League of Legends (Old)

[BROseidon]

And "too late bush" is the bush in the river tight next to top lane.

Because if you see the jungler here and you're pushed up, you're probably fucked. No matter which side you're on.

Exactly.

[BROseidon]

I should make a map of major ward locations and when to use them, since I'm generally pretty confident in my ward theory (now if only I could constantly keep 3 wards down in games...)

[BROseidon]

Teemo shits on Jax early, though. Or at least I think he does; top is the lane I understand least.

But yeah, Teemo should sit in top lane and never leave. Mushrooms everywhere make it a living hell, and once you shit on your lane opponent, you should be enough ahead that they have to commit an unreasonable number of resources to stop you.

This is countered by pre-6 ganks and laners that can trade with Teemo.

[BROseidon]

You can get 10 sets if you trade reasonably decently.

Duration of buffs is 2.5 minutes. Respawn timers don't hit that (at least not in normal circumstances)

[BROseidon]

gypsylord confirmed on forums that the champ after Braum is his next champ!

[BROseidon]

BUT THEY'RE SO FUN.

Also, design has relatively little control over balance. That's live's job.

[BROseidon]

1/2 true:

They inform

how

champs get changed, but they don't inform how balanced the champ is when it's released. Whether the champ is tuned right is live's job (granted, the designers partake in the play tests, but they don't have the final say on whether something gets nerfed or not).

The reason why balance issues happen so much on release is how little data Riot has about the balance of a champ before it hits live. Even PBE doesn't give them that much data, and the data isn't nearly as good as the live data. Within an hour or two on live, they're swimming in data that far surpasses what they get in testing (just think about how large the design/live teams are relative to the entire LoL playing population).

I have specific examples in mind about how this works and how certain fringe cases ended up the ways they did, but I'm pretty sure it'd be breaking NDA for me to talk about them.

And yeah, gypsy's designing a guy. Honestly never thought that would happen...

[BROseidon]

I know a few Rioters and have visited the offices a few times.

[BROseidon]

The problem isn't balance, it's design.

This statement is outright false.

Any champ can be balanced by adjusting their numbers appropriately. Whether they're fun/healthy to the gamestate when they're "balanced" is another question entirely. Swain's a really good example of this, actually. He has these insane drain-tank numbers, but falls off super hard b/c Riot just didn't give him scaling.

[BROseidon]

Like, re Jinx:

Chompers are shit CC. They require you to stack them with other CC to guarantee a hit, or you have to use them as a disengage that's incredibly easy to work around. As far as self-peel for ADC's go, it's pretty much just broadly less useful than a blink, and other ADC's have far stronger ways to self-peel. Combine that with Jinx's 500 range with pow-pow, and you're basically left with the most unsafe ADC in the game other than Quinn (at least until you hit Get Excited!). Jinx's problem isn't with that. Jinx's problem is that her early numbers are overtuned right now, so she's able to be too much of a lane bully while still being a hyper-carry ADC (she should theoretically only get outdone late by Kog, Trist, Vayne, and Twitch when the enemy team stands in a straight line).

re Vi:

She doesn't get played much right now. She's relatively fine. Whether or not her ult should exist in the game from a design-perspective is another question outright.

re Shyv:

Her numbers are overtuned right now. Give her less free stats for being Shyv, and she goes back to the "solid fighter who can't lock anyone down" state. The MS on her W is probably the first thing that needs to get hit, followed by her free tank stats.

re Thresh:

He's perfectly balanceable. Here's a fun question to ask: If this champ did 0 damage, would they be OP, balanced, or UP? If the answer is UP, then the champ is balanceable just by damage changes alone. Thresh becomes very bad if he had 0 damage.

He's also not that OP right now. People are overreacting for the same reasons they overreacted to Blitz a while back.

[BROseidon]

Thresh does not become bad with zero damage, which is why nobody BUILDS damage on him and still wrecks. Granted, the extra damage on AA on his flay passive might could use a slight retool but overall I don't think it matters... the hook, the knockback, the massive AoE slow, the lantern... these are all things that have huge impacts on the game no matter how much or how little damage they do.

That's why I'm excited for Braum. I don't think Thresh needs a nerf -- I just think he is probably the only TRUE support in the game. Braum looks to have been created with the same design philosophy.

I guarantee you that if all of Thresh's abilities did 0 damage and his autos did 0 damage, he wouldn't get played.

He has fairly high damage numbers on his abilities.

[BROseidon]

I think all the plat+ support mains on MS will agree that Sona is very powerful. Everyone sans Iec/Quadz who's talked so far doesn't know what they're talking about.

Iec described the play pattern, except there's also a lot of holes for free harass you can take against most ADCs/supports if you know how to time harass during attack animations, use minions, etc. The issue is yeah, you can't really do full-on trading, but if you're playing Sona right, every time you harass, it's basically free.

According to LoLking, she's the second highest win rate support right now, and I know where she ranks by Riot's internal numbers (which tend to be slightly different)

[BROseidon]

I wasn't intending to say that Thresh was unbalanced, though I can see why that would be assumed. I'm just saying that some champions are inherently more useful regardless of numbers.

Why yes, different champions do have different amounts of utility. Which is why numbers exist.

[BROseidon]

Sona has positive match ups against Morg and Thresh.

Sona's only bad match ups are Leona and Blitz (Taric would also be a bad matchup if he weren't chronically UP).

[BROseidon]

(You should never get hit by morg and thresh Q. Blitz at least has a way to force-engage on you with W->E or W->Q)

[BROseidon]

Well yeah, if you have perfect positioning, by all means, play Sona. Most of us don't though

It's hardly "perfect positioning" to stand behind minions or out of their range (or 1000+ range off the morg q, because that shit's slow enough that you probably can dodge it even without mind gaming it).

[BROseidon]

then that's not an inherent flaw of the champion. that's just you being bad.

Yeah sure sure. I'm sure people getting hit by a madlife hook are bad as well.

Uh...

Madlife hook doesn't really apply to the laning phase. Also, Madlife landing the Madlife hook is him severely outplaying his opponents.

[BROseidon]

I like early mobilities on Sona to make harass even stronger.

[BROseidon]

I like early mobilities on Sona to make harass even stronger.

Pray tell how ms makes harass

stronger

?

The bonus MS gives you a lot more opportunities to get harass in.

[BROseidon]

I like early mobilities on Sona to make harass even stronger.

i don't like mobis on mages

makes them even squishier than they're supposed to be when the passive is down
and really sorcs or ionians are 10x better
hell I'd take tabi or mercs over mobis


on hard cc supports or junglers it's a different story

I dunno.

I *really* like being able to fly around the map.

[BROseidon]

get chalice
spam E on cooldown while walking around

np
(more effective with ionians btw)

Do you max E before W, because I don't see the MS gained from the 15% CDR being worth more than the bonus that mobi boots give otherwise.

Also, I do go chalice after boots2, and the time b/w getting those is usually fairly marginal.

[BROseidon]

So you stand out of range of Morg Q, but you consistently harass your opponents?

