I am Dbug The Great.
Comes from a nickname, D-bug, because I run 3 computer repair shops and do pretty much nothing but mess with computers all day every day.

I LOVE to help newbies out, because I really dig League of Legends. It's what I do to wind down from a long day at work.

I'm 24, born on april fools day, and I'm an identical twin. Pretty interesting dude, I guess. Now you know a bit about your author.

Anywho, this is my guide for newbies. I intend to go pretty in-depth and clear up a lot of things so you can jump right into the game without having to do that tutorial. I mean, the tutorial is good and everything, its just so slow paced and when you fire up League, you wanna get in there and fight some people, right? And probably not with Ashe?

Kill stealing (KS):
Is the act of killing an enemy that another player has worked hard to weaken, and is obviously going to successfully kill, by last hitting that champion at the last second. It is BAD MANNERS.
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MIA's:
Calling MIA's is the act of making it known to your team that the enemy you are facing in your lane has gone missing. It is GOOD MANNERS.
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Trolling:
Is an envelope/shotgun term used to describe a player who is intentionally doing something to hinder his team, provide bad information, cause an allied death, cause an opposing kill, or cause a loss of game. It is BAD MANNERS.
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Ult Fail:
Is the act of burning your ultimate skill at a time when it is completely not merited, such as using Gangplank's Cannon Barrage to farm a large group of minions across the map that another player was going to farm. It is BAD MANNERS.
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Raging:
Is the act of being counterproductive to your team because things aren't going your way. For example, staying in a lane that is already occupied by two players, and telling another player to leave. When they disagree, you stay anyway, even though they were there first. Also known as being a pissy little *****. Also included in raging is degrading or yelling at your team mates, all-chatting that your team sucks, reporting players just because you're mad, etc. It is BAD MANNERS.
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Starving:
Is the act of farming all of the minions in a lane when you are in lane with a champion that can't farm as effectively as you can, for example, Lee Sin is in a lane with Malzahar, and Malzahar is killing absolutely every minion because his farm ability is far superior to Lee Sin's. This is BAD MANNERS.
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Spamming:
is when you incessantly use your /taunt, your /laugh, your /joke, or anything else that makes noise, or fill the chat window with non-useful or relevant chat. It is BAD MANNERS.
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Buff Stealing/Buff Raging/Buff hoarding:
is when you A.) See a jungler killing a buff or another player killing a buff and you run up and hit it last to steal the aura. B.) You complain that you needed a buff more than a player who worked hard to kill it and tell them they shouldn't have killed it. If you needed it so badly, why weren't you down there working on it instead? Keep it to yourself and either go steal the enemy's buff or wait for yours to come up again. C.) You keep killing the same buff over and over again even though another player has expressed that they would like it the next time it spawns. All of these are BAD MANNERS.
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Skill hoarding:
Is when you have a shield skill, such as Morgana's Black Shield, and you use it on yourself when you're at the front of the pack during an escape, and leave someone in the back to get picked off and die. The skill could have been much better used to make sure EVERYONE got out alive, but you instead decided to be a selfish player and ensure your own safe retreat. This is BAD MANNERS.
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Blame Shifting:
Own up to your mistakes, you'll learn more and you'll learn faster. This is when you were stupid enough to stay in the back of the line too long when you should have been retreating, you die, and you then decide that you should blame Morgana for not using Black Shield on you, when really you just stayed in the fight for much longer than would have been merited by the presence of a functioning brain stem. It's a good way to never get good at the game if you consistently think everyone else is responsible for your mistakes. This is BAD MANNERS.
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Straying:
Is when you decide to venture off alone into an area which isn't easily accessible by your team repatedly during the teamfight phase and get picked off because you're an easy target because you're by yourself. This is BAD MANNERS.
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Abandonment:
Is when player A is at full life and player B is at full life, both have no skills on cooldown, and a group of enemies approaches unexpectedly. Player A immediately runs for the hills without popping any crowd control skills or anything that might help player B escape. Player B dies, player A gets away unscathed. This is BAD MANNERS.
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Kamikaze:
Is when the setup for abandonment happens, but player A does everything they can to ensure player B gets away, but player B gets a Rambo bug up his *** and decides to stay and fight a losing fight. I, the author, am actually incredibly bad about doing this ALL the time. I guess I just space out or something. Even so, This is BAD MANNERS.
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Heal fail:
Same as ult fail or skill hoarding. You have a heal, and you have about 10% of your life missing, player B is standing next to you and has 70% of his health missing. You use your heal on yourself. **** move. This is BAD MANNERS.
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One for the team:
You're playing a character like Jarvan IV who has an area of effect slow, the enemy is plowing through your team and they begin to retreat. You're in the back of the pack and it doesn't look like you're going to get away. You pop your slow, everyone slows down, your team gains some distance to get away, but you get several assorted forms of weaponry jammed into your colon hole and twisted around vigorously. This is GOOD MANNERS.
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Catching an ult:
Player A has around 60% of his life left, Player B is dangerously low. Here comes an Enchanted Crystal Arrow down the lane headed right at player B, guaranteed to kill him. Player A stands in the path and takes the damage. They're both now incredibly low, but both get out alive. Works for Caitlyn's ult, too. This is GOOD manners.
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More to come.

League of Legends
Like most games, has essentially it's own language.
I'll try and go over that a little bit here.

If anyone feels like putting these in alpabetical order or requesting that a term be defined, or disagrees with a definition, please let me know.

