**OLD THREAD** League of Legends - F2P MOBA (like DOTA)

[v8envy]

Seems like the new hero is a fixed Eve (like Garen being the fixed Tryndamere). The mixed AP/AD means she'll be able to whack towers as well as stealth gank with impressive burst damage. Just type 'wrdferqwerqwerqwerqwer' with cursor over your opponent and they'll surely die.

By the way, that's how old champs are being fixed -- through release of new ones without the glaring deficiencies of the old. Riot needs to pay the bills somehow, and selling champs & skins is how that happens. Which is why we only have 2 maps. Nobody is paying for map access.

 

[JeffNY35]

Seems like the new hero is a fixed Eve (like Garen being the fixed Tryndamere). The mixed AP/AD means she'll be able to whack towers as well as stealth gank with impressive burst damage. Just type 'wrdferqwerqwerqwerqwer' with cursor over your opponent and they'll surely die.

By the way, that's how old champs are being fixed -- through release of new ones without the glaring deficiencies of the old. Riot needs to pay the bills somehow, and selling champs & skins is how that happens. Which is why we only have 2 maps. Nobody is paying for map access.

And I will say, it works!! Some games release map after map but to be able to get new characters, this often is really awesome.

I think we would ALL like to see a new 5v5 map or something but...really I cant complain. Playing and learning new champs, and having such diversity is what makes it fun. Every game is a mini-surprise ("How does our team matchup vs theirs etc etc " ).

And it is very well balanced. Every now and then it does seem like certain champion Team make ups are mismatches but for the most part - its all team skill. Any champ can dominate, and any champ can find themselves utterly useless depending on how the TEAM is playing.

In thesis, more champs and less maps in my opinion is a refreshing success.

 

[crownjules]

Another website you guys might want to utilize is lolbase.net. It's basically a stat tracker. You have to upload the log files from the game and it parses them. You can find your average K/D/A per champion, your total damage done, total amount of gold gained, etc.

PS - Test Realm notes regarding Yi changes:

===Master Yi===
* Attack Range increased to 125 from 100.
* Double Strike
** Now deals Double Strike on every 7th attack instead of by percent chance.
* Alpha Strike
** Reduced the cooldown to 18/16/14/12/10 from 18.
** Reduced the mana cost to 80/90/100/110/120 from 90/105/120/135/150.
** Reduced the total spell cast windup time.
** Increased the missile speed.
* Meditate
** Reduced the cooldown to 35 from 45.
** Meditate now ticks every .5 seconds down from 1 second.
** Reduced the heal amount to 140/280/420/560/700 from 150/300/500/750/1100.
** Reduced the mana cost to 70/85/100/115/130 from 80/100/120/140/160.
** Increased the armor and magic resist gained while channeling to 50/100/150/200/250 from 30/30/30/30/30
* Wuju Style
** Reduced the cooldown to 25 from 30.
* Highlander
** Assists now reduce all of Master Yi's cooldowns by half of the base cooldown amount.

I like that Double Strike is now on a set cycle rather then basically another form of critting (random). I think though he'll still be terrible. They need to make it so the armor/MR bonus from Meditate persists for something like 5-7 seconds after he's channeled it.

 

[Magusigne]

I just picked up Shen. He's pretty fun. Although at current Mondo is still my favorite tank.

 

[zebano]

Shen is a great laning partner. So many ways to save an ally (life tap, taunt, shield).

I honestly think that Riot should work on a 8v8 (or even 10v10) map and sell it for $1.

I was thinking about items and how I build Morgana yesterday because people were getting mad that I bought Frozen heart + banshees rather than stacking AP (I consider my main job to be shielding & snaring with damage a distant third) and I was wondering who the heck uses Innervating Locket? To me it seems like a poor man's Rod of Ages. Let's compare:

Rod of Ages (3005g)
+380 HP / +425 Mana / +50 AP Passive: Gain 20 HP, 20 Mana and 2 AP every 1 min. Cap +270 HP, +300 Mana, 30 AP
Total: 550HP, 725Mana, 80AP after 15 minutes.


Inervating Locket (2650G) +475 Health, +450 Mana UNIQUE Aura: Restores 9 Mana to nearby allies every 5 seconds. UNIQUE Passive: Using an ability buffs surrounding units to restore 50 Health and 20 Mana over 2 seconds. This effect has a 3 second cooldown.

