League of Legends: Clash of Fates

But that's an understatement, ITS not that he doesnt have access to all champions. Is that he doesnt have access to ANY Champ. Champs, and the whole game plays completely different.
This is like Giving someone Street fighter alpha 2 and say its like playing street fighter 3, but without access to all content. Because well you have ryu in both.

So he is asking strategy advice for ryu in Street fighter 3, when he first needs to play a lot of games in street fighter alpha 2.

Thanks for the input!

Waterd, maybe a compromise is to ask how I can get closest to the real game during grinding. What characters/strategies/whatever are least dependent on runes/masteries? (I realize that all of them are dependent to some extent, but what is the least bad?)

There are 7 roles or archetypes.

Tank

Bruiser/Melee dps/D&D Barbarian

Assasin

Mage/Nuker/Ranged AP/D&D wizard

Melee nuker

Support/D&D Bard/RPG priest

Ranged DPS/Ranged AD/Archer.

Most people try every role, and then Focus on a few, eventually instead of playing more as people tend to think they end to playing less and less roles to specialize. I guess you may try to see what roles you like better.

There is also Lineup distribution. The game divides into two phases. Lane (where people dedicate to farm) and whatever non lane (where people move around the map and dedicate to push/fight etc).

During lane champs go to specific spots that determine a lot how they are gonna play the early game.

SOLO: Wich means the champion is solo in a lane , generally 1v1. And dedicate to farm (Most Ranged AP and melee nukers tend to do this, Assasins, also tend to do this.)

DUAL: Which means two champions go to the lane (Supports/Tanks/Bruisers and ranged AD tend to do this)

JUNGLE/ROAMING: Champion does not go to a lane , instead go between lanes killing neutrals or trying to kill champions. (mostly Tanks, bruisers and Assasins)

At full level account, the formation is 2 solos, 1 dual and 1 jungler as standard.

But since Jungling is terrible at low level account , at low level the most common thing is 2 dual lanes and 1 solo.

Doing solo, is the closest you are gonna get to the real experience, specially mid. AS dual lanes should play different. Dual lanes should not push the lane trying to allow the jungler to gank. But in low level account you can do WHATEVER. Because no jungler. I guess you can learn to farm. Which is what Ranged AD and RANGED AP are gonna end doing a lot anyway. IF you find its not fun then you know those are not your type of champs.

If you are sent to dual (wich you will 80% of games) I find hard how you can do anything that resembles the real game. Specially because your lane partner will most likely suck and do stupid things. But so do you your opponent. I guess you could pick a ranged AD and FARM .

Again, I strongly recommend buying an account.

And I recommend playing an account to level 30, whether or not you buy another account for more runes/Champions/etc.

You will learn a lot on that way - if you are willing to and watch for learning opportunities

Snowballing is probably the biggest concept in that game which many people don't understand. It's not that you are doing poorly in one game and amazing in the next. It's more, that you did well/poor at ->a certain point<- in the game, which snowballed to the end. (You are ahead and use that advantage to get even further ahead. Same applies to "being behind")

And most importantly, /ignore is your friend. Getting upset/frustrated about shit talkers wont do any good. Simply /ignore them.

Yeah , you learn a lot of things along the way, that could learn also when you are level 30. More important You will learn a lot of things that are useless and are wrong because only apply to lower than Level 30.

I dont understand this argument where playing 300 games in 30 different power levels will teach you more than playing 300 games at level 30 power level which is where you are going to play the rest of the games.

I wouldn't buy an account simply because it is a bannable offense and I'd be really pissed if my money got banned

On the other hand, I am lvl 23 by now and it really felt grindy until lvl 20. If I started new I'd buy tier 1 runes until lvl 20 instead of waiting.
Also I bought a champion bundle now I have enough champs for a long time. Guess I haven't played half of them ...

Honestly, this whole "you are not playing the real game until 30" is kinda silly since there's a new champion/patch every few weeks. You are not EVER playing the real game because the real game quintessentially exists for about 20 days at times. Maybe 2-3 months if the changes aren't big enough. Maybe with the exception of jungling, that thing seems kinda stable and heavily influenced by your level.

