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  Final Spark | Youmuu's Ghostblade | Nami
  
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• A basic attack (auto attack, AA) is performed by right-clicking an enemy. Champions automatically attack enemies in range, and attack continuously until commanded otherwise. Attacks are either melee or ranged. Ranged champions fire a homing attack projectile. Each champion's attack is a little different; some take longer to complete a single attack, and some ranged champions' attack projectiles travel more slowly than others.
  
• The passive is an innate characteristic that affects gameplay, but does not require buttons to be pressed.
  
• The 4 abilities (skills, spells) are the unique actions available to a champion. Most have 3 basic abilities and 1 ultimate (ult, ulti), which is their most powerful or defining. Basic abilities have 5 ranks each, advanced with the ability points acquired on leveling up. The ultimate ability has 3 ranks and can be advanced at levels 6, 11, and 16.

Exceptions

There are many uniquely designed champions that bend or break the above rules.

A non-comprehensive list of examples is given below.

• Some champions have ultimates or passives that transform them, granting modified or new basic abilities.
  
• Some have ultimates that augment their basic abilities. A few of these champions have their ultimates already learned at level 1, with a total of 4 ranks.
  
• One champion - Udyr - has no ultimate, and instead has 4 basic abilities called "stances". Udyr does this purely to disrespect those who try to write general guides.
  
• Some champions have abilities which can be re-cast in a short time frame for extra effects.
  
• Some passives require minimal player interaction, such as clicking an ally champion or structure, using an item, or interacting with an extra control on the in-game interface.
  
• Some champions have basic attacks that function uniquely.

• Physical damage is dealt through all basic attacks, and some abilities.
• Magic damage is dealt through most (but not all) abilities, and can be added to basic attacks.
• True damage is rare, and comes from various sources. It cannot be mitigated, whereas physical and magical damage can.

Sejuani

Arctic Assault

Mages (ability power carries, APC) are powerful spell-casters who use their abilities to deal magic damage and disrupt enemies. They are typically ranged, and have lower defenses to balance their offensive capability. This class encompasses a wide variety of playstyles; some mages snipe and control from afar, while others prefer to get in the thick of things.

Marksmen (attack damage carries, ADC) primarily use their ranged basic attacks to deal sustained physical damage to single targets, termed damage-per-second (DPS). They are characterized by abilities and passives that augment or complement their basic attacks. Fragile marksmen must work hard to stay at range and survive; this requires skilled movement, careful target selection, and foresight.

Tanks are typically melee and have high defenses, but lower damage output. Their job is to disrupt, disable, and protect. They are usually the first in a fight and the last ones out. Tanks can take a beating, and when ignored, can dish out significant punishment!

Supports excel at protecting and empowering allies, and/or disrupting and crippling enemies. Utility, usefulness other than damage, is their defining trait, along with a sacrificial, low-income playstyle. Supports shine when cooperating with teammates, rather than making big solo plays. The support category is subdivided into tank-style supports and mage-style supports (sometimes called Enchanters).

Fighters (bruisers, Juggernauts) are typically melee, and boast a versatile mix of damage, defense, and utility. Fighters thrive in the midst of combat. Many are physical damage-oriented, some are magic, while others deal a mix.

Assassins are fragile champions with extreme mobility and massive damage output, called burst damage for the short time it takes to deal. They can nearly instantly kill non-tanks, but, if caught, will die just as quickly. Assassins must remain elusive, yet ready to capitalize on narrow windows of opportunity. There are both physical and magic damage assassins.

Specialist is the official term for a diverse set of champions who share qualities of several classes, but don't fit into any particular one. Players tend to just refer to individual specialists by their closest related class. It's a bit complicated, sorry!

• Hit Points (Health, HP): The amount of damage a champion can take before dying.
• HP regeneration (Hp5): The amount of hitpoints a champion regenerates every 5 seconds. Regen actually occurs every half second, so 10 HP5 means 1 hitpoint gained every half second.
• Mana (MP): The maximum amount of mana available to cast abilities.
• Mana regeneration (Mp5): The amount of mana restored passively every 5 seconds. Like HP5, this effect takes place every half second.
• Armor (AR): Reduces incoming physical damage. Each point of armor makes HP 1% more effective against physical damage. For example, a champion with 100 HP and 0 armor will be killed by 100 physical damage. With 100 armor this champion has 100% more effective HP, meaning it will take 200 physical damage to kill them.
• Magic Resist (MR): Reduces incoming magic damage. MR functions exactly like armor, except against magic damage.
• Attack Damage (AD): The amount of physical damage dealt by one basic attack.
• Attack Speed (AS, ASPD): The number of basic attacks performed per second. This has a cap of 2.5.
• Range: The number of in-game units a basic attack reaches. Range does not increase with level.
• Movement Speed (MS): The number of in-game units a champion travels per second. This does not increase with level.

