How to Play League of Legends

You may have heard of a little game called League of Legends. You may have friends who play it, but you never bothered to. Well, I'm here to tell you to bother to. I cannot stress enough how wonderful this game can be. It is thrilling and intense, while also methodical and strategic. League can be challenging and frustrating at times, however this only makes the reward that much better. League of Legends is challenging to people of all skill levels, and better yet, it's FREE to play.

With hundreds of different champions to choose from, no two games are ever alike. Every game requires careful decision making, and objective focused team play (more on that later).

An Index will be provided with definitions to all terms relevant at the end of the guide.

Without further ado, I'd like to start off with a brief summary of the game and it's objectives.

League of Legends is a MOBA. MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. League is not your typical shooter, in fact, it's not a shooter at all. The game is played from a birds eye perspective. You control your character as if you were controlling a string puppet. Each character has four abilities. There are three main abilities, and one ultimate ability. Each ability has a specific cooldown time, and this time varies from ability to ability.

The main objective of the game is to destroy the enemy team's nexus. The nexus is the blue and purple crystal on the top right and bottom left corners of the map. The first team to destroy the enemy's nexus wins the game.

This is Summoner's Rift. This is the map that the majority of your games will be played on. There are other maps for different game modes, but the classic 5v5 battle is on Summoner's Rift. As you can see, there are three main pathways. One on the top of the map, one through the middle, and one on the bottom. These are the three lanes of the map. Top lane, middle lane, and bottom lane. Everything else is considered jungle.

There are five main classes of champions: tanks, supports, attack damage carries, ability power carries, and bruisers.

Tanks: Soak up that damage. Your job is to be a body blocker for damage. You protect your carries, so they can kill the enemy team first.

Supports: Similar to tanks, but not necessarily tanky. Your sole role is to support your attack damage carry. Provide peel (a determent of damage to your carry), and use crowd control (a way to control players other than yourself) abilities to stun or slow your opponents.

ADC/APC: Carries have arguably the hardest role. They have to dish out as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, without getting killed in the process. These roles are highly technical and require a large amount of technique, skill, and game knowledge. With great risk comes great reward, though. Carry roles are the most fun to play, especially when you're winning.

Bruisers or Fighters are a mixed bag. They tend to be somewhat tanky, while still dealing a significant amount of damage. They are typically played top lane, and are usually great at ganking, or gang killing.

There are five roles to be played in every match. These roles are: top laner, mid laner, support, attack damage carry, and a jungler.

Top Lane: (fair warning, top is my worst role don't quote me)

The main objective of top lane is to help your team create map pressure. Map pressure is what is sounds like. Pressuring the opponent team via pushing lanes, killing opponents, etc. You'll know when you have good map pressure when your opposing laner plays safer and more towards his side of the map.

Mid Lane:

Mid lane is simple. Do a lot of damage. Typically, you will see mages, or ability power carries, but in some cases, attack damage carries will be played in mid lane. It is also helpful to roam to other lanes and get kills for your teammates. A good mid laner can swing any game into his favor.

Support:

Supports support their laners. Pretty simple. Do everything in your power to help your laner gain a lead above the enemy. It is also important to places wards, or lights, around the map so your team has vision.

Jungler:

The jungler has the most diverse role in the game. It is his responsibility to provide support to his teammates in the laning phase through ganks, whilst also managing objectives. The jungler can easily make or break a game. A good jungler can set a team far ahead of the enemy. Similar to top lane, the jungler helps create map pressure, and incidentally, gains objectives.

Attack Damage Carry (ADC):

Similar to mid lane, but more advanced in technique. Mid laners tend to spam all their spells at one person, and then they're done for the fight, while their abilities are on cooldown. ADC's don't rely on abilities to deal damage. ADC's deal damage through the basic attack function of the game. Basic attacks have no cooldown, nor cost. This is a blessing and a curse. You have no burst damage. You cannot instantly delete an enemy player like a burst mage can. Instead, you thrive on dealing sustained and significant damage to all enemy opponents. If you are playing this role correctly, you should deal more damage than the rest of your team combined. (See Damage Chart Below:)

Now, on to gameplay. For this section of the guide, I will play a game of League of Legends, and take screenshots along the way, and walk you through each important step of the game. I will be playing Yasuo in the mid lane.

