You Suck At League of Legends
In You Suck, we relentlessly berate people who suck at games, for no reason other than our and your amusement. We also provide some advice for you unfortunate saps.
League of Legends is one of two major “MOBA” (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games on the market today, both styled after the insanely successful Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients. The other big player is Heroes of Newerth, which is, in many ways, a more competitive and less forgiving game than League of Legends. That said, despite being fairly simple in scope, the game still has a learning curve like running face first into a wall of spikes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the game’s community is very harsh, to say the least. So, to continue the metaphor, being bad at League of Legends is like running face first into a wall of spikes, and then being yelled at by the people who should be trying to pry you free from the deadly trap. Maybe I’m being too hard on the game, though. Maybe it’s not that difficult. How hard can it be, anyway? You only have 4 abilities, anyway. All you have to do is get your minions to the other side and blow up their base. Easy peasy.
Here’s the catch, though – you suck at it.
Alright now, I’m no League prodigy. I don’t have a spotless win record, and I’m definitely not the best person to tell you why you suck, or how to improve. Does that mean I shouldn’t inform you of your ineptitude or go on a 1,000 word rant about how bad you are? Of course not.
Credit to omnibus
The Object of the Game
See that thing in the corner of the map? The thing you spawn right next to? Yeah. That’s the Nexus. Now, we can go back and forth about kills and money and killing sprees and gold and creep kills and laning and jungling and baron, but frankly, none of it matters nearly as much askilling the goddamn enemy Nexus. That means pushing lanes, blowing up towers, getting your minions across the map, and taking down inhibitors. This might seem like an obvious thing to say, but you’d be surprised how easily people get distracted from – - Hey! What did I just say? Go back and push those minions, see how close they’re getting to the tower? Yeah, I see that you’re lying in a bush waiting to ambush somebody. Real clever. Unfortunately, you just wasted three minutes and allowed your “victim” to get twenty creep kills while you chuckled to yourself doing absolutely nothing.
Stop standing around not doing anything, or hanging out in the jungle waiting for enemies to show up on your mini-map. The game isn’t about how many kills you get. The game is about blowing up the enemy Nexus – never forget that. Otherwise, you’re going to feel really dumb the first time you lose a match with fifteen more kills than the enemy team.
Credit to Redditor oxymoronused
Be Prepared to Not Die
If you’re crossing the river – the halfway point of the map – know that enemies can and will pop out from literally anywhere. This is especially true if you’re pushing a lane, because the enemy creeps reveal your location to the entire enemy team, and a single champion pushing a lane way too far into enemy territory is ripe for ganking.
“But Aidyn, you just said to push lanes! Should I not push lanes?” Hey! What did I just say? Of course you push lanes. Just be prepared to run at any given moment. Know what your champion’s escape skills are and be ready to use them (or ghost or flash) the very second enemies show up. Don’t wait until the enemy shows up and hits you a few times to use your escape skills. If you’re in enemy territory and think more than one enemy is about to show up, you use them immediately. A lot of times, an enemy won’t even bother chasing you if he doesn’t think he can catch you. Most importantly, don’t just push a lane only to run into enemy territory and die a miserable death. You’re not accomplishing anything by doing that, unless you take out a tower in the process.
Likewise, if you’re pushing the bottom lane and you’re in enemy territory, and all of a sudden you notice on your mini-map that the two enemy champions left the middle lane and started heading into the jungle, they’re headed your way. Even if they’re not headed your way, they’re headed your way. Get this into your thick skull. They’re coming to kill you. Get the hell out of there. Run into a bush and recall. Anything. Even if you’re wrong, better safe than dead.
If your champion doesn’t have any escape mechanisms and you know it, that’s fine. Push your minions to the river and then go elsewhere; as long as you force your minions to cross the river, if left unattended, they will make it all the way to the enemy tower. That’s enough to at least put some pressure on the other team, and that makes it totally worth it.
Credit to omnibus again
Measure the Odds
An ally got jumped by three enemy champions and you’re nearby. If you rush to him, you can probably make it before he dies. What do you do?
Nothing. Unless you are 100% sure that you are so beefy (or they are so weak) that you can run in and take all of them out, or unless your champion is a support champion who can heal your ally without getting into the fight or snare the enemies from long range, you do absolutely nothing. If you do run in, more than likely, all you’ll do is give the enemy two kills instead of one. At worst, you’ll also give the enemy team an additional two assists (for 70% of the kill gold each). You might get one kill and assist), but most likely, you’ll wipe without getting anything for your efforts. Oh, and if you’re getting ganked by the entire enemy team, don’t complain when nobody comes to save you. Everybody is sick and tired of you running into 1v3 battles with no hope of survival and then saying “OMG where were you guys?” to the rest of the team. You are bad, and you should feel bad.
Always measure the odds and determine your chance of success. If all of the enemy champions are alive and not on your mini-map, assume that they’re headed to you. Do the odds. Can you perform your task before they reach you? If not, run. It’s not worth dying over. “But surely if I kill one guy and then die, that evens out, right?” No. You will get one kill. They will get one kill and a bunch of assists. The math is stacked against you.
