L: “And we’re back again. Welcome to our show. I’m Lex.”
A: “And I’m Ari! This time around, roles! With… most of the stuff that everyone deal with every game done– glaring at you, Lex.”
L: “I accept this.”
A: “Well, with most of it done, it’s important to get into the parts of the game that everybody is affected by, if not necessarily something you’ll be dealing with directly.”
L: “Which is to say, I thought it best to get one of the fundamentals out of the way quickly, even when that fundamental is one of the more complicated things you’ll need to be dealing with.”
A: “Which they’re right about, even if it is a little bit bothersome to have to change my schedule around that.”
L: “At its most basic level: Your role on the team defines how you interact with income, where you’re likely to be playing, and what your usual game plan is going to be.”
A: “They’re more descriptive than prescriptive, though, even if they are used for matchmaking. Northlaners in particular are sometimes called off-laners or weak-laners. Not because they’re weak, but because they’re a single player in the lane, compared to the combination of Support and Carry on the opposite side.”
L: “And with Northlaners brought up, they’re probably the simplest place to start.”
A: “Not that that’s saying a whole lot! They’re still complicated.”
L: “Just less so.”
A: “First thing– they’re called Northlaners because they operate in the northern lane of the map.”
L: “Obviously.”
A: “Which they do, because North lane is much more accessible to divers and midlaners than South, and Northlaners usually have a high amount of tankiness, mobility, observational ability, or some combination of the three compared to the players in South lane.”
L: “It’s possible to, and pro teams occasionally do, move your North laner to South lane, and put your Carry/Support combo in North.”
A: “It’s a bit of a ‘throwing down the gauntlet’ move. When you do that, you’re signaling to the other team that you either think your North laner can one-v-two, sometimes three, or that you think your carry and support are wildly more effective than the enemy’s.”
L: “Which means that they’re almost guaranteed to get massive amounts of pressure from the enemy diver, mid, and ranger.”
A: “Northlaners have a wider range of effective builds than most of the other roles, besides maybe divers. It’s not out of the question to see strange snowballing bruisers, DPS monsters of both the physical and magical variety, a tank, and an observational powerhouse with sniping ability in the lane over the course of just a few games.”
L: “That said, most people agree that the most effective Northlaners are mid-range bruisers with battlefield control.”
A: “That’s a general rule, though, and many people find success playing other things. On top of that, there are a number of specialized non-standard teams that can compete with the meta teams, and one of the biggest determiner of the new style is often the Northlaner.”
L: “Just don’t be surprised if playing with randoms is painful.”
A: “It’s true, unfortunately. Specializing in a different way means that the general strategies will need to be adapted on the fly, with random people who may or may not understand what needs to be done to allow you to be most effective.”
L: “Northlaners are usually players with high Calculation or Strength, high Endurance, and decent Concentration and Energy.”
A: “Next in standard order is the Mist Diver, usually shortened to diver. They have one of the most complex roles in the game, so we won’t be going everything here! That said, we can cover the basics.”
L: “Divers are the most ‘self-sufficient’ role, moving in the mists and receiving their primary income from killing the monsters therein.”
A: “Each team has their own mists, or at least a side that’s closer to them, but divers are in no way restricted to killing just the monsters on their side. In fact, one of the most useful tactics is crossing over to the ‘opponent’s’ side, taking some of their monsters and, thereby, credits.”
L: “Just be aware they can do the same to you, and it’s less safe to be on the enemy side because it limits your retreat options while allowing them to collapse on you if your team isn’t managing their lanes well.”
A: “Which is another part of the diver’s role, actually! Their primary purpose in a team is to round out the roster with, typically, a burst-damage player with crowd control abilities.”
L: “Because your job is to pop out of nowhere and shank people.”
A: “I… Guess.”
L: “Prove me wrong though.”
A: “So, say that but actually explain it, please.”
L: “But I don’t waaannaaa.”
A: “…”
L: “Fine. You sneak around in the mists, then gank, or show up in a lane with the intent of scaring off or killing the other player in the lane. Sometimes, you counter-gank, showing up to scare off or kill an enemy diver or ranger with the help of your in-lane ally.”
A: “Having a lot of damage or CC helps you do the job better, so it’s going to be the primary focus of any diver build, beyond just the ability to kill the monsters. Also, because you’re often alone and need to know more about the map than other roles, you’ll communicate a lot with the ranger.”
L: “Many of the monsters deal enough damage that getting hit even once deals too much damage for even tankier players to consider it worth it, so most of the builds focus on not getting hit. That is, divers usually have high Agility, decent Endurance and Strength, and high energy.”
A: “Next up! In standard order, that means we’re on Midlaners!”
L: “My role. Point of it in a nutshell? Wave clear and early- to mid-game power.”
A: “Before the carry is online, the Midlaner is almost always the best sustained damage dealer on the team. They use a variety of tactics, but in general will be highly mobile, highly damaging, and have some way to deal with crowds.”
L: “The role is often seen as the highest ‘technical’ skill floor, referring to the minimum amount of the player’s ability to execute their abilities and movement effectively in combat. Mostly because the lane is fairly regularly one giant game of rocket tag.”
A: “By which they mean that the best defense is usually not getting hit, and either player can probably nearly kill the other without help from allies.”
L: “It makes ganks effective. It also makes them dangerous.”
A: “Midlane is where it’s most likely that your 1v2 gank turns into a double kill for the enemy because they were just better than you for that thirty-second span. On the other hand, it’s also where you get the fastest successes, and the mobility and damage of Midlaners means that they can often translate that over to other lanes as well.”
