You’ve probably seen clips of wild team fights, pro players screaming after championship wins, or your friends logging on for hours every week to play, and found yourself asking what do you do in League of Legends? It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you first load into the game, with over 160 champions, multiple maps, and dozens of unique mechanics to learn. I’ve been playing LoL on and off for 8 years, and I still remember my first game where I wandered around the map for 10 minutes with no clue what I was supposed to be doing. This guide breaks down exactly what you’ll focus on in every match, no prior experience required.
What Do You Do in League of Legends? Core Objectives Every Match Revolves Around
Every single LoL match on the standard Summoner’s Rift map has the same end goal: destroy the enemy team’s Nexus, a giant crystal structure sitting in the back of their base. You can’t run straight to it from minute one, though, so you’ll work through smaller objectives that get you closer to that win. That means every action you take in a match should tie back to helping your team take these objectives faster, or stopping the enemy team from taking them. Let’s break down the most important ones you’ll focus on first:
- Turrets and Inhibitors: These defensive structures line the three main lanes (top, middle, bottom) leading to each base. You have to destroy all turrets in a lane before you can attack the inhibitor, and destroying an inhibitor spawns super minions that push the lane for you automatically.
- Epic Jungle Monsters: Dragons, Rift Herald, and Baron Nashor spawn in the neutral jungle area between lanes, and give your whole team permanent buffs or one-time power spikes when defeated. A single dragon buff can give you enough extra damage to win every team fight for the rest of the match.
- CS (Creep Score): Killing the small AI minions that spawn every 30 seconds and walk down each lane gives you gold and experience to level up your champion and buy stronger items. Even if you don’t fight other players, high CS will make you strong enough to carry matches later on.
Many new players fixate only on killing enemy champions, but that’s actually one of the least efficient ways to win if you’re ignoring objectives. I’ve won dozens of matches where my team had fewer kills overall, but we took more turrets and dragons to snowball a lead without fighting every chance we got. It’s okay to skip a fight if it means you can take a higher-priority objective that puts you closer to winning the whole match.
Your Role Defines Your Priorities For Every Match
One of the first things you’ll pick before every match is your role, and each role has completely different priorities during the game. You don’t have to stick to one role forever, but picking one to learn first will make it much easier to know what you should be doing at any given time. You can even test all five roles in unranked matches before you decide which one fits your playstyle best.
Top Laner: You’re the tanky frontline or split pusher for your team. Most of the early game you’ll stay in the top lane farming CS, and you’ll join team fights later on to soak damage or split off to push a lone lane to draw enemies away from objectives. You won’t get as many kills as other roles, but you’re the backbone of every good team fight.
Jungler: You’re the only role that spends most of their time in the neutral jungle instead of a lane. Your job is to kill jungle monsters for gold and XP, then gank (sneak into) lanes to help your teammates kill enemy laners and take turrets. You’re also responsible for tracking and securing epic monsters like dragons and Rift Herald, so good junglers can single-handedly carry a match if they play their objectives right.
Mid Laner: You’re the high-damage, mobile core of your team. You’ll farm in the middle lane for the first 10-15 minutes, then roam to top or bottom lane to help your teammates pick up kills and take objectives. Most mid laners have high burst damage, so you’ll be the first one to take out high-priority enemy targets in team fights.
ADC (Attack Damage Carry): You’re the main consistent damage dealer for your team, and you’ll spend almost the entire early game in the bottom lane farming CS next to your support. You’re very weak early on, but if you farm well and get enough items, you’ll be the strongest player on your team by the end of the match. You’ll stay behind your frontline in team fights and deal damage from a safe distance.
Support: You’re the team’s protector and playmaker, and you’ll stay with the ADC in the bottom lane for the early game. You don’t get much gold or XP compared to other roles, but your job is to place vision wards to spot enemy ganks, heal or shield your teammates, and start team fights with crowd control abilities. A good support can win a lane for their ADC before the first 5 minutes even pass.
Common Mistakes New Players Make That Waste Time and Lose Matches
When I first started playing, I made every mistake in the book, and it cost me dozens of matches before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Avoid these common pitfalls to make your first few matches way less frustrating, and you’ll climb faster once you decide to play ranked.
First, don’t chase kills across the map for no reason. It’s super tempting to run after an enemy champion with 100 health left, but if that takes you away from a dragon spawning or a turret you could take, you’re actually losing more than you gain. More often than not, that enemy will lead you into their jungle where three of their teammates are waiting to kill you for free.
Don’t ignore vision wards, especially if you’re playing support or jungle. Wards are cheap items that let you see parts of the map you wouldn’t otherwise, and they stop you from getting caught out by random enemy ganks. I used to skip buying wards to save gold for damage items, and I got ganked 5 times in one lane because of it. Now I buy wards every time I go back to base, no exceptions.
Also, don’t fight when your team is outnumbered or you’re low on health and mana. A lot of new players will run straight into a team fight as soon as they see an enemy, even if two of their teammates are dead and they only have 20% health left. That just gives the enemy free kills and lets them take objectives for free while you’re waiting to respawn. It’s okay to back off and farm for a few minutes until your team is all together and full health again.
One last tip: don’t tilt if your team is losing early. LoL matches are full of comebacks, and I’ve won matches where my team was down 15 kills at 10 minutes, but we focused on farming and taking objectives to come back and win in 40 minutes. Getting frustrated and making rash plays will only make the loss happen faster.
How to Make Every Match Fun Even If You’re Still Learning
A lot of new players quit LoL after their first few matches because they get flamed by toxic teammates or feel like they’re not good enough to keep up. It doesn’t have to be that way, though, and there are plenty of things you can do to make every match enjoyable, even if you lose.
First, play with friends if you can. Queueing up with 1 or 2 people you know makes the game way more fun, and you can split up roles to cover each other’s weaknesses. I still play almost every match with my college roommate, and even when we lose, we’re laughing about the stupid plays we made instead of getting frustrated. You can also try casual game modes like ARAM if Summoner’s Rift feels too stressful at first.
Start with a small pool of 2-3 champions to learn before you try new ones. There are over 160 champions in the game, and trying to learn all of them at once will only overwhelm you. Pick 1 or 2 champions that fit your playstyle (whether you like fighting up close, shooting from far away, or supporting your team) and stick with them until you’re comfortable with their abilities. You’ll learn the rest of the game much faster if you don’t have to worry about learning new champion abilities every match.
You can also play unranked matches for as long as you want before you try ranked play. Ranked matches have a skill rating system that matches you against players of similar skill, but there’s no pressure to play it if you don’t want to. Most of my friends only play unranked ARAM (All Random All Mid) matches for fun, and they’ve been playing for years without ever touching ranked. The game is supposed to be fun, so you don’t have to take it too seriously if you don’t want to.
Finally, don’t listen to toxic teammates. There’s a mute button for a reason, and if someone is being rude to you for making a mistake, just mute them immediately. You don’t owe anyone a response, and you’ll have way more fun if you ignore negative comments and focus on your own gameplay. 9 times out of 10, the player being toxic is making more mistakes than you are anyway.
At the end of the day, asking what do you do in League of Legends doesn’t have a single short answer, but it all boils down to working with your team to take objectives and destroy the enemy Nexus before they destroy yours. You don’t have to be a pro player to have fun, and even small improvements to your gameplay will make every match feel more rewarding. Take it slow, learn one thing at a time, and don’t be afraid to mess up—every pro player started exactly where you are now.