Grand Old Thread: League of Legends!

[KuroganeHammer]

New topic: build ghostblade on everyone

imo

20 flat armor pen is hilarious imo

EDIT: WHICH STACKS WITH OTHER ARMOR PEN ITEMS

Ghostblade, BC, Brut, LW core item build

armor pen is love

armor pen is life

 

[victra♥]

omg that feeling when you're at 99lp before your division promos =_=

 

[Sinister Slush]

>Plat 3 for me a couple weeks ago 99 lp
Suffering. Speaking of which I have the 20th I think before decaying happens.

 

[Niko45]

Decay is the worst. Set me back so far this season.

But ya Ghostblade fkin rules I build that **** on everything. Especially 6th item for Trynd I like (**** Zephyr ****'s bad).

 

[Asdioh]

yes my computer's been working since the thread title said it was :3
I haven't had decay because I haven't played ranked! Though some guys in normal draft tricked me into thinking I accidentally queued into a ranked game and it freaked me out.
Hydra on Akali sounds good, but it's something you have to buy and you could spend that money instead on Zhonyas/deathcap/etc

I jungled Volibear and Xin recently and either they suck now, or I'm just out of the loop when it comes to jungling. I built mostly tanky on both and still got melted no matter what I did. Next time I play Xin I'll just build like, ancient golem/youmuus/cleaver or something mostly glass cannon because building him tanky never seems to work for me.

 

[Shaya]

At the very least, Xin feels really outclassed right now. Haven't seen much volibear either (did he get nerfed at some point a little? I forget).

 

[teluoborg]

He had the ms bonus on his Q nerfed at early levels sometime in the middle of S3 and that's pretty much it.

What hit him really hard is the s4 jungle changes and that none of the spirit items really help him with his clears (thanks to his E being magic damage, huh). Imo he's one of the champs that will benefit from the feral flare, so I'm waiting for it before taking him back to the jungle.

 

[Plum]

There's not much reason to play Xin when you can be playing Pantheon or Vi right now.

 

[Shaya]

It's a little crazy how much Vi's kit achieves the same thing as Xin's, just with significantly more consistency.

 

[Dre89]

I don't know much about Xin, but he always struck me as an inferior Panth. Maybe it's because of the spear and the dash-stun.

Voli is one of those champions that I'm surprised isn't used more. He seems to be really tanky and do tons of deeps with minimal/damage items. His ganks are really effective, and easy to pull off too. He's one of the few jungle tanks that isn't a terrible duelist early in the game.

 

[Niko45]

Xin is still really good...

Honestly his bad clear is kinda annoying but other than that he still just goes in the opposing jungle and starts bullying whoever he wants, ganks mid for free, etc.

 

[Asdioh]

Yeah it's just that I played tons of Voli/Xin jungle in s3, and early s3, and both champs eventually got hit, especially Xin. Voli is also horribly weak to burst if he doesn't get snowballing, if they do enough damage it's like his passive doesn't even exist.
How about Rammus? He's probably the biggest reason I got to upper Plat, and the Taunt duration nerf scares me because that was possibly his biggest strength. I'm sure he's still a viable smite/tp jungler though :3

 

[victra♥]

IM ONE GAME AWAY FROM GOLD!!!!

I'm too scared to play it. I'm 2-1 in my promos and if i lose this one i don't think i could handle the pressure. It really sucks cause my 3rd game was down to the wire, only nexus left on both sides, but we ended up losing >_<

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

The problem I find is that they demolish the ceilings of capabilities with new champs. Then they take forever to nerf them, and it becomes almost impossible to do so without making them completely useless, but oh wait, once the nerf cycle goes through its usual flow, they come back into the forefront due to how loaded their kits still are. Thresh definitely has too many things on his kit that he doesn't need to feel good or be impactful, and it annoys me that they nerf things that aren't the root of the problem (his auto attack range...) rather than the things that flat out make him the best thing since sliced bread.

His Q's ability to crowd control is significantly better and longer lasting than Blitz' and Amumu's Qs. Stunned, Snared, Pulled into the team. Oh and he can choose to jump in on you too. How is that comparable to other character's abilities? The single target lock down of the ability is at least twice as long as its similar counterparts without the counter play of the other two.
His W has no counter play when the speed at which you travel at after activating it is faster than 90% of the blinks in this game. It also has an aoe shield. Why? Why? Why? Why? I don't get it.

