League Of Legends Catch All

oilypenguin wrote:

It's a free to play game and there's lots and lots of opportunities to spend money. My advice is to buy a cheap character pack (so you'll always have access to those characters) and learn the different roles so you can identify what you want to play. Once you have an idea, that's when you can start really focusing on characters. Until then, save you $ and IP for when you hit 30 =)

Ok, I will. Yeah I spent some of my IP on the characters that I mentioned because they were 'Recommended' and I found a list of newb friendly champs and those were some of them.

You're right to focus on just a few characters. Your time is best spent focusing first on the essential mechanics (how to CS, how to not repeatedly die, how to keep tabs on the mini map, etc). Later, expand to paying close attention to what all the different champions can do to you so you can get an understanding of how you need to react when you see them. Finally, expand your own toolkit by experimenting with various champions to see what they can do to others. Seeing their skills again from the other side will also help you understand how to play against them.

Worrying about champion synergies is a topic so vast and nuanced that it can't really be easily captured in a few sentences, and in the early stages of the learning process it probably won't make a difference in the outcome of your games. Still, playing with veterans on voice and asking lots of questions is an easy way to start getting exposed to the types of interactions you can look for in team picks. At a really basic level ChampionSelect.net can give you some info on synergies and counters, based purely on crowd opinions. (i.e. here's Ashe) The user comments on each listing will explain a bit about that particular matchup. Also, the Strategy and Tactics tab on guides at LoLPro.com the authors also spend some time talking about synergies and counters. (here's Ashe again)

And this bit of advice has been argued into the ground but:

Don't buy runes until you can buy tier 3 ones. So spend all your IP on champs until about level 10, then save all that IP for when you hit 21 and you can buy t3 runes for your rune pages.

psoplayer wrote:

You're right to focus on just a few characters. Your time is best spent focusing first on the essential mechanics (how to CS, how to not repeatedly die, how to keep tabs on the mini map, etc). Later, expand to paying close attention to what all the different champions can do to you so you can get an understanding of how you need to react when you see them. Finally, expand your own toolkit by experimenting with various champions to see what they can do to others. Seeing their skills again from the other side will also help you understand how to play against them.

Worrying about champion synergies is a topic so vast and nuanced that it can't really be easily captured in a few sentences, and in the early stages of the learning process it probably won't make a difference in the outcome of your games. Still, playing with veterans on voice and asking lots of questions is an easy way to start getting exposed to the types of interactions you can look for in team picks. At a really basic level ChampionSelect.net can give you some info on synergies and counters, based purely on crowd opinions. (i.e. here's Ashe) The user comments on each listing will explain a bit about that particular matchup. Also, the Strategy and Tactics tab on guides at LoLPro.com the authors also spend some time talking about synergies and counters. (here's Ashe again)

Thanks for the detailed advice! Basically, i'm working on just what you said...last hitting, not getting killed and feeding, keeping map awareness. The hardest thing for me right now is not over committing when I think I can kill and enemy champ. I've been trying to follow some builds on Mobafire so I don't really have to think too much about what items to buy because, I'm sure, that's a whole other can of worms.

oilypenguin wrote:

And this bit of advice has been argued into the ground but:

Don't buy runes until you can buy tier 3 ones. So spend all your IP on champs until about level 10, then save all that IP for when you hit 21 and you can buy t3 runes for your rune pages.

Cool, I'll save up that IP. Thanks!

Is it worth it to spend Riot points on extra XP?

PWAlessi wrote:

Is it worth it to spend Riot points on extra XP?

Perhaps, but only up to lvl 12 in my opinion. The only way to become competitive is to have hundreds of games of experience, AKA getting to level 30 doesn't magically make you a better player. If you're an impatient one they can help you unlock all the summoner spells faster (which really open up a lot of options), they can speed you into tier 3 runes (their absence probably won't be holding you back by much), and of course you'll be able to start playing ranked sooner (I don't know when the right time to start playing ranked is, but it's probably not the moment you reach 30).

personally, i'd skip the xp boosts and enjoy the ride because it won't take you very long to get there in the grand scheme.

Jow wrote:

personally, i'd skip the xp boosts and enjoy the ride because it won't take you very long to get there in the grand scheme.

It takes a long ass time to get there if you wanna play with other GWJers who don't tend to invite non level 30s much.

I exp boosted the entire way and played like 6-7 games a day minimum on the longest available time based exp boosts and took around 6 weeks to get level 30.

