League of Legends XL: Season on Hold 'til Morello gets Gold

[McDouggal]

Actually, how does GA interact with the Karthus passive? Does it proc before the passive, or after the passive finishes?

[Eldariel]

Actually, how does GA interact with the Karthus passive? Does it proc before the passive, or after the passive finishes?

GA triggers bephore pass; Kart's on the short list of champs on whom you usually don't want GA since his gameplan involves dying instead. Zhonya's is a reasonable GA substitute on him (and champs who have AOE effects that work through it in general, and Vladimir). On many you'd want both tho. Champs who shouldn't build GA include Kart and Anivia and in general, champs with on-death effects you wanna use.


I've never built a Guardian Angel. It doesn't give Health, so I suspect I'll end up dying easier. Then, there's a good chance that even after the respawning I'll end up dead.

Which champions should I build it on? AP carry, tankj might not want it, I guess.
Should I change my playstyle at all, if I build it? For comparison, let's assume that I had the same build, but had an Aegis instead of GA. Should I take more risks? Less?

AD carry. Bruiser. Magus. All three roles should be building Guardian Angels. Play normal, stick with your team. The "health" it gives you is gained upon reviving. 750 exactly; most efficient defensive stats in the game in a single item. If you die in a teamfight, enemy won't have the luxury of waiting for you to respawn, as other people are attacking them giving you free stuff to do on respawn.

Don't get picked off but that's kinda obvious; you shouldn't be getting picked off whether you have a GA or not. It's even more harmful since you lose the proc if you do get picked off tho; it takes 5 minutes to recharge the proc. You can afford to play a bit more aggressive in teamfights with GA, of course, but don't get out of position or caught just 'cause you have a revive unless you're a very tanky bruiser and that's your style of initiation. Nothing wrong with both, GA and Aegis of course.

[Adumbration]

Do people really think in general that Akali counters Zed, or have I just been fortunate enough to have them pick it twice against me?

[TechnOkami]

Do people really think in general that Akali counters Zed, or have I just been fortunate enough to have them pick it twice against me?

I believe Zed is rather weak at the moment, so she can easily beat him.

New question: where the hell can Akali go, lane wise? Is she at all viable anymore?

[Adumbration]

I believe Zed is rather weak at the moment, so she can easily beat him.


Having beaten an Akali twice with Zed, I would disagree. Zed is significantly stronger early - to the point that you can 1v1 kill Akali using a little finesse - and after 6 you win 1v1 fights simply by ulting her before she can start her chain. People really underestimate Zed's passive.

[ex cathedra]

She doesn't have more of everything, true...but it's the combination of having all of them that's the issue. Physical damage, Magic Damage, True Damage, a dash, sustain, CC, more sustain, CC reduction, natural tankiness, synergy with some of the best items in the game, and a bit of AoE damage + sustain + range on her Ult make her a nightmare to get into any semblance of balance.

I meant that other champions (e.g. Jayce, Olaf, new Jax, old Jax, release Ezreal, release Graves) have more Irelia syndrome than Irelia does.

[toasty]

I've never built a Guardian Angel. It doesn't give Health, so I suspect I'll end up dying easier. Then, there's a good chance that even after the respawning I'll end up dead.

Which champions should I build it on? AP carry, tankj might not want it, I guess.
Should I change my playstyle at all, if I build it? For comparison, let's assume that I had the same build, but had an Aegis instead of GA. Should I take more risks? Less?

GA is good because in the heat of a teamfight its very hard to burst down a hero twice. This is especially true on bruisers and/or heroes with good mobility such as late game carries, who often also have PD. Furthermore, it gives your team a chance to react to your death. AD carry died? EVERYONE RE-POSITION NOW.

On tanks or bruisers it gives the enemy one more reason to not focus you randomly. Irelia with Triforce+GA can duel most AD carries by the time she gets them, assuming standard builds all around. However, GA means you can dive in without fear of dying. Peeling you off the carry takes a LOT longer.

Finally, remember during GA your CDs continue to tick down. On heroes like Irelia, who have rather short CDs on some critical spells (like Q) this means you can Q, fight, die, and q again. Its pretty amazing. BTW, this strategy works on Hourglass and is exactly why heroes like Vlad LOVE Hourglass: You can R+Q+E+W and then hourglass and Q+E again. Assuming you are spellvamping the entire fight... you become significantly tankier.

[9mm]

New question: where the hell can Akali go, lane wise? Is she at all viable anymore?

Same as she ever was, mid and top.

[Joran]

I wonder how hard it is to re-do champion voices for a skin.

I'm really liking Taric at the moment for support in draft; my normal pick, Alistar, is usually banned. He's mechanically very simple, easy for my lanemate to understand, and very powerful in laning. (I stun, I shatter, you kill him).

The problem is that appearance wise, I like the Bloodstone Taric skin, but the voice is a mismatch for the skin.

P.S. I'm sure there are other champions that are also hurting for good skins.

[Cogwheel]

I like the Bloodstone Taric skin, but the voice is a mismatch for the skin.

But it's funnier that way. That's practically the only good thing about Bloodstone Taric.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Twitch needs a new skin. Everyone but me plays Gangster Twitch, and that's boring. (I use Vandal Twitch)

[NineThePuma]

Evelynn needs a new skin.

[toasty]

Twitch needs a new skin. Everyone but me plays Gangster Twitch, and that's boring. (I use Vandal Twitch)

Funny how you say that, because everyone I know used Primal Udyr and the Legendary Vlad skin, but... that doesn't make either skin boring. To me, the Primal Udyr skin is so good it should be the basic skin for Udyr. The Vlad skin turned vlad from a boring icky mage into an awesome killing machine.

Actually, after much consideration, I've created the best vlad build ever:
Go middle, take Flash+Ignite or Flash+Ghost if you think you're gonna be ganked a lot. Get as much AP in runes as you think is safe (read: rune to the game, movespeed, AP, health, MR, CDR, Armor all seem viable and strong). Start boots + 3 HP pots
Level 1 Q (unless its a level 1 fight, then maybe W)
Level 2 W (or Q if level 1 you took W)
Level 3 E
Afterwards max R, Q, E

Items:
First buy should be Revolver, this is core.
Second Item should probably be either CDR Boots or Needlessly Large Rod
Regardless, get CDR Boots, and then get Deathcap you can now kill everyone
Get a Void Staff and then get whatever suits your fancy.

During laning:
Push, Farm, Ward
Once you have your Revolver Vlad is the most sustained middle in the game. He is outranged by certain heroes (probably Cass, in theory Orianna, Kennen) and obviously it really depends on the matchup whether or not you can, but the optimal strategy is to walk into the middle of the wave, and Q+E+Auto the wave down as fast as possible. Once you are at the enemy tower go and take your wraiths. Push again and take their wraiths. Do not be afraid to trade harass, or even take harass. Something to consider: The more you push the wave, the more "tankier" you become, because you are constantly spellvamping. You have an insane amount of lane sustain if you cane E all 6 minions and Q every time it comes off of cd. You can almost always outfarm the enemy middle by just pushing to tower. Against mana-based heroes without blue-buff, you can probably force them to use all their mana pretty damn fast. You completely stop the roaming ability of the other middle, and if they roam regardless, you take wraiths, you take wolves, you take tower. They can return to Middle with a kill, sure, but you got 2x their CS and their mid tower is 1/2 HP.

Teamfights:
You are vlad. Kill them.
More realistically: Try to get free Q+Es in. You can chunk for serious amounts of damage (This is why Vlad is broken: Burst damage of brand, but with CDs MUCH shorter). If you are ahead, don't be afraid to risk tower shots or being stunned. Unless the enemy can 100-0 you before you can pool, you can pool, ult, Q+E and flash away if they are still on you (or you can use Ghost before pooling and have OP mobility, or you could troll them with heal).

Once the teamfight starts ult as many of them as possible and then E as many of them as possible. The thing about vlad is that he is an AoE sustained damage mage. Don't be afraid to get into the middle of the enemy team: unless you are ignited your spellvamp makes you insanely tanky and your ult stacked with Q+E does incredible damage.

All the utility builds like Spell Pen+Abyssal, or Hourglass first or Rylais first just don't work for me. More AP = more HP More AP = more spellvamp. You don't need utility when you do so much damage that the enemy AD carry dies in 1 combo from an AoE Mage. In the words of Salce: "I play vlad because I like to 3 shot people."

[Forrestfire]

Everyone needs a new skin :smalltongue:

I'd like a new Trundle skin the most, though.

[Tychris1]

Twitch needs a new skin. Everyone but me plays Gangster Twitch, and that's boring. (I use Vandal Twitch)

THIS MAN.

HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

[Lix Lorn]

I meant that other champions (e.g. Jayce, Olaf, new Jax, old Jax, release Ezreal, release Graves) have more Irelia syndrome than Irelia does.
I always heard it described as Pantheon Pox.

[Tychris1]

I always heard it described as Pantheon Pox.

I always thought it was Xinzhoavitis

[Forrestfire]

Well that went well.


http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee26/ustaaz/APSona1.jpg


Orianna is surprisingly squishy in lane. Especially when I'm accidentally running my support masteries and this hit 6 before her. :smallbiggrin:

[Thrawn183]

I want a snowman skin for Trundle. I have no idea how it would work with his skills, but I just can't get the image out of my head.

They could even keep the weird hopping movement thing.

[ex cathedra]

All the utility builds like Spell Pen+Abyssal, or Hourglass first or Rylais first just don't work for me. More AP = more HP More AP = more spellvamp. You don't need utility when you do so much damage that the enemy AD carry dies in 1 combo from an AoE Mage. In the words of Salce: "I play vlad because I like to 3 shot people."

Utility?
AP = flat damage returns via bonus damage. MPen = multiplicative damage returns on both bonus damage AND base damage.

No stack r5 Tides of Blood: 160 base + .45 AP scaling damage.
Max stacks r5 Tides of Blood: 320 base + .45 AP scaling damage.

Also, spellvamp quints outscale flat AP quints.

[Thanatos 51-50]

THIS MAN.

HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

Tell you what, Riot.
Deliver unto us a good Twitch skin, and I will buy Gangster Twitch on top of it.

[Joran]

Tell you what, Riot.
Deliver unto us a good Twitch skin, and I will buy Gangster Twitch on top of it.

I don't like any of the Ashe skins. Same with Darius and Yorick.

I like the Astronaut Nautilus skin, but I love the base skin, so no go there.

The only skin I own, outside of all the free ones I've accumulated, is Cowboy Alistar.

[endoperez]

Finally, remember during GA your CDs continue to tick down. On heroes like Irelia, who have rather short CDs on some critical spells (like Q) this means you can Q, fight, die, and q again. Its pretty amazing.

BTW, this strategy works on Hourglass and is exactly why heroes like Vlad LOVE Hourglass: You can R+Q+E+W and then hourglass and Q+E again. Assuming you are spellvamping the entire fight... you become significantly tankier.

Ok, ty all. I guess I'll try Hourglass on a bruiser soon.

I've used Hourglass quite a bit, but it also gives offensive stats so I feel better building it. Also, since you can time it yourself, it can actually save you in a fight where GA would get you killed, by e.g. using it when an enemy activates a skill or something similar. I love it on Annie especially - she gets two skills off CD, and that means she's most likely getting another stun off...

[sonofzeal]

Hey, at least Twitch and Vlad have good skins in the first place. Look at Rumble, who's a year and a half old and still sitting at two really boring skins. Or Poppy, who was released close to three years ago and for whom at least six skins exist, but the only ones actually on sale are pretty darn generic.

[Thanatos 51-50]

I don't like any of the Ashe skins. Same with Darius and Yorick.

I like the Astronaut Nautilus skin, but I love the base skin, so no go there.

The only skin I own, outside of all the free ones I've accumulated, is Cowboy Alistar.

I have Vandal Twitch, Pentakill Sona, and and Headmistress Fiora, outside of the free one I get for fllowing Riot on Facebook.
I SHOULD have Unchained Allistair, but I have not idea why I don't.

Also: one of these days, I shall probably acquire the awesome Nunu Bot.


Hey, at least Twitch and Vlad have good skins in the first place. Look at Rumble, who's a year and a half old and still sitting at two really boring skins. Or Poppy, who was released close to three years ago and for whom at least six skins exist, but the only ones actually on sale are pretty darn generic.

The only bad Vandal skin in my opinion is Jax.

[toasty]

Utility?
AP = flat damage returns via bonus damage. MPen = multiplicative damage returns on both bonus damage AND base damage.

No stack r5 Tides of Blood: 160 base + .45 AP scaling damage.
Max stacks r5 Tides of Blood: 320 base + .45 AP scaling damage.

Also, spellvamp quints outscale flat AP quints.

All I know is I have had more success with straight deathcap. I dunno why.

[Thrawn183]

AD TF has zero synergy with new SotD, doesn't he? It might be interesting on Jayce, though, for the three crits at 130% AD.

Pretty sure that Karthus will still be able to jungle, but he might need to bulk up a bit. Spellvamp runes :D

Well, TF teleporting in for a gold card into three crits would be pretty nice.

[toasty]

Well, TF teleporting in for a gold card into three crits would be pretty nice.

One of the reasons Sword of the Divine was nice on TF was because of how it worked with Stacked Deck, now that this is not the case...

[Mtg_player_zach]

I've been playing AD a bit lately, and it's...not that hard. Compared to like jungle or top or mid, its so much easier. It's learnable, you can learn which AD carries you can trade with, with which supports you can make passive or aggressive plays with. You can win bot lane being a worse mechanical player. Just by knowing how to behave and respond. And its always warded so jungle is usually a non-factor. It's refreshing.

Not that I'm good at it, but I feel I am improving, and I am enjoying it.


The other not related thing I've been playing is Lee Sin, and having a ball. Don't care where I go, or even which map I'm on. TT, SR, Top, Mid, Jungle. Just so much fun. And you can pretty much fight anybody you want. And win, unless you mess it up horribly.

[PersonMan]

No stack r5 Tides of Blood: 160 base + .45 AP scaling damage.
Max stacks r5 Tides of Blood: 320 base + .45 AP scaling damage.

Actually, Tides of Blood stacks increase damage from AP, as well. Hence 600 damage AoE (I have NUMBERS EVERYWHERE enabled, so mid/late game I notice that, with a total "base" damage of 300ish you hit 600 damage with 4 stacks; this is on minions with Abyssal's).

So, max stacks Tides of AoE is 320 + 0.9 AP, basically.

On Vlad I generally go Revolver/Abyssal/Zhonya's for the resists (healing + free HP = buy resists, win game) and for the Double Troll Combo: Ult, EQ, trollpool, EQ, Zhonya's, EQ.

[Thanatos 51-50]

So, I recently broke my own rule and solo queued for PvP and auto-locked Twitch when I finally go into a game (There was something like six different drops for various reasons).

And not only did I get my fist First Blood, but it turned into a double kill (taunted a Mundo into a suicidal tower dive, then Venom cask'd the enemy Cho'gath), but I pulled it off solo bot, so that was nice.
Ended up going something like 10/5/14 (Finally got a laning partner in a Cho'Gath... he wasn't helpful, having done nothing but make me overconfident.) We won partially due to a pretty stellar Karthus that went 11/0/13.
Finally startd learning how to build properly instead of just playing a tight Twitch game. It was... satisfying.

[toasty]

(There was something like six different drops for various reasons).

Queue dodging is frustrating because of this. There was one time recently where I literally had a 30 minute queue timer due to going into champion select like 4 times before we were able to lock in and load into the game.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Sorry for sounding stupid, but... "queue dodging"? What would the purpose of such a thing be?

[Silverraptor]

Sorry for sounding stupid, but... "queue dodging"? What would the purpose of such a thing be?

When you get into champion select and then someone quits out, returning you to looking for a match. It can get pretty annoying.

I remember something like 15 games in dominion that were queue dodged in a row.:smallyuk:

[Temotei]

The other not related thing I've been playing is Lee Sin, and having a ball. Don't care where I go, or even which map I'm on. TT, SR, Top, Mid, Jungle. Just so much fun. And you can pretty much fight anybody you want. And win, unless you mess it up horribly.

Try bot lane. It's hilarious. My friend and I like to run Fiora/Lee bot for the lulz and we do pretty well (probably because of our mastery over the champions rather than any actual good matchup, but maybe not).

