A noob's guide to overlooked meta, item synergy, and tricks. Now noob friendly!
*Puts down 
*
Oh, I didn't notice you there. My name is Jerry, and if you are reading this, you are probably either really desperate to be better or spend too much time into this game. Well, I am both, and I will be talking today about a variety of things. Please understand, none of these will make you a better leagues player directly, but are here to provide interesting insights into champion and item synergy, unusual or underated meta, and useful tips for getting better.
I was told by a good friend of mine that I break the meta a little too much. I haven't poured time into Moba's like he has, only clocking about 150 hours into Leagues, but I play for the fun. While I play, I experiment and test things out, and find interesting things to note along the way that make me a better player when I play with my tryhard pants on. Maybe they will help you, maybe they will make you laugh, maybe they will give you your own ideas.
First, lets start with broken stuff Item Synergies:
*Picks up *
Remember this guy? There used to be an item for AD Carries that did something similar, but it's recently been removed. However, this item synergies well with an overlooked meta that I will detail later, as well as most AP users. This item causes Grevious Wounds on champions below 40% HP with any magic damage. Perfect for spell casters...and Auto Attackers? Hold up. Magic Damage. Like Sunfire Cape, or Arcane Blade? Yeah, this is the most overlooked synergy for new to average players. It applies that debuff for any magic damage, whether that be some spell, an item effect, or even masteries. This is perfect to stop supports from being as effective and those with sustain from outlasting your allies.
Adds an interesting new dimension for Hybrid champs. Its toggle ability allows you to deal addition damage with Auto Attacks and Single Target spells equal to 3% of current mana by consuming it. A small price to pay for an increase of damage, especially for Hybrid champs, and other champs that are great duelists. It's also got a weird synergy with 
, consuming more mana and making the bolts deal more damage as well...however this ends up eating your mana more than actually dealing damage. Unless you are 
. The damage output of clustered enemies with Triple Rocket Mana Bombs (tm) is pretty good, coupled with sustain, makes for a very trolly champion if you can get enough mana regen out of it.
Also overlooked, this item isn't available on Summoner's Rift, so most people don't pay attention to it. It's an AD item for champs focusing on Crits. When you manage a Critical hit with this item, you deal an addition 90% of your AD as bleed damage. This effect stacks with a similar passive for 
, going for a whopping 150% bonus AD in bleed damage (In addition to whatever damage is dealt with the autoattack and crit). Those two items together give 50 AD and 40% crit chance. Buy an 
and a 
, and your crit needs are all fulfilled, just build more AD. Of course this won't have a high AD amount unless you build another High AD item like Bloodthirster.
More soon to come!
Meta Builds that are overlooked:
Meet the On-hit Carries:
Of course, these aren't ALL of them, but give you a good idea what makes a canidate for On-hit Carries.
What an on-hit carry specializes in is AP. They must be AP primarily, since that's what it really is meant for. These guys will still have good AP characteristics, high burst, cooldown reduction, maybe some special effects. However they can still function outside their abilities, while on cooldown. While a good candidate for AP carry is someone who uses AP, a greater candidate has some sort of Auto Attack modifier in their kit, like Twisted Fates Pick-a-Card or Stacked Deck, or Orianna's Clockwork Windup. These abilities apply AP on your Auto Attacks by default, so having more damage per attack is just pure genius.
What you want to do building an on-hit carry is build almost like you are building AP normally, but replace two items with a Nashor's Tooth, and one AD/AS item that really goes well with your kit. That's the bottom line. Depending on what champ you have picked you may want to build different AP items, and of course, building to counter your opponents. If you are facing champs that can heal easily, like Vladimir or or Olaf, or they have a Sona or Soraka on their team, then building that Morellonomicon from earlier will be handy. If you are playing as a champion that has very low cooldowns or cast spells often, like Twisted Fate or Sona, would benefit from Lich's Bane. For your AD item, think similarly. If you are playing a champ that already does BaseHP% damage with their AA modifier, like Kog'Maw, get Blade of the Ruined King, for extra BaseHP% damage and attack speed. If you have a lot of single target spells, get Manamune, so Muramana does bonus damage. If you are having Mana issues, get Essence Reaver.
