f13.net

Alright, so.... so far I'm having a blast with this game. It is described a lot like DotA for those that played, and if you liked that you should join us!

The game can be a bit intimidating at first. There are a shitton of champions to choose from. There are a ton of items to buy in game.

As a new guy, I'd recommend just diving into the game after you have checked the champions - http://www.leagueoflegends.com/champions - This list is a bit old but you will find something that sounds up your alley.

Once in game, just buy a health regen pendant...the green looking one that is usually recommended...and make your way to the middle of the map. Wait near your tower, as it will fuck up enemy champs at low level. The enemy minions will clash with the friendly minions, and you try to get the last hit on the mobs (so you get a gold bonus). If anyone attacks you run your ass off towards the tower until you learn how to fight or have friends nearby. Pick a favorite skill, and press the plus by it once you level up to make it more powerful.

Ultimates: You will occasionally be able to put points into your fourth skill, nicknamed the Ultimate, do this whenever possible. Once you have 600-800 gold you can press the recall button back to base (or if you die, buy)...dont be shy, just pick a recommended item (for now) and start working towards it.

Just play and have fun, try to help on ganks....even just follow people around. Strength in numbers. If someone says "Mid MIA" that means the guy he was fighting with at mid took off, possibly to gank your ass!You will pick it up, the game, at a glance, is not that complicated but its depth is in all the builds and champions and team strats. Once you like a champ, GO READ UP ON HIM!!! Find the guide section of the beta forums and they will tell you a ton of shit that will help. I look forward to playing more and learning more.

I should mention that this game is going to be less and more friendly to noobs once it's launched. Jerks like Hoax, Bhodi, Ghambit, Delita, Tsalrioth, and myself (etc etc - also, Nonentity is a girl) will probably be playing ranked games:

We will not want new players in them with us.

That said, I'm sure most of us will happily skirmish with everyone.

So basically, one mode is off limits to new players. You will NOT want to play ranked games until you feel extremely comfortable with a handful of heroes (or at least one, and it better not be Teemo).

Oh, also, protip: If you're new, just play a very defensive Ashe.

Good starting point, basically just l2p a champ or 3 that interest you first off.  You need to be able to hit the skills on reaction and have some clue what items to buy.  Don't worry about your mastery/runes early on just play practice games, hell even a noob only practice game from time to time to learn the ropes in a less difficult environment.

Important stuff:
-Don't feed, feeding is a term for someone who repeatedly dies often to the same enemy hero.  Basically the 3 alleys the npc's travel down are referred to as lanes and identified as top middle and bottom.  If you die twice in the lane you decided to start in, move, tell your team and move they will appreciate that.  Some matchups are hard or the other guy is just too good for you.  If you don't keep going back and giving him free gold/xp your team might be able to deal with it.  The problem is, if someone gets 3+ kills in the first 15 minutes they will get ahead of everyone else in terms of level and item build.  Your #1 priority as a noob is to not feed.  A team can win with one player who isn't pulling weight as long as they aren't powering up the other team as well.

-You will have to learn the metagame concepts, but they aren't too complex and it is intuitive.  If you search the forums there are several good threads that list the terminology.  A carry is a hero that wins the game for his/her team but there is much more pressure on a carry hero.  You need to get gold, lots of it and be ahead or equal to the opposing teams best.  I'd stay away from the traditional carry heroes as a noob, stick to heroes that are considered good at pushing lanes or supporting since that is more of a watch and follow job.  Tanking in Dota means that you initiate the big group fights.  You get shit started and keep enemy attention diverted by being in their face and throwing them around.  If you die but 2+ enemies die you did good or something like that.  I don't understand tanking, unless that sounds appealing I'd avoid it to early on since it takes a good understanding of player psychology and you need to know the abilities of the heroes you are with and up against well if your going to be the middle of the shit.

-Skills, to keep it simple here is how you do skills.  One of your Q, W or E skills is going to be your primary skill, you max it first, whenever you can take a point in it, do so, at levels 6, 11 & 16 take a point in your ultimate.  Take one point in the other two regular skills so that you can use them situationally, just remember if they are straight up damage skills with no utility it might not be more the mana when its level 1, typically you want to max a second skill when you can't take the ultimate or whatever you've chosen as primary and leave the third skill for last.

-Item builds, this can be really fun later when you know the game and adds a stupid amount of replay but to a noob its overwhelming and frustrating at times.  Don't worry about it too much, read the guides and make sure you find posts from after the last patch since lots of changes were made.  Often a guide's item build will require really expensive items right off the bat, stuff you can only get if you stay in the lane without dying for the first 15-20min, last hit damn near everything and get a kill or 2.  You wont do that.  So instead figure out why they want you to take that item, AP, attack damage, HP, armor, mana regen etc.  Take something else that is cheap but gives you similar stats. 

Last words in a very long post, early on identify several champions you are interested in playing.  Then if you see anyone playing as those champions in your games and they do well make a note of how they played, what ability they seemed to use alot early game and write down or make a note somehow of what items they had at the end of the game by mousing over them.

Also, Ashe is a carry but is still a good noob hero as her range allows her to play very defensively.

Learn to hug your tower the first 6-8 minutes or so.

http://beta.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=13365

Best guide evar

I guess I'm still a noob. I thought MIA meant that you were personally leaving the lane unattended to get new equipment or you were killed and your opponent was still there.

Learnin' something new every day.

Played 3 more games, main things I'm getting better at now are map awareness and survival.

The map awareness has led me to travel through jungle more and cutting off the enemy's escape route, good for ganking/finishing.