Both are built from a catalyst which makes them perfect items to build early (starting item > catalyst > boots of choice > upgrade when done with catalyst ~lvl 12 for me). There is a cost savings of 455g as well as the small AOE heal if you get the locket mainly in exchange for 80AP.

Since the heal has a 3s cooldown this means that you have to spam skills at a fairly regular rate for this to be worthwhile. For instance with Morg I usually press eqw in fairly short order at the start of the fight then wait for cooldowns (long). People that stand out as being ideal are people with very short CD skills like Karthus and Pantheon. Karthus seems a good fit since he could really use the mana regen, but the 80AP makes it not worthwhile. Pantheon could use it with spearshot, but he becomes so squishy that a small heal won't help him unless you're buying some serious armor and losing DPS.

I could see playing a support Kennen with this but then you're just wasting the mana aspect of the item.

Ezreal is the only character I've seen in game actually buy this item and it makes some sense since he doesn't really need the AP. I would like to try it out on Nasus since his q eventually becomes very fast and he can use both health and mana and as an off tank is in the right spot to maximize the heal.

 

[Onita]

It works on Alistair. You spam your heal every so often, and it heals for more.

 

[crownjules]

It's pretty decent on Soraka too. A support built Zilean is also not a bad user, but who builds him like that these days?

 

[ivan2]

It works on Alistair. You spam your heal every so often, and it heals for more.

yup, for me nothing else work on alister except the early locket.

 

[JeffNY35]

I just picked up Shen. He's pretty fun. Although at current Mondo is still my favorite tank.

I am not an expert on many champs but I consider myself an expert with Shen. I have been playing him full time for a month - to the point I am sick of him and need a change however - it takes alot of practice to get really good with him but once you do he is a phenomenal team-support champion.

In certain phases of the game, he can be played as an aggressive chase-ganker , and he is quite possibly the most versitile early laner. ( watch your oppositions suprise when you take out those turret huggers and escape alive! )

He is a bit of a twitch champion meaning you will be doing a TON of clicking and aiming ( your shadow dash is aimed ). On top of that you need excellent map awareness.

If you can't multitask well or you do not like throwing yourself in harms way repeatedly to save your teamates he is not for you.

Happy to help with any other advice - once again if there is one champ I know inside and out it is Shen.

 

[xCxStylex]

For the guy inquiring about why a tanky character is not sent to mid is because they will get destroyed early game and be unable to farm. The only exception I can see to this is Mordekaiser.

When playing with friends on my alt accounts (level 20 and 26), I will play Mord mid solo and carry. However, I would get demolished on my main.


Re: Maps - As someone mentioned, no one buys maps and riot needs to make $$$ from characters. IMHO, I also like new characters instead of maps because different characters might be better for some maps than others. The 5v5 map is pretty balanced IMO, but there are some characters that I feel have an advantage on 3v3 TT as opposed to 5v5 SR/

Re: Locket - I used to build lockets on alistar/soraka/zil. For shits and giggles, when our team has pretty much won, I have built them on nidalee and blitzcrank also.

However, to be honest, I have not seen anyone build a locket in high ELO play for a LONG time. My best guess is that it's only good early game if you rush it, because mid game (past 20 minutes), the damage people do is way too high. I don't know, but if your ranged carrys (carries?) don't have an IE at 20 minutes, you're probably behind and going to lose.


@jules - on alt accounts, I play support zil (over pure AP). I rush soulstealer, then CD reduction, and then if the game isn't over, locket.


Shen is a great hero. I swear to #!$ing god every !@#$ing game I play on my main account has a Shen because he's just that good.

 

[xCxStylex]

I went on a losing streak of 14 in a row, my most ever. Granted, I was playing heros I'm not good at, Shaco and Kat.

My elo has tanked like a rock, and I even went so far as to encounter the first dumb player I've encountered in months. Post 25 minutes, he still ran around solo, a guy who went 5-11 as nidalee, the number one hero for escaping and survival. Ended up leaving the game after I bitched him out.

 

[zebano]

damn, just lost my post... anyway

People have terrible games, bitching them out or quitting doesn't help, and for the love of god when they ask for
1. A gank in their lane
2. For their lane partner to not push
3. A lane swap

When you don't give it to them and they go 0/4/0 by level 6 (Annie who laned with me was 0/2/0) I believe it's as much the teams fault as anything (also fighting the double fear of Shaco+Fiddle was brutal). After twitch quit I scored a couple kills to end at 3/8/6 which I thought was respectable all things considered. I'm still not sure if I shouldn't have just hugged my tower/jungled and told Annie that she was overextended.


