I was mostly sticking to Top, while also sometimes playing Jungle or Support when it was required. I liked Mid, but I was not very good at it.
I guess my most used champions were Irelia, Fiora, Vi, Swain, Poppy, Leona and Trundle?
Swain is very different now...
If you're really wanting a new champion or two, try out Sett? He's very simple and a solid top laner; he's decent enough to fill as jungle or support if desired as well. Punch all the things. And feel free to add me if you want to play not co-op...though maybe not until after the season ends (going to attempt to grind ranked).
As @Knight_ is noting, preseason is just about to hit, so the item system is being completely reworked soon. That might scramble things a bit.
Was zac around when you played? He's a great jungler and Ive played him in top lane. He's a little different there but Fanatics bwipo plays him up there all the time too. As ivellius mentioned, sett is a solid pick of a new champ. He's a lot of fun to play and you can go tanky or full ad.
sett punch good. garen is also really fun right now and is really forgiving to getting into top lane.
spin. win. they both have passives that give them health out of combat which is helpful when trying to get back into the lane, because you won't be so punished for getting hit by some random what was that ability even? as much.
leona is extremely strong as a support right now as well, quietest S+ tier champ in the game imo.
Leona is weak in that she's a one way champ and can be squishy when her w is on cd. She goes in, and has no way to get out. I'd you're team doesn't follow up properly or you get focused quickly, you're dead.
0
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I actually don't think setts passive requires being out of combat? I think it's just always on.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I actually don't think setts passive requires being out of combat? I think it's just always on.
ya true, i just meant in so far as he has a method of recovering hp that just requires you to exist more or less. helps when you eat dumb trades as i am want to do in top lane all the time.
I actually don't think setts passive requires being out of combat? I think it's just always on.
Ya I'm pretty sure it's always on and gets stronger the lower his health is. It's one of the things he's been nerfed on. But this and his w make him way more durable than he seems and let's you bait the enemy in.
I actually don't think setts passive requires being out of combat? I think it's just always on.
ya true, i just meant in so far as he has a method of recovering hp that just requires you to exist more or less. helps when you eat dumb trades as i am want to do in top lane all the time.
Maoki is a tank that started showing up at world's this year. He has hp regain on aa every 30 seconds. Not sure if you've ever played the tree. He's quite different than he was in 2018, yet still mostly the same. Better ult mostly.
So I've been advising a friend new to the game about LoL, and wrote a lot so I thought I would put it here in case anyone wants to read. It's pretty targeted at new players.
On roles (he wanted to know about support):
-Is support the least popular role: it used to be, but I think it's now only marginally less popular than jungle, if at all. People who have been playing the game for a long time all know how to play support because in the bad old days, 1. support was way less fun for a variety of reasons 2. you did not get to choose your role in the lobby so if you were last pick you would end up playing support most of the time. Non-toxic people all know how to play support because in the past it was an extremely unpopular role and they were being team players. As such, depending on your group of friends, you may actually end up with way too many support mains. Every time I try to get a 5 man group together, it's a million support mains and no top laners.
-AOC mains support and her secondary role is ADC/Bot/Marksman (different people call it different things, but--the other person in botlane, who farms and plays an autoattack-based ranged DPS character). In general, support is perceived as (and, I believe, is, demographically, a little bit) a girl's role. There aren't a lot of women who play LoL (it's like 90-10), but support characters are often targeted at the female playerbase in their design, and again, generally because it was a less wanted role and women are overall less toxic, a lot of women learned to play. There's a lot of memes about the egirl concept where she's queueing with her boyfriend, the ADC, and just standing behind him as Janna and putting shields on him while he carries her. Gross.
-Is support the easiest role: yes and no. You don't have to cs (cs=creep score=farm minions). You can, sometimes, get away with playing a heal and shield support and standing behind your carry and doing jack shit while they 1v2. However, you won't get past silver doing this, if that. Botlane, unlike mid and top, is a constant 2v2. That means everyone is always looking to fight and pressure. The support is as strong or stronger than the adc early. That means it is on you to create pressure and/or make plays so you guys get kills and manage to win your lane. You need to understand under what circumstances you can and cannot win that 2v2, because it is generally up to you to decide when to fight or trade damage. You also need to play either ahead of, even to, or behind your adc, and knowing when you can do that is key. If you play Soraka, you can't only think of yourself as a healbot--you are a poke mage! You have to Q all the time and you have to land the Qs and you have to do so without taking damage yourself. You also have to save your E (like 15-20 second cooldown, really long) for just the right moment, which means understanding when the fight requires a silence. The support is also primarily responsible for warding, which means understanding when your team is thinking about what objectives (dragon, baron, maybe someone's split pushing top so can you run over there and drop some deep wards), and placing and clearing vision in the right spots. The support often has engage/initiation capabilities, so it is then up to you to decide whether now/here is the time/place to teamfight. (Not the case with Soraka. Her job in a teamfight is to heal and yet not die although she is #1 priority target, and also to put down crucial silences on things like Katarina ult).
