starting-fights

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  • The Summoner's Guidebook: Teaming up to fight in League of Legends

    by 
    Patrick Mackey
    Patrick Mackey
    12.27.2012

    Grouping up to fight enemies together is a concept that is old as history itself. Numerous treatises on group warfare have been written, ranging from small unit tactics to battle strategies involving hundreds of thousands or millions of combatants. A lot of the same principles of combat that are used in warfare are applicable to games and especially to team-based PvP games like League of Legends. It might not be readily apparent how ideas like the mission of a Marine rifle team might apply to a five-player team in LoL, but there are more similarities than you think. The tools are different -- for example, games use different means to suppress the enemy than real soldiers -- but the tactics are surprisingly similar. This week, we're going to cover the beginning of a fight. Starting a fight at an advantage is important element in victory, as the opening seconds of a battle matter the most. If you can leverage an advantage early on in a fight, you can snowball that advantage into a decisive win.

  • The Summoner's Guidebook: Good team composition for League of Legends Dominion

    by 
    Patrick Mackey
    Patrick Mackey
    11.01.2012

    I would have loved to cover the IGN Pro League 5 this week, but at the time of this writing it is still ongoing. I'll do a brief overview of it next week, but its timing didn't mesh well with the timing of the Guidebook. I've been playing a lot of Dominion lately, and as many readers of the Summoner's Guidebook know, it's the gametype I focus my skills on. I try to build knowledge of League of Legends' other maps, including Summoner's Rift and the Proving Grounds/ARAM, but Dominion is definitely my focus right now (I haven't played much of the beta Twisted Treeline, so coverage of that will have to wait). One thing that really bothers me about Dominion, particularly as I creep into high level play, is that people still randomly pick champions without regard for a strategy. While I do think my overall skill has improved a lot, a major reason that I win 60-70% of my matches is because I look for where my team is deficient and pick a champion to cover that area. As you escalate into the intermediate levels of Dominion skill, a good arsenal of champions to fill roles can be a huge asset. This week, we'll look at some of the possible roles and compositions and some good champions to pick up to fill those roles.