Good character for a total newb

[ezrast]

You can win without a tank and you can win without utility, but you can't win without damage. When I get fed as Vayne it's frankly pretty terrifying, but only if, as you say, the other two lanes don't feed the opposing carries just as hard. I feel like as a jungler I'd better be able to support the lanes that need it while still getting the farm necessary to be useful later.

You may be right about the stupidly risky plays. I consistently die more than most of my team, even in games where I do really well and end up with 2/3 of the kills. I think I'm just suicidal, though.

[jakonovski]

I'll piggyback on this thread: how is Teemo these days, as a noob character? I played a few dozen matches in the beta and felt pretty good using him, but I've forgotten everything I learned.

[ezrast]

There's something about Teemo that makes people who play him be extra douchey. Teemo free weeks make me miserable.

He's good though, and a variety of builds work on him (by which I mostly mean AD vs AS - I am skeptical of AP/hybrid builds). It takes a while to learn where to place mushrooms but there's nothing to difficult about him; mostly just open with Q, autoattack, and hit W if you get in trouble.

[kaid]

There's something about Teemo that makes people who play him be extra douchey. Teemo free weeks make me miserable.

He's good though, and a variety of builds work on him (by which I mostly mean AD vs AS - I am skeptical of AP/hybrid builds). It takes a while to learn where to place mushrooms but there's nothing to difficult about him; mostly just open with Q, autoattack, and hit W if you get in trouble.

Teemos are pretty easy to play but the big trick is knowing where and how to use his shrooms. A good teemo helps give his team amazing awareness of the map and allows you to setup very favorable ganks. Damage wise build him well and he does fine and if nothing else he drives the opponents nuts trying to run him down.

[DLRiley]

AP/AD/AS hybrid teemo works best in my opinion, but 40% of teemo is getting the right build 60% is actually knowing how to play. Teemo is weird, since he was great during simpler times of master yi and tryndamere ruling the solo que and not so great as everyone and everything else powered ahead of him. He's not even guaranteed to kill melee oriented champs anymore, with most melee champs can easily kill teemo without auto attacks and are linebacker beefcakes when it comes to health (again bad for teemo...). Teemo has one equalizer that few people realize, which is map awareness, and it goes further than just putting shrooms in your bush and possible gank routes. Thats what most teemos do besides the ones who never played teemo, that and build nashars. Like a tower hugging heimer, that teemo is about as helpful to the team as a single super minion pushing mid.

Really good teemos perfect the art of turning the enemy jungle and there own into HELL ON EARTH. Shutting out an entire team from the jungle and forcing them to buy oracles is the greatest accomplishment a teemo can ever hope for. Its better than a pentakill and few things in league of legends is better than scoring a pentakill. Bonus points for having there entire team go on a manhunt looking for you. You know why nid is so annoying? Well besides having a badass version of a sight ward, one of the most annoying nuke skill shots in the game that takes advantage of what players are trained to do (the more you run the more damage a nid spear does when it hits), and being able to lane forever because of her self heal (which has been nerfed 4 times...) she can also escape a 3 MAN GANK, which even in the hyper passive pro games means, only 2 or worse 1 player guarding a tower. And trust me by the time a team is baring down on a tower they can easily destroy 2 towers and probably the inhibitor in the amount of time it takes 3 players to double back. Thats probably the most infuriating thing about Nid, which makes her solo top the worst thing to ever happen to league since...the very first introduction of Nid, and will probably net her a permanent ban in every tournment in LoL till they introduce seal deck player or remove flash.  And guess what TEEMO can do a lesser or greater form of that depending on the situation.

[Chimpy]

Dear everyone, especially new people. DO NOT FEED MORDEKAISER.

If you do let him get up on kills, DON'T FOCUS HIM IN TEAM FIGHTS.

And DO NOT CHASE INTO 3 OF THEM SOLO TO KILL THE TEEMO AND GIVE MORDEKAISER FREE KILLS.

 

God I hate solo-queue.

[Amaron]

And DO NOT CHASE INTO 3 OF THEM SOLO TO KILL THE TEEMO AND GIVE MORDEKAISER FREE KILLS.

 

God I hate solo-queue.

I played a lot of DoTA so I avoided stuff like this by default.   Amusingly they always yell at you for it early on.   It was like my lane partners couldn't see their own health bars and wanted to blame me for not jumping in with them.   You still see it a bit at 20 sadly though.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm not sure why people say not to bother with runes until level 30. I mean, it's taking a LONG ass time to level in this game.

[bhodi]

There is nothing wrong with level 1 runes. Just don't buy level 2 runes.

Ryze is my go-to for pub stomping. Sadly I am not very good with any other heroes. Him though. He's easy to play. And good. And all his spells are direct targeted so you don't have to worry about trying to line up a skillshot or cone cast while moving backwards and in the heat of battle.

