Intro

Hey fellow plebs,

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve been getting some frequent new player questions on this sub lately. Since the game is no longer as popular as before (still doing good though), there are a lot of wrong/outdated information out there on the internet. Fortunately, I have nothing better to do with my life and decided to volunteer myself to write this guide where I compile a list of information/guides that IS up to date. I’m obviously not going to find every relevant guide out there, so please help me out if there is something that I’ve missed.

In this guide, I will cover the absolute basics of the game such as the map, objectives, roles, relevant heroes, and how to improve at the game. Ideally we can keep this stickied and I'll keep this updated so we can have an updated community guide for any new players that decides to join us in the future.

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TL;DR – No TL;DR here, keep on reading and maybe you'll finally stop getting reported every game and get out of gold!

The Map

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the map if you’ve played a MOBA in your life, it’s fairly standard with three lanes and a jungle. The three lanes consists of the Abyssal Dragon lane, mid lane and the Dark Slayer lane (more on this later with pictures). There are 3 enemy towers on each lane, making it a total of 9 towers and one core for you to destroy.

This is where things become a little different from PC MOBAS, the maps in AOV are mirrored. What this means is that you will ALWAYS start from the bottom left of the map from YOUR perspective. Why is this? Because it’s easier for the player (that’s you!) to play upwards instead of downwards since your skills and your fat fingers will block and limit your vision if you’re playing downwards. Why does this matter? Because this means that the Abyssal Dragon lane and the Dark Slayer lane will be in different lanes (top or bottom) depending on the game. Don’t worry, I’ll explain what the Abyssal Dragon and the Dark Slayers is soon and everything will make sense. Just know that unlike PC MOBAs, the solo lane isn’t ALWAYS the top lane, and the ADC doesn’t ALWAYS go to the bottom lane.

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Blue circle = Dark slayer, Red circle = Abyssal Dragon/Enraged Abyssal Dragon (after 15 mins)

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Although the position of the Abyssal Dragon and the Dark Slayer changes match to match, the position of the buffs doesn't change. Your blue buff will ALWAYS spawn near the top lane, and your red buff will ALWAYS spawn near the bottom lane. Similarly, the enemy blue buff will spawn on the right hand side of the map and the enemy red buff will spawn on the left hand side of the map.

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Red circle = Red buff, Blue circle = Blue buff

Roles

The roles should be fairly straight forward if you’ve played LoL before, but will be slightly foreign if you’re a MLBB player or a big brained DOTA player. It’s okay, we’re taking baby steps here, I will explain the basics of  every role below. I’ll also include some recommended starting heroes (both free & ones you buy), heroes you can work towards for each role, and heroes to avoid.

Mid Lane:

Any hero with a fast/safe wave clear will excel in this role. Mages typically do well in this role although some Warriors are also okay if you want to get fancy (you should stick to mages early on though). What you want to do is clear your wave as soon as possible, roam to one of your side lanes to gank, and be back for your next minion wave. Getting back to your lane for your next minion wave is EXTREMELY important because otherwise you will fall behind in farm. A lot of mages overstay their welcome when ganking the side lanes and end up missing their minion wave completely in the mid lane. Not only do they miss gold from their minion wave, they also end up taxing their side laner’s gold.

Recommended starting heroes:

Krixi (Free) – She’s a top tier mage despite being one of the first free heroes the game gives you. She has good range/poke, a little CC with her S2, and good burst from her ultimate. Mechanics wise she’s very simple, and very easy to use for new players.

Diao Chan (Free) – She’s a very devastating hero in the right hands because of her S2 freeze, which can often turn the tides of a game completely. They are a little hard to land consistently but hey she’s free.

Aleister (Free) - Has one of the stupidest most devastating ult in the game, and he's free for new players from Road to glory.

Dirak (18,888 Gold) – Best mid laner in the current meta. He has insane range/poke, insane damage, good CC with his S1 push & S2, very quick wave clear, and very good team fighting capabilities. Only weakness is that he’s not very mobile.

Marja (18,888 Gold) – Very forgiving yet strong mage in the current meta. She doesn’t have a lot of burst damage, but has tons of sustain and is able to dish out a ton of damage in long team fights. Her ultimate is the ultimate “get out of jail” card making her one of the most forgiving heroes to play. She also doesn’t use any mana which is perfect for new players who might have trouble with mana management. Oh, you also get a ton of her trial cards from the daily spin, so you can test her out quite a bit before purchasing her.

