Post tips and tricks here that will help people improve their game. Either leave posts with advice in this thread, preferably saying what section you want them in, or PM me. It doesn't matter how common sense you think something is, because common sense is so rare, it's a god damn super power.

Organized based on:

General
Champion Specific
Item Specific

General Tips and Tricks:

• This is Why You Play the Meta
• One of the best early-mid rune pages that transition relatively well into late game for AD champions is a mix of 3x Flat AD Marks and Quints with 6x AR Pen marks. This gives you 10 of each, which will not only help you farm, but will let you harass for over all better damage than a straight AR Pen or AD page.
• AD Ranged Carries should generally rush AD items, such as Infinity Edge and Bloodthirster first because it provides the most drastic damage increase when compared to Phantom Dancer, even if the carry has an on-hit ability.
• Any allied unit that can be clicked, excluding champions, on can be teleported to. This includes Jarvan's E flag, Tibbers, Heimer Turrets, Voidlings, and Yorick Ghouls. (contributed by Mibu)
• If you want to snowball a creep wave, you should kill off all the enemy caster minions first. Not only are they stronger and ranged, but they're also more spread out so your minions can't focus fire. Doing this, you can stack 2-4 waves of minions to rush an enemy tower, with proper management. This works especially well in Dominion, where a 3-4 wave deep group can basically neutralize a point.
• For mana champions, you should always keep enough mana to do a full combo, including ultimate. Anything more than that should be spent to poke enemy champs, etc. Notable exceptions is when you are going for the kill, or wish to push the lane and head back to base. (Contributed by tragicmat1)
• Auto attacks hurt, especially at early levels. Abuse it if you can, this includes AP mids and supports. (contributed by tragicmat1)

Champion Tips and Tricks:

Ahri

• Fox Fire activates the single-target slow on Rylai's

Akali

• You can activate both of her passives by using just 6 flat AD marks and 3 flat AP Quints and putting 21 points into Offensive masteries.
• To deal great burs to an enemy, first mark the target with Q. Wait until your Q is almost off cooldown then leap in and activate your first mark. Your Q should be off CD after that, so land another Q and trigger it again. This essentially adds a 25% damage increase to your burst combo when you trigger it.
• Akali's Shroud lets her cancel Fiora's Ultimate if she's the only one there.

Alistar

• Trample (Passive) damages bulidings, so liberal use of E when trying to take a tower is good.
• Alistar can Headbutt through walls as an escape or surprise initiation if he has vision of his target. (contributed by Mibu)

Amumu

Anivia

Annie

Ashe

• When you first go into lane, you should try to open up with a strong aggression for the first level. Because of your guaranteed crit and 1:1 ratio on Volley, you'll do a large amount of damage to enemy carries compared to what most of them can do to you. Notable exceptions being a Vayne who walks into lane with E and a Sivir or Ezreal who lands their Q.

Blitzcrank

Brand

Caitlyn

• Caitlyn can chain her Q and E together for a fast getaway and damage combo.

Cassiopeia

• Cassiopeia's Twin Fangs poison CD is determined on time of impact. Because of this, getting closer to your enemies to decrease travel time actually lowers the CD on Twin Fangs, letting you use E more often in a fight. (contributed by Mibu)

Cho'Gath

Corki

Dr. Mundo

Evelynn

• For an AP Eve, maxing out CDR dractically increases DPS and minion clearing ability. A 66% damage icnrease once you hit 40% CDR grants you one of the highest AP DPS abilities in the game. The only problem is sticking to the target and surviving, which you can build for.

Ezreal

• At least for Ad, you should always Max Q, and never really use your W and E for most of the laning phase. You will run out of mana too soon, even with the Masteries. Notable exceptions are if you are in a fight that's beyond the normal pokes, securing a kill, running away, or have a Soraka as your support. (Contibuted by tragicmat1)

Fiddlesticks

Fiora

Fizz

Galio

• Galio mid is rather destructive against most APs in general. The ability to walk into lane with 54 AP, 72 MRes, and 570 HP is amazing if you have the rune page for it.

Gangplank

• Gangplank mid is a destructive champion. The ability to shrug off pretty much all enemy ganks with W is great and Q pokes hurt against mages who can't recover HP.

Garen

• Crits do boost damage output, so if you find that you're starting to lag behind on damage vs Squishies, upgrading Brutalizer into a Ghost Blade or grabbing an IE can up your damage a lot more than you'd think.