I also IP boosted a lot to get multiple level 30 runepages up so i could have a full support, ADC, and AP runepage to get me going.

It is a big investment to do this, however.

but, this way you can mix it up too and play bot games to see what each available champ does every free week and get double exp for those games, you can play ARAMs and get decent xp for them...etcetc.

It makes those GWJ custom games when they happen even give decent exp.

Fuzzballx wrote:
Jow wrote:

personally, i'd skip the xp boosts and enjoy the ride because it won't take you very long to get there in the grand scheme.

It takes a long ass time to get there if you wanna play with other GWJers who don't tend to invite non level 30s much.

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Every time I get on and jump in the chat room, there are people in there, but they are all in game, away, or just not chatting. So, I end up just getting into public games, which, honestly, just aren't that much fun. Maybe it gets better in ranked or at higher levels, but at my level, everyone seems to just play by themselves doing random things, yelling at people because 'they called bot' and 2 other people went bottom, etc.. There doesn't seem to really be much team play or strategy.

Yeah, pre-30 queue is a wasteland filled with pain, sadness, misogyny, and homophobia.

When I was on my way to 30 (which took about 10 months, of which I took 4 of those months off), I was lucky enough to have 2 weekly GWJ custom nights to get me through the last few levels. I don't know if people want to get back to having those or not.

Your best bet is to find a few tolerable people around your level and queue with them because unless we make a concerted effort here to group up, we all tend to play with the people we usually play with.

/shrug

oilypenguin wrote:

I was lucky enough to have 2 weekly GWJ custom nights to get me through the last few levels. I don't know if people want to get back to having those or not.

Your best bet is to find a few tolerable people around your level and queue with them because unless we make a concerted effort here to group up, we all tend to play with the people we usually play with.

/shrug

I would love to get back to the in house games, but we end up with so many issues in trying to balance them that I think most people quickly get sick of them. I would suggest a night of more fun types of games (ultimate bravery, arams) but there are some people that just want to play real games or nothing. I think we regularly have enough people on to play, but once the groups start going it's usually chaining games together and it's rare that two or three groups can sync getting out of their games at the same time.

It's too bad because those in house games are the best place for someone under 30 to learn how 30's play though. Without the horrible horrible community that comes with it. The first 10 or so levels can be the worst because of the smurfs that like to talk trash to people that are genuinely on new accounts. From 10-20 it's not as bad, then past 20 you get to people that think they know what they are doing and talk trash again.

The best advice I have heard is take the character you want to learn, try to go where they normally go and mute everyone in the game. Focus on winning your lane, focus on last hitting, focus on warding and map awareness. But don't care if you win or lose, just focus on getting better, if you do that enough eventually you will start winning. Most teams fall apart once the laning phase ends. Most GWJ teams are the opposite, we fail lanes, but win teamfights. Then stick around too long after winning said team fight, or don't do anything with the map control we just gained.

oilypenguin wrote:

Yeah, pre-30 queue is a wasteland filled with pain, sadness, misogyny, and homophobia.

When I was on my way to 30 (which took about 10 months, of which I took 4 of those months off), I was lucky enough to have 2 weekly GWJ custom nights to get me through the last few levels. I don't know if people want to get back to having those or not.

Your best bet is to find a few tolerable people around your level and queue with them because unless we make a concerted effort here to group up, we all tend to play with the people we usually play with.

/shrug

This. So much. Also, I got one 50 win xp boost to get me from level 20 to level 30. So worth it. It reduces the poop socking, and the pain caused by people trolling, disconnecting from games, etc. Also, dominion games are much, much shorter than summoners rift, and you'll learn how to deal with team fights a bit more, because you'll have team fights more often in dominions (sometimes longer team fights as well because everyone is not itemed up yet) so try a few of those too. If you don't have the exp boost, try playing a few dominion games, it's a nice break from the summoners rift.

oilypenguin wrote:

Yeah, pre-30 queue is a wasteland filled with pain, sadness, misogyny, and homophobia.

When I was on my way to 30 (which took about 10 months, of which I took 4 of those months off), I was lucky enough to have 2 weekly GWJ custom nights to get me through the last few levels. I don't know if people want to get back to having those or not.

Your best bet is to find a few tolerable people around your level and queue with them because unless we make a concerted effort here to group up, we all tend to play with the people we usually play with.

