Monday, March 21, 2011

How to Counter Physical Damage Dealers (DPS)

I have played a few games this week in which my teammates played some unstoppable physical damage dealers. Master Yi, Ashe, Miss Fortune, and Tryndamere were among the top damage dealing champions in those games. Our team literally stomped on the enemy team, with our damage dealers acquiring quadra or penta kills from each battle!

What I noticed about the other team is that no matter how long the game went on, the only champion on their team buying any sort of anti-damage items was the tank. Everyone else on the team played as if our powerful damage dealer did not exist - as if he posed no threat to them! They would definitely have stood a better chance if everyone on their team bought some anti-damage items.

Here are some tips to remember when your team is fighting a strong physical damage carry:

1- Reduce their damage!

If an enemy carry is getting tons of kills, you will need to resist that carry's damage type. This means that, in addition to your normal item build, you would have to add in some armor. It does not mean that you have to drop all of your plans in order to buy a 300 gold cloth armor, heavens no! Just one armor item will suffice. Your goal is to survive just enough hits from their carry that your tower or teammates can come to your aid (and even better, destroy their weakened carry!).

2 - Never go anywhere alone. Ever!

One of the major strengths of a strong physical carry is that they can solo any champion 1v1. If you are ever caught in the jungle by yourself with no one around, and an enemy physical carry finds you, you can kiss your safe trip home goodbye! The enemy carry will make short work of you, as he/she will be incredibly formidable in auto attacking to a point where it would be silly to think that you could escape (or let alone, survive).

You will need to make friends with your teammates so that if you ever encounter an enemy carry, the two of you could possibly snare, stun, or slow just enough that the two of you could make it out alive!

3 - Focus Fire their Carry!

Your team can turn the tide of battle by focusing him/her when the battle starts. Once their carry falls, the others will only follow suit and fall, too! Always, always, always focus the enemy carry and use disabling spells such as Exhaust and Ignite when you're in a big team fight! He/she should not be able to survive much, since carries typically have very little survivability. Take advantage of this and destroy their carry in one fell swoop!

4 - Buy Anti-Carry Items! (When you're tank)

An extremely useful item to buy when you're a tank is the ultimate anti-carry item, Thornmail. This handy dandy item not only gives you tons of armor, but it also reflects a percentage of physical damage done to you back to the attacker as magical damage! Another extremely useful anti-carry item for tanks is Frozen Heart, which gives you tons of armor, some mana, cooldown reduction, and reduces all surrounding enemies' attack speed! Lastly, Warden's Mail severely handicaps any auto-attackers by reducing their attack/movement speed when they attack you!


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

So You Think You're Gosu

So you've won a few games and you've gotten your first triple kill. And now you think you're Gosu. What is there to do now? The answer is simple:


Join League of Legends Tournaments!


Here is an excerpt from their website:


The North American Premier League kicks off this March with 12 invited teams, who will compete against the best of North American for $5000.

Check out details in our Season One Circuit forums for the current Season One Circuit Standings and for more information on what you need to do in order to qualify for a shot at the $100,000 tournament.


Well, what are you waiting for!? Get your butt out there and show the world just how Gosu you are!!!!


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Experience Advantage in Lanes

You might have heard that having a jungler on your team is a huge advantage. But why is that? Well, there is a distinct advantage to this: extra experience earned for the team. Extra experience means stronger early champions, which means stronger spells, which means stronger fighting ability! Although you can win games without the extra experience, it certainly would not hurt to be two or three levels higher than your opponents!

Here's a scenario:

The enemy team has a jungler, and your team does not. Your team has two champions facing just one enemy champion at top lane. At the six minute mark, the enemy champion turns Level 6, while your two champions are both Level 4. The enemy champion can now use their ultimate on you, while you cannot use your ultimate on theirs! The enemy jungler roars out of the river, suppressing you in place while their top lane champion unleashes massive attacks on the both of you! And before you know it, the both of you have fallen, and your tower crumbles into a pile of rubble.

And this is just one scenario!

I would like to ask you this: do you know exactly how much experience is earned by each champion for each kill? Read on!