Gragas

• While most AP champs do not ever get more then 2 dorans ring, Gragas SHOULD go around 3 dorans ring every game. This plus mana regen seals means you can free farm without worry of mana depletion. Despite being a melee champ, he should not lose in farm to anyone. (contributed by tragicmat1)

Graves

Hecarim

Heimerdinger

• Rockets activate the single-target slow on Rylai's

Irelia

Janna

• In team fights, her ult is especially strong in being able to push enemy carry away, and proceeding to Tornado them. This can shut down an enemy carry for at least 2 seconds, if not more. Just be sure not do push the enemy carry away if he's out of position and would've died to your team! (Contributed by tragicmat1)

Jarvan IV

Jax

• Jax can Q to wards. (contributed by Mibu)
• On Jungle Jax, consider building a Bilgewater Cutlass after a wriggles and boots. Not only does it give you more life steal for jungling, the active will greatly assist in landing your stun for ganks when you leap in.
• Jax's E can dodge everyone hit of Fiora's ultimate.

Karma

• Karma's Spirit Bond and Shield can target any allied click-able object, including Wards. Use this to sneak harass enemies, slow down runners, speed up allies if needed, or make wards tank more tower shots if needed.

Karthus

• You can drastically increase Karthus DPS on E by getting some CDR. Preferably about 10%, so you can notice the difference. E applies damage on activation and then once every second after. By getting some Cooldown reduction, you will lower the activation and deactivation CD to under 1s total, letting you drastically increase E damage output. With 40% CDR, you're effectively raising E's damage output by 66%.

Kassadin

Katarina

• Katarina can W to wards.
• Death Lotus activates the single-target slow on Rylai's

Kayle

Kennen

Kog'Maw

LeBlanc

Lee Sin

• Lee Sin can W to wards. (contributed by Mibu)

Leona

Lulu

Lux

Malphite

Malzahar

Maokai

Master Yi

• Master Yi can make amazing use of a Randuin's Omen because of Meditate. The 300 Armor and MRes boost basically translates to another 3 seconds on Randuin's Activation, not counting Yi's base stats and Randuin's stats.

Miss Fortune

Mordekaiser

• Mace of Spades activates the single-target slow on Rylai's if it only hits one target

Morgana

• If possible, Morgana should try to lead her combo off with Ultimate then land binding and pool. The Ultimate has a slow attached, making landing Q much easier. If a Q does land in this scenario, the ultimate is guaranteed to stun where as a Q into R isn't always guaranteed.

Nasus

Nautilus

Nidalee

Nocturne

Nunu

Olaf

Orianna

Pantheon

• When Tower Diving on Pantheon, it is recommended that you absorb 1 shot from tower using your passive before triggering W to absorb a second shot. This lets you eat 1 more tower hit before you're forced to retreat, which can really make a difference on dives.

Poppy

Rammus

Renekton

Riven

• Riven can chain her Stun and Shield together to lower the cast time on Stun.

Rumble

Ryze

Sejuani

Shaco

Shen

Shyvana

Singed

• Because Q has no activation or deactivation timer, Singed can quickly turn Q on and off to release a small puff of poison. This allows him to greatly control his lane by letting him choose exactly which minions are poisoned instead of having to rush a mob for farm.

Sion

Sivir

Skarner

Sona

Soraka

• You should always keep your AD carry's mana at max, and it's generally more beneficial for that to happen then a small damage plus silence on enemy. You should encourage your AD carry to spam skills to poke, push the lane, and deny the other team farm. However, for this to occur, you MUST ward from an early level. (Contributed by tragicmat1)

Swain

• Swain's combo should lead with E for damage amplification followed by Q to make landing the W snare easier. A DFG right after E but before Q will greatly increase his bursting ability.

Talon

Taric

Teemo

• Always keep one mushroom in reserve for fights. The base damage and AP ratio on one shroom is higher than total damage from landing all three strikes on Ahri's Ultimate.

Tristana

Trundle

Tryndamere

• If chasing an enemy and you have enough crit, you can lower your E CD by quickly critting one minion before continuing your chase, thus letting you catch up easier. The distance lost in spending that time to crit a minion is less than the distance you gain from a second E cast.

Twisted Fate

Twitch

• Your ultimate can be used to pick off towers from outside their range, but it won't work on the inhibitors.