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Controls

Right clicking- Moves your character. Hold shift to change the command to "attack move". "A" key- press "A" and then click to do what's known as "attack moving" "O" key- Look at the stats for the current game Also, see everyone's equipment "P" key- Opens the shop "C" key- Shows all of your character's stats "B" key- Recall. This will teleport you back to your base "1-6" key- Uses the item in the corresponding slot

"Q" key- Casts your first skill if you have it "W" key- Casts your second skill if you have it "E" key- Casts your third skill if you have it "R" key- Casts your ultimate skill if you have it "D" key- Casts your first summoner spell "F" key- Casts your second summoner spell "Alt+Click"- Will ping your team for assistance "Ctrl+Click" key- Will ping your team for retreat "Space bar" key- Will center the camera on your champ "Enter" key- To chat with your team "Shift+Enter" key- To chat to everyone

Those are all the keys you really need to know when you first start playing. If you want to know more, feel free to press escape and look at your key bindings. You can also set them up however you want if you don't like the setup or you have a gaming controller or something you'd like to use. For instance, we use a Razer Nostromo.
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Towers: Are defensive structures placed on both sides of the map at enemy bases. They do absolutely insane damage, but thy target the first thing they see. So if a minion walks up first, you're free to pound on the tower as you free and it wont strike at you. But as soon as it runs out of minions to kill, it will switch over to attacking you. At the first few levels of the game, it only takes a tower about 3-4 shots to kill you, and they don't fire all that slowly. If you attack an enemy champion near their tower, it will immediately ignore all minions and attack YOU.

Farming: This is how you get your money in league of legends. You kill the little dudes that constantly run down the lanes and they award gold as long as you got the last hit on them. It's a good practice to get into the habit of targeting the minions who have the lowest health manually rather than putting yourself on auto attack and just shooting or hacking away until they're all dead. Targeting the lowest lifebar minions will make sure that you get the optimum amount of last-hit kills out of that minion wave, and therefore the most gold possible. This is known as practicing your last hitting skills. A lot of guides will tell you that last-hitting is important, this is what they mean by last hitting.

Harassing: Is when you attack the enemy champion while they're trying to farm, and then back away and continue farming. This is how you make THEIR farming less effective, because they're constantly worrying about whether or not you will attack them. Keeping an enemy off of their farm is how you get ahead of them. Getting ahead of them is how you kill them. They will also be trying to harass you, so as you can imagine, farming is quite a dance session.

Hugging: Is when you let the minions push the lane all the way to your tower. You're very safe in this position, but the tower will get most of the minion kills because it so substantially out-damages you. You still get all the experience though, but a lot less gold. This is a good practice if the enemy is very obviously dominating your lane. You may even kill them because they're SO aggressive that they'll stupidly come too close to your tower. But this is also a BAD place to be, because they're going to get significantly more gold than you are. However, they wont be getting as much gold as they would if you were to stay out in the lane and continually get killed. Minions are about 40 gold apiece, you're worth 300.

Ganking: is when you stray to another lane to hide and cause an unexpected ambush on an enemy, usually resulting in a free, very sexy, very morale boosting kill for your team, which usually changes the tides of how a lane fight is going. Make sure YOUR lane is doing VERY well before attempting this. The enemy will usually try and capitalize on a gank by pushing hard on the lane which is missing a player.

Pulling: Is when you back off and let the enemy farm a little bit so they come out from behind their tower. You simply back off of the minions JUST enough to where you aren't attacking them and the enemy isn't in range to attack you (and you aren't in range to attack them either) and let them capitalize on your loss of ground. This is good to do if you've pushed the minion wave all the way to the enemy tower, but don't have the killing power to take down the actual tower, and the enemy is using his tower to more effectively harass you. It's a bad position to be in, and it's a good idea to get out of it ASAP.

Pulling for gank: is when you pull, just like above, but they aren't at their tower. This usually occurs closer to the middle of the lane, trying to get them to push closer to YOUR tower. Once this happens, it's easy for a team mate to come up behind them for an ambush, blocking their escape and creating a pincer scenario. Make sure you communicate to your team that this is what you're trying to achieve. Never assume someone SHOULD have been around to help you gank.

Attack Moving: Does the same thing as a move command except that if you get close enough to anything that you can attack, you'll begin repeatedly attacking it. It's good to move through farm waves in this fashion, because you need to attack them to get gold. It's bad to move past enemies in this fashion, because you'll only want to attack when you're at an optimum position, not when you first arrive.

The Laning Phase

This is when the game first starts. All of the towers are up, and the heroes are running to their respective lanes. Lane fights happen, nobody really comes out of their lane, the jungler is jungling without too much of a problem, and everything is business as usual.

The Transitional Phase

One or more of the towers have fallen, people are starting to bleed into eachother's lanes, ganks are happening often, people are frequently out of lane, the bigger buffs (dragon, red, blue) start to become fair game on both sides of the map, that is, the enemy jungler has killed a buff on your side of the map or your jungler has stolen an enemy buff, things start to get a bit chaotic. People are scrambling to brace for the team fight phase and establish dominance in the center lane. The middle lane player one one side (hopefully not yours) is really starting to have a bad day.

The Teamfight Phase

The side lanes have been abandoned, all of the action has moved to the middle lane, and the teams are plowing back and forth. People are on and off of their respawn timers like a game of Quake III Arena, its balls-to-the-wall team fighting and the game is coming to a close. Secured buffs become incredibly critical, especially Baron, map awareness is everything, and team fights even go as far as to happen in parts of the jungle. During this phase, you should never be walking ANYWHERE alone and you should be recalling whenever you have the means to in order to replenish your health and mana, and then get RIGHT back out of there as soon as you can and head for your team.