@Waterd: I've got one single point to playing up to level 30 yourself, which is at least for me worthwhile enough to do it:

You are more open minded if you try out things yourself. Yes, most ideas/things/tactics will get replaced by superior stuff later on. But not everything.

I dont want to be close minded, so I would like some one else to jump in. But I dont understand how that point, its a point at all.

"You are open minded if you try things yourself" How is this related to leveling up from 1 to 30 is better than starting at 30?

Yes true. IT just makes the bad, less bad, but still bad.

I fail to see the positive of 1 to 30 over starting at 30.

Because not everyone is a Dota Veteran and these games are overwhelmingly complex if you aren´t familiar with them.
While going from 1-30 keeps you among Players that are either new as well or smurfs which usually are quickly identified and elevated.
You don´t have to deal with jungling because it requires Runes and Masteries to be effective.
You will more often play with and against a familiar group of Champions which makes it easier to adjust.

I´d more describe it as Ryu taking 10 hits to KO instead of 8 and the matchmaker spits him out twice as usual.

PeterBB if you want to play with somebody else who is still learning you can add Jubeh.

Imagine playing three hundred hours of super turbo, where ryu's fireball has only one speed and his srk isn't invincible

Then at 100 hours he gets his overhead attack.Holy shit, you have to relearn your entire ground game because now he has a high low mixup and your previous time was worthless. Then at 150 hours his fireballs have three different speeds! Suddenly you have to relearn the entire fireball game because you can change speeds and actually zone effectively. Then at 200 hours, you get ryu's hurricane kick and air hurricane! There are a ton of matchups where that is useful, now you have to relearn your air and ground game because it is very different with the hurricane kick option. At hour 250, your srk becomes invincible! Well that obviously changes a lot of things, because for the past 250 hours you have learnt that you can't anti air jumpins with the srk, but now you can. You can beat grounded moves now too! And then at hour 300, you finally get the super, which of course changes how ryu plays, especially vs fireball opponents.

It just kind of goes like this, where you keep learning the wrong version of ryu. For 300 hours, you learn the wrong version of ryu, the wrong way to play matchups. And then at hour 300, you finally get to start playing the actual, full version of ryu, so you might as well reset the clock back to zero, because all your muscle memory regarding ryu is wrong.

In unt's view, this is the correct way to go, instead of spending 300 hours learning the entire ryu, it is better to learn the bad ryu, and then have to spend even more time overall relearning everything because you learned the bad way first

In my opinion, why not spend 300 hours with the whole, entire ryu?

Ofcourse, I have to side with WaterD and Cwheezy.... if your worried about playing vs experienced players, just play with some friends. Otherwise losing isnt too bad, but it really is a team game so having people to play with is optimal. The rune and mastery changes by the time you reach 30 are just too much... also you only can use free champs which rotate every week.... But unless you want to spend copious amounts of money, you need the IP to buy runes not champs.

Your better off paying 40 for a lvl 30 account in such a case.

40$ for a level 30 account is a good deal if you are confident in your abilities. The grind to level 20 is pretty long. Not unbearable, but definitely long. I think it has ONE major quality : it makes bans a very significant threat in a F2Play game.

Then the rune purchasing is a long, too long, boring process. A drilling pain the ass. Especially if you want several ruen pages (which is indispensible to play several classes). Champs are pretty cheap ... provided you buy the cheap ones. There are not systemetically worse than good ones (see Waterd's list), though some good champs are expensive, and so are the best pubstompers.

But you can get good champs for 450 to 1350 IP In each of the 7 class

Tank :
Singed, Mundo (VERY good at non top level), Amumu, Nasus

Bruiser:
Sion, Poppy, Ryze

AP Carry :
Annie, Veigar

AD carry :
Ashe, Ashe (yes I cheated on this one)

Assassin :
Annie, Ryze, Poppy

Melee nuker :
Mr Yi, Tryndamere

Support :
Morgana (really avoid Soraka), Nunu (a good jungler even with little levels)

And Janna support at 1350.

