Good character for a total newb

[statisticalfool]

Xin Zhao is really good for pubstomping once you get the hang of him. Lots of free kills. If you're going to find a melee dps to get good with, not a bad choice.
Nocturne's fun as well, and is an excellent jungler/roamer.

Kassadin's a lot more finesse: you need to be really good with your micro and paying attention to resources to do well with him.

Zilean is awesome. And bomb/rewind/bomb will totally catch people for a while. But you need to play with people who will understand what he's doing to really reach his potential.

[Slayerik]

Started playing this a couple of weeks ago.  Mostly trying out the free champs in bot matches to get my sea legs.  Have some real matches under my belt now and I've had the most success with Zilean.  Obviously depends on what kind of clown you get paired with but at these sub-10 matches his bombs get a surprising number kills from people leaving fights a wee bit too late.  Not sure how good Zilean is overall but zipping around the map and saving/slowing people has been a blast.

I want to see about a solid melee damager but I'm horrible at it.  Early game I have a hard time putting pressure on ranged champs.  Later on judging just what I can do and when to go all-in on a kill have ended up really poorly.  Yi, Nocturne, and Xin Zhao have all been embarrassing but I was passable with Wu Kong.  Any suggestions?  Kassadin looked like he might fit as he looks super mobile but I'm gun-shy about dropping the 3k+ on him.

Try Tryndamere. He can be a beast, and his ult should at least let you get a kill or two :)

[Thrawn]

"Good char for a noob" thread has turned into "Throw out random champions you like to play" thread.  

[Slayerik]

Dude, it's page 10 on an f13 thread. You're lucky we aren't talking about Diablo 3 or something by now.

[Kirth]

Dude, it's page 10 on an f13 thread. You're lucky we aren't talking about Diablo 3 or something by now.

So the witch doctor seems like the D2 necro but I'm torn.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Not sure how good Zilean is overall but zipping around the map and saving/slowing people has been a blast.

Well he's currently #1 on the game's most well-known Tier List for draft mode competitive play -- i.e. he is considered the single best hero in the game by at least one knowledgeable source -- so I'm guessing you shouldn't worry.

[Megrim]

Please tell me you aren't talking about Elements.

[Strazos]

Zilean is a one-trick pony.

[Arinon]

Have to see what next week gives in terms of free champs I guess.  I don't mind playing a hard champ as long as it's fun and there is a good chance it's going to be competitive if/when I get good at it.  I picked up Morgana the day before they said they're going to nerf her and the only other unlocks I have are the two free ones.  Trist, who I'm okay with, and Alistar, who I'm not.  I'll probably drop points for Zilean and that still lets me nab a 3k champ if something tickles my fancy. 

Given that spread I feel like I should grab someone that zips in, rips someone's face off, then zips out.  Most of those types of chars are gold dependant no?  Last hitting with melee seems really  .  Maybe that's my problem with them.

[statisticalfool]

Garen or Jax are good melee dpsers to learn with. Spin to win and all that. And Jax can actually last hit as melee a little freer than you'd expect, because people learn pretty quickly that if they try to harass you, you're just going to jump on them.

[Vaiti]

That and his w makes up for mistakes while last hitting. If you goto last hit and happen to not kill the creep, hit w and it will reset the attack timer and you get another hit on it right away. That is also a key technique to his burst. DO NOT hit w THEN jump on someone, always always always jump, hit, then w for a second bigger hit.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Please tell me you aren't talking about Elements.

Sure. What, is he dead to you or something?

[Margalis]

Elementz tier list is hilariously awful. He gets his ass kicked in one game by a tier 4 character and suddenly they are tier 1.

[Merusk]

Being bored with WoW and needing something to play in addition to WoT I started up again.  I'm playing Amumu regularly once more but I'm still clueless on what these roles mean.  The few wikis I've found haven't exactly clarified what a pusher, tank, etc are either.  I'm sure I'm horrible but I thought tanks pull creep & tower aggro so the deeps youre in the lane with can wipe 'em out.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Elementz tier list is hilariously awful. He gets his ass kicked in one game by a tier 4 character and suddenly they are tier 1.

Well, I called it 'well-known', not 'awesomely best ever'. If there are other, superior lists or discussions going on elsewhere, I would be happy to hear about them.

[Kail]

Being bored with WoW and needing something to play in addition to WoT I started up again.  I'm playing Amumu regularly once more but I'm still clueless on what these roles mean.  The few wikis I've found haven't exactly clarified what a pusher, tank, etc are either.  I'm sure I'm horrible but I thought tanks pull creep & tower aggro so the deeps youre in the lane with can wipe 'em out.

