Throatslasher here, with my second guide on Mobafire. I chose to write another general guide because I think it will help the community shift away from some bad habits and poor choices I sometimes see people make.

---About me---
I'm a platinum elo player, currently sitting at 1946, but I have spent a majority of my time smurfing people up from the depths of elo hell. As I pass through elo hell, I see a lot of recurring themes. I see people make poor item choices and poor summoner spell choices that often lose them their lane and/or the game. As I lurked Moba, I noticed that a lot of these questionable decisions have permeated into people's guides and builds. I'm not here to tell you what to do, I'm just here to present you with my common sense approach to skilling, building, and playing.

What is a noob trap?
A noob trap is something in the game that can confuse inexperienced players into thinking that it's useful, viable, or even optimal. A common example would be recommended items. Recommended items are far from the optimal items on champions, as builds and meta shift constantly. Other noob traps include really questionable summoner spells, masteries, and runes.

***DISCLAIMER***
I apologize to anyone in advance if I step on their toes. In the guide below, I will be criticizing common items and summoner spells. If you feel that what you build and what summoner spells you use really work for you, then that's fine. I'm just going to be presenting my thoughts and reasonings behind the things I think, as well as suggestions for alternatives. I will probably not go as 'in-depth' as you might hope about a particular issue. If you find that to be the case, I highly urge you to leave me a message in the comments section, and I will address the issue. I have been known to be wrong before, but I think this guide is a very good tool that inexperienced players can use to determine the validity of builds/strategies.

Special Thanks
- jhoijhoi for editing, coding and contribootin'
- Warlemming for mathamancy

In a typical higher level game, you might see nothing but exclusively Tier 1 summoner spells. Often, you'll see a few Tier 2 summoner spells mixed in, typically Teleport for top or Heal or Cleanse on the AD Carry. If you choose nothing but Tier 1 summoner spells for the rest of your LoL career, you'll be A-OK.

In Tier 3, I've placed the summoner spells Clairvoyance and Surge. I do not think these spells are good at all, but they're still borderline viable. These spells CAN help you throughout the game, and can even turn fights around. There have been situations where I wish our team had a CV, but not many.

Tier 4 summoner spells are the spells that you should avoid like the plague. Tier 3 spells you should avoid like an abusive father, but Tier 4 spells should be avoided like a wildfire made of AIDS. Revive and Promote are extremely suboptimal as you'll basically be fighting teamfights with only 1 summoner spell. They're very specific, and generally useless all game. Clarity is another terrible summoner spell. You typically won't be able to secure kills or save yourself from getting ganked with Clarity. Also, Clarity can be substitued with a few runes and careful mana-management.

What exactly is it that makes a summoner spell good?
The answer is versatility. There is no summoner spell more versatile than Flash. It can be used both offensively and defensively, to avoid ganks, and to gank. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a spell like clarity. Clarity does one thing. It restores mana. Are there instances where instanttly having full mana will help you to accomplish a goal? Highly unlikely.

Fine, Clarity is bad. What are my options?
Your best bet is picking up 9 seals of flat mana regen. This will boost your mana sustain at early levels. I assume you're playing a mage, so I'll also recommend rushing a catalyst the protector, and turning it into a Rod of Ages. Rod of Ages will give you a huge mana pool, as well as sustain upon leveling up. If you don't like RoA for your champion, you can always go the Athene's Unholy Grail route, as it gives a huge mana bang for your buck. Also, careful mana management at early levels is key. Try to avoid spamming your spells at lower levels, especially if you're spamming them on creeps. You're not accomplishing much when you just ejaculaet* spells over every single creep wave. Manage your mana until your jungler gives you the next blue buff, and then go wild :D

*(I know 'ejaculaet' is mispelled, but wordfilter thinks that this word is a 'curse word,' which it is not. I often use it in my vernacular speech. VERB: 3. to eject suddenly and swiftly; discharge.)

---Summoner Spell Advice---
Please always pack Flash, and sometimes Ghost. This goes for about 85% of the champion pool. There are a few exceptions to this rule, and I'll list some champions that can go other spells below:

1. Ganking junglers can go Exhaust + Smite.
These include Dr. Mundo, Shyvana, Shaco, and Lee Sin. I have experimented with exhaust/ignite smite on several junglers like Nocturne, Maokai, and others, and have found that almost all other junglers highly benefit from Flash or Ghost. Flash can be used while ganking to keep up with your target when they Flash away, securing you and your teammate a kill. The junglers that can run Exhaust + Smite can run Flash + Smite as well, but exhaust makes their ganks especially terrifying.

2. Certain top laners substitute Ghost in the place of Flash.
Singed should definitely always go Ghost, although Flash is viable on him as well. Other tops that can make great use of Ghost are, but are not limited to, Darius, Tryndamere, Yorick, and Rumble. These champs, of course can also go Flash to great effect.