Heroes to work towards:

Lilliana (18,888 Gold) – She has two forms (Fox and Human), which means you need at least two brain cells to play her. She’s one of the strongest late game mages in the game, and her early game just got buffed as well making her one of the strongest overall mages in the game.

Raz (13,333 Gold) – An assassin mage that requires slightly fast fingers to pull off your full combo. He has very good poke and burst damage, but doesn’t have a lot of AoE damage and has slow wave clear. You need to have somewhat of a decent map awareness to be good with Raz so you can pick off squishy heroes. He’s much more effective in high elo where your support will (hopefully) help you clear waves so you can roam faster. Not as effective in low elo where your support either doesn’t buy the support item thus leeching your gold/exp, or doesn’t help you clear at all.

There are also tons of other good mid laners such as Paine/Tulen/Ignis/Jinnar/etc I'm too lazy to list them all.

Heroes to avoid:

Veera/Mganga/Azzenka – These heroes might seem decent or even good earlier on, but trust me they suck. They might get you to as high as Platinum/Diamond, but that’s it.

Dark Slayer Lane:

This is also known as the solo lane, warrior type heroes who have good 1v1 capabilities, good sustain, and good escape options are usually picked here. This lane is where you showcase your big brain against your opponents and get those solo kills. If you enjoy the thrill of asserting dominance over a single opponent, then this is the role for you my friend. There are several types of heroes that gets picked into this lane including assassins, split pushers, duelists, and tanks.

Recommended starting heroes:

Lubu (Free) – Very well rounded hero, has good damage and has good sustain. He matches up decently against most matchups.

Arthur (Free) – Very good starting hero to get your hands, innately tanky and hard to take down. He doesn’t have a lot of carry potential but is still deadly if played correctly.

Omen (8,999) – He’s on sale for the first two weeks if you’re in the NA/EU server iirc for 8,999 gold, he’s one of the premier split pushers in the game right now (along with Kilgroth). Split pushing seems like an easy role but requires a lot of map awareness and good decision making. You need to know when you can safely push, and when you should join team fights. He also has one of the few hard CCs (cannot be purified) in the game with his ult.

Maloch (18,999) – One of the most forgiving heroes in the slayer lane right now. Does a ton of damage with the true damage on his S1, and is capable of tanking a ton with the shield on his S2 along with his innate tankiness. His ultimate also makes him one of the best initiators in the game, there’s nothing to not like about Maloch right now other than that he’s a bit slow. High elo likes to play him at the mid lane and force fights around him since he’s such a potent team fight hero.

Heroes to work towards:

Yena (18,999 Gold) – One of the strongest heroes in the game when played correctly. She has two different forms so it does take a bit of practice mechanically, which is why it’s a hero I recommend only after you’ve gotten used to the macro aspect of the game. You need to know how/when/where to camp you opponents to utilize her full potential.

Riktor (18,999 Gold) – One of most popular picks in high elo and competitive play, has the perfect amount of tankiness and damage in the game right now IMO. Similar to Yena, I highly recommend only after you’ve gotten used to the macro aspects of the game since he needs to utilize bush camping as well.

Florentino (18,999 Gold) – The strongest 1v1 hero in the game but takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of experience to use him correctly in team fights but is very deadly once mastered. IMO, you can’t say you’ve mastered the DS laner role without having figured out the ins and outs of this hero.

Again there are tons of other good DS laners such as Qi/Volkath/Veres/etc that are very viable in the meta, try them out and see which one fits your play style better.

Heroes to avoid:

Taara/Wiro/Arduin/Skud – There are too many heroes that are capable of doing what these heroes are supposed to do, but do it 10x better.

Abyssal Dragon Lane:

Usually the ADC goes here, sometimes the games are also played without an ADC in high elo so any DS lane hero works here as well. In low elo you’ll most likely see a duo lane with a support right from the start, but in high elo you’re support will (hopefully) be roaming to provide vision for the entire team so you have to know how to lane by yourself as well. The Abyssal Dragon is the first major objective of the game as it gives the whole team extra gold/exp and spawns at the 2:00 mark. There was also a recent buff that buffed the dark slayer lane/mid lane towers to have 60% damage reduction for the first 5 minutes, meaning that the majority of the early game battles will be focused around the Abyssal Dragon lane. As an ADC, your job is to farm and survive until the late game where you start to take over and carry the team. You need good positioning, map awareness, and good farming capabilities to excel in this role.