Udyr

• Right when a game starts, before Udyr activates his first stance, he has the ability to activate that one stance twice in quick succession. If you grab Tiger first, you can unload a lethal amount of burst damage in a very short time frame to an enemy. If Turtle, then you can double shield quickly. Bear and Phoenix just refresh the timers on their respective buffs, though bear can not rapid fire double stun.

Urgot

• If you land E, the range on your Q drastically increases.
• Q can be used to reset your auto-attack timer, letting you increase DPS with proper timing.

Varus

• Using Q from the brush does not give the enemy vision until the arrow leaves the brush, if it gives vision at all. Abuse this to barrage the enemy with fully powered Qs at max charge for devastating pokes.

Vayne

Veigar

Viktor

Vladimir

Volibear

Warwick

Wukong

• It is highly recommended that you just build AD on Wukong instead of trying to get Sheen and Triforce early on. The over all damage output you get from the same gold, if spent on AD, is about double to triple what you would acquire from Sheen/TF.

Xerath

Xin Zhao

Yorick

Ziggs

Zilean

• Zilean's Time Bomb can be dropped on any clickable object, including stealth allies, enemy and ally wards, and allied summons. Stealth items won't show the bomb or display their location when you cast on them. Use this to bomb out enemies in laning if you can't get close enough to directly hit them.

Item Tips and Tricks:

• The general DPS increase from purchasing an abyssal scepter early on is comparable to the damage you'll get from rushing a Death Cap. Don't be afraid to buy a Negatron Cloak + Blasting Rod if the enemy is able to insta-gib you.
• Beneficial Auras stack for the holders, so two people with Will of the Ancients or Aegis will receive double the benefits. Stacking Aegis or WotA is a great way to drastically increase survivability and damage respectively for very small relative costs.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter does not proc the full 1v1 slow on any skill that can acquire a cooldown of 2 seconds or less.
• Passive magic damage abilities that aren't tied to auto-attacks, such as Brand's passive, will trigger Rylai's.

 

How do you predict a crit exactly?

 

About every 10~ attacks, you'll have around a 90% crit chance, if you haven't crit already.

So, basically, if you see that happen, for the next 2-3 autos, you should gun for the enemy champion.

The formula is basically exponential growth to stop massive crits and non-crit chains from occurring. That 1% crit will let you snowball it into an eventual guaranteed crit for harassing, if you don't get unlucky (or lucky depending on how you look at it) crit vs a minion.

---------- Post automerged at 06:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:57 PM ----------

I'm adding more as I remember them. Also, thanks mibu and tragicmat1 for contributing some tips.

 

Oh my goodness. I use Zilean all the time but I never knew you could freaking bomb a ward. o,0 Gotta try that sometime. With extra gold, zone out enemy champ in mid with wards

 

This thread is not about what the title made me think this thread is about.

 

Successful trap is successful.

 

Wards aren't limited to just the visual cue they give you. You can in fact, toss wards over ledges and terrain. The way it works is much like flash. If you flash over 50% of a ledge or wall, you will go through. It works the same way for wards. Here are some prime locations.

• This is too big to post on the page directly, but here is a good list for optimal ward placement.

• Everything has a timer you can keep track of.

• Dragon: 6 minutes
• Baron: 7 minutes
• All wards: 3 minutes
• Ghost: 3 minutes 30 secs
• Heal: 4 minutes 30 secs
• Flash: 4 minutes 10 secs to 4 minutes and 30 secs
• These are generally the most important summoner spells for junglers to want to know.

• When farming at tower, remember that melee minions take 2 tower hits and an auto attack to die. Casters take only 2, so when focusing on caster minions, try to whittle them down a bit before the tower begins to target them so you can get the kill after one hit from the tower.

 

If Kayle ults someone while they are tanking a tower, it resets the counter to 0, so the damage hit after the ult falls off is reset to if the champion had never taken a hit from the tower.

 

Do you have any proof that this is how their crit system works? I would think they would rather have long chains than easily abused systems.

 

Xypherous confirmed a few months back. Gonna have to go digging for it, but that's the reason everyone on Dom runes 1 crit rune.

 

Jarvan IV

In dominion, you can place the flag in a reachable range for your Q to reach before the match begins, allowing you to place it again sooner by a few seconds.

Nailing the Q and E combo is good for CC. Nailing the opponent with the damage from the Q damage and the E damage will separate a good Jarvan from an amazing one.

You can press R again to turn off your ult if they have flashed out of it.

If you are approaching a champion with a gap opener from bushes, it is generally better to save your Q and E combo for when they use it. Yes, this does mean it is sometimes better to close with your ult.