3. Sometimes, supports can get away with skipping Flash...
... and opt for Exhaust and Heal instead. I would not recommend this if you are against certain champions where Flash is mandatory like Jarvan IV, but it is certainly viable for some supports like Janna who has plenty of cc to enable an escape. Taric and Leona definitely need Flash. The ability to jump on your opponents or chase them and hit them with your cc will net your adcarry a lot of kills they wouldn't have been able to secure otherwise.

4. Certain high mobility champs that went Heal and Ignite.
The only champs that could get away with this were Tryndamere, Riven, and Fizz. Please don't go heal Ignite on any other champion, as you don't have the mobility to skip Flash. Since the Heal nerf, this isn't very viable anymore, and I would recommend you drop this strat all-together.

tl;dr
Take Flash, and always skip Clarity. If you skip Flash, any smart jungler will gank you non-stop. Also, your lane opponent can kill you whenever he pleases, and you can't kill him due to him having an escape.

Butcher : I don't like Butcher. I'd much rather have Brute Force because it will beef up my auto attack harass on my opponent, even on mages. I never take Butcher, and always opt for Brute Force instead. The only exceptions would be when you jungle with Flash and Smite, and you want to put some point in the offense tree. 1 Point in Butcher is better than throwing it away to improve summoner spells you aren't currently using. This applies to adcarries as well if they opt for Cleanse + Flash or Heal + Flash and skip Exhaust or Ignite.

Mental Force vs Havoc : These masteries has been hotly debated across all communities of league. Mental Force gives you a slightly larger damage boost early game against Havoc's increased damage throughout the game. However, most player's seem to forget that Havoc also affects the base damage of an ability, as well as the bonus damage from AP. For example, a level 1 Annie's Disintegrate deals 85(+0.7AP) damage. With 0 other AP, 3AP from Mental Force gives 2.1 extra damage, and Havoc gives 1.275 damage, meaning less than 1 more damage from Mental Force. This is a BEST CASE SCENARIO for Mental Force, as Mental Force will only ever deal 2.1 extra damage on her Q, while Havoc will deal more and more damage as Disintegrate gets stronger, whether from leveling up the ability or from getting AP.

Mercenary : 3 Precious mastery points for one creep's worth of gold for a kill or assist? You should pass on this one.

Honor Guard and Evasion : I don't like these for the same reason I don't like Havoc . 1.5% damage reduction means that it will save you 15 life per 1000 damage you take. I don't think that's worth 3 mastery points. I also don't think 3% off of AoE is very useful since most teams run a balance of single target and AoE. If they run a pure aoe comp, this MIGHT benefit you in some way, but I still feel there are better masteries in the defense tree.

Siege Commander : This doesn't help you at all. Pass on this one.

Good Hands : You should only take this over Expanded Mind if you aren't running a champion with energy or mana and you want to go down the utility tree. This is an example of a mastery that isn't always 'on,' meaning that some condition has to be met in order for this to take effect, in this case, dying. If you don't die in a game, this mastery did nothing for you.

Sage : 40 experience is a very small amount of experience. I think there are much more important utility masteries than Sage if you're maxing out the utility tree.

Strength of Spirit : In the second to the last tier of utility, you have to choose between this summoner and 6% cooldown reduction. I highly recommend you take the cooldown reduction. Singed is possibly one of the best/only candidates for this mastery.

There isn't much to say here, because there are SO MANY RUNES. I'd just really recommend that anyone who is level 30 should not use tier 2 runes if you have any remaining from the leveling process. Consider an ip boost if you think your runes are lacking. Amass IP, get good pages, profit.

First of all, thank you for reading my guide. I'm going to be expanding this guide or making another one detailing some more advanced, in-depth pitfalls that should be avoided to improve your play (If you guys want me to, of course). Please leave a vote and a comment! If you disagree with anything I've said above or any other general comments, please let me know and I'll either correct the guide, or provide better justification.

Sincerely,
Throatslasher & jhoijhoi

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
Well, it sure is inexpensive, and it lends decent stats. Throat, you're crazy. This item seems legit on any hybrid champion. Yeah, the passive is kinda, well, kinda bad but...
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
True hybrid is dead. I'm very sad to say, because it was a fun phase of League of Legends. Back in the days after beta when I was playing, Guinsoo Jax, Guinsoo Nidalee, and Guinsoo Kayle were the kings of top lane. Nidalee could stack guinsoo extremely fast, and Jax got RIDICULOUS stats from his old passive with this item. And then, Gunblade came out, and they changed Jax's passive. Guinsoo has to be stacked to make it optimal, while Gunblade is on all the time, and for 1400 extra gold, you buy ridiculous sustain and a ridiculous active ability.

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
This item is again, inexpensive. 24 magic resist shred, and a whopping 50 attack speed? 20 magic damage on hit? Sheesh, sign me up!
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
What are you paying for? The 25 AP is a throwaway stat, and the 20 magic damage a hit is miniscule. Worst of all, this item doesn't have the stats that are truly important: DAMAGE, OR TANK. This item just doesn't do much of anything. The 50 attack speed is nice, but the stats just don't fit together. There really aren't any champs that benefit greatly from attack speed that also benefit from ap or magic resist shred. Also, 24 magic resist reduction is miniscule, and it takes 4 hits to get the bang for your buck.

