I have been playing LoL on and off for a couple of years or year? Anyways a group of friends wanted me to play. I knew and played one match of DOTA back in the day and disliked it. I played a number of games with Demigod and also did not wake up every morning wanting to play. Though I tried LoL anyways to see if it was any different it hasnt really seemed so but I have slogged my way through and got to level 30 and wanted to try ranked. As I was going to try ranked I noticed it was draft pick not blind pick. So I decided to then try draft pick on normal because then I might not be so much of a hindrance to someone who really wants to play LoL.

So I launch and watch to my intrigue a new way of picking and setting up. Without thinking I picked Garen as always and locked in. Just a few seconds later I started getting attacked about why I picked Garen when we already had a support. So I tried draft a couple more times this time talking to my team first to see what I should play. Then I noticed that only one person on either side can pick the character. So now out of my element and having just turned 30 and a couple of characters that I didnt really play I listened to my team to pick Jarven IV who was on free rotation. It was a very bad decision...

So I am asking you the community of LoL to educate me on what are the character classes meaning why is Garen (labled Meele/Fighter) = Support? So of the classes I know of there are Junglers, Supports, Tanks, ADC (Im assuming is Attack Dmg Carry?), midders, and toppers.

Also I have a second question what champion is a good replacement if Garen is chosen for Garen? So I can start practicing with them so I may be able to still play as well as I have even if Garen has been chosen.

Thanks for your time,
Snake

Alrighty, my reply's likely to be fairly lengthy, hahaha, but I've read your post and am working on it now, it's comin! XD I'll just edit it into this

Aforementioned edit:

Alrighty, we'll start off with the "meta". The meta is the player enforced typical team comp believed (and usually proven and accepted) to be the most effective. It's what you'll encounter most of the time in ranked matches and what your team will expect you to help put together. The meta is generally a mage (AP) mid, a ranged AD carry with a support bot, a jungler, and a solo top. We could take forever delving into the exceptions and hypothetical scenarios, but in a nutshell, that's it. Usually in draft mode, as the team joins the chat, people will call out what they'd like or what they're best at. Good and polite players are flexible, but you will occasionally run into those with the "mid or feed" mentality. Sometimes your team will recognize the rule of "dibsies", lol, allowing whoever called a role fist to play it, but more often than not, if they're above you in the pick order, they'll take what they want whether it was called or not. Now, the purpose of draft mode is to counter pick the enemy team to the best of your ability, this is where the meta can become a gray area. Say a Kassadin or a Galio is the enemy mid, in this case it's actually not unwise to put an AD mid, as those 2 champions can shut a mage down. Talon's an excellent choice for such a situation. This is something that you'll only learn in time by playing and taking the advice of others. You'll just need to start learning which champs are good/bad against others and with that knowledge communicate and cooperate with your team to build a good comp. Generally any team with a solid amount of CC is good, and you want to try to have a solid team fight initiator like Leona, Rammus, Malph, Alistar, etc. You know, someone beefy with CC that has an ability to quickly put them in the center of the fight ahead of the team and abilities to disrupt enemy damage output. This of course would typically be called a tank.

Now support can be a little more difficult to define, but generally, whoever is NOT the ranged ADC (AD carry) bot is expected to be the support. The support is expected to take little to no creep farm, allowing the ADC to farm up. Their income is arguably some of the most important in the game as they are usually the best, or one of the best, high sustained damage output and are item dependent. So, the support needs to do just that, support the ADC. They should be trying to zone the enemies, to keep them at distance so they don't disrupt your ADC's farm and can't farm well themselves. Supports are typically champions with heals, buffs, debuffs, and CC, someone who can make their ADC stronger and sustain them in a fight by backing them up with said heals and buffs, or someone tankier who can initiate and set up a kill for the ADC while trying to protect them. I would say I actually main support, my two favorites being Leona and Sona. And when you choose your support, choose it based on what your team comp needs and what your enemies chose if you can see that at the time you pick. So, if I'm on a team that already has beefy champs and good initiation, I'll choose Sona, if our team is lacking tank/intiation, I'll choose Leona. While technically any champ CAN support, you generally want it be someone with the ability to set up a kill and/or sustain their ADC. And you'll want to try to choose a bot combo with good synergy. Some support buffs do more for some ADC's than others. Again, that's another thing you'll just kind of learn as you go and gain experience and insight.

Oh, one note I forgot on support...as you won't generally have the opportunity to farm for gold, you'll want to buy a couple Gold per 10 items...Philosopher's Stone, Kage's Lucky Pick, Heart of Gold etc, the choices will vary depending on the champ you're playing. If/when you can afford it, doesn't hurt to buy the Gold Per 10 quints and to build a page with points for gold bonus on assists in the Defense and/or Support mastery trees. But, moving on.