-Toplane is a totally different beast. Toplane you hang out and 1v1 your opponent on toplane island forever. You must cs, and you must cs well; you *must* learn lane management (how to arrange it so the creep wave is either in the middle of the lane, close to your tower, or crashing into their tower). Toplane has the highest opportunity to just get completely 1v1 fucked, and end up in an unrecoverable snowball; I find it really scary and can play it but only play it rarely. In toplane, a lot of people play bruiser/skirmisher type characters, and people also play a lot of tanks. The skirmisher characters are the ones who really try to snowball an advantage and make it impossible for you to exist in the lane--Irelia, Riven, Fiora, Camille. Often as toplane you have a weird split responsibility to push sidelanes (once laning phase is over) but also then come group with your team, but only at the last possible moment (since you need to create map pressure by pushing sidelanes. But also not get caught out by yourself!)
-I think mid is easier to play than top (I also prefer the glass cannon mages that are very popular in mid). The lane is shorter, so it's a lot safer and you generally don't get stuck unable to cs. As the midlaner, you also can/must help your jungler contest the vision crabs in the river/collapse if your jungler is invaded; you are also close-ish to both bot and toplane so you can/should roam and try to get kills in other lanes (while making sure that you also push out your own lane and don't fall behind in levels). I play mid when I play with people who are worse than me, so that I can be the carry on the team and influence other lanes a lot.
-While you're leveling, you should take the occasion to learn to cs. It would not be good to level your account to 30 and not learn how to farm. If you don't understand how farming feels like, you will never be able to support well.
After I posted this, he wrote about now starting to learn how to last hit on Teemo and watch videos on lane management, so I wrote about lane management:
csing is a great pleasure. I love seeing the numbers go up, it's the mini dopamine hits and flow of it all that is part of the great appeal of league to me (HOTS doesn't have last hitting and fundamentally I could not get into it because of that.)
People in silver and below basically don't understand wave control, although top laners sort of do and Vayne players bot lane sort of do. However everyone understands last hitting and it is THE skill to have! I remember when I was just first playing and I got into a game with a friend and they were like ummm you need to not constantly auto the minions and instead make sure you instead last-hit them, and I was like WHOA and my understanding of the game changed entirely.
wrt lane control overall, I love playing pushing laners. I love just constantly shoving minion waves into enemy tower; it's very satisfying.
Here's some things to think about when playing a pushing laner:
1. you will call the enemy jungler to your lane. This can be good--means they're ganking you and not someone else, so you are giving your jungler freedom to do something else and letting other lanes breathe. It can be bad cause you don't want the enemy jungler to kill you!
2. You will probably get tower plates! This is good.
3. Below high gold elo, you will make your enemy laner miss cs under their tower! This is good.
4. You have 'lane priority', which means you can roam to other lanes and/or contribute to skirmishes in the river, or dragon or herald! This is good. (Lane priority means, the other guy can't leave lane without losing a bunch of cs/xp and/or fighting you when he doesn't want to)
5. The enemy is very close to their tower. If you are a melee champion or have a melee engage support in botlane, you can't actually fight them without taking tower shots--this is bad if you wanted to fight them. The good part of this is, you can poke them under tower if you are a poke champion or have poke support, because they have restricted range of movement (but this is also bad if you draw tower aggro and they counterengage and stun you under tower). This also means you (hopefully with your support and/or jungler) can possibly towerdive them (kill them under their tower). This is kinda hard to execute--need to juggle tower aggro to make sure noone dies during the process. Honestly at my elo it fails a lot. In pro games there are great, precise tower dives.
Teemo is good to last hit on (although his autos feel a little slow, similar to Tristana autos) and is nice to play toplane since you're often ranged into melee. The big disadvantage is of course, if you get all-inned you are a dead rat. He's one of the toplaners I feel most comfortable on as an adc player, but I seldom pick him because he doesn't contribute to the team in a way that I want a toplaner to (I want all toplaners to play giant tanks that protect the adc, whereas Teemo is someone who needs to be protected.)