[sonofzeal]

Try bot lane. It's hilarious. My friend and I like to run Fiora/Lee bot for the lulz and we do pretty well (probably because of our mastery over the champions rather than any actual good matchup, but maybe not).
Probably because your lane opponents are all

http://narwhaler.com/img/hu/k/beaker-what-is-this-i-dont-even-hUKpVo.gif

[Temotei]

Probably because your lane opponents are all

*snip*

Very likely. :smallamused:

We also tend to dive their jungler after the leash at level 1 together (often with our mid) if we think they're starting at blue. It's great and manly and yes.

[TheShrike]

Actually, Tides of Blood stacks increase damage from AP, as well.

This statement is wrong.

[NineThePuma]

[citation needed] on both fronts!

[tyckspoon]

Sorry for sounding stupid, but... "queue dodging"? What would the purpose of such a thing be?

Ditching a game during champ select. It's done when people think the game isn't going to be any good and would rather deal with the penalty delay in re-queueing rather than play through a bad experience. Can be done for a variety of reasons, although a lot of them are kind of childish (ranging from 'somebody called the role I wanted to play/champ I wanted to play before I could' to 'somebody picked [champ I think is hopelessly weak], gg I'm gone' to 'oh god all four people I've been queued with just declared "mid or feed", I'm outta here.')

[PersonMan]

Sorry for sounding stupid, but... "queue dodging"? What would the purpose of such a thing be?

It exists so that you can make "Q dodger" jokes when against Ezreal, Dr. Mundo, etc.

*dodges enemy Q*
"Guess that makes me...a Q dodger! Ahahaha!"

Because "queue" sounds like "Q"...Yes.

Actual explanations above.


This statement is wrong.

Strange. I don't know how else I'd get 600 damage with 160 base + 190ish from AP. The minions had -10 MR, but I think that isn't enough bonus damage to make it go from 400ish to 600. I'll play Vlad some more and check.

[TheShrike]

Strange. I don't know how else I'd get 600 damage with 160 base + 190ish from AP. The minions had -10 MR, but I think that isn't enough bonus damage to make it go from 400ish to 600. I'll play Vlad some more and check.

160 base*2+190=510*(2-100/110)=556 damage. That is how much damage you will deal to something with -10 MR when you have max stack on max rank E and 190 bonus damage from AP (~420 AP, btw). If you did more damage, either you had more damage or they had less MR.


Also, no need to bother testing it. Vlad running 21/0/0 with no AP or HP in runes starting with an Amp Tome hits Wraiths (0 MR) for 71 at zero stacks and 131 at 4. Since base damage is 60 and we saw an increase of damage of 60, I conclude the AP ratio is not being doubled.

Side note, too many people make guesses based on inaccurate memory as to what the actual mechanics of the game are. They are testable, and most have been tested. Stop the spread of inaccurate information, it doesn't help anyone reading it (although it might help you if you end up playing against them, I guess).


[citation needed] on both fronts!

I could have probably linked the lolwikia page (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Vladimir) or the zero (http://imgur.com/I3D1N) and 4 stack (http://imgur.com/ffyJ7) screenshots I took during my own test, but I figured being right would be enough.

[Eldariel]

Side note, too many people make guesses based on inaccurate memory as to what the actual mechanics of the game are. They are testable, and most have been tested. Stop the spread of inaccurate information, it doesn't help anyone reading it (although it might help you if you end up playing against them, I guess).

I know I've remember few game mechanics wrong in this thread lately. The problem, at least for my part, is that some of the "minor" interactions change from patch to patch and the changes are not always well documented so it's fully possible that some scaling that wasn't true is true now or the opposite.

Then there's the Wiki which is accurate most of the time but there are always small errors mostly as a result of patch changes, and actually testing everything in-game oneself is way too time consuming in the long run.

[Godskook]

Then there's the Wiki which is accurate most of the time but there are always small errors mostly as a result of patch changes, and actually testing everything in-game oneself is way too time consuming in the long run.

I think you're underplaying the accuracy of the wiki. I think the only time I've ever seen the site in error was when someone was trolling the Jayce page shortly after his release, and even then, it was *REALLY* obvious.

[Temotei]

I think you're underplaying the accuracy of the wiki. I think the only time I've ever seen the site in error was when someone was trolling the Jayce page shortly after his release, and even then, it was *REALLY* obvious.

Agreed. Patch changes are usually in less than a day after release and they're, like, 99.5% accurate, in my experience.

[Math_Mage]

I think you're underplaying the accuracy of the wiki. I think the only time I've ever seen the site in error was when someone was trolling the Jayce page shortly after his release, and even then, it was *REALLY* obvious.

Personally, it seems like I get an error nearly 1/4 of the time I look up a delicate or disputed mechanic. Which is not to say LoL Wiki is only 3/4 right, just that the issues I need to refer to the Wiki on are more obscure and hence more prone to error. LoL Wiki is like the regular Wiki--absolute gold on the uncontroversial stuff, yet prone to misconception on the 'intuitive' but hard-to-check stuff.

[Godskook]

Personally, it seems like I get an error nearly 1/4 of the time I look up a delicate or disputed mechanic. Which is not to say LoL Wiki is only 3/4 right, just that the issues I need to refer to the Wiki on are more obscure and hence more prone to error. LoL Wiki is like the regular Wiki--absolute gold on the uncontroversial stuff, yet prone to misconception on the 'intuitive' but hard-to-check stuff.

1.Are you correcting for confirmation bias?

2.Even a 75% success rate shouldn't be classified as "prone to misconception", and I highly doubt 75%, even on the obscure stuff(what are you classifying as 'obscure'? I'm curious...)

3.There's several stats that are poorly displayed(basically all champion statistics that increase per level, when listed on that champ's page, for example), to the point that they'd generate "false positives" when testing the site for errors.

[Cogwheel]

I should probably not go 25/1/10. I may be a bad support.


Then again Kog'Maw was building Archangel's Staff on an otherwise AD build. That, and I wasn't actually trying. I was Voli. I was careful not to bitesteal, but sometimes I kill people alone and... well, sometimes I run in to save someone from a 3v1 with lightning up and triple kills just happen.


I love playing support Voli but I think he might be the most obnoxious support as a carry.

[Dada]

Take a step back and consider why the support gives up farm for the ad carry. It's because most supports don't depend on farm to be useful (e.g. Janna ult, Blitz grab) and often scale worse than other champions, while the ad carry can exploit the multiplicative returns of AD/AS/crit/armor pen which means that for every gold you spend, your next will be even more efficient.

Now consider that Volibear actually needs some amount of items to be useful come mid/late and a Kog who builds Archangels is not exploiting the scaling of AD itemization at all.. I'd say you did the right thing by making sure you got farmed yourself.

[Cogwheel]

Take a step back and consider why the support gives up farm for the ad carry. It's because most supports don't depend on farm to be useful (e.g. Janna ult, Blitz grab) and often scale worse than other champions, while the ad carry can exploit the multiplicative returns of AD/AS/crit/armor pen which means that for every gold you spend, your next will be even more efficient.

Now consider that Volibear actually needs some amount of items to be useful come mid/late and a Kog who builds Archangels is not exploiting the scaling of AD itemization at all.. I'd say you did the right thing by making sure you got farmed yourself.

I suspect that I did something right. I'm just fairly sure it wasn't support.


That said, I do believe that Frozen Mallet is basically a must on support Volibear, as unconventional a choice as it is for just about anyone else.

[Dada]

My point is that, even if you are playing "support", you should not blindly give up farm if your ad carry is silly and wasting it. Especially if you actually scale decently with farm yourself.

(and no, that doesn't mean that you should start fighting your carry for cs as soon as he misses one or takes an unnecessary death..)

[Cogwheel]

My point is that, even if you are playing "support", you should not blindly give up farm if your ad carry is silly and wasting it. Especially if you actually scale decently with farm yourself.

(and no, that doesn't mean that you should start fighting your carry for cs as soon as he misses one or takes an unnecessary death..)

Yep, I got that. Thanks, though.


That's kind of part of what I like about support Voli. If your carry is rubbish (and sadly, this can happen), I can take over. Or more often, just go "no, you WILL get this kill" by means of Rolling Thunder.

[Reynard]

Welp.

http://up.org.je/ohmyhorse.png

Completely impractical, completely awesome.

[LordShotGun]

Welp.

http://up.org.je/ohmyhorse.png

Completely impractical, completely awesome.

Looks like the rammus land speed record is in serious danger!

[sonofzeal]

Looks like the rammus land speed record is in serious danger!
When Hecarim is ulting to slow down, you know something's gone terribly wrong. Or awesomely right. One of the two. :smallbiggrin:

[Math_Mage]

1.Are you correcting for confirmation bias?

2.Even a 75% success rate shouldn't be classified as "prone to misconception", and I highly doubt 75%, even on the obscure stuff(what are you classifying as 'obscure'? I'm curious...)

3.There's several stats that are poorly displayed(basically all champion statistics that increase per level, when listed on that champ's page, for example), to the point that they'd generate "false positives" when testing the site for errors.

By obscurity, I refer to the specificity of the mechanic and the degree of investigation needed to properly resolve the question. I'm counting cases in my memory where someone refers to an obscure interaction between mechanics where I think 'wait, does it really work like that?' and check LoL wiki. I can't give specific examples of mechanics the wiki got wrong off the top of my head, but the questions were on the order of 'Does Cleanse remove the damage reduction portion of Exhaust?' or 'Does Tibbers' DoT apply immediately upon cast or delay a second?' or 'Can Malphite be CC'd out of Unstoppable Force?', as opposed to questions like 'What does Morgana's ult do?' or 'When was the last time they buffed Ezreal?'.

As it turns out, LoL Wiki appears to be wrong about Malphite's Unstoppable Force, stating that it can only be stopped by lethal damage when a lot of posters seem to be getting CC'd out of it by e.g. Shen taunt. So, y'know, one out of three right there.

All in all, Eld's estimation of the wiki's accuracy would seem to be, well, accurate.

[ex cathedra]

Actually, Tides of Blood stacks increase damage from AP, as well. Hence 600 damage AoE (I have NUMBERS EVERYWHERE enabled, so mid/late game I notice that, with a total "base" damage of 300ish you hit 600 damage with 4 stacks; this is on minions with Abyssal's).

So, max stacks Tides of AoE is 320 + 0.9 AP, basically.

On Vlad I generally go Revolver/Abyssal/Zhonya's for the resists (healing + free HP = buy resists, win game) and for the Double Troll Combo: Ult, EQ, trollpool, EQ, Zhonya's, EQ.

Minions don't have MR, so they take additional magic damage in Abyssal aura. Lategame .9 AP tides would do 900 damage pre-abyssal, not 600. Current Tides hits 600 damage against 0MR at 622 ap, and it recently lost base damage

edit: i tried to post this two hours ago zzz

[ChaosOS]

Malphite's unstoppable force was supposedly patched a long long time ago, like 1.5-2 years ago, to only be stopped by lethal damage. If it's still being stopped that's a bug.

[McDouggal]

Welp.

http://up.org.je/ohmyhorse.png

Completely impractical, completely awesome.

That Ashe got LOLWTFpwned, right?

[Reynard]

That Ashe got LOLWTFpwned, right?

Well, she shot me just as I impacted her face, which hurt my speed a bit, but yes.

[PersonMan]

Bankplank is so much fun.

After his first free week I didn't buy GP, but I think I will once I have enough IP. He's just so much fun.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Bankplank is so much fun.

After his first free week I didn't buy GP, but I think I will once I have enough IP. He's just so much fun.

Especially with new Avarice Blade.

Sooo looking forward to that.

[Qwertystop]

Bankplank is so much fun.

After his first free week I didn't buy GP, but I think I will once I have enough IP. He's just so much fun.

What's Bankplank?

[EternalMelon]

What's Bankplank?

Gangplank with ALL THE GP5s!
(Averice, Philo stone, HoG, and Kages)

[NineThePuma]

HoG is now gone, and Philo is -much- weaker.

New Avarice Blade is very sexy though, and I actually recommend it on anyone who like crit chance. Even, or especially, Carries.

[Temotei]

Bankplank is so much fun.

After his first free week I didn't buy GP, but I think I will once I have enough IP. He's just so much fun.

Combine with Ashe and Twisted Fate for ALL OF THE GOLD.

[ex cathedra]

I don't get how Bankplank is "fun." Like, you relegate yourself to being useless for 25 minutes and you buy ****ty items and spend mana on farming with Q so you have zero lane presence. You're like Nasus except for the fact that Nasus has wither.

GP has really strong early and midgame potential and Bankplank throws all of that away in the most boring way possible. Why spend 2400 gold on items that do nothing when i could get Executioner's Calling + Bruta, Ionic Spark, or Tiamat?

[NineThePuma]

For the absolutely hilarious gold income and the fact that Bankplank is probably not running around top.

[MCerberus]

Bank-plank is fun because you can just giggle, run off and keep farming.
Then you just show up somewhere with a massive amount of items and hulk-smash.

[ex cathedra]

But nothing comes of that income until well into the game since you sunk your first 2400 gold into GP10 which leave you a single item slot with which to juggle HP potions, mana potions, wards, and item components. You also cripple yourself to the point that your top lane opponent can farm every creep of every wave for free and chances are they won't build useless items. If you try roaming around the map you won't have the stats to actually pick fights with other champions.

[Thanatos 51-50]

It's done when people think the game isn't going to be any good and would rather deal with the penalty delay in re-queueing rather than play through a bad experience. Can be done for a variety of reasons, although a lot of them are kind of childish (ranging from 'somebody called the role I wanted to play/champ I wanted to play before I could' to 'somebody picked [champ I think is hopelessly weak], gg I'm gone' to 'oh god all four people I've been queued with just declared "mid or feed", I'm outta here.')

Only the last one is really any justification, in my mind. I don't drop out of queue because somebody decides to roll Evelyn (Evelynn, everybody! She's horrible!).
Of course, since I play a champion traditionally seen as underpowered, I'm going to go over here and cry softly to myself.
It's okay, little Plague Rat. One day, people will recognise that you don't suck.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

It's okay, little Plague Rat. One day, people will recognise that you don't suck.

That day might be very soon. Twitch has seen some play in tournaments lately.

[toasty]

I don't get how Bankplank is "fun." Like, you relegate yourself to being useless for 25 minutes and you buy ****ty items and spend mana on farming with Q so you have zero lane presence. You're like Nasus except for the fact that Nasus has wither.

GP has really strong early and midgame potential and Bankplank throws all of that away in the most boring way possible. Why spend 2400 gold on items that do nothing when i could get Executioner's Calling + Bruta, Ionic Spark, or Tiamat?

"Bankplank" is fun because you will outfarm everyone in the game. Its amusing to see the gold/10 income just skyrocket. Its not actually viable now. One of the reasons "bankplank" was so fun was because when he was super OP you could do this and still have some lane pressure. Very few people are silly enough to build 4 gold/10s, and AFAIK no one ever bothered to run utility gold/10 or gold/10 runes (which would be hilarious btw) in anything but the trollest of games.

Realistically, people buy 1-2 gold/10s, maybe 3 if they are winning their lane (somehow). It also isn't a terrible choice if you are sure you can stay alive and even in farm vs. early-mid game champions like Darius and Udyr. Gangplank's late game is actually pretty strong if played correctly.

Obviously, I think Bankplank is weak right now, and in fact with new items will probably straight-up suck, beyond Avarice blade and MAYBE philo. Besides, with splitpushing be so strong with new Tiamat, and GP already having a global ult and being a kinda okay duelist... why NOT build to be a splitpusher?

[Silverraptor]

Welp.

http://up.org.je/ohmyhorse.png

Completely impractical, completely awesome.

Still hasn't broken the rammus speed record.:smalltongue: (Or the pre-lee sin nerf where he could rush between the 2 bases in 12 seconds.

[TFT]

I've seen a lot more twitches in both my own solo queue games and the featured games too. If he's being used in tourneys as well I'm pretty sure he's more popular then some carries right now(Looking at you, ashe.)

[tyckspoon]

Still hasn't broken the rammus speed record.:smalltongue: (Or the pre-lee sin nerf where he could rush between the 2 bases in 12 seconds.

