Attack Damage Carry: Farming From Dawn to Dusk

I finally reach the ADC section. Probably my least favorite position, however it is arguably the most important. The life of an ADC is fairly simple, farm until mid game, take part in team fights, farm more, win. Of course in game it is much more difficult to execute because you have to take ganks into account, crazy aggressive supports, and anything else that could disrupt your ability to farm.

Farming is the most important aspect in ADC gameplay. This is because they are entirely dependent on items, which require gold to purchase. The more farm you get, the more gold you have, the more items you can buy, and the faster you reach your potential and dominate.

A support mixes up the game a little. Although their main job is to protect their ADC, and give him sustainability in lane, most time you will see them move into position to disrupt the opposing ADC farming ability. Especially with supports such as Blitzcrank and Thresh, players often times find themselves put on defense because of the aggression these supports can get away with. 

ADCs also have to be cautious of ganks,either from the jungle, or from other lanes. The bushes in river or in lane will almost always be utilized in order to catch the enemy off-guard. This is why wards are so important, and map vision and awareness are a must.

Wards are an extremely important part of the game, and contrary to popular belief; Warding is the responsibility of the entire team, not just the support! So next time you go back and buy items and have some gold leftover, buy a few wards. It will help your team out, and will probably save your life, and might even lead to a kill or five.

Support: Hooked on Heals

The main priority for any support, is to protect its ADC as well as do its best to get it fed. Different champions do this different ways.

Some champions such as Janna and Lulu protect their ADC through anticipating damage and shielding their ADC beforehand. They also have high Crowd Control potential which allows them to interrupt and even stop ganks or high aggression instantly.

Other champions protect their ADC by forcing the opposing team to be on the defensive. Blitzcrank and Thresh are examples of these champions as they can be very aggressive and catch the opposing team off guard. These champions use hooks, slow and knockups to force an initiation and lock down the hooked target.

Other champions support by healing damage after its been dealt. Champions such as Soraka, Nidalee, and Nami are excellent healers but can also put a decent amount of damage out when needed. 

Wards are also an important part of a supports job. Well placed wards can reveal an incoming gank, a dragon attempt, and allows the team to know where everyone is at any time. Map vision is extremely important especially as the game goes on, and team fights begin to happen. Games are often thrown because there was not enough ward coverage and someone got caught, forcing a 4v5 which is quite hard to win. Although warding is something a support should definitely focus on, it isn't solely your responsibility, teammates should always try to ward whenever they can as this allows for optimal vision, instead of relying on one person to ward the entire map.

Jungle: Where the Wild Ones Roam

The Jungler is a key influence in the pace of the game. If the Junglers are very passive and decides to farm rather than gank the lanes, the game will usually be much slower, and the game will turn into a farm fest, with very few kills in the begining. However if the Junglers  are constantly ganking you will see the game pace pickup and get much more tense and there is much more action. I see the Junglers as the play makers of the League of Legends world. It's often up to them to gank a lane, and swing it in one of the teams favors. This can be good or bad as a Jungler can swing it either way by doing certain things.

1. A Jungler can have a positive effect by putting pressure on a lane through ganking, whether this results in a kill, or just pushes the opposing champion(s) back off the minion wave and denying them farm. This puts your teammate in a good position to continue to farm and get more gold and experience than his opponent, giving him a lane advantage.
2. Another way a Jungler can have a positive effect is through counter ganking, often times a Jungler will have to "camp" a lane in order to swing it in that team's favor. This means that he spends a considerable amount of time in position to gank, or ganking a lane. If a lane is being camped by the opposing team's Jungler, the lane should be warded as much as possible, and the team's Jungler should get into position to counter gank. This often means hiding just out of site by a turret, or in side bushes along the lane. (I will get more into using the bushes in a later post.)
3. We've discussed  positive effects Junglers can have on their team's lanes, however an inexperienced Jungler can also have very negative effects as well. Ganks in balanced lanes always result in farm loss, this happens to the enemy team as well as your team. If the Jungler has several unsuccessful ganks and they don't force the lane off their minion wave, it can leave the Jungler, and his team's carry at a farm disadvantage as they are spending more time trying to kill the opposing team instead of farm.
4. Feeding of course has a very negative effect as well. I've seen entire lanes thrown because a Jungler acts to aggressive or gets counter ganked and gets himself killed, and sometimes his team. It's important to be patient as a Jungler and learn to judge whether it will be worth camping in a bush for a few seconds, or if you should just move on. A very important thing to remember is: The more time a Jungler spends in a lane, the more experience is taken away from that lane's champions and this can put them behind.

