Rules of Engagement

Archive post, July 2011. This is a Season 1 teamfight guide and the champion lists in it are a museum piece. Plenty of the kits named here have been reworked since, several of the abilities no longer do what the post says they do, and dozens of champions who'd belong on these lists didn't exist yet. It also calls the blue buff camp the Blue Golem. That camp is the Blue Sentinel now, it spawns at 0:55, it comes back every five minutes, and the buff it drops is Crest of Insight. The three-phase framing is what's worth keeping. Poke, commit with your disables, then clean up, in that order, is still how a teamfight goes.

Methods of Engagement

Phase 1: Poking

Before a big teamfight there's generally a poking phase before one of the teams thinks that they have a better set up than the other and by initiating they'll win. During this phase each team uses long range spells to damage the enemy team taking a minimal amount of damage themselves. Healers and long range AOE champions are best during this phase. Blue Golem buff is king during this phase.

Best Damage Champion Skills:

• Anivia - Everything
• Ashe - Volley
• Cait - Nuke
• Chogath - Rupture
• Corki - Ult
• Gragas - Barrel
• Janna - Tornado
• Karthus Q
• Kogmaw - R
• Lux - All spells
• Maokai - Sapling
• Miss Fortune - Make it Rain
• Morgana - Dark Binding + her Aoe 
• Nidalee - Spear
• Shyvana - Fireball
• Sona - Q 
• Twisted Fate - Wildcards

Best Healers: Soraka, Sona, Nidalee, Alistar

Everyone else's spells put you too close to battle and in danger of engaging too early during the poking phase. While it's possible with other champions to poke them without getting hit back, it's generally not worth the risk during this phase, especially if you're the carry.

Phase 2: Stun/Disable

During this phase you're going to want to engage the enemy, ideally surpressing/stunning their carry, and/or AOE disabling a few at once to ensure your team gets the jump on them. You'll usually want your tankiest person to go in first, but sometimes you can't help having someone squishier enter.

AOE Disable:

• Alistar - Pulverize
• Amumu - Ult
• Ashe - Ult
• Annie - Ult
• Galleo - Ult
• Janna - Ult
• Jarvan - E-Q combo, Ult
• Kennen - Ult
• Maokai - Ult (doesn't disable AOE, but soaks damage AOE)
• Malphite - Ult
• Nocturne - Ult
• Swain - Snare
• Shen - Taunt
• Veigar

Massive AOE damage:

• Karthus W/R
• Fiddlesticks R

Stuns/Snares:

• Amumu
• Irelia
• Lux
• Maokai
• Morgana
• Ryze
• Sion
• Taric
• Twisted Fate
• Xin Zhao

Single Target Surpressors:

• Poppy - Ult
• Malzahar - Ult
• Urgot - Ult
• Warwick - Ult

Everyone else's disables should be used as secondary after the battle starts since they're not bursty enough for a good engagement or easily avoided. You should also save at least one or two disables to pull anti-carries off your carries.

Best Single Target Anti-Anti Carry Skills:

• Nasus - Cripple
• Singed - Toss
• Teemo - Blind
• Nocturne - Fear

Phase 3: DPS

This is the easy phase, but it's still almost as important as the other phases.

1. Take down their carry first, but don't get kited through 4 champions to do it. Blinking to them via summoner or champion skill is best.
2. Don't target their tank first unless he overextends. If he has an aoe stun/nuke like alistar or vlad, feel free to knock them away before they hit your team.
3. Once their carry is down, take down the second lowest HP champion (usually the healer)
4. Keep their anti-carries off your carries

Phase 4: Chasing down low HP champions

Rule 1: Don't chase if they're faster (i.e. boots/escape mechs)
Rule 2: If you're chasing for too long, you'll most likely be the one to end up dead
Rule 3: Don't chase if someone else is hitting you unless the champion is one blink away from death.