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What champions would be good for a noob like me?

Sara Gold4··4 votes·1,543 views

Let me start out saying that I'm not very good at the game yet. I can't ever seem to run away or get good positioning and I'm constantly chasing people (bots) into turrets. Also, I can't seem to get the hang of, well, standing back far enough so I won't be killed with a ranged champion. On the bright side, I'm actually decent with skill shots. Beyond that, I'm a total noob who dies way more often than anyone should.

So, what champions would be at least a bit tanky so I don't die by stupidity, be good at chasing so I can catch up before they get under the turrets, and is a melee fighter?

Just until I learn to not be hopeless at the game...

41 Comments

colesy4 votes

irelia sounds like the perfect choice for you

Pokeobi3 votes

Well there is Garen who can be quite the melee duelist tank, and best part is that he is super mechanically simple to play as, his passive grant super healing while not under fire, and he has a chasing ability/silence, shield, spinning death, and finally a great finisher move that is semi ranged!

Buttigieg 20203 votes

Zed ,Kalista Draven Azir are really easy.

If you want a challenge play Nunu Warwick MasterYi

Jiberamu1 votes

nice meme

AyRe CoNteMpT2 votes

actually, i understand your desire to play "easy" champions. just realize that the easier your champion is, the slower you will actually get better at your weak spots. your positioning sucks? play the hardest champion to position with. simple as that. if you play easy champs, sure itll feel good for you to not suck for a change but its an illusion. its like riding a bike with training wheels. sure you will be able to not fall flat on your face and you might smile and think to yourself what a great cyclist you are.

and then you will wake up and realize that you are in diamond 5 and everyone around you has training wheels and they all suck ass and you think to yourself: "fuck, i wish how to ride without them, but learning it all over is too bothersome."

and then you will go on with your life and be miserable. so, is it really worth playing irelia? i would say, play master yi, play draven, play pantheon and never build a single defense item ever on anyone for 500 games. afterwards, enjoy being a good player.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

Well the other side is that if you enjoy playing a low mechanics champ it can be more fun. Takes a different play style. Personally I love playing nunu and heimerdinger, bc while PENTA KILL is cool to hear and all, I'd rather be utility and let my team chase down kills in team fights and get to enjoy the rest of the game more. I much prefer being that guy who shuts one person down so hard it becomes a 5v4 until late game when they can get back in it, bc it is just funny to play champs that essentially win by saying "You. Today it shall be you. No playing lol this game for you. Stand over there and cry until you're allowed to have some farm at some point."

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

there really isnt such thing as a low mechanics champ as all mechanics in league of legends come from anticipation and not from the champs abilities.

and the champions who can deny others are usually the ones with high damage and flexible ways to deal it. champs like nunu cant deny anyone anything, but thats also not their job. but i got your point.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

Yeah, it isn't as much a thing anymore, but if you're telling me that season 3 nunu wasn't about denying people from farm and exp, then you're crazy. Yes zoning people is one way to deny resources, but you can steal them (jungle), or do something like shove lane so hard they have to cs under tower and lose cs to the tower. Both of those are ways to deny resources too.

As for mechanics that may be a term issue, for me game sense is knowing what to do and mechanics is how you do it. I may know what to do with lee sin, but I can't click fast enough to do the combos right half the time, so I get less power from his kit bc of his mechanics (or that's what I would call it at least). Nunu on the other hand is point and click, even if I accidentally clicked in front of the enemy (leading them too much if it was a skill shot), the skill won't fire, so it doesn't go on cd and I can try again (thus the way he has to do stuff protects me from losing power in his kit by mis clicking). Either way the biggest strength of a champ is probably knowing what to do with them, but it definitely impacts the strength based on how you have to do that.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

if you play lee sin 3 games and focus hard on practicing his combos, its no problem anymore. the button-pressing-part of league is very easy to learn. its the "Knowing what to do" part that is infinite.

right now, and as far as i kept track of him, nunu was always about early to midgame pressure because of his sustain, movespeed and strong early ganks and damage. denying someone never was one of his strength.

oh, and just to mention it: pushing the wave under the enemy tower doesnt deny CS past silver 5 i guess. it just doesnt work. nobody loses cs to a tower.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

Yeah people don't lose much/any to tower past low elo (I'd def say mid silver at least still misses under tower a lot, especially on AP champs), but then you can harass and force them to chose between trading damage, or losing cs to tower. This let's you trade free damage (or force them to lose cs) and when they have to back if they can't sustain your damage you build a cs lead. It's minor, but it's a thing, and significantly more so at lower elo.

