Roles and Lanes Guide LoL - How to play better in League of Legends

What are the roles in League of Legends - Current META

Currently, there are five of them: top lane, jungle, mid lane, AD Carry, and Support.  The origins of League of Legends may seem funny from the perspective of time. Back then, people had no idea which champion they should pick and why. Where to go and why. Only over the course of time, the biggest brains of LoL came to some conclusions, which we listed below. Let us then invite you to our Roles And Lanes Guide in LoL.

Table of contents:

Top Lane

Mid Lane

Jungle

Bot Lane - ADC and Support

Why the main one role?

Micro

Macro

How to open the base in LoL?

How to close the game in League of Legends?

Summary

The conclusions:

1. Champions that have all kinds of shields along with health and increased resistances benefit more from buying tanky items and being hard to kill while dealing with damage/using crowd control.

2. Champions with a form of sustain and gap-closers are the best in clearing the jungle camps and attacking (ganking) other lanes. Also, if the champion has some sort of a bonus for hitting monsters, he will work better in the jungle than in lane.

3. Champions that need fast power spikes, a lot of farm and experience work better in solo lanes, so they should go mid or top.

4. Champions thriving off of attack speed, critical strike, having some attack speed boost in their kit and dishing a lot of damage with their auto attacks are more powerful the longer game goes on. But they are usually weak early on, unsafe, so they need backup.

5. Champions with targeted heal and shields as well as attack speed and attack damage steroids became the backup for them. Also champions with low damage output, but high durability and ton of CC became perfect bodyguards since they could lock down enemies for years and provide great catch potential.

Many middle lane champions choose to go mid because it's the shortest lane and minions appear faster than in other lanes. Mid laners need their power spikes early in order to dominate the game. In theory in mid, you level up and farm up the fastest way.

Top lane is also a solo lane, but champions in the top don't need early power spikes. They can usually take their time to scale and beef up or dominate enemy laner. They also must be prepared for more independence and a kind of self-reliance. Mid lane is more about avoiding or outplaying ganks. Top, on the other hand, is more about surviving.

In particularly bad matchups you can lane swap. There is absolutely no reason why Yasuo couldn't go mid and Ryze top if they are counter-picked.

We will not go over tier lists for each role since they change with every patch. We'll just highlight a general premise of roles strengths and requirements to reign supreme on Summoners Rift.

Top lane 

By many players considered the best lane in the solo queue to play.

It's one of two solo lanes with overlooked carry potential. Assuming that you have absolutely zero support from your jungler, you are on your own. As befits 'Solo queue' is a solo game. The top is the least involved role in the early game.

How is that?

The middle lane has more than four different angles for ganking. Mid laner can have unexpected guests from the forest from both sides of the lane.

Bot lane is the closest to Dragon, which makes it attractive for ganks. ADC and support share the lane, affecting each other.

Jungler has the whole map under his custody and has to constantly follow enemy jungler while farming while ganking, while controlling vision, while making sure he's not getting outsmarted, everything at once. It also gets flamed the most.

In the top, you have your lane and your opponent. Your goal is to farm. When you can kill your enemy, you do it. When you get killed, you sit under your tower and farm. If you are able to read the opposing jungler movement, it all comes down to 1v1 gameplay. As long as you don't die eleven times, you should be fine, especially playing a tank.

When will you get ganked at the top? 

When you take bad trade, get low health and overextend past the River, the jungler may choose you as his next target.

This is why wave management is so important in the top lane. It not only sets up ganks for you but also makes it harder, for enemies to gank you.

Pros:

- independence and individualism,

- carry potential,

- solo farm and exp,

- the lowest impact from other lanes,

- versatile - you can go tank or carry or even marksman,

- stable in terms of the win condition.

Cons:

- not for you, if you lack confidence,

- requires a lot of game knowledge, matchup understanding, and good micro,

- often boring,

- mistakes are punished severely,

- requires tons of patience and a lot of practice,

- sometimes may lack impact on the game.

In-depth top lane guide.

Mid lane 

Another solo lane, where you don't need to share anything. The closest in the strategy to top lane, although slightly harder to play. Both in receiving and making an impact. In terms of the map influence, the only jungle has more territory under his custody. It is highly contested by the community (highest possibility of getting auto-filled ).

Mid is the shortest lane in-game and in theory the closest way to enemy Nexus. This for many players is the main reason to go there and push blindly in hope for victory, as they have a minimum understanding of the macro game dominated by assassins and mages.

