I am new to League of Legends. Right now I am only level 17 and definitely still a noob. This game has a pretty big learning curve that can make playing really difficult at first. I am working on a blog article that will help new players (and myself) get over the learning curve faster. To the more experienced players, what do you guys think are the best noob tips for getting better and learning the game faster? Thanks!
Lumus Avatar6 votesDon't waste IP on T1/T2 Runes Spend more time in AI than Normal until you get to lv 20 Don't buy Champions until you have tried them on free week. Pick one champion and stick with them through your first several games until you really get a feel for the flow of the game. Don't worry about KDR Don't respond to heckling Thank others for advice whether you implement it or not
NexusStorm1 votesThanks for the response and the advice! Have any suggestions for beginner champions that will help people learn the game? Also, is there a level people should stop buying champions and start saving for T3 runes?
Lumus Avatar4 votesStarting champions. You really can't beat the current 450's. Many of them are specifically designed to teach you the roles of the game. The best teacher, in my opinion, is Ashe.
ADC is a straightforward role with little nuance until higher ELO. Ashe's kit is designed to make you think without punishing you for not thinking. She gets bonus gold for last-hitting, so she teaches players to last hit. She gets free crits for biding her time and waiting for the right moment to attack (also for last hitting and not constantly attacking), she has a ranged vision ability which teaches you how important vision is so you learn to buy wards, she has both soft and hard CC, she has no complicated mechanics or movement abilities to confuse new players.
For Support, I recommend a healer. I think Soraka is a 450, but she has more complicated mechanics now than she used to. I like Sona for beginners, but she's a 3150.
For mages, I recommend Annie or Ryze.
For top laners, I recommend Garen.
Jungling in AI isn't great. It leaves your top-laner to fight 2 all-in AI alone. Also, in my experience, people only play jungle in AI so they can enter a lane that doesn't need help under the guise of a "gank" and then just steal the kills.
I'm not saying don't practice Jungle; go fight the camps and learn their patterns and strengths. Just put more of your focus on laning, team work, and learning ability interactions with champs.
Runes...I keep saying I'm going to buy more runes, and then I can't decide what to get. I would say once you have 10 champions you can start saving for Runes. 10 champions allows you to play ARAM which is a normal mode game that let's you practice team fighting and (forces) you to play champs you haven't played before or much.
NexusStorm1 votesWow, lots of good advice thanks a ton!
Lumus Avatar1 votesyou're welcome.
insaiyanbacca1 votessome generic beginner champs would be annie for mid, ashe for adc, warwick for jungle, and cho for top. these are generally champs that help you learn the role the fastest.
Orbv1 votesRealistically you'll need to be focusing on team compositions. If you think you have at least 3 champions for each role, immediately start going for T3 Runes. I started at level 21 to focus strictly on runes and I was barely able to have two rune pages full of different runes because of holiday rune events, though if you're aiming for variations of the same (Support, Mid, Mage Top, Aggressive Support, Mage Jungle) then level 24 should be okay. If you're shooting for like AD and AP, I'd say level 21. If you want more than 2 styles (jungle, top, adc, mid, support, hybrid, custom champion)...you should buy champions with RP and save starting at level 18
NexusStorm1 votesOkay cool thanks man! How often do special rune events happen? I'll probably want to jump on those asap
Orbv1 votesNormally they have at the end of the year, so around now USUALLY. Doesn't seem like they will this year. But they did it for Valentine's day and Easter. So a bit spaced between
NexusStorm1 votesOkay I will have to watch out for those! Does Riot do any Christmas champ sales or release special rp packages?
Orbv1 votesI can only reference the past 4 years, but they always did have a special program for RP or champs around now. Last year they started only doing Christmas themed sales, which though festive, was actually a really big downgrade from the years before.
You'll have to wait until the Tuesday of the week of the holiday to really see if there is something special happening.
Lumus Avatar1 votesSnowdown sale is going on now. It's all holiday skins and champion bundles. Every 4 days the reduce the RP price of 3 champions and 3 skins by 50%. I only buy champions with IP, but now and then I pick up a half-price skin.
