Champions and their Roles in LoL

If you just started to play in LoL, then you may notice that different champions have different attack types, hp, and other characteristics. Here you will receive a basic knowledge about different champions roles. After reading this article, you can find the most optimal play style and a perfect champion. 

AD CARRY | LoL ROLES

ADc or AD Carry is the core of your team, that is extremely fragile in the early stage of the game, and that’s why he needs support on his lane. If you want to play as ADc, then you need to learn how to kill ALL minions on the lane. Good creep score allows you to buy starting items much more quickly and by buying these items, you’ll get an advantage. Remember that you need to focus on minions. It is the support’s job – to find an opportunity to kill the opposite champion, but ADc needs to help him as soon as support start an attack. Playing as AD carry you need to follow only two simple rules – kill all minions and DO NOT DIE. Second is very important because each your death gives a great advantage to your enemy.

After you bought your first items, you can quickly destroy the Turret and receive a good chunk of gold to all allies. After this, you need to perform this action on all other lanes, together with your support. Do not even think about walking around summoner’s rift just by yourself, you must always be paired with your support because ADc is the priority target number one and most of ADc champion doesn’t have any escape abilities. 

Always be good with your jungler and together try to find a perfect time to kill the Dragon, that action will give a massive buff to all your team. Remember that the Jungler is your second best friend. So do not spoil relations with him.

Also, we have a place where you can find the perfect and detailed guide about ADC champions in LoL.

ADC – CHAMPIONS

Each champion has his own strong and weak sides. Some of them are very strong in the early/mid stage of the game, while some need time to accumulate their real power. The only one thing is bound them together – they all have range attacks.

Top 10 ADc Champions:

1. Caitlyn – 34.1%
2. Lucian – 21.9%
3. Vayne – 16.7%
4. Jhin – 14.8%
5. Jinx – 14.6%
6. Ashe – 13.5%
7. Twitch – 12.8%
8. Ezreal – 12.5%
9. Xayah – 11.1%
10. Draven – 9.9%

ADC – ITEMS

As you can understand from what I tell above – the main task of ADc is to deal a ton of damage. To increase your Physical Damage, you need unique items. But you need to understand that all these artifacts are different for each champion and if some of them perfect for Jhin, this doesn’t mean that they will be as cool to Jinx. To learn what items need YOUR champion you need to read actual guides.

As usually ADc in the sixth slot buying one defensive artifact. So if you played against a balanced team, then you need the Guardian Angel, but if you see that opposing team has mostly Physical damage, then you can buy Randuin’s Omen. There are a plenty of useful defensive items, and here I just can’t highlight all situations.

Top 10 ADc offensive items:

1. Infinity Edge – 58.1%
2. Blade of the Ruined King – 36.7%
3. Runaan’s Hurricane – 29.7%
4. Statikk Shiv – 28.6%
5. Rapid Firecannon – 24.2%
6. Phantom Dancer – 18.8%
7. Essence Reaver – 18.2%
8. The Bloodthirster – 10.9%
9. Lord Dominik’s Regards – 10.1%
10. The Black Cleaver – 6.0%

Top 5 ADc defensive items:

1. Guardian Angel
2. Mercurial Scimitar
3. Randuin’s Omen
4. Banshee’s Veil
5. Sterak’s Gage

ADC SUMMONER SPELLS

This part is simple, almost all use the same spells – Flash with one defensive spell.

• Flash 
• Heal
• Barrier
• Cleanse

ADC – RUNES

Runes that increase Physical damage and armor is the best runes for ADc.

• Greater Mark of Attack Damage
• Greater Mark of Lethality
• Greater Mark of Scaling Attack Damage
• Greater Seal of Armor
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
• Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed
• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage
• Greater Quintessence of Lethality

You must understand that if you are playing as a late game ADC then you must prefer scaling runes, and if your champion is stronger in early/mid stage of the game, then you need casual runes.

ADC – MASTERIES

We are killing machines, so we need all masteries that increase our damaging potential. The best choice is to spend all 18 point in Ferocity and other 12 in Cunning.

 

SUPPORT | LoL ROLES

Support is the most complicated and important role in the whole game. You need to spend all your time with your ADC champion because if is your work to ensure his safety. Support need to use all opportunities to damage opposite champion on the lane, but NEVER touch minions. If you are performing a gank then be sure that your ADc will deal the killing blow, but if there is a risk that the target can escape from the justice, then do not be shy and kill him, smart ADc will understand that you have no choice. Playing as a support you need to look for the perfect moment to attack.