[Slayerik]

Ryze just melts people when fed. From my experience playing against him, once he blows his load and you are still alive you probably got em.

[Der Helm]

Ryze just melts people when fed. From my experience playing against him, once he blows his load and you are still alive you probably got em.

I can attest to that on Bhodis behalf. 

[Vaiti]

I'd say there is nothing wrong with buying level 1 runes, if you know exactly which runes you are getting, and only stick to a single set. Otherwise you just blow all your IP on runes that are pretty much useless by the time you hit 30. IP that you could have used to get lvl 3 runes. A single set of red flat  health/damage, yellow armor and flat blue mana runes couldn't hurt tho. Maybe pass on the Quints altogether tho. Don't scatter shot when buying runes, buy in sets.

[Chimpy]

Ryze just melts people when fed. From my experience playing against him, once he blows his load and you are still alive you probably got em.

Ryze is also super easy to buy for, you just buy everything that has +Mana on it and you are good to go since he gets AP from mana.

[HaemishM]

I am apparently very very bad at tanking on a cellular level. I've tried both Sion and Alistair and kind of blew at both of them. Of course, the Alistair game also had a Leona, a Garen, a Lee Sin and a Kennen, so there was no support to speak of.

[Slayerik]

I have always found Alistar tough to tank with, strangely (as he is naturally one of the best). It's probably the long cooldowns.

Sion....to me he's not much of a tank. When he's built tank his shield is not great, and all he has is that single target stun for initiation.



Try Shen. His shield makes him a great supporter, ganker, and gets you out of binds. AoE taunt can be quite fun as well.

 I personally love playing Singed (though he is initiator/offtank), Cho'Gath (His knockup takes real skill to pull off well), and Udyr (he's offtank DPS/ DPS soak)


Who have you tried and liked? Maybe we can come up with similar champs that might fit your style.

[Prospero]

Try Amumu. He is the king of initiation and farms well. The key piece of tanking well is making sure your team is ready for you to initiate. Check health and mana levels, make sure they are close enough to take advantage of the enemy team focusing, and verify all necessary ults are ready. It's also good to make sure the terrain is good for your team; AOE teams want tightly confined fights, very squishy teams generally want room to move and run.

[HaemishM]

I should probably also mention I'm really not a good player yet either. 

I'm really burning through the current free rotation and seeing what I like. So far I've bought Kayle, Ryze, Ashe and Yi and like all of them. I also got Tristana on the free Facebook promo and like her a lot as wel. I think I tried Shen once but didn't understand shit about the taunting thing until later. Janna was fun for support and I liked Kassadin too. Since I'm only level 7, I have plenty of time to learn some of these as well as just learn how to play. I tend to get sucked into being focused to death really easily.

[Slayerik]

One of the hardest things about the game is learning the back and forth 'dance' in lane. You get better at the dance when you get familiar with each champs strengths and weaknesses. If you have time at work, just browse the champ list here - http://leaguecraft.com/champions/   - and get a slight idea of the champs out there

Also, teach yourself to constantly check the map. I know it's hard. I know you wanna get all that money. Just do it anyway. It will save your ass and make you a better player.

Maybe even print this page: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/5-champs-you-should-know-how-to-play-aka-who-do-i-buy-next-70445

Then you can reference for your games, just to know who might nuke your face off or initiate you into a grey screen of doom.

[Ashamanchill]

Ya most of this game is learning what all the champions can do, and how to react to it. At low levels, I would say screw team compostion, stick with one main, and get really good with them.

[DLRiley]

Mord super easy pub stomp
Tryndemere
LEARN TO JUNGLE will save you a lot of laning phase bs
Save up 6300, buy new champion a few weeks after release. Just got yorwik and boy he is easy

[Rokal]

Tryndemere
LEARN TO JUNGLE will save you a lot of laning phase bs
Save up 6300, buy new champion a few weeks after release. Just got yorwik and boy he is easy

This is pretty awful advice for a new player. :p

Tryndamere snowballs faster than just about any other champion, but he's hard to play well. Even the champion spotlight video by Riot for Trynd showed a lot of play mistakes and a relatively high death count. Melee glass cannons are bad ideas for new players.

Jungling is hard, and it's even harder without runes or full masteries. You also don't learn important techniques like zoning, last-hitting, or how far is too far to push a lane if you aren't laning. Overall you'll get less exposure to the different champions abilities as well, as laning is the easiest part of the game to observe them during.

Not every 6300 champ is awesome. Yorick was complete garbage when he came out. Skarner, Wukong, and Leona (the other 3 champions that launched around Yorick) are all pretty mediocre. You should definitely not blow a huge chunk of IP on a new champion that might not be good, or you might not like the gameplay style of. You should spend IP on cheap champions and take advantage of the free rotation.

