League of Legends

Kresslack

Kross said:

Lorielan said:

I mostly hide out in bottom lane when I do play LoL, so will add a few cents there.

Simpler ADC's would be Ashe as mentioned, Caitlyn and Sivir also aren't too punishingly complex.

Support most often pairs up with ADC. Thresh, Blitzcrank, Taric, Sona, Zyra, and Leona are nice choices, Annie will also work here, although is more commonly played mid nowadays, but can serve as a double up to save learning another champ starting out.

Jungle is painful.

Edit: forgot Zyra.

#MorganaForSupport2015

Or if you really want to mess with people, Fiddle support. Pretty easy to set your ADC up to get kills.

Ernam

What a landslide of amazingly helpful advice, thanks folks.  I'm definitely soaking it all in.  Loading up a game as Ashe right meow.

Tvistor

Keep in mind, at least when I played, the lower tiers were flooded with people playing Yi since he snowballs so hard and people are dumb, so Ashe had some pretty limited utility.

Ernam

Yeah, the damage turned out to be pretty low, and so little CC and mobility.  Definitely going to keep exploring.

Tael

The damage of an ADC is typically quite low at the beginning of the game. That's what makes them carries (the team has to "carry" you - like a peloton - until you get strong enough). If everyone else scales linearly, you scale exponentially as the game goes on, but you start weaker in return and it takes you longer to ramp up. You start weak, last-hit to gain gold, and end up able to kill most people in two or three hits once you get a few big offensive items (while remaining very squishy).

Ashe also has probably the most CC of any ADC. Most get one brief snare, if that. Ashe gets tons of constant slows and her ult has a very nice stun. But ADCs generally don't get CC - that's what your support does. ADCs also typically don't get much mobility. Generally just one little dash, if that.

When playing ADC, your goal is careful positioning - being at the edge of fights so you can pick off the outermost enemy and work your way in while your teammates keep the bulk of their team away from you. If possible, you often want to stay out of the fight for a few seconds so the enemy can blow the cooldowns they might have used on you on your teammates. You're the quarterback, not the halfback. You don't have a ton of mobility, you don't have a ton of CC, you rely on your teammates to screen for you and peel people off of you, but, assuming you survive, you're the one who actually does the damage that wins fights.

ADC is generally one of the harder roles to play when you first start out since they have so little health and are so dependent on last-hitting during the laning phase. Can also be painful at the lower rungs of matchmaking because your support might be bad (though by that same token theirs will probably be bad too).

Lorielan

To nitpick, because it's totally what I do, and because it might help clear up any later confusion: While ADC does stand for Attack Damage Carry, Riot is trying (and largely failing) to get us to refer to the traditional bottom lane protagonists as Marksmen, because the term is pretty much solely used to refer to the ranged variants of the AD champions.

There are plenty of what could be considered ADC that use melee in other roles, see Jax as an example.

So, if you see the term Marksman about in game, it refers to these ranged attack damage carries mostly seen in bottom lane with their support in tow.

Cynder

What? How are you guys dissing my Ashe? I started playing her in Season 1, she was my first penta kill, she was also my go-to in panic situations, and if she's fed you can never escape her! Besides, if you want to look at someone who has lower scaling than her, look at Miss Fortune. She practically begs to be an AP mid laner, and has no active escape. But of course, that never really stopped me from playing her either.

Tharvis

I used to play Lee Sin support. The amount of rage I got for being a Killer Support was breaking though 

Kresslack

Lorielan said:

To nitpick, because it's totally what I do, and because it might help clear up any later confusion: While ADC does stand for Attack Damage Carry, Riot is trying (and largely failing) to get us to refer to the traditional bottom lane protagonists as Marksmen, because the term is pretty much solely used to refer to the ranged variants of the AD champions.

There are plenty of what could be considered ADC that use melee in other roles, see Jax as an example.

So, if you see the term Marksman about in game, it refers to these ranged attack damage carries mostly seen in bottom lane with their support in tow.

Tryndamere is my preferred melee ADC.

Saeva

Jinx is a really underrated ADC sometimes, methinks. She might not have the escapability that a lot of people really like, but she is extremely potent. Last I heard she had the highest win rate for solo-queue too, which says something even if it's not everything.

Tael

Jinx is great. Hard to last hit though since the minigun does so little damage initially. If you can get past that though, she's crazy strong. Tons of escapability too, between the slow on W and the triple snare of her E.