/shitthat'smadeup

You don't "consistently" harass with Sona. That's a surefire way to waste a bunch of Qs on minions and run yourself OOM.

You take Q's and Q+Power Chord when openings arise. When you don't have openings, there's no need to be in front of your ADC. When there are openings, you are probably behind minions.

[BROseidon]

way easier to harass and initiate

On this point:

I think that lower-level players broadly undervalue how much MS boosts increase your damage output and trade potential.

[BROseidon]

(There's a reason that Cait went from top-tier ADC to never played in competitive at one point b/c of a 5 MS nerf)

[BROseidon]

Also, AP and I have been running MF+Sona to huge success. The ult combo is very strong.

[BROseidon]

So wait, A bunch of low silver and bronze people are screaming about how a champ is underpowered while a bunch of plats and diamonds are screaming at them and telling them they are wrong? Man, I love MS.

We're not screaming at them as much as explaining why she's strong.

[BROseidon]

Also, AP and I have been running MF+Sona to huge success. The ult combo is very strong.

I was actually going to make a post about this.

With my duo partner we never lose lane with this combo.
Another combo I like is Corki + Leona.

Does anyone else have adc + support combos that synergize well?

MF+Sona
Corki+Leona
Ezreal+Leona
Jinx+Morgana
Jinx+Thresh
Cait+Anything that pokes
Graves+Taric
Graves+Leona
Graves+Annie
Ashe+Janna
Kog+Janna
Vayne+Alistar
Vayne+Lulu
Urgot+Raka (RIP Urgot)

[BROseidon]

Braum's probably OP.

I've played against him once, and haven't played him yet. I think this because ~reasons~

[BROseidon]

Nope. I don't know anyone who works on that part of the game (I think). Mostly know the design guys and a few other people here and there.

[BROseidon]

Also I forgot Ashe/Zyra, because that's totally a thing.

[BROseidon]

I have a bit of a problem on supports like Zyra and Karma. I'll go oom within the first few minutes, after I net my adc a kill/zone extremely heavily. Anyone have any tips for mana management on them?

Get more autos in when you poke/harass so that you get them low on less mana (Zyra, Lulu, Annie, and Sona especially on this one)

Don't use your spells when you're going to miss the harass/don't need to shield.

[BROseidon]

This is what the ADC tier list right now look alike:

S-tier:

Twitch

A-Tier:

Lucian
Graves
Corki
MF
Cait
Jinx

B-Tier:

Vayne
Tristana
Sivir

Please don't pick this tier:

Everything else.

[BROseidon]

lol, looks like an awful tierlist that doesn't include 2 of 3 highest win rate adcs.

lolwat.

[BROseidon]

Also, Riot giving an AP ratio to double up makes the MF/Sona lane stronger.

[BROseidon]

Oh shit I forgot Varus.

He should be B-tier.

[BROseidon]

While it's true that people are generally better at champs they play more, people severely undervalue lateral skillsets between champs/overvalue how "unique" most champs are.

[BROseidon]

Yes, a defensive support who is supposed to try to stall out lanes and protect people should be really good at dealing damage.

Obviously.

Raka's Q needs to be gutted, and no champ should have abilities that are free (and yes, I don't think resourceless champions should exist, either)

[BROseidon]

Feel free to add me (BROtoro) as well, although I mostly just duo queue with AP at this point.

[BROseidon]

A surprising amount of 5s play is team play over individual skill.

[BROseidon]

Picked up Elise and Eve jungle finally.

I'd be Diamond by now if I'd started playing them 2 months ago. Holy shit they're broken.

[BROseidon]

Dat lvl 1 death, doe.

[BROseidon]

If I had a real computer and not a laptop, I would probably stream.

I probably wouldn't be super informative, though :/

[BROseidon]

It happens. Grind through it and it'll get better :/

[BROseidon]

Fuck all for 1 mirror.

Also lol Yasuo.

[BROseidon]

wtb 5v5 Janna game.

[BROseidon]

Anyone with wave clear or immense poke is probably terrible.

[BROseidon]

Urgot isn't an ADC.

He's an anti-ADC, which is weak in a meta where ADCs are generally not the high points of team fights.

[BROseidon]

Saki, can you give me advice on how to build Veigar?

after this game sec

I've seen an early chalice pickup for mana sustain in lane for constant Q farming and waveclear with W
I mean, I don't play him nor have I seen him played often but I'd recommend just going for a chalice into DFG-Dcap-void picking up athenes somewhere along the way

Finish Athene's first. Let's you farm q better and not get shoved to turret constantly.

I see DFG built all the time, but I'm not really sure how necessary that is. If your goal is to blow up the ADC/APC, the low range on DFG combined with your lack of mobility seems bad relative to just going dcap/void after Athene's

[BROseidon]

Also, getting off second spell rotations faster is pretty powerful.

[BROseidon]

Sion is really good if you're a really good player playing against a bunch of bads.

Start double or triple dorans into mobility boots, shove lane with shield and roam really aggressively, and rush DFG.

Proceed to nuke shit, and make sure to end the game by like 20 minutes.

[BROseidon]

Yeah no, it won't matter as long as:

1) this bullshit lane-swap meta continues

2) Weakening d-blade early means that it's less potent during initial laning. Champs that can arguably stack it effectively, though, will become stronger (assuming that the bullshit lane-swap meta goes away)

[BROseidon]

Pros take TP because of all the rotational shenanigans it lets them pull.

In solo queue, you aren't gonna be pulling the same shit, so yeah, it's a tossup. I prefer ignite, personally, but that's also b/c I can't split push to save my life (I also suck at top, and having the kill potential is nice)

[BROseidon]

Pros take TP because of all the rotational shenanigans it lets them pull.

In solo queue, you aren't gonna be pulling the same shit, so yeah, it's a tossup. I prefer ignite, personally, but that's also b/c I can't split push to save my life (I also suck at top, and having the kill potential is nice)

Wait i'm not supposed to be pulling random rotational bullshit out of my ass?

And yeah i find split-pushing and forcing objectives tends to be what wins me most of my games, so that's what i tend to keep doing, it's just a matter of my team not throwing the lead in objectives i get us.

Honestly man, it seems to be a toss up. If i'm going for the kill early and have a snowball champ, I like ignite, if i'm a top lane wall guy i take tp. But than again, Pros take TP on jax,

Well, Jax is lategame. You should take ignite on champs that have kill potential pre 6, like renekton/riven/xin etc. If you play something like Jax, Irelia or Nasus doesn't really need the ticks of ignite to finish off targets. Then you're better off taking teleport

So if i think i have the kill potential on champs like the listed ones, to get a kill without ignite, should i be taking TP or Ignite?

I find that i can force a lot of kills out pre-6 on Shyvana who pre-6 i wouldn't have thought would be doing that (but that's low elo i guess)

But if i were to buy riven and find that in most games i can get a kill pre-6 without the ignite, would i still take the ignite as a safety net for the kill, or go with TP?