Top and Jungle are very flexible roles and have a wide variety of champions that fill them. This is where counter picking and team comp really matter, choose the champs for those roles based on that criteria Junglers tend to mostly be tanks and bruiser/fighters though, with a few AP. Top should generally be someone who can fight well in a 1v1 situation with good sustain and either solid survivability or mobility. A few good example of common top laners are Garen (as mentioned earlier), Shen, Wukong, Yorrick, Darius, Jayce, Riven, Shyvana, Fiora, Vlad, Teemo, Kennen...the list goes on. Teemo's a good counter to AD's because he can blind, slow, and speed buff himself. So he's got good ranged harrass with the mobility to survive and escape. Kenne'ns mobility, the fact that he doesn't use mana, his high range harrass and CC also make him a good counter pick to most melee bruisers. If you're looking for someone like Garon, hm...that's tough, but I would suggest perhaps trying Wukong, Tryndamere, or Darius. Yorrick is also a very a strong top, though nothing like Garen. He's very difficult to counter though. For a jungler you typically want someone with high mobility and CC, so they can quickly leap out to initiate/join a fight before they're seen and pin down the target. Examples of this would be Warwick with his ult, Malph with his ult and slow, Diana with her gap closer and slow, Lee Sin with his little kick leap thing, Shaco, Twitch, and Evelyn due to their speed and stealth...once again, the list goes on, just a few examples of common choices and why they're good. And, as always, this is just another one of those things that just comes with time, with learning all the champs and their strengths and weaknesses.

The key to it all when it comes to draft (especially ranked) is going in with an open mind. Don't go in with the mentality "This is the champ/role that I want, and this is the champ/role that I'm gonna play!". Go in with the ability to play a few champs and a few roles well, tell the team what you're best at, how you'll best serve them, and more often than not people will want you to play to your strength. You'll want to try to build a team that has a balance of beef, CC, AP, and AD. Communication and being polite and constructive is critical at champ select, it can set the mood for the whole game. You'll have games where you know already in select it's probably gonna suck because your team is already squabbling. So, try to set a good example and foster and encourage communication and cooperation.

One last note, summoner spells are highly debatable, but there are typical standards you can go by. It's common for the ADC bot to take heal while the support takes exhaust, because odds are, the ADC will be their first focus and more in need of the full heal effect. Personally I feel heal's a bit of a waste, it's not terribly useful mid-late game. It's prudent to always pick a spell that offers you an escape, such as flash or ghost. Teleport is common for Shenn and TF and top laners, though I don't use it very often myself. Ignite usually works well on most AP's, Exhaust on most AD's (being able to slow them so you can continue chasing while maintaining range to auto attack while reducing THEIR auto attack damage as you're likely facing another AD), you generally don't want Ignite on a champion with an execute...like Garen and Darius...because if timed correctly, your ultimate will kill them and you won't need the ignite. And you want a mix of exhaust and ignite on the team as using them correctly can be invaluable in a team fight. When team fights happen, you can exhaust their heavy AD hitters and ignite champions with a way to heal while in combat, as the ignite debuff reduces healing effects.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head, haha, sorry for the novel, but I sincerely hope this helps. If you have any questions or need any clarification (I prob typo'd or just derped and said the wrong at some point XD), let me know!

Best of luck and happy hunting! See ya on the fields of Justice!

First off I don't consider Garen a support. I consider him a solo top lane champion.

So the current meta's, the agreed upon lay out of a successful team, is as follows:

Ranged Attack Damage Carry (ADC): This person has good scaling into the late game with the attack damage stat. This characters are pretty much the characters labelled as carries in the description of the champions. These characters are normally in bottom (bot) lane with a supporting character. Their main job in the early part of the game, aka the laning phase and generally less than the first 20 minutes or so, is to last hit the minions and try and deny the opposing adc their farm, this is because their fairly item reliant and very much need gold.

Support: These characters go bottom with an the adc and try and keep them a live during the laning phase and generally be useful in different ways late game. Most characters labelled as support are good support characters, although anyone "can" be support some are better than others. Supports don't have to heal/shield either characters like blitzcrank are often in the support role due to the fact they don't fit anywhere else very strongly and can help the adc do something, in blitzcrank's case he helps them harass the other adc (and maybe kill them). One key item to keep in mind with supports is that they are in charge of warding the bottom lane in order to prevent unwelcome visitors from killing the adc, they also are not allowed to kill any minions (at least not while the adc is there) this is because the adc needs as much gold as possible, this is why most supports go for gp10 items. After the laning phase the support evolves into a more general role whether it be to tank, initiate or to continue supporting.

Mid: Mid is popular for where the ability power carry (AP) goes. He will be by himself in this lane. Though non-ap champions can go mid it is just the most common thing to do.

Solo Top: Top is one of the most odd ball lanes but for the most part it where you'll fine very self sufficient champions. Advanced players can play characters that aren't as self sufficient in this lane due to knowing how to play a champion well. Usually this is where a bruiser (tagged as fighter in game) will go due to their high health and ability to have combat regularly, though technically the majority of the cast can go here.

Jungle: Jungle is a very complicated role that I could make a post on by itself but to basically these people use the jungle to get gold and attack vulnerable people in lanes.