Recommended starting heroes:

Violet (Free): Pretty sure you get her for free after completing a few ranked games in NA, she’s not as broken as before but she’s definitely still deadly when given appropriate farm. She has insane range with her S1 and can poke enemies from afar, which is really good for new players starting out.

Valhein (Free): I know Valhein is kind of a meme and gets associated with small brain players, but he’s a really good starting hero. He’s extremely forgiving as the only marksman with an auto aimed stun on his S2, which allows him to engage or disengage from an enemy assassin. However, he falls off hard in the lately game damage wise compared to other marksman. My recommendation is to use him for 10 games or so to get used to the role, and switch to another marksman afterwards.

Capheny (18,999 Gold) – IMO the best marksman in the game right now. She’s the only marksman that can move WHILE attacking, which makes her extremely forgiving as she can often kill the enemy assassins if they miss their skill shots. She does tons of sustained damage in her machine gun form, and does tons of burst damage in her laser form. The best part is, she often gets overlooked in the B/P phase.

Telannas (18,999 Gold) – One of the easiest hero in the game alongside Valhein, just use your S1 S2 and auto attack the shit out of the enemies with an occasional stun from your S3.

Heroes to work towards:

Elsu (18,999 Gold) – There are no wards in this game with the exception of Elsu’s S1, making him extremely valuable in high elo and competitive games. Mechanically he’s one of the hardest heroes in the game, because you need to be able to hit his S2 consistently to be valuable.

Elandor (18,999 Gold) – Mechanically he’s one of the hardest marksman in the game, but is very rewarding when mastered. IMO he’s better as a jungler when he can get that gold/level advantage, but is still viable in lane when mastered.

Laville – He’s a codex hero, so if you weren’t around for the codex last season you won’t be able to get him until he’s put into the shop 4-8 weeks from now, or maybe even longer.

Joker (18,999 Gold) – He’s not really an ADC, but more of an Anti-ADC. He counters most ADCs in lane (except for Elsu), but he’s more of an ranged assassin than an ADC.

Hayate (18,999 Gold) – He has one of the latest late games out of all the ADCs, but is one of the strongest after he gets to his late game.

Heroes to avoid:

Wisp/Moren/Yorn – No reason to be playing these when you have the above available

Jungler:

You’re the pseudo carry of the team until your ADC comes online in the late game. The jungler shoulders the most responsibility more often than not because you’re responsible for initiating ganks, taking major objectives, and controlling the general flow of the game. Typically, it’s very hard to win games with a bad jungler as opposed to any other role.

Recommended starting heroes:

Kriknak (Free) – One of the strongest burst heroes in the game, he’s an typically Assassin who targets the squishies on the opposing teams. He’s not very complicated mechanics wise, so you mainly have to work on your macro

Butterfly (Free) – One of the most iconic heroes of AoV, any kills & assists refreshes all of her CDs making her one of the best snowball heroes in the game. You need to time her entry in order to be good, and she falls off slightly in the late game

Zephys (Hero Tokens/First time voucher purchase reward) – One of the most balanced heroes in the game with good damage, sustain and tainkiness. Very good in low elo where people fight ALL the time.

Heroes to work towards:

There are so many good junglers right now, look at the tier lists below and pick your poison, you literally can’t go wrong.

Assassins: Paine/Keera/Enzo/Zill/Nakroth/Murad/etc

ADC junglers: Elandor/Lindis/Fennik/Violet are the popular ones

Heroes to avoid:

Wukong – He crits big numbers but is too RNG dependent in the early game. Although he’s good late game, his team usually never gets there.

Support:

You’re the glue of the team, you’re what keeps the team together and give them space to deal damage. You provide peel for your carries and provide vision for your team (there are no wards in this game so you're a human ward). While the role seems insignificant at first, it’s no doubt one of the most important roles in the game. Ideally you tap into this role only after getting a good grasp of other roles.

