Good character for a total newb

[Rasix]

She got her base stats buffed recently as well.  Seeing a lot more decent Ashe. 

[Mosesandstick]

Despite Ashe being the "beginner" hero she's not easy at all. She's got few escapes and a lot of bruisers these days have reliable gap closers. She's always been considered more of a team-comp carry than solo queue. The minimap change to her ult should help with the solo queuers though.

[HaemishM]

Another great Shyvana game, this time in draft. After 2 drafts that got to the final pick before some dickhead drops queue, I finally get in a game and pick Shyvana. I want to play her as a lane champ, but I was asked to jungle so I said I would, and set my spells according (Smite/Exhaust - used to be heal, but she really needs that slow). At the last minute, our #1 realizes they don't have a jungler, so asks me not to jungle but I can't switch out my spells in time. It didn't matter, and I didn't actually mind having Smite. Nice way to get some early last hits.

I lane top with a Ryze against Alistar and Wukong, Kennen goes mid against Miss Fortune and I don't even remember the other two because it didn't matter. The Wukong was SUPER aggressive and the Alistar was decent but couldn't make up for the muppetry of the Kong. The monkey would jump in, I'd pop my Burnout and immediately start melting his face while pounding his ass. I had 3 kills in the first 7 minutes and the only reason I died during that time was I turret dove to kill both Kong and Alistar and pulled it off. We took out both top turrets and the first mid turret within the first 20 minutes and it was a 4-0 surrender after that. I think their Wukong ragequit because he was level 6 at the end of the game when everyone else was 12 or higher. He also had 0/7/2. My final score was 6/3/3. 1 of the deaths was the aforementioned turret dive, the 2nd was a bad turret dive to get the Alistar who I didn't manage to kill and the 3rd was actually a good bit of coordination between the Alistar and Wukong. The rest was just melting faces and pushing turrets.

[Rasix]

And they put Rumble on sale.    I paid in full for him, but it was IP so that's not SOO bad.  My basic runes are pretty solid, so it's not too big of a waste.

I've only gotten a couple games with him so far.  Not confident with him yet.   His early game is really weak until you hit lvl 4-5.  And if you're playing blinds.. he's really bad for a 1v2 lane, especially against a lane with 2 gap closers.    Got to love a jungle Jax that gets you double killed because he wants to "help top" at lvl 1, when all I've got is the stupid harpoon.

Still, one of the few champs that I've been able to take top and push back a Mordekaiser.  People really underestimate just how bad that flamespitter hurts if you take it in the face.

Nid and Fizz are the only 2 champs in this sale that I don't have and neither really appeal to me.  Fizz has the LeBlanc problem where you chunk someone and then just stand around doing nothing or get blown to bits.  And Nidalee, her mechanics just don't interest me at all.  I know she's a strong top and really hard to kill, just the cougar shit is unappealing.

[HaemishM]

I'm somewhat tempted by Fizz but not the others. I never got the hang of Twisted Fate, and I don't think I've ever played Rumble or Nidalee. The Secret Agent Miss Fortune skin though? I'm all over that.

[Slayerik]

And they put Rumble on sale.    I paid in full for him, but it was IP so that's not SOO bad.  My basic runes are pretty solid, so it's not too big of a waste.

I've only gotten a couple games with him so far.  Not confident with him yet.   His early game is really weak until you hit lvl 4-5.  And if you're playing blinds.. he's really bad for a 1v2 lane, especially against a lane with 2 gap closers.    Got to love a jungle Jax that gets you double killed because he wants to "help top" at lvl 1, when all I've got is the stupid harpoon.

Still, one of the few champs that I've been able to take top and push back a Mordekaiser.  People really underestimate just how bad that flamespitter hurts if you take it in the face.

Nid and Fizz are the only 2 champs in this sale that I don't have and neither really appeal to me.  Fizz has the LeBlanc problem where you chunk someone and then just stand around doing nothing or get blown to bits.  And Nidalee, her mechanics just don't interest me at all.  I know she's a strong top and really hard to kill, just the cougar shit is unappealing.

