx is one of the featured streamers on the solomid site (playing right now), who will teach you a ton about playing champions in the top lane (usually tanks/bruisers).

This is true and I haven't used a guide build in at least six months. That comes with time. I play a number of AP mid, solo top, ADC and some jungle champs and would be happy to lend a hand. If you're interested in some builds, name a champ and I am sure someone here plays them and would be able to offer advice.

[CaramonLS]

Season 3 patch is here with all the changes.

Since they closed the signups to the PBE (beta) server (and by all accounts the servers were a bit of a disaster anyways), I didn't have a chance to test out any of the changes, so I'll be doing some experimenting tonight. However, these are the highlights:

- Passive Gold per 10 seconds has increased from 10 to 13 (major change)
- Lane minion gold has been reduced
- Jungle is tougher and gives poor returns early, but scales better so that Junglers can acquire decent items and still keep up in experience.
- Because of the harder jungle, lane pressure early will be reduced
- Attack Damage is cheaper (10-20%)
- Ability Power is around the same, but expanded item choices
- Attack speed is more expensive (~20%)
- Armor is more expensive (10-20%)
- Supports will be saving significant $$ on wards, allowing them to actually get some real items.

Overall - this should benefit some top lane champs who rely more on Attack damage than speed (like Riven, Darius, Talon, Pantheon, Garen), especially late game. Changed Armor penetration stat (made Black Cleaver very viable on certain champs).

Ability Power (usually mid laners) are getting some really good caster items (Liandry's Torment), it should make some characters who were not used a ton VERY strong. I could see this item being very good on Swain, Vlad or Ahri (any champ that synergizes well with Rylai's Crystal scepter).

Characters will be stacking more HP as opposed to just armor / defensive stats, so % based damage items will be better.

They've added different options to AD carries (bottom laners), Ruuran's Hurricane, improved Manamune. These are designed to get away from the typical IE/PD/LW/BT/Boots/GA build.

They really wanted to get away from these tanky bruisers outputting a lot of damage late game (Shen, Malphite).

The point?

League of legends is going to be a bit of a mess for the next month with all these changes. While the intentions are good, they've made no secret that these changes have not undergone extensive testing and want to see how things are going to unfold on live servers.

Once I get back from work I will post some item links.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

- Supports will be saving significant $$ on wards, allowing them to actually get some real items.

That also means more whining from some people if you aren't instead just running even MORE wards.

Oh well...

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Characters will be stacking more HP as opposed to just armor / defensive stats, so % based damage items will be better.

Does this operate in reverse, where low HP characters will be even more fragile in comparison?

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by kirant

That also means more whining from some people if you aren't instead just running even MORE wards.

Oh well...

Well not quite - the new Sightstone item allows you to have an item slot which carries 4 wards (only 2 active at a time), and it refills every time you back.

Should be less whining (you hope!)

Does this operate in reverse, where low HP characters will be even more fragile in comparison?

Somewhat yes.

Basically it means that characters who build some defensive stats (i.e. an AP mage building Zhonya's Hour Glass or a Guardian Angel on an AD carry)into their items can be shredded more easily with the Black Cleaver / Last Whisper changes and the Void Staff changes. In addition, those defensive items will be slightly more expensive.

How Magic / Armor Pen was calculated before was: Base Armor Pen reduction, then % reduction. Now: % Reduction, then base reduction.

So if my opponent had 200 Magic resist and I had a void staff (40% pen) + Sorc boots + Masteries (-30 MR) , it would be calculated like this:

(200 - 30) x 0.6 = 102

Now:

200 x 0.6 - 30 = 90

About a 10% damage increase with the exact same stats. BUT! It stacks better, so building lots of magic pen / armor pen will be very good.

May not seem like too much but that is on a tank, but it makes a difference. Especially to MR characters if you can shred them down to almost nothing.

Keep in mind too the way LOL calculates - 200 MR = 75% reduction in Magic Damage, 100 = 50%, 50 = 25%.

So if you're an AD or AP carry now with 60-70 MR... they're doing near true damage to you.

Stacking lots of penetration will be very good.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Ability Power (usually mid laners) are getting some really good caster items (Liandry's Torment), it should make some characters who were not used a ton VERY strong. I could see this item being very good on Swain, Vlad or Ahri (any champ that synergizes well with Rylai's Crystal scepter).

