I've been meaning to do this for a while, but this is going to be a thread containing my thoughts on how certain roles should be played, my thought process on a lot of things related to most champs and roles. Feel free to ask questions as well.
First things first... this is aimed almost exclusively at when we play ranked. I don't mind messing around with different things, or not warding 100% properly and such in normals, but in ranked, I want to play to win, not mess around. A lot of this is going to be stuff that has been repeated over and over again, but it needs to keep being repeated until everyone starts following it.
Solo top - This is going to be a farm lane. You need some kind of sustain or some way to push the other to lane out. This lane is the one that's most likely to receive the least amount of attention from the jungler and other lanes most of the time, so you need to be able to take care of yourself for the most part.
In ranked games, top needs teleport almost all of the time. The reasoning behind this is because you want to spend as much of the game as you can just farming up top, using teleport to jump across the map for team fights if needed, or dragons.
Typically these champs top lane are going to be bruisers or tanks because it's that much harder to push them out of lane or get a kill with a gank because of that.
Solo Mid - These are going to be your casters most of the time. They tend to be squishy so they want the smaller lane. Also gives good control over both blue buffs and dragon.
Flash/ignite are usually the spells for mid lane, though exhaust is also a good choice. Both spells help in securing kills.
One thing everyone needs to learn to do with ap mid champs is how to last hit with auto attacks only instead of spamming abilities to farm. By spamming abilities you are running yourself low on mana and potentially pushing the wave making it harder to gank. Lower mana on you means less chance of a kill, and pushed wave makes junglers sad when they want to gank. By all means spam the hell out of your stuff when you are about to go back to buy or something to push the lane. You want the lane to hit their turret because it denies them exp and gold from creeps killed by the tower. It's also a decent way of resetting the minions back to the middle of the lane.
AD Bot - Kaaden can probably add more to this than I can since this is my weakest role, but I do have a few things to say. If you pick AD bot, you HAVE to be able to last hit properly. An underfarmed ad carry is a bad thing, you want to get damn near every minion in a wave.
Flash/Exhaust are the usual spells for ad bot, ghost is also acceptable, and sometimes ignite.
One thing to keep in mind as ad bot is your choice of starting items should be influenced by two things, your laning partner and your enemies. If you have a sustain support laning with you (Soraka, Sona, Taric, Alistar), then a good choice of starting item is the Doran's Blade. Helps with last hitting, more HP, and a tad bit of lifesteal. If you don't have a sustain support with you (Janna, Leona, or whatever) then you are better off either starting with boots and 3 pots or cloth armor and 3 pots. This also applies if you think your opposing lane is going to be hyper aggressive (Taric/Cait, Alistar/Cait, pretty much anyone with some sort of cc/ranged ad.) In those cases you probably want to take cloth pots or boots pots to be able to stay in lane longer and get more last hits before going back.
Supports - Your job most of the time is going to be to be a CC bot, a ward bot, and the owner of the clairvoyance. I'd recommend getting gp/10 quints for supports. I'd also recommend taking the gp/whatever mastery. Supports thrive off of gp/5 items and quints/mastery. Typically a support doesn't want to take farm from the ad bot they are laning with (this is if that ad can last hit correctly though.) At the start of the game you can probably take a couple of last hits from the first two or three waves to rush your philo stone, but after that you're gold income is pretty dependent on assists and gp/5 items.
Flash and Clairvoyance are usually the spells you want, though with the buff to heal that's also acceptable sometimes. Ghost as well sometimes, though flash is usually better. Clairvoyance use... at the start of the game, cv their base to try to get an idea of what they are buying and potentially where they are heading to lane. After that, for the first couple of minutes of the game try to follow their jungler with CV when it's off of cooldown. Later on, once ganks start happening, dragons, or baron fights, try to use cv to give vision to bushes for ganks, check on dragon if you don't have ward vision on it, same with baron.
Wards... Supports should usually be the main people dropping wards. A gp/5 item + mastery + gp quints will give you more than enough income to sustain one ward down at all times, and after you get a 2nd gp5 item or 3rd, and some assists you should be able to afford more. After the 15-20 minute mark, or whenever "mid" game happens, you'll want to start carrying 3-5 wards as often as possible. Don't always just drop them all at once, only drop them when you need to get vision on baron/dragon, or if someone is about to push a lane and you want to give them vision to protect from ganks. They only last for 3 minutes, so you get a lot less out of dropping 5-6 wards all at once than you would with 2 or 3 wards dropped at spots that will give you vision you need and then 2 or 3 more later on somewhere else or when those wear off. Don't waste wards.
Also related, oracles. Most of the time, it's better for the support to have oracles and to periodically go ward sweeping near where they are using CV to grant vision of where you want to go ward sweeping if you don't have vision of the enemy. Once you get oracles, your job is to hunt wards when not in team fights. Not constantly, but every two or three minutes go ward sweeping around the lane you are in. In team fights, try to hang back and throw your CC out along with heals or shields or whatever and then stay back to try to preserve the oracles. Don't be afraid to die with it, but don't be reckless with it either.
