[League of Legends] Xerath preview up. Kog'maw looking into lawyers.

Rorus Raz

News and Such
-A new champion approaches! Meet Xerath
-Nine Tail Fox Preview
-Xerath Mechanics Preview
-Dominion has launched!
-Subscribe to Riot's Youtube and get a free Alistar skin!

League of Legends (popularly known as LoL) is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game. With lots of acronyms, in case you couldn't tell.

You play as a summoner that selects a champion to battle with and against other summoners and their respective champs. During games, your champion will level up, get gold for better equipment and hopefully destroy the enemy nexus. Outside of games, your summoner level will rise. This will unlock new runes to enhance champion stats, bestow mastery points for further champion customization and goodies like avatars. At max level you can then compete in ranked matches and/or judge player behavior in what is called the tribunal.

Learn you some Dominion:


New Player Guide

1. Make an account: NA EU (West) EU (Nordic & East)
It is worth noting that referring new players has perks, so I would ask for a referral link in the thread rather than a vanilla account.

2. Download the client: Right here
The official Mac client has been discontinued.

3. Play the tutorials! New User Guide
The game can be a bit overwhelming, and I highly suggest you play the tutorials OR find someone willing to do a few vs. AI games with you.

4. Play vs. AI games with people.
Preferably people you know or from here. The bots aren't bad, but they have exploitable flaws and won't emulate the "real deal" perfectly. Focus less on the opposition and more on getting a feel for the various champions and the general flow of game.

5. Play vs. People
Do it, damn you. As said above, the AI is not going to give you the legitimate LoL experience. You don't want to hit your 20s solely from bot matches.

The Dos and Don'ts of LoL

Meta Stuff

Spoiler:

1. Don't buy champions randomly!
LoL has two currencies: Riot Points (RP), which are bought with real money, and Influence Points (IP) which are earned solely by playing games. Champions can be bought with both, but every week there will be ten free champions to play with. Play these champs instead. Get a feel for each type of champion and see which you find more fun. It's far better to do this as opposed to buying a champ randomly and ultimately being unhappy with it.

2. Don't buy Tier 2 Runes.
They are pretty much a waste of IP. Buy Tier 1 and save up for Tier 3.

3. Do queue with friends.
Playing with randoms is a crapshoot, and playing with a buddy or two can put the odds in your favor. Play complementary champs and request feedback on how you did in each game (even if you won).

4. Do learn the champions
When a new rotation occurs, it is wise to play a few games with each champ. Knowing what each champ is capable of will be useful even if you hate how they play and never intend on using them. For example, Karthus has a skill that does damage to every enemy champion, regardless of location! If you know this, then you can prepare for it and not be taken by surprise.

5. Do read guides.
There are multiple ways to play a champion. This combination of skills, runes, masteries and items is called a "build" and are the general strategies for any champion. The recommended items in the game store are not always accurate, and the order you level skills can have a big impact on how the early stages of the game play out. Sites like Mobafire and Solomid offer builds for just about every champion. It's cookie-cutter, but a great foundation for new people. Once you learn the ins and outs, you can tweak a build to better serve your playstyles or as a reaction to enemy or ally players.

6. Do be polite and do report
Sometimes people will suck or do shit wrong. It's a game, so try to keep that in mind when things get a little unhinged. If you insult or yell at people, even if they DID do something wrong, you're likely going to get that person defensive and things break down. Instead of focusing on the game, you focus on hurling insults at each. Stay calm, and politely offer advice when needed. And yet, people are jerks. It happens. Simply /mute them and quietly report them after the game. Taking their bait is probably what they want you to do. Do not give them the satisfaction! Keep your cool.

Game Stuff

Spoiler:

1. Do not be aggressive
There will be a serious urge to want to kill enemy champs. Resist! Death is an all-around loss: your opponents get more cash and experience, you miss out on experience and your lane risks getting pushed. If you set-up a kill and fail, do not continue chasing. In many cases, you will just die to a tower or get ganked. While later on you will learn when to take risks, early in your career it's best to be less aggressive and just let the other guy get away.