Pretty good for only using stuff you can get from a single champ, tho- it might beat the Rammus record if you piled on the Zilean speedup/Blood Boil/Galio W path/Sivir ult as well ('course, I don't know what Rammus's would be using the Season 3 items either, could be he's still faster. And Powerball lasts longer than Hecarim's charge, so even if Hecarim is faster Rammus will probably cover more ground more quickly.)

[toasty]

I've seen a lot more twitches in both my own solo queue games and the featured games too. If he's being used in tourneys as well I'm pretty sure he's more popular then some carries right now(Looking at you, ashe.)

Aphromoo pretty stubbornly kept to Twitch/Draven at LoneStar Clash, and while Fear isn't a very good team, I feel like Aphromoo has really shown the strength of Twitch, Draven and Varus.

Honestly, Ashe is never played.

[Psyborg]

Aphromoo pretty stubbornly kept to Twitch/Draven at LoneStar Clash, and while Fear isn't a very good team, I feel like Aphromoo has really shown the strength of Twitch, Draven and Varus.

Honestly, Ashe is never played.

TSM, Azubu Blaze, and M5 have all run Ashe in competitive play at some point in Season 2, with varying degrees of success. She's still not a strong pick in general, but with the nerfs to AD carries in general in S3 (attack speed more expensive, high-tier items more expensive and weaker, AD assassins HEAVILY buffed, mobility nerfed HARD), and the presumed viability of carry junglers instead of utility junglers, perhaps we'll see the utility carries making a comeback.

Also, is it just me, or is Draven going to be even stronger than he is now? He's the least-AS-dependent ADC, he has an AS+MS steroid (the gold value of which is now relatively much higher), and stacking AD is already strong on him.

Final thought about the S3 itemization changes: Rengar with Sword of the Divine and Infinity Edge can deal 300 + 1,080% AD more-or-less instantly with his Q+empowered Q+autoattack.

[Godskook]

As it turns out, LoL Wiki appears to be wrong about Malphite's Unstoppable Force, stating that it can only be stopped by lethal damage when a lot of posters seem to be getting CC'd out of it by e.g. Shen taunt. So, y'know, one out of three right there.

To be fair, I really don't think you should fault the wiki when what's really happening is that the game is wrong(Malphite's ult is supposed to be unstoppable via disables, as evidenced by multiple patch notes that say exactly that, notably the Urgot patch).


Pretty good for only using stuff you can get from a single champ, tho- it might beat the Rammus record if you piled on the Zilean speedup/Blood Boil/Galio W path/Sivir ult as well ('course, I don't know what Rammus's would be using the Season 3 items either, could be he's still faster. And Powerball lasts longer than Hecarim's charge, so even if Hecarim is faster Rammus will probably cover more ground more quickly.)

Top speed team is probably Orianna/Zilean/Jayce/Galio. Sivir and Nunu aren't as useful unless you're going for distance, rather than max speed.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Top speed team is probably Orianna/Zilean/Jayce/Galio. Sivir and Nunu aren't as useful unless you're going for distance, rather than max speed.

That is indeed the fastest team currently possible, yes.

[Forrestfire]

Holy crap that skin sounds cool. (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/beyond-space-and-time-eternum-nocturne-watches)

[Qwertystop]

The game started with me & cait dying several times, poor-exchange, in laning. I remember I looked and it was 3/15 or something.

Then, this.
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/7055/86004139.png

Oddly, although two different people other than me said "teamwork for all" in in-game chat, I only got +1 Teamwork.

[Thanatos 51-50]

You know those pop-ups that show up at the beginning of matches, now? A recent asked: "Who will be the most sportsmanlike player this game?"
It was a practise match.
We all agreed. It was going to be Lux Bot.

(I get lots of "friendly" honours because I joke the entire game. Get lots of teamwork ones, too, but I assume that's the community's "polite" honours when you're on the same team..
Don't many honourable honours, but then I don't PvP a lot. I don't like solo queing and most of my friends are you guys and you're all level 30s.)

[Godskook]

Oddly, although two different people other than me said "teamwork for all" in in-game chat, I only got +1 Teamwork.

1.Your Lux should've capped CDR. 24s ults are just too useful(I love poking with a 'proper' ult), combined with Abyssal's near-useless status on her(I'd rather have Lich Bane, and I'm sure someone will point out that Lich Bane is bad on her, which is kinda my point).

2.You only get notified of honors given before you leave the summary screen. If someone waited till after you left(cause they were chatting) to give honors, that would show up later.

3.Bootsless Caitlyn is....amusing, to say the least.

[ex cathedra]

1.Your Lux should've capped CDR. 24s ults are just too useful(I love poking with a 'proper' ult), combined with Abyssal's near-useless status on her(I'd rather have Lich Bane, and I'm sure someone will point out that Lich Bane is bad on her, which is kinda my point).

Their Lux did cap CDR, and Lich Bane isn't bad on Lux, so what the **** man.

[Silverraptor]

Their Lux did cap CDR, and Lich Bane isn't bad on Lux, so what the **** man.

She only had grail, so where else did she cap CDR? Although Lich bane *is* a good item on her.

[LordShotGun]

She only had grail, so where else did she cap CDR? Although Lich bane *is* a good item on her.

Blue buff and blue pot I would imagine, considering that no on else on the team really NEEDED blue (maybe poppy early game, since you know, jungle poppy is best poppy), I would think that lux got all the available blue buffs.

[Eurus]

Possibly elixir + runes and masteries?

[Godskook]

Their Lux did cap CDR, and Lich Bane isn't bad on Lux, so what the **** man.

1.I thought it was, and got argued with last time I said so here, but since I don't play Lux, I really don't care about that one. My point stands either way, cause it had nothing to do with the discussion "how good is Lich Bane on Lux", and everything to do with "Lich is better than Abyssal on her, but I'd rather have CDR".

2.I don't think blue pot + blue buff counts on certain champions, Like Lux and Ryze, who *REALLY* want 39...40% CDR with full uptime. Especially in a game where you're clawing back into the game from behind, and can't rely on getting your own blues, and can't afford to be blue potting.

[ex cathedra]

Athene's + masteries + blue = 39%. Lichbane isn't good, but it's the closest thing to old DFG for the time being. It's solid, neither great nor trash.

[PersonMan]

I don't get how Bankplank is "fun." Like, you relegate yourself to being useless for 25 minutes and you buy ****ty items and spend mana on farming with Q so you have zero lane presence. You're like Nasus except for the fact that Nasus has wither.

GP has really strong early and midgame potential and Bankplank throws all of that away in the most boring way possible. Why spend 2400 gold on items that do nothing when i could get Executioner's Calling + Bruta, Ionic Spark, or Tiamat?

In my experience, gold/10plank is actually pretty good since he benefits from all of them (ok, Kage's doesn't bring that much, but it still helps). I don't know if I've just been going top against fools, but I generally win lane with the gold/10 items and can then just farm (with or without Q, since I can afford to), occasionally bullying the enemy laner with 2-4 Qs at them.

Also, I'm wondering how Philo Stone/Avarice Blade/Kage's/HoG could be seen as 'doing nothing'. Yes, they aren't the most stellar items, but they bring sustain, tankiness, some damage, increase burst healing and ult damage (not by much, I will admit).

It's also just awesomely fun to be winning fights and have absurd gold income, since I do win fights with those items. Executive's Calling and Ionic Spark wouldn't give the same benefits, I feel. Then again, I haven't really tried using them.

[ex cathedra]

They're all purposefully gold-inefficient items that provide stats that don't enhance each other in any way. Most mid- and top-tier items are very efficient in that they give you more stats than you paid for, and many low-tier items aren't particularly efficient at all, Doran's excluded. This creates game states wherein the first champion to finish a "big" offensive item (because that rule of thumb doesn't hold true for defensive items; stats-wise, negatron and chain vest are ridiculous and most of their upgrades mostly provide utility rather than raw and efficient defenses) has more effective gold than other champions. This is one of the several gameplay mechanics responsible for how easily League tends to snowball. S3 changes are, in part, aimed at reducing this.

GP10 aren't "real" items, especially after the Philo/HoG nerfs. Avarice Blade (on average) adds less damage to your auto-attacks than even a simple Doran's Blade up until you get more than 120ish AD. Even on Q, where it actually shines, the bonus damage boost is inconsistent and worth about as much as 10 AD at rank 5.

If you come to lane with Philo or Avarice and your enemy comes to lane with 2x Doran's blade or 1x Doran's Blade + Ninja Tabi they can all-in you and you can't do anything about it. If you are playing against enemies too incompetent to realize this, you're settling yourself into a poor playstyle that won't work nearly as well against the better players that you'll inevitably face.

You're over-paying for stats that don't synergize with one another while your enemies are under-paying for stats that multiply each other. It's just math. 4x GP10 is weak because GP's early game is weak and he can't carry those items with just his base values. His Q costs too much mana and Ninja Tabi reduce too much damage for you to spend any amount of time harassing with zero-item Parrrley's once you've had the chance to spend some gold.

[MCerberus]

So it's 6300 time.

Either:

Jayce, the OP of Tomorrow
Rengar, the manbearlion
Riven, the spam-master

[ChaosOS]

Not riven. Riven is just boring

Jayce if you prefer bruisers and want poke and damage over longer periods of time.

Rengar if you prefer stronger all-ins.

[Silverraptor]

So it's 6300 time.

Either:

Jayce, the OP of Tomorrow
Rengar, the manbearlion
Riven, the spam-master

Have both Jayce and Riven. Both are fun, strong picks. Working on Rengar so I can say "Sloooooow Dooooooown!" on mumble with everyone else.:smallbiggrin:

[ex cathedra]

is it so hard to pick your own champions christing god guys come on
ask yourself "does this interest me" if y: buy if n: skip ggwp :smalltongue:

IPL 5 Groupstages, for anyone interested:
Group A:
Team Dynamic
Team WE
Team ALTERNATE
Azubu Blaze
Group B:
Team FeaR
CLG.EU
CLG.NA
IceLanD
Group C:
Meat Playground
Curse EU
Singapore Sentinels
TSM
Group D:
Curse NA
Moscow 5
Taipei Assassins
Blackbean

Poor Curse NA.

[toasty]

Why does everyone feel so bad about Curse NA? They'll end up in the losers bracket, along with HALF the starting teams.

Like... I dunno, so many other teams out there aren't gonna do any good. Do people think Fear and Dynamic are gonna do good?

[Psyborg]

Why does everyone feel so bad about Curse NA? They'll end up in the losers bracket, along with HALF the starting teams.

Like... I dunno, so many other teams out there aren't gonna do any good. Do people think Fear and Dynamic are gonna do good?

Fear may or may not be a great team, but people love watching Aphromoo do ridiculous things with unconventional and/or uncommon ADCs. I don't expect them to win, but I expect them to have some really enjoyable games to watch.

[Eldariel]

IEM Singapore is the saddest League LAN ever. Five teams announce they can't participate (it manages to be simultaneously with Dreamhack Winter, OLYMPUS Champions' Winter AND Tencent Games Grand Finals), now they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel with some local teams-4-fun that have never even played tournament qualifiers. :smallsigh:

[sonofzeal]

Epic TT game!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/sonofzeal/temp.png

Not shown here: every single summoner involved being higher level than me, and a decent early-game that morphed into a mid-game so bad that Darius quit to go back and hang out in spawn. Down two inhibs, with a team kill ratio of something like 15:30, we were getting steamrolled. At one point Amumu was engaging us 2v1 and winning.

But... they didn't put much effort into altars. We controlled both through most of the game, and even when they were back-to-back acing us it was really just a token effort on their part. And with altar control came lower respawn timers, and a gold income that offset their rather staggering advantage.

I think the turning point was either when Rengar picked up a 1v1 kill on Evelynn to prevent our nexus turret from falling... or when I built Abyssal, and could suddenly solo Amumu. I'd honestly totally forgotten to build Void Staff, which is my normal choice, but Abyssal also fit in some more MR and that seemed to fit better here. Being able to take Amumu 1v1 changed the face of the game, because unlike Amumu Rumble has a speed boost and two nice ranged slows, so I could keep pressure in winning situations and back out of poor ones much more easily. That wasn't helpful when almost every situation was losing, but being able to go 1v1 with their best magnified that substantially. Suddenly I could bully, grab altars again to get our death timers down, and push to their base.... and once there, Rengar could smash through towers like nobody's business while I ran interference.

We had one fantastic push up top, Aced, and they did that silly thing where they came out as they respawned - meaning one at a time - right into our teeth. We got a couple extra kills that way and took the inhib before basing. We were still down both of our inhibs, but the morale boost was awesome, Darius apologized openly for his previous behaviour, and a similarly epic push up bottom cinched the game for us.


MORAL OF THE STORY: Optimism! Determination! Altar control! And don't let one-sided kill scores scare you too much, if you have reason to suspect your team has been getting the gold income they need to keep up.

[toasty]

IEM Singapore is the saddest League LAN ever. Five teams announce they can't participate (it manages to be simultaneously with Dreamhack Winter, OLYMPUS Champions' Winter AND Tencent Games Grand Finals), now they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel with some local teams-4-fun that have never even played tournament qualifiers. :smallsigh:

Hey! Dunno about you BUT I enjoyed watching Arm get stomped. :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

Armageddon isn't a good team even on Singaporean level, so their inclusion was pretty damn silly. Apparently some friend of the organizer wanted them in when they had open slots and they were sorta just crammed in without considering the other local options.

[Eiko]

In other news, eve still silly.

I'm becoming more and more convinced of this fact each game I play her, ludicrous kills and damage, few deaths, AoE ult super nuke. Good ganking, good laning, good sustain, good teamfighting. Weren't champions supposed to have downsides?

[Nadevoc]

In other news, eve still silly.

I'm becoming more and more convinced of this fact each game I play her, ludicrous kills and damage, few deaths, AoE ult super nuke. Good ganking, good laning, good sustain, good teamfighting. Weren't champions supposed to have downsides?

Eve's downside:

-Very limited range outside her ultimate
-No hard CC, and her only soft CC is on her ultimate
-Her survivability is tied to hitting multiple targets with her ultimate (if she doesn't get a good shield for a teamfight, she's quite squishy, and short-ranged)
-Weak early game. In lane she's a squishier melee whose only ranged farming tool (Q) can be a bit tricky to use for last hitting at times and isn't very long ranged. In the jungle her first clear is pretty weak, from my experience.


She can definitely be a strong champion, but not without downsides :-P

[McDouggal]

I woke up with this thought going through my head: "Jungle Garen."

After some thought, I realized that this wouldn't be a BAD jungler; his passive only turns off when hit by a champ or turret, he gets a boost of armor when he uses his W, his Q allows for quick jungle ganks, and his E should give him fantastic clear times once he reaches max CDR.

And he's manaless. One less stat to worry about.

Thoughts?

[Nadevoc]

I woke up with this thought going through my head: "Jungle Garen."

After some thought, I realized that this wouldn't be a BAD jungler; his passive only turns off when hit by a champ or turret, he gets a boost of armor when he uses his W, his Q allows for quick jungle ganks, and his E should give him fantastic clear times once he reaches max CDR.

And he's manaless. One less stat to worry about.

Thoughts?

I believe neutral creeps DO put his passive on CD, based on memory. The wording says damage 'other than minions', and I'm pretty sure abilities say 'minions and monsters' if it's also referring to jungle creeps. His E also does reduced damage to jungle creeps, which reduces his speed. Overall, I think his speed and sustain just aren't that great, and his ganks are meh. He's got a move speed boost to close into a silence, but a LOT of champs will just blink/dash away and be under tower before he can do much. His damage is more sustained than burst except for his ultimate, which means champs can't stick around in lane low health too safely, but other than that not that scary gank-wise.

[MCerberus]

Those times when you just feel like a badass:

Was playing Darius, had Mercs/HoG/Phage/Frozen Heart/Warden's. Nothing was happening, so I decided to just go knock down the top tower. Obviously I was spotting moving towards it, so the enemy Xin tried to stop me... only he hasn't been able to touch me since the Frozen Heart.

I'm at 90% health when the tower falls. He realizes I have red buff and flashes away. That's when I see the enemy Vayne ult tumble stealth at me. I apprehend, and they have to flash away... then I just calmly walk towards mid where the rest of the team was pushing 4v3.