Has anyone tried Kalista yet? I've been thinking about picking her up and I could imagine her being a good choice for an ADC when you're not used to canceling the backswing and moving yet.

Jovolo

I found teemo to be very beginner-friendly when I started a couple of weeks back. He's got excellent poke and has high damage early game from what I saw, he farms well, you can build him in several ways of which none are especially wrong - can go attack speed/AD/movement speed/AP/tank or a combination thereof and all work well. Post level 6 he has excellent counter gank and fairly high escapability with shrooms, his W active and passive... people hate playing against him for a reason. 

My current favourite champ is Twisted Fate. Good damage, has massive versatility - his W gives you the choice to throw a card for either a Slow, Stun or Mana Regen, his Q is pretty awesome: Large range both width and lengthwise, good damage early and late game, hits multiple targets, great for wave clearing and harass, combined with Doran's ring and his W you can spam it early on, he has short cooldowns on everything but his ult. 

And oh man, his ult. Enemy reveal from practically across the entire map (not quite, but near enough) if you play him in mid (play him in mid) combined with teleportation on a huuuge scale - if you're in mid, you can teleport to top or bottom lane while simultaneously revealing enemies in the same location (counter teemo, akali, etc). Time it with your W for enemy reveal/teleport/stun for 1s/high multi-target damage. So cool.

Jovolo

Also I am not entirely sure how best to build Twisted Fate. I've been going attack speed/AP route for high damage off the W stun, several auto-attacks and then AP on the Q when they're out of auto-attack range. Combined with TF's E (attack speed boost) it's a pretty decent 'burst poke' while laning and makes farming a lot easier. I usually don't worry about survivability because W&Q makes it fairly easy to run away from people, and I have flash if I need outside of that.

I don't know if this is even close to optimal for TF though, or if I'm building the right items on him if it is the right direction - I would say but don't know what they are off the top of my head, I'll post when I get home from work though.

advice pls

Jovolo

Sorry for the row of posts: @Ernam good, cheap junglers to buy from my beginners experience: 

Yi - Crazy high mobility (very fast movement speed and his ult boosts movement speed by 70% or something ridiculous) and strong mob clear (stattik shiv + Q means you multi hit for a lot of damage very often). Can tank for an extended period of time with Q/Zhonya's/W to avoid and mitigate ults if you get ganked in jungle. Reasonable sustain with his W, so no need to go back and forth for health pots - especially if you build lifesteal (blade of the ruined king is a staple of Yi's). You can be kited in a 1v1 ( edit: if the enemy is close to their turret. Yi's Q is a gap closer, and there are very few champions who can outrun Yi. If they aren't close to their turret, you can probably kill them before they escape. This is why it's best imo to jungle Yi as opposed to laning Yi) due to the limited range and CC but it's very easy to pick and choose your fights as Yi - if it happens, ping for help and/or move on.

Amumu - Not much experience with, but I've heard he's excellent everywhere but top tier. Good sustain, good damage, excellent passive damage, good CC, good tank, can carry with his AoE damage/bandage toss. Smarter, more experienced players will know when to stay away from him, so it can be harder to make an impact against them.

Fiddlesticks - I've played fiddlesticks quite a lot now, probably my second or third favourite champ. He doesn't have a ton of innate tankiness, it's just that his drain is perfectly built for sustain. It essentially is an ability that does both huge damage, has a decent range and also a ton of lifesteal (he was maaade to jungle). His E is an AoE attack that hits up to 4 champs/creatures and does significant damage. He has an ability called terrify that slows an opponent to a crawling pace and prevents them from attacking (I think?). Fiddle is known for his ult, however. It's a fairly decent range AoE attack that does so much damage. It's channelled for like two seconds or so, and when the ability kicks in you instantly teleport in the direction of your cursor/where you click at a range similar to Flash. Combined with Terrify and his Drain, it ends fights really quickly. The cooldown is also not that long on it for how devastating it can be. The only problem I have with Fiddle is that the more intelligent league players will aim to directly counter you, because it's relatively easy. His drain and ult can be interrupted via stun and I think knock-up effects, and he can only really surprise you with his ult if you allow yourself to be surprised. Ward effectively, have your teammates ping effectively, and you should rarely be caught out by him

Warwick - cheap, effective, tanky. I hate fighting against jungle WW. His ult is scary.

