League of Legends 4:CAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAW

[Poison_Fish]

As usual, new thread time.

If your name is not on the list, say something plox!

Remember to mention what server your from too! Thank you MY BROTHER!


GITP name, LoL name:


US
* Silverraptor, Silverraptor
* Baron Corm, Baron Corm
* Joran, ?
* Milskidasith, Milskidasith
* Moklok, KokoBWare
* Poison Fish, Baron Von Flib
* Rama, Nargus
* toasty, toastymow
* Sirroelivan, Sirroelivan
* Zeful, Zeful
* Dragonus45, Dragonus45
* Master_Rahl22, Goltoth
* Folytopo, Folytopo
* Thethan, Thethan
* Faulty, FaultyClockwork
* Thrawn183, Thrawnyboy
* Brother Oni, MarineHK4861
* Dallas-Dakota, MustacheMan
* Makensha, Jarbis
* Dragor, Supernaturalist
* Terazul, Allegretto
* Fawkes, Count Fawkes
* NeoVid, NeoVid
* LegoShrimp, LegoShrimp
* Thanatos 51-50, Thanatos Erebus
* Alter, AlterForm
* Pie Guy, Qwazes
* Kara Kuro, RaptorKitty
* Joran, Jorana
* Draken, Draken Frosthand
* Djinn in Tonic, The Djinn
* Dogmantra, Dogmantra
* Mike_the_Mystic, Kraemer
* Shades of Gray, PierreAbelard
* Cute_Riolu, Cute Riolu
* Elagune, Chopstyx
* Adumbration, Oilily
* EndlessWrath, Andurin
* Raistlin1040, Sanevale
* MasatoHyuga, MasatoHyuga
* Octopus Jack, Thalric
* douglas, DouglasM
* efdf, efdf
* shadowwalker64, shadowwalker65
* The Valiant Turtle, Valiant Turtle
* Starfols, Starfols
* Kettle, Kettle747
* Slash_712, Catfud
* Necroticplague, Yamidamian
* Math_Mage, Mathmage
* ZeroNumerous, ZeroNumerous
* DrakeRaids, DrakeRaids057
* Dichotomy, Kaellin
*

Europe

* Brother Oni, MarineHK4861
* Narazil, Narazil
* Penthar, Malderon
* shadowwalker64, shadowwalker64
* Rockbird, Rockbird
* Narkis, Narkis
* lord_khaine, Lord_khaine
* Adumbration, Adumbration.
* Eldariel, Elealar
* Abakus, Terpfen
* Darwin, DarwinBeGood
* Kurrel, GrinningOni
* Zefir, Einerwie
* Voidhawk, Sidhe ne Awk

Unknown

* olelia, ?, ?

[Draken]

The smell of new thread!

And now, to continue with the endless argumentations about Morde, where none of the sides will budge.

[Master_Rahl22]

First! Second!

Just to chime in on the Mordekaiser discussion, I really like Morde but he is outclassed by other tanky DPS. He has great survivability, but there's no reason for anybody to focus him in a team fight due to his mediocre damage and no CC. Morde's main strength is to simply push a tower over before level 6 since he can kill entire creep waves so quickly.

[The Valiant Turtle]

Add me to the player list please:

The Valiant Turtle: Valiant Turtle

administrative note: we are in the process of getting the new mumble server online. I hope to have it done this evening, but that will be complicated by my daughters birthday party today. Also possibly complicated by trying to communicate with potatocubed.

[Volug]

Add me to the player list please:

The Valiant Turtle: Valiant Turtle.

Add me too to the GITP list on the thread.

MasatoHyuga: MasatoHyuga

Should be american server >_>

[Brother Oni]

For those requesting to be put on the name list, please remember to put what server you're on!

Poison_Fish: any chance of adding this reminder to your first post?

[Octopus Jack]

Add me to the list please, Name is Thalric on the US server. But my LoL launcher is messing up at the moment so I need to sort it out fast :smallfrown:

[Shades of Gray]

Just tried out Pantheon, and I think I'm in love. I love Pantheon as much as a man can love another muscular, powerful...

...

Anyway. The item build I've been trying on him is:

1) Meki Pendant + 2 Health Pots
2) Build Meki into Tear of the Goddess and get boots.
3) Upgrade Tear into Manamune.
4) Build Youmu's.
5) Defensive Item.
6) Infinity Edge

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

...according to the Test Realm, the Tanky DPS metagame is about to get two very good friends, and burst AP characters are going to be forever relegated to the scrap heap unless a lot of MP + AP items hit the game very soon. Let's just say there's now a way for carries and DPS tanks to deal a lot of damage and resist a lot of magic, and deal MORE damage and resist MORE magic the more magic damage they take. Oh...and heal themselves when they deal damage. The numbers stack up to be insanely good...like carrying Force of Nature with a bit extra along with 2 BF Swords...in one slot.

[Douglas]

My LoL name is DouglasM on the US server.

[Volug]

So I got occult blade with Miss fortune.

Got all 20 stacks.

Had +275 AD, and uber movement from the blade/strut (NO RUNNING AWAY), and attack speed from last whisper, while it penetrated their armor.

By the end, I had 20/2(TURRETS)/2, match took less then 20 min, and I could have gotten infinity if I wasn't pushing their base.

Each basic attack took out like 1/4th of their health :O

[efdf]

My LoL name is efdf on the US server

[Thrawn183]

You died to turrets twice? Wow.

[Volug]

You died to turrets twice? Wow.

I've been playing for weekends only for 3 weeks, gimmie a break >_>

It was a chase too, they had no health left D:

[Adumbration]

In other news, I've started playing ranked games now. I don't know if it's low ELO or something, but I find it significantly easier than normal games. I currently have 5/2 score on it.

[shadowwalker64]

Add me to the US list (please note, I am both of the servers). Username shadowwalker65 (someone stole 64 -_-)

[Kara Kuro]

I'm sure others were talking about Sona on the other thread (before this new one was made)... But seriously. LOVE.

I quite like playing support heroes (probably my favorite of the main character archetypes) and I don't care if she's a vocaloid clone, I'm digging the aura madness.

[Poison_Fish]

Turtle, which server are you on?

As for Morde, please note, I'm in general agreement with efdf here that he's certainly not a bad character. As has been stated by several, he needs a jungle or solo that's not mid, and he's a great pusher. There is no disagreement right now that Garen is one of the best tanks, over morde. But note, Garen gets banned a lot, and Morde can still fit in a team (He's no Mundo ;_;). T3 doesn't mean sucks like a non-hoover vacuum.

[Milskidasith]

Turtle, which server are you on?

As for Morde, please note, I'm in general agreement with efdf here that he's certainly not a bad character. As has been stated by several, he needs a jungle or solo that's not mid, and he's a great pusher. There is no disagreement right now that Garen is one of the best tanks, over morde. But note, Garen gets banned a lot, and Morde can still fit in a team (He's no Mundo ;_;). T3 doesn't mean sucks like a non-hoover vacuum.

I'm not saying that he's awful, or can't be played... just that he's outclassed and the fact that, even if he needs a solo lane, he simply doesn't scale well enough to justify the loss of gold on an actual carry or a better scaling tank, unless your team comp only includes morde as your competent 1v2. It's hard to see a team that can't get a jungler or good 1v2; I mean, Shaco, WW, Amumu, Fiddle (junglers), and Vlad, Garen, and Morg can't all be banned/picked, and all of those scale far better than morg does at either jungling or soloing. I mean, to use efdf's gank example, it requires a slow guy to get into melee range to bash them in order to slow, and for them to be low enough, when they flash and/or ghost to escape, that his ult finishes them off. Compare Shaco or WW, who only really require their opponent to either be up to the edge of their brush, or below half HP, or even Amumu, who has better DoT and an easier method of getting into the slow.

Also, for efdf, you seem to vastly underestimate how well Olaf's W scales and overestimate how well his Q scales. His Q gets... a slightly better slow (I think it's 3% per rank?) which isn't bad, and a tad more damage, but his W scales the lifesteal, damage granted, damage granted scaling, and the spell vamp, by a massive amount. Sure, early on it's not giving a massive amount... but it's still more than the bonus damage from Q gets, unless you're in a position to never move up to melee range.

[Silverraptor]

Loved the games we played today. Hopefully we'll play again a little later.:smallsmile:

[toasty]

I'd just like to point out that since I finally got on Mumble my enjoyment of his game has gone up about 10 times. :smallcool:

[Darwin]

I have just finished a game where something uncanny happened to me. As the minions were spawning I noticed our Gangplank standing in the middle of our base waiting for something. When I gently asked him to get a move on he replied that he was "denying creeps". As I have come to understand it, denying is a technique used in dota which didn't carry over to lol. I decided not to ask him further questions as he was already by that point flaming me and calling me a noob for not knowing about this "essential" technique. Was this guy in possession of the holy grail of high elo play or was he talking bogus? :smallconfused: I've played somewhere close to 500 games at this point and I have yet to see anyone attempt whatever he was doing.

[efdf]

Olaf, level 10 with +300 HP:

Max Q compared to level 1:
180 extra damage per axe
Fast jungling
16% extra slow
10 second CD, can pick up for 6 second CD reduction
Can hit multiple people
Ranged

Max W compared to level 1:
41.168 extra damage per hit
Lasts 6 seconds, 12 second CD
12% extra lifesteal/spellvamp
Melee
Works with his passive, armor pen

I'd say W is stronger 1v1, Q is stronger for ganking, team fights, and jungling.

[Draken]

I have just finished a game where something uncanny happened to me. As the minions were spawning I noticed our Gangplank standing in the middle of our base waiting for something. When I gently asked him to get a move on he replied that he was "denying creeps". As I have come to understand it, denying is a technique used in dota which didn't carry over to lol. I decided not to ask him further questions as he was already by that point flaming me and calling me a noob for not knowing about this "essential" technique. Was this guy in possession of the holy grail of high elo play or was he talking bogus? :smallconfused: I've played somewhere close to 500 games at this point and I have yet to see anyone attempt whatever he was doing.

Mostly bogus. Gangplank can kill one of his own minions every minute. By default, this should be the siege minion. This denies your opponent some exp and some gold, as well as keeping the lane pushed towards your side (gives your jungler, if you have one, an easy gank and some extra safety.

Shamefully, Gangplank doesn't really have the mana to sustain "denying" for a long time, so doing it hurts him about as much as it hurts his opponents (mana you use to raise Morale is mana you are not using to Parrley a minion).

And of course, you can just as simply keep your lane pushed towards you by not pushing the lane. It is not difficult but not something I do often, because I rarely see junglers and don't usually play with people who can last hit under their own turret.

[Dogmantra]

So I played Veigar today. I bought him. Kind of felt bad after buying Mord only two days earlier, but screw a decent rune page.

Might even purchase Curling Veigar with REAL MONEY™ I like him that much. Many shenanigans were had, including three kills in a row (not close enough for a triple unfortunately), the last one on about 150hp, where a Xin audacious charged me, got Balefully Struck and died with me on 30.

[Dallas-Dakota]

And that is without CDR reduction from Runes and Masteries, which make his Q to about 7.(And I don't even have a full set of blue cdr glyphs)

[The Valiant Turtle]

Turtle, which server are you on?

US Server for me.

[Volug]

So I played Veigar today.

YES, I AM EVIL!!!

... STOP LAUGHING!

[The Valiant Turtle]

The deny-plank is an interesting strategy and I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea. The early game is all about farming anyway with harassment just being a side show for the most part. Since this is still exclusive to Gangplank I could see him getting a lot more play with just a slight buff. In low-ELO play though, this can be counterproductive.

[The Valiant Turtle]

NEW MUMBLE SERVER IS UP:

mbl3.gameservers.com:10008

[Starfols]

Hey there, I just started playing a little while ago. :smallsmile: I'm starfols there, as well. (US)

I tried Veigar as well, but.. I don't get him. I'm not so good with the AoE's I guess. I am pretty good at Master Yi though, despite my friends telling me he's not very good. is there something up with him? Is he low on the tier list? is there a generally agreed upon tier list?

[Milskidasith]

Hey there, I just started playing a little while ago. :smallsmile: I'm starfols there, as well. (US)

I tried Veigar as well, but.. I don't get him. I'm not so good with the AoE's I guess. I am pretty good at Master Yi though, despite my friends telling me he's not very good. is there something up with him? Is he low on the tier list? is there a generally agreed upon tier list?

Veigar:

Not too much AoE, really; his meteor is easy to land, but his stun is trickier. My suggestion is to make sure you know how to last hit, especially with your Q, and always put max points in Q whenever possible. It's really, really necessary to get good at last hitting for every champ, and Veigar requires it to scale well. Generally, what you want is a point in Q, a point in stun (to escape), a point in Q, a point in meteor, and then level Ult = Q (They're never at the same time, so it's really irrelevant) > meteor = stun (it all depends, really; if they can't really escape well or if it's less teamfights and more back and forth, meteor is probably best.

Basically, you go to the lane with either a Doran's Ring or a mana regen item; I'd suggest Doran's ring because it makes you slightly less squishy and makes your last hitting with Q a bit easier, and you also buy a couple of HP potions. Use Q to land the killing blow on minions (last hitting) and you gain a permanent point of AP and some cash. If the enemy champs get in range, hit them with your Q. It's hard to explain when to harass, but basically, if they can't retaliate, then you should harass; for example, most melee champs can't do anything to respond to you getting in range to fire a Q at them, so it's generally safe to do this, but... you have to get a feel for it on your own, unfortunately.

Your stun is tricky to land, but basically you want to aim so they hit the edge of the stun, so they are stunned on cast, rather than being in the area; since it only stuns when they physically cross the area, and movement skills don't get cancelled at the edge, plenty of people can blink/flash out, or at the least, leap away and stay stunned out of your range.

When you see somebody low on HP stun them, drop a meteor on them so that it will land on them if they stand still, but is closer to where they flee (there's no bonus damage for centering it perfectly, so you land it where they will flee towards after the stun is removed), then hit them with your Q and R at the same time.

Again, it takes a lot of personal experience, rather than explanation, to get what I mean; you don't want to burn your ult on enemies that aren't going to die or at least be significantly affected by it, but you also don't want to save your ult for "the perfect situation" rather than using it when necessary.

Also, learn to use smart cast; it saves a lot of time and, when you get used to how Veigar's stun is, makes it *much* easier to land his stun. Hotkeys are also near necessary, so... use them. Seriously, if you want to be good with characters, especially faceroll characters like Veigar (faceroll = spam all your spells out at once on one person), using hotkeys will save you precious seconds that can save you from dying.

EDIT:

Yi. He's bad because, while he's good against people who aren't so great due to his *massive* damage, high speed, massive steroid skills (steroid skills = affects your autoattack positively, generally in a way that makes you get more benefit from the same item as somebody without the skill), and massive attack speed boosts... he's squishy, has no effective CC, and would basically get instagibbed by most people. He's a decent jungler, and he can lane OK with just his alpha strike, but... he just doesn't do enough to be that useful when, say, Tristana can do slightly less damage from range with better CC and better escapes, or Olaf can do slightly less damage with high lifesteal, great tankiness, slows, and the ability to ignore *any* form of damage reduction at a good rate with his true damage skill.

Basically, Yi is, in a game where he can work out well, great, but he's terrible in games he can't stomp in, whereas most carries can still do something even when against a team that tries to counter them (Olaf can still deal true damage and is still naturally tanky, Trist still outranges and can reposition people) and have a much easier time getting into a situation they are fed.