The Closing

Believe it or not, this is when most games turn around if they're going to. One team has pushed the other all the way into their own base. Team fights happen as soon as the team respawns, and the losing team is struggling to keep their inner base structures alive. Super minions are pouring in because the inhibitors are down, and things are plain ugly. However, if they team plays very defensively, and lets their strongest characters farm all of the minions and get completely geared, sometimes they can push the fight right back out of the base, plow the enemy, and win.

These are the types of skills in the game

These are the League of Legends Character Types

You'll see each character have a role associated with them if you look at their information in game, or look at their tags on this website. This is a brief explanation of what they all mean.

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First you want to pick which hero you'd like to start with. There are free ones every week, and they change every week- realistically you could just wait for whichever hero you'd like to play to become free, but let's face it you might be waiting a really long time. So here's a quick guide to help you pick your first champion! There's a lot to choose from...

I'm going to list the heroes that I call "Basic Champs", due to their low price and relatively easy play style. You can read about each one, and choose which you like. And in the next section, I'll even go over a quick way to decide who you may be good with- because it really isn't about what the hero does, it's about how YOU play. It's probably not time to come out of your comfort zone yet.

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The recommended heroes of League of Legends are Annie, Ashe, Kayle, Master Yi, Nunu & Willump, Ryze, and Sivir. These are the one's you'll be able to unlock the fastest. There may be one or two I missed, if there are, point it out for me and I'll update it. I'm going off memory here... So what do these champs do?-
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Annie is a caster. She's heavily rooted in fire-based skills, she can summon a big teddy bear, and she can stun the enemy every few spells. She has sort of a learning curve because she needs to effectively use her stun to be really viable. She is, however, a really great champion and a great addition to any team. Her teddy bear, tibbers, makes her able to take a little bit more of a damage load- as if there are two champions in her lane rather than one for a short period of time. She does more magic damage than physical.

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Ashe is an archer, she's based a lot off of ice, pretty much every skill she has will have something to do with ice. Nearly everything she has will slow down the enemy, making the enemy much easier to catch for your team. She's more based off of auto-attacking than she is reliant on her skills. She does a lot more physical damage than magic damage. Her ultimate skill, Enchanted Crystal Arrow, has one of the longest ranges in the game. You can fire it across the entire map and it ignores walls. Ashe is more based off of hit and run than actually engaging the enemy head-on.

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Kayle is a support/tanky character. She can be melee or she can be ranged, she can heal, boost movement speed, and make an ally invincible for a short period of time. She's very good for anyone who likes to hang back and make sure that their team is buffed, healed, hard to kill, and she can even do a bit of damage to the enemy team while she's back there. If needed, she can even switch roles and hit the front line of the fight. Her damage comes pretty evenly from both physical and magic sources, she can be successful built either way. However, she's not very specialized in either role- physical damage or magic damage. Her specialization is in being a support character.

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Master Yi is a heavy damage physical offense based champion. He's a samurai. His skill boost his damage and rely on throwing a lot of damage at the enemy very quickly, and he even has a skill which makes him more effective at hunting down enemy champions. LOTS of beginners choose Master Yi as their first champion because he's so powerful. This is all well and good, but I will warn you, people who start out on Master Yi tend to learn a lot of bad habits that are really hard to break.

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Nunu & Willump is also based on ice, like Ashe, but he's a caster... sort of. He's strange in the fact that he's a caster, but his physical attacks are melee and a lot of his abilities are short range. He's a strange fellow... rather, they're strange fellows- he's a guy riding a yeti. The cool thing about Nunu & Willump is that his ultimate skill has one of the highest damage outputs in the entire game. Nunu & Willump is absolutely insane if he's played right. If you're looking for raw damage output, I'd start off on Nunu & Willump rather than starting on Master Yi, just because you're not so prone to get into the habit of going Rambo mode like you're going to learn to do on Yi. Don't get me wrong though, it's your choice and Master Yi is a really cool champion.

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Ryze is a caster based off of lightning. He's a good place to start if you're looking to play a caster, just like Annie. His skills are based landing a crowd-control skill, and then laying some damage on the enemy while they can't do anything about it, and then running away. He's a sheisty hero, and a lot of fun to play. He's another champion that plays sort of a hit-and run style.

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Sivir is another damage dealing physical champion like Master Yi, but she's ranged. She's really good at harassing an enemy from far away, and she's capable of throwing a TON of damage. She's also pretty sustainable, that is, she doesn't necessarily have to run away if she's engaged. That's not to say you should be taking on the world, but she's by no means made of glass.

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I'f I'm not mistaken, Brand should be on this list, maybe a few others, too. I'd look them up right now, but the god awful computer I'm on has a terrible internet connection to boot. Heading over to the champion database from where I'm at right now is just ASKING for the browser to lock up.

Equipment is where you can really get creative

This is where you make your character into what they are. Usually you want to build your character to maximize his or her potential based on their skillset and attack types. For instance, Singed gets a lot of bonuses from mana based items, so you want a lot of mana on him, same with Blitzcrank and Ryze.

Here, I'll go over some basic equipment theory.
Keep in mind that the possibilities are limitless, and these are just basic principles.