I should say, I make pushing sound good, but there are very good reasons to freeze both when ahead and behind. When ahead, if you freeze you can stand in or in front of your wave and keep the other guy from getting near it, and it's insanely satisfying and puts them SO behind. When behind, you can keep the wave at your tower and make it so you don't get ganked and if the enemy tries to fight you, they take tower aggro! I think better players than me push less than I do, although possibly not while playing the champions I do. I did use to watch Sneaky's stream and he did the same push push push that I do on Sivir, so I felt vindicated. Still, I could benefit from watching some adc streams and seeing how they do lane management under different circumstances.
honestly, support is way harder overall than bot imo, and i say that as a bot/mid main. support has to control the lane, control vision, roam, and babysit the doofus adc (me) who can't do much of anything by themselves for 20 minutes.
adc is a more mechanically demanding role, but basically it's just can you last hit minions while not taking a ton of damage from the other team's support, and can you do a lot of damage in teamfights before you die.
+1
Options
StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
I want to enjoy playing Sett but he feels so slow and I keep getting beat at top as Sett. I tried him in the jungle once and hated it.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
0
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I actually don't think setts passive requires being out of combat? I think it's just always on.
ya true, i just meant in so far as he has a method of recovering hp that just requires you to exist more or less. helps when you eat dumb trades as i am want to do in top lane all the time.
Sett can recover his HP in combat and with his big dumb shield up, Garen has to stop taking hits. Its an important distinction but both are pretty dumb as a sack of hammers to play right now.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
0
Options
TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
So I hopped back into this last night.
7 wins, 1 loss.
The 1 loss was the single game where I didn't get to play Vel'Koz in the mid because I got shifted to top and Singed is not nearly as dominate as he used to be.
@Munkus Beaver I'm so mad someone dodged our game! But it is possible that you didn't want to be in the same game with someone whose judgment is so impaired they played kassadin ;_;
End up picking MF, because why not? The enemy team ends up being Sett, Samira, Lux (who basically carried), Vel'koz support, and Kayn.
ow my face
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
0
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Cred man, I wish I coulda played in that game. When the queue popped up again I got a bunch of lame-os
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
0
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
But you already max Q as Sera supp so ????
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
i hope they finish nerfing samira soon so i can go back to permaing senna. i'm so tired of playing against senna with rando supports who don't all in right.
i hope they finish nerfing samira soon so i can go back to permaing senna. i'm so tired of playing against senna with rando supports who don't all in right.
Ugh I knowww
I’ve played enough senna to understand how to beat her (I think) but your support needs to actually participate/instigate the whole thing and instead they’re like ‘but what if I let her poke you for free and then I myself also stand right inside her auto range in order to give her stacks, and then decide to allin when I have 200 hp left, in a straight line while her binding is available.’
...I wonder if I should play support again next season
Steam, LoL: credeiki
0
Options
StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
I wish there was a good way to get gems. I am 6 away from Hextech Annie. Really would I could get Annie-versary though.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
I wish there was a good way to get gems. I am 6 away from Hextech Annie. Really would I could get Annie-versary though.
most of the passes come with 1 or 2 gemstones if you're willing to finish them. i've gotten 20? in the past year from passes.
Have they announced when the next one is? I bought a bunch of RP cause I thought I was gonna be able to buy ward skins and stuff for Halloween but turned out there weren't any so I was gonna buy chests to try and get gems but events sound way more effective.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
0
Options
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited November 2020
So I've gotten looped into league because what's become my primary friend group in quarantine does a lot of ARAM. And it's been fun! It's a nice midpoint between the face-plant teamfights of HotS without the horrid degeneracy of HotS' version of ARAM. Though catching up on this thread has been a very useful reminder to never, ever, ever touch Summoner's Rift. Good god I popped a vein at the mention of an item that punishes you for CSing.
Anyway, heroes I've enjoyed a lot on my journey from level 5 to level 15 in ARAM:
1. TF. Super basic spammy mage fits my playstyle just fine, pressing Q on cooldown the entire game is good fun. His W is by far the best stun I've played with and the times I topdeck it with a double-tap when I'm getting doved on is way better than any RNG dopamine hit Hearthstone ever gave me.
2. Pantheon. Love me a chunky point-and-click stun into tap q combo to absolutely blow up someone who takes one step too far forward, and I get to huck spears all game to play like a coward.
3. Rammus. I've always loved Rammus as a character and he makes SO much more sense to me now that I learned halfway through my second game with him that his E is a targeted ability.
Things I don't like:
1. Literally any mid-range targeted ability. Tristana bomb? Teemo blind? I'll hammer the button over the enemy tank and it just never fucking goes off and I don't understand why. I've definitely got them on quick cast! Tristana even gets bonus cast range! Why the fuck will my ability not cast!