• Ability Haste (AH, haste, cooldown reduction, CDR): Each point of haste increases how often an ability can be cast by 1%. For example, 50 ability haste will allow an ability to be used 50% more often. With 100 haste, an ability can be used twice as often, meaning a base cooldown of 10 seconds will be reduced to 5 seconds.
• Ability Power (AP): Ability Power points enhance most abilities. This will be covered more in the "Abilities" chapter. When attacking structures, basic attacks apply the higher of a champion's bonus attack damage or 40% of their ability power.
• Magic Penetration (MPen): causes magic damage to ignore a portion of enemies' magic resist. Comes in percentage values (ex.: Void Staff) and flat values (ex.: Sorcerer's Shoes).
• Armor Penetration (APen): Causes physical damage to ignore a portion of opponents' armor. Comes in percentage values only; flat armor penetration is gained through Lethality, as explained below.
• Lethality: immediately grants 60% of its value as flat armor penetration. A portion of the remaining 40% is granted with each champion level; at level 18, 100% of Lethality is granted as flat armor penetration.
  Calculating Penetration, Reduction, and Lethality

  When damage is calculated, % penetration is calculated before flat penetration. For in example, if an opponent has 100 Magic Resist, and you have 40% Magic Penetration from Void Staff and 18 Flat Magic Penetration from Sorcerer's Shoes, they will effectively have 42 MR against your magic damage.
  
  Penetration will not ignore MR or Armor below a value of 0, however, some items and abilities reduce resistances. Reduction can can lower a target's MR or Armor to negative amounts, resulting in bonus damage.
  
  Lethality determines the amount of Flat Armor Penetration used against a target using this mathematical formula:
  

  Penetration = Lethality × ((0.6 + (0.4 × level ÷ 18))

  
  What this means is, if you have 10 Lethality:

  • Attacking a target while level 1 will apply 6.22 Flat Armor Penetration (just over 60% of your Lethality)
  • Attacking a target while level 9 will apply 8 Flat Armor Penetration 80% of your Lethality)
  • Attacking a target while level 18 will apply 10 Flat Armor Penetration (100% value)
    
• Omnivamp: The percentage of damage dealt returned to the dealer as hitpoints. Turn your offense into defense!
• Lifesteal (LS): The percentage of damage dealt from basic attacks returned as hitpoints.
• Physical Vamp: The percentage of physical damage dealt returned to the dealer as hitpoints.
• Critical Strike Chance (Crit): Basic attacks gain a % amount of chance to deal 175% damage. Crits occur randomly, but measured over an extended number of attacks, every 1% of crit chance increases effective attack damage by .75%.
• Tenacity: Reduces the duration of disables by a percentage. For example, Lux can root enemies for 2 seconds using Light Binding, but enemies with 35% Tenacity will only be rooted for 1.3 seconds.

• Determine which basic ability is a champion's most meaningful damage and/or utility, and max it before the others. For many champions, this choice is always the same; other champions can make reactive choices.
• Determine what abilites, if any, are '1-point wonders' - utility-oriented abilities that don't gain meaningful base damage or reduced cooldown with increased levels. Rank these once, but max them last.
• By level 4, each basic ability should be ranked at least once.
• Put a point in your ultimate ability whenever possible - at levels 6, 11, and 16.

• Damage: removes health. Damage-over-time (DoT, burn, poison, bleed) deals damage gradually, instead of instantaneously.
• Heal: return missing health. Healing a full-health target has no effect.
• Shield: give temporary health. Shields are shown on health bars as an opaque light grey. Magic damage shields, which only block magic damage, are purple. Physical damage shields, which only block physical damage, are orange.
• Crowd control (CC): disables or impedes enemies.
  • Hard CC completely removes a player's control of their champion.
  • Soft CC partially removes control.
  • Interrupts cancel channeled abilities. Any CC that prevents casting abilities is an interrupt, whether it's hard or soft.
  most common cc types

  Hard CC:

  • Stun: The target is unable to move, cast abilities, or attack.
  • Knockup, Knock Aside, and Knockback: The target is made airborne and is unable to move, cast abilities, or attack. This can't be reduced by tenacity.
  • Pull, Grab, and Fling: Displace targets to a specified location.
  • Forced Action: The target is unable to move, cast abilities, or attack, and performs the action specified by the ability. For example, taunts force targets to attack the source. Flees force targets to walk away with reduced movement speed.
  • Suppression: The target is unable to move, cast abilities, attack, or use summoner spells.

