League of Legends (Old)

[Patrick]

At this point you probably can't afford to fill two rune pages so for quints something generic like health would be good. They'll give you an easier early game and are useful on every character and every type of character. If you're still playing Ashe or Garen alot then get armor penetration marks. I got flat mana regen seals and cooldown reduction Glyphs, but I play more mages, I'm not really sure what you should get there.

[Patrick]

HEAVIEST TEAM EVER.

The solution is not to play solo queue. Scum has a pretty decent number of people who play on LoL, we often play as 4s or 5s in the queue or even have a fully blown inhouse game of 5 scummers v 5 scummers when people can be bothered to come online. It's much much easier to coordinate when you're talking (or even just listening) to your team on skype. If I was forced to solo queue only it's quite possible I'd have given up playing by now.

[Patrick]

I don't know if this is a good build or not, but OMG, I loved the movespeed and attack speed.. and crits

I think that's roughly the kind of thing you're looking for, though I'd replace one of your phantom dancers with a Bloodthirster. Banshees veil is the most common defensive item on Ashe, in a game where the enemy damage is nearly all physical you might want something else though. Last Whisper is right if you're having trouble with opponents stacking armour. I'm not sure which is meant to be best between swiftness boots or beserkers, still learning ashe myself.

[Patrick]

malz broken

[Patrick]

Patrick = RotomAppliance for the first post.

[Patrick]

It applies to duo queue or playing with a full premade tbh. It's pretty limiting on the rest of the group if you only play spellcasters (and I used to in my newbie days).

[Patrick]

Decent guide, but I'll throw in some opinions.

I only really started playing Cho this week now that he's free, and I feel like he functions best in solo top. I don't think he's the greatest babysitter bottom because his lane sustain depends on last hitting and you won't be getting many in that role. Not saying he can't do it but I'd pick something else. The build I've been trying so far starts regrowth pendant + mana pot into early philo, and against a team with balanced damage would probably end up as Merc Treads, FoN, Guardian Angel, Rylais, Abyssal Sceptre, Zhonyas. You're super tanky and if you're being killed it's usually because everything else in your team died first in a teamfight. Unlike your build it gives 250 AP and an aura that reduces magic resist so you can be a bit more of a threat. The banshees vale seems unnecessary when you could get the magic resist from Abyssal Sceptre, it's not like you're at risk of being bursted down. If the other team lacks damage on one side you could forego either Zhonyas or Abyssal and get a Deathcap instead.

Other changes I will try: Frozen Heart as the major armour item since Cho loves everything on it (especially CDR), and RoA instead of Rylais. Tbh the only reason I defaulted to Guardian Angel in the first place was because I liked how huge it is when he has one. He seems like a character that can be built in alot of ways so maybe more exotic stuff will creep in when we've got a game clearly won.

[Patrick]

Also your suggestions of P.Stones, Hearts of Gold and worst of all Guardians Angel sadden me, you're in a solo lane hoovering up all the farm you don't need GP/5 or regen due to your amazing passve and any fight where you are focused down as Cho early enough in a fight for Guardians to be valuable is a fight your team has already won.

I'm starting to feel the same way about Guardian Angels though they have saved my life before. As for Gold per 5, the fact that you're in a solo lane doesn't somehow mean that getting more gold is unecessary. Same for Nasus, a philo stone isn't an admission that you're unable to last hit with your q, it just means you want more gold and the lane sustain early. Even with Cho's strong sustain, some 1 v 2 lanes are going to be rough initially, so you want all the staying power you can get.

[Patrick]

I've played her a bit and went for an early philo, not sure if it's considered standard.

[Patrick]

AP Carry: Brand, Veigar, Malzahar
AD Carry: Ashe
Jungler: Warwick and a bit of Nunu, Amumu
Tank: Cho, Blitzcrank
Support: Taric
Tanky DPS: Nasus, Irelia

[Patrick]

RotomAppliance, am still not in OP.

[Patrick]

Untrue, read SC right now.

[Patrick]

At level 6, his max health is 455+(96*5)=935, and the p5 he gains from perseverance is 4.675. So with perseverance up, he is regenning around 18hp5.