The great thing about the Jungle is that it has such a wide variety of champions that can use it. One of my favorite champions to jungle with is Evelynn. She offers great damage and burst, and her invisibility allows her to get into positions for ganks that might otherwise be impossible. Of course you always have to keep in mind what exactly your team needs. If your team is light on crowd control, it would be better going someone with less damage but more crowd control. Amumu and Maokai offer amazing crowd control with great gank potential through gaps closers like Amumu's Bandage Toss and Maokai's Twisted Advance.

If you need someone with a little bit more mobility, Shaco is a great choice for the Jungle. He has one of the fastest Jungle clears, he is a deadly counter-Jungler, and his invisibility allows him to setup ganks very well. This is not to mention his great damage output, and he can usually take out carries by himself if he sets up good boxes.

In conclusion, there is a lot of flexibility when it comes to the Jungle, and it is important to realize what your team needs and what they are good at. It's also important to understand when it is time to stay in Jungle and farm, and when to go and help out lanes and gank and this all comes with experience. A Jungler is a very important part of the game, and it make make or break games.

Middle Lane: Kings and Queens of Burst

The middle lane is usually where ability powered nukers (AP carries) reside. Champions like Brand, Veigar, and Lissandra are high damage champions that reach an extremely high burst potential by combing all of their skills together and executing them in rapid succession. This champions flourish in the middle lane because their high burst damage allows them to burn down a target quickly during a gank or 1v1. Often time middle laners will also have some kind of crowd control ability, whether this is a stun, slow, or suppression. This helps the jungler get into position to pull off a successful gank.

A middle laner needs to focus on staying in lane as much as possible, because the experience they gain is much more important than gold in the early game. This is primarily do to the large amount of damage AP carries get when leveling up skills. This is their primary source of damage until the mid game where they begin  buying better items. This is not to say that gold isn't an important resource, because that is far from the truth. Any champion in any lane should always maximize their gold input by farming minions, the jungle, etc (unless this means that you are a support taking minion kills from one of your team's carries.)

When an AP carry has sufficient control of its lane, they are often able to roam and gank the other lanes. AP Twisted Fates will often use their ultimate to teleport to another lane and try to get a kill or at least push back the opposing lane. However, mid players have to be careful as leaving their lane gives the opposing AP carry a chance to push the lane and get a tower down, or farm the minions and give the turret kills instead.

An AP carries main role in a team fight is to find high priority targets such as the enemies ADC or opposing AP carry and burst them down, killing them, or at least pushing them out of the fight. As an AP carry it's important to keep a safe distance and save any kind of crowd control you have for these high priority targets.

Top Lane: Home of the Bruisers

As the title suggests, top is where most of LoL's deadliest bruisers spend their time. If you don't know what a bruiser is, then here is a little explanation: A bruiser is a champion that can be built very tanky while at the same time being able to deal out a decent amount of damage. Champions such as Riven, Jax, and Renekton thrive in top lane 1v1 due to their survivability, and great damage output. While these champions may be excellent top lane candidates for 1v1, that does not mean that they will fit well into any team composition in ranked queue. These champions fall short of map-wide mobilization. What this means is that although they might win their lane in a game, they lack the power to compliment their team easily. \

Here is a situation: Team A is making a move on dragon, there is a 1v1 going on in top, where Shen is on Team A, and Riven is on Team B. Team B has the middle, jungle, and both bottom players begin dragon, however Team A sees this and moves to counter. At this time, it is a 4v4 as everyone has collapsed onto dragon, however Shen has his ultimate and he uses it to teleport down and Team A engages on Team B. It is now a 5v4 in Team A's favor because Riven is stuck top. This is an easy win and dragon pickup for Team A in this theoretical world.