  Soft CC:

  • Root (snare, bind): The target becomes trapped where they are standing, unable to move.
  • Blind: The target's basic attacks and abilities that apply on-hit effects will "miss", incurring no physical damage.
  • Silence: The target is unable to cast abilities or the summoner spells Flash and Teleport.
  • Slow: Movement speed is reduced. Technically, a slow is a debuff to movement speed, and not true crowd control, since the player still retains control of their champion.
• Buff: increase allies' statistics. Steroids are self-buffs.
• Debuff: lower enemies' statistics.
• Movement: allows a champion (or champions) to quickly re-position by dashing, jumping, blinking, teleporting, etc. Most can cross terrain. Offensive movement abilities are called gap closers, defensive are escapes.
  
• Attack modifiers: give special effects to basic attacks. Some are attack resets, which allow a champion to attack twice in quick succession when used immediately after the damage of the first attack is applied. (Practice this with Garen's Decisive Strike.)
  
• Some abilities apply on-hit effects, which normally can only be applied to basic attacks. Examples of on-hit effects include lifesteal, Sheen's Spellblade passive, and Nami's attack modifier Tidecaller's Blessing.
  
• Passive effects occur without activation, as long as the ability has been ranked with an ability point. Don't confuse these with a champion's passive!

• Cost: the amount of resource consumed per cast. Champions have finite resource pools; if this pool is empty, abilities can't be used. Most champions use mana, but some use their health or rapidly-regenerating energy. Some have no resource, and therefore no costs.
• Scaling: the way stats increase the power of an ability. Scaling is specified by a ratio, which adds a portion of the relevant stat to the base value.
  
  scaling Examples

  Ability power is the most common ability-scaling stat:

  • Annie's ability Disintegrate deals 80 (+80% AP) magic damage at rank 1. With 100 AP, this ability will deal 160 magic damage (80 base damage +80 AP).
  • Lulu's ability Whimsy gives a percentage movement speed bonus, which gains a percentage for every 100 AP.

  
  Many abilities scale with non-AP stats:

  • Sejuani's Winter's Wrath gains damage from both AP and her bonus HP.
  • Malphite's Ground Slam scales with his armor.
  • Riven's abilities and passive ( ) scale with AD.

  
  Some abilities scale based on their target's stats:

  • Kog'Maw's Bio-Arcane Barrage gains damage equal to a % of his target's maximum HP.
  • Garen's Demacian Justice deals damage that increases with his enemy's missing HP. Damage abilities that scale with enemies' missing health are called executes.

  
  Abilities that scale with multiple statistics have hybrid scaling.

  • Jax's Leap Strike
  • Leona's Eclipse
• Cooldown (CD): the delay before an ability can be recast. Most abilities go on cooldown immediately after cast, but some have variations on this mechanic:
  • Multi-use: can be cast multiple times in a short window. Ex. Ahri's Spirit Rush
  • Charge/Ammo: stock multiple charges that can be used in quick succession. The charges themselves replenish with a longer cooldown. Ex. Teemo's Noxious Trap
  • Toggle: grants a persistent effect when activated, with a cooldown between switches. Ex. Dr. Mundo's Heart Zapper
• Range: the measure of an ability's reach. Range is illustrated by range indicators. Abilities with global range can be used anywhere on the map.
• Cast time: the delay between cast and effect. This is illustrated as a bar on the user interface and with a wind-up animation ( Annie rearing back to throw Incinerate, or Ashe drawing her bowstring to fire Volley) Most are brief (~.5 seconds). Some abilities cast instantly.
• Channel: abilities with interruptable cast times. Interrupts put the ability on cooldown, without its effect occurring. This can be done by the caster through movement, ability, or attack commands, or by enemies through crowd control.
  
  

  How Are Abilities Controlled?

  
  
• Auto-targeted: when cast, affects all those in an area around the caster. No aiming required, just positioning of your champion.
• Aura: similar to an auto-targeted ability, auras affect units around the caster. In contrast, an aura is a persistent effect, usually a buff or debuff. ( Sona's basic abilities incorporate both auto-targeting and auras)
• Targeted: point-and-click abilities require that the cursor be hovering a visible, in-range target to be cast. Most of these cannot be dodged and will follow the target regardless of its movement.
• Skillshot: requires aiming using the cursor. These come in many shapes and sizes, such as linear projectiles, conic spreads, or circles. Skillshots can be missed or dodged--aim carefully!
• Area-of-effect (AoE): can affect multiple units in one cast.
• Single-target: affects only one unit per cast.

• Precision, for improved attacks and sustained damage.
• Domination, for burst damage and target access.
• Sorcery, for empowered abilities and resource manipulation.
• Resolve, for durability and crowd control.
• Inspiration, for creative tools and rule bending.

• Which Keystone best enhances my champion's gameplay?
• Which Lesser runes and Shard selections best fit my strategy and situational needs this match?
• Do my choices make sense with my planned item build and playstyle?

