The Meta- am I understanding this correctly? (warning, wall of text/doom)

EvilRabbitt··1 votes·220 views

Been thinking this through to try and understand it better (as to why what goes where) and since I don't know what the meta really is, I'm just going to post what I think makes sense and hopefully someone can tell me right/wrong and why? (all is assumed as playing 5v5 even skill level summoner rift)

5 players on each team with a plethora of champions, masteries, runes, and spells to choose from for variety of playstyle. There are also 6 distinct locations- home base, enemy base, top lane, mid lane, bottom lane, jungle.

No one needs to set up for either base as that will happen from a series of event because bases are destroyed to win. That leaves the 3 lanes and jungle. But there are 5 players. Map analyzing shows that there are two "epic" monsters in the jungle - Baron and Dragon. Baron is near top lane and is much stronger than Dragon who is near bottom lane meaning Baron won't usually be stolen until end game, again referring to the issue of no player needs to preset for a base. So bottom lane has a dragon who gives massive gold every so often to the last hitter of whatever team does last hit. Meaning 2 players on bottom lane. But who is to keep an eye out in case someone goes near Dragon? Need jungler. Then you have 2 players and 2 lanes, and its impossible to have an uncovered ground which means the meta of ------- 1 top, 1 mid, 1 jungle, 2 bottom is indeed correct.

The Jungler: The jungle is about the size of 2 lanes sitting side by side, so the jungler needs to be mobile and hard hitting- characters such as Evelynn and Kassadin, Fiddlesticks and Fizz would be there. They also need a good deal of survivability because the monsters do start out as hard to kill and end up being one-shottable (in theory). Smite will assist in quickly taking down monsters, and ghost will help movement speed. But jungle is perpendicular to all 3 lanes with easy access to either half of the lane. That means they can gank as well, right? Jungler probably still needs ghost, but may need heal so it becomes preference- heal is for staying in a fight if necessary or helping get CS early. Jungler should therefore level quickly and essentially become a bruiser (correct term?) that is equal parts tanky and damage. This means the Jungler has to be a highly mobile, highly dangerous champion- Fizz or Evelynn are therefore preferable and items that give armor and either AD or AP are essential.

The Bottom Lane: Seeing as we have allocated 2 players to protect the epic monster "Dragon" to this lane, that gives more leeway. However, experience in this lane is now divided by 2, as is CS from minions. But that won't do, then the jungler will scale X2 of bottom lane and will , again in theory, be able to solo the two champions or even it out- and there are 2 other players on the other team. That means you need either a Carry and Support or a pair of Tanks so they won't get wiped off the lane. Vayne and Sona might work here, as would a pair like Cho'gath and Taric. To make the CS/Exp meaningful however, these 2 need to become either self-sustaining (dual tanks) or one needs to scale higher than the other who will then become the proverbial horse of the cavalry(DPS/Support). Either one will keep Dragon safe. But you also need lane pressure to make sure it is easier to save said mob, hence jungler. But what if there is no jungler nearby, or they are occupied? The combination of summoner spells should be Heal, Barrier, Exhaust, and Ignite. Equal parts safety and push. Items should be either a combination of Bruiser items or Push-Combo.

The Top Lane: One player in this location who is near Baron. Baron can save itself though. That means you only need to ward one location to make sure you won't get ganked, which isn't an issue in bottom since they are covered from the Jungler and if more than that is sent then other lanes or zones can be pushed with ease. This means you need sustain in the lane so that you can scale appropriately for late game, having no worries for early phases. More than likely, this will be a tank character. I don't pretend to understand much of this lane, so as far as I know this will be right. Ideal spells are Heal/Ignite or Ghost/Barrier, that way its possible to "dive a tower" for a kill that way lane can be pushed or sustained as necessary. Ideal characters are one's like Leona or Volibear. Items must be built so that player can survive being hit hardcore as they must remain focused on pushing a lane altogether and that means tanking a tower as long as possible in later phases.

The Middle Lane: Last player allocated here. There is no safe zone besides the one where your tower stands. That means if a tower falls, you must fall with it- in the sense that you don't stick around and get ganked, but instead run to the next tower and continue laning that way. You will have a great deal of CS and Experience being alone in the most dangerous location on the map. To improve survivability, you will probably need damage. I say damage because being in the middle of the map means you share one of the junglers key roles- Ganking other lanes. So you will be a caster, preferably ranged because you will be the squishiest character by a large margin on the team. Characters for AP would be Veigar or Ahri( for the quickly scaling power), AD would be Jinx or Ashe( because they can assist other lanes without leaving via their ultimate). Ideal spells are Teleport and Ignite because you will be focused on moving and killing. Ideal items are ones with the highest damaging output- AP has Deathfire Grasp or Rabaddons Cap, AD has Bloodthirster and Static Shiv.

Does this sound about right?

5 Comments

Daishø1 votes

You are right on most parts. But junglers usually have an ability that can clear multiple enemies at once. Some good junglers are Khazix and Amumu but amumu is less viable in higher ranked games. so Vi is usally a better pick when you have become more skillful at the game.