Soraka is good though, and morgana is not

I think you need to find a group of friends to play with - that's almost as important as lvl 30 account. It's a completely different game between Solo and Premade games. I think Solo games are good to practice basic mechanics (stuff like last hitting, skill shots, general map awareness, etc) but team play is a whole different monster.

yeah, yeah

Try and play support soraka in a low level game, I need a good laugh. Healing the banzai DPs and "guard the newus" tank is SOOOO rewarding.

While noone answered my offer, I proposed a 1200 ELO tier list for a reason : some champ are pathetic at low level play while others melt faces (going where he pleases)

What exactly do you have to relearn because of new masteries / runes / summoners as you progress from 1 to 30?

The primary reason beginner play is different is that you are a beginner playing with other beginners, not because runes and such somehow completely change the game.

A bunch of good players playing level 1 characters is going to look pretty similar to good players playing level 30 characters, the primary difference being some jungling chars.

This. In a low-level game Morgana is good. (Hell Hotshot still plays her at a higher Elo than anyone here so she can't be that bad.) In a low-level game Soraka is completely worthless.

The balance of jungle changes from 1-30, some characters can't/couldn't jungle without the right masteries and runes. Soraka was (is?) a lot stronger in a no-rune no mastery setup than she is at 30, though appearently she's pretty strong at 30 still, and I believe the same applies to all healer or low AP ratio type champions. There's also the game pre-flash and the game once people have flash.

The question isn't whether or not LoL at 30 and 1 has differences - obviously it does. The question is how big are they are do they require you to relearn a lot of stuff? My answer is no. I can't think of a single thing I had to relearn once I hit 30.

Hmm well... I mean the fundamentals are the same which is most likely what you're going to learn on the way to 30. I can't disagree with that. But team strategy and specific evaluations will change and if you've been working on those you need to relearn. More so than anything I'd say there are somethings you can't learn until high enough level.

Out of curiosity is Lol the first MOBA you played? I feel like the experience might be different between someone new to the genre and someone who already has strong fundamentals from DotA.

I actually made this exact point in my post and then edited it out. LoL is the first MOBA I've played for any real length of time. I've played DOTA and the SC2 SOTIS but only in very small amounts.

My experience as someone not very familiar with these games is that on the journey from 1 to 30 I'm learning the basic strategy, some of the champions, the items, etc. The fact that I can have 20 flat extra AP thanks to runes or that flash somewhat changes certain types of confrontations is really almost completely irrelevant compared to basic stuff like jungling, becoming decent at laning, last hitting, learning what enemy champs do, map awareness, learning how to position yourself, etc.

For someone who is not already familiar with MOBAs the idea that you should focus on grinding to get to the "real" game seems very silly to me. One of the best things about playing at low levels is that you can experiment and learn in an environment where people aren't a million times better than you and don't berate you for playing sub-optimally or choosing the "wrong" guy or whatever. 1 to 30 is basically a tutorial, and a lot of people are still bad at 30.

The difference is more in having a coordinated Team, not in +78 HP. What you are thinking of is elo not summoner level.

Really, what actually IS a great idea at low summoner level but bad at a high one? And I don´t mean "low level summoners are bad, use pubstomp champs/strats". What if it was a gimmick tournament where high elo teams played at summoner 1?

There'd be no flash, so games would probably be pretty active.

This is an interesting conversation. :)

Why is jungling considered so terrible at low levels? Seems like it would be effective if no one is used to it. The routes are harder, obviously, but you're not likely to get ganked so running with low HP seems ok? What am I missing?

It isn't that you have to relearn things at level 30. It is that up until that point, you are learning the WRONG things.
I'm fine with stronger players destroying me. I'm not fine with stronger players destroying my teammates, then because of that, destroying me.


Peter:
Runes and masteries are really important for jungling and is really really hard or maybe ineffective to do it before you have lots of good runes.

Good runes for jungling are attackspeed marks, armor seals.

Such as?

For one thing the other team most likely won't have jungler which means someone will be in a 1 v 2 lane and most likely die a bunch. Your team will also probably lack the coordination to gank effectively so that strength of jungling is also wasted.

