Grand Old Thread: League of Legends!

[Pakman]

i might be down for some try-harding tonight. Nasus Kass Corki Malphite only from me.

 

[-Vocal-]

I have realized how strong a tanky Xin is at early levels. 0/21/9. armor yellows, m resist blues, a pen reds, 2 as quints and a health quint. Ghost/Ignite. Start the game with Null Magic Mantle or Cloth Armor. PROFIT

Seriously, I don't know how I was so bad at laning with Xin before, he's crazy good at early levels

 

[jpak]

I start ashe doran sword thingy. You don't see me dieing.

I guess i only play against bads =/

After the blade nerf, Sivir gets owned by Ashe because of Ashe's range and harass, Sivir can no longer Q the wave and sit back. So doesn't really matter what you start with there. Against better opponents you can't really do doran sword. No point in playing "for a lower level," you should be playing as if you are against a high level player so that when the time comes it won't be something new. It's like okay im going to do a bunch of dumb stuff cause I'm playing bad people then when you play good people those habits will just carry on.

There are some cases where you can go doran shield like annie vs corki that happend with CLG vs TSM because if annie gets aggressive she won't be able to nuke you early on, you can beat her easily with autoattack/blind and the only thing that will hurt you is minion aggro. That's the mistake regi made and probably cost them the game.

You can say dan dinh goes doran blade and he's high rating how does he do it? He's doing it wrong :O. Jiji himself told me

 

[UTDZac]

So you don't think Dan Dinh knows what he's doing, even though he is a high ranked Ashe player? (I'm not disagreeing with jiji, fyi)

 

[PhantomX]

If you want to **** w/ Xin you go 21-0-9 and build Youmuu's + Tank items (maybe one DPS after Randuin's and Banshee's). Start in lane w/ either 2 pots and mantle or 5 pots and armor depending on who you're laning against.

 

[jpak]

dan dinh does not know what he is doing with his starting item yes. He goes blade regardless of the matchup, there is no way he will win the lane against let's BruiseLeet's urgot when he starts blade.

 

[Frolossus]

so whats going on tonight?

 

[Shaya]

IMO, if a caster is the AP carry, he's expected to get blue buff when its up.
Building Mana cuts down on your offence when you're required to do damage, and as someone pointed out, you're going to get banshees veil eventually too.

Malzahar can plow through mana quickly, but due to his E restoring mana on a kill, there is an option to manage your mana usage.
It has a bit of a skill cap, sure, but it's there, and with it you can manage your mana quite well during laning (I never need blue buff while laning). During group pushing you can restore a bit of mana just by circumventing around to a lane that's pushed.

I won't lie, I run out of mana w/o blue buff when we're group pushing/etc, but it won't ever take him long until he has enough mana for e, and in one minion wave he's got an 'okay' pool again.

I used to do Tear -> rylais or arch angels with Malzahar like months and months ago, I've just come to appreciate what buffs give you. I have an AP rune page (AP blues and quints) and most of my early game is stacking magic penetration and getting rylais, abusing early game damage as much as possible.
Like, if you're a ranged carry on a losing team, forgoing direct damage items for survivability [and attack speed if possible] is always okay, because you can cover your damage with red buff which gives you 60 true damage per attack or second [at level 18, not entirely sure of the mechanic]. Your team shouldn't be trying to win team fights when your carry (or whoever has highest attack speed/range) doesn't have red buff, its a significant cut to your damage.
Malzahar can 'manage' farming and whatnot without a huge mana pool, so I don't see why he needs to build mana - considering you wouldn't be trying to start fights without your AP carry being at an optimal level with blue buff.

 

[fkacyan]

IMO, if a caster is the AP carry, he's expected to get blue buff when its up.
Building Mana cuts down on your offence when you're required to do damage, and as someone pointed out, you're going to get banshees veil eventually too.

Malzahar can plow through mana quickly, but due to his E restoring mana on a kill, there is an option to manage your mana usage.
It has a bit of a skill cap, sure, but it's there, and with it you can manage your mana quite well during laning (I never need blue buff while laning). During group pushing you can restore a bit of mana just by circumventing around to a lane that's pushed.

I won't lie, I run out of mana w/o blue buff when we're group pushing/etc, but it won't ever take him long until he has enough mana for e, and in one minion wave he's got an 'okay' pool again.

I used to do Tear -> rylais or arch angels with Malzahar like months and months ago, I've just come to appreciate what buffs give you. I have an AP rune page (AP blues and quints) and most of my early game is stacking magic penetration and getting rylais, abusing early game damage as much as possible.
Like, if you're a ranged carry on a losing team, forgoing direct damage items for survivability [and attack speed if possible] is always okay, because you can cover your damage with red buff which gives you 60 true damage per attack or second [at level 18, not entirely sure of the mechanic]. Your team shouldn't be trying to win team fights when your carry (or whoever has highest attack speed/range) doesn't have red buff, its a significant cut to your damage.
Malzahar can 'manage' farming and whatnot without a huge mana pool, so I don't see why he needs to build mana - considering you wouldn't be trying to start fights without your AP carry being at an optimal level with blue buff.

