Basic Roles. Am I wrong with these ideas?

Umbral Knight··2 votes·1,041 views

Now I get there is always exceptions. Out of Meta builds and such. But what I am discussing is the basic Meta style today and basic strategies. I will go with each role. When I talk about Map awareness I realize its a skill EVERY role NEEDS and should be practiced fully by all roles. But in the lower elo like I am in its a lacking skill. So I am rating which roles need it more than others. I am putting this up to see if I have any misconceptions about roles in LoL.

First Priorities. The focus of this game is not a single player. Its the team. Focus on objectives and actions that benefit the whole team. If you have to let the enemy jungle go after getting them off Drag to secure Drag. Let them go. Drag is more important. Towers over kills. Objectives over kills. If a lane is struggling, Jungle should think if a buff may help them gain an edge if so let them have the one they need to gain the edge. Being Greedy and not thinking about team will lose you games.

Jungle: A roaming unit used to maintain control of high value jungle camps and help lanes get early leads. Map awareness is the most demanding in this role as you need to know what is happening in all parts of the map. Can be one of two types either Tanky with a good engage or an Assassin with HIGH damage.

Mid: By standard meta a Burst Champ. High damage usually AP based. After level 6 or if they are dominating lane can also roam to help top or mid. Map awareness is demanded just below Jungle. As they need to know whether a gank top or bot would work. THey also need to keep an eye on the jungle in case the Jungler needs assistance.

Top: This role has recently been in flux on the current meta. Standard is a tanky Bruiser. A little damage and a lot of tank. But more Tanky mages and some Assassin builds have appeared in the top lane recently. Usually the role is a zone control. Able to peel or engage as necessary.

Bot lane: This lane has some variety and with two roles in it you cannot talk about one without talking about the other. So we will start with Lane configurations.

Kill Lane: Easiest lane to play. Hardest lane to master. The objective is to kill your opponent often and QUICKLY. Focuses more heavily on kills than CS but CS must not be ignored. Usually has a champion with AS boost, some kind of high damage burst and a support with lots of CC or Heavy early Dmg. Both players need to understand they are playing a Kill lane and engage heavily when an opportunity is shown. If not done the lane will fail.

Sustain Lane: This lane focuses on healing and staying in lane as long as possible. Heavily CS based. This lane tries to stay out of engagements for the most part and Farm. ADC usually is long range and has a decent poke ability. Support will have a healing ability or a shield and possibly some CC.

Poke Lane: This lane focuses on hit and run tactics to whittle down the enemy for a kill. Kind of a balance between the Sustain and Kill lanes. This lane does not heavy engage until the enemy is low on health. Focusing on Farming and poking the enemy from afar. ADC needs a long range skill shot ability to poke at the enemy. Preferably one not interrupted by Minions. Support can also have such an ability and CC, healing, or shield.

Usually Kill>Sustain>Poke>Kill. Unless played well usually a sustain will beat a poke. A kill will beat a sustain. And a poke will beat a kill.

Basic Role types and strategies. Now on to team fighting.

In team fights the roles are, Engager, Tank, APC, ADC, and either another Tank or a healer/buffer.

The engager can be the tank as well but usually its better to have a straight tank on the team to peel for the engager. The ADC needs to sit in the back and do sustained continuous damage to the enemy being sure to watch position and not get caught in the fight directly. APC is usually hit and run. Bursting an enemy running waiting for CD then doing it again. The tanks or Healer/Buffer. Need to peel and protect the back line which is the ADC, and the recharging APC. The engager either stays in the fight after engage to bring more damage or pull back and be ready to prevent ganks on the ADC and APC from enemy Assassins. CC and other abilities are game changing but are a champ by champ detail.

This is to my knowledge the basic idea of the game. Am I wrong anywhere?

2 Comments

redniwediS2 votes

I main top lane, and I don't know if many would agree with me but this is my take on it. Top lane is all about pressure. You want to do your best to manipulate the enemy jungler by forcing them to your lane.

You can roam if you're mobile, helping out your lanes just like your jungler does, but top lane feels very far away from the rest of the game while you're up there. You can push hard and force people to stop you, but that also requires you to get ahead. My personal strategy is to put myself in a situation where my lane opponent cannot do much of anything about me, but he could get a kill from a well timed gank. It's not the best strategy as I'm always over extending, but it definitely draws attention and lowers pressure on the other lanes. You just have to have great wards, map awareness, and some sort of escape.

Depending on how the rest of your team is doing you can either push down as many towers as you can (usually if your team is doing well), or look for a good roaming/counter jungling opportunity (if your team is not doing well or if the enemy is defending top lane heavily).

If you're playing the type of champ who can 3v1 off a small lead ignite should be used over teleport, but if not teleport just does so much to increase your pressure on the map. Other than what I've said work on picking off enemy players who stray too far from their team and protect your carry. In most cases you will be a secondary initiator in a position to either follow your initiator into battle or sit back and defend the carries, depending on what the enemy team does of course.

I personally prefer bruisers up top lane, and as such I need to have the damage to kill anyone in a 1v1 yet also be able to soak a lot of damage. This one's fully personal preference, as top lane is very flexible in champion picks.

You've got your lane types figured out, just keep in mind some lanes change types depending on how late in the game it is. Darius starts as a poke lane but rapidly moves to a kill lane, as an example.

Angry Monster1 votes

Ok i think you are on the wrong track here. A lot of what you have typed seems very season 2 and not up to date. Or you are watching worlds and are seeing 5s meta instead solo duo.

Trying to say what each lane is trying to do in a paragraph makes no sense. The smart way to play is to understand win conditions, power spikes, and objectives. Win conditions and power spikes change every game. The more champs that you understand (not master) will allow you to see where you strengths as a team exist.

When people talk about Meta at this point we are talking 1 1 2 jungle line up. Some junglers farm others gank. Mid and top are so varying that its just safe to only say solo laner and self responsible. These are style choices and you pray that your personal style just matches up with what you want to do.

Bot lane is pretty constant in what can go their though. Bot lane is a protect one person while they farm lane. Farming can be the CS,towers, dragons or kill the other team. Point is to gear them out. Beyond these limits defining other things is unwise.

That is your ranked meta. Its a fluid thing and is dynamic every game. You could be super tanky eon game and sup[er squish another. Maybe you want to go super argo and try to finish before 25 minutes or have trist and want to stall for the late. To say what is meta is will only hurt you.

side note Kill lanes almost never exist and the fact you list them as a duo lane thing is odd. Kill lanes require the lowest skill and count on brute forcing the lane. They can fail to sustain or poke lanes as long as the laners are smart and understand to just stall out the lane and safely farm.

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