General Guide by IceCreamy

Welcome!

Hello my dear reader, and welcome to this guide. I will do my best to guide you through the very basics of League of Legends, so if you are already level 30 this guide will hopefully teach you nothing. However if you are new, a friend recommended you to play it but is too lazy to tell you about every single thing in the game, here is your resource!

Before starting, notice that I will not explain everything, and that you might have to try certain things out multiple times before you understand them. Getting good at this game is a matter of practice, so don't give up easily! The game is certainly worth learning, it is seriously fun :)

Enough of an introduction, on to the actual guide! Have fun reading!

The start.

So... You have found a game called League of Legends. You have probably installed because all your friends play it, but you have no idea of what you need to do. You start the game, you select your region, and you click the Play Now button. You fill in the name and the password of the user account you just made (really, I hope you can do that. If not, don't even bother playing the game...) and you click the Log In button. You see the PVP net screen, and your mind goes like: "WTF!? What the hell am I supposed to do here!?". Well, this is probably what you see:



Before all else, I actually have to write a . between PVP and net. However it will become a link, and I don't want that to happen. So I will just keep on writing PVP net, that should be clear right? :)

On to the explanations.

The "Home" sign. No matter where you are, if you click that you will be returned to the screen as currently shown.

The Play button. If you click here, you will enter a screen which allows you to select certain game modes. I will elaborate on this later, for now there are more important things.

Your Summoner's Icon. You can change it by clicking it, a little menu will appear and you can select your favorite. It does not affect anything in any way, so just choose the one that looks the coolest or prettiest. The number in the bottom right corner of that icon is your Summoner Level, of which the highest value is 30.

The Store. If you click it, you will be shown a screen with a lot of buttons on the left side. You can purchase all sorts of things, but you should find that out for yourself.

Your own Profile. Here you can see how many wins you have per game mode, your last 10 matches including your statistics, which champions there are, what Runes you currently have, what Masteries you currently have set, and what Summoner Spells are available for you. If you click the box that says "Find Summoner", you can also take a look at other people's Profiles; however you can not see their Ranked Stats, which champions they own and which mastery pages they have set.

The left button links you to stories about the League of Legends lore, in case you have any interest in that. The button on the right brings you to the Help function, which you will not need if you are reading this :P

brings you to the Options. If you are not satisfied with the current settings, you can alter them.

So far the basic explanation of PVP net, on to some more in-depth stuff!

What to do next?

Well, now the fun part starts. You are almost set to play your first game (note: You might have already played 1 or 2 tutorial matches. If you have not done that yet, please do so, they are not great but they give a basic explanation of the game and it's mechanics)! But before that, you can already spend something. Head over to your mastery page (if you can not find it just yet, click the button that brings you to your Profile and click the Masteries tab).



You will notice that you have 1 point available (since I am already level 30, I have 30 available whenever I create a new Mastery Page)! You will gain 1 point every time your Summoner Level increases (maximum is 30 points). You have a completely free choice when it comes to where you want to place it. Since I have not yet explained anything else about it, you should put it in Durability for now since HP is a useful attribute for any champion. You can either left-click on the Durability mastery (not here, in-game) or you can hover your mouse over the icon and scroll up. On the left you can also give a name to that mastery page, but for now Mastery Page 1 is just fine.

Now that you have done that, it is actually time to start playing! Hit the big red Play button, and you will be shown some options.

Play.

So now it is time. Time to actually start playing the game.

You should first complete both tutorials, as they teach you the most basic things there are to the game. You can reach them from here:



and here



Once you have successfully completed both tutorials, you should play some Co-op vs. AI matches. If you click that tab, you must choose your Game Mode. A brief explanation is given, but I recommend learning how to play Classic first. Click on Summoner's Rift to the right, and set the Difficulty at Beginner. This means that the bots are not playing that well, but since this is the first time you are going to play they might be a challenge.



Hit the "I will invite my own Teammates" button at the bottom if you want to invite your friends, click the "Match me with Teammates" button otherwise. Once you have done that, you should notice you are back in the very first screen. Only one thing has changed: Instead of that big red Play button, there should be a timer. It shows for how long you have been waiting. It should not take that long; eventually you should get a pop-up. Click the Play Now button, and you will be taken to a screen which looks really chaotic. (I will add a better screenshot later, since I'm implying taking AP stuff on Vayne xD)



Let me explain:

#1 is your team, containing you and 4 others.