One thing to always keep in mind is that this is still just an off version of AP, focused on champs who are still technically viable if you focus on their Auto Attacks. When you build a rune or mastery page, focus AP or Attack Speed. Get Arcane Blade on the Offensive Tree, if possible. It acts like a level 1 mini-Nashor's Tooth.
AD Malzahar:
This one throws off new players and annoys veterans. Malzahar may be an AP champ but he has a secret strength within his voidlings. They scale on his AD and Armor Penetration. Since most people pay little to no attention to his voidlings (Until they realize where the damage is coming from), you can destroy minion waves and enemy champions with little purple buddies. These guys gain increased stats every 7 seconds until they die after 21 seconds. If you have 40% Cooldown Reduction, you can have three voidlings out at once.
It's good to keep inmind that Voidlings aggro on what you attack and what attacks you, so building AD is important, but you will also have to tank a little bit since Voidlings have a leash range and towers will target you if you stand under them while your voidlings attack a champion. A good build for Malzahar AD would be:
This build offers some HP, a decent amount of attack speed, 30% Cooldown, and a great amount of sustain. The Essence Reaver is almost necessary since you will be using spells a lot to generate voidlings. These Items are generally expensive, so buying the Avarice Blade for Youmoo's first and then sitting on it while building everything else is probably your best bet at rolling in the gold to build this. The Damage and Armor Penetration will boost your Voidlings, and your Auto Attacks will sustain you, making you an unstoppable duelist. If you feel threatened by a particularly tough enemy, ult them and let your voidlings take care of them or your allies come to your aid.
Tank Shaco:
People scoff at this one but it makes an excellent top-lane monster. The premise behind it is that a Shaco with lots of HP and passive effects (Like Sunfire, Thornmail, or Black Cleaver) will be twice as annoying when he ults. He gives up some assassin ability to be a general nuisance among other things. His clone duplicates his passive effects, like the aforementioned Thornmail or Sunfire Cape. His Boxes, Dagger Toss, and the explosion from his clones death all deal AP damage as well (And we know that a lot of good HP items also give AP). Here's two builds for a Tanky Shaco:
AD Tanky Shaco:
AP Tanky Shaco:
Both of these builds emphasize Thornmail and Sunfire for dual tanking with your clone, though they offer alternatives for the situation depending on whether or not you are in an AD or AP heavy team. Just a reminder, you won't be as effective as a pure assassin Shaco when it comes to damage, but you will certainly be the surprising tank when it comes to a fight.
More soon to come!
Tips and Tricks for newer players:
I've played with a good amount of people, and even myself have been in a situation where I see a champion I think is really cool in concept, but getting there to find that its not a champion I really like. I suggest looking at a champion you think you'd like to play as, and finding a cheaper one for 450 or 1350 IP that has a similar kit. Do you want to play a skillshot based champion, like Ezreal? Practice skillshots with someone like Sivir. Want to play a support? Try out Soraka. This seems like a no-brainer but a lot of people instantly start saving money from level 1 to get an expensive champion they saw their friend or a youtuber play.
If you aren't sure how to play someone, look up some videos, do some research on the wiki, even ask people ingame what to build. If its your first time playing or you are still getting used to controls, try bots. Generally people go there to test out builds and you will run across plenty of nice people willing to part knowledge. There are also some mean people who will try to troll you or be toxic about you being a noob, but don't get discouraged. Everyone starts somewhere and asking for help is the strongest thing a person can do.
If you aren't sure what summoner abilities to have on a champion, Flash and Heal are always good fallbacks, since they can help you escape with your life or catch a weak champion that's getting away.
More soon to come!
Please leave a comment with your own tips and underused meta. I know there's a lot of stuff out there that I haven't covered. I only scratched the surface of things, and will be coming back here with more and more updates to this page.
(
/
/