Just downloaded

[Zelkova]

I know little to nothing about this game. I know it is fairly popular...

I am going to do the Tutorial tomorrow, but I kind of want to know what everyone thinks is a good Champion to use when you are just starting to play.

Or is there none... and its all personal preference?

[WillDaSnail]

This sums it up about what you need to do for now as a beginner. All credits go to Kajitii

-- Do the tutorial.
-- Now do the battle tutorial.
-- Now do a beginner bot game (custom or coop, don't care) to make sure you've got the basics down without being told to do something. If you do, you should win your lane. Whether you win the match or not will depend heavily on your teammates =/
-- Friend me or someone else from SP.net, just so you don't have to deal with people with terrible attitudes.

And when you've got your foot in the door,
-- Start studying up on mechanic.
-- Practice last-hitting and map awareness.
-- Learn what all the champions can do, and what all the items do.
-- Practice last-hitting and map awareness.
-- Learn counters and stuff. Review what you know. Keep playing games to get more experience, because this game has so many ways situations can unfold.
-- Practice last-hitting and map awareness.

Up front, I'm going to say this game has a learning curve that's like a cliff. That's not to say that you shouldn't start playing though. Matchmaking tries pairs you up with players that have your approximate skill level, so chances are if they're really newbies, they'll know only just as much as you do! Learn and play at your own pace, and talk to us for advice.

Also, get familiar with the Summoner's Code, which basically says "you can get angry, but you should not rage at your teammates or be a plantain". Don't do things that you'd rather that they shouldn't do to you (includes d/cing or quitting in the middle of a game for whatever reason). Being bad is excusable though, since people have their ups and downs like everyone else =/

If you need anything else, feel free to ask!

[Kaasoljoyyx]

I've only been playing for a couple weeks and I'm a hell of a lot better than day 1 but still not that great. The best way to get better is to just play lots of games and probably lose lots of games. I highly recommend you go with friends/southperrians that have experience and they are on their smurfs (common term for mules/alts/low level chars). That way you'll fight players around your same level/experience but your friends will have much more game experience and be able to carry you.

As for starting characters, I think AD carrys are the easiest to get used to and teach you the most game mechanics that are essential at the beginning. They're the characters that are really squishy but do the most damage. In low level games you can be bad and still win as one which is fine. As for which ones I would recommend trying out

- Tristana: You can get her for free by 'liking' LoL facebook and linking your account.
- Ashe: She's really cheap to buy. Only downside is her base stats are really bad at the beginning but that's fine for just learning
- Miss Fortune: She's free this week so you can play her for about 6 more days before you'd have to buy her to play her

Just play lots of games and you'll be fine. The main concept for most champions that you'll hear of is "last hitting" which will get easier as you level up as you'll understand how your champion works + your base stats will be higher compared at level 20+ to level 10-

Playing the game with friends is what really makes the game fun. If you go with randoms, lots of times your team will have a rager who blames you for everything when they're actually the worse player on the team. Only reason they think they're not playing so bad is when the rager does win, it's because they got carried.

[Olsi]

Try to play games with other SPers, so you can ask them things mid game and they can give you tips mid game. I say look at some champions and their skills (450+free week ones) and see if they look interesting, if they do try them out. Also as Kasso said try not to just mindlessly attack the minions, but just walk around and attack them the second they have low enough health so you can one hit them and get all the gold. That will already put you far ahead most other new people.

[Corn]

Post your IGN in the IGN thread.

Edit: You can also get Tristana and Alistar for free, google it around (I can't because I'm at school right now...I'm bored).

[chrome]

Post your IGN in the IGN thread.

Jesus fucking Christ, will you stop telling that to every new person you see? The IGN thread is stickied for a reason, people will use it if they want to.

[Corn]

Jesus fucking Christ, will you stop telling that to every new person you see? The IGN thread is stickied for a reason, people will use it if they want to.

A surprising amount of people don't even glance at the sticky threads.

Edit: Just realized that to stop these sort of "hey I'm new threads" we need a thread with information for new players. I'll make one if no one does it by the time I'm home.

[KajitiSouls]

A surprising amount of people don't even glance at the sticky threads.

I don't know about sp.net, but some community head honcho in LoL GD said that this is in fact true. Hell, some other day, someone forgot that the IGN thread existed in the first place.

[Raul]

Just start with a freeweek champ. Shen, Naut, and Garen are free right and are pretty good and easy to learn on (IMO). Just research builds (skill and item) and some basic strategy before you play a champ. Shen and Naut are tanky, and Garen is spin to win.

