I finally did it - Tips for a Newbie.

After months of being bugged to play it by certain people, I finally downloaded LoL. It's currently patching, but... got any pointers for a beginner here?

I know nothing about the game other than it's very strategic and is basically like an RTS (which I have never played). Also it has some classes that I drool over just for their looks and weapons... (the archers and Twisted Fate, who I am told is just really hard to play with)

I'm expecting to spend close to nothing in the game (but friend told me about this beginner pack that costs like $28 bucks and is extremely cheap; I might give in to that) because I'd rather not spend money I usually don't have on MMOs anymore, at least not until I get a job.

Like in TF2, you'd want to avoid class/type stacking and have champions of various types. Find out what champions do what, and find a champion you like. However, if there are too many of one type of champion, you may want to change champions or try to get someone else to change. Having too many supports/carries/tanks/etc is a bad idea. Also try to not fight more than one champion. For example if it's 2v1 on you, RUN BACK TO YOUR TOWERS. Another tip I can offer, USE THE BUSHES TO HIDE. Start off getting "recommended" items; if you're good enough you can change up what to get. I only know these tips because I saw a level 30 friend play a couple LoL matches, and coached me in a game while I tried out Olaf.

Speaking of carries, carries are pretty much damage classes. They hit the hardest, which usually means those champions can kill others the easiest and thus "carry" the team to victory.

• Make sure you understand that every week, you get free champions that rotates so you'll have a feel of their play style.
  
• The controls of this game has your right click button move your character as the left click button directs the skill shot (a skill that requires you to "shoot" in a direction).
  
• Then for skills, there is Q, W, E, R and the 2 "summoner skills" D and F.
  
• Also, when you go in game, your screen might not move with your character. That's what the "pros" do as they move the screen with their mouse. If you want a lock-on screen, press Y and it'll lock on.
  
• There are specific items that you have to buy for your character in order for them to work well. Beginner wise, buy the items at the recommended build that they provide, then move onto guides. You can access the shop by pressing P but you can only buy items in the safe-zone which is where you spawn first.
  
• Do bot games before you PvP. Once you get the hang of the game, you could move onto PvP.
  
• In the later matches, it's expected that every team has the following: 1 Top, 1 Mid, 2 Bot (1 Carry and 1 Support), and 1 Jungler/another Top.
  

I'm sure someone will post more helpful tips.

• In the later matches, it's expected that every team has the following: 1 Top, 1 Mid, 2 Bot (1 Carry and 1 Support), and 1 Jungler/another Top.
  

Can you explain this better? All I got there was the carry and support, I have no idea what the other stuff mentioned is.

And what do you mean by class/type stacking?

Just did the tutorial. Seems okay... for now. Name's MariettaRC (because I'm so clever).

Can you explain this better? All I got there was the carry and support, I have no idea what the other stuff mentioned is.

And what do you mean by class/type stacking?

Just did the tutorial. Seems okay... for now. Name's MariettaRC (because I'm so clever).

To be honest, I'm not good at explaining too much about League of Legends because I play casually and not hardcore so I can only give some basic information from what I know. Hopefully it's good enough to help.

This map is called the Summoner's Rift, the most basic and probably the most played map you will be playing.
From what the image shows, there are 3 lanes. The top being top, the mid being mid, and the bot being bot.
Basic informative video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KVig1Aa1go
Terms that could be helpful: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Le...erminology
You don't need to remember all of them. I wish they highlighted the ones that are more important.

• Basically, there is suppose to be only 1 person at the top (usually the soloer who farms minions by themselves and are usually close ranged combat people. Usually, not all the time). This is held by either an AD (Attack Damage = non magic attack) champion or an AP (Ability Power = magic attack) champion. Most likely AD most of the times.
  
• The middle lane has 1 person there as well and is usually an AP champion.
  
• The bottom has a carry as well as a support in which the support... supports the carry while he/she kills and farms up minions to get more gold. (If you deal the finishing blow towards the little minion guys of the opposing side, you get extra gold for doing so, "farm"ing in other words.
  Video explaining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQaV7foE7F0)
  
• Everything in between the lanes is considered the Jungle and is where people usually play 1 champion to stay in there for the beginning portion of the game in which they farm as well but their main purpose is to gank, or ambush, enemies when they are strong enough.
  