Re my point:

Pulling off split pushing and rotational strats requires a lot of coordination. In plat, you see a lot of tops who dominate their lane and go for the splitpush, but do it out of sync with their team such that they give free kills (then proceed to yell at the team for not being in position to take other objectives, when it was equally their fault for pushing when they shouldn't have). Splitpushing doesnt mean you get to ignore what the rest of your team is doing, since they need to be pressuring stuff as you pressure stuff, and that's hard to pull off with randos.

Maybe b/c you're lower elo, that sort of stuff doesn't get punished as hard, not sure. There are also a lot of issues with people splitpushing w/o proper vision, which gets them killed when they shouldn't. People think that having the warding trinket means you don't have to buy wards, when you need to have max wards on the map covering your ass when you're splitpushing.

Re kaleidescope's point:

1) Jax is broken and is both a lane bully and a hyper carry. He has substantial trade and kill potential pre-6 (it's not, like, Renekton broken, but he can out-trade a lot of popular tops early.

2) Shyv is a lane bully pre-6 in lower MMRs because people don't understand how she works. She gets bullied because her damage has notable downtimes that you can abuse, but if you just walk at her and fight, you're going to lose (W does a lot of damage, and fighting her after she pegs you with e is a bad idea).

3) There are reasons to take ignite on farm-heavy toplaners. Mostly, it's to prevent dives, since having kill potential when they dive you makes it a lot less likely that they'll dive you (very true of champs like nasus/malph/ww that farm under turret a lot, but make you tank the turret a lot to fight them under turret).

[BROseidon]

AP carries don't need life steal b/c they don't have to be in the fight as frequently in order to do damage b/c of how spell rotations work (mostly).

Also they tend to have longer range.

[BROseidon]

Wtf why is Riot letting ADCs do damage again.

^This is a real complaint I have about the game. As long as ranged ADCs are completely mandatory on every team in a way that no other class is, they're OP and shouldn't get class-wide buffs :/

[BROseidon]

(also, while we're at it, Riot needs to buff sustain-damage mages, since Ryze is the only one that's viable right now :/)

[BROseidon]

Karthus
Swain

Both are weak right now (more Swain than Karthus, but Karthus could use minor buffs)

[BROseidon]

(also, while we're at it, Riot needs to buff sustain-damage mages, since Ryze is the only one that's viable right now :/)

psst
Kayle

Kayle is a mage/ADC/Support/Carry/Jungler/Tank. She excels at everything.

[BROseidon]

Or because they have Zhonyas/Rylais and don't have to be constantly locked in autoattack animation to do damage.

Zhonya's is useful if they're on you.

Mages can unload their spells, walk away from the fight for a bit, and then come back in to be effective. ADCs don't have that option.

[BROseidon]

I need a team for the ward skin rewards. Anyone wanna join me?

[BROseidon]

I need a team for the ward skin rewards. Anyone wanna join me?

<---

Need at least 3 more.

[BROseidon]

I made the team, conveniently mafia-themed.

[BROseidon]

NA

[BROseidon]

Neither will I, probably.

[BROseidon]

Right now it's me/Saki/Ray/LLD, it seems

[BROseidon]

And ani

[BROseidon]

And DN

[BROseidon]

As far as i can tell, FF isn't really worthwhile on anyone as it's either way too little presence or way too much snowballing.

It's circumstantially better than FH on Ryze.

[BROseidon]

AD Ahri and Kennen are both real.

Okay, AD Kennen is real. AD Ahri is hilarious. AD Brand is also theoretically doable, but just worse than AD Ahri.

[BROseidon]

I also feel that fuckos shouldn't buy bork on ADC's for the same reason lil g was saying ap carry fuckos shouldn't buy DFG. You aren't good enough to add more mechanics to your champ, just itemize the standard build without the bonus mechanic. You can be safe without bork, just build BT PD LW IE

Does BotRK really add mechanics, though? And it's not like ADC's have a lot of buttons to press, anyways...

[BROseidon]

There's no real champion that should be building FM. It's just a shitty item altogether and it wasn't even good when it built out of phage either.

The inherent problem with FM is that any champion that needs frozen mallet to be strong or successful probably isn't being played correctly.
The only two people it's even relatively viable on currently in any sense of the phrase are Shyvanna and Trundle. Neither of them need it because they have other aspects of their kit that allow them to be more successful when used optimally. (Why does shyvanna need a slow proc when she can burnout and then ult somebody back into her, trundle has pillar, chomp and frozen domain).

It's the same inherent problem with Frozen Gauntlet but gauntlet gives you an AoE slow in teamfights and is a bigger dps and defensive bonus overall.

Mallet needs to just be deleted or repurposed entirely.

The problem with FM is that BotRK is literally just better.

Also Iceborn Gauntlet is good on Ryze.

[BROseidon]

Ryze has CD's during which you can auto. Also, the slow lets him stick to people harder.

It's a question of what you get relative to FH.

IG gives you:

30 AP
500 Mana
60 Armor
10% CDR
Spellblade passive

FH gives you:

0 AP
400 Mana
100 Armor
20% CDR
Aura.

CDR difference is marginal b/c of blue pot (you're gonna hit cap either way, and FH is late enough in Ryze's build that you can argue that you can have blue pot up 100% of the time by then). So the difference you're really looking at is the 30 AP +100 mana vs. 40 armor and the passives.

If you're not against double AD and/or you have a pretty strong main tank, it's pretty easy to justify the IG's stats. That's a substantial amount more damage, which also converts into more life b/c of your spellvamp on your ult.

[BROseidon]

Want:

http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends ... rom_being/

[BROseidon]

Seriously, though. Football Manager is a pretty fun game, even as someone who knew very little about professional Football when I started playing, and I still found the game enthralling (and learned a decent amount about Australia's premier league's rules regarding international players that have shaped my opinions on foreign players in LoL leagues, but I digress). An FM-style LoL game would be super fun, IMO.

[BROseidon]

5. Concentrate on yourself, not on your teammates. You seriously need to be thinking of ways to get better instead of ways to make excuses for why you lost to a bunch of oceania bronzes.

This is pretty much the wisest thing anyone has said.

This x10000000.

You can't control your team mates. 4/9 times, your team is going to suck more than their team. You are the only difference.

[BROseidon]

Stop camping toplane unless bottom lane is already winning. Camp bottom lane. For the love of god. The most important map objectives in the first 20 minutes of the game are on the bottom side of the map. Kill the enemy bottom lane and then take dragon. repeat 6 minutes later.

This is the only one I severely disagree with. There are times when you really want to just sit top and say "fuck dragon."

[BROseidon]

Mid is too hard to gank most of the time. Short lane ftl.

Their top won't expect an 8th gank.

[BROseidon]

Top is easier to gank but top laners have less game impact than your mid.
Have a heart. Gank for your mid.

But ruining someone's day is so much more fun.

HE WON'T EXPECT AN 8TH GANK.

[BROseidon]

What if every lane is pushed?

Which lane do you run to help?

Ward deep to look for the countergank, or go find their jungler and face-punch him. Your lanes can rotate in to help before theirs, and it costs them more cs to skirmish.

[BROseidon]

Seeing pro players lose games in gold for the same reasons I lose games in gold makes me feel a little less bitter about the losing streak I'm on right now.