Perseverance would restore 4.675 health per second to Garen, not 4.675 p5.

[Patrick]

I found Dominion pretty meh too at first, when I had to play with randoms or miss the window of opportunity. It's been great fun playing with scummers these past couple of nights though. I like being able to have gold on the champions I normally wouldn't get any farm on, like Blitzcrank.

[Patrick]

Really starting to like Kog Maw. The damage he can do is almost unfair.

[Patrick]

Also bought Xerath. He's really interesting, but I'm not sure what his role should be, exactly. He doesn't do great DPS in my limited experience with him, but he's also not tanky enough to take shots. He's clearly not support, and I doubt he could jungle... so he's just ranged? His stun isn't even that great, FTR. I could potentially see him as a solo top, but early game his Locus of Power cooldown is way too long to sustain long range for any considerable amount of time.

I bought him as well. Have only played him in a custom game though I've also faced him once. He seems like a cross between Lux and Cass, with the range of Lux and spamminess of Cass, but has less burst. I think he could be abusive in lane, and a good sieging/poking champion. I laned against one as Irelia yesterday and it wasn't as scary as I'd expected, but I think the guy was pretty terrible.

His passive seems a bit worse than Galios from what I can tell, though I guess some games Galio would be forced to stack armor instead of MR, whereas Xerath will always be getting AP.

[Patrick]

It's chalk and cheese, of course Veigar does more damage, he's the biggest burster in the game. Veigar struggles against most mids, and I'm pretty sure that includes Xerath. They're both mages but should be played completely differently.

[Patrick]

Maybe I just haven't tried out the right AP carries/tanks, and I don't have the runes to jungle... who are considered the best AP carries & tanks in the game? I tried Shen out and hated him.

I could be wrong but I think Brand, Orianna and maybe Morgana are considered top level casters unless Brand became less popular due to the slight nerf. Orianna is one of the best champions in the game but tough to use, I'd suggest trying her out on freeweek before dumping IP into that. Otherwise, Annie is a good pick for being easy to use without being a weak character, Veigar has a better lategame than any other mage but requires you to tolerate a weak laning phase, Malzahar farms easily and scales decently, Lux has great range and is alot of fun, Ryze is short ranged but becomes really tanky lategame and Anivia is good but again tough to use. There are other mages but I'm sticking to ones I'm familar with.

What have you tried?

[Patrick]

I forgot Morde. If you haven't tried him yet you should, he's in a kinda bad way right now but i think riot are buffing him soon. So easy to pick up and so much fun. Not a tank though. A beefy caster.

[Patrick]

poor veigar.

[Patrick]

With morgana being a often picked champ for mid, I can see an AD as the counterpick. Even in the less specific cases, ashe can probably hold her ground against many casters. At the other end, you have soraka who makes quite a bit of sense next to a caster (gives mana and shreds MR?), who could be xerath or veigar for example (either should do well against AD, or should benefit a lot from the support). I mean, with the recent popularity of Urgot there, who is far from the classic ranged DPS, it isn't that silly.

Ashe has problems against alot of the casters you normally see mid, though stronger laning AD carries could do it. I've done Veigar with a support bot before and it worked ok, but mages tend to need the solo XP more than AD carries.

[Patrick]

I got to jungle WW in a few games tonight and I actually did pretty decent... I'm seeing, though, that I'm winding up with WAY more assists than kills (though I've been in the +K/D ratio each time). Is it normal for a jungler to have more assists than kills?

It really depends on the jungler, some junglers contribute heavily to a gank with CC but not so much damage, so with them the lane will get the kill more often. WW can do ok damage with his ult+hungering strike+auto attacks, but isn't the most bursty of gankers (like say, Xin Zhao). But really, it doesn't matter that much who gets the kill, the point of it is to add gold to the team and set the enemy lane back, and even just assist gold is decent. The worst case would be ganking bot and your support getting the kill, the best would be the AD carry gets the kill, but I don't usually think about that when going for a gank. Most important is to secure the kill, or a second one, and then decide afterwards whether you're in a position to do some work on the tower or go for dragon.