MIA = missing in action ;)

Bumping this for Lorekeep, ask questions in here buddy and we'll answer them for you.  I think I'd pretty much give mostly the same advice I  gave back then now.

It's been helpful. It seems like Rammus would be a bad choice given he's a tank, but I think I can manage him now that I have a better understanding of his abilities. I am VERY PvE focused in my play but I need to start becoming an aggressive, PvP focused player. I'm just so damn afraid when I launch an attack. It'll take time to get over that.

Something important to note: If you join the Facebook page, you get Tristana unlocked for free. Getting the skin = getting the hero.

Honestly I don't think there is much better a hero to learn to play the game with than Ashe.  She gets a built in, long range, multi-target slow combined with an amazing stun skill-shot. Her long range lets to easily practice last hitting and her lack of an escape option besides a summoner spell teaches you to play smart or die.

That said, I feel that I have outgrown her simplistic play style, however I believe my time spent as her was very useful.

Plus, she only costs like 500 points.

Rammus is a beast.

Pretty sure that new shield item fits him perfectly as well.

Ya, it's delicious on him.

Question though - could you ever powerball out of defensive stance?  It seems now that if W is on, you can't Q.

Nope, never could. Once yoo curl you can taunt, but not change ball types.

Still figuring out the best method of attack. I imagine starting with Defensive Curl before taunting is imperative since Curl lasts longer than taunt, but I always spam Tremors too in those situations.

I had fun playing with Prospero tonight and his Ashe. 2 - 1 I think?

Yeah, those were good games. I'm calling that first game a warmup.

Ashe and Rammus actually make bad laning partners since you last hit all my gold. :P I'm thinking of getting Warwick or another Assassin for my third hero to open up a character with a completely different playstyle.

Ashe and Rammus are not bad laning partners. Taunt is magic.

It is. I just fall behind on items / power because of Ashe's last hits on creeps.

I still don't have a firm grasp on the ganking possibilities of heroes since I'm new to the whole ganking / teamplay game style. How powerful someone is isn't a science to me yet, more like a hobo superstition that I can believe in if I down enough hooch.

Once I get a firmer grasp on power level numbers and what they do to other power level numbers, I'll have more confidence.

That's true of all tanks. They generally don't get a lot of cash, but they are built to not need a lot of cash either. Generally you want your big damage folks to get the most money so they can buy big damage items. Tanks get a lot of their gold from assists on champ kills. Rammus also can jungle reasonably well for money.

Good games last night Lore, being queued with us you were up against much tougher competition than solo queuing and you held your own. I stayed up too late and am hungover at work today :)

The difference between skill levels is night and day. I solo queued this morning and ate up the competition. Defensive Curl is a monster when someone isn't equipped right to deal with it.

Thanks for the kind words. It was great playing with you guys and I hope to do it again soon.

I've crashed after every game due to PvP.net disconnecting. Is there anyway to stop that?

Its actually just fucked up recently, or more fucked up than usual or whatever you want to  call it.  PVP.net sucks everyone knows it but they needed to save money to ship the product so its what we've got.

So how do you deal with people that give up on the game, sit at home base, insult their team mates, and laugh when you get mad and tell them to play?

Nothing. You're just fucked.

It seems the higher I get in level the more I want to play with friends.

It does get a lot better as you raise your ELO, its very rare for me to see that kind of shit.

What about our last game last night.  :uhrr:  I pretty much rage-quit my computer for the night after my performance in that mess.

That was so amazingly bad I couldn't really get mad. It takes a lot to make me get mad at a game already, but that far surpassed that and went into "unreal" territory.

I was like 0-6 4 minutes in. Just amazing.

Had 0-10 due to someone playing Shaco and nobody able to stop him.

How do I see what ELO is BTW?

You can't view your own ELO/ranking at all.

Shaco is a unique champion who without kills to feed his xp/gold will fall behind and out of relevance quickly.  A 0 kills 0 assists Shaco is a non factor once everyone hits 6 practically.  Knowing this good players will adjust their game completely in the early going to keep the Shaco in check or attempt to bait him into going for a gank that is a trap.

There are other champs that work in similar ways (anyone who rushes occult or mejai for example is on a similar trajectory) but for Shaco its the only way he can be played and the results in terms of positive and negative are much more pronounced.


We were 3-man premade and we fucked up, that was all our fault and yeah it sucks for the 2 other people but its still a rarity, thanks for reminding me though guys.  :oh_i_see:

I picked up Shaco as my second champion to specialize in. Hit or miss with him. I'm able to get a first blood by ganking mid, and if I do it right I can hold major control over the middle of the map. Still refining my gameplay and may not work against more experienced champions...

What times do you guys play? I'm Lv. 12 now and figure I'll be more helpful at Lv. 30 but haven't seen people on that much.

I see you on all the time.  You probably have a very long way to go though in terms of learning but enjoy the newb experience while it lasts its always the most fun part of learning any game.

I can't give you a ton of advice but for Shaco, get a buff, which one depends on what your doing with it.  Ganking mid is best but a good mid will never allow you to get that off so often you have to go for the 2v2 gank or the 3v2 gank in one of the lanes.  You can also gank their jungler to throw him off and steal his buff which swings things in your favor.

You might want to put Shaco on the shelf for a bit; there's a pretty bad bug with Deceive where you hit the button and nothing happens.

Is that what that was...

I'm surprised Deceive didn't work like flash. Insta stealth to mouse position, rather than click Q, then click mouse.

It is target unlike Flash, but even when you click the mouse button sometimes you just don't go. The forums have a rant or two about this every day.