We translate as an example some sections of a post from the League of Legends subreddit “summoner school” titled “How to actually improve at League of Legends (not just tips).” In this text, one can observe that acquiring skills and leveling up is not an easy matter. The coach-author of this post is not joking at all: “you have to suffer to learn” lies behind a series of skill categories that include speed, dexterity, orientation in virtual spaces, as well as psychological condition. A 100% goal is definitely for strong nerves…
To start with, I want to emphasize that League is an incredibly complex game. It is multi-dimensional and multi-faceted in terms of skill requirements. The issue that many people have with things like: “These 7 tips will help you reach Diamond”, “This one trick got me to Gold”, “Just do these three things to improve” is that these really only work for the person who wrote them or for people who are very similar.
Let me explain the logic:
The game can often be divided into two components: game knowledge and mechanical skill. These are the broad general categories, but many important abilities belong to one of these, both, or neither.
1. Kiting [handling] – mechanical skill
2. Powerspikes [the timing in the game, depending on player choices, when each hero gains maximum power] – game knowledge
3. Map awareness – belongs to both categories (you should be able to look at the map frequently and quickly AND understand it)
4. Behavior/Attitude – belongs to neither category
Improving any of these abilities will have a positive impact on your gameplay. No one is more important than the others.For example:
Someone who never knew that last-hitting matters and usually didn’t have more than 30 CS [creep score – derived from the minions killed by the player] in 15 minutes starts trying to last-hit. Immediately, they jump to 70 CS in 15 minutes. This can be achieved in one day. It will take them a few days or weeks to reach 100 CS in 15 minutes, which is considered good CS. It may take months to achieve perfect CS. This increases logarithmically. [..]
Another way to view skill levels is like a scale [from 0 to 100]. Let’s consider this for map awareness.
0 – What is the map;
10 – I look at the map when I have died/am walking in lane;
20 – I look at the map when someone pings;
30 – I try to plan my games based on what I see on the map;
40 – I look at the map at least once a minute, even if no one pings;
50 – I use the map to decide whether I should trade with my opponent in lane or not;
60 – I look at the map several times per minute;
70 – I keep one eye on the map and tell my team (via ping or chat) what to do based on map information;
80 – I look at the map every few seconds;
90 – I use information such as the last time I saw [on the map] a champion and the direction of enemies in the fog of war to predict their likely locations;
100 – I look at the map between every CS…
Following the guide, 38 other abilities are mentioned, such as map awareness.
As for the performance indicators, we only reproduce two of the many acronyms explained by a member of the Greek forum of League regarding the challenge of “damage” to the opponent:
DoT/dot = Damage over time. Some debuff that instead of causing all the damage at once, does for example 30 points of damage every 5 seconds.
DpS = Damage per second. Also very often (especially in LoL) it means the hero whose job is to deal damage, as opposed to tanks and supports.
On the internet, there is a lot of such “bibliography” of this kind, if someone is interested in pursuing it further than what we have seen so far!
Shelley Dee
cyborg #07 – 10/2016