[Reynard]

I woke up with this thought going through my head: "Jungle Garen."

After some thought, I realized that this wouldn't be a BAD jungler; his passive only turns off when hit by a champ or turret, he gets a boost of armor when he uses his W, his Q allows for quick jungle ganks, and his E should give him fantastic clear times once he reaches max CDR.

And he's manaless. One less stat to worry about.

Thoughts?

Having tried it:
> Jungle monsters do stop his passive.
> Your E does damage them fairly quickly once you get it to rank 2 or 3... but you want CDR AND crit chance to actually maintain a remotely decent clear time.
> Your Q ganks are like being Udyr, but worse in nearly every way. Shyvana/Pre-6Warwick are two of the very few junglers who have worse CC in ganks then Garen.

[ex cathedra]

Shyvana actually has better ganks considering that she can take smite/exhaust with no real downside and Garen generally needs flash to gapclose lategame.

Why does everyone feel so bad about Curse NA? They'll end up in the losers bracket, along with HALF the starting teams.

Like... I dunno, so many other teams out there aren't gonna do any good. Do people think Fear and Dynamic are gonna do good?
What's wrong with FeaR's bracket? Neither CLG is convincingly a tier-one team, whereas two of the strongest teams in the world (despite m5's poor recent showings) are in Group D.

Group A is pretty rough, yeah, but I'm not convinced that TD are much worse off than ForellenLord's team.

[McDouggal]

Having tried it:
> Jungle monsters do stop his passive.
> Your E does damage them fairly quickly once you get it to rank 2 or 3... but you want CDR AND crit chance to actually maintain a remotely decent clear time.
> Your Q ganks are like being Udyr, but worse in nearly every way. Shyvana/Pre-6Warwick are two of the very few junglers who have worse CC in ganks then Garen.

Tl;dr version: It's unviable.

I really need to think harder before I stupid.

[PersonMan]

I'd say Garen's best ganks would be counterganks. Rushing out of a bush to silence someone and then spinning would really ruin some people's day.

[Eldariel]

Team Acer decided it's not worth banning Anivia vs. Froggen. It was hilarious.

[Forrestfire]

Team Acer decided it's not worth banning Anivia vs. Froggen. It was hilarious.

Is there a video of that game? I really want to see this XD

[Dada]

Those walls man. So many flashes were forced.

Also, McDougal, don't be too hard on yourself. Some of the main points of your initial idea were good, and jungle Garen might have been a lot more viable if the interactions of his passive and his spin worked as expected with the jungle mobs. Only suggestion from me would be to go try it out in a custom game. Measure his clear time against some other junglers, take not of the tricky interactions. If you feel comfortable, take it into some normal games and see how it goes. That is the best way to judge ideas.

[Eldariel]

Is there a video of that game? I really want to see this XD

I doubt they're up yet given the match ended about 20 minutes ago but I'm certain the VODs will be up by tomorrow. They'll probably be posted on Reddit, though if not there's always Google. Stream cache might also have them at DreamhackLoL (http://www.twitch.tv/dreamhacklol?utm_campaign=live_embed_click&utm_source=clgaming.net) but I haven't checked.

[Lix Lorn]

So it's 6300 time.

Either:

Jayce, the OP of Tomorrow
Rengar, the manbearlion
Riven, the spam-master
Riven, because Jayce and Rengar are evil.

[Tychris1]

Riven, because Jayce and Rengar are evil.

How so? Rengar seems pretty Chaotic Neutral to me.

I vote Rengar.

[Eldariel]

And now having to watch a game of second rate Anivia-play...ugh. Well, to be fair, both teams are wholly second-rate, but still.

[PersonMan]

Riven, because Jayce and Rengar are evil.

+1. In part.

Riven is awesome, has awesome skins and jumps around all over the place.

Rengar is fun, too, though. Dunno about Jayce, apart from the fact that I lost interest in him during his free week and now that I can't play him want to do so...

[Psyborg]

I doubt they're up yet given the match ended about 20 minutes ago but I'm certain the VODs will be up by tomorrow. They'll probably be posted on Reddit, though if not there's always Google. Stream cache might also have them at DreamhackLoL (http://www.twitch.tv/dreamhacklol?utm_campaign=live_embed_click&utm_source=clgaming.net) but I haven't checked.

CLG.EU vs Acer, with Froggen on Anivia, can be found here (http://www.twitch.tv/dreamhacklol/b/342101556) with draft starting just before 2:00:00.

[Godskook]

Tl;dr version: It's unviable.

I really need to think harder before I stupid.

Eh, he's a tier 3 jungler who's almost entirely mirrored by a high tier 2 jungler(Darius). That said, if you really like him as a champion, he's got at least a few things going for him:

1.His clear times are, in S2, decently fast early game(when that matters). And while this doesn't always matter at higher levels of play, I find that clear speed matters more than many other factors early on in one's jungle career(in the pre-30s or before about 1200-1300 Elo).

2.While his sustain is awful, his passive and W help make up for that a lot, by letting him still be tanky enough to gank.

He's not wholly unviable, and with a cloth+5 start, you can actually clear your jungle without team help, unlike say....Blitzcrank, who is basically worthless in the jungle right now(he just transitions hard enough that you can still make it work, not that I'd recommend it).

[9mm]

Team Acer decided it's not worth banning Anivia vs. Froggen. It was hilarious.
While funny, how much more of no AP anivia chunking people will it take before Riot realizes the bird is still horrendously OP?

[Psyborg]

While funny, how much more of no AP anivia chunking people will it take before Riot realizes the bird is still horrendously OP?

She's no more OP than anyone else with excellent base damage and/or utility who benefits from tankiness, CDR, and mana regen to get more spells off. Granted, not many mages fit that archetype.

But Anivia has a fairly specific purpose in team comps: stall or siege. She has the best wave-clear in the game, freedom to counterbuild due to good base damages and good AP ratios allowing tankiness and AP to be equally valuable on her, and solid utility. She's not the best mage for assassinating people, or killing her lane opponent instantly at 6, or for ultralategame DPS, or for all-in hard initiations. Anivia is at her best at a tower- whether hers or her opponent's. And she's the sort of champion that you build a team around- either a poke/heal team to siege enemy towers, or a lategame hypercarry comp relying on Anivia's stall potential to ensure you actually get to lategame. And she's one of the three most blue-dependent champions in the entire game (along with Kassadin and Swain); buff control is critical if you have an Anivia on your team.

Is she incredibly strong within her niche? Yes. Is she stronger at stall/seige than Malph/Ori/Lulu are at initiating, or Vayne is at killing bruisers, or Ez/Sona is at poking down a lane opponent, or Yorick is at destroying top lanes, or Nidalee is at escaping?

I'm not convinced she is. I think that CLG.EU has been fortunate that Froggen is so ridiculously talented with a champion who fits their team's cautious, methodical style so perfectly. Compare this to Doublelift, who is equally talented with Vayne, but Vayne doesn't fit in the sort of games that CLG.NA likes to run most of the time.

When we see a FroggeNivia, we're seeing the champion played at the absolute best she can be, in a team of champions that complement her and players whose mindsets work perfectly with her abilities. Of course she's going to be almost unbeatable!

Now, if she does prove "unbeatable" rather than "really strong" when she's exactly in her niche, then there's a problem. On the other hand, I have no difficulty believing that, no matter how balanced the champion is in general, you're still always going to ban Anivia vs Froggen, Nidalee vs. HSGG, Vayne vs. Doublelift, Draven vs. aphromoo, Poppy vs. Zekent/SpamHappy, etc. When someone learns a champion so thoroughly that their names becomes virtually synonymous, I think it's not out of line to blame the player rather than the champion for their permaban status.

[ex cathedra]

She's no more OP than anyone else with excellent base damage and/or utility who benefits from tankiness, CDR, and mana regen to get more spells off. Granted, not many mages fit that archetype.

But Anivia has a fairly specific purpose in team comps: stall or siege. She has the best wave-clear in the game, freedom to counterbuild due to good base damages and good AP ratios allowing tankiness and AP to be equally valuable on her, and solid utility. She's not the best mage for assassinating people, or killing her lane opponent instantly at 6, or for ultralategame DPS, or for all-in hard initiations. Anivia is at her best at a tower- whether hers or her opponent's. And she's the sort of champion that you build a team around- either a poke/heal team to siege enemy towers, or a lategame hypercarry comp relying on Anivia's stall potential to ensure you actually get to lategame. And she's one of the three most blue-dependent champions in the entire game (along with Kassadin and Swain); buff control is critical if you have an Anivia on your team.

Is she incredibly strong within her niche? Yes. Is she stronger at stall/seige than Malph/Ori/Lulu are at initiating, or Vayne is at killing bruisers, or Ez/Sona is at poking down a lane opponent, or Yorick is at destroying top lanes, or Nidalee is at escaping?

I think that videos like this (http://pt.twitch.tv/dreamhacklol/b/342101556?t=2h54m20s) really demonstrate that does much more than your "she's niche" argument suggests.

I'm also pretty sure that anyone else with "excellent and utility" would be overpowered if they had as much base damage and utility as Anivia has. It's not just that, though. She has excellent base damage, ludicrous utility, and she still top-tier scaling.

I believe that Riot's take on the matter is (or once was) that champions shouldn't be overpowered in the hands of skilled players, even if they're balanced otherwise. I feel like that was one of their justifications for nerfing release Orianna.

The problem is that while Anivia does excel at stalling and sieging and building tanky and providing utility she's still good at everything that other mages do. She has normal mage ratios and above-average base damages in addition to all of the ridiculous **** she gets from AoE attack speed slows/movespeed slows/stuns, free GA passive, and walls.

It's like Ezreal being an overpowered duelist even though he's intended to poke.

They just need to lower her damage because it's ****ing stupidly high. There should be some sort of disadvantage for building nothing but HP and mana on a champion that's meant to be AP scaling.

Anivia REQ assuming only 2 seconds on R: 1030 + 2.5AP damage.
Brand EQWR: 1119 + 2.45 AP, or 1469 + 2.95 if you luck out and hit the same target twice.

In exchange for not having an AoE stun, an AoE slow, an AoE attack speed debuff, or an entire other skill slot Brand gets to do less than 9% more damage than Anivia on his combo.

How ****ed up is that? Champions with 3 offensive skills simply shouldn't have as much damage as champions with 4 offensive skills. It's bad design and it makes champions like Ori and Anivia overpowered.

[MCerberus]

If Anivia is OP, why does her winrate pretty consistently float just below 50%? Q stun and damage chunking relies on doubling damage with setup, and let's not forget how slow that ice ball is. She has pretty much no mobility, glaring weakness to assassins, a bad AA animation to go with her horrendous early-lane, and is terribly terribly squishy early.

Regarding that video, you know what other mages can pick off a champion by blindsiding them with a flash, putting a full burst on them, then getting backup from a global damage ult? Most of them.

[9mm]

If Anivia is OP, why does her winrate pretty consistently float just below 50%? Q stun and damage chunking relies on doubling damage with setup, and let's not forget how slow that ice ball is. She has pretty much no mobility, glaring weakness to assassins, a bad AA animation to go with her horrendous early-lane, and is terribly terribly squishy early.

Regarding that video, you know what other mages can pick off a champion by blindsiding them with a flash, putting a full burst on them, then getting backup from a global damage ult? Most of them.

Winrate does not equal balance, infact it never ever has, to the point Riot says not to bring it up. Don't get me wrong, most people can't do what Froggen can do with the bird; but that is not proof of balance, it's proof of what bird can do.

Terrible early game? so bird farms under tower till level 6 then auto wins her lane. Double damage hard to set up? Hardly, E then R mid flight, garenteed double proc. Oh and don't forget now that you've slowed them it's even easier to double proc the stun! Plus Wall! Anivia is, was, and probably always will be amazing with that kit. Anivia can burst people with just a warmogs that other mages need a derpcap to do. That, to put it mildly, is a problem.

[MCerberus]

Winrate does not equal balance, infact it never ever has, to the point Riot says not to bring it up. Don't get me wrong, most people can't do what Froggen can do with the bird; but that is not proof of balance, it's proof of what bird can do.

Terrible early game? so bird farms under tower till level 6 then auto wins her lane. Double damage hard to set up? Hardly, E then R mid flight, garenteed double proc. Oh and don't forget now that you've slowed them it's even easier to double proc the stun! Plus Wall! Anivia is, was, and probably always will be amazing with that kit. Anivia can burst people with just a warmogs that other mages need a derpcap to do. That, to put it mildly, is a problem.

The question is if outliers should be calculated into the mean or not. It's a double-edged sword in this case. Below-average Anivia play means you're even more likely to get stomped into paste than other mages.

Not standing in the candy puddle would happen to be the whole 'how you don't lose teamfights' when Anivia is involved. Her defense spells are also her offense and force multiplier. It's counterable... Anivia gets really really awkward when you move away from a Glacial Storm choke point and don't stack up. You wouldn't fight a team with Karthus in it in the jungle would you?

And I don't think the numbers back you up that bruiser-Anivia outdamages glass cannon bursters except in long fights where the extra durability comes in.

[toasty]

If Anivia is OP, why does her winrate pretty consistently float just below 50%?

Winrate in solo queue means absolutely nothing. Actually, it should be completely ignored. What the half-sentient beings of solo queue pull off means nothing to the divine beings of Competitive play. Not only that, but Anivia is a champion with a known high skill floor. Even if she was good (which is the argument we are making) its likely she could be OP and still have a low win-rate. What is the important is once the hero has been mastered (because regardless of how hard a champion is to play, they will eventually be mastered by some sort of crazy person) and then that person will prove the champion is OP. This is EXACTLY what has happened with Anivia.

Everyone knew Anivia was good starting in 2010. But no one played her, because she was "too hard." Then Froggen arrived having mastered Anivia. Now players like Rapidstar, Scarra, Link, and Jiji are all practicing their Anivia. Even Nyjacky and Regi have been seen playing them. Why? Because they are overpowered.


Q stun and damage chunking relies on doubling damage with setup, and let's not forget how slow that ice ball is. She has pretty much no mobility, glaring weakness to assassins, a bad AA animation to go with her horrendous early-lane, and is terribly terribly squishy early.

I don't care. Do it 10000 times you'll master it. Skill Floor means nothing. Once you've gotten there, its done, and you are king, and the only thing people can say is "that champion is op."

Furthermore: Anivia, if played correctly, is a very safe mid-laner. She is not a good roamer, and her AA is terrible, but she is pretty safe because of her passive. If you die mid-lane as Anivia its either because A) the jungle camped the **** out of you B) you suck C) everyone on your team sucks. Stop sucking and start winning.

I've never played a game of Anivia, nor do I care too, but arguments regarding "its really hard to pull off" are bad once its become apparent that at least one person is able to constinetly pull it off.


Regarding that video, you know what other mages can pick off a champion by blindsiding them with a flash, putting a full burst on them, then getting backup from a global damage ult? Most of them.

Actually, not a lot. Go through the list and figure out which champions are making good use of their kits by doing what froggen did? Furthermore, what heroes can do it while having Froggen's exact build? You'd be surprised I think.

Anivia, when perfectly played as Froggen does, provides zone control, AoE damage, amazing utility and very strong CC. Most mages provide 1 of those (and practically none have the zone control of Anivia).

[MCerberus]

Without going into individual quote responses because doing so is a pet peeve, but let's look at some other mids.

Ori, Gragas, TF, Ryze, Ahri, Kat, Karthus, Eve, and Morg have seen some decent play since I started following. Ahri and Eve were hit with some nerfs for being OP, but largely these guys have just been good. Now Anivia is getting more attention, and always as a player specialty as opposed to general pick. We're not talking old DFG-level good on Anivia, we're just seeing 'oh wow she's actually good'.

And Anivia can't put down the instant hand-of-god burst as Lux does with Lux's build. So what? It's apples to oranges.

But seriously, forced movement, silence or stun (turns off ult zone) and dodge Q and the bird loses a ton of potency. Or you can just run Ori or an assassin mid.

[toasty]

But seriously, forced movement, silence or stun (turns off ult zone) and dodge Q and the bird loses a ton of potency. Or you can just run Ori or an assassin mid.

Forced movement... silence or stun... and dodge her skill shots.