For an extra 325, you get the on-hit item that Teemo and Irelia drool about in their sleep. This item gives FANTASTIC stats. The magic resist is extremely helpful, and it's used often on top laners to hard-counter AP champs like Rumble and Vladimir.

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
Damn. That's a lot of cooldown reduction, ap, and attack speed. Tack on a little mana regen, and you got a Frankenstein's monster of items.
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
Not sure if there are any Mary Shelley fans out there, but the villagers weren't very fond of his corpse monster. This item isn't good for any viable builds. There aren't any champions in the game that benefit really hard from ap AND attack speed, aside from karthus (kidding). It's expensive, and it doesn't give you much in return.

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
That is an insane amount of armor for that price. Are you kidding me? What a beastly item. If their adc is fed, why WOULDN'T you want this item? And rammus' passive, I should rush this item in Rammus every game!
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
As a cheap source of armor, this might actually be ok. If it's 50 minutes, and they have 3 AD champs, and you are the tank, and you need a big source of armor on the fly, this might pass. However, this item provides 0 utility. If you build one of these bad boys, you're more likely to be ignored than focused. And this item sucks on rammus. I've said before that any one single stat is not very good for being tanky, which is why I love items like Aegis of the Legion, Spirit Visage, Randuin's Omen, and Sunfire Aegis. Resists+health are the most effective way to become the brick-sh*thouse of a tank you so desire. Skip Thornmail, unless they have 5 ad carries for some reason.

(godly active ability will stop their adc dead in their tracks)

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
This item is so cheap! It allows you to stack mana in lane, and turn it into a huge AP item. It's core on Ryze. Mage xyz has big mana costs and/or spammable spells, so Tear will be very effective on this other mage.
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
Tear of the Goddess is a huge noob trap. The most glaring problem with tear and Archangel's Staff is that they don't give you anything particularly useful for most mages. Mana, and eventually a big bump in ap, doesn't make up for the huge drain that rushing tear causes most mages. Tear by itself gives no ap and no survivability.

Here are the following champions that can excel with tear:


You should almost never build tear on anyone else. Other champions benefit from careful mana management, and other items.

***IMPORTANT***
Please do not build tear of the goddess on support Blitzcrank. It is a terrible item on him. Firstly, he will get very little gold all game. Wasting money on tear over gp10 items early is a huge mistake. Second, his abilities are too long cooldown to effectively stack the tear. You could get tear, and the game can go to 50 minutes, and you still won't stack it to 1000 mana. Trust me, I've tried it.

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
Damn. This gives a ton of great stats. Cdr, AD, armor pen? And it has a great active? What could be bad about this item?
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
Youmuu's isn't terrible on a handful of champs. Champions like Renekton and Garen depend on cooldown reduction, but have few options on where to get it. Youmuu's is an incredibly niche item and should be treated as such. In terms of items that made this list, Youmuu's is probably the 'best' item in the lot. Never build this item on a ranged physical damage carry.

Leave it at that. If you want, you can pick up a Shurelya's.

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
Well, I'm some sort of a carry, so I shouldn't get merc treads. I gotta get my tenacity from somewhere.
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
These items are extremely underpowered compared to their non-tenacity counterparts: philosopher's stone and Zeal because Philo and Zeal turn in to FANTASTIC late game items, whereas cloak and miracle just sit in your inventory and take up space. These items are stinky, and there are other alternatives to get away from cc.

If you are the adc in draft, and you see they have heavy combo cc, it's ok to run Cleanse.

Don't build this item. It's terrible. ////////////////////////

WHAT TO BUILD INSTEAD:
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Anything.

WHY IT SEEMS GOOD:
Prety cheap, decent ap, cooldowns, mana regen, mediocre active. This item seems ok for your run-of-the-mill mage.
WHY IT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
This item doesn't REALLY suck. I just think that your gold can be better spent elsewhere. It can be decent late game when you have some extra gold and you need a 6th item that will cap you at 40% cdr.

Muuuuch better active at the cost of no mana regen. You can also pick up an Athene's Unholy Grail for a powered up version of morello's. CDR, great mana sustain, 90 ap, and a small chunk of MR is worth the 600 extra gold.

Stack items: Mejai's, SotO, Leviathan
Notes: You should not build these items as a part of your core build. These are very situational items, and should be built upon the realization that you are completely CRUSHING the game you are currently in. Stack items are not CORE on anyone, but on occassion while smurfing, I'll pick it up once I've built a GIGANTIC advantage for myself over the enemy team.

tl;dr avoid stack items unless you're smurfing or in a bot game.

There are other items that I'm not a fan of, like Locket of the Iron Solari and Boots of Swiftness, but those items can be effective every once in a while. Just, don't go Boots of Swiftness on an ad carry. Berserker's Greaves solves your early game attack speed needs.