Taric

Before you auto-attack, make sure you are using your W. The aura will only be removed from you, and the armor reduction can make Taric's already formidable damage even more painful.

Don't be afraid to use your ult. It has a very short CD, and if you have a lot of CDR it can be up again in a little under 30 seconds.

Taric has an aggressively large burst in lane. Stun them, then W->R and autoattack will deal significant damage in the early phases.

 

Some general and random tips, mostly about top lane, ranging from basic to specific. I'll try to avoid things that have been already mentioned.

Some general stuff first,

For mana based champions, at early levels, harass when you are about to level since you will gain mana. Needless to say pay attention to your mana. Not just that, pay attention to your opponents mana as well (unless they are manaless of course) or cooldowns in general. This can make a big difference in effectively winning trades.

Also, inhibitors respawn every 5 minutes.

Paying attention to getting CS and getting comfortable with your champions auto attack animation will do wonders to gaining you wins. However, what's even more important than doing just this and dominating your lane is being able to LEAD your team. This means effective communication with your team, which isn't always the easiest thing.

Rage solves nothing. Trust me on this. It's a complete waste of your time to rage. If you can't type without raging, turn on music and just play the game. If you've suffered a particularly crushing loss, take a break and do something else for a bit.

By and large, please give a fuck when it comes to helping out the jungler. Mid lane and either top or bot lane should help provide damage at the first small camp (wraiths or wolves)* and a good leash at the first major buff (either blue or red), ideally leashing it to around 700 HP. This allows the jungler to avoid a ton of damage, allowing him or her to gank a lot sooner. Losing one or two CS is fine if your jungler is well off.

*Note, in terms of damaging, you want to allow your jungler to hit the small camp first. If you hit it first, it will aggro onto you and go out of the camp, slowing him or her, you, and everyone else down.

Pay attention to the enemy jungler's position. This can make or break the difference of whether or not it is safe to go aggressive in your lane or if you, as the jungler yourself, can go and counterjungle.

Now some top lane stuff,

Make heavy use of the brush to avoid enemy harass and to harass efficiently. You can also use it to juke ganks, unless they have a support who CVs you correctly. Also, a quick champion specific tip, Yorick's ghouls do not follow you into the brush. If Yorick drops his E or W, go in the brush and wait it out.

Top lane is one of the most snowbally lanes in the entire game. If you are decisively killed and at a level disadvantage, a number of the cast can either keep killing you or keep you zoned for the rest of the laning phase. Don't be afraid to be aggressive, but don't be stupid either.

Buy wards. They save your life and more over, they allow you to farm safely. Just place them properly i.e. by the blue side Blue Golem if you're purple or by the tribrush or somewhat below it if you're blue. There are of course certain junglers that can bypass these wards entirely i.e. Wukong, Shaco, Nocturne and certain junglers who move too damn fast for it to matter if you're too far out i.e. Hecarim.

If you're winning the lane and at a life advantage, and you know what you're doing, don't be too afraid when the enemy jungler comes to gank. Unless you are ganked early, you will usually have a comfortable level and item advantage over the enemy jungler.

Top lane is also the most situational lane in the game. Your build and build order should by no means be set in stone. Build to counter the lane.

In terms on controlling the creep wave, that is dependent on where you want the creep wave at. On certain dominant laners, you can afford to keep the creep wave just ahead of your tower. To do this, avoid autoattacking until the enemy wave starts pushing. Just before the wave hits the tower, stand in front and body tank the wave. This will "freeze" the wave in front of your tower. Continue to manipulate the wave this way to force the enemy laner to have to overextend to continue farming. This is why I recommend taking the damage reduction masteries in the defense tree (1 in tough skin and 2 in indomitable) over the HP5 mastery in order to facilitate this.

This can be a bad strategy against certain very strong pushers such as Singed and you shouldn't do this if you're struggling in lane or cannot handle the enemy harass. If you want to manipulate the wave near the middle of the lane, simply match your actions to the opponents. If he begins pushing down your melee line, you need to do the same.

When to build GP10 items? Generally, I almost never pick these up in top lane because I find other items to do far more for me as far as either surviving or dominating the lane. It's ok to get one if it synergizes particularly well with you (HoG on Shen for instance) or if the lane is rather passive.

Here are some character specific tips on laning. Build is situational as I mentioned.