That's maybe 1-2 of the games you've lost.

What's more likely is that you're on tilt, need to take 2-3 days off, and then come back and wreck face.

[BROseidon]

People always underestimate how much tilt can hurt their play, myself included.

[BROseidon]

AP speaks the truth.

Take mid inhib, IMMEDIATELY BACK OFF, AND I MEAN IMMEDIATELY, LIKE, IF YOU ARE MELEE YOU SHOULD LET YOUR ADC LAST HIT THE INHIB BECAUSE YOU ARE ALREADY LEAVING IMMEDIATELY, and then go straight to baron if it's up (if it's not up, bot is your next target).

Even in mid-plat, people fuck this up, and it kills me every time.

[BROseidon]

No, it's getting buffed.

Her ult was changed to scale with Draw A Bead, which increases the range at all ranks (technically the range is nerfed at pre-6 levels, but you can't use the ability then, so...)

[BROseidon]

Are they really buffing Tristana and Infinity Edge at the same time?
They're really buffing Tristana and Infinity Edge at the same time.
Huh.

Sometimes I wonder about the choices Riot makes.

I'm okay with this. I'm tired of Lucian and Twitch.

[BROseidon]

On an unrelated note - Ziggs. I don't know how to play against one at

any

point in the game (you can't engage on him or poke him out, as hes good at both), and it just seems like he's horrendously broken and has just about everything a mid laner could ask for. Tips?

Lulu and Leblanc both lane well against him.

If you're not laning vs him, you need good hard engage that can come in from a flank. J4, Vi, and Eve are all strong options here (Eve requires some sort of followup CC from your team).

[BROseidon]

Leblanc does fine vs Ziggs. Pre lvl-2 sucks, but you force him to make the choice of either harassing you or shoving the wave, and you can do cute tricks with w to dodge the bomb, then land a q->e to get off decent poke (I would draw the motion in MS paint, but I don't have it :/). At higher levels, I'd argue it's like 5.5:4.5 in LBs favor.

At lower levels, it's probably Ziggs favored. Ziggs doesn't require the same level of mechanics as LB.

If you lose to Ziggs as Lulu, you're being severely outplayed. Lulu has a really easy matchup, there (W helps you dodge his shit, you can shield->q him fairly reliably, and then your autos out-trade his autos substantially).

[BROseidon]

His ability to negate sieges is 2nd to none.

This is the most annoying part about Ziggs.

[BROseidon]

Ziggs bomb is dumb. Ziggs is dumb.

LB isn't the renekton of mids anymore, and it's glorious. Her laning is probably okay now, but not debilitatingly broken (like, she probably still lanes pretty well vs. Ori)

[BROseidon]

mimic'd e was already the better choice a lot of the time.

[BROseidon]

None of Nidalee's total power got reduced; it just got moved around. The burst you're doing is what they took off the random spear damage lol.

This.

Nidalee didn't need a nerf (or at least a major one). She needed her damage not to all be on one ability on a 4 second cd.

I do wish that they nerfed her top-end spear damage a touch more, but that's more because I personally hate poke than because it's actually terrible.

[BROseidon]

BT gives exactly 0 incentive to take barrier over heal :/

[BROseidon]

Wtf damage nullification is retarded powerful. I'm not saying to take barrier every time, I'm saying barrier's niche is larger now.

Barrier can be used in 100% of instances. Heal cannot.
You can't use heal to negate damage until after you've already taken it.

Heal outscales barrier sure but there are several instances where you will not be able to use heal before you're dead.
BT has better synergy with Barrier for damage negation because lolmassiveshield

You take heal over barrier for the affect on the 2nd person and the ms buff.

If you're concerned about getting busted down in fights/lane yourself, you take barrier b/c it doesnt get reduced by ignite.

[BROseidon]

Wtf damage nullification is retarded powerful. I'm not saying to take barrier every time, I'm saying barrier's niche is larger now.

This is situational knowledge.

when you know there's going to be very high burst then barrier is going to be a better option. There.

This is true, but you'll still want heal on the ADC for laning phase.

[BROseidon]

That video actually gives a reason that the new BT benefits heal over barrier. Assuming you have BT shield up (and if you don't, new BT isn't relevant anyway), you're already that much less likely to be insta-bursted from full, making it safer to take the summoner spell that gives you more health (i.e. heal).

Panzer's situation also does not show any benefit from barrier that wouldn't work better with heal.

This gif is godly.

[BROseidon]

A lot of people are assholes. You should be aware of this, given that you play mafia.

[BROseidon]

The system is good at expediting you to where you're supposed to be out of placements, for the most part.

Just don't do placements when you're rusty like I did this season (ended up gold 3, and had to spend a while climbing back up, when I could have just placed into plat if I'd played 10-15 normals over the few days before placements)

[BROseidon]

So many things I could say...

[BROseidon]

Wouldn't the AS/MS steroid (coupled with the easier facechecking more often) on her W be worth more then the slight shorter cooldowns on the E/Q?

Never take AS steroids first. Multiplicative scalars are bad without things to multiply them off of.

[BROseidon]

Actually, Jinx Q first is fine, but you do it more for the range than the AS on her mini gun.

[BROseidon]

Guys, I'm thinking of changing my summoner name.

1) Should I do it.

2) I need a good Marvel-themed name to change to. All the obviously good ones are taken. I'm thinking maybe one of Thor's obscure aliases, or a reference to Agents of Shield.

[BROseidon]

Hydra was already better on Riven because of the animation cancel bullshit that let you do like 1.5k+ instantly if you're good.

[BROseidon]

No, the AoE disproportionately benefits champions who don't have any form of waveclear outside of it. It does not disproportionately benefit champions who have plenty of waveclear without it.

That doesn't mean that more isn't nice, but there's no synergy there. It's similar to the Barrier discussion from a few pages ago.

An example of where synergy would in fact exist is if the champion's kit had on-hit effects built in and the splash applied on-hit effects (ala Kayle and Runaan).

uh

I would NEVER build a Runaan's on Kayle...but maybe that's just me?

You're doing it wrong.

Runaan's on Kayle is god.

[BROseidon]

I do not know anything about Renekton, but a quick google search says that the active can be used during his stun animation, so it looks like the logic is identical to the situation with Riven.

This.

The only reason to buy Hydra is if you can abuse the fuck out of the animation cancel

[BROseidon]

It's not a great buy w/o the animation cancel on most champs.

Otherwise champs like Jax would build it.

[BROseidon]

Hydra is awesome for single-target damage if you get the animation cancel from it.

Just ask Kha'zix

[BROseidon]

You don't want both Hydra and BotRK on Shyv; you pick one and go with it.

I don't know when you're supposed to take Hydra. I always just go BotRK, but pros sometimes go Hydra and I don't really understand why.

[BROseidon]

I don't really play Kayle.

[BROseidon]

Also, LiftLift has bad opinions sometimes (he was calling Ez terrible back when Ez was god-tier before the PFE release. Then again, pretty much all of non-China had this opinion, except I CAN GLOAT FOR KNOWING OTHERWISE. I also technically cheated to know that).

