A Guide to League of Legends Champions: Playstyles and Roles

One of the best things about League of Legends is that it has a lot of champions to choose from. With over 160 options available and no matter what you pick, you’re going to have fun, as long as you know what you’re doing.

LoL champions can be divided into categories using various criteria. In this guide, you will learn about them relative to the roles they’re good at.

Carry Champions in LoL

Carry champions are those who deal the highest amount of damage to the enemy team and have the highest contribution to their team’s success in the mid and late game. In the early game, they’re quite fragile and need a lot of babysitting. But after they reach level 12 and have their core items, they can be quite impressive.

As a carry, your job is to farm as much as you can and get involved in your team’s major fights whenever that’s possible and advantageous. Of course, you don’t want to teleport to a lost fight and get killed because that would be a disaster. Ideally, you should be there on your terms. And that means that your side needs to initiate the battle.

If your teammates are ganked, you can still turn the fight around in some cases. But it’s generally risky to get involved in spontaneous fights that were forced by the enemy team because you might be facing an entire lineup at a severe disadvantage.

Luckily, in League of Legends it’s relatively easy to predict enemy movement as long as you have good wards around the map. But things can still go wrong from time to time.

Among the most famous carry champions in LoL, these are the ones that you should play at least a couple of times and experiment with:

• Vayne
• Jinx
• Miss Fortune

Mid Champions in LoL

Mid champions are those who can farm the mid lane safely, while keeping their distance from the opposing mid, and are reliable at last-hitting even under their own tower. As you probably know, tower shots deal a lot of damage in LoL and will cause you to miss a lot of last hits if you’re not careful.

The big advantage of mid champions is that they usually get a lot of farm in the first 10 minutes and a lot of solo experience. This gives them an edge over other champions in the game. If you manage to buy a good item early and then make a few good moves around the map, you’ll probably get one or two kills and then snowball very quickly.

This is just one of the reasons why many LoL players love mid champions. Another reason has to do with artistic expression. A mid champion tends to be more technical than most of the other champions, in the sense that it enables you to perform sophisticated combinations that can make a huge difference and result in multi-kills.

Champions like Orianna, Sylas, Syndra, and Irelia have the potential to destroy enemy teams if they have enough farm and levels. In lower Elo brackets, Zed and Yasuo are also quite good, but they require a lot of training to master.

If you want to become a better mid laner, study the world’s best mid players, such as Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok.

Top Champions in LoL

Top champions are similar to mid champions, in the sense that they benefit from a 1v1 battle in the early game and can quickly gain gold and experience. However, because of the nature of the game, these champions are expected to excel at initiating fights and tanking enemy damage. So they’re built primarily as tanks.

Some of them will use more aggressive builds than others though. Some of the best top champions in LoL are Jax, Fiora, Darius, Riven, and Malphite. They should not be missing from your list.

The goal when playing these champions is to ensure that you can farm quickly and safely for the first 10-15 minutes of the game. After that, you’re expected to be heavily involved in your team’s map movements. The goal continues to remain farm-oriented, but the game will not allow you to be completely passive in most cases.

Depending on what your opponents try to do, you might have to start fighting even before the 10-minute mark. Towers will be pressured, lane champions will be ganked, and you will need to help with whatever you can. Otherwise you’re running the risk of having a good game while the rest of your team gets destroyed.

Junglers in LoL

In League of Legends, junglers, along with mids, have the highest amount of flexibility. A mid will be able to leave the lane after level 6 and gank. But a jungler is expected to gank quite frequently during the laning stage. If he doesn’t put pressure on the enemy team, he’s not doing his job correctly.

A jungler needs to find the perfect balance between farming and ganking. And different champions have different timings that can be exploited.

Some of the best top champions in LoL are Rengar, Ivern, Graves, Briar, Evelynn, and Nidalee. There are many more that can be used in this role and it’s up to you to figure out which one would work best in combination with the rest of your lineup or against the enemy lineup.

Sometimes, you will need very strong initiation abilities. Other times you will require a very tanky champion that can simply turn his back to the enemy team and rely on his allies to get the job done.

LoL tanks tend to offer a mix of durability, initiation, and damage, with the first two having a higher priority than the third. But the beauty of the game is that it allows you to be creative. You can build your top laner into whatever you want. Just don’t use a totally ridiculous build because you will get reported.

Supports in LoL

Supports in League of Legends have a tough job. They’re not allowed to feed because every kill is worth a lot of gold and experience. They’re also not allowed to let their allies die for the same reason. But the amount of farm they have is generally poor.

Playing support requires you to master the art of being useful with very little. You need to babysit your carry at all times, place wards, deward, show up for ganks, scout dangerous map locations, and so on.

During team fights, you will be one of the primary targets because you’re very easy to kill in most cases. You’re not allowed to die without using your abilities at least a few times. Otherwise, the fight will be a disaster for your team. Let the tank and the jungler do their job and keep an eye on them.

If you have powerful healing abilities, position yourself next to your cores but always behind them. If you become the primary target of the other team’s abilities, you’re in trouble.

Some of the best support champions are Blitzcrank, Senna, Rakan, Janna, Rell, Bard, Thresh, and Soraka.

 

Header: Riot Games