Jungling is little harder now than it was before and that combined with lack of runes and smite (I forget when you get smite) means you may die or just be slow.

Runes/masteries seem to diversify the uses of each champion. Someone might suck at jungling at lvl 1, but have the options to do it effectively at lvl 30, as well as maybe tank, or go pure damage output. Maybe there are optimal strategies for certain characters, and I would tell Riot to fix those characters or retool their system in that case. They could just build the characters with the exact stats they want rather than letting people mess up and pick sub-optimal strategies (but then it wouldn't be skinners box in trying to get people into the game before the "real" game starts, lol).


I think the argument people are making is that it's like everyone is learning a slightly different game until they hit lvl 30. It'd be like playing Guilty Gear, but you're not allowed to use faultless defense for the first 20 games, dead angles for 20 more, instant blocks for 20 more, bursts for 20 after that, another 30 for slashbacks, another 40 for force breaks, another 40 for overdrives, and another 50 for instant kills.

May can win with an opening 6P counter hit > instant kill against characters like Chip/Dizzy/I-No, and it's invincible from the knees up. Do you think a May player is going to care to count that in his valuation if IKs aren't unlocked? Do you think he would bother learning it for the few times it comes up if he can't use it? He has to wait to play the real game with all his resources, and that sucks. What would an Eddie do if you told him about negative edging, but then told him he had to play 100 games to unlock it before he could use it? What if he had to play 100 hours worth of games to unlock it? Why would anyone pick Eddie in that case if they knew that they couldn't use his optimal stuff? Why make people who want to learn Eddie learn stuff that they're not going to be using later?

The worst case would be characters who rely on stuff for a matchup. It would change the dynamics and yomi in a horrible way if you couldn't reversal super because you hadn't unlocked it, or couldn't backdash.


I realize it's not the best analogy, and it's probably bordering on Strawman, but if this is the point, I agree with it. I doubt that situations come up as drastic as rock/paper/scissors where one player hasn't unlocked rock yet, but it's still bogus that you're learning gimped characters for the whole game until you unlock what lets them be diverse. It's only in there to get people addicted to the game.

Runes only give you stat changes, not new abilities. That's a very apples to oranges comparison.

The only things that give you new abilities/mechanics as you level are summoner spells and you get the last one at pretty low level.

If people want to add me, I'm "Semiel" on LoL.

This makes sense, but seems to be an ELO problem rather than a grinding problem, yes?

You start with smite (I think? or get it early). Based on some experimentation with practice games, it seems totally feasible (with maybe a hundred gold blown on early health potions) to survive the jungle with level 8 (you need the experience boost masteries) warwick or amumu. I would believe it's too slow though, that might make sense.

Yes and no. If you are lucky and get a decent top solo your team will stomp like crazy 1/1/2+jungle vs 2/1/2. Since being low elo and being a decent solo vs 2 player doesn't really correlate.

You can jungle with smite and some champs. Imo best is Nunu, he is 450 IP, so you can have him after 3-4 games and he is a jungle monster on lvl 1.

Honestly for me the biggest problem on lower levels is not the chaning power of my champ (jungling excluded) but the randomness of opponents early game power due to summoner level.
My own level changes slow enough so that I can adjust and be happy with every change, but the difference between a lvl 19 as an opponent and a lvl 30 solo opponent is just huge. In one game I might be stomping and winning the lane by just spamming my nukes since my opponent easily runs out of mana and the other game he flat out wins the dual. So my evaluation from one game can not be trusted in the next.

EDIT:

Some pages ago WaterD said Deathcap is bad due to limiting item choices and locking into AP-stacking.
I think it could be easily fixed if deathcap didn't give so much ap itself. Like having a horrible AP/gold ratio even with unique bonus and compensate by giving some other bonus. cd-reduction, magic-pen or some other offensive stat to keep its glass-cannon character seem to be the way to go, though I think cd-reduction seems to be best. That way it wouldn't burst so hard as first item but be better at sustained dps. Also you wouldn't want it on your blue buff-carrier as much.

ok So since margalis ruined the flow of the thread , plz peterBB if you have something to ask do it so.