How do you beat Caitlyn?
Forced movement
Stun
Dodge her Skill Shots (less important, but still there)

How do you beat ryze?
Forced Movement
Silence or Stun
Doge his ... oh nvm... but yeah

How do you beat Kass?
Forced Movement
Silence AND Stun (because I hate kass :smallbiggrin:)
Dodge his... R? I dunno, doesn't really have "skill shots"

Like I'm just saying... Silencing destroys any hero who relies on constantly spamming or channeling certain spells: Karthus and Vlad come to mind. CC is good against all heroes, not Anivia specifically. She doesn't have a passive that makes CC MORE effective against her. Its only arguably "more" effective because she has no "escapes" which is true, because in teamfight egg isn't necessarily the best thing in the world. It is basically a free GA though... so there is that.

Dodging her Q does sound important, since the basis of her entire combo kinda is based on it. But to say its as simple as "dodging" her skill shots isn't entirely true. Anivia is the queen of Forced Movement, and with a good R+Wall she can force you to flash or get stunned and take tons of damage.

Finally: It is VERY important to be able to compare heroes to other heroes, using even similar builds. While yes, many heroes use different builds and have different playstyles, there are some heroes which preform similar roles. Both Lux and Anivia are traditionally AP middle heroes, neither of them are very good at Top/Jungle and their support isn't the greatest (apparently Lux support is viable. Anivia support might be fun). When it becomes apparent Anivia can build a warmogs and still outburst a burst mage built to be a burst mage, then I would argue Anivia's numbers should be looked at.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

If Anivia is OP, why does her winrate pretty consistently float just below 50%?

Because she's probably a bit OP. Look at what Xypherous says in an ELOBUFF News Roundup. (http://www.reignofgaming.net/news/21382-the-news-roundup-elobuff-giveaway-questions-for?page=5#c16)

"Actually, funny thing is - I'm not sure what sites people are getting win rate % off of - but naively speaking, if you don't discount mirrors, the more overpowered a champion is, the closer their win rate goes to 50% as the increased probability of mirror matches increases."

This is why Normal Queue win/loss ratios aren't really a good indicator. Normal DRAFT Queue, however, would be useful, since League is, in theory, supposed to be roughly balanced for ALL levels of play.


Winrate in solo queue means absolutely nothing. Actually, it should be completely ignored. What the half-sentient beings of solo queue pull off means nothing to the divine beings of Competitive play.

Winrate, yes. Unless a champion is winning +-10-15% games from the 50% mark (and currently a few champions are that extreme, according to LoLKing), I'd be more concerned about Draft results, which remove the mirror-matchup possibility.

[LordShotGun]

So I have read here that Garen hard counters Darius. Now, I was VERY skeptical of this but today I got the chance to try it out in a real game AND IT WORKS! I stomped all up and down that darius even with enemy jungler help. He would Q, and I would respond with my own Q and E combo with a W in there to counter darius's W.

Sadly the we totally threw the game and had not one, not two, but THREE baron's stolen so that even when we were 21 kills to 12 we were losing teamfights.

It also probably didn't help that I had 12 of our 21 kills (with most of them from a not very valuable darius) and the enemy ashe had 8 of their twelve. I would try and close with her but unless I used flash she would kite me to death (or she would counter flash and still kill me)

[McDouggal]

Shen jungle. Thoughts? Suggestions? Telling the guy who had the jungle Garen idea that he's crazy? :smalltongue:

[LordShotGun]

Shen jungle. Thoughts? Suggestions? Telling the guy who had the jungle Garen idea that he's crazy? :smalltongue:

I do it all the time. Well when he is not banned or picked top. Shen is a good sustainer jungler with his Q and W, and has an ok clear speed.

He is not relient on any buffs to do his job and excells at turning ganks into counter-ganks (although people usually bail when they see your shield incoming).

Pre-6 his ganks are decent with E and post-6 he has awesome ganks since you can support a tower diving lane from anywhere on the map.

Late game he can split push like all shens and you have enough money to build pure tank and still be disruptive.

Go boot+3 into HoG (for now anyway), then it is your choice for items depending on if they have a heavy AD or AP comp. Aegis is always good on him, as well as zeke's herald if you have an AD top lane that it would benefit.
Phage/hexdrinker are good, warden's mail is very good for tower dives, kage's lucky pick if you manage to get ahead early can help you alot but generally you want to pick up tanky/supporty items

[tyckspoon]

If I remember it correctly.. slow but well-sustained clear with Feint and Vorpal Blades. Good duelist if you expect to be invading/have to deal with an invading enemy jungler. Ganks pretty well, and after 6 raises serious paranoia issues among more intelligent enemies (global ult does this anyway, but at least if he's in lane you can be more certain of where he is and have a way to attempt to punish if he ults off somewhere else via farming to advantage/pushing tower/taking local jungle objectives/etc.) Works if you are interested in 'weird'/not-currently-in-tournament-meta junglers, but probably still better off taking Top and leaving the jungle to somebody who doesn't have a good place in a lane.

[ex cathedra]

Jungle Shen works but his clear speed is abysmal. Warwick levels of bad. He has better itemization options, though, his ultimate is more relevant without any items than Warwick's, and he transitions to split-pusher fairly well.

[toasty]

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere how Shen is gonna be terribly slow in the new jungle. Slower than Warwick.

[ChaosOS]

I can go test that. Just give me a sec.

[sonofzeal]

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere how Shen is gonna be terribly slow in the new jungle. Slower than Warwick.
I'm reasonably confident that "slow" is going to mean something different in the new jungle. More damaging mobs that scale faster means many currently fast junglers will have to base more frequently, slowing their clear speed significantly. It'll also make counterjungling much more devastating, since you can reasonably expect to be lower health, giving the intruder an advantage, especially if they catch you in the middle of a camp.

Shen and Warwick are both slow currently, but have above-average sustain. They're unlikely to suffer as much as many of the more aggressive choice - meaning they benefit by contrast. And if rewards are going up too, which sounds likely, that might make them quite solid choices.

[ChaosOS]

You pretty much don't lose health, pots are needed on blue but after that you are fine with feint. On the other hand, incredibly slow, I got 4:15 clear. We'll see how jungle shen does.

[toasty]

I'm reasonably confident that "slow" is going to mean something different in the new jungle. More damaging mobs that scale faster means many currently fast junglers will have to base more frequently, slowing their clear speed significantly. It'll also make counterjungling much more devastating, since you can reasonably expect to be lower health, giving the intruder an advantage, especially if they catch you in the middle of a camp.


St. Vicious, who has playtested the new Jungle with Riot said the new jungle "isn't very different," so I don't know how true this statement is.

[ChaosOS]

Basically, machete counteracts the buffs to the monster health, having 5 pots instead of 3 counteracts the increased damage, and then the loss of boots is evened out by the boots nerfs. Plus, with Dorans being even stronger for assuring lane dominance, we may see ADCs who can abuse lane dominance running Dblade instead of boots, which further evens out that difference. For example, I'm playing Ashe. You're playing someone like ezreal. I grab Dblade, and you grab boots+3. Your sustain isn't drastically higher with the buff of life on hit, and I will now outdamage you in trades, and speed is negated by my slows. Finally, reduced risk of jungle pressure due to the harder jungle and oracle's nerfs mean that I can extend more, ensuring lane dominance.

[Mtg_player_zach]

Reina there needs to be a TT solo q ranked. I would play the **** out of that. It's fun.

[Godskook]

Shen jungle. Thoughts? Suggestions? Telling the guy who had the jungle Garen idea that he's crazy? :smalltongue:

Jungle Shen is a thing(Tier 1, even), but he's got abysmal clear times. He's very weak to counterjungling, so if you're draft-picking, try to pick him against junglers who can't threaten his jungle well, like Maokai(bonus points: at level 6, shen ult counters Maokai gank unless things went horribly wrong). Also, if you're able, try to put someone toplane who wants to transition into a teamfighter, rather than a split pusher, so that Shen can start split pushing later in the game, to leverage his ult's power better.

[Eldariel]

Anivia doesn't outburst Lux with Warmog's. That's not what was happening. Lux was just not hitting her skillshots. But yeah, her bases are amazing. Her Q is very hard to force to hit tho which balances out quite a bit; indeed, the better the enemy team the harder to land it becomes. That said, she might or might not be too strong; let's wait to the point where she becomes the most popular AP first tho.

It's worth noting that while e.g. RapidStar and SSONG play very decent Anivia, she's basically never banned against them. The only player Anivia is banned against is Froggen. Currently, she's being overshadowed by Orianna (she's even more powerful right now than on release; her Q is basically an autoattack nowadays with no cooldown) and Diana. It's worth noting that e.g. TF is permabanned vs. Misaya too (well, I recallSpider did the mistake of not banning him in Tencent Games Arena and...yeah), so it's not unique to Anivia; some players are just that much better on one champ than any others.

[toasty]

It's worth noting that e.g. TF is permabanned vs. Misaya too ... some players are just that much better on one champ than any others.

This is true. However, how much work would it take for all the APs to become as good on certain heroes. Or, rather, why is it that while Froggen's Anivia is permabanned, Regi's Karthus isn't. Is it because Froggen is, and likely will always be, a "better" player (especially considering I think Froggen's probably just as good on Karthus as Regi is) or is it because Regi simply hasn't "mastered" Karthus the way Froggen has?

I'm... I'm not entirely sure, especially seeing as I haven't seen Misaya play TF since IEM China (and I mean... he did kinda do some crazy-ass **** with TF, but he was a pretty bitchin Karthus too) which was a LONG time ago. So its hard to say for me. But... its an interesting question.

[Eldariel]

This is true. However, how much work would it take for all the APs to become as good on certain heroes. Or, rather, why is it that while Froggen's Anivia is permabanned, Regi's Karthus isn't. Is it because Froggen is, and likely will always be, a "better" player (especially considering I think Froggen's probably just as good on Karthus as Regi is) or is it because Regi simply hasn't "mastered" Karthus the way Froggen has?

Probably a bit of both; Froggen is easily the best AP player in the west and quite possibly the best AP player in the world right now. He basically never loses his lane even in bad match-ups (last I remember him actually losing a lane was Karthus vs. Alex Ich's Kassadin combined with jungle pressure) and generally somehow manages to out-CS everybody regardless of the lane match-ups, while being superresilient to jungle ganks too.

But Regi was never that good of a Karthus, really. Regi never truly learned one champion over any others. He's always practiced a bit of everything and his mechanics are nothing to write home about; he's solid but he doesn't really win his lane consistently like e.g. Froggen or RapidStar does. He never focused on one champ so I think the biggest thing here is that Regi's Karthus isn't that much better than his Everything Else™. Hell, he's even played Kat and Eve over Kart in tourneys before; if his Kart truly were that scary he'd just instalock it every time.

If we're thinking about Karthus in specific, it's worth bringing up PhantomL0rd. When he played on V8, they easily trounced the qualifiers for IEM New York. At IEM New York, Karthus was banned every game against them and while PL plays decent Brand & Cassiopeia, they proceed to 0-3 wipe as he can't carry in the same way with those champs and V8 wasn't really that strong of a team overall.

We'll see what happens with CornSalad's AP Yi (from Team OP, former Xenics Storm) if he keeps this up :smalltongue:


OGN (http://www.ognlol.com/live/main) has Azubu Frost playing with support Brand, AD Jayce. Annie mid, support rushes WoTA.

[TFT]

I hate solo queue sometimes.

So, in order:

Duo'd with a friend so we played botlane. My friend didn't know the matchup, and we lost lane and game mainly because of that.

Played Lux mid because someone else picked a support after I called and picked and didn't want to dodge. Didn't end well.(I don't play mid lux often.)

Vayne backs lvl 2 with 2 healthpots and 1/3 health.(The enemy team, having about the same amount of damage, just stayed in lane). Since they have a snowball lane, they kill me while trying to soak up xp and snowball the lane hard from there with their level up. No other lane won.

Played Only Jaximus in smurf form. Despite winning lane(admittedly due to camp), we lose the game because skarner ulted their support twice and their morde killed trist fast a couple of times and no one jumped on the ad carry. We were 17-5 at one point. : /

Triple bugsplat. Not much I can do there.

And suddenly I'm down 100 elo. I'll admit I made mistakes and generally didn't play well, but to lose that many games because of outside factors is frustrating, to say the least. Maybe I'll just try to pick up mid and carry every game.

[sonofzeal]

What would you guys recommend for Urgot's build order in Dominion?



Last game I started Brutalizer + 2 pots, went bot, proceeded to get two kills off Rengar within the first couple minutes, and took their bot completely unopposed - and managed to sit on it off and on through most of the game. I did seem to be falling off late-game, which I'm told is normal for Urgot, but I'd be interesting in opinions on improving.

Final build order: start Brutalizer, rush Blackfire Torch, then Sheen building towards Triforce. Ninja Tabi boots instead of the Ionian I usually get for him, since I already had good CDR from Brut and BFT.

Next time, I'm tempted to leave it at Sheen and not go for TriForce at all. In SR I'd try to get Manamune, and earlier rather than later, but I'm not sure if that's wise here with less time to charge and less pressing mana issues in general. I guess just building AD is the thing?

[Dada]

I am curious to why you would get blackfire. I'd probably start boots+Prospectors blade, rush Brutalizer, then build depending on my opponent and their team in general. Hexdrinker, Mercs vs. magic, Frozen Heart vs. physical, Triforce is solid, I assume Entropy would be good as well. Last Whisper is good too. I am no expert at Urgot, nor at Dominion though.

[Eldariel]

What would you guys recommend for Urgot's build order in Dominion?

Brutalizer > Frozen Heart > Tanky **** (Aegis of the Legion/Banshee/Maw/etc.) > Last Whisper if it looks like that kind of a game (Trinity Force is remotely viable as you kinda sit there and shoot people in the face anyways and Sheen's always procced).

Urgot's a bruiser's bruiser who mostly cares about getting 40% CDR, some Armor Penetration and then initiating fights with ult and duking it out. Items that give some mana don't hurt either.


His AD scaling is **** (his Q's .85; even full combo of E Q Q Q Q is only 4.0 over 5 seconds). Don't bother with a lot of AD; Hexdrinker & Brut are items with individually good stats so those work but beyond that it's all crap. Just stack useful auras and defensive stats (MR and Armor > HP since you have a low cooldown shield), shift into the enemy team, keep slowing them all, reducing their armor & damage and nuking them in the face; kite as desired, he's a brutal kiter. FH and Brut is 30% CDR so all you need is 10% from Masteries (I run 8/15/7 on him) to cap out.

Sauron suggests that piecemeal crit build (and starting Manamune against extremely tanky enemies is viable) but I find just plain tanky works better for holding the points and he really isn't one for burst damage.

[sonofzeal]

I am curious to why you would get blackfire. I'd probably start boots+Prospectors blade, rush Brutalizer, then build depending on my opponent and their team in general. Hexdrinker, Mercs vs. magic, Frozen Heart vs. physical, Triforce is solid, I assume Entropy would be good as well. Last Whisper is good too. I am no expert at Urgot, nor at Dominion though.
Urgot's Q is one of the most spammable pokes in the game. With a 2 second cooldown and 1000 range, not to mention the whole lock-on thing from his E, I figured that'd make it a sweet way to pound someone with BFT procs. And heck, Urgot's E itself burns for 5 seconds, constantly refreshing BFT procs every tick.

It occured to me when the item first came out, and then I saw Sauron's famous Dominion Tier thingywhatsit specifically call out Urgot's ridiculous synergy with the item, wasted stats be damned. AP Urgot OP. Or somethin'. :P

[Cogwheel]

I feel a bit bad for even asking this, but...

What build order/runes/masteries would you recommend for jungle Karthus? I can make a couple guesses, but if I'm going to make a fool of myself, I want to do it right.

[ex cathedra]

I ****ing love jungle karthus, yo.

9/12/9, picking up MPen, damage reduction, armor, HP, mana regen, and buff duration. Boots+3 and Regrowth+1 are my favorite starts.

MPen reds, armor yellows, scaling AP blues, and flat AP or preferably Spellvamp quints. Smite/Flash or Teleport/Flash if you're saintvicious trolling normals.

[Cogwheel]

I ****ing love jungle karthus, yo.

