LoL is a highly competitive game where each player must do their part to ensure their team’s victory. As a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game, good teamwork plays a huge part in whether a team succeeds or not. While the mechanics of the game are pretty simple to understand, it’s not enough to know just how the game works to win.
In League, there are various roles that each champion fills. Each role has its own unique responsibilities and contributes to the win condition in its own special ways. Understanding how each role works, as well as how they are played, is crucial to getting better at the game.
The best League of Legends players are those who not only master playing one role but are privy to the gameplay and objectives of the other roles. If you want to start climbing the ranked ladder all the way to the top and call yourself one of the best, you’re in the right place. Here, you’ll discover everything you need to know about the various roles in LoL.
Top Lane
The top lane is usually called the loneliest role because these players do their work in the most isolated part of the map. Since the early game objective, dragon buff, appears in the bot lane, most of the action in the game happens away from the top lane. This leaves the top laners separated from their team and are left to duke it out in mostly 1v1 duels.
Most top laners pick champions that are bruisers. These are the champions that can engage in combat, deal tons of damage, but have the tankiness to survive heavy hits. In a way, they serve as the team’s anchor, given the job of diving into the thick of the enemy team and soaking up all the damage they can. Unlike pure tanks, however, they are considered an important damage threat that can’t be ignored.
The job of the top laner is to maintain pressure on their side of the map. This can be in the form of dominating their lane opponent and getting a huge lead or helping their jungler invade the enemy’s jungle. The best top laners take Teleport as their summoner spell since this allows them to respond to anywhere on the map where they are needed.
Mid Lane
Mid lane is considered the most mechanically intensive role in LoL. Most of the best pro League players are well-known mid laners. Some of these include Faker, Bjergsen, Showmaker, and Caps. More than the sheer mechanical skill required to play mid effectively, players should also exhibit good map awareness since midlaners have access to both the top and bottom sides of the map.
Midlaners typically pick assassin champions like Zed or LeBlanc because of the mobility that they provide. Since midlane is strategically located on the map, using a champion that is mobile and can travel with ease is crucial to helping other lanes win against their opponents. However, some midlaners take scaling champions like Ryze to the midlane because of how safe and short of a lane it is.
The role of the midlaner depends on the champion that they pick. If the midlaner is an assassin, they should focus on winning their lane and responding to areas of the map where they can help. Zed players, for example, should always look to roam to bot lane to get an easy kill on a squishy target, before going back to lane. On the other hand, midlaners who play scaling champions should play safe and get to their late game.
Jungle
Arguably the most difficult role to master in the game, the jungle has to be a master of all trades. Since the jungler is the player who constantly roams the map in order to farm jungle monsters, they have the ability to turn the tides of any lane they visit. They must exhibit good map awareness, flexibility, and the initiative to take objectives that are vital to the team’s success.
There is a huge variety of champions that are good junglers, but each one should adhere to a certain criterion: good jungle clearing. This means that the champion should be able to take on the jungle monsters with ease, without losing too much HP. Maintaining a good amount of HP in the jungle is important because this allows the player to gank their lanes without putting their own life total in danger.
The jungler’s job is simple, but hard to master. All they have to do is farm their jungle, look for openings where they can gank, and secure objectives as they appear on the map. While it seems simple enough, junglers have to realise that the enemy team has a jungler too, and so it becomes a fight for dominance and control over the map and objectives.
Attack Damage Carry
Often considered the most important role in League, the Attack Damage Carry or ADC, is the team’s most potent late-game threat. They start off really weak in the early stages of the game, but once they farm and get their items, they become the most crucial pieces of a team. Often, pro LoL franchises build their team comps around their ADC.
Most champions that function well as ADCs are the Marksman champions. Some of these include the likes of Ashe, Ezreal, Jhin, and Kai’Sa. Though not as mechanically intensive as midlaners, ADCs need to have proper positioning and a good knowledge of the game state. They must be able to know when they start doing damage, and when they should lay back and play it safe.
The role of the ADC is to simply farm until they get enough gold to buy their items. Once they have their items, they should be able to coordinate with the team on how they will approach fights and must always keep an eye out for enemies wanting to take them out. Even though they can do the most damage, they are also the easiest to kill.
Support
Possibly the most underrated role, supports are the backbone of every team. Often equipped with generous amounts of crowd control, shielding, and healing, supports should be proactive and decisive with their actions. They should know when to roam and help the midlaner, when and where to place wards, and must keep their teammates alive at all times. Good supports must be able to sacrifice themselves for the team.
Most support champions are enchanters like Lulu, Nami, and Soraka. They provide healing, shielding, and buffs that are invaluable to a team’s success. However, other supports include tanks like Alistar and Blitzcrank, whose job is to soak up damage for their team or set up their team with big crowd control plays. Either way, support champions aren’t flashy but provide the most utility to the team.
The support has the responsibility of communicating with their team about enemy locations on the map, placing wards in key areas, and keeping their ADC alive. They should be selfless, opting to give kills up to their teammates instead of taking kills for themselves. The support role is often the poorest among all the roles, but they are capable of providing the biggest impact.
These five roles in League of Legends are all unique and important in their own right. In order to win, each role must commit and do its job properly. Once you’ve understood each of them, you are more ready and capable of grinding the ranks and raking in victories.