Credit goes to Redditor JayceMJ
Stop Sucking Against These Champions
Singed – For the love of all that is good and holy, stop chasing Singed. Seriously. Stop.
Blitzcrank – If this guy is running at you with what looks like no health left and 2000 mana, it’s because you’re going to forget about his mana shield and die. Oh, and don’t get grabbed when he’s by his turret or his entire team. That equals death.
Karthus – I don’t understand how people think that running away from him is going to stop his ultimate from killing you. If you are about to die from Requiem and don’t have any healing or shielding to save you, quickly try to do something useful. If it’s in the middle of a team fight, keep fighting! Don’t run.
Nunu – Jumps into a group of your allies and uses his ultimate. Do you (a) run or (b) stun him? If you chose option b, you just saved your entire team.
Garen – Don’t go in the brush. Act like the brush is lava.
Teemo – If you’re getting hammered by mushrooms, buy an oracle. You’ll thank me later.
Lux – Check if she has a lich bane. Always keep this in mind. If she has a lich bane, she can snare you and auto-attack you for hundreds of damage. Oh, and please. Dodge the laser by going parallel to the red line. You’re not going to outrun light. Same goes for Janna’s tornado.
Oh, and if you want someone to suck with, or to just try out the game. I’m Kalimedef in game.
I’m really tolerant of new players, so don’t be afraid to ask me to play or introduce you. I have my own free/small mumble also. If anyone wants to play, just add me and ask.
Also, I AM level 30, and I’ve been playing since early closed beta.
DOUBLE POST. And yes, stop running behind singed.
Ha, most of this is pretty true. I stopped playing this about 4 weeks ago due to the realization that DOTA 2 will eventually come out. You forgot to mention about picking a good champion in ranked matches and people picking carries and then only joining in team fights after 45 minutes.
I have rarely seen this in league other than when split pushing is going around. However in HoN I see this on a constantly and even when I decide to watch high level play as well.
I enjoyed the post but kind of random for this blog, yes?
We’re constantly trying out new stuff. This sort of post will likely be limited to this specific regular feature (You Suck at X), but given the response it’s received, there’s definitely a market here.
One of my friends is a huggggeeee DOTA fan, I’ll have to show him this!
I wish they didn’t change the offenses in the report player function because it seems to pertain less to what happens to me.
I used to be good, now I have a Mac and they have been “releasing” their Mac client for well over a year now lol
Good article. You’re absolutely right about the difficulty curve and the community. I played HoN for a little while, but I just got so sick of the community. It is 90% a-holes, just complete jerks, that’s not an exaggeration.
There are so many heroes to choose from, that when you inevitably random or choose a new one to try, you’re going to get yelled at from start to finish.
No one ever tries to help you, or give you tips. No one acknowledges that the game finder balances out the teams and you are the “bad” player, balanced out by the other teams bad player. They just hate you for being in the game at all, and they’re going to let you know every chance they get.
The bar for what constitutes an f-up only gets lower and lower as time goes on, to the point where you’re getting curses slung at you for not knowing specific hero vs hero match-ups, of which there are thousands of possibilities.
So yeah – that’s why I don’t play HoN anymore.
It’s the same situation for me, but I started using the command to ignore all chat.
Which no one should have too. I tend to play League of Legends because it’s a lot more relaxed.
You still get ragers, but they show up less often, it seems.
> Dodge the laser by going parallel to the red line.
Don’t you mean perpendicular? If you run parallel (with the line), you’ll still get hit. If you run perpendicular (at a 90-degree angle from the line), you should escape it.
Derp. Yeah. I totally forgot, like, 6th grade mathematics. I meant perpendicular.
Don’t tell them to not chase my Singed.
This is some of the best advice I’ve seen in a long time, largely because it explains why it’s important to do those things. So many people say ‘last hit, push towers, care for jungler, etc.’ but few people really use their brains when considering their actions (I’m certainly nowhere near perfect at it). Learning why one would push vs be pushed or fight vs flee will make decisions easier and more accurate than if you simply have a bunch of rules stacked in your head about the appropriate maneuvers in a given circumstance.
The parts about not dying are really key. So many people forget that the game is not about getting more kills than the other team, it’s about having fewer deaths. Fewer deaths = more time in lane = more dead towers. People get really upset about ‘feeders’ but don’t really internalize their own inherent understanding of what that implies: dying less is better than killing more.
“Dodge the laser by going parallel to the red line.”
Parallel should be perpendicular.
I love all the drawings you did for this post lol was really entertaining to read
I’ve gotten to the level of well above average, but it seems this mini guide would help a lot of players average and below concepts of the game that may not have been discovered on journey to thirty. It seems a lot of MOBA, RTS and DOTA inexperienced players have a hard time of understanding the game on a competitive level. Which is saddening a bit. You’re playing a highly competitive team based game. I don’t know why people can’t grasp that idea.
TL;DR Good guide, noobs should read it.
You forgot to mention jax. if you see him, and you dont have a team with you, RUN!