[BROseidon]

Both those items need buffs pretty badly.

[BROseidon]

wtf, so now we get fewer pots?

[BROseidon]

How often do they make new champions?

At one point it was once every 2-3 weeks. That's when you saw a lot of champions with problems, because stuff was just getting shoved through the pipeline without a lot of testing (problems were either straight up balance, like Vayne, kit issues like Darius, or both, like Rumble). Now it's at like once ever 2.5 or so months.

Also, looking at what LoLWiki has for future champs, I'm surprised Riot hasn't given us more leakage for future champs. The timing should be pretty soon for them to start trolling us about their next release (the Jinx trolling is still my personal fav)

[BROseidon]

I fucking hated URF mode.

I'm also in that second group of players Saki described.

[BROseidon]

Cait is even or advantaged during laning phase against everyone. Only even laning matchup at this point is probably Draven, given the Lucian nerfs.

My diamond 1 buddy once told me "you lose lane as gracefully as possible versus Cait. There's nothing else you can do."

[BROseidon]

Sona's been broken for a while. Nobody picked her b/c they're dumb.

[BROseidon]

Cait's disengage is pretty weak.

[BROseidon]

Cait's disengage is pretty weak.

Compared to what? Kassadin?

Cait's disengage is Net, which has a very clunky animation and pushes you 400 units. The 50% slow is nice if you can land it, but it only works on 1 target, and landing it is not always feasible.

Now let's look at what every other ADC has (including Kennen even though he's a fairly marginal ADC pick):

Ashe: Slow on every auto+volley, and ECA, which stuns for a minimum of 1 second (during which an un-CC'd Ashe can run 325 units, or ~80% of Cait's net range). Arrow also slows targets near the target hit, making it more useful than net against multiple targets. Overall, Ashe has better disengage than Cait.

Corki: Valkyrie has a slightly better animation than Cait, and has 800(!) range. Not to mention that Corki gets Phage, which improves his disengage ability. Better than Cait.

Draven: Blood Rush gives him a huge MS boost, and Stand Aside is a 1050 range disengage ability that both stops them outright for about 1/2 a second and slows them for 2 seconds. Overall, I'd say slightly worse than Cait, but not by much.

Ezreal: 475 range blink with near-instant cast animation, not to mention that Ezreal's also buy phage. Stronger than what Cait has.

Graves: Quickdraw is 425 range, but doesnt have a slow attached. Weaker than what Cait has.

Jinx: Chompers+Get Excited. Better than what Cait has if she can get a kill, worse if she can't. That's sort of Jinx's MO, though.

Kennen: lol no contest, Kennen's is stronger.

Koggles: Kog gets phage and has Void Ooze. Weaker than Cait.

Lucian: Relentless Pursuit has longer range and breaks slows. And he can get multiple casts off in a fight.

MF: Make it rain. Yeah no.

Quinn: Blinding Assault to blind (not really disengage, but the "not dying" is nice when you are disengaging), Vault (I don't understand exactly how it works), +Valor MS buff. Probably better than what Cait has.

Sivir: Free Shurelia's OP as fuck.

Trist: Rocket Jump has 900 range and resets, even if the animation is about as bad as Cait's, and she has buster shot. Better than Cait.

Twitch: Invisibility, worse than what Cait has.

Urgot: Lolno.

Varus: Hail of Arrows+Chain of Corruption. Since Chain lasts 2 seconds, Varus can run further during it than Cait's net takes her, not to mention that it can hit multiple targets. Better than Cait.

Vayne: Tumble has 75% of the range of Cait's net on a much shorter cool down, and she has a knockback+stun. Better than Cait.

Cait's disengage ranks pretty lowly.

[BROseidon]

She's better than Draven, Graves, unsnowballed Jinx, Kog, MF, Twitch, and Urgot as far as ADCs go.

[BROseidon]

cait's disengage is strong as hell. Net = distance + slow which is great against melee junglers. in lane it's "lol I see you desparately trying to harass me by walking up past your creep line, well I'll net - q. now get back to your side before I AA you some more"

Why would you ever try to harass a Cait in a way that would let her e->q you, though.

[BROseidon]

auto for auto caitlyn will win almost every time. This changes depending on what abilities are used but we can assume that if you can dodge skillshots and auto attack at max range the whole time then you'll win the majority of ad matchups as caitlyn.

Not true.

Cait actually has relatively low DPS in lane.

Cait wins because you don't get auto-for-auto trades, you get "you get 2 free autos as they come in to harass, and 2 free autos as they disengage"-for-auto.

[BROseidon]

You're leaving out that Cait's absolute position is already farther from the enemy due to aa range and that Cait can also use her traps to zone.

Most mages outrange ADC autos.

Most bruisers have gap closers that break all ADC ranges except late game kog and trist.

[BROseidon]

Looks to me like Cait ranks near the middle?

She's low-mid tier in disengage for ADCs.

That's not "good."

[BROseidon]

And Iec is right, Sivir is a good counter pick to Cait when she's not over-nerfed like she is right now.

[BROseidon]

Yes, Cait is safe.

Safety and disengage are two different things.

[BROseidon]

Not really?

Disengage is irrelevant if they never get on you.

Safety is irrelevant once they are on you.

[BROseidon]

You know that the reason Cait is a popular pick is BECAUSE she has a better escape than most other ADCs. I seriously stopped reading that post after you concluded that Ashe is safer.

Because Ashe is the exact opposite of that. Ashe is never picked because her ability to disengage is bad and she has no escape. Seriously. I know you don't smoke the herb, but... did you start?

Cait's picked because how how hard she bullies lane. That's the only reason she's ever been picked, and that's why she'll always continue to be picked.

[BROseidon]

You can't say safety is irrelevant to disengage - if they can get to you without all their gapclosers you need more disengage than if they need to blow everything to even get to you.

This is relevant to a handful of champs.

Irelia Q range is 650 (which, with model and range shenanigans, means that Cait has like a ~20-30 range window where she can auto where Irelia can't Q her)

J4 E->Q is 770.

Lee Q is 1100.

Elise has 2 was to gap close at a higher range than ADC autos.

Jax jump is is 700 range (which, with model shenanigans, puts his jump at about the same range as Cait's autos).

Shyv ult is 1k range.

Kha, Eve, Skarner and Renekton are the only common champs I can think of where the extra range on Cait gives her functional safety, unless you want to start getting into fairly uncommon picks like Udyr and Volibear.

[BROseidon]

Although, even vs. Kha it's not particularly relevant, since he can ult to close the distance enough to put him in jump range vs. Cait.

So that's 3 common picks where Cait's extra range makes champs "burn more" to get on her.

[BROseidon]

It would be a lot more relevant if picks like Udyr and Volibear were more common.

[BROseidon]

Also, the Renekton thing is debatable because his single E+W range is still enough for him to get fully through Cait's AA range (though just barely)

[BROseidon]

Re your first point:

I talked about min-range ECA specifically for that reason. Also, you can slow, walk away for 2 seconds, slow again, walk away for 2 seconds to disengage. The slow doesnt stack, after all.

