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"Itemizing Zhonyas well" is a really bad reason to play someone as an anti-AD mid.

hito: what roles/champs are you comfortable blind picking into a lane? I gather you'll pick vlad first pick, but beyond that?

Re: Top Lane- Sure, fine, I guess. Vlad is actually pretty weak if you get matched against someone who knows what they're doing. But if you're getting morons, more power to you. I also feel like Nasus is super easily countered and if my team needed AD top there are a ton of bruisers I'd rather play.

Re: Mid Lane- Uhhhhh really? Okay, I guess. Galio is pretty bad though... he's not borderline OP at all against someone with half a brain. I could see picking him in response to something like Leblanc or Katarina.

Re: Jungle- Amumu is the low elo wrecker, good call. Voli can get super OP but he's also stupid easy to kite. If I were you, I'd play it like... tanky-AP Amumu... then pick a champ that does well as a real pure tank (like Nunu)... then get a bruiser in your lineup (J4 is OP obviously, Vi or Pantheon are always strong picks). Also just as a note, Fiddles is ridiculously good right now in the jungle, I've been playing a ton of him recently.

re: ADC- AD Carry is my weakest role. Ez isn't very good in bot lane IMO just because of the meta right now... if you want someone that doesn't need to kite well, pick up Sivir. Great engage, great scape, and just throw Qs from miles away and press "W" and watch a minion wave disappear.

Re: Support- All decent calls. I really don't think you can go wrong with support in this game right now, I think all of them are in a great place (except Taric...and Zilean, if you call him a support still)

play taric anyway, too fabulous to ignore

Personally I like Sona more than Nami in that trio, but either works. Leona has the all-in engage, Janna has the disengage, Sona offers lane bully poke that is pretty unrivaled in a true support. In the Sona for Nami trade you give up the Bubble and a little bit of healing power.

Sona can also, if the game calls for it, go more carry-ish than most supports without giving up her utility (As her abilities, Auras and power cords all become more effective with AP). That can be pretty helpful at lower elos, though it's obviously pretty situational (often when you get kills from using the absurdly long Q range).

↑ zoraster wrote:hito: what roles/champs are you comfortable blind picking into a lane? I gather you'll pick vlad first pick, but beyond that?

If I'm blind picking I aim for Vlad or Leona. I'm comfortable blind picking Jungle after asking my team what they're doing (it's not like the old days where Amumu gets wrecked if his blue is stolen), but I think Vlad and Leona are the two least-exploitable picks.

↑ xRECKONERx wrote:Re: Top Lane- Sure, fine, I guess. Vlad is actually pretty weak if you get matched against someone who knows what they're doing. But if you're getting morons, more power to you. I also feel like Nasus is super easily countered and if my team needed AD top there are a ton of bruisers I'd rather play.

People just love stupid builds like Warmog's Vlad for some reason. He's strong if you build him smart.

Yeah, I wouldn't ever blind pick Nasus into top - he has quite a few counters. Maybe I should grab a bruiser I'd be okay blind picking, if we want AD but enemy top hasn't picked yet?

Re: Mid Lane- Uhhhhh really? Okay, I guess. Galio is pretty bad though... he's not borderline OP at all against someone with half a brain. I could see picking him in response to something like Leblanc or Katarina.

See, this weird meme about Galio being bad has popped up seemingly out of nowhere but it's just not true at all! He's a little bit below the tippy-top mids but it's hardly any gap, and he's BY FAR the most obscure competitive mid. This has several advantages - no one can dodge resolute smite worth a damn, people don't realize you're deliberately tanking minions to heal and set up punishes, junglers go for bad ganks not realizing how much smite hurts, etc.

People focus too much on Durand, reason (correctly!) that Durand has a fair bit of counter-play available, and miss the point that Galio can build resistance and mana regen, receive huge damage for free, and just harass, shove to punish roam, and never ever die because of Bulwark. He's a lane bully with a teamfighting ult that demands respect. His cooldowns are a little long which is a bit problematic for prolonged teamfights, but Athene's helps a lot for that.

