LOL!

You ever play a game of League of Legends and be like:

“Yo man, what’s your summoner level?”
“I’m level like…25”

“Aww sick!  We got a level 25 on our team!”

Assuming you’re much lower of course…

Well, hell, because of the way Riot organized their game, Summoner level in League of Legends doesn’t really mean anything!  And I’ll tell you how to make it mean something.

As you all know, when you win or lose any game in League of Legends, you get both IP and XP.  This applies to both PvP and PvE.  Yes, bot games give you IP and XP.  The problem lies here.  A bot game is not considered a “win” on your profile where it shows the total number of wins you have, as shown in the picture.  However, you still level up, so it is possible to have a very limited amount of wins with a high level.

The problem with this is that League of Legends groups people by the summoner level.  If you’re level 30 and have 50 wins, you don’t really have the experience a “real” level 30 should have.

Bot games are of almost no use, despite what the general public seems to tell me…at least in my opinion, here’s why people play bot games and why I think you can do them in PvP.

1) Bot games are good because it lets me try out the champion, understand his/her skills and helps me get the feel for it.  Well, not really.  If you go to the lovely, detailed store in the League of Legends client, you’ll see there’s a video for all champion skills, allowing you to see how they work.  Even if you did take it to a bot game to see how it works, it won’t be a true display of their abilities.  Why?  BOTS.  SUCK.  I’m pretty sure if you build anything remotely close to what a champion should have, you’ll squash them.  Take it to a real game, well you’ve got some shit going down.  Play PvP, test out your builds against people, because that’s where everything matters on the Fields of Justice.  If you really must, play a custom game with your friends, they have to be better than bots.

2) I don’t have time to play a full game of League of Legends.  Don’t play League of Legends.  Seriously.  Control Panel.  Uninstall.

3) But playing with bots is fun!  Then play with bots and never come to PvP.

Maybe I’m being harsh, but seriously guys, if you want to get better at League of Legends, just play PvP!  Make friends!  Share ideas!  Look up guides!  Watch videos!  Just remember, League of Legends isn’t a black and white game, your play style may have to change based on things such as teammate tactics, champion choices, play style and the same for enemies.

That’s all for now about bot games, more to come in the future!

Finally.  Level.  30.

Another one of these League of Legends rants.

This time, I’m going to talk about jungle ganks!

A real simple break down first.  Junglers are champions that stay in friendly and even invade enemy jungle, killing creeps there for xp and gold.  Their advantage is usually that they can gank any lane without the laners seeing them before it’s too late.

I personally love jungling, I find it as one of my main roles that I play.  I can’t say I’m amazing at it, but I have my moments and times to shine.  Usually, if both teams are meta standard, it’s not unusual that the losing team has limited jungle presence, though that’s not always the junglers fault!  Here’s some things that you need to know about jungling…

1) You, as a laner, set up the ganks, not the jungler.  If you push your lane right up to the enemy tower, you’re basically telling your jungler to stay away and farm the jungle.  Why?  You try taking an enemy champion right beside his tower.  Obviously this can change late game when Udyr tanks tower with Turtle Stance, but this is different at level 4.

2) Follow up with your jungler.  Your jungler doesn’t just run in and kill instantly.  The reason he jungles is so that you can farm your lane, get your cs, while he gets cs in the jungle.  That way, when you go to gank a lane, you’re both well equipped and have a number advantage.  If you just leave the jungler when he comes in to gank, you’ve wasted his time, which puts him behind. 

In a best case scenario, you would cc the enemy champion, then output as much damage as you can with your jungler.  Junglers such as Shyvana have no cc, which make it very difficult to gank lane without cc from the laner.  Exhaust alone doesn’t usually cut it.  You also need a gap closer as a jungler.  Don’t expect to just walk in and gank.  Increase movement speed, jump, dash, do something.  If your champion has no gap closer, you probably shouldn’t be jungling.

3) As a jungler, you have the responsibility of supporting the lanes.  If a lane is pushed, you have boots and red buff, you really have no excuse to not gank that lane, unless you’re low on hp.  Gank as often as possible, but remember, a gank is pretty much a failure unless you kill or get an assist on the enemy champion.  Some consider the enemy burning summoner spells as successful, it’s really up to you.  Just remember, by ganking you’re missing out on cs and sometimes xp.  Make up for it with a kill or assist.