You play at a much higher MMR than me, so maybe you're right about nunu, but I loved him S3 bc he could steal the buffs so fast he'd get level advantage and wreak havoc in the enemy jungle by just taking the majority of their camps and leaving them underleveled. I watched high elo streams/youtubes of nunu jungle when I played him a bunch and that seemed to be how most of them played him too, so I've always treated him as a champ that can exert pressure by denying resources to the opponent. It certainly works at low elo where people aren't as good at playing from behind.

As for learning lee sin in 3 games, well congrats, that's why you're diamond and not everyone is. :P I may just be poorly coordinated, or maybe I've done too many things to my brain to slow down my reaction time at 26 y/o, but I can't consistently pull off lee sin combos w/ the 90-100 ping I have. Almost no one that I play w/ down in low elo plays lee/zed/yas nearly as efficiently as possible. Sometimes they combo right, but often times it's a little clunky or slow, and that's part of why they are low elo. One of my good friends is quite good at video games, and while he prefers games other than league, I'd lay money he'd be able to get significantly higher ranking than me just based off being able to combo very quickly and fully use Riven/lee/LeBlanc kits to get way more power than I would out of them. However, just like I've never been able to fire single action guns in FPS games as fast as him, I don't play Lee and champs like that as well as people with strong mechanics, and it would take me way more than 3-5 games to get even remotely good w/ them, so I'd rather spend that practice time learning the "knowing what to do" part, since like you said that's pretty infinite so there is a lot of room for growth there, even w/out playing stuff like Lee Sin.

However, I also realize we may just end up having to agree to disagree since for you, yeah learning mechanics is probably pretty easy. It makes sense that if it's easy for you, then you may generalize this to think that it's easy for everyone, but for many people in low elo it is most certainly not easy to learn mechanics, and there (like you said) so many things you can get better at, that it is possible to grow as a player faster than if you focused on mechanics.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

i totally understand your point of view but i can tell you, its exactly why you are silver. you can do it, you can learn lee sin mechanics in 5 games to be as good as LCS players. trust me, trust your own abilities. ofcourse this is overexaggerated but its basically true.

the point where the combos get clunky is when things happen that you didnt plan ahead or anticipate. this can be as simple as the enemy champion just casually walking, because where he is NOW your combo would be fluent, but where he is in 0.5 seconds (which is about 200 range away), its allready kinda not what you planned. like when you see me do combos with lee sin or any champion really, you see me make so many mistakes that, if im not dead sick, come from failing to recognize the state of the game, not pressing wrong buttons at wrong times.

i mean, for me it goes like this: x-w-r-d. it doesnt have to be lightning fast because basically everything you can do combos with has animation times, and even if they are very short like 0.3 - 0.5 seconds, this is allready HUGE. like, your brain is SO FUCKING FAST, most people notice the difference between 20 and 30 MS ping. 0.3 seconds is a delay of 300 MS, that is ENDLESS for your brain. and pressing 4 buttons on your keyboard is the easiest thing in the world because it factors only 4 things your brain has to do at that exact time.

tho pressing those buttons RIGHT is where it gets problematic because you have to consider EVERYTHING IN TH GAME and thats way over hundreds and thousands of informations you dont just have to process, but you also have to HAVE at first. you have to HAVE a good understanding of the game and alot of experience to do it right.

tho to get back to what i was saying in the beginning, playing things that are problematic for you makes you better at the game. for example, if you have trouble with lee sin, play him alot. if you have trouble with positioning in fights and when to engage on what and keeping an eye on enemy abilities and cooldowns, probably play master yi. if you have trouble being invaded in your jungle and having no clue how to defend against it, probably play the weakest early/duelist junglers you can find. play fiddle, amumu or whatnot. and get your ass handed to you until your brain needs to develop some sort of strategy to avoid constant failure.