The map is divided diagonally (by the river with the bottom half considered the blue side and the top half considered the purple side.

Just play the tutorial and you should be set. Then play coop vs ai for 5 or 10 levels, then you're good.

Oh, and get Alistar and Tristana for free.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/show...?t=2283670

And post your IGN in the IGN thread.

And what do you mean by class/type stacking?

You know how in TF2 there are 9 classes, 3 each in Offense/Defense/Support? For example, while Medics are amazing Support, too many Medics (support) will cripple you of more offense (carry) or defense (tank). Too many Offense Pyros/Scouts (carry) will make the team weak to defense (tanks). Too many Defense Engies (support) will make you unable to push forward as well with offense (carries), Hope that kind of make sense.

In essence, never have an overwhelming amount of one Champion type on your team. Everyone going tank is bad news. Everyone going support is bad news. Everyone going carry is bad news. And so forth.

Learning where champions go is one very important thing.

Twisted Fate is very difficult, and I still can't play him very well, but if you play him for several games you should be getting better with him. It's working to something you get better at it. So if you can't do it the first time, find some info on that champ (usually at the build/guide section at http://www.solomid.net ) and try again till you can really pinpoint how it works. Twisted Fate is a really great High Risk High Reward champ. Hard to use, great if you can use him.

I'll try to approximate my learning order as I went from really bad to decent.

- Play the tutorial. It helps with the very basics. Battle Training isn't very good at simulating an actual game though; if you've already done it, you shouldn't be arbitrarily killing the wolves like they tell you to.

- As a new player, you will probably have a tendency to want to plow through waves of minions and kill the towers as fast as possible, using the skills available to you. This is generally a bad idea. You want to, first and foremost, stay in your lane as long as possible, and spamming skills on minions will leave you out of mana and vulnerable to attack by enemy champions.

- You also don't want to clear waves of minions as fast as possible; the optimal thing to do is a technique called last-hitting. This is where you inflict only the killing blow on a minion and earn gold for it. You only gain gold if you actually kill the minion.

- 1 top lane/1 mid lane/2 bot lane/1 jungle is the meta, but in lower leveled games it's usually 2 top lane/1 mid lane/2 bot lane.

- You don't have to pay too close attention to the meta earlier on. In pre-20 games people will run weird combos like Trundle/Sion bottom lane, and that's most likely because people at that level only really learn one champion and don't know how to use other ones.

- This is what I recommend, as learning multiple champions can be overwhelming at first. Pick a champion you like or one that's easy for you--for me it was Ashe--and base your learning of mechanics off that one champion. As you get better you'll be able to easily branch out to other champions.

- Once you've learned the game, you should pick a role that you want to get good at. The champion you pick may or may not influence the role you're most comfortable playing. I learned the game with Ashe, who's a bot lane AD carry, but that's one of my worse roles. Right now I'm actually most comfortable playing jungle and support.

- A lot of champions are radically different, especially in terms of mechanics. I would make this a factor in choosing what champion I want to buy next, since I bought Kassadin at like level 9 and I'm still not very good at him since he's pretty hard to use.

- Co-op vs. AI can only get you so far. Play normal games ASAP once you're comfortable.

That's about all the general advice I can give. I can help you out in game if you need it. Good luck!

I suggest not buying a champion yet, maybe one or two of around 1350 IP or lower. Since you're very new to this type of game, you're still not sure what you want to do and it's just not worth it to spend some IP or cash on champions you won't like later on. Besides, they rotate like 10 free champions each week.

Just mess around and make mistakes while you're low level, don't pay attention to people that insult you (like always on the internet) and just focus on getting used to the movement.

Most of the time I'm on the IRC willing to play a couple of matches, so if you ever need someone to help you get used to the game and teach you stuff, just go on the IRC and type "Loose, help me with LoL" and we'll go rape a couple of bots.

Awesome, thanks guys!

I did Battle Training once last night before going to bed and I died like 4 times. My friend tells me that that's pretty impressive for a beginner, but I dunno. xD I didn't get the top/mid/bot lane thing until I stepped into the Battle Training map, now it makes all kinds of sense.