Summoner Level 1

Ghost is for chasing or escaping enemies. Ignoring unit collision means a champion can walk through units, such as minions, they would normally have to walk around.

Heal is for restoring HP. It is best used to save yourself and/or an ally from otherwise certain death. The movement speed boost allows for escaping or chasing.

Summoner Level 4

Barrier is powerful protection against burst damage. Using it well requires precise timing - it's easy to waste if you predict incoming damage wrong. Barrier is an effective defense for fragile champions like mages and marksmen.

Exhaust (exh) can be used defensively to prevent damage and pursuit, or offensively to prevent retaliation or escape. Exhaust is especially effective against champions that deal most of their damage in a short period of time, like assassins.

Summoner Level 7

Flash (f) is regarded as mandatory on nearly all champions, due to its power and versatility. It causes your champion to instantaneously disappear and reappear a short distance away. Use it to dodge skill shots, land abilities, cross terrain and obstacles, escape, or chase enemies.

Teleport (tp) is fantastic for making surprise plays across the map, getting back to lane quickly, or escaping enemies. It can be used on a a variety of allied units, including turrets, minions, and wards. Teleport is a channeled spell, and can be cancelled by enemy CC.

Summoner Level 9

Ignite (ign) is a popular choice for winning duels and securing kills. It reduces how much an enemy can heal, and prevents them from leaving vision.

Cleanse aids fragile champions such as mages and marksmen who can be devastated by crowd control, giving them a chance to escape or fight back. "Summoner spell debuffs" refers to Exhaust and Ignite.

Smite is used for fighting jungle monsters. This is a specialized Summoner Spell; see the chapter 'Closer Look: Jungling' to learn more about using Smite.

ARAM Summoner Spells

Clarity and Mark/Dash are exclusive to the All Random, All Mid game mode. They are not used in the Classic mode, which is the focus of this guide.

Clarity helps champions and teams that need lots of mana.

Mark/Dash is best used for gap-closing and making initiations with tanks or assassins. Or for starting snowball fights.

• Passives are attributes your champion gains that don't require any extra key-pressing. Passives have immense power and can greatly alter a champion. Two examples of items with passives are Duskblade of Draktharr and Liandry's Torment.
• Actives are essentially extra abilities that require additional key-presses to use. Like Passives, Actives are extremely powerful and important, but only if you remember to use them! Examples include Zhonya's Hourglass and Turbo Chemtank.

• Recommended suggests items to you automatically, based on your opponents' champions and your current items. This method is a decent starting point, but personally, I think it is most useful if you are already familiar with the game.
  
• All Items shows a comprehensive list, along with filter options. You can filter items by their stats and/or by the class of champion they are intended for. This method takes more effort to use, and can be overwhelming at first, but I recommend learning it. LoLshop.gg is an excellent website for practicing this.
  
• Item Sets shows you a list of custom-made item collections you can create in the client. This tool is super helpful for planning ahead.

• What is my champion's role?
• What statistics and attributes does my champion need to perform this role?
• What statistics and attributes will help me against the enemies I am facing this match?

synergistic items example 2

Here's a more complex example of complementary items, featuring Blade of the Ruined King and Lord Dominik's Regards:

• LDR's attack damage benefits from BotRK's attack speed.
• BotRK's on-hit physical damage benefits from LDR's armor penetration.
• Armor items for tanks, such as Dead Man's Plate, include health and armor - BotRK and LDR help you beat both stats.

Wit's End, which shares a component with BotRK and gives similar on-hit damage and attack speed, does not pair well with LDR, because its on-hit damage is magical.

Build Examples for Annie, Ashe, and Garen

Annie is a burst-style mage. Her passive stun and high-damage abilities are used together to create opportunities to throw all her damage into an enemy at once. Once this opportunity is expended, she has to wait for ability cooldowns to refresh and passive stacks to build before being able to do such damage again. With this in mind, we know Annie needs ability power, mana, and cooldown reduction for her abilities. This makes Luden's Tempest a terrific first purchase, because its unique passive stacks during the time Annie builds her stun, and adds even more damage to her powerful burst combo. Lost Chapter is a component of Luden's Echo that is a fitting start to a build, since it is budget-friendly (builds out of cheap basic items) and gives a variety of stats and passives that are useful earlier in the game. Sorcerer's Shoes, Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff are excellent following offensive choices. For defense, Annie can use items like Banshee's Veil against magic damage, or Zhonya's Hourglass against physical damage. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a good choice against mixed damage and high-health champions that take a little longer to kill. Remember, all of these items are built from components! Annie could build a Null-Magic Mantle or a Seeker's Armguard to get the requisite resistances before completing Hourglass or Banshee's Veil.