4) If you’re going to pick a jungler, make sure you pick one that can do it properly.  Technically, any champion can jungle, but some are just better made for it than others.  Most junglers have good AoE damage or can clear creep camps without taking much damage.  How you build them from there is up to you.  A good example of some strong junglers are; Shyvana, Udyr, Dr. Mundo, Shen, Jarvan, Jax, Shaco, and Rammus.  These aren’t all of them, just some that I make example of.

5) ALWAYS take Smite.  Why?  It helps you last hit tougher creeps, securing their buffs and gold.  Some people think they don’t need it.  Then enemy jungler steals their red/blue/dragon/baron with smite.  Ever fight hard for a baron, only to lose it to a single smite?  It’s a bitch.

6) Assign creep buffs accordingly.  You should all know what the red and blue buffs do.  Generally, jungler takes both buffs the first spawn, then ap mid takes the blue every spawn and the jungler continues to take the red buff.  As the late game comes around, red is usually give to the AD carry.  Why?  Let the ap mid spam their spells to cs, gank and follow up with your ganks.  Let the ad carry get the extra DoT and slow given from red.

EDIT:

7) Thank you to nickerss for pointing this out.  Counter-jungling is an important part of jungling.  This only really applies if you actually have an enemy jungler, but it makes life even easier if you have no enemy jungler.  Counter-jungling is simply going into the enemy jungle and stealing their creep camps or at best, their creep buffs.  Obviously this is a dangerous move being behind enemy lines, but if your entire jungle is cleared (which is possible with fast junglers like Shyvana), sometimes there is an opening to go to the enemy jungle.

Of course, you’re going to have to make sure the enemy jungler isn’t on the side that you’re going to counter.  How?  One of three things…or all…somehow.

A) Kill the enemy jungler.  Anywhere.  While he’s ganking or simply because you’re a better duelist and he sucks at counter-jungling properly.

B) Ward the fuck up.  Cover you escape points and common entry points.

C) Take note of the enemy jungler’s position.  If he’s ganking top, chance are, the bottom half of his jungle is yours for the taking.  Do it, if he’s a slow jungler like Fiddlesticks, it will hurt his progress.

If I’ve missed anything, feel free to ask questions or reply to this.  Just remember, this is my opinion based on my own experience of the game.  Not everyone plays the same, though there is some form of standard.  All that matters is that you win though…right?

So anyone who knows me well enough should know that I’ve become addicted to League of Legends.  I can’t say I’m great, but I know what to do and how to play the current meta game, but I can’t say I can always follow through with it, because my skill level just isn’t there yet.

I know no one reads this, but this is just a place for me to vent anyway, in hopes of someone reading this and hopefully improving the League of Legends community, even if just a little bit.  So the thing I will talk about right now isLast Hitting.

Last hitting is as it sounds.  When in a lane, you don’t auto attack the minions!  There are a few reasons for this.

1) Auto attacking pushes your lane towards the enemy tower.  This is also bad for a variety of reasons!  It allows your enemy champions to free farm gold at tower.  It stops your jungler from ganking.  It puts you in an over extended position, which is a perfect opportunity for the enemy jungler to gank you and your teammates.

2) You don’t get the gold for killing a minion if you aren’t the one to hit it last before it dies.  If you want arough estimate, minions are worth about 290 gold per 10 last hits.  Yes, that’s equivalent to one kill almost.  So if you’re fighting mid lane against a Mordekaiser and you’ve killed him once or twice, but he was 40 creep score over you, well your not really winning in terms of creep score.

Why is gold important?  I almost feel like I need to explain this to people.  So I will.  Gold = items.  Items = your usefulness in teammfights (Especially AD carries, you’re useless without items).  What I just ranted about was strictly for thelaning phaseof League of Legends.  Last hitting alone won’t make you a pro, but it’s one step to becoming better at this game.

PS: If you don’t know what some of the terms mean that I just said…you probably don’t play League of Legends and are just laughing at my unnecessary nerd raging.