That looks interesting but I doubt I'd take Liandry's over any other item that I generally take now when I play Swain.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

That looks interesting but I doubt I'd take Liandry's over any other item that I generally take now when I play Swain.

Think about this though - it damages 5% health over 3 seconds, x2 damage vs targets who are slowed to anyone hit with your abilities...

10% health shred over 3 seconds, constantly refreshing over the duration of your ultimate (99% sure it refreshes, not stacks, but I need to test that, would be extremely OP if it stacked)

That's pretty insane.

I know I typically play Swain as more of a mana tank (RoA, Abyssmal and Zhonya's), but that may cause me to rethink things. However, chalice can actually compensate fairly well if you forgo the RoA, it synergizes so well with blue buff.

I will try it tonight (if I am even allowed to play mid, the derp playing tonight will be horrible).

Boots - Chalice - haunting guise - finish boots - Rylai's - finish Liandrys. All that adds 700 HP to Swain (very useful). From there you could finish the Chalice into Athenes or start the hourglass.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Think about this though - it damages 5% health over 3 seconds, x2 damage vs targets who are slowed to anyone hit with your abilities...

10% health shred over 3 seconds, constantly refreshing over the duration of your ultimate (99% sure it refreshes, not stacks, but I need to test that, would be extremely OP if it stacked)

That's pretty insane.

I know I typically play Swain as more of a mana tank (RoA, Abyssmal and Zhonya's), but that may cause me to rethink things. However, chalice can actually compensate fairly well if you forgo the RoA, it synergizes so well with blue buff.

I will try it tonight (if I am even allowed to play mid, the derp playing tonight will be horrible).

Boots - Chalice - haunting guise - finish boots - Rylai's - finish Liandrys. All that adds 700 HP to Swain (very useful). From there you could finish the Chalice into Athenes or start the hourglass.

I build Swain more as a nuker which works really well and I find that I don't have a problem surviving fights.

Boots - RoA - Rabadon's - Zhonya's - Will of the Ancients - Athene's Unholy Grail. Not necessarily in that order. The Zhonya's + WotA is a quick way to regain health when I get focused.

[Yanda]

How will the rune changes effect my rune builds? Unfortunately I hit lvl 20 yesterday and spend all my IP on Armor Pen and Magic Pen runes.

Will this guide still be fairly applicable?

http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=...ic-build-guide

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Yanda

How will the rune changes effect my rune builds? Unfortunately I hit lvl 20 yesterday and spend all my IP on Armor Pen and Magic Pen runes.

Will this guide still be fairly applicable?

http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=...ic-build-guide

I don't see the changes effecting them at all.

[Yanda]

Runes
Runes have been renamed to be more representative of their actual function (e.g. Mark of Desolation renamed to Mark of Armor Penetration)
Lesser Mark of Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 0.72 from 0.93
Mark of Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 1 from 1.29
Greater Mark of Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 1.28 from 1.66
Lesser Mark of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 0.49 from 0.53
Mark of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 0.68 from 0.74
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 0.87 from 0.95
Lesser Glyph of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 0.35 from 0.38
Glyph of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 0.49 from 0.53
Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 0.63 from 0.68
Lesser Quintessence of Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 1.42 from 1.85
Quintessence of Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 1.99 from 2.59
Greater Quintessence of Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 2.56 from 3.33
Lesser Quintessence of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 1.11 from 1.21
Quintessence of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 1.56 from 1.69
Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration
Magic Penetration reduced to 2.01 from 2.18
Lesser Mark of Hybrid Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 0.5 from 0.56
Magic Penetration increased to 0.34 from 0.32
Mark of Hybrid Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 0.7 from 0.74
Magic Penetration increased to 0.48 from 0.44
Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 0.9 from 1
Magic Penetration increased to 0.61 from 0.57
Lesser Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 0.99 from 1.11
Magic Penetration increased to 0.77 from 0.72
Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 1.39 from 1.55
Magic Penetration increased to 1.09 from 1.01
Greater Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration
Armor Penetration reduced to 1.79 from 2
Magic Penetration increased to 1.41 from 1.3

[CaramonLS]

Your runes shouldn't change at all, so not to worry. Most top lane champs will still use a mix of AD / ArPen, and Midlaners always use Magic Pen.

They just adjusted the values slightly.