[toasty]

NEW MUMBLE SERVER IS UP:

mbl3.gameservers.com:10008

Hmm... Im not sure how to get this to work. :(

Edit: fixed. :)

[EleventhHour]

Having mained morde for a considerable period of time, Morde's W (I believe what Milsk referred to as the aura) is HORRIBLE. It doesn't give any significant bonus's whatsoever, and the DPS is fairly negligible (in comparison to Q, the Q deals whatever W does every four seconds rather than every 12). I tend to only level up Q and E (the mace and cone), as those are my two main sources of damage.

His W does the same as Garen's Spin Base and it gives +armour, and charges the shield. >.> I hardly ever bother with the Q, since closing to melee range doesn't happen that much until the teamfight phase.

Posted this in the wrong thread. >.< *has since deleted that post*

[Milskidasith]

His W does the same as Garen's Spin Base and it gives +armour, and charges the shield. >.> I hardly ever bother with the Q, since closing to melee range doesn't happen that much until the teamfight phase.

Lolwut? Garen's spin deals nearly twice the damage of Morde's W, can crit, and scales much better to boot (.15 AP per second compared to .7 AD per second).

Where are you getting your numbers? Remember, Garen's spin hits twice per second.

[EleventhHour]

Lolwut? Garen's spin deals nearly twice the damage of Morde's W, can crit, and scales much better to boot (.15 AP per second compared to .7 AD per second).

Where are you getting your numbers? Remember, Garen's spin hits twice per second.

Morde 16 / 32 / 48 / 64 / 80 per second for 6 Seconds (+15%)

Garen 15 / 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 per half second for 3 Seconds (+35%)

So after the +35%, Garen's is stronger, but I did state base. :smalltongue: (Not quite the same, but fairly close)

[Makensha]

Veigar: SNIP

Only a few things I think you missed about Veigar.

Facerolling: When you're facerolling, try to Dark Meteor before your stun, especially early game. They might get a chance to move out of the way.

Mana: Veigar is notoriously mana hungry, and his passive alone is... better than some, but really not that great. Getting AP items that have Mana Regen or a Chalice of Harmony is really needed. Or you can just get high mana items, but then your build looks identical to Annie's. :smallyuk:

Note: I have nothing against Annie besides hating her.

[Milskidasith]

Morde 16 / 32 / 48 / 64 / 80 per second for 6 Seconds

Garen 15 / 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 per half second for 3 Seconds (+35%)

So after the +35%, Garen's is stronger, but I did state base. :smalltongue: (Not quite the same, but fairly close)

Uhh... yeah, he's still dealing twice as much damage per second; in fact, more (except at first level, assuming Garen has less than three attack damage).

EDIT: Maken, I did mention the first part. Not the mana hungry part, so much, but I've got runes, so... yeah.

[EleventhHour]

Uhh... yeah, he's still dealing twice as much damage per second; in fact, more (except at first level, assuming Garen has less than three attack damage).

...per second, not overall. :smallsigh:

IE : 16 x 6 = 15 x 2 x 3

[Milskidasith]

...per second, not overall. :smallsigh:

Who cares about overall? I'm serious: Overall damage is pretty much entirely irrelevant on any skill somebody can just walk out of. Fights certainly don't last six seconds at any point, unless it's a tank versus tank fight.

I mean, overall damage on ignite, or morde's ult, for example, are pretty relevant, since you're going to take all the damage unless you have a QSS, but on something people can escape from, it's pretty much all about the DPS.

EDIT: Eleventh, I can do basic math. I would appreciate if you didn't imply I couldn't. You also should probably add in Garen's base attack damage of sixty, which adds about 20 more DPS... while it's not in the skill, per say, there's no way, barring a Trynd who is level five while garen is level one, to get rid of it.

[EleventhHour]

Who cares about overall? I'm serious: Overall damage is pretty much entirely irrelevant on any skill somebody can just walk out of. Fights certainly don't last six seconds at any point, unless it's a tank versus tank fight.

But you're comparing two skills with entirely different purposes.

Mordekaiser isn't trying to kill anyone with his spin-like effect, he's using it to power his shield via standing in minions, so he can point his other skills at whatever else he wants. (And it gives +armour/MR as additional survival on the skill.)

[Raistlin1040]

I don't play Garen OR Morde, but let me do some statistical analysis on this.

6/1=6
3/.5=6

So each attack deals damage six times over the duration.

GAREN
95x6=570
75x6=450
55x6=330
35x6=210
15x6=90

MORDE
80x6=480
64x6=384
48x6=288
32x6=192
16x6=96

Bolded are where each champ wins, in their respective levels.

[EleventhHour]

I don't play Garen OR Morde, but as a math student, let me do some statistical analysis on this.

6/1=6
3/.5=6

So each attack deals damage six times over the duration.

GAREN
95x6=570
75x6=450
55x6=330
35x6=210
15x6=90

MORDE
80x6=480
64x6=384
48x6=288
32x6=192
16x6=96

Bolded are where each champ wins, in their respective levels.

Garen's has +35% of his attack damage, and wins every matchup, actually. But I stated base in my statement. >.>

[Milskidasith]

But you're comparing two skills with entirely different purposes.

Mordekaiser isn't trying to kill anyone with his spin-like effect, he's using it to power his shield via standing in minions, so he can point his other skills at whatever else he wants. (And it gives +armour/MR as additional survival on the skill.)

If you wanted to argue they served different purposes, then you should have brought that up instead of trying to say they had the same damage (which they don't, since, with garen's base damage, it's *still* double damage at lower ranks).

Anyway, as for being useful... it's... OK? It's about as good as Q for building up shield, except it can (potentially) hit more people, and it's over time, requiring you to sit in range of harassment (and gets an 18% shield decay over that time), and it gives a light amount of MR and armor.

Edit: Eleventh, again, saying "base" damage and ignoring damage Garen has literally no way to not deal is meaningless. Basically, you can always assume Garen will deal 18+2 per rank extra damage (twice per second) at minimum.

[Raistlin1040]

Which confuses me even more, really. You're trying to argue that Morde's ability is as good, when Garen's does more damage in less time?

[Makensha]

EDIT: Maken, I did mention the first part. Not the mana hungry part, so much, but I've got runes, so... yeah.

I highly doubt someone who just started is about to get full tier 3 mana regen seals anytime soon. :smallsmile:

[Milskidasith]

I highly doubt someone who just started is about to get full tier 3 mana regen seals anytime soon. :smallsmile:

This is entirely true.

[Flechair]

Math was never my strong suit, and I know that doesn't make any sense.

Anyways. I just finally tried Miss Fortune. In my second game I went 16-0-11. It was funny. I was on a smurf, but one of my friends was playing on a level 15 smurf, so we weren't opposing terrible people.

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6489/missfortune.png

Either way, she's too OP. I actually feel a little dirty having played her. At least my main is pure.

[Milskidasith]

Math was never my strong suit, and I know that doesn't make any sense.

Anyways. I just finally tried Miss Fortune. In my second game I went 16-0-11. It was funny. I was on a smurf, but one of my friends was playing on a level 15 smurf, so we weren't opposing terrible people.

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6489/missfortune.png

Either way, she's too OP. I actually feel a little dirty having played her. At least my main is pure.

She's not OP, and even if she was powerful, there's no reason to not use tactics that will help you win, except on practice matches, and even then you still want to build things that will work.

[Silverraptor]

NEW MUMBLE SERVER IS UP:

mbl3.gameservers.com:10008

New mumble Server?:smallconfused:

[Zabel_Zarock]

I actually feel a little dirty having played her.
Anyone else utterly hate this way of thinking? This is a competitive game, if you want that win, you use any tool you got at your disposal no matter how strong or dirty it is. **** I know coming from the Fighting Game scene my mentality may be different but not by that much. You played her, you got dat win, you got dat money, be proud of dat **** don't feel grimy.

[Suedars]

Anyone else utterly hate this way of thinking? This is a competitive game, if you want that win, you use any tool you got at your disposal no matter how strong or dirty it is. **** I know coming from the Fighting Game scene my mentality may be different but not by that much. You played her, you got dat win, you got dat money, be proud of dat **** don't feel grimy.

Yes and no. Abusing an OP character might rack you up a bunch of wins in the short term in pubs, but it's a crutch that isn't going to help you get as good. Meaning that once you get to formats where characters are actually banned, and people know how to counter pubstomper heroes, you're now a weaker player than you would have been had you learned to play "real" heroes.

[Zabel_Zarock]

Yes and no. Abusing an OP character might rack you up a bunch of wins in the short term in pubs, but it's a crutch that isn't going to help you get as good. Meaning that once you get to formats where characters are actually banned, and people know how to counter pubstomper heroes, you're now a weaker player than you would have been had you learned to play "real" heroes.
That's true, if you're only relying on one Top Tier *Not OP, MF is not OP, none of the champs are currently*. And saying that it's a crutch that's gonna hobble you later on is BS. You're still learning the basics & fundamentals in the game, that's like saying Sanford, Yipes, or Justin Wong aren't that good because they roll some mix of Sentinel/Storm/Magneto/Cable.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Yes and no. Abusing an OP character might rack you up a bunch of wins in the short term in pubs, but it's a crutch that isn't going to help you get as good. Meaning that once you get to formats where characters are actually banned, and people know how to counter pubstomper heroes, you're now a weaker player than you would have been had you learned to play "real" heroes.

Except that she's not OP, she's just very strong.
I've only seen her banned once in all the ranked games that I've been in.
She's fairly squishy, her ult is a focus which you can get out of, she has no real escape methods except maybe her small area slow.

[Suedars]

Heroes don't have to be OP to be banned. And it's less that you'll be objectively worse by playing top tier heroes, but that a large part of your success will hinge on your hero, rather than your skill. Let's say I'm on a team and we're ranking each member's abilities on a scale of 1-100. Most of the team is at about an 85 because of their skill. I'm only at a 75, but because I only play awesome heroes I'm able to make up for that and contribute at a level of 85. Now we're in a match and the opposing team bans the two heroes that I'm currently playing. Suddenly I'm a weight on my team. I'd be better off playing at a team of my skill level and kicking ass when my best heroes aren't banned, and being a steady member of the team when they are.

Although you generally will probably be a bit worse from playing top heroes. Because you're able to get more out of your hero, you generally won't be punished for not taking advantage of little tricks and nuances of positioning, meaning that you'll be less likely to develop those skills. Now that obviously goes out the window if you're playing seriously and are going out of your way to improve you game, but for most players it will have an adverse effect.

Plus if you're playing a hero that's "OP" (and they usually are only perceived as such) due to requiring a lower skill threshold to play than they require to be countered, you almost certainly will suffer. You'll run your bad pubstomping build until all of a sudden you advance in ELO and suddenly your build isn't working anymore, you die almost instantaneously and you're now going 1/8/3 instead of 13/1/12 because you never actually managed to learn the game beyond how to beat up new players. I'd put MF in this category. New players are likely to ignore her and focus the giant Cho'Gath in their faces, but once they realize how squishy she is, she becomes substantially weaker.

[Brother Oni]

New players are likely to ignore her and focus the giant Cho'Gath in their faces, but once they realize how squishy she is, she becomes substantially weaker.

Except that giant Cho'gath is going to physically block skill shots aimed at MF and with the right positioning, they're not going to be able to target her under Cho's huge character model. :smallbiggrin:

I do see your point however, but isn't that true of almost all hard carries? Focus them down and they all die quickly and horribly, hence why you ideally need something to keep them going like Kayle's ult or Morganna's shield and to a lesser extent Zil's ult and GA.

[Draken]

Except that giant Cho'gath is going to physically block skill shots aimed at MF and with the right positioning, they're not going to be able to target her under Cho's huge character model. :smallbiggrin:

I do see your point however, but isn't that true of almost all hard carries? Focus them down and they all die quickly and horribly, hence why you ideally need something to keep them going like Kayle's ult or Morganna's shield and to a lesser extent Zil's ult and GA.

Fun fact. Cho's hit box at maximum size is actually quite larger than it appears to be (and it appears to be massive).

I know this because I once blocked a Dark Binding from a Morgana and I must say, that thing had no business hitting me that time.

[The Valiant Turtle]

As I was sitting around waiting to respawn yesterday I found myself wondering when it's time to forget running away from chasing enemies and just die quick to get back in the game.

My team had just gotten mostly wiped in a teamfight and I was trying to run back but getting chased by Xin and Nidalee. I had already burned flash and even with Kennen's lightning dash those two can (and did) catch up with just a slight speed advantage. I'm wondering if I should have just done what damage I could to die and respawn quicker to join my team.

I was keeping 2 enemies occupied chasing me, which isn't bad, but I was leading them pretty much right where they would have gone anyways and when my team respawned I still had a 15 sec wait to help them.

[Makensha]

I've taken an interest in Ashe, and I've been wondering about builds. I know I need to get Last Whisper, Infinity Edge, and Brutaliser. After that, I'm not sure.

[Flechair]

Anyone else utterly hate this way of thinking? This is a competitive game, if you want that win, you use any tool you got at your disposal no matter how strong or dirty it is. **** I know coming from the Fighting Game scene my mentality may be different but not by that much. You played her, you got dat win, you got dat money, be proud of dat **** don't feel grimy.

Actually, my best friend has over 2000 hours on SF4 + SSF4. He plays Sakura and Abel. He hates people that play Chun-Li, Akuma, Ryu, Sagot because they are top tier. He destroys them too with an 85% win ratio. It's all about how good you are personally. I'd rather play a character that was only mildly good because I like the character, rather than play a character that was technically better than other because of the fact that he is better. Teemo's considered useless and I still have KD spreads of +10-15 with him in good games.



I've taken an interest in Ashe, and I've been wondering about builds. I know I need to get Last Whisper, Infinity Edge, and Brutaliser. After that, I'm not sure.

What do you want her to do?

Phantom Dancer would be nice, for the crits, movement speed, and attack speed. So would a Blood Thirster, for the life steal.

If you're fighting a bunch of armor based guys, Black Cleaver.

You could make yourself less squishy. Magic Resist, Armor, or Health.

[Milskidasith]

Heroes don't have to be OP to be banned. And it's less that you'll be objectively worse by playing top tier heroes, but that a large part of your success will hinge on your hero, rather than your skill. Let's say I'm on a team and we're ranking each member's abilities on a scale of 1-100. Most of the team is at about an 85 because of their skill. I'm only at a 75, but because I only play awesome heroes I'm able to make up for that and contribute at a level of 85. Now we're in a match and the opposing team bans the two heroes that I'm currently playing. Suddenly I'm a weight on my team. I'd be better off playing at a team of my skill level and kicking ass when my best heroes aren't banned, and being a steady member of the team when they are.

This is the problem with focusing on any hero, OP or not. You could rack up a ton of wins with Teemo (he can pubstomp decently enough), and still be useless if you try other people. Being flexible is always a good thing.

Also, trying to put numbers on people, even in abstract, is a gross oversimplification of things.

Finally, yes, the most powerful heroes are banned. The only reason I could ever see banning somebody who isn't good is... I dunno, if your team had two idiots saying they would leave if they didn't get eve and teemo? Then maybe they'd dodge, but that's an edge case that isn't really good, so much as avoiding frustration.


Although you generally will probably be a bit worse from playing top heroes. Because you're able to get more out of your hero, you generally won't be punished for not taking advantage of little tricks and nuances of positioning, meaning that you'll be less likely to develop those skills. Now that obviously goes out the window if you're playing seriously and are going out of your way to improve you game, but for most players it will have an adverse effect.

Top tier /=/ easy to play. Ez is hard to play. Kog is easy to play. Eve is hard to play. Teemo is pretty easy to play. Mundo isn't too tough to play. Vlad isn't too tough to play.

You have to learn the tricks with any champ to improve, and it's only in the situations you're playing a carry (like Kog) where you wouldn't learn these "nuances", and in those cases, there probably weren't all that many to learn anyway.


