In the strategic battleground of online arenas (MOBAs), like League of Legends, you immerse yourself as one of 10 evenly divided champions, battling until the enemy's main base shatters. To master League of Legends, delve into each champion's playstyle and synchronize seamlessly with your four teammates.
How to Play League of Legends: A Comprehensive Guide
Glossary of Terms in LOL
Before grasping gameplay mechanics, acquaint yourself with key terminologies in the game.
- AS (Attack Speed): Rate of attack
- AD (Attack Damage): Physical damage
- AP (Ability Power): Magic damage
- MS (Movement Speed): Speed of movement
- CrC, Crit (Critical-strike Chance): Critical-hit chance
- CrD, CritDame (Critical-strike Damage): Critical-hit damage
- ArP, APen (Armor Penetration): Armor penetration
- MrP, MPen (Magic Penetration): Magic penetration
- HP (Health Points/Hit Points): Health
- MP (Mana Points): Mana, energy
- CDR (Cooldown Reduction): Cooldown reduction
- MR (Magic Resist): Magic resistance
- Farm: Destroying/last-hitting minions to earn gold
- Gank: Lane switch, coordinate with teammates to ambush opponents
- Surrender: Concede
- Dive: Tower dive, attacking enemy champions within turret range
- Combat: Organizing attacks, engaging in combat
Roles and Classifications of Champions in League of Legends Gameplay
The game League of Legends always undergoes gameplay changes (meta) each season. Every season, positions have specific roles and standout champions for each position.
Tank
- They serve as the primary damage soakers in the team, typically boasting high health pools and exceptional resilience.
- Tanks initiate combat, diving into enemy teams and soaking up as much damage as possible from the opponent's key positions.
- They consistently draw enemy fire, shielding the team's primary damage dealers from harm as much as possible.
- Weakness: Lack of significant damage output, challenging laning phase.
Exemplary Champions: Rammus, Maokai, Mundo, etc.
Fighter/Bruiser
- This role features moderate damage output, average health, and resilience.
- Some fighters excel at initiating combat, while others excel at engaging from afar and assassinating the opponent's key positions.
- They have good laning potential, significant early-game damage, and excel at killing the opponent's primary damage dealers in 1v1 situations.
- Weakness: Limited crowd control, vulnerable to being burst down before taking down enemy damage dealers.
Exemplary Champions: Pantheon, Xinzhao, Fiora, etc.
Jungle
- For many individuals, this is the most crucial position on the team as it plays a key role in lane swaps and ganking. Jungle players must have good observation skills to choose the right timing for ganks.
- Jungle champions have the ability to sustain themselves while clearing camps, allowing them to level up quickly.
- Their task is to invade the enemy jungle, assist teammates in eliminating enemies.
- Weakness: Prone to enemy invasions, challenging to gank without proper observation.
Exemplary Champions: Elise, Rek’sai, Lee Sin, etc.
Mid Lane Mage (AP Carry)
- Occupies a primary damage dealer position along with the AD Carry but deals magic damage.
- Inflicts tremendous damage and possesses strong crowd control in fights.
- Prioritized for minion farming, leveling up, and obtaining buffs.
- Weakness: Slow scaling, reliant on mana, consistently targeted by opponents.
Exemplary Champions: Orianna, Twisted Fate, Ryze, etc.
Assassin
- Assassins come in two types: those who deal physical damage and those who deal magic damage.
- Capable of eliminating any member of the enemy team except the Tank.
- Possess close-range and mobility skills. Dive into combat, assassinate the enemy's primary damage dealers, then retreat to safety.
- Weakness: Requires high skill level, susceptible to significant crowd control effects.
Exemplary Champions: Zed, Leblanc, Kha’zix, etc.
Physical Damage Carry (AD Carry)
- Deals significant damage and sustains damage output in prolonged fights.
- The most crucial position on the team, determining the outcome of team fights.
- Weakness: Lack of mobility, fragile health pool requires players to maintain a safe position in fights to deal maximum damage to opponents, demanding significant itemization.
Exemplary Champions: Ashe, Jinx, Jhin, etc.
Support
- Possesses strong healing/shielding/crowd control abilities.
- Holds the role of safeguarding the AD Carry safely.
- Less reliant on items, crucial in maintaining vision control.
- Weakness: Lack of farming => consistently the least gold-rich position on the team, supports the AD Carry in laning, often the most criticized position on the team along with the Jungle.
Exemplary Champions: Janna, Soraka, Braum, etc.
Each type of champion has a different lane position and playstyle. Familiarize yourself with gameplay basics before delving into champion specifics.
Rules, Main Objectives in League of Legends Gameplay
Use the right mouse button to move, the left mouse button to attack targets, the Q,W,E,R keys to use each champion's unique skills, and D,F for supplementary spells added outside the champion selection screen.
In the 5v5 Summoner’s Rift map, to claim victory, you need to destroy the enemy's turrets and main base. During the laning phase, enemy takedowns grant you gold to upgrade items, and you can capitalize on the opponent's downtime to secure important objectives like turrets, dragons, buffs, etc.
Destroying turrets grants your team a substantial amount of gold to quickly upgrade items. Destroying enemy inhibitor towers releases super minions for your team with massive health pools and strong resilience, aiding in assaulting the enemy base.
Consuming buffs also facilitates your laning and ganking efforts. Red buff provides you with the ability to slow and deal damage over time, while blue buff replenishes your energy and cooldowns. The jungle and AD Carry roles always prioritize red buffs for easier ganks and controlling the opponent, while blue buffs are typically given to AP Carries from mid-game onward as they provide cooldown reduction and energy replenishment, making it easier for AP Carries to harass and eliminate opponents.
Additionally, slaying dragons and barons provide your team with a significant burst of damage in a short time frame, allowing you to gain a considerable advantage over the opponent and potentially end the battle early.
Thus, Mytour has guided you through the rules and gameplay of League of Legends. Before venturing into the Summoner's Rift against real players, it's advisable to practice against bots to improve your skills. Also, as for the game, it's not just League of Legends on mobile devices; there's also League of Legends: Wild Rift, which can be played on Windows PCs through Android emulator software like BlueStacks. You can refer to our guide on how to play League of Legends: Wild Rift on PC.
In addition, Mytour also guides you on how to play many other games such as playing Age of Wushu Chaos Fight on PC or a more entertaining but equally competitive game, play Slither.io on PC via BlueStacks.