Eljin1 votes[{quoted}](name=Lumus Avatar,realm=NA,application-id=WEuoGbmp,discussion-id=ABFwaGYk,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2014-12-18T19:09:32.619+0000) Spend more time in AI than Normal until you get to lv 20
I'm only L14, but why would you want to do this? I do bot games just to test out new champions/builds/or when I only have time for my WOTD, but bots seem way too easy and just teach you sloppy play. Is there a reason to skip until L20?
Lumus Avatar2 votesMy reasoning is that if you play against people, and you followed my first suggestion (don't waste IP on T1/T2 runes) then when you come up against people who did by runes, you will be at a disadvantage against them. That is why I suggest it.
Also, yes. AI is easier. This lets you focus on how your champion functions without getting punished by a player. You can focus on your attack animations and last hitting. You can focus on harass and skill shots. You can practice whatever you like. learn how fast minions push, learn when the camps spawn - all without the strain of taking on a skilled enemy at the same time.
NexusStorm4 votesHey guys I took all of your comments and assembled them into a blog article. This is the first post of the series so there is more to come. It would be awesome if new players would read the article for tips and if experienced players could give feedback on the guide quality!
http://www.gamepows.com/strategy-guide/league-legends-noob-guide-part-1/
hh the thinker2 votessave for runes at level 15 about I would say. for champs, harder champs are better practice, but easier champs are better for learning the game overall.
NexusStorm1 votesOkay, do you have specific examples of champions that are harder and easier? Recently, I have played warwick non-stop and I'm trying to find some new champs to learn positions other than jungling so that I can fill if needed.
insaiyanbacca2 votesmy advice is try and find out as much as possible about a champ before buying him/her, whether you use youtube twitch or play them on free week.
NexusStorm2 votesAlright so around 150+ people have seen this thread since I last posted to it. Does anyone else have any good tips and tricks. Did we cover all the bases?
Brenticus122 votesSave up your IP and only buy champions if -
Buy T3 runes starting from lvl 20 (You can never go wrong with some health/armour/MR runes although you should find which role and type (AP/AD) of champion you enjoy the most).
I'm pretty sure we have a 2 for 1 rune page sale coming up for the holidays so save up for that. You get 2 by default. I'd suggest making two standard pages for AD and AP and perhaps change them to your liking once you understand the number game a bit more.
Play Normals more often for the experience.
Don't heckle your teammates for doing something off-meta or if they make a mistake. Likewise don't be fazed by people of that sort.
Don't start playing ranked immediately after you reach Lvl 30. It might demoralize you if you finish your provisionals and get a lower rank.
Try to master atleast 2 roles and 2 champions for each role but know how to play other roles and champions on a basic level.
EverTokki1 votesWatching other people's videos. It helped SOoooooo much for me :)
NexusStorm1 votesOkay cool, do you watch videos on youtube, twitch, or somewhere else? Also, who do you watch play?
EverTokki2 votesI usually watch videos on youtube or facebook. Twitch is slow for me so.. Following one of the korean "League of Legends" pages are good because they usually post people's plays. If not, I usually go and watch people like Faker(senpaiii) or games at the LCS/any other tournament. And yes, you do have to watch League of Legend's official youtube account because of the patch notes & champion spotlights :p
NexusStorm1 votesI didn't know Facebook was a good play to see League game play. I'll have to check out some of the pages. Also, do players in the general Asia area dominate the top levels of the game right now?
Deep Terror Nami2 votesIn the game client, there are also high elo featured matches. Those are good to watch (when there is a champion you're interested in) because you can pause rewind and look wherever you want.
As for specific things to watch, I watch the League Championships on OGN-OnGameNet, Riot Games, and GarenaEsports. Track upcoming games from the Competitive tab on the home page.
NexusStorm1 votesAlright cool thanks man! I'll have to go and check those out
EverTokki1 votesSorry for the late reply! I guess Korean/Chinese players are kinda known for their plays but I think overall everyone are pretty at the same level.
hh the thinker1 voteslearn why you did each and every time, learning to cs, learn to poke whenever possible, and much more. it's hard to put it all down right here without taking quite a bit of time. I watched hours of twitch/youtube videos to learn while also playing and focusing on what I could do better.