i mean, the less forgiving a champion is, the more your brain is forced to learn. if you play irelia, zed and nidalee every game, ofcourse you will suck forever. sure you can maybe become a diamondplayer when you are really good at dueling with zed, but you will still have no idea about how the game works and i wouldnt want you on my team. i'd rather have that yi player on my team who knows how to teamfight.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

I can actually kinda see this logic. I've practiced lee sin and stuff before and never really had success w/ learning it and made a bunch of errors (like triggering my next ability before using my passive, or double clicking an ability and burning the second one on accident), but chalking that up to difficulty learning mechanics may be an attribution error.

Thinking about it after reading the post you make, I realize that the amount of time I was willing to put into learning jungle routes season 3 so I could counter jungle w/ nunu, or the time I've spent practicing Heimer and learning the space I have to put between turrets to avoid enemy AOE killing 2 instead of 1, or practicing flashing over CC when I'm getting ganked so enemies have to chase me in my turrets and end up dying, or flash+ult+w when I land an e on a squishy opponent, well, it's just so much more practice than I was ever willing to really put into mechanics. It makes a lot of sense that I'd climb a little (bronze to silver w/ heimer this season, bronze to gold S3 with nunu) by practicing a bunch and getting better w/ that champ, but the mechanics champs are often more versatile.

Do you have suggestions on something I should learn? I really like capitalizing on my opponents mistakes more than trying to outplay them (just feels more rewarding, but I know at the same time that will get harder as I move up bc people will make less mistakes), and I play with 90-110 ping at all times (central Texas distance from servers) if that matters on what you think I might enjoy. I'd be down to try something new, but I think I'd really only put in the time to learn a champ I thought was fun and enjoyable to play so that may be too limiting to try the approach you're suggesting (since I like counter engage/punishing opponents mistakes, and I prefer champs w/ lore that centers their strength around brilliance, or commitment to a stringent code/value system [although it doesn't matter as much what the values are as I like both Darius and Jarvan's lore])

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

well, you see, your approach is allready the only one viable in league - waiting for opponents mistakes. there is NO WAY in league to "outplay" people. every "outplay" comes from an opponent miscalculating their safety/power or misinterpreting your cooldowns/reactions. no champ in the game can outplay any other champ in the game ever, no matter the mechanics.

faker can only kill people in lane because they misinterpret his power or flat out disrespect him, aka missplay heavily, while he knows all of that so much better than any other player ive seen.

like, simple example: if i fire a skillshot at zed before he uses his dodge-abilities, i flat out disrespect them and let them be dodged for free. thats not outplay, thats simply my bad.

basically you can say, the more forgiving a champion is, the less he teaches you how to play the game. a zed, fizz, lee sin and whatnot will just flat out not make you as good at the game as a darius or pantheon or master yi in the same amount of time with the same amount of effort. its because pressing buttons fast and at the right time to do combos is required on all of these and basically almost all league champions in general, but playing 100% accurate, respecting everything that factors in any given situation.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

did you do those champs backwards or would you recommend darius as a good champ to learn for climbing? I like his lore (I know, odd reason to pick a main when it comes to ranked) so I might be willing to practice him to get better. I play Heimer currently bc I really enjoy him and was thinking of adding swain since I like his kit and lore. Where do you think they fall on the curve of learning to grow w/ a champ? (Also vlad was someone I tried picking up recently and have had poor results w/ but not sure if he just doesn't fit the way I like to play [like objective control and zoning in fights in terms of what I understand well enough to win with], or if I just need to play him better to do what I want to w/ him)

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

well, i consider vlad to be a really bad champ whos only power is to bait noobs in teamfights to focus him. not a strong champ really.

heimerdinger i dont know. i think hes pretty bad at winning games, even tho hes strong in almost every aspect. hes bad at forcing things. very bad. so i guess i would place him somewhere in the middle. not sure about swain either.

darius is a strong laner, one of the strongest in the game but his power doesnt come from simply rightclicking the champ but having the tools to deny almost every champ in the game and duel them later. to make up for it, his earlygame is pretty delicate, so you have to learn alot about laning dynamics, or you will be useless forever.

also, he is very strong at forcing things later in the game, an excellent teamfighter especially in the current meta and good at closing out games. hes just a very very good champion but none of his powres comes from pressing a button, but from being strategically and mentally superior to your oppnents.

darius just creates alot of pressure at almost every stage of the game and is one of the strongest scaling champions in the game (top10 i would say). this means, you have to learn about what pressure means, how to create it and how to abuse it.

also, you dont have to feel bad about "OMG NO LATEGAME SCALING" or some bullshit.

