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[Cthulhu]

Top:  Usually tanky DPS, mages, assassins, tanks.  Irelia, Cho'gath, Lanewick, Lanedyr, Akali, Talon, Jax.  The lack of sustain on some of those guys gives them a disadvantage (I've always wondered where Talon actually belongs, he doesn't really feel like a top lane champ to me).  The nature of top means it needs to be a character who can hold his own without help.  Top is far from the important lane (Bot) and is easy to gank.  Characters on top are usually tanky and have good sustain.

Mid:  Mages, usually.  Sometimes AD carries.  The reason AP carries go mid is because AP carries scale with levels instead of gold (Because their damage is in abilities which get stronger as you level) and AD carries scale with gold instead of levels (Because their damage is in basic attacks which get stronger with items.  Mages benefit more from a solo lane and AD carries can get their gold from a support lane just as easily.  Also AD carries are very weak early game and can have a lot of trouble against good mid mages (Brand, Malzahar, Annie, etc.)  Some other champs can mid well.  Akali, Morde, I've seen mid Shen work too.

Bot:  An AD carry and a support.  The AD carry must must must be farmed by the end of the game.  If your carry is underfarmed and theirs isn't, you'll probably lose the game.  You'll definitely have a disadvantage attacking towers.  So, the carry goes bot with a support who protects him and helps him freefarm.  Depending on the champs bot lane can be extremely passive or very aggressive.  Me and Web as Vayne/Morg always had a very aggressive bot lane with lots of killan.


Before level 25 or so though, none of this applies.  At level 1 you can expect to see anyone and everyone in whatever lane they want.  Even up into the 20s or so the support-carry bot and solo top are often neglected because there's no jungler and no one at that level wants to be a support.  Five carry games are not uncommon before level 30.

[Werdna]

Thanks, good stuff.  I'm level 15, and while everyone does play all over the map, there does also seem to be some newbie discussion about who goes where and I'd like to be able to throw in at least a semi-educated 2 cents, as well as pick a champ to fill a missing lane need.  But every time I play SR I seem to be stumped at champ select, because I don't understand the lanes, and therefore can't look at my team and say, "Oh, we need an XXX".  Currently I play a lot of Dominion, as I enjoy the faster pace and opportunity to face and learn more champs in action, but I think I'd play more SR if I understood this part better.

It sounds like both top and mid are usually solo - what is it about top vs mid that requires the sustain up top?  Isn't the mid more dangerous?

Is there always a jungler?  If not, where does the 5th man go?  At my level, as you said, there is rarely a jungler.  Someone nearly always calls mid right off the bat, and 2 go top and 2 bottom.

Where do tanks like Rammus go, would he typically be the support partner you mentioned for the AD carry in bot? 

[eerr]

Looking at ziggs whole combo there, for a full combo hitting with everything, and half a minefield, you could get 3.0 ratio without too huge of a fuss.

Dat passive looks hilarious too.

[Graven]

Cthulhu's advice is in general spot on, but.

Be advised that while this is kind of set in stone for high Elo games (or was, as the Moscow5 games showed pretty graphically - AD kennen top, yeah), in low Elo feel free to break the meta in any way you want - play the champion you feel are best with, rather than the champion the metagame forces you to play. Even if you are forced to play support you still don't need to play a passive support - go Leona/Alistair/Gangplank/Blitzcrank and make a nice kill-lane. Even the passive supports (Soraka, Sona) benefit more from aggresive play - zone the enemy team, harass with infuse/whatever sona's Q is, set up kills. The current 0 CS support 1/1/2 meta is why I don't play SR at all nowadays - it's too passive and boring, emphasizing farming and not dangerous kill-or-die gambles.

Also bot is considered the important lane because the dragon's there, and it's important to try and control it, or at least prevent the enemy from controlling it, while top is where Baron is, which is a late-game objective requiring the entire team and most often in low Elo games not worth it (because the notion is "one of them died let's baron!" while it should be "one of them died lets push mid/top/bot and take a turret!").

Top is populated by bruisers with sustain because the jungler prefers ganking bot since 1. dragon and 2. easier to get a kill on the enemy support.

Also Talon generally goes mid to counter enemy AP casters, though I've never been good at that ._.

edit : tank is generally a term that is considered wrong - what you need is good initiation, someone to start a fight in your favour. It could be a tanky bruiser type like Rammus (who is usually jungle), Alistar (who is a support but can also jungle), but also things like Ashe arrow, Wukong ult (who is a top bruiser), Anivia wall and stuff like that. So Rammus and Amumu go jungle, Alistar goes bot, Wukong, Gangplank and stuff go top.

Further also I don't play SR and only watch streams and read thread so I might be talking out of the proverbial ass.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, I said something dumb and wrong, top is actually pretty easy to gank.  because it's a solo and you're probably far from the tower.  Mid is hard to gank.  You're close to your tower and should be able to make it out easy if you're not way overextended.  Top you have no help and have to be able to stay in your lane for a long time.