/shrug

Yeah, that's pretty much been my experience.

Octacon100 wrote:

This. So much. Also, I got one 50 win xp boost to get me from level 20 to level 30. So worth it. It reduces the poop socking, and the pain caused by people trolling, disconnecting from games, etc. Also, dominion games are much, much shorter than summoners rift, and you'll learn how to deal with team fights a bit more, because you'll have team fights more often in dominions (sometimes longer team fights as well because everyone is not itemed up yet) so try a few of those too. If you don't have the exp boost, try playing a few dominion games, it's a nice break from the summoners rift.

I haven't tried Dominion yet. I'll give it a go.

IntangibleFate wrote:

The best advice I have heard is take the character you want to learn, try to go where they normally go and mute everyone in the game. Focus on winning your lane, focus on last hitting, focus on warding and map awareness. But don't care if you win or lose, just focus on getting better, if you do that enough eventually you will start winning. Most teams fall apart once the laning phase ends. Most GWJ teams are the opposite, we fail lanes, but win teamfights. Then stick around too long after winning said team fight, or don't do anything with the map control we just gained.

I'll do this, thanks!

Mute all chat. It exists for no reason other than flaming. Mute your teammates the first time they criticize or flame you. You'll miss out on the 5% that are trying to be helpful but you'll save your sanity. Play the game and enjoy the way each champ works, even if you lose. A Jarvan game with a lot of great knock ups is fun even if my team gets crushed.

PWAlessi wrote:

Every time I get on and jump in the chat room, there are people in there, but they are all in game, away, or just not chatting.

Yeah, nobody ever chats in there. It's just a shared user list. I've been keeping an eye out for you and Otacon, but I guess I'm getting on too late in the evening.

I could definitely be talked into once, twice a week, getting back to anyone under 30 can pick a champ, anyone over must either choose purely random, or they must pick an unowned free champion on the week's freebie list.

psoplayer wrote:
PWAlessi wrote:

Every time I get on and jump in the chat room, there are people in there, but they are all in game, away, or just not chatting.

Yeah, nobody ever chats in there. It's just a shared user list. I've been keeping an eye out for you and Otacon, but I guess I'm getting on too late in the evening.

Thanks, Yeah, I haven't been able to be on much, with a new client and staying in Hotels. Hopefully I'll be on more this weekend, since the fiancee is headed out of town. Still need to install it on my travel laptop, but the downloading.... so much time. PWAlessi, what's your lol name? I'll add you. Mine is McStabWithLies.

KingGorilla wrote:

I could definitely be talked into once, twice a week, getting back to anyone under 30 can pick a champ, anyone over must either choose purely random, or they must pick an unowned free champion on the week's freebie list.

There are a few gwj peeps that own every champ and a lot of people own most champs. Ultimate bravery is a good balancer. The ultimate-bravery.com site allows you to link the page, so you could do a pre game reverse draft with ultimate bravery picks.
You can also use lack of full group to balance. We one time tried a 3 vs 2 with a lvl 23 on the 3 man team.

carrotpanic wrote:

Mute all chat. It exists for no reason other than flaming. Mute your teammates the first time they criticize or flame you. You'll miss out on the 5% that are trying to be helpful but you'll save your sanity. Play the game and enjoy the way each champ works, even if you lose. A Jarvan game with a lot of great knock ups is fun even if my team gets crushed.

Pretty much this, if you stop worrying about the outcome of the game and just focusing on playing your character better you will get better as a player. A lot of players that I see now end up relying too much on the rest of the team.

"I lost top lane cause I never got ganks." If you learn to play without relying on them you do alot better. Two of the most important things in the game are learning how to play defensively against a bad matchup or when you are behind. And learning how to safely use your lead for agression to keep your lead and pressure on the opponents. I've seen Complex take a small lead top as a teemo and push towers all day, keep his advantage, keep pressure, then teleport and backdoor the super fed ADC and end a fight before it starts. He did it last night and completely negated a Shen.

This can especially happen top and mid, but mid it can be more dangerous. I've been carried many games by Shynex on Akali, Kat, Kass, Lux when he shows up bot lane 4 levels higher than everyone with 10 kills and kills the bot lane and their jungler pretty much by himself. Which turns into a tower and a jungle. Raven used to do it pre-nerf eve. But he would get ahead and counter ward their jungle, and kill him when he was at half health at wraiths or red. Pushing an advantage can be huge, you take pressure off of other lanes, and can help fix lanes that are losing.