Another thing to know is that, when building equipment, every piece of equipment has a recipe. That is, there are weaker, less expensive items that you can buy which eventually turn into the piece of equipment you are TRYING to ultimately purchase.

For instance, to build Malady, a player may want to start buy purchasing a Dagger, and then another Dagger, and then an Amplifying Tome. You can see the recipe for an item when you click on it, and it's a good idea to buy the items in the order of what specific stats you need off of the item.

For instance, Nasus functions very well with a Sheen and ultimately Trinity Force, but he really doesn't need any ability power, such as the Amplifying Tome present in the recipe for a Sheen which is part of the recipe for Trinity Force, so you'd buy the Sapphire Crystal first, since almost everybody benefits from a little extra mana.

After that, he doesn't need critical strike or attack speed as much as he needs more life and the ability to slow his enemies. So you'd build a Phage before you'd build Zeal.

Get the items you need before the items that you don't necessarily need when building a recipe.

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-Core Build-
A "core build" is a group of the three main items that benefit a type of character the most. These should be your FIRST three items, and you should also get some sort of boots in there somewhere relatively early. Playing a character without boots is like driving a car with only first gear available. Yeah, it can be done, but it isn't very effective and isn't very good for your well-being.

There are many types of builds in League of Legends, so I'll go over those and what a somewhat ideal core build might be for those types of play styles.

We'll start with the most common, most fun, most played style of building for early gamers:

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The AD Hypercarry
Relies very heavily on additional damage, most of them are auto attackers and so they need their swings to throw as much damage as they can.

Who plays them?
Personality types that usually play AD carries tend to be the types of people who are sort of thrill seeker kinds of people. Laid back, just playing the game to play the game, but they sort of want to be the rockstar at the same time. They want to get the most kills they can with the minimum effort, which is why the AD Hypercarry is so popular among new players- it doesn't require much skill.

Pros of AD hypercarries:
HUGE damage output, the ability to snowball into an unstoppable force by the later stages of the game, LOTS of fun to play, really gives a new player the confidence to keep playing the game. I call AD hypercarries the "first line". Sort of like cocaine, they give you the first line for free to get you hooked and keep coming back for more. That's what AD hypercarries do for new players. They get them hooked on League of Legends.

Cons of AD Hypercarries:
AD Hypercarries are seen less and less as your character level progressively gets higher, because more experienced players are very efficient at making sure an AD Hypercarry has a really, really bad day. As the game evolves and you face more challenging opponents, the AD hypercarry goes from being the shining star and most viable addition to a team, to being the drag point- the person who gets killed the most and feeds the enemy team entirely too much. It's fun to learn the basics of the game on an AD hypercarry, but be sure to move on to something else before your summoner level is about 15.

The reason this is your core build:

Phantom Dancer, found under Attack->Attack speed, is where the majority of your attack speed will come from, and also significantly boosts your critical strike chance. Critical strikes throw double damage, and really make or break an AD hypercarry.

Infinity Edge, found under Attack->Damage, is where the majority of your damage will come from. It boost your critical strike chance even more, adds 50% damage when a critical strike DOES happen, and adds a good amount of straight attack damage as well. It stacks very well with Phantom Dancer, and once you have both, you'll see a significant increase in killing power due to high critical chance and high critical damage.

Bloodthirster, found under Attack->Life Leech, is where your sustain comes from. It adds some nice flat attack damage, a good amount of life steal, and gets progressively more powerful the more enemies you kill. Since you'll be killing enemies quickly with your Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge, it stacks nicely into the combination and the three items work incredibly well together to give you very significant damage output.

An AD Hypercarry, and why this works well on them:


Master Yi has a skill called Wuju Style.

It boosts your damage passively, which adds even more damage output to your equipment combo. His ultimate, Highlander, ads significant attack speed and more damage to champions, as well as movement speed, and it refreshes if you kill a champion with it. So logically, if you're throwing a TON of damage VERY quickly, you're very likely to refresh Highlander and create the ability to simply move on to the next target. Every time you strike someone, you heal yourself. So it's not uncommon to decimate a champion and be moving on to the next one STILL at full health.

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-The AP Hypercarry-
They rely on the pure beefiness of their spells to do the most damage possible. They stack AP on top of AP on top of AP and then when they're done, they get some AP to compliment their AP that they stacked on top of their original ******ed levels of AP. So, in other words, you might need some AP. After that, make sure you don't forget to get some AP. If worst comes to worse, and you run out of mana, you can always get more AP while your mana recharges at the fountain.....

.....AP.

Who plays them?
People who like to cast substantially damaging spells and play SORT of from the back lines, but still in the action. These are the guys that like to watch green lifebars turn very, very red very, very quickly. Almost nothing will piss off an enemy team more than an AP hypercarry who has been fed. Even more so than AD hypercarries, because AP hypercarries are RANGED and therefore much harder to close in on and kill. It's a good class for trolls. People who like to play with an evil smile on their face.

The Pros of an AP Hypercarry:
Best damage output in the entire game. Nothing beats the damage output of an AP hypercarry. If you ever wondered what pure offensive potential looks like, this is it.

The Cons of an AP Hypercarry:
You have that annoying blue thing (mana bar) at the bottom of your screen that seems to keep getting lower and lower and lower every time you grant an enemy a new orifice. Also, being pure offense doesn't leave much room for any defense. You have to be VERY careful not to be shut down early or your job in the game will be to provide kills and gold for the enemy team.

