League of Legends XXIV: Today's Noob Strat, Tomorrow's New Meta

[Spartacus]

Holy crap I saw the last post was Triscuitable and I thought it was the Steam thread.

I am terrible at both those champions, and have faced both poor and devastating versions of both. Most people seem to like Morgana.

[Eldariel]

Just wondering, should I buy Morgana or Amumu?

Depends. Do you want a lane dominating, mage-wrecking, teamslapping angel or a monster jungler, team-rooting, stunning mummy? Basically, Morgana is a laning mage while Amumu is a jungling tank. So...pick.

Also, I just officially played my last Gunblade Ezreal game. Farewell, good build. Now I shall truly feel the wrath of Dominion Lifesteal Hate as the last bastion of viability has been destroyed. Only trash remains (seriously, I may start just buying Emblem of Valor and not upgrading it into anything... Or maybe Bilgewater Cutlass as the ability is fairly good).

[Neftren]

Depends. Do you want a lane dominating, mage-wrecking, teamslapping angel or a monster jungler, team-rooting, stunning mummy? Basically, Morgana is a laning mage while Amumu is a jungling tank. So...pick.

Also, I just officially played my last Gunblade Ezreal game. Farewell, good build. Now I shall truly feel the wrath of Dominion Lifesteal Hate as the last bastion of viability has been destroyed. Only trash remains (seriously, I may start just buying Emblem of Valor and not upgrading it into anything... Or maybe Bilgewater Cutlass as the ability is fairly good).

Gunblade on Ezreal doesn't seem horrible right now...? I mean, on Dominion I'm mostly building AP anyways. Were you stacking them or something?

[TechnOkami]

Alright, I really need to try Skarner in an actual game to judge his power.

[Neftren]

Alright, I really need to try Skarner in an actual game to judge his power.

The one game I played today with a Skarner, all he seemed to be good at doing was stealing kills because he attacks so fast. ><


All in all, he seems like a decent pick now, at least if played by a competent player.

[tribble]

Just wondering, should I buy Morgana or Amumu?

Depends. Do you like jungling? You pretty much have to jungle amumu. Can you land a skillshot? Amumu does better if you can land bandage toss but he can get by even if you can't. Morgana kinda requires you to be able to land dark binding.

[Eldariel]

Gunblade on Ezreal doesn't seem horrible right now...? I mean, on Dominion I'm mostly building AP anyways. Were you stacking them or something?

No, I was going mostly AD like always, just using Gunblade as a semi-efficient source of Lifesteal that conveniently has some AP and Spellvamp for WER, and an extra slow for when Phage fails. I always found AP Ezreal a silly gimmick that really doesn't have much over any real AP mostly because I really find it hard to justify playing AP Ez over Kassadin or LeBlanc, for instance. His global ult is the only thing that sets him apart. Both LeB and Kass have similar CDs on their blinks, better overall AP ratios and more useful effects on their spells (Silence and Slow vs. ASpd slow and nothing).

My build is/was Brutalizer > Boots (CDR generally) + Sheen > Cutlass > Triforce > Gunblade. Then I went IE, LW or such depending on what's necessary (occasionally GA, QSS or both). Oh, and finished Ghostblade at some point. You get perfectly normal end-game Ranged AD auto attacks with IE/Gunblade/Triforce/Youmuu's (decent bunch of AD, 260% crits at 50% crit chance and passive + Triforce + Youmuu's active for ASpd) while obviously fueling your ability-based game with CDR/Sheen/Gunblade while at it.

Losing 5% of the lifesteal makes it eminently uninteresting as a lifesteal item; even the ****pile that is Sanguine Blade offers the same. And losing 20 of the AD makes it awfully uninteresting in that point; a silly BFS has more. I really just wanna get 2 Vampiric Scepters in inventory at that point but that's not awfully slot efficient, forces me to get a BFS item after them to get damage (since I don't have Gunblade anymore) and then I'm stuck with no free slots for defensive items should I happen to need them.

[TechnOkami]

The one game I played today with a Skarner, all he seemed to be good at doing was stealing kills because he attacks so fast. ><


All in all, he seems like a decent pick now, at least if played by a competent player.

Do you remember how he built him?

[ex cathedra]

I'm watching this weird TSM+Dignitas vs CLG+v8+Crs scrim that Chaox recorded.

Lol @ Voyboy firstblooding Hotshot at 3 minutes without a gank, and killing him at 3:56 with a Jatt gank.

[Daverin]

That game too troll.

[Draken]

I went mid as Skarner today (uh... long story), vs a Malzahar. A rather interesting experience.

Now that his E heals on last hits, it is much, much better for laning, and it is also cheap, which gives him plenty of early sustain. I went gunblade and then started building a trinity force, but we won the game shortly after I got the last piece of trinity (the zeal).

His damage is nice, has always been, and now that he runs out of mana less easily it is just feels that much better. I think he is in a good place now.