2. This is probably an ARAM-specific thing, but the differences in effective ranges for heroes feels absurd. What's a Draven to do when Jhin or Jinx are blasting him from the entire screen away with their abilities? Like sure mages like Velkoz being artillery support makes sense, but then randomly heroes that I think are ADC heroes will have full-screen pokes and I'm very confused.
3. Fuck Lux.
I wish there was a good way to get gems. I am 6 away from Hextech Annie. Really would I could get Annie-versary though.
most of the passes come with 1 or 2 gemstones if you're willing to finish them. i've gotten 20? in the past year from passes.
Have they announced when the next one is? I bought a bunch of RP cause I thought I was gonna be able to buy ward skins and stuff for Halloween but turned out there weren't any so I was gonna buy chests to try and get gems but events sound way more effective.
Usually one comes out a few weeks after the last one ends, the current worlds pass is extra good but it also ends on Tuesday so you’d have to ultra no life it to get anything, so I wouldn’t recommend. I expect there to be another one in maybe 2-3 weeks?
Have they announced when the next one is? I bought a bunch of RP cause I thought I was gonna be able to buy ward skins and stuff for Halloween but turned out there weren't any so I was gonna buy chests to try and get gems but events sound way more effective.
They haven't actually announced it, but they'll have a "winter" one--I would guess after Thanksgiving. There's one more prestige point skin for Soraka (my guess is Winter Wonderland) on the year, so there will be an associated pass, I'm sure.
So I've gotten looped into league because what's become my primary friend group in quarantine does a lot of ARAM. And it's been fun! It's a nice midpoint between the face-plant teamfights of HotS without the horrid degeneracy of HotS' version of ARAM. Though catching up on this thread has been a very useful reminder to never, ever, ever touch Summoner's Rift. Good god I popped a vein at the mention of an item that punishes you for CSing.
If it makes you feel better, it's only certain roles that are punished for CSing--jungle (early and if you're way ahead) or support (with a certain item and then only kind of), which you can probably avoid by not ever playing them.
TF, Pantheon, and Rammus are pretty simply champions--build Rapid-Fire Cannon on TF for extra fun if you haven't already.
As you note, some champions are just less effective on ARAM than others. They do have specific damage and/or damage resistance buffs or nerfs that help, but some comps are just not going to work very well. Advice that is almost useful: if you think your champ will struggle, take the Snowball Toss and build full tank.
Me elsewhere:
Steam, various fora: Ivellius
League of Legends: Doctor Ivellius
Twitch, probably another place or two I forget: LPIvellius
If it makes you feel better, it's only certain roles that are punished for CSing--jungle (early and if you're way ahead) or support (with a certain item and then only kind of), which you can probably avoid by not ever playing them.
I'm aware of the role distinction, but my experience in Moba Theory comes from studying DotA (even if I ended up playing way more HotS in practice) where supports are expected to start CSing in the midgame by finding the gold their carries missed (taking creeps if they're in jungle, taking jungle camps if they're pushing objectives or invading the enemy jungle, etc). It's the exact scenario that was described on the last page--if a support is alone in a lane for whatever reason, what possible reasoning would you have to punish them for CSing that wave? Nobody else was there to take it!
Edit: I suppose I should clarify my love for splitpushing here, especially since there do seem to be some supports with great waveclear. Let me rat >:c
If it makes you feel better, it's only certain roles that are punished for CSing--jungle (early and if you're way ahead) or support (with a certain item and then only kind of), which you can probably avoid by not ever playing them.
I'm aware of the role distinction, but my experience in Moba Theory comes from studying DotA (even if I ended up playing way more HotS in practice) where supports are expected to start CSing in the midgame by finding the gold their carries missed (taking creeps if they're in jungle, taking jungle camps if they're pushing objectives or invading the enemy jungle, etc). It's the exact scenario that was described on the last page--if a support is alone in a lane for whatever reason, what possible reasoning would you have to punish them for CSing that wave? Nobody else was there to take it!
Edit: I suppose I should clarify my love for splitpushing here, especially since there do seem to be some supports with great waveclear. Let me rat >:c
So you need to understand better how this works I think.
Generally you shouldn’t splitpush for long as a support (some people would say not at all but I’m all about Zyra who has great waveclear and I am obsessed with waves going to waste). That said, the cs punishment only kicks in if you splitpush for multiple waves by yourself. It does not kick in if you are contributing to team waveclear under tower and get like 1/3 of each wave for many waves. You also don’t get punished for clearing a whole half of the jg as support (again you shouldn’t but uh well let’s just say I know this fact for a reason).
It only kicks in if you get more like 5/6 of a wave for 3-4 waves. And in LoL that seriously should not happen. It is simply not played the same way as the mobas you are familiar with.
credeiki on
Steam, LoL: credeiki
+2
Options
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
You shouldn’t take farm from your own jungle.