Why this is your core build:

Will of the Ancients, found under Magic->Ability Power, is a nice AP boost, and provides you with spell vamp, which is your sustain. Every time you hit an enemy with a spell, you'll receive a portion of the damage you dealt back as life.

Void Staff, found under Magic->Ability Power, provides a great AP boost as well, and it also adds a huge amount of magic penetration, so your skills will cut through enemy magic resists a lot more than they would without this item. It stacks very well with Will of the Ancients because the more damage you do with a spell, the more life you get back.

Rabadon's Deathcap, found under Magic->Ability Power, is your ace of spades. It adds a metric ****-ton of AP, and also boosts your TOTAL AP by 30%. This is an amazing item on ANY spellcaster, or anyone that uses AP at all for that matter.

An AP Hypercarry and why this works on them:


Fiddlesticks has a skill called Bountiful Harvest

It deals damage to the enemy every second they are in range and returns that damage back to Fiddlesticks as health. Add Will of the Ancients on top of this, and you're returning an absolutely ridiculous amount of life- enough to usually take every hit that's being thrown at you while you're casting this spell. His Crowstorm does absolutely ridiculous damage as well, and if the enemy is feared by Terrify, they can't get away from it. Add Void Staff to the mix and it becomes very hard to mitigate this damage, and with Rabadon's Deathcap, it's very formidible damage. Oh, and he has a bouncing skill called Reap, which silences an enemy, preventing them from doing their most significant damage to you.

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Tank killer

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High Damage

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Anti-Armor

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Anti-Caster


-The AD Carry-
Slightly different than a hypercarry because they focus a little more on having some sustain, and they just don't have the same damage output. They require a bit more skill to play, but they're much more viable at higher levels than a hypercarry. Most hypercarry players evolve to play regular carries at later levels, because they find themselves getting countered or shut down, and it's a lot harder to do that to a regular ol' carry.

There's also a lot more ways to design your core build.

Who plays them?
These are the G.I. Joes of League of Legends. These are the characters that are just sort of "there", doing the dirty work. The blue collar champs, if you will. The team is useless without them, but you never see them shine out like a hypercarry does unless they get REALLY fed and play REALLY well early in the game. If you're a laid back kind of gamer, and you just want to get in, get the job done, and get out. Glory gamers need not apply.

Pros of an AD Carry:
High damage output, and the ability to take a few hits on top of it. The usual way you can tell a hypercarry apart from a carry is that hypercarries have almost purely offensive skills, where as a carry has a sustain or buff skill of some sort (other than buffing damage, like wuju style. I'm talking more along the lines of Riven's Valor.) They're meant to stay in a lane much longer and require a lot less feeding than a hypercarry would. Yeah, Master Yi has Meditate, but most Master Yi players don't put much points into it. Carries... They may not get AS powerful as a hypercarry, but they also aren't nearly as prone to early deaths/shutdowns.

Cons of an AD Carry:
They can be boring to play, you're in for all the dirty work, you're essentially playing a pawn role. Your team will probably exceed you in kills, you'll get YOUR kills stolen periodically by a passing hypercarry, and you just really aren't all flashes and bangs. You're only there to fill a slot, but if that slot isn't filled, your team fails. Someone has to do it. Also, getting spectacularly good with an AD carry requires some time and repetition and patience that most new players are just too excited to play new champs to be able to muster up.

An AD Carry and why these work on them:


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Tank Killer:

Madred's Bloodrazor, found under Attack->Damage, deals magical damage based on an enemy's health, and many tanks stack life, so the item becomes incredibly viable against tanks. Being a ranged character, she can successfully poke at a tank while taking relatively little damage herself.

Malady, found under Attack->Attack speed, substantially increases your attack speed, deals a bit of magical damage, and lowers enemy resistances. It makes Madred's Bloodrazor hit a lot harder and a lot more often.

Bloodthirster, found under Attack->Life Steal, adds a much needed physical damage boost to your almost purely magic damage based offense, and returns a lot of health based on the attacks you land.

Combining all of this with Ashe's ability to slow will make it much harder for that tank to get away, since many of them are inherently slow, and makes Ashe a very viable tank killer.

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High Damage:

Phantom Dancer, found under Attack->Attack Speed, will add a lot of attack speed to Ashe's auto attacks, and really boost her critical strike chance.

Infinity Edge, found under Attack->Damage, will add a substantial damage boost, and also boost Ashe's chance to throw a critical strike even further, as well as boost the damage of her critical strikes.

Bloodthirster, found under Attack->Life Steal, will help her sustain and refill her life as she attacks, and adds another significant attack damage bonus.

Combining these items on Ashe will make her an insane damage dealer at a good range. Volley adds damage on top of your normal attack damage, and so this has the potential to make Volley a HUGE threat in a team fight. With Ashe's ability to slow, she guarantees most champions won't get away from her.

Anti-Armor:

Black Cleaver, found under Attack->Attack Speed, adds an attack speed boost and lowers the enemy's armor, as well as ading a decent flat damage boost.

Last Whisper, found under Attack->Damage, adds armor penetration to Ashe's attacks and adds a decent attack damage boost

Zeke's Harbinger, found under Attack->Life Steal, adds an attack speed bonus, as well as lowering the armor of all enemies near Ashe, adds health regeneration, and adds life steal.