9/12/9, picking up MPen, damage reduction, armor, HP, mana regen, and buff duration. Boots+3 and Regrowth+1 are my favorite starts.

MPen reds, armor yellows, scaling AP blues, and flat AP or preferably Spellvamp quints. Smite/Flash or Teleport/Flash if you're saintvicious trolling normals.

Hmm. If I can't afford those runes (have flat health quints, flat armour yellows, ArPen reds and flat MR blues), and the quints/reds are tier 2...

Well, I should avoid buying tier 2 and also upgrade my runes once I can afford to, but besides that, does this invalidate a boots or regrowth start?

[Eldariel]

Hmm. If I can't afford those runes (have flat health quints, flat armour yellows, ArPen reds and flat MR blues), and the quints/reds are tier 2...

Well, I should avoid buying tier 2 and also upgrade my runes once I can afford to, but besides that, does this invalidate a boots or regrowth start?

Much comes down to your mechanics too; Q positioning, timing Qs right to get the autoattacks, kiting & maximizing mana gains from E while keeping it active as possible.

But yeah, I think Boots start should still be viable, especially since Health Quints are good for first jungle clear specifically.


Completely unrelated, we had an awesome Assassin Wars (and Malphite) game with Adumb on 3v3 just now:
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/7048/3v3kassadin.png

We did few silly mistakes and Zed wasn't very useful so we almost managed to throw it but then methodical play and me finally getting my own play right turned us into beginning to win it.

Playing Kassadin is such a painful balancing act when anybody in the enemy team can kill you in about two seconds, and you have 3 such targets to kill.

[ex cathedra]

Armor yellows are the only truly essential part; scaling AP blues are for mid/late-game and have negligible effects on your first clear while jungle monsters don't even have MR so 9 MPen isn't necessary.

At some point you'll definitely need to save up for tier 3 runes, but take what you have and just test it out.

[lord_khaine]

Dammit, CLG.EU vs scandinavian wolfes, and the bastards ban Aniva :smallfrown:

[ex cathedra]

Of course. We've discussed this. She's overpowered :p

Anyways, Fnatic 3-0'd their group and 2-0'd their semis. :D
I'm so proud. It'd be solid if they took first overall, and they're well on their way towards it.

[MCerberus]

Winrate, yes. Unless a champion is winning +-10-15% games from the 50% mark (and currently a few champions are that extreme, according to LoLKing), I'd be more concerned about Draft results, which remove the mirror-matchup possibility.

That would be interesting to see, but Riot doesn't make public a lot of their internal statistics for obvious reasons. I still contend that it isn't some sort of rampaging issue, since people are beating Anivia pretty solidly with a ton of bad matchups.

Toasty, Anivia doesn't have a dash or escape mechanism. A stun/silence actually turns off her sustained damage for a good period after it wears off, unlike AD characters. Her Q is slow, hilariously slow. This is why those are more important than against the examples you've listed.

[McDouggal]

Ok, went to buy Shen, realized I was only 250-odd IP away from a 6300. Played a few, bought Lee Sin.

I love the champ. But what the heck is a good jungle path with him? I'm *thinking* that Redbuff-wraiths-gank mid-wolves-donate blue-gank top-recall is the way to go, but I've had a jungler that doesn't want Blue right at the start.

[ChaosOS]

Riot is actually about to make a lot of stats available with the incoming release of their API.

[toasty]

Of course. We've discussed this. She's overpowered :p

Anyways, Fnatic 3-0'd their group and 2-0'd their semis. :D
I'm so proud. It'd be solid if they took first overall, and they're well on their way towards it.

Ah yeah CLG.EU v Fnatic finals. Fnatic won Dreamhack in 2010, CLG in 2012 (was there even League at Dreamhack in 2011? Don't believe so).

[ChaosOS]

Dem froggen lazors. So much snipage. Lux OP, amirite?

[Eldariel]

Ah yeah CLG.EU v Fnatic finals. Fnatic won Dreamhack in 2010, CLG in 2012 (was there even League at Dreamhack in 2011? Don't believe so).

Fnatic won in 2011, there was none on 2010. The first and the only big tourney of 2010 was the WCG (and indeed, the first big LoL tourney, period).

[toasty]

Fnatic won in 2011, there was none on 2010. The first and the only big tourney of 2010 was the WCG (and indeed, the first big LoL tourney, period).

>_> I got my dates messed up. Makes sense actually, there was a LoL LAN at Dreamhack Summer, but none at Dreamhack Winter 2011.

[Xiander]

Okay, i started playing recently. I am closing in on level 12 and that delicious flash spell.

And i find myself very confused about how to itemize. I have been looking at some guides, and they do help me build for the champions they concern.
I still feel i lack an intuition about what to buy and when, though.

Can anyone give me some general tips about itemization?

I get that AD champs wants attack damage, but why should i buy one over sized sword over another?

If It matters I tend towards playing AP champions. I already have Annie. I almost have gold to buy Lulu, and after that i will save for Cho'gath.


Help please :smallsmile:

[toasty]

There are a few different "classes" in League that will help guide you towards Itemization, however in general, itemization in League is something that is rather complex, because there are quite a few different stats you can decide to focus, even amongst specific classes.

Currently, the most straightforward class is AD Carry. These are Ranged heroes who generally duo lane bottom with a support, though many are good at soloing. For these guys you generally start Boots 3, get 1-2 Doran's Blade, and then get a Vamp Scepter and Attack Speed Boots and build into Infinity Edge. After that you certainly get a Phantom Dancer, which can be followed either by a Guardian Angel to live longer or a Last Whisper to kill things better.

Mages are also very straightforward, but there are basically three openings, each dependent on your hero. In general, starting boots+3 pot is strong, almost mandatory. After that you can opt for 1-2 Doran's Rings on most mages. Sorc shoes are the most straightfoward boots to build. You should Mana Intensive, Sustained damagers, such as Orianna, Anivia, and Karthus like to get CDR and Mana, so items like Chalice of Harmony are great. Everyone generally likes Deathcap so that's a good 2nd item. Pretty much every mage likes to rush deathcap, just because its such a huge damage spike if you can get one before 20 minutes. Deathcap+Void Staff is the ultimate damage build for mages, and interestingly, Blue Buff+Blue Elixir gives you 30% CDR, and you can often pick up some CDR through Runes and Masters to get to the CDR Cap.

However, you could also go for some other interesting builds like a Hourglass Rush, which is really good on initiating Mages, like Morgana and Kennen. You could go for flat spell pen which is really strong early-mid game. This is good on snowbally assassins or heroes with generally strong base stats like Vlad. Flat Spell Pen generally means Sorc Shoes, Haunting Guise and Abyssal Scepter.

Everything else is a lot more complicated. Bruisers are really messy in terms of itemization theory-crafting, and Junglers or supports are generally pretty starved item wise, beyond that, most Junglers are Tanks or Bruisers anyways, so they itemize like that. Supports get Wards, Gold/10s and whatever they can manage, usually looking for auras or team support items like Shurelias. I suggest using lolpro.com or solomid.net and browsing their guides for different heroes. Lolpro has real quality guides and Solomid.net used to, but I haven't checked them out recently, to be honest.

[ChaosOS]

I'll also throw out there that some of the itemization is going to change in the next patch, but the recommended items are a ton better so it's going to be more straightforward.

[toasty]

I'll also throw out there that some of the itemization is going to change in the next patch, but the recommended items are a ton better so it's going to be more straightforward.

This is true. And indeed, if you're a new player at this point... its probably just best to mess around and get a feel for the game and discuss item builds with the rest of us 1-2 weeks after patch. :smallbiggrin:

Having said that... its probably likely that a lot of itemization won't change. We'll see change, but I don't know if it will be as big as Riot is hyping. Its an expansion pack, not a sequel. :smallbiggrin:

[ex cathedra]

Bruiser itemization is going to be cray-cray, yo, as will support itemization I suspect. AP will expand a little bit and AD probably... won't.

[toasty]

Bruiser itemization is going to be cray-cray, yo, as will support itemization I suspect. AP will expand a little bit and AD probably... won't.

To be fair, its already kinda complicated (Bruiser itemization) its just gonna get MORE complicated. :smallbiggrin:

[toasty]

I really have no idea what CLG.EU was thinking that last game. Its exciting to see Fnatic and winning LANs, even if it is only in EU with only CLG as their real competition (well, I suppose Crs.EU SHOULD have been competative, but they weren't), I'm hopeful that we will continue to see improvement out of Soaz, because if that's the case this is a really solid lineup.

I also find it funny how Fnatic is really just the best players of Fnatic/aAa+Nrated (who played with aAa V2). I also find it humorous that Soaz is now playing professionally after refusing to join SK because he wanted to commit to his studies.

[ex cathedra]

Fnatic is da best, obviously.

[tyckspoon]

I love the champ. But what the heck is a good jungle path with him? I'm *thinking* that Redbuff-wraiths-gank mid-wolves-donate blue-gank top-recall is the way to go, but I've had a jungler that doesn't want Blue right at the start.

Wraiths-Redbuff-check mid/bot for gank opportunity would be my start; with some team aid or a good speed-clearer you can do the camp with plenty of time to get to the Red camp, and it leaves you in a better position to go to Bot if that's the better gank while not being that much farther away from Mid (on the other hand, it's a bit awkward if you decide you don't have a good gank and just want to go into the other half of the jungle and farm more, because the wraith camp probably won't be back up just yet and it's largely not worth the time and HP spent on doing double Golems until you can beat them down easily.)

Golems-Redbuff-gank-or-more-farm could be feasible too, especially since the very first part of your path is the only time you can probably count on getting help with the golems (as mentioned before, after this you will probably ignore them/let your laners pick them up on the way out of/back to lane.) That'll put you in the same central ganking Mid or Bot location and leave an obvious way to move on to if you don't see a gank happening; you can just hit Wraiths and Wolves on your way to donating that Blue.

[sonofzeal]

Okay, i started playing recently. I am closing in on level 12 and that delicious flash spell.

And i find myself very confused about how to itemize. I have been looking at some guides, and they do help me build for the champions they concern.
I still feel i lack an intuition about what to buy and when, though.

Can anyone give me some general tips about itemization?

I get that AD champs wants attack damage, but why should i buy one over sized sword over another?

If It matters I tend towards playing AP champions. I already have Annie. I almost have gold to buy Lulu, and after that i will save for Cho'gath.


Help please :smallsmile:
Hey there!

I'm still working my way up too (lvl 23), and.... honestly, I find people tend to exaggerate the differences. There's a lot of variation out there, different build orders giving strengths in different areas, and even some of the more unusual ones can be effective precisely because they're unexpected. That said, there's certainly builds that are vastly better than others.

As a general rule of thumb, look for special synergies. Champions that have an attack speed boost do better with attack damage items, and vice versa. Health (including health from shields) has a similar relationship with armor/MR. Champions who have low cooldowns and expect to be in Auto-Attack range like Sheen (and Trinity Force / Lich Bane) more than champions who just have one or the other.

In particular, look for unusual combinations. I use this searchable database (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/items) regularly. For example, Cho'Gath adds AP to his auto-attack, so he likes AP and Attack Speed. He also gets big bonus health, and his passive gives healing, so Armor and MR are big for him. By looking up items with combinations of AP, AS, Armor, and MR, you'll probably end up with something viable.

For AP characters I usually start with Boots + 3 Potions (health or mana depends on the champ in question), get Kage's Lucky Pick as soon as I can for a bit of AP and that tasty gold income, and then Chalice of Harmony leading into Athene's Unholy Grail, followed by Rabadon's Deathcap. Some people get Rabadon's first, but I find the multiplicative nature of it makes it more valuable when you already have a couple AP items, and the mana regeneration bonus from Chalice/Grail is a lifesaver early game for many mages. After that, it's really up to the champion in question, how the game's going, etc. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is great for Annie because of her relative lack of Crowd Control / Escape tools, and because the bonus health synergizes with the bonus defences from her shield. Will of the Ancients might be better on Lulu because she's more Support-y and the aura will help the team. And either Void Staff or Abyssal Scepter are pretty much mandatory at some point for mages who like dealing damage.

But really, there's a lot of viable build orders out there, and what works at high ELO for lvl 30 summoners might not apply in the slightest for those of us down with the newbies. A lot of core assumptions simply don't apply. And, more importantly, a lot changes based on your own personal playstyle. I tend to forget to activate Actives on my items, and my computer is usually a little laggy in big fights anyway, so I avoid those unless it's clearly the perfect choice.

Good luck, and feel free to add me as a contact - same name as I use here. :)

[toasty]

For AP characters I usually start with Boots + 3 Potions (health or mana depends on the champ in question), get Kage's Lucky Pick as soon as I can for a bit of AP and that tasty gold income, and then Chalice of Harmony leading into Athene's Unholy Grail, followed by Rabadon's Deathcap. Some people get Rabadon's first, but I find the multiplicative nature of it makes it more valuable when you already have a couple AP items, and the mana regeneration bonus from Chalice/Grail is a lifesaver early game for many mages. After that, it's really up to the champion in question, how the game's going, etc. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is great for Annie because of her relative lack of Crowd Control / Escape tools, and because the bonus health synergizes with the bonus defences from her shield. Will of the Ancients might be better on Lulu because she's more Support-y and the aura will help the team. And either Void Staff or Abyssal Scepter are pretty much mandatory at some point for mages who like dealing damage.

As few thoughts:
Kage's Lucky pick isn't always a good choice because it weakens your laning phase. It might be the "best" Gold/10 item for middle lane, but its still not amazing.

Athenes is really good, but many mages don't have mana and/or mana problems (for instance, NEVER build Athenes on Annie!).

Abyssal is not a late game item, it is a mid-game item. The best Abyssal build is one that stacks as much Flat Pen as possible, and/or exists in a Double AP comp.

Will of the Ancients is largely useless now, even on supporty-APs such as lulu. If you want a utility item, get Rylais, Hourglass, or Abyssal, those are the good utility AP items. Lichbane too, I suppose, at least for Twisted Fate.

[Godskook]

For example, Cho'Gath adds AP to his auto-attack, so he likes AP and Attack Speed. He also gets big bonus health, and his passive gives healing, so Armor and MR are big for him. By looking up items with combinations of AP, AS, Armor, and MR, you'll probably end up with something viable.

Be careful when saying that. People might get the impression Nashor's is better on him than it is. Granted, AS is really good on him, and AP is really good on him, but there aren't any good AS/AP items for him(I suppose a late-game Nashors into an otherwise AP bruiser build would work, but nobody should rush that on him).

Also, you missed CDR. CDR is *REALLY* good on him. He loves Frozen Heart, and the Gp5 meta of S2 was really good to him as well, since adding Omen+Reverie makes 40% CDR. Add choice MR options plus Mercs, and you had a jungle Cho build(really, FoN, Abyssal and Wits were all good on him).

[Silverraptor]

I just checked my justice review on Tribunal and found my first permabanned player that arose from one of my judgements!:smallbiggrin: I'm probably more excited than I should be.:smalltongue:

[LordShotGun]

I just checked my justice review on Tribunal and found my first permabanned player that arose from one of my judgements!:smallbiggrin: I'm probably more excited than I should be.:smalltongue:

Do you feel a small rush of power? A greater sense of self? Perhaps defeating these internet trolls has finally given you enough experience to level up.

Now you just have to figure out what class you want to take or perhaps if you even qualify for a prestige class!

[NineThePuma]

Nah. Silver is like a Champion.

He's gonna single class all the way.

[Silverraptor]

Do you feel a small rush of power? A greater sense of self? Perhaps defeating these internet trolls has finally given you enough experience to level up.

Now you just have to figure out what class you want to take or perhaps if you even qualify for a prestige class!


Nah. Silver is like a Champion.

He's gonna single class all the way.

:smallbiggrin:

[TechnOkami]

:smallbiggrin:

I see you smilin' boy. Get back on your Raptor (he's obviously a beast master riding the beast itself).

[sonofzeal]

Be careful when saying that. People might get the impression Nashor's is better on him than it is. Granted, AS is really good on him, and AP is really good on him, but there aren't any good AS/AP items for him(I suppose a late-game Nashors into an otherwise AP bruiser build would work, but nobody should rush that on him).
Well, I don't claim to be a Cho master. Or, really, a master at anything. And while you may know all the pros and cons of each item, and what's considered "viable" or "unviable", people like Xiander and I generally don't. So rather than break down specific itemizations for each champion, I was trying to discuss the way you can try to make educated guesses by yourself. Educated guesses (like Nashor's) are never going to be quite as good as the community results of thousands upon thousands of games of experimentation, but they'll be a big step up from the "Recommended" lists and give a stepping stone for future improvement. That was the idea anyway.


