Bruddah Jongalt:  Right on man, I'll look you up!  Hopefully I'll be a little more up to speed and stacked out with Runes n' stuff before we play together.

Yeah - it would be nice if there was an all mute button in chat if people were just being obnoxious.  One of my games last night just had 2 guys on flaming one guy on my team (in a pug) over and over.  I didn't care that they were busting someone else's chops - it was just annoying to have these idiots prattle on and on.  I'm sure having a 12 year old do that to you because you didn't buy the item the little fool wanted you to get made things even better.  Oh well.  Still happy to say that the majority of my games haven't been full of shites.  I can think of maybe 4-5 games altogether now that had some idiot like that.

Anyway, if its just one guy being annoying, I just mute then out and get back to having fun in the game. 

Oh man that sux!  Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase.  Is there a champion pack as well that can be purchased directly from Riot?  Id check but im at work...

No worries.  And yes, you can buy it from Riot, but its not as good a deal as just paying $20 outright.  They give you like 1200 or 1800 riot points after you make the purchase, but you have to cover the full 3900 riot points at the onset.  Anyway, I've already unlocked all but like 5 of the characters in the collectors pack, so its not that big a deal - and I had zero of the characters I unlocked in that bundle last night, so its all good.

What I wasn't aware of:  you can't purchase runes with rp unless you want to buy the "7-page rune bundle" and it provides no description of what that is - though I'm guessing it gets you all of the runes, etc.  That's like 2600 rp, so I'll probably just keep unlocking them with ip. 

edit:  oh - and that rune page bundle i mentioned just gives you additional pages to store runes... it doesn't actually give you runes.

I do like nocturn - he's a bit squishy for my tastes, but quite useful.

I understand your point, she went from support to DPS, but since i love playing support and specifically healers, its definitely a nerf in my book lol.  I havent played her since they changed her though (Deus Ex was released lol)  I should get a game or 2 in to see how well she does against the AP carries.  How do you recommend she should be built then?  Starcall as primary and tanky AP items?

oh - and that rune page bundle i mentioned just gives you additional pages to store runes... it doesn't actually give you runes. 

Reading all the basic guides on laning, jungling, when to push, how to defend your tower... 

"nub auto-attacking"  Ooops.  I thought you just didn't auto-attack so you could get last hits.  Kinda realized after a while this game ain't Demigod and its not about having creeps die on your enemies towers, but didn't realize how much I was screwing up my team by overextending where the creep waves meet. 

Yeah - took me a little bit to get this one as well. 

Yeah, Taric has a weird skill set right now, but he is still good.  Basically he was designed a long time ago and the metagame has since shifted.  A few months ago the top North American teams got beaten up pretty well by the top European teams, so the North American metagame shifted very quickly to how Europe plays.

Nowadays, the usual strategy is to do your lanes in the following way:

Top lane is a tank/off tank (e.g. Singed, Garen, Irelia, Morde)

Mid lane is an AP Carry (e.g. Annie, Brand, Orianna, Malzahar) 

Bot in a support/AD Carry combo (Caitlyn + Taric being one of the most feared)

Jungler is usually a tank or off tank

The basic idea in the bottom lane is that the support just babysits the carry.  Their goal is to allow the AD Carry to get as high a creep score as possible.  This is done by healing your carry whenever they need it, keeping the opponents off of them, and NEVER last hitting yourself unless the AD Carry is out of the lane for some reason.  In Pro games you will often see the AD Carry have a CS of like 200 at 20 minutes, but the support will have literally 0 minion kills, which is good.

This means that Taric's passive is kind of useless since he shouldnt be hitting things much.  But he is still good because he can heal, and his stun does a really good job of protecting the carry.  Plus, he is strong if you ever want to make a play and try and burst down an opponent.  Flash + stun is a very easy way to get a quick kill on an opponent, especially if your jungler is nearby and ready. 

The items I've seen on her are some combination of Deathcap and Rylai's early, then Deathfire Grasp after those two items.  The basic idea is that Deathcap gives her big damage (and heals), and Rylai's gives her some survivability, plus a slow on top of the silence on Starcall.  That makes that skill REALLY nasty.  Once you add Deathfire Grasp on top of that, you make the lives of the opposing carries a living hell since you can silence them, slow them, and do big burst to them, all while healing your team and yourself. 

Can someone help me understand a few concepts please?

AD and AP carries, etc - what do those mean? 

How do I know who is what in game and how much attention should I be paying to things like this? 

I know these are very broad questions... thx. 

"Carry" as its used nowadays, is basically synonymous with "damage dealer".  It used to mean something a bit different, but thats how the term is used in LoL now.  So a carry is a very different role than a tank (whose job is to start and control teamfights) or a support (whose job is to buff and heal their own team).

You can either be an ability power (AP) carry or an attack damage (AD) carry.  Hybrid carries generally do not exist.

AP Carries become stronger by stacking ability power.  Common items here are Rabadon's Deathcap (pure damage), Rod of Ages (mix of damage and health), Void Staff (damage and magic penetration), and Zhonya's hourglass (damage and defense).  AP carries are generally strong early game and fade late game unless heavily fed.  They generally, but not always, do their damage in large bursts.  The damage from AP carries is mitigated by magic resist, but NOT armor.

The most common AP carries are: Annie, Brand, Orianna, Fiddlesticks, and Malzahar.  Morde is usually built as an AP Carry/tank combo and Akali is usually built as an AP carry/assassin combo.

AD Carries become stronger by stacking attack damage.  They usually rely heavily on autoattacks,  so getting attack speed and crit chance increases is also a good idea.  Common items are Infinity Edge, Last Whisper, Brutalizer, and Phantom Dancer.  Madred's Bloodrazor also works and allows the AD carry to hybridize a bit by doing some magic damage.  AD carries are generally weak early game and get stronger late game.  They generally do sustained damage over time instead of in bursts.  The damage from AD carries is mitigated by armor, but NOT magic resist.

The most common AD carries are: Ashe, Corki, Vayne, Tristana, and Caitlyn. 

Teams generally should have at least 1 AD carry and 1 AP carry.  That way the other team can't mitigate your damage by only stacking armor or MR, but must stack both to really reduce your team's damage.

Ranged AD carries are usually preferred to melee AD carries since they are more difficult to kill.  You should be identifying and trying to kill the other team's carries first.  They do the damage, but typically dont have many defenses, so kill them fast.  At low levels of play you can play melee AD carries and get away with it (the classic example being Master Yi) since teams dont target carries as well, but at high levels of play somebody like Yi will get targeted and focuses too quickly to be real useful to the team in most cases.

Thank you for taking the time to write all of that out and explain.  It was clear and very helpful to me!

AD is for Attack Damage, AP is for Ability Power.  A carry is your typical glass cannon, rapidly dishing out horrendous damage and walking all over the enemy team if they're kept safe.  Characters that specialize in rapid damage output make good carries, fast firing ability combos like Annie can pull off, or high attack characters with good bonuses like freezing arrows from Ashe, or the firing speed and damage increases many characters have.  When they build all ability power or attack items, they're doing a carry build.

The idea is the rest of the team uses stuns, slows, knockbacks, that kind of thing, to keep your heavy hitters safe from attack while it mows down the enemy heavy hitters.  Crappy teamwork just makes for a free kill though.

Realistically, the carry is just the character doing most of the damage.  You can have a lousy carry that doesn't get much accomplished and end up carrying with the tank.  Diversity in damage type is the main thing to watch for.  If you're all AP, one decent magic resist item nukes the whole team.  On the Reverse, Rammus with Thornmail will just destroy a team that lacks decent AP.

Edit: I type too slow...

ah, you still get karma though for helping out.  Thanks!