Experience Earning Ratios:

After patch 1.0.0.113, the new experience gains are as follows:
  • One champion gains 100% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Two champions each gain 55% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Three champions each gain 36.7% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Four champions each gain 27.5% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Five champions each gain 22% experience points from minion or champion kills

Prior to the new patch, experience gains were as follows:
  • One champion gains 100% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Two champions each gain 50% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Three champions each gain 33.3% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Four champions each gain 25% experience points from minion or champion kills
  • Five champions each gain 20% experience points from minion or champion kills

My advice to you with this upcoming patch: the rebalancing of the experience ratio system reduces the effectiveness of jungling; jungling will be a less powerful tactic to use in order to win games! Take advantage of the experience gain increases, and push lanes in which your lane of two are facing a solo lane of one. Play hard, and win fast!


You may find the official League of Legends Release Notes v1.0.0.113 here.


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Friday, March 11, 2011

Remmix's Wicked Lux

Hi everyone,

I just stopped by to mention my ranked-game winning build, "Remmix's Wicked Lux". Try it, it works!

Below are just three screenshots of my ranked game winning Lux build in action:



Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Elementz Champion Tier List

Do you ever wonder which champions are best picks in ranked games? Well, many people have wondered this, so it's no wonder that someone would make a post about it! Below is an excerpt from famed League of Legends player, Elementz:

"* Tier 1: Ashe, Corki, Shen, Janna, Anivia, Taric, Amumu, Zilean, Annie, Warwick
* Tier 2: Kassadin, Miss Fortune, Sion, Morgana, Rammus, Tristana, Urgot, Nunu, Twisted Fate, Cho’Gath, Udyr, Ryze, Olaf, Jarvan IV, Irelia, Vladimir.
* Tier 3: Malphite, Teemo, Swain, Singed, Blitzcrank, Akali, Kennen, Mal’zahar, Alistar, Renekton, Sivir, Nidalee, Kog’Maw, Poppy, Shaco, Trundle, Ezreal, Karthus, Leblanc.
* Tier 4: Nasus, Caitlyn, Kayle, Eve, Lux, Gragas, Maokai, Pantheon, Xin Zhao, Heimerdinger, Veigar, Sona, Yi, Soraka, Gangplank, Garen,  Fiddlesticks.
* Hard to place on a team: Twitch, Tryndamere, Mundo, Karma, Galio, Katarina, Jax, Mordekaiser, Cassiopeia."



Read the rest of the article @ Reign of Elementz.



Please note: this tier list was created for Ranked Game (Draft Mode) in the higher ELO brackets! This tier list is used by the pros, and the skill level required in order to achieve the same results is different from that of normal solo queue players! (It assumes that the player is high-ranking and has stellar experience with those champions).

If you were not looking for this Ranked Game Tier List, then you will want to check out: Remmix's Champion Tier List (5v5 Normal Solo Queue) which will give you a better idea about the champion picks for the rest of us normal game players! What are you waiting for? Go check it out now!



Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Monday, March 7, 2011

What to do when the enemy is attacking your tower

This is the tower's menacing face...
What can you do when your tower is under attack and you are the only one there to defend it?

I have never thought of defending a tower against one or two attackers as a problem - I mean, isn't it pretty straightforward how to defend the tower?  Well, after watching my teammate, Akali, fall to a Sion/Tristana siege, I decided that I might be able to give a few pointers.


1. WHEN YOUR TOWER IS UNDER ATTACK, YOUR BEST BET IS TO DESTROY THEIR MINIONS!

I think that this is actually the most vital point that anyone can make! When your tower is under attack, the enemy team has most likely pushed a wave of minions in to help them attack the tower (and to absorb the tower damage). If you can get rid of their minion-meat-shield, then you will send then running home with their tails in-between their legs!  Most champions will think twice about taking tower damage while an enemy is nearby to magnify the damage (or worse, taunt them into attacking and then aggroing the tower).


2. WHEN YOUR TOWER IS UNDER ATTACK, YOU SHOULD KITE THE ATTACKERS!


An effective strategy in defending your tower is to have the attackers chase you while the tower attacks them.  The best way to do this is to get the tower to attack them by using a taunt skill (like Shen or Rammus). If your champion does not have a taunt skill, then you can also try to get yourself hit by their passive skills (such as Kayle's splash damage or an enemy's Sunfire Cape).  Once the tower starts shooting at the enemy champions, all you need to do is run away while they chase you!