Oh, and BUY THE GOD DAMN SUPPORT ITEM. It gives you extra gold and allows you to soak minion gold/exp WITHOUT leeching from your carries.

Recommended starting heroes:

Alice (Free) – One of the strongest supports in high elo right now, she’s kind of useless pre-4 but her ult counters pretty much all of the meta heroes at the moment. You literally just place it in the middle of the team fight and watch your team demolish the opponents, especially in the late game.

Ormarr (Free) – He’s a free hero that’s relatively tanky with a ton of cc in his kit, he can be very aggressive in the early game and can be very oppressive if played correctly.

Thane (5,888) – The tankiest hero in the game, he also has a ridiculous amount of CC with his S1 push and can turn the tide of the team fight when used correctly.

Heroes to work towards:

Zip (18,999) – The most broken hero in the game, if not banned he’s a MUST pick in high elo.

Krizzix (18,999) – One of the best initiators in the game with his S2 & invisibility, he also provides a ton of vision for the team with his ult

Baldum (18,999) – IMO one of the scariest supports when played to his full potential. He’s very tanky, has ton of cc, and has a very game deciding ult.

Heroes to avoid:

Peura – She had her moment a few patches ago, but the meta of babysitting the ADC is long gone. Since there are no wards in this game, supports NEED to roam and provide vision for the team in high elo. She’s a fine hero in low elo, but I’d recommend to avoid her in order to not pick up bad habits & get used to roaming.

Xeniel – I hate to say this as he’s one of my favorite heroes, but avoid in soloQ. People will flame you when you don’t ult, and will run away from your ult when you do ult them. You can literally do no right with this hero unless you’re actively communicating with your team.

Grakk – IMO new players should avoid this hero. New players often get so fixated on hooking people that they end up forgetting what a support SHOULD be doing.

Rouie - She's one of the most broken supports in the right hands and the right team, you won't have that in the beginning so avoid until you're in relatively high elo.

Objectives:

Towers: This should be obvious, but AoV is a tower pushing game. The objective is to destroy towers which leads to the nexus/core. There are 9 towers to push in total with 3 towers in each lane, your minions get buffed and become “super” minions after you push down all of the towers in a lane. They get a further buff once you push down all 9 towers although that’s not required for destroying the nexus (you only need one lane of towers to be pushed to reach the Nexus) although it does make things easier.

Vision bird: Minor objective on the sidelanes, but it's something that you should go for whenever possible. Once killed, the vision bird turns into a vision orb thingy that walks around the enemy jungle in a specific pattern and gives you vision throughout their jungle. This is very useful in detecting ganks, and determining the position of the opponent jungler (although the jungler could still avoid being seen by not getting caught by the orb).

Abyssal Dragon: This is the first major objective that’s contested by both teams, it spawns at the 2:00 mark. Killing the dragon provides each member of the team 50 gold each (correct me if I’m wrong), and extra EXP.

Spirit Sentinel: The spirit senteniel spawns at the 1:50 mark, it’s weaker than the Abyssal Dragon but grants the individual killer with a HP recovery buff & movement speed buff. This is good for the jungler to get if your team is not positioned to contest the Abyssal Dragon.

Dark Slayer: Spawns at the 7 minute mark, provides your team with some HP/MP recovery buff but most important lets you summon a Drake within the next 60 seconds. The Drake buffs all of your minions and can attack towers outside of tower range making a very valuable tool to push down towers. Using the Drake correctly can almost guarantee a T1 tower (high ground) for your team, and often times decide the game.

Enraged Abyssal Dragon: Spawns at the 15 minute mark. Killing the Dragon will give you a buff depending on your role, but most importantly the Dragon drops the "Dark blessing" (you pick this up by standing on it) which allows you to avoid fatal damage, kind of like the Death Sickle item.

General Etiquettes

Don’t Flame

Don’t be one of those players that spend more time on the keyboard than playing the game, if you're one of these people then go hang out in the all chat with the rest of the virgins looking to get cat-fished. Every second you waste typing in chat is a wasted opportunity that could’ve been used to turn the game around. Be nice in chat and don’t insult people – encouragement often has a much better effect than flaming. People tend to become defensive when they get flamed (even when you’re right), what happens when people get defensive? They start wasting time typing instead of playing. So instead of 0-4 now they’re more likely to go 0-7, or worse they start intentionally trolling/afking in a game that was probably winnable. Lets avoid these situation by being the big brained people that we are. A quick “lets get slayer” or “play safe” is fine, don’t go insulting people and their mothers.