Thresh feels satisfying because you basically cannot make a mistake with him or misplay something so poorly with him that it costs you the game if you're competent with him. It always feels good to win.. Hook the tank into your team as blitz? gg. Using your heal as Soraka at the right time to get the most out of its burst armor? **** that up and you've used a majority of your utility. Sona's entire team fight presence is her ultimate with everything on the line if you don't get something critical with it (the mobility creep in this game is ridiculous). Janna has kite but no where near the zone control of Thresh does, she also has to cap out CDR while Thresh can build just like another tank. Janna's kit hasn't been amazing since no one viable has channels anymore, no one viable has their initiations/etc so destroyed by a well timed tornado or ultimate... Vi, Leona and Thresh be ****ING DAMNED.

Soraka was, at a point, the example of a late game support which should've actually been looking strong with season's 4 changes. If she wasn't so overtly outshined in utility and scaling by the likes of Thresh. Soraka/Janna both suffer this "we're mediocre in lane, but we're meant to be good in team fights/late" but my goodness look at the power curves of thresh/annie/leona in comparison (god tier at nearly every stage of the game). Supports right now of the past don't feel "bad" because of their kits, they feel bad because the other kits in the game are just so much more forgiving and come with just SO MUCH MORE.



Right. Which is fairly obvious. But in terms of a single item slot effectiveness? It screams kinda huge for me. 13% spell vamp, one of the highest AD values in a single item scaling with your magic damage passive. Lich Bane is an interesting comparison because they both have similar effects but different scaling. Considering the supposed incoming lich bane nerfs too.

I'll say this up front.

I agree power creep is something Riot sometimes lets out of control sometimes, Elise/Thresh and is something to consider right now even if Velkoz is pretty solid balance and power wise. I think Thresh is over the top with 14 of the 15 supports mains in challenger maining thresh, #15 plays Leona.And he does warp bot lane and he needs to lose some power in areas.

I do sort of see what you are saying about the lack of making mistakes though, kinda does make sense. Thresh grabs the wrong guy, he can just stop, ADC doesn't grab lantern? Oh well wasn't a mistake to do that, Flay can make large mistakes, but that is off technical errors, his Ult could be mistimed or used. Still something to think about on this note.

To be fair to Riot, two things happened to tanks recently, Doran's Shield Nerf and Perseverance Nerf, they already said on a gut reaction they think Thresh is Numero uno on the hit list most likely even after these changes. This is also why Leona has been seeing a rise of play among other reasons. She has been untouched nerf wise and got nifty scaling on her W + R mana cost reduction.

Even despite this, I think Thresh is still what supports should be aiming to have as much utility as, or at least keep this nice curve or being relevant since their main game is having utility. I also don't agree with the Blitz vs Thresh hook analogy, they have different purposes in what they do and how they pull. Blitz is better at making a pick, pulling 1 guy into a 1v2-5 is really dangerous. Thresh starts an initiation, even if I think Thresh's hook is better overall Blitz's hook as situations and applications that make it stand out that Thresh can't do.


Does Thresh have this a bit too much in areas? Yeah but his kind of design like Nami/Lulu/Janna/Leona etc are really what supports in bot lane should be aiming to have for their team. Compared to other supports that atm have kit problems, Soraka because heal off all damage with not gameplay is a nono, Alistar because he's always OP if he can semi reliably Jungle so his support half always gets hit, Taric is hard to find the right balance since he's never in the middle for power, always too.

What happened to make supports feel less good to play?

1. Thresh and some supports started pushing everyone else out, this is because the support scaling was over tuned in a lot of areas or some of them really badly need to be worked on, but haven't, Soraka/Taric/Alistar/Zilean.

2. Looking at the support scaling it's hard to capitalize on it when you are expected to build more tanky even in season 4, Coin is forced on a lot of these supports so they can't even use their support scaling unless it's ok to build a Spellblade line. Which usually isn't, so a lot of that scaling gets unused unless people build that line which again, it's far more riskier than Coin is with how much money it make.

Really what needs to happen is, Thresh gets nerfed, support scaling and numbers are put more in line so they are rewarded better for building riskier and less tanky. Coin gets nerfed or Spellblade lines gives better AP down the road.

Season 4 overall, were steps int he right direction, but a lot of supports still need tweaking and some items changes.

 

[Life]

I 1v1'd a Leblanc as Thresh once. Granted, someone else had taken her down to like 1/3rd health.

I had like, Sunfire and IBG and 40% CDR. Not a lot of MR IIRC. That game was a while ago, and I don't think it was saved to like op.gg or anything.

Just landed CC after CC after CC and it was really close so Leblanc didn't run off.

 

[Player-3]

xin jungle is hillarious right now because nobody expects the damage of elder lizard brutalizer after being used to the full tank xins during s3

 

[victra♥]

Yay!!! I made it to Gold!