If you're seeing this, then you're close. Once you're through the loading screen it's off to the races.

This is the allied fountain. The enemy team has one just like it, except if you walk into it, it will kill you quickly. From here, you can purchase items in the shop, and also replenish your health and mana. Yasuo doesn't use mana, so results may vary.

This is the shop. All your item purchases will occur here. You earn gold throughout the game by killing lane minions, destroying enemy turrets, killing opponents, and completing objectives. The more gold you earn, the more items you can purchase, and the more powerful you become.

See that blue crystal that seems to be floating in a hole? That's the nexus. If the enemy team destroys it, they win. At all costs you must defend this nexus. All buildings on your side are important... but this building is the most important. The two towers standing in front of the nexus are turrets.

This is the inhibitor, and its accompanying inhibitor turret. You might be thinking, why is it called an inhibitor? The answer is because if it is left standing, it inhibits the enemy team from attacking your nexus.

This is the outermost turret in the middle lane. It is usually the first turret to go in the game, but results will vary. Each turret must be destroyed in sequential order. In other words, you cannot destroy an enemy inhibitor, without first destroying all the turrets before it.

These little red and blue things are called minions, or creeps. For each creep you kill, you earn gold. Killing lane minions, or CS'ing is one of the best ways to get ahead of your opponent. Like I said before, gold is power. The more gold you earn, the more powerful you become.

My opponent in this game is Akali. Akali is a burst mage, meaning she deals significant damage very quickly, but cannot sustain the damage. Yasuo deals sustained damage. If I can get a lead, and survive Akali's burst, I will out damage her in the long run, and win the fight.

This is the dragon pit. This is where dragons will spawn. Killing dragons grants your team a buff. In this case, it's an infernal dragon. The infernal dragon gives bonus ability power and attack damage to each member of the team who killed it.

Similar to the dragon, Baron will provide your team with significant buffs to help you and your team taste sweet victory. Baron also gives 300 gold to each teammate, so killing baron can balance the game out, or increase your advantage.

Killing turrets is essential to the game. Not only does it create map pressure, and allows your lane to push further into enemy territory, but it also grants team gold. Gold is power people. Don't forget it.

This is the enemy inhibitor. Destroy it, and you can continue to destroy the nexus turrets, and eventually the nexus itself. Just before this screenshot, I scored a Pentakill, which means I killed all five enemies myself. Depicted in the video at the top of this guide.

Unfortunately, the enemy team surrendered. They couldn't handle the Yasuo carry. Their crystal broke, and that was it. GGWP

As I stated before, mid laners don't always have to be ability based. In general they are, but in this case, I played Yasuo, who is an ADC or attack damage carry. You'll see the damage charts below, and you'll know why ADC is such an important role. You can make or break every game. It's in your hands. Obviously, some games are unwinnable. But the majority of games you can control.

See that long blue bar at the top of the screen? That's me. I did more damage than the rest of my team and a few enemies combined. This is how impactful a carry role can be.

INDEX:

ADC: Attack Damage carry

APC: Ability Power carry

Creeps: Lane minions that give gold when killed

CS: Creep score, the number of lane minions or creeps you have killed

Turret: Towers that strike enemies in its range

Inhibitor: Inhibits enemies from attacking nexus

Nexus: Main objective of the game... destroy it

Map pressure: pressure against enemy team to help control map and objectives

Objectives: Main goals of the game. These include but are not limited to: turrets, dragons, baron, inhibitors, and nexus

Ganks or Ganking: A gank is slang for a gang kill. Put simply, a gank is when you and a teammate gang up against one opponent to improve the odds of a kill

Thank you all so much for giving my guide the time of day. I really appreciate the reads from you guys!! Keep a weathered eye for detailed guides on the different roles, or possibly team fight strategy.

Thanks!!!!