If you can get away with it steal that shit from the enemy jungle.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Watching a video on lcs rumors. The tumor is there will be no more splits, just one long season. Each team will play each other 5 times instead of the current 4 (2 spring 2 summer) and there will be a mid season tournament to decide who goes to msi.
If you can get away with it steal that shit from the enemy jungle.
Depends on circumstances
If your jungler is Ivern, you can feel totally fine taking camps as adc or mid when you’re passing by. If your jungler is hecarim and doing more damage than anyone else on the team, maybe better not.
If your jungler is split pushing, you should take their camps if you’re in the area and they’ll respawn by the time he gets back.
If you’re support zyra/brand/Lux/vel, similar judgment applies as it would apply to you as mid, although probably your mid should have more camp priority than you, but kinda depends who on your team is good or not, and also who is in the area.
If it makes you feel better, it's only certain roles that are punished for CSing--jungle (early and if you're way ahead) or support (with a certain item and then only kind of), which you can probably avoid by not ever playing them.
I'm aware of the role distinction, but my experience in Moba Theory comes from studying DotA (even if I ended up playing way more HotS in practice) where supports are expected to start CSing in the midgame by finding the gold their carries missed (taking creeps if they're in jungle, taking jungle camps if they're pushing objectives or invading the enemy jungle, etc). It's the exact scenario that was described on the last page--if a support is alone in a lane for whatever reason, what possible reasoning would you have to punish them for CSing that wave? Nobody else was there to take it!
Edit: I suppose I should clarify my love for splitpushing here, especially since there do seem to be some supports with great waveclear. Let me rat >:c
So you need to understand better how this works I think.
Generally you shouldn’t splitpush for long as a support (some people would say not at all but I’m all about Zyra who has great waveclear and I am obsessed with waves going to waste). That said, the cs punishment only kicks in if you splitpush for multiple waves by yourself. It does not kick in if you are contributing to team waveclear under tower and get like 1/3 of each wave for many waves. You also don’t get punished for clearing a whole half of the jg as support (again you shouldn’t but uh well let’s just say I know this fact for a reason).
It only kicks in if you get more like 5/6 of a wave for 3-4 waves. And in LoL that seriously should not happen. It is simply not played the same way as the mobas you are familiar with.
You could look at it the other direction too -- Riot might want to emphasize team map rotation and wave control as an element of skill. The mechanic says, if you can't get your carries to the waves, you're going to miss gold as a team. I think that's broadly legitimate as a design goal.
Of course the support and jungle items also work to prop up and stabilize the meta where teams usually have a support and a jungle. They're heavy-handed in that sense, but there are clear upsides to locking in that much of the meta -- like letting people choose "support" or "jungle" in your matchmaking flow.
If you can get away with it steal that shit from the enemy jungle.
Depends on circumstances
If your jungler is Ivern, you can feel totally fine taking camps as adc or mid when you’re passing by. If your jungler is hecarim and doing more damage than anyone else on the team, maybe better not.
If your jungler is split pushing, you should take their camps if you’re in the area and they’ll respawn by the time he gets back.
If you’re support zyra/brand/Lux/vel, similar judgment applies as it would apply to you as mid, although probably your mid should have more camp priority than you, but kinda depends who on your team is good or not, and also who is in the area.
Eh, at the same time, it shouldn't be the support. It should be the adc, mid, or top taking those camps, not support.
0
Options
pyromaniac221this just might bean interestin YTRegistered Userregular
You better wait to do that for 5-7 minutes. Either a shaco carries hard or flounders. At least give him the benefit of the doubt for the first 5 minutes or so.
Posts
I play a very high cs Zyra support <.< >.>
Was zac around when you played? He's a great jungler and Ive played him in top lane. He's a little different there but Fanatics bwipo plays him up there all the time too. As ivellius mentioned, sett is a solid pick of a new champ. He's a lot of fun to play and you can go tanky or full ad.
spin. win. they both have passives that give them health out of combat which is helpful when trying to get back into the lane, because you won't be so punished for getting hit by some random what was that ability even? as much.
leona is extremely strong as a support right now as well, quietest S+ tier champ in the game imo.
ya true, i just meant in so far as he has a method of recovering hp that just requires you to exist more or less. helps when you eat dumb trades as i am want to do in top lane all the time.
Ya I'm pretty sure it's always on and gets stronger the lower his health is. It's one of the things he's been nerfed on. But this and his w make him way more durable than he seems and let's you bait the enemy in.
Maoki is a tank that started showing up at world's this year. He has hp regain on aa every 30 seconds. Not sure if you've ever played the tree. He's quite different than he was in 2018, yet still mostly the same. Better ult mostly.