First, you've lowered the enemy's armor before you even engaged him by using stark's fevor's passive. Each hit with Black Cleaver lowers it even more, and once their armor is dropped, Last Whisper will penetrate through whatever is left. The difference between heavy armor champions (like tanky DPS) and actual Tanks, is that Tanks tend to stack both mitigation AND health, whereas Tanky DPS champions only tend to have a good amount of mitigation, minus the stacked up health. Make sure you know which one you're playing against before you choose between a tank killing build or an armor piercing build.

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Anti-Caster:

Wit's End, found under Magic->Magic Resist, provides an attack speed bonus, flat magic damage per hit, magic resistances, and stacks more magic resistances every time you attack, which is good for giving you a little more sustain while you're in the fray with a caster.

Hexdrinker, found under Attack->Damage, provides you with a little more attack damage and also gives you a 300 point shield if the enemy is about to kill you with a spell.

Bloodthirster, found undr Attack->Life Leech, gives you som sustain, so with your magic resitances, you should be able to keep pumping arrows into the enemy to regain your health back for whatver damage they're dealing to you, attacking very aggressively and relying on the caster being squishy, knowing that if they really hurt you badly, your Hexdrinker will give you a chance to get out of there alive.

Ashe gets sent to the middle lane a lot, which is the territory of AP champions, and so she needs to be able to come out on top. Building to counter casters specifically MAY hurt you in the end game, keep that in mind. This is NOT a viable end-game build, but it WILL help you take the middle lane down very effectively, and a crushed middle lane is terrible news for the enemy team. You can always SELL all of your equipment at that point and re-build to be more viable in a team fight.

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-The AP Carry-
These guys are just like AD Carries, they have more sustain than a hypercarry but lack the same damage output. They're very average joe. But without them, there are a lot holes in your team dynamic. Namely, you'll have a lot less effective champion in the middle lane.

Who plays them?
AP Carries tend to get played by people who liked playing spellcasters in other RPG or RTS games, and are looking for an entrance into the world of spellcasters in League of Legends. AP Carries usually have a high attention to detail, since being effective on an AP Carry requires a lot of paying attention. To mana, to the enemy's mana, to the enemy's movement, what's on cooldown, map awareness... AP Carries are sort of squishy, and it's not all about bursting the enemy like it is on an AP hypercarry. AP Carries usually end up squaring off in the middle lane, and they're usually very evenly matched. It takes a lot of skill to play an effective AP Carry. Telling an AP Carry apart from an AP Hypercarry is easy. AP Hypercarries have pure damage output, whereas AP Carries can usually protect themselves, such as with Morgana's Black Shield or Orianna's Command: Protect.

The Pros of an AP Carry:
They have a high learning curve. That is, an AP Carry has the potential to be even more decimating than an AP Hypercarry if they've got a skilled player behind them. The same isn't true for an AD Carry versus an AD Hypercarry. Tanky DPS is much more skilled at taking out an AD Hypercarry. However, an AP Carry is a time bomb of skill- they're going to be in the lower ranks, but after repitition and practice, nothing is more valuable on a team than an AP Carry who knows what they're doing. Mainly because this is the guy in charge of your MOST IMPORTANT LANE.

The Cons of an AP Carry:
They're difficult to start out on, because in an organized game, you're going to be in the hardest slot on the map- the middle lane. You'll get ganked, losing the lane is a horrible stab to your team, you're pressured, and you need to pick up your role QUICKLY or see yourself get a lot of losses. If you're going to learn an AP Carry, it's better to learn them on the Twisted Treeling, because there is a lot less pressure. It's easy to swap lanes on TT, and the AP carry is usually in the bottom lane in favor for a hypercarry in the top lane. Playing an AP carry on Summoner's Rift is a duelist's position, and if you don't make the cut, you're really hurting your team.

An example of an AP Carry, and why this works on them:


Chalice of Harmony, found under Magic->Mana Regen, this item is your mana sustain, the key to remaining in the middle lane. It increases your Mana regeneration by 1% per 1% of mana you are missing. This is HUGE as you get lower on mana, and mana is your offensive potential. Without it, you have auto-attacks, which are laughable on AP Carries. This also provides you with early magic resist. This is usually a table turning item if one middle laner gets it and the other doesn't.

Rod of Ages, found under Magic->Mana, will add more mana to your total pool, some health, heal you when you level up, and add some valuable AP. It's a great sustain item for casters, much like Rylai's Crystal Scepter, but that item is meant a lot more for tanky AP characters due to the huge life bonus. I mean, you can still build it, but it should be much later in the game.

First and most importantly
You should NOT be spending IP on champions. AT ALL.

Save them up for Tier 3 runes, if you MUST by a champion, make sure it's one you'll play for a long long while. There are free ones every week that you get to try, and if you spend all your IP on your way to level 20 on all kinds of champions, you're going to fall further and further behind everyone else because your runes will be completely insufficient by the time everyone ELSE has Tier 3 runes.
Runes make or break a one on one fight.

Masteries...
Just think about what would synergize well with your character, and put points into it. Is your character a tank? Well, then you need sustain, usually on the Defense tree. Are they a caster? Well then they might need AP off of the Offense tree and mana regen off of the Utility tree.

Runes...
You get nine of each of the smaller runes: marks, seals, and glyphs.
Try and go for nothing but primary runes. If you get a secondary rune, that means the rune isn't designed to be used to boost that sort of a statistic. Each group of runes specializes in boosting certain stats.

