League of Legends

[BlackSails]

Pretty sure graves is supposed to be a in-out-semi-close ap-carry. Dash in, buckshot, his passive and the blinding to close gaps really support that.

Then he is too long range.

[Windowlicker]

I think his range is fine. From the games I played with him, I'll agree he's powerful, but I wouldn't say he's OP. I haven't seen anyone else playing him making me think he's too much either.

[Goldstein]

Other than the novelty of his smoke grenades restricting my vision, I've not really noticed him in the games I've been against him. This might say more about the quality of my opponents, but there are a lot of characters that can perform extremely well when fed, and I'd imagine Graves is just another.

[Thtb]

Veigar might be a mana hungry, squishy midget but dear god, being able to throw out a nice 2000 dmg combo and only getting stronger as the game goes along. Had some good games with him, the only thing really annoying me is (br)olaf, such a beast...

[eeris]

Been trying to get back into LoL again after a bit of an absence by means of ARAM games. Not really worth of a forum post other than I just got my first pentakill as Kayle in one of these games. Final build of rageblade, zerkers, gunblade. trinity and black cleaver. The damage output was pretty hilarious but it's hard to judge as we had dominated most of the game and our opponents didn't have great items.

Don't know if I feel up to playing ranked games again, although I do remember them fondly. Maybe next weekend.

[PeteP]

As for builds - I always build to counter my enemys and take advantage of the current situation. Sure this and that build is great, Karthus with 5x Archangle Staff and one funny hat makes you have over a 1000'd ap, but it's a waste, you die like a fly and if the enemy lets you get there you should have won already anyway.

I had a feeded karthus as an opponent a few days ago he went the multiple Archangel Staff route. But he bought 4 of them before starting to build the hat. I wonder if he was just bad at math or just saw the several Archangel + hat build somewhere and didn't bother thinking about an useful build order.

[maybeagnostic]

After a weekend of games with her, I'm starting to enjoy Shyvana. She can be built to work well, you just have to throw out everything that was said in the champion spotlight. I also find her terrible in lane. Jungle or gtfo. She's super fast in the jungle, which leaves me with lots of time to invade or set up ganks. Unfortunately, ganking is terrible. I am learning how to play a bit more aggressive in the jungle through her though, which has led to some fun times.

I tried a few games with Shyvana yesterday. She's incredibly fast at clearing the jungle (I was actually the first to get to lvl 4 in the game beating 4 solo lane people and the other jungler which was impressive) but I can't figure out how to successfully gank someone unless they're ridiculously overextended. Maybe I can gank the other jungler as they're finishing their run if I am fast enough? I played a few bot games and one game against people (although I am only lvl 28 so not ranked); i mostly built attack speed in all of them and it worked out well for me but I did die pretty fast when people actually focused me.

Unrelatedly, our team had a maximum sized Cho and me in dragon form with the new summoner ability (significantly increases size). That just looked so awesome! I couldn't see anyone but the two of us which made attacking enemies very difficult though.

[ProZac]

Yeah, Shyvana's ganking is atrocious until level 6, which is why you should just focus on getting there fast. Just use speed to your advantage, taking quick dives into the enemy jungle to clear. I've got it down to a couple passes into the enemy jungle just being part of my route.

I picked up Lee Sin to try with as another jungler and practiced with him Monday. Was going well, seemed like a pretty standard Jungler. Then Tuesday hit and the new Masteries came out. Lee Sin can now Jungle til 6 without ever leaving or dropping below 50% health. Now if only I could get better with him once Team fights start, and knowing when to gank. I'm always afraid to use his ult, as if I screw it up, it saves the enemy rather than killing them.

But the new Masteries are awesome. And they seem to drastically help out some champs more than others. I didn't really find Surge too useful, but I never found a good time to use it. Since I've been jungling pretty constantly with my group recently... I've not tried out promote yet.

