Summoners, are you ready? Wild Rift is a skills-and-strategy 5v5 MOBA experience widely in demand due to the success of League of Legends by Riot Games. Immerse yourself in a competitive yet fair & fun multiplayer gaming. As a summoner of the Rift, you can play Champions with unique and creative abilities that you can mix and match with your teammates for an awesome synergy. Players of every level can team up with friends, lock in their champion and battle to destroy the opponent’s Nexus to claim victory.
Now that Wild Rift is opening their doors to more players, we’ve prepared this beginner’s guide to help you understand several basic elements of the game. As the saying goes, “knowledge is power”. Let’s get started!
Choosing your champion
Wild Rift features more than 40 Champions (out of League’s 151 champions) including Ahri, Jinx, Lux, Sona and Master Yi to name a few. The Champion class consists of Fighter, Tank, Mage, Assassin, Support and Marksman which complements the different roles in the game.
Using different champion classes on any role is up to your creativity. We’ve seen Faker play Kled (Tank / Fighter) in Mid Lane in League of Legends PC, and some crazy other off-meta picks like Soraka (Support / Mage) in Top. But there’s definitely a winning formula that you can follow through for a successful climb in Ranked games.
Five options make up the roles in Wild Rift: Baron lane, Mid, Jungler and Dragon Lane (ADC & Support). As a main core of the game, the ability to grasp what each role means will help determine your success.
Each one is built from scratch, so you have to rank them up to become more formidable for battle. Use Runes to enhance their abilities. Buy items and learn their effects to create the most potent combination to gain the upper hand.
Baron Lane
The top lane is normally the turf of tanks and fighters. Fighters with high burst damage can occupy this lane and go head-to-head with enemy top laners. Tanks are good at locking down enemies, protecting allies and initiating team fights. As the game progresses, top laners can rotate to the Mid lane to set up ganks or prepare for nearby objectives, while you can also get teleport boots to quickly reach further parts of the map.
Things to consider before picking your champion:
– Assess whether your team’s composition lacks tank or damage dealers.
– Adjust your summoner spell on whether you want to play more defensively or aggressively.
Mid Lane
With their central proximity to the map, Mid laners have more opportunities to respond to ganks and prepare for Baron or the Dragon. Mage and (some) assassins with high burst damage and mobility are perfect candidates for Mid, as they need to be more lane dominant and at the same time get to safety with their mobility skills.
Things to consider before picking your champion:
– Assess whether your team needs more crowd control abilities or a single target but lethal damager.
– Check how dangerous your enemy jungler is as you are more prone to ganks.
Jungle
Junglers can make or break your team’s composition. They have the ability to influence what’s happening around the map, help control each lane and help the team secure general objectives like the dragon and Baron. These are only your team duties as you also have to farm neutral creeps to get stronger items and improved abilities. As a jungler you need to have good map awareness at all times to successfully fulfil your duty.
Things to consider before picking your champion:
– Check whether your team’s composition lacks a damage dealer (pick an assassin) or a team fight initiator (pick a crowd control tank or fighter).
Dragon Lane
ADC (Attack Damage Carry)
Attack Damage Carry or more popularly known as ADC, is the marksman’s forte. The ADC’s strength lies in their ability to farm and build more items dealing more damage on a safe distance during team fights. Although ADC champs can deal lethal damage on enemies, they are usually inferior in terms of health and defense so make sure to KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!
Things to consider before picking your champion:
– Communication and synergy between ADC and support is very crucial. Make sure both your picks complement each other’s abilities.
Support
Often under-appreciated, a single perfectly executed setup of a Support champion can get your team the win. We can never really imagine a World (in this case the Rift) without the Rocket Grab of Blitzcrank, or the Crescendo of Sona. Support champions are guardians protecting their teammates specially the ADC and Mid while they can also be a team fight initiator who can help start ganks, disable enemy champions and start team fights. It is also their duty to ensure your team has a better vision of the map – a shared duty with the Jungler. They specialize in crowd control (especially during intense team fights) and considered a major game-changer throughout the match. Tanks and mages own this role.
Things to consider before picking your champion:
– Support can adjust their picks based on the overall team composition and at the same time considering the synergy between his lane companion, the ADC.
Familiarise yourself with the map
Since the objective of the game is to destroy the heart of the enemy team’s base called Nexus, you must understand important areas of the map. Wild Rift’s map consists of three lanes: Baron Lane (Top), Mid Lane and the Dragon Lane (Bottom). Each lane has its own special attribute complementing specific champion classes & roles.
Baron Lane
The Baron Lane is where Fighters, Assassins and Tanks farm. As a solo 1v1 lane, Top laners have to be extra patient to man this spot including the Baron pit itself and channel efforts in managing the lane. Mid game, your team should have gained enough XP and items, to defeat or contest the Baron and strategise for a push with a very strong buff ending the game. It will also be helpful to maintain vision on surrounding areas in the river, the enemy red buff and the ally blue buff. While on a mirrored map, place wards on the ally red buff and the enemy blue buff.
Mid Lane
Mage and Assassin champions take responsibility for this lane. Those who man this spot must be crafty to get solo kill opportunities, avoid enemy ganks and to respond to team fights.The Mid lane is where you can harvest more gold and XP as champions in this lane are meant to wreak havoc. It will be very helpful to maintain vision on surrounding areas in the river, the enemy and ally raptors.
Dragon Lane
This duo 2v2 lane is where the ADC and Support champions man the post. Winning this lane will require tremendous teamwork between the two characters and good coordination with the Jungler (more team members, stronger burst damage). You need to watch each other’s back in order to farm and survive against ganks and early game skirmish. Unlike the Baron, the Dragon can be defeated earlier in the game to get awesome team buffs. Maintain vision on surrounding areas of the river including the Dragon pit, the enemy blue buff and the ally red buff. While on a mirrored map, place wards on the ally blue buff & the enemy red buff.
Jungle
Jungle is too wide to be specified as a lane, but these areas are very important as the Jungle is the only path where you and your enemies can pass by to visit other areas of the map. Roaming the jungle, ensure you have increased map awareness to avoid surprises from the enemy team.
Levelling Up, Runes & Item Builds
Runes
After you select a champion, you can set up your runes based on your champion and matchup. Do you need more damage to burst enemies? Do you need more tenacity for enemies’ crowd control abilities? Or do you need more HP, armor and magic defense?
You can get a huge advantage by setting up the right runes. While Wild Rift’s team made sure to give the best general default runes for every champion, a human-touch would be more useful.
For beginners, you can set up your rune preference for every champion from the menu and simply adjust according to the matchup during champion selection.
Levelling Up
In the Rift, every champion battles their way up to level 15 getting ability upgrades and game-ending item builds. An extra level ahead of your enemy will surely be an advantage.
Majority of beginners would probably get too excited to kill enemies. Make sure not to make the same mistake. In Wild Rift, you need to have a balance of both minion farming and killing champions. With minions, you SHOULD always win, while killing enemy champions is not successful at all times. Think more of the returns in gold and experience. (You might be wasting time looking for a kill).
Item Build
Getting familiar with the items in Wild Rift can help you gain a HUGE advantage. Why equip magic defense items if all your enemies are AD? Or why build damage items if your team can’t even survive your enemies’ burst damage? These are just a few of the questions you have to ask yourself when building items. Adjusting items depending on your matchup is surely one of the key factors to winning the game.
To summarize your learnings, if you want to gain headway into the game, remember all these basic but crucial mechanics to the game. Map awareness will also contribute to capitalize on your strategy. Stay tuned to our next post and we’ll discuss several Champions including a detailed look of their skills, playstyle and battle combinations.