(Also, I think Galio gets a bad rap because of the world's mystifying fascination with Thornmail. Oh gosh, durand means the AD attacks you a few times, Thornmail is super OP on Galio!! Ya because when I get 90 armor just for hitting the w button and a 50% damage reduction on ult the defensive stat I really need is armor and not HP .-.)

Re: Jungle- Amumu is the low elo wrecker, good call. Voli can get super OP but he's also stupid easy to kite. If I were you, I'd play it like... tanky-AP Amumu... then pick a champ that does well as a real pure tank (like Nunu)... then get a bruiser in your lineup (J4 is OP obviously, Vi or Pantheon are always strong picks). Also just as a note, Fiddles is ridiculously good right now in the jungle, I've been playing a ton of him recently.

I might work on my Vi, she's fun.

re: ADC- AD Carry is my weakest role. Ez isn't very good in bot lane IMO just because of the meta right now... if you want someone that doesn't need to kite well, pick up Sivir. Great engage, great scape, and just throw Qs from miles away and press "W" and watch a minion wave disappear.

Haven't played Siv since the day's of Starks, maybe I'll give her a shot.

↑ zoraster wrote:In the Sona for Nami trade you give up the Bubble and a little bit of healing power.

One crucial thing is that Sona's slow is one SHE fires but Nami's slow is one the AD CARRY fires. This is pretty significant when you have the crappy HP both Nami and Sona have!

I don't like Sona because it requires a lot of coordination. Nami does her poke by empowering the AD Carry to do it for her. As Leona I make big obvious plays because I am a juggernaut, but when I'm a vulnerable support I much prefer giving the initative to my lane partner.

Here's the deal with Nami vs. Sona: They do different things.

They have a lot of similarities in that they're both sustain supports with AoE CC ults, slows and decent base damages. The difference is in the kit.

Sona has always been based off of "hidden power" and numbers. The power USED to come from the invisible free stats she would give to an entire team, and when Riot reworked her, they tried to make these hidden bonuses more visable, but also tried to define her role as a support.

When Sona had her AD/AP buff removed, she had an Auto Attack buff to any champion tagged by her Q aura added. In the long run, this is a nerf, but in lane, this is a buff.
When Sona had her Armor and MR removed from her W, she had a shield added to any champion that came inside the aura.

These abilities focused on removing some of her invisible late game power and shifting it into laning and trading potential, and still keeping her ability to use Crescendo as an engage tool in fights. (Where Nami's Tidal Wave tends to work better as a disengage tool.)

Nami's kit, in fact, works better for picks and disengage. Her movement speed bonus is rarely getting applied to more than one or two targets at a time (where as it's a lot easier for Sona to tag everyone with her E. Infact, it's encouraged, given that her E stays active longer for every person she tags with it.), and while Aqua Prison is a good gank assist tool, and if you hit it in lane a fight can easily turn in your favor, the rest of her damage and sustain doesn't compare to the tools Sona is given.

So it's less of a "they do similar things, but this one does it better" and more of a "why am I picking this champion?"

↑ xRECKONERx wrote:
Re: Jungle- Amumu is the low elo wrecker, good call. Voli can get super OP but he's also stupid easy to kite. If I were you, I'd play it like... tanky-AP Amumu... then pick a champ that does well as a real pure tank (like Nunu)... then get a bruiser in your lineup (J4 is OP obviously, Vi or Pantheon are always strong picks). Also just as a note, Fiddles is ridiculously good right now in the jungle, I've been playing a ton of him recently.

Ok, I'll bite - how does Fiddles jungle work currently? (items/early route/skill orders)

I feel like the difference between Nami and Sona is small but noticable. Sona's a lane bully-poke support, with an AOE engage tool, where as Nami's a lane bully support that has AMAZING 2v2 potential, with top tier disengage and counter-engage.