[Patrick]

See I did that first, then quadz was like "do cloth armor + health pot"

Plus, I'm not ganking before my first back anyway, so I'll have madred's at that point no matter what

Longsword + 1 health pot gives you a slight saving. It might depend on (lack of) runes, but WW has so much sustain that you shouldn't need more than 1 health pot. The only place you'll get even vaguely low is taking blue initially.

It's possible for WW to take dragon at level 5 once he has mini razors, but you need procs so it's not reliable.

[Patrick]

Banshees veil is good on squishies, don't like it so much on beefy characters who can easily have their veil popped anyway.

[Patrick]

If playing a mage, try to lane in mid. As Xerath, you want to be constantly harassing your lane opponent (buy some mana or mana regen early so you don't run out). You don't normally have the burst to take someone down from 100%, but you can just keep whittling away at them until they have to either go back or stay and risk being bursted down if you catch them in a combo. Your basic combo if something gets in range is e+q+your ultimate.

I'd recommend just playing a few different free champions each week and seeing what you like. Brand is a strong mage, but 6300 is alot to spend on something you've never used.

[Patrick]

I'm toying with the idea of bottom lane support+Ryze, due to the mana mechanic he's much more item centric then level centric (Q's dmg is 40/65/90/115/140, you're really not losing much by leveling slower).

blitz/ryze

[Patrick]

I found it rude that the Veigar never attacked me

[Patrick]

Xerath is a rough matchup for alot of things in lane, I don't know enough about lane fiddles to say though. He's an odd one.

[Patrick]

However, what the HELL do you do when its something like cait and ashe? I can't harass and they just seem to scale faster.

Caitlin is a strong laner and a difficult matchup. Ashe should get destroyed by Brand in lane whether on TT or SR. Harass with your pillar and try to zone her off farm with the threat of a big combo. Ashe's damage is low early on while yours is high, and unlike a melee character she can't buy magic resist early without setting herself behind.

[Patrick]

#2) ignite seems to be the only way to kill someone early game While I can whittle away at their health with my poisons, I cannot for the life of me knock them down to 0hp. I always get them SO FUCKING LOW but I can't get that last little bit. Cassie's range isn't great and usually the enemy figures out OH SHIT I SHOULD B before they rush in at low health, so I can never snag any kills... what do

Alot of AP mids do take ignite to add that extra bit of damage to secure the kill. Remember though, you don't have to kill something to have the edge in lane. Forcing them back denies them gold and xp, and if they're staying in on lowish health they have to be extra wary, probably denying themselves farm they might have otherwise gone for, and being less of a threat to you.

I'm not a Cass player, but if your lane opponent is hanging back or being forced to go back to heal, you should push your lane and look for gank opportunies in the side lanes. That isn't just a Cass thing, alot of AP carries are excellent gankers. AP carries are at their strongest early to mid, and you have a level advantage over jungle and bot lane, so don't be afraid to go for it.

[Patrick]

I'll defer to JDodge

[Patrick]

Buttons denied the darkness in his soul and was punished

[Patrick]

It pretty much depends on the AP carry. I used to just rush RoA first on all of them after a couple of nasty experiences rushing hat, but on some hat first is better. I tried it last time I played Brand and the difference in damage was noticeable (though there were mana issues even with 3 dorans rings). With Malhazar the extra mana probably isn't a big deal since most of the mana you put into farming you get back anyway. With Veigar I prefer a DFG first since it's cheaper than hat, provides CDR and mana regen, and I suspect adds roughly as much power to your combo (guess, not precise calculation). In any case it gives enough to one shot a squishy.

Who cares about the sustain from Catalyst and the well-rounded efficient stats of Rod of Ages when I can just murder my lane opponent every Tibbers cooldown?

Presumably sometimes you're struggling in lane, or you're playing a mage that scales fairly well (Veigar, Karthus, Malz, Ryze)?

[Patrick]

Don't see why Irelia got nerfed, her sustain was hardly the most broken of the top laners

[Patrick]

Sad that my timezone did not permit me to be involved

[Patrick]

GET

PHAGED

.

