LoL Discussion: Ranked PlayBy Locke on April 6th, 2011
I myself really enjoy the feel of the ranked ladder of LoL. I hate that the community can make the experience brutal for others, and while I believe there is a some truth to ELO hell, I believe that any game can be turned around with the right circumstances. I used to read a few articles on the Daily Magic the Gathering site where they would analyze situations to see what could have been done to gain victory over a seemingly bad loss. I think that the situation translates to League of Legends pretty well; it takes a player to bring a game down, but it also takes a team to lose it. As a competitive gamer, I’ve been challenging myself to try and become a better player. I’ve learned many new champions and champion types as I’ve climbed up the ladder and slid back down again. I’ve already stated before that I’ve been jungling recently but I’ve also taken interests in the other types that can make or break a game. These days it seems that support, while effectly isn’t as prominent in gametypes anymore. I hear that jungling is much more common in the higher ELOs while in the 800-900 bracket its rarely taken. Why is this? I think a fundamental factor in learning to play a better game of LoL is understanding the conditions of Victory and team composition. I’ve illustrated the roles as best that I know them, and if you want to correct me, please by all means comment below. I really enjoy getting better definitions of the types and improving my game. Tanks: Tanks are very good at taking damage and staying alive in lane. It is their primary function to serve as a primary counter to an opponent’s damage output. Whether that be shielding an ally or cutting off their means of attack, Tanks are there to help their team survive an onslaught by giving their opponents a reason to think twice before engaging in a fight. A Tank’s secondary function is to provide their Carries with kills. Supports: Support Champions allow their teams to do what they do best. Supports provide buffs for their team-mates or provide a means of utility for them. Most champions have some aspect of support to them, but are only considered support if they can do this frequently and effectively. A Supports primary function is to keep allies safe. A Supports secondary function is the benefit their teams damage or defensive output while keeping them alive. Carries: Carries are champions that are really good at taking the fight to the enemy. They have strong offensive abilities that can change the direction of a fight very quickly. They can also be very fragile, and it is their job to farm up safely so that they can be effective late-game. Their primary function is to become increasingly deadly during teamfights, being the primary source of damage. Their secondary function is to quickly destroy towers and push lanes. Nukers: Nukers are champions that are fragile but have the means to destroy key enemy characters quickly. They usually have an ability that can obliterate a single target in seconds. In team fights, they are likely the ones to be targeted first, so it’s important that a nuker takes the necessary precautions before engaging in a fight. A Nuker’s primary function is to eliminate enemy support, nukers and carries for their team before they can turn the tide of a teamfight. Their secondary function is to quickly destroy enemy creep waves while pushing. If you guys have any suggests on what to add to these descriptions, please, feel free to ask. -Locke out |
i feel i can barely answer this still being lv16, but from what ive seen and heard from other rounds and my own, this is pretty accurate, ive played carry/nuke with a rapid fire tristana and was almost always expected to go out of my way to hunt players down, putting aside player expectancy i couldnt handle it too well as i had a bad survival rate something waay too important when your the main reason teams start dying, so i switched to alistar and i play a support/tank its rather interesting and just like you say its about putting big doubt in enemies thinking about ganks, since i cant instantly stun and throw em out of escape range
i usually build all def & speed which makes for the unusual move that i cant do anything solo making me completely a supporting role in all this, i suppose that mostly it means i put your “secondary” role as my first, especially in late game when most players can see what your build is and say this guy does no damage, id like to ask about such specialized roles where you “hybrid” something and become particularly delicate in survival or dps, or play support in disruption rather than heal/buff, is it always a bad idea? does stuff like baiting work? ive gotten 32/1/12 as trist and 3/4/25 as alistar doing the above mentioned
maybe it was luck, cheap enemies, or whatever but ive had both best times and lame ones, not 100% of course so i ask such questions in interest of it all
My current build on Alistar is currently a support/tank as well, I build a little bit of AP for better heals (and a little oomph to my other skills), and the rest basically goes to defensive items that counter the enemy team (Making sure a few of them have CDR to give me more stuns and heals). The main problem I have when I do play Alistar is that it’s difficult at times to force enemy champs to focus me (my current best fix for that is initiating a team fight by aggroing an enemy turret), beyond that my heals have saved countless lives, and my stuns and pushes have killed countless others. Oh Alistar, never change.