Sona works better with poke-style ADCs (ex. Corki, Ez) or champs that wombo off her ult (MF), while Nami works better with adcs that can duel effectively (ex. Draven, Vayne, Graves).

↑ theelkspeaks wrote:

↑ xRECKONERx wrote:
Re: Jungle- Amumu is the low elo wrecker, good call. Voli can get super OP but he's also stupid easy to kite. If I were you, I'd play it like... tanky-AP Amumu... then pick a champ that does well as a real pure tank (like Nunu)... then get a bruiser in your lineup (J4 is OP obviously, Vi or Pantheon are always strong picks). Also just as a note, Fiddles is ridiculously good right now in the jungle, I've been playing a ton of him recently.

Ok, I'll bite - how does Fiddles jungle work currently? (items/early route/skill orders)

I've been experimenting with him a bit. He's unique in that you don't actually to build a jungle item on him.

I start Doran's Ring/ward and drain, obviously. You'll need protection at blue, because the only thing that really fucks Fid early is a blue steal, and you can't start anything other than drain in the jungle, which is really bad for defending early ganks. Put the ward on your other buff, then go to Gromp, smite, drain tank, a half-decent leash will let you kill it quick. Take E second, go to blue, finish it and you'll still be at top HP. At this point, if there's no obvious gank, I'll go do red.

Max W > Q > E. His fear duration is still stupid and it makes ganks incredibly easy. I build Mobi Boots on him. My exact order of items depends on the game... if I get fed early, I'll skip the jungle item and get Zhonyas immediately after Mobi Boots. If I'm lacking a bit in income, I'll get chilling smite + magus then go for Zhonyas. If you're fed after Zhonyas, get Deathcap. If you're a bit behind, go Void Staff.

Ganking paths are really important on fiddles, so ALWAYS make sure you have wards and pinks out. I try to keep the raptors smite buff on him at all times because nothing feels worse than standing over a wall or in a bush to ult, and having your channel interrupted due to the enemy team having a ward there.

Fiddles can also tank dragon SUPER early with his drain, so use that to your advantage. In a perfect world, the enemy jungler should never be able to steal anything from you because of your fear disabling their ability to smite during the smite window.

↑ hitogoroshi wrote:People just love stupid builds like Warmog's Vlad for some reason. He's strong if you build him smart.

Yeah, I wouldn't ever blind pick Nasus into top - he has quite a few counters. Maybe I should grab a bruiser I'd be okay blind picking, if we want AD but enemy top hasn't picked yet?

Who in the holy hell have you been watching play Vlad that rushes Warmogs?

Or even, who builds Warmogs on Vlad period? Sorcs+WOTA+Zhonyas is the way to go. I also think Vlad is really beneficial against other AP tops like Maokai, Rumble, Ryze, etc...though those guys are out of the meta right now. I think Vlad probably splits lanes in an equally skilled lane versus the popular top laners. He probably loses to things that can easily get in his face like J4 & Riven, but poops on things that want to play the farm/sustain game like Gnar & Darius.

As for a blind pick safe bruiser, Irelia and Pantheon would be my safe picks. Irelia can be a monster no matter who she's against, and Pantheon has great poke and roam potential for a top laner.

↑ hitogoroshi wrote:See, this weird meme about Galio being bad has popped up seemingly out of nowhere but it's just not true at all! He's a little bit below the tippy-top mids but it's hardly any gap, and he's BY FAR the most obscure competitive mid. This has several advantages - no one can dodge resolute smite worth a damn, people don't realize you're deliberately tanking minions to heal and set up punishes, junglers go for bad ganks not realizing how much smite hurts, etc.

People focus too much on Durand, reason (correctly!) that Durand has a fair bit of counter-play available, and miss the point that Galio can build resistance and mana regen, receive huge damage for free, and just harass, shove to punish roam, and never ever die because of Bulwark. He's a lane bully with a teamfighting ult that demands respect. His cooldowns are a little long which is a bit problematic for prolonged teamfights, but Athene's helps a lot for that.

