Choosing The Best League of Legends Roles For Beginners

League of Legends is one of the most popular MOBA games in the world with thousands of new players joining on the fun every day. The game continues to grow and entice a lot of aspiring players to play with their friends on Summoner’s Rift. However, the first step towards learning how to become a dedicated LoL player is to establish League of Legends roles. Choose which role what you want to play by discovering what each of the different lanes offer in terms of playstyle, champion types, and skill-level.

A bunch of League of Legends characters fighting it out - League of LEgends roles
Which League of Legends roles suits you?

About League of Legends Roles

League of Legends roles is basically the position you play for the team. Each role has a specific task that they need to do during the entirety of the game. Once you reach a higher level of play, you can’t simply play any champion or do anything you want in the lane you’re playing since there are systematic ways of playing the game. It might seem like a lot of unnecessary information but it’s very easy to learn which can be learned easily once you read about them.

Ranking EVERY ROLE From HARDEST To EASIEST - League of Legends Season 10
League of Legends Roles from Hardest to Easiest!

The most important part about being a laner is to know what each of the League of Legends roles does. There are certain tasks that are specific only to each of the roles that can’t be fulfilled to their maximum potential by players from other lanes. Take a look at the 5 most important League of Legends roles that you need to learn about. Here are those 5 roles and how you can utilize them to their maximum potential when you’re playing a formal game of LoL.

1. Top Lane

The Top Lane is often called “The Island” because this is where the least amount of action occurs. Don’t get us wrong, there is no lane in League of Legends that won’t constantly have the potential for fights breaking out but the Top Lane is definitely the place where conflicts occur the least. Players who like to play passively and play for the team instead of wanting to make flashy plays will find a home here. This is the lane where the most amount of champion types can be played.

Dr Mundo wearing a prince's outfit
There can only be one man on the island
The Top Lane Overview
  • Lane: Baron Lane
  • Learning Difficulty: Easy
  • Responsibilities: Teleport Response, Side Lane Management, Flanking, Split-Push, Soaking Pressure
  • Champion Types: Tanks, Bruisers, Battlemages, Marksmen, and Assassins
  • Players to Watch: TheShy, Nuguri, Bwipo, Impact, and Wunder

Top Lane Responsibilities

The Top Laner is in-charge of a number of things. For one, this is the lane that usually holds the Teleport summoner spell, which means that you are in charge of responding to distress calls in other lanes by teleporting by their side when they are under threat of being killed. Because of Teleport, the Top Laner is also usually found on the side lanes trying to destroy towers or clear minion waves because they can always teleport into a fight when things go bad.

Top Lane Champions

Top Lane has the most flexible list of champions that you can use. The Top Laner usually plays for a mix of utility and damage. Champions that are able to control the enemy team or threaten them by being able to assassinate them from the most unexpected places are good champions to use in the top lane. However, the most prevalent choice for Top Lane are Tanks because they thrive in the environment that doesn’t require fighting too often unlike in other lanes.

2. The Jungle

The Jungle is arguably the most confusing role because there are a lot of things that players need to learn before they can even attempt to try it out. This isn’t a role that total beginners are recommended to be diving head-first into. They are basically in charge of funneling gold and buffs to the rest of the team by securing objectives around the map. They also facilitate the state of lanes by performing “Ganks” to secure kills or at least diffuse dangerous situations for their teammates.

Unmasked Master Yi controlling a hundred blades - League of Legends roles
King of the Jungle
The Jungle Overview
  • Lane: Jungle Area
  • Learning Difficulty: Extremely Hard
  • Responsibilities: Securing Neutral Objectives, Ganking, Funneling Buffs
  • Champion Types: Tanks, Bruisers, Battlemages, and Assassins
  • Players to Watch: Selfmade, Jankos, Canyon, Blaber

Jungle Responsibilities

The Jungler is in charge of a lot of things around the map. There most crucial task is securing neutral objectives such as the Elemental Drakes and Rift Heralds. They should know how to perform ganks properly or expect a response gank so that they can give an advantage to their own team. Failing to secure objectives or whiffing ganks may lead your team to spiral towards a game loss. Junglers should also learn various jungle routes to effectively travel around the map with the least amount of downtime.

Jungle Champions

Jungle champions may seem flexible but not every champion from every category can be an effective jungler. The most important quality of a jungle champion is that they should be able to clear waves quickly, otherwise the enemy jungler will move faster than them and achieve more things around the map. Jungle champions should also be effective gankers by having crowd control or movement speed increasing abilities.

3. The Mid Lane

The Mid Lane is where superstars are born. This is usually where players who are aspiring of proving their skills in League of Legends go to play. Players who want to show the world that they can carry the game will love this lane. However, the mid lane, in general, isn’t necessarily a complicated lane to master because you only need to master key responsibilities but the biggest discrepancy will be on the head-to-head skill check which kinda applies to every lane anyway.