NuSix31 votes

Are you playing to win or playing to make someone else miserable?

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

They aren't mutually exclusive. If you shut someone down so hard they rage quit then you will probably win. People pick counter picks all the time trying to win and they are usually miserable match ups to play. I just focus on using one champ instead of a dozen to do it.

NuSix31 votes

Your motivation is though.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

Can you explain this? I'm not sure I follow? I like ranked even though I'm not that good bc it's competitive and it gives me a clear goal to chase; win and climb the ladder. I would say I always play bc I want to win, but at the same time, a game where we win isn't as awesome a moment for me as one where we win and my lane was shut down so hard they roamed and died when they roamed bc they were under level, or we invade jungle a ton, or whatever else that makes it where instead of just getting fed and stomping or pushing off one good team fight, we win bc we have a huge advantage of basically fighting 4v5 bc someone got shut down so hard. I feel bad for their teammates when it happens, but I think the biggest "fuck yeah I'm awesome" is when someone rage quits ranked bc they can't do anything against you (like udyr when you play a really good nunu game), and if they could just surrender right then even if it is early I wouldn't even feel that bad for their teammates bc hey we all lose games, so why get upset rather than just focusing on what you can do better in the next?

NuSix31 votes

Wanting to win is fine. Someone rage quitting because they are getting beat is not your problem. Enjoying the fact that you are ruining someone else's time, rather than enjoying the game for what it is, is not a good thing.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

I guess I can see that. Although I would say that means the community as a whole is pretty "not good" then since hard counters are picked pretty often, and if you play Heimer into Syndra your laning phase is going to suck unless you're way better than your opponent. So by your logic a ton of players in this game are doing bad things.

As for me I think I just enjoy having something to push me. When I fight, I like an even match bc you don't have room to let up until someone passes out. Fighting someone weaker than you isn't fun bc you have to go easy. Video games you won't hurt someone if you don't go easy, so if it's not a perfectly even match (which is almost never true w/ 9 randoms), then I'd rather shoot to completely crush someone. It makes it so I can't ease up bc I always want that next bit of advantage, and keeps me focused and working, plus since it's a video game I know there won't accidentally be permanent damage to them or something I might actually feel bad about. IMO, wanting to still play through the whole game is essential to playing a good game, and if you're winning and don't try to crush your opponent even harder, then you either get bored, or let them come back enough to make it a challenge again, which risks losing. :/

Thresh Outta Fux2 votes

I suggest picking up some squishy characters, rather than tankier characters.

Why? If you tend to soak up unnecessary damage, you won't be a good tank for your team.

"To tank, or not to tank, that is the question." Every time an opponent fires a skillshot towards you, you need to consider the following:

  1. Will taking this damage help my allies? If Lux fires her laser into the forest, while your allies are sitting in the base, tanking that laser will do absolutely nothing for your team.
  1. If taking this damage will help a teammate, who needs help more? Who is more likely to survive this hit, me or my ally?
  1. If one or both of us will die, who is more important? Is saving the life of our 0/64/3 Teemo necessary to sacrifice my own life? Can he make a comeback from that, or should I leave him to die?
  1. So it won't help my allies, but will it hinder me? If you've got full HP, and an enemy fires a non-cc ability at you, you probably don't need to give a shit. You should still try to avoid it, but it's optional.

Granted, you won't always have to decide all of this in a second. Practice this thinking when you're about to gank, helping allies run away, play out each possible situation in your mind as you do a mindless task.

This is why playing a tankier character won't help you at all. You need to learn to avoid incoming damage before you learn how to soak it up off your allies.