[Drumheller769]

Yea, the new masteries definitely feel much more focused. So yea, they help most heroes out, but some that are very much split between the trees might have trouble. I have been playing Sona support in ranked and Ive gone like 5-1 over the past few days. I feel the new masteries make it so much easier to play support with low cs.

[Lostdreams]

While I do like that Riot is trying out new things and they aren't afraid to change major things like the mastery tree, I'm not liking most of the changes to it.

These comments are in review of the mastery trees as they relate to 5v5. Obviously, the trees will work differently in other modes.

The attack tree. It is overpowered and the choices are cookiecutter. After playing WoW for a long time I realise that there are always min-max builds but a good tree destroys cookiecutting by providing useful (but different) abilities without changing the overall damage output. The new attack tree contains everything a damage dealer needs and nothing else. There is no cross tree utility at the bottom tiers of the attack tree so if you are maining defense or utility trees, you won't be picking attack as your minor tree. Magic users will find the AP versions of all the talents mirrored across the board, except for spell vamp because placing it in the mastery tree makes sense right?

The utility tree. Giving money starved support players gold is a solid idea; giving cooldown based characters who would take a slight damage nerf if they used the utility tree instead of the attack tree more gold, not such a good idea. The tree itself was the most versatile out of the trees originally providing more than just one linear path but now adds many choices, as long as you have a mana bar. Non mana users will only have to choose between gold generation and experience generation which, if you aren't in a 20 min surrender game, isn't a choice.

What defense tree? The first two tiers give pretty much the same utility as before since they contain pretty much the same talents as before. The rest of the tree is close to the same crap as before, minus the dodge and the life regen based on max mana. There is a buff to health in early game but it is outpaced by added damage in the the attack tree. The only new thing they really added is pushing talents.

Expect to see pushers in 5s now. They will be taking 5/21/0 + 4 with 3 of the extra 4 in good hands in the utility tree. Rammus will probably be the superstar for this as he already stacks armor,will pulverize minion waves more easily now, and can escape before he is caught. Alistar will come in a close second with less manuverability but more overall survivability.

I will have to experiment with it but I believe an Rammus attack speed jungle pusher might be viable. (If not jungle then a lane with teleport) Basically the new pushing skills would allow an unattended lane to be pushed to a tower immediately and then start taking massive damage. I will have check the numbers but attack speed and armor feels like the right direction to go in for tower damage and survivability. He will still be vulnerable to magic users but should put up an excellent fight for physical damage champs, even with lower health.

[ProZac]

At least Jungle Rammus got a nice buff out of this. I played him last night, absolutely no trouble clearing the jungle quickly.

However, I disagree about your assessment of the trees. The only thing I find out of them is... less of a chance to go part way into trees? I mean, the talents now *matter*. The difference is noticeable (which would make leveling ... interesting). I never took the defense tree on many characters, but... I'm still going to take the defense tree on those characters. I rarely used the utility tree as I don't play mages/champs with mana issues so the lower half of the tree was useless. This is still true (if not more so). The offense tree was always cookie cutter? I had multiple pages, but for the most part it was moving 1-2 points around just based on a slight preference for some champs. The spell vamp not being in the tree was odd.

Also, pushers were always in 5's, and it was very noticeable if your team didn't have one. Unless we have different definitions of pushers.

[Lostdreams]

I rarely used the utility tree as I don't play mages/champs with mana issues so the lower half of the tree was useless. This is still true (if not more so).

The power in the utility tree used to come from the reduced cooldowns and the early mana regen to support sustained extra use of the skills effected by it. Now it does that plus adds gold or exp. Not all champs could effectively use the utility tree, even if they had mana issues. The best ones had cooldowns of <10 seconds for which the extra time meant a chain of moves could turn into 2 chains that turned into a kill.

The spell vamp not being in the tree was odd.

The only thing I can come up with for the spell vamp being in utility tree is to keep hybrids from leeching too much in early game.

I never took the defense tree on many characters, but... I'm still going to take the defense tree on those characters. I rarely used the utility tree as I don't play mages/champs with mana issues so the lower half of the tree was useless. This is still true (if not more so).