LeBlanc and her clone fighting
Skill determines character
The Jungle Overview
  • Lane: Middle Lane
  • Learning Difficulty: Medium
  • Responsibilities: Roaming, Lane Response, Mid-Late Game Carry
  • Champion Types: Mages, Assassins, Bruisers
  • Players to Watch: Faker, Caps, Rookie, ShowMaker

Mid Lane Responsibilities

The Mid Lane is the most accessible lane in the entire map so the mid laner is in charge of responding to a teammate who is in distress. They need to secure as many kills or CS as possible so that they can carry the game during the later stages of the game. The mid laner needs to constantly threaten to take a kill around the map by roaming so that enemy players won’t feel complacent about their position and eventually push them to make mistakes.

Mid Lane Champions

Mid Lane champions need to have the potential to impact the game dramatically. They should either be able to offer a high kill threat or provide game-breaking control that will make it difficult for the enemy team to initiate a teamfight. They should also be able to clear the wave efficiently and be able to move around the map quickly so that the enemies won’t be able to respond to them in time for a counterplay.

4. The AD Carry

The AD Carry has a simple role but is one of the most vulnerable roles in the game. This role is usually the one that dies a lot since everyone from the enemy team will try to kill you as often as possible due to the fact that you deal the highest amount of damage during later stages of the game. This role will have the most crucial part during teamfights because majority of the damage will oftentimes come from them.

An elven Ezreal shooting arrows on top of a tree
The sharpshooter’s aim is true
The Jungle Overview
  • Lane: Dragon Lane
  • Learning Difficulty: Hard
  • Responsibilities: Main Damage Source, Staying Alive
  • Champion Types: Marksmen
  • Players to Watch: Uzi, Doublelift, Rekkles, Ruler, Jackeylove

AD Carry Responsibilities

To oversimplify what an ADC’s role is: It’s basically to survive and deal damage. That might seem easy but ADC’s have the hardest life in League of Legends because they’re in constant threat of being killed. So much so that ADCs are almost never left alone by themselves. To become an effective ADC, one must learn proper strategies like positioning and effective auto-attacking.

ADC Champions

AD Carries usually just use only one champion type – Marksmen. There are exceptions but those require advanced team compositions for more experienced players. Marksmen scale very well in terms of damage which is why they are valued in the bottom lane.

5. Support

Among all the League of Legends roles, support is the most selfless role in the games and is great for beginners that want to learn how to play the game. Supports, like the name suggests, basically assist the team by playing champions that increase another ally’s capabilities. Supports aren’t required to make game-breaking plays, although high-level support players are able to create a heavy impact on the game.

A humanized version of Soraka on ice
My team is my priority
The Jungle Overview
  • Lane: Dragon Lane
  • Learning Difficulty: Easy
  • Responsibilities: Protect the ADC, Assist Allies, Buy Support Items, Provide Vision
  • Champion Types: Enchanters, Guardians, Tanks
  • Players to Watch: CoreJJ, Vulcan, Mikyx, Meiko, Ming

Support Responsibilities

If you’re a beginner aspiring to be a support, you don’t have to do much. Just fight when you’re ally is engaging in a fight and try to protect them when they are in danger. Advanced supports are in-charge of a lot of things such as roaming, vision control, and engaging but those are things you can learn later on in the game.

Support Champions

Support champions generally don’t deal a lot of damage but have a lot of heals, shields, buffs, debuffs, CCs, and other abilities that help in a fight. These champions thrive without building a lot of items since they rely mostly on proper ability execution rather than damage dealing. However, supports do need to be a bit tanky since they’ll serve as cannon fodder when things go wrong during an important teamfight.

Choosing The Right League of Legends Roles

League of Legends roles depend on a player’s character and playstyle. When choosing what role you want to play, the most important thing to keep in mind is to observe how you play League of Legends and which champions you think you have the most fun playing. Don’t limit yourself to playing only one role so that you can get a feel of which roles you feel yourself most comfortable playing. Sometimes, find the right role can take weeks or months of playing before you realize it.

Zed standing on top of rooftops
Do you know what it is that you are?

There are also players who aren’t limited to playing one position but choose to play all the League of Legends roles. Although, that requires a lot of experience in playing League of Legends so practicing all the roles will be their top priority. The importance of playing one role gives you an identity and gives you an edge in the long-term because it allows the player to have a deep mastery over the specific role. Even the most flexible players should choose to at least one role they like to play more often than the others.

What To Do If You’ve Chosen THe Right Role?

Once you’ve chosen which of the League of Legends roles you want to play, all that’s left is to play the game and start grinding solo queue. Players that want to jump right into the fun might want to Buy Level 30 League Accounts so that they don’t have to spend so much stuff being forced to play the tutorial. However, if you have literally 0 experience playing MOBA games, you might want to power through levels 1 through 30 so that you get a nice feel of the game.

League of Legends is an extremely fun game but the competitive aspect can really turn off a lot of aspiring players. Even casual games require a system to them which a lot of players take seriously. Just remember this when you’re playing your first game so that you won’t get too overwhelmed with the way players take the game so seriously.

What is the least popular role?

The least popular League of Legends role is probably jungle because of how difficult it is to learn the mechanics. This is followed by support because most players like to be the playmakers instead of playing selfless roles.

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