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New player with some questions

Creator: StalkingButler December 7, 2014 5:13pm
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StalkingButler
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Hi, I'm a fairly new player (around level 8), I know the basics but that's about it I'm getting into this game a lot more and want to get better so I have some questions I wanted to ask

1.) My first question is about build order. I played around with a lot of heroes but my favorite hero I play the most now is Kalista, I decided to buy her a while ago and I think she's cool. So ADC role if I'm not mistaken? So with regards to builds, I usually go bot or top lane with her (I'm low elo/noob so I think she can fit in both lanes even tho in high level meta the ADC usually goes bot). After around 1k gold point, I go back to get my berserkers', then start on dagger etc, aiming my next item to be zeal into Shiv. I then plan on buying IE at some point much later, I usually just use the "recommended items" pane in the item shop when buying stuff. My question is, I've seen some different opinions and things being said about build order. I've seen some people skip shiv and rush IE? I've seen some people even skip any boots and go for a fast BF sword (as in, staying in lane until you have the 1550 gold), then building that into IE or bloodthirster. Some people even said to get 2/3 Dorans? Kinda confused, are boots a must or are builds really "do what you like"?

2) So my second question kind of ties in with my first, with regard to builds, after I get my boots I get kind of lost on what to go for. Shiv/IE costs around 3K or so I believe, and after I get my boots I get kind of lost with what to build. I go back to base for my Zeal and before I know it my item inventory gets full while building into my IE/Shiv. There also seems to be a huge delay between getting my boots and my second AD item...is that correct? Or am I just farming slow? By the time it takes me to get my IE or second big item, people are already engaging in team fights/small fights etc, and are able to destroy me, regardless of being the same level The laning phase kind of dies out? I always die really quick in the team fights, even tho I use all my abilities with Kalista, kite with her passive and use my ULT with my teammate co-operatively. Is there something I am missing? Sticking to just minions to get all my gold can't be the right way to do it?

3) What is my role in teamfights? At times I get really disorientated and overwhelmed when there's so much going on screen at once (at times I lose track of my health bar/hero, or who I'm even attacking/what I should be doing) Is everyone like this at the start? I always get bursted down really quick, never seem to pick up much kills at all, I think I'm positioning myself wrong most of the time. Any tips or feedback on this?

4) At my elo I meet a lot of negative people, I'm assuming they're either A, people who are much better and smurfing, or B, people who think that low elo is the same as high elo and try to act high and mighty to low elo players. For example, jungling is hard at low elo, without runes and masteries. So, in most if not all games, we do 2 bot, 2 top and 1 mid. I know this is different at high skill levels but it works and is best for low elo as far as I know. I've had games where I've called bot lane first, but people have flamed me and told me to go top, or that they called ADC first (when they didn't). So I guess what I'm asking is, what do I do when I'm in game with negative and toxic players like this who completely ruin the experience?
Joxuu
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1) Yes, Kalista is ADC. I would build one of these builds;
Infinity Edge, Berserker's Greaves, Statikk Shiv, Last Whisper, Bloodthirster, Banshee's Veil
Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Infinity Edge, Last Whisper, Banshee's Veil

2) Building Infinity Edge, Berserker's Greaves and Statikk Shiv is correct in most of the cases. You usually want to build B.F Sword
or Pickaxe first and second. Then complete Infinity Edge. Then you get normal boots and upgrade them. Then you get Zeal and rest
of the items. ADCs are weak without getting their items first so early team fights can feel really weak. Kalista also sucks really early in
the game. Farming minions as long as possible is important before team fights start.

3) Your role is to stay behind your tanky fighters and deal as much damage as possible without dieng too fast. I think it's common to be
overwhelmed by the team fights because you don't know what each ability does. You just need experience.

4) There are toxic players in every level and every elo. Low level normal games are really confusing but just try to deal with them.
It's the best not to start arguing with them. Try to adapt to the situation.

"A person giving you advice isn't perfect and has their own shortcomings but they may give you the piece that you're missing."
Emi
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Joxuu pretty much covered everything ^_^ Just to reiterate:

1. Generally, you want to buy Infinity Edge as soon as you can if you want more pure damage, but Blade of the Ruined King is super helpful in terms of kiting and self-peeling. Almost always, you get IE before getting Statikk Shiv unless you're extremely behind. Even then, picking up a Pickaxe to build into IE is generally better than getting a Zeal for laning. However, if you ever get enough gold, B. F. Sword is always the best choice to pick up because it gives you a lot of damage. Alternatively, with the Blade of the Ruined King path, you essentially just get Vampiric Scepter -> Bilgewater Cutlass -> BotRK.