The problem below 1600 is convincing your team you need the buff after the jungler takes the first blue.

 

[UTDZac]

Juan, buy this: http://merch.leagueoflegends.com/catalog/view/64

 

[Shaya]

The problem below 1600 is convincing your team you need the buff after the jungler takes the first blue.

Generally not too hard when you have a very positive ratio with an AP carry while saying to your jungler "hey can I please have next blue buff?"

If I'm a jungler, I'll take blue buff from a useless feeding AP carry, because my name is Olaf, and with 40% CDR I can use my q like two times a second and am inflicting a crapton of true damage pretty quickly as well.

Hell, I don't get why AP carries want to take blue buff from Olaf anyway... Similar story with Yi.
Some AD carries need blue buff more than most ap carries.
CRAZY
Olaf can still do respectable damage w/o infinite Q + E, so generally they don't mind giving up being the second highest scaling carry in the game.

But thats a team thing, if I have a Yi on my team, I'd build mana/cdr as an ap carry. Yi with w/o blue buff is the difference between a pentakill or some ****** with flash and ghost getting away (and what type of ******* team mate would take blue buff from you so people could like... ESCAPE YOUR WRATH?)

 

[Dekar173]

Generally not too hard when you have a very positive ratio with an AP carry while saying to your jungler "hey can I please have next blue buff?"

If I'm a jungler, I'll take blue buff from a useless feeding AP carry, because my name is Olaf, and with 40% CDR I can use my q like two times a second and am inflicting a crapton of true damage pretty quickly as well.

Hell, I don't get why AP carries want to take blue buff from Olaf anyway... Similar story with Yi.
Some AD carries need blue buff more than most ap carries.
CRAZY
Olaf can still do respectable damage w/o infinite Q + E, so generally they don't mind giving up being the second highest scaling carry in the game.

But thats a team thing, if I have a Yi on my team, I'd build mana/cdr as an ap carry. Yi with w/o blue buff is the difference between a pentakill or some ****** with flash and ghost getting away (and what type of ******* team mate would take blue buff from you so people could like... ESCAPE YOUR WRATH?)

Gotta also remember, that for a caster (or even in my own case, Whither/Q-heavy Nasus) the difference between winning and losing lane could just be that blue buff.

 

[Shaya]

Gotta also remember, that for a caster (or even in my own case, Whither/Q-heavy Nasus) the difference between winning and losing lane could just be that blue buff.

its a shame all my junglers are so mana hungry (esp shaco/yi).

But yeah, a lot of characters can win a lane with the help of a buff. Definitely solo queue ringing in my ears here though that I'm generally selfish in that regard.

Like, if I'm amumu I generally beg the AD carry to take red. If I was tryn I wouldn't mind giving up blue/etc etc.

Nasus w/blue buff in lane is pretty sexy though. WHERES YOUR KENNEN ****** ME SENSELESS NOW?

 

[Teh Brettster]

A LOT of champs with blue buff in lane = pretty "sexy" or whatever word you want to use for it.

Anyway. I'm creeping up on 4800 IP, meaning I'll probably get Trundle soon. I'm not NEARLY as familiar with jungling as I should be. Anyone got tips for jungling with Troll and/or items that are wonderful on him?

 

[PhantomX]

Trundle can basically jungle with whatever he wants.

 

[M3D]

Sorry I've been missing all week. I am really, really sick. I'll get back in the groove next week hopefully.

re: the discussion about passing blue to your carries, this is why I enjoy jungling with Shen. I can just hand out buffs the whole game and let my carries win their lanes. Zac's Malzahar with blue buff at level 1 really, really sucks for his opponent. Red buff is a mix. If we have an AD carry solo top and we're purple side, I'll get them to push the lane and then come grab the red buff so they can stomp their lane for the next couple of minutes. If we're blue side and we have an AD carry mid, I do the same. Otherwise I tend to take it myself and use it for ganks.

 

[DanGR]

M3D always gives me blue when I'm Nid and he's jungling with Shen. <3

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I just read the full patch notes, since MvC3 has taken over LoL completely as of now, and I couldn't help but do a double take as to the absurdity of Morello's Evil Tome. I don't understand how that item was released as it is right now. So of course I made a thread about it: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=6339151

First time I've openly been hostile towards their balancing. Prolly will get downvoted to hell, but I could care less. I honestly love LoL and can only wish their eyes would open to how they keep making it worse.