Plus if you're playing a hero that's "OP" (and they usually are only perceived as such) due to requiring a lower skill threshold to play than they require to be countered, you almost certainly will suffer. You'll run your bad pubstomping build until all of a sudden you advance in ELO and suddenly your build isn't working anymore, you die almost instantaneously and you're now going 1/8/3 instead of 13/1/12 because you never actually managed to learn the game beyond how to beat up new players. I'd put MF in this category. New players are likely to ignore her and focus the giant Cho'Gath in their faces, but once they realize how squishy she is, she becomes substantially weaker.

That's a massive, massive stretch, especially since, barring a sword of the occult and not buying zerkers, your build for most carries is going to be the same. Not only that, but, again, OP heroes (which MF is not) are not necessarily easy to play. MF is probably one of the trickier heroes to play, just for trying to land the second bounce of her Q, her really hard to hit slow, and her ult, which actually requires pretty good positioning.


Actually, my best friend has over 2000 hours on SF4 + SSF4. He plays Sakura and Abel. He hates people that play Chun-Li, Akuma, Ryu, Sagot because they are top tier. He destroys them too with an 85% win ratio. It's all about how good you are personally. I'd rather play a character that was only mildly good because I like the character, rather than play a character that was technically better than other because of the fact that he is better. Teemo's considered useless and I still have KD spreads of +10-15 with him in good games.

So... you pubstomp. And your friend apparently pubstomps. That is something that happens in any game. I mean, in Japan's SF2 scene, there are no "hard bans", but nobody picks Akuma due to an agreement of sportsmanship... and when people who can't play pick Akuma thinking it will make them win, it's a laugh whenthat person gets crushed.

Just because a character is bad competitively doesn't mean you can't beat bad players over the head with him/her, and just because the character is top tier doesn't mean you'll instantly be great with them, especially when, in LoL, there is so much variety in the characters that there aren't too many characters that have the exact same playstyle as each other; you can't play Teemo the entire game and just pick up Ez and dominate.


Phantom Dancer would be nice, for the crits, movement speed, and attack speed. So would a Blood Thirster, for the life steal.

If you're fighting a bunch of armor based guys, Black Cleaver.

You could make yourself less squishy. Magic Resist, Armor, or Health.

All of these item suggestions are bad. PD is incredibly inefficient on anybody who doesn't have massive built in crit or extra crit damage, and since it gives no AD, it doesn't help Ashe's volley. Blood thirster is good when you need pure AD, but lifesteal isn't really a great thing; again, IE is a better item to build. Black Cleaver isn't bad, but if the enemy is stacking armor, you get far more, far faster, and for far less, if you buy a last whisper; Black Cleaver is actually best on low armor targets.

Armor, MR, and health are... useful, yeah, but they're useful on anybody.

[Dogmantra]

Teemo's considered useless and I still have KD spreads of +10-15 with him in good games.

Have these people heard of "Make Teemo's Ult into Free Money Elixir"? :smallwink:

[Silverraptor]

Okay, what's a good general Yi build in everyone's opinions. I keep getting confused halfway through a game which item I should be working up for.

[Spinoza]

Is there a general consensus on what the best rune page/ mastery setup for WW is?

I know item wise you should go Madreds and GA but was wondering what is needed to optomize a good jungling Warwick.

[Astrella]

Hmm, attack speed reds works nice on WW, since he relies on proc effects. Not sure if the other slots should be anything special.

[Volug]

His attack speed gets good enough at later levels IMO, if you are dead in a 1v1 fight, well, your dead and attack speed won't help. I'd just prefer magic/armor penetration.

[Kettle]

If you guys wouldn't mind adding me to the main post, it's Kettle747, US server.

Anyway, regarding the OP heroes discussion, I think I have to side with Milski. Miss Fortune is no more OP than Tristana or Ashe, and they all utilize roughly the same skillset. It's deceptively difficult to play ranged carries in more skilled games, because you have to always have excellent positioning. The difference between a carry that fires off all her skills and dies or one that runs around at the back never really doing anything is pretty big. You have to find the sweet spot where you can do damage without being exposed.

Also, if you're serious about ranked games or your elo or whatever, it is absolutely necessary to learn all the tier 1 and 2 heroes. Your time is much better spent becoming a 75 player with Garen than a 95 player with Teemo, if only to learn how he works and what shuts him down. A lot of what makes a good player good is independent of hero selection anyway (map awareness, lane control, last hitting, positioning, etc.), and the best way to learn is really to play with better players and see what they do differently.

For Ashe builds, I like to start with a Doran's Blade and health potion, but you could try a Doran's Shield or Boots + pots too. Doran's shield is better for overall regeneration, Doran's blade is better for harassing and playing aggressively, and... you don't waste any money if you get boots and think it'll be an easy lane to farm in. If you're getting a lot of last hits but had to bluepill early, get boots, a second Doran's Blade, and wards/pots. If you don't think you can get a fast Infinity Edge, go for a Brutalizer first instead.

Afterwards, get your IE if you don't have it already, then consider a defensive item (Banshee's Veil is a good one) and upgrade your boots. Keep building attack damage! You could shoot for a Bloodthirster next or just stack a couple BF Swords. If they're stacking armour already, consider a Last Whisper, but I usually like to build it after another damage item. Just go with whatever the situation demands. Don't neglect elixirs, either. They can really give you a boost for an important team fight, and winning that fight cleanly is often more important than getting another item right away. Just try not to waste them by either popping them too early or forgetting to trigger them at all.

Your build should end up looking something like this, with variance depending on what the other team is doing:

1. Boots
2. Brutalizer
3. Infinity Edge
4. Banshee's Veil
5. Bloodthirster
6. Last Whisper

Feel free to change it up according to situation. You might want a Bloodrazor against extremely tanky teams, for example, or a Guardian Angel if it's late in the game. Always let the game dictate your items rather than having a preset build that you always stick to. The Infinity Edge is pretty much mandatory on any build, though. Also, be sure to get good at last hitting and farming. That's extremely important on any character, but especially carries. You want to be last hitting at least 75% of the creeps, and taking advantage of any downtime to be farming pushed lanes (don't overextend and expose yourself), killing jungle creeps, getting red buff, whatever. Just make sure your team knows not to initiate without you, and do your part and remember that you're playing League of Legends, not Harvest Moon.

Annnnnyway, I didn't mean for this to turn into such a wall of text, but I got a bit carried away. I'll... just disappear now?

[Makensha]

His attack speed gets good enough at later levels IMO, if you are dead in a 1v1 fight, well, your dead and attack speed won't help. I'd just prefer magic/armor penetration.

The point is that he uses the attack speed to jungle more effectively and heal himself. However good his base ASP gets later doesn't matter when you're taking dragon at level three.

Edit: Thanks Kettle

[Milskidasith]

His attack speed gets good enough at later levels IMO, if you are dead in a 1v1 fight, well, your dead and attack speed won't help. I'd just prefer magic/armor penetration.

Yeah, WW needs aspd red and quints in order to jungle with absurd effectiveness (to the point you can start anywhere, at all).

Magic pen is pointless on WW, and armor pen isn't that useful in the jungle. Attack speed, however, lets him maintain full HP at pretty much any time.

Also, in the early 1v1s, extra attack speed does, in fact, help WW a lot, because... it's more HP! Every hit he get, at low levels, will essentially give him 33% lifesteal or so (20 HP healed, probably 60 damage dealt, if that).

[Zabel_Zarock]

Actually, my best friend has over 2000 hours on SF4 + SSF4. He plays Sakura and Abel.
Abel is Top Tier in SSFIV and Sakura has been top tier in all games she's been in other than Marvel & S/SSFIV. And amount of time you been playing doesn't nothing unless you've been facing decent people.


He hates people that play Chun-Li, Akuma, Ryu, Sagot because they are top tier.
So he has a scrub mindset, I really doubt he's good. Oh yeah Protip, Chun has only been top in two games, Alpha 2 & 3S, Sagat ST & SFIV, Akuma's only in 2I, & Ryu has only been Top in SFIV.



He destroys them too with an 85% win ratio.
Online doesn't really mean crap seeing how for the most part the people with the highest BP are free as hell.



It's all about how good you are personally.
Agreed



I'd rather play a character that was only mildly good because I like the character, rather than play a character that was technically better than other because of the fact that he is better.
Same here but nothing wrong with someone who does the oppisite & it doesn't make them a weak player. Look at Tokido, dude is known for repping that Top Tier in every game but no one would ever call him a weak player.



Teemo's considered useless and I still have KD spreads of +10-15 with him in good games.
I feel ya, I represent that Allistar personally & have a decent spread with the cat but that doesn't mean I'm great or good.



So... you pubstomp. And your friend apparently pubstomps. That is something that happens in any game. I mean, in Japan's SF2 scene, there are no "hard bans", but nobody picks Akuma due to an agreement of sportsmanship... and when people who can't play pick Akuma thinking it will make them win, it's a laugh when that person gets crushed.
Akuma is banned because he's not ment to be used in serious play, he is straight up broke. Easy infinite, air fireball locks everyone down, Red Fireball is OP, Teleport has no recovery so it's free escape, and Raging Demon is death & almost unavoidable. You're thinking of O. Sagat, there was a rumor that to this day still gets around that he's soft banned in Japan. Not full on banned but people kinda look down on you for playing him.

[Flechair]

All of these item suggestions are bad. PD is incredibly inefficient on anybody who doesn't have massive built in crit or extra crit damage, and since it gives no AD, it doesn't help Ashe's volley. Blood thirster is good when you need pure AD, but lifesteal isn't really a great thing; again, IE is a better item to build. Black Cleaver isn't bad, but if the enemy is stacking armor, you get far more, far faster, and for far less, if you buy a last whisper; Black Cleaver is actually best on low armor targets.

Armor, MR, and health are... useful, yeah, but they're useful on anybody.

You're talking in circles.

He was asking for additional items. Assuming he already had Butalizer, boots, Last Whisper, and Infinity Edge. Being able to make yourself less squishy would be a nice thing. The statement "Armor, MR, and health are... useful, yeah, but they're useful on anybody." Seems like a waste of breathe. You might as well have said "I agree." or nothing at all.

Once again, these are additional items. If you're already ignoring 40% of the enemy armor with Last Whisper, why not make the enemy's tank die faster with the Black Cleaver? Why not be able to chase people better and get crits more often with the PD? Why not be able to regain health while doing damage with the Blood Thirster?
{{scrubbed}}


EDIT: Btw, you're saying that PD's only good when used by someone with high crit rate, whats the point in getting IE if it's also for crits. The same rule should apply. Why have extra crit damage if it's not on a character that does a lot of crits?

[Brother Oni]

Once again, these are additional items. If you're already ignoring 40% of the enemy armor with Last Whisper, why not make the enemy's tank die faster with the Black Cleaver?

I can't really make a proper analysis of the other items, but I can answer this one - Armour reduction is applied before armour penetration, so by taking Black Cleaver, you've just made your Last Whisper less effective.

I'd like to point out that Milskidasith has a habit of basing his opinions from the perspective of team fights. In big team fights, lifesteal isn't that useful as unless you've got stackloads of it with the requisite attack damage and speed, you're not going to heal up enough to keep you alive if you're getting focused and if you're not getting focused, you don't need the lifesteal.
Outside of team fights, lifesteal is great, especially for skirmishing fights where you'll have an advantage over an opponent who can't heal up.

Ashe is extremely squishy and the only time I've seen her beat a tanky dps in a straight fight was she had two farmed up bloodthirsters, but if you're doing well enough to have two of those, then the game's mostly a stomp anyway.

With regard to Infinity Edge, apart from items that need stacks (Bloodthirster and snowball items), it's the highest attack damage item in the game, thus if you die, when you respawn, you're still at 100% effectiveness, rather than having to go kill some more minions/champions to get back what you've lost.


I've taken an interest in Ashe, and I've been wondering about builds. I know I need to get Last Whisper, Infinity Edge, and Brutaliser. After that, I'm not sure.

My build for Ashe is a little out of date, but Merc treads, Chalice and a Banshee were the other items I used to get.
If you don't take Clarity, then a Manamune would probably be an excellent item. If you're having problems with a tank, then Madred's bloodrazor is another good item.
Wit's End is very situational, but something else to consider if you need something anti-mage in a hurry.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Yup, Milski is almost always talking from high elo teamfight perspective.

Also, I have just discovered Kassadin Woopee.:smallsmile:

[Brother Oni]

Also, I have just discovered Kassadin Woopee.:smallsmile:

Is that a cry of joy or a very odd build for Kassadin? :smallconfused:

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Is that a cry of joy or a very odd build for Kassadin? :smallconfused:

The latter, I hope. :smallbiggrin:

[Flechair]

I can't really make a proper analysis of the other items, but I can answer this one - Armour reduction is applied before armour penetration, so by taking Black Cleaver, you've just made your Last Whisper less effective.

It might be less effective, but it's still not putting you in the negative.

If you're using both against a level 18 shen that has only managed to get 2 sunfire capes. He would have 90 base armor + 90 armor from the 2 sunfires.

He has 180 armor.

When you're using the Last Whisper against him, you ignore 40% of it, so it acts as if he has 108.

The Brutalizer has +15% armor penetration
With the Last Whisper and Brutalizer - 81

The Black Cleaver reduces the enemies armor by 12 for 5 seconds. It stacks 5 times.

1st stack - 168 armor
with Last Whisper - 100.8
with Last Whisper and The Brutalizer - 75.6

2nd stack - 156 armor
with Last Whisper - 93.6
with LW and the Brutalizer - 70.2

3rd stack - 144 armor
with LW - 86.4
with both - 64.8

4th stack - 132 armor
with LW - 79.2
with both - 59.4

5th stack - 120 armor
with LW - 72
with both - 54

Going by the LoLwiki, damage reduction is based on armor ratings, with the equation | total armor \ (100 + total armor) |

54 \ (100 +54) = .35

He now has 35% damage reduction compared to without the Black Cleaver (45%)

Once you bring into the account of Ashes attack.

She has 97.6 damage
then assuming you had
+10 from LW
+80 from IE
+75 from BC
+25 from Brutalizer
She has 287.6 damage.

with Shen's damage resistance now being 35% thanks to the black cleaver. She does 186.94 damage.

I don't know if Critical chance maxes out, but with both of the PD and the IE, Ashe has a +50% chance to crit. Crits doing 250% damage. She does attacks of 467.35.

Her attack speed at level 18 is .66 with +55.8% then with LW(40%) and PD(45%) and Berserker greaves(25%) it's +165.8%
Your attack speed becomes 1.75.

Then your movement speed base is 300. With berserker greaves +2 and the PD +15%. LoL Wiki is saying that regular Boots of Speed is about 15%. You're moving at about the speed of Boots of Swiftness.

I'd say that's pretty good.

Also, I'd just like to say that math totally isn't my thing. I looked this over again and realized that I took the base damage/armor/attack speed of Ashe/Shen and added it to the level increase*18 when it should have been 17. You only level up 17 times.

I didn't really do this to argue either. After finding out the armor decreases, I was just curious to see the rest. I'm sure there are better things out there, really if you did the math for other items they'd look just as impressive. So this is basically all moot because I'm not going to go through all the effort to look at other items.

[Milskidasith]

Flechair, the bonus you get from levelups is applied at first level as well, AFAIK. I could be wrong.

As for why IE is good: Because it's ridiculously efficient. PD is pretty inefficient for its price, and it gives aspd (rarely good; it's good on people with massive base attack, so Sion Mundo, and Trynd (but he has massive base crit, so he wants IE more) but not many others; if you want it on somebody with lots of on hit effects, it doesn't give much), and crit, but both are too inefficient to really upgrade that well. IE gives you damage at cost, crit at cost (both of which are great for those who want damage) and a 50% increase to crit damage, which makes the 20% crit it gives you a 30% overall DPS increase, along with massively increasing your spike damage on successive crits.