For instance, red runes are good for boosting your damage output, either by attack damage, ability power, or penetration. Blue runes are good for boosting your sustain, either by defense, life, mana, or resistances. Yellow runes are good for utility, such as cooldown reduction, attack speed, or move speed. Purple runes are the most powerful and most expensive. They're good at boosting any statistic, but you only get a maximum of three of them.

You want your runes to synergize with whatever you're trying to accomplish, for instance, you don't want attack speed runes on a caster, or cooldown reduction on an auto-attacker.

My brother, Squeezy102, is much more knowledgeable about runes than I am. I'm going to see if I can get him to re-write this in a bit more depth for me.

Summoner spells...
You only get 2, so choose wisely.

Good skills to START OUT with would be Heal and Exhaust.

Just know that the longer you play, the less viable Heal becomes, and you should never learn to rely on it. You should use it to "erase" a mistake you just made while learning a game, and do whatever you can to NOT get into the situation again which required you to use Heal. It's a good learning tool- if you had to use Heal, rewind that scenario in your mind, and think about what you did wrong, and work to attempt to not do it again.

Once you find yourself no longer using Heal much, swap it out for a different summoner skill.

sight ward

These are your friend. Don't be a scrub, they aren't that expensive.

You want to put wards in places of high interest and heavy traffic. They will allow you to see the enemy's movement, which prevents them from ganking you and allows YOU to gank THEM much more effctively. Wards can not be seen unless they are revealed like any other invisible unit. So the enemy probably doesn't even know that you can see them.

Typically, supports are in charge of the wards, but regardless, they are EVERYONE'S responsibility.

Where to ward

Twisted Treeline
The top lane should have the dragon warded, and ward the entrances into the jungle, as well as the bushes in his lane.

The bottom lane should have the Lizard warded, as well as the enrances to the jungle, and the bushes in their own lane.

Summoner's rift
The top lane should have Baron warded, as well as the entrances to the jungle, the enemy's buff, the bushes in their lane, and their corresponding lane buff (blue on the blue side, red on the purple side) So ideally, if everyone in the game is warding properly, all of the buffs in the game will have a set of wards on them.

The bottom lane should have dragon warded, as well as any entrances to the jungle, and any bushes in their own lane. They should also have their corresponding lane buff warded as well as the enemy's.

The middle lane should have the bushes on both sides of the lane at the river warded, some wards in the bushes that run down the river, and otherwise really isn't in charge of warding.

The jungler should have all high traffic areas INSIDE the jungle warded, as well as a few in the enemy jungle if he can pull it off.

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If you know where the enemy is, they will never sneak up on you.

If they can't gank you, then the game is based entirely off of skill, rather than luck or ambushes. If you get ganked, no matter what, no matter who you want to point the finger at, no matter who you want to say didn't call MIA.... it's your own damn fault. WARD YOUR AREA.

3 versus 3 (twisted treeline)

Every twisted treeline game starts with a bit of a teamfight at the bush in the middle of the map on the bottom lane. I don't know how that tradition started, but it did, and you need to know that going into the game. Get your purchases done early and get your butt down there.

Have someone with a skill shot shoot into the bush, or bring a sight ward down there. Running directly into that bush is a BAD IDEA.

Other than that, your hypercarry or most potent carry should be top lane, and your other two should be on bottom. Essentially, the top lane is a solo lane, its going to be one versus one. Bottom lane is 2 on 2 or 2 on 1 if one team has a jungler or 1 on 1 if both teams have a jungler.

The top lane should be constantly watching for someone to stray into their lane from out of nowhere, and it's important for the top lane to maintain control of the DRAGON, who lives in the little bay at the top of the map, since every time the dragon is killed, it's a substantial amount of gold for your entire team.

The bottom lane is in charge of maintaining control of the Lizard Elder, which is almost dead center of the entire map. Anyone who kills the Lizard Elder starts throwing significantly more damage, so you definitely want that secured for YOUR team.

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Movement Techniques
How to not get impaled by your own stupidity.
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-Ditching-
Ditching is the act of getting an enemy off your trail.

When you're being pursued, nine times out of ten, the enemy isn't going to stop chasing you until they kill you. They aren't chasing you because they want to play tag, they're chasing you because they know they have a kill in the bag.

Things to look for:
Round bush setups, obstructing bushes, thin walls, allied players, CC skills which are not on cooldown, movement skills which are not on cooldown.

Using bushes:
What you want to do when approaching a round bush setup is exactly what they probably won't be expecting you do to. Circle the bush, rather than going right through it and continuing to run a straight line. I'll have a video of this up soon. I'll try and explain it with words as best I can, but it's gonna be easier to understand once I get a video up.

Essentially, what they're going to be expecting you to do is to run into the bush, and exit out the other side on an escape path. What you're ACTUALLY going to do is run AROUND the bush and go back the way you came, provided they continued on, anticipating you to continue on. If they stop at the side of the bush or enter the bush, CC them and head off in some random direction, preferably towards team mates.

Using CC:
You want to hit the enemy with your slow, stun, or whatever at the MAXIMUM range you can cast it at. If they're further away than the maximum range of your CC skill, do NOT turn around to cast it. Run until they get close enough for you to use it. I've seen SO many people die because they turned around to slow the enemy so they could get away.... wait... you ran AT the enemy to get AWAY from the enemy? It's instinctual and it's a knee-jerk reaction... but DON'T DO IT.