You may get a refund. I bought Karthus as 6300 just before a sale, and like a week later I got an email saying that the difference would be refunded. They sometimes do cool shit like that.

[Thrawn]

... and I don't think I've ever played Rumble or Nidalee ...

Not sure how much the spell vamp change will hurt him, but Rumble is really strong top.  You level flame thrower and win the lane for free against a lot of champions because you can spam it for no cost.  He just suffers from dropping off pretty bad in a long game unless he gets ahead.

I'm surprised you don't see much support Nidalee bot, she has the skill set for it.  Traps are great, her heal is great, her escape is great and her spear can dump a lot of damage on someone.

[Muffled]

You mainly don't see support Nidalee because she desperately needs items to stay relevant at 18.  Spears with no silly hat are laughable, she doesn't have the 'o shit' button of Soraka or Sona, no stun or slow to initiate or help her carry escape with at all.

[Rasix]

AD Sion is so fucking ridiculous.  I really hate this champ.  Guy can have the absolutely worst early game in the world, but once he hits 16 (or hell, even 6) and has a phantom dancer..

I guess you could just run Nasus at him and have a farm off.  Hope your team isn't retarded enough to die to his ganks while you wait to get big.  Then CC, ignite, focus and hope he dies before he pops that ulti, which is always available and lasts forever.

I guess pubstomp champs in general are pretty annoying, because 90% of the time, your team is going to be too dumb to deal with them.

[HaemishM]

My games with Morgana lately have been INSANE. I have mostly been melting faces without even really trying to hard. Do people just not understand how not to die to her?

Also, yes, Sion is goddamn awesome.

[Rasix]

My games with Morgana lately have been INSANE. I have mostly been melting faces without even really trying to hard. Do people just not understand how not to die to her?

She's banned pretty much every game I play now. When she isn't banned, you end up wishing she was banned.

You should build hourglass on her. 

[statisticalfool]

Morgana's very good.

But she's also a good example of how you need to counterpick. Despite her "run up, hit W" gameplay, there are still champs like Ryze that can push her out of lane.

But you know, counterpicking is difficult, so easier to just ban.

[Thrawn]

When she isn't banned, you end up wishing she was banned.

This was 2/3 of the games I played last night.  One of the bad end of it, one on the good.  Sadly I'm guessing she will just get over-nerfed eventually.

I wonder if you could just counter her with an AD carry or bruiser mid or something.  Everyone is so stuck on the current lane meta it feels like people won't even consider other options.  

[Rasix]

Morgana's very good.

But she's also a good example of how you need to counterpick. Despite her "run up, hit W" gameplay, there are still champs like Ryze that can push her out of lane.

But you know, counterpicking is difficult, so easier to just ban.

Gangplank (or anyone with a physical poke) just destroys her mid.  Hell, run Trynd at her.   Good luck getting your team to let you do that.  Some one already locked first pick Ziggs.  

[HaemishM]

I actually had a problem mid lane with her the other night where I got pushed out of the lane. I can't remember what damn champ it was, but it was something I didn't expect.

But yeah, she's pretty much banned in every draft game I've ever played. I have to play blind pick just to get her. Trynd is on the almost immediate ban list as well, which I find funny, because it's very easy to play him over aggressively and get rolled.

[Hoax]

The classic Morg counter pick was once upon a time Pantheon. Pretty sure she still loses that matchup pretty hard but I haven't seen it in for fucking ever.

[Margalis]

Vlad is good against Morg. He can Q a lot more often than she can shield, and Q is basically instant so she has to shield in advance rather than on reaction, wasting mana. In addition there's basically no way for Vlad to actually get hit by Morg.

[Lakov_Sanite]

New ryze skin should be illegal.

[Rasix]

Irelia top is quickly turning into the same situation as Swain mid for me.  I wreck my lane and lose the game.  Somehow end up being the only person that iknows how to target carries or isn't just flat out throwing the game. Worst fucking luck with this champ.