Also, you missed CDR. CDR is *REALLY* good on him. He loves Frozen Heart, and the Gp5 meta of S2 was really good to him as well, since adding Omen+Reverie makes 40% CDR. Add choice MR options plus Mercs, and you had a jungle Cho build(really, FoN, Abyssal and Wits were all good on him).
I'm of the opinion that CDR is really good on just about everyone. There's a few exceptions, but for most characters it'll help them leverage their power much more effectively. Still, yeah, I should have mentioned that.


As few thoughts:
Kage's Lucky pick isn't always a good choice because it weakens your laning phase. It might be the "best" Gold/10 item for middle lane, but its still not amazing.

Athenes is really good, but many mages don't have mana and/or mana problems (for instance, NEVER build Athenes on Annie!).

Abyssal is not a late game item, it is a mid-game item. The best Abyssal build is one that stacks as much Flat Pen as possible, and/or exists in a Double AP comp.

Will of the Ancients is largely useless now, even on supporty-APs such as lulu. If you want a utility item, get Rylais, Hourglass, or Abyssal, those are the good utility AP items. Lichbane too, I suppose, at least for Twisted Fate.
*shrugs* Opinions differ, and situations differ. I like Kage's on Annie because her laning phase is strong anyway and the extra gold really helps later. And when I was only barely squeaking in to double-digit summoner levels, my last-hitting wasn't fantastic and my mana conservation was poor, even with Annie, so Athenes was quite useful, especially since it's such a strong item overall. This is kind of what I was talking about earlier - what holds true for people with tones of experience and skill doesn't always apply to newbies. Yeah, a well-played Annie won't need Athene's, but that leaves some things unsaid. :smallwink:

[ChaosOS]

CDR is good on people who are tanky and can actually wait for their CDs. ADCs for example 1. Don't derive most of their DPS from skills and 2. Need to focus more on getting damage than survivability CDR would provide on dashes.

Mages it depends on mage to mage, for example Lux likes CDR because 40% CDR means she can get another rotation of spells in a fight which is huge because of her enormous bases and ridiculous utility. Anivia tends to be tanky, and Orianna already has short CDs so she directly scales her DPS with CDR.

[TheShrike]

I'm of the opinion that CDR is really good on just about everyone. There's a few exceptions, but for most characters it'll help them leverage their power much more effectively. Still, yeah, I should have mentioned that.

Everyone benefits from CDR, but not everyone benefits enough to itemize it. A fair amount of mages care little for CDR and most AD carrys care nothing at all, most bruisers love it but even some of them (Jax, Nocturne, Wukong) care less. Sure, everyone in the game wants 40% CDR, but some characters just want other stuff more.

[Godskook]

Well, I don't claim to be a Cho master. Or, really, a master at anything.

Eh, I wasn't disagreeing with ya, just expounding on a point your post left misleading.



Educated guesses (like Nashor's) are never going to be quite as good as the community results of thousands upon thousands of games of experimentation, but they'll be a big step up from the "Recommended" lists and give a stepping stone for future improvement. That was the idea anyway.

I'm not aware of Cho's recommended list, but Nashors can be pretty bad when rushed.


I'm of the opinion that CDR is really good on just about everyone. There's a few exceptions, but for most characters it'll help them leverage their power much more effectively. Still, yeah, I should have mentioned that.

Yeah, pretty much everyone. The main exceptions are AD carries(still not bad here, but its not worth itemizing over auto-damage) and energy users(since CDR doesn't fix their energy consumption issues).


Athenes is really good, but many mages don't have mana and/or mana problems (for instance, NEVER build Athenes on Annie!).

That's what's called a bad example. While Athene's might not be "primary build" on Annie, its definitely "sideboard", to borrow a MtG term. Hell, Athene's status on mage sideboard is among the hardest to deny. CDR+AP+MR, how can you go wrong? With the aura nerf to Abyssal, Athene's is probably the go-to mage v. mage dueling item right now.


Abyssal is not a late game item, it is a mid-game item. The best Abyssal build is one that stacks as much Flat Pen as possible, and/or exists in a Double AP comp.

Except Abyssal has been scaling just fine into late game for over two years, with only one major nerf in that time, and that nerf didn't hit the item's scaling power. Granted, if you're playing someone who'd rather have Voidstaff, buy that instead, but some champions need the MR more than that extra M-Pen


Will of the Ancients is largely useless now

On 'standard' mages, maybe, but Vlad and Morde still love it

[Nadevoc]

*shrugs* Opinions differ, and situations differ. I like Kage's on Annie because her laning phase is strong anyway and the extra gold really helps later.

This might seem odd, but champs with strong laning phases are exactly who SHOULDN'T be getting GP5, at least in my opinion. I understand the thinking - GP5 are weak items, and champs with a strong laning phase even that out to have an okay laning phase and then the extra gold. But I've always felt champs with strong laning phases should take items that accentuate it, then really push that advantage home. I see some people buy GP5 items on Darius because his laning phase is strong enough to withstand it, but they give up their ability to really lane bully. Instead, buy items that make your laning phase even stronger (Doran's, Phage, rush the Deathcap, whatever) and just bully your opponent out of the lane, giving yourself some kills and free farm AND putting your lane opponent behind.

[McDouggal]

When I play Ryze, I build him without CDR. Since his passive and Q and...

Am I a bad person? Every other Ryze I see has CDR in their build.

[tyckspoon]

When I play Ryze, I build him without CDR. Since his passive and Q and...

Am I a bad person? Every other Ryze I see has CDR in their build.

Yes. Get a Frozen Heart.

(Edit: It's not *just* that capping out CDR is good, but the good CDR items *also* are really good items for Ryze. Mana, CDR, and a huge chunk of survivability against ADs on a champ who scales his damage by mana, benefits greatly from CDR, and has to get uncomfortably close to enemy champs to fight? Why would you *not* do this?)

[ex cathedra]

His passive doesn't replace building CDR, it encourages it. The faster your spells cool down = the faster your proc your passive = the faster your spells cooldown and so forth. They multiply each other.

[ChaosOS]

A 1s reduction in the CD of a spell with a 3 second CD vs. a 2s CD is a huge difference, 33% of the CD vs. 50% of the CD. CDR scales multiplicatively with his passive, which is why always getting 40% CDR on ryze is critical to maximizing his damage output. Plus, y'know, more snares is always good.

[Godskook]

When I play Ryze, I build him without CDR. Since his passive and Q and...

Am I a bad person? Every other Ryze I see has in their build.

Yes, you are. You asked....

More seriously, there's very little justification for not building Frozen Heart on Ryze, other than that he's in a mage v. mage lane. CDR is too vital on him to rely on Blue Buff for hitting the cap.

Edit:

Gawd, that game. 13/3/14 as Udyr. Started rolling early game, decided I was far enough ahead to buy a Bloodthirster*. Kept rolling, decided I'd buy Trinity too**. Finally decided to buy GA/Shurelya's for the final push, mostly just to tell the other team they couldn't kill me anymore(they didn't).

*I always get double Gp5s before making this decision, but my normal Elo is low enough that I can sometimes afford to buy damage when I play my main.

**I don't think I've ever done quite this well before.

[Math_Mage]

This might seem odd, but champs with strong laning phases are exactly who SHOULDN'T be getting GP5, at least in my opinion. I understand the thinking - GP5 are weak items, and champs with a strong laning phase even that out to have an okay laning phase and then the extra gold. But I've always felt champs with strong laning phases should take items that accentuate it, then really push that advantage home. I see some people buy GP5 items on Darius because his laning phase is strong enough to withstand it, but they give up their ability to really lane bully. Instead, buy items that make your laning phase even stronger (Doran's, Phage, rush the Deathcap, whatever) and just bully your opponent out of the lane, giving yourself some kills and free farm AND putting your lane opponent behind.

Solo laners that want g/10 items have three criteria:
-Doesn't bully lane
-Farms safely
-Doesn't need a critical item for mid-game

Darius is an example of a champ that needs other items to bully his lane. Galio is an example of a champ that needs other items (Chalice) to farm safely. Morgana is an example of a champ that has to rush a critical item (Zhonya's). An example of a champion that fits all three criteria is Lux in mid lane, or Cho'gath in top lane. Lux wants Kage's; Cho wants Philo and often HoG as well (though that won't last into S3).

[Laudandus]

His passive doesn't replace building CDR, it encourages it. The faster your spells cool down = the faster your proc your passive = the faster your spells cooldown and so forth. They multiply each other.

CDR also scales with more CDR, which is why reaching the CDR cap is a thing.

100% cd length -> 90% cd length is a significantly smaller difference than 70%->60% in terms of percentage of remaining cooldown you're getting rid of.

[Dada]

CDR also scales with more CDR, which is why reaching the CDR cap is a thing.

100% cd length -> 90% cd length is a significantly smaller difference than 70%->60% in terms of percentage of remaining cooldown you're getting rid of.

Huh, I have never actually thought about it this way before. Thanks!

[Renegade Paladin]

Well, my sister has talked me into taking up LoL, so I might as well check in here. For the first time ever, Renegade Paladin was already taken, so I went with New Clean Garen. :smalltongue:

[9mm]

Well, my sister has talked me into taking up LoL, so I might as well check in here. For the first time ever, Renegade Paladin was already taken, so I went with New Clean Garen. :smalltongue:

Welcome!

jump on mumble for craziness; but remember to ask for smurfs while you get your feet wet.

[Renegade Paladin]

Welcome!

jump on mumble for craziness; but remember to ask for smurfs while you get your feet wet.

I've played DotA since the original map, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with the format. But all that means is I know enough to know that I can't expect to pick up all the intricacies of all the character, ability, and item interactions for a good, long time, so yeah. I'll do that. I've been on the Mumble server already, but everyone was either muted or in team rooms, and I know better than to interrupt teams in game.

[Reynard]

I've been on the Mumble server already, but everyone was either muted or in team rooms, and I know better than to interrupt teams in game.

Ahahahaha.

People shift around the server all the time, usually joining rooms that friends are in or searching for others. The only time people will complain about you joining a room they're in is if you're then talk loudly over people, or spectate on their game and comment about what the gold values are.

[toasty]

I've played DotA since the original map, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with the format. But all that means is I know enough to know that I can't expect to pick up all the intricacies of all the character, ability, and item interactions for a good, long time, so yeah. I'll do that. I've been on the Mumble server already, but everyone was either muted or in team rooms, and I know better than to interrupt teams in game.

I havent been on mumble in forever, but generally its less of a "we're in a game" and more of "we're in a room, maybe playing a game." Very few people mind people hopping in and talking. Often times 2-3 groups will be in a room talking about different games.

If people don't want you in the room, they'll let you know.

[Mtg_player_zach]

I usually just mute people I don't want to talk to. Which doesn't really happen that often anyway.

[Xiander]

Hey there!

I'm still working my way up too (lvl 23), and.... honestly, I find people tend to exaggerate the differences. There's a lot of variation out there, different build orders giving strengths in different areas, and even some of the more unusual ones can be effective precisely because they're unexpected. That said, there's certainly builds that are vastly better than others.

As a general rule of thumb, look for special synergies. Champions that have an attack speed boost do better with attack damage items, and vice versa. Health (including health from shields) has a similar relationship with armor/MR. Champions who have low cooldowns and expect to be in Auto-Attack range like Sheen (and Trinity Force / Lich Bane) more than champions who just have one or the other.

In particular, look for unusual combinations. I use this searchable database (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/items) regularly. For example, Cho'Gath adds AP to his auto-attack, so he likes AP and Attack Speed. He also gets big bonus health, and his passive gives healing, so Armor and MR are big for him. By looking up items with combinations of AP, AS, Armor, and MR, you'll probably end up with something viable.

For AP characters I usually start with Boots + 3 Potions (health or mana depends on the champ in question), get Kage's Lucky Pick as soon as I can for a bit of AP and that tasty gold income, and then Chalice of Harmony leading into Athene's Unholy Grail, followed by Rabadon's Deathcap. Some people get Rabadon's first, but I find the multiplicative nature of it makes it more valuable when you already have a couple AP items, and the mana regeneration bonus from Chalice/Grail is a lifesaver early game for many mages. After that, it's really up to the champion in question, how the game's going, etc. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is great for Annie because of her relative lack of Crowd Control / Escape tools, and because the bonus health synergizes with the bonus defences from her shield. Will of the Ancients might be better on Lulu because she's more Support-y and the aura will help the team. And either Void Staff or Abyssal Scepter are pretty much mandatory at some point for mages who like dealing damage.

But really, there's a lot of viable build orders out there, and what works at high ELO for lvl 30 summoners might not apply in the slightest for those of us down with the newbies. A lot of core assumptions simply don't apply. And, more importantly, a lot changes based on your own personal playstyle. I tend to forget to activate Actives on my items, and my computer is usually a little laggy in big fights anyway, so I avoid those unless it's clearly the perfect choice.

Good luck, and feel free to add me as a contact - same name as I use here. :)

Thank you, this was a very nice answer to get, and it even inspired some useful discussion. I appreciate that :smallsmile:

If you don't mind I really would like to add you, I am on the EU north east server though, is that a problem?

[McDouggal]

I am support. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aea9IQlNphU&feature=relmfu)

That is all.

[NineThePuma]

lol. Motivational XD

[MCerberus]

I am support. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aea9IQlNphU&feature=relmfu)

That is all.

I think this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1EG-MKy4so&feature=fvst)is a better way to play support.

But then again my main supports are Zyra/Nunu/Leona so... that song is applicable.

[ZeroNumerous]

..., or spectate on their game and comment about what the gold values are.

Never do this, please. God that's so infuriating.

[Tychris1]

I think this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1EG-MKy4so&feature=fvst)is a better way to play support.

But then again my main supports are Zyra/Nunu/Leona so... that song is applicable.

This plays in my head every time i'm bot and I stealth away from a gank by the jungler.

Even say it out loud if it's mid lane coming aswell to gank my little rat self (Add in Hue's if it's an entire team gank).

[Lix Lorn]

Never do this, please. God that's so infuriating.
I don't get why that's annoying. If I'm in a 5 queue and another friend is like 'Oh hey, you're only 1k behind' 'Actually, you may be down fifteen kills and a turret, but you're 500 gold ahead' is pretty interesting. Sometimes useful.

[MCerberus]

This plays in my head every time i'm bot and I stealth away from a gank by the jungler.

Even say it out loud if it's mid lane coming aswell to gank my little rat self (Add in Hue's if it's an entire team gank).

Also most Anivia kills end up this way, since if you don't trololo them, you end with an assist. Flash into a Q... get walled off from their team... dive egg under tower.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I don't get why that's annoying. If I'm in a 5 queue and another friend is like 'Oh hey, you're only 1k behind' 'Actually, you may be down fifteen kills and a turret, but you're 500 gold ahead' is pretty interesting. Sometimes useful.

It's annoying because it can cause a team to either become complacent in their lead, or discouraged by how far behind they are. Proper spectator etiquette should, as a result, be to perhaps offer details and/or remain quiet about that stuff until asked, but it should NEVER be to give that information unasked.

[ex cathedra]

It's annoying because it can cause a team to either become complacent in their lead, or discouraged by how far behind they are. Proper spectator etiquette should, as a result, be to perhaps offer details and/or remain quiet about that stuff until asked, but it should NEVER be to give that information unasked.

This post bothers me quite a bit, but perhaps I'm reading into things that you didn't mean.

Firstly, it's the player's fault if they "grow complacent" or some nonsense like that. If you're winning you know that you're winning and if you're losing you should know that you're losing, so that strikes me as pointless whining but none of this is really my point.

Players should never be given information by spectators that they couldn't otherwise directly observe. That's straight-up cheating. Players should never ask for information from spectators unless that information is "is our jungler sucking" or something equally asinine.

In my opinion, the spectator's role is to A) make fun of the players in the game or B) shut the **** up.

[NineThePuma]

Why are there 15 different Hide and Seek variants?!?!