#2 is the opponent team, consisting of 5 bots. In other game modes they might be people.

Note that I started a game of myself here, without any teammates or opponents. Usually that list will be filled.

#3 shows the team chat room.

#4 is where you can choose your Champion. Every champion has it's own unique skillset, providing a different approach to the game each. Choosing your Champion is probably a difficult decision at first, but just pick one you think might be fun. There are always 10 champions available for you. Those Champions are in the so called Free Week Rotation, meaning that every single person can play that Champion. Note that if someone already picked a champion in your team, you can not pick it yourself. If you do not manage to pick a champions within 90 seconds, one of the available ones will randomly be assigned to you. I will provide you with more information about Champions later on.

#5 is where the runes and masteries are situated. Leave Rune Page 1 and Mastery Page 1 as they are.

#6 is a place of interest. Those 2 icons represent Summoner Spells, which you can use when playing. You can only pick 2, so choose wisely! If you click either one of them, a pop-up will appear. You can see 13 options, of which 7 are currently available (assuming you are level 1). I recommend taking Heal and Ghost for now. More information about this will follow.

#7 shows the Lock In button. Once you are completely done with everything, click it. This will make the Champion list disappear, and a list of Skins for the Champion you picked will appear. You probably don't have a choice right now, since you can not choose the Skins that are Locked. Now all you have to do is wait until every player in the game is ready, and then the game can begin! Note that it is not necessary to click it, after 90 seconds you will automatically be locked in.

In-game.

After a bit of loading, you will probably see something that looks like this: (note that it looks a tiny bit different since Season 3 started, but there's nothing big that has changed. I will upload an improved screenshot later)



#1 gives you some info about yourself. The time the game is lasting, the number of Champions you killed, the number of times you died and the number of times you helped someone else get a kill are on top. Slightly below that is your FPS (Frames Per Second) and your ping. Even lower is the amount of kills your team made in total, and the amount of times your team died in total.

#2 contains more info about your Champion. The icon shows with Champion you are playing (in this case, Vayne). On the bottom right is your Champion Level (maximum 18). Below that is your xp bar, so you can see how long it will take until you gain a level. To the right of your Champion icon, are some stats. From top to above: Attack Damage, Ability Power, Attack Speed, Movement Speed, Armor and Magic Resist. I will elaborate on those later. Every number that is green, has been increased in some way. In my case that comes from Runes and Masteries.

To the right of that are the items you currently have in your inventory. At that time I had not bought any items, but obviously I bought some later; items are the most important thing when you are in game. As you probably expected, I will go into those later.

At #3 you see your skills. The 2 bars at the bottom show your current health/maximum health, and the bottom bar shows your mana. Not all Champions use mana; some use Fury, Energy, nothing or something special. The 8 icons each have a different meaning; the one on the left is the Champion's passive or innate ability. If you hover your mouse over it, a small pop-up will appear containing information about that ability. The 4 icons to the right of that are usable abilities, which are usually bound to the Q, W, E and R keys. The R skill is often referred to as ultimate. Again, if you hover your mouse over it, you will be able to read some additional info. As you can see I started off by putting a point in my Q skill, Tumble. If you have a point available, you can put a point in a skill that has a highlighted + above it. If the + is grayed out, you can not put a point in that skill at the moment. More information will come later. If you move on even more to the right, you will hopefully recognize those icons. They are the Summoner Spells you chose! The left one is bound to the D button, the left one to F. The icon all the way on the right is the Recall button. You can click it, or hit the B button on your keyboard, to return to your spawn. Note that this only works if you are not being attacked during the channeling time.

#4 contains some system icons. Here you can set various settings, you could play around with them yourself. There are more options that you can change. Hit the ESC button, and you will find another menu. Try to fiddle around with the settings until you like them.