Dodge was a thing. Between having removed it from the defense tree completely and having only one item that has the stat tells me they intend to remove it from the game. The only question left is what they intend to do with Jax.

Also, pushers were always in 5's, and it was very noticeable if your team didn't have one. Unless we have different definitions of pushers.

I misspoke. By pusher I meant tower breaker. It also gives champs who weren't pushers, pushing ability. More than that though, the champs I listed would be both at the same time. Having one of these isn't a problem (Singed, Sivir) but when they put them together it becomes imbalanced, fast.

Rammus, more than the others I think, will end up being the worst. Teleport will give other champs limited mobility but Rammus' powerball makes him faster than Singed and when he gets there he can do more damage and clear waves almost as fast.

[setzer777]

My dominion strategy the last couple days has been "Play Singed, win games". I very rarely lose when I play Singed.

Finally tried this, and damn he's effective (at least at my elo). He can push minions really fast, is almost impossible to kill, and people seem very willing to chase low health Singed through the jungle or in circles around towers until poison kills them.

[Drumheller769]

For some reason chasing Singed is at once the stupidest thing you can do, and yet apparently the most tempting. I usually draw a line, if Im above half hp Ill chase for a bit, else no way.

[Mavketl]

For me, the most important thing is if he's baiting you into a turret or teammates. I have a pretty good idea of how much damage Singed can do on his own, and backing off before it's too late is easy if it's just him... but if half of their team's location is unknown or if he's headed straight for a turret, there's no way I'm risking it.

And now for something completely different...

[BlackSails]

The reason you cant chase singed is 1) he is probably significantly faster than you, particularly with his ult and slow 2) you take high damage while doing so 3) after you take enough damage from his poison, he can just ult, turn around fling you and kill you

[Mavketl]

Clearly you're not going to bother if you don't have stuns or slows or anything.

@3), that's where the "know how much damage Singed can do" comes in.

[elminster]

I've started to dislike LoL in a way. Before it turned into similar games, but now it's turned into the same game every time.
Basically if you can force a late game tanky dps wins 95% of the time (Literally). The only effective way to counter late game is to push hard constantly and split push. This means you lose team fights, but take towers. This can be partially countered by teleport on good tower defending champs.

Tanky dps just has an inherent advantage over more squishy builds in a lot of cases. Building warmogs and atmas on any AD champ is basically the best build you can do.

Jungling is now more like roaming.

Singed late game is funny as fk. I play singed quite often, usually win. His main weakness is early game vs some characters. If he's denied early game, he's not very good at any point after. What Singed does is, what I like to call, "Gets that shit done" by tower diving most of their team at the same time and forcing them to run.
He's also a great counter to tanky dps teams, in that he can kite an entire team while damaging them (Important part of Ryalis vs melee team). He's got one of the best taunts imo.
Also, rule 1 of Singed is "don't chase singed". I've killed entire teams because they chased me 1v5.

AD sion doesn't really work in most cases, but in dominion he can be super funny for late game wins. Basically, he can tank 2 people and a tower at the same time if the game goes on long enough.

[Drumheller769]

Yea, AD Sion + ult + things to hit and you can pretty much go 1v5 under their turret if you have decent items.

[rigwarl]

A tanky DPS comp (e.g., Lee Sinn, Irelia, Rumble, Udyr, Taric) has the advantage in early skirmishes, but loses to a balanced comp in late game 5v5's (at higher levels of play, I guess).

[Drumheller769]

The problem comes if your team is uncoordinated and lets the squishies get picked off.

[rigwarl]

^ pretty much that. I find that it's incredibly common (more often than not) in solo queue play for your Skarner to ult the enemy Caitlin to try to kill her, but AFAIK every pro team uses Skarner ult to, say, drag an Irelia away from your Kog'maw.

[Kick]

Oh, turns out I never posted here.

