League of Legends – Summoner Spells
Another confusing aspect to league is the addition of summoner spells. There are 11 summoner spells that any player in the game can have 2 unique spells. What characters should take what spells? Do certain roles require certain spells? Are they all equally useful?
Each champion has 4 abilities, why add more spells that everyone has? Initially when I started League, I would take random sets of summoner spells. I did not take the matchup into consideration. Playing and learning how one champion interacts with another is most of what League of Legends is. I always compared League to real time chess. Any small advantage via rune pages, spells, and items can easily decide a match.
The most popular summoner spell is flash. Flash allows a short-range instant teleport. This is great for dodging, engaging, and saving a champion. When in doubt of what to take flash. Ghost is 10 seconds of increased move speed that extends on champion takedown. Ghost is great for champions who are slow or easily “kited”. Barrier and heal is used to “Bait” opponents into thinking they secured a kill. Barrier gives a shield for 2 seconds that can easily turn a 1 vs. 1. Barrier is normally taken in the middle lane. Heal provides a boost to health and is also useful in baiting. Heal also affects 2 champions and increases their movement for a short duration. Heal is normally taken by the ADC role. Cleanse removes crowd control or stuns on your champion. Cleanse is taken normally by the ADC. Mark is only available in ARAM and shoots a snowball. If mark hits and is reactivated, your champion moves to that enemy champion (silly fun game mode that I love). Exhaust and Clarity are normally support role spells. Exhaust reduce an enemy champions movement by 30% and damage output by 40%. Clarity restores a large amount of mana (normally never taken). The usefulness of other spells is too great to take a mana restoring spell while mana normally is not an issue. Teleport is normally taken by the top lane. It allows the champion to teleport to wards, friendly minions, and towers. Ignite can be taken by any role. Ignite does true damage (not mitigated by armor/spell resist values) based on level with a heal reduction. Ignite is extremely us against targets that heal a lot and finishing a takedown. The last spell is smite and is always taken by the jungle role. Smite does a massive amount of damage to minions and jungle camps/objectives. Smite ensures the “jungler” will last hit the dragon or baron (both give the team massive advantages).
My recommendations are going to follow the above very closely. Characters who may not need flash include Kassadin and Shaco. These two champions have short low cooldown dashes in their abilities. Teleport can be taken in an unfavorable matchup. Teleport allows you to go back to base, heal, and return without missing experience or gold. For those more experienced, ignite gives a massive advantage in the early fights. It essentially is another ability in terms of damage done. Flash, ignite, and teleport are the main summoner spells. Get accustomed to these interactions before trying anything else.
Again, this is a brief overview and if you want to further explore which match-ups encourage which spells please go for it!
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