Pros:

- 'the carriest' role,

- receives less flame than a jungle with almost equal impact on the game,

- extremely snowballing,

- designed for star players and leaders (provided they can actually play),

- the best for climbing.

Cons:

- the most gankable lane,

- the most contested one in Solo Queue (longest queues, lowest chances of landing it, 'Mid or feed'),

- skill and game knowledge dependant,

- hard to play from behind,

- arena of biggest fails and residence of 'mental challengers.'

In-depth mid lane guide.

Jungle

I think jungle is the hardest role in LoL. Requires the most game knowledge, basic maths skills and like no other role relies on decision making. One bad call may result in a lost game. Let alone the amount of flame that junglers receive, mostly not deserving.

Pros:

- global influence,

- potential to steal key objective,

- one of the highest carry potential,

- the most freedom,

- doesn't require proficiency in the last hitting,

- doesn't share lane or experience.

Cons:

- the most flamed role,

- requires the most game knowledge and correct shot-calling,

- hard to carry all three lanes,

- hard mid-game decision making,

- hard to play from behind.

In-depth jungle guide.

Bot lane 

THE current META sends two people down the bot. It began the moment when the community realized how important dragon taking is.

ADC 

These are usually marksman champions dealing great damage. AD Carry is also one of the more contested roles in the community due to being the main AD damage source in mid-game and late-game team fights. Their damage is compared maybe with mid laners and some carrying top laners. Also, in higher divisions, there is tight protection from supports and tanks, which makes it rather safe to play AD Carry.

They share the lane with supports and often winning games depends on the synergy between the duo.

Pros:

- high damage output,

- straight forward,

- include ranged champions,

Cons:

- hard to lane with bad support,

- highly focused by opposing team,

- responsible,

- requires good last hitting and positioning,

- mechanically demanding,

- often team dependant.

In-depth ADC guide.

Support 

The most overlooked and unappreciated among all the LoL roles. Support champions are often shielding or tanking type with the only job to protect carries, drop wards and/or stun/root/slow enemies. Some supports refer to their role as 'the punching bag for ADC.' It's because supports can protect, shield, peel, and heal, but none of them will make up for ADC's lack of skill. Many AD Carries will be salty about that and never admit they made a mistake positioning or took bad trade.

Yes, I main support.

Support champions may seem boring to play. But when you carry from the support role, believe me, the joy is four times more satisfying than carrying from mid lane.

Pros:

- shortest queues,

- the lowest autofill probability,

- doesn't require the last hitting,

- enjoyable at a higher level of play,

- easiest to play mechanically.

Cons:

- second-most flamed role,

- often team dependant,

- hard to carry from,

- overlooked and underestimated in lower divisions,

- laning with bad ADC may be painful.

In-depth Support guide.

Why the main one role? 

In theory up until like high Gold - low Platinum maining, one role doesn't make much of a difference. You will have a hard time playing off-role, but in some cases, enemies will not be competent enough to abuse it. But I do not encourage you to play everything. There is a saying that if something is good for everything, it's good for nothing.

Choosing one of five roles as main and one as secondary will significantly increase your overall chances of climbing the ladder. League of Legends by now consists of more than 130 different champions, each one with four abilities and a passive, giving a total of over 650 different things to remember. Some champions, like shapeshifters, have more than five abilities. Most of these abilities have cooldowns, mana costs, ranges, damages, and bazillion other features. Combined with item stats, skill percentages, resistances and summoner spell choices create an indigestible cocktail of information and knowledge. And it isn't the worst thing.

Do you know how many possible matchups and combinations there are with more than 130 characters? I'm not even smart enough to Google it.

Examples of secondary roles to choose:

- for top - middle. Most of the time, there are flex picks that can go to both roles. Slightly different jungle pressure awareness and map impact, but similar laning phase; if you don't feel like carrying and you prefer to tank, you may choose to support allies with CC,

- for mid - analogically: top lane. Longer lane, slightly different trading patterns, but it's still 1v1 with less gankability. Also most of the times when you have at least minimal understanding of the game, you will have no trouble playing tank top,

- for the jungle - definitely support, especially in a higher level of play, since both these roles do not require proficiency in the last hitting. If you don't want to play 'the worst role in-game,' you can also go top, especially in tank META,

- for ADC - with good skill at Lucian or Vayne, you can go top/mid; on top of that Quinn is pseudo-ADC excelling at the top lane. What's more, playing bot lane for a long time teaches you the basics of support roles. On the other hand, playing support from time to time can show you bot lane from another perspective,

- for support - going jungle isn't a good idea since it requires skills and knowledge most support mains (I'll include myself) does not have. The best option is taking a tank and going top, or if you have good Zyra, Brand or Vel'Koz you may try mid, but it's much harder. Out of other roles, you may also try ADC, since as support you share a lane with one and you should have a basic understanding.