#5 shows the mini map. It gives you a brief overview of the map. Below is an enlarged version, along with some more explanations below that:



The green part on the bottom left is your base. It contains a spawn (the place you come to life when you start the game or when you died and are revived), a Nexus (which the enemy must destroy to win), 3 inhibitors (when destroyed, the enemy team will have a bonus, which I will explain later on) and 3 inhibitor turrets (which must be destroyed before the enemy can destroy the inhibitors).

The red part on the top right is the enemy base. If you are playing normal games, it is possible that the red part is your base and the green part is the enemy base.

The part above and left of the orange line, is top lane. The part between the orange and blue line is mid lane, and the part below and right of the blue line is bot lane. Each lane contains 3 turrets (seen from the base: inhibitor, inner and outer, represented by green and red circles) and an inhibitor.

The space surrounded by the orange and blue lines is referred to as Jungle, where you can kill some neutral monsters. They grant gold, and some grant mana and/or buffs. More info will come later.


On the top left of the mini map you can find two buttons, a red one and a yellow one. The red button can be used to ping a target (such as a turret or an enemy Champion) which indicates you need help somewhere (use the G button as shortcut for it). The yellow button can be used to tell your allies to Fall Back from a certain area (the V button is the shortcut for it).

Some more general info: You can use the enter button to chat. If you write /all in front of your message, all 10 players in the game will receive the message. If you write /r (name of friend) and then your message, you will send a Private Message (PM, or whisper) to that friend. If that friend has sent you the last PM you received, his/her name will automatically be filled in (so you don't have to type it). You can also try clicking some other buttons outside of the chat function, just to test their effects.

Gameplay (laning)

There, you now understand everything in the HUD. About time for me to explain what you should be doing during the game.

You are granted 475 starting gold. You can use that to buy items, and I strongly recommend doing that as they improve the stats of your champion. Click the button that looks a bit like a bag (in #2 in the previous screenshot) to open the shop. You probably have no idea what items to buy, and since I don't know which champion you picked I don't know it either. I recommend you to look around this site, search for the Champion you picked and select a high rated guide (let's say 75 % or higher). It will (hopefully) help you with choosing which items to buy, and how to use your skills.

Since there are 5 people in your team and only 3 lanes, it is inevitable that some people will have to share. The team composition that people in higher levels usually try to get is the following: One person in the top lane, one person in the mid lane, 2 people in the bot lane and 1 person in the jungle. However jungling is not easy, especially not when you are still a low level, so most likely 2 people will go top instead.

After 90 seconds (remember where you can find how long the game is lasting?) the announcer (the lady voice) will say that "Minions have spawned". Take a look at your gold. It is increasing without you doing anything! Certain items, runes and masteries increase the rate of that, but I will discuss that later.

The 90 second mark also means that in every lane, 6 minions,

3 melee minions

and 3 caster minions,

will start to walk towards the enemy base. Every 3 waves, an additional minion will spawn. It is bigger than others, and is harder to kill. It's called

a Siege Minion.

Wait a bit for the minions to approach, until they clash with the minions of the other team. What you should try to do is wait for the minions to get low on hp, and then right-click on them (if you can't see the hp of the minions, hit the l button until you can see it again). This technique is called last-hitting. I just found this video that should prove useful:



Notice that if you last hit, you will gain gold. Once you manage to come back in the spawn (by either dying or recalling) you can spend that gold to buy more items. Anyhow, in the mean time your opponents should have arrived in the lane as well. They may attempt to attack you! If they do so, try to attack them back. That should scare them away, if they keep attacking you you should start running away instead, until they stop chasing you. Try to stay near the enemy minions, so you can keep last-hitting minions for more gold. If you see the opportunity, feel free to try and kill an opponent. Minions grant about 15 gold, but it increases throughout the game. If you kill a Champion, you will be granted 300 gold (if you have the first kill in the game, that is increased to 400 gold). If that Champion keeps dying without getting kills, they will be worth less and less until about the same amount as a minion. If a Champion keeps killing Champions without dying, they will be on a killing spree. The longer the killing spree, the more gold that Champion will be worth (maximum 500).

Now you don't have to be a professor in maths to realize minion gold is actually very important. If you kill about 20, you will have obtained an equal amount of gold as compared to when you killed a Champion! However if you kill a Champion, it will take a while before he/she can come back to the lane. That means that Champion can not take minion kills, so actually you will gain an even bigger advantage if you keep killing minions. Keep that in mind, killing minions is very important!