1. lvl 19 vs. lvl 30: That either means the lvl 30 is as bad as the lvl 19 guy even with the bonuses in stats (like, maybe, he bought the account?) or he is teaming up with another friend who himself is very low/"bad".
The first isn´t a real issue since the system disfavours level discrepancees naturally. Even then a Summonerlevel comes with an inate elo boost, the lvl30 guy is considered to be worse!
The 2nd is an unfortunate byproduct of being a Teamgame. Preventing premades if the elo/summonerlevel isn´t close enough would be a horrible "solution".

Regarding "statdifferences invalidate my learning process". Man up. The bi-weekly patches have FAR bigger disruptions than gaining runes. Hell you can´t even tell what runes/masteries someone has, just being 30 doesn´t mean someone is using T3 runes.

AP champions and items in general have more utility and survivability already, if their max-damage build DIDN´T limit their choices it´d make them even more dominant. The hat makes it an actual tradeoff between stacking "raw" AP and getting more utility/support builds with CDR, substainability or durability.
There is a boatload of "bad AP but..." items already. The initial concept for "ultimate AP damage" was lichbane when riot still thought AP carries would get to autoattack.
AP carries NEED a pure offense damage and nothing else item or balancing for them becomes really iffy like it was when Zhonyas Ring was in.

With no leveling (like WaterD wants) this problem would be nonexistent!

And yes, I am not talking about super bad lvl 30s being matched with on lvl 19 level but about teaming up with a lvl 10 friend.
I think it would be better in this situation to have a sidekick system that buffs the low level friend close to the level of his high teammate or nerf the lvl 30 guy down to lvl 10 (restricting runes and masteries). He still ownes due to higher skill.

The problem is casters are worthless early with no item. Then they get deathcap and they become top shit until everyone levels up a bit, gets some defense item etc.
That is not how it should be played. Deathcap has percentage based boost, so it should be a late-game item imo.

Anyway it is no major problem. What would you do to add diversity to caster builds? At the moment only ryze goes mass mana + tank + cd reduction. Everyone else goes deathcap and massive ap.

@PeterBB:
Don't hesitated to jump in and talk about s.th. else.

With time you learn to do this fairly consistently.

Wait, your solution to mismatched premades is a stathandicap/boost but you also say that it won´t do anything anyway since skill thrumps it anyway? Thats literally a placebo!

It´s an amazing occurance isn´t it? Carries that rush buying a expensive lategame item with expensive components have a crappy early game but end up really powerfull if they manage to.

Buying different items has no value in itself. It´s a problem if champions have different roles but buy the same items, like when everyone stacks gold/10 even though they aren´t low income support.
AP stacking carries building the AP multiplying item is intentional and it´d be an issue if they didn´t!
It´s just like how critbased champions always end up with Infinity edge. It´s not an issue for an item to be used for it´s purpose.
Like Banshees Veil which is supposed to be for champions that need to prevent incoming CC like Nunu but instead became the no-brainer defensive item for anyone.

Stathandicap do something. I think lvl 30 playing with some lvl 5 friend usually ends up with the lvl 30 rofl-stomping. They can go to midlane with an ok solo champ destroy everything not with skill but simply with superior stats.
Try play <= lvl 19 vs lvl 30 solo mid. You know the game, you stand a chance by playing super defensive but you can't win except with hardcore skill advantage. But anyone coming up from lvl 1 has no chance at all.
Now if the lvl 30 had to play with equal runes/masteries as the lvl 19 he'd still be better, but the lvl 19 had a chance if he plays right.

The issue is not that they are buying it. The issue is, lots of them are buying it first. I think an percentage based super lategame item should be bought as third or forth item and before that other items should provide a greater bang for the buck.
Since you don't get to your third or forth big item as often as to your first/second most other items would see more play. And for sick lategame ap the item should be as strong as ever.

EDIT:
Additionally I think Infinity Edge should not give so much damage. I feel the unique effect makes it a great item for crit-based champs, but crit is a very lategame stat (you need damage and armor penetration to get nice crits). Therefore I think Infinity Edge should require other damage items first to be useful and not be build first on ad-dps.
I don't think a full build champ with infinity edge/deathcap should be weaker than now, I think damage multiplying items should be weaker in their multiplying stat so that you have to get your damage up before multiplying it.

