I was a noob in the truest sense of the word. I started playing LoL from a link on facebook. I had heard of DotA, and I heard that people were pretty hard core about it, so I thought I would give this a try. I am now at level 11 and I feel that I am a semi-respectable player. I thought I would jot down some things I learned the hard way. Bear in mind that these are ideas from someone that has been playing the game for 3 weeks and are not true for everyone.

Big Lesson There are a lot of ****** bags playing this game.

The biggest frustration I encounter is the 12 year old punk who plays the game non-stop. This jerk has maxed out 3 accounts already and is working on his 4th. So now when I make a rookie mistake, he feels the need to ridicule me relentlessly. Everyone stars somewhere. Be gracious to the people still learning. Also, just because someone was a butthead to you when you were a noob doesn't mean you need to pass that on.

Big Lesson 2 Feeding: Don't Do It

While the above mentioned ****** bags were insulting the size of my genetalia, something that come up a lot is "Stop feeding n00b!" They say that like I know what "feeding" is. "Feeding" refers to dying a lot. Every time an opponent kills you, they get experience and gold. So even if you suck at the game, hanging back and killing minions for the team is better than being overzealous, dying, and giving the other team a boost. Also, accusing you of feeding is a quick explanation for why your team is losing. Excuses, excuses. "I would be pwning you but this n00b keeps feeding."

Boots: Buy them.
As a rule, I buy boots as my first item. This way, I can run faster. The faster I run, the less I die, the less the above mentioned ****** bag yells at me.

Character Selection
When you go to play, check the info on the champion. At the bottom of the screen, it says how difficult a champion is to play. Follow that advice. I struggled playing Nasus for a week before someone told me to give Ashe a try. Now I feel that I have Ashe down and can move on to someone a little bit more complex.

More on Ashe later...

General advice on starting item is something that lets you stick around longer and/or safer. The goal is to a) not die, b) get gold from minion kills, c) get lots of experience, d) keep your opponents from getting money/experience, and e) kill your opponents, in that order.

Boots kinda help the 'not dying' part by letting you get away from potentially dangerous situations, but it's likely you'll still have to port home to heal. If you had taken Doran's Shield or another lane-staying item, you could instead wait around a bit and play it safe, until you've healed up enough to get more aggressive again. That said, you could do worse, and everyone wants a pair of boots at some point anyway.

How fast do you run when you are stunned? No don't. Boots first is NEVER a good idea.

I'll add in some tidbits I learned.

Hotkeys: Learn them. Love them. QWER are the spells, DF are the summoner spells. 1-6 up top are the items. There are more such as B to recall, G for pinging, Space for centering the camera when it's free to roam, and more. Here's the entire list

Potions: Love them during the laning phase. They allow you to stay in a little longer, maybe enough to get that level, and some more gold.

Look at some guides, from the forums here, as well as places like Leaguecraft. They give a good solid root for the items you should aim for.

But importantly, learn to adapt. Look at the opponent's team, and see what sort of damage they do. Should I get more armor from all the Phys Damage? More Magic Resist from all the casters? Depending on who is dishing out damage on the opponent's team, and how your team is doing, the right items to fit the game are very important.

Unless you're building them into Merc treads, which reduce stun and cc effects by 35%. (nerfed a little)

I just recently started playing 5v5 and I noticed that the middle lane is always soloed. This idea seems backwards to me. The middle lane can be flanked by both sides, so it seems like you would want at least 2 champions there. I asked about this in pre-game chat, and my whole team said that you ALWAYS start by soloing mid, but 30 seconds isn't enough time to explain why.

Any insights?

It's mostly because mid has no brush in the lane (only on the side), it's an open battle, and it's easy for mid to gank side lanes and return to farm. I remember reading a thread discussion this, but I won't be able to find it right now given the search disable.

Also, minions meet at mid slightly faster than the side lanes, so in some sense you are getting EXP quicker than the side lanes.

Well one lane is always gonna be solo. And i think you have it backwards too: it's not the flanks that gang mid, it's mid that's gonna gang the flanks.

Sure, mid can get ganged, but it's less likely to be successfull. That's due to several factors:

• mid has the lowest tower to tower distence. This means that you are closest to your own tower and can tower hug very fast if needed.
• People low level will have a smaller inpact (mid is alway some levels up)
• You will have ultimate - ganger will most likely not.

As you have noticed, at low levels champions are weak compared to towers and minions. That's why they have to level up before they can roam the map freely. An unseccessfull gang from a side lane means that he is gonna leave his lane, loose experience, and not be very effective. The solo will most likely be the first person to be able to successfully gang.

Side lanes are much more vulnerable to ganging because people extend far from their tower and there is more place to chase targets down.

As you can see, the solo is much more likely to gang then get ganged. A good player can easily counter a gang coming from a 2-man lane. That is why you want the solo mid, so he can have more options where to gang, as opposed to a side lane, from where he could only gang mid.

-1. Boots first allows you to get 3 potions. And I've seen it done quite well on Pantheon and Jax and some others.