Your second task is to place totems/wards. Just learn the best totem positions from our guide, and you will be able to see when the enemies will come for your lives. 

In the mid/late game, you need to follow ADc and secure him. If ADc dies, that’s means that all your team probably dies in the nearest team fight. In this stage of the game, all allies start to roam all across the map, and that means that you need to place wards not for securing bottom line, but in the strategic places – if your team is dominating, then place them in the opposite jungle, otherwise in your jungle.

The Late stage of the game depends on the support type you selected, but all of them the same – make sure that your team prevails. 

Support is one of the most complicated roles in the LoL, and here I only briefly touch it, but if you really interested in this, then try to look at our guide, written by Houdini.

SUPPORT – CHAMPIONS

All support champions can be divided into three categories:

1. classic supports.
2. aggressive supports.
3. tank supports.

CLASSIC SUPPORTS

Classic supports have good defensive and healing abilities:

• Janna
• Lulu
• Nami
• Sona
• Soraka
• Bard

AGGRESSIVE SUPPORTS

Aggressive supports are the mages that have not only offensive skills. Most of these champions can be played both as a support and as a mid lane:

• Annie
• Brand
• Karma
• Kayle
• Lux
• Morgana
• Nidalee
• Zilean
• Zyra

TANK SUPPORTS

This kind of supports has a huge hp and nice defensive abilities. Unlike other supports, this kind of supports can initiate the team fight and live long enough due to the strong CC abilities:

• Alistar
• Blitzcrank
• Braum
• Leona
• Nautilus
• Poppy
• Shen
• Tahm Kench
• Taric
• Thresh
• Trundle

Top 10 LoL Supports:

1. Thresh – 34.4%
2. Blitzcrank – 16.8%
3. Lulu – 13.5%
4. Janna – 10.7%
5. Braum – 10.0%
6. Leona – 9.6%
7. Morgana – 9.2%
8. Nami – 9.1%
9. Rakan – 8.3%
10. Karma – 8.1%

SUPPORT – ITEMS

First of all, playing as a support, you will notice that you do not have a lot of gold, especially if your ADc is not as aggressive as you want him to be. To compensate this loss supports trying to get Ancient Coin, Spellthief’s Edge, and Relic Shield. You can choose only one of these artifacts, so choose wisely.

Classic supports prefers Ancient Coin, while Aggressive – Spellthief’s Edge. And the Tank ones almost always buy Relic Shield. Later these artifacts can be upgraded to more powerful items.

Every support needs to buy wards and totems. From the very beginning take Warding Totem and try to reach Sighstone as sooner as possible. With this item, you can save a lot of gold. After you buy Sightstone you can change free ward to Sweeping Lens, so you will gain an ability to destroy opposite wards.

Most support artifacts are consisting of the defensive items, but aggressive supports prefer AP items.

You should wisely choose defensive items, for example, if opposite team have a lot of magic damage, then you need artifacts like Banshee’s Veil, Spirit Visage, and Guardian Angel. And if a lot of Physical damage – Randuin’s Omen, Frozen Heart, and Guardian Angel.

Top 10 support items

1. Redemption – 46.1%
2. Locket of the Iron Solari – 33.9%
3. Face of the Mountain – 26.5%
4. Eye of the Watchers – 23.6%
5. Ruby Sighstone – 16.2%
6. Ardent Censer – 13.9%
7. Frost Queen’s Claim -13.1%
8. Eye of the Equinox – 12.8%
9. Knight’s Vow – 8.6%
10. Eye of the Oasis – 6.0%

And I want to highlight next items, that can be used on allies to enhance their abilities:

• Locket of the Iron Solari – Guard your allies with a shield.
• Righteous Glory – Increase movement speed by 75% for 4 seconds, after 3 seconds, champion release a shock wave that decrease movement speed of the enemies by 75% for 2 seconds.
• Mikael’s Crucible – Dispell all debuffs and makes the ally immune to slowdowns.
• Zeke’s Convergence – After using Ultimate near the ally you summon a blizzard, and auto attacks of allies enhanced with fire for 10 seconds.
• Ardent Censer – after healing or shielding your ally will receive a buff that increases attack speed by 20-35% for 6 seconds, and he steals 20-35 hp per attack during this buff.
• Talisman of Ascension – Increase movement speed of allies by 40% for 3 seconds.
• Frost Queen’s Claim – Summon 2 frost spirits that slow enemies down by 40% for 2-5 seconds.
• Face of the Mountain – Casts shield that absorbs 10% of the maximum hp. After 4 seconds this shield explodes, decreasing ms of enemies by 40% for 2 seconds.
• Ohmwrecker – targeted turret stop its attacks for 3 seconds.
• Eye of the Equinox – Place an invisible ward, four charges that refreshing every time you reach your base.
• Eye of the Oasis – Place an invisible ward, four charges that refreshing every time you reach your base.
• Eye of the Watchers – Place an invisible ward, four charges that refreshing every time you reach your base.
• Athene’s Unholy Grail – Healing and Shielding consume all blood charges and heals the targeted ally.

SUPPORT – SUMMONER SPELLS

As almost all champions, supports take Flash and something that can help your ADc, like Heal, Exhaust or Ignite.

SUPPORT – RUNES

Most of the runes bust be on the survivability. Dead champion is equaled to the bad champion. Aggressive supports sometimes takes offensive runes.

• Greater Mark of Health 
• Greater Mark of Armor
• Greater Mark of Magic Resist 
• Greater Glyph of Armor
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
• Greater Glyph of Health
• Greater Seal of Health
• Greater Seal of Armor
• Greater Seal of Magic Resist 
• Greater Seal of Percent Health
• Greater Quintessence of Armor
• Greater Quintessence of Magic Resist
• Greater Quintessence of Health
• Greater Quintessence of Percent Health

It will be smart to use runes, that increase armor or health per level. These runes much less effective in the early stages, but in the late game, they will open their full potential.

SUPPORT – MASTERIES

There are three support buildes for each type of the support. 

Classic Supports prefer Windspeaker’s Blessing build that grant a buff to all allies healed of shielded – 18 Cunning, 12 Resolve.

Aggressive Supports prefer use masteries as AP casters, but they swap Dangerous Game with a Bandit – 12 Ferocity, 18 Cunning.

Tank Support Masteries with CC abilities choose Fearless and Courage of the Colossus in the Resolve, but if you like tank support without CC abilities, then you may prefer other two talents in that tier.

JUNGLER | LoL ROLES

Jungler – in my opinion, is the most interesting role. From the very beginning of the game, junglers need to buy Hunter’s Machete or Hunter’s Talisman. You should stay in the jungle, and your ally stands on top alone. The most greater advantage of the Junglers – enemies do not know where you are. You can attack a lane at any moment and help your allies. We have a wonderful guide for Junglers, so do not hesitate to use it.

Playing as a Jungler, you need to understand that you needed to the team. So watch on your team, and be ready to run for a help. By the 5 minute as a jungler you need to perform a few ganks, and if you succeeded your team will get a huge advantage. In the mid game, jungler starts to roaming and finding a moment to gain an advantage. It can be a successful gank, slaying a Dragon or stealing the red/blue buff. In the late game, all team must stick together and kill neutral monsters only if you are close to them. 

JUNGLER – CHAMPIONS

Junglers divided into two types – aggressive and tanks. Players prefer jungle champions that can quickly farm jungle and gank lanes as sooner as possible. 

There are a lot of jungler champions in LoL, so I’ll highlight only most popular of them.

Top 10 LoL Junglers:

1. Lee Sin – 29.9%
2. Kha’Zix – 11.4%
3. Master Yi – 11.1%
4. Elise – 10.5%
5. Gragas – 9.4%
6. Warwick – 9.1%
7. Graves – 7.6%
8. Jarvan IV – 7.5%
9. Zac – 7.2%
10. Vi – 5.8%

I especially want to highlight the Lee Sin as a Jungler. He is the most optimal jungler champion in LoL. He is quite complicated to learn but so effective in the right hands. If you learn him right, then you will see his true power. 

JUNGLER – ITEMS

Every Jungler must start a game with Hunter’s Machete or Hunter’s Talisman. It depends on the champions that you picked up. Remember that you can buy these items only if you choose Smite as one of the summoner spells. After you acquired some money, you need to upgrade them in one of the next artifacts:

• Tracker’s Knife
• Skirmisher’s Sabre
• Stalker’s Blade

As you can see these upgraded jungler artifacts slightly change the Smite spell, to see more information, I highly recommend to you to check our Season 7 Jungler guide.