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Firstly, it's the player's fault if they "grow complacent" or some nonsense like that. If you're winning you know that you're winning and if you're losing you should know that you're losing, so that strikes me as pointless whining but none of this is really my point.

While true, it's still not a good idea to ever know exactly how much you're ahead or behind by. More to the case of being behind: most games CAN be recovered, and in my experience knowing the gold difference seems to make teams inclined to surrender even when victory is possible.


Players should never be given information by spectators that they couldn't otherwise directly observe. That's straight-up cheating. Players should never ask for information from spectators unless that information is "is our jungler sucking" or something equally asinine.

While I don't really like being given useful information like Dragon/Baron timers, Riot did push this feature with a 3 minute timer, so I'm not sure it's as bad as you say: they knew this was a possibility. That said, I tend to agree...to an extent. I don't want to know timers or even common ward locations, but I do like it when someone can analyze team fights and so forth. I consider that an intended functionality of spectator mode, whereas giving game-specific timin and location information isn't something that should be done.

In Conclusion: I agree with you, although I make an exception for fight-analysis and things that no longer have an effect on that the action, like "Where did Kassadin escape to after that fight?" My suggestions on spectator etiquette, however, comes from the fact that many people think (and it's reasonable to think this) that Riot wouldn't have released Spectator mode if they didn't expect people to try using it to share information. That's fine: we just prefer to utilize it differently. Outside of pure competitive tournament play, no one can really say what is right, given that the tool is available. I happen to agree with you, and others may not. So be it. :-)

[ex cathedra]

although I make an exception for fight-analysis

I think that's included in things that players could observe without spectator support.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I think that's included in things that players could observe without spectator support.

Indeed, although they would be unable to see the entire build-up and unable to grasp the entirety of the fight. That said, I edited in a bit on my last post: basically, you and I prefer to use Spectator Mode in why we consider a "fair" manner, while others see it as a tool Riot released and may choose to use it for all the information it can give. Since it's using only official, non-bugged Riot tools, it's not something I'd call cheating except in tournament play, so if others choose to use Spectator mode differently from me, that's their choice, and I'm ultimately fine with it.

In short, is is cheating? Not really. From your perspective, yes. From mine, they have more information than me, but I'm not going to call them on cheating, because, without breaking any rules, I COULD have the same information available. I just choose not to. It's only truly cheating when specifically disallowed (tournaments and the like).

[ex cathedra]

Last time I checked there aren't rules specifically against ghosting streams or using third-party applications to find out who you're queued against before you enter champion select, either.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Last time I checked there aren't rules specifically against ghosting streams or using third-party applications to find out who you're queued against before you enter champion select, either.

This is true. Although I'd be inclined to say that using an officially sanctioned resource included in the game is different from using one that's a third-party application.

I guess the real catch would be something I've never tried. I know you can type to people while spectating...does the client prevent you from communicating to the people in the game using /r? If it does, then yes, passing information from Spectator mode is not a supported feature, so using a third-party software for communication is technically cheating (although I don't think it's a big enough deal for me to worry about it, nor really think less of people for using it on occasion).

This is, however, a silly discussion, since none of us are on a level of competitiveness that this matters much, nor are (to my knowledge) any of us in the habit of having a friend spectate for the purpose of passing us information. I know a lot of us use it to have a laugh, offer some times, or analyze a fight, but information-passing tends to be both minor and very rare, in my Mumble/GitP group experience.

[NineThePuma]

Spectator Mode has a 3 minute delay. You could not give a 100% accurate play by play with it.

[Mtg_player_zach]

Spectator Mode has a 3 minute delay. You could not give a 100% accurate play by play with it.

You can give people buff timers.

Red/Blue: 5 min.
Dragon :6min.
Baron: 7min.

[ex cathedra]

Telling someone that a ward was placed top lane 3 minutes ago is huge, because you're telling them that a ward top just expired. Several skills have higher than 3 minute cooldowns and objective timers are similarly kind of a big deal. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be advantageous, which is to say that it doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be cheating.

[Godskook]

I guess the real catch would be something I've never tried. I know you can type to people while spectating...does the client prevent you from communicating to the people in the game using /r? If it does, then yes, passing information from Spectator mode is not a supported feature, so using a third-party software for communication is technically cheating (although I don't think it's a big enough deal for me to worry about it, nor really think less of people for using it on occasion).

Yes, you very much can chat with people who're in the game you're spectating.

[Forrestfire]

Out of curiosity, how do you chat when spectating games? It never shows the chat box for me at all.

[Godskook]

Out of curiosity, how do you chat when spectating games? It never shows the chat box for me at all.

There's a checkbox in the bottom left corner(in a sub menu, iirc) that opens chat.

After that, type:

/w "usernamehere" messagehere

to get the person you want. Afaik, the quotes are required for everyone, but it might be just for people with spaces in their names(like me).

[LordShotGun]

So I live in south Florida and I recently went to a comic/anime convention where I got to meet and talk to a certain voice actor name Spike Spencer.

Now who is this you may ask?

It is the guy who did WuKong's voice. When asked about this role that he did, he replied that he would "Totally love" to go back and record more lines because "Riot was awesome" and "Was tons of fun to work with".

He also stated that he ad-libbed a bunch of material that never was used but one line he wished they had used was "Oh yeah ladies, watch my rod extend!" for one of his joke lines.

As a person he was a bit smarmy but otherwise very energetic and entertaining.

[Merellis]

Lets play a quick round of "GUESS THE LANES!"
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee434/gmglyph/Trollingforkicks.png

[Mtg_player_zach]

Lets play a quick round of "GUESS THE LANES!"
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee434/gmglyph/Trollingforkicks.png

Mid Lee Sin
Jungle Ezreal
Cho Top
TF YI bot.

[McDouggal]

Do you have a champion who it's almost unfair to break out, since you're so good with that champ?

[TheShrike]

I'm fairly competent as Nasus, although some matchups remain basically unwinnable (Darius...), but if I feel like winning lane I tend to just grab Olaf and go to town. Before DFG change, I played a fairly decent Morde (lost only one game, although that one was fairly infamous).

[Cogwheel]

Do you have a champion who it's almost unfair to break out, since you're so good with that champ?

I have some champions that are easily my best or close to it.

I break them out when I go into the rare PVP match and want to end it feeling slightly less ashamed of myself than I usually do. Probably unfair to my teammates, at least, but so's my participation in the first place.

[PersonMan]

This plays in my head every time i'm bot and I stealth away from a gank by the jungler.

Yesterday I had a perfect case of this. I was Nunu, split pushing bot...suddenly, their fed Sivir comes from my side of the map. I rush towards their base, my thoughts on getting executed. Sivir is joined by their AP Yi. I go through their base, then start going through top lane.

Yi Alpha Strikes...haha! Banshee's Veil! I keep running, occasionally jerkily turning left and right to try and avoid Sivir's Q (she never used it, I must have been just out of range the whole time), Yi has ulted...

Executed! I had just led the two of them on a wild chase through bot lane, their base, across the entire map, essentially, to top lane, dying to their outer turret after forcing two ults to try and keep up with me.

Trollolol indeed.


I'm fairly competent as Nasus, although some matchups remain basically unwinnable (Darius...)

Interestingly enough, I've played this lane exactly once (as Nasus) and won. At level 1 I got zoned hardcore, but I got a level 2 gank that let me recover from that and win. Then again, I think a large part of it was that he wasn't all that good; when I was strong enough to easily 1v1 him and win he still came in, kidnapped me and tried to duel.

This was as AP Nasus, though, normal might do differently.

---

And now my need to provide anecdotal counter/similar examples is fulfilled!

[TheShrike]

Interestingly enough, I've played this lane exactly once (as Nasus) and won. At level 1 I got zoned hardcore, but I got a level 2 gank that let me recover from that and win. Then again, I think a large part of it was that he wasn't all that good; when I was strong enough to easily 1v1 him and win he still came in, kidnapped me and tried to duel.

This was as AP Nasus, though, normal might do differently.


See, I didn't get a jungle gank to help me out (got ganked, actually). I was the only lane doing reasonably, dying only once to a level 6 double tower dive (jungler as well) but managing to farm despite it. The problem is without jungle pressure, Nasus can't actually create an advantage against Darius (barring huge skill differences) so you can never get strong enough to take the free farm that you need.

[PersonMan]

See, I didn't get a jungle gank to help me out (got ganked, actually). I was the only lane doing reasonably, dying only once to a level 6 double tower dive (jungler as well) but managing to farm despite it. The problem is without jungle pressure, Nasus can't actually create an advantage against Darius (barring huge skill differences) so you can never get strong enough to take the free farm that you need.

Yeah, apart from Wither+Spirit Fire harass (the mana cost makes me cringe just mentioning it), you can't do much without going all-in. Of course, whether or not you'll win an all-in depends on how things have been going before, but Wither can really cramp Darius' style by saying "Hemorrhage stacks? Maybe in a few days, sure" while you can wail on him. Your ult gives only slightly less HP than his does damage, and using it early will give you more damage (one of the situations where you want to fight in a horde of mixed minions, to avoid taking aggro but getting more bonus AD).

Of course, it's a nasty enough lane that I don't want to test it.

[Winthur]

http://i46.tinypic.com/f0bx4l.jpg

Tinypic CAPTCHA says "stinking rich". Jarvan/Leona bot lane OP. I had 4 gold/10 items by 12 minutes. :smallbiggrin:

[NineThePuma]

looking, all I feel is pitty for that Nidalee. I don't even have to have watched the game, that blitz was a huge troll.

[Renegade Paladin]

I ran through the battle training tutorial a second time to try and get a better feel for the map, and ran into a bug. Apparently if the nexus is destroyed before you kill the dragon, it gives you the dragonslayer tip instead of ending the game, and the game won't end; it just stays there, camera locked on the destroyed nexus. :smallconfused:

[Cogwheel]

I ran through the battle training tutorial a second time to try and get a better feel for the map, and ran into a bug. Apparently if the nexus is destroyed before you kill the dragon, it gives you the dragonslayer tip instead of ending the game, and the game won't end; it just stays there, camera locked on the destroyed nexus. :smallconfused:

Hmm, that's an odd one.

I should try Battle Practice again. It has free Garen and Veigar.


At any rate, if you have time now, I would be happy to take you through a couple bot matches, teach you the basics and so on. I'm not exactly Sun Tzu like 90% of this thread, but I should be able to help a little, at least. Tried to add you, anyway, in case you're wondering who this "Omega Nixon" is.

[Lix Lorn]

Do you have a champion who it's almost unfair to break out, since you're so good with that champ?
Only in games with friends. If it's a normal, I call that 'wanting to win.' :P

I wouldn't play Ez vs my friends. Nor Talon. Or Teemo, but that's cause they hate him. Anivia is also a no-no.

[9mm]

So this has appeared on reddit. (http://s3.microtony.com/)

So, there are a ton of changes we haven't been told about if this is accurate.

[Silverraptor]

So... I had a really weird dream last night.

I had logged on and I assume everything had graduated to Season 3. I went to spectate Djinn who was playing... Nasus I think. I remember that over mumble was Mario and cwcriner talking to him, complaining about the spectate mode currently and Djinn agreeing with them. What they were complaining about was that pop-ups would appear at random times for no longer than 3 seconds with a new item and build and everything about the item. However, with only 3 seconds, you couldn't get a good look at the item before the display disappeared and you couldn't bring it back up.

Mario: "I mean, why would you put this in if you wouldn't actually allow people to look at the item properly?"

Djinn: "Or tell you how to optimize it. I mean, you could see it briefly, but they give to advice to their players on the best way to use it."

cwcriner: "I think they want their player base to figure out how they want to use them on their own."

Mario: "Well thats fine cwcriner, but displaying this for just a few seconds doesn't help their playerbase. Especially when they display this in the middle of the action for a few seconds."

Djinn: "The point is cwcriner, why would they put this display in the spectate mode over the action that you want to watch with not enough time for people to get a good look at it?"

Cwcriner: "Thats true. It is kinda stupid if you ask me."

I finally break the silence and speak out to them.

Me: "So, Djinn, Mario, Cwcriner. When Djinn finishes that game, would you guys be up for a game?"

Djinn: "Sorry Silver, but I'm only playing until I can get to level 6 and then I have to go."

That last statement was odd because Djinn was currently level 9 as Nasus in the specatator mode. So I naturally made the horrid conclusion that he meant summoner level and I was thinking "Did they wipe out all accounts back down to level 1?" Before I could check, I woke up.

While the entire conversation was going on, 2 displays appeared for 3 seconds each so I couldn't get a good look at it, but what I thought I saw was 2 completely new and different items that flashed up.

One gave only +20 attack damage with a longsword as a build prereq. Its ability though was that champion kills and assists gave 20% more gold. I was thinking it was interesting, because this encourage more aggressive lanes early on, but as champion deaths accumulate, the amount of gold diminished as the opposing champions value decreases. The final build cost was 900 or something like that.

The other item prereq was a cloth armor and a null-magic mantle. I didn't see much it terms of gold or stats, but I remember seeing the passive before the display disappeared. It said, (10 minute cooldown. Target enemy champion. The percentage of both your health totals are averaged and distributed evenly amoung the 2 of you.)

So, yeah. That was my dream last night. I'm probably going crazy.:smalltongue:

[Tychris1]

So this has appeared on reddit. (http://s3.microtony.com/)

So, there are a ton of changes we haven't been told about if this is accurate.

HIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHI YEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYEHIYE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0_6nRY5Jpo)

So....

BF sword and componets for IE: Cheaper
Bloodthirster: Now gives less lifesteal then before
Last whisper: Gives less ArPen but is cheaper.
Banshees Veil: RIDICULOUS drop on the cooldown
Mercurial Scimitar: YES! YES! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs)

Now I wish I had more item slots. So many good items for my rat :smallfrown:

[Qwertystop]

So this has appeared on reddit. (http://s3.microtony.com/)

So, there are a ton of changes we haven't been told about if this is accurate.

What are those things on the bottom?

[Forrestfire]

So, turns out Fiora can be incredibly snowbally, even without items. I think I got seven kills on Recaiden in our 1v1 game with just boots and double Dorans. :smalltongue:

And then he bought thornmail :smalleek:

Also, I am not sure if this guy (http://www.twitch.tv/kyrouky) is insane or... well, insane, I guess. He's trying to go from level 1 to 30 in one sitting. :smalleek:


What are those things on the bottom?

Looks to be special items. I see the two items from the utility mastery tree, the Rengar vs. Kha items, and Viktor's passive.

[PersonMan]

What are those things on the bottom?

Those are special items. Ones that only specific champs can buy/have or get via masteries.


So, turns out Fiora can be incredibly snowbally, even without items. I think I got seven kills on Recaiden in our 1v1 game with just boots and double Dorans. :smalltongue:

Yep. Part of why I love her.

[Qwertystop]

There's new masteries that give free one-minute wards and one-gold mini-potions? Nice.

Also, is that thing saying that the Head of Kha'Zix now needs to be bought instead of auto-changing?

[McDouggal]

Explorer's wards look like they would be very good. A quick ward when you want it to avoid facechecking that brush.

Also looks like it would help an L1 invade/invade defense.

EDIT: probably just the second one. But as someone who, as Blitz, will use wards to check the second bush before I go into it on the initial pass, having that free ward would be very nice. Very nice indeed... (I hate spending 70 gold for a ward that 9/10 never provides any value after that check.)

[Qwertystop]

Thing is, it's basically the same as the Sightstone except without the health, and the wards don't last as long. It's still a consumable and it still takes up an item slot.

[Lix Lorn]

So, turns out Fiora can be incredibly snowbally, even without items. I think I got seven kills on Recaiden in our 1v1 game with just boots and double Dorans. :smalltongue:

And then he bought thornmail :smalleek:
At which point you bought malady, wits end, kitaes, right?

[Forrestfire]

At which point you bought malady, wits end, kitaes, right?

No, I ended up getting the proving grounds Bloodthirster, a phantom dancer, another vamp scepter, and a negatron cloak.

[ChaosOS]

Also, is that thing saying that the Head of Kha'Zix now needs to be bought instead of auto-changing?


That row exclusively has all the items you can't buy in the store for all champs, the only purchasable one is Bonetooth Necklace.