(Also, I think Galio gets a bad rap because of the world's mystifying fascination with Thornmail. Oh gosh, durand means the AD attacks you a few times, Thornmail is super OP on Galio!! Ya because when I get 90 armor just for hitting the w button and a 50% damage reduction on ult the defensive stat I really need is armor and not HP .-.)

I think personally, Galio is in a bad place because Magic Resist itemization is bad right now. Athene's is almost never seen anymore because it's not very efficient but Galio needs it.

I take back what I said earlier, though. Thinking about Galio's kit, he seems like a decent pick if you want to shut down a mid laner, but he's severely lacking in a modernized kit compared to the rest of the game. Sure, you may stop that Leblanc from snowballing your lane, and you may be able to push when she roams, but does that matter when she's getting double and triple kills on your team? Same goes for Ahri or Zed or Annie... those guys can roam and just fuck up another lane, and Galio offers nothing in return. You may take a tower, but when your lane opponent comes back with an extra item, you're going to be really far behind either way.

Taric being bad is a myth. He's barely under top tier of Leona and the crank. AND HE BEATS LEONA.

If you can't orbwalk, you can't play sivir.


Annie and malz op

↑ xRECKONERx wrote:
Who in the holy hell have you been watching play Vlad that rushes Warmogs?

Or even, who builds Warmogs on Vlad period? Sorcs+WOTA+Zhonyas is the way to go. I also think Vlad is really beneficial against other AP tops like Maokai, Rumble, Ryze, etc...though those guys are out of the meta right now. I think Vlad probably splits lanes in an equally skilled lane versus the popular top laners. He probably loses to things that can easily get in his face like J4 & Riven, but poops on things that want to play the farm/sustain game like Gnar & Darius.

As for a blind pick safe bruiser, Irelia and Pantheon would be my safe picks. Irelia can be a monster no matter who she's against, and Pantheon has great poke and roam potential for a top laner.

I haven't seen one in a while but they're out there and they're terrible.

I mostly agree with your build but it's actually not worth finishing WOTA until you're slotcapped or at least close. The dream for vlad is Hextech + Sorc + Guise (swapping Armguard for Guise against AD that's strong early) - it's a pretty cheap core that demolishes most top laners. You don't really need spell vamp for sustained fights as Vlad, because you're already winning sustained fights - you're losing to being bursted or to grievous wounds. You just need spell vamp so you can roll up to 3/4 tides stacks in lane BEFORE you start trading.

He loses bad to J4, actually goes pretty even with Riven (you do need to open cloth 5, though). It pretty quickly transforms into a game of rocket tag. You need to pool the stun or you're in trouble, but by the same token if Riven wastes her shield she pretty much has to run away until it's up. It's a high skill matchup, but the saving grace is that if you play Vlad for any length of time you're going to have way more practice vs. Riven than Riven gets vs. Vlad.

Maybe I'll work on my Vi for top and jungle.

↑ xRECKONERx wrote:
I think personally, Galio is in a bad place because Magic Resist itemization is bad right now. Athene's is almost never seen anymore because it's not very efficient but Galio needs it.

I take back what I said earlier, though. Thinking about Galio's kit, he seems like a decent pick if you want to shut down a mid laner, but he's severely lacking in a modernized kit compared to the rest of the game. Sure, you may stop that Leblanc from snowballing your lane, and you may be able to push when she roams, but does that matter when she's getting double and triple kills on your team? Same goes for Ahri or Zed or Annie... those guys can roam and just fuck up another lane, and Galio offers nothing in return. You may take a tower, but when your lane opponent comes back with an extra item, you're going to be really far behind either way.