EDIT: Oh thats sad. I'm not a mod anymore. *tear*

 

[M3D]

Hey Panda, for the record... before the Evil Tome even dropped, they had made a post saying that they wanted to buff it in subsequent patches. They knew it was underwhelming from the get-go but they have some kind of long term plan for it so they wanted to get it into the eco-system now.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Hey Panda, for the record... before the Evil Tome even dropped, they had made a post saying that they wanted to buff it in subsequent patches. They knew it was underwhelming from the get-go but they have some kind of long term plan for it so they wanted to get it into the eco-system now.

Pathetic excuse to not bother balancing an item on its release. A 10 year old could tell them that there was no purpose to adding Evil Tome as it is now. What on earth was their live team thinking giving them the okay to go with the item?

I just can't fathom how someone who's JOB it is to balance this ****ing game can't even see how incredibly and blatantly underpowered and unnecessary this item is.

 

[jpak]

The patch is great, don't know why an underpowered item can bother you so much.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

The patch is great, don't know why an underpowered item can bother you so much.

? This patch was boring with absolutely nothing interesting in it gameplay wise (from my perspective). The item bothers me because it just exemplifies how bad Riot has become at balancing, and shows the inherent flaws in their balancing philosophy that has sapped the fun out of a game I once loved.

 

[M3D]

I can see a variety of reasons why it ended up on live:

1. They set a goal as a design team to put out a new AP/CDR item by this patch and even though it wasn't quite ready, they wanted to get it out so they could hit their quarterly goals and look good in front of the higher-ups.

2. They couldn't get the item right in the Test Realm. I already made a thread about how bad their TR policy is (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=455508) and this might be a reflection of that. Releasing it to live and seeing how its used might be their only chance of getting this kind of item right.

3. They might be looking to diversify their item offerings by creating more T2 items so that people can build for early-mid game dominance, rather than only building towards late game. This might make sense given that they want to shorten games (and give us all less IP!)

None of that means that the item is ready, but I can see how this could get through to the live server in its given state, based on office politics and hidden design agendas. Such are the complexities of game development.

 

[Frolossus]

I just read the full patch notes, since MvC3 has taken over LoL completely as of now, and I couldn't help but do a double take as to the absurdity of Morello's Evil Tome. I don't understand how that item was released as it is right now. So of course I made a thread about it: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=6339151

First time I've openly been hostile towards their balancing. Prolly will get downvoted to hell, but I could care less. I honestly love LoL and can only wish their eyes would open to how they keep making it worse.


EDIT: Oh thats sad. I'm not a mod anymore. *tear*

so this marks your official retirement from LoL?
D: bye panda, never even got to play with you once

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I can see a variety of reasons why it ended up on live:

1. They set a goal as a design team to put out a new AP/CDR item by this patch and even though it wasn't quite ready, they wanted to get it out so they could hit their quarterly goals and look good in front of the higher-ups.

2. They couldn't get the item right in the Test Realm. I already made a thread about how bad their TR policy is (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=455508) and this might be a reflection of that. Releasing it to live and seeing how its used might be their only chance of getting this kind of item right.

3. They might be looking to diversify their item offerings by creating more T2 items so that people can build for early-mid game dominance, rather than only building towards late game. This might make sense given that they want to shorten games (and give us all less IP!)

None of that means that the item is ready, but I can see how this could get through to the live server in its given state, based on office politics and hidden design agendas. Such are the complexities of game development.

To be honest, with the exception of #3, I had already thought of those (and other) reasons behind why the item was released as is. Was a bit of a white lie about the "just reading the patch notes", it was more like "finally got around to posting the thread". I agree that office politics add a layer of complexity to game development that is difficult for players to understand, but the real message I hope they get from my thread is that these are unacceptable reasons for releasing such blatantly poor work out on the live servers. My methods are a bit roundabout, but I see it more as using something akin to the socratic method to make them realize on their own where their faults are (making it far more likely for them to change in the future).

I know you're in the industry M3D, so maybe you can shed some light on their perspective. Would YOU be okay with a philosophy of "release/change things for the sake of doing them, deal with the ramifications later"?

I have yet to make a thread about it, but this is very blatantly seen when they utterly RUINED Gragas because they wanted to nerf him after his short stint as a flavor. A077 (one of the top Gragas players) literally stopped playing the game, and MMKH (the other top Grag) dropped Gragas altogether. The kicker is, Gragas was only OP because of his combination with Locket, which was REMOVED the same patch that Gragas received 3 extremely big simultaneous nerfs.

Yet some other characters like Rammus/Panth get single balance changes every patch to tone them down slightly until they are better. Does this make any sense? How did they justify these changes?

