Learning Environment

Hi! This is my first post to the forums and the community. Hello Everyone! I'm Ranuth, nice to meet you all. My preferred champ to play is - generally at support, but I've been trying to run her at mid to see how it works out.

I'd consider myself about a step above a newb. I know the basic strategies of the game, and can handle most lanes without it being totally horrible. I've not mastered any champs or lanes, and, in fact, am still trying to learn the game. Unfortunately, I find the learning environment online pretty harsh.

The closest of my friends enjoy playing ARAM the most. It's a competitive environment without the stress and responsibility of being having to Carry the team, or grind jungle perfectly. It gets the 'let's go play a game and wreck some people' itch scratched, and is just generally fun. While it may let you get a handle on some champs abilities and other things like timing and positioning, it doesn't help you learn the Summoners' Rift 5v5 mode very well, which is what I'm interested in.

Playing against bots I've noticed that people don't really care about laning that much, and will just play whatever they want, wherever they want - not so much your classic playstyle, and not particularly helpful for learning the game. This leaves me to learning new champs in PVP using team builder. If I want to try a new champ I'll just see if the role is needed in Team Builder, and if it is, I'll play it. I usually let the team know if it's the first time I've played a champ and I've had mixed results on that end. Sometimes the other players are fine with it, sometimes I'm booted out of the Team Builder Queue. And during the actual match I've sometimes done terribly when playing a new champ - which might make those players wary of playing again with me.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can better get a grasp of the game? Am I pursuing this in an efficient manner?

Thanks!