On roles (he wanted to know about support):
-Is support the least popular role: it used to be, but I think it's now only marginally less popular than jungle, if at all. People who have been playing the game for a long time all know how to play support because in the bad old days, 1. support was way less fun for a variety of reasons 2. you did not get to choose your role in the lobby so if you were last pick you would end up playing support most of the time. Non-toxic people all know how to play support because in the past it was an extremely unpopular role and they were being team players. As such, depending on your group of friends, you may actually end up with way too many support mains. Every time I try to get a 5 man group together, it's a million support mains and no top laners.
-AOC mains support and her secondary role is ADC/Bot/Marksman (different people call it different things, but--the other person in botlane, who farms and plays an autoattack-based ranged DPS character). In general, support is perceived as (and, I believe, is, demographically, a little bit) a girl's role. There aren't a lot of women who play LoL (it's like 90-10), but support characters are often targeted at the female playerbase in their design, and again, generally because it was a less wanted role and women are overall less toxic, a lot of women learned to play. There's a lot of memes about the egirl concept where she's queueing with her boyfriend, the ADC, and just standing behind him as Janna and putting shields on him while he carries her. Gross.
-Is support the easiest role: yes and no. You don't have to cs (cs=creep score=farm minions). You can, sometimes, get away with playing a heal and shield support and standing behind your carry and doing jack shit while they 1v2. However, you won't get past silver doing this, if that. Botlane, unlike mid and top, is a constant 2v2. That means everyone is always looking to fight and pressure. The support is as strong or stronger than the adc early. That means it is on you to create pressure and/or make plays so you guys get kills and manage to win your lane. You need to understand under what circumstances you can and cannot win that 2v2, because it is generally up to you to decide when to fight or trade damage. You also need to play either ahead of, even to, or behind your adc, and knowing when you can do that is key. If you play Soraka, you can't only think of yourself as a healbot--you are a poke mage! You have to Q all the time and you have to land the Qs and you have to do so without taking damage yourself. You also have to save your E (like 15-20 second cooldown, really long) for just the right moment, which means understanding when the fight requires a silence. The support is also primarily responsible for warding, which means understanding when your team is thinking about what objectives (dragon, baron, maybe someone's split pushing top so can you run over there and drop some deep wards), and placing and clearing vision in the right spots. The support often has engage/initiation capabilities, so it is then up to you to decide whether now/here is the time/place to teamfight. (Not the case with Soraka. Her job in a teamfight is to heal and yet not die although she is #1 priority target, and also to put down crucial silences on things like Katarina ult).
-Toplane is a totally different beast. Toplane you hang out and 1v1 your opponent on toplane island forever. You must cs, and you must cs well; you *must* learn lane management (how to arrange it so the creep wave is either in the middle of the lane, close to your tower, or crashing into their tower). Toplane has the highest opportunity to just get completely 1v1 fucked, and end up in an unrecoverable snowball; I find it really scary and can play it but only play it rarely. In toplane, a lot of people play bruiser/skirmisher type characters, and people also play a lot of tanks. The skirmisher characters are the ones who really try to snowball an advantage and make it impossible for you to exist in the lane--Irelia, Riven, Fiora, Camille. Often as toplane you have a weird split responsibility to push sidelanes (once laning phase is over) but also then come group with your team, but only at the last possible moment (since you need to create map pressure by pushing sidelanes. But also not get caught out by yourself!)
-I think mid is easier to play than top (I also prefer the glass cannon mages that are very popular in mid). The lane is shorter, so it's a lot safer and you generally don't get stuck unable to cs. As the midlaner, you also can/must help your jungler contest the vision crabs in the river/collapse if your jungler is invaded; you are also close-ish to both bot and toplane so you can/should roam and try to get kills in other lanes (while making sure that you also push out your own lane and don't fall behind in levels). I play mid when I play with people who are worse than me, so that I can be the carry on the team and influence other lanes a lot.
-While you're leveling, you should take the occasion to learn to cs. It would not be good to level your account to 30 and not learn how to farm. If you don't understand how farming feels like, you will never be able to support well.
csing is a great pleasure. I love seeing the numbers go up, it's the mini dopamine hits and flow of it all that is part of the great appeal of league to me (HOTS doesn't have last hitting and fundamentally I could not get into it because of that.)
People in silver and below basically don't understand wave control, although top laners sort of do and Vayne players bot lane sort of do. However everyone understands last hitting and it is THE skill to have! I remember when I was just first playing and I got into a game with a friend and they were like ummm you need to not constantly auto the minions and instead make sure you instead last-hit them, and I was like WHOA and my understanding of the game changed entirely.
wrt lane control overall, I love playing pushing laners. I love just constantly shoving minion waves into enemy tower; it's very satisfying.
