League-of-legends – LoL Champion Classes/Roles

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What is the difference between a class and a role in League of Legends? Are they the same thing?

Also, I would like to know what every class is and what every role is in League of Legends (or at least the main ones). I know that there are basic ones like Tank, Assassin, and Support, but are there any more that are more in depth and advanced?

For example, I've seen things like 'ADC' and 'APC', which I believe are short for 'Attack Damage Carry' and 'Attack Power Carry'. Are there any more?

Thanks in advance! 🙂

Best Answer

As of now, nobody has explained the differences between classes/roles. Classes have been explained fairly well elsewhere:

Tank: Very difficult to kill and usually low damage. Tanks normally have forms of innate ways to survive and/or crowd control abilities.

Fighter: Often good duelists. They do decent damage as well as are fairly tanky. Often used as splitpushers since in team fights they die quicker than tanks.

Assassin: Good at killing single targets very quickly and often able to get back out. Tend to be very squishy.

Mage: Generally have aoe abilities and might have a slight amount of cc mixed in their kit.

Artillery Mage: Special class of Mage that deals damage from long range. Normally have very low amounts of cc and/or less damage than their Mage counterparts.

Control Mage: Similar to Mages but have more crowd control mixed into their kit in place of damage. They can potentially contain high damage as well but not necessarily.

Marksman: (ADC) Long ranged physical auto attackers. Great at taking down towers or shredding tanks.

Now, Roles have not been explained well. In league of legends there are exactly 5 roles. Most classes can be a part of most roles but there are single exceptions.

Top: Solo laner who starts the game in the Top lane. Typically Tanks/Fighters are up here but pretty much any class can be played here.

Middle: Normally assassins, mages, or control mages belong here. This is a squishier lane that normally builds AP or AD but don't have great escape/survivability tools (besides assassins). The shorter lane allows for these types of roles since the towers are closer.

Jungle: Most classes can be played here but the most common are Tanks, Fighters, and Assassins. They stay in the jungle killing jungle camps for gold/exp and constantly roam into lanes to help their team get kills

Bottom (sometimes referred to as ADC): This is the most restricted Role. This is always played by a Marksman(ADC) because they have the protection of a support to keep alive.

Support: Supports are normally tanks or control mages. Supports have less of an income than any other role and so need to scale off of usefulness rather than items. Some tanks that are strictly good in the support role I might classify as a utility tank (Thresh/Blitzcrank: They are good at pulling people into their team and locking them down, but are a little less tanky than champions that are strict tanks.)

NOTE-There is some flexibility between classes. Part of class build often deals with how a champion is built. For example, Pantheon can be played both bruiser or Assassin. Full damage he is considered an assassin but if he builds some tankiness he becomes a bruiser.

EDIT: Apparently Riot has it's own group of additional classes. The classes I defined represent what the community Uses.