[Patrick]

Watching some of the commentary, I'd agree it was much better this time.

And I enjoyed the inhouses I played in. The first couple were frustrating in that I'm not sure what more I could have done to alter the result, short of getting double digit kills in lane. The skype call in the third game was awesome, strange as it sounds. No arguing, no white noise, very well coordinated. It helped so much, real pleasure to play with you all.

[Patrick]

I stand by my assessment. Most teams I play in have alot more disagreement over the course of the game.

[Patrick]

I would gladly try my hand at casting, but seems unlikely I'd be able to cast every single game.

[Patrick]

I had a bad feeling in that second inhouse, the minute Hindu said in the skype call that he was expecting to easily win top lane. In retrospect I could have maybe given him the stolen red buff, but I was trying to overcome the slow WW jungle and rush 6 asap.

[Patrick]

Having Morgana on your team is good against Veigar. You just shield whatever he tries to burst down.

[Patrick]

I would take you up on that, and possibly expect to lose esurio. Your mid lane play is very solid and mechanically strong, and I'm not such an amazing Veigar, just pretty much the only person who plays him with any regularity. I now try to pick him more sparingly, usually only if I've seen their mid or have some ridiculous urge to first pick him.

I did recently put together a page of MR quints and blues, together with the 6 magic resist mastery (though still running 21 in offence). If you open null magic, you can go into lane with 87 MR, which is kind of funny and has let me farm fairly well against opponents I've tried it against so far. I've also been considering just trying to play him as a more standard AP carry since he got buffed, not going hyper-defensive, but just building boots, a dorans ring or two and then a DFG, and trying to trade some hits then zone the opponent with the threat of a big combo rather than burning most of my mana on Q-farming. I don't know how well it might work, but as soon as I practice having the muscle memory to incorporate both ignite and DFG into a combo (currently been taking teleport and using same key for DFG as I do for ignite), I might give it a try. Veigar may be a weak laner, but he's ridiculous if gets ahead, and a really good mid to gank for (also quite hard for the enemy jungle to gank).

[Patrick]

Bolded means the veigar isn't good at stunning. The cast is actually near instant, so the only reason why morg can black shield it is or you didn't aim right, or you didn't see morg put the shield up.

As for the shielding someone to survive bit, generally as veigar, if you are allowed the farm, those extra 400 hitpoints on their carry aren't going to make the difference. You've got plenty of damage midgame to blow up that ashe/mf/whoever with or without that shield.

Even though the stun is instant, Veigar tends to telegraph what he's up too. Shield also means if you're caught in the middle you can walk away no problem, and can be cast on self if you want to just run at him to try and ult into burst him down. If you're really scared you can just cast it when you want to come forward to drop your pool.

In a teamfight, black shield is 5 seconds worth of time where your target can't be CCed, that's huge. Veigar's big thing is trying to blow up a squishy near the start of a teamfight, that becomes alot harder if one of them has 700-800 more health against you and basically can't be hit by your meteor. Do you throw out your stun anyway and try to kill a suboptimal target, do you wait the 5 seconds before making your move? That's easily enough time for the other team to kill you.

Veigar in teamfights is very dependent on his combo, if he gets trolled out of it by a shield, a QSS or anything, his sustained damage is fairly poor and his CC takes a long time to come back up.

[Patrick]

I also can't farm for shit on Volibear. I think it's because I'm initiating fights all the time, but his auto animation is kinda meh as well.

[Patrick]

What exact runes/builds?

Are you laning him solo top?

Sometimes cloth armor +5 health pots will be a better start, then building into a Wriggles Lantern to give you some staying power in lane. Without it, you have only your passive for lane sustain, which isn't that much.

Rushing Warmogs isn't always the best idea either, but it depends what's going on in your lane. If you just want to be tougher against a physical attacker, chain vest will give you better value for money. Against things doing magic damage, you might want an early Negatron cloak or even go straight to your Wits End. Warmogs is a great item to have but not necessarily as a first item.

Atmas is a good choice and likely still will be after the nerf.

As for runes, Marks are usually better used for offensive stats, usually armor pen. I can't remember otoh what you get from MR marks but if you want MR I think it's better for them to be Glyphs or Quints. I'd replace the Health Quints, they don't offer that much beyond the first few levels.


Full offence tree would help you farm, but there's nothing wrong with defence tree either.

Bruisers are the hardest things to build, so just try and be as flexible as you can and react to what's going on in the game.

[Patrick]

Is it really bad to build a philo stone on voli to make up for poor farm?

Almost anything in top could get one. Do it if you don't expect much fighting in the lane.

[Patrick]

I'd build Mercs too

[Patrick]

Not the best AP carry in the game

[Patrick]

PEG WHERE ARE YOU

[Patrick]

I zoned their mid so hard. He managed not a single last hit.

[Patrick]

noob Lulu

[Patrick]

While we take a short break before playing some ranked, I will say this was the most fun I've had in LoL in a while. I think everyone else felt the same. Good to know we can play when we put our minds to it.

[Patrick]

I have got to improve my farming, in every lane and in the jungle. I become completely ineffective in mid-lategame when I'm 2-3k gold behind the entire rest of the game. I'm now getting to the level where my natural farming skills are falling pretty far behind basically everyone else I play against, and it's becoming a giant problems. If I don't get kills early and snowball, I end up pretty much useless by endgame. :/

As a jungler, don't feel bad about simply farming your jungle for a while - sometimes there just aren't any good gank opportunities available, and trying too hard to force it will usually lead to a bad result.

In lanes, it depends why you're falling behind on farm. Are you being too aggressive and "forgetting" to farm? Being zoned off farm? Just missing alot of easy CS? If it's pure mechanics then you just need to practice, even in custom games, until you get more used to the champion's auto attack animation or whatever it is they use to farm.

[Patrick]

For junglers, I tend to run into the issue where "holy shit every camp is cleared ummmm... what now?" I know that wraiths has the shortest timer, so I tend to just go there, but I feel like I'm not doing anything just standing there, waiting for wraiths to pop up.

You can place wards, hold any lanes that need it, give blue to mid, keep timers on enemy buffs and consider stealing them or just go back to buy. Most of the time there should be something to do in between the short respawn timers.

[Patrick]

Olaf beats Irelia

[Patrick]

Are you really boasting about playing against a guy who was deliberately feeding?

[Patrick]

=(

[Patrick]

Is there a list of who is supposed to counter who for top and mid lane? Because at the moment I've been using Teemo to counter Riven and WW to counter Yorick but I want to know if there are better choices.

Cho can farm easily enough, if you're still playing him.

[Patrick]

Buy a DFG. Dish out the pain.

[Patrick]

Seems to me its usually best used on your squishy line when an enemy bruiser gets onto them. Depending on the gamestate, you may allow your AD carry to stand and fight them, even in melee range.

[Patrick]

I just WW mid v Ziggs. much fun was had.

[Patrick]

did you win the 1 v 2 Lee Sin game?

[Patrick]

Played her a couple of times, quite fun, I felt like her burst with e-w-w-q was insane, even early on. Will try to get better with her

[Patrick]

Tried Rengar mirror match with Shanba and then played him once in a real game. He's a massive immovable object in lane, with insane sustain, insanely fast tower pushing and good insurance against ganks with his ult. Found myself being much less useful in teamfights, but could easily believe I was doing it wrong.

[Patrick]

Rengar is a pretty terrible jungler it looks like, can't speak for top lane.

Weren't you in two games where a jungling Rengar completely shat on all our lanes and jungle?

[Patrick]

He doesn't need bushes pre 6, he can use a bola and an immediate ferocity bola for a 1 second root followed by 4 seconds of considerable slow, and it's not a skillshot. I agree about the 30 minute mark, he doesn't seem to scale well at all.

[Patrick]

The problem with putting Malz top is you get ganked very easily. That's true of any squishy AP carry, but he's more vulnerable to it than most.

[Patrick]

E is legit harass in many lanes, easier to land than Q at the cost of lower range. It lets you push the lane very hard on demand without losing any mana, and the lowered cooldown at higher levels is nice too. I pretty much always max it first and Q second. Not sure if that would change in top lane, where pushspamming is riskier.