Thanks to how stupidly free nidalee is haha next up plat #thegrind

 

[Niko45]

Both xin and voli kinda get outscaled and fall off I think so if you don't get going on those junglers its always gonna suck. They aren't the best honestly but when half the bans are junglers right now (very common to have vi elise panth all banned) I've been picking Xin and winning a lot. You just have to commit to building damage and snowballing.

 

[victra♥]

panth is such a sick jungler. Went 6/1/22 first time play panth his kit is so free.

 

[Asdioh]

xin jungle is hillarious right now because nobody expects the damage of elder lizard brutalizer after being used to the full tank xins during s3

alright, i'll disregard ancient golem and try that next time. I remember rushing Youmuus on early s3 Xin and it was disgustingly good at killing people early on, so I assume he still can at least do that pretty well.

 

[Shaya]

@ #HBC | Red Ryu

Alright. Seem we've come to a better understanding, and that you agree Thresh is way above the bell curve. Yeah, blitz hook's situational strengths are unique for sure, but Thresh' q achieves a lot of that and more (imo). 1.5 second stun, 3+ movement displacement tugs knockbacks. As we see at LCS level, it's just Thresh getting that hook and then the line of skill shots coming in and they get popped. That's significantly less risk than Blitz' hook and it's locking someone down for monstrously longer period of times than Blitz too.

Zilean is actually interesting, I think right now he's sleeper strong because of how much mobility he can bring, how games are lasting a little bit longer (such things used to be the opposite of Zil's power curve, as bonus xp, single damage spell, etc) so he's getting high CDR and mana under his belt, and having a free full health carry during every fight is ridikonculus. Also for the longest time Zil was hard as a support as you would be taking creeps/pushing when harassing, but now that's basically in the meta to always push (Morgana is always pooling my creeps, so it must be okay!). Also the global exp passive is straight up, actually really dumb. I think junglers can get level 3 from doing both buffs with zil on the team.

Alistar is very similar to Blitz. Their kits are way too high risk to be consistent with. Alistar being relegated to a Leona counterpick is basically the best he's going to get. Taric got the "Riot treatment" of the rework to nerfed to the ground/uselessness saga. For really no reason whatsoever. They could put Taric back to that pre-mana scaling rework and he'd be viable. Right now. Things like that just bring so much depression to think about it hurts. So so many times Riot have said "they'd change things back if it didn't work" yet they always stay stubbornly with their changes rarely ever rescinding them (hey it took them 2 full seasons to bring the jungle back to something closer to S1 than any other jungle we've had, yet everyone including Riot admitted to how Toxic S2 jungle was, although they said they'd consider going back to S1 jungle early on if it didn't work out [lol]).

I think the issue with support/gold items is that you can only get one. I really like Spellthief and it's path on almost all supports because I love getting something out of harassing them. I love having a guided system of harass to gain gold leads But then I'm daunted by the fact that my frozen clam is mediocre at best. Even if the gold gain differences are astronomical. 20% CDR and massive burst movement speed is just way too essential/strong. Even if the CDR was nerfed, that active on Shurelya's is what everyone wants. Just you're forced to be relegated to gaining the most gold by sitting back and doing nothing, it feels awful. It wouldn't be that much of a problem either if shurelya's could be bought on anyone else other than the support (jungler for example), but they're cut off from it too with their jungle item. I kinda like support this season in some ways, but in other ways I despise every nuanced change they've made to the system. I would like if support items were more about play styles and "match ups", rather than 'we need shurelyas' or "i can 600+ range harass". Targon sitting in the overnerfed camp still. Like, I should feel really good for picking spellthief to lane as Soraka or Janna if I'm getting the most out of them.

 

[Life]

Talisman is wanted beyond all other support items because it gives extreme engage and disengage to the party.

Solution? Add a one-man haste onto the FOTM active so it can be used to either get the tank into the fray or get a mispositioned squishy to safety. Make ICQ stun if you land it perfectly so you can do the precise opposite.

Boom.

 

[Zano]

ok I honestly haven't really kept up at all since pantheon jungle became a big thing so how is he supposed to be built/what skill order

 

[Sinister Slush]

P3 had it as his little title on league fer a bit I believe.
SOTEL + brut for xin/vi/wukong/panth/kha'zix/lee then go tanky.

That's honestly the build for them outside of Kha'zix cause he should just keep building damage and go to LW hydra etc.
For level up I think people go E or whatever the cone attack is first then max Q.

 

[Dre89]

Shaya that's the tradeoff, you chose between early game gold/harass advantage and lategame utility.