Re your second point:

Not the case, because if the Cait is doing damage, at all, to the frontline j4/irelia/etc, then they can jump on the Cait. Where her team mates are in that is irrelevant.

[BROseidon]

ie, either the Cait is doing damage and gets jumped on, or isn't doing damage and isn't jumped on.

[BROseidon]

I didn't realize those gapclosers were so ginormous, though. They certainly don't feel that monstrous in-game for whatever reason.

Since spells are from center of model and AAs are from range, they're a little shorter in-range than the numbers indicate, but yeah, gap closers are huge.

[BROseidon]

If cait is hanging way back and not doing damage, either their frontline is hanging out of the fight in which case it's a stomp/not a fight, or they're busy with your frontline. If they're busy and you walk up a little and start dealing damage, how likely are they to stop and go for you? I doubt that's all too likely.

If the j4/irelia/vi/w/e is competent?

They aren't blowing their gap closer until either the ADC or APC is in range unless you absolutely force them to somehow, and that usually requires a catch.

[BROseidon]

In the mid game, the ADC still has a chance b/c the j4 or w/e isn't gonna be tanky enough to soak up damage forever, but once the j4/vi/w/e has a few tank items, it's over.

ADCs aren't objectively that useful in team fights. If it weren't for turret pushing and how potent ADCs are in 2v2 lanes, you wouldn't need ADCs on every team comp.

[BROseidon]

ADCs aren't objectively that useful in team fights.

please never talk in this thread again.

It's funny b/c it's fairly obvious that I'm a better player than you who knows more about the game than you by a substantial margin.

[BROseidon]

The perspective that ADCs needed a team fight buff before 4.10 was actually pretty widespread and contributed to the AD/Randuin itemization changes.

This.

LiftLift has been complaining about how little ADCs can do in team fights for like over a year. I think it was before season 3 that Riot basically said to ADCs "you no longer get to 2-shot tanks in team fights."

[BROseidon]

Hey Zeph, you can talk when you hit plat.

[BROseidon]

Lee isn't balanced.

[BROseidon]

Hey Zeph, you can talk when you hit plat.

Can we cut this out please? It's a terrible way to treat other people, and it's bad enough in-game. I won't stand for attitudes like this in this thread.

Then again, I'm only bronze, so what would I know.

I wouldn't do that if he had bothered to read the rest of the conversation.

[BROseidon]

My question is why hasn't Riot given this guy an Olaf?

Too popular and too good for competitive play (he's the most fun champ to watch in competitive play in a lot of people's opinions)

[BROseidon]

Lee is waaaaaay more popular.

[BROseidon]

... seriouly? They don't touch the champ with the most overloaded kit because people like him. Bull.

Balance is more driven by perception than reality.

It explains why a lot of shit went untouched for as long as it did. There's a pretty extensive list, ranging from "Riot knew it was OP, but nobody else did so it didn't matter," to "nobody knew this was broken."

[BROseidon]

Honestly, the best strat for getting "really good" (and one that I should have done) is to pick a role, pick a champ in that role, and beg for it SUPER DUPER DUPER hard, because once you hit gold/plat with a single champ, you have a pretty good sense of how the game works at a broader level, and it becomes easier to learn other champs. Then have like 1-2 off-meta picks you can pick elsewhere, so you know you won't get sniped (the only mids I'm comfortable with right now at my MMR are Malz and Lulu, but I can guarantee you I will always fucking get Malz when I mid. Bonus points for enemy mids not knowing what the fuck Malzahar does). Bonus points if you can put your off-meta picks in multiple spots (there's a Korean challenger player who plays Nocturne everywhere and does fine with that)

[BROseidon]

That's why a lot of high-elo players got really well known for specific champs early on (Westrice Akali, Regi Leblanc, Kobe Amumu, Wickd Irelia, Jatt Udyr, Scarra Sion followed by Katarina, Voyboy Renekton, etc).

I went up against Westrice Akali in early season 2, back when resets were super hard (I went from ~1530 to ~1280, Voyboy was #1 on the ladder at the end of season 1 and reset to 1400). That game was not fun.

[BROseidon]

Also, I just dated myself with those references :/

[BROseidon]

To any bronze player, a gold in his main role basically IS a challenger. He's going to 1) kick the shit out of whoever he lanes against, 2) use the advantage against the other team, and 3) use pings to herd cats into and out of things that are very obvious to him, but that his teammates are effectively blind to. It's a gigantic advantage for people who are willing to listen. A 2 divison swing in any direction is fucking massive and I wish people would admit it and learn from it instead of just brushing it off as lucky or cheap or op or whatever.

This is incredibly true.

My diamond 1 buddy (well, ex-diamond 1 at this point since he stopped playing LoL) used to smurf with me, and he could basically do w/e the fuck he wanted b/c he was good enough to still win. Watching him play with me when he was being "serious" was terrifying, because it would be no contest.

I once supported him when he was playing Cait, and we were vs. a Vayne/something lane. He'd Q, predicting where Vayne would tumble to, and hit the Q as Vayne tumbled into it. After he did this for a while, he started just Qing at the Vayne, and she was conditioned at that point not to dodge it. It was hilarious to watch.

[BROseidon]

Attitude goes a long way towards making the game more/less fun. I owe a certain Rioter a lot for reminding me of that at GaymerX last year, since that mental recalibration is why I got plat last season. I'm trying to induce it again, but I'm having a hard time :/

[BROseidon]

Also, listening to upbeat music in the background while you play helps your performance for this reason.

[BROseidon]

I'm not super-impressed with the new Maokai. I definitely think he's in a better place than before since his utility is now better, but he still has a rough time b/c of how overtuned Elise/Lee Sin/etc are early.

Elise just needs to get nerfed into the ground early. If you're a jungler, and you run into her, it's like "welp, time to leave before she takes off 1/2 my health instantly."

[BROseidon]

W->Q->Spider->Q at lvl 3 takes off about 40% of 0/21/9 Maokai's health.

Yeah...

[BROseidon]

Eve is fine right now. She's below Lee/Elise/J4 in priority right now, as far as junglers go.

[BROseidon]

tl;dr: Lee, Elise, Eve, J4 getting hit.

[BROseidon]

He's more in the style of Lee. You go 21/9 on him, build Lizard, and have insane early pressure.

[BROseidon]

Any good junglers in here?

hi

[BROseidon]

Maybe we should quantify?

Plat IV, peak Plat II jungle main.

[BROseidon]

Sometimes it gets a little crowded because there is typically more stuff going

This matters more than the quality of the graphics, imo.

[BROseidon]

My commentary on champ design b/w the games is as follows:

League has more consistent design (with the nid rework, there aren't any champs I'd outright remove from the game).

DotA has better peak design, but in exchange has some of the worst design you'll ever see (Puck is the most incredible thing ever made. Venomancer is pretty fucking awesome. Nevermore is a really cool concept. But you also have fucking Anti-Mage, Invoker, and TECHIES. KILL TECHIES. KILL TECHIES WITH FIRE).

[BROseidon]

OP is different than bad design.

League has no champs that make the game 4v5 for both teams. DotA does (which is why they aren't porting him to DotA 2).