Ashe is a marksman who needs attack damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, and armor penetration to boost her basic attacks. Her main damage ability, Volley, scales with AD, and her passive Frost Shot powerfully slows enemies she critically strikes. This makes Infinity Edge a great first buy. Items like Berserker's Greaves, Runaan's Hurricane, Stormrazor, and Lord Dominik's Regards are good items to round out her build. Lifesteal is a good defensive statistic for marksmen, so Ashe could include an early Vampiric Scepter before finishing a complete Bloodthirster or Mercurial Scimitar. Guardian Angel is another strong defensive choice against physical damage and assassins.

Garen is a fighter who needs a mix of defense and offense to survive charging the front lines while dishing out damage. Attack damage and armor penetration make his abilities hit harder, while cooldown reduction makes them available more often. Therefore, Black Cleaver is an excellent first purchase. Sterak's Gage is a great second item that increases Garen's hardiness, increases his attack damage, and also benefits from Black Cleaver's health and armor reduction. Garen's passive Perseverance and his ability Courage make health and resistances extra cost-effective, so tank items like Dead Man's Plate and Spirit Visage are strong choices. Ninja Tabi and Mercury's Treads are flexible defensive boots, while Boots of Swiftness are an effective, less expensive offensive choice.

Open for image

• Outer (tier 1): fire a slow, yet powerful attack which ignores a portion of champion armor. These turrets start the game with extra defenses that expire after a certain time frame.
• Inner (tier 2, middle): have more powerful attacks than Outer.
• Inhibitor (tier 3) and Nexus: These more powerful turrets also regenerate their health.

open for image (monster map)

• The Murk Wolves, Raptors (birds), Krugs (stone beetle-turtles), and Gromp (massive toad) are found in between the lanes.
• The Rift Scuttlers wander each side of the river. They don't fight back, but instead evade when attacked.

• A Blue Sentinel (blue buff) is found at the center of the east and west jungle quadrants. Blue Sentinels take increased magic damage.
• A Red Brambleback (red buff) lives in the north and south jungle quadrants. Bramblebacks take increased physical damage.

• The Elemental Dragon (drag, drake) is a fearsome monster that rests in the south river pit. It knocks back champions after it is first attacked. Its attacks deal a painful amount of damage, and they also splash, damaging units behind the target. It is immune to CC.
  
  There are 4 "species" of Dragon:
  • Infernal is the standard dragon type
  • Cloud attacks and moves faster,
  • Mountain attacks more slowly but is tougher to kill
  • Ocean slows what it attacks.
  Each species grants the killing team a particular buff, which will be covered in the next section.
  
  The first two dragons to spawn are randomly determined. After the second dragon is slain, a particular species of dragon (that is different from the first two) will take over the Rift, transforming it for the remainder of the match. Thereafter, only dragons of that particular species will spawn. The transformations are as follows:
  • Infernal: the Rift becomes broken and scorched. Brush and some walls around the Blue Sentinel and Red Brambleback camps are removed. The mouth to Dragon pit widens.
  • Cloud: the winds around the Red and Blue buff camps and inside Dragon pit quicken, creating zones that boost your champion's movement speed.
  • Mountain: seismic activity creates new walls in the jungle and at the mouth of Dragon pit.
  • Ocean: rainfall brings life, sprouting new brushes and extra honeyfruits. Puddles in the jungle function like the river (for purposes of things like the rune Waterwalking).
  
  
• Elder Dragon, which is more threatening and durable, replaces Elemental Dragons after certain game conditions are met, which will be covered in the next chapter.
  
  
• The Rift Herald is a tough enemy found in the north river pit. At the start of fights, Herald will charge through enemies, knocking them aside. It uses a special attack at certain HP thresholds that deals extra damage in a cone. Herald also takes reduced damage from ranged attacks. However, it has a vulnerable eye on its back that causes massive bonus damage when attacked from behind, while open. Herald will respawn once. It will de-spawn to make way for Baron Nashor.
  
  
• Baron Nashor (worm, nash, baron) is the most powerful monster on the Rift. He resides in the north river pit, replacing the Herald at 20 minutes. Baron weakens those he attacks - they deal less damage to him, and take increased damage from all sources. He also has a large arsenal of abilities, including a stun, slow, knockup, and knockback, some of which can be avoided. He is immune to CC.

• Blast Cones explode and knock away everything in their blast radius.
• Scryer's Blooms release vision-granting pollen in a large cone, revealing champions for a few seconds, and other units for longer.
• Honeyfruits drop fruits on the ground. Each fruit restores health and mana, but also briefly slows.