You have to add Bruisers
Bruisers are basically the hybrid between melee dps and tanks- they have no real way to actually initiate a fight (with good CC) but they are definitely not squishy and can dish out alot of damage with low items. Another name for bruisers is Offtank.
I could write a list of what category each champion does best in- will probably post it in the League of Legends thread on our forums here.
Soulless, I’ve found that going hybrid does work well with the right champions. Remember that when you’re choosing a champion for a team you’re filling a gap in the team’s needs. If you choose alistar to fill in the role of both Tank and Support, your team needs to be able to compensate. You also need to keep in mind priority. If your team is beefy already, consider going more support, if your team has plenty of utility but no heavies, go more tank. The beauty of league of legends is the versitility of the build system and the possibilites of the builds. Try to lean more one than the other; Trying to be good at everything at once makes you good at nothing at all.
As for baiting, it works, but it takes a bit of practice. Remember that on the other side of the world, there is a thinking brain controlling that unsuspecting Ryze. Your movements suggest everything to him just as his do to you. If he starts to push, that means he’s either confident, stupid, or both. Take into account how well he’s played so far and make your decisions based on that. Baiting puts yourself into danger, so make a choice based on whether or not it would be worth it. In the lower levels I used to feign noobish behavior on purpose so that the tryhards would lower their guard. My favorite example that I start to blue pill back to base, cancel it, then move into the bushes. I make sure the enemy sees this so they follow me into the bush, thinking I’m heading back to base, when in reality, I’m about to lay down the hurt.
@Morph that would be nice, I’ll add the bruiser type later.
a week later, im very thankful for the responce, so much in fact i feel ive been improving a lot with all this in mind, im actually off to play a few games right now… hope to see you on the ranks someday i actually use the exact same username in game as well
but more to the point i think that so far a spell caster build in the masteries is so far the most flexible (9/0/21) it alows a variety of strategy with several characters allowing decision making mid game with one’s gear build, im not exactly there yet but im getting that feel from it
I dislike the term tanks – it reminds me of the old style MMO tanks that are meant to do nothing but hold attention.
Below is how i see the distinctions between the classes and a few examples of the better known/played ones.
initiators – (would you would call tanks) : The ability to start a fight normally have at least 1 hard CC and1 soft CC if not more then one of each, designed to mess up a fight, people like shen malphite and rammus.
Bruisers – The tanky DPS, these guys normally don’t have much in the way of hard CC but can take a punch while still dealing out the damage, the current meta game is sliding towards the the king of the tank dps game but can still be brought down just need a on the ball team, People like Mundo, Trundle, Xin Zaho.
Carry: These are the toons which start out pretty slow, are normally (but not always) AD rather then AD, at the start they are very bland heroes but late game become monsters if not shut down, people like Ashe Tristina Kog’Maw.
Anti Carry: These guys are designed to go against your carries normally crippling them early so they can not get late advantage, most anti carries also fall into the bruiser line (again there are exceptions) just because of there design the are designed to melt the carries away and bug out, people like Jax and Olaf.
Assassin: These guys excel and both CC (be it hard or soft) and 1v1 designed to be a get in kill get out with surgical strikes normally have some very good movement abilities, people like nocturne Twisted fate and Pantheon.
Support: the guys hiding in the back supporting the team pushing down towers and generally keeping everyone alive, annoying to kill and annoying to leave alive, people like Soraka Sona and Taric.
Hybrid: i really don’t like this term as generally hybrid makes people think there are trying to fill 2 roles when most games late game they can’t (trying to play both a support and a tank never works late) Hybrid is more a term to discern a hero that is going to do both magical and physical damage a hybrid is not someone who can gear either way a hybrid (like Miss fortune) a hybrid is someone who does do both, people like Twisted fate and Jax.