Micro 

The microgame means all the 'little things' that you need to play champion well. The simplest way to describe it would be 'mechanics,' but it's not really precise.

Last hitting 

The core of gaining power in League of Legends. This is what makes challenger and pro players so good - their ability to farm and deny the same to your opponent. What most of the lower divisions players tend to overlook, is the fact, that 20 CS difference is equal to a kill, granted it's the first kill on this enemy. Consecutive kills result in diminishing returns, and 0/7 opponent is worth as much as cannon minion. So when I see enemy Zed rushing at my 0/5 booty, I just laugh. And buy Zhonya.

If you are bad at last hitting, then jungle and support will be roles for you to choose from.

Power spikes 

These are the moments after certain item purchases or leveling up when your character has significant power gain.

Level ups 

Recognizing and using those will help you win lane most of the time.

The first major power spike is lvl 2.  If you level up before your opponent does, you have twice as many abilities as him. One of the brightest examples of aggressive lane champions is Talon. He claims around 25% first blood kills in LoL. He starts with W trying to hit the enemy champion and the wave. This gives him the ability to push and some cheap damage. Seven minions will give him level 2. He instantly skills up his Q and jumps onto the enemy. Q gives him one stack of his passive, point-blank W gives him a second one, auto-attack completes it, combined with Ignite and Electrocute results in an easy kill.

Coming late to the lane is guaranteed failure in level 2 rush, so be careful if you are leashing for jungler. You might get surprised.

You also want to be conservative when enemies have early game cheese junglers like Twitch, that like to gank lvl 2.

Another power spike is level 3, where you have all your basic abilities unlocked. This is where the likes of Renekton want to go all-in.

The next one is level 6 power spike. It's especially clutch in mid lane assassin vs. assassin matchup, like Ahri vs. Zed. Having an ultimate before your opponent is almost every time a kill or at least summoner spell burn.

Another type is a lockdown level 6 ultimate like Lissandra or Malzahar. This is when you want your jungler to come.

Some champions are using their ultimate to roam, with Pantheon, Taliyah and Twisted Fate being primary examples. These ultimates aren't really useful in the lane but have a major impact on the game as a whole.

How to anticipate level 6 power spike? It's hard to count creeps that your opponent kill, hard to keep track of him for the whole time, and it's easy to make a miscalculation. Spending a similar time in the lane, you should have your XP bar filled more or less the same. If you're behind, he's likely to hit 6 first. 

Some champions have more power with levels. Kayle has her passive enhanced. Gangplank has better barrels. Garen passive is also buffed at levels 7 and 13. 

Item spikes 

After farming for some time, you press the 'B' button and buy. Now you feel powerful like Thanos after gathering six infinity stones. What did Thanos do? He didn't wait and went into the fray with a goal to fulfill his destiny. Same thing you should do. Few examples: Jax, Irelia and Fiora spike hard after completing Trinity Force. Varus and Kog'Maw with BoTRK and Rageblade are scary. Azir is strong when he has Nashor's Tooth and boots completed.

This is the window, in which you are stronger than your opponent. You should use it to gain an advantage.

What is often neglected in the lower division is the reset after buy. It doesn't really matter that you are 2/0 in the lane and your opponent is 0/2. When you stay in lane with 2k gold in your pocket and your enemy after getting solo killed by you TP's back to lane with an item advantage, he's stronger.

Hitting skill shots 

One of the more infuriating micro game abilities to learn is how to hit skill shots. This is also another reason to have a narrow champion pool in Solo Queue. You will get to know the speed and range of your character's skill shots better and get used to it.

Even MadLife wasn't hitting hooks all the time at some point. It all takes practice. Different Elo has different dodging patterns. The bottom of the ladder does not know the idea of moving character away from incoming skill shots. Middle of the ladder is trying to dodge some attempts, but their moves are usually predictable, slow or late. Higher is a lottery. 

ARAM mode is a great way to learn to dodge skill shots and teamfight tactics training ground.

