Twisted Treeline Remake on PBE

We’re excited to announce that a new version of Twisted Treeline is about to hit PBE, with a live Beta soon to follow. We've heard your feedback, and we’ve rebuilt Treeline to improve some of the areas you suggested. Here’s a rundown of the major renovations to the map:

• More viable team comps: the item shop on Twisted Treeline now boasts an arsenal tailor-made to support every role in 3v3 combat, and the terrain has been modified to make blink champions easier to hunt down

The Shadow Isles Beckon

Swear your allegiance to the Shadow Isles, summoners! Shrouded in mist and shadows, this mysterious land promises death for those brazen or unfortunate enough to make their way to its shores. Most who journey here never return, but a few are embraced by this strange place and seize unimaginable power.

Summoner's Cup Sneak Peek

It’s nearly time to crown the League of Legends Season Two World Champions. But no championship would be complete without a suitable trophy to commemorate the contest between all of these incredible competitors.

League of Legends Community Infographic

It’s been almost a year since we last talked about how the League of Legends community has been growing. Last November, we released an infographic with some cool stats, and that proved to be pretty popular -- so we’re doing it again!

Initial Honor Results

It’s been over one week since we launched the Honor Initiative, one of the largest experiments ever conducted at Riot. Today, I’d like to take some time to share a few results we’ve seen, and talk a little more about how we’re preventing Honor spamming.

Compete with Honor!

Honor is now live in League of Legends!

After every match-made game, you’ll have the ability to Honor both teammates and enemies. To give Honor, click the green “thumbs up” button in the post-game lobby. Clicking this icon for teammates will allow you to Honor them for being friendly, helpful or for showing great teamwork. You’ll even be able to give an Honorable Opponent mention to enemies that are respectful in either victory or defeat.

Inside Design: The Music of League of Legends

There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the login music for Diana, Scorn of the Moon. With so much interest in this particular piece of music, we decided it was time to have a word with our resident Composer, Christian “Praeco” Linke to find out what inspired Diana’s theme, along with what he has in store for Syndra and future compositions.

ByronicHero: Tell us a little bit about your musical background. What you were you doing before you came to work for Riot?

Items

An item is an artifact/object carried by champions to enhance their performance on the Fields of Justice. Items are only obtainable through the item shop located at the resurrection platform, where they are displayed in five main categories (by their effect). They can also be divided by their tier: basic, advanced and legendary. A champion can only carry 6 items at a time, making the selection of items an important part of achieving victory. You can pick among 107 items in Classic mode (including consumables), giving at least 2,392,407,864 different combinations. Doran's and gold per 10 items can be sold for 50% of their cost; all other items for 70%.

Effects

Primary effects affect the champions themselves, and can increase the following statistics:
- Ability power
- Armor
- Armor penetration
- Attack damage
- Attack speed
- Cooldown reduction
- Critical strike
- Health
- Health regeneration
- Life steal
- Magic penetration
- Magic resistance
- Mana
- Mana regeneration
- Movement speed
- On-hit effect
- Spell vamp
- Tenacity

Secondary effects are divided into three categories:
- Actives: An item that has an ability which can be activated by clicking on the item icon in the inventory or using the number pad keys 1-6 by default.
- Auras: It can be an area of effect buff that affects all ally units or champions, or a debuff that affects all enemies units or champions.
- Passives: An item that has an ability that works automatically, like a passive ability. Many passives are Unique, meaning that they will not stack multiple times from the same item.

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Skins

Champion skin (or just skin) refers to the color scheme or appearance of a champion. In League of Legends, most skins can be bought from the Riot Store with Riot Points, while others are or were available only from special events or promotions. Some of the skins in League of Legends also give champions different particle effects, quotes, and sound effects. Every skin has its own splash art that is displayed in champion select by clicking on the thumbnail after selection.
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Runes

A rune is an enhancement that the summoner provides for their champion before a match on a field of justice begins to augment the champion's abilities.

Runes can be purchased with Influence Points from the Riot Store. Each rune grants a small bonus in a specific category, which stack upon each other to grant larger bonuses.

Runes that have already been purchased can't be sold back to the store, but can be combined in the Rune Combiner for a new rune of random stats. Tier 1 and Tier 2 runes do not grant as high bonuses as Tier 3 runes and a player may end up just combining the lower quality runes for Tier 3 runes anyway. Therefore it is wise to save up Influence Points for Tier 3 runes. There are two ways to combine:

- Combine five runes to create one random rune of higher tier.
- Combine two runes to create one random rune of the same tier. NOTE: It is possible for the Rune Combiner to produce a rune of the exact type as one of the input runes, costing you one rune and gaining you nothing.

It is important to note that you cannot buy a Tier 3 rune before you reach level 20, and that you can acquire random ones for less IP than buying them outright by using the Rune Combiner.

- Five "Lesser Seals of Replenishment" cost 75 IP (5 × 15 IP), while one "Seal of Replenishment" costs 80. This equates to a saving of 5 IP.
- Likewise, a combined Tier 3 rune would cost 375 IP (25 × 15 = 5 × 75), cheaper than Tier 3 runes of costs from 410 to 2050 IP. This equates to a saving of 35 IP minimum and 1675 IP maximum.
- The cheapest Tier 3 rune costs 205. This equates to a 170 IP loss.