I play League of Legends, granted not very well...but I play Heimerdinger, Vlad, Ezreal, and LeBlanc. If anyone wants to play sometime, add me in-game: Kickimanjaro

[eeris]

So it looks like dodge is being removed and a refund given to those who have the runes. About time! At last no more dodges on auto attacks that would normally kill champs.

[rigwarl]

There are still crits on auto-attacks that wouldn't kill champs though

[Wyvern]

makes me wonder what they are going to do with jax.

[Drumheller769]

So if you are a squishy AP champ, with no targetable stun(skillshot doesnt count) how do you counter fizz mid? If you miss your skillshot, or he dodges it then he just eats you.

[Intrigued]

If you give an example of who you are talking about, that'd be good. If you're discounting skillshots on characters that rely on their skillshots, I think the answer is obvious. If you're not good with a character, you generally can't hope to counter people who are good with their characters. You're not supposed to do well in a lane with a skillshot champ if you can't hit people with your skillshot.

That said, almost all APs are ranged. For fizz, you need to really abuse him early game and make sure you get attacks off when he's running back after harass. His CDs will all be off, and you can catch up with him jumping away. Physical attacks do significant damage at low level, even from mages.

[Drumheller769]

For example I was brand, everytime I tried to use my Q to stun him after hitting either a W or a E he would dodge it with playful trickster. As we both had the same boots he was able to close the distance to me with urchin strike no matter what I did. So either I stayed way back, or risk letting him get to me, and he hits hard. But I believe the same could be said of Lux, Morgana too, although Viegar might work...but his stun isn't a skillshot.

[Intrigued]

Yeah, it's all about head games then. With Brand I would approach it with an all or nothing attitude. I would try to clip him with W's and Q's from a distance, and when those were on CD I would stay back. If you hit with a W and take no damage, that's a win, you don't necessarily need to hit your Q right after. If he rush in to me, I would hit him with an E (not dodge-able) and auto attacks. I would continue auto attacking and orb walking on him until he did his jump, then I would land my W and Q once he was back on the ground. In that case it's more a matter of really making him pay for any harass on you, rather than necessarily out harassing him in the first place. With your W you should be able to pretty effectively keep him from farming as well.

The characters you mention all have superior range and creep wave clearing abilities. Lux isn't the most effective, but should be able to ward him off since she has a slow and a stun, so he can only hop over one. Morgana with her black shield and other strong spells should form a pretty solid counter to him. Veigar I would be worried about because he's so slow. Even if he outharasses, fizz may keep up with him while his CDs refresh, doing more damage. The key to veig would be effective use of stun to harass and get out well before he has a chance to respond. He's a bit squishier than the others to me, without any sort of shield, and he is generally a bit weaker earlier on.

No matter what though, I would make sure that fizz had to come a long distance to me if he wants to harass so that he's pretty close to my tower, making him feel uncomfortable. I would make sure to pressure him with all the spells I could land if he gets his harass off and stick on him with orb walking auto attacks until he was back past the creep line. If you're back far enough you should be up 3-5 autoattacks and a handful of creep autoattacks, and that is HUGE early game. If he sticks on you, you just run until he starts to back off, then chase him. Don't trade blows with him, as soon as he turns to fight you kite until you can take free potshots. Speaking of the creep autos, I would try to make sure that this happened far back, but near enough my creeps that they would hopefully turn on him. I'm not sure how much recent patches are affecting this, but every bit of damage is important when trading harass early game.

[omgryebread]

So I'm just starting LoL, and I'm starting to pick up on some things. I'm playing all co-ops against the computer right now, so it's really easy, and before I go into real games, what should I learn? I know how to build Ashe (probably not a superawesome build or whatever, but it works), and I'm studying a few other champions in case Ashe is taken or a team already has ranged DPS. I like completely knowing games that I play, so should I just start learning the ins and outs of champions one by one, or is there something else I should study?

Any general tips or advice for playing?

[Intrigued]

LoL has a high knowledge curve. It's certainly helpful to know how all the champions work. It's great to play as many as possible. Last hitting is of epic usefulness, and you should concentrate hard on getting better at it. If you really like to know all the ins and outs, you should mix playing often with watching some streams of higher level play when you can. You'll learn a lot from watching someone else who plays well.

[eeris]

So... Yeah. I stopped playing for a while and apparantly 90% of the champions I play have grown stale whilst others have been buffed. Guess I'll have to start playing Rammus.

[rigwarl]

Fizz only has 1 AoE ability that they usually don't max first (since the damage is often wasted when you're using it for mobility), just push to his tower as Brand/Morgana/etc. and he'll miss cs. As Brand for example, I wouldn't even bother using Q unless he is in melee range, then you can E Q W him. Furthermore I believe all your abilities outrange his Urchin Strike so you can repeatedly poke at him from max range 100% safely.

[Intrigued]

If someone is pushing to my tower as fizz, I'd probably appreciate it. Early on it wouldn't be enough to do too much to the tower, and I would be gaining more CS than I would be if I had to last hit with melee out in the center. Keep in mind that if you're throwing out all your CDs to chase him off and you miss, he's just going to chase YOU out of the lane and farm while your CDs come back. You may be safe, but if he can chase you out of the lane and farm for bit, 100% safety isn't worth losing the lane to a melee caster.

[rigwarl]

That's also a good point. I know lots of Brand players like to max W over E but I did the math awhile ago and you needed to hit something like 85% of your W's to make that worth it from a pure harass basis- so another strategy could just be to max E and spam it on him making him burn money on HP pots and go back more often.

If you're facing max W Brand, I highly question your suggestion that you will gain more CS under the tower compared to being out in the center, due to the range as well as the short delay (so he doesn't get retaliated on by tower if he W's -> backs up) and of course just the usual tower antics.

[Intrigued]

Not sure how you can really "do the math" on that. W gives you free damage from a safe distance, E puts you in the danger zone. Can't really put a price on that.

If Brand is trying to harass fizz on top of his tower, fizz WILL get his harass off on brand and he'll be able to very easily get back to an extremely safe spot with his staff jump. If Brand harasses fizz out of the creep line, he may be able to just kite you back and forth between his tower, and when you do get your harass off, he's in a great position to orb walk you back with his ranged attacks. That's the difference. Not to mention on your own tower you can spare dashes on farming and to dodge W's, whereas if you're out in the creep line and you last hit a creep with your dash you're going to take a world of hurt for that gold.

CS really isn't that hard to get under the turret. Sure you're not going to get them all, but as a really strong melee caster who has pretty poor farming early game (unless your lane opponent isn't aggressive), every CS you can steal is big.

[Windowlicker]

I always saw arguments for maxing any of Brand's skills first: Q is 50 mana at every level, so it's more spammable; W is AOE and has the damage and range; E is the only guaranteed damage, but is shorter range. After trying all three builds, I eventually settled on maxing W all the time. If you're winning the lane, then it'll (probably) net you the most kills, and if you're not then it's the safest damage. Even if it is the easiest to avoid.

[Intrigued]

I actually never thought much about it. Maxing W and then E (with 1 pt in Q by 3) just seemed like it was the natural path. Maxing Q first seems ridiculous. I can see maxing E first if you aren't too good with skillshots... but then you might not want to play brand. I guess it might also be good against champs with built in quick blinks.

[rigwarl]

Q first sounds weak on Brand as it's the hardest to land. Being spammable isn't going to help you in the lane phase. Furthermore, as earlier mentioned it's your defensive move. W is standard due to it's range but vs a champion like Fizz where your E outranges every one of his abilities except his ult, and he can dodge W with his Playful/Trickster, it should at least be considered.

Intrigued is probably right as I don't play either Fizz or Brand often. My experience is based off other melee vs ranged lanes (say, Kassadin vs Brand), and in that matchup the most devastating thing the opponent can do to me is push to tower as much as possible. Kass can't really threaten a kill until level 6 though I guess like Fizz can.