Pre-30 you rarely see junglers.  Once you hit 30 there will be a jungler in most games.  Rammus is a jungler, that's where he goes.  "Tanks" (More on that later) usually either jungle or go solo top.  Alistar is a tank and can support, Taric is too, sort of.

Like Graven said you don't need tanks, you need initiation.  Having people capable of soaking up damage is good, but it's not an MMO and you can't force the people to attack you without taunts (Which are pretty rare).  Look at Dota, Dota doesn't even have nominal tanks.  It has tanky initiators and tanky fighters but there are no hard tanks. 

[Graven]

Cthulhu's advice is in general spot on, but.

Be advised that while this is kind of set in stone for high Elo games (or was, as the Moscow5 games showed pretty graphically - AD kennen top, yeah), in low Elo feel free to break the meta in any way you want - play the champion you feel are best with, rather than the champion the metagame forces you to play. Even if you are forced to play support you still don't need to play a passive support - go Leona/Alistair/Gangplank/Blitzcrank and make a nice kill-lane. Even the passive supports (Soraka, Sona) benefit more from aggresive play - zone the enemy team, harass with infuse/whatever sona's Q is, set up kills. The current 0 CS support 1/1/2 meta is why I don't play SR at all nowadays - it's too passive and boring, emphasizing farming and not dangerous kill-or-die gambles.

Also bot is considered the important lane because the dragon's there, and it's important to try and control it, or at least prevent the enemy from controlling it, while top is where Baron is, which is a late-game objective requiring the entire team and most often in low Elo games not worth it (because the notion is "one of them died let's baron!" while it should be "one of them died lets push mid/top/bot and take a turret!").

Top is populated by bruisers with sustain because the jungler prefers ganking bot since 1. dragon and 2. easier to get a kill on the enemy support.

Also Talon generally goes mid to counter enemy AP casters, though I've never been good at that ._.

edit : tank is generally a term that is considered wrong - what you need is good initiation, someone to start a fight in your favour. It could be a tanky bruiser type like Rammus (who is usually jungle), Alistar (who is a support but can also jungle), but also things like Ashe arrow, Wukong ult (who is a top bruiser), Anivia wall and stuff like that. So Rammus and Amumu go jungle, Alistar goes bot, Wukong, Gangplank and stuff go top.

Further also I don't play SR and only watch streams and read thread so I might be talking out of the proverbial ass.

Gonna quote myself because screw bottom of last page.

Also initiating can be done even by things like Sona/Ashe/Janna ult. The point is to catch the enemy in a situation which is not in their favour - Crowd Control, mainly, though separating one of the enemies (Anivia wall/Trundle pillar) is also acceptable.

Only 3 tanks have skills which force an enemy to attack them - Rammus, Shen and Galio, who is magnificent and awestriking, but is quickly broken by a Quicksilver Sash/Veil (I think I'm not forgetting anyone?)

Pre-30 you don't tend to see junglers because people can't handle 2v1 top and it's almost a given that at least one of the teams will be 2-1-2 without a jungler.

[ThtblovesDF]

So much yes on initiation... played a game today as nunu, 0/7/16

Flamed by all teammates "feeder" and so on when I initiated, successfully ulted 4 out of 5 and tanked all ults. Kk, ignored the flamers and QQ - stats at the end: Most damage done; Nunu. Towers taken by nunu: 4 Most damage taken: nunu

[Werdna]

Great explanations guys, thanks.  I've never understood the push for Baron or Dragon, and have always pushed towers.  In my games its usually late game that people try to do them and that always seemed pointless - I don't need the extra gold at that point, why aren't we knocking out their inhibitors instead? 

Sometimes I see references to a laning "phase", which implies an end?  When is this?  In the newb bracket it feels like once everyone has some nice items, the sporadic team fights begin, but its rarely organized and sometimes they're fighting over lanes that have no towers down when it seems like you should be trying to mow down the lane that has progressed furthest to the base already.

For character selection, I come from a Team Fortress mindset where a team wins when it has the right class mix for the job, and I am just not the type of gamer that spends all his time mastering one class/character.  I'd rather be expert in three classes/champs, than a master of one.  At the moment I'm pretty comfortable with Ryze, Gangplank, and Rammus.  So I take it Rammus' value playing bot is his taunt being used as an initiator.  I don't get the jungling part though, it always feels like he takes forever to kill minions, but maybe that's because I tend to play him in Dominion with nearly all defensive items so I can tower dive and be impossible to push off a tower in defense.  I can check out some guides and figure that one out.