Tanks are mostly about being able to take a lot of damage.  By itself, that's not too useful, but they generally do something else, too.  Most commonly they're supposed to initiate, which means they jump in first, usually with some kind of stun or something (like Amumu's Bandage Toss) which singles out a target for your team to kill.  Since the tank is the first one in for these situations, they generally need more health to survive.  There are some non-initiating tanks (tanky DPS is not uncommon), but for a pure tank character (like Amumu) they're generally supposed to initiate and absorb damage.

While you can pull creep and tower aggro as a tank, that's usually what your creeps are there for.  Even as a tank, you don't want to be taking any damage that you could direct towards someone less important, and that "someone less important" is generally your allied creeps.  If your teammate is low and you can pull some hits off of him, then go for it, but the AI is generally simple enough that if someone's in trouble from creeps/towers, they can get themselves out of trouble easier than you can.

Pushing is mostly about towers and creeps, I believe.  Pushers "push back" the enemy lines by being efficient at killing creeps and towers.  This category is a bit fuzzy since a lot of champions can do this fairly well (especially AD champs).

[Merusk]

Ah.  Well then I'm laneing with some incredibly poor players than.  More than once I've bandage-toss stunned then ultimated some people.. only to see that my lane partner has run off as I get creamed. 

Might just be because I'm only level 8/9. Last game I just focused the creeps to let them push the towers and let the guy run around shooting things on his own after he ditched me twice to the fiddlesticks/ pirate chick combo and we won in the end.

[Amaron]

Regardless of whether or not that tier list sucks I can say I see Zilean played constantly in tournaments and top pro games.   He even gets banned quite often.   He's definitely not a shitty hero.

Well, I called it 'well-known', not 'awesomely best ever'. If there are other, superior lists or discussions going on elsewhere, I would be happy to hear about them.

I'd also like to know of a "good" tier list.

[Megrim]

Regardless of whether or not that tier list sucks I can say I see Zilean played constantly in tournaments and top pro games.   He even gets banned quite often.   He's definitely not a shitty hero.

Well, I called it 'well-known', not 'awesomely best ever'. If there are other, superior lists or discussions going on elsewhere, I would be happy to hear about them.

I'd also like to know of a "good" tier list.

Its just that tier-lists in this game are a little silly, given how wildly out of whack character balance is. Any discussion is further compounded by the fact that, two people can run the same hero, but given different rune-sets and mastery selections that same character will play very differently.

[Kirth]

Regardless of whether or not that tier list sucks I can say I see Zilean played constantly in tournaments and top pro games.   He even gets banned quite often.   He's definitely not a shitty hero.

Well, I called it 'well-known', not 'awesomely best ever'. If there are other, superior lists or discussions going on elsewhere, I would be happy to hear about them.

I'd also like to know of a "good" tier list.

Tier 1 : Champs I like to play and are good with.
Tier 2 : Champs I'd like to try
Tier 3 to Infinity : All Other Champs

[Mosesandstick]

Elementz's list are a good start. It's inherently biased (one person's viewpoint) but at least he tries to justify things. I think it definitely suffers from being a reactionary tier list as opposed to a forward thinking one, but that makes it more reliable.

[statisticalfool]

Its just that tier-lists in this game are a little silly, given how wildly out of whack character balance is. Any discussion is further compounded by the fact that, two people can run the same hero, but given different rune-sets and mastery selections that same character will play very differently.

Yeah, the whole point of tier lists is for games with wacky balance. And true, you can get into pick vs counter pick stuff, but look at the top of Elementz solo queue:

Morgana, Karthus, Lee Sin, Brand, Akali, Kassadin,, Caitlyn, Kennen, Nocturne, Garen, Fiddlesticks, Annie

Given the goal of the solo queue tier list, (champions who you can carry a win with without world-class skills) that seems pretty on the money. Can you carry as Twitch? Sure. But you've got to put a lot more work into it.

[Malakili]

Its just that tier-lists in this game are a little silly, given how wildly out of whack character balance is. Any discussion is further compounded by the fact that, two people can run the same hero, but given different rune-sets and mastery selections that same character will play very differently.

Yeah, the whole point of tier lists is for games with wacky balance. And true, you can get into pick vs counter pick stuff, but look at the top of Elementz solo queue:

Morgana, Karthus, Lee Sin, Brand, Akali, Kassadin,, Caitlyn, Kennen, Nocturne, Garen, Fiddlesticks, Annie

Given the goal of the solo queue tier list, (champions who you can carry a win with without world-class skills) that seems pretty on the money. Can you carry as Twitch? Sure. But you've got to put a lot more work into it.

I'm thinking of buying a fighter type next. (I have Ashe and Amumu so far).  I am thinking Garen, but I am not sure if people will expect him to go with a tanky build more often?   

[K9]

Generally when I see a Garen I expect them to act like a complete tard.

[Slayerik]

Master Yi is extremely cheap IP-wise...When you say fighter type do you mean melee?