L: “They would take bases, but the outer two mid bases are stranger than all the other bases. Not by a huge amount, but enough to make beating on them usually a bit of a waste compared to letting the minions do it.”
A: “And putting them in a side lane is dangerous– in North, they’re vulnerable to ganks still and don’t have the ability to carry their advantages all the way to south, as well as it taking longer to run to safety if something goes wrong, which is more time to mess up once and die. In South, they need to get over the Worm area early, making leaving the lane take longer and giving warning, while also making ganks more difficult for the diver and, as before, making it difficult to translate a lead to North.”
L: “Making it more difficult for the diver is a problem, by the way, because mid can easily be tipped to favor one side or the other, and having the maximum number of opportunities to do that is attractive to both teams. The lane favors high Agility and Calculation, with decent Energy.”
A: “Rangers! Probably the strangest role, it doesn’t make money from death at all.”
L: “Except players. Rangers are picky little serial killers.”
A: “Specifically, Rangers pick up their team’s single Panel Key, often called ‘the key,’ and use it to activate panels in the canopy.”
L: “They take a bit to activate, but then generate a passive stream of credits to the controller and allow them to activate or deactivate bridges. Other than that, they do the ganking thing, like divers.”
A: “More than any other role, Rangers are built to fight other players at all stages of the game. Usually, they’re tanky mid-rangers, with CC and damage. Rangers are also often seen as the team’s ‘second support,’ picking up the slack in the warding department on the north side. Unlike the other roles, Rangers will almost never have are effect damage abilities, and will almost always have some sort of mobility that allows them to survive jumping, falling, or being pushed off the bridges, as well as getting back. The tankiness isn’t technically required, but has become the norm because it can prevent the player from being pushed out of even their own side’s panels, an advantage that is extremely difficult to crack from the losing side.”
L: “Rangers have the most snowbally role, for sure. So tanks slow it down. And while that seems like a lot, it’s not actually that restrictive on the styles of build. Rangers will usually have high endurance and concentration, and their other stats can be absolutely anywhere.”
A: “My role, now! Carries. It’s in the name! They carry the game.”
L: “Not early, though. Carries are, actually, pretty much universally, kind of garbage early in the game.”
A: “Scaling through time or items, they trade early power for ramping abilities that allow them to cut through tanks efficiently and unprotected players in seconds. The most effective scaling, here, is basically ‘mages’.”
L: “Magic Boost combined with Special Boosts, specifically, is why mages– builds that focus on abilities that deal direct damage, eschewing standard weaponry– dominate here. Carries are usually considered to have the highest skill ceiling– that is, personal technical skill has the most effect before hitting diminishing returns in this role.”
A: “Which, when combined with their ability to completely take over a game in the later stages of it, usually means that the carry is considered the most ‘prestigious’ of the roles.”
L: “There are two main types of carry. You have your standard, who has some movement or defensive skills to get them out of bad situations, and you have your hypercarries.”
A: “While hypercarries can have movement skills, they’ll almost never have defensive ones, because their focus is on one thing– stacking their abilities together to create a huge, ongoing torrent of damage that screams ‘Kill me or lose the game.’”
L: “Some builds fall in a middle stage between the two, or operate as one or the other in different stages of the game. Ari’s build, for example, plays more like a standard carry for most of it, with a damage-reducing area skill. But when they get some time behind them, that changes form. Her ability to boost and direct the minions from the lanes eventually gets strong enough that her primary focus changes to pumping out enough damage that the enemy team doesn’t even want to get close to her without somehow shutting that down first, while the defensive utility stays at the same level of effectiveness.”
A: “Which, when everyone else’s attacks are getting stronger, means that it’s getting comparatively weaker.”
L: “Carries almost exclusively focus on having high Calculation and Energy, with everything else being secondary.”
A: “Supports being the only reason that’s possible, of course!”
L: “Important players, and usually the most ignored.”
A: “Supports’ job in-lane is to keep their carry alive and get them some kills if possible. They’re also primarily in charge of warding, giving them the best knowledge of the area and second-best knowledge of the map overall, behind only Rangers. Often, this leaves them the best shotcallers on the team.”
L: “Not that people usually let them. The conflation of Calculation scores and ‘intelligence’ means that midlaners and carries often take the role as an extra ego-boost, and usually have a stronger force of personality to get their way.”
A: “Supports gain income by taking their team’s Viewfinder, an item that gives them income from allied kills nearby, but that shuts that effect off temporarily if they kill an enemy personally, instead granting allies half of the credits for the kill. Note that this is a reduction in total credits received for the team to use: on its own, without killing anything, the viewfinder grants extra credits, rather than splitting them.”
L: “Supports invest primarily in early game, ally-defensive power with their abilities, which tends to result in game-changing, though still defensive ultimates. They’re the primary buyers of consumables, because they usually buy cheaper items than other classes, focusing on tankiness without any need for personal damage.”
A: “That said, a good carry acknowledges that a great support can just sort of… hand them the win. Sometimes, being the most powerful player in the game isn’t an issue of being the best, but one of being in the right place at the right time for it to be handed to you.”
L: “Supports are the Concentration specialists, with a secondary focus on Endurance and Strength.”
A: “And that covers all the roles! A good team needs all the roles filled.”
L: “And a great team actually understands what they need to be doing within that dynamic. You’d think it easy, but…”
A: “Lex. You might think it easy. We have literally thousands of hours in the game.”
L: “Yeah. Right, That.”
A: “Sorry for the boring one, this time, but that’s groundwork for you! Some time in the future, we’ll cover specialist team comps, but that’s not today, unfortunately.”
L: “Good luck in your games, and if you lose, don’t tell ‘em who sent you.”
A: “Lex!”
