League of Legends (LoL) Question: Understanding League

http://www.lolcounter.com/

This website has some pretty useful information on counters ( Tryndamere > Master Yi) and item counters ( Frozen Heart vs. Tryndamere) and good tactics to employ (Hard CC vs. Tryndamere). It's not always up to date on the new patches but the general idea of most counters makes sense, for example Hecarim gains attack damage based on his movementspeed, so if you take items that slow him like Rylai's Crystal Scepter & Frozen Mallet then he will deal less damage.

http://www.lolking.net/

This website has a lot of statistics, highest win rate of certain items on certain champions along with items (not to be taken completely true, as master league players make Mikael's Blessing look immensely useful whilst a unranked player may just use it just because.

http://www.lolnexus.com/

This website offers the ability to see the realtime info on games, so if you want to see what runes / masteries people are using then you can see with this website. Additionally it has a 'recent games' choice where you can search via match ups (so if you want to see a Tryndamere vs. Master Yi then you input them and you will find a game with that match up, you could then study how they are doing!)

http://http://www.mobafire.com/

This is the final website I recommend which you conveniently have found, it has an assortment of builds and guides that people have taken the time to make.



As for the learning curve, it can be quite hard to get used to. But you will slowly work out good things to do, like using a minion wave to your advantage by manipulating it's size so as to prevent it from moving or to make it push. Warding spots are also useful to learn as some provide much more valuable vision then that of others. Finally once you know the abilities of all the champions (you don't have to play then to do this, you can just play against them) then you will know how to better play against them. Finally as for items you do work out what you need the more you play, if you need mobility and armor then Dead Man's Plate is a good buy, but perhaps you need damage first, so you would know that to best help your team you can either have an early split push via Ravenous Hydra, or you can have more kill potential with Trinity Force. Naturally if you spam abilities then you may need mana, but how much mana? Tear of the Goddess gives a lot of mana but no effective damage / tankiness straight up, so perhaps a Frozen Heart is more suitable?

You will understand more over item builds the more experienced you get. Sometimes it's good to look what your enemy team has and whose dealing the damage so you can invest your money accordingly to get resists against the main threats.

It truly comes over time

I would suggest looking up your favorite champions and making item sets for them with in the category name when to buy the item. This is often mentioned in guides and you can just copy those. It has helped me a lot on learning what to buy when and now I can figure it out on my own.

It is definitely the combination of both invested time and reading different patch notes and updates as well as the feel for the game that you develop with time.

Every game is unique therefore different champions get ahead and you need to build accordingly. I think the best way for you to learn would be to watch a streamer that does commentaries in higher elo. These players tend to explain why and what they do which would help!

Feel free to ask me any questions, I am a master tier jungler and have a lot of knowledge to share!

As a support, in my opinion i would build wehat you think would help you keep your team alive during team fights. if the other team is ap heavy build some mr. if the other team is ad heavy build armor. if you are a healer like raka for instance build some AP so that your heals do more. just look for what your team is missing and what has you behind if you are and try to counter that.