If the spelltheif line had the shurelyas active then there'd be no reason to get coin for mage supports.

 

[Asdioh]

Zac's popularity and winrate.
My god what happened.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Zac's popularity and winrate.
My god what happened.

nerfed

also vi exists, i guess

Yay!!! I made it to Gold!

Thanks to how stupidly free nidalee is haha next up plat #thegrind

~~~GRATS!!!!!~~~

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Zac is fine though.

He's not over the top but he is very solid.

 

[Dre89]

Why is Wukong popular as a jungler now? He's one of my favourite champs but I don't get why he's considered a jungler now.

 

[Z'zgashi]

Because hes not the greatest laner and his ganks are real.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

His Ganks are great and avoids one of his main weaknesses, his laning can be pretty horrendous.

If you can get out of it, congrates, if not...eh...gl?

 

[Dre89]

Are you talking about his pre6 ganks? Because I find those underwhelming. I know NA casters says he wants to just farm til 6 because his ganks before then are poor. I guess I just find his ult overrated, because if they have a dash or flash they can escape in between your e and your ulti. I have to say though, lane ganking with Thresh's lantern into ult is the most badass feeling ever, especially if it's a countergank.

Also his laning is actually pretty good, people just think it's bad because he's always been considered a top (where he isn't that good) when he's actually a really good mid. Crystalline Flask Wukong can bully out/kill most common mid laners because he's more of an assassin than a bruiser. He just has a bruiser passive and ult, the rest of his kit is assassin.

 

[Niko45]

Does anyone else feel like Kayle is honestly stronger now than before? Virtually no mana issues ever and that late game W is crazy. Still enough damage on Q.

 

[Shaya]

Does anyone else feel like Kayle is honestly stronger now than before? Virtually no mana issues ever and that late game W is crazy. Still enough damage on Q.

People are being dumb already and picking things like Kat and Zed into me. So yes. Definitely stronger than before =).

I'll repeat something I said prior to the change when I heard the news: I said it would be a buff to a way I play Kayle. it definitely has been. I've been getting Gunblade now and wrecking :3

 

[Niko45]

I probably won't be changing from a standard AP Kayle build until the lich change goes through (because lich is just too OP with a ton of AP).

Gunblade is such an overlooked item tho man. For instance, I feel like BORK has sorta mindlessly become standard 2nd item on Jax when all my real Jax players know Gunblade is better!

 

[Asdioh]

What about Guinsoo's? That item has been decent ever since it got reworked, especially considering how cheap it is, but is it worth buying compared to saving for gunblade?
I kinda wanna play Kayle mid/top more because she's good (or is she viable as jungle/support too?) but sometimes I think she's really boring to play.

 

[Niko45]

I would get Guinsoo on Jax but I want a (consistent) sustain item and the slow active on Hextech will be useful at times as well. Building attack speed on Jax past Triforce just feels excessive to me anyway since my W is an auto reset that is up every 3 seconds.

Rageblade Kayle is fun as hell tho (and on a Jungle Kayle, especially, probably much more worth).

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Aatrox gets it sometimes.

 

[Niko45]

Seriously, watching EU Challenger Series right now and this is the crap I'm talking about. Jax gets an early kill and assist, has a very solid lead for a competitive match. He is laning against a Shyvana who has gone a cutlass chain vest build (awful). What does Jax do? He rushes botrk, and proceeds to do nothing in the mid game dragon fights which his team loses despite being ahead. Shyvana, just to ensure that she is not more useful than Jax, also decides to build botrk against a Jax that has nothing but armor and damage...

Top lane is seriously the most ass backwards self-reinforcing meta. It's as if they're both anticipating a Warmogs rush or something.

 

[Life]

Seriously, watching EU Challenger Series right now and this is the crap I'm talking about. Jax gets an early kill and assist, has a very solid lead for a competitive match. He is laning against a Shyvana who has gone a cutlass chain vest build (awful). What does Jax do? He rushes botrk, and proceeds to do nothing in the mid game dragon fights which his team loses despite being ahead. Shyvana, just to ensure that she is not more useful than Jax, also decides to build botrk against a Jax that has nothing but armor and damage...

Top lane is seriously the most *** backwards self-reinforcing meta. It's as if they're both anticipating a Warmogs rush or something.

Depends, who's in the other lanes? BOTRK is a tank-killing and a dueling item. They could be anticipating dealing with someone else. Also the attack speed on BOTRK is great for Shyvana.

What I don't get is this trend of going Cutlass-Triforce-BOTRK. Is the minor slow on Cutlass so much more valuable that it's worth rushing when the full BOTRK apparently isn't?