Note that it is not necessary to last-hit a minion if you only want the experience (xp). If you fail at last-hitting a minion, you will still gain xp. However, the more champions that are around, the less xp each champion will get. It is not possible to share gold for a minion. You either get the gold, or not.

Notice what happens if you keep autoattacking and/or throwing abilities at the minions. Your minions will come closer to their base, until they encounter an enemy turret. This technique is called Pushing. A video that nicely demonstrates that, would be this one:



NOTE: I do not own this video. I found it by just searching on youtube.

Minions will automatically attack the turret, and the turret will automatically attack the minions. Be careful though, if you attack a Champion while in turret range the turret will attack you! That is called Turret Aggro. Turrets deal a lot of damage so try to avoid getting damage from it. That also means that if your minions are dead, move away from the turret.

If you are pushing your lane, there is a chance that enemies come over from another lane, and start to attack you. That is called Ganking. You can prevent it by not pushing, but you can also place Sight Wards/ Vision Wards on the map. Wards grant 3 minute vision over an area, showing you if Champions are moving there. That way, if you see an enemy Champion coming, you can just run away before he/she gets to your lane.

Gameplay (jungle)

I have not yet talked about the space between the lanes. I have mentioned it is called the Jungle, and it is the place where the neutral monsters are situated. Some Champions excel in killing those Jungle monsters, a technique that is called Jungling. This video demonstrates a way of jungling (note that there are many paths):



NOTE: I do not own this video. I found it by just searching on youtube.

But since I assume that if you are a low level, you do not have a Jungler on your team. That means that sometimes, if you pass by, you can kill those Jungle monsters as well. There are different types of monsters, and I will explain them briefly. Every monster gives gold and experience (just like minions), but the big ones grant some hp and mana, and possibly even a buff.

The Blue golem camp contains a big golem and 2 small ones. If you kill the big one, you will be granted a buff. Once you think you can beat them, attack them and notice what happens. The buff is generally good on Champions that use a lot of mana, and benefit from Cooldown Reduction (CDR, a factor that affects the how long it will take until a skill you used is available again. The maximum CDR is 40 %).

The wolf camp consists of 2 small wolves and 1 big one. No additional buffs can be acquired here.

The wraith camp has 3 small wraiths and a big one. No additional buffs can be acquired here.

The Red golem camp is made out of 2 small golems and a big one. The big one grants a buff, which works best with champions that rely on autoattacks.

The golem camp contains 2 golems, a small one and a big one. No additional buffs can be acquired.

There are also 2 big monsters, the Dragon and Baron Nashor.

If your team kills the Dragon, every member will be granted 190 gold. The killer gains an additional 25 gold.

If your team kills Baron Nashor, every member will be given 300 gold. The killer gains 25 gold more. Every member that is alive when Baron Nashor is slain, will be given a buff.

WARNING! If you attempt to kill Dragon or Baron Nashor on your own, you will probably not succeed. Ask your teammates to help you with killing them.

Each jungle camp has a respawn time. Once you kill all members of a camp, a timer will start. Once that timer reaches a certain amount of time, the camp will respawn. Every camp has their own respawn time, but I will leave it up to you to find out. Also try to find out what happens when you do not kill all members of a camp.

Gameplay (objectives)

I don't know where to put this, but here seems appropriate. Throughout the map you must have spotted some green stuff by now. If you walk in there, you notice that your champion becomes a bit more vague. If you stand in the so called brush, enemy champions can not see you unless they walk in there themselves, have a Sight Ward/ Vision Ward in there or if they place the Summoner Spell Clairvoyance nearby. This is very useful when you are planning on ambushing enemy Champions or when you are recalling.