The "Double Doran's" path is if you are forced to recall almost immediately after getting to your lane. It only costs 440 gold, so even if you only get 5-10 minions, you should have enough for it. It helps with sustain because of the Life Steal and the small amount of health and Attack Damage. After you get your 2nd or 3rd major item, people usually sell them to make room for other items (this is usually around the 25-30 minute mark).

People don't usually rush Berserker's Greaves as a first item because it only offers Attack Speed. It doesn't provide any Attack Damage, which is essential on an AD Carry. Personally, what I do is pick up Tier 1 Boots ( Boots) if I have extra gold when I recall (after I buy Pickaxe/ B. F. Sword). But if I don't have enough for both, I'll opt for the damage items instead.


2. Indeed, getting your first item is the hardest, due to the nature of ADCs being very weak in the early game. Even more experienced players and pros can't get their first major, completed item until at least the 12-15 minute mark. However, once you do get your first item (in most cases, IE), you build into Tier 2 boots ( Berserker's Greaves) and an Attack Speed item (in most cases, Statikk Shiv).

After that, 90% of the time you want to get Last Whisper, because enemies will probably start building armor, which makes your own physical damage weaker. The 40% armor penetration will help a lot with that. In the case the enemy does not build armor, you can build Bloodthirster for the massive amount of AD (80) and the Life Steal (20%). That's now 5 items, and your last item slot is usually a defensive item. The best one at the moment is Banshee's Veil, but Mercurial Scimitar and Guardian Angel are other choices as well.

In general, you want to stay in your own lane and farm up minions as long as you possibly can, but eventually your team will need your help. I think part of the reason you might be dying super fast is that not a lot of people follow the meta in lower levels, so you most likely won't have a reliable support to peel for you. ADCs are very weak in terms of defense, so not having very much CC and no healing/shielding support makes it really hard to teamfight effectively.


3. Like Joxuu said, stay behind the people with a lot of health and deal as much damage as you can without getting too close to the enemy. You want to be on the edges of the teamfight, but you still want to have a presence, so make sure you're always dealing as much damage through your auto-attacks as possible. Do you play with Locked Screen? If not, then you can just hold down the space bar while teamfighting, and your character will always be in the center of your screen. This makes it much easier to keep track of where you are. There are still a lot of things going on at once, but focusing on your own champion and only the nearby enemies will help when feeling overwhelmed.


4. One resource that Riot has provided us is the Mute Button. If someone is being extremely rude or negative, just hit Tab, go to the little speech bubble next to their name, click it, and you won't be able to read/hear any more of their comments. You'll still see their pings, but you essentially block any comments in the chat. This is really nice because it keeps you from becoming too discouraged while in game (I know from experience). Not being able to see what they're typing keeps you from getting upset and subsequently playing worse. While LoL is a team game, it's no fun when people are flaming you. Just shake it off and play ^_^
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StalkingButler
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Thanks a lot for the replies guys, (plus rep to both of you :) ) I appreciate it a lot. One thing with this game is that there are so many champions that seem really cool. I really like AD champions but one champion I think looks really cool is Syndra, I want to maybe buy her when I have enough RP. Is she good for a beginner or should I hold off until I get good at one champ/role? I know she excels at mid but I'm not sure what role she plays haha.

Another question I have is, when is the best time to go on someone in lane? Say we are both the same level in lane, and I see they have less health than me, should I always go for harass (even if it cost me some health)? When do I know I can kill someone, or force them out of lane back to their base? It's hard to know, for example I tried it yesterday on a blitzcrank and twitch duo in bot lane with my partner and I ended up getting owned really quick with burst damage while my team mate escaped with low health. Put us far behind :/ Hard to know when and when not to go in and when to poke
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Syndra is one of the harder mid laners to play, she has a lot of stuff to manage since her ultimate does damage based on how many Dark Spheres (balls) she has out so you have to manage those along with Force of Will to manage your balls and farm. Scatter the Weak seems confusing to use at first, but when you get the hang of it, you'll end up just pressing Dark Sphere on whoever you want to stun, then Scatter the Weak immediately afterwards for a free stun. She doesn't really have any mobility so I'd recommend waiting a while to player her so you learn, in general, how far away to stay so you don't die. She's a mid laner that's really good clearing waves with her Dark Sphere + Force of Will/ Scatter the Weak so the other team can never touch your tower. In addition, with a Deathfire Grasp, she's really good at killing squishy targets like other mid laners and ADCs while being safe with a Zhonya's Hourglass.