[Eldariel]

I got an inexplicable urge to build Nidalee tanky AP with enough ArPen to still use Takedown and Lichbane efficiently. Any ideas for improvement on this?

[dgnslyr]

Is it really tanky AP if the only difference I see between this and a more typical squishy Nidalee is the Frozen Heart?

That said, I don't play much Dominion, so I'm not an expert on Dominion-centric builds, and all I know about playing Nidalee is that her core items are Lichbane and then more AP. Transforming into cougar-mode does give her a bit of defenses, so I guess she has a bit more room for AP items?

[Neftren]

No, I was going mostly AD like always, just using Gunblade as a semi-efficient source of Lifesteal that conveniently has some AP and Spellvamp for WER, and an extra slow for when Phage fails. I always found AP Ezreal a silly gimmick that really doesn't have much over any real AP mostly because I really find it hard to justify playing AP Ez over Kassadin or LeBlanc, for instance. His global ult is the only thing that sets him apart. Both LeB and Kass have similar CDs on their blinks, better overall AP ratios and more useful effects on their spells (Silence and Slow vs. ASpd slow and nothing).

My build is/was Brutalizer > Boots (CDR generally) + Sheen > Cutlass > Triforce > Gunblade. Then I went IE, LW or such depending on what's necessary (occasionally GA, QSS or both). Oh, and finished Ghostblade at some point. You get perfectly normal end-game Ranged AD auto attacks with IE/Gunblade/Triforce/Youmuu's (decent bunch of AD, 260% crits at 50% crit chance and passive + Triforce + Youmuu's active for ASpd) while obviously fueling your ability-based game with CDR/Sheen/Gunblade while at it.

Losing 5% of the lifesteal makes it eminently uninteresting as a lifesteal item; even the ****pile that is Sanguine Blade offers the same. And losing 20 of the AD makes it awfully uninteresting in that point; a silly BFS has more. I really just wanna get 2 Vampiric Scepters in inventory at that point but that's not awfully slot efficient, forces me to get a BFS item after them to get damage (since I don't have Gunblade anymore) and then I'm stuck with no free slots for defensive items should I happen to need them.

Ah, yeah I see where you're coming from. I've been going Gunblade, Some AP Item, Lichbane, Morellos, though games seldom get beyond that point since Dominion games are so short.

Do you remember how he built him?

Not off the top of my head, but I've got the replay. Send me a note on Mumble and I'll go check it sometime.

[Eldariel]

Is it really tanky AP if the only difference I see between this and a more typical squishy Nidalee is the Frozen Heart?

That said, I don't play much Dominion, so I'm not an expert on Dominion-centric builds, and all I know about playing Nidalee is that her core items are Lichbane and then more AP. Transforming into cougar-mode does give her a bit of defenses, so I guess she has a bit more room for AP items?

I dunno. I can't test it right now 'cause EU is down and I lack the necessary resources on NA but my goal was getting tanky (really just as high effective HP as possible) with 40% CDR (since the whole purpose of getting tanky is to be able to Cougar it up and get in there to actually fight; Cougar abilities need full CDR to be any good in a prolonged fight) & with enough damage to actually hurt while in there.

HP is about 500 less than I'd want, MR is a tad lower than I'm comfortable with (tho Odyn's passive helps I guess) and I'd want some more ArPen but this was the best compromise I could come up with, especially since "getting damage" alone takes 3 items (I can't think of any combo other than Lichbane/Deathcap/Voidstaff to achieve "sufficient damage"). I also played with the idea of going 21/9/0 or 21/0/9 but that 6% CDR and 3% Move Speed is actually pretty major.

[toasty]

I've seen people build like Sunfire+GA on Nidalee. Dunno how it works, but it seems with the changes to cougar, tanky/ap is the way to go in Solo Queue. Hotshot still makes full AP poke work, but he's really, really good at Nidalee and it requires that the team be built around it (so Kennen+Nidalee+Trundle, say).

[dgnslyr]

Well, I guess you could build an Abyssal Scepter instead of the Void Staff, since you need more tanky and less AP. It gives a delicious Mres lowering aura, which you can put to good use, as well as making you beefier. Besides, it's not like anybody builds defense in Dominion anyways.

I guess you could work a Shurelia's in there somewhere, for the CDR, hp, and delicious, delicious active. 20% Frozen Heart, 15 % Shurelia's and 6% from Utility masteries is enough to hit the cap.

Maybe Hourglass instead of Deathcap if you feel like you're getting bursted too fast or beat around by AD too hard?

[balistafreak]

Holy crap, Graves's Smokescreen is freaking awesome.

Drop it in front of a chokepoint; a jungle entrance, a corner, on the near side of a bush towards the enemy, a river ramp. Shooting a Smokescreen before going through such a chokepoint means denying vision of the upper area until they pass all the way through the chokepoint to chase.

If you have any MIAs whatsoