Which are the best two Summoner Skills I should Use?

Archive post, September 2011. The unlock rule at the top of this post is out of date. On Summoner's Rift you've now got every spell by account level 9, not level 12: Ghost and Heal are available from level 1, Smite unlocks at 3, Barrier and Exhaust at 4, Flash and Teleport at 7, and Cleanse and Ignite at 9. Clarity and Mark only appear in ARAM. The list itself shrank too, so Revive, Clairvoyance, Fortify, Promote, Rally and Surge aren't options on the Rift any more and only survive in LoL Classic. We're keeping the pairings below as a record of how 2011 picked them, not as a shopping list for today.

I may be blind...but I can smell a newbie from a mile away.

Well, I just had someone in my ranked game who's never used any summoner spells except for exhaust + ghost since level 1 since he never figured out how to change them. Therefore, I'm writing this blog post in order to save some older players, give helpful tips to intermediate players, and teach the youngsters a thing or two.

By clicking on your summoner spells in the game lobby, as long as you are level 12 and above, you get all these pretty spells to play with!

Updated December 18, 2011


AD Carries:

This combination is a very viable AD carry summoner set and will help your AD carry stay alive.

This is another viable squishy combo. This will help you take down fleeing enemies, help you deal extra damage, and stop AD junglers from destroying your face.

This combination is good for bursty champions like Vayne or Graves to snowball early game.

If you see someone with this combo, ask your friend to walk up behind him and shank him in the back because there's no way he's getting away. Only use this in low level games.

Mid/Top Laners:

This combo is sometimes seen for squishy mid-laners who want to be more mobile, or intend on being harassed very heavily early game causing them to go back to base. May also be seen on the Top Laner to be more mobile.

This combo is seen on champions like Singed, who lane top and thus need Teleport to jump into teamfights at Dragon, and who get a natural synergy with running around real fast.

This combination is good for burst casters who want to get some early kills to snowball faster.

This is another viable squishy combo. This will help you take down fleeing enemies, help you deal extra damage, and stop AD junglers from destroying your face.

Getting popular lately, this set of summoners allows your team to have a good late game heal along with carrying along the all-mighty flash.

Support Summoners:

This is your classic support champion combination. If you have this combination, chances are you'll be stacking Gold per 10 items, doing little to no last hitting, and warding the entire map so that your team can kill things and not die.

This is the new support champion combination. Mostly seen on champions like Soraka or Sona, this works since Heal now scales well in late game, and Flash is not a necessity for most support champions.

Sometimes supports will run Exhaust if their AD carry is running Flash + Cleanse.

Jungling Summoners:

These two summoner spells mean you're jungling.

This summoner set is very useful for certain junglers that already have strong gap closers, such as Shaco or Nocturne.

This summoner set is the least usual of the bunch, and basically just used if the team has multiple exhausts, but no ignite.

Unusual Summoner Sets:

This summoner set is for sneaky top laning action. It does leave you without flash though, so it's better suited for champions with built-in movement like Riven.

This is your ideal ARAM summoner set, since you're always going to be in range of 5 champions and constantly poking.

This combo should only be seen on Karthus. If anybody else does this, they're trolling.

Outdated Summoner Sets:

This combination used to be popular for top laning tanky DPS, but teleport has been shown to be a far better summoner for the top laner since he's the farthest from dragon which is where all the fun action takes place.

This is your classic squishy combo. Squishies need to survive because they're squishy. Get this to increase your chances of surviving ganks and farming to tell the tale. Nowadays people run Exhaust since it's more useful in teamfights.