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.
It is made by Riot games and brought to you by sexy lagomorphs.
You play as a summoner that selects a Riven to battle with and against other summoners and their respective non bunny champions. 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.
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 hereThe 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. Join the "Penny Arcade" Chat Channel to find helpful people and people to escape solo queue with! Click the little double speech bubble looking thing at the bottom right of your screen. Click the + speech bubble right above it. Type in "Penny Arcade" and introduce yourself. Not everyone you see in the thread will be there, as not everyone plays on the same server. You can ask these people how to play champions, we pretty much have someone who plays each kind of Riven, whether it be bunny girl (broken tier), crimson elite (garbage tier) and every kind in between.
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.
6. Get yer free champs.
Subscribe to Riot's Youtube and get a free Alistar skin! Includes the champion!
Free Tristana if you're into the Facebook thing. Promo skins always include the champion if you never bought it.
The Dos and Don'ts of LoL
Meta Stuff
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 bunny 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.
7. Buy skins
Having a skin for a character is a great way to say "Hey I'm fucking awesome with this champion so get the fuck out of my way." If your team is using more skins than your enemy team, you basically have already won. If you're playing as a Battle Bunny, you've won the awesome award.
8. Please watch Community thursday nights at 8 on NBC. It's like the best show.
Game Stuff
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.
7. Don't just wait around all day when you're in a position to win.
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. One of the reasons Riven is so great is that she can carry a team since her damage ratios are amazing and she can easily carry and dominate fools.
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. You could build Riven like this, I'm not sure I would recommend it.
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. Riven commonly supports the enemy team to their graves.
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. Riven can do this and she's amazing.
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.
Thursday Night Painhouse!
Wanna play with other PA people in a cutthroat (but still fun and casual) FIGHT TO THE DEATH? Every thursday night at 8 est. we draft up players for Promptu (the opposite of impromptu) Inhouses that are known as PAINHOUSES. Please put your info down so we know why we should invite you!
Summoner info form.Summoner info table.Useful StuffWebsites!
Stuff You Should Know
-Yes, a promo skin will unlock that champion for free.
-Promo skin codes
generally work once on each region. 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.
-Buy Wards
-Buy Wards
-When in doubt, take Flash
A useful list of terms used in game, courtesy of Cantido.
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
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 trees and paths that exist between the lanes
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/grass = The large grass in LoL which causes your hero to be hidden to people outside of the 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
Riven = the best character ever who is also an adorable bunny.
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 gang.
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.
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?
Previous thread:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/156016/league-of-legends-fiora-french-fencing-femme-fatale-frequently-fights-fools-for-fun/p1
Posts
Vamp Scepter has AD on it?
Nah, but it's very cheap for a decent amount of lifesteal. I really do see a lot of my carries pick it soon no matter what item they're going for right after.
Nerfing lifesteal won't necessarily result in the changes you want. Sure damage will "stick" more, as you say, but then the problem is that people will just play more passively since the risk is so much greater. If you fail, you will be much further behind than you are currently, and you give up initiative and it will take longer for you to get back. The crux of the issue is, if you nerf sustain, then people will just be more cautious or find a way to mitigate the risk in lane otherwise. If you make sustain and healing really good, then the healing is too great and it's difficult to actually make anything happen.
Professional gamers, in my experience, are risk averse. They (especially consistently good ones) are going to go with relatively tried and true strategies and execute them perfectly, instead of trying something ridiculous. I'm not sure there's really anything you could do to make the lanes less passive aside from making the gold reward from champion kills enormous to the point where it's worth it to roam and dive and go for kills instead of CS. As long as CS remains so valuable relative to champion kills, it's going to be hard to make these people fight each other, especially in a game where one or two bad deaths in lane can have you stuck on the back foot.
dying doesn't mean shit in LoL compared to dying in dota, for instance
i'm not saying i want lifesteal removed, i just want it to be something players have to either sacrifice for, or at least think about
the mechanical ceiling for this game is so low compared to everything else in esports™ and i'd like to see it raised
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The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Poo.