Plant Locations

• Red = Blast Cone
• Blue = Scryer’s Bloom
• Green = Honeyfruit

• Experience: Champions gain levels by earning experience. Higher levels means higher base stats and ability damage.
  • Minions and Dragon grant experience locally (to champions in proximity) when they die.
  • Champion kills and assists give experience.
  • Monsters and wards give experience to their killers.
• Gold through minion & monster kills: To buy items, players need gold. Last hitting, dealing the killing blow to a minion or monster (termed creeps), is a player's greatest source of gold income. Last hits are recorded as a number called the creep score (CS). Building a higher creep score is called farming. Miss as few minion kills as you can! If you can farm better than your opponents, you will have more items, more quickly.
  
  
• Structure kills: The only way to win is by destroying the enemy's Nexus, and the only way to the Nexus is through Turrets and Inhibitors.
  • Turret kills give gold, and remove enemy vision and protection. Once a turret is destroyed, your team can control that area. Minions can push further, threatening, or pressuring, other structures.
  • Destroying inhibitors and releasing super minions is extremely important, tantamount to adding a sixth player who relentlessly pressures the enemy's base. Protecting your inhibitors is as important as destroying the enemy's.

• Vision Control: Place and protect wards, while destroying the enemy's. Learn more in the chapter 'Closer Look: Warding & Vision'.
• Rift Scuttler: When "killed", a Rift Scuttler will temporarily bury itself in the riverbed, creating a circular area that grants vision and a speed boost to allies. This gives control over Dragon or Baron, and aids movement between lanes.
• Buff monster rewards: The Blue Sentinel and Red Brambleback grant temporary buffs to their slayers. Protect them, and try to steal the enemy's. These buffs transfer to a champion's killer.
  • The Crest of Cinders (red buff) adds extra true damage and a slow to basic attacks, plus health regeneration. Its effect is strongest on melee champions, so fighters and tanks use it best, but marksmen can apply a weakened effect more easily.
  • The Crest of Insight (blue buff) grants resource regeneration and cooldown reduction. It's best to give blue buff to ability-oriented allies (a mage, assassin, or fighter).
• The Rift Herald: On death, the Rift Herald drops an item, the Eye of the Herald. ANY ally of the slayer can walk over the Eye to pick it up, replacing their trinket for 4 minutes and granting them a faster recall. Using this item summons the Rift Herald as an ally that marches down the nearest lane, attacking minions and charging turrets for massive damage. Use this tool to make a powerful push down a lane and draw the enemy's attention.
  
  
• Elemental Dragons: Killing Dragon grants local experience and a permanent buff to ally champions called Dragon Slayer. The effect of this buff varies with the type of Dragon that was slain, and slaying multiple dragons of the same species stacks its effect:
  • Infernal: increased Attack Damage and Ability Power.
  • Cloud: ultimate ability cooldown reduction, which can exceed the CDR cap.
  • Mountain: increased armor and magic resist.
  • Ocean: bonus health regeneration, increased for each percentage missing HP
  
  
• The Dragon Soul: a team claims the Dragon Soul by slaying a total of 4 dragons. This buff is in addition to the Dragon Slayer buffs accumulated before. The types of soul claimed are as follows:
  • Infernal: Damaging abilities and attacks create an additional AoE explosion around their target.
  • Cloud: Grants permanently increased movement speed, and a larger temporary bonus after casting your ultimate.
  • Mountain: Creates a shield that regenerates out of combat.
  • Ocean: Dealing damage to enemies restores your health and mana.
  
  
• Elder Dragon: Spawns after a team has slain 4 total dragons and claimed the Dragon Soul. Slaying Elder Dragon grants a temporary buff called Aspect of the Dragon:
  • Basic attacks and spells burn targets, dealing true damage over a couple seconds.
  • Enemies at 20% HP or less are executed.
• Baron Nashor: Killing Baron grants gold, experience, and a buff called Hand of Baron to all teammates. The buff gives 40 AP and AD, halves recall time, and increases healing and movement speed after recalling. Most importantly, champions bearing the buff have an aura that massively empowers nearby minions. Hand of Baron makes a team a formidable siege force. Lasts 3.5 minutes.

• Early Game (laning phase): Players focus on farming and gaining experience, denying farm and experience to opponents, and destroying outer turrets. Denial is accomplished by forcing opponents away from minions, back to base through consistent harass, or by killing them. Basic items and components are purchased. Dragon and Rift Herald are realistic, but dangerous, objectives.
  
  
• Mid Game: Players begin roaming and grouping for ambushes, or to concentrate on an objective. Skirmishes and team fights, battles between all 10 players, start occurring. Champions have surpassed level 6 and have one or two core items completed. Middle and inner turrets are the focus, along with Dragon, the Herald, and remaining outers. Vision control becomes even more important. Baron is a realistic, but extremely dangerous objective.
  
  
• Late Game: Champions are nearing level 18, have their core items completed, and are working towards full build (6 complete items). Inner turrets, Inhibitors, and Nexus turrets are the focus, along with Baron and Dragon. Grouping and team fights are common, and it is dangerous to be found alone. Respawn timers are now extremely long, and one poorly timed death can cost the entire game. Vision control is crucial to victory.

