Alright guys, welcome to another chapter of League of Legends series, this time we want to deep dive into the world of itemization! What should I buy for my champ? What’s the item order?
First, we have to define which kind of damages you will take despite the lane because during the team fights you will be most likely 4vs4 or 5vs5.
Different types of damage in LoL
Physical
A type of affliction dealt with auto attacks, champion’s abilities, minions, monsters, and towers. What mitigates this demolition? Yes, you guessed right, Armor!
Magical
Another type of damage from items, champion’s spells and on-hit effects. Magic resistance is used to mitigate this type of harm.
True
The kind of affliction, which can’t be mitigated by items, it does the exact amount of damage stated in the tooltip; the only way to block it is through invulnerability or health shields.
On top of these, there is also two more kind of important things, which are:
Critical hits
Based on the % of crit gained through runes, items, and champs abilities, it’s an additional hurt applied. There are items which can mitigate critical strikes, for example, Randuin’s Omen, but we will discuss this later on.
Pets
Affliction dealt by summoned units like Annie’s ultimate ability “Tibber”, damage done by her big bear (on hit and AOE) it’s pet demolition (and in this case, magic one).
If you want to become a better League of Legends player, climb the ladder or why not, just to learn a bit more about this game, buying correct items is one of the key points.
Now it is time to group different champs, based on the damage dealt
Tank
If you ever played any kind of MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing games) you know you need a tank in your team and LoL is no different.
I mean, you can do without tanks but usually, you want one of them soaking the damage while your backline is doing affliction to other opponents; tanks are normally known for dealing very small hurt themselves, but not on the rift! Depends on the meta, tanks are able to kill you while you try to do the same with an unsharpened knife.
Assassins
Same goes for this class of damage, in LoL you have an assassin, which is able to squishy members in a split of seconds with one or two shots.
Usually, they are playing midlane (ap assassin, magic, attack or physical demolition) or jungle (mostly AD, I’m watching at you kha’zix or rengar) jumping out of bushes and well. Kill you!
Bruisers
This is a fun class to play, building tankish and ad damage, people usually underestimate their strength until they get killed pretty fast (for example, Vi can be built full AD or bruiser, able to soak wounds while dealing a good amount of them).
AP mages
Dealing magic casualties, not one-shotting you unless they are fed or a couple of levels ahead with more items.
So, based on what you just read, you now should be able to buy League of Legends items correctly based on your lane enemy, right?
Take your time to read the description of each item (it’s not easy at the start but with experience, you will know what to build even during the loading screen).
One important thing you have to keep in mind is that minimap and TAB screen are your best friends during your games.
Looking at the minimap every 30 seconds helps you to have an overview of how other lanes are doing if the enemy’s midlaner is roaming to you or is recalling, if the enemy’s jungler is coming for you or he’s missing in action (aka farming).
TAB screen shows you what the enemy team is building so you can buy items accordingly: does the enemy ADC is Jinx? For sure he will build some attack speed item, or critical strike, adapt! Find the right stuff to prevent getting killed too fast during the team fights!
Itemization it’s the second step to gain ELO and rank in games (first step it’s always the vision, aka reading minimap and ward), when you open item shop you will see some “recommended” things, based on your lane and champ. Well, if you are playing vs bots or you really have no clue about what to buy it’s ok, but don’t rely on it because it doesn’t take into the account who you are facing with.
There are many websites around which show you the build used by pro players or the most used items for that particular champion, this can help you a bit but you have to read between the lines.
As I told you, experienced players build items according to the enemy and not because this champ must build that specific armor, learn to read between the lines, check why this pro player got spirit visage while playing maokai top, or why Kayn went blue form building lethality item.
Another point I want to stress you guys out is boots!
I know boots, like wards, do no damage but trust me when I say to get boots at your first or second recall, speed movement it’s tasty for you to escape a gank or to be faster than your opponent, and the outcome can be a kill which will be based on your walking speed.
You should get Tier 1 boots at your second recall and this means, if everything went well so far, at level 5 or 6.
The second tier of boots gives an enhancement like reduced snares duration, reduced the cooldown on abilities and much more. Adapt your itemization based on your performances: does the enemy team has many champions with cc? I personally would get Mercury’s treads t2 boots and so on.
I hope with this guide I have clarified a bit your mind about League of Legends itemization and how to build correctly (keep in mind that the perfect build doesn’t exist and you must act according to the current match).
I’ll see you later in the next episode! GGWP Folks!