Here's some things to think about when playing a pushing laner:
1. you will call the enemy jungler to your lane. This can be good--means they're ganking you and not someone else, so you are giving your jungler freedom to do something else and letting other lanes breathe. It can be bad cause you don't want the enemy jungler to kill you!
2. You will probably get tower plates! This is good.
3. Below high gold elo, you will make your enemy laner miss cs under their tower! This is good.
4. You have 'lane priority', which means you can roam to other lanes and/or contribute to skirmishes in the river, or dragon or herald! This is good. (Lane priority means, the other guy can't leave lane without losing a bunch of cs/xp and/or fighting you when he doesn't want to)
5. The enemy is very close to their tower. If you are a melee champion or have a melee engage support in botlane, you can't actually fight them without taking tower shots--this is bad if you wanted to fight them. The good part of this is, you can poke them under tower if you are a poke champion or have poke support, because they have restricted range of movement (but this is also bad if you draw tower aggro and they counterengage and stun you under tower). This also means you (hopefully with your support and/or jungler) can possibly towerdive them (kill them under their tower). This is kinda hard to execute--need to juggle tower aggro to make sure noone dies during the process. Honestly at my elo it fails a lot. In pro games there are great, precise tower dives.
Teemo is good to last hit on (although his autos feel a little slow, similar to Tristana autos) and is nice to play toplane since you're often ranged into melee. The big disadvantage is of course, if you get all-inned you are a dead rat. He's one of the toplaners I feel most comfortable on as an adc player, but I seldom pick him because he doesn't contribute to the team in a way that I want a toplaner to (I want all toplaners to play giant tanks that protect the adc, whereas Teemo is someone who needs to be protected.)
I should say, I make pushing sound good, but there are very good reasons to freeze both when ahead and behind. When ahead, if you freeze you can stand in or in front of your wave and keep the other guy from getting near it, and it's insanely satisfying and puts them SO behind. When behind, you can keep the wave at your tower and make it so you don't get ganked and if the enemy tries to fight you, they take tower aggro! I think better players than me push less than I do, although possibly not while playing the champions I do. I did use to watch Sneaky's stream and he did the same push push push that I do on Sivir, so I felt vindicated. Still, I could benefit from watching some adc streams and seeing how they do lane management under different circumstances.
adc is a more mechanically demanding role, but basically it's just can you last hit minions while not taking a ton of damage from the other team's support, and can you do a lot of damage in teamfights before you die.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Sett can recover his HP in combat and with his big dumb shield up, Garen has to stop taking hits. Its an important distinction but both are pretty dumb as a sack of hammers to play right now.
7 wins, 1 loss.
The 1 loss was the single game where I didn't get to play Vel'Koz in the mid because I got shifted to top and Singed is not nearly as dominate as he used to be.
End up picking MF, because why not? The enemy team ends up being Sett, Samira, Lux (who basically carried), Vel'koz support, and Kayn.
ow my face
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Rush max W, toss in some E for snaring for my lane partner to score kills, and don't even touch Q until around level 7 or 8.
Ugh I knowww
I’ve played enough senna to understand how to beat her (I think) but your support needs to actually participate/instigate the whole thing and instead they’re like ‘but what if I let her poke you for free and then I myself also stand right inside her auto range in order to give her stacks, and then decide to allin when I have 200 hp left, in a straight line while her binding is available.’
...I wonder if I should play support again next season
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
most of the passes come with 1 or 2 gemstones if you're willing to finish them. i've gotten 20? in the past year from passes.
Doesn't matter if he goes 0/8* in lane; he'll carry late game fights around Elder Dragon through an enemy Ocean Soul.
5/7, perfect top laner
* That might not have been his actual score but why ruin a good narrative
Steam, various fora: Ivellius
League of Legends: Doctor Ivellius
Twitch, probably another place or two I forget: LPIvellius
Have they announced when the next one is? I bought a bunch of RP cause I thought I was gonna be able to buy ward skins and stuff for Halloween but turned out there weren't any so I was gonna buy chests to try and get gems but events sound way more effective.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Anyway, heroes I've enjoyed a lot on my journey from level 5 to level 15 in ARAM:
1. TF. Super basic spammy mage fits my playstyle just fine, pressing Q on cooldown the entire game is good fun. His W is by far the best stun I've played with and the times I topdeck it with a double-tap when I'm getting doved on is way better than any RNG dopamine hit Hearthstone ever gave me.