Don’t complain about your team in all chat

If there’s one thing more annoying than flamers is people that flame in all chat. Nobody on the other team cares, and nobody sympathizes with you. In fact, you look even more like a clown than the 0-8 Valhein more often than not.

Don’t take Jungle buffs unless you’re jungling

This isn’t ML, don’t take your jungler’s buffs especially in the early game. Your jungler won’t reach level 4 if you took a camp before his first clear, this puts your team at a disadvantage because he won’t have his ultimate before the first team fight. There is more gold in lane in this game, so clear your minion waves. You can take a small camp close to lane here and there, but don’t take buffs without asking. The only time you don’t have to ask is if your jungler already has the buff from invading the enemy jungle, otherwise a simple “can I have blue” will do. Most junglers that don’t need it will be happy to give it to you unless you’re feeding hard.

Ping "Enemy Missing" if the enemy is missing

It's technically their fault if they get caught, but just do it so your stupid teammates don't flame you and you don't end up in a typing war which could lose you a winnable game.

Don't take your laner's waves unless he has no intention of coming back or it's crashing into the tower

This will put your laner behind in gold because he would've missed a full minion wave. The only time taking a free wave is okay is if the said laner has no intention of coming back (i.e on the other side of the map or dead) or if the minion wave is crashing into the tower. If the laner is walking back into his lane and the minion wave isn't crashing into the tower, don't take it.

It's okay to share minions more often than not since sharing will give you more TOTAL gold (but less individual gold), but that's a story for another time.

Don't surrender as soon as you die

This is a personal pet peeve but just because you smooth brained a teamfight doesn't mean your team is also being smooth brained. The most annoying thing that comes up in a team fight is the surrender screen because it takes up space and blocks vision. The stupid decline button is also near important items such as Arctic orb/Bow of Slaughter and people with fat fingers (like me) can mistakenly press them leading to a loss.

How to improve?

This is a very good guide to improving at the game although slightly outdated since nobody plays Abyssal Clash anymore

Here's a couple of things that I would add:

1) Upgrade your arcanas to level 2

- Upgrade your arcanas to level 2 first, determine the role you want to play using the free heroes mentioned above, and then work towards level 3 arcanas.

- Level 2 arcanas are more cost effective and can be upgraded using the free arcana coins the game provides for free whereas level 3 arcanas will cost gold. You should determine the role/heroes you want to play/main before investing into level 3 arcanas.

- You can use gems on double gold cards to earn gold faster to complete your arcana set and/or buy new heroes

2) Practice last hitting

Last hitting a minion gives you 40% extra gold, this slowly adds up to your advantage.

3) Don't play support right off the bat

Support roles are one of the most important roles in the game, but you shouldn't main support RIGHT away.

Think of it this way, how can you support your carry when you don't know how to carry? How can you be a good support when you don't even know what your carry wants to do? The support role is VERY macro eccentric, you have to have a good understanding of every role before jumping into the support role.

Once you got the carry role down, support will be a lot easier because you already know what you want and don't want your supports to do.

I'm a support main personally, but I started as an ADC/DS lane player. From there, I was able to find out what things I want my support to do and what things I don't want my support to do. After playing with some good supports and keeping a track of their habits, I was easily able to switch over to the support role. If you look at the best support players today, almost none of them started as support players.

4) Don't "fill the gap"

When you're just starting out, try to avoid "filling the gap" and try to spam one or two roles as much as possible.

But why? Isn't it good to be flexible?

Yes and no.

Let me give an example:

Lets say it takes 500 games to get to masters spamming a single role (theoretical number), at 5 games a day it’ll take you 100 days or just a little bit over 3 months. However, if you played a different role every game you played because you chose to fill, you would only have 100 games on every role after the same time and still be stuck in Plat or something. Keep in mind that the learning in this game is NOT linear, other roles become increasingly easier to learn after you’ve mastered one because every role is connected. So instead of taking another 500 games to learn a second role, it might only take 350 and so forth. At that point, you’re also play much higher quality competition, so you’ll improve at a faster rate as well.