Now that I explained the map, it is time to find out what you actually have to do in this game. Your most important objective is killing the enemy Nexus. If you do that, you win the game. In order to get there, you must kill at least all the turrets and the inhibitor in one lane. Then you must destroy the 2 Nexus Turrets, only then can you attack the Nexus. Note that the inhibitors, Nexus Turrets and Nexus regenerate. If you don't attack them for a while, they will just be on full hp again. If you kill an inhibitor, your minions in that lane will become upgraded (Super Minions). After a period of time, inhibitors respawn. This ends the buff granted to your minions. However the minions that already spawned, will still have that buff on them. On a side note, try to find out what happens if you are attacking the Nexus or Nexus turrets and all inhibitors respawn!

I have already explained the other objectives, but I will give you a short list of them just to refresh your memory:

- Destroy turrets
- Kill Champions
- Kill minions
- Clear jungle camps
- Kill Dragon and Baron Nashor
- Defend your turrets
- Don't get killed
- Save your allies when you can
- Defend your own base

It might seem like much, but just use that brain you have to think about what move should be next. If the enemy is attacking your bot inhibitor it makes no sense to attack the enemy Outer Turret in top lane.

After the game

No matter what the result of the game is, the screen you get to see once the game is finished looks something like this:



Here you can see a whole lot of information about the match. You should try clicking around yourself, if you have any interest in that. I will not explain any of this since it is not of importance to the actual gameplay. However it allows you to reflect on what you have done that game.

More info about Champions

Generally speaking, there are 4 kinds of Champions:

• Supports. They are there to keep their teammates alive, and to help getting the carries kills.
• AD (Attack Damage) Carries. They are there to deal physical damage. They start off pretty weak but the longer the game lasts, the stronger they get.
• AP (Ability Power) Carries. They are there to deal magic damage. They start off pretty strong but the longer the game lasts, the weaker they get.
• Tanks. They are there to soak up as much damage as they can. They will also try to help getting the carries kills.

However there are also Champions that are a little of both. The most common of that sort are Offtank DPS Champions, who buy a few items that Tanks could buy, but they also buy some items AD Carries could buy.
There are also Offtank AP Champions, Tanky Supports, AP Supports and Hybrid Champions, those that benefit from both AP and AD.
AD Supports are extremely rare.

It is completely up to you to decide which role you want to play. For every role, I have listed a bunch of Champions that fulfill that role:


Support: Alistar, Blitzcrank, Janna, Karma, Kayle, Leona, Lulu, Morgana, Nami, Nidalee, Nunu, Sona, Soraka, Taric, Thresh, Zilean and Zyra.

AP Carry: Ahri, Akali, Anivia, Annie, Brand, Cassiopeia, Diana, Fiddlesticks, Fizz, Gragas, Heimerdinger, Karthus, Kassadin, Katarina, Kennen, LeBlanc, Lissandra, Lux, Malzahar, Morgana, Orianna, Ryze, Swain, Syndra, Twisted Fate, Veigar, Viktor, Vladimir, Xerath, Ziggs and Zyra.

AD Carry: Ashe, Caitlyn, Corki, Draven, Ezreal, Graves, Jayce, Kennen, Kog'Maw, Miss Fortune, Quinn, Sivir, Teemo, Tristana, Twisted Fate, Twitch, Urgot, Varus and Vayne.

Tank: Alistar, Amumu, Blitzcrank, Cho'Gath, Dr. Mundo, Galio, Leona, Malphite, Maokai, Nasus, Nautilus, Rammus, Shen and Singed.

Offtank DPS: Darius, Fiora, Gangplank, Garen, Irelia, Jarvan IV, Jayce, Kha'Zix, Lee Sin, Master Yi, Nasus, Nidalee, Nocturne, Olaf, Pantheon, Renekton, Rengar, Riven, Shyvana, Sion, Talon, Trundle, Tryndamere, Udyr, Vi, Volibear, Warwick, Wukong, Xin Zhao, Yorick and Zed.

Offtank AP: Amumu, Cho'Gath, Elise, Galio, Maokai, Mordekaiser, Rumble, Swain, Vladimir and Zac.

Hybrid: Akali, Corki, Evelynn, Ezreal, Jax, Kog'Maw, Poppy, Sion, Teemo and Twisted Fate.