For your second question, it depends on all 4 of the champions involved, its something that's really too detailed for a forum post and more of something you learn as you play. A general rule is, if you and your support can go fight ONE of the other team's bot lane without the other one being able to help until the one you caught is almost dead, then go in on them. You should try to stand away from your support, but have you, your support, and the target you want to kill all be within range of each other and the other target out of range for about 3 seconds.
For some examples of the detailed matchups:
Draven is someone you'll pretty much never want to fight one on one unless you're Quinn.
Zyra and Vel'Koz are two supports who WILL deal more damage than an ADC before they get their first item, so you shouldn't try to fight unless you can kill them first or poke them down to the point where they won't be able to do any major damage before dying in an all out fight.
Vayne and Ezreal should ALWAYS lose fights in lane except against each other.
Caitlyn should almost never all-in, this also means Blitzcrank is an awful support for Caitlyn
Kog'Maw changes his appearance and gets a lot stronger when he uses Bio-Arcane Barrage but loses all his power and range when his appearance reverts so go in on him then.
If you want to win fights, make sure your ADC stays away from Alistar and Leona
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Thanks for the reply, I actually was enjoying Yasuo since he was in free rotation this week but I ain't the biggest fan of melee champs. I went ahead and made the plunge of buying Syndra, I had the IP and thought why not xD I heard she's hard to master but fairly basic to understand on the outside, plus I think she looks awesome. I also like the idea of being a total lane bully once I get the hang of her, her design and stuff is also cool. Played some games v bots to get used to her CSing times and abilities etc, gonna try take her into some unranked games soon :) I definitely think she is a champ I want to stick with, I own 4 champs so far (Kayle, Kha'zix, Kalista and now Syndra), I never really was able to settle with or get comfy with one, however I definitely want to commit to using this champ as much as I can for the next while.

What's different about mid lane from other lanes? I've only played in top and bot so what things should I be aware of or do differently in mid?

Also for building AP champs, should I worry about if I lane opponent is AP/AD and build accordingly or should I just focus on CSing and sticking to one solid build for now?

Also another question about something regarding smartcast, I heard a LOT of people say smartcast is really, really helpful (nearly a must?) on this champ, I've never used it before. I know all of her stuff is skillshots so maybe I should turn off smartcast until I learn her ranges? Should I get used to smartcasting stuff ASAP so I don't have to learn it later? It's the same with locked cam, I never played with locked cam ever since I played a lot of starcraft before, but a friend of mine in Gold said he had to unlearn the habit the hard way since he used locked cam all the time xD. Opinions on smartcast and it's worth? :)
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Mid lane is usually home to the AP mages ( Orianna, Ziggs, etc.) or high burst assassins ( Zed, Katarina, etc.). This is because they are centered in the middle of the map, and thus can have a huge impact on other lanes if they snowball and get ahead by roaming and ganking other lanes. However, it's both hard and easy to gank for several reasons. It's harder to gank because the lane is much shorter than the top and bottom sides (they are more rectangluar whereas mid is more square), but it has many different gank paths because there are a lot of different openings/exits into the lane from the jungler/river/lane. Generally, you just play with more map awareness than bot lane because you don't have a support to watch and ward for you.

Yes, you should take into account whether your opponent is AD or AP. For example, if you're playing Syndra against a high damage AD mid, there's no point in getting Chalice of Harmony as the MR is wasted. Instead, you might choose to pick up an early Seeker's Armguard for the armor and begin building into Morellonomicon. In most cases though, you'll most likely be going against another AP champ, so going the standard Athene's Unholy Grail/ Morellonomicon -> Sorcerer's Shoes -> Rabadon's Deathcap -> Void Staff -> Zhonya's Hourglass -> Banshee's Veil build would be the best choice.

In my experience, Smartcast has improved my playing by miles. Not only does it drastically improve your reaction time because of the instantaneous casting, but it can prevent any screw ups if you're pulling off a combo as Syndra. For example (generally speaking now), if you want to quickly cast three abilities Q, W, and E, you would normally Q -> click -> W -> click -> E -> click. In contrast, with Smartcast you would merely go Q -> W -> E, which is both much faster and much simpler. With the first way, you risk missing a click, thereby canceling an ability and leaving it out of your combo altogether
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Quoted:

Yes, you should take into account whether your opponent is AD or AP. For example, if you're playing Syndra against a high damage AD mid, there's no point in getting Chalice of Harmony as the MR is wasted. Instead, you might choose to pick up an early Seeker's Armguard for the armor and begin building into Morellonomicon.

In my experience, Smartcast has improved my playing by miles.


Things to add on here, since you might not be familiar 100% with Mid match ups yet, going to list ones you commonly will see and ones you might see on a much more rare occasion

Physical Damage Dealers
Gnar
Jayce
Kha'Zix
Lee Sin
Nidalee, Another one that varies, can be AD, or AP. Magic damage through spells primarily though.
Pantheon
Riven
Talon
Tristana, varies on build as well, generally AP if they go mid though.
Wukong
Yasuo
Zed

Magic Damage Dealers
Ahri, Akali, Anivia, Annie, Azir, Brand, Cassiopeia, Cho'Gath, Diana, Elise,

Ezreal Varies on build

Fiddlesticks, Fizz, Galio, Gragas, Heimerdinger, Karma, Karthus, Kassadin, Katarina, Kayle, Kennen,

Kog'Maw, this one varies on what they build, could be AP, could be AD. Magic damage through spells primarily though.

