2011-02-19

Quick Tips for New Players

I've had a few requests to post some tips and tricks for beginners so that new players won't get slaughtered when starting with LoL. But don't worry, even if you know next to nothing about League of Legends, it's unlikely that will happen. The best way to improve your game is to learn by doing. For people who still need a little more, I decided to post some basics.
Don't get demotivated and remember: even the best players were noobs once ;-)



1. Teamplay > Individual Efforts
If you learn one thing, learn that all members on your team have to work as a team and communicate their motives. Work as a unit and things will come much easier. The most skilled players can lose if their team doesn't coordinate, and the least skilled players can win if their team coordinates. Ping the minimap when you want to gank (kill) someone, when you see one of the enemy champions alone and ready to kill, when you want to get somebody's attention about an empty lane


2. Know Your Champion's Role
There are different types of champions in this game: Support, Assassin/Ganker, Carry, and Pusher. How they achieve these things differs from one champion to the next, but these are the most fundamental archetypes that all the champions fit into (in varying degrees, of course), with some being better at one thing than another or some fitting into multiple roles. Learn these roles and play to them. Generally you'll want to have at least one of each in your team, but it isn't impossible to win otherwise.

Ganker/Assassin - You'll spend most of your time hunting and killing enemy champions.
Carry - You'll generally be weaker in the early game, but late game your champion shines with the right item choices.
Pusher - You have skills that make it easier for you to either take down towers or kill many minions at once.
Support - You support other heroes by healing them, giving them passive auras, or helping them achieve their class roles in one way or another.


3. ALWAYS Watch The Minimap
The worst thing you can do for your team is die. It gives the opposing team money and experience that can quickly snowball into a serious advantage for them. Thus, by default the worst thing that you can do is to let enemy champions out of your sight because they will pop up somewhere and quickly overrun your single champion and killing them. When you notice that the enemy champion in the lane you were in is missing, call out "missing <champion name>" or something similar so that other people are also aware of the situation. This goes back to working as a team and communicating relevant information.


4. Don't Stop Leveling
Another mistake new players make is not taking advantage of empty lanes full of juicy minions (EXP and GOLD!). I've seen many games in League of Legends won simply because of one or two champions that were allowed to farm minions in a lane without any competition or threat. This is a big mistake that can be remedied by not allowing any lanes to remain empty for very long (sometimes it's necessary so that you can gank, kill neutral minions like the dragon or Baron, or go back to base to heal and buy items). Don't have your team all go into the same lane because experience from minions is shared. A tip that ties into this one is to always go for last hits on minions so that you earn as much gold as possible (another reason the neutral creeps are good!).
Don't stop leveling and earning gold!


5. Focus On Your Champion's Strengths
If you're playing as Ryze, you know that his strength is in his nukes and his root and he has the archetype of ganker. You'll know that something like lifesteal, armor, or hit points aren't exactly his forté. You should stack his ability power to make his nukes stronger so that you can gank other champs much easier. If you build him with armor and attack speed, for example, you'll just be an average nuker with a fast attack speed. Not very scary. That isn't to say that you should ignore other item stats completely, but that you should definitely focus on one or two things that play to your champion's strengths. Learn your champion's strengths, focus them, and own some face!


6. Know Your Items
As Drastone said below, it is important to know which items are good for the situation that you find yourself in. Going against a team composed of close-range physical damage? Try a Sunfire Cape. Lots of mages? How about Wit's End, or Banshee's Veil? Also something that doesn't get across to many people is that an item property with "UNIQUE: <item> does X" means that you don't get any additional benefit from stacking that item. Generally speaking, don't ever take two of the same items with UNIQUE.
Know your items. This comes with practice, more than anything, but the League of Legends website was recently updated with a slick item list that you can browse at any time. If you notice someone absolutely dominating the game, sometimes a good idea is to look at the items they're using and learn from them, also.

Credist for this guide go to Bloodba7h from the official LoL forums. Thanks!

34 comments:

  1. Thanks for the concise write-up. It's to the point and detailed.

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  2. great tips. i want to get into this as the gameplay sounds fun and i like the team element =.

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  3. These are good tips for any MMORPG. Very good general list.

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  4. Thanks for the newbie tips. some of my friends play LoL religiously, and your post might have just persuaded me to pick it up!

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  5. Maybe this is why I sucked at LoL..

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  6. Yesterday I started playing LoL, and I found this really useful, thanks a lot for sharing!

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  7. When i started playing LoL, i made the mistake to buy random items without looking what would be the best for me but it takes some time to find the perfect item for your hero.

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  8. great help for newbie players, ill be sure to link this to some of my friends who are new to the game.

    tks for this post!

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  9. I'm still kinda surprised you play LoL.

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  10. Could have used this when i started.

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  11. Helped alot- maybe I can start beating my girlfriend now v.v.

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  12. I started playing yesterday and I was completely lost. Thank you for the tips!

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  13. @Dangertruck
    Haha, I wish you good luck.
    Never underestimate a girl's power!

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  14. awesome guide. itll definitly come in handy

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  15. i should start playing this just as i started fallowing you

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  16. Thank you! this was extremely useful :D

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  17. Helpful tips, my friend tried to get me into the game but his tips totally sucked. These are actually useful, thanks!

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  18. really useful thanks for this post, ill make sure i use it

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  19. Awesome guide, I just started playing, and have only played as Kayle. I like her because I've only seen 1 other person play as her :)

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  20. I quite like being the noob in these games, oh delicious rage.

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  21. Wish I found this when i wasn't already 900 wins deep ;_;. Great guide still, maybe I'll see you on the battlefield >:D

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  22. I like that its acronym is lol... makes me lol.

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  23. thanks for the tips... really good :)

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  24. My friends and I are starting to get into this, I think this'll help. Thanks!

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  25. The leveling tip is very good. That is a common way to give the other team an advantage. Even if someone is 0/0/0 score, they might have held a solo lane for many minutes, allowing them to farm more gold/levels than anyone else. If you see someone farming alone, gank them!

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  26. I just got started with this game, and pretty much need all the help I can get. Thanks for the quality info, I will be following you daily from here on out. And I hope you don't mind the occasional dumb question as well...

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  27. @Aaron M. Gipson
    There are no dumb questions, only dumb answers ;)

    @PiratesLoveVikings
    Sounds like someone played a little bit of LoL before.

    @pennywise
    I bet the developers were thinking the same ^^

    @the rest
    thx for all your support :-)

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  28. lots of these tips i learned the hard way: lots of dying, but nonetheless that tip about always looking for missing champs sounds really good, gonna start using that.

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  29. well all my friends are saying to get on this game, ill give it try and use this

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