[ffc]

Jungling is hard, and it's even harder without runes or full masteries. You also don't learn important techniques like zoning, last-hitting, or how far is too far to push a lane if you aren't laning.

Two questions.

1)  Is there a good noob jungler without runes / just tier 1 runes (if so, which runes? those tier 3's are mighty pricey for the % gains over tier 1)?  By good I mean fast / efficient jungling.  Trundle looks fun but I don't know if he fits the bill.  The junglers in my solo queue level 20's games are usually 3+ levels behind everyone else which can't be good jungling.

2)  Is there a secret technique to last hitting as a melee champion without getting stomped?  If I'm melee I get crushed when I try to last hit anything because my lane partner is a pacifist and I end up living under my tower with philo stone + heart of gold.  If I try to zone anybody out as melee it backfires.  I have no idea how anybody can play someone like Nasus.  Then I see a Poppy able to farm like crazy and demolish me and wonder why my fingers don't produce those results.

I'd like to get good with a noob melee AD champ or assassin but I have been scarred so much by solo queue fights with people sprinting off the map at the first whiff of damage or wandering off into the jungle after an initiation I end up playing like a giant chicken no matter what melee champ I play.  I've watched my replays and I see times I could have lived if I had just fought and killed the person attacking me instead of running in terror.

[statisticalfool]

Jungling is hard, and it's even harder without runes or full masteries. You also don't learn important techniques like zoning, last-hitting, or how far is too far to push a lane if you aren't laning.

Two questions.

1)  Is there a good noob jungler without runes / just tier 1 runes (if so, which runes? those tier 3's are mighty pricey for the % gains over tier 1)?  By good I mean fast / efficient jungling.  Trundle looks fun but I don't know if he fits the bill.  The junglers in my solo queue level 20's games are usually 3+ levels behind everyone else which can't be good jungling.

Nunu. Don't try to jungle before SL8, because without the increased XP masteries, you won't get your first level off the blue buff/double golem. But other than that, he's really easy, he can gank a little, but especially given that you'll never get counterjungled, and that low-level players rarely ward, you'll be able to eat up both jungles with ease and blood boil will keep you moving at a good clip.

But, nunu is really jungle ez mode. You can stay out there forever if you like.

[Mosesandstick]

Jungling is hard, and it's even harder without runes or full masteries. You also don't learn important techniques like zoning, last-hitting, or how far is too far to push a lane if you aren't laning. Overall you'll get less exposure to the different champions abilities as well, as laning is the easiest part of the game to observe them during.

I respectfully disagree with this point Rokal. Jungling teaches you about many other aspects of gameplay, buffs, timing, lane control and is probably the easiest way to learn if a lane is being pushed too far (because you just ganked them). I think it's the easiest way to learn about the other aspects of the game, pretty much every game will have 4 laners but there's only one jungler.

[Rokal]

1)  Is there a good noob jungler without runes / just tier 1 runes (if so, which runes? those tier 3's are mighty pricey for the % gains over tier 1)?  By good I mean fast / efficient jungling.  Trundle looks fun but I don't know if he fits the bill.  The junglers in my solo queue level 20's games are usually 3+ levels behind everyone else which can't be good jungling.

The pool of junglers that work well even without runes/masteries is pretty small. Basically it's champions like Warwick, Nunu, and Fiddlesticks that have a good way to heal themselves. Other champions like Trundle will work as junglers even without runes/masteries, but you'd have to take a more cautious and less-efficient jungle route. As Trundle without runes/masteries, you'd probably want to start at wraiths level 1(smite big wraith), then move to wolves, golems, and return to base to buy/heal before going back into the jungle. As Trundle with runes/masteries, you can clear the entire jungle before heading back to base.

Jungling is definitely the role that runes/masteries matter the most for.

2)  Is there a secret technique to last hitting as a melee champion without getting stomped?  If I'm melee I get crushed when I try to last hit anything because my lane partner is a pacifist and I end up living under my tower with philo stone + heart of gold.  If I try to zone anybody out as melee it backfires.  I have no idea how anybody can play someone like Nasus.  Then I see a Poppy able to farm like crazy and demolish me and wonder why my fingers don't produce those results.