Jungler: Cho'Gath, Diana, Dr. Mundo, Fiddlesticks, Gangplank, Hecarim, Irelia, Jarvan IV, Jax, Kha'Zix, Lee Sin, Malphite, Master Yi, Nasus, Nocturne, Nunu, Rammus, Rengar, Riven, Sejuani, Shaco, Shyvana, Skarner, Trundle, Tryndamere, Udyr, Vi, Volibear, Warwick, Xin Zhao and Zac.

NOTE. Those lists are probably not complete and incorrect according to some people, and I will admit some of those choices are my personal opinion. I will leave it up to you to test out what you think. The fastest way to learn the game is to try out as much different roles and Champions as possible. By doing that you can probably change this list, but for now this will do.

New Champions

Every 3 or 4 weeks, a new Champion is added to the game. I recommend watching the Champion Spotlight (where Phreak shows the new Champion dealing TONS OF DAMAGE :D) on leagueoflegends.com . This way you can learn the skills the new Champion has, which allows you to play/fight that Champion better in-game.
In the Latest News they will also announce the new free week rotation, Champion Sales, Skin Sales, coming tournaments, the Summoner Showcases (Nikasaur <3) and some other things.

Team Compositions

Generally speaking, the set-up you want if your level is 20 or higher:

2 people go bot, the AD Carry along with the Support. The AD Carry will try to last-hit the minions, gaining a lot of gold that way. They spend that gold to buy items that give Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Critical Chance and/or Life Steal. The Support will buy items that give extra gold over 10 seconds, Cooldown Reduction, wards and some aura items. They will top off their build with either Ability Power or Tank items.
1 person goes mid. This is the AP Carry. The AP Carry will try to last-hit minions. They spend their gold on items that give Ability Power, Spell Vamp, Cooldown Reduction, and/or Mana Regeneration.
1 person goes Solo Top. The solo top laner is usually an Offtank DPS, but other options are possible. Solo Top players mostly focus on farming minions, and they will buy items that suit their kit. Since Solo Top is very variable, I can not give too much info about that, it all depends on the Champion you picked.
1 person will be the Jungler. They focus on killing neutral monsters, and ganking (remember? When someone is walking around the map, trying to kill Champions in other lanes). Their items are completely variable, again it depends per Champion.

Teamfights

After a while, you will notice that Champions start leaving their lanes. You should probably join your team as well, so you can have a great battle, generally referred to as Teamfights. In the beginning it is very important to protect the AP Carry of your team as long as you can, whereas later on you protect your AD Carry at all cost. Usually the team that fails doing that will lose the Teamfights, and with that the game. When you are in a teamfight, protect your Carries and try to kill those of the opponent team. Generally Carries deal more damage, but are easier to kill. That is why the Tanks and Offtanks should start the battle, so the Carries can follow. Good Tanks and Offtanks make sure that their Carries do not die, even if it means dying themselves.

Remember: Protect the Carries!

Other gametypes

Dominion

This game mode is played on the map called the Crystal Scar, and it looks like this:



NOTE: I do not own this picture. I found it by googling.

The whole point of this map is that you capture more points than the enemy. There are 5 points; 1 at top, 2 in mid and 2 in bot. Generally speaking 1 person will go bot, 3 people run to top and 1 person captures mid and meets up with the people at top later. The teams spawn on the left and right, just between mid and bot. In the middle of the map 2 buffs can be found. On every team 1 person can capture that buff, which grants a shield and some other useful things. Around the map there are also 3 speed buffs and multiple relics that restore some health and mana. The average game time is pretty short, so if you want to play LoL but you don't have time you should play Dominion. It should take 20 minutes maximum, but it is usually done within 15 minutes.

Twisted Treeline

This game mode is played on the same-named map, which looks like this:



NOTE: I do not own this picture. I found it by googling.

Here you find 2 lanes, top and bot. The map basically works the same as Summoner's Rift, but I can not tell you much about it because I rarely play it. However there are people that enjoy it, so I figured I should mention it. It has been reworked into a way better map (imo) so certainly worth checking out just to see what you like best. Keep in mind that the most important map is still Summoner's Rift.

Howling Abyss

This map must look familiar to you - it is indeed the map you played in the tutorial. The good part is that you can now play custom games on it too! This map is used as ARAM (All Random All Mid) map, which is really fun. Basically everyone gets a random champion, and recalling is disabled. Also, you can only buy items when you haven't left your base, or when you died. You also start with and gain more gold per second than on Summoner's Rift.