Jungling This sums up a lot of my thoughts on how a jungler thinks. (Lazy man's way of not retyping the same stuff again.)
General Stuff - Map awareness. It's been said over and over, but I can't stress this enough. Every 5-10 seconds, glance down at the mini map and do a quick count of the enemies visible. If some are MIA, unless you know for a fact where they are, assume they are coming for you and play defensively until you have vision of them. Once you know they aren't coming after you, by all means be more aggressive in your lane and push the turret or zone/kill the enemy, but try to always make sure that you won't get ganked by doing so. Wards help with this.
About ward placement...
[spoiler]![[Image: oPbSM.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/oPbSM.jpg)
[/spoiler]
As you can see, and as Kaaden said in another thread, you don't want to place wards right next to the lane you are in or the lane you are pushing. You want to place them far enough way to give you vision if they start to come for you so you have time to recall. Also, as long as each lane keeps 1 ward down in the spots I marked in that image, the jungler can keep the 4th one down. By doing that, you have vision of every single exit of the jungle for the enemy jungler, making it much easier to avoid ganks. The only thing I didn't mark was warding the bushes in your lane for bot and top. Most of the time that's going to have to be a judgement call. But again, if each lane can keep 1 ward down where marked, and the jungler keeps the 4th, then their jungler becomes much less of an issue.
Last hitting properly - This is something everyone needs to work on. Kaaden, me, everyone. You can always get better at this. A decent goal to aim for is getting 4 out of 6 minions from each wave (not counting cannon minion waves, always kill the cannon minion.) For caster's try to work on being able to last hit with just auto attacks the majority of the time to conserve mana and not have to recall as often or not be able to help out in ganks. Another thing to keep in mind when in lane, if the enemy is pushing your lane with auto attacks and abilities, you want to push back almost as hard. Unless you can farm under your turret extremely well, you'll lose out on a lot of gold from lost cs to your tower if you don't keep the minion wave out of range of it. The other part of that is that if you know your jungler is not coming to your lane for a gank soon, or you know their's is across the map, push your lane to the tower to cause them to lose cs to it. Again, you don't want to do this without proper warding or without knowing where their jungler is though.
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I'll add more as I think of it.
First things first... this is aimed almost exclusively at when we play ranked. I don't mind messing around with different things, or not warding 100% properly and such in normals, but in ranked, I want to play to win, not mess around. A lot of this is going to be stuff that has been repeated over and over again, but it needs to keep being repeated until everyone starts following it.
Solo top - This is going to be a farm lane. You need some kind of sustain or some way to push the other to lane out. This lane is the one that's most likely to receive the least amount of attention from the jungler and other lanes most of the time, so you need to be able to take care of yourself for the most part.
In ranked games, top needs teleport almost all of the time. The reasoning behind this is because you want to spend as much of the game as you can just farming up top, using teleport to jump across the map for team fights if needed, or dragons.
Typically these champs top lane are going to be bruisers or tanks because it's that much harder to push them out of lane or get a kill with a gank because of that.
Solo Mid - These are going to be your casters most of the time. They tend to be squishy so they want the smaller lane. Also gives good control over both blue buffs and dragon.
Flash/ignite are usually the spells for mid lane, though exhaust is also a good choice. Both spells help in securing kills.
One thing everyone needs to learn to do with ap mid champs is how to last hit with auto attacks only instead of spamming abilities to farm. By spamming abilities you are running yourself low on mana and potentially pushing the wave making it harder to gank. Lower mana on you means less chance of a kill, and pushed wave makes junglers sad when they want to gank. By all means spam the hell out of your stuff when you are about to go back to buy or something to push the lane. You want the lane to hit their turret because it denies them exp and gold from creeps killed by the tower. It's also a decent way of resetting the minions back to the middle of the lane.
AD Bot - Kaaden can probably add more to this than I can since this is my weakest role, but I do have a few things to say. If you pick AD bot, you HAVE to be able to last hit properly. An underfarmed ad carry is a bad thing, you want to get damn near every minion in a wave.
Flash/Exhaust are the usual spells for ad bot, ghost is also acceptable, and sometimes ignite.
One thing to keep in mind as ad bot is your choice of starting items should be influenced by two things, your laning partner and your enemies. If you have a sustain support laning with you (Soraka, Sona, Taric, Alistar), then a good choice of starting item is the Doran's Blade. Helps with last hitting, more HP, and a tad bit of lifesteal. If you don't have a sustain support with you (Janna, Leona, or whatever) then you are better off either starting with boots and 3 pots or cloth armor and 3 pots. This also applies if you think your opposing lane is going to be hyper aggressive (Taric/Cait, Alistar/Cait, pretty much anyone with some sort of cc/ranged ad.) In those cases you probably want to take cloth pots or boots pots to be able to stay in lane longer and get more last hits before going back.