[Patrick]

I've played Trundle a few times on new TT, pretty legit.

[Patrick]

Btw, blackfire torch on brand is mind boggingly stupid

Does it proc on each tick of his passive? (Same with Liandry's?) I assumed it would but when I watched a replay where I played brand to check it, it actually looked like the effect wasn't refreshing with each passive tick.

[Patrick]

Regardless, I still think Liandry's and Blackfire are very strong, and Liandry's will probably need nerfing. The burn is only % of current health and is halved for DoTs, but the item still has a really nice build path and is kind of cheap for what it does imo.

[Patrick]

Their team captain banned Morgana, so I joked that he'd ban Kassadin last in preparation for a 1st pick Veigar, something I used to do. Sure enough, he banned Kassadin next, so I asked Fate to ban Veigar, because that would surely cause their captain to ragequit. So we banned Veigar and soon after their captain dropped from champ select.

[Patrick]

He actually did pick TF before queue dodging.

[Patrick]

as soon as they get out of their game, obv

[Patrick]

I play Trundle from time to time, I don't think he's that good right now, though for pretty much entirely different reasons to the ones lil g gave.

His pillar has many many uses, he's one of the best duelists in the game, and his scaling in terms of steroids is actually pretty good. In games/maps against bruisers he does well, but against ad carries and other squishies he's prone to being kited, and once he finally reaches the fed ad carry, he doesn't have the burst to kill them before he's finished off himself. I think it would be fair to say that the meta doesn't favour him atm.

[Patrick]

She felt really clunky and awkward to play when she came out. I haven't tried her after her buffs, but I think people just hung onto their first impressions of her for ages.

[Patrick]

Malz players have to have thick skin

[Patrick]

mid rammus
=)

[Patrick]

Chalice could be worth it for mana if you're laning against AP? That seems better than tear.

[Patrick]

Mid Cho actually has alot of decent matchups. Against alot of squishy mages you can quickly reach the point where you can basically ignore them, while your spells still do a ton of damage to them. Most of the trendy mid assassins have the same problem. I find the only things that can trouble you are more sustained damage dealers - Swain is a good example of a matchup where you can never quite reach the invincible point you want to.

Annie is an easy matchup, you can just scream on her whenever she tries to approach anything.

[Patrick]

Luckily playing mid cho requires no skill. You just eat creeps while buying the appropriate resist for your lane. Then you eat champions.

[Patrick]

SUPPORT WARWICK

[Patrick]

Gangplank just isn't that good at the moment. Shen would be a worthwhile pick up though.

[Patrick]

Can someone name me a champion who would actually do better with Chalice->Athene's instead of Tear->Murasomething? Because I can't think of one.

I feel like very few mid champions actually need the amount of mana you get from stacking a tear. Things like Swain, Anivia, maybe Karthus and the rare AP Kog Maw would be examples. On most mids I feel like you need either RoA or Athenes and you're set for mana for the entire game.

[Patrick]

Yeah, I'm sure I forgot one or two.

[Patrick]

I want to get good at Cho, but no idea how I should be building him.

It depends where you're playing him. If you're coming out of the jungle, your limited budget will probably only allow you to build as a tank with minor damage. Wits end can stand alone quite well as a damage item on him, allowing you put the rest into appropriate tank items and CDR. Things like Aegis and Frozen Heart will almost never be a bad idea, but really you just want to react to what's going in the game.

If you're taking a solo lane I see it as somewhat different, as in general I don't like the idea of devoting a whole lane's worth of farm to something that isn't going to build damage. Cho has very high base damages and utility, but if you don't build any at all it'll eventually fall off. You generally have two paths: Bruiser or Tanky AP.

Bruiser

: You have a damage steroid on your auto attacks, so building AS is a priority. However since the bonus damage is magic and won't proc crit, you generally want to stay away from things like I-edge and PD outside of trolly builds (I have tried it for fun once or twice when very far ahead). Wits end adds AS and damage while sort of covering your MR needs for a while, and if you're laning against an AP character this may be your first buy. Apart from that, you still want your tank items so you can be huge. I personally prefer Frozen Mallet as a health item over Warmogs on him - the extra 300 health from warmogs seems less important when you have so much extra health from feast stacks, and the perma slows really help you stick to things and peel for your squishies. Lategame I've built BORK on him for more damage, but many things can work.