[BROseidon]

OP is different than bad design.

League has no champs that make the game 4v5 for both teams. DotA does (which is why they aren't porting him to DotA 2).

Who's that?

Techies!

[BROseidon]

Also, mid has less one-sided match ups than top, since the short-lane means that "sit by your turret and farm" is a more consistently viable option.

[BROseidon]

I don't actually know how to mid "correctly." I just learned how to play Malz, and since nobody I play against knows how to play against Malz, I just win lane and afk push mid and maybe roam a bit.

[BROseidon]

OP is different than bad design.

League has no champs that make the game 4v5 for both teams. DotA does (which is why they aren't porting him to DotA 2).

Who's that?

Techies!

They actually are porting the techies to DotA2, though. They're in alpha right now.

lollllllll

[BROseidon]

I'm on one of those streaks where I can't seem to win, no matter how well I play :/

[BROseidon]

It's like Evil Geniuses, just in solo queue.

[BROseidon]

Anyone here who doesn't watch the coaching vid's ls posts should probably start doing that.

Having free access to a pro coach is pretty fucking cool.

[BROseidon]

Also the most recent vid he posted is fucking hilarious.

I can't believe that it's a Diamond I game with some of the decisions these players make (Lulu takes ignite mid vs. Fizz instead of Heal/Barrier, Trundle TPs to his own turret from base, etc)

[BROseidon]

They're people, but they're also people who are all very good at the game (all better than me).

So it feels weird when I see mistakes that seem really obvious.

Also, just finished the vid. The ending was hilarious.

[BROseidon]

Except your opinion is validated when one of Supa Hot Crew's coaches is pointing out a lot of the stuff you're seeing.

[BROseidon]

Like, just to be clear, there are a ton of subtle mistakes that ls points out that I wouldn't be able to point out.

But shit like, "Lulu with heal is scarier than lulu with ignite vs. Fizz" is fairly obvious.

[BROseidon]

ls said heal, which is weird, given that I would also be inclined to take barrier.

Maybe the extra heal in team fights and the ms boost outweighs getting reduced?

[BROseidon]

Learn Malz.

He's super fun, has crazy overtuned damage, and nobody knows how to play vs him.

In all seriousness, just get good at stuff you enjoy..

[BROseidon]

RoA is good on Malz. You don't need the early AP *that* much given that:

1) You're gonna be farming/shoving the lane until you take mid turret, which will likely be around/after you get RoA, and

2) Your numbers are so overtuned that you can nearly full->0 the enemy midlaner w/o AP unless they start chalice, and even then you still do a shitton of damage.

My build on Malz right now is RoA->Boots 2->Liandry's->Deathcap/Void->Void/Deathcap->Usually the game's over, but normally one of BVeil/Morellonomicon/Zhonya's depending on what I'm dealing with. I want to start trying to mix Rylai's in there, but that would probably replace RoA (Liandry's is too good b/c of the pen and burn, Void and DCap are for optimal damage output, which you really want on Malz).

The big thing with Malz during the laning phase is that most people don't know how to lane against him. You can, even in plat, get off a safe full spell rotation on the front line of minions, and the enemy midlaner won't know how to punish it. Against champs like Ziggs/Lulu/Ahri who want to push the lane back against you with their abilities, stand off the wave so they have to choose between going for harass and going for waveclear. You don't have to make that choice, given that you can often get off a malefic visions after you've cleared their wave, or they'll eat it a lot from it bouncing off the wave. Once you hit 6, you'll often have them low enough that e->ult will be lethal, because holy shit that does unfair amounts of damage.

As the game progresses, the big things about Malz are that he has really insane damage numbers and he's easy as fuck to catch out. Don't roam for ganks unless you have really good vision; if you get caught by 1 person, you can probably delete them with q->e->w->ult->q, but if you run into 2 people you're SOL. Additionally, you can apply enough pressure to mid that the cost of them roaming is too high. When the enemy midlaner roams, blow a full combo on the wave to get a voidling, since they take out turrets pretty quickly. Ward to avoid ganks, since Malz is super gankable and you should be expecting ganks from as soon as you start pushing, especially pre-6.

In team fights, you need to sit back near the adc (remember to stand far enough off so that malph ults, etc, don't completely fuck you up). Hit their front line with qs and es, and use w if you dont think you'll catch someone with an ulti during the CD (the space control is nice, and other people can CC people on it). As soon as someone dives too deep on you or the ADC, just ult them. You should be far enough back to avoid CC unless they have a heavy dive comp. You do ridiculous amounts of damage even without having W below them, and with other people wailing on the target, you can delete most people relatively easily.

Last point is that Malz takes objectives super fast. Pool, voidlings, and your insane damage means you melt objectives faster than anyone other than maybe Cass and Karth. You can get barons and drags in that would otherwise be relatively unsafe b/c of this.

Oh yeah, and take barrier. You win extended trades with just about everyone, so it's more important to have the extra health than the extra burst from an ignite.

[BROseidon]

For reference, Malz's AP ratios are:

.8
.01/second as % of their max health
.8
.52/second (so 1.3 total)

Malz has a combined AP ratio of 2.9 + .01% enemy max health/second. For comparison's sake, Syndra, who is probably the meta champ that plays closest to Malz, has a max 3.19 AP ratio (transcendent bonus on Q+all 7 balls on ulti). Is the W's ratio worth .29?

If the target has 2.9k health, Malz does more damage if they sit in W for 1 second. Granted, the tradeoff is that Malz is standing still, and this isn't taking cooldowns into effect, but the point is that Malz has very high damage numbers.

Ori's AP ratio on her full combo is 2.2, and it's 1.9 if you don't land the damage from shielding someone.

[BROseidon]

Also, with the Ziggs nerf, Malz no longer has any bad lane matchups.

[BROseidon]

A thing that I hate when I see is malzahar players that burn their w to push. Your w is NOT a pushing ability in the laning phase. It's a 10+ second cd that gives you an extra 10 damage per second on minions standing on it... and it burns a quarter of your mana. It's not worth doing. It opens up the chances of your opponent engaging on you (your ult is a lot less damage if you're not holding them in null zone) and adds almost nothing to the actual push. The w should be reserved for zoning when sieging (offensive) or creating a negative incentive for them to chase you (defensive) if you aren't using it for your ult.

You use w in lane to get voidlings out if they aren't in a position to engage on you (which is most of the time).

[BROseidon]

If you have catalyst, you dont really care about the mana, since catalyst+malefic visions keeps you constantly at full.

[BROseidon]

You can also probably eat Yasuo burst before he gets items with barrier and just full combo him once you land for the kill.

Not sure though, since I haven't played the yasuo matchup yet. Fucker's always banned.

[BROseidon]

You still apply plenty of pressure, though. Even without the AP, you can 1-shot just about any midlaner you're up against (or kill them after a malefic visions or two), and the catalyst sustain let's you apply a ton of pressure to mid turret.

[BROseidon]

The issue with the "malefic visions or two" thing is if you're against something that you don't kill right then and there, they can turn that around on you and shit all over your face. There's very few cases where you blowing your full load, not killing the other guy, and sticking around doesn't lead to them punishing you.