Point #2 - when you win a team fight, take advantage of it. My team won three fights in a row where I died and the two remaining players immediately blue pilled. For the love of god, please push down a tower, that's how you win. I was laughed at when I suggested it, but the forth fight ended with Shen fleeing and Morgana (me) and Zilean surviving. We pushed the final mid tower and inhibitor to secure victory (gogo support push).

 

[zebano]

Any thoughts on Akali yet? The results I've seen have been rather poor but that's probably just players getting acclimated to a new champ. The only time she did well was when our whole team steamrolled a game in 30 minutes.

 

[crownjules]

People have terrible games, bitching them out or quitting doesn't help

Agreed. There's one guy I've played with a few times. He's pretty good, but my god is he fucking annoying and relentless about telling you off you when you don't play well. "Why did you buy that item? Why did you take that skill first? Blah blah blah". He wasn't doing it in a helpful manner - his tone of voice (this was over vent) was obnoxious and almost derisive. By halfway through the match, no one on our team wanted to play with him anymore and that no doubt factored heavily into our eventual loss.

So don't do that because you ultimately help no one. I know it's a competitive game, but there's nothing at stake unless you're in a tourney. I'd presume in that situation, you've chosen teammates who compliment you and work well together.

 

[Magusigne]

21/1/21 with EZ last night.

Other team wasn't bad..it's just I was on fire. Rarely happens..Skill shots were dead on most of the time. Got first blood and got my Rod of Ages/SoulStealer/Void Staff up pretty quickly.

End game my Ultimate was hitting for 650+650

 

[JeffNY35]

Damnit they nerfed Shen!

But, its a fairly minor nerf I suppose they toned down his vorpal dmg and feint absorbsion.

It was fair I guess - he is Top Tier or very close IMO.

I bought Bltzcrank, been playing him. Alot of fun especially if I have a good lane partner early on.

 

[zebano]

Damnit they nerfed Shen!

But, its a fairly minor nerf I suppose they toned down his vorpal dmg and feint absorbsion.

It was fair I guess - he is Top Tier or very close IMO.

I bought Bltzcrank, been playing him. Alot of fun especially if I have a good lane partner early on.

It has been extremely difficult to find a game without at least 1 Shen lately so I doubt it was undeserved. When he's free I'll have to give him a spin just to get better acquainted with his abilities.

I absolutely love laning with a good blitz, that's just easy kills and it pretty much doesn't matter who I play but when I play morganna ... wow

Grab > knock up auto from blitz.
When I see the grab Twisted soil > auto (once unless I'm far away in which case I just move close) > Snare > auto and by the time the snare is done, one of us has a kill (enemies with cleanse occasionally get away).

Of course Karthus is even easier, see the grab, turn on defile, spam lay waste (the grab is now single target which means double damage) and drop a wall of pain if needed.

 

[xCxStylex]

Shen *is* top tier. He is the best tank in the game at the moment. I see at least one shen in like... 4/5 of my games and 2 shens (in the same game) in probably... 33%.

Blitzcrank is super fun, he used to be my main before I switched to GP. Overall record is about 90 - 70 with him now.

I used to build a meki -- > philosopher stone --> triforce, but later on, I went straight mana crystal --> sheen --> triforce.

Let me know if you want any tips or advice on blitz

Damnit they nerfed Shen!

But, its a fairly minor nerf I suppose they toned down his vorpal dmg and feint absorbsion.

It was fair I guess - he is Top Tier or very close IMO.

I bought Bltzcrank, been playing him. Alot of fun especially if I have a good lane partner early on.

 

[JeffNY35]

Shen *is* top tier. He is the best tank in the game at the moment. I see at least one shen in like... 4/5 of my games and 2 shens (in the same game) in probably... 33%.

Blitzcrank is super fun, he used to be my main before I switched to GP. Overall record is about 90 - 70 with him now.

I used to build a meki -- > philosopher stone --> triforce, but later on, I went straight mana crystal --> sheen --> triforce.

Let me know if you want any tips or advice on blitz

Definitely anything you have for me on him will help. Shen was so versatile, that playing blits while I can get some great ganks, I also feel pretty useless at times and hes not as durable as people seem to think.

Anyway, my runes right now were specialized for shen but I have +crit on marks, +HP on seals and quint , and -cooldowns on the rest.