With that said, you should still learn a secondary role that you can fall back on for ranked just in case your main role got taken.

5) Move on to heroes with more upside

Obviously if you’re playing to have fun, do whatever you want this won’t apply to you. But if you want to improve at this game there is absolutely zero reason to have 500 games on Valhein/Arthur. Those are fine heroes to test the waters with but it doesn’t take more than 20 games to know their kit inside out. Once you’ve decided on a role and have tested the waters with a somewhat “easy” hero, you’ll want to start to move on to harder/stronger heroes with more carry potential. For example, let’s say you’ve decided to play the DS laner role, you’ll eventually want to move away from Arthur into slightly more mechanically difficult heroes like Lubu, Yena, Riktor, Florentino who have much more upside and bigger carry potential.

6) COUNTER BUILD

Only a handful of heroes need to build the same items every game, most heroes have tons of flexibility in their builds. Enemy doesn't have a lot of cc/magic damage? You can build Armor boots instead of Guilded. Enemy has tons of magic damage? Grab that early Medallion of Troy. Enemy has a ton of life steal like Kilgroth/Lubu? Grab Anti Heal.

7) Be Aggressive (in casual)

Note that being aggressive is NOT the same as being stupid. Being aggressive means taking calculated risks to outplay the enemy, for example if you see 4 people bottom and one top, you cut off the enemy top lane minion wave & invade their top side jungle. Being stupid is invading the top side jungle when you don't see any enemies on the map and end up getting collapsed on.

Being aggressive is going 1v2 with your Florentino when you have a 1k gold advantage over them. Being stupid is going 1v2 with your Valhein while behind in gold.

Be aggressive, don't be stupid.

If you made a stupid play, at least learn from it so you don't int next time.

8) Play with other people

For some stupid ass reason people like to gloat about playing soloQ, okay chill out we get it you have no friends and live in your mom's basement here's a cookie. If you want to further improve at the game, you'll want to start playing with other good players preferably over voice chat. This will drastically improve your macro sense of the game, and force you to get in a good habit of calling out misses, calling out flicker/purify timers, and timing the enemy buffs.

9) LOOK AT THE FILTHY MINIMAP

Yes, look at the god damn minimap.

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Updated Tier List

Newest Doyser Tier List (Thai Server)

Newest Darkbreaker Tier List (EU Server)

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General Guides

Mid Lane:

Somebody make one pls

Jungle:

Somebody make one pls

DS Lane:

Somebody make one pls

Marksman:

Marksman Guide Part 1

Marksman Guide Part 2

Support:

Support Guide

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Guides for Individual Heroes

Darcy (Slightly outdated since Ult got nerfed)

Florentino

Ignis

Lilliana

Omen

Rourke

Roxie

Wukong

Zanis

Youtube Channels

USE THESE AS A GUIDELINE FOR YOUR ARCANAS/ENCHANTMENTS. As you get more experience you can tweak them around to suit your playstyle better.

Darkbreaker - One of the best DS laners in the world, but also plays other roles occasionally. His recent videos have commentary so you could learn a lot. Keep an eye on his laning mechanics, he has a very good understanding of heroes in the Dark Slayer lane.

Shurko - Gaming genius/warlord/pharaoh/commander on his soloq adventures. Good mix of entertainment and quality gameplay.

Zane - You're going to go back by half a year plus to find his old AoV videos, but most of them have commentary and are still viable in today's meta macro wise. He was the best jungler/player in NA/EU.

Rush - One of the best junglers in the world, he does a lot of troll builds for fun as well, so make sure to identify those before blindly following

HAK - One of the best mids IMO.

These are the ones I pay attention to mainly, let me know if there are any other good ones and I'll add.

Oh and of course we can't forget our very own InfamousAoV who's doing a giveaway on his channel right now, make sure to check him out and support.

General Mechanics That Big Brained Players Should Know

Stats Cap

How Damage is Calculated

How Magic Lifesteal Works

Itemization Guide (Which items stack and don't stack)

UPCOMING PATCH

Buff/Nerf Graphic

Patch Notes

Ending Notes

IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU THINK WILL BE HELPFUL THAT I MISSED, LINK IT.