League of Legends beginner guide: items

Item stats

Perhaps the most important consideration when it comes to which items to buy, however, is what stats they give. While the active ability and passive effects are definitely worthwhile, they are inconsequential if you are buying stats that your champion doesn’t benefit from. No matter how much you want the stasis effect as an ADC, buying a Zhonya’s Hourglass doesn’t help you because your champion wants stats other than armor and ability power.

Items can give the following types of flat stats from purchasing them: armor, health, magic resistance, attack damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, cooldown reduction, mana, ability power, and movement speed. As noted above, items can also grant these and other stats (like mana or health regen) through their passive abilities.

In terms of knowing which items to build, look at your champion’s abilities and see which stats will boost your abilities (starting with the most-used ability and ultimate). For instance, if you are Camille and see most of your abilities scale with attack damage, just search for such items in the shop.

Upgrading items

As you upgrade your items (from basic/intermediate to advanced to final items) the stat bonuses you get will be bigger. This is why it is typically advised to upgrade items as quickly as possible, rather than having components for a couple of different items sitting in your champion’s inventory.

Now, if you don’t have the money to upgrade your items further, but still have gold and an open item slot, by all means invest in some basic items, a consumable (Vision Wards are always good) or even an advanced item to get you started on the next item you want to build. In some cases, having an advanced item and not upgrading it until later would actually be advised, since you get most of the benefits you need from the final item when you have the advanced component (Tiamat and Hexdrinker are two advanced items that don’t need to be immediately upgraded).

However, in order to maximize your item slots and spend your gold wisely, the best way to build, in general, is to buy components of the next item you want to build and upgrade them as quickly as you can.

That’s all for this week, but join us next time in our League of Legends beginners guide!