2. Do not focus on KDR
Your kill-death-ratio is not the end-all of your value. It is possible to lose despite having a serious kill advantage over the enemy team! Certain champions, once getting the right items, can be unstoppable murder machines. Even if you do kill them a lot, if they reach this threshold, it's possible for a dramatic reversal to occur. It is far more important to support your team's objectives: push towers, protect your own towers from being pushed and keep your team informed of enemy activity. It is far better to have a modest KDR and win, than be the team killer and lose.

3. Do watch the minimap and your enemy
Enemy locations are important! In your low-level games you will likely have two champs tops lane, one mid and two bottom (in later level games, one from top will be off "jungling," so top will have just one champ). If a player in YOUR lane is missing, let the team know. The player might just be heading back to base to buy items, or they could be trying to jump your friend in another lane. And mention when they came back to your lane! But this doesn't mean you should rely wholly on team recon. Watch the minimap yourself for enemy locations in other lanes whenever you can. People aren't perfect, and sometimes that warning comes a bit too late. Another set of eyes is always useful.

4. Do buy wards.
Wards are items that grant you vision of an area for 180 seconds. They are, without a doubt, one of the best purchases you will make. You can plop them along the river and have advance warning of ganks. They'll grant you vision of the brush. They'll alert you of enemy attempts on big-reward neutral monsters like the dragon or baron. If you attack them in the middle of something like that, you could mob up their entire team. Or maybe you are aware of a gank attempt on you. You could alert a nearby friend, bait the ganker in and turn the tables. Buy wards. BUY. WARDS.

5. Do buy wards.
Wards are items that grant you vision of an area for 180 seconds. They are, without a doubt, one of the best purchases you will make. You can plop them along the river and have advance warning of ganks. They'll grant you vision of the brush. They'll alert you of enemy attempts on big reward neutral monsters like the dragon or baron. If you attack them in the middle of something like that, you could mob up their entire team. Or maybe you are aware of a gank attempt on you. You could alert a nearby friend, bait the ganker in and turn the tables. Buy wards. BUY. WARDS. Yes, I posted this twice. It is that important.

6. Do something.
So you just wiped the enemy team out. Hooray! But...what are you doing now? Did you just go back to your respective lanes and farm? Incorrect! You now have precious map control, and should be taking advantage of it. Gather up as a team and take out a tower. Head to the dragon and get a clean kill. Steal enemy creeps (especially their blue and red buffs). You can always check the status of both teams by pressing tab. If multiple enemies are waiting on respawn, then you need to press that advantage.

Meet the Team

Like any group activity, stuff is usually broken down into roles. It's worth noting that champions don't always fit neatly in categories. A champion's role in the team may depend on what build has been chosen, and sometimes you may fill several roles depending on the group composition. When picking champions, it's a good idea to see what people are doing and fill in any holes.

1. The Carry: If your team is a car, then the carry is the engine. It's what makes the team function. The carry, when doing its job, will be able to easily destroy the whole team. But, just like an engine is useless without any other parts of your car, the carry relies on its team to get the gold necessary to buy the items needed to kill swathes of enemies. Early on, carries tend to be more vulnerable and weaker than other champs. LOTS of people pick carry in random, because it's the star character that generally gets all the kills.

2. The Tank: Following the car metaphor, the tank is your steering. It'll guide the team into battle, and in many cases will be the one starting the fights. Tanks are there to absorb damage and lock down the most dangerous champions on the enemy team so you can position yourselves to win the fight. Some tanks do this with CC, whereas other tanks have some damage and will soften up the enemy team instead. Tanks still tend to need the rest of their team to back them up.

