LOLing Around

This entry is for any of the EDLT students who will be trying their hand at League of Legends, fondly referred to as LOL.

So in an MMO, alts are my thing. I love to try out different classes. Obviously I was going to be rolling a ton of alts in LOL as well. Here's what's in my champion stable so far.  I mostly play Shyvana, Ziggs, Rumble, Lulu, or Renekton. Sometimes Poppy. I used to play Ahri a lot.

When I begin a new champion, I check it out on mobafire or lolpro, or both. I look for guides that are most recently updated (champion specs change) and have the most votes or are highly viewed.

I look at the masteries and itemization. I consider the play style. I begin with items or spec choices that show up in most of the guides, a kind of center sweet spot of the Venn diagrams each guide creates.

Then I might watch a Ciderhelm video, e.g., Don't Feed Ziggs, to get a feel for game play. Then I'll often play a custom 'bot game (all bots except you) to practice. They're great 'cause the games last longer and you really get to practice play. Or, if my kid is up for a  random bot game, I'll try to pair with her and we'll play with three other real humans against five bots.

The support for players has gotten quite good, especially from RIOT games. Consider this newbie guide. It even has videos explaining how the item shop works. That can be confusing when you start. You're not building a character that transcends a particular game. Each game starts from level 1, and as you get gold farming minions, knocking off enemy towers, or killing enemy champions, you buy increasingly better stat'd gear. Most low level items build into the higher level items; it's a system you have to get used to and requires some planning.







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