ln knows better than anyone, i was playing ryze with him and mtr last night. i got to the point where i was dpsing down their squishies in 3 seconds. their amumu, nunu and lux all used their aoe ults on me. i lived.
and then i died to singed fling into tower but who cares lol
i want to take this moment to educate you guys on team composition because i think there are a lot of misconceptions that need to be cleared up
a fives team needs, first of all, two core roles. these are initiator and carry, i will explain these roles below and some other roles that you will see talked about
Initiator
the initiator's role is to make plays, or respond to plays in a way that his time is put at an advantage. most of the time the initiator manifests himself in a 'tank' role, though it is a bit of a misnomer considering most people will simply ignore a really beefy person and focus on the squishier champions in large fights. initiators require a dangerous disable - this is non negligible. jarvan, shen, amumu, cho'gath, alistar and malphite all have the ability to disable multiple enemies, and they have the beefiness to make sure they survive this attempt at disabling the enemy team, as they will more than likely be punished for this attempt at disabling the enemy.
other initiators include rammus, singed, warwick, urgot, maokai and blitzcrank but they are less effective because they can only target one player, as well as some of them not having the tankiness to survive an initiation attempt. they are, however, fine on the same team as the above six.
Carry
the carry's purpose is to down the enemy team as fast as possible. usually the carry will be seen as an 'autoattacker', or a champion that builds attack damage, attack speed, armor penetration and critical strike in order to destroy the enemy with powerful autoattacks. envision the carry as 'how can i kill five people reliably and quickly?' physical carries include ashe, miss fortune, tristana, teemo, corki, tryndamere, vayne, kog'maw, ezreal, caitlyn and twitch. magical carries also exist, with champions like karthus, swain, vladimir, cassiopeia and ryze pumping out regular, sustained magical damage. carries are required in order for a team to have any presence late game. they are often the first target in fights, and they often require a lot of farm, so they are usually found building a few defensive items.
ideally, the carry should be able to destroy the enemy given a good initiation. however, league of legends is not a 2v5 game. this is where the other roles come in.
Nuker
somewhat obvious - the nuker specialises in pumping out one large burst of damage. burst damage has two effects - firstly, it can have a severe psychological impact on a player when they suddenly lose a massive chunk of health, causing them to retreat from the battle or play a lot more passively. secondly, it can outright kill a player, turning a fight into a 5v4 very, very quickly. good examples of nukers include annie, veigar, malzahar, sion, anivia and brand. nukers are often very, very frail, typically the frailest on their team, and coupled with their high damage output, they are also a primary target.
Assassin
also known as the anticarry, the assassin is similar to the nuker in that it can output a lot of damage to a single target. the assassin specialises in singling out a player on the enemy team and killing them, and usually being able to escape afterwards for a repeat killing, whether it be through an escape ability or survivability. it comes as no surprise that assassins are perhaps the best duelists in the game, and should you come a well-farmed one in the jungle, you should not expect to get out alive. assassins possess ways to keep track of their targets and prevent their escape. good examples of assassins include akali, nocturne, shaco, kassadin, leblanc, evelynn, pantheon and poppy, who possess abilities that allow them to get away after an assassination. beefy assassins who use their tankiness to get away include warwick, irelia and jax.
Support
a common champion archetype, the support has one main goal - to keep their carry alive. the support usually has a good disabling move that stops would-be assassins, as well as an ability that increases survivability. secondary aims of the support include making their team stronger through auras, or buffs to their allies. good examples of support champions include soraka, janna, sona, nidalee, zilean, lux, morgana, karma, galio and kayle. support champions do not require much gold to have an impact on the game, and often try to avoid taking farm and kills.
Bruiser
the bruiser doesn't really have a set role, and is usually free to do as he wishes in most parts of the game. bruisers are characterised by being powerful, beefy melee damage dealers, though they are usually undone by certain flaws, like being easily kited, having no solid crowd control abilities or having poor scaling. bruisers usually dive key targets in fights, shrugging off damage while hounding down their target. bruisers include nasus, garen, jax, renekton, mundo, jarvan, xin zhao, warwick, olaf, trundle and blitzcrank.
it's important to note that even if you have a nice balanced team composition, there are still subroles that are required to be filled. every team needs a jungler, to give a player a gold an experience advantage as well as controlling buffs, dragon and baron. most bruisers are capable of jungling well, and a few other champions like fiddlesticks, nocturne and the initiators are also capable of jungling. all teams need a mix of ap champions and ad champions, so the other team can't simply stack one defensive item and win. it's important to not have a team of five melee or five ranged champions, as fights at the enemy tower are nigh on unwinnable with a full melee team, and fights anywhere else are unwinnable with the lack of durability of five ranged champions. generally, your team will be split 2 attack damage/3 ability power, with any number of hybrid champions. think about the champions you're picking - does your team have enough crowd control? does THEIR team have enough crowd control? potentially lethal but difficult to execute ultimates like katarina's death lotus, morgana's soul shackles and nunu's absolute zero are awesome when the enemy team has little crowd control, or when your team can disable theirs. consider building a team comp around a certain strategy - if you want to win fights before they even start, have a kite team composition. if you want to win them in seconds before the enemy can react, take multiple initiators and some aoe damage dealers like annie. if you want to win fights through attrition, consider more than one support champion and overall beefiness.
a typical team composition will look like
initiator/ad ranged carry/ap nuker/support/jungle bruiser
for example:
shen/ashe/sion/alistar/warwick
all five champions have solid crowd control, the whole team is bulky on the whole bar ashe, and everyone is capable of protecting ashe and allowing her to deal out the damage.