3. The Support: I guess support are your tires or something? Maybe the AC. Either, support help the team out with buffs and generally shields or healing. Healers tend to assist the carry by allowing the carry to stay in the lane longer through said healing or shields. Unlike, well, just about everyone else, Support don't rely so much on gear and thus will purposefully AVOID getting last hits so that their lane partner can farm gold faster. Because of their reduced need of gold, support should also be buying and placing wards when needed. It's worth noting that EVERYONE should generally buy wards, but as a support you can afford to take the financial hit. FEW people pick support in random due to how hard it is to influence games. You have to be very proactive to make up for bad teammates as a carry.

4. The Jungler: Jungling is a more advanced concept, and you won't see it until higher summoner levels. This is due to runes and masteries allowing for more efficient jungling. It is still possible on a few champs, even at Summoner Level 1, but very uncommon. As the name implies, the jungler sits in the jungle and kills neutral creeps. This benefits your team by creating a second solo lane (top lane), resulting in more experience and gold for your team as a whole. Once the jungler hits a certain gear/level point, they look for opportunities to gank enemies. This is generally done via strong CC abilities, such as Warwick's ultimate or Nunu's slow coupled with his speed buff. Skills such as these will enable the jungler's teammate in that lane to easily assist with the kill. When not ganking, the jungler will return to the jungle regularly to keep up in terms of gold and experience. Due to their roaming, the jungler has plenty of opportunities to place wards for its teammates.

This is a very simple guide! There are other roles in teams, but this is a rough outline of the basics. Roles can easily overlap, and a champion can fill more than one role! Experiment and see what works and what doesn't.

Useful Stuff

Websites!

Spoiler:

http://www.mobafire.com/ - A site dedicated to champs and how to build them effeciently. Not really used by high end players (lvl 30), but good for beginners who're trying champs out for the first time and don't want too much complexity in a guide.
http://www.solomid.net/ - A more advanced and polished version of Mobafire. Solomid offers intricate guides on champs that've been tried and tested by the community. Best for more advanced players of lvl 20+
http://www.leagueoflegends.com - The standard LoL website! Info on the game can be found here.
http://youtu.be/e02e7qGhRwQ - A HoN guide. Don't hate me for this guys. But I think /some/ of the points in this video are very useful. As HoN and LoL are quite similar, I can't help but feel that complete beginners will benefit from just watching this once. Though, as I said, this is a HoN guide. And most things can be ignored.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qggKB98It0Q - The basics of laning and last hitting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kxGQ3gWdrM - Shurelya's guide on zoning!

Stuff You Should Know
-Yes, a promo skin will unlock that champion for free.
-Promo skin codes generally work twice: once in both regions (NA and EU). If you have used a code for yourself, don't toss it out! Make a post here and give it away or swap it for another skin.
-Speaking of promo skins, Free Tristana if you're willing to whore yourself out a bit.
-Never take Revive or Rally, goddamn it.
-Buy Wards
-When in doubt, take Flash

A useful list of terms used in game, courtesy of Cantido.

Spoiler:

Thing heard in game or apply to things in game

b = back, fall back, they're coming for you
back = fall back, they're coming for you
care = be careful, they may be coming for you
oom = out of mana
lom = low on mana
focus = To target a player. Meaning that as a team you all will all focus on a specified hero to kill first.
top, mid, bottom = the lanes in LoL. With the flip camera option, the top and bottom may be switched for some people.
lane = the road like expanses that contain towers and lead to and from the bases
river = The river which cuts across the map diagonally
jungle = The mass of treeses and paths that exist between the lanes
neuts = neutrals
neutrals = The creep-enemies who live in the jungle
bp, pill, pilling = blue pilling, going back to base
base, basing = blue pilling, going back to base
shop,buy = To go back to base to go shopping
brush = The large grass in LoL which causes your hero to be hidden to people outside of the brush
grass = see brush
sigils = Temporary buffs granted to a player by defeating the Golem and the Elder Lizard. These buffs transfer to the killer in the event that the hero dies with the sigil.
buff = Typically a temporary increase to some stat(s)
passive = An ability which is not activated but helps a character. For example, Morgana's passive allows her to heal a small % of the damage her spells inflict. Passives usually apply only to the hero who has them.
aura = A 'passive' which applies not only to the hero who has it, but also to heroes within the given range for the aura. A shareable passive.
dd = direct damage ability. Typically DDs are unavoidable: Click ability, click target, profit. For example: Annie's Q fireball.
skillshot = an ability that fires a projectile that can be dodged. For example: Morgana's cage, Ashe's ultimate arrow
aoe = area of effect
pbaoe = point blank area of affect. The area of effect is centered around the caster such as Nunu's Ultimate or any aura.
backdoor= To attack the enemies towers and base without the cover of your creeps there
ult = ultimate ability. The R Ability.
unique = In LoL certain auras/passive are unique, meaning they do not stack.
last hit = Getting the very last hit, or killing blow.
AP = Ability Power. The stat which boosts the effectiveness of abilities.
miss, mia = Missing, missing in action. Commonly used to describe when a hero is missing from a lane and may indicate to the team that a gank may happen.
juke, juking = When being chased, juking is to fool your pursuers. Typically this happens in the jungle. A successful juke could range from eluding the enemy by exploiting line of sight, or could simply cause the enemy to mistarget a spell.
feed = A player who dies constantly feeds the other team (via the gold reward for killing someone). Being called a feeder is not a compliment. A player who is fed has a lot of kills.
gg = good game.
gj = good job.
ms = movement speed
baron, nashor, worm = the big worm like boss that gives a noticeable buff to the whole team when killed.
gl hf - good luck, have fun, usually an encouraging sportsmanlike phrase said before a game, sometimes sarcastically used "gl solo baron"
push - to gather up a creep wave and attempt to destroy an enemy tower "I'm going to push bottom"
d, defend - to sit at a tower and/or inhibitor and attempt to avoid confrontation while stopping the enemy from killing the objective "I'm gonna d mid"
gank - to go (often with more than one player) to try and kill an enemy, often by surprise "lets gank bottom"
tp - summoner spell telleport used to traverse the map "Ill tp back in"
heal - either the summoner spell, a champion ability, or the act of returning to base to regenerate HP and mana "you should heal"
harass - to annoy the enemy with small bursts of non lethal damage, often forcing them to go heal or be set up for a gangk.
bait - to deliberately appear in a position to be easily ganged so as to lure 1 or more players to be gangked by your team "go bait them in to the jungle"
Disable = A Disable is a debuff that usually prevents some kind of action on the player. Stuns, roots, silences are all examples of disables
Stun = A debuff which prevents any action by a champion (summoner spells excluded)
Root = A debuff which prevents any movement by a champion (summoner spells excluded)
Silence = A debuff which prevents any abilities being used by a champion (summoner spells excluded)
Farm = Farming involves the amassing of gold for player. This is usually best done by killing a lot of creeps and killing them very quickly. Certain Heroes like Ashe and Tristana are great farmers: The first has a +gold passive, and the latter has an AOE passive.
leash/pull - when someone other than the jungler attacks a jungle creep so that it comes towards them while the jungler attacks it; the leasher leaves the range so the jungle creep returns to the jungler; allowing several free hits/spells on the creep for the jungler.