• Marksman and Support (the Duo or Bot lane): A Marksman and a Controller or Tank typically share the bottom lane. Marksmen are fragile champions who need gold, more than experience, to become powerful. Controllers and Tanks excel at protecting and empowering, and don't need as much gold to do their jobs. These two make the perfect duo, sharing experience and allowing the marksman to take as much gold as possible. Almost always, this duo begins at the bottom lane to stay near Dragon.
  
  
• Mid: Mages and Slayers typically go solo in the middle lane. This gives them exclusive access to experience and gold, both of which are crucial to their success. The distance from turret to center-of-lane is shorter in mid than the outer lanes, which offers extra safety to these fragile champions. Also, midlane's central location makes roaming for surprise attacks on outer lanes convenient.
  
  
• Top: Fighters and Tanks also benefit from solo gold and experience, but with their inherent durability, don't need the safety of the shorter mid lane. The duo lane is usually bottom, so top is the lane of choice for these champions.
  
  
• Jungle: junglers earn their gold and experience by killing monsters in the jungle, rather than minions in a lane. There are champions from every class that can occupy the Jungle. See the chapter 'Closer Look: Jungling' to learn more about this complex role.

Common team compositions

• AoE: use multiple AoE abilities to create powerful combinations. For example, Amumu can lock down an entire team with his ultimate Curse of the Sad Mummy, allowing Miss Fortune and Annie to use their ults to full effect.
• Poke: long-range, high-damage abilities are used to siege, rather than all-out fight. Xerath's Arcanopulse, Caitlyn's Piltover Peacemaker, and Jayce's Shock Blast are perfect examples. Champions such as Janna and Azir, who can control zones and keep enemies at a distance, work well with poke compositions.
• Pick: high mobility, strong CC, and burst damage is used to catch enemies out of position and swiftly kill them. Controllers like Thresh and Blitzcrank work well in pick comps, alongside assassins such as LeBlanc, Fizz, and Talon.
• Dive: Dive is the opposite of poke; these comps love to get close and dirty. Durability, powerful CC, and sustained damage are used to overtake and overwhelm enemies. Shyvana, Olaf, and Leona are frontliners that work well alongside champions such as Ahri, Sivir, Graves, and Rumble because of their strong initiation and/or follow-up.
• Split push: pressure multiple lanes simultaneously to divide opponents. Capable duelists with strong wave clear require the enemy to send multiple champions to deal with them, forcing the rest of the enemy to fight outnumbered. Good split pushers are usually difficult to chase, and the summoner spell Teleport makes it easy for any champion to join their team at a moment's notice. Examples of split pushers are Udyr, Master Yi, Tryndamere, Jax, Singed, Zed, Shen (due to Stand United, and Twisted Fate (due to Destiny).

• The Stealth Ward gives you Stealth Wards, place-able objects that grant vision in a small radius. They become invisible to enemies after 1 second of being placed. After level 9, this can be traded for the Farsight Alteration.
• The Oracle Lens (sweeper) scans for enemy units, revealing and disabling enemy wards for a short period so they can either be destroyed, or bypassed without revealing yourself.

Control Ward

Evelynn

warding tips & tricks

• It's almost always best to start the game with a Warding Totem. If no selection is made, you will automatically be given the Warding Totem.
  
• Control wards last indefinitely, however, they are easily found by any enemy who walks by them, and are revealed to the enemy if they are actively disabling a ward. Try to defend them, and place them where it is easy to do so. Unlike other wards, they will regenerate their HP if not destroyed.
  
• The best places to ward are in bushes and high-traffic areas, such as jungle crossroads. Warding at the edges of brush, away from walls, maximizes vision range. This image shows common warding locations. Pink spots are suited for both Control and Stealth wards, yellow for Stealth only. These locations are mirrored on each side of the river. Remember, the best place to ward is wherever you need vision. These are suggestions; don't limit yourself!
  
• Wards leave behind rubble when they die. This looks like a small rock with an orb over it. Pay attention to where your enemies are warding!
  
• Your cursor becomes a crosshair when placing wards. It is blue by default, but will turn green if the target location is in brush. It will turn gold if in terrain. Use this to avoid misplacing wards.
  
• Wards can be placed over terrain. Warding over walls can be safer and more convenient. If the target location is inside terrain, your ward will be displaced when planted. You can use this displacement to extend your ward planting range!
  
• A number indicating how many wards you currently have placed appears next to the crosshair. If you are about to exceed the limit, the number is red, and an "x" on the minimap shows which ward will be removed.
  
• Wards have skins, like champions. The only consistent visual identifiers for ward types are the coloured orbs above them and their HP bars. Don't let it confuse you.
  
