Mastering Your Champion

Hello again, Hauzer here. Diamond 3 Top/Support main. Today, I will give you a general guide on how to master your champion. While most of this will seem obvious, it definitely helps to be more aware of it. I will keep this as simple but informative as possible so everyone can benefit from it. Feel free to discuss further in the comments!

 

CSing

CSing (creep scoring) or farming, is the act of killing minions for gold. It is an absolute essential to winning. There isn't a whole lot I can say about it because it is as simple as hitting a creep as it is close to dying. Try to be aware of your champion's damage during the early levels. Once you master that you can easily predict when you AA (autoattack) a minion. As mentioned in my previous guide, there are certain techniques that you can use to min/max your CS and deny your opponent.

Using your abilities to CS isn't always a good thing, though it might be easier it leaves you open for bad trades or worse. Unless you are a cooldown or non-mana based champion, such as Garen, Tryndamere, Gnar, and Riven, you will want to avoid using your abilities to farm too often. Certain situations allow it, however. For example; your enemy has went to base and you have extra mana. In this case you will either want to push the wave into his tower to deny him CS or even proxy the next wave.

Killing jungle creeps is much easier. You're not competing for the CS and you don't have to deal with trading, unless the enemy is counter-jungling you. Try to save as much mana as possible in case you need to gank, apply lane pressure, or just save someone. Smite the large minions when your smite is off cooldown, this will allow you for faster clearing. Large minions include: Ancient Golem, Elder Lizard, Wight, and etc. Always keep tabs on your scoreboard to see when exactly your buff respawns.

 

Teamfighting

Hands down the next absolute in my mind. If you can teamfight, you will generally win the game. However, this is a tricky topic to cover, as the variables are almost infinite. In my mind it is a mix of knowing your place, enemy cooldowns, do you have a lead, and overall position of both teams. If they're all doing dragon and they get low, it's a good idea to engage. However if you're in their position, you disengage. It is never advantageous to fight when low...unless you're Tryndamere.

Learn champion abilities and cooldowns. This comes with time and a lot, and I mean a lot, of matches. You won't be able to play a champion once and master their CDs or abilities. For example; Nidalee can Pounce (ability in Cougar form.) over small walls to escape, Shen can Shadow Dash over certain ledges, and Zac can jump over up to 3 walls with his Elastic Slingshot.

Once you can predict how a champion is played and their cooldowns, you can easily come out ahead in fights. Baiting out certain abilities and engaging as they are on cooldown, chasing out certain champions so they cannot make it back in time, completely ignoring the giant Malphite with 500 armor as you destroy their squishies. Little things like this can win you the game, or at the very least the teamfight.

There are however advantageous positions, as I mentioned in the first paragraph. These are places where you or your enemy will have a distinct advantage fighting in. A poke comp will be much happier fighting in lane as they lower your hitpoints every time you try to engage, an AoE comp loves fighting in closed off areas for maximum efficiency, and a pick comp tries to pick small fights and disengaging. These aren't set in stone but knowing where a team excels or falters is absolutely crucial in higher level of play.

 

Champion Abilities

The good stuff. The stuff that gets you into top plays videos. This is knowing the ins & outs of your champion. While I should have listed this much sooner, I feel that this can be third on your priorities list. Yes, it is extremely helpful and stylish, but you can coast well until high Platinum without reading too much into this.

Ideally, you should play every champion at least once to get a feel for their abilities and what they do, if not simply read up on them. Although having first hand experience will drastically aid you in learning champion movesets. Some are absurdly basic and are a simple point and click stun, for example Sion's Cryptic Gaze, or Taric's Dazzle, while others are complex and require movement prediction and range prediction, examples being Zac's Elastic Slingshot, or Ahri's Charm. In the end, you really only need a general feel for the champions abilities to avoid unwanted encounters, or make a flashy dodge/kill.

Probably the most important thing you can learn about abilities aside from what they do is the cooldowns. Knowing the base cooldown times allows you to trade more effectively, teamfight better, and make proper initiations. I usually play 5 - 10 games on every champion once in awhile to get a general feel for how long cooldowns are. Of course, they can be lowered to a minimum of 60% by items, masteries, and runes. With this in mind, guessing becomes a lot harder but still manageable. A key thing to remember is that just because you bait out an enemy ultimate, they still have 3 other abilities they can use on you.

Some abilities can be used as mobility mechanisms. Generally they are obvious, like Nidalee's Pounce in Cougar form, or Lucian's Relentless Pursuit, however there are some tricky abilities out there that allow you to escape while certain variables are present. These abilities are usually meant to damage champions or monsters, but can be used to distance yourself or dodge abilities. Some key examples are Master Yi's Alpha Strike, Lee Sin's Sonic Wave/Resonating Strike, and Alistar's Headbutt, which also doubles as a knockback to push you away.

 

Itemization

Buying the right items for your champion is affected by your current match-up. A good player will generally build more against his lane than enemy team in solo queue. The reason this is is because if you are heavily snowballing, you can keep your advantage and earn even more gold and then itemize for the enemies strengths. Of course, this is not the same for competitive play.

The main thing you want to do when purchasing items is take into account how well certain stats scale with your champion. For example, if you are Karthus, you want early mana regeneration, ability power, and magic penetration, however if you are Caitlyn, you want heavy attack damage and attack speed. Some champions even benefit from just having cooldown reduction and tank stats. Tank stats are health, magic resistance, armor, and tenacity. Offensive stats are attack damage, armor penetration, attack speed, ability power, and magic penetration. Cooldown reduction falls in to both categories and is generally helpful on every champion. However you would not want to itemize purely for cooldown reduction on a marksman champion like Twitch, or Kog'Maw.

Certain situations call for certain items. If the enemy jungle Fiddlesticks is 7/0/4 and you're struggling to keep track of him, a Banshee's Veil and heavy warding will shut him down. Perhaps the enemy top lane Jarvan is roaming now that he's taken two towers and is 5/1/1, pure armor is not always the way to go. You would want some armor, but health will allow you to further survive his attacks as he has an ability with armor shred and generally builds CDR/Armor Pen. When it comes down to it, you really need to pay attention to who on the enemy team is your biggest fear/target.

 

Final Thoughts

Overall, I suggest you just play a champion you love and take note of some of the things mentioned here. In time you will notice a reasonable difference in skill. I was Bronze 3 in Seasons 1 & 2 but something clicked after watching more and more streams, friends play, and tournaments. Hell, now I even write hard to follow guides on how to play! Sometimes it comes with ease, sometimes you need to just keep practicing, but if you're serious about getting better then it will happen.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!