My team's Sivir "God, I'm feeding so hard. "  

[HaemishM]

At least she admitted it. I do the same when I'm having a bad game. Worse when they suck ass, feed like a waiter and then want to talk smack the whole game about how they would totally own everyone if it weren't for the phase of the moon or some shit.

I fed the most insanely crazy Gangplank last night. I was playing Trynd who either has a decent early game or squishes like a bug on a windshield. By the time the game was over, Gangplank could two shot me within 2 seconds. If he got within range of me, I was fucking dead before I blinked. At one point, I saw 4 crits flash by at over 500 points each and I just literally melted into a fucking puddle. I'm not even sure how he did it - I know he had a Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge in there but not sure what else. But I just literally could not touch him before I was burned to the ground.

[Dren]

Man, being a newb to all this is hard.  So "feeding" is "training" from times of yore?  Is that right?  I was accused of doing this by somebody and they said they'd report me (this was PvE btw.)  Other people in the group said it wasn't reportable and the whole time I'm asking what the hell that means!  I certainly wasn't doing it on purpose, but was in the same position HaemishM was in.  I was just trying out a new champ that was sucking badly.  I was getting rolled instantly by just one champ let alone 3-4. 

What is a "carry" by the way?

I'm still sucking badly and haven't figured out how to get these crazy kill numbers everyone has.  I feel terrible after a match basically because I'm "that guy" a lot of the time.  I have had some decent matches, but only on certain champs.  Is this game that one-sided on picking champions?  It sure seems like there are so many of them that make no sense and nobody uses them.

[Rasix]

Feeding is dying many times to enemy champs and thus getting the other champs "fed".  If you do this on purpose, it's a reportable offense.  You'll get reported for this anyways if you have a shitty game by assholes on your team.  It seems that less than 25% of the intentional feeding cases are actually that.

A carry is a champ capable of "carrying" the game.  This is a champ that may not start of very strong, but once they have sufficient gold through kills and creep score, they can become very powerful.  IE, Annie, Caitlyn, Tristana, Ryze, Tryndamere, etc.  An AP carry uses their abilities to get kills and scale strongly off levels.  An AD carry relies on attack damage, relies more on items, and typically just right clicks people to death (some more than others).  But everyone needs items, so gold is very important.  As you get better at last hitting creeps, you'll find that the game will get easier for you.  Also, knowing when to engage and when not to is an important thing to know.

You'll only get better through practice and you'll be pretty wretched for a while.  It might help to watch some streams to see how the game should flow.  Don't take it too seriously, because you game may not resemble that for quite a long time.

Do you have some champs you like to play?  Might help us suggest you some champs that you could try.  

[statisticalfool]

Basic starting advice.

Ignore everybody at first provocation (hit tab, click bubble). Especially when you first start the game: a lot of the people you'll get matched with in your first few games are "smurfs", people who have a high level account, but are playing on a low level account for whatever. They are usually rotten, horrible people. It'll get better as you get out of the very early rules.

Don't worry about playing a ton of champs. Find 2-3 you like, and get good at them. If you're not spending money: look at the 450IP champs (and 1350IP) champs, try them whenever they're on free, and when you find one you like, pick it up. If you're prepared to spend money, just play champs on free week, and when you find one you love, shell out cash if they're expensive on IP.

Above all, just don't worry about how well you're doing early. The low levels in this game are mostly a hive of villainy.

[statisticalfool]

I think last hitting/creep score is probably the first thing worth focusing on. (creep score = number of minions you've killed, last hitting is both the concept that you only get the minion kill if you get the last hit, and that in general, you shouldn't be attacking much other than to get last hits)

This is a pretty good short video (although the benchmarks are way high for a beginner, and there's some jargon, like jungle, dragon control, that won't make any sense):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0lJyNRrvHE&feature=relmfu

[Rasix]

And for last hitting: at times it can be pretty difficult with certain AP carries.  Don't worry if you're terrible at it. Some points in the AD mastery can help with this. 

[HaemishM]

I had an example of the importance of last hitting in my lunch game. Luckily, it wasn't me that did it badly. 

