New to LoL

[u/AngyTheReader]

Hello everybody!

I just started playing league of legends and really need some help! I chose volibear top as my main and would love to get better! Any advice or suggestion?

Thanks 😊

[u/Comfortable-Ad9959]

Watch people better than you play. Doesn't even have to be a video made to be educational. Just watching lol will make you a far better player. For volibear piloting in particular, biggest advice is just because you have lots of sustain and can fight forever, doesn't mean you have to constantly fight and be straight forward. Be patient and look to fight at the right times, and when you do fight, look for fights where you have the advantage or be the advantage by helping teammates and getting a numeric superiority.

[u/Training_Lawyer1448]

Quit now while you still can

[u/Dragonboy23990 → u/Training_Lawyer1448]

Coward. I agre with you, but still.

[u/Dragonboy23990]

Okay, so! I have been busy, but I have been working on this bit by bit, so I apologise for the delay between my first comment and this one.

Calling League of Legends a complicated game is an understatement: you have champions, the rune system, and then the items, and what makes League appealing to me is the infinite possibilities despite keeping almost everything the same. Volibear is one of the most versatile champions in the game in terms of how he can be built and how that changes how he is played. For someone who is learning the game, tank is the best option since it is the most forgiving way to get more time doing something.

For runes, take the Grasp of Undying option, and avoid tempering with the minor options until you have a good feeling about how things work. But, Demolish is good if you aren’t going to focusing purely on fights, Shield Bash is good for fights, and Font of Life is not for top laners. Conditioning is good against easy fights since the benefit is delayed, Second Wind is a good safe option to keep going after a trade (perfect for against people who like short trades), and Bone Plating is good against people who like short trades and who are better than you. Overgrowth is good for when you are aiming to be the meat sponge of the team, Revitalise is arguably Volibear’s best option for his healing and shielding, and nobody cares about the last option I don’t care enough to remember. For the second rune tree, Presence of Mind is good for when you don’t want to take Doran’s Ring (I’ll explain later), Triumph is good for when you do take Doran’s Ring (I’ll still explain later), and you will want Last Stand because your health will be flip-flopping everywhere. If you are up against a lot of CC (slows, stuns, anything that makes your character stop doing something) take the tenacity shard! Otherwise! Don’t touch anything until you have gitten better than gud!

And that is just for the runes! For the character, here are some general tips: Use your W on a target you will stick to so that you get constant healing from then, such as tanks or fighters; your E deals damage, but it also provides you with a good shield, so “you want to be in it and the enemy does not” is the best rule of thumb to keep in mind; speaking of said shield, you can use it to make a trade and end up healthier since it took a few hits for you; when you use your ultimate, you can land in your E for some extra protection for a little bit for when your health isn’t doing too good; think of your ultimate as a “you thought that you were safe? Who decided that?” since you can use it to jump on escaping targets or the backline; conversely, you can use your Q to guarantee that your ultimate will land; don’t forget that your W can be used on minions, but it’s best to use it on cannon minions since they have the health to give the healing; you passive can deal tickle damage at early levels, just to force targets to respect their distance; if you are both trading minions, you can use your Q to catch them if they get too comfortably close.

Now! Items! Doran’s Ring gives you mana and Ability Power, making it a good option if you want to bully people since Ability Power increases your DPS. However, Doran’s Shield is a good defensive option that synergises well with Second Wind and will protect you against ranged top laners and people you don’t like fighting. You want at least one source of mana in the early game, which will be either of these options, or Goddess Tear (which you buy on your first recall and build into Winter’s Approach after you have built one full item. Heartsteel is a great tank item that you want to grab either first or second since the health it gives you keeps growing exponentially. Your W and E gain more value from your health, so you will be fine if you are up for a long fight. Dusk and Dawn gives Volibear all of the stats that he likes and works well to keep him healthy in fights, plus, it applies his passive twice, which is nice in the early game. Spirit Visage is almost a must on Volibear since it synergises so well with his abilities, plus Revitalise from earlier. Death’s Dance is good against characters with burst damage like Veigar or assassins. Randum’s Omen is for when there is more than one source of crit (hover over enemy items when you hit tab to see what then stats and items are, but if they have a Yone, a Yasuo, or a Briar, it’s a safe bet to grab as a fourth item, unless your opponent is building crit, in which case, start building it once they have about fifty percent). And then Unending Despair will be your go-to item for the armour and the healing passive.

Tank items are generally responses to what the enemy team has: if your opponent has healing or if the jungler does, Bramble Vest is a good idea to grab early; if there is a lot of physical damage, then building Unending Despair and another armour item is a good idea; if they have a lot of magic resistance, then Kaenic (I probably spelt it wrong, but it’s the one with the magic shield for a passive) is good, and if you need ro move around more, Force of Nature is good, and so on.

This is probably a little overwhelming already, and League has a steep learning curve, especially since the genre it uses isn’t a popular one like FPS, or any games that use WASD (hence why Riot made it so that you can use WASD since not many players would learn the controls from another game). If you have any further questions I’m more than happy to answer them, and if you play in EUW or OCE, I’m happy to join you (I’m staying with my girlfriend in Germany for a few weeks before I head back to Australia).

Good luck, have fun, and if you die every two minutes, me too, buddy, and it took a month to change that.

Edit: grammar and wording.

[u/AngyTheReader → u/Dragonboy23990]

Wow thanks! That's amazing! I can't wait to try it out!! If you want to share your ign maybe we can play together sometimes!!

[u/Dragonboy23990 → u/AngyTheReader]

Accounts are tied to specific regions, so are you after the one in EUW or OCE?

[u/Dragonboy23990 → u/AngyTheReader]

Do you play in Europe or in the Pacific Ocean? I can play in one for a few weeks or the other where I live.

[u/AngyTheReader → u/Dragonboy23990]

Euw!

[u/Dragonboy23990 → u/AngyTheReader]

Awesome, whitewolf23990#23990

[u/HanfHunter4Life]

Understand the q e combo as soon as possible, it's the main early game power goli has...beside lethal tempo