NexusStorm1 votesI know what you mean about it being hard to put everything down all at once. Thanks for including some of your top tips though! And same question I had for EverTokki - who do you watch the most on twitch and youtube?
hh the thinker1 votesI watch about everyone on twitch and youtube, from bronze streams to challenger and seeing the difference, reading chat, and everything included. I'm following about 200 streams right now.
Drunk Rummate1 votesfocus on CS (creep score = last hitting minions)
objectives > kills note: take turrets before dragon and baron at lower ELO whenever possible. mostly take dragon/baron if none of your lanes are shoved enough to take a turret after acing the enemy team
play lots of ARAM. it helps a lot in teaching you to teamfight properly without the stress of summoners rift, it teaches you the mechanics for a ton of different champions, it teaches you about composition synergy, and most importantly it's FUN
NexusStorm1 votesOkay, I often mess up on dragon and baron because I get distracted with killing them and miss out on better opportunities. At low ELO, when should you take dragon / baron if the team isn't aced? When I play warwick I can solo drag without runes at lvl 5. Is it work taking dragon this early or is getting farm / ganking better?
Drunk Rummate2 votesOkay, I often mess up on dragon and baron because I get distracted with killing them and miss out on better opportunities. At low ELO, when should you take dragon / baron if the team isn't aced? When I play warwick I can solo drag without runes at lvl 5. Is it work taking dragon this early or is getting farm / ganking better?
If you can solo dragon uncontested at any point then just do it. That's fine. If you warwick jungle just make sure you gank every time your ultimate is up, it's pretty much a guaranteed kill for yourself or your teammate. Just make sure they're around to benefit from your gank, or you may not be able to secure the kill alone!
NOTE: A lot of people in low ELO get upset if you take their lane farm as a jungler. They don't understand how lane control and minion shoves work at that level, and I doubt you do either so for the most part I would avoid doing that unless you want to make enemies. That said, if you gank a lane and successfully kill an opponent do not just walk away. Even if they ping, kick, and scream - help your teammate shove the wave into turret so they can recall and purchase, and/or put a ton of damage on the turret before you leave.
As far as CSing goes... just play the game a lot. You get better at it as you play more. You can try drills like playing against bots or csing in an empty lane in a custom game if you want, but that's really boring. I preferred to just learn from trial by fire, playing normal games on SR lane and focusing on farming.
NexusStorm1 votesCool cool thanks for the tips man!
NexusStorm1 votesAlso, what is the best way to practice last hitting? Should I just play more blind pick games?
Lumus Avatar1 votesA lot of people start Custom games with no opponents and just practicing last hitting in the minion wave. boring, but effective.
Terraeclipse1 votesThere's an advanced version to this. Once you have that down, have someone that owns, and is good with Caitlyn sit in lane opposite you. She's going to poke you, and you're not allowed to do anything but last hit minions. This way you learn how to CS under fire, making it easier in lane once you get there.
DexterousGecko1 votesRelatively new to the game myself, but one thing I notice is people constantly attacking their laning opponent, ignoring CS and objectives. It's as if they think that constantly attacking is the only way to play this game.
Also, as a jungler, gank at level 3. period. Just do it. Sure, there are exceptions, but do it. Oh, and ganking doesn't mean walking into lane in FRONT of the enemy (unless you're lane ganking through the bushes). go around behind the enemy champ. It's insane how many times I see my jungler (yes, only silver :)) literally walk into lane, take a few CS and seem surprised when I'm not thankful for the "gank".
Learn 1-2 champs for each role. I'd recommend sticking with those 5 - 10 champs for 50 games each (bans/picks aside)
as a laner, you're jungler can't help you as much if you're constantly pushed up to the enemy tower. Also, when your jungler comes, or pings 'on the way' don't immediately attack the enemy champ thinking he's already there! I have so many ganks where I'm 5 seconds out and my mid will go ham on the enemy mid laner, scaring them back.
If you killed the adc or support bot, and the other champ stays, don't be afraid to dive them at their tower if your jungler is still around.
some matchups you just won't win 90 percent of the time. Learn which ones those are and learn how to survive till laning is over. example: teemo vs nasus or gp vs panth. one of the hardest counters I went up against :(
Sirin Gioro1 votesI hope this helps. You can add me if you have more questions, but I'm just a Silver scrub.