CC is on cooldown, No bushes
Ping your location, and start running towards your team. If you see them using area of effect auras like Amumu's Despair, Singed's Poison Trail or Karthus's Defile, Aggrivate every creep in the jungle on your way. As soon as they walk by, the creeps will re-focus on them. If you just don't se yourself getting away, and death is imminent, there's no way out of it, commit to the death and do as much damage to them as you possibly can before they kill you. If you have Ignite, use it at the last second.
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-Juking/Flashing-
Juking is the act of faking an enemy out to get them off your trail.

You can do this a few ways, the most infamous way to do it is in the bushes on either side of Summoner's Rift's middle lane. Run into the bush and hug the edge on your side. Wait for the enemy to get into the bush and continue through it (I promise you they clicked past it, not in it) and turn and run back the way you came. You just created som distance between you and them. This only works if they're about to catch you. If you do this when you have some good distance between you and them, you just allowed them to CLOSE some distance, and the whole point was to INCREASE the distance between you.

Flash is your ultimate juke tool once you can get it. That bush trick I just discussed works wonders if you flash towards your tower and run rather than just straight running.

Other ways you can use flash to juke would be to run into a round bush, and flash over to the other side of the rock the bush surrounds, and run back out the way you came. If you find a wall, flash past the wall, they'll have to walk around it. If they're 2 seconds away from landing a hit on you, flash yourself back out of their range and keep running. NEVER use flash if there is already a good distance between you, they'll simply catch up to you, knowing you already burned your flash.

If you use it when they're JUST about to catch you, they're a lot more likely to get discouragd and stop chasing you, and this way you also don't use it at ALL if they turn around before they catch you. Saves you a flash for the next time you need it.
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-Tower Diving-
Tower Diving is the act of purposely running into an enemy tower to secure a kill.

Know that you're probably going to take some heavy damage doing this. The instant you hit that champion, that tower is going to start raining hurt on you, so you better know it's in the bag, and you better make it count. Flash is very useful here, because you'll spend less time running at the enemy, which leaves you in the line of fire for a much shorter frame of time. Also, know your escape and make sure it isn't blocked, or potentially blocked.

-=-=Checklist for Tower Diving=-=-
-Where are the rest of the enemy champions?
-Are you SURE you can land a killing blow in one or two shots?
-Do you have a way back out?
-Are you fast enough to catch them if they catch on and run?
-Do you have enough life left to take those tower hits if they CC you?
-Is there a chance your skill shot will be obstructed by a minion?
-Has the champion you're tower diving against burned their ult recently? Their Flash/Ghost?
-Where is their jungler? When's the last time anyone saw him?


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You have to know your situation. If you head back there and get CC'd with half your life, you're going to get killed by the tower. If you get back there and their jungler is waiting for you, you're either going to die before you get the kill or it's going to be 1 for 1 and you just fed their jungler. If they have their ult, they might kill you. If they have their flash or ghost, they might get away. If you have no way out, you're going to give them the same 300 gold you just got for killing them. Tower diving is incredibly risky and requires a lot of pre-planning and assessment. It is RARELY viable, but when it is... damn is it sexy.
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-Kiting/Defensive movement-
Kiting is damaging an enemy as they chase you or run.
Defensive movement is keeping an ideal distance between you and an enemy.

The difference between them is that ranged characters kite, because they can be attacking the whole time they're doing it. Melee characters can only move defensively, and they can't do much to capitalize on the distance.

Defensive movement
You've taken some damage but a team mate is on their way. You aren't done for yet, but you probably shouldn't take any more hits if you plan on being effective when your buddy gets there. 50-60% health is a good time to get on the defensive and quit being a schmuck. If you want to be billy badass, you have fun with that record-setting death score. This aint golf, buddy.

Essentially, just stay out of their range, but try and farm while you're outside of their range. If they start closing distance, back off. If they start running away, close in. You should be almost mirroring their movement. If they keep pushing, don't be ashamed to go ALL the way back to your tower. Your pride isn't worth another 300 gold in their pocket and a respawn timer.

Kiting
Incorporates some offense into your defensive movement. Know the ranges of your skills, and don't try and kite someone that out-ranges you. It's as easy as shoot, move, shoot, move, shoot, move. If you squeeze more than one auto attack off before moving, then you aren't kiting, and the enemy probably just closed some distance or got away. Ashe is a great kiter because every shot she fires will slow an an enemy, although any character can achieve this with a Frozen Mallet. Mirror their movement, and squeeze off an attack when you can. NEVER try and kite someone who can hit you back, slow you, stun you, or otherwise reel you in like a fish. Blitzcrank is probably the worst character to try and kite in the entire game. He'll grab you, stun you, and punch you in the spleen repeatedly.

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-Skipping Skillshots-
DEFINITELY a must-learn.

Skill shots need to be aimed. And a lot of people who haven't read this guide are going to show a tell-tale sign that they're about to cast one at you- They'll stop.

When you line up to aim for a skill shot, your character will stop unless you gave them a move command before you started lining up your aim. And when you do that, it's a bit harder to aim because you're now moving. When an enemy casts a skill shot, especially at lower levels of the game (newbies, <30) they will stop their movement for a brief second to aim. WATCH for it, and dive across and backwards in the lane. Skill shots usually fire in a line or a cone. If you're going across a lane rather than down it, and they fired down the lane, they just missed. If you're going backwards as well, the cone may not have enough range to hit you. Cone skill shots have substantially less range than line skill shots.

So just remember. Watch for a pause, Across and back.
Watch for a ******* pause, Across the lane, and pull back.
Rinse and repeat. I'd say I dodge 60% of skill shots at LEAST on a BAD day.