If you've still got your heart set on Tank-bruiser, I'm surprised no one has said Vi yet. She's almost as easy as watching a Twitch stream of someone playing league for you.

Intambulance1 votes

I think azir, orianna, kha zix, and twitch would be excellent champions for your skill level.

Dunkrius2g1 votes

Darius I'm Plat II and i still think im a noob. try him. i didnt love him at 1st cuz i dont know what to do, but when you do... =)

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Some possibilities: DrMundo Nasus Amumu Chogath Jax Singed Udyr Tryndamere XinZhao Annie

All of these champions are relatively straightforward, cheap, and durable. They all have some quirks to learn, but they can all be played relatively easily (not to full effectiveness, but decently) if you have a basic idea of what you are doing.

I suppose the main issue with several of them is that they are relatively weak early game against someone who knows how to exploit their weaknesses. However, they scale fantastically when they aren't shut down (which many people around your level shouldn't know how to do).

If possible, I would recommend looking for a video or two on Youtube with a professional player using the champion. You can watch how they play, what they build, and the decisions they make to try and get a basic understanding of how to use the champion. Many of them offer useful tips in commentary as well.

Tekk is a good channel to watch as they compile many videos from professional streamers who cover a variety of champions and roles.

Singing Lark1 votes

So you're kind of asking for a tanky melee fighter with a gap closer who is easy to play. Ones I can think of:

Maokai Never played him before, but he doesn't need much gold to be effective. Somewhat of a teamfight oriented champ, but since your playing bots, he should be good enough. He's got a gap closer that you can combo with your slows to get in range for. Nautilus He's more of a jungler, to be fair. I'm assuming from what's your asking you want toplaners? He kind of works toplaner. Again, since it's bots, it doesn't really matter. His hook is a huge gapcloser, plus it stuns. If you toss at terrain you can drag yourself forward. You've got lots of CC, a huge %HP shield. Irelia Extremely strong. She's more of a hybrid tanky assassin with a gapcloser and a conditional stun. She's not the easiest to play, but very snowbally, a lot of kill potential, a strong top pick, and a huge power spike once you get that item 3078. Tryndamere I've never played him before, but he has plenty of gapclosers, a relatively common "noob" pick, I think. Sion Super tanky. His ult is really his only gap closer. But he's pretty easy to play, plus he has a pretty hard slow. Garen I would say, basic noob champ. Q is a speed up + silence. W is an armor buff. E is he spinny move and his ult is a high damage execute. Passive keeps you healthy out of combat.

Other champs that don't fit your criteria but are relatively easy to play (against bots): Annie Lux MasterYi Jinx Chogath Volibear Riven Katarina

I would recommend you try Annie so you can practice placement (she is so immobile) and also keeping track of stacks of your passive. If you do end up trying Riven, be forewarned that she is not the easiest champ to master. If you end up playing PvP as her, you'll run into a lot of issues. (I would personally recommend Cho'gath because of his innate tankiness with his ult and the fact that he is one of the only champs left who has an AoE silence. However he's very immobile.)

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

Check out Garen and Maokai top lane. They are tanky, have some utility, are mostly point and click, and Garen has low IP cost.

Also I may be biased, but check out Heimerdinger if he comes up on free week. He sucks at chasing so you just let low health enemies go away and out farm/out level them and kill them later (at least until you get better w/ him and can tower dive hard core), so you won't chase enemies into tower and it will teach you to stop chasing so much. He's pretty simple mechanically, but he's super fun. He's squishy which you don't want, but if you can win the ring around the turrets chase the Heimer mini game (run in circles and try to stun them w/ grenade while you drop Ult q when they try to gank you w/ jungle or just go all in to dive you. If they catch and kill you they win. If you run around until they die then you win)

Jiberamu1 votes

lcs coach's champions for new/bad players (for him thats till diamond 5 atleast) Annie Garen Kayle MasterYi Morgana Pantheon Orianna Soraka Taric Caitlyn Lucian Graves

NuSix31 votes

What team does "lcs coach," coach for? I hear he's good.

Jiberamu1 votes

gravity

Gym Leader Yaki1 votes

My first 6300 IP champion was darius (Darius). I don't regret that purchase decision. I find that he's easy to play and has good potential. Aside from that, most 450 IP champions are quite easy to play, are strong champions and have really good potential.