Each jungler type wants various items, so if you play as tank-jungler, then your choice is Tracker’s Knife – Cinderhulk; aggressive jungler – Tracker’s Knife – Bloodrazor (Warrior). And mage-junglers like Fiddlesticks prefer Tracker’s Knife – Runic Echoes, that increases AP.

Another must have item is boots. Jungler mostly often prefer Boots of Mobility because Jungler need to roam all across the map, and the movement speed is extremely important characteristic. Another good option is Mercury’s Treads and Ninja Tabi. And of course, if you want to increase your attack speed then your choice is the Berserker’s Greaves.

Remember that all junglers are different and item buildes are different too. Choose your champion, and then think about items that will be useful to him. But I still want to highlight the most popular jungler items in the late game, so let’s begin!

Top 10 Jungler items:

1. The Black Cleaver – 20.3%
2. Dead Man’s Plate – 19.8%
3. Enchantment: Cinderhulk – 15.5%
4. Enchantment: Warrior – 14.2%
5. Spirit Visage – 12.7%
6. Enchantment: Runic Echoes – 9.3%
7. Titanic Hydra – 9.1%
8. Trinity Force – 8.5%
9. Blade of the Ruined King – 8.5%
10. Guardian Angel – 8.2%

JUNGLER – SUMMONER SPELLS

Jungler’s one summoner spell slot is always busy because Smite spell is a foundation of the whole role. The second spell in most cases is Flash or Teleport. With these spells, you can fastly travel across the map, or to save your life in the most dangerous situations. But some junglers take Exhaust or Ignite to be more efficient during the gangs.

JUNGLER – RUNES

There are no basic Jungler runes. You need to understand strong and weak sides of your fav jungler champion and choose correct runes, like if you prefer aggressive champions with a high physical damage, then you need to take attack speed runes, like Greater Mark of Attack Speed. If you prefer tank champions then just switch them to the armor runes. The more detailed information about runes you can find in the Champion’s Guide.

JUNGLER – MASTERIES

And again, various champions prefer various masteries buildes. Here I’ll just highlight some talents that are especially strong for the junglers:

• Savagery
• Feast
• Tough Skin
• Strength of the Ages
• Assassin
• Runic Affinity

TOP | LoL ROLES

Top lane is very similar to the middle lane, but here players prefer to choose melee champions with a lot of hp. Unlike the middle lane, at the top lane, you need to be sure that you will be not attacked by opposite jungler. Top lane champions are much more vulnerable, and junglers often choose them as a target.

Top lane champions are all unique, and you can choose a champion with a powerful burst, champion with a great initiation spells or cc abilities. But you need to understand that at the top lane you stand alone, and your only ally is a jungler. This is not just a solo lane, this is a lane where your experience and skill decide your destiny. And a few words about wards, do not wait until support run to you and place them, it is your lane, and the safety of this lane is your job too. So do not hesitate to buy some wards.

CS is not the most important thing in the top lane, the most important – your ability to stand against aggressive enemies without dying. Taken into account the fact that the most top champions have melee attacks, you will be drawn into the battle more than once, and only combat experience and skill save you.

Map awareness is extremely important for all top players, always look at the minimap so you can see when enemy jungler is going for you. Your awareness and ability to make right decisions are the two pillars ensuring the success of the game.

If you interested in this role then read our detailed article about LoL – Top Lane.

TOP – CHAMPIONS

As I mentioned before, you need to choose a champion with the large amount of hp or with the useful abilities. Mid lane champions can be used as a Top lane champions as well.

Top 10 TOP lane champions:

1. Riven – 14.1%
2. Fiora – 10.9%
3. Renekton – 10.6%
4. Darius – 9.4%
5. Yasuo – 7.2%
6. Jax – 7%
7. Gnar – 6.5%
8. Shen – 5.9%
9. Tryndamere – 5.6%
10. Gangplank – 5.6%

TOP – ITEMS

Top lane champions include a great variety of champions, so you need to choose best items for your champion all by yourself, or by reading some decent guides. I can not highlight any must-have artifacts for top lane champions, so learn it before starting a game.