2. Pantheon. Love me a chunky point-and-click stun into tap q combo to absolutely blow up someone who takes one step too far forward, and I get to huck spears all game to play like a coward.
3. Rammus. I've always loved Rammus as a character and he makes SO much more sense to me now that I learned halfway through my second game with him that his E is a targeted ability.
Things I don't like:
1. Literally any mid-range targeted ability. Tristana bomb? Teemo blind? I'll hammer the button over the enemy tank and it just never fucking goes off and I don't understand why. I've definitely got them on quick cast! Tristana even gets bonus cast range! Why the fuck will my ability not cast!
2. This is probably an ARAM-specific thing, but the differences in effective ranges for heroes feels absurd. What's a Draven to do when Jhin or Jinx are blasting him from the entire screen away with their abilities? Like sure mages like Velkoz being artillery support makes sense, but then randomly heroes that I think are ADC heroes will have full-screen pokes and I'm very confused.
3. Fuck Lux.
Usually one comes out a few weeks after the last one ends, the current worlds pass is extra good but it also ends on Tuesday so you’d have to ultra no life it to get anything, so I wouldn’t recommend. I expect there to be another one in maybe 2-3 weeks?
They haven't actually announced it, but they'll have a "winter" one--I would guess after Thanksgiving. There's one more prestige point skin for Soraka (my guess is Winter Wonderland) on the year, so there will be an associated pass, I'm sure.
If it makes you feel better, it's only certain roles that are punished for CSing--jungle (early and if you're way ahead) or support (with a certain item and then only kind of), which you can probably avoid by not ever playing them.
TF, Pantheon, and Rammus are pretty simply champions--build Rapid-Fire Cannon on TF for extra fun if you haven't already.
As you note, some champions are just less effective on ARAM than others. They do have specific damage and/or damage resistance buffs or nerfs that help, but some comps are just not going to work very well. Advice that is almost useful: if you think your champ will struggle, take the Snowball Toss and build full tank.
Steam, various fora: Ivellius
League of Legends: Doctor Ivellius
Twitch, probably another place or two I forget: LPIvellius
Also, bonus fun:
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I'm aware of the role distinction, but my experience in Moba Theory comes from studying DotA (even if I ended up playing way more HotS in practice) where supports are expected to start CSing in the midgame by finding the gold their carries missed (taking creeps if they're in jungle, taking jungle camps if they're pushing objectives or invading the enemy jungle, etc). It's the exact scenario that was described on the last page--if a support is alone in a lane for whatever reason, what possible reasoning would you have to punish them for CSing that wave? Nobody else was there to take it!
Edit: I suppose I should clarify my love for splitpushing here, especially since there do seem to be some supports with great waveclear. Let me rat >:c
So you need to understand better how this works I think.
Generally you shouldn’t splitpush for long as a support (some people would say not at all but I’m all about Zyra who has great waveclear and I am obsessed with waves going to waste). That said, the cs punishment only kicks in if you splitpush for multiple waves by yourself. It does not kick in if you are contributing to team waveclear under tower and get like 1/3 of each wave for many waves. You also don’t get punished for clearing a whole half of the jg as support (again you shouldn’t but uh well let’s just say I know this fact for a reason).
It only kicks in if you get more like 5/6 of a wave for 3-4 waves. And in LoL that seriously should not happen. It is simply not played the same way as the mobas you are familiar with.
If you can get away with it steal that shit from the enemy jungle.
I think it's interesting.
But if you're jungle always take a creep tax on your lanes when you gank
Depends on circumstances
If your jungler is Ivern, you can feel totally fine taking camps as adc or mid when you’re passing by. If your jungler is hecarim and doing more damage than anyone else on the team, maybe better not.
If your jungler is split pushing, you should take their camps if you’re in the area and they’ll respawn by the time he gets back.
If you’re support zyra/brand/Lux/vel, similar judgment applies as it would apply to you as mid, although probably your mid should have more camp priority than you, but kinda depends who on your team is good or not, and also who is in the area.
You could look at it the other direction too -- Riot might want to emphasize team map rotation and wave control as an element of skill. The mechanic says, if you can't get your carries to the waves, you're going to miss gold as a team. I think that's broadly legitimate as a design goal.
Of course the support and jungle items also work to prop up and stabilize the meta where teams usually have a support and a jungle. They're heavy-handed in that sense, but there are clear upsides to locking in that much of the meta -- like letting people choose "support" or "jungle" in your matchmaking flow.
Eh, at the same time, it shouldn't be the support. It should be the adc, mid, or top taking those camps, not support.
You better wait to do that for 5-7 minutes. Either a shaco carries hard or flounders. At least give him the benefit of the doubt for the first 5 minutes or so.