LOLing about with Eric part 2

Hey guys its that time again. i was hoping to make this weekly and here i am so thats good. This week i just wanted to explain a few more basic things that might confuse you if your just starting out, i certainly know i was quite confused but i had a friend who was nice enough to help me out and explain a few things to me.

Firstly i want to start with what they call pre-game meta. This revolves around a few small things and ill explain them as best as i can. one thing that you can do to boost your champions in battle is the masteries trees. You may recognise something like this if you've played an RPG. A mastery tree is basically a bunch of behind the scenes abilities that boost various stat's for your champion such as how damage an attack can do or how much health you have and so on. in league the masteries tree look a little like this.

Click to enlarge also note the masteries have just been updated so they look a lil dfferent from this now

If you want to see what each ability does you can go to your masteries under your profile or head over here: http://gameinfo.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/summoners/masteries/  to see if you like certain masteries. as you can see offense and defense are self explanatory but utilities have genereally helpful abilities, like gaining more gold or moving around faster.

while you wont be able to max your masteries until you reach summoner level 30 its still helpful to be upgrading as you go, just so that you wont be at any disadvantage in fights. Of course there a certain ways to level up your masteries that will be of most benefit to a specific champion, but thats to do with the type of champion it is such as a mage and the role you are playing like support for instance but ill go into that another day.

One part of the pre-game meta you should stay clear of until your at least level 20 is runes. Runes are again beneficial to your champion boosting things like speed or attack damage, but the reason to avoid them is you can not access the most powerful runes tier 3 runes till after level 20. another reason to do this is your ip. you see purchasing things in LOL comes in two forms RP (riot points) which is often used to buy champs and skins, you have to purchase RP yourself and then there is IP which is typically used to buy Runes, or champions if you wanted there is only one way to get IP however, you gain IP from winning and participating in games on LOL. say you win a game on the summoners rift youll get IP.

Rune page Click to enlarge

Some would argue that IP is more valuable in this way as its earned not bought. So saving your IP to buy the most powerful runes you can seems to make the most sense. ofcourse other would disagree and buying cheap tier 1 runes could give you an advantage in battle but its up to you how you use your IP. Its precious use it wisely.

Finally the last bit of pre-game meta aside from campion select which ill explain another time, is summoner spells. These spells do not use any mana or any other resource except time. summoner spells the last of which you get a level 12 do various things and your allowed choose 2 which are normally locked to the d and f keys on your keyboard. you often have to be careful in your choice of summoner spells, as when you fight other people or are in a team smart summoner spell selection normally comes into play, but for now knowing they are their and useful is a help.

I recommend starting with heal especially when you venture to fight other people it can be a life saver another "must have" can be flash, this is a brief teleport to help you escape from or catch up to other champions. The rest of the spells depend on what you want to do, whether its help take down champions with ignite or take down the dragon with smite. Think before you use your spell though as they can have quite a lengthy cooldown time before you can use them again.

Next Time i hope to cover some champions and the kind of classes they inhabit. see ya next time :)
Keep on Gaming
-Eric Higgins