Other gametypes on Summoner's Rift

http://www.chippermonkey.net/index.php/streams/grasshyren

This link has a nice and big list of special ways of playing on Summoner's Rift. They are particularly fun if you have 9 friends to play with. The stream is online occasionally (sadly not so much...) and it is great fun to watch ;D

On Higher Summoner Levels...

you will have more options available. I will go through them briefly, since there are so many champions I do not want to explain everything. I have said it before and I will say it again: If you want to know something about a certain champion, search this site for a guide. They will explain you the basics to the champion, tips and tricks about their skills, what items you should build, and so on.

Once you think you understand the basic game mechanics, you should start playing "normal" games. Those games allow you to play 5v5, with 9 other people. You know when you have reached this level when you start to feel that the bots are just plain ******ed, and that you kick their ***es easily. You can reach it by clicking PVP instead of Co-op vs AI, just like this:



By playing lots of games, you will earn lots of IP. You can use it to buy Champions you like to play, but I recommend saving up for runes when you are about level 15. Below is some more info about Runes, Masteries and Summoner Spells.

Another thing you will notice, once you turn Summoner Level 30, is that you now have more options available: You can now play Ranked games!



Now, in my opinion they are pretty boring (I play for fun) but if you think you have it in you to become a competitive player, go ahead and try some ranked games. A free piece of advice; try to win about 400 normal games before you go ranked, before that you will probably lose a lot of games ending up at a low ELO. ELO is the rating LoL uses to indicate a player's skill level. The real pro players are around 2300 I believe, I myself currently have about 1500. It is possible to go all the way down to 0 but it is pretty hard to get there I guess :P If your ELO is lower than 1250 it will not show on your profile but you can still see it after you finished a ranked game. If you remember that screenshot of when the game ends, it is on the top left.

If you are in a ranked team, you will receive another ELO. Instead of 1250, 1000 is the standard here. It will take 5 games before you get a rank. Before that you can add/kick as many people as you want, but once you are ranked you can only add 1 person per week. The highest ELO here is around 2000.

Runes

Anyhow, on to the things you can change once you get a higher Summoner Level. One of those things is runes. There are 3 different tiers; lesser, "normal" and greater. You can buy the lesser runes straight away, the "normal" ones once you get level 10 and the greater become available at level 20. I strongly, I repeat, STRONGLY recommend you to NOT buy any runes until you are level 20. The lesser and "normal" runes do not build into anything, and all you can do is throw them in the rune combiner. However 99 % of the time you will lose IP from this. On the other hand, tier 1 runes are very cheap, and there are people who think they are worth it. I am not one of them, but I figured I should let you know :)

With every Summoner Level you gain one more rune slot will become available. If you are level 30, your Rune Page for any AD carry might look like this:



As you start to play more and more different champions, you will probably feel the need of more runepages. One costs 6300 IP, up to a maximum of 20.

Some simple tips I will give you for free:

I recommend buying the following runes:

- Greater Mark of Attack Damage (AD Carry)
- Greater Mark of Attack Speed (Jungler)
- Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (AP Carry)
- Greater Mark of Armor (Support, Tank)
- Greater Seal of Armor (everyone)
- Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist (AD Carry, Jungler, Tank, Support)
- Greater Glyph of Magic Resist (AP Carry)
- Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage (AD Carry)
- Greater Quintessence of Gold (Support)
- Greater Quintessence of Ability Power (AP Carry)
- Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed (Jungler, Tank)


The total costs for an AD Carry runepage: 1845 + 1845 + 1845 + 3075 = 8610 IP
The total costs for an AP Carry runepage: 3690 + 1845 + 1845 + 3075 = 10455 IP
The total costs for a Support runepage: 1845 + 1845 + 1845 + 1545 = 7380 IP
The total costs for a Jungler runepage: 3690 + 1845 + 1845 + 6150 = 13530 IP
The total costs for a Tank runepage: 1845 + 1845 + 1845 + 6150 = 11685 IP

Note that if you buy more runepages, the added costs might be lower because you can use runes you have in multiple runepages.
Also note that never ever everyone will agree on those choices, and there certainly are viable alternatives. If you want to be absolutely sure just look for guides of the champion and take what is recommended there, all champions are different.

