League of Legends is a MOBA style PC game, there are many different game modes that I'll go over later in this post. Despite it's toxic community, a lot of people have made friends and relationships with people, such as myself. Throughout my summer before this semester my friends and I would have game nights and play League until like five in the morning, it was such a good wast of time and helped us get to know each other better. We learned what roles we were good at and who could go where.
In League there are several types of game modes, but the main one is just a normal five versus five team game on a three lane map. This game mode is either Normal or Ranked, Ranked meaning that you play with people who actually try their best to play it, while in Normal it's just for fun. Another game mode is called ARAM, which is a one lane map where a five versus five team fight each other with characters randomly by the game. This game mode is really fun for trying new characters you've never played or just to pass some time. I should also mention that every week there are free to play characters out of over 100 to choose from. To buy a champion to use, you get influence points or IP to use in game after you finish a game. You can also buy riot points or RP by using money to buy champions or skins for champions, so they have a different look instead of their normal one. Back to the game modes, there is also a three versus three team map called Twisted Treeline. All of these three modes are similar in terms of winning. In order to win you need to destroy the enemy Nexus after taking down their turrets and inhibitors. Lastly there is another map that is kind of like king of the hill, but I've honestly never tried it out.
I usually play Normal with my friends and I usually go top lane. As I said before there are three different lanes. Top lane is usually for tanks, fighters, and assassins who use attack damage or "AD", but I usually go top lane with my favorite characters. I love top lane because you don't need to worry about any other lanes or objectives such as getting the dragon because it's on the other side of the map. Another lane is mid lane, which most people use a mage or assassin and some times even an ADC, by ADC I mean attack damage carry, which are usually marksman characters. Mid lane is probably the most important and hardest of the lane because if you lose mid lane it'll be hard to come back later on in the game. The last lane is bot lane, where there is a character duo usually consisting of an ADC and support. A support character can be either a tank, someone who can keep their ADc sustained by healing in lane, or some one who can help their ADC get fed by getting kills to dominate their lane. If an ADC gets too fed then its game over for the other team because they can basically take down the whole team by themselves if they don't play safe enough. If you've noticed that I've only talked about 4 people on the team, but what about the fifth? That role belongs to the jungler. The jungler has no lane, they wander around the jungles between all three lanes killing monsters and some times even into the other team's jungle. The monsters in the jungle give them buffs that help them stay alive in the jungle and also help them "gank". A "gank" is when a jungler goes into one of the three lanes to help their team mate fight their enemy in lane, so it basically becomes a 2v1 that the jungler and their team mate can win. Junglers play an important role in the game because they can help make or break the game. Junglers mainly strive for the objectives like dragon and Baron Nashor. these objectives give the entire team buffs. There are five dragon buffs that the team can get that have a special abilities like movement speed, tower destruction and even buffs to attacks. The baron buff is the best buff in the game because it gives the entire team buffs in all areas and even halves the time of recalling. This buff also buffs the minions you are close to that help you take objectives and win the game. After winning the game, you get experience and IP, you also get a rating for how good you did with your character. Thanks for reading, I'll go more into detail with what champions go where and guides for them in my next posts, I'll be be posting regularly so keep yourself updated.
