There’s always the debate among legions of diverse fans over which League of Legends champions are the best for newcomers.
The answers also change due to patch notes, re-works, re-designs, and a slew of other reasons. Thankfully, regardless of how much the game changes, there’s always around 20 or so champions that are generally safe for a newcomer to pick up and learn.
Hopefully your time spent with any number of these 10 champions will get you interested enough in League of Legends to keep on playing and having fun!
Nautilus
Beginner Role: Top & Support
When you attack an enemy, you root them in place for a second or so, which will give your ADC enough time to heavily damage them or even finish killing them. How do you get close enough to hit them? With your hook. Like Blitzcrank and Thresh, League of Legends‘ Nautilus has a hook ability that drags you to the enemy if you hit them with it. You can then attack them to root them in place and then add a splash wave which slows them down as they try to run away.
If all of that fails, your ultimate sends a lock-on projectile towards them that chases them down until it hits them and knocks them up. This also knocks up any enemies it collides with inbetween you and your target without being stopped in the process. As a backup, you also have a shield ability which lets you take a ton of free hits, and your hook ability can even be used to pull yourself towards a piece of terrain making for a good escape tool as well. Very underrated champion in general, but perfect for League of Legends beginner top laners or supports.
Malphite
Beginner Role: Top & Support
As a League of Legends beginner, being lumped up top on your own might be boring and kill the joy of LoL for you. The people who enjoy Top tend to be PvP-type gamers who thrive on 1 vs 1 action. If you do find yourself in the top lane, Malphite is easily one of the top three choices to be made for your first champion. His passive means you basically get a free shield every so often to take a few free hits if you let it charge back up. His ultimate lets you travel a long distance quickly to either escape quickly, or to knockup enemies that you land on if you’re chasing down a kill.
Malphite also has a slowing ability which can help you run away or chase down kills too, but his ultimate makes him one of the best beginner League of Legends champions for being able to relocate quickly in a pinch, without having to rely on using your flash. Putting more armour on him also makes him increase some of his damage output, so you can build him bulkier and pack more of a punch at the same time! For the same reasons, Malphite is good as a support champion for an ADC too. Supports don’t hit really that hard generally speaking, and a champion that benefits from stacking lots of armour means the ADC will find you hard to kill as well!
Teemo
Beginner Role: Any
You can play Teemo in any League of Legends position – even Jungle if you’re careful. While there’s a lot of controversy around Teemo, he’s still one of the funnest LoL champions to play on top of being a great pick for beginners. I promise this isn’t a troll entry – hear me out!
Besides his basic attacks dealing poison damage over time (great for dealing massive damage safely over time and securing kills), his main ability is a blinding dart which blinds an enemy champion or monster and stops them being able to hit you with basic attacks for a short while. This makes Teemo great for people who find themselves being jumped on regularly (everyone focuses on griefing Teemo!) and need an ability that gives them some breathing space while they run away or to tackle a big monster in the Jungle. Not only is the blind dart useful for saving your skin, but you can play Teemo in a support role at a beginner level to stop your ADC getting hit as well. Teemo has multiple uses, and you can even use his mushrooms to keep your lane safe and potentially get the upper-hand on an incoming enemy trying to gank your lane.
Morgana
Beginner Role: Mid & Support
Morgana is one of my favourite characters in the whole of League of Legends. She’s great for Top as well when you get better with her, but for a beginner let’s stay in Mid and Support in terms of picking her. Morgana’s shield ability will absorb a chunk of magic damage, and will nullify any spell effects such as stuns/silences while it’s active. This makes her a great pick for Mid lane where you’re usually against another magic user, which means you can take free hits and avoid being stunned etc.
She’s also great for support because of her stunning orb which will root a champion in place, as well as a then a toxic pool to lay down which deals damage over time. If you can time her pool to activate straight after you stun someone, you can deal a lot of damage this way and make it easy for your ADC to finish them off. Her ult throws dark tentacles at nearby enemies, and stuns them after being connected for a few seconds. This can be useful for saving your ADC if you need to give them time to escape, or pressure the enemy into backing off.
Braum
Beginner Role: Support
One problem a lot of League of Legends beginner support players have is positioning. It’s hard to read situations well enough to know when to stay close to the ADC or when to move in and pressure the enemy. Braum mostly takes that decision out of your hands with one ability which lets you leap to your teammate quickly to give their defenses a brief boost. He’s also got a massive ice block shield, which more or less negates the first major hit you take, and reduces the rest of the oncoming ones significantly. This stops any abilities passing through, which means you protect your ADC, and his ultimate knocks up enemies.
Braum is good for both leaping to your teammates’ rescue whilst blocking shots taken on them, and knocking up enemies ready to engage. He has a stacking passive which lets you stun enemies if you’re skillful enough, but it’s hard to pull off as most people back away as you start nearing your final stack to activate the effect. He can be played in top lane as well, but his low damage output means that beginners will struggle to cope alone without knowing how to build him.
