League of Legends - F2P MOBA (like DOTA) part 2

[Hacp]

99,990 IP. I don't play the game that much.

 

[Fenixgoon]

219k

 

[ImpulsE69]

351,235


egad.

 

[krnmastersgt]

351,235


egad.

Damn I need to play a few more games, only up to 349,115 myself.

Edit: Oh wait forgot to count in the IP from my second 30, and the dozen or so level 20+s I have, and the countless accounts in the teens

 

[HardcoreRobot]

20,906

woot.

 

[turn_pike]

4657 !

 

[HumblePie]

Picked up Zombie brand last week and have been playing him straight. Must say I love the skin even if I did pay a bunch for it.

I did a few games against bots and then have eeb doing normal blind pick games where I auto lock him in as fast as possible. A few times dodge that wanted to play mid instead, but most of the time I play brand mid. Only had a couple of trolls try to declare they want mid after I had locked in and try to go there anyhow.

In case anyone hasn't seen Zombie brand, here are a few of the things he says during a game.

"What?? I got blood on my suit!"
"The world will end... in... zombies"
"It's not easy being green........ and dead"
"Stop running, I'm hungry"
"Every day I'm shambling"
"Rghhuuguhgghh"

He has a cool dance, and a funny /joke command. The /joke has him realizing he's on fire and then running around screaming with his hands in the air. His /taunt is a set of zombie claw swipes ala left for dead with him sticking his tongue out at the end and shaking his head.


As far as playing him, I always enjoyed playing brand. His burst is ridiculous if done right. But one has to be skilled with playing him or he's junk. Being able to land his skill shot Q is paramount to playing him. Knowing his combo of E, Q, W on players and W, E for npcs is also paramount. One more important thing is being able to land his ultimate in a manner that makes it deal the most damage. Having it hit only 1 target makes his ultimate do junk for damage. Having it bounce for the maximum amount between to close targets is going to crush those two targets. If you get 2 targets lined up then R, W, E, Q is a crushing combo if you land everything. Not to mention his passive is actually GOOD as well. I've received quite a number of kills from a target that flashed over a wall thinking they got away with a sliver of health, to only die a second later to the burning from Brand's passive.

While there are more reliable AP mids out there, zombie brand is just FUN. You have no real escape, so you'll be focused and caught quite often. Like Karthus, Brand is going to die quite often. The thing is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't take much time to get his combo off and completely wreck an enemy team in a team fight before he dies. I have had MANY games and many team fights where I traded my sole death for an ace against the enemy team. For some reason, everyone wants to focus kill Zombie Brand. They don't realize that is exactly WHAT I want them to do in a team fight. I don't care if I die. I'm a zombie I always come back. I also usually take an arm or two with me to the grave when they kill me anyhow.

 

[HumblePie]

So who is everyone liking best on the new TT? It's certainly still bruiser heavy but Lee/Singed/Jax/Mord/Rumble/Cho/Yorick/Darius/Eve seem to be the best IMO. After a couple of attempts I really like Twitch early game but once that Darius/Singed/Riven gets farmed I just can't keep enough distance to really play well.


My favorite part is the sheer amount of gold available in the jungle. Push > farm jungle > push > farm jungle + triple G/10 and I had a 6 item Cho (boots of lucidity, Rylais, Torch, Shurelyias, Abyssal, Frozen Heart) which was utterly ridiculous. I don't like Nunu as much as I did on the old TT because consume just doesn't keep up with AoE junglers. I've heard that Cassiopia can jungle easily and quickly by rushing Chalice and maxing Q/W instead of E which I intend to test tonight.

I really REALLY dislike the new TT. They need to get rid of those capture nodes. They are way too big a buff. If your team gets both right off the bat, it's pretty much GG.

As for the champs, yep the bruisers win out. Vayne is still good for an ADC option since the close walls everywhere allow her to land condemn stuns easier.

Pretty much the better picks for the new TT are the following. These I would consider tier 1:
Singed, Hecarim, Garen, Yorick, Riven, Tryndamere, Cho Gath, Jax, Morde, Vlad, Irelia, Rumble, Darius, and Blitz.

The main reason is these guys have high damage, high mobility, and great tankiness/sustain.

Tier 2:
Vayne, Mundo, Malphite, Amumu, Eve, Ahri, Panth, Shen, Galio, Akali, Gragas, Jayce, Kayle, Rammus, Rengar, and Wukong.

Tier 3: (just viable enough or to fill out a team comp)
Sona (AD or AP but not support build), Ziggs, Warwick, Xin, Volibear, Lux, Master Yi, Anivia, Gangplank, Jarvan, Dianna, Ezreal, Corki, Fizz, Fiora, LeBlanc, and Kennen.