Tanky AP

: With this you're building for burst. You won't have as much AP as typical squishy mages, but you're fat and go places in teamfights that they can't. Just buy things that add survivability and AP, and don't forget some CDR either. Frozen Heart is once again good, with RoA, Rylais, Abyssal Sceptre, Zhonyas and Liandry's all being acceptable items on him depending on the game. Liandry's procs on his E, which means you'll inflict the burn every time you auto attack someone. Deathcap can fit into some builds, taking advantage of his decent AP ratios, but don't rush to build it.

Cho will be a huge and beefy CC machine almost whatever build you go him, so throwing in some damage seems more useful than just adding even more tankiness. Either way, the enemy team isn't going to focus a Cho unless he's hopelessly out of position.

[Patrick]

Also, Cho is pretty open to mixing and matching build paths. You could build a tanky AP character and then tag on a Wits end, or build an Abyssal Sceptre into a mostly bruiser build. That's one of the things I like about the character.

[Patrick]

Also, never ever listen to anything Stag tells you. He's a terrorist.

[Patrick]

Every stat on Frozen Mallet is relevant if you're building as a bruiser.

[Patrick]

Feast stacks only mean that Cho doesn't need to buy health as quickly as other characters, not that he shouldn't bother at all.

Cho is more than capable of sticking to and killing things when played as a bruiser. I think it's usually worse than building AP on him, but bruiser Cho has it's niche and does things that none of the characters you listed can.

[Patrick]

Of course it's an inefficient item in terms of numbers - you're paying gold for a slow, same as Rylais. That doesn't make it bad.

What would a bruiser Cho even look like? Frozen Mallet/Brutilizer (yay for making the auto attacks scarier)/Wits End? Please do not do this thing. If you want to do this, just buy a Trinity Force - it's not very good, but it's better than getting Mallet.

Not brutaliser when so much of your damage is magic. Not Tri Force, that seems legitmately bad on him. Definitely Wits End, probably Frozen Mallet, probably a Frozen Heart or Randuins. After that, depends on the game. Abyssal works if you need more MR, BORK is more dps, or you can buy more tank if you/your team needs it. I have done this thing and made it work. No, I wasn't playing with a bunch of weaker players.

[Patrick]

Spellshields!

[Patrick]

Interesting game to watch.

[Patrick]

I'm pretty free now until Baltimore to play, but last I checked Glork teammate said he was out until Wednesday of next week.

[Patrick]

Welcome on board, Ray

[Patrick]

Just posting to say that I'm still up for playing the tournament, not back at work until Monday, after that am generally only free on an evening.

[Patrick]

Played him once and he felt quite strong, but it was a stompy game. I think I got dived about 3 or 4 times in laning phase and got kills because of the trolol passive. I agree he seems pretty easy to play.

[Patrick]

Is it just me or is warwick secretly op atm.

Don't tell anyone.

[Patrick]

Only fanatics play him, they know what they're doing on him.

[Patrick]

*muted

[Patrick]

Also having those kinds of client issues.

[Patrick]

for real, we been over this

[Patrick]

Most people prefer playing blue side as it feels more natural. In fact when I first started playing, my first few games were all on blue side, and I started assuming the map just got flipped if you were on purple to make it seems like you were always blue.

You may be playing on locked camera mode, which means the screen just automatically follows your character. If you get rid of that, you can control where your screen is, which takes a bit of getting used to, but also takes away a lot of the annoyance of playing purple. It also lets you look around at different places on the map, to see how a teamfight is going or see whether a teammate / opponent can be trapped etc.

[Patrick]

Maybe if you like to play a bruiser but want more farm than you can get in the jungle.

[Patrick]

Vayne

[Patrick]

Oman - going a small way back up the page, if you're playing Galio, don't fall into the trap of buying more MR than you need. It gives free AP, but if you're at the point where the extra MR is hitting diminishing returns, you may as well be just buying the AP instead. And you'd be tankier against AP damage by having more health.