Things heard outside of the game or apply to outside of the game

vent = Ventrilo. It is voice communication software used to coordinate as a team. LoL has its own vent server: See the sticky in the beta general for more information.
build = how a champion and its summoner is built. For champions this may includes the items one buys on a champion, and the order one gets a champion's skills. For summoners, this refers to their masteries and rune selections.
carry = A character who, if played properly, wins late game fights for a team. Typically these heroes are weak early game and require a lot of farming.
tank = Character with a lot of HP and likely armor/resistance. Whose job is to initiate battles with the enemy players/turrets as to draw damage onto himself.
dps = Damage per second. Also referes to characters who job it is to deal damage (As opposed to support and tanks)
burst = A large volume of damage done quickly and typically then very little sustained follow up damage.
support = Characters who job it is to support other characters: Healers, buffers, etc
runes = Refers to LoL's rune system, however this term is overloaded and some players also refer to sigils as runes
talents = A non-canon term for masteries
mastery, masteries = The talent-tree system of LoL
DotA = Defense of the the Ancients. A mod for War3 that virtually launched the moba genre
HoN = Heroes of Newerth. Another moba game that is in direct competition with LoL.
moba = multiplayer online battle arena
elo = The score a person has in the Ranking system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
leave, leaver = To quit a game before it is over.
raqequit = To quit a game in anger (Being killed, losing)
disc, dc = disconnect from a game.
Bearon = The Ultimate League of Legend Champion. A bear of nobility from Rabilov.
Coral = The color of Adjudicators elected in a fair democratic process. Penny then proceeded to invalidate the election and instead we got dodger blue.
adjudicator = Either an older beta tester, or a beta tester whose skill in game or feedback out of game have been noted.
skin = Items that give a Champion a new look (Costumes, clothes, etc)
champion = The particular character that you as the summoner control
hero = non-canon name for a champion
summoner = Your representation in the game. Essentially you are the puppet master of your selected Champion and you have your own summoner abilities along with the champion's abilities.
deny, denies= Basically last hitting your own creep. This mechanic does not exist in LoL. In DotA, this would prevent the other from earning the gold and experience for killing the creep.

Have you scored a penta?

Spoiler:

Spectrum

"Arctic"

Rami

derp solo queue

Spoiler:

Rorus Raz

Man, Firefox even caught that.

nealcm

i promised you victory

can't blame me for a leaver

Dac Vin

reposting from the last thread:

Story time: To vent my ranked frustration, I decided to do a very special normal where I would try to do a thing known as "DUNKMASTER YI", just to see if it was that good.

I... kind of bungled that up.



Basically before I started my DUNK items I had already taken down both of my lane towers thanks to an Alistar of competence and a laning AP strategy. All this, in under 10 minutes.

It was fucking surreal.

zerg rush

hell yeah solo queue forever

Rami

We were winning on kills but they no lane control or map awareness at all. All the usual solo queue shit, like initiating fights at random as Annie and then typing '.....' when you die in seconds. I could have dragged thme to victory though but Corki raged.

surrealitycheck

i christen this thread: THEY DEMANDED DFG MALPHITE

I DELIVERED

WhiteShark

DFG malphite erry day

Dac Vin

you are ballin way outta control what have you done

exis

Rami wrote:

derp solo queue

Spoiler:

I like that Fiddle is concerned about the AD/AP balance.

Talith

Wishing they would release the spotlight or the alternate skins or something. I want news.

Rorus Raz

Wasn't the patch preview supposed to be this weekend?

Talith

It was, there isn't a whole lot of weekend left.

surrealitycheck

i like big butts and i cannot lie

Aegis

First game back in a long time, I pick Janna because guy up top wanted to jungle and Janna was going to be my second pick over Warwick anyway so whatever:

Spoiler:

Aside from the obvious rage by the enemy team there, we were down 4-5 turrets midgame including our bottom inhibitor vulnerable. But gentle words of encouragement to team (our Ashe constantly didn't join teamfights until the very end -.-) and we somehow pulled through.

Also Janna ults are SO MUCH FUN

Houn

Things I Hate To Play Against:

1. Annie after level 6
2. Tryndamere and his fucking godmode and wallhacks.

Seriously considering bailing on any game with either of them.

Jars

swain is the best champion because then you can say an enemy has been swain

Grundlestiltskin

I want to like Swain but I just have a terrible early game with him. I can't last hit with him for shit.

Zyrxil

So, Riven details are out, http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1210963 , and as a melee character, of course she has an instant gap closer. There's something about that design philosophy that rubs me the wrong way. If all melee have gap closers, then there is no possibility of kiting. If there's no kiting, then the point of ranged characters is greatly reduced. Why can't melee guys have all have tools like Olaf's slow or Udyr's bear or Nasus' Wither instead?

surrealitycheck

most gap closers aren't spammable, so any range with a jump eg cait trist can counter them easily enough

and even if you don't have that you can just flash dat shit

interrobang

the point of ranged characters isn't reduced, you just have to rely more on positioning and screening from your teammates

Arikado

QSS + Red Potion Tryndamere can fuck off.