PikaCHU5671 votes

Annie is great imo.

Wizardavar1 votes

If you are decent with skill shots, you should try mages and ranged champions. There are two solutions to killing bots, one is hit them with so much CC they cant run, or have a large upfront damage so they die. There is always options to chip them down a little by little, but whatever. Trundle Have innate sustain, cc so they can't run, and clobber anyone in a duel. Nasus -Learn to last hit, which I suck at, but his virtue is the ability to slow people significantly, and QRQQQQ. JarvanIV -Tanky, have a Gapclose with the EQ combo(use smartcast in option) and when you hit 6, they cant run. Udyr -Tanky,runs fast and stuns. Darius -Why chase when they can go to you? Just pull, hack and use your ultimate. Shyvana - Tanky, and in teamfights, easy to do your role somewhat ok. Which is ult, W E Q continues to spam. Skarner - The main point is the shield, and the ramping movement speed allow you to chase and ult, dragging them back. Suggestion: Vladimir : He isnt tanky by anymeans, but give ok sustain and high DPS(I think?) Get Flash.

TehomCD1 votes

I think most fighters would be a good fit for what you describe - that role is mostly about being tanky enough to survive diving on people and usually having some form of mobility to chase someone. Irelia (a lot of self-healing and reduces crowd control effects on herself, has a dash and stun/slow), Diana (a shield for herself, a dash, and the ability to pull people to her and slow them), and Riven (shield for herself, stuns/knockups, and incredible mobility through dashing and hopping) are examples that might work for you.

PsychoSim1 votes

Honestly... I would recommend Zac.Zac You scale with HP, could go AP for damage. Has a great escape/engage (E). A self-heal, spammable (repeated hitting of a button) skill (W) and a midrange slow (Q). Plus if you die, you passive will give you a second change. Give him a shot.

Lugg1 votes

I suggest getting the starter pack. It seems to always be on sale and gives you good starter champions for each role. Master them, then move on to other champs by trying them out during their free week. Then you can buy only the ones you like.

LordGeovanni1 votes

you sound like you want master yi or jax

insaiyanbacca1 votes

i feel like sion seems like a good fit here vi could also fit so those are my suggestions

TouchpadExpert1 votes

DrMundo is tanky and has some spammable skill shots. His thown cleavers ensure your target cannot out run you. His spinning orb thing helps wave clears and gives tenacity when its on. He has an empowered auto attack button that makes you hit hard even when building tanky. Lastly his ultimate is a do not die button. A very popular tanky champion and easy to play as too.

Udyr one of the easiest junglers in the game. Only Warwick is easier. Udyr is the only champ to have no skill shots. He is very versatile to level up too. He can go AP or AD and can go tanky or damage. A very simple champ to play as. While he isn't the tankiest champion listed on here he is capable of being one with the proper itemization.

Lux is a skill shot oriented champion. Hits hard, has long range and once she gets her laser ultimate you won't need to chase people past turret. You can just snipe them with the laser. Build her up to 40% cool down reduction and her laser is up every 40 seconds. Lux's passive ability makes last hitting and dueling easier. Not a tank but if the one thing you are good at is skill shots then Lux will play to your strengths as a player.

Morgana is considered "the poor man's Lux" as half of Morgana's kit resembles half of Lux's kit, albeit with some minor differences. Morgana's tainted soil makes farming a non issue. Just plop it down and wait to her the clink of the gold added to your purse. She is tankier than Lux but not by much. She is still a mage/support. Morgana is less skill shot oriented than Lux. Only her dark binding and her tainted soil are skill shots and the hit box on dark binding is notoriously big. Her black shield makes her or her ally immune to being stunned, slowed or any crowd control while its up. Only blocks magic damage though. And her ultimate ability is great for team fighting. Again, tankier than Lux but not a real tank.

Angry Monster1 votes

So i am going to tell you to stop looking for the easy way out. You should be working on these positioning and over extension issues. You dying in bots is the game teaching you a lesson. Learn the lesson instead of looking for a champ to compensate.

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