I have seen some players kite Twitch's into their doom, due to Twitch's poison skill. I have seen players purposefully step on Teemo's mushrooms while Teemo was attacking a tower. Once you get turret fire to focus on the enemy champion, it really is just a matter of time before they fall!


3. WHEN YOUR TOWER IS UNDER ATTACK, YOU SHOULD BUY TIME FOR YOUR TEAMMATES TO REVIVE

Sometimes, you may not have enough firepower or even experience to successfully defend a tower.  In those cases, what you want to do is just keep the enemy busy long enough so that your allies can revive.You can pelt them with Zilean's bombs (from a safe distance, of course), you can harass them with Ashe's volleys, or you can even stun them with Sion's stun gaze!  Just do whatever you can go save that tower!


4. WHEN YOUR TOWER IS UNDER ATTACK, TRY TO DISTRACT THEM BY ATTACKING THEIR TOWERS, INSTEAD!

Sometimes, you may be too far away from your own tower to even attempt to save it.  In this case, you can do something called a 'backdoor', which is an attack on an enemy tower or inhibitor without the aid of minions. If you have enough damage, the enemy will be forced to retreat from their own attack, or else potentially lose towers due to your massive damage! This works particularly well with late game DPS champions such as Shaco, Sivir, and Master Yi!

If the enemy does not retreat, at the very least, you will have traded your tower for their tower (which is an even trade, last time I checked!).


5. WHILE YOU ARE DEFENDING YOUR TOWER, YOU SHOULD NOT WALK AROUND IN CIRCLES DOING NOTHING! 

Don't ever let the enemy get free hits on your tower!  Nothing in life is free! (Not even love!). I have seen many towers fall due to teammates walking around in circles just behind a dying turret.  It seems that they fear  taking damage (or death) so much that they refuse to even cast one spell on the attacking team! If your tower is under attack, at least send some spells their way in order slow them down, or weaken them enough so that your teammates can finish them off!



Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Share kills to win games!

Have you ever won a game against a 21/1/0 Vlad?

If you have ever tried to play a solomid game against a powerful Vlad, then you know what I'm talking about!  He tends to do really well early game, and even mid-game. As a matter-of-fact, he may even rack up most of the kills on your team!  I have even seen Vlad's with scores in the 20's by mid-game with zero deaths.  But when end-game comes, all you can hear is the sound of his rage against his team...

"OMG I CARRIED THIS TEAM AND THEY SUCK SO BAD LOOK AT MY SCORE IT'S 21/1/0 AND MY TEAM ARE ALL 1/6/21 THEY SUCK SO BAD ZOMG ZOMG WTFBBQSAUCE!"

There is a reason their team lost.  And it's not because of "noob teammates"!  Allow me to explain:

Vlad's, Warwick's, Akali's, and Tryndamere's are notorious for "hogging" all of the kills in a game. You may see these champions with 10 kills early game and even 20 kills mid-game. Then end-game comes along and what do you see? You get to witness an overfed Vlad raging about how "noob" his team is!  This, we all know, is not true, because in order to get Vlad that overfed, he must have been taking tons of kills from his allies.  Can Vlad really solo their entire team 1v5?  I don't think so!

 The fact of the matter is that League of Legends is not a solo game!  It is a team game, and forever will be a team game. With that said, we can determine the real reason their team lost...

Their team lost because all of the gold went to one champion!

It's the same premise as a level 1 champion with no items attempting to fight a level 6 champion with three items; who do you think will win?  Likewise, the team with the overfed Vlad has only one champion who had all of his core items (and then some), while the rest of his team barely could afford cloth armor.  And in the upcoming, we can only surmise who the victorious party will be!

So remember kids: share kills and share gold in order to win more games!


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

How to lane against powerful early game champions

It has come to my attention that solomid is a popular place for a strong early game champion like Karthus to gain an incredible advantage. In the hands of an expert, solomid Karthus can shuttle your team to victory... or when he's on the other team, shut down your own team's carry.