[Patrick]

MR making health more cost-effective doesn't make each new point of MR provide less tankiness than the previous.

Not sure if being serious or playing word games with me, but at some point in his build, he could have made himself tankier to AP damage by not building more MR, but building health instead. The health would also let him stand up better to physical damage. I don't know where that point is exactly, but I'm sure Oman will have passed it with the build he had there.

[Patrick]

Yessir.

[Patrick]

Zyra is pretty annoying for a lot of melee characters to lane against. Still, she's vulnerable to ganks without any escapes.

[Patrick]

Irelia has sustain, sticks to things better, has a better early-midgame, in-built tenacity and ranged damage that can be useful in a pinch. Jax doesn't make her obsolete, never has.

[Patrick]

Anivia scales very hard into the lategame both in damage and utility - tough champion to play but rewarding. I've never really played her so I don't know her matchups, but I don't think she's that strong early on. I can usually push her around as Malz.

And speaking of Malz, I like RoA on him, but that's mostly just me liking RoA on almost anything that scales with AP. I've never had trouble being aggressive early on with a Catalyst, it just means you have to trade punches a few more times before going in for the kill, which is easy to do with the extra health and sustain at every level. I suppose your ganks are less scary in theory, but tbh if you land your full roll and your teammate isn't asleep, you normally get the kill anyway. I usually compare RoA to Athenes in my mind just because those are the two main items that give you mana and you don't need them both as Malz, while going with neither usually leads to running out at important moments. RoA gives more sustain, more all round tankiness (a stat which is IMO often underrated on AP carries), and slightly more AP when charged. Athenes has a more flexible build path and offers CDR. I usually get better results with RoA, unless I fall behind extremely early.

[Patrick]

RoA Warwick feels excellent until you leave the laning phase. Which is about when you get the money to buy it.

[Patrick]

don't think he's especially high skill cap. Did someone say that?

[Patrick]

Played jungle WW, quite broken, was happy. Built attackspeed/on-hit item and got to +90 damage. Very nice with wits end for his ult.

[Patrick]

I think the jungle items were bugged last night, or I'm not understanding how they're meant to work.

Started Hunters Machete and upgraded to Poachers knife, and then later was prevented from buying the Devourer enchantment, because I already have a jungle item. The game wouldn't let me buy Devourer until I sold my Poachers knife. Later on when I bought the Devourer whole, it got assigned Rangers Trailblazer as the small jungle item on it, without any choice from me. I had thought you could buy any of the small items and then any of the enchantments you wanted.

On another note, I think Devourer will be nerfed a bit. When bought it's slightly cheaper/worse than wits end, but the scaling on it adds so much damage as the game goes on. Last time I played I hit 65 stacks, for a total of +115 magic damage on each auto, huge for an item that cheap.

[Patrick]

Devourer builds up really fast once you start getting into skirmishes and fights. Even in games where things are going poorly or just ok, you can get 50 stacks without much problem.

[Patrick]

103. Struggled more with newer ones.

[Patrick]

I've played hundreds of WW top games, and there aren't that many opponents that can just hard deny you. I sometimes fall behind on farm, but I think a lot of the CS I miss are unforced rather than due to the matchup. It's also worth noting WW is one of best characters for bouncing back from a mediocre laning phase in the midgame, especially at the Silver-Gold level we usually play, where people do no end of stupid things. Probably less true at higher levels, but the playmaking potential is there.

QSS does reduce your zerg potential in the lategame, but there is an opportunity cost, and in some of those games the ADC would have preferred to go GA instead. Most AP carries can't conveniently just slot a QSS into their builds, and most bruisers don't want one either. It's a good item to build against a Warwick that's mauling you in every fight, but it won't make him go away.

[Patrick]

The scream actually hits BEFORE the anmiation starts, so you can appear to totally have avoided the animation, but if you were in cho's range amd noonpooled when he actually presses the button, it hits.

This explains alot. I've played Cho for a long time, and have always loved how wide/long ranged the scream seems to be.