Try to aim your spell a little next to the wall. This leaves less room for your opponent to avoid it.

Some champions share huge hitbox, with examples being Gragas, Sion, and Nautilus. It may be easier to land your spell on them. A guaranteed spell is better than missed one. Sure, perhaps your team will share some unpleasant thoughts with you (like: 'No focus tank n00b!'), but it's you who knows what to do.

Try to read your enemies movement. When he's going for the last hit or ending his dash animation, he'll be in the sweet spot for a fraction of second. Used it to land your ranged spell.

At some levels of play, usually, a little higher, players will try to dodge your skillshots. Hold on to them, don’t shoot right away, make them anxious and uncomfortable, study their dodging pattern. Give yourself a little time.

Maybe I'll surprise you, but you don't have to land your skills shot in order to make use of it. Sometimes hitting the skill shot in one place can guarantee you a positive outcome. Say you are playing Xerath and your enemies are running past you with 8,000 movement speed. It's pretty much sure that you won't hit them, so you shoot your W in the direction they WANT to go. This forces him into the lose-lose scenario - they either eat your skillshot or try to dodge it. Try to shoot it behind them, so they need to back a little, positioning them closer to you and your team.

Some skill shots are guaranteed. Funny, huh? But say you're playing Morgana and you have your ultimate as well as Q available. Will you try to fish for max range, epic cage? Or would you simply walk at them, press R, wait for stun and THEN shoot guaranteed Q?

If you're paired with Ashe, Varus or Caitlyn, and you combine your abilities into CC chain, you can ground your opponent for twenty-six weeks and make him stare Death into eyes. 

Speaking of CC chain - if you didn't know it's making enemies stand in one place forever and combining your crowd control abilities to the chain with one another. The unwritten law is to shoot point-and-click abilities first. This way, you guarantee every targeted spell to land. The best engage option is to knock up since the only way to get out of it is having Tahm Kench in the team.

Unless it's the Tahm Kench who gets knocked up.

You cannot reduce knock up duration with Tenacity, and you're not able to QSS or Cleanse from it. Mikael's Crucible will not work either.

To use CC chain to its fullest potential, don't use it right away, but wait for the previous CC to almost expiring. Game knowledge is key here. You have to know that Morgana bind last for 2.5 seconds, Fiddlesticks fear lasts 2.25 seconds, but Riven stun is only 0.75 second and so on.

Macro 

More important out of the two, since micro wins lanes and macro wins whole games.

The macro defines your overall strategic ability, moving around the map, out rotating enemies, setting up lanes, controlling objectives, taking turret after turret, and slowly suffocating opposing team until their Nexus is down. It also does include teamfight tactics as well as games closing strategies.

Pings 

These are your friends. A wise man said: 'There is nothing useful that you couldn't communicate via pings.' And he was right. At least partially.

In lower divisions, people use both chat and pings to insult others. Billion' question mark' pings on your character certainly don't mean, that enemy is missing.

All-mid teamfight tactics 

How many times we've seen this in our LoL adventures? Grouping mid and standing there, waiting for enemies to surrender. Roles don't matter, advanced teamfight tactics are forgotten, it's irrelevant if you're lane champion, jungler if you started middle lane or had to share bot lane with supports. Your allies will group in the middle lane of Summoners Rift and look for team fights. By then you are five mid laners, all roles in one.

Even after successful teamfight and killing one or a few hostile champions. Remember, you keep expending resources - HP, mana, whereas enemies will run out of the base with freshly bought items, Homeguards, and full resources. Sure, you may be 7/0 with 3,5k gold in your pocket, but who is stronger - you with three items and 3,5k gold to spend, half HP, no mana and no cooldowns or your enemy with four items, all gold spent, full HP and mana?

Safe zone 

This term basically means the place on the Summoners Rift where you can go without being exposed to danger. It's something like a front line during the war. Staying behind it means you're pretty much safe. Getting close to it is rather risky, as it may be a contested area. Crossing it is definitely asking yourself for trouble. As the games begin, your safe zone goes through the River, as shown below.

We'll look at safe zone examples from the blue side perspective.

1. Redline is the initial safe zone border. Crossing it means that you can find yourself in a sticky situation as you have less safe angles for an escape and more distance to cover to get back to safety. The closer to your turret, the safer you are.

2. Blue lines indicate enemy safe zones after their sidelane towers are down. This is where you can contest the ground and maybe catch someone out of position. Taking enemy side lanes gives you access to their buffs and Gromp/Krugs. Longer distance to a turret allows minions to stack and slow push.