I can't imagine you just magically blowing everything and them not even trying to hit you at all. It just doesn't make sense. And it's not like malz is king of the disengage. He's one of the least mobile champs in the game.

That's why you harass them down first either with malefic visions on them, or malefic vision bounces off the wave. Even if you dont have damage to 100->0 them, if you have the damage to 80->0 them, you can get that 20% before hand relatively easily.

[BROseidon]

I usually ran heal/flash on Malz, but I'll consider running Ignite. Might give me more early game.

Edit: Still ran heal because I was against Ziggs, it worked pretty well!

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends. ... 9/50095874

Thanks for the tips guys!

You need to work on your csing a bit

One thing with Malz is that it's actually fairly easy to miss a lot of cs with him if you aren't careful. Sure, malefic visions pushes the wave, but whether you get the last hit is sort of left to RNG (which hates you) if you aren't good about last hitting. Learning to time your autos with malefic visions to last hit will improve your cs a ton, especially early when visions does less damage.

[BROseidon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVMhO1x3-BY

Who here's old enough to remember when this happened?

[BROseidon]

Anivia has a rough pre-6. Her mana costs are high, she doesnt have great waveclear, and her ability to trade is limited.

Once you get 6 and your bluebuff (also tear or chalice), you just sit mid and clear waves. Go to wraiths and do those as well. Also wolves. It's all yours. Just sit mid and farm and build up. You can build a lot of ways; like Malz, Anivia has both high base numbers and high scaling, which gives you a lot of flexibility. Proceed to wreck team fights.

I don't know much more in the way of details :/

[BROseidon]

that is a mighty fine ass

[BROseidon]

He requires good positioning... and that's really about it.

[BROseidon]

Oh, and a good understanding of how not to get caught out in rotations, which probably isn't a concern below like plat.

[BROseidon]

Shaco can do well at higher elos, you just have to play him differently.

[BROseidon]

I like how someone asks for solo queue suggestions, and people suggest the meta champs.

It really doesnt matter that much what you play, unless you're playing stuff that's waaaaaaaaaaay undertuned (Olaf, Urgot, etc). A lot of the nuances that make champs like Lee OP in competitive don't exist in solo queue, which is why shit like Malz is fairly powerful.

[BROseidon]

Vi and Zac can initiate from further out than Jarvan. Zac's initiation is bullshit.

[BROseidon]

My highest winrate toplaner is Jayce and my highest winrate support right now is probably Lulu.

It really doesnt matter that much. What you're good at matters a lot more.

[BROseidon]

Eh, sometimes you have a lot of experience on a champ b/c they were OP, even if they aren't OP now.

The reason J4 is my best champ is b/c I spammed him in S1 when he was broken (I didn't know it back then b/c I was still relatively bad, but original J4 was overtuned as fuck). Say w/e you will about J4 being outclassed by Lee/Elise/Eve right now, my J4 is much scarier than my versions of any of those champs.

I guess this does apply more to older players than new players, though.

[BROseidon]

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Riot ultimately nerfs stuff that is OP and buffs stuff that is UP. There isn't a champ that has been consistently "meta" for the entire time that it's been out that isn't either:

1) New (Lucian and Braum)
2) Orianna

Focusing more on learning stuff that is "OP" right now is meaningless, because it'll eventually stop being OP (unless it's Orianna or Lee Sin). Riot will nerf it and/or buff other stuff, and then you're left with a ton of practice on a champ that you may not enjoy very much.

[BROseidon]

Also, I think that probably the reason orianna and lee sin don't ever get nerfed is because they're not OP unless you're OP. And 99% of players are not OP. Ori is decent if you're moderately good at her but you're gonna fk up and forget where you put the ball sometimes. And lee sin is melee so he doesn't even get decent if moderately good. For all the massive potential you have to completely decimate the enemy team with lee sin's utility, you have as much potential to completely fk up and screw your whole team over. Kick the enemy away from your team so they escape? Kick the enemy INTO your team so they murderize you? They happen.

That's not why they dont get nerfed.

Lee doesn't get nerfed because people complain too much whenever he's slated for nerfs (almost every jungler in China is a Lee main, and we're no longer in S2 where China's opinions don't matter)

Ori doesn't get nerfed because, unlike with what Lee does in the jungle, Ori doesn't completely ruin the midlane meta at the competitive level.

[BROseidon]

Granted, everything Lee does to the jungle meta, Elise does as well. Both of them need to be nerfed substantially if we want decent jungle meta.

Systemic jungle changes (like bringing back the S1 or S2 jungle) would fix the Lee problem, although I dont think that it fixes the Elise problem, and it introduces too many other problems.

[BROseidon]

Also, thinking about it, Thresh will probably always be meta for similar reasons that Ori is (high impact abilities that don't make the support meta terrible)

[BROseidon]

Lee and Elise make it impossible to play anything that doesn't have a strong early game, because they:

1) Have strong ganks
2) Take objectives quickly
3) Can 1v1 you in the jungle while being very hard to run away from
4) Transition reasonably well with tank builds because of relatively high utility.

A lvl 3 Elise can take an 0/21/9 lvl 3 Maokai down 40% of his health from max with e->w->q->r->w->q, which goes off during the duration of the stun. That means that Mao can't gank a lane where Elise might be, and Elise can deep ward and hunt Maokai down, because he also can't run away from her. Lee can do similar levels of bullshit.

The non-Lee and Elise junglers that are viable right now are J4, Nunu, Rengar, Vi, and Eve. What do they all have in common? They have ways to deal with the fact that Elise and Lee beat the living shit out of them early, or they can toe-to-toe Lee/Elise well enough that they can do shit early. Even then, Lee/Elise are always picked with priority, with Eve being a somewhat close 3rd because of how strong her map presence is early.

[BROseidon]

Basically, as long as Elise/Lee are as dominant as they are, tank junglers like Amumu, Maokai, and Nautilus, or junglers with weak/risky early games like Wu Kong or Mundo can't exist unless you buff them substantially.

[BROseidon]

Maokai's probably like 3rd tier right now, which is fairly irrelevant given that you have 2 tier 1s and more than enough tier 2s to fill the space.

[BROseidon]

And CST vs. DNL showing the bullshit that Elise is.

"Oh, you're a Vi that's lvl 3 while I'm at lvl 4? Excuse me while I take you from 1/2->0 and you can't escape over a wall with Q because my Rappel ALSO goes over walls and then your flash to your base doesn't matter b/c I kill you before you actually reach your inhib turret."

"Oh, you ulted my Ziggs AND your Ori ulted me and Ziggs? Lol doesn't matter, I do so much more damage than you while being tankier that we still win the fight" – Ft. Zigg's bullshit damage.

[BROseidon]

Like, Santorin is outplaying Inori, but the shit he can do on Elise is pretty absurd.

[BROseidon]

Maokai's probably like 3rd tier right now, which is fairly irrelevant given that you have 2 tier 1s and more than enough tier 2s to fill the space.

no

Yes