But mid can be melee champs that can clear fast and also have high mobility. A AD champ that is good in mid is Zed but sometime your team want to be good at team fights so you might take Orianna.

You have bot right except usually you want ignite and barrier on the ADC, then heal and flash on the support. This lets squishy champs to survive the early game like vayne.

But top is an entirely different situation. You have some parts right but you also want to make sure your top lane his escapes, and a stun preferably. But they should also be able to hold themselves if the jungler is focused mid. An exceptionally good top laner is Jax or Shyvana .

Your items for all the lanes are almost right, But some certain champs aren't meant to be built exactly like another. For example on Zed and Vayne you want to build item 3153 because it increases a lot of you movement stats, making them more viable for dueling.

Also some characters are extremely squishy early game, so you want to farm and get your essential items before you start engaging enemies. You have to get core items before the champ gets some serious damage. Like Vayne, you want to farm until you get your item 3153. Usually when I play vayne the rest of my build is item 3006, item 3035, item 3100, item 3031 and item 3022. The frozen mallet gives you extra health and your basic attacks slow. Your item build always depends what type of ADC, JG, MID, TOP, SUPP you are.

Sorry if some of this doesn't make sense but it should help you. You have most of the ideas right. Good luck on the Rift. :D

EvilRabbitt1 votes

Nope, that helped a bunch. =) Looking at the meta and thinking who does best where. Good luck to you too. =D

Hyrum Graff1 votes

item 3100 Vayne

Rammus ok.

Also, summoner 21 summoner 4 or summoner 7 summoner 4 is the way to go on adcs, unless maybe it's quinn, who can funtion more like a bruiser anyway.

Daishø1 votes

i messed up on the ADC part. You usually want summoner 21 and summoner 4. Kinda messed up. Like you said lol.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

Right on most counts. Here are a couple places where what you've said is different from what's commonly accepted:

  • You should be taking flash on almost every champion. A few, usually tanks, can do well with ghost instead. The reason is that flash has an unmatched ability to save you OR net you a kill - it's useful in both offensive and defensive situations.

  • There are two general kinds of top laners:

    • Strong scaling for the late game. Ex: nasus, jax, ryze. These aren't looking to take towers early, really. They just want to survive and farm up until late game.
    • Lane bully. Ex: Nidalee, Lulu, Renekton. These are looking to push towers, dive, and generally get fed so they can snowball the game to a win before the enemy laner has a chance to use their awesome scaling.
  • Top laners can also take teleport, either for safety in lane or for split pushing later.

  • As a top laner, you have two basic objectives:

    1. Hold your tower/take the enemy tower (depending on if you are a late-game champ or a lane bully)
    2. Force the enemy jungler to gank you.
    • Any time past 3-5 minutes, if the enemy jungler ganks top lane, your jungler, bot, and mid lanes can go take the dragon, sometimes after a gank. If the enemy team tries to stop you, it's a 4v3 in your favor. You should win that fight.
  • Junglers are less defined by whether they're tanky or damage, early, and more by their strengths

    • Junglers usually have good mobility, to get around the jungle. Specifically, they can usually get over walls some way. This lets them get in place to gank better, and escape if they get caught in either their own or the enemy jungle.
    • Junglers should be good duelists. If your jungler can't fight toe-to-toe with the enemy jungler, the enemy will invade your jungle and take your camps. You can get around this, but it is generally nicer if you can fight them out of your jungle, and invade theirs instead.
    • Junglers should always take smite. Even if you don't need it to clear faster, you need it for objective control. There are very few abilities that deal as much damage to monsters as smite (nunu's q and cho-gath's ult are the only two I can think of). Therefore, a team that has smite will always be able to pop in to dragon/baron and steal it with smite when they face a team without smite.
  • Middle lane is actually the safest lane. That's because it's the shortest lane, in two ways:

    • It's closer to your base, so it takes less time to get back to lane after you die or b.
    • The distance your tower and the enemy tower is shorter, so it's harder to gank, especially if the river is well-warded.
  • Marksman and support is generally accepted as the strongest combination botlane

  • Mid lane actually exists just to round out a team composition. However, since all the other lanes have such a clear strongest role (tank top, bruiser jungle, adc and support bot), the mid lane usually ends up with a mage or an assassin.

    • Assassins want to get kills on their opponent, then roam to other lanes and do the same thing, to snowball the game to victory.
    • Mages want to farm up, push towers, and scale for teamfights mid-game.
    • Jinx and Ashe are marksmen. They can be taken mid, but...
      • If they're against an assassin, that's going to be dangerous for them. After the assassin hits level 6, they may not be safe even under their tower.
      • There is already a marksman on the team, bot. The more of one damage type there is on a team (AD or AP), the easier it is to itemize against them (built lots of armor or MR and take little damage). AD mids work because either they're assassins, so they will be going after squishy targets (carries) who won't get much armor anyway, or they're yasuo, who gets 50% armor penetration on his ultimate, so he doesn't really care if you stack armor.

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