"Melee" play hints

[quote=blugaze]Hey! First post here! Started LoL a couple of days ago and it's kinda addictive xD Now: I'm mostly focusing on ranged play and that's something pretty common for me, but I find compelling the idea to try a fighter/tank/short range support, but it seems I always fail in the attempt and I'd really like to know if any of you experienced something similar at the very beginning. it seems like I have melee positioning issues and probably i push too much and don't know exactly what to do to avoid feeding on and on (outside getting more confident, which comes with time). :) Hints and tips for "melee" play? Especially for tanking/supporting. Recommended heroes to train with? I Tried Poppy: played on video seems kinda immortal, in my hands she's butter. :) Thanks for your time and patience![/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard]Moved to New Player Help. There are a ton of melee champions in this game, so your best bet is to find someone you enjoy and play them a lot to get experience. [[Poppy]] is a good tank champion, but feel free to experiment with other freeweek melee champions to see if you like someone else better. Generally as many melee champions you should be happy with just farming safely early, especially vs ranged champions. As you become more familiar with certain champions, you'll learn when they're strongest and when you can play more aggressive. You have to be really smart with your aggressive plays as a melee, because once you commit to a trade, you probably don't have a good way to disengage if it starts to go sour. Try and trade more when you're pushing (you have more minions, but they're not at the opponent's tower) and just farm safely when you're being pushed (you have less minions). Minions can deal a lot of damage if you ignore them; don't underestimate them. Pay attention to role as well. Some champions are best suited towards jungling, some towards supporting and some towards laning top. Check champion.gg to see what roles a given champion is usually played in. Here's some recommendations for simple tanky melee champions based on role: Top lane - [[Garen]], [[Darius]], [[Poppy]], [[Nautilus]] Jungle - [[Rammus]], [[Amumu]], [[Volibear]], [[Warwick]] Support - [[Leona]], [[Alistar]], [[Braum]], [[Blitzcrank]] There are of course many more champions to choose from, so don't be constricted by those suggestions if you find someone else you like. ^_^[/quote]

[quote=utopus]Welcome to mobafire! Melee supports are in a rough position right now. It's too hard for them to exert lane pressure, and most struggle with just getting poked and harassed out of lane. I'd suggest getting familiar with Nautilus and Blitzcrank. I think those two supports give you the highest chance of success, as far as melee supports go[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard][quote=utopus]Melee supports are in a rough position right now. It's too hard for them to exert lane pressure, and most struggle with just getting poked and harassed out of lane.[/quote] The difference isn't nearly significant enough to matter outside of competitive play. Plenty of melee supports are completely playable right now.[/quote]

[quote=Latest Legend]Like PsiGuard mentioned, when you're against a ranged champion, just back off until you can kill them. That time should come. For example, I just came out of a [[malphite]] vs [[vayne]] top lane game. First, I stood a bit back from my minion wave and let her attack me for a while. Just take one hit, get out of range, walk back in, and so on. She took the bait, so my minions started attacking her. This had two effects, the first one is of course that she lost a nice chunk of health to the minions, the second is that my minions were busy attacking [[vayne]] while her minions were busy attacking my minions (because I didn't attack [[vayne]]). So the wave started pushing towards my turret. Two waves later, the minions were almost under my turret and so I got some opportunities to quickly walk in, get a minion kill and rush back to the safety of my turret. This is how it's going to be for the first few levels most of the time. If your opponent is bad, they'll keep pushing the wave to your turret and you will continue to get free minion kills. Even if this doesn't happen, it's okay to accept that you can't get minions without losing too much health and to just stay out of your enemy's range. Just make sure you are close enough to get experience from the enemy minions, you really need to keep up in levels. Try to get some minion kills with ranged abilities if you have them and you don't drain your mana pool. My jungler came in for a gank, after which [[vayne]] was fairly low and had to use [[flash]]. So I knew I could force her to recall by going in for a trade. She recalled, so I got to farm for free for a while (she had no [[teleport]]). I recall, go straight into tanky armor items. Because of that, she dealt so little damage to me that I could afford to go in for a few hits on her a couple of times. Whether you can do this depends on the champion of course, [[garen]] is quite good at this because [[decisive strike]] gives a nice movement speed bonus and silences your enemy so you have some time to trade before they escape, and [[perseverance]] gives you your lost health back quickly. Because of [[malphite]]'s shield I also got to trade in my advantage. So, she's low, I know I can take her. I go all in with [[unstoppable force]] and kill her. More free farm. More armor items. Repeat. -------------------- About the same applies to melee supports. Don't stand in range of the enemy, only if you know it'll cost them more than it'll cost you. Of course, if your carry moves forward, so will you. Can't just stand behind your carry and let them take the hits. After a few levels (level 2 for Blitz, level 3 for Leona) you may be able to start a fight and force them to burn summoners, recall, or die. It's very important you know you can win before you go in because there's usually no way back. Have a look at your levels and theirs, your items and theirs, your champions and theirs, et cetera. If you are a level ahead and your ADC has a [[bf sword]] and the enemy [[boots of speed]] and a [[pickaxe]], there's a pretty high chance you can kick their ass. If you and your ADC have two [[health potion]]s and the enemy has none, it's probably a good idea to go in for a short fight. So yeah, just keep on making mistakes and killing yourself or your carry by going all in in bad situations and you'll know when to go in and when not to in no time at all. Also, it's important to know how to apply pressure. With [[blitzcrank]] for instance, you have to make sure there are no minions between you and your enemy if you want to apply pressure. Otherwise you're just a free target. And sometimes, you're just in a disadvantage and will have to accept that you should just try to stay out of range or sit in a bush.[/quote]