EDIT2:
Maybe it is just my personal flavor and the items are perfectly fine... Definitly a minor issue compared to summoner levels.

Ha ha ha. Nobody cares, stop crying.

But this just isn't true. A lot of casters will go Rylai's for RoA or Hextech first. I've seen people argue that you should never rush Cap because the percentage boost is wasted unless you already have another AP item. Some non-support casters either don't get cap or get it pretty late after the game is often already decided.

Also I disagree with your analysis of the stages of the game. Casters are not worthless early with no early super-item. Annie can do a ton of damage at 6+ without any item. So can Malz, Anivia, Brand, Fiddle, etc. As Cass you should own your lane against nearly anyone without any items, unless they have a combination of massive MR and sustain. As Morg I usually don't get a cap unless I have a huge early game. (Hourglass is just too good for ult)

Cap is obviously very good but the idea that everyone is weak, rushes cap, then becomes strong doesn't match the reality and I think the Dreamhack games prove that.

It's pretty common to see IE as the first major item, but it's also common to see Manamune, Sheen or Black Cleaver. (Sometimes even Bloodthirster) To me those items are in a pretty good spot. Sure, crit-based champs probably want the crit-based item (makes sense) but everyone else has a pretty good selection of viable items.

Levels are part of the game, and the game success prove you somewhat need to deal with it. Most players like levels and feel that you need to EARN them. Hence a sideckick system will probably not be implemented. A pay 30$ for instalevel 30, on the other hand, would be fair game.

A huge level difference is often compensated by a skill difference.

Comapring to the game at release :
* casters have far higher AP ratios. Old Annie was baseline
* having a pure AP item is good, the hold hourglass made no sense.
* the hat is too good, it overshadows other item by being too gold efficient as an AP item(200 AP for 3600 gold). Reducing its base AP (say+100) for a boost to ratio (say 35) and a debuff to MR (-20) and gold cose (640g isntead of 1140 for merge) would be more interesting, making it a more "glass cannon oriented" item

Right now, at my low skill level, stacking boots 1 then hextech tome then boots 2 then hat then lichbane is so much better than any other caster build
... that I always build the same shit.
Hat is too good as it overshadows everything else and locks you in a max AP build (buy making AP, the best caster stat, even more desirable than it should be aginst other stats).

I hate the concept of a lategame item. Yeah I acknoweldge that some items become useless as time goes on, but when people describe a lategame item, it is like "I have this item to keep my usefulness even though other players now have items that are effective against me."

You should always feel the difference of an item before and after buying it and it shouldn't just be "my stat numbers are higher". Maybe this is an issue of skill and not design.

Levels don´t serve as handicap but to take complexity out of the game for beginners, favour matchmaking for new/inexperienced/very bad players.

The point of a handicap is to generate fair matchups between/among unequally skilled contestants. If summoner levels worked like that there would be no noobstomp smurfs. If a lvl 5 and a lvl 30 team up, yeah the lvl 30 will destroy. But he also will if they switch accounts.

I don´t see the idea of a low AP but high % Cap working. LoL doesn´t have items that are only good AFTER you have a certain other item for a good reason. If an item is supposed to be a extension to another one it´s a recipe in this game.
There are plenty items that are unrealistic to get first due to the pricetag and components but they work wonderfully. If you actually let someone afk farm from boots to deathcap then the issue isn´t the deathcap.

The problem is there are a lot of different caster stats, and deathcap makes non-AP ones irrelevant.

The real content dramatically changes the game. There's no point in trying to learn (aside from perhaps last hits, etc--and even then the timing will change, but that's not as big a deal) as what you're learning is probably going to be wrong. The best thing to do, as waterd said, is most likely to purchase an account with at least level 30 and some other stuff. That said, getting to level 30 is the easiest hurdle to pass. At that point you have to pick up runes and champions, and that takes significantly longer.