Everything else is pretty much not enough to fill out a good team comp. Notice how most of the tier 1 picks are all top lane champs. With "roles" harder to define in a 3v3, you want champs that can do it all if you can find them. Which mean you want a champ that can tank or high sustain, deal damage, and high mobility as the main assets. Most of the top lane champs are designed specially with that in mind. The next tier down is champs that are just lacking just enough to not be able to completely on their own. They are still great picks, but they have a weakness that the other team can potentionally exploit. Tier 3 champs are still good picks, but are better if they are set to a role on the team to counter either a pick on the other team, or shore up the weakness of a team mate on their team. On their own, they are not going to be the ones to carry the game. They do however, make it easier to win the game if they are picked and played correctly.

As for the rest, they are hit or miss on well they do on TT map.

 

[crownjules]

Some more price reductions on champs:

Cassiopeia and Kog'Maw are now both 880RP / 4800IP (down from 975 / 6300).
Corki and Anivia are now both 790RP (down from 975).

Zed the Shadow Ninja:

Contempt for the Weak (Passive): Whenever Zed attacks an enemy below 50% Health, he deals an additional 8% of their maximum Health as magic damage. This effect has a short cooldown.

Razor Shuriken: Zed and his shadow both throw their shurikens, dealing physical damage to any target they pass through. Each Shuriken deals less damage to targets beyond the first.

Living Shadow: Zed’s shadow dashes forward, remaining in place for a short duration. Zed’s shadow will duplicate his spells. Activating Living Shadow again while his shadow is active will cause Zed to switch positions with his shadow. If both Zed and his shadow strike the same target with Razor Shurikens or Shadow Slash, Zed re-gains some energy and the target suffers an additional effect: Razor Shurikens deal additional bonus damage and the slow from Shadow Slash is dramatically increased.

Shadow Slash: Zed and his shadow both create a burst of shadow, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies. Zed’s Shadow Slash slightly reduces the cooldown of Living Shadow by for each unit struck. The shadow’s Shadow Slash briefly slows enemies.

Death Mark: Zed sinks into the shadows and dashes to his target, dealing physical damage. He also spawns a Living Shadow beyond the target, which duplicates his spells and marks the target. After 3 seconds, the mark will detonate, dealing physical damage based on the damage dealt to the target by Zed and his shadow while the mark was active. Zed can reactivate this ability to switch positions with this shadow.

The latest PBE patch includes some decent buffs to Elise's damage.

 

[crownjules]

Force of Nature getting removed. Sounds like at least some of its passive are getting moved to Warmogs.

Also the season officially ends whenever the next patch gets deployed.

Hm. This probably isn't a good time to mention that I removed FoN and scattered its various passives and pieces to the wind onto other items.

On the plus side though, Tanks now get to build Warmog's and not feel silly.

Although you'll still be able to build every piece of FoN used to offer. It just won't be rolled up into the particular stat combination. This counts against my spoiler count for the day.

Force of Nature served three purposes, one of which we couldn't make good.

1. High end MR item on one item.

We're not sure that a single rushed item should counter mages so heavily. So buying FoN for raw magic resistance was always going to be somewhat of a trap because we could never make it *good* to have this much MR on a single item without it simply being cost-inefficient so it could be slot-efficient.

2. Regeneration/Siege

This we liked, but the fact that it was tied to a movement speed item and a magic resist item was a little weird. It didn't quite seem to click, so tanks that had to itemize regeneration kind of picked up a bunch of stats randomly.

3. Movement Speed

The whole paradigm of X class gets a MS item Y is actually starting to show where the faults are. In order to specialize for movement speed, you have to build into a very specific item - which naturally creates this weird power gap where a class that is perfectly catered by item Y gets MS while every other class pays a gold tax of unwanted stats to get the same mobility. This naturally leads to people wanting more MS/X items for a specific class - which seems to suggest that maybe what people actually want is more ubiquitous movement options that don't consume slots rather than a continuous stream of one-off items with MS% randomly on it.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Well, I just picked up Mundo, and I usually felt suckered into buying FoN so I suppose ts a decent change. I wish they would ADD more items into the game though, I tried out DOTA 2 and the sheer amount of interesting items is something league needs to look nto.

By the way, Mundo is damn fun, but I feel I'm a bit too tanky.

I usually go with something like
Merc Treads
HoG -> Randuins
Warmogs
Wits End
Guardian Angel
Spirit Visage

I'm very iffy on SV because while it syngergizes great, it seems to lack the oomph late game to let it keep taking up a item slot.