I played Tryndamere and tried a slightly different build. Instead of my Attack Damage/Armor Penetration with Attack Speed rune build, I went for my hyrid ability power/attack damage/magic and armor penetration rune build. My first item is the berzerker greaves for the foot speed and attack speed. My second item was Malady - I get AP (which helps my Q heal), attack speed and it's got an on-hit proc that does extra magic damage and lowers their magic resist (which will help with my E attack which also has a little extra magic damage applied). From then on it was my standard Trynd build - Zeal, Infinity Edge, Wriggles and back to Phantom Dancer to finish it off. I became known as the Kamikaze because as usual, I was over aggressive but it worked against this team. Final score was 20/15/6 I think and a lot of those deaths were mid-game 1v3 attempts to take down towers while the rest of my team was somewhere else.

However, our Katarina finished 4/16/6 or something terrible like that and it was completely down to items. She had like a 30 CS at the end of a game that went over 40 minutes. She had 22 when I was at 111. As a result, she had no Rabbadon's Cap and only a Hextech Revolver instead of a the Gunblade. It was because she didn't those last hits that she couldn't pump out the AP damage that the character is so good at. We still won, but the other team had a lot of guys with negative k/d ratios - only their Caitlyn had a positive one, and their Jax was a 10/12 who also had a low CS. I enjoyed ginsuing their Mordkaiser 1v1 a time or two. Mord really doesn't do well on his own.

[Rasix]

I went for my hyrid ability power/attack damage/magic and armor penetration rune build.

NO.

[HaemishM]

Splain? 

[Rasix]

An extra 40 points on your heal isn't worth getting a malady. I know on hit effects are attractive, but Trynd does damage just by critting almost every attack and just blowing people up late game. The rest of your build is pretty solid.  You might be better off selling your wriggles and getting a bloodthirster later.  But you die a lot, so those stacks won't be around long.  

For your last slot, it could be worth getting a GA.  That'll provide you some defensive stats, and you'll end up saving yourself a few deaths and possibly deter focusing.  

Can you get LoL recorder? I'm curious to see one of your games.

edit:

And.. finally won a Irelia game.    Talon is a really easy match up.  Only died due to mostly my stupidity.  Pushed the lane pretty hard so I got ganked a few couple times.  One bad init and dove on once by 3 under tower (all 3 died).   She's just.. so safe up there.  

[Dren]

Thanks for all that.  So many things make sense now.  Watched the video for a bit.  One question from that.  Why does he constantly keep running around like that?  Is he just trying to be a hard target or does that build up some stat/gold/something?

I have other questions, but I'm going to go spend some time on the wiki so my questions get narrowed down to playstyle not game rules.

[Rasix]

Thanks for all that.  So many things make sense now.  Watched the video for a bit.  One question from that.  Why does he constantly keep running around like that?  Is he just trying to be a hard target or does that build up some stat/gold/something?

I have other questions, but I'm going to go spend some time on the wiki so my questions get narrowed down to playstyle not game rules.

Trying to be a hard target.  Standing still makes you easier to to harass, especially with skill shots.   Plus, being behind minions in some cases will prevent you from getting hit with certain abilities.  Thus, it's beneficial to be constantly moving.

[Megrim]

Why does he constantly keep running around like that?

ADD

[Azuredream]

It seems like a quality that is almost omnipresent in people that are ridiculously good at games. Starcraft players twitching their workers around, LoL players moving constantly even if they're alone in their lane, Magic players constantly shuffling around their hands, all for no discernible purpose except perhaps keeping the thinking going. It's not a bad thing but it might say something about their thinking processes and why they're so good at what they do.

[Rasix]

I catch myself moving around even if I'm in my lane last hitting alone or practicing against a bot.  It's just habit now. This is the rare game where I exceed the APM requirements.

[Margalis]

Constantly moving also means you won't stop moving and auto-attack when you don't want to. I suppose you can press 'S' for stop or something but it's a lot easier to just keep clicking.