Overview
This guide is for beginners who have already played a couple of matches but still die alot or you are making your teammates mad by doing avoidable mistakes, but its not your fault! No one told you how to play yet!This guide focuses mostly on the conquest gamemode, but some hints are also valid for the other game modes, I assume you already know the basics of the game, the roles, the objectives etc. If not: go and check one of the other good guides out there. :)So let get started!
A Few Short Hints
1. Listen to your teammates if you dont know what you are doing, tell them that you are still new or they might expect you to do things you don’t know
2. Don’t jungle if you haven’t read a guide and/or some good understanding what you are doing.
3. Clear camps together as a team before going to your lane, don’t pick a buff up until you are sure its for you, you can really mess up another player if you pick up his buff.
damage buff is for the middle lane, hunter and support help clearing it up and then they clear the xp camp close to the long lane.
speed buff is for the jungler, the player on the solo lane helps clearing the speed camp and then they should get the mana camp for the solo laner.
if you are on the solo lane, sometimes the jungler will help you clear a wave or two, dont let this confuse you.
Play Safe!
a) don’t push too early! there is no point to sit at their tower with low health and no mana, this also makes you very vulnerable to a gank (another player coming out of the jungle and killing you from behind)
b) only push if your opponent returned to base, or you got some help from another teammate from another lane/jungle or you just killed your opponent, but keep an eye on your health, if your bar is yellow you should consider returning to your base.
c) Stay behind your minions! they tank the damage for you, the damage from enemy minions can easily melt down your healthbar, you dont want to return to your base for no reason because you will fall behind on xp and gold
d) do you have the upper hand but cant kill your opponent? push just a little to get you some time and clear a jungle camp to increase your advantage, you also can push so you have some time for buying items.
e) Use wards! A ward is a deployable item, it will give you vision and warn you about enemys entering its radius.
They are mostly use to warn you about a player about to gank you. place them deeply at the exits from the jungle to your lane so that the enemy has to pass it to get to your lane.
later in the game they are placed at the gold fury or the fire giant, so you can see if the other team is about to kill these.
f) Communicate! sometimes a opponent will leave his lane to gank another lane, or to clear a jungle camp, in that case it time to call enemy missing, (check other guides about the ingame voice commands)
its very important that you pay attention to these calls, they can safe your life or the life of your teammates, be careful if the opponent of the neighbour lane is missing, better safe than sorry and retreat back to your tower.
The Gank
So you have learnt that you get killed when you hang around at the enemy tower for to long, but its also true for your enemy.
is your opponent putting too much pressure on your lane? ask for a gank. also a good jungler knows when its time for a gank and they might hang around in the jungle close to your lane, that could mean they have the intention to gank your lane-opponent, so be prepared!
to prepare a gank you have to retreat a bit to your tower, dont use your skills before the gank has started, you dont want them on cooldown when you need them but dont make it too obvious or the enemy will just retreat to their tower.
dont attack before your ganker attacks, this will most likely just make your opponent retreat, and your ganker will be out of range
at times the support or the hunter might gank the middle lane, the guy on the middle lane might gank the duo or the solo lane, also sometimes the solo lane can gank the middle lane, but they wont do it if they havent recently killed their lane opponent or their opponent has returned to base
if your gank was sucessfull (kill) or semi-sucessfull (enemy retreat) consider doing some damage to the tower, if your teammates have left your lane after the gank dont hang around at the enemy tower for too long, the enemys will come and kill you if you are alone!
rather get a buff or do a xp camp or two and buy some nice items, its very unlikely to get a tower from 100% to 0% in one run if you are alone or just two guys.
The Group Fight
Later in the game ganks will happen more often, things will be more chaotic. eventually it will escalate, then the lane phase is over and the group fight phase has started.
if your team is fighting 4v5 somewhere else on the map, dont stand on your lane come and help them
so your team is standing face to face with the other team but both teams are not fighting yet? don’t jump in for no reason and get killed, only do this if you are a guardian and you have some way to pull an enemy or mass crowd control.
now the fight starts, focus on the enemy mages and hunters first, they go down pretty fast but can do tons of damage. if you are a guardian or a warrior with lots of cc try to protect your damage dealers by cc’ing the guys who are about to kill your hunters or mages. this can make the difference between victory or defeat
The End Phase
Stick to your teammates, group fights will happen alot, there will barely time for farming
Now its time to push Lanes, destroy remaining Towers and kill Phoenixes.
Sometimes your team manages to kill every single opponent, sometimes there will be a call for attacking the fire giant, help your teammates, the fire giant is a strong jungle monster but gives you a very good buff.
try to kill as many phoenixes as possible before attacking the enemy titan, but dont miss out on an opportunity to end the game when you kill most of the enemy players with little casaulties.
you lost all towers, maybe even a phoenix, but its not over yet! defend your base, try to survive for as long as possible and get some xp and/or gold.
at some point the enemys are all max level and have bought all items, this is a bad thing, but its also a good thing because they cant improve the stats of their god any further. (except for pots, but these are expensive and only temporary)
So with every minute you survive you get stronger while they remain at the same strength.
place some wards at the gold fury or the fire giant, if you are daring you can try to get the last hit on these monster to steal the gold or the buff, but expect to die and to accomplish nothing if you fail.
also sometimes your team tries to kill the other team while the other team is weakened because of the fight and have some of their skills on cooldown.
sometimes while you are loosing your team manages to kil most or all enemy players (deicide), when they where attacking your titan or the fire giant, or it might happen because they have been to cocky.
depending on the difference of gold/levels between your team this needs to happen a few times or only once to turn the whole game around, this will lead to a comeback
So all other players are dead or a lone survivor has retreated to his base, now its the time to exploit your enemys horrible mistake, if all your phoenixes are alive your team will most likely hurry to kill the fire giant,
if one phoenix is down you can push the lane and kill the fire giant, or someone stays out of the fire giant fight and just defends the lane, if two or all of your phoenixes are down it might be a bad idea to attack the fire giant, the minions of the other team will just kill your titan if no one defends. and you will loose.
if killing the fire giant is no option try to get the gold fury, later in the game one or two players can kill it without help easily.
push lanes, maybe get some buffs, or clear an xp camp, but dont waste too much time doing it.
usually your team will push the lane with the least amount of enemy towers, if the enemy team has no towers left or only a damaged one it might be a good idea to push the same lane where your phoenix is destroyed, so you minions will be as strong as the enemys and to get the time needed for your phoenix to recover.
if your enemys are about to respawn, group up now its the time for group fights again.
Some Last Words
So i thinks thats all folks, if you have something to improve, just tell me, dont forget this guide is for beginners and is not supposed to overwhelm with tactics and too many details.
Good luck!
Have Fun!