Talith

She has no instant gap closers though. All her mobility comes from Vayne style tumbles.

Jars

gap closers don't seem to matter because ashe is still the best ranged carry one of the best champions in the game

emnmnme

Which is more damage mitigation? I have seals that give me 6.8% dodge and the summoner masteries brings that up to 8.8%

Or I could buy flat armor seals for 12.7 armor

I needed a name to post.

i think they've mentioned that riven's dash is like

half the size of shen's

so it's not very large

then her other dash requires her to use her main DPS move so you might cause her to waste a few uses of that to get in range to hit you

milski

It depends on how much armor you currently have (higher armor makes dodge more useful) and whether or not you're facing people who primarily autoattack or do physical damage through other means. With the constantly increasing number of champions who have undodgeable physical attacks or spells, and the fact that armor is better early game and in the jungle, armor seals are pretty much going to be better in 90% of cases.

Neaden

emnmnme wrote:

Which is more damage mitigation? I have seals that give me 6.8% dodge and the summoner masteries brings that up to 8.8%

Or I could buy flat armor seals for 12.7 armor

Depends. The dodge will protect you more from auto attacks but will not help you at all with abilities that do physical damage.

interrobang

yeah i think her "dash" is just for the purpose of keeping her stuck on you when she's smacking you around

it's not gonna work like bladesurge where she zips right to you at mach 3, ignoring everything in between

emnmnme

Houn wrote:

2. Tryndamere and his fucking godmode and wallhacks.

Stun and slow. Stun and slow.

emnmnme

milski wrote:

It depends on how much armor you currently have (higher armor makes dodge more useful) and whether or not you're facing people who primarily autoattack or do physical damage through other means. With the constantly increasing number of champions who have undodgeable physical attacks or spells, and the fact that armor is better early game and in the jungle, armor seals are pretty much going to be better in 90% of cases.

Flat armor or per level?

milski

Beating Tryndamere is very easy if you aren't awful compared to the Trynd, because he's not a great champion. He's got a decent sort-of-blink and does a lot of damage, but that's about it, and he needs a shit ton of farm to beat. Plus, there are many champions who are just flat out hard counters to him (Nasus with a good amount of CDR can almost permanently slow Tryndamere, which is bad when all he can do is autoattack).

EDIT: Flat armor. Armor per level is weird, basically useless in the jungle, and runes are basically best early game anyway. The only exception is usually mana regen/level runes, since they sometimes pass mana runes before you'd run out of mana in lane anyway.

Neaden

emnmnme wrote:

milski wrote:

It depends on how much armor you currently have (higher armor makes dodge more useful) and whether or not you're facing people who primarily autoattack or do physical damage through other means. With the constantly increasing number of champions who have undodgeable physical attacks or spells, and the fact that armor is better early game and in the jungle, armor seals are pretty much going to be better in 90% of cases.

Flat armor or per level?

Once again depends. In general though flat armor. It makes a bigger difference early game when auto attacks and minion damage are a bigger deal.

interrobang

anyone can counter trynd

pack exhaust

done

milski

Exhaust, ignite (to some extent; it just guarantees he dies), any good movespeed/aspd slow, any blink of your own, being an equally fed AD sion (seriously, AD sion wins against Trynd, oddly enough), or shutting Trynd down so much he can't kill you all work.

Rami

You put mushrooms everywhere so he can't help but run into one after using his ult.

emnmnme

Trynd's ult last 6 seconds. Ignite lasts 5 seconds.

DEAD MAN SPINNING!

interrobang

i've started packing exhaust on 90% of champs i play lately, simply for the purpose of dealing with a potential jax/trynd

because i know that NOBODY ELSE will bother taking it over ignite for whatever reason

nealcm

they nerfed it to five

trynd's ult that is