[Jopax]

On hit effect TF is the best

Madred, Ionic, Malady, Triforce, some random AP or Mpen and you're good to go

[Cthulhu]

Udyr also counters Galio's ult.  If he uses bear stance before it starts he'll stun Galio and break the ult before it can go off.

Obviously the huge stuff like Galio, Amumu, etc. are the "best" initiations any ranged stun can initiate.  Like Graven said, if you catch an opponent out of position (especially the AD carry) and stun them that's an initiation.  The enemy team has only a few options and they're all bad.  They can A. Engage and probably lose because you already caught one of their guys and can probably kill them very early in the fight, or B.  Leave them behind and be 4v5 until he respawns, at which point you go take baron.

If you get every dragon as soon as it comes up from the point you're capable of getting them (Depending on your jungler this can be very early in the game), you're going to have a huge gold advantage.

Baron is very important.  An attempt at baron can't be ignored.  Baron buff allows a team to easily win a teamfight or push towers.  At the same time, getting attacked at Baron will probably cause you to lose the game. 

So:

Never ever ever ever attack baron if the entire team is up.
If it's late game and the entire enemy team is MIA, they're probably at Baron and you need to get there fast.
If you can kill one or two enemies, do baron while they're weak.  They can't contest with three (Maybe with four, since Baron is like an extra guy)
Once you get baron push like a madman, it gives you a huge advantage


As for phases:  The laning phase starts at level 1 and lasts until it's no longer safe for most champs to farm lanes, usually once two or three towers are down.  Depending on how passive the game is/how bad the enemy is, this can last a very long time or barely any time at all.  After that people start grouping together, roaming, farming their jungle, champs like Irelia continue solo farming as long as possible, group dragons, baron starts becoming more possible.  In solo queue one team or another is obviously going to lose at this point and will usually surrender partway through the middle phase.

After that the late game starts once everybody has most of their items.  This usually happens when both teams are very good or very bad.  The first because no one can get an obvious advantage, the second because no one knows how to capitalize on an advantage so the game drags.  In the first case you can't afford to fuck up here.  If someone gets caught there's a good chance you'll lose, so STAY TOGETHER.  In the latter case all bets are off.  The goal here is to have a guy like Amumu initiate on the team and kill them or catch someone important (AD carry is best, AP carry is good) out of position and kill them.  As soon as you have a numbers advantage go pressure Baron and try to force a fight you know you'll win.  If it's 5v3 or better just take baron and start pushing towers.

Pre-30 games rarely go that long though, people usually surrender in the middle phase.

[Graven]

Basically what Cthulhu said, again. Baron and Dragon are major objectives around which the most important fights revolve.

That said, I've seen more people attempt Baron when they don't know the location of the enemy team and the subsequent game-changing loss than I've seen competently played out Baron kills. If ignored Baron himself can be really dangerous if he's attacking the carry or someone else squishy enough, not to mention the stealing potential with things like Ziggs/Lux ult.

The thing to remember is that if you've just had a teamfight and killed at least two of the enemies without suffering any casualties, feel free to go for Baron. If you mumble around long enough that the enemies have 1-5 secs left on their respawn, delay that baron, go sidepush or something.

There are people more competent to explain Baron mechanics than me, so I won't talk anymore, but in low elo/pre-30 it's generally more beneficial to ignore baron after winning a teamfight and going after turrets. The Baron buff can be waited out, fades on death, while solid shiny gold is solid and shiny.

Dragon is a major gold source since he's global gold - gives 190 gold to every team member, which is a lot early game and helps further/equal out a gold advantage.

Also you might want to check out Guardsman Bob's stream :
http://guardsmanbob.com/stream/index.php
While he's not exactly a tournament-winning player, he is pretty decent, he never rages, is polite, and most importantly tends to explain things that are going on/situations that arose out of unusual circumstances. He does seem to be getting more trolls/haters in-game lately which is odd and annoying, but his stream along with Dan Dinh and that other guy I can't remember are the staples of people learning LoL/wanting to get better.


edit : GRAVES =/= GRAVEN
GRAVENOUS RAEG OVER NAEM

[Werdna]

Thanks for the baron/dragon explanation guys, that makes sense.  Thanks for that link, Graves, I'll try it.  My problem with most feeds is that they assume a level of knowledge I don't have yet.

... champs like Irelia continue solo farming as long as possible...

Why?  I'm not familiar with Irelia; I am guessing you mean item-dependent champs that need the extra gold to finish item builds?

[Cthulhu]

Irelia needs lots and lots of gold and is tough enough to solo farm when other characters can't.

[RedKing]

Now I have an overwhelming urge to buy a stealth champ like Teemo or Akali, wait for the enemy team to try for a Baron kill, then killsteal it out from under them.

Any guesses as to how many death threats/ragequits I'd receive? 

[Graven]

A lot.

Also be a real man/woman and take Twitch, ult and get a pentakill.