I would also recommend watching high-level streams. Some of them are junk, some of them are a bit better, but that's the only feasible way to see how the game is actually played for real. A lot of what you learn from that will be wrong, as well, but until you get up to at least level 30 it's honestly better than playing the game.

Try to play as many different characters as you can (again hampered by the grind!) so you can recognize their abilities and general playstyle. At this point i've played every character in the game except Yorick (the newest) and own most of them. If you're a specialist, you'll quickly find which characters you gravitate towards. That's well and good, but don't forget to try alternatives as (again) things might change as you get better and as your account advances.

Reading this thread will probably not help very much. As you can see by reading the last 10-20 pages, things change pretty rapidly.

Don't buy tier 1 runes. Buy champs. You'll probably just buy random champs that aren't valuable--by the time you get through the grind to the point where you're playing something resembling the "real game" the tier list/meta will probably be totally different anyway, so just buy stuff you'll enjoy. At some point they might become viable again so you may as well.

As we have said, find the niche(s) you like, realize you might not like them later, but then buy champs for those niches.

Don't jungle.

There isn't one, and people aren't arguing that there is (despite their best efforts).

Most obvious one that comes to mind is pushing. At low levels you'll crush your opponents (if you have the right character) and then roll up their base. At high levels your opponent will just farm and you'll get ganked and die twenty times in ten minutes and then the other team will roll up your base with their superfarmed carry.

See: Morde is game-ruiningly unbalanced at low levels, but irrelevant and (largely) unseen at high levels.

Another good example would be playing "early game" characters and running around facestomping the other champions. At high levels they'll just flash away and you'll waste a lot of your time, then won't scale into the late game. Fortunately for LoL there are very few characters like this, and the ones who are tend to not be awful at higher elo. Currently the early game is really important.

Stack heal.

When accounts were reset, heal stacking completely blew out all other strats. Heal, and heal stacking, is insanely good at low levels. At low elo it gets even better as people don't know how to focus correctly and won't take ignite/use other counters to heals. In addition, people don't build their characters correctly and don't scale as well in general (due to lack of masteries/runes) so "pure" healers aren't free kills late game. At level 1 you can't even take ignite. There are two reasons this strat doesn't dominate low level play:

1. Low level players are idiots and don't coordinate effectively.
2. If you pick a pure healer you're going to spend all your time healing idiots and hoping they don't run into fountain turret and die.

Jungling is balanced based on you maintaining even levels with someone in lane. Specifically, it's balanced around you maintaining even levels with full runes/masteries tuned towards jungling while playing a top jungle character. (Currently, i think, it's Warwick.) If you don't have that character you're slower. If you don't have the runes/masteries you're slower. If you're slower you don't keep up. If you don't keep up your ganks are slower, your ability to contribute to the team is reduced over the long term, and your odds of just being a burden on the team go up dramatically. Warwick doesn't suddenly become good late-game, he's good early game. (He has a good trick late game, but he's not amazing. Early game he's fantastic, both in lane and jungle.) Because of this, if you're slower at jungling you can't contribute during the periods of the game when you're allowed to make a contribution.

Now, if you know what you're doing and know your solo ally won't get blown out by a dual lane (see above for "pushing is good at low levels") then go for it, but when i pull up a smurf account and play with some low-level friends even i don't jungle.

In this thread: people don't get the difference between elo and summoner level.

Very few of the things WinterAyars mentions has anything to do with summoner level at all.

You are absolutely right. There is practically nothing you can learn with a level 30 account that you can't learn with a level 1 account, because if you're good enough to play with good players, ELO will realize that and you can play with them at level 1. Player skill outweighs the advantages from runes and mastery points by a large margin. Conversely, if you buy a level 30 account and you're new, you'll lose constantly, the system will realize that and you'll quickly be playing with other new players. If you start with a new account you'll win around half the time, a little more if you're talented, a little less if it takes you longer to learn, and you'll have fun. If you buy an account you'll probably spend more time doing nothing but losing before you get to have that experience. It's not worth the money to buy a level 30 account unless you are both A. already good at the game and B. impatient.