LeBlanc, Lissandra, Lulu, Lux, Malphite, Malzahar, Mordekaiser, Morgana, Orianna, Ryze, Swain, Syndra, Teemo, Twisted Fate, Veigar, Vel'Koz, Viktor, Vladimir, Xerath, Ziggs, Zilean, Zyra


Now after that wall of champs, Smartcasting is also really iffy on champions such as Viktor, or Rumble for a lot of people, I've personally never had a problem with this so I couldn't tell you how to manage it but I'd recommend either practicing with it on in a custom game on those two if you ever play them, or just play with it off on their Death Ray for Viktor or The Equalizer for Rumble
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What's different about mid lane from other lanes? I've only played in top and bot so what things should I be aware of or do differently in mid?

Also for building AP champs, should I worry about if I lane opponent is AP/AD and build accordingly or should I just focus on CSing and sticking to one solid build for now?

Also another question about something regarding smartcast, I heard a LOT of people say smartcast is really, really helpful (nearly a must?) on this champ, I've never used it before. I know all of her stuff is skillshots so maybe I should turn off smartcast until I learn her ranges? Should I get used to smartcasting stuff ASAP so I don't have to learn it later? It's the same with locked cam, I never played with locked cam ever since I played a lot of starcraft before, but a friend of mine in Gold said he had to unlearn the habit the hard way since he used locked cam all the time xD. Opinions on smartcast and it's worth? :)


The 3 lanes are all really different IMO
Top lane is really non-interactive, its rather rare for top lane in higher elos to actually have any action at all, but the moment one side makes a mistake, the other wins by a landslide.

Bot lane is really interactive but because junglers usually come bot for Dragon, and the fact that there's another person there to help you out, individual mistakes aren't as punishing but repeated mistakes are punished more than in top lane because of how important the bot lane is later on in the game.

Mid lane is the safest of the three, because of the large amount of entrances and its proximity to other lanes and objectives, junglers can almost always help out. Mid laners usually are good pushers so they defend their tower ( Syndra, Ziggs, Xerath and Orianna) or take the other team's tower faster (This one is kind of rare because its usually AD champions that take towers faster) for more map pressure on objectives like Dragon. The other kind of mid laner can't clear waves as safely, but can take the towers faster and are better at fighting small fights, so you'll generally see them roam around the map to get kills rather than stay in lane ( Yasuo, LeBlanc, Katarina, and Akali are known for this). If you're Zed, you can do all of the things I mentioned.

You should really pay attention to whether their champion is AD or AP, but it doesn't really matter unless you're losing, that way you know whether to build a Hexdrinker, Chalice of Harmony, or Seeker's Armguard.

Smartcasting is really useful, but you might want to turn it off for certain vector-based skillshots like Viktor's E or Rumble's R. You can view the ranges by turning on Display Smart Cast Range Indicators in the options. I forgot which category it was in, but its at the very bottom of whichever one it was in.
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Thanks for all the great tips, I took her into some PvP games and did okay-ish, kinda got stomped on in some games but I'm willing to improve :) One thing I need to get better at that is frustrating me is my CSing, it's so different with an AP hero. I loaded into some custom games for like an hour over and over to pratice my CS, I'm probably around 70% right now. I added in some bots to emulate what it would be like in a real match and it became really different.

For example, I went up against Cassiopeia in mid lane and tried to CS while we harassed each other in lane. I noticed it became really hard for me to dodge her green circle skillshot thing, I kept getting hit by it, thus forcing me to back away and miss CS, it became really hard to try and poke her back with my Q, dodge her stuff AND CS all at once :( Any tips? How do I dodge stuff like that? It seems pretty much impossible to get away from once I saw the startup animation of that ability. Also where should I position myself, always behind my minions when poking? It just seems like I'm trying to juggle so many things at once, need to focus on each one and get better. I also noticed sometimes there will be creeps who will be low, but in the back of the enemy wave, and if I want to go for them I will have to either use my Q, or go in for an AA and risk getting harassed. Do you usually ignore the back row minions if it means giving them free harass for you going for one CS? I'm wary of burning my Q sometimes because I don't like it being on CD because it's so useful for harass. I think I must be doing something wrong so is there any advice or tips anyone could give me?

I headed into a custom game and recorded this against an intermediate Cassiopeia bot, I did pretty okayish given my skill level so if anyone could watch and give me any tips that would be good :)
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