3. The green line shows the safe zone line after taking the mid-lane tower. It opens up the map and gives you more safe entrances to the enemy jungle along with the great possibility of collapsing on side lanes from behind

4. The purple line is a safe zone after each tier 1 turret is down. In a certain level of play, this is pretty much game over, and reason for this is simple - at this point, your enemies do not have safe access to their jungle.

5. Base defense. This is a safe zone after each tier 1, and tier 2 turret is down. The only non-champion experience and gold resources are minions walking down the lanes. Contesting neutral objectives and vision is extremely hard and often ends up in giving away the kill, if enemies are not cautious.

It is important for a couple of reasons:

- you suffocate your opponents cutting them from resources in the jungle, putting their team further behind,

- you are free to set up a vision and look for picks,

- you set the tempo of the game,

- opponents are forced to fight on your terms; thanks to vision control you know where they are, while they are forced to spend money on control wards and risk getting caught to shed some light onto their own jungle,

- you are free to go for neutral objectives pretty much whenever you wish to, and since you have a vision already set up, you may as well turn on your enemies and get back on the objective afterward.

How to open the base in LoL? 

We're not talking about random Iron to Gold/Platinum team fights that happen for no reason and can result in double ace. We talk big-boy league encounters here.

I assume that you want to climb. You can't expect your rivals to be incompetent up to challenger. You should expect to meet the best players on your way there, and the best players will not let you crack their base just like this. One spell and puff! 'We open the gates.' Naaa. Good enemies will stall all lanes and let mages wave clear not engaging in a fight. Remember that they are closer to their base than you. While you are spending resources on pointless standing in the mid lane, they can quickly run to the Fountain and reset.

For you that's the time time to go to base, replenish mana and HP, buy item and get back to their inhibitor tower is 8 seconds for recall, say 10 seconds for buy, 20 - 30 seconds to mid lane (depending on Homeguards, boots, champion) and another 10 - 15 to get back to the siege. This gives a total of 48 - 63 seconds. For your enemy same route takes around 20 seconds. While you're backing, your opponents may engage 5v4 and win. So how should you approach the base?

Patient approach 

Depending on how many long-ranged lane champions you picked, you may try to whittle down tower's health slowly. Of all ranged champions ADC's share superiority over mages. They have a lot of attack damage, which makes their auto attacks hurt more. With protection from support champions, they can quickly walk up, shoot, back away.

Perfect examples would be Rapid Fire Cannon using marksman. This item extends the auto-attack range, allowing to take a shot at the turret from out of its range.

Such gameplay takes time and patience, but it works well. Over the course of 4-5 minutes, after you guide couple minion waves through the lane, you will bring down turret health low enough to try a dive, or back away to Baron/Dragon.

Be careful if enemies have long-ranged poke champions, as they can chunk your team health and look for an engagement opportunity.

Split push 

Possibly the most simple option for winning games, as it can be effective both in high and low Elo. Sadly it's team dependant, but nowadays everything in LoL is team dependent. Times of 'solo carry' champions and mid laners (like Incarnati0n) are long gone.

You will not always be able to do a split push. First, you need a champion able to split. It usually requires a character with pushing power, who eats towers as if they were made out of chocolate, while able to survive a potential encounter. For example, Yorick with Demolish, Trinity Force, Sterak's Gage and a ton of HP can two-shot towers and still does well in 1v2 encounters. Same for Gangplank, Nasus, Tryndamere or Illaoi.

Although Ziggs can kill turrets with one spell rotation, he'll be unsafe split pushing.

Sion with tank build has decent wave clear but mediocre damage to towers.

1-3-1 

A great option to spread across the map in current META, but requires skill, game knowledge, map awareness, and coordination. Works extremely well in team compositions with split pushers or tanks top and mobile or strong 1v1 mid laners. This is often seen in e-sports. If you decide to add globals to the composition, like Shen, Ryze, Twisted Fate or Tahm Kench it becomes even better.

The premise of  1-3-1 is keeping your jungler and bot lane in mid with top laner and mid laner splitting, forcing the enemy team into a lose-lose scenario. Advantages:

- committing to either side lane will enable strong push elsewhere,

- all three lanes are pushed to the base, so in case of potential failure, enemies will be unable to punish without the wave,

- full control over the map,

- solo laners are usually powerful champions in terms of 1 v 1, so they will kill their opponent if ahead, or waste his time if behind.

