Hi everyone!
Welcome to League of Legends 101, a beginner level introduction to lol.
I’ve noticed that we don’t really have guides on basic aspects for the game and many people struggle even with the client itself, nonetheless the game, so I’m here to change that. I have a few other guides (video and text) posted and I will eventually create a post that will link to them all. For now, let’s talk League.
What is League of Legends?
League of legends is a 5v5 MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) that can be likened to a war game simulation. You recruit a champion for Runeterra alongside 4 other players in order to take down and destroy the enemy nexus (the goal of the game). Each champion comes with their unique spells, passives, and playstyles, and can sometimes even have special abilities depending on the allied champions or enemy champions.
The main objective
As a team, you must move forward towards the enemy land, destroy their defensive towers (think of outposts), slay their minions (think of troops) to acquire gold, and kill the enemies to make a path towards their nexus.
Resources
Each team is provided with a shop in their base, and a fountain that heals them upon standing on it. The fountain is the location you start every game at. If you die, you will respawn here. You can only access the shop from the fountain. The shop’s currency is gold and that is the second main resource you will need in order to grow stronger. Using gold, you can buy completed items, or if you can’t afford it, you can buy the pieces to the item until you have enough to combine the individual pieces to create the full item (think of buying ingredients to a potion). To get gold, you need to kill things. Enemy minions, neutral monsters that lurk in the jungle, enemy champions, enemy towers, heck even the nexus gives gold!
The first main resource is experience. Every champion has specific stats. How much base health, mana, attack damage, attack speed, armor, etc is different for each champion, but these stats automatically increase as you level up. This isn’t the only thing you get from leveling up though. You also get ability points. You can use these ability points to unlock new abilities, or to upgrade your current abilities. This makes experience a highly prized resource. You get experience from being near enemies when they die (or killing them yourself).
Roles and positions
Since every game has 5 people on one team, dividing responsibilities and roles is crucial. The game has 5 different positions:
- Toplane (top)
- Jungle (jg)
- Midlane (mid)
- Bottom lane (adc -attack damage carry-)
- Support (sup)
You’ll notice that the map that this epic battle takes place in is divided into 3 lanes, each with their towers, and minions programmed to travel along those three lanes. You’ll also notice that there is a jungle in between the lanes that contains monsters. The toplaner goes solo down the top lane. The Jungler is responsible for killing the monsters in the jungle and for assisting lanes when needed. The mid laner holds down the most important part of the map, the middle lane (it’s the most important because it’s the shortest lane, and the fastest path towards your nexus). The bottom lane is a duo lane, featuring the adc and the support. The support is there to (for all intents and purposes) babysit and support the adc. The adc focus on killing minions to get gold and xp (known as farming), and dealing damage to the enemy champions.
Starting champions
When you start the game, you will have to choose a champion to pilot. This can be a very stressful decision, considering there are around 165 champions at the time of writing this (November 2023). Don’t worry though, you’ll only be able to choose from 30 champions. These champions are:
- Ashe
- Brand
- Caitlyn
- Darius
- Dr. Mundo
- Garen
- Lux
- Master Yi
- Miss Fortune
- Sivir
- 20 rotation champions that change every week (you don’t get access to these until level 11).
Deciding who and what to play
You’re probably wondering three things at this point.
- Which one of the five roles should I play?
- Which champions should I play in each role?
- How do I unlock more champions?
Let’s take these questions one at a time. First, finding which role you should play is something you have to try and find out. Try out all of the roles and see what you enjoy the most. Or maybe there’s a specific champion you like and she’s primarily a toplaner, so then play toplane. Ultimately, play what you enjoy doing the most.
As to which champion you should play as a beginner, I recommend Mundo for toplane, Master Yi for Jungle, Lux for midlane, Ashe for adc, and Lux for support. They all have beginner friendly kits and the reason for each will be linked here once I write up the post for it.
Lastly, each time you play a game (win or lose), you get blue essence (BE) as a reward. this is what is used to buy new champions. There are other ways, but that’s for a different post.
For now, you can find a playlist of all the guides I have on youtube here.
You can find a more in-depth intro to league video here.
You can find tip for beginners here (written and video)
You can find a guide to the league client here (video) with written coming soon.
Upcoming guides are related to summoner spells, items, all 10 starting champions, the 5 positions, champion roles (tank, mage, assassin etc), the many ways of unlocking champions, movement speed, skill points, eventually a guide for each champion.
If there’s any other topic you want a guide for, please don’t hesitate to ask! I plan of making video and written guides for everything.
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