Varus
Beginner Role: Mid & ADC
Varus is a great ADC, because he can charge up an arrow and shoot it over a ridiculous distance for high damage. This means you can keep safe while chipping away at your enemies’ health. If you engage into a fight, you can root enemies with your ultimate which can also spread to other nearby champions too if you time it right. He can also shoot a volley of arrows which creates an area that slows enemies down – great for chasing/escaping champions as well as slowing them down enough to throw out your ult at them.
Varus offers a lot of choice for a beginner ADC in League of Legends. Whilst most people might suggest Sivir for her shield that blocks one ability, or Ashe for her long-reaching Ult, Varus has the most utility of all for a beginner who is just getting to grips with landing skill shots and how to properly read situations. With the ability to slow, root, poke, and increase their attack speed naturally through kills, League of Legends’ Varus is a good all-rounder for someone that needs options available to them for both escaping and engaging enemies.
Fiddlesticks
Beginner Role: Jungle & Support
You really want to pick Fiddlesticks as your first League of Legends jungler. His drain ability lets him constantly heal so that you basically don’t have to think very hard when jungling with Fiddlesticks. His fear ability also lets him send an enemy (or monster) spinning around on the spot unable to attack you, which buys you some time and lets you rest from taking hits momentarily.
Fiddlesticks’ ultimate means that when you are ready to leave the jungle and help invade someone’s lane to help out a teammate, he can quickly teleport forward and activate a storm of crows, quickly sapping the life out of any champion not built for the occasion. For these reasons, he also works well as a support. He can heal himself out of trouble, and his E ability lets him shoot out a projectile which silences enemies it hits, as it bounces between targets. This can be good for poking enemies down slowly, and silencing them if they engage a fight, giving your ADC a few seconds to either escape from any further stuns or to help them gain the advantage in a fight.
Vladimir
Beginner Role: Top & Mid
Vladimir is always referred to by the creators of League of Legends as the “Champion we wish we never made”. Balancing Vladimir is still an ongoing process years down the line. He’s not overpowered in a fight, but his ability to stay alive is the reason so many amateur/novice players struggle to kill him. If you build the right items like Spirit Visage, you can take a few hits from your opponent easily before using your Q ability on minions to heal a chunk of health.
Vladimir is also able to dive into a blood pool underground, allowing him to escape any encounters he misjudges and gets caught in. The fact that you’re able to heal constantly with no mana cost – as well as escape if you do get into a pinch – means that you’ll win most fights in your lane simply because you can outlast your opponent. You can afford to take a few hits from them and heal the damage back up quickly. They can’t, and you’ll wear them down to the point where they’ll either have to retreat to base and heal up, or the jungler will have to spend more time helping them out against you. Either way, you benefit.
Kayle
Beginner Role: All Roles
Kayle can be adapted to suit any League of Legends role if you know what you’re doing. She can safely jungle if you build her attack speed up, and she can heal which also makes her suitable for support. If you build her to be more attack-centric, she can make a great midlaner, or even a good ADC if you’re careful. She’s mainly a melee character, but if your cooldown reduction is high enough, you can rely on her to be a ranged champion as one of her abilities makes her sword ranged with a wave of fire bursting from her hit targets which damages nearby enemies.
Kayle also has an ability to slow enemies down, which is good for chasing/escaping, but the crowning jewel in her abilities is her ultimate. You become invincible. No catch or cons: you become invincible to any damage for a short duration. You can use this as a beginner to basically reverse any situation. Escape death, or use it to outlast an enemy and buy you enough time to change the outcome. Did I mention you can make your friends invincible too? Kayle’s passive also means that the more you attack a target, the more armour and magic resistance they lose for a short period. This means that even if you aren’t dealing a lot of damage against your opponent, you’re making them easier for your teammates to kill. Kayle is a very strong pick for a beginner playing any role in their first few days of League of Legends.
Ezreal
Beginner Role: Mid & ADC
Beginners to League of Legends shouldn’t really play Ezreal mid, as it requires a lot of skill and precise timing. However, most players know of his main utility ability, which basically serves as a free flash and throws an extra hit towards the nearest enemy when you arrive at your destination. For that reason, low health enemies will choose to retreat back to base when they’re anywhere near low health. After teleporting to a new location, you can also throw 2 extra long range abilities that hit hard if you build the right items, and if they still get away you can rely on your ultimate which throws out a light arc across the map. As such, Ezreal will shine most for a beginner in the bottom lane as an ADC.
You can safely throw out abilities and deal damage from a distance, and if your opponent ends up on low health, you have both a free teleport (as well as your flash summoner spell!) to catch up with them, and you have your ult when they finally manage to escape with a slither of health left to peel away. The teleport can be used to travel across walls quickly, which makes both for a good escape/chase ability like any good utility champion. The fact he scales well on either Ability Power or Attack Damage means that as a beginner, you can afford to make a lot of mistakes when it comes to item builds too, but still deal heavy damage!