Complex wrote:

We one time tried a 3 vs 2 with a lvl 23 on the 3 man team.

And you guys picked a Yi and Darius. Jerks.

psoplayer wrote:
PWAlessi wrote:

Every time I get on and jump in the chat room, there are people in there, but they are all in game, away, or just not chatting.

Yeah, nobody ever chats in there. It's just a shared user list. I've been keeping an eye out for you and Otacon, but I guess I'm getting on too late in the evening.

Yeah, I'm on the East Coast, so, during the week, I'm off early. I should (hopefully) get to put some quality time in this weekend.

Octacon100 wrote:
psoplayer wrote:
PWAlessi wrote:

Every time I get on and jump in the chat room, there are people in there, but they are all in game, away, or just not chatting.

Yeah, nobody ever chats in there. It's just a shared user list. I've been keeping an eye out for you and Otacon, but I guess I'm getting on too late in the evening.

Thanks, Yeah, I haven't been able to be on much, with a new client and staying in Hotels. Hopefully I'll be on more this weekend, since the fiancee is headed out of town. Still need to install it on my travel laptop, but the downloading.... so much time. PWAlessi, what's your lol name? I'll add you. Mine is McStabWithLies.

I'm Geegor...I'll add you and add my summoner name to my sig.

oilypenguin wrote:

Yeah, pre-30 queue is a wasteland filled with pain, sadness, misogyny, and homophobia.

Unfortunately, post-30 is no different. You roll the dice each and every time you queue up solo because you really do never know what you're gonna get.

I do miss the customs, especially the days when a couple of folks were casting them... 'twas the only time most of us will ever actually have our name in lights in LOL.

We could always start them up again.

If people want to chime in with 3 preferences for days, we can pick the best 2 and give it a try.

IntangibleFate wrote:
Complex wrote:

We one time tried a 3 vs 2 with a lvl 23 on the 3 man team.

And you guys picked a Yi and Darius. Jerks.

Yeah, just remember, you selected teemo.

Jow wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

Yeah, pre-30 queue is a wasteland filled with pain, sadness, misogyny, and homophobia.

Unfortunately, post-30 is no different. You roll the dice each and every time you queue up solo because you really do never know what you're gonna get.

I do miss the customs, especially the days when a couple of folks were casting them... 'twas the only time most of us will ever actually have our name in lights in LOL.

I have been tempted a few times to use lolreplay to rewatch our normal games with someone just to have that again. Some of the best learning experiences for me was having someone critique my gameplay.

Of course lolreplay breaks for far too long after every patch.

Complex wrote:
IntangibleFate wrote:
Complex wrote:

We one time tried a 3 vs 2 with a lvl 23 on the 3 man team.

And you guys picked a Yi and Darius. Jerks.

Yeah, just remember, you selected teemo.

Jow wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

Yeah, pre-30 queue is a wasteland filled with pain, sadness, misogyny, and homophobia.

Unfortunately, post-30 is no different. You roll the dice each and every time you queue up solo because you really do never know what you're gonna get.

I do miss the customs, especially the days when a couple of folks were casting them... 'twas the only time most of us will ever actually have our name in lights in LOL.

I have been tempted a few times to use lolreplay to rewatch our normal games with someone just to have that again. Some of the best learning experiences for me was having someone critique my gameplay.

Of course lolreplay breaks for far too long after every patch.

Before it broke horribly I was looking into telestrator programs, to do some John Madden Style breakdowns of gwj games. Think of the perfect breakdown of Dyni stealing Fedora's Sona Pentakill, complete with horrible yellow x's and circles and a Complex evil laugh.

Any night during the week works for me, it would just be nice to have a time frame. 7 or 8 to 10 or 11 depending on peoples locations. I play to 10ish most nights if I am around.

IntangibleFate wrote:

Think of the perfect breakdown of Dyni stealing Fedora's Sona Pentakill, complete with horrible yellow x's and circles and a Complex evil laugh.

...I can't tell if you're messing with me or if Fedora's asshole posts are actually working.

Dyni wrote:
IntangibleFate wrote:

Think of the perfect breakdown of Dyni stealing Fedora's Sona Pentakill, complete with horrible yellow x's and circles and a Complex evil laugh.

...I can't tell if you're messing with me or if Fedora's asshole posts are actually working.

Both. But it doesn't matter cause its nautilus buff day.