I won't be able to play again until tomorrow night, probably, but I'm just level 2 and I'm sort of getting the hang of things. As you can probably guess, I'm just playing with Ashe right now because bows. I may not try PvP for a while because I'm pretty bad with people who may not have mercy with newbs (vocally).

Building off of what [MENTION=8038]Nion[/MENTION]; said:
Top lane champions tend to be tanky/pure tank, but have decent damage.
Mid lane champions tend to be bursty champions. You finish your combo, and stay out of harm's way until your cooldowns reset. (For the most part)
Bot lane is comprised of supports and typically AD carries. AD Carries are the ones you should focus in teamfights, because they're the definition of glass cannon. Let one run amok on your team, and you'll be melted. A support's job is to, literally, support the carry as Nion said. They typically have some sort of shield or heal to accomplish this, as well as some CC (crowd control, and effect that can disrupt a player i.e. slows, stuns, taunts, etc.)
Junglers also tend to be on the tankier side, and are like top lane champions, which is why some top lane champions can also jungle, and vice-versa. Good junglers tend to have an AoE skill to clear out the jungle more quickly.

One of the major things you want to learn is to adapt to the situation. If you are said AD Carry, and the enemy is building armor, what should you do? Get armor penetration items. If you are a tank, and the whole enemy team is AP, what should you do? Build MR (Magic Resist.) Sticking with a set build is good for a while, but when you get higher up there, it's good to know your choices.
I feel like I've restated a lot of things other people said, but I'll toss in one more restatement. ALWAYS check out the free champion rotations each week. You might find something fun that surprises you. Feel free to add me and hit me up ingame if you wanna play. Scwult is the name.

OH, KAREN. [MENTION=2135]MariaColette[/MENTION]. Here's something I learned from my friend if you ever get to playing against real players.

If you ever hear/see: X CHAMPION/X LANE IS MIA (missing in action), be very paranoid. While seeing enemy Champions is reason to be afraid, NOT seeing enemy Champions are worse. That usually means 1 or more players are planning to ambush and annihilate someone on the other team. Stuff can happen such as 1-4 champions suddenly popping out of nowhere while you're already half dead, and will finish you off quickly.

I hope that you will be able to adapt to the game very well.

Also, I'd like to say I hope that you won't have rage fits during games.
I've seen my little brother evolve from a silent guy who plays MapleStory to a guy who yells 24/7 upstairs shouting stuff about LoL.

God guys, you seriously don't have to overload a new player about the meta and stuff lol.

OH, KAREN. [MENTION=2135]MariaColette[/MENTION]. Here's something I learned from my friend if you ever get to playing against real players.

If you ever hear/see: X CHAMPION/X LANE IS MIA (missing in action), be very paranoid. While seeing enemy Champions is reason to be afraid, NOT seeing enemy Champions are worse. That usually means 1 or more players are planning to ambush and annihilate someone on the other team. Stuff can happen such as 1-4 champions suddenly popping out of nowhere while you're already half dead, and will finish you off quickly.

Yeah, I know about that. Players hiding in the bushes and whatnot where they can't be seen.

And yeah, don't expect me to know all of this stuff right away, but I'll definitely keep it in mind. Because lordy, that's a lot of stuff...

Ikr just play bots for a bit, go to pvp when you're comfortable, and level up, all this stuff will come with levels.

Yeah, I know about that. Players hiding in the bushes and whatnot where they can't be seen.

Or in the fog of war where you have no vision.

God guys, you seriously don't have to overload a new player about the meta and stuff lol.

I agree. Baby steps. I started playing the game about two months ago, still learning some stuff and I had my brother tell me about the basic stuff, but he sucks at explaining so he overwhelmed me with information. Telling me about the meta, wards, AD, AP, stack items, etc. I told him to shut the hell up for a while and lemme mess around for a bit.

Right now, really focus on moving around, hitting enemies with your basic attacks (left-click) and getting used to using skills. Also, pay attention to the skills your opponents skills, you might see a character you like based on that.

On what particular day do the freebie champs rotate out? Last couple nights I've had fun and some success with... Galic or Galio or.... whatever the gargoyle guys name is (I'm horrible with names, this game should be real interesting HAH), and don't have enough to buy him yet.