Galio does need Athene's but it's fine because for him it's quite efficient. As for MR itemization being problematic, the trick is to front-load your MR EARLY and ride the passive out then, and then mostly ignore it. As Galio, your core is Athenes and Treads, along with MR runes and masteries. This is INSANE MR for the early game (ever feel like walking into Morg W to heal? Play Galio) and the AP makes your smites damaging even when you're focusing resistance. After that, you can cool it on the MR until you see you really need it - Runic Skin has already done enough and now your goal is to make sure your farm is making you scary to everyone and not just the poor abused midlaner. Galio has a lot of build paths depending on who's getting Void Staves, who's getting QSS's, whether anyone else is getting Aegis, etc. Your item fu needs to be quite strong for him (i.e STOP BUILDING THORNMAIL ON GALIO. GODDAMN) but Galio has plenty of good choices for MR should he want it - the trick for him is actually making sure you don't go TOO ham on MR.

And yeah, being out-roamed is a weakness for sure. As Galio you want to really watch your minimap and try to shove mid hard. It's pretty easy to tag both the enemy champ AND minions with Resolute Smite and combine your harassment with more pushing, which makes any roaming attempt obvious and turret punishment easy. (You also generally should not go for flash - ult kills in midlane and instead save Galio ult for jungle ganks.) So Galio's biggest weakness (aside from the obvious "I blind picked him and they put AD in both solo lanes") is a jungler that can punish shoved Galio. Upgraded ward trinket comes highly recommended...

I mean, the issue is that if your response to roaming is shoving, and the jungler shows up to stop you, then you don't really have a response.

Galio can't deal with most of the popular junglers right now (Vi/J4/Rek'Sai) which is a big problem. The meta is really AD heavy right now (AP top laners are nearly non-existent, and the only AP junglers that remotely see play are Nidalee and Fiddles, who are only in 10 & 7 % of games, respectively) so Galio's not really in a great spot.

In the land of the double AP meta, Galio is great. Even better last season when a common setup could see Rumble top, Elise jungle, and Orianna/TF/Xerath mid... but right now, the usual setup is at most 1 AP champion... perhaps even 0 in some cases. And the few popular AP champions can deal with Galio in lane... Ahri can outfarm and outpush him, Katarina can just roam after getting her guise. I dunno. I'm not saying Galio is a bad champion, I just think he's in a bad place in the meta right now, since ideally he wants to be building Athene's, Merc's, Abyssal, Visage, etc. One of my favorite things to build on him, by the way, if I do get countered in mid, is an Iceborn Gauntlet... the chase potential is great.

I have literally no experience playing Galio and I've only played against him in a little, and maybe only a handful of times in lane (most frequently as support galio so...). But just spitballing...

Galio seems like a very solid arrow to have in the quiver for the games with multiple AP champions, but it's not just that it's not exactly in the meta (my quick assumption driven calculations show you have a roughly 25% chance of wandering into an AP top/AP mid composition), it's that you need to both be late pick (fourth or fifth probably) AND your opponent has lots of magic damage AND you get mid. Given that mid is often an early pick, the chances of all those things occurring together seems somewhat limited.

Yup, I pretty much agree on the meta thing. I'm making him one of my champs because when he's good, he's really good - but it's a REACTIVE pick against the enemy comp for sure. I'd much rather play Kennen or maybe even add Swain to the roster for times when I'm picking my mid first. (This almost never happens though, precisely because if I'm taking an early pick I like Vlad or Leona, and tend to only mid when it trickles down and no one's done it. How often does it happen that you're an early pick but forced to take mid because everyone below you called things that aren't mid?) Although J4/Vi/Rek'sai aren't actually too bad for Galio - the danger zone junglers are Xin and Udyr.

I've never done Iceborn Galio but I can see the appeal for sure - I'll keep it in mind.

P.EDIT: Sure, it's a limited scenario. However, it's much more common among my PERSONAL SAMPLE of mid games, exactly because it's my LEAST favorite lane to early pick. Combine that with the fact that mid is overrepresented in solo queue and it basically means that, just by recognizing that mid is very counter-significant and not calling mid, your personal mid games will be a much higher proportion of games where the enemy mid is known (but a lot fewer, total). In fact I used to pretty much only take support as first pick because I disliked the counter potential on other roles - but now I'm happy fping Vlad because J4 is pretty much always banned. (Also people sometimes flame you when you fp support.)