Here is an article on this subject from the view point of the jungler: Link

Hopefully I at least clear up the basics.

Ah okay thanks everyone who posted I have learned a lot and Im sure there are more posts/posters coming soon so thanks for now!

So should I have experience in all types of meta so I can help the team? Even if I know that I may have a weakness in a particular roll? (Tried Jungling in a bot matches and failed >.<). Or do people have strong champions that they play I played lots of Vayne though did my best on dominion with her.

Before even reading the rest of your post, just want to clarify this, lol. I generally would never call Garen a support either, only discussing it as it pertains to Snake's previous situation

I need to disagree just a bit here. This fosters the already rampant impression that the support is the player responsible for warding, an idea that I've seen some people carry through an entire game. Warding is everyone's responsibility, you can never have too many wards. Now, I do agree that in bot lane during laning phase, the Support should be doing the bulk of it as the ADC needs to be able to afford to get their build going as fast as possible, and as support I'm always very much on top of it....HOWEVER, the rare occasion I do ADC, whether ranked or normal, if I B with 75-150g left over after spending, I won't hesitate to pick up a ward or two to help out. When I jungle I try to keep dragon and our jungle ramps or buffs warded, etc. While you're not entirely wrong, I feel it important to dissuade the notion that if a map is not entirely and constantly warded the support's a noob, because I've seen a lot of that attitude.

And to say the support's "not allowed" to farm is a bit harsh. Generally, most supports will respect the ADC's need to farm, but there's little to no harm in taking the occasional back row minion, it's important for them to get their GP items quickly. Again, I rarely if ever try to do any last hitting when supporting unless I need like 50g to go buy an item I'm really needing, but I feel to say "not allowed" is a little extreme.

Obviously there is leeway since we are talking in basics support buys wards for bot lane (which is how I described it) not top or mid and obviously taking a couple of CS won't hurt anything if you need to rush back and need the gold now.

I mean I tried to keep it simple. I mean let me try and actually explain supports role:

Support's role is to fill keep the adc alive during the laning phase and to help in a considerable way in the late game. They will are in charge of keeping wards on bottom lane to avoid getting the adc killed during the laning phase these are often placed either in pairs next to the tri-bush and dragon or solo between both. You're also suppose to help the adc get as much farm as he can. This can be done by either sustaining them with heals and shields and/or pushing away the opposing enemy champion to reduce harass. The latter is also causing the opposing adc to not be able to farm which is a plus as they won't scale into the late game as well. In order to produce income, as the most to all of the minions kills will be given to the adc, supports will often buy gp10 items, the two most popular items are Philospher stone and Heart of Gold, the third most is Kage's Lucky Pick.During the laning phase supports often fit into multiple different categories. Some supports are tanky supports and can help bully the opponents around by threaten them and soak some damage (Taric and Alistar are good examples of this); some are poke champions these champions deal some damage to the opponents and try and push them out of lane early (Sona is a good example of this); some are kill supports, these supports try and help kill the opposing enemy champion or make them back more often (Alistar and Blitzcrank are good example of these) these champions often have large amounts of crowd control.
As supports transition into the later phases of the game you can take on many roles depending on who you are. Supports like sona and soraka transition into the late game to a role very similar to how they were in lane, heal people poke occasionally throw an ultimate when appropriate. Some are tanky...

I'm done but I hope you get my point. Saying that you follow 3 rules when supporting: Don't take CS, Ward the river and lane to prevent suprises, and keep your adc alive. Is a lot simpler than that.

Edit: Also depending on the support and who the enemy is the 75-100 gold might be better spend on health pots than wards as ADC.

The support warding en masse is really only important when your team can make use of the wards. This is more than just reacting accordingly, but your ADC needs to be at a certain caliber (which new players aren't).

The support's job is to 'amplify the effect of the team,' aka a 'force multiplier.' While warding is one of the strongest ways to do this in higher Elo games, that doesn't mean it's as beneficial in lower Elo games where the wards go to waste (especially if you're not sure what you're doing with them).

Hmm so with meta outta the ways are the characters subclasses in the game accurate to the meta? Are there some champs that are not labled something they can do in meta?

This is something you'll figure out as you go, as you play and discover who you like and how you like playing them, but in the game client most champs usually fit in and are labeled as multiple roles. And just the way you build (rune/mastery pages and items) a champion can really effect how they fill a role. Tristana for example is generally considered an ADC, but I've seen her played really effectively as an AP mid. She's actually a great counter pic for mages with Spell Vamp, like Vlad and Swain, as she has an ability that leaves a dot (which deals nasty damage as AP) and reduces healing effects. TF is another one you'll see played both AP and AD, but you'll usually see him played AP mid.

There are other examples, but I suppose to answer simply, yes, there are a few champions who can debatably be played outside of their most common roles. And as Panzerfaust mentioned, Elo can actually effect how you play the game. Something you can get away with in a lower Elo range may not be as effective in higher ranks with more experienced players.