Perfect 1-3-1 team comp is Shen top, Nocturne jungle, Ryze mid and Tahm Kench support. Shen and Ryze can quickly join mid lane for a 5v3 dive. Nocturne can ult side lane at any given time with his ult. Tahm Kench has the ability to deliver the ADC.  

Dive 

You simply wait for an opportunity to engage on opponents and kill them under their tower. There isn't much more to say about that. Winning team fight basically means dead Nexus post 25 - 30 minutes.

Baron 

The purple worm is 'the pushing buff.' It makes your creeps stronger, as well as it enhances the cannon minion range enough, to allow it hit the turret without taking aggro. If your team is able to protect the cannon from being destroyed, it will slowly but surely whittle down tier 3 turrets.

Remember, once destroyed towers will not respawn, although inhibitor towers are regenerating.

Taking Baron enhances the dive, split push and especially 1-3-1, where you have three lanes filled with Baron empowered minions.

Having Baron buff also enables a possibility of quick recall and teleport back. Teleporting on a creep, that is currently tanking the turret makes him invulnerable for 4 seconds, which opens up a possibility to dive enemies.

Elder Dragon 

As opposed to Baron Nashor, Elder Dragon is 'the team fighting buff.' So after taking it, you force a fight. This is by far the only instance, where you can freely group mid and look for 5v5. 

If you have no drakes under your belt, you can take Elder only to deny your opponents from taking it.

In my opinion, the worst opportunity to break the base open, especially if the enemies have more drakes collected than you. It's always an objective worth fighting for, but smart opponents, well aware of being behind will not stop stalling to contest. Rather they will let you take it and keep stalling. The reason being is that with or without the buff you still need to dive or catch somebody out of position, which at the higher level of gameplay may be hard.

Baron vs. Dragon 

Some games you may encounter the dilemma where both objectives are available, both are equally tempting, but you can commit to only one of them. For me, there should be no discussion. You go for the one:

- you are closer to,

- you have a vision on,

- suits your team comp better (Baron is pushing buff while Elder is fighting buff),

- would be more useful for enemies.

Make sure to push the middle lane before walking to the side of the neutral objective.

You can try a cheesy strategy of committing to one monster and sending your jungler to steal the other one. Risky but sometimes worth a shot. Although in higher Elo you need to take into account, that he will not get the free passage to the pit.

Another tactic is sending your frontline and AP carries to stall the Baron, while ADC and support are taking Elder. Remember, however, that the more drakes you took, the tougher Elder will become.

There is a discussion, which champions are good for taking neutral objectives. We have some examples below:

- Cassiopeia - champion with the highest single target damage in-game,

- Azir - attack speed steroids and soldiers, that act like three auto-attacking champions,

- Karthus - huge single target damage due to Q,

- Vayne - max HP percentage W passive with true damage,

- Kog'Maw -  max HP percentage damage on his W,

- Kai'Sa - missing HP percentage damage,

- Kalista - you can't outsmite her Rend,

- Mordekaiser - max HP percentage damage on passive,

- Malzahar/Zyra - pets. 

Combined with Mountain Dragon, they melt Baron or Elder like an ice cream.

Best champions for stealing Baron:

- Nunu & Willump - consume + Smite,

- Cho'Gath - true damage ultimate with more damage than max level Smite,

- Olaf - true damage E ability + Smite,

- Elise - Smite + missing HP % Q ability,

- Volibear - Smite + missing HP% W ability.

How to close the game in League of Legends? 

Something that surprisingly a high number of LoL players struggle with is effective getting onto the enemy Nexus. Teams do not know how to use their advantages to slowly but surely deliver the killing blow. I've lost my last ranked with two enemies inhabiting the bottom lane, which should never happen! So why did it happen? 

Lack of macro knowledge and effective shot-calling. Basically in every division from Iron to the high Diamond basic reaction to someone shot-calling might be 'stfu'. But as my friend said: 'Don't pity the fools.' Keep doing your thing, and eventually, you will climb, while they will stay where they are and where they belong.

This being said, when you have a bot and mid inhibitor taken, no matter the role or champion you picked, you should guide your teammates to the top lane, and wait for Super Minions to push. The super minion acts basically like a champion. This is why having three enemy inhibitors down is called 5v7 on Summoners Rift, as it takes at least two champions to push out Supers.