Most nasus players do solo top when you get to lvl 30, which means you only have one opponent to worry about zoning you. As melee in a duo lane, your team-mate makes a pretty big impact. If you find that you have a very passive team-mate vs. aggressive opponents, you'll only want to try last-hitting minions that aren't far from your own. Caster minions are probably out of the question if you're getting pushed hard, but you should be able to swing in to last hit the melee minions in front. If you are only last hitting and your opponents are playing very aggressive, they'll probably push you to your tower. At that point, they risk being ganked by your jungler if you have one. You'll have the most problems at early levels as melee vs aggressive ranged, and health potions make a pretty big impact for the first few levels. If you notice you are going to be paired with another melee for bottom lane, you might want to consider breaking from your normal item build to buy a few health pots and a cloth armor. Regrowth pendant is also a good lvl 1 purchase if you think you'll have an aggressive lane, and you can build that into philo stone for gold/5.

Another good suggestion vs. aggressive opponents is to try to bait them into using their abilities and then dodging them. Most opponents only have 1 harass move (especially at early levels), so if you dodge that you have a couple seconds to last hit without worry. I find the easiest way to do this is to be near minions that are also tempting targets (some opponents will try to last hit minions and harass you with one attack if they can, some just try to hit as many minions as possible), and then move out when I think the ability is coming. Just as a quick example: if you are laning vs a Garen that is playing aggressive, get close enough that he'll want to spin, and then run when he hits his spin. Chances are he won't hit you if you watched your range carefully and were expecting it, and after his spin ends you can either punish him or last hit minions. The exception to this is champions like teemo that don't need to aim an attack and mostly just auto-attack, but fortunately those champions are usually pretty fragile so it'll be easy to punish them for over-extending.

I respectfully disagree with this point Rokal. Jungling teaches you about many other aspects of gameplay, buffs, timing, lane control and is probably the easiest way to learn if a lane is being pushed too far (because you just ganked them). I think it's the easiest way to learn about the other aspects of the game, pretty much every game will have 4 laners but there's only one jungler.

I think the lesson of lane control is more easily learned when you get ganked for over-extending, not when your jungler ganks your lane. I'd assume as a jungler playing at early summoner levels, you'd probably run into a lot of players on your team that don't know about over-extending, which means you won't have good opportunities for ganks. You can learn about buffs mid to late game without much risk. Junglers spend something like 80% of early game not interacting with any other champions. I think it's much easier to learn about other champions when you're exposed to them for a longer period of time.

[statisticalfool]

Also, it's worth noting, that jungling at low SL totally seems to be a "win more" type of move. If you have four teammates who are reasonably competent and can benefit from you jungling, it's going to be great.

But if your team is dysfunctional, then jungling will only make that worse. And you'll get blamed.

Don't use that as a reason to not to learn jungling. But jungling, unless you're really good at coordinating ganks, is generally not a way to carry your team.

[ezrast]

2v1 can be really rough on people who don't know how to handle it, but that's true of anything in the game. And strong picks like Udyr and Fiddles are definitely capable of swinging a game in their favor at low summoner levels (Udyr may have been nerfed since I've seen him though?).

One tip is that since people don't like to leave their lanes early, if the opposing team doesn't have a jungler you can take their camps with fairly low risk. If you don't have help at blue it may be better to start at enemy wraiths, then do wolves/wraiths/golems and end at enemy wolves before going B. Depending on if your champ has the mana for all that, of course. Doing enemy golems is dangerous because running there can put you in LoS of the enemy minions unless you can blink over the wall from behind somehow (e.g. Trynd or Lee Sin).

[Mosesandstick]

I'd only consider jungling at around level 30 when you have a set of jungle runes. To be honest I think the easiest way to learn *anything* from LoL is to play with one of the more experienced guys.

Junglers always receive a disproportionate amount of blame, but I think jungler vs. no jungler is the easiest way to make a difference as long as the guy who's 1v2 plays smart/conservative.

[Amaron]

Jungling pre 20 kind of sucks.   You should do it some but it's not something you can stick too.   You have to learn all the heroes and the pool you can actually jungle with is extremely small.    You also pretty much have to invent a sustainable path by yourself because the guides are all written for level 30.

[Mosesandstick]

Who is your jungler and what does he do?

Can't really go wrong with that jungling guide

[Dark_MadMax]

-Garen - no mana ,very strong start.
-Annie .  q,tibbers,w,e,q,q,w. enemy team is dead .repeat next team fight.
-singed - tanky as  fck.
-amumu - all aoes ,gap closer with stun
-cait - strong start.long range. great escape
-morde - no mana. lane king.


and above all - smart casting will improve your game by at least 100% .guaranteed :)

[Prospero]

I keep meaning to take the plunge and turn on smart casting. I'm just sad that I'll have to suck for a week or two while I get used to it.

[Margalis]

I use smart casting on a per-character and spell basis.

[Mosesandstick]

Its highly recommended for high latency players.

[Prospero]

I use smart casting on a per-character and spell basis.

So you have to configure your bindings at the start of each match? That sounds tedious. I'm hoping Dota2 has per character binds so that LoL will add it as well.