I apologize for any spelling mistakes but that is the rough break down the current champion system.
can’t edit my statement but i meant “AD rather then AP” instead of what i did type “AD rather then AD”
Anti-carrys and nukers fill the same role — Assassins. Akali, Poppy, and LeBlanc all fit into the same category of wtf obliteration before the team has a a chance to react, despite having vastly different playstyles. Their job is to get in, snipe the carry, and pop out before they die.
Many champions also fit two or more roles — Nasus can be an absurdly powerful pusher (Sheen/Siphoning strike will damage towers), but he can also tank and be a big enough threat to grab attention.
I find that ranked matches usually ban strong innitators/tanks. Rammus, Shen, Amumu are usually banned out right — Rammus and Shen with their taunts, and Amumu with his innitation/crowd control.
Most of the time, a team with better crowd control will win out. The easier it is to land (Morgana’s Dark Binding vs Ryze’s Rune Prison), the better the control. If you want to be a strong benifit to your team, take strong, damage dealing characters with a good innitation or crowd control (Both is recommended). This is why characters such as Xin Zhao, Irelia, Rekenton are played alot. Characters like Ryze are powerful, but their lack of innitation makes it harder to play with.
As well, Ranked is more just about your team balance, but counter picking the enemy team. If they have characters like Master Yi or Irelia, grab a strong assassin like Katrina. If they’re building tanky DPS, look towards % damage characters, such as Malzahar, Mordekaiser, or Kog’maw. If they’re loading AP, get solid counters such as Kassadin or Galio.
well, i started playing ranked a while back, and what happen was we had a solid team, but one guy by the name of Foolproof, ran to mid when i already had that lane (i was Malzahar, the idiot was Sivir) and kept running at the turret and killing himself. the game started, he had about 5 deaths now, we ask what the hell he was doing, his answer?
“Oh im trying to get banned, so im doing this every ranked game because i keep coming on, if i uninstall it ill end up reinstalling it”
and so the rest of us hung our heads and waited at base for the inevitable, the other team didnt crack a joke, or make fun of us, only pity….
It seems like you’ve ignored one group of AP champs. People like Swain and Cassiopiea I don’t think should be classified as nukes but more as spell dps. They have a lot of dots and combo their moves for lots of damage over a bit of time. For instance, with Swain, catch them with Nevermore then hit them with Decrepify and Torment immediately. Then ult and follow until dead. Their styles differ from people like Annie and Ryze.
I dislike ranked games just because I’m a good player but if I get too good I think I’ll become a stress freak fearing even touching the game will lower my score. I mostly only play the game for the 60 minute+ ones and what has become nights of mindless screaming over skype while we play normal games and barely try.
Locke, your description is pretty good, but just as Rykon stated there are sub genres that need to be accounted for. There is often a lot of gray area between your main categories. I think that Riot Games actually did a pretty good job of labeling the champions.
I think a main category that people mistake for tanks is the Soak. Mundo is an amazing soak. He’s not a tank, he has no real cc, he isn’t generally built with armor. He has high health and high health regeneration. His damage is low, he is really annoying if the player is good with cleavers. He cleans up after team fights very well, but during a fight, he should typically be ignored in favor of a Tristana or a Ryze.
These labels are a good generalization, but there is a lot of subtlety as you reach the higher levels of play. Personally I took a shine to the assassin type characters, wherein your job is to set up traps and manipulate people into situations to give your team advantage. Your goal as an assassin s similar to a nuke, you find a carry who has over-extended or is farther back hiding from the fight, get in and kill them quickly then get back out safely, covering your team if you need to retreat or finishing off the enemy teams runners.
If anyone would like to talk to me in game my name is RisenHayz, just send me an invite and a message that ya saw me on massivepwnage. I’ve been playing about a year and while i dont play ranked often, I’m fairly far progressed in general elo.