With this demonstration it is easy to see the power of a global ability like Shen's ultimate. This is often why champions take the summoner skill, Teleport when they go to top lane, giving them that extra mobility that they need in order to join team fights from across the map.

While a map-wide presence is important, it can also be countered. Say that in our theoretical world, that the first situation is occurring, and Shen used his ultimate to get down to dragon pit to help. Riven could immediately shove his lane towards Team A's tower and begin putting damage on it while no one is top. If he is able to destroy the tower, and no one died in the dragon pit skirmish, it would be an equal trade in gold and would actually give more map control to Team B.

There is an obvious trade off between these two tactics. Having map-presence vs having push potential. Both are viable options, and each has their own advantages. It's up to the player to really decide what will be most beneficial to the team.

Ranked setup

This is a quick overview of lane position setups in a normal ranked game. In depth explantation will be coming shortly of each individual position explaining exactly what their goal is, and how they interact within the team. A normal ranked 5v5 game will consist of:

• 1 top laner, normally a tanky bruiser type of champion. (Example: Shen, Singed, Jax) Champions with high mobility such as Shen's ultimate, or taking Teleport as a summoner skill are often very successful top laners because it allows them access to the rest of the map instantly, rather than having to walk down to a team fight from their lane. It allows quick coordination of dragon attempts, split pushing then rejoining the team, and even suprise ward teleport ganks.
• 1 mid laner, usually a bursty ap (sometimes ad, e.g. zed, khazix) with some kind of crowd control ability. Mid champions focus on sustainability in lane as experience is extremely valuable to them, as each level of their abilities add more damage, longer durations, and sometimes lower cooldowns. Good examples of mid laners would be, Lissandra, Annie, Khazix.
• 1 jungle, this position can vary as it is based on your team synergy and play style. Popular jungles usually have some kind of crowd control, whether it's a slow, or a hard stun. Most junglers need a slow or stun in order to gank lanes successfully, however sometimes a simple gap closer can be enough. Examples of a burst damage jungler would be: Shaco, Evelynn, or Xin Zhao. An example of a more tanky, and crowd control centered champion would be : Maokai, Vi, or Sejuani
• 2 bottom laners, this is usually made up of a support and an ad ranged carry. There's a few select ad carries. Graves, Vayne, and Caitlyn to name a few. Their main job is to maintain bottom lane and farm (or kill) as many creeps as possible in order to accumulate gold for later in the game. Ad carries gain most of their damage through items that effect their auto attack; attack damage, attack speed, and critical chance. Supports are there to provide sustain to their ad carry so that they will maximize their time in lane and farm as many minions as possible. There are a wide variety of support champions as well. Some focus on mitigating or preventing damage, while others specialize in healing damage that was dealt. Examples of supports that mitigate damage would include Janna, Thresh, or Leona. Supports that assist through healing include: Soraka, Taric, or Nami.

This is a very general overview or the lanes, and there are always exceptions to the rules, or champions that can fill roles simultaneously. This is not to be taken as set in stone rules, this is just a overall view of what a 'regular' game might look like. I will be going in-depths into each role in the future, to explain exactly what its goal is, and how it is achieved.

League of Legends

As a gamer who has been playing League of Legends since before season one, I have been able to see the growth and changes the game and its community has gone through. From being a small few thousand player game, to the now massive worldwide success it is now. Despite the competition it has faced, through the likes of HoN, Dota, and Dota 2, it has developped a multi-million player community that thrives off playing, watching, and theorycrafting this popular game. Through the use of this blog, I will be sharing information on the game. This information will vary from new announcements, patch notes, the basics, to the meta game, and champion analysis.