Basically, PD isn't that great for its cost, while IE combines for essentially free and gives a .5% total DPS increase for every point of crit you have; on Ashe, that's 50% damage increase on the first shot, and a decent amount afterwards. PD... not so much use.

[Makensha]

Flechair, the bonus you get from levelups is applied at first level as well, AFAIK. I could be wrong.
Nope. Take someone's base health, add 17 x Health Leveling and you'll get their level 18 health.


As for why IE is good: Because it's ridiculously efficient. PD is pretty inefficient for its price, and it gives aspd (rarely good; it's good on people with massive base attack, so Sion Mundo, and Trynd (but he has massive base crit, so he wants IE more) but not many others; if you want it on somebody with lots of on hit effects, it doesn't give much), and crit, but both are too inefficient to really upgrade that well. IE gives you damage at cost, crit at cost (both of which are great for those who want damage) and a 50% increase to crit damage, which makes the 20% crit it gives you a 30% overall DPS increase, along with massively increasing your spike damage on successive crits.

Basically, PD isn't that great for its cost, while IE combines for essentially free and gives a .5% total DPS increase for every point of crit you have; on Ashe, that's 50% damage increase on the first shot, and a decent amount afterwards. PD... not so much use.

Trinity Force instead maybe?

[Milskidasith]

Nope. Take someone's base health, add 17 x Health Leveling and you'll get their level 18 health.



Trinity Force instead maybe?

Trinity force on Ashe? Why would that be a good idea, at all? :smallconfused:

It gives AP and mana (useless), and the rest of it, while efficient, doesn't really do anything great for her. There are a few people who can use Trinity Force (Udyr... Udyr... Maybe Udyr? I dunno. Definitely Udyr though. Have I mentioned Udyr yet? Also Udyr. And maybe Nid.) but basically everybody not on that list (remember: Udyr. And Udyr, probably Udyr, definitely Udyr and Udyr, and an OK late item for tankdyr) doesn't really want it because they can't benefit from all of the stats, which turns it into a rather inefficient item with a rarely used effect.

[Shades of Gray]

Poppy and Nasus like it. Even Tank Nasuses build Sheen, so Trinity Force is a logical step.

Gragas too, in certain builds.

[Makensha]

Trinity force on Ashe? Why would that be a good idea, at all? :smallconfused:

It gives AP and mana (useless), and the rest of it, while efficient, doesn't really do anything great for her. There are a few people who can use Trinity Force (Udyr... Udyr... Maybe Udyr? I dunno. Definitely Udyr though. Have I mentioned Udyr yet? Also Udyr. And maybe Nid.) but basically everybody not on that list (remember: Udyr. And Udyr, probably Udyr, definitely Udyr and Udyr, and an OK late item for tankdyr) doesn't really want it because they can't benefit from all of the stats, which turns it into a rather inefficient item with a rarely used effect.

You're forgetting Ezreal.

Volley is on a 4 second CD, so if you're continously using it, you're proccing the Sheen effect alot. Between the two you have pretty decent burst. The AP is pretty useless, but I do think the Mana is nice to have, even if not really needed.

[Volug]

I just had one of my best WW games, and my team won 4v5 :D (Our 5th left at the start of the game too... TROLLOLOLOL)

OUr Twisted Fate was a very good TF too XD.

They had that Vamp dude... Vincent? Anyways, with WW's Ult and bloodrazors he was dead by the end of the ult, it's epic.

[Flechair]

I just had one of my best WW games, and my team won 4v5 :D (Our 5th left at the start of the game too... TROLLOLOLOL)

OUr Twisted Fate was a very good TF too XD.

They had that Vamp dude... Vincent? Anyways, with WW's Ult and bloodrazors he was dead by the end of the ult, it's epic.

I can't really play TF, but I definitely suck at jungling WW. I went on my friends account just to try it, and it's hard for me to get down. No wonder it took him 10-15 games to truly be good at him.


@Milskidasith, Thanks for explaining thoroughly why you don't think the PD is worth it. I appreciate it, before I felt like you were attacking my opinion. You were telling me that the Bloodthirster was a bad choice like I was stupid, when just a few posts later someone else was agreeing with me to get it.

[Milskidasith]

You're forgetting Ezreal.

Volley is on a 4 second CD, so if you're continously using it, you're proccing the Sheen effect alot. Between the two you have pretty decent burst. The AP is pretty useless, but I do think the Mana is nice to have, even if not really needed.

The problem is that the sheen effect alone really isn't worth 4k, and that's all you're getting; the mallet is worthless because you already have slow, sheen is worthless because you need neither AP nor mana, and zeal is... zeal. It's actually sort of efficient, but you're getting a bunch of items that don't really do much for Ashe and turn you into a master of none, rather than getting efficient items. The trinity force effect is nice, but with an IE, you get more out of increased crit % than 150% extra damage on one attack every four seconds.

[Volug]

I just get all mana crystals, then I own everything.

Especially when I'm playing Vlad.

[Silverraptor]

The problem is that the sheen effect alone really isn't worth 4k, and that's all you're getting; the mallet is worthless because you already have slow, sheen is worthless because you need neither AP nor mana, and zeal is... zeal. It's actually sort of efficient, but you're getting a bunch of items that don't really do much for Ashe and turn you into a master of none, rather than getting efficient items. The trinity force effect is nice, but with an IE, you get more out of increased crit % than 150% extra damage on one attack every four seconds.

He could work up that Zeal to a Phantom Dancer if he so desires.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Is that a cry of joy or a very odd build for Kassadin? :smallconfused:


The latter, I hope. :smallbiggrin:
It involves a massive amount of shouting LEEEEEEROY JENKINS!
Though after a couple kills I generally shout it after I've killed somebody and escaped succesfully, since it doesn't distract them anymore but it then serves as warning.:smalltongue:

I need to work on it though, so that it has more survivability.

[Milskidasith]

He could work up that Zeal to a Phantom Dancer if he so desires.

:smallconfused:

If he builds it into a PD, he can't build it into a trinity force, which is the item I was saying is bad. I've already elaborated why PD is generally pretty bad, so... yeah.

[Adumbration]

It involves a massive amount of shouting LEEEEEEROY JENKINS!
Though after a couple kills I generally shout it after I've killed somebody and escaped succesfully, since it doesn't distract them anymore but it then serves as warning.:smalltongue:

I need to work on it though, so that it has more survivability.

Following the good advice from edfd, I usually build Rod of Ages on Kassadin as a starter. If you can get a couple of kills early on, you can even get Catalyst+boots pretty soon, which allows you to easily lane as long as you like.

Even without the gold from extra kills, I've never problems with getting RoA before 20 minute mark on Kassadin.

(Which reminds me, I really like Kassadin. I need to buy him soon, I've been playing him when he's been free. I may actually have to spend real money on one of the packs, just because the runes cost so damn much. Getting both dodge and CDR runes is a real pain in the butt.)

[Spinoza]

Lost my first legitimate 5 vs 5 with Sivir this weekend.
These are non-ranked non arranged teams I am playing in. Ran in to a team using Garen, Morde, and Sion. Near the end they completely ignored towers walked to me and stomped me like a red headed step child. Not sure what I could have done to be more effective. Usually I can stop an advance because I can wipe out a minion wave in 2 seconds but like I said they could just ignore towers and come in and eat me up. Any particular item that would have helped? The only thing I can think of is last whisper but that item really isn't all that good on me.

[Brother Oni]

I didn't really do this to argue either. After finding out the armor decreases, I was just curious to see the rest.

Your maths appear good to me and I have no objections to getting a Black Cleaver over an IE to try and kill high armor tanks (although high HP tanks like Cho'gath might be served better by getting a bloodrazor instead).

I do dispute your choice of targets however - during a team fight, targetting a tanks usually results in a quick wipe for your team as their dps/nukes simply slaughter you unimpeded, thus you're far more likely to target somebody like Miss Fortune or an opposing Ashe.

In this case, an IE would synergise much better with Last Whisper than a Black Cleaver - when I get home from work, I'll have a look at the numbers and see how it all works out.

By the way, I don't view this as arguing, more like a friendly debate. If you know I'm wrong, then show me the proof and I'll admit I'm wrong. :smallbiggrin:


Lost my first legitimate 5 vs 5 with Sivir this weekend.
These are non-ranked non arranged teams I am playing in. Ran in to a team using Garen, Morde, and Sion. Near the end they completely ignored towers walked to me and stomped me like a red headed step child. Not sure what I could have done to be more effective. Usually I can stop an advance because I can wipe out a minion wave in 2 seconds but like I said they could just ignore towers and come in and eat me up. Any particular item that would have helped? The only thing I can think of is last whisper but that item really isn't all that good on me.

Mid to late game, 3v1 at a tower? Your best bet is to just run, cast spell shield and hope Garen doesn't spin you to death or Sion stuns you. About the only item that would help is Banshee so that Sion can't get the stun and between your dodge/spell shield, you should minimise the amount of damage Garen does as you run away. A Guardian Angel would be useless as all they'd do is hang round while you revive and just kill you again.

In a situation like this, you need your team mates - if they're not around, then the best you could is to either run if they chase you, or harass with boomerrang toss/riccochet if they go after the tower. Staying and fighting will result in your death as you've found out.

[Spinoza]

I actually did have a Banshee.. and effectively avoided Sion's stun and Garen's slow. But the had something else that was slowing me down.

I guess it makes me appreciate what a tank team could do.

[Silverraptor]

I actually did have a Banshee.. and effectively avoided Sion's stun and Garen's slow. But the had something else that was slowing me down.

I guess it makes me appreciate what a tank team could do.

Tank teams usually equal late game as, "What tower? Oh! You mean that little pretty light that keeps tickling me?"

[Dogmantra]

Tank teams usually equal late game as, "What tower? Oh! You mean that little pretty light that keeps tickling me?"

Tank teams... or a fed mid Galio at about level 8. It was my second time midding EVER. I was Veigar, and I knew I was in trouble when I saw Dr McMagicresist against me. Knew our Ashe should've taken mid... though I guess I was focusing on last hits and not enough harrassing.

[Master_Rahl22]

Dogmantra, that brings up something that not enough people can seem to figure out in my experience. If you're in a horrible matchup for your champ, switch with somebody. I don't mean that as an insult to you, but I've seen so many people that don't even consider this. In your example, you were up against a champ that had a big advantage against yours, not even necessarily a better player but just a rock-paper-scissors type situation. As soon as you see that it's a bad matchup, it's a good idea to swap with somebody who will be paper to Galio's rock, or at least another rock. I've had several games lately with similar situations and been completely ignored when I ask to switch lanes, so it just bugs me a bit.

[Dogmantra]

Every time I ported or died, I asked Ashe to switch with me. Unfortunately, she was pre-arranged with someone else and didn't want to stop laning with them.

Oh, and for the record, he was a MUCH better player too. He did things with Galio I didn't think were possible. :smallwink:

[Spinoza]

There is one other thing that is bothering me about the match. Urgot took mid. He had a pretty good k/d ratio but it just felt like he wasn't doing much in the team fights. I thought it strange for Urgot to take mid but didn't say anything about it.

[Dogmantra]

I've seen plenty of mid Urgots before - he's decent at harrassing, his shield's okay for resisting harrassment, he's okay at last hitting, and if his opponent pushes too far, he can ult them into tower range. Not someone you'd put mid over, say, Tristana, but he can do okay.

[Milskidasith]

I've seen plenty of mid Urgots before - he's decent at harrassing, his shield's okay for resisting harrassment, he's okay at last hitting, and if his opponent pushes too far, he can ult them into tower range. Not someone you'd put mid over, say, Tristana, but he can do okay.

Urgot's pretty much awful anywhere, so I wouldn't put him mid.

[ZeroNumerous]

Every time I ported or died, I asked Ashe to switch with me. Unfortunately, she was pre-arranged with someone else and didn't want to stop laning with them.

I play Ashe(rather infrequently) and I've always switched with someone, even if I was pre-arranging with friends.

[Silverraptor]

Dogmantra, that brings up something that not enough people can seem to figure out in my experience. If you're in a horrible matchup for your champ, switch with somebody. I don't mean that as an insult to you, but I've seen so many people that don't even consider this. In your example, you were up against a champ that had a big advantage against yours, not even necessarily a better player but just a rock-paper-scissors type situation. As soon as you see that it's a bad matchup, it's a good idea to swap with somebody who will be paper to Galio's rock, or at least another rock. I've had several games lately with similar situations and been completely ignored when I ask to switch lanes, so it just bugs me a bit.

This happened to me when I was midding as Malzhar vs a Morgana. I knew the shield would be against me and it pretty much was. Unfortunately, the only person on our team that had a remote chance of out doing Morgana was our Garen, and I don't think he's a good mid character.

[Brother Oni]

Ok, the math comparing Last Whisper and IE versus Last Whisper and Black Cleaver:


Our target today is Miss Fortune at level 18. For ease of calculation, she has 70 armour, thus she has 42 armour after Last Whisper.

Ashe will be our ganker for the purposes of this demonstration: she has 188 damage with IE, while BC gives her 183 damage.

Calculating over 5 hits, IE gives a theoretical 4 normal hits and 1 critical hit (bonus critical chance): (4*132.4)+(330.9) = 860.5 damage.

Calculating the same for BC:

Hit 1: 34.8 armour = 122.6
Hit 2: 27.6 armour = 132.5
Hit 3: 20.4 armour = 145.7
Hit 4: 13.2 armour = 158.8
Hit 5: 6 armour = 172.0
Giving a grand total of: 731.6 damage.

This means that an IE does 18% more damage than a BC. Theoretically speaking at about 8/9 hits BC catches up with IE in terms of damage but this is dependent on the fairly major assumption that IE gives one critical hit and only one critical hit.
If it doesn't critical, it falls behind after only 3 hits and if it does more than 1, then it beats BC hands down.



Tank teams... or a fed mid Galio at about level 8. It was my second time midding EVER. I was Veigar, and I knew I was in trouble when I saw Dr McMagicresist against me. Knew our Ashe should've taken mid... though I guess I was focusing on last hits and not enough harrassing.

Veigar doesn't do too well against Mr Mag Resist true, but Zilean does surprisingly well as I managed to harass a Galio out of lane to the extent he had to switch with Fiddle, but by then it was too late (I was 12, Fiddle was 8).
It probably didn't help that he bought a Meki pendant instead of a Null Magic Mantle to help him lane longer.

[Dallas-Dakota]

And that's assuming you have absolutely no other items that gives + Crit%

Also you forgot IE's +50% crit dmg.

[Milskidasith]

And that's assuming you have absolutely no other items that gives + Crit%

Also you forgot IE's +50% crit dmg.

Actually, he did add that in; the crit hit is at 250%.

Still, with MF you're (pretty much) guaranteed to have at least 2% crit from masteries, and *possibly* a tad more due to base crit percent, but I'm not sure.

[Shades of Gray]

Base crit percent was removed some few patches ago.

[Milskidasith]

Base crit percent was removed some few patches ago.

Huh. Did not know that. I need to pay more attention.

[Dogmantra]

It probably didn't help that he bought a Meki pendant instead of a Null Magic Mantle to help him lane longer.

I think you'd have done better if he had taken a Null Magic Mantle 'cause Galio has mana problems early on. Righteous Gust costs quite a bit, and if you're harrassing (which it's fantastic at: hello, standing behind the tower or getting hit with no repercussions) you'll run out far too quickly.

[Pie Guy]

Stuff.

Yeah, but run the numbers on a high armor tank, like Rammus.

[NeoVid]

(Which reminds me, I really like Kassadin. I need to buy him soon, I've been playing him when he's been free. I may actually have to spend real money on one of the packs, just because the runes cost so damn much. Getting both dodge and CDR runes is a real pain in the butt.)

Same here. I really liked finally playing a character that gets a lot of kills without help. I've often gotten RoA at 16 minutes with Kass, and the absolute latest I've ever gotten it is 21 minutes. efdf's build really worked.

That reminds me: efdf, what should you get on Kass in place of Banshee Veil if the other team's mostly physical damage, with little CC or AP? The build you told us stacks a crazy amount of magic resist (innate, Veil, Lich Bane, Merc Treads...) and no survivability against physical. It seems like a Sunfire would be the logical choice, but I'd rather hear what someone who plays him seriously says.

Also, I really wish I had thought to try a Soulstealer on Kass.

[toasty]

Same here. I really liked finally playing a character that gets a lot of kills without help. I've often gotten RoA at 16 minutes with Kass, and the absolute latest I've ever gotten it is 21 minutes. efdf's build really worked.
Also, I really wish I had thought to try a Soulstealer on Kass.

Does Kass really need a tanky item? If he does, I'd suggest something like GA (though I'm not so sure about this item since the nerf) or maybe Raduin's Omen. Those both have armor (and GA has MR too).

[NeoVid]

Does Kass really need a tanky item? If he does, I'd suggest something like GA (though I'm not so sure about this item since the nerf) or maybe Raduin's Omen. Those both have armor (and GA has MR too).

efdf's build is RoA, Banshee Veil, Zhonya's, Lich Bane as the most important items. And I've found that he's right about Kass needing some survivability... doing his job puts him in harm's way a lot.

And yeah, Randuin's is crazy good, but it's so expensive... I'd like to be able to get farther in the build faster.

Edit: I just thought to look up what Elementz has to say about Kass. Frozen Heart for armor... that should have been obvious, but I've never played a character with a good use for that item before.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Sooo, I just had a TT game.

With a Twitch(With Ignite and Heal, no flee spells) and a Jungling Yi.
I tried to compensate by being Sion. I did NOT compensate enough.
Seriously, things like these make me oh so tired of LoL.

Their Sion, Janna and Tryndamere completely raped us.

[Silverraptor]

Question, does Garen's spinning slash contribute to Lifesteal? Or would that fall under Spellvamp territory?

[toasty]

Question, does Garen's spinning slash contribute to Lifesteal? Or would that fall under Spellvamp territory?

Umm... I don't know, Garen doesn't build life steal and spellvamp as been described to me as underwhelming and not so useful. :smallbiggrin:

[Brother Oni]

I think you'd have done better if he had taken a Null Magic Mantle 'cause Galio has mana problems early on. Righteous Gust costs quite a bit, and if you're harrassing (which it's fantastic at: hello, standing behind the tower or getting hit with no repercussions) you'll run out far too quickly.

Huh. When I'm playing Galio, I usually level up Smite over Gust and rely on Clarity or teleport/mp pots to keep me in lane.

I'll give that a shot and see how it goes.


Yeah, but run the numbers on a high armor tank, like Rammus.

Flechair already ran the numbers on a 180 armour Shen (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9430875&postcount=76) (although looking over his values again, he's got Brutaliser as 15% rather than 15 armour penetration), and BC beats IE. However the point still stands - why are you targeting a tank over a squishy in a team fight?

[Flechair]

The other night, my friend was playing with me as Kass, and it was so late that I didn't care about winning anymore. I played Soraka for the first time. I didn't look up a build, I just went AP and cooldown reduction. It worked pretty nicely.

I could keep my team at full most of the time, and keeping Kass at full health and mana was always nice, he'd just rift walk out of the trees and murder them all. I had 1 kill 2 deaths and 20 assists at the end of the game. I bought her the next morning.


Sooo, I just had a TT game.

With a Twitch(With Ignite and Heal, no flee spells) and a Jungling Yi.
I tried to compensate by being Sion. I did NOT compensate enough.
Seriously, things like these make me oh so tired of LoL.

Their Sion, Janna and Tryndamere completely raped us.

I find that's what happens a lot. People don't seem to like tanks, which I will admit. I don't really like being a tank either, but I got so tired of having incomplete teams (i.e. something like Ashe, Twisted Fate, Akali, Jax, and Yi, there's always a Yi) so I went out of my way to find the tanks I like. I found that I like Shen as a straight tank and Dr. Mundo when I just want to fool around.

[Poison_Fish]

If your aiming to eventually kill tanks as a carry, why aren't you getting a madreds? Not that your targeting them first anyway. That way your forcing them to take some MR (Depending on your teams damage source) rather then stacking sunfires. Even more so, a little bit of lifesteal can eventually keep you up against them. But the goal is to eliminate squishes.

[Makensha]

efdf's build is RoA, Banshee Veil, Zhonya's, Lich Bane as the most important items. And I've found that he's right about Kass needing some survivability... doing his job puts him in harm's way a lot.

And yeah, Randuin's is crazy good, but it's so expensive... I'd like to be able to get farther in the build faster.

Edit: I just thought to look up what Elementz has to say about Kass. Frozen Heart for armor... that should have been obvious, but I've never played a character with a good use for that item before.

Frozen Heart is a great item for any tank who has mana (Amumu, Rammus, Malphite, Alistar, Xin Zhao (He can tank, he just works better as a melee dps), Galio, Udyr, Singed, Urgot, Cho'Gath, Blitzcrank, Nunu, and Nasus. Please don't argue about this list).

Anyway, if you play a tank with mana and need armor, consider getting Frozen Heart. The CD is top tier, the Armor is second to none by Thornmail, and the Mana is good.

[Joran]

Frozen Heart is a great item for any tank who has mana (Amumu, Rammus, Malphite, Alistar, Xin Zhao (He can tank, he just works better as a melee dps), Galio, Udyr, Singed, Urgot, Cho'Gath, Blitzcrank, Nunu, and Nasus. Please don't argue about this list).

Anyway, if you play a tank with mana and need armor, consider getting Frozen Heart. The CD is top tier, the Armor is second to none by Thornmail, and the Mana is good.

I'd say that Glacial Shroud, the item that builds into Frozen Heart is solid. Armor, Mana, and a great deal of CDR all for only 1675 gold. I'm not sure that Frozen Heart is worthwhile unless there's a couple of carries on the other team that require attack speed to do well.

It takes another 1400 gold to build into Frozen Heart for the extra 54 armor (which a chain vest at 700 gold almost makes), +75 mana, and 5% extra CDR.

[Makensha]

I'd say that Glacial Shroud, the item that builds into Frozen Heart is solid. Armor, Mana, and a great deal of CDR all for only 1675 gold. I'm not sure that Frozen Heart is worthwhile unless there's a couple of carries on the other team that require attack speed to do well.

It takes another 1400 gold to build into Frozen Heart for the extra 54 armor (which a chain vest at 700 gold almost makes), +75 mana, and 5% extra CDR.

Yeah, probably not best to buy the whole thing immeadietly. More of a, "Buy the item it builds into for now and get the whole thing after finishing other parts of the build" type of item, like Brutalizer for tanks.

[Konaa]

Master Yi and Jax, enough said.

[Flechair]

Master Yi and Jax, enough said.

In most cases, I find that Jax is a much better champion that Yi. If they both have their builds complete, the jax is going to attack just as fast after a few seconds, he has an AoE stun (which at max build you have a 50-60% chance to dodge), and every 3rd hit he does tremendous magic damage.

[The Valiant Turtle]

And it appears that Vlad must hand over the title of "Guaranteed to appear in every match this week" over to Kog'Maw.

I just tried him in a bot-stomp and he has quite a wonderful personality. He's just a cute little void-kid with caustic spit and a bit of an appetite. Where's my plush Kog'Maw???

[Thrawn183]

In most cases, I find that Jax is a much better champion that Yi. If they both have their builds complete, the jax is going to attack just as fast after a few seconds, he has an AoE stun (which at max build you have a 50-60% chance to dodge), and every 3rd hit he does tremendous magic damage.

It's funny, after all the nerfs that Jax has undergone, the only effective Jax builds that I have seen go for a Crystal Mallet. It's pretty sad when a hero's passive gives HP for AD or AP and people still build just straight HP because they need the slow so badly.

[Terazul]

In most cases, I find that Jax is a much better champion that Yi. If they both have their builds complete, the jax is going to attack just as fast after a few seconds, he has an AoE stun (which at max build you have a 50-60% chance to dodge), and every 3rd hit he does tremendous magic damage.

On paper, yeah. Jax is much better. Stun! Dodge! Higher HP/Survivability! In play? ...Eh. He has way too horrible an early game. No real good way to farm without getting harassed out of lane. A good Yi can at least just sit there and spam alpha strike. Or even jungle. Also doesn't help that there's an item specifically designed to kill him. Both are kinda meh, though I've been seeing alot of good Yis lately.

[efdf]

I like Banshee's Veil on Kassadin because it makes him pretty much immune to burst casters with his passive and harder to stun. Of course, if the enemy team is stacked with physical Frozen Heart is a better choice.

I'd also recommend taking Archangel's over Zhonya's if your games often last long enough for you to complete Banshee's or Heart and complete the Zhonya's after the survivability.

[Master_Rahl22]

So, I just tried Rammus in practice and that taunt is as awesome when I'm doing the taunting as it is annoying to be taunted. I read a guide that recommends Thornmail, 2xSunfire, Atma's, and Randuins. Thoughts?

[Shades of Gray]

Or even jungle.

Point to note: Jax can jungle. With or without smite.

[Volug]

I'm glad Garen isn't a free weekend champ yet. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZensTnIXw)

Since if you pick him, victory is... Garen-teed.

[Thrawn183]

So, I just tried Rammus in practice and that taunt is as awesome when I'm doing the taunting as it is annoying to be taunted. I read a guide that recommends Thornmail, 2xSunfire, Atma's, and Randuins. Thoughts?

Sure, if no one on the other team does any magic damage. Frankly, against a team like that I'd just build Sunfires. Once you get enough reduction, you want HP because each one becomes effectively a lot more.

[Draken]

I'm glad Garen isn't a free weekend champ yet. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZensTnIXw)

Since if you pick him, victory is... Garen-teed.

Fact: 40% of the ragequitters I see are Garens.

[Raistlin1040]

I'm glad Garen isn't a free weekend champ yet. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZensTnIXw)

Since if you pick him, victory is... Garen-teed.*takes off sunglasses*
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH

[Volug]

Fact: 40% of the ragequitters I see are Garens.

Most people assume playing him IS insta-win. But I came acrossed the garen rage thread. (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=233888)

While most are blah, some are golden.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=59037&d=1284876295

[Thrawn183]

Am I the only one who has never played Garen?

[Draken]

I played him in a practice game against bots once. Fun times, the tower diving, etc, etc.

Of course, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing with him (heck up until a few days ago I had the impression his Q increased his attack speed for two seconds), still did half-decently against the bots, always fun to chase Alistar bot through three turrets in a lane, kill him and walk out alive.

Never quite felt like trying him again or in a serious match, however.

[Thrawn183]

All I know about him is this: if he starts spinning, run; if he has little shields floating around him, run; if he starts doing anything else, run!

[Draken]

Nah, more like:

If he starts spinning, run.
If he has little things spinning around him, ignore.
If he sudenly runs up to you, run (optimally, flash).
If he moves away at 60% or less HP, harass.
If it is level six and you have lost half a sizeable portion of your health, avoid at all costs.

[Flechair]

All I know about him is this: if he starts spinning, run; if he has little shields floating around him, run; if he starts doing anything else, run!

SILENCE!

Anyways, I have yet to see a great Garen player. I've seen a few good ones, but nothing that you can't deal with.

[Lord_Gareth]

So, any general advice for a newbie who can't pay to unlock new content? What kind of heroes should I use? How do I know an item build is good? What about general tactics? Specific ones? I tend to like glass cannons, ranged attackers, and people who blow stuff up, in order of preference.

Essentially, to put it in the most basic terminology I can muster: Newb no know play. Teach newb plz? kthx :smallbiggrin:

[Flechair]

So, any general advice for a newbie who can't pay to unlock new content? What kind of heroes should I use? How do I know an item build is good? What about general tactics? Specific ones? I tend to like glass cannons, ranged attackers, and people who blow stuff up, in order of preference.

Essentially, to put it in the most basic terminology I can muster: Newb no know play. Teach newb plz? kthx :smallbiggrin:

For what characters you should play, it really just takes playing them to find ones that you prefer. I suppose if you are taking the game super seriously, you can play the best ones, but at lower levels of play, it doesn't matter too much. Some characters are definitely easier to master though.

Really, the basics of how you should start, in my opinion, are just play really defensively. Until you know your character really well and know his limitations AND the limitations of other champions, you want to prevent feeding. Keep a distance from the enemies, try not to get harassed, let them push you to your turret so it can protect you if you must, try to last hit minions, don't forget to grab a health potion if you can spare the money.

Builds are dependent on your character. Tanks go for Armor, Health, MagResist. DPS characters go for Attack Damage or Ability Power, depending on whether their abilities go for Magic Damage or Physical Damage. I get most of my builds here (http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/browse?sort_type=score_weighted) and edit them according towards what I need, what my team needs, and what the enemy is doing. You'll get experience and learn what to do also.

[Vauron]

Some basic tips:

While the recommended items aren't usually terrible, often there are better options which you will be able to recognize with experience.

You'll generally get more survivablity with mdef and armor than health.

TALK TO YOUR TEAM AND COORDINATE TO WIN

Kill dragon when you feel you can kill it fast enough that you aren't worried about getting ganked.

Try to make sure you only deal deathblows to enemy creeps, you don't want to push towards the enemy tower early on, and you need gold from last hitting.

TALK TO YOUR TEAM AND COORDINATE TO WIN

Try to play each of the champs that are free each week to get a handle on what they can do, it can be frustrating to go against an opponent when you have no idea what their champ can do. Doing this will also let you see what champs you like.

TALK TO YOUR TEAM AND COORDINATE

Running off on your own when teamfights have started is generally a bad idea.

[Flechair]

Kill dragon when you feel you can kill it fast enough that you aren't worried about getting ganked.

This is actually pretty important, it's a money advantage. Once you get to a high enough level to easily kill Dragon, do it whenever you can. Well not when all the enemies are MIA and are alive. They might gank you. Just be careful. It gives XP and 130 gold + 25(?) to whoever delivers the finishing blow.

[Silverraptor]

I've been owning everyone as Garne. There's rarely a game where I don't atleast get "Legendary status".


So, I just tried Rammus in practice and that taunt is as awesome when I'm doing the taunting as it is annoying to be taunted. I read a guide that recommends Thornmail, 2xSunfire, Atma's, and Randuins. Thoughts?

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/rammus-the-armored-tank-3494

That's my build for Rammus. I don't know why there have been a recent votes of bad though... It use to be in the 70%

[Zabel_Zarock]

One thing about Dragon, if you're bottom lane & the opposing team has a Jungler, in the name of God ward Dragon.

[ZeroNumerous]

Fact: 40% of the ragequitters I see are Garens.

Fact: 60% of the ragequitters I see are caused by Garens. :smalltongue:

[Brother Oni]

If your aiming to eventually kill tanks as a carry, why aren't you getting a madreds?

That was just a comparison between upgrading your first BFS to a Black Cleaver compared to an Infinity Edge when you already have a Last Whisper.
Later on in the game, getting a bloodrazor to deal with problematic tanks is a good idea, but I wouldn't recommend building it first over Last Whisper/BFS upgrade if you're laning.



I just tried him in a bot-stomp and he has quite a wonderful personality. He's just a cute little void-kid with caustic spit and a bit of an appetite. Where's my plush Kog'Maw???

Please take me home! (http://tekkanomaki-chan.deviantart.com/art/Take-me-home-179548444?q=&qo=)

Chantinelle's been bitten by the drawing bug and currently prefers to draw LoL stuff rather than play LoL (well she rather play on my new upgraded computer instead of my old one...).

[Dogmantra]

Huh. When I'm playing Galio, I usually level up Smite over Gust and rely on Clarity or teleport/mp pots to keep me in lane.

I'll give that a shot and see how it goes.

I wouldn't take Clarity on anyone but Veigar, to be honest, 'cause he needs to be using Baleful Strike and has horrible mana problems. Everyone else can just not use spells for a bit. Unless Nassus has mana problems with Siphoning Strike? I dunno, never played him.

With Galio, while I've never midded, I grab Resolute Smite at 1, take a Meki Pendant and a health potion. Summoner spells tend to be Teleport & Clairvoyance, Flash & Clairvoyance or (rarely now) Teleport & Ignite. I love Clairvoyance, but I get that it's not for everyone, you could try whatever, but I really recommend it. Masteries are 21 in utility then the rest in armour and MR under defense. Try to get a bit of harrassing at the same time as last hits with Smite, but often I take it just for the slow in case we can get a kill at level 1. Then I level my abilities like so:

2. Gust
3. Bulwark
4. Gust
5. Smite
6. Ult
7. Bulwark
8. Smite
9. Gust
10. Bulwark
11. Ult
12. Smite
13. Gust
14. Bulwark
15. Smite
16. Ult
17. Gust
18. Bulwark

Once you've got Righteous Gust, it's all a matter of lining last hits up with enemy champions, so you're harrassing and getting gold at the same time. Then I tend to port when I have 850 and build my Meki Pendant into a Chalice and grab boots, or if I'm doing really well in the lane, wait 'til 1700 and take Merc's Treads straight away. Laning with someone durable like Xin, Garen or Warwick (even though he's much better in the jungle) is fantastic if you get hurt, just ask 'em to tank some minions for you: you slap a Bulwark on and watch as your health goes up. They can then restore any lost health really rather quickly. Once you hit 6, it's time for a kill in your lane. Keep harrassing, but let them push. If they're sticking by the tower, just throw Gusts at 'em 'til they give up. You can do that without taking hits from the tower.

Now, I'm not the best Galio player, and I won't pretend to be either, but he's the best champion I play regularly and enjoy according to Elementz (though I'm dubious of tier lists that specific...), I've been playing him since two days after he came out (darn IP costs) and I've had some fantastic games with him using those tactics.

EDIT: Also Rammus and Xin are free. My main(ish) and my brother's main. SO TEMPTED TO MAKE A SMURF.

[Silverraptor]

So, I am nearly done with my general dps/tank rune page. Just 1 more and I can start focusing on my general spellcaster rune page. Anyways, I have 4 tier 3 critical chance runes and 4 tier 3 armor penetration runes. Of the 2 chioces, which should I get for my last mark rune slot?

[toasty]

So Amumu jungling... how does this work? Build to Aegis? Get smite? what runes?

Also: I nearly have all Red Attack Speed runes for my jungle WW. Do I want to replace my Health Quints with Attack Speed or damage ones?

[Milskidasith]

So Amumu jungling... how does this work? Build to Aegis? Get smite? what runes?

Also: I nearly have all Red Attack Speed runes for my jungle WW. Do I want to replace my Health Quints with Attack Speed or damage ones?

Junglemumu grabs cloth armor, five pots, and the DoT. I believe the fastest and safest way to jungle is to start crying, hit the golem once, smite it, then kill the two creeps; the reduced magic resist from your hit will make smite and your tears do a bit more while you eliminate the trashmobs.

Then you just continue with business as usual.

WW: Attack speed. Damage runes are flat out awful.

[toasty]

DoT

I'm sorry, which item is this?:smallredface:

[Milskidasith]

I'm sorry, which item is this?:smallredface:

DoT = Damage over time. It's his skill choice at first level.

[toasty]

DoT = Damage over time. It's his skill choice at first level.

Ahh yea, got that. i know what a DoT was but I thought you were refering to an item.

I will solo-que attempt this. But agian what about runes?

[Milskidasith]

Ahh yea, got that. i know what a DoT was but I thought you were refering to an item.

I will solo-que attempt this. But agian what about runes?

No. You won't. You will try it in bot games, multiple times, until you know what you are doing.

I hate when people try out builds, especially first time jungling, by going into normal, and I am sure your teammates would as well.

As for runes: Tankish runes? Really, it's hard to say. Magic pen would be OK but won't help jungling, but an aspd page would barely do anything outside of the jungle.

[Faulty]

Best community skins ever. (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=196671)

[Zen Master]

Anyone else utterly hate this way of thinking? This is a competitive game, if you want that win, you use any tool you got at your disposal no matter how strong or dirty it is. **** I know coming from the Fighting Game scene my mentality may be different but not by that much. You played her, you got dat win, you got dat money, be proud of dat **** don't feel grimy.

By that thinking, all 5v5 matches should (theoretically) be 10 instances of the same champion - the numerically strongest one - and that would be the best way to play.

[Milskidasith]

By that thinking, all 5v5 matches should (theoretically) be 10 instances of the same champion - the numerically strongest one - and that would be the best way to play.

This assumes a lot of things; namely, that you can pick the same champ multiple times, that same-champ stacking is a good strategy, and that there is a champ that is strictly better than every other champion.

In short, your post is completely incorrect. And yes, if the game had one champ strictly better than all the others, had no bans, let you pick multiple of the same champ, and benefitted more from stacking one champ than a balanced mix, then the best strategy would be to pick that champ a lot. It would also be a horribly designed game nobody would want to play.

[Faulty]

All Evelynn all mid.

[Milskidasith]

All Evelynn all mid.

How would you even know if they were jungling? :smallconfused:

[Faulty]

How would you even know if they were jungling? :smallconfused:

No. Just, all 5 of the Evelynns mid. All of the Evelynns. All of them.

It is fool proof.

No but on a serious note, what do you think would be one of your neutral (as in, disregarding the possibility of required counter picks) all-star teams? I was thinking:

Amumu (jungling)
Kog'Maw (mid)
Vladimir (solo lane)
Taric
Garen

[Joran]

No. Just, all 5 of the Evelynns mid. All of the Evelynns. All of them.

It is fool proof.

No but on a serious note, what do you think would be one of your neutral (as in, disregarding the possibility of required counter picks) all-star teams? I was thinking:

Amumu (jungling)
Kog'Maw (mid)
Vladimir (solo lane)
Taric
Garen

With Amumu + Vladimir, I'd think one more AoE person, like a Miss Fortune, would do wonders. I'm not sure who to substitute out for her though.

[Silverraptor]

So, I am nearly done with my general dps/tank rune page. Just 1 more and I can start focusing on my general spellcaster rune page. Anyways, I have 4 tier 3 critical chance runes and 4 tier 3 armor penetration runes. Of the 2 chioces, which should I get for my last mark rune slot?

Reposting this. I want to hear people's suggestion over which of the two runes I should get.

[Faulty]

With Amumu + Vladimir, I'd think one more AoE person, like a Miss Fortune, would do wonders. I'm not sure who to substitute out for her though.

She'd best replace Kog'Maw probably? Garen + Vlad + Amumu is pretty reasonable AoE.


Reposting this. I want to hear people's suggestion over which of the two runes I should get.

Armor pen. Honestly, you should have armor pen in all 9. The only time I'd really use crit marks would be on a Gangplank or Tryndamere page.

[Spinoza]

Any predictions on how the WCG will turn out?

Wanna give a prediction on who will win Milskidasith?

[toasty]

Any predictions on how the WCG will turn out?

Wanna give a prediction on who will win Milskidasith?

I really have no clue how good the Asian teams will be, but they are pro dota players, mostly. This will help and hurt them. No doubt they will put a high priority on a heavily farmed phsyical dps. So Ashe, Trist, WW and such will be their top picks. Mages, I think, won't be very important. No doubt they'll want to make use of support heroes like Sona. I think as far as tanks go, but AoE initiation will be what they want, unless they're paying attention to the metagame a lot, so amumu will be a top choice, I'd think, because he is exactly the kind of tanks I saw as popular in DotA when I played in Bangladesh. Their focus will be all about a long term farmed up physical DPS hero. I don't think that will work out very well. However, they are good, smart people, so yea... they could show up and do well.

Europe: No clue what Europe is like. I assume they're good. Europe had some good DotA teams and I think SK gaming played DotA pro (?). I suspect these guys will be one of the strongest contenders for the victory. Can't say much else about them, though.

NA: I think these guys have a very good chance of taking the trophy. We've all seen what they can do and we all know these guys as the best players from NA. They're a good team, they have good strategies.

Personally, I want Asia to win. I love Asian gamers, cuz like... yea... I grew up in Bangladesh.:smallbiggrin: But I recognize they are at a disadvantage and the Europeans and Americans are much better off. But either way, I hope it will be interesting and entertaining.

[Eldariel]

Europe: No clue what Europe is like. I assume they're good. Europe had some good DotA teams and I think SK gaming played DotA pro (?). I suspect these guys will be one of the strongest contenders for the victory. Can't say much else about them, though.

SK Gaming has had a pro team in basically every WCG-eligible game. I don't know their LoL-team very well but from personal experience, European metagame seems to prefer kiting teams over tanky types; chances are we'll see a clash of metagames between the NA and EU teams. I don't think specific hero choices will reflect too heavily upon the pro teams though since they're obviously trained in team-specific strategies and play beyond the general metagame. The EU tier list does seem rather accurate as far as expected picks go.

[Spinoza]

SK Gaming has had a pro team in basically every WCG-eligible game. I don't know their LoL-team very well but from personal experience, European metagame seems to prefer kiting teams over tanky types; chances are we'll see a clash of metagames between the NA and EU teams. I don't think specific hero choices will reflect too heavily upon the pro teams though since they're obviously trained in team-specific strategies and play beyond the general metagame. The EU tier list does seem rather accurate as far as expected picks go.

I really hope there is a metagame clash so to speak and one shines over the others. For some reason I find that more interesting that all the teams playing the same metagame and the team that performs slightly better wins the day.

[Slash_712]

I think I asked before, but I don't think anything has changed, so yet again.

Can you add me to the player list please.

GitP name- Slash_712
LoL name- Catfud

[toasty]

I really hope there is a metagame clash so to speak and one shines over the others. For some reason I find that more interesting that all the teams playing the same metagame and the team that performs slightly better wins the day.

Oh its always more fun to see two really good teams play two different strats and then see which one works better. Obviously. I mean, a Mirror Match in Starcraft where both players build the EXACT same build, but one player has slightly better micro than the other would be as boring as hell to watch. Sure, its a testament to a player's skill when he hits 250APM while the other guy only goes up to 200APM, but its also highly boring to watch.

And that's one of the reasons I'm interested to see the Asians play. They probably won't win, honestly, but they are more likely to play a very different metagame than Europe or NA and so long as they're good enough to not get steam-rolled, I can see this being a very fun thing to watch.

[Dogmantra]

No but on a serious note, what do you think would be one of your neutral (as in, disregarding the possibility of required counter picks) all-star teams? I was thinking:

I was thinking something similar. 'cept I was thinking (as I am wont to do) about something more quirky. I was thinking which "theme team" would be one of the best. I personally would like to see Team Demacia, with Xin Zhao, Garen and Galio (and whoever else is from Demacia and escapes me right now). Or maybe team Yordle, with Tristana, Amumu, Heimerdinger, Veigar and probably Poppy. Most annoying team ever? I would argue: maybe.

[EndlessWrath]

I was thinking something similar. 'cept I was thinking (as I am wont to do) about something more quirky. I was thinking which "theme team" would be one of the best. I personally would like to see Team Demacia, with Xin Zhao, Garen and Galio (and whoever else is from Demacia and escapes me right now). Or maybe team Yordle, with Tristana, Amumu, Heimerdinger, Veigar and probably Poppy. Most annoying team ever? I would argue: maybe.

Don't forget Corki.

I always liked Dueling off at TT with Pirates Vs Ninjas team.
Bilgewater Katarina, Miss Fortune, Gangplank VS Shen, Akali, Kennen

I think it'd be a one-sided fight. Pirates don't actually have a tank, and Kennen going AP and Akali doing a Physical build would spread out the damage type alot. So unless Pirates dominate early game (which is tough with Mana restrictions..you know..the ones the ninjas Don't have) then the games just gonna go downhill the rest of the match.

[Flechair]

I think it'd be a one-sided fight. Pirates don't actually have a tank, and Kennen going AP and Akali doing a Physical build would spread out the damage type alot. So unless Pirates dominate early game (which is tough with Mana restrictions..you know..the ones the ninjas Don't have) then the games just gonna go downhill the rest of the match.

I like the ninja champs. Well I haven't played Kennen, but she's annoying to fight. I like akali and shen though.

[Joran]

I was thinking something similar. 'cept I was thinking (as I am wont to do) about something more quirky. I was thinking which "theme team" would be one of the best. I personally would like to see Team Demacia, with Xin Zhao, Garen and Galio (and whoever else is from Demacia and escapes me right now). Or maybe team Yordle, with Tristana, Amumu, Heimerdinger, Veigar and probably Poppy. Most annoying team ever? I would argue: maybe.

Team Demacia:

Xin Zhao
Garen
Galio
Poppy
Sona


Team Noxia:

Warwick
Singed
Katarina
Sion
Urgot
Dr. Mundo (maybe)


Team Yordle:

Amumu
Poppy
Veigar
Tristana
Teemo
Kennen
Corki
Heimerdinger


Team Void:

Cho'gath
Malzahar
Kog'Maw
Kassadin

[Dogmantra]

Don't forget Corki.
Yeah, but I tried to pick the best team composition. Or at least the best champions.


I like the ninja champs. Well I haven't played Kennen, but she's annoying to fight. I like akali and shen though.

Kennen = dude, Kayle = dudette :smallwink:

[Archangel Yuki]

Best community skins ever. (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=196671)

I saw the Kennen one a while ago. I didn't realise he had done so many @_@
New annie skin though :3

[Flechair]

Kennen = dude, Kayle = dudette :smallwink:

That's hard to believe when 'he' screeches so loud.

[efdf]

Ahh yea, got that. i know what a DoT was but I thought you were refering to an item.

I will solo-que attempt this. But agian what about runes?

Jungle Amumu:

smite + ghost
1/16/13 for imp smite, utility mastery, awareness, meditation and dump the rest in defense
1 level in Despair
1 level in Bandage Toss at 4
Max Tantrum first then Despair
MPen marks, Flat armor or scaling mana regen seals, scaling magic resist glyphs
Health or Armor quints
Cloth Armor + 5 pots first
build him like a normal tank

[Joran]

Yeah, but I tried to pick the best team composition. Or at least the best champions.


Well for Team Yordle, I'd suggest the following comp:

Amumu - Tank (Jungler)
Kennen - Mage/AoE
Tristana - Carry (Mid)
Veigar - Mage (he won't have major issues landing his meteor with this many stuns/roots around)

So, we have a slot for one more with Heimerdinger, Corki, Poppy, and Teemo. Teemo's terrible, so he won't be here. Poppy adds some more beef and another stun as well as some nice burst damage. Heimerdinger adds some pushing power and some okay AoE damage I'd personally go with Corki for some more AoE and more poking.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Greetings Summoner,

It has come to our attention that your account dallasdakota was recently involved in a game of League of Legends that experienced significant latency problems and may have ended suddenly and unexpectedly. This disruption was caused by a network harder problem with one of our servers. The faulty hardware has been removed from the service while we repair it, so future games shouldn’t run into this same issue again.

We would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. While we can’t go back and add alter all of your statistics to reflect the missing game, we did add 1000 IP to your account to help compensate for the bad experience.

The Influence Points have been added to your account, but the value in PVP.net may not update until you complete your next IP or RP purchase.

Again, sorry for any trouble this may have caused you. I hope this error won’t discourage you from continuing to enjoy League of Legends.

Riot Games Support


Thenk. You. Riot.:smallbiggrin:

[Joran]

Thenk. You. Riot.:smallbiggrin:

Can I be inconvenienced in this manner? :smallwink:

[NeoVid]

Serious question: How does smart-casting work exactly, and how do I activate the option for it in-game? I've decided I'd better try it out next time I play.

[Makensha]

Team Void:

Cho'gath
Malzahar
Kog'Maw
Kassadin

My one problem with that is that Kassadin wouldn't lore-wise want anything to do with the others.


Jungle Amumu:

smite + ghost
1/16/13 for imp smite, utility mastery, awareness, meditation and dump the rest in defense
1 level in Despair
1 level in Bandage Toss at 4
Max Tantrum first then Despair
MPen marks, Flat armor or scaling mana regen seals, scaling magic resist glyphs
Health or Armor quints
Cloth Armor + 5 pots first
build him like a normal tank

I prefer to get two ranks in Despair so taking Dragon at level 4 is a snap. Also, I find a build that looks like this mastery wise (http://leaguecraft.com/masteries/0010000000000003033421300000003140002000000). Why would you want Meditation? 3 mastery points is an awful lot for 5 MP5 on a tank. Really not needed, since you should have Blue Buff.

[efdf]

It's a bad idea to attempt dragon at level four unless the enemy bottom lane gets killed. It takes awhile, if you get caught you're screwed, and even if you get away you slowed down your jungling quite a bit.

Blue buff will start going to characters like Kassadin, Anivia, and Heimerdinger after the early levels and Amumu can be a mana-hungry champion. Also, it's a choice between 5 MP5 and Harden Skin or magic resist because I would definitely recommend Veteran's Scars over Strength of Spirit.

[Makensha]

It's a bad idea to attempt dragon at level four unless the enemy bottom lane gets killed. It takes awhile, if you get caught you're screwed, and even if you get away you slowed down your jungling quite a bit.
What? If you have level 2 despair and Red buff, he dies extremely fast. The enemy team is probably not going to have a ward by that point because most characters need an item that takes up most of their gold for the early laning phase. Even if they do, he's half dead before the most zealous of chasers even get their, and even then that requires them to ignore your friendly champions. Your allies can warn you to run or help you 3v2 them.


Blue buff will start going to characters like Kassadin, Anivia, and Heimerdinger after the early levels and Amumu can be a mana-hungry champion.

There are two Blue Buffs. One goes to Amumu, one goes to the caster. Even if there are two casters, Amumu just needs to get Banshee's Veil and Frozen Heart. Shouldn't require any more than that, and 5 MP5 isn't going to make that much of a difference.


Also, it's a choice between 5 MP5 and Harden Skin or magic resist because I would definitely recommend Veteran's Scars over Strength of Spirit.

Strength of Spirit is a great jungling talent. A REALLY great jungling talent. The difference it makes is large. 60 Health? I like Veteran Scar's but Strength of Spirit is just better for jungling.

[efdf]

What? If you have level 2 despair and Red buff, he dies extremely fast. The enemy team is probably not going to have a ward by that point because most characters need an item that takes up most of their gold for the early laning phase. Even if they do, he's half dead before the most zealous of chasers even get their, and even then that requires them to ignore your friendly champions. Your allies can warn you to run or help you 3v2 them.



There are two Blue Buffs. One goes to Amumu, one goes to the caster. Even if there are two casters, Amumu just needs to get Banshee's Veil and Frozen Heart. Shouldn't require any more than that, and 5 MP5 isn't going to make that much of a difference.

Strength of Spirit is a great jungling talent. A REALLY great jungling talent. The difference it makes is large. 60 Health? I like Veteran Scar's but Strength of Spirit is just better for jungling.

The enemy team will probably have a ward there or be placing a ward, because their jungler will have gone back and bought one or just checking it after he does blue. You can't get dragon to half health by the time someone runs from bottom lane unless you blow your smite at the beginning, and it'll be a 4v4 most likely as everyone converges as dragon except top lane. And the advantage will be in the enemy's favor because Amumu will be lower health and mana than he should be along with not being a particularly strong early game champion. Oh, and you're also being attacked by dragon.

There's two blue buffs. One goes to the caster, one goes to the enemy team. Or, if you fail at getting dragon, both go to the enemy team because you've lost control of the jungle and are under level.

Strength of Spirit is pretty mediocre in my opinion, especially for low mana heroes.

[Brother Oni]

Serious question: How does smart-casting work exactly, and how do I activate the option for it in-game? I've decided I'd better try it out next time I play.

If you press and hold 'Alt' then press an ability key (q,w,e,r), you'll cast the ability on the target currently under your mouse if applicable. If it's not applicable, then you cast it on yourself. If you can't cast it on yourself, nothing happens. The option should be enabled by default in game as it's technically a keyboard shortcut.

For example, Kayle's heal can only be cast on herself or friendly champions - Alt-W on a friendly champ heals them, Alt-W on anything else (including empty space) heals you.
I find it's useful if you're under heavy CC and trying to get an ability to fire off to escape, like Zilean's Chronoshift or Kayle's Intervention.

[Joran]

The enemy team will probably have a ward there or be placing a ward, because their jungler will have gone back and bought one or just checking it after he does blue. You can't get dragon to half health by the time someone runs from bottom lane unless you blow your smite at the beginning, and it'll be a 4v4 most likely as everyone converges as dragon except top lane. And the advantage will be in the enemy's favor because Amumu will be lower health and mana than he should be along with not being a particularly strong early game champion. Oh, and you're also being attacked by dragon.

There's two blue buffs. One goes to the caster, one goes to the enemy team. Or, if you fail at getting dragon, both go to the enemy team because you've lost control of the jungle and are under level.

Strength of Spirit is pretty mediocre in my opinion, especially for low mana heroes.

This is assuming the enemy has the standard competitive makeup of:

top lane: 1 champion
mid lane: 1 champion
bottom lane: 2 champions
jungler

I'm in mid-ELO with aspirations for mid-high ELO and I'm surprised at the lack of wards and junglers. I tend to be the only one to buy wards when I solo-queue and very rarely at level 1.

[The Valiant Turtle]

I should probably work on smart-casting myself. I understand most high-level players rebind keys so that all the regular keys are now smart cast. I think Djinn's FPS style bindings might work well too. Will smart cast fire skill shots automatically towards the cursor as well?

[Makensha]

The enemy team will probably have a ward there or be placing a ward, because their jungler will have gone back and bought one or just checking it after he does blue. You can't get dragon to half health by the time someone runs from bottom lane unless you blow your smite at the beginning, and it'll be a 4v4 most likely as everyone converges as dragon except top lane. And the advantage will be in the enemy's favor because Amumu will be lower health and mana than he should be along with not being a particularly strong early game champion. Oh, and you're also being attacked by dragon.
He won't have time to go back and buy one because you hit it as soon as you hit your side of the jungle, ported, and got to dragon. If he checks on dragon while you're doing it, you pop ghost and run. No 4v4 situation arises. You just run.

There's two blue buffs. One goes to the caster, one goes to the enemy team.
Your caster gets first priority. You get the other if you can control the jungle well. Not much else to say.

Or, if you fail at getting dragon, both go to the enemy team because you've lost control of the jungle and are under level.
If you get ganked by more than the opposite jungler while taking dragon, your team hasn't been communicating with you. They should call the instant someone goes mia, then you RUN. Either you don't get attacked and kill dragon, or you RUN and try dragon later (or counter gank if the situation allows it).

Strength of Spirit is pretty mediocre in my opinion, especially for low mana heroes.
Have you ever used it while jungling? I thought it was terrible before I tried it, but I found it really helps a lot.

[Flechair]

If you press and hold 'Alt' then press an ability key (q,w,e,r), you'll cast the ability on the target currently under your mouse if applicable. If it's not applicable, then you cast it on yourself. If you can't cast it on yourself, nothing happens. The option should be enabled by default in game as it's technically a keyboard shortcut.

Thanks, that's really helpful. I did not know. That'll make it easier to get out my skills faster.

Is there anything else like that, that I should know about?

[efdf]

He won't have time to go back and buy one because you hit it as soon as you hit your side of the jungle, ported, and got to dragon. If he checks on dragon while you're doing it, you pop ghost and run. No 4v4 situation arises. You just run.

Your caster gets first priority. You get the other if you can control the jungle well. Not much else to say.

If you get ganked by more than the opposite jungler while taking dragon, your team hasn't been communicating with you. They should call the instant someone goes mia, then you RUN. Either you don't get attacked and kill dragon, or you RUN and try dragon later (or counter gank if the situation allows it).

Have you ever used it while jungling? I thought it was terrible before I tried it, but I found it really helps a lot.

Except . . . Enemy jungler does the exact same thing, except with a ward rather than an attempted dragon kill. And the point is you waste ghost, you waste time, and your jungling is a little slower because you've got an under level tantrum. And you might not even escape successfully depending on the enemy team's middle lane.

Ok. It's pretty hard to take the enemy's jungle until late game though.

The point it's hard to run from dragon. It's placed right in the middle of the lanes with no juke routes. They see you're attempting dragon, they all converge, you have no escape route. You'll know they're coming, but can't do much about it.

It's not terrible, I just prefer Veteran's Scars.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Will smart cast fire skill shots automatically towards the cursor as well?

Yes. I don't know how it interacts with things like Incinerate or Feral Scream (or other cone-shaped attacks), but yes, it will. It's awesome like that.

My only criticism of smart-casting is that it's sometimes hard to judge range. Still, I think I'm going to smart-cast all my keys, and make the shift-click the normal casting.

[Draken]

With AoE effects that emanate from your character, Smart Cast is kind of a crapshot (or I have not been paying proper attention).

Sometimes, it seens to me that the champ will walk up until he is in range to shoot the cone so that your cursor is within the effect (happens with Feral Scream) with others (Crescendo, Void Ooze and Force Pulse are most prominent in my experience) it will just fire the spell outright in the proper direction.

Smartcast will instantly shoot skillshots (Ezreal's Q, Morgana's, Amumu's) towards your cursor (even if the cursor is otherwise out of range of the skillshot), with a ranged AoE (such as Cho's rupture or Karthus' Lay Waste) it will cause the champ to move up until he is in range to use the skill.

Flash-type skills (Flash, Ezreal's blink, Rift Walk) receive the skillshot treatment. Cursor is direction, range is as distant as your cursor is or the maximum range of the skill, wichever is less.

I keep all my skills smartcast and just hover the mouse over the skill to check range, if I don't already have a mostly decent idea of the range of the skill.

[Archangel Yuki]

The Caw title is more relevant for the new hero.

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6549/swain.png

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/986/swaindemon.png



* Carrion Renewal-passive
Swain gains 150% increased mana regeneration for 5 seconds upon killing a unit.

* Decrepify
Swain sets his raven to cripple an enemy. Over the next three seconds, the target takes damage over time and is slowed

* Nevermove
Swain marks a target area. After a short delay, mighty talons grab hold of enemy units dealing damage and rooting them.

* Ravenous Flock
Swain inspires dread in his enemies by temporarily taking the form of a raven. During this time ravens strike out at up to 3 nearby enemies. Each raven deals damage and heals Swain for the same amount.

* Torment
Swain afflicts his target, dealing damage over time. Each tick deals additional damage based on a percent of all damage taken from Swain during Torment (this includes the spell's periodic damage).

[Faulty]

o______o

God damn he looks awesome.


On the subject of smart casting: I have everything on smart cast. I often play the same characters so I get used to the range, is the thing.

[Adumbration]

When I started playing Kassadin, I activated both smartcasting and turned my spells to ASDW configuration (as per advice from someone here). It took a while to get used to, but I think I'm a better player for it.

[Draken]

And don't forget to also change your summoner spells to smartcast (item slots not so much unless you use deathfire/cutlass/gunblade a lot).

After I changed my setup to smartcast I had this short period of rage at having to click for Flash/Ignite (on the one instance I ever used Ignite) until it landed on me that I hadn't just flicked a button that made everything smartcast and had to change my summoner spells as well.

[Volug]

lol @ Poe reference.

[Faulty]

lol @ Poe reference.

Jeez, how did I miss that?

[Thrawn183]

Um, how does one atually turn on smart casting?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

...and turned my spells to ASDW configuration (as per advice from someone here).

That would be me. I absolutely love it. :smallbiggrin:

[Silverraptor]

lol @ Poe reference.

Agreed. I may just get him if only for that reason.:smallbiggrin:

[Dogmantra]

I would like maybe ONE GAME today where there's not a jerk on my team. JUST ONE GAME.

[Silverraptor]

I would like maybe ONE GAME today where there's not a jerk on my team. JUST ONE GAME.

I know how you feel.:smallfrown:

[Dogmantra]

It's bad enough when the other team outclasses you and you feed like crazy, but having someone on your team telling you you suck, calling you "gay" (as if homosexuals are worse at LoL?) and saying you shouldn't play just... ARGH

[Starfols]

To me, what's worse is one guy who's moderately good thinks he's amazing, and elects himself as the de facto 'leader', telling you absolutely terrible advice. Then when you find yourself outclassed in your lane and feeding them, they whine at you constantly to do something inane/detrimental, and when you lose, they complain that nobody followed their orders, as if they had any authority. :smallannoyed:

[Milskidasith]

To me, what's worse is one guy who's moderately good thinks he's amazing, and elects himself as the de facto 'leader', telling you absolutely terrible advice. Then when you find yourself outclassed in your lane and feeding them, they whine at you constantly to do something inane/detrimental, and when you lose, they complain that nobody followed their orders, as if they had any authority. :smallannoyed:

Generally, if somebody is telling you what to do, ignoring them is a bad idea unless they are proposing utterly stupid things. Especially considering it's a team game, I'd rather somebody actually try to get people to do something than not. Generally, the person acting as the leader, even if not the best, is actually trying to encourage teamwork, so... yeah.

What kind of "terrible" advice are you getting? I've honestly never had anybody recommend anything stupid to me, besides the occasional "gank this guy, I didn't check your HP/mana" and the occasional "Let's jump in randomly and complain when your teammates don't know to support you!" panth.

[Silverraptor]

Generally, if somebody is telling you what to do, ignoring them is a bad idea unless they are proposing utterly stupid things. Especially considering it's a team game, I'd rather somebody actually try to get people to do something than not. Generally, the person acting as the leader, even if not the best, is actually trying to encourage teamwork, so... yeah.

What kind of "terrible" advice are you getting? I've honestly never had anybody recommend anything stupid to me, besides the occasional "gank this guy, I didn't check your HP/mana" and the occasional "Let's jump in randomly and complain when your teammates don't know to support you!" panth.

Those two advice are the most common. Another is that one guy playing Karthus kept yelling at me and the rest of my team to "WHAT THE **** ARE YOU DOING?! GET BACK IN YOUR LANE!! WHY THE HECK ARE YOU IN MID?!" When the clock timer is around the 22 minute mark and the other team has already started to group up. That guy spent more of his time telling us to get back to our lanes and telling the other team how noob we are than actual playing, so we lost. Though, the after game chat was amusing as the other team was calling him noob for saying that we shouldn't have grouped up.

[Faulty]

By the way, anyone foresee real compatability between Swain and Vlad's ults?

[Silverraptor]

By the way, anyone foresee real compatability between Swain and Vlad's ults?

I got it! Swain, Vlad, AND Fiddlesticks, all using their ults at the same time!

Let the hurt begin.http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu90/NamonakiRei/Happymurderous.png

[Faulty]

Screw Fiddle. Amumu/Vlad/Swain/Miss Fortune.

[Silverraptor]

Screw Fiddle. Amumu/Vlad/Swain/Miss Fortune.

Room for 1 more.:smalltongue:

[Thrawn183]

I played with a Shen that kept porting back and leaving team battles to defend top or bottom lane when it was being pushed by a single hero. I was like... anyone on the team could have gone, we needed the tank here!

[Faulty]

Room for 1 more.:smalltongue:

Fiddle is eh.

[Joran]

Fiddle is eh.

What happened to Fiddlesticks? Did they nerf his AoE or did his Dark Wind change hurt him that much?

[Starfols]

Generally, if somebody is telling you what to do, ignoring them is a bad idea unless they are proposing utterly stupid things. Especially considering it's a team game, I'd rather somebody actually try to get people to do something than not. Generally, the person acting as the leader, even if not the best, is actually trying to encourage teamwork, so... yeah.

What kind of "terrible" advice are you getting? I've honestly never had anybody recommend anything stupid to me, besides the occasional "gank this guy, I didn't check your HP/mana" and the occasional "Let's jump in randomly and complain when your teammates don't know to support you!" panth.

I've had people who are good at giving advice order me around, and that's fine. I don't have a problem with advice if they know what they're doing. However, that's a big if. :smallamused:

It's not usually a problem if they have a strategy or anything, but the bad advice is usually to play ridiculously aggressive, or sometimes ridiculously defensive. I've had someone order me to send my half health carry down mid, when there are 3 full health, fed tanks visibly sitting outside our base. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if they didn't get extremely indignant should you fail/do something else, and then claim at the end that they have zero blame for the loss, because their plan was perfect, and it's the stupid noobs who can't follow orders. :smallannoyed:

[Dogmantra]

Right, this game?

Makes up for every jerk today. Despite me having quite high ping and our team having, and I kid you not, mid Rammus (vs. Kog'Maw), we destroyed them. Took Baron at level 11, pushed an entire lane (minus inhibitor) straight afterwards.

I don't know if we were a crazy team or what, but without the co-ordination... I dunno how we'd have won.

[The Valiant Turtle]

The game I played last night was amazing. It lasted 75 minutes and I think one side or the other had an inhibitor down for the entire last half of the game. Our team was Kog'Maw, Garen, Taric, Warwick and Kennen (me) vs Kog'Maw, Annie, Rammus, Shen and Sona. I've never seen a match go back and forth so much. Neither team was ever able to get a full team wipe until we finally got it about 30 seconds before we won. 2-3 champs always got away after teamfights and played solid defense until the team respawned.

I've never see so much CC on a team as what they were carrying. I fell to a chain of Annie-stun, Rammus taunt and Shen taunt numerous times, with the occasional concert from Sona or Ooze from Kog. Their problem seemed to be that once thier CC's were off we tore them up, plus Sona and Shen are a little weak late-game. We focused Annie and Kog mercilessly (and sometimes Sona) and they focused me and Taric. I'm not sure why they didn't focus our Kog more - he may have just been better at escaping. It was the best job I'd ever seen of not focusing on the tanks from both sides.

It was a wonderful game and could have easily gone either way. I was truly disappointed that the post-game chat bugged out after the game because it was such a great game. Plus, I needed to tease their player Mister Morden (Annie) about finally putting his head on a pike.

My thoughts:
I really need to work on my combat summoner spells. I died twice when I pressed the key for Teleport instead of Flash. I'm going to do some key re-binding tonight to see if that helps. I think I'll try Djinn's FPS style bindings with Q and E for summoner spells. I'm sure I'll do horrid for a while until I get adjusted.

Warwick + Kennen are incredible at defending base from super-creep waves. We had no problem holding 2 lanes with our inhibitor's down. I'd Dash + Surge them all and add a shuriken on the sieger to stun it if WW hadn't finished dismembering it yet. We'd mop up stragglers and then go over to the other lane and repeat. Our other 3 team-mates actually got Baron while we held base this way.

Garen + Kennen isn't as powerful as Garen + Morg/Ryze, but it's still a solid lane. We laned against their Kog + Shen and did much better than I thought we would. We had several early 2v2 lane fights and we usually won them with one of us left. I took regrowth Amulet first (yes, I built FoN again - justifiably against their Kog with 4 AA staffs) and Garen had his natural regen, so we could hold the lane very well and didn't have to b just to heal up after barely winning the fights.

I really need to work on getting Zhonya's earlier on Kennen. That thing is so expensive, but it works so well on him.

[Faulty]

What happened to Fiddlesticks? Did they nerf his AoE or did his Dark Wind change hurt him that much?

I feel like he's really a one trick pony. Too much of his capabilities relies on his ult. If I recall correctly he also has obnoxiously long CDs.

[Archangel Yuki]

So
Yeah

Hexdrinker: +20 Damage +30 Magic Resistance UNIQUE Passive: After taking magic damage you gain Attack Damage for 8 seconds. Bonus stacks up to 25 Attack Damage after taking 600 magic damage.

Runegorger: +50 Damage +40 Magic Resistance +16% Lifesteal UNIQUE Passive: After taking magic damage you gain Attack Damage and Magic Resistance for 8 seconds. Bonus stacks up to 50 Attack Damage and 50 Magic Resistance after taking 800 magic damage.

New headset friday im thinkin

[Joran]

So
Yeah

Hexdrinker: +20 Damage +30 Magic Resistance UNIQUE Passive: After taking magic damage you gain Attack Damage for 8 seconds. Bonus stacks up to 25 Attack Damage after taking 600 magic damage.

Runegorger: +50 Damage +40 Magic Resistance +16% Lifesteal UNIQUE Passive: After taking magic damage you gain Attack Damage and Magic Resistance for 8 seconds. Bonus stacks up to 50 Attack Damage and 50 Magic Resistance after taking 800 magic damage.

New headset friday im thinkin

I am so glad that I don't play mages ordinarily. On a Xin, a Olaf, or Garen these will really, really hurt any mage.

I'm confused by why these items are necessary.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I am so glad that I don't play mages ordinarily. On a Xin, a Olaf, or Garen these will really, really hurt any mage.

I'm confused by why these items are necessary.

They're not. They're the opposite of necessary, in my mind. :smallfrown:

[Dogmantra]

Well, there goes all the fun I had with Veigar. :smallwink:

[Archangel Yuki]

They're not. They're the opposite of necessary, in my mind. :smallfrown:

Hey guys, let me be a Melee carry and content with AOE burst burst teams! I'm sure I can build survivability and still not gimp my build completely!

Seriously, I stopped playing Shaco because late game you kill him accidentally with magic. You start throwing magic around and he just kinda dies


Oh, and im gonna love these for Garen

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Hey guys, let me be a Melee carry and content with AOE burst burst teams! I'm sure I can build survivability and still not gimp my build completely!

Seriously, I stopped playing Shaco because late game you kill him accidentally with magic. You start throwing magic around and he just kinda dies

That's fine.


Oh, and im gonna love these for Garen

...this is the problem.

[Archangel Yuki]

That's fine.



...this is the problem.

Eh, Garen has a terrible late game. This might help, sure, but it's not going to change. Unless this completely makes him destroy early/mid game even more, I dont see it changing much

[Faulty]

So
Yeah

Hexdrinker: +20 Damage +30 Magic Resistance UNIQUE Passive: After taking magic damage you gain Attack Damage for 8 seconds. Bonus stacks up to 25 Attack Damage after taking 600 magic damage.

Runegorger: +50 Damage +40 Magic Resistance +16% Lifesteal UNIQUE Passive: After taking magic damage you gain Attack Damage and Magic Resistance for 8 seconds. Bonus stacks up to 50 Attack Damage and 50 Magic Resistance after taking 800 magic damage.

New headset friday im thinkin

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I'm in love.

[Dogmantra]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I'm in love.

Faulty, I'm over here. :smallwink:

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I'm in love.

You say you're in love...I say I can see all the magical characters I like to play become nothing more than batteries to charge up the enemy's tanky DPS...

[Faulty]

It's just an alternate to FoN on tanky-dps characters. It's not the end of the world. :<

[Archangel Yuki]

Faulty, I'm over here. :smallwink:

No, No, he quoted the right person

Faulty loves me now

[Milskidasith]

Eh, Garen has a terrible late game. This might help, sure, but it's not going to change. Unless this completely makes him destroy early/mid game even more, I dont see it changing much

Garen's lategame isn't what I'd call terrible. His tanky item scaling is good and he doesn't scale *horribly* with damage, so... yeah. I'd say his lategame is pretty decent; he wouldn't be a good pick in the farm heavy metagame if he was an early/mid game only champ, especially considering his lak of harrassment.


It's just an alternate to FoN on tanky-dps characters. It's not the end of the world. :<

FoN sucks. It's not worth it on *anybody*. Banshee's is better on 99.999% of characters (the .0001% being a Sion with over an arbitrarily high amount of HP).

Anyway, remember, the item scales on magic damage taken; the tankier the character, the less it will actually buff them unless you focus them. Granted, people like Olaf will be getting a ton out of it (and he doesn't need it), and WW, due to his weird way of having massive endurance against anything but burst, would get some decent use out of it, but slapping it on, say, Garen, wouldn't do much because if he wades into a fight and just gets hit with the incidental AoEs and bounces, he probably wouldn't take enough to fully charge it. Plus it includes lifesteal, which more tanky garens don't really want anyway.

Irrelevant aside: Tankwick. I'm thinking that it's a very viable build, but I need to try it to see first.

[Faulty]

No, No, he quoted the right person

Faulty loves me now

Sorry, but my love belongs to Nano.

*BETRAYAL*

[Archangel Yuki]

Sorry, but my love belongs to Nano.

*BETRAYAL*

So all those nights together mean nothing to you

[Dallas-Dakota]

I reaaally should get on Mumble now, considering that I now have a working headset(with mic) and already have Mumble installed and set to the Playground server.:smalltongue:

[Silverraptor]

I reaaally should get on Mumble now, considering that I now have a working headset(with mic) and already have Mumble installed and set to the Playground server.:smalltongue:

Proooooobably.:smalltongue:

[toasty]

Irrelevant aside: Tankwick. I'm thinking that it's a very viable build, but I need to try it to see first.

My initial suggest says no. I mean, maybe, but probably no. Maybe these new items will make him viable against a specific line-up as a tank. He doesn't have the build-in HP of say, Garen, to go Tanky-DPS.

[Silverraptor]

Where are the new patch notes? Did they come out with them this time?:smallconfused:

[Joran]

My initial suggest says no. I mean, maybe, but probably no. Maybe these new items will make him viable against a specific line-up as a tank. He doesn't have the build-in HP of say, Garen, to go Tanky-DPS.

Or the built-in 30% damage reduction from DEMAAAAAACIA!


Where are the new patch notes? Did they come out with them this time?:smallconfused:

All the stuff you're seeing now is Test Realm stuff, so not live yet. Patch comes next week.

[Silverraptor]

Or the built-in 30% damage reduction from DEMAAAAAACIA!



All the stuff you're seeing now is Test Realm stuff, so not live yet. Patch comes next week.

I meant the patch notes for yesterday's update.

[Shades of Gray]

Iono. I do know, however, from one game, that you can use elixirs on allies now.

[The Valiant Turtle]

I'm assuming that the patch yesterday had something to do with the invincible Karthus bug or maybe was just to swap in Fiddlesticks, but as far as I can see they haven't posted anything about it.

Is it just me or has the main page of the LoL wiki suddenly shifted itself off the screen to the left while all the rest of the pages are mostly OK?

[Terazul]

I'm assuming that the patch yesterday had something to do with the invincible Karthus bug or maybe was just to swap in Fiddlesticks, but as far as I can see they haven't posted anything about it.


Bug? I figured they just finally imported the changes to Death Defied: They remade it to actually give you control to do stuff before you die (Similar to how Kog-Maw can run around before he explodes and gives the death message).

[Milskidasith]

My initial suggest says no. I mean, maybe, but probably no. Maybe these new items will make him viable against a specific line-up as a tank. He doesn't have the build-in HP of say, Garen, to go Tanky-DPS.

Actually, WW's built in lifesteal means he has some of the highest endurance in the game. If he can lifesteal faster than he takes damage, you don't need great base HP. Essentially, if you don't get burst to death, tankwick just flat out kills you. He needs sustained DPS to kill, because... he can't be harassed.

L0cust has, IIRC, a 95% winrate with tankwick... so it pretty clearly works.

[toasty]

L0cust has, IIRC, a 95% winrate with tankwick... so it pretty clearly works.

This requires further investigation.

[Milskidasith]

L0CUST's most played champions:

Udyr: 67 games (88%)
Nidalee: 32 games (65%)
Warwick: 22 games (95%)

What is it with him and half man/woman, half beast champions? :smalleek:

[NeoVid]

I am so glad that I don't play mages ordinarily. On a Xin, a Olaf, or Garen these will really, really hurt any mage.

I'm confused by why these items are necessary.

I play almost nothing but mages, despite their irrelevance in the current meta.

Because this is just what they needed to make casters more played...

[toasty]

I play almost nothing but mages, despite their irrelevance in the current meta.

Because this is just what they needed to make casters more played...

Except they still make good carries and some, like Annie, are excellent initatiors. Sure, the majority of them suck, but a few (Annie and Vlad come to mind) are great. Furthermore, you at least need a mage or two to nuke the enemy and force them to decide whether or not to build MR or Armor (or both!), otherwise they'd stack armor and be a lot more effective at killing you.

[Eldariel]

Meh, there's plenty of Tier 1-2 mages. Morgana, Vlad, Kassadin, Annie & Anivia would all qualify. That's 5 out of 25 Tier 1-2 characters, which seems perfectly fine for one archetype. If we look at the lower tiers, you only have Veigar, Karthus, Fiddle, Ryze & Mal'Zahar. So exactly half the mages (or what I counted as mages; e.g. Sion could count as a mage just fine too) are Tier 1-2; seems perfectly fine to me. Sure, they may not be used as much right now but it's not like they are in any way unviable on competitive level (let alone, in pubstomping).

Those items seem like nice versatility for physical damage types. I've always found it painful I can't get any decent magic resist on AD Janna (in pub fun) without taking some purely defensive gear (well, aside from Mercury Treads) and that seems to plug that particular hole.

[Milskidasith]

Meh, there's plenty of Tier 1-2 mages. Morgana, Vlad, Kassadin, Annie & Anivia would all qualify. That's 5 out of 25 Tier 1-2 characters, which seems perfectly fine for one archetype. If we look at the lower tiers, you only have Veigar, Karthus, Fiddle, Ryze & Mal'Zahar. So exactly half the mages (or what I counted as mages; e.g. Sion could count as a mage just fine too) are Tier 1-2; seems perfectly fine to me. Sure, they may not be used as much right now but it's not like they are in any way unviable on competitive level (let alone, in pubstomping).

Those items seem like nice versatility for physical damage types. I've always found it painful I can't get any decent magic resist on AD Janna (in pub fun) without taking some purely defensive gear (well, aside from Mercury Treads) and that seems to plug that particular hole.

Other holes that need plugging: MPen/APen hybrid item.

Armor granting AP item.

Boots that make you dance everywhere.