Irelia: Play passive early until level 4 or 5. Against many top laners (excluding a few like Olaf), you can now begin to do some pretty nuts harass to them. Manipulate the caster creeps so that one Q will kill them. Q onto the caster creep, E the opponent, turn on W, auto-auto-auto while moving, auto-Q-auto-auto. This is the ideal case of course and becomes even easier with Phage. As Irelia you absolutely excel at getting CS so you should be missing very few creeps unless you are getting zoned.

Wukong: You can afford to play very aggressive very early. Just try to avoid pushing the wave with your E. Ideal combo would be walk-up auto-Q, auto,auto,E,auto or walk-up, auto-Q,E, auto, auto, auto. Make effective use of your W to either disengage creep aggro to either body tank or to harass effectively, or to use it optimally, W in the brush, and you can surprise the opponent with harass or a kill combo.

Master Yi: Your early damage output is nuts, although there are a number of characters that can survive your early DPS. Just focus on CS and harass when you have a double strike active. Either run up or alpha strike, turn on E, and begin autoattacking. Note, you can also use Q to avoid skillshot nukes. Q also follows a target regardless if they flash or not so you can use it to effectively chase if needed.

I'll post some more stuff later.

 

Let's see now...

When playing a champion with an ability which can only be activated near enemy champions(Morg's/Kat's R, Soraka's/Eve's Q, etc.) against stealth champions such as Shaco, Twitch, Teemo and the like, keep a careful eye on said ability. It could either save your life, or net you an unexpected kill.

Nunu: Don't forget that you can use Consume on targets such as Heimerdinger's turrets, Yorick's wraiths, and perhaps most importantly, Annie's Tibbers. A good Consume on Tibbers can be a ridiculously easy way to remove it as a further threat during a fight after the initial activation, while conveniently giving yourself a nice heal too.

Veigar: Hesitant to say this, since it pleases me to catch so many enemies off guard by doing so, but... As long as you are proficient at creep-killing with his Q, preferably with Blue Buff, don't be afraid to play Veigar as a Tank.
(my preferred build** getting ending up at around 600-700+ AP in a decent game, with 3.4k+HP, 39%CDR and close to 200 armor/mres, 430+move)
Baffling their AP and AD alike, with your unlikely survivability and hp regen, while still doing hard-hitting burst enough to kill their carries in a single combo is always worth a good time.


**It's hardly a secret, but I would rather not go into specifics unless actually asked. Got to keep some mystery there, eh?

 

Smite works on Heimerdinger's turrets, Annie's Tibbers, Shaco's boxes, Teemo's mushrooms and other clickable non-player units. I haven't been able to test it yet, but presumably that includes the clones that LeBlanc, Shaco, Wukong and Yorick can produce.

Shen can use Stand United on a stealthed Evelynn, Twitch or Teemo for a surprise gank.

 

Oh yeah, speaking of stealth-related things, and Shaco specifically:

While it didn't used to be the case, and you rarely have the time to check in the heat of combat, aside from obvious things like buffs, oracles or elixirs, an easy way to differentiate between Shaco and his clone, is that the clone has no items in his inventory if selected. Whereas selecting Shaco himself would obviously show his items.

(word that in however fitting and concise a way you wish to)


:EDIT:

Thinking of that Shen thing. While I have never personally seen it in action, I suppose that Shen could use a well-timed Stand United on an Ulting Pantheon, Twisted Fate, or even a Nocturne. It would give them both some extra protection for their initial entry, as well as the obvious usefulness of having Shen himself on hand.

Pantheon/TF Stun + Shen Taunt or Nocturne Fear + Shen Taunt. Either way, it sounds like a fun combo. Actually, I kind of want to see that happen in my next game. Friends, assemble!

 

At least the Shen ulti on twisted fate going ulti works, and is absolutely stunningly effective to instantly destroy any botlane comp when top and mid hit 6.

 

Taken from http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=5435767#5435767

If you follow along the red posts, Xypherous pretty much denies everything to do with crit farming.

 

The only part that denies is that triggering the 1% crit isn't as simple as I stated it to be, though how I said it basically is the gist of how to do it.

 

From the same thread.

 

Which still doesn't deny that you can trigger 1% crit at a reliable enough rate to make it better than 1 more AD or AR Pen.

EDIT: Again, I never said it guaranteed a crit chance on any certain strike. just that your next few will have a higher probability so you can attack during that interval hoping for a crit. Xypherous specifically denies the guaranteed crits based on this system, not a higher chance due to fail streaks.