League of Legends: Details 01

Continuing a brief overview of an intensely complex game I introduced forever ago, I'll now dive into the details concerning League of Legends.

In original PvP, which is available from level 1, two 5-person teams are set onto a relatively large battlefield in opposite corners behind their Nexus, in the shop. This location is central to the entirety of the game: the Nexus is what connects you, the Summoner, to the character you control ingame. As stated earlier, if either Nexus is destroyed, the battle is over, and the team whose Nexus remains wins the match. The shop also plays a large part in gameplay, combining with experience (mentioned later) to form half of the RPG portion of LoL. The shop is where you buy items for your champion that improve his/her various statistics, such as ability power, speed, and attack power. Though bonuses are small in the beginning, eventually items and their use makes a huge impact in deciding the outcome of the match. The other dynamics in the RPG aspect of LoL are the characters you control and the experience they gain. Each charater has a set of four skills which generally compose of three common-use skills and an 'Ultimate' that takes time to cool down but is extremely effective. Characters that break from this form are for advanced players only and are challenging to play and even harder to master. Each character falls into any number of different categories that define what they do on the battlefield - for example, mage, assassin, or tank. Experience is exactly what it sounds like - how 'experienced' your character is on the battlefied. In each new match, all characters start out at level 1, with one ability point to spend on a skill. This first point can often determine who gains the lead in the beginning, as it gives you the one ability you can use early-game. As characters advance in level, they gain more points to allocate, and by level 18, their first three skills are maxed at 5, while their 'ultimate', or last skill, is maxed at 3. Each skill point drastically increases the power of an ability, and this leads to drastic differences between characters within three levels of each other. When a character playing a lane alone (these characters advance much more quickly in level) moves to a different lane to assist the players there (this is referred to as a gank), they can devastate their enemies, generally advancing the team's goal of gaining gold, gear, and time.

To be continued in League of Legends: Details 02.
Next time around, I'll elabourate upon different abilities, and I might begin describing skills (no promises!).

Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls.
-Toast