I like Tryndamere...he is a solid champ. Lee Sin is a beast about to get slightly nerfed.

[Megrim]

Its just that tier-lists in this game are a little silly, given how wildly out of whack character balance is. Any discussion is further compounded by the fact that, two people can run the same hero, but given different rune-sets and mastery selections that same character will play very differently.

Yeah, the whole point of tier lists is for games with wacky balance. And true, you can get into pick vs counter pick stuff, but look at the top of Elementz solo queue:

Morgana, Karthus, Lee Sin, Brand, Akali, Kassadin,, Caitlyn, Kennen, Nocturne, Garen, Fiddlesticks, Annie

Given the goal of the solo queue tier list, (champions who you can carry a win with without world-class skills) that seems pretty on the money. Can you carry as Twitch? Sure. But you've got to put a lot more work into it.

Uh. This is the thing. Out of that list, the only ones you can reliably claim to be good in every solo-queue are Annie, Brand and Kennen. Nocturne maaaaybe (is he snowballs out of control and the other team has no brains).

[Thrawn]

I like Tryndamere...he is a solid champ.

I'm hearing (but have yet to see) that Trynd is currently a very solid solo top champion.  Hope to test that this week sometime...

[Mosesandstick]

He's got good sustain. His problems are still the same as ever though.

[Malakili]

Master Yi is extremely cheap IP-wise...When you say fighter type do you mean melee?

I like Tryndamere...he is a solid champ. Lee Sin is a beast about to get slightly nerfed.

Yeah, I mostly just mean melee and less tanky.  I played Master Yi some yesterday since he is free, and he was a little too much of a glass cannon for what I'm thinking of.  I'm open to suggestion/being told I'm wrong about that though.

[Thrawn]

Yeah, I mostly just mean melee and less tanky.  I played Master Yi some yesterday since he is free, and he was a little too much of a glass cannon for what I'm thinking of.  I'm open to suggestion/being told I'm wrong about that though.

Have you tried an of the assassin style chars like Talon, Lee Sin, Akali?  Lee Sin is the most melee of them probably and is certainly not a glass cannon.  All three of them are very good right now and it's so much fun to just ignore an enemy team as you fly to their squishy carry in back and just explode them.

Trynd is and isn't a glass cannon, his ult makes him invincible for 6 seconds or so but outside of that you can get stunned and blown up pretty easy if you get focused at all.  He's actualy one of my favorite characters but I tend to only play him solo queue instead of submitting my team to me playing him.  

[Rasix]

I'm thinking of buying a fighter type next. (I have Ashe and Amumu so far).  I am thinking Garen, but I am not sure if people will expect him to go with a tanky build more often?   

Garen is fine.  Like K9 said, he tends to have a lot morons playing him. Most of them are also complete dicks about their stupidity.  Anyone seeing you playing Garen is just going to expect you to spin around like a tard and tower dive.  Then call everyone on your team a fag after you die.  You can help change this perception. 

Trynd is solid, and cheap as well.  If he's fed, he turns into a goddamned nightmare.  Most Trynd players are some of the worst behaved you'll ever see.  At the end of the game they can really push an advantage.

Also cheap: Warwick, Nasus, Jax.  I haven't played Warwick or Nasus.  Warwick can, from what I've seen, really wreck someone's day if he can close on them. Jax is a bit of a different beast, but his Q makes him a great skirmisher.  Just, in my experience, need to play him a bit more cautiously early on.

Little more expensive: Gankplank (only actives are ranged, however), Blitz (I thought he was 6300, but site is showing 3150), Xin Zhao.

[Mosesandstick]

Blitz, Anivia and Corki went from 6.3k --> 3.15k ip.

[K9]

WW seems to have a fairly thin line between being deadly and nothing more than an occasional suicidal suppress-bot.

I don't have tons of experience playing tanky DPS myself, although I think you have to be more of a bully in lanes than ranged heroes. Playing as a support nothing depresses me more than having a Trynd or Garen who trys to get first blood, or a gank and gets whooped down to 10% health, then just sits behind the minion wave for a couple of minutes letting their HP tick up. You cannot be passive as a melee and expect to do well. The advantage I see is that most melee have a lot more lee-way in bullying enemy champions and getting out alive.

I see Nasus cleaning up in quite a few games, I get the impression that his skillcap isn't so high. He is a bit of a carry though, and needs a passable early-game feed to dominate later in the game.

[Slayerik]

Nasus requires some solo time up top to do really well. If you don't have a jungler, this might not be a good pick. If he gets to farm up his SS - look out late game.

[Kirth]

Nasus is one of my favorite champs, great early sustain, deadly late game if you get that Q farmed up. I'd check out Hyfes guide on any LoL site.  Thing I like most about him is most people don't expect you to be able to take off 1/3 or more of their life with a really short cooldown ability.