Tips on How to Start Playing League of Legends
Greetings Summoners! You are about to take a step into the world known as Runeterra. In this magical world, you will be matched with 4 other players to form a 5-player team and face off against another team in a battle to see which one of the 2 can gain ultimate control over the map and take home the win! If the longer gameplay is not your style, or you have a limited amount of time to play, there’s also the 3v3 mode that takes place on a different map and is a much quicker match with the same amount action packed into it. You are probably wondering what you need to know before that install finishes and you jump in? I’m here to share some useful tips and information with you to make your experience easier and more enjoyable as you learn How to Start Playing League of Legends.
When you first log into the client and start up the game you’ll notice a prompt to begin the tutorial will pop up with the option to go through it or skip it. I recommend if you’ve never played a game before that you go through this as it teaches you the main controls of the game, as well as the objective. After the tutorial, you’ll be able to navigate through the main menu and see your collection of champions, runes, skins, etc. However, to unlock all the gameplay options, including PvP, you must first get to level 5. Everything you do before hitting level 5 is just there to help you get your feet on the ground, so don’t worry about trying to find your best lane to be in or the champion you want to main. Spend this period trying all the champions out to get a feel for what you like, some questions to ask yourself while learning could be, do I like Ranged or Melee champions? Assassins or Mages? Am I going for more 1v1s or Team fights? These will give you important information about your playstyle so that you can for sure know the best decisions when starting out.
Congratulations on making it level 5! You’ve got the basics down and are now ready to move on to playing against other real people! In this portion of the guide, we are going to talk about the lanes and roles. You have noticed by now that the map is split into 3 different lanes, with a jungle area between each lane. The team bases are in the bottom left and top right. Each player has a position or a role they play in the game, the one you play as will be determined by the champion you select. There are 5 different roles that you will have to choose from before each game.
Table of Contents
The 5 Roles
1) Top
The top lane is usually occupied by high damage output champions, or champs that can take a lot of damage, these champions are known as tanks, or bruisers and usually are melee attackers. You’re not limited to one or the other, some of the champs can deal a high amount of damage and tank high amounts of damage too.
2) Jungle
The jungler isn’t necessarily assigned a specific lane, instead, he roams the jungle getting the gold and exp from the monster camps in the jungle, some of them even give buffs, these are indicated by a colored ring under the monster that has it. Since the jungler doesn’t have a lane, usually he will go and help other lanes as needed, usually, they try to quickly jump into one without being seen and killing an enemy champion so that lane and champ are behind in gold and levels.
3) Mid
Mid lane is another solo lane, usually played by mages, or any ability power (AP) focused champion. Mid lane players who get a good start can deal significant burst damage.
4) Bottom (ADC)
The ADC will usually spend a majority of the early game leveling up, farming minions, and get as much gold as possible to buy items that will increase their attack damage. Although they have a higher attack, they are also easy targets for the jungler because of their lower health pool and are usually referred to as “squishy.”
5) Bottom (Support)
Support is the second role that plays in bottom lane. Their name explains what they do, which is support the ADC by helping him get kills, using any healing spells when they get low on health, and placing wards so their map visibility is better and can see when an enemy champion is trying to flank.
Helpful Hints
When you’re in the game, try to pay attention to the map by glancing at it every now and then to see any alerts, or champions that pass by a ward that your team put down. By doing so you increase the chances of you surviving a potential flank or alerting a teammate someone is coming their way. You’ll also know when a monster that grants useful team buffs is going to spawn and can assist your team if they are in a team fight and need some help.
When it comes to being the Jungler, the best thing a new player can do is wait until they get near level 21 to successfully play that role. Jungling is a role that takes a lot of skills, experience playing the game, in-game items that you won’t unlock until later levels, and most importantly, the specific champions that play that role. The skills needed are important and an in-experienced jungler can easily be killed by one of the monster camps he’s clearing. The enemies jungler could also invade and take all the buffs from the monsters, then kill you and walk away with a huge advantage over the other lanes on your team.
Try to have a main champion that you play. Usually, 10-20 games on a champion give you long enough to learn their abilities, items you build, and the ability to know when to push for a guaranteed kill, or when to go home and heal up and come back. But at the same time try to also try new champions out, there is a lot of them in the game, and all have very different play styles, roles, lanes, and abilities. It’s best to have a backup champion just in case the one you were going to play gets selected by someone else.
Abbreviations
Learn the different abbreviations League players use. This will help you know what they are talking about and be able to communicate with them without having to type long messages. Some of the ones that are used are listed below:
CS: Creep score. This is the number of minions you have killed.
Drag: Short for dragon. One of the monsters that grant a team buff, definitely worth fighting for.
Baiting: Luring an enemy into a trap, whether it’s one single player or the whole team.
Kiting: Running away while also doing damage to the player you’re running from.
OOM: Quick way of saying Out of Mana. Try to use especially if you’re a support or mid lane.
KS: Kill steal. Someone’s kill was taken by accidentally, or purposely.
Leash: Helping a jungler by dealing damage to a monster but not killing it. Saves the junglers health and increases time spent farming.
Other Tips
These are only a handful of the many things League players say, you will learn a lot of them by playing the game.
There are a lot of helpful websites that have other players create guides for champions. They usually have items you should build, ability leveling sequences, in-depth text explanation describing how you should play early game, mid game, and even late game. The explanations vary and depend on the user who posted them. They are all ranked with a voting system so only the most useful ones that other people have used are at the top resulting in a lot less searching and using a troll build.
Try to stay behind your minions when in the early game, this is when enemies will try to “poke” you for small amounts of damage. This will result in them having the advantage to farm their minions while you must play safe and stay by your turret or go home and heal. Both put you at the disadvantage and are very hard to come back from. This directly relates to knowing when you should attack or wait for a better time. You should always analyze your plays and think of the outcome of them. One play you should never make unless you know for sure you can get away with is turret diving. It’s a very risky move and can turn the tables around for a lane if attempted and failed.
Just be honest at the start of the game, type in chat and let them know that you’re a new user. Some will moan and groan and make some comments, but others will be thankful that you let them know so they can pay attention to your lane, making sure that you don’t completely lose it. They will also be able to answer most of your questions and give you any tips that will help you improve your gameplay. Finally, always type to everyone (Shift+Enter) and say “gg” at the end of the game, to show good sportsmanship.
