LoL Guide for Beginners

Are you new at League of Legends? We got you covered! Find out all the basic information you need to know in this LoL Guide for Beginners.

LoL download – How to get the game

There are many servers that League of Legends is run on. These servers are kept separate, so transferring will cost RP / real money, so be sure to select the correct or closest server to you.

League of Legends runs on both Windows and Mac, with the Mac version being just as smooth. The game requires fairly low specs, so most people will be able to run it.

As mentioned before, since the servers are separate, you’ll have to create a new account for each region or server. Creating an EU account but attempting to log in to the NA server will cause an error.

Regarding the download to play on Riot run servers, you simply enter the League of Legends website for your region, create an account and download.

However, for regions such as Malaysia / Singapore, you may be required to sign up and download through Garena, a program simular to Steam.

How to get blue essence – What is it used for?

Blue essence is League of Legends’s in game currency you earn from missions or through disenchanting champion shards in the ‘looting’ section of the client. BE can be used to purchase other champions through the store, on the other hand, it can also ‘craft’ / make champions by redeeming the blue essence on the chosen champion shard.
Note: Champion shards are dropped through the looting system from hextech boxes or champion capsules. These capsules are given by the system every time you level up.

Lanes and roles – What do they mean?

League of legends has 5 positions players can choose to play in. While you aren’t necessarily forced to play these roles, in almost all the games you play, at least in ranked, will see a team set up with a Top, Mid, Jungler, ADC and Support. These League of Legends roles have long been established as the norm in every League of Legends games since it is the optimal team set up with a good balance throughout the entirety of the game.

How to play top lane?

Playing top means you will compete in a one on one lane against another enemy champion.

Top is viable for a wide range of champions, however, you most commonly see ‘bruisers’ or ‘tanks’. Bruisers are melee ranged damage dealers who are usually naturally tanky, or in the very least, build a few health / defensive items to survive in team fights. The role of bruisers are to scale / survive to the late game and constantly ‘jump’ on or attack the enemy ADC. Tanks on the other hand mostly build all defensive items, with the exception of semi damage items like Iceborn Gauntlet.

Playing a tank top lane will mean you will be responsible for either ‘peeling’ for teammates, or engaging fights while crowd controlling various enemies.

How to play jungle?

A jungler focuses controlling the ‘jungle’ and getting levels plus gold through neutral monsters. However, getting levels and gold to scale into the late game is not their only job.

Top junglers will aim to assist their teammates in the laning phase by ganking them, hopefully killing the enemy laners. These kills will usually put your laner ahead and give them a better chance at winning the early to mid game. However, top junglers will balance ganking and farming the jungle as over focusing on one aspect will either lead to you or your team falling behind.

In addition, junglers have to role of making calls, getting and securing objectives like Dragon, Rift Herald and Baron.

How to play mid lane?

The mid lane, like top, is a solo lane. However, fighting in the middle of the map positions mids in the best place to ‘roam’ and help the other lanes (top and bot). As a result, mid laners usually have decent mobility, but most importantly, high damage.

While mid laners are usually AP damage, AD mid laners aren’t unusual either. However, the common thing between the majority of mids are that they have extraordinary amounts of burst damage, meaning they can do very high damage in a short amount of time. As an assassin type mid laner, you will be in charge of instantly killing squishy / low health targets, thus eliminating a great deal of the enemy’s damage.

How to play support?

While support may be considered the easiest roll by many, since there isn’t too many mechanics involved, it is really not that easy to play well.

There are various types of different supports you can choose to play. Supports have multiple play styles, some being tanky, some shielding, some healing or in the odd case, even full AP burst. The best type of support style largely depends on your team’s composition (what your other team members play).

That said, the central theme for supports are to ‘support’ your ADC in the bot lane, keeping them alive throughout the whole game. In addition, supports are usually in charge of gaining vision through warding, and clearing wards.

How to play ADC?

ADCs are also known as ‘attack damage carries’. This role is played in the bottom side of the map, in the bot lane.

Picking ADC requires you to select a ranged champion mainly reliant on auto attacks and build high amounts of attack speed, attack damage and critical chance. Doing so rewards you with a champion with great consistent damage, however, you will be extremely vulnerable to burst damage from the enemy. Good ADCs usually position near the back to their support which allows them to get the maximum ‘peel’, avoiding enemy threats while pumping out damage.

In general, just play as safe as possible without putting yourself in a situation to get killed early in fights, as dying early or getting picked off will usually lead to the fight being lost.

Find out more about: LoL Ranking System

League of Legends patch notes – What are they?

LoL Patch notes are released every two weeks by Riot games.

The game constantly balances champions or items by altering various values in their base stats or skills, every once in a while, they even change the effects of either entirely. As they do so, Riot informs everyone through these patch notes.

While champion and item changes are the most ‘important’ and common, the patch notes detail all the changes that has been made in game. In addition, the patch notes also gives previews of upcoming skins and chromas.

League of Legends new champions – How often is release?

While Riot do introduce new champions every once in a while, there is no set time / schedule for release. That said, even if new champions aren’t released too often, there are many remaining champions over the years that’ll no doubt keep you occupied for a long time. In addition to that, a more condensed champion pool is advised by many professional players and coaches to ensure mastery for select champions.

That said, if you want a rough indicator, from the most recent seasons, we can expect Riot to release a new champion every two or three months. To check what new champion is coming next, read the PBE cycle notes. Before a champion, or any change in fact is released, it goes through the PBE servers, where select player are able to test these proposed changes or releases (to which they later give feedback).

Read also: How to choose the right LoL champion for you

What are the various stats?

Attack Damage (AD) – Extra attack damage will increase the amount your character deals on each auto attack (right click). In addition, some skills also deal additional damage with higher AD, this means the skill has a scaling attack damage ratio eg. 0.6 AD ratio when you have 100 AD will increase the skill’s damage by 60.

Ability Power (AP) – Having more ability power will increase damage on skills that have scaling AP damage. However, not all skills have a scaling AP ratio, so increasing AP does not mean all skills will deal more damage. Eg. Zed with all AD ratios. Same example ratio applies, 0.6 AP ratio when you have 100 AP translates to bonus 60 damage on the skill.

Attack Speed (AS) – Greater attack speed directly translates to your champion’s auto attack being animated and shot out faster. As expected, the higher your attack speed, the more auto attacks you will launch within a certain amount of time.

Movement Speed (MS) – Movement speed is important as it determine how fast your champion moves, in, or out of combat. Having higher movement speed not only allows you to arrive in lane faster, but gives you the decision to chase or run from fights.

Crit chance = This determine your chance to critically strike an enemy on each auto attack. If you crit the enemy, it will deal double the usual damage, unless you have purchase Infinity Edge, in that case, crits will deal 250% damage. Note, critting is completely based on RNG (chance), having a 20% crit chance does not mean you will certainly deal a crit strike every 5 auto attacks, it may be more or less often.

Armor – Having armor reduces damage your champion takes from all physical damage sources including some skills, auto attacks, minions, monsters and also turret shots.

Magic Resistance (MR) – This will reduce damage taken from magic damage sources such items and some skills.

Our LoL Guide for Beginners has given you a general smattering, now you just have to practice and read our other guides in order to become the best LoL player!