They aren't just BAD at balancing anymore. Shurelia was bad at balancing but the game was still getting more fun as patches were released. They have become inconsistent and HORRIBLE at balancing, to the extent of making the game progressively less enjoyable the more they change things.

so this marks your official retirement from LoL?
D: bye panda, never even got to play with you once

Well, seeing as I only installed the patch at the request of my best friend who wants to play with me, I don't think I'll completely stop playing the game but I can't see myself logging on without receiving a text/phone call first. Not with MvC3 out, even with its laggy online.

 

[M3D]

Honestly Panda, I disagree with a lot of Riot's balancing decisions, but I'm not internal to their organization to understand the long term goals, the office politics, the bandwidth issues they might have, etc. It's really easy to play armchair quarterback as the players who feel the effects of the decisions, but its another to have to do the work at the dev studio, often with executive interference, and make lots of tough choices.

But to answer your specific question: No, I don't like the idea of making changes just dealing with the ramifications later. However, in a complex and competitive game like this, sometimes the true ramifications of a change just can't be known until the changes go to the live server. Sadly Riot just doesn't do enough with their Test Realm to mitigate those issues and it hurts the overall balance of the game patch after patch.

Ideally, I think Riot needs ranked to be a "stable release" that doesn't change for multiple patches. Their normal games could change more frequently so they could test changes, revert them, test new ones and find the right solutions, but they could do that without violating the integrity of ranked matches. Sadly, I think Riot would see that as detrimental to their RP/champion sales and won't ever do it. Again, business decisions/executive interference could be getting in the way of better design decisions.

 

[Dekar173]

I am absolutely in love with Maokai. He is the greatest hero in the universe. He's sooooooo cooooooooooooooool.



I didn't know if he'd be able to live up to just how damn awesome Treant was in DotA, but in his own way, Maokai is amazing.

 

[M3D]

And his heart grew three sizes that day!

 

[Frolossus]

truths i discovered yesterday about LoL
1. gunblade is now core on mordekaiser
2. annie>anivia as of this patch

 

[Shaya]

Maokai is ****ing annoying.

Maybe this is because I was playing with 300 ping using a mobile phone as a modem, but

I ****ing hate the bombs, and I hate that stupidly long range snare like wtffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

 

[fkacyan]

His teleport-snare is one of the best initiates in the game.

 

[Plum]

I love teams that can force teamfights to stay inside his ult.
A friend of mine got Maokai when he came out, and we que'd with an Anivia. Setting up the wall to force the rest of the team to stay in the ring plus her slows was really letting that damage reduction win us team fights.

 

[StealthyGunnar]

Maokai is ****ing annoying.

Maybe this is because I was playing with 300 ping using a mobile phone as a modem, but

I ****ing hate the bombs, and I hate that stupidly long range snare like wtffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

they have ridiculous range and they turrets dont shoot at them lol

 

[fkacyan]

I love teams that can force teamfights to stay inside his ult.
A friend of mine got Maokai when he came out, and we que'd with an Anivia. Setting up the wall to force the rest of the team to stay in the ring plus her slows was really letting that damage reduction win us team fights.

He has amazing synergy with Trundle and Anivia. All three of them on one team makes for terrifying late-game teamfights.

 

[DanGR]

Maokai is ****ing annoying.

Maybe this is because I was playing with 300 ping using a mobile phone as a modem, but

I ****ing hate the bombs, and I hate that stupidly long range snare like wtffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

It's the ping.

It's ridiculously easy to dodge them under normal circumstances, I've found, and they have the tendancy to push the lane when you don't want them to. <.<

 

[-Vocal-]

His teleport-snare is one of the best initiates in the game.

I hereby second this notion

 

[PhantomX]

It's the ping.

It's ridiculously easy to dodge them under normal circumstances, I've found, and they have the tendancy to push the lane when you don't want them to. <.<

Lol, even when you don't have boots (they can actually catch you) you can still juke them by running through your minions (thus making them push closer to your tower) or even just run around the tower and they won't hit you.

 

[M3D]

Yep, best thing to do is just run into your minions and the sapling will blow up the creeps instead of you. I actually got two kills last night on people by tossing saplings at the tower when they were trying to B out at low health. It's freakin' hilarious to watch the little guys run someone down and blow them up for a kill. But if those people had run sideways into the next creep wave, it would have blown up the creeps and saved them.

 

[Ragnar0k]

I am absolutely in love with Maokai. He is the greatest hero in the universe. He's sooooooo cooooooooooooooool.



I didn't know if he'd be able to live up to just how damn awesome Treant was in DotA, but in his own way, Maokai is amazing.

How are you building him? What runes/masteries/items?

 

[UTDZac]

The tower won't shoot down the sapling?