[Kaasoljoyyx]

I asked my experienced friend when I first started some of these questions so hopefully they'll help you as well

There are 3 main lanes, top, mid, and bottom. Usually you have 2 1 2 respectively. In higher level games, you have 1 1 2 usually and the 5th person is known as a jungler (more on that below)

AD Carry: AD means "Attack damage" which means you do physical damage. The reason you're called an AD carry is because you start out weak but you scale very nice late-game and you essentially carry the team to victory with how much damage you put out. Ones he recommended

- Miss Fortune: Good damage all around
- Caitlyn: Far range, good early game
- Vayne: Somewhat close range, really strong late game
- Graves: Haven't tried him yet. I believe has good burst damage
- Teemo: I'm currently using him and he's really easy to play as he doesn't have many active attacking skills, just passives
- Kog'maw: One of the best all around AD carries but needs practice

They usually go top or bottom with a support class

AP Carry: "Ability Power" carry. Basically the same thing as AD carry but they deal magic damage. They are very strong but are heavily dependent on their skills and mana. They usually have a higher learning curve as well.

- Twisted fate: Throws out cards, don't know much else about him
- Brand: Fire dude, easy to use I think
- Annie: Friend told me she's the easiest one to get used to if you want to try AP

AP carry almost always solo's mid

Support: Obvious what they do, they provide support to the AD carry at early game and to the rest of the team during team fights (where everyone groups together for a 4v4 or 5v5 situation)

- Soraka: Very good
- Alistar: Can get for free by linking youtube/google to LoL account. Very good
- Janna: Very good but I wouldn't recommend until you get more experience

Jungler: This class usually hides in your jungle or the enemy jungle. The jungle is basically all the area between the lanes that you don't have vision of. There are neutral monsters in the jungle which is where they primarily get their exp. Their main job is to gank (ambush) the opponent in a 2v1 or 3v2 situation by appearing out of nowhere and you and your teammates in the lane kill the enemy to take control of the lane.

- Udyr: I think he's the easiest jungler right now to use

Tank: Obvious what they do. I didn't ask about tanks so I don't know which are good to start with.

Playing AD carry is most likely going to give you the most fun and teach you the most than any other class. Play beginner bot games with fellow friends/SPers and they'll tell you which skills to level up, what items to buy, what to do, etc. The one thing I had trouble with and I still have trouble with as an AD carry is the fact I'm squishy all game. I have to play passive and safe unless I know I'm dominating. I don't shine until late game. I would go into a 1v3 situation thinking I could handle it and just end up dying. I would continue to fight a losing battle thinking "well some damage is better than none" which isn't the case. If you're going to lose or die, it's much better to retreat unless you know you can take 1 of them down. If you can get a kill and still escape, then that's perfect but that rarely happens.

Also in low level games when you start, stick together during end of mid and all of late game. I still play with people that spread out and I tell my team to stick together and we pick the small groups off 1 by 1. Only reason I have that experience is because I usually faced level 20+s and pros since I played with my level 30 friends while being only level 10-15

Edit: After you get the hang of things, don't play bot games anymore unless you want to test something or something to that effect. You will not learn anything new from bot games like experience and you'll only get it from facing other players. If you win or lose, your hidden elo rating goes up or down and you play with people around your in-game level and game-experience level.

[Raul]

Udyr isn't the easiest jungler. WW is much easier. There's really nothing tricky about WW. Use W before you go into a jungle camp, use Q on the strongest monster when it's off CD, gank with R. He's easy to chase with because of E. Max R->W->E->Q.

[Five Second Pose]

Udyr isn't the easiest jungler. WW is much easier. There's really nothing tricky about WW. Use W before you go into a jungle camp, use Q on the strongest monster when it's off CD, gank with R. He's easy to chase with because of E. Max R->W->E->Q.

Why would you max Q last?

[raizoo]

WW is babby way of learning to jungle. Real men learn to jungle with Jarvan first!

[Raul]

Why would you max Q last?

Because maxing W and E provides more benefits.
W is essential for a decent jungle time and procs his passive more, which leads to better sustain. E is what lets you chase decently at all. I usually do:
W Q E W W R W Q W E R E E E Q R Q Q, but Q definitely gets maxed last.

EDIT:
@raizoo no, real men learn to jungle with Karthus or Lee Sin.