If you ever have to choose - take down three inhibs or Baron/Elder, always go for inhibs. Three inhibs down mean two super creeps in each lane. Super minion buffs his allies. Having two close-by leads to a situation, that it supports one another and share the aura. While they are pushing, you can calmly go for a neutral objective, and let supers do the job. Enemies can't leave their base, or it will be taken down.

Your main focus should be farming and getting stronger than your opponent in order to do more damage should the team fight happen.  Seeing the enemy coming out of the Fog of War is not a reason to charge at him. You may or may not score a kill, but at this time you will also lose an opportunity to get the same amount of gold and experience from clearing the wave.

I've seen people losing games with KDA 12/2/10, and I've seen people winning with 14 deaths. Kills don't win games. Objectives do. I wish some of my teammates had read this guide.

Be smart and try to shot call. Perhaps your teammates don't share the same view objective-wise, but pinging 'assist' onto Dragon or Baron pit may force them to at least look at the minimap. Who knows, maybe 1 out of 10 times they will follow? Sadly, most of the time carry will not follow, as they consider THEMSELVES to be the carry, but it's worth a shot. Supports have the hardest time shot-calling in lower divisions.

Always after finding a catch or forcing enemies out of the lane, look for objectives. Usually, the closest one is the best bet. Push for the tower. If there is an Infernal od Mountain Dragon, go for it. If playing top, you may look to roam, place deep vision, get yourself a Scuttle Crab or Rift Herald. After the 20-minute mark, a successful team fight should result in a Baron.

Sometimes part of your team will go for one objective, and the others will go to the opposite side. In such case, follow the fed one.

Why is it so important? Well, in lower divisions, people are neglecting creeps and their power. They have tunnel vision - push mid, kill the first tower, kill the second tower, kill the third tower, kill inhibitor, kill Nexus towers, kill Nexus. Kill enemies on the way. 'GG WP'. Trouble begins, when one of these elements does not work, for example, I don't know… the enemy team stands in the way?

Remember to push side lanes so that they work for you.

I had instances, where I created slow push (killed only casters in a single wave) in a bot, and then we started the 'Baron dance'. After 2-3 minutes there was a giant minion wave stacked, taking tower by itself, which made our opponents confused - go save the tower or prevent Baron loss? Lose-lose scenario. 

Small things matter.

If you have inhibitor taken, DON'T PUSH THIS LANE. There is absolutely nothing to push for. Super minions themselves can push the lane just fine. Taking inhib down is like putting an additional champion into that lane. After taking an inhib, you should go as 5 to another lane or if in split push scenario go 1-4. Then WAIT for Supers to put some pressure on. As soon as they approach Nexus Towers and start clapping them, your pressure. Enemies have to decide - defend the lane you're in or get back to Nexus towers. Another lose-lose scenario.

I'll be repeating myself like a lunatic, but patience is key here. If you engage too early, enemies might ace you, push out Supers, take Baron and stall forever, allowing themselves to get back into the game.  

Summary 

The thing is, that players in the LoL community do not understand the consequences of their deeds and general rules of the game. They consider themselves the smartest entities in the Galaxy, but in fact, they have no idea what are they doing and why. On the contrary, you will see more humility the higher up the ladder you look. For example, Fnatic Rekkles, one of the best ADC's in Europe, claims he's at best 7th ADC in the world placing Uzi and JackeyLove above himself. For comparison, a typical Yasuo player from Silver considers himself the best player in the world. No discussion.

Humility will definitely help you climb and improve. Only fool thinks he already knows everything.

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FAQ

What are the most popular roles in League of Legends?

Mid lane and Jungle are the two most popular roles in the game, mostly due to their overall carry potential.

What are lanes in LoL?

Lanes are the straight pathways from one base to another. There are top lane (top left), mid lane (middle one), and bot lane (bottom right). 

What champions go in what lane?

It depends. The meta was set back in season one, where top lane and mid lane were solo lanes, bot lane (close to Dragon pit) was occupied by the ADC and Support, and there was a jungle. Now, the differences and viability are blurring. Generally:

- In the top lane, you want a champion that can stand tall on his own, 

- In the mid lane, you should go for a character with push, zone control, roaming potential, or 1 v 1 kill pressure,

- The ADC is, usually, a marksman,

- The Support should have some kind of utility (even it his "utility" is killing the whole enemy team),

- The Jungler has to clear fast and gank effectively.

Other choices are troll, off-meta, not viable most of the time.