Supports - Your job most of the time is going to be to be a CC bot, a ward bot, and the owner of the clairvoyance. I'd recommend getting gp/10 quints for supports. I'd also recommend taking the gp/whatever mastery. Supports thrive off of gp/5 items and quints/mastery. Typically a support doesn't want to take farm from the ad bot they are laning with (this is if that ad can last hit correctly though.) At the start of the game you can probably take a couple of last hits from the first two or three waves to rush your philo stone, but after that you're gold income is pretty dependent on assists and gp/5 items.
Flash and Clairvoyance are usually the spells you want, though with the buff to heal that's also acceptable sometimes. Ghost as well sometimes, though flash is usually better. Clairvoyance use... at the start of the game, cv their base to try to get an idea of what they are buying and potentially where they are heading to lane. After that, for the first couple of minutes of the game try to follow their jungler with CV when it's off of cooldown. Later on, once ganks start happening, dragons, or baron fights, try to use cv to give vision to bushes for ganks, check on dragon if you don't have ward vision on it, same with baron.
Wards... Supports should usually be the main people dropping wards. A gp/5 item + mastery + gp quints will give you more than enough income to sustain one ward down at all times, and after you get a 2nd gp5 item or 3rd, and some assists you should be able to afford more. After the 15-20 minute mark, or whenever "mid" game happens, you'll want to start carrying 3-5 wards as often as possible. Don't always just drop them all at once, only drop them when you need to get vision on baron/dragon, or if someone is about to push a lane and you want to give them vision to protect from ganks. They only last for 3 minutes, so you get a lot less out of dropping 5-6 wards all at once than you would with 2 or 3 wards dropped at spots that will give you vision you need and then 2 or 3 more later on somewhere else or when those wear off. Don't waste wards.
Also related, oracles. Most of the time, it's better for the support to have oracles and to periodically go ward sweeping near where they are using CV to grant vision of where you want to go ward sweeping if you don't have vision of the enemy. Once you get oracles, your job is to hunt wards when not in team fights. Not constantly, but every two or three minutes go ward sweeping around the lane you are in. In team fights, try to hang back and throw your CC out along with heals or shields or whatever and then stay back to try to preserve the oracles. Don't be afraid to die with it, but don't be reckless with it either.
Jungling This sums up a lot of my thoughts on how a jungler thinks. (Lazy man's way of not retyping the same stuff again.)
General Stuff - Map awareness. It's been said over and over, but I can't stress this enough. Every 5-10 seconds, glance down at the mini map and do a quick count of the enemies visible. If some are MIA, unless you know for a fact where they are, assume they are coming for you and play defensively until you have vision of them. Once you know they aren't coming after you, by all means be more aggressive in your lane and push the turret or zone/kill the enemy, but try to always make sure that you won't get ganked by doing so. Wards help with this.
About ward placement...
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]As you can see, and as Kaaden said in another thread, you don't want to place wards right next to the lane you are in or the lane you are pushing. You want to place them far enough way to give you vision if they start to come for you so you have time to recall. Also, as long as each lane keeps 1 ward down in the spots I marked in that image, the jungler can keep the 4th one down. By doing that, you have vision of every single exit of the jungle for the enemy jungler, making it much easier to avoid ganks. The only thing I didn't mark was warding the bushes in your lane for bot and top. Most of the time that's going to have to be a judgement call. But again, if each lane can keep 1 ward down where marked, and the jungler keeps the 4th, then their jungler becomes much less of an issue.
Last hitting properly - This is something everyone needs to work on. Kaaden, me, everyone. You can always get better at this. A decent goal to aim for is getting 4 out of 6 minions from each wave (not counting cannon minion waves, always kill the cannon minion.) For caster's try to work on being able to last hit with just auto attacks the majority of the time to conserve mana and not have to recall as often or not be able to help out in ganks. Another thing to keep in mind when in lane, if the enemy is pushing your lane with auto attacks and abilities, you want to push back almost as hard. Unless you can farm under your turret extremely well, you'll lose out on a lot of gold from lost cs to your tower if you don't keep the minion wave out of range of it. The other part of that is that if you know your jungler is not coming to your lane for a gank soon, or you know their's is across the map, push your lane to the tower to cause them to lose cs to it. Again, you don't want to do this without proper warding or without knowing where their jungler is though.
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I'll add more as I think of it.
![[Image: Kaden2.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v403/Nezumi16/Sigs/Kaden2.jpg)
![[Image: Viper-Mini-Sig-Piper.png]](http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/ThundercatsHO/Viper-Mini-Sig-Piper.png)
![[Image: Zhu.jpg]](http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee314/Dirtbag_Bucket_2007/Zhu.jpg)
![[Image: Ashe.jpg]](http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/symbiosychotic/Ashe.jpg)