• The role-specific "Remnant" item line gives supports extra vision control.

• Passive, Ability, & Summoner Spell Icons: each icon gives status information, such as cooldown timer, mana cost, ability rank, insufficient mana, cast disables, etc. Hover the cursor over each to read its tooltip.
• HP & Mana Bars: visual representation of your current HP and Mana, with numbers. Hover the cursor to see current regen per second.
• Current Level & Experience: the curved purple bar next to your champion portrait shows how close you are to your next level. Hover the cursor to see exact numbers.
• Stats: toggle this by clicking the helmet icon at the bottom left of the champion portrait. Extend it to view all stats using your chosen keyboard shortcut. Mouse over each stat for more detail.
• Status Icons: icons representing buffs, debuffs, and most anything else affecting your champion are displayed here (stacks for Annie's passive Pyromania shown in this example). Hover your cursor over them to read details. A cast timer bar shows just above this.
• Items, Trinket, & Gold: your inventory. Drag and drop to rearrange items to preferred hotkeys. Item icons show cooldowns and other information. Hover your cursor over icons to read details. The button that displays your gold also opens the shop.
  
  
  Minimap
  
  
  
  
  
  This overview of the entire map shows the position of champions and minions not obscured by the Fog of War. Left-click it to move your camera, right-click to move your champion. Hover the cursor over structures to view their HP. Some movement and long-range abilities can be cast by targeting the map.
  
  A variety of minimap icons mark objects such as wards and Teemo mushrooms. Hourglass icons show respawn timers for the Sentinel, Brambleback, Dragon, and Baron. Skull-and-crossbones icons appear on champion death locations. Unique icons give information about global abilities like Shen's Stand United and Jinx's Super Mega Death Rocket!.
  
  Above the minimap are your allies' champion portraits, which show their respawn timer, current HP and mana, and ultimate availability (the dot above each portrait). Targeted abilities can be cast on these portraits.
  
  Portraits of slain enemies appear above these, showing their respawn timer.
  
  
  Target Frame
  
  
  
  
  
  Left-click a unit to view its stats. In this example, I've selected the enemy champion Miss Fortune, and can see her stats, items, HP and mana, creep score, KDA, and a status icon representing the passive effect Strut.
  
  
  Scoreboard & Monster Timers
  
  
  
  
  
  Hold TAB to view.
  
  Displayed at the top are each team's Dragon, Turret, and Kill scores. Below is champion info - items, KDA, creep score, and summoner spells (cooldown displayed for allies only). Drag-and-drop to rearrange champions (for quick comparison between lane opponents).
  
  Use the loudspeaker icon to mute/unmute players' chat messages. Hover the cursor over a champion portrait to read the player's name.
  
  The scoreboard only updates when a champion is not in the Fog of War. Hidden champions have a '?' next to them.
  
  The Monster Timers above the scoreboard indicate Baron (purple), Dragon (orange), and buff monster respawns. You will always be notified when Dragon and Baron are slain, but you must have vision of a buff monster camp's death to get its respawn timer.
  
  
  Game Info
  
  
  
  
  
  From left to right: team kill score, KDA, creep score, game time, connection strength indicator. Underneath are optional ping and FPS numbers.
  
  
  

  Tooltips

  
  
  
  
  Mouse over interface elements (such as your ability icons, or an enemy's item on the scoreboard) to reveal tooltips stating exactly what they represent. This example is from an unplaced ability point for Caitlyn's Piltover Peacemaker, and it shows what changes with the next rank.
  
  In tooltips, statistics are represented by this color code: AP, AD, armor, MR, HP, and mana. Base amounts sometimes are indicated in different colors than bonus amounts.
  
  
  

  Pings

  
  
  
  
  Use pings to quickly communicate with your teammates.
  
  • Alert ping (A): ALT+left click, or G. Use on an enemy to Target them (B), and on allies, to Request Aid (C).
  • Caution ping (D): CTRL+left click, or V. Use on a unit to issue a Retreat ping (E).
  • Radial Menu: Hold ALT or CTRL+left mouse button to view the radial menu. Move your cursor in the direction of the ping you want to issue. This can be done in a single, swift motion.
  
  
  

  Chat

  
  
  
  
  Hit Enter to open chat, type your message or command, then hit Enter again to send and close chat. ESC closes chat without sending. View the chat history by pressing Z. Click and drag the top bar after opening to move the window. Important notifications such as pings are announced automatically in chat, so make sure your time stamps are turned on.
  
  Chat Commands:
  • '/w "summoner name" ': send a message to out-of-game friends.
  • '/r': reply to the last message received from an out-of-game friend.
  • '/all': send a message visible to both teams. Shift+Enter will open the chat window in this mode. Visibility of /all chat can be toggled in the Options menu.