What champ you play really doesn't matter. It's about skill.

Just running down the meta right now:

Top Lane: Irelia (20.32%), Riven (19.47%), Gnar (10.58%), Nasus (9.63%), Lissandra (9.27%), Renekton (8.05%), Jax (7.09%), Vlad (6.79%), Malphite (6.64%), Sion (6.39%)

Mid Lane: Ahri (19.32%), Leblanc (14.76%), Katarina (14.03%), Xerath (13.53%), Zed (12.43%), Kassadin (10.84%), Orianna (9.99%), Annie (8.88%), Lissandra (7.66%), Nidalee (7.24%)

Jungle: Lee Sin (30.36%), Vi (22.93%), J4 (22.86%), Pantheon (12.71%), Nidalee (10.36%), Rengar (9.4%), Fiddles (7.61%), Amumu (7.3%), Shaco (7.07%), Rek'Sai (7.04%)

So basically, given the most popular champions in each lane, you have a 16.06% chance of having an AP top lane... you have a super good chance of having an AP mid lane... and only a 17.97% of having an AP jungler. Those are slim odds to have Galio be relevant.

I'm not arguing that it's worthless to know how to pay Galio -- he's a really good champion to have in your back pocket. But perhaps focusing him as one of your solid midlaners is unwise, given the meta right now. It also doesn't help that basically every popular mid champion IS a heavy roaming champion.

Xin is unplayable right now and Udyr is a niche pick.

Swain is an excellent mid pick. He has crazy good matchups against all the popular picks right now, and just in general, he's a big lane bully. He can push hard, he can easily walk away from ganks, and he can actually roam just by walking into a lane and turning on his ult. I think he fills most of the roles that Galio does, only better.

Just looking at the top 10 isn't a good way to arrive at the % played, particularly since 4 out of the next 5 for top are AP I think.

What hito and BRO said are right. If you're skilled enough to beat hard counters with your champion, then you can pick it pretty much blind regardless of comp. It's always better to play something you're good at in ranked, regardless of counters and teamcomps.

That said, Galio also does both disengage (q slow, e MS boost) and engage (flash/ult) fairly well, and serves amazingly in wombo comps. Pair him with an Amumu or a MF and bam. A skilled Galio player can also build more AP-magey and still be fine - building MR is obviously BETTER, but if you pick him early and they don't get much AP damage, you can go magey. Or more of a tank build.

Basically, in hito's list... I'd replace Nasus with a bruiser, I'd replace Galio with Swain, I'd replace Kennen with Lissandra (if you're picking Kennen against AD, Liss does it better), I'd pick a less kiteable bruiser than Volibear like J4 or Vi, and I have no real opinions on bot lane (other than how much I love Sivir because she still wrecks towers and pushes hard even if she's behind).

I've started to gravitate towards champions that can still take towers even if they go 0/8... because sometimes, you'll just get outplayed. But people at Gold and below aren't great at prioritizing objectives, and are AWFUL at dealing with split pushing.

P.EDIT: Yes, but you're not always going to get that lane that allows you to beat hard counters. It's like picking Nasus into Teemo -- sure, you may be good with Nasus, but what the hell is he actually going to do if the Teemo even has half a brain? The skill advantage needed to beat your opponent multiplies when you counterpick yourself into bad lanes.

Galio having Flash/Ult shouldn't really count that much, since Flash has such a massive cooldown. And if you're going to be building magey... then... why even pick Galio? There are plenty of other champions that do disengage mage much better than him. And relying on teamcomp synergy in solo queue seems like a really poor life choice.

↑ xRECKONERx wrote:Swain is an excellent mid pick[...]He can push hard[...]

Swain is v stronk, but his waveclear is terrible until 6 unless you put multiple points into W, which lowers your damage output significantly.

I think he's stronger top on the grounds that his poor waveclear isn't as significant an impediment up there.

Most champions won't be roaming until 6 anyway so that's not really a problem.