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just ..
wow.
go bathe in some BBQ sauce why don't you.
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Ooooook, apparently stop and restart works.
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
K-Pop
Edit: My God. This music isn't that great.
Mute? Oh yeah...now I see what's so appealing. Even the guys look like girls.
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
"I want the game to be more aggressive with more kills. Damage is too low, and sustain is too high."
If you increase damage, people will play more passively because there is more risk involved in trades.
If you decrease sustain, people will play more passively because there is more risk involved in trades.
The problem here is risk.
People are only going to risk so much to gain an advantage, and trying to get kills in LoL is extremely risky business. If I get into a situation (a 1v1, 2v1, 3v3, etc) and lose, not only am I not going to be able to win that situation the next time it comes up, I'm going to lose other situation because they're 300-1500 gold up on us now, and they get to take whatever resource we were fighting over.
Now, if you reduce the risk for dying, you'll also end up reducing the benefits for killing (eg reducing respawn timers or gold for kills). A good example of this kind of game is a FPS, lots of kills and aggression with few penalties for death.
If you really want to increase aggression, you'd have to increase the penalties for not being aggressive. How to do that is up to someone else to think about.
Reduce CS gold, increase champion kill gold/assist gold. Make it so if someone dies to a tower/minions and there isn't a champion within X radius of the death then they only get assist gold, so an aggressor wins a tower dive even if he trades kills. You need to make killing people more powerful than farming kills. Right now if you kill someone, then lose a ton of health and have to back, you pretty much just broke even because of all the CS you lost in the time you spent killing someone, going back, and returning to lane.
Well, if you kill someone and then have to go back to base, that's only 8 seconds for recall plus two seconds to run to a bush. If their respawn timer is above 10 seconds, you'll be at lane faster with your 300g and experience bonus.
I feel like I'm the only person who likes the game where it is.
I'm tired of people bitching about Dignitas running that awesome support team.
Pointed out before, playing for money is like being caught in a street fight. You fight to win, not for show. It's not UFC. There are no 'rules'...well, not once you're in-game, that is.
Wouldn't you play your most OP champ to win money? And if you think that composition is such BS, then why not ban part of it? Are you more worried about losing to a support team, or Udyr and Ree Sin?
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
HOUN JOIN US (and then we'll shave later).
The point isn't necessarily the exact numbers, but more so that if you had just spent the time farming the lane and getting all the CS for that duration, you'd be at roughly the same spot except with zero risk.
I think there are different sentiments.
I consider Dignitas awesome for coming up with a new strategy that wins. Woo dignitas.
I do not want to ever play or play against that strategy. Riot plz nerf that shit asap.
Decided to buy Cassiopeia.
First game, enemy team bans Cass.
*shakes fist*
Wasn't as strong because graves was their carry and they did not have lulu. We won pretty handily and would have won harder if our mid wasn't a dick
Yes, this is a thing that can happen.
Is it enough to encourage aggression in this game? Obviously not.
this game is over
Sorry, had to steal mid, so I can roll dunk Morgana.
You can see me here playing stuff: http://www.twitchtv/mynameiskog
I'm level 17. When can I start jungling?
ALL WILL SOON CHANGE
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Why would it? If you lose the engagement the other person does the same to you and you are way behind.
The game in terms of risk is symmetric since each team can go in at the same time (so even if there is an advantage in initiating you have to risk getting initiated on to initiate)
The only way you could really make aggression matter more would be if dying and killing didn't get you as much. Dying in lane would not set you back and so killing in lane can't give you an advantage.
Ironically this means that in order to enable aggression in the early game you would have to set it up so that aggression did not matter. You might as well farm (since engaging won't get you anything)
But if we have a game like that then why do we have an early game at all, why not just put champions at level 18 and team fight it out until one team wins?