Keep in mind that combining 5 runes of one type will not guarentee you a better (Primary) rune of that same type. The Rune Combiner may also give you a Secondary Rune.

There are four kinds of Runes a Summoner will use and each of these types of runes have three tiers:

- Mark: offensive runes,
- Seal: defensive runes,
- Glyph: magical runes,
- Quintessence: utility runes.

It is also important to note that some runes are "primary", while others are called "secondary" and provide lesser bonuses. Given a certain kind of rune, it will be primary in either marks, glyphs or seals, and secondary in the other two rune types. (Source)

Masteries

The Mastery is the way that a summoner is able to focus their intense magical training into three specific categories, which collectively are known as masteries. Some of the more advanced masteries require not only a working knowledge of previous masteries within a single category, but also the knowledge of a specific mastery. As a summoner gains levels of power within the League of Legends, they are able to select which specific areas of interest to focus on.

Summoner masteries are not set in stone; based on the type of champion you wish to control in a battle arena, masteries can be changed to better suit a summoner's needs, simply by pressing the "Return Points" button to completely reset your masteries and allow yourself to choose others in which to spend your points ("re-spec").

There are three types of trees that your summoner can develop in:

- Offense Mastery
- Defense Mastery
- Utility Mastery
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Summoners

The Summoner is the persistent element in the game, and it is used to track statistics and scores for each player.

A player in League of Legends takes on the role of a summoner, a gifted spell caster who has the power to bring forth a champion to fight as their avatar in Valoran's Fields of Justice. With all major political decisions on Valoran now decided by the outcome of the contests that take place in the battle arenas, a summoner is the key force of change on the continent. As the summoner controls the champion in combat, the summoner also influences the outcome of the match through the use of summoner spells, runes, and masteries. Once a match is over, the summoner gains experience and influence points. Experience points allow the summoner to gain increased powers by unlocking additional spells and rune slots, while influence points allow the summoner to gain access to new champions and new runes for use in future fights.


Customization

The summoner will represent a player and track its stats as games are played. As you progress in the game, the summoner will accumulate Influence Points allowing access to more champions and runes.

Summoner spells

Summoners are allowed the use of any two of the summoner spells during any battle in the Fields of Justice, many are available from the start while others are unlocked through gaining levels. These spells significantly impact gameplay, and have a high cooldown while costing no mana. All spells can be improved by masteries.

Runes

Before a battle arena match begins, a summoner can make use of Runes to enhance their champion's abilities. Runes can only be purchased with Influence Points at the Riot Store. Runes may not be bought with Riot Points, this is to help prevent people from buying power.

Masteries

Masteries are perks that affect gameplay, they are commonly referred to in other games as "skill-trees". All of the masteries are passive effects although some augment summoner spells, which can be activated. A summoner is able to focus their intense magical training into specific categories (Offensive, Defensive, and Utility). Each group has 6 tiers, within a group all but the first tier are locked when you first start, with a successive tier opening with each 4 points spent in the same group. Lines in the mastery tree imply additional unlocking criteria. The summoner can put one point per level (up to level 30) into masteries. Masteries can be re-distributed at will between battles. Since May 23, 2011, summoners are allowed to have multiple saved mastery pages.

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Champions

Champions generally fall into certain categories based on their skills. These are also called tags and are used on the attributes space on each champion main page and Ability Details page.

Primary Attributes

1. Assassin: Champions with mediocre auto-attack and defense, who specialize in killing their enemies quickly. These champions usually are physical attackers and are DPS-based(Damage per second) or are AP(ability power) burst oriented. All of them have some form of invisibility or sudden ambushing ability. They should focus on items that will increase the damage they put out over a short period of time. In fights, they play a role as sneak attackers of key targets (like the Carry or the Mage), who pick off weak enemies and carry champions at the right time. They should not be played for frontal engagements in team fights since they lack good defense compared to fighters and tanks.

2. Carry: Champions with high auto-attack damage but low defense. Most carries have skills, passive or active, that scale with their stats, such as an increase in Base Damage and Attack Speed, and rely mostly on their regular attack to dish out damage. Carry champions are extremely effective late-game at "carrying" the team to victory, either by killing off key players on the enemy team or deal large damage in team fights because they have tremendous damage output, but low defense. Due to this, they are key champions and are primary targets for enemy team. As a result, they require tanky teammates like fighters and tanks for protection as they lack survivability.

3. Fighter (also known as Off-tank): Champions that have aspects of DPSing and tanking, combining the survivability of a tank and the damage of an assassin (tank/assassin hybrid). They don't quite match up to their specialized counterparts in either role (meaning they do not have extreme survivability of a tank or the burst damage of an assassin, but a bit of both). In a team fight, they can play a role of a tank or assassin.