Like in an MMO, you will spend the vast majority of your time in LoL playing at max level. It doesn't take very long to get to max level compared to the amount of time most people who like the game end up playing it. There's no reason to be in a hurry. Stop and smell the roses.

Job while I disagree,
would you rather have the stupid leveling and grinding system over just having all champs and runes and masteries and spells unlocked for a flat amount of money?

I think everyone answers this the same simply because it had to be really expensive to not have a very high content/value ratio in comparison to the current prizing.

Currently levels are a handicap for less skilled players. Lets compare to a yomi. It as if master players had 1-2 starting hand card more than students. You think that is good? Beginners have to earn their additional hand cards while losing horribly vs master players all the time?
If the master level player is better skillwise, teams will be hard to balance for a fair match already. Add this and it gets ridiculous.
And between level 10 and 20 you got to play 30s every second game. gg

Recipes are used to condense cheap items into bigger once due to limited inventory space. Also you don't want to expand the inventory since it is more accessable with only 6 slots.
It is too good ap/gold wise imo. It is even better than only NLR for the same gold with no other AP. And several NLR take more slots in the inventory.

AP is the glasscannon stat for a good reason: it has no other use and items reflect that.
What other stat would be usable? Mana? Naturally tanky, look at Ryze who is a tanky caster purely thanks to his item builds.
Manaregen? Highly volatile due to bluebuff and chalice.
Magicpenetration? Already works and is near impossible to stack properly for this very reason. It´s one of the more confusing stats actually since it splits your optimal damageoutput between targets: flat penetration for low MR targets and % penetration for high MR targets. The problem with that is that you need to theorycraft first to understand this.
Cooldownreduction? Capped at 40% which even glasscannons can reach naturally without even building for it due to bluebuff, elexier and Masteries/runes + even one item.

Builds that are not pure AP serve a different purpose than the ones that do. Non-Deathcap builds WILL do less damage but grant other stuff. If you are an AP carry you obviously go for the damage.
Otherwise you can go Archangels for manasustainability. Rylais for the utility of the slow. Mejais in an attempt to snowball. Rod of Ages to bring in durability and substainability. etc.

Regarding the rest: Margalis nailed it. "Low level players are idiots and don't coordinate effectively." is completely reliant on actual skill and has nothing to do with summoner level. There is no T3 Rune that says "coordination + 2" that only lvl 20+ summoners can buy.
Low level summoners aren´t bad because they are low level but because they are inexperienced. However there are plenty lvl 30 summoners that have no clue (maybe they bought the account?)

It even was an experiment Riot did where they asked players to play on a fresh account to follow their rating. They got to their "proper" elo long before they got to lvl 30.

Gee, that isn´t loaded at all. It depends if you actually want and use more than the free IP gain grants you. I mean, when I see accounts with 1000 Wins as cho I doubt that guy would want to pay XY$ "just" to play cho. Obviously there are also players that can´t stand NOT having everything (but don´t/can´t play enough to earn it) so for them the flat cost would be better.

Let me add my own little story to this discussion, and why I think, starting at level 1 is good opposed to 30.

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Before everything: I didn't play through the tutorial. I expected myself to be good enough without (as many others do) and I still don't know what's inside the tutorial.

I've never played a dota-style game before LoL. I only knew, that I can choose one of these champions that are lit up and that's it. I didn't know about the concept of AP, AD or tank-stats. Hell, I didn't even know you are supposed to buy items at the start of the first game.

Everything was new. The skills, the concepts, an ultimate, the items, the gameplay, the summoner spells, the passive, the lane-champion-distribution... The only thing that was obvious, was that I should destroy towers and the enemy Nexus. I didn't know that Towers only attack creeps if they are in range. Then I didn't know, that Towers attack me when I hit an enemy Champion under it.

At the time when I learned all these fundamental basics I was around level 10. It was about level 25 when I finally saw (not played) and understood the idea of every Champion in the game. I was still playing around with all the free champions, I was still trying out various things and I still didn't see everything (for example: I only then started looking at the passives).

For me it was not a grind to level 30. But a learning curve to things that are obvious for me by now. You really shouldn't underestimate the huge amount of information you actually know and consciously learned about this game.