Playing with "new" (to me, anyway)...

[quote=Ken Griffey III]So I just hit lvl 25 and to be honest I don't think I'm very good even for a lvl 25. I've basically been Xin from about lvl 13 on almost all the time. Recently I discovered how easy it was to be Sona and started playing her too since its a good way to make everyone on your team love you. I've really hit a wall though and just gotten sick of playing the same 2 people just to avoid going negative or having a bad game. So I went balls-out in the opposite direction and got the retail collector's edition w/the 20 champs ($20 on newegg.com - deals) and the Champions bundle cuz like I said, I'm going balls-out here. Now I've got a ton of new champs, most of which are really fun, but WOW I suck with them. To make matters worse I typically play with my friends who are lvl 30s so I'm playing above my lvl or ELO or however matchmaking is determined. This has resulted in hearing a WHOLE lot of "U suk kat" or "gang uninstall n00b" pretty much every game. While I generally don't care about other people's QQs, combine that with my 2/11/4 games and it does get really discouraging - especially when you know you're the reason 4 other people spent 60 min losing a game they should have won. So I guess my question is this - what's a good way to go about learning new champs? Currently what I'm doing is: 1) Reading a mobafire guide so I have some idea of what my abilities do. 2) Playing a quick bot game to practice these abilities (can you make the bots better? They just stand there and get killed) 3) Playing a 3v3 and hoping one of my teammates will carry me 4) Playing a 5v5 and making 4 people hate life (seems most people on LoL hate life anyway, but still...) Is this a good method? Should I be trying something else? Do other players typically only play with a small number of champs? I'd like to be able to play with most of them since that's what I believe to be the funenst part of the game is all the champ variety. Any help is appreciated - especially since some of you may soon be bitching at me in-game for feeding (I swear I tried not to!!!).[/quote]

[quote=wRAthoFVuLK]Play bot games, read guides, and practice makes perfect. Not much else to do. Maybe watch vids and streams of pros playing the champ too.[/quote]

[quote=Ken Griffey III]I haven't watched any streams yet. I know my brother does that all the time and he's pretty good. With the bot games though is there a way to upgrade their difficulty from "basic"? Its hard to learn much playing those games when all the bots turret-dive at lvl 1 and just stand there while I kill them.[/quote]

[quote=beeread]Haha we're pretty much one in the same here. I've played sona ever since level 12 (level 25 right now) and at first when i touched a new champion i would do not so well as i would do with sona. However, i've learned that the first time you play a champion, you're there to learn. Learning vs Playing to win are totally different things. Learning involves trying out right vs wrong, seeing what's best, getting used to ideas. Playing to win = only doing right (trying to sustain minimal errors), doing/copying what is best, and applying ideas. So it is natural you lose, and it is natural people get frustrated. What i do when i want to learn a new champion is: go on the LoL wiki and see who is free, then out of those look at who is most appealing, then i look at his/her/its page on the wiki, read up on its abilities, then i check solomid.net and mobafire.com for any builds to start with, and if i continue playing the character i'll probably change the build up a little for my preference. However, the way i learn may not work for you, and the way you learn would not work for me. There are players who have mastered a plethora of champions, so dont be afraid to learn more as everyone else has to as well.[/quote]

[quote=Ken Griffey III]Yeah that's pretty much what I do too. I guess there's no quick-fix, make me not suck, method of learning new champs. Just gotta practice so sorry everybody I get teamed up with ha ha. Gonna have to carry me for a bit.[/quote]

[quote=wRAthoFVuLK]Make sure it is co op vs ai, and not custom...the bots in co op are smarter xD but in custom there should be a setting to change their difficulty...[/quote]

[quote=Dotter]I think what many players do is to play a few different champions alot until level 30 and perhaps also for a period after reaching level 30, and then when you truly understand the mechanics of the game and how/why you do different things when playing different roles you can play a larger variety of champions with more success. I almost only played Urgot from level 15-25 and after that I mained Malphite for a long time. And now I play tons of different champions because I have a better understanding of the game.[/quote]

[quote=Ken Griffey III][quote=wRAthoFVuLK] Make sure it is co op vs ai, and not custom...the bots in co op are smarter xD but in custom there should be a setting to change their difficulty... [/quote] Ahhh now that could be really helpful! There is a setting to change bot difficulty in custom but "Basic" is the only option its giving me. In Co-op vs AI can I be the only human player or will it just match me up with other peeps? Never done co-op vs AI but it sounds like it could be a better way to learn new champs.[/quote]

[quote=wRAthoFVuLK]Matches you with other ppl.[/quote]

[quote=TheJohn]What u'll do depends on your ability of learning things. After reading your post, I'm sure you don't get things pretty fast, you need some training to understand things well. First of all, get the champion, go to a custom game with bots only, check the abilities and buy items you think that are helpful. Then go to mobafire, check some guides (not only the first ten) and try another custom game. When you get the thing, go play Coop vs AI. 2 or 3 matches at least. Now you're ready for normal matches. Just play and be happy. IMPORTANT NOTE: CHOOSE ONLY ONE CHAMPION AND TRY THIS PLAN. TRYING THIS WITH MANY CHAMPIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY MAY NOT WORK AS EXPECTED![/quote]