4. Mage: Champions with high ability skills or support skills but low defense. Some are meant to deal a high amount of damage in a short period of time(burst casters/burst mages) while others usually deal damage over time. Like carry champions, they can bring their team to victory due their ability power. However, they require tanky teammates for protection since they lack high durability as they are capable of dishing out tremendous damage to enemy team with their abilities. Otherwise, enemy teams can easily pick them off.

5. Tank: Champions with extremely high defense, health, and crowd control abilities, but low attack damage or poor ability power scaling. Tanks are usually champions that combine high amounts of health, armor, and magic resistance. If left alone, tanks are able to absorb high amounts of damage or create disables on their foes, which make them great harassers as well. In battle, this type of champion is usually expected to start/initiate (or at least be in the front of) the team fight; soaking up damage, and helping focus certain enemies (carry and mage champions). Due to their low damage output, they must rely on their assassin, carry, fighter, and mage champions to finish the enemy off or chase them down when they initially weakened them. As a result, tanks are not expected to gain high kills but more assists. Tank champions should coordinate team fights by telling team to retreat or advance when necessary since they lead the charge. They are also meant to be a protector of the team, and must be willing to sacrifice himself/herself for vulnerable allies if necessary.

Secondary Attributes

1. Jungler: Champions that can easily farm monsters in the jungle at an early stage in the game and can typically take out minions waves quickly. They usually excel at taking down opponents when they can catch them off guard in lane. Some champions jungle because their lane phase isn't that strong (easily harassed, high mana dependency early on) and others are capable of both. Most fighters, assassins and tanks can take the role of jungler.

2. Melee: Champions that have a melee basic attack, so they have to be very close to their target in order to do damage. They have usually more health, armor and magic resistance than ranged champions as well as heals. Most Tanks and Fighters are melee combatants although a couple of Mages are also melee.

3. Pusher: Champions that can quickly kill minion waves and/or destroy turrets/inhibitors in a short amount of time. Typically, champions that destroy turrets/inhibitors have pets and/or AoE abilities and/or a high amount of attack speed.

4. Ranged: Champions whose basic attack can cause damage at a distance (see range), allowing them to avoid many harmful risks and increasing their flee capability. Ranged Champions are divided into two sub-categories: Mage and Carry champions. Mages have a weak auto-attack and focus on high damage spells or support, while Carry champions tend to focus more on frequent, powerful auto-attacks.

5. Recommended: Champions whose skills don't involve any complicated mechanics and playing them effectively does not require extensive knowledge of the other champions.

6. Stealth: Champions that possess at least one ability that allows them to become invisible to enemies (other than when near turrets, vision wards, and enemy champions that have consumed an Oracle's Elixir). This attribute is mainly for assassin champions.

7. Support: Champions whose skills are meant to directly aid the rest of the team. They can either babysit a champion to make laning easier for them by providing healing, buffing allies, applying debuffs to the enemy team, or a combination of the above. The most common ability for a support champion is providing an ally with a shield of some kind. One of the main goals of a support is to let their lane partner farm minions for gold, as supports can buy key gold+ items to get gold for themselves, as well as controlling the map with wards, warding all key areas of the map. These champions usually rely on their skills more than their auto-attack.
More details and info about all champions

Champions Status

Unlocked: The champion has been unlocked and can be used at any time.
Free to Play: Reserved for the 10 free champions of the week. They are indicated with a (!) sign in the top right corner of the champion icon.
Locked: The champion is unavailable for use. They are indicated with a grey picture of the champion.

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About LoL

Champions | Summoners | Masteries | Runes | Skins | Items

League of Legends (or as it was previously known, League of Legends: Clash of Fates) is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre video game developed by Riot Games, to operate on the Microsoft Windows operating system. It was first announced on October 7th, 2008 and released a year later on October 27th, 2009. The game was in beta from April 10th, 2009 to October 26th, 2009.
Two main protagonists for the popular Warcraft III mod, Defense of the Ancients: Allstars (commonly abbreviated as DotA), Steve "Guinsoo" Feak and Steve "Pendragon" Mescon are involved with Riot Games in the process of making of League of Legends. Guinsoo created DotA: Allstars from the original DotA, created by Eul, by adding his own mix of content, including over 40 heroes, numerous items, and various gameplay changes. Guinsoo then passed DotA: Allstars on to its current developer, Icefrog. Pendragon, who is the Director of Community Relations for Riot Games, helped create the DotA: Allstars website along with its forums, and is still currently working on DotA: Allstars alongside League of Legends. (Source)
System Requirements

Minimum System Requirements
- 2 GHz processor
- 1 GB RAM (Windows Vista and 7 users will want 2 GB of RAM or more)
- 2 GB available hard disk space
- Shader version 2.0 capable video card
- Support for DirectX v9.0c or better
- Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7

Recommended System Requirements
- 3 GHz processor
- 2 GB of RAM (Windows Vista and 7 users will want 4 GB of RAM or more)
- 6 GB available hard disk space
- GeForce 8800 or equivalent video card (Dedicated GPU with 512MB+ Video Memory(VRAM))
- Support for DirectX v9.0c or better.
- Windows XP with the latest service pack installed, Windows Vista with the latest service pack installed, or Windows 7
- The latest update to .NET Framework from Microsoft