Saeva

For Fiddlestick's ult, if you ult and zonya's hourglass after your ult engages and you are set in position with enemies around you, that's your best chance. That really ruins their day because once it channels you can hourglass and your ult continues to deal tons of damage while you are frozen in safety. Just a thought. Something else that helps with playing fiddlesticks is to make sure you have the surprise party fiddlesticks skin.

Lorielan

Fiddle's a nice choice to learn because he's versatile. When well-played he's a frustrating support to lane against, nice and effective in the jungle, and can even be seen taken if you really need.

Trilliana

I haven't played in a while, and I suck either way, but I'll go through my list

Top - Riven. I love playing Riven.

Jungle - Elise. (admittedly, I'm really not good at jungle, but I have fun with Elise and her mechanics)

Mid- Orianna is my go-to (and omg I want the winter wonder skin -so- bad) Heimer is another I like... and Syndra

Marksman - I -love- Jinx, Tristana is fun too

Support is what I usually do, and Nami was my first main. Janna, Leona, Lulu Morgana, Sona, Soraka, Thresh, and Zyra are all some of the others I play as support. I have Braum too, but I didn't get to play him much.

I never got very good on my other champs and I haven't played for a long while.

Kresslack

Saeva said:

For Fiddlestick's ult, if you ult and zonya's hourglass after your ult engages and you are set in position with enemies around you, that's your best chance. That really ruins their day because once it channels you can hourglass and your ult continues to deal tons of damage while you are frozen in safety. Just a thought. Something else that helps with playing fiddlesticks is to make sure you have the surprise party fiddlesticks skin.

Don't forget Flash. You ult, flash somewhat into/behind them, activate Zonya's, and your team pushes them. They either have to fight in the ult or at least run through it.

Xith

My first love was Fizz, back when I was noobin' against bots on Twisted Treeline. Ironically, I have not played him since.

I now main AP shaco, AD tf, Rammus jun (bronze-killer).
For some reason I gravitate toward the high difficulty champs, excepting Rammus cause he's just a beast

Ernam

Ashe so good!  I figured out how to use frost shot properly.  I was so wrong about her CC, XD.

(my fourth/fifth PVP game)

Kresslack

Someone is doing an undergrade thesis on League of Legends at Wooster, and has set up a survey for any interested:

Information on it here.

Ernam

Well I'm going to play a lot this evening, let me know if you wanna team up, but be prepared to put up with a lot of mistakes, and the fact that I'm level 6.

Ernam

Starting to see why people like Ashe - landing arrow skillshots from afar is so satisfying, and can turn battles.

Really frustrating though, I'm having really poor luck finding supports who know how to play support.

Azelay

I can play support! I'm liking this thresh business, I play Zilean (though he doesn't have much to offer to Ashe) and Soraka sometimes.

Tael

Zilean has a ton to offer anyone!

Use Q to bomb the enemy constantly. Put bombs on enemy minions to zone enemies. Q->W->Q does a ton of damage early-game.

Watch your mana and save enough for an E or even an E->W->E to escape from bad situations. Once you have your ult, save enough for that too.

Late-game, your bombs won't be that great, but you can stick them on ally assassins as you go into fights and they'll basically add to their burst. Your main goal is to speed and slow people (once E and W are maxed, you can just about perma-speed two people at all times, at the cost of a lot of mana).

If your teammates die too fast for you to get your ult onto them, consider using it pre-emptively - instead of using it to save someone, use it to make a carry into a less-desirable target for a few seconds - if they kill the carry, your ult did its job, and if they don't kill the carry because she has your ult on her, you still protected the carry for several seconds.

Use W as often as you possibly can (as mana allows) whenever your ult is on cooldown and you'll get it back way, way faster. CDR is also doubly strong on Zilean since it affects his W too - so your ult gets a lower cooldown and your W, which lowers the cooldown, is also on a lower cooldown. Other than that, you mostly just want mana - AP is overrated since your bombs are unlikely to do too much late game anyway.

Particularly with the ability to slow as soon as she catches up to enemies and her lack of escape, Ashe benefits a lot from Zilean's E.

Jarrod

If you can get a Janna, she's the best support for Ashe. Shield bonus frost volley is stupidly annoying to deal with in lane, and if you try to push through the slow to reach Ashe you eat a tornado and they get away. Add on the passive move speed from Janna and it's a nasty combination.

Ernam

New fav has to be Veigar - plus I just got flash, so it's on.

Azelay

Yeah, Veigar is hilarious.

Trey

I -am- Evil. STOP LAUGHING

Lorielan

Is that a short joke?