[raizoo]

Because maxing W and E provides more benefits.
W is essential for a decent jungle time and procs his passive more, which leads to better sustain. E is what lets you chase decently at all. I usually do:
W Q E W W R W Q W E R E E E Q R Q Q, but Q definitely gets maxed last.

EDIT:
@raizoo no, real men learn to jungle with Karthus or Lee Sin.

W is actually a great first point for Warwick, but it's not great enough to max first. Have you tried W-Q-Q-E-Q-R-Q-E-Q-E-R-W-W-W-W-R-E-E ?

• Warwick already has enough sustain to not use W in the jungle.
• lvl5 W has 16s cd while lvl5 Q has 6s cd ― pretty sure most junglers who don't have an AoE rush Wriggles first to clear faster anyway.
• Q resets your auto-attack animation so you can be spam happy if you have blue buff. It also deals damage based on % of the opponent's maximum health or something.
• E is kind of tricky because it can reveal that you're in the area if you forget to toggle it off. Red buff will help you stick to the enemy a bit at early levels.
• If you max Q last, you are even more useless once your ulti is gone.

Jungle Lee Sin is pretty hard on a beginner ― he has life steal, he doesn't use mana as a resource, he's very skill shot dependant. Jarvan is just man mode.

[Raul]

W is actually a great first point for Warwick, but it's not great enough to max first. Have you tried W-Q-Q-E-Q-R-Q-E-Q-E-R-W-W-W-W-R-E-E ?

• Warwick already has enough sustain to not use W in the jungle.
• lvl5 W has 16s cd while lvl5 Q has 6s cd ― pretty sure most junglers who don't have an AoE rush Wriggles first to clear faster anyway.
• Q resets your auto-attack animation so you can be spam happy if you have blue buff. It also deals damage based on % of the opponent's maximum health or something.
• E is kind of tricky because it can reveal that you're in the area if you forget to toggle it off. Red buff will help you stick to the enemy a bit at early levels.
• If you max Q last, you are even more useless once your ulti is gone.

Jungle Lee Sin is pretty hard on a beginner ― he has life steal, he doesn't use mana as a resource, he's very skill shot dependant. Jarvan is just man mode.

Just never feel like I get enough out of Q. I'll try that build when I play him next. I just always find that while ganking, W is much better than Q. Dunno why.

The CD comparison is irrelevant since W lasts 10 seconds, so it's actually the same amount of time that they're not being effective.

E is tricky but only at low levels of the skill. At 5, it's 4700 range which means you could be 2 feet away, stealing your blue, ganking another lane, or anything else. I wish the health it procc'd at scaled with level. :\

Also, tempted to try J4 now even though I don't like Demacian champs much as a rule.

[chrome]

A surprising amount of people don't even glance at the sticky threads.

Edit: Just realized that to stop these sort of "hey I'm new threads" we need a thread with information for new players. I'll make one if no one does it by the time I'm home.

And? We still don't need you making it impossible for anyone to forget it's there. Would you like us to constantly tell you "Eat three servings of meat today" since most people don't remember to do that either?

Anyway, Zelkova, I strongly suggest you start out as an AD carry, with someone who is decent at supporting bottom lane as your laning partner. Starting off as any other role, especially the jungler, requires more map awareness and game sense than AD carry--your support can basically do everything for you (They don't and they shouldn't, but they can, especially if you're only just learning). Even then, you should stick with the easier ones, ex. Ashe or Caitlyn.

[Corn]

And? We still don't need you making it impossible for anyone to forget it's there. Would you like us to constantly tell you "Eat three servings of meat today" since most people don't remember to do that either?

Anyway, Zelkova, I strongly suggest you start out as an AD carry, with someone who is decent at supporting bottom lane as your laning partner. Starting off as any other role, especially the jungler, requires more map awareness and game sense than AD carry--your support can basically do everything for you (They don't and they shouldn't, but they can, especially if you're only just learning). Even then, you should stick with the easier ones, ex. Ashe or Caitlyn.

So under your premise we should stop telling new players these helpful tips and just link them to a solomid or mobafire beginner's guide since it's annoying constantly telling people the same information over and over.

[FenixR]

If he is below lvl 20, i say screw the meta! its more fun that way

[chrome]

So under your premise we should stop telling new players these helpful tips and just link them to a solomid or mobafire beginner's guide since it's annoying constantly telling people the same information over and over.

No. My premise is for you to stop being annoying. Giving people tips helps them, while pestering them to put their IGN in the IGN thread does not.