Top 10 top lane items:

1. The Black Cleaver – 34.3%
2. Trinity Force – 16.5%
3. Spirit Visage – 16.1%
4. Titanic Hydra – 12.0%
5. Dead Man’s Plate – 11.9%
6. Sunfire Cape – 11.7%
7. Youmuu’s Ghostblade – 10.8%
8. Ravenous Hydra – 10.4%
9. Guardian Angel – 9.8%
10. Blade of the Ruined King – 8.1%

TOP – RUNES

This situation is similar to the artifacts: Various Champions – Various rune buildes. So if you take a physic champion you need attack damage/speed runes, and if you take Mage – magic penetration and AP.

TOP – SUMMONER SPELLS

The most useful spell in the game – Flash, so almost all Top lane players prefer to choose it as well. With this spell, you can quickly retreat to the turret or to catch the enemy that trying to run away. Also, I want you to look at the Teleport spell. It will help you to quickly change the lanes to help your allies or to get back on your lane after you’ve been killed.

TOP – MASTERIES

And again the same situation as with the items and runes. Each champion needs his own masteries build, so check champion guides.

MID | LoL ROLES

Unlike the top lane, the mid lane champions are mages in the most cases. This line is little easier than the top because it is easier to stand under the protection of the closest turret. You receive a great responsibility when you choose this lane because you will have no allies to rely on. It is only you against an enemy. Of course, Junglers can break into a confrontation so be ready to run under the turret or to perform a kill. You can easily reach each lane, so you need to decide where your help is mostly needed and where you can obtain a 100% kill.

Mid lane champion job is to farm minions and kill opponents. Some mid champions are great in the early stages, some great in the mid, but you need to master almost all of them – their weak and strong sides to use them to gain an advantage in a confrontation. When you kill an enemy and see that one of your lanes is in trouble, then you have a great opportunity to run there and tip the balance toward to your team.

Special guide that fully dedicated to the pros and cons of the Mid Lane role in LoL is here!

TOP – CHAMPIONS

There are a lot of champions that can be used in mid lane. Most of them are Mages, but we have a few champions with physical attacks that can easily do their work. Be sure that you know these champion and how to beat them.

Top 10 Mid lane champions:

1. Orianna – 16.8%
2. Ahri – 14.4%
3. Zed – 10.0%
4. Syndra – 8.9%
5. Lux – 7.8%
6. Kassadin – 7.6%
7. Yasuo 7.4%
8. Katarina – 7.1%
9. Ekko – 6.8%
10. Twisted Fate – 6.4%

Remeber that your team needs a balance of the damage that you deal. That means if you got a champion with a magic damage at the top, then it is better to choose a physical champion on mid. If all your team has the same type of damage, then enemies will just stack a magical/physical defense.

TOP – ITEMS

Here we have a great variety of artifacts, but if you play as a Mage, then you need a standard Doran’s Ring, but if you know that you’ll to stay against a champion that is very strong in the early game, then choose Corrupting Ring, and if your opponent is physical champion – Cloth Armor.

In most cases, you’ll choose a mage champion, so you need items that will increase your damage or that increase mana regeneration.

Top 10 Mid lane items.

1. Morellonomicon – 42.2%
2. Zhonya’s Hourglass – 26.3%
3. Luden’s Echo – 21.4%
4. Rabadon’s Deathcap – 17.6%
5. Void Staff – 16.7%
6. Banshee’s Veil – 14.7%
7. Lich Bane – 14.6%
8. Rod of Ages – 14.5%
9. Liandry’s Torment – 12.5%
10. Rylai’s Crystal Scepter – 10.0%

TOP – RUNES

If you choose Mage champion, then you need runes that increase magic damage and defense. To increase your defensive potential you need next runes – Greater Glyph of Magic Resist and Great Seal of Armor, and to enhance damage – Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, Greater Quintessence of Ability Power, Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration, Greater Quintessence of Scaling Ability. 

TOP – SUMMONER SPELLS

To increase chances to survive you need Flash spell, and second can be Ignite to increase your burst damage (Ignite can help to kill an escaping enemy).

TOP – MASTERIES

We need talents that increase our damaging potential, so we prefer to choose 12 ferocity and 18 cunning. Thunderlord’s Decree is very popular among the burst casters and assassins, but if you prefer sustained damage, then your choice is Deathfire Touch.

CONCLUSION

LoL is not an easy game, it is the game where each of the five players needs to know how to do their best and play as a team. You should master at least 2 roles, to be flexible and attach to the team’s needs. And now you can understand why Elo boosting is so difficult in the LoL. Of course, you could always try to promote your account just by yourself, but if you feel that you have not got enough time or skill you could always order the Elo boost from the most trusted company – Boosteria.