For items been starting out much like you say, mana crystal - sheen then boots swiftness. From there it seems pretty generic - frozen mallet or frozen heart but the gold/items/levels are coming a bit slow. I feel like since the new patch players that can utilize the ghostblade got a huge boost , the new items are very nice.

Having no HP regen sucks, so I take teleport to get me back in the fight. Then I have been taking ghost or flash. But it seems like stacking Mana on him is important for his mana shield.

Not doing bad with him but not great either.

 

[v8envy]

Ghostblade is great on Kat I'm starting to find. I think it's because it really helps to GTFO after the shunpo/death lotus "OMFG EVERYOE FOCUS KAT EVEN THOUGH SHE'S DONE" effect kicks in.

That said, Shen is still awesome. So versatile if played well. All you have to do to avoid Blitz is position so that there are always minions between you and the bushes. Shen is far less position dependent to screw over a squishy.

At my low ELO I get idiot players all the time. But shockingly, awesome ones too about as frequently. Had an epic 4 on 5 game (we were the 4) where a Soraka and myself as Ashe managed to process the enemy team twice. We bagged 2 towers both times their single filing "team" wiped. (2-3 came to our towers at a time while the rest were trying to hunt down and chain gank our soloers). After that our two remaining solo members back doored one inhibitor each, and we won to /surrender shortly after.

 

[zebano]

I think I need to start playing carries. I mainly play tank/support and when my team plays well, I play well (i.e. 4/0/16 + 2 towers in my last game with Morg) and when the team sucks I suck (1/10/9 as Cho'Gath). The main difference was the team fights. I just missed a couple kills in the laning phase in both games but when the team fights started, one team split up and one team stuck together.

 

[JeffNY35]

Any thoughts on Akali yet? The results I've seen have been rather poor but that's probably just players getting acclimated to a new champ. The only time she did well was when our whole team steamrolled a game in 30 minutes.

After seeing her in action just about every game since she was released I think she is another well-balanced champion. She relies heavily on ganks, so good players seem to build accordingly and often go for stack based items. However, she seems less of a liability to your team than say EVE if she doesnt get good kills.

Buddy of mine thats been playing her always seems to start off by not doing well but goes on a massive killing steak mid game.

 

[v8envy]

I think I need to start playing carries. I mainly play tank/support and when my team plays well, I play well (i.e. 4/0/16 + 2 towers in my last game with Morg) and when the team sucks I suck (1/10/9 as Cho'Gath). The main difference was the team fights. I just missed a couple kills in the laning phase in both games but when the team fights started, one team split up and one team stuck together.

IMO it doesn't matter what champ you have if you get one of those passive teams where everyone is hanging back hoping to pick off a weak straggler. The first warning sign is team fights: if everyone on your team runs in a different direction upon seeing 2+ enemies it's game over. Second warning sign is your tank(s) trying to hide behind your squishies.

Then again, with a carry or stealther you can try to suicide their turrets. With a tank all you can do is die slowly while the team you just saved bitches you out for having a negative ratio in /all.

 

[zebano]

IMO it doesn't matter what champ you have if you get one of those passive teams where everyone is hanging back hoping to pick off a weak straggler. The first warning sign is team fights: if everyone on your team runs in a different direction upon seeing 2+ enemies it's game over. Second warning sign is your tank(s) trying to hide behind your squishies.

Actually my first sign is when we're in champion select and you ask if anyone is jungling or if they want to try a 3-man gank and no one says anything; You then try and discuss who gets mid and still no one says anything...

Then again, with a carry or stealther you can try to suicide their turrets. With a tank all you can do is die slowly while the team you just saved bitches you out for having a negative ratio in /all.

The second paragraph was my basic thought which basically means I need a melee DPS character. I'm leaning towards Garen or Warwick.

 

[Onita]

I think I need to start playing carries. I mainly play tank/support and when my team plays well, I play well (i.e. 4/0/16 + 2 towers in my last game with Morg) and when the team sucks I suck (1/10/9 as Cho'Gath). The main difference was the team fights. I just missed a couple kills in the laning phase in both games but when the team fights started, one team split up and one team stuck together.

That's my biggest problem with tanks/support vs. carry. As a carry, even if the team sucks I can make a difference. However, as a tank, if the team sucks, you don't make a whole lot of difference in the game.

EDIT: Been playing Sion a little bit lately. He's fun since I can make him into either a tank or dps with a ton of health.