 

[crownjules]

Adding items is the #1 change for S3 they're saying. FoN is getting removed for new items that are better tailored for what you need in a given situation. Rather then having a giant gold cost item that may have 1 of 3 stats you actually want.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I think the path that LoL is taking is stagnating the game. I think it really kicked into high gear when they overhauled the masteries and it really shows with items now.

There is really only 1 path for 90% of the champs when it comes to items / masteries which makes them almost 0 diversity in builds.

I mean - ad chars all use same skill trees and more or less items
Mages - pretty much use the same skill trees and items
Tanks - still have diversity in skill trees I think, but items are pretty much all the same
Offtanks - this seems to be what they're aiming for. Put out more chars that split role (mostly beefy ad's).

I guess my point is, there's not a lot of reason for tradeoffs and experimentation in builds for various characters. It seems like there should be a way to make it so on an ADC (for example) you have to choose between AS/AP/Damage(and even MS) and a large gap between them depending on which route you go via masteries/items. This should be further varied by the way they synergize with specific characters. I know this is kind of what they "hoped" to do...but I don't think they are with most of the chars/items. There are too many multistat items.

EDIT: Actually after posting this, I read this: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/morello-introduces-preseason-updates

It actually mentions much of what I was seeing wrong above, so it will be interesting to see what changes they make.

 

[thejunglegod]

btw what is the thing with season 3? all our wins and losses reset to 0 or something? and how is player behaviour in dota2? As crappy as in Lol or better/worse? My last few games of Lol have been a nightmare to say the least.


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

 

[zebano]

I think the path that LoL is taking is stagnating the game. I think it really kicked into high gear when they overhauled the masteries and it really shows with items now.

There is really only 1 path for 90% of the champs when it comes to items / masteries which makes them almost 0 diversity in builds.

I mean - ad chars all use same skill trees and more or less items
Mages - pretty much use the same skill trees and items
Tanks - still have diversity in skill trees I think, but items are pretty much all the same
Offtanks - this seems to be what they're aiming for. Put out more chars that split role (mostly beefy ad's).

I guess my point is, there's not a lot of reason for tradeoffs and experimentation in builds for various characters. It seems like there should be a way to make it so on an ADC (for example) you have to choose between AS/AP/Damage(and even MS) and a large gap between them depending on which route you go via masteries/items. This should be further varied by the way they synergize with specific characters. I know this is kind of what they "hoped" to do...but I don't think they are with most of the chars/items. There are too many multistat items.

EDIT: Actually after posting this, I read this: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/morello-introduces-preseason-updates

It actually mentions much of what I was seeing wrong above, so it will be interesting to see what changes they make.

hmm? I'm aware of lots of ways to play various champs.
ADC - 3 routes - 21-2-7 to get mana regen, usually used on corki. 19-11 and 21-9. I typically prefer 19-11.

Mages - massive variety. 21-0-9 is the most common but 21-9-0, 9-11-10, 9-21-0 and even 0-9-21 get played.

tanks/offtanks - I generally hate these generalizations because they mean nothing in LoL. Only Shen/Rammus have taunt skills so only they can be considered Tanks. I prefer Initiators, Bruisers, Peelers and Assasssins (who really don't belong here but you haven't mentioned them).

Initiators have the skills needed to force a fight, usually this is some massive CC.

Peelers have the skills needed to keep their ADC/APC safe (usually redundant with initiators but not always, Malph for instance doesn't peel very well while he initiates brilliantly).

Bruisers - often can peel but their job is to dive through the enemy line and attack the ADC

Assassins are bruisers that are squishier and rely on movement skills to get past the first line and they usually lack the peeling skills that bruisers like Volibear have.


I can build Swain to be tanky but that doesn't mean he's a tank. Early game he's an assassin and late game he's a peeler (good players don't usually get caught by random nevermoves), you have to hit them with the slow first or other initiation.

 

[p0nd]

btw what is the thing with season 3? all our wins and losses reset to 0 or something? and how is player behaviour in dota2? As crappy as in Lol or better/worse? My last few games of Lol have been a nightmare to say the least.


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

Based on your highest attained (not current) ranked Elo, your Elo is reset to a certain number using an algorithm (e.g. if you're 2000 you end up at like 1600 or something). Your w/l record is reset too.

from my experience the dota2 community is pretty much like leagues. One thing i've noticed is that depending on the time you Q up, there can be way more trolls and ragers (when the kids are out from school )

also regarding item build stagnation, i agree it's a problem especially for AD carries. Mages have been treated to some diversity with new Deathfire and Athene's Grail, as well as items like RoA or Rylais being situational. Bruisers too have some diversity though you will just about always see Frozen Heart or Randuin's and Trinity every single game because they are so good and there's no alternative.. Support's suffer from the unique problem of having to buy items with an idealized 0 minion score. However Riot seems to be pretty aware of all this so i'm hoping they make the right decisions for season 3.

 

[zebano]

So I've waffling a little but I think I want to give up jungle as my main role and focus on something else in S3. My initial inclination is to main Tristana/Lulu and focus on being as good as possible in bottom lane but I've recently discovered the joy that is Volibear on TT and I think I might start learning top lane matchups with him (before you suggest it, he's a terrible jungle). Anyone care enough to push me one way or the other? If I do stick to jungle it will be Trundle/Xin/Hecarim based on team needs =)

 

[NikolaeVarius]

GO BOTTOM.

Top is my lane. MY LANE.

 

[thejunglegod]

Based on your highest attained (not current) ranked Elo, your Elo is reset to a certain number using an algorithm (e.g. if you're 2000 you end up at like 1600 or something). Your w/l record is reset too.

from my experience the dota2 community is pretty much like leagues. One thing i've noticed is that depending on the time you Q up, there can be way more trolls and ragers (when the kids are out from school )

also regarding item build stagnation, i agree it's a problem especially for AD carries. Mages have been treated to some diversity with new Deathfire and Athene's Grail, as well as items like RoA or Rylais being situational. Bruisers too have some diversity though you will just about always see Frozen Heart or Randuin's and Trinity every single game because they are so good and there's no alternative.. Support's suffer from the unique problem of having to buy items with an idealized 0 minion score. However Riot seems to be pretty aware of all this so i'm hoping they make the right decisions for season 3.

KK thanks.

GO BOTTOM.

Top is my lane. MY LANE.

I love how whenever i enter a game lobby, there are at least 2 who shout 'mid' in full caps....

 

[zebano]

GO BOTTOM.

Top is my lane. MY LANE.

yeah last 5 or 10 times I've played with you you take MY JUNGLE. =)

 

[NikolaeVarius]

yeah last 5 or 10 times I've played with you you take MY JUNGLE. =)

And I've learned from my mistakes after seeing you top >>

 

[Mopetar]

Anyone have some advice for a new champion to jungle with?

I've mostly been jungling Udyr and enjoying the hell out of it, but wanted to try something else just to mix it up. I really like the way Udyr plays and want something similar. I've tried both Shyvana and Nocturne and don't really like the way they play so they're out.

Is it even worth talking about at this point with all of the changes that will be coming soon?

 

[krnmastersgt]

btw what is the thing with season 3? all our wins and losses reset to 0 or something? and how is player behaviour in dota2? As crappy as in Lol or better/worse? My last few games of Lol have been a nightmare to say the least.


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

You don't actually get a stat reset on anything, they archive your wins/losses in ranked for this season and you used to be able to see your season 1 record as well but for some reason they removed it when I wasn't paying attention.

As for the RANKED ELO "reset", it's simply [(current ELO - 1200)/2] + 1200, so basically half the distance between your current and 1200. Though I can't remember if they stated the reset would be based off current or highest, fairly certain its current though (mine has tanked over 100 points past 2 days >_>).

Anyone have some advice for a new champion to jungle with?

I've mostly been jungling Udyr and enjoying the hell out of it, but wanted to try something else just to mix it up. I really like the way Udyr plays and want something similar. I've tried both Shyvana and Nocturne and don't really like the way they play so they're out.

Is it even worth talking about at this point with all of the changes that will be coming soon?

Jungle Udyr doesn't really work all that well anymore, at least not from what I've seen and played around with. There are stronger gankers that are just as tanky as Udyr (Mao or Skarner) and therefore he's fallen off pretty hard in terms of usefulness. For a similar style though I'd say Mundo is the closest thing to Udyr's jungling style, really fast clears with innate tankiness.

 

[Mopetar]

Jungle Udyr doesn't really work all that well anymore, at least not from what I've seen and played around with. There are stronger gankers that are just as tanky as Udyr (Mao or Skarner) and therefore he's fallen off pretty hard in terms of usefulness. For a similar style though I'd say Mundo is the closest thing to Udyr's jungling style, really fast clears with innate tankiness.

I'm new to the game so for the level I play at it really doesn't matter what you pick. I was in a game earlier where someone was jungling with Brand and did just fine.

I'll give Mundo a spin though.

 

[p0nd]

I'm new to the game so for the level I play at it really doesn't matter what you pick. I was in a game earlier where someone was jungling with Brand and did just fine.

I'll give Mundo a spin though.

yeah make sure you use the right runes/masteries cause Mundo can get quite low hp in the jungle at early levels.

have you tried Cho'Gath? has fast clears, good sustain, and strong ganks provided you can land his Q. Late game he's tankier than Udyr too.