Masteries

That same goes for Masteries; your Summoner Level resembles the amount of mastery slots you have available. If you look at the Mastery page in your profile, you see 3 different trees (Offense, Defense and Utility). Each has 6 tiers (one of the masteries in Tier 1 is Durability , where I asked you to put your first point in, remember? :)), Tier 1 being the "weakest" and tier 6 being the "strongest". However if you want to advance to the next tier, you will have to put a number of points in the tiers above. You can compare it to building a house; before you build the second floor you have to build the first floor. Supports mostly benefit from the Utility Tree, Tanks like the Defense tree and Carries should try the Offense tree. Generally speaking you will want to put 21 points in one tree and 9 in another. Obviously there are exceptions, but I don't think there are many. An example of a Mastery Page for an AD Carry looks like this:



Below here I will leave you with some mastery pages that are viable on most champions:


AD Carry:

AP Carry:

Jungler:

Tank:

Support:

Once again: Not everyone will agree on those choices, and there certainly are viable alternatives. If you want to be absolutely sure just look for guides of the champion and take what is recommended there, all champions are different. Especially goes for junglers, since there are ap, ad and tanky junglers.

Summoner Spells

Other things that become available at higher levels are more Summoner Spells. You have unlocked them all at level 12, Flash is the last one.

Recommended Summoner Spells:

AD Carry: Heal/ Ignite/ Cleanse/ Barrier + Flash/ Ghost
AP Carry: Ignite/ Teleport + Flash/ Ghost
Jungler: Smite + Exhaust/ Ignite/ Flash/ Ghost
Tank: Exhaust + Flash/ Ghost
Support: Exhaust + Flash/ Ghost

LoL related programs

There are some programs, that are related to LoL. I will briefly go through them, and I will try to explain what they do.

LoLRecorder

http://www.leaguereplays.com/download/

LoLRecorder is a program that records the matches you play/spectate. If you finish a game, you can watch it back to see what you did good/bad, or you can share it to show an awesome moment with your friends.
Sadly youtube does not support this format so if you want to make a video you will have to use something else to capture the replay, and then you can fiddle around with it. The biggest advantage of LoLReplay is that the file formats are pretty small, and you will not even notice that it is running in the background (no lag, FPS drops and such).

Enigma

Enigma is a program that allows you to change your recommended items. I've started to use it lately, and I must say it's very useful (no more searching for items in game) and very easy to use as well (you can search in a very simple manner, and when you have found the item you can simply drag that item into 1 of the 6 item slots). It's also really nice since it forces you to think about possible builds before the game, instead of in the game.

Streams

You also have the possibility of streaming your games live. I recommend using a program called XSplit ( http://www.xsplit.com/download/ ), which is not that hard to use and gives good results. You will also have to make an account on a streaming website such as own3d.tv . However streaming might have some minor effects on your FPS so make sure that you have a good PC.

Streams of pro players

If you don't quite understand the game yet, and you want to learn some more about gameplay, here is a list of streams of pro players, those who are really good. They are in random order, so it does not mean the one I first listed is best or anything.

• Guardsman Bob's Main Stream
• Guardsman Bob's Other Stream
• TSM Dyrus' Stream
• Wingsofdeathx' Stream
• d Scarra's Stream
• Optimus_Tom's Stream
• TSM TheOddOne's Stream
• Crumbzz' Stream
• Chaox' Stream
• Wickd's Stream
• TiensiNoAkuma's Stream
• PhantomL0rd's Stream
• ColbyCheeze's Stream

The end!

Well that was everything I had. I want to thank you very much for reading all the way down to here, and I hope that you have gotten much wiser from this guide. Enjoy playing with your newly acquired knowledge!

Last but not least, this guide is still under construction. If you have any suggestions, tips, tricks, comments, compliments or criticism regarding the looks, the info or anything else feel free to spill it below, or send me a PM. I would really appreciate that, thank you very much in advance!

Okay, very very last. I had no idea this guide was already there but I figure I should mention it because it has the same purpose as my guide.