When you're facing a strong solomid champion like Karthus, there are several things you can do. And there are several things that you should not do:


What to do against a solomid Karthus:
  • Buy magic resistance and health potions, or a health item.
  • Switch lanes with a more tanky champion (like Malphite), who can take the hits.
  • Switch lanes with an anti-caster (like Kassadin), who may have an easier time against Karthus.
  • Call for ganks often, even if your team does not have a jungler.
  • Stay alive so that he does not get enough money for his core item! (i.e. Archangel's Staff).
  • Let him push toward your tower so that your team can gank him or get tower hits on him.
  • In ranked mode, choose a direct counter to Karthus (such as Soraka, who can heal everyone just enough to save her team from Karthus' global nuke).
  • Wear him down with ranged attacks
  • Later on, make sure everyone on your team has a Banshee's Veil


What not to do against a solomid Karthus:
  • Do not stay in the lane against him as a squishy carry with no escapes (like Kogmaw).
  • Do not "stick with your usual item build" and overlook the need for magic resistance.
  • Do not stay in the lane with low health!

These are some great ways to lane against a strong early game champion. If you can shut down Karthus' early game advantage, you should easily destroy him mid and late game due to his lack of health.



Note: the picture of Karthus was taken from the following URL (courtesy of glodefunk): http://glodefunk.deviantart.com/art/LOL-Karthus-fsjal-164718697 


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Friday, March 4, 2011

Help your teammates gank!

So today, I played a jungle Jarvan. He was actually a decent jungler with his E skill first. Anyhow, at level three, I started ganking the lanes. I helped our Urgot get two kills at bottom lane, which boosted our team's gold accumulation by a lot. After healing, I went to top lane where Morgana laned against Garen and Teemo. I pinged, then waited in the river bush. I pinged and jumped into battle, but the Morgana retreated to tower. After my death of 1v2 against the enemy team, Morgana said to me: "why would you run into Teemo's shrooms?"

If Morgana had at least shielded me, we could have at least killed the Teemo, and possibly the Garen as well. But instead of helping a teammate, the Morgana decided to retreat to tower instead. My one point that I want to make is this: if you see your teammates going in for a kill, please go in and help them! You don't even have to deal any damage - with champions like Morgana, even shielding your teammates will net you an assist (and ~200 gold for the assist!).

So please guys, just jump into the battle with your teammates, even if you won't be dealing damage. Every little bit helps!


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Choose the right team!

A well-balanced team has a tank, a dps, and a mage.
I'd like to start off this blog with a very important, yet often-neglected topic: team composition.

There are hundreds of thousands of players playing that it can be difficult to "choose a balanced team" when players are in the champion select lobby. Here are some key pointers to consider when choosing a balanced team:

1. Champion roles
2. Damage types
3. Countering your team



1: Champion roles

There are different types of champions in League of Legends. There are tanks, assassins, mages, supports, and carries. Each of these categories can be found in your League of Legends client within your profile, under the "Champions" tab.  A team should have at least one tank, one physical damage dealer, and one magical damage dealer.  They should be listed under: TANK, CARRY, and MAGE, each in their respective categories. These three champions are your bread and butter, where the entire game and every battle will center its focus!  The final two champions can be "situational" champions, tailored to disrupt the other team or to gain an edge in any respective area (such as AKALI anti-carry or JANNA support).


2. Damage types

Since there are only two types of damage in the game, they can easily be countered by armor or magic resistance. You do not want the enemy team to be able to resist your team's damage too easily! The best way to do this is to choose champions who have different damage types! Two physical damage dealers (such as Tristana and Master Yi) and two magical damage dealers (such as Kassadin and Malzahar) should compose the team. The final champion should always be a tank.


3. Countering your team

Certain team strategies can easily be countered just by the selection of a certain champion. For example, Karthus has a global nuke which deals magical damage. The proper counter to this is: Soraka, whose ultimate is a global heal on allied champions. If Karthus channels his ultimate to nuke enemy champions, Soraka will react by activating her own ultimate in order to neutralize Karthus' damage! There are many more situations that we will discuss in future posts!


Team champion selection is one of the more crucial elements of winning games in League of Legends. Having a balanced team can make or break your game!


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)

The beginning of Gosu League of Legends

I have decided that, in my many hours of playing League of Legends, it is time to help fellow players master the game. This blog will contain links, guides, and other helpful resources to arm players with everything they need in order to kick butt!

This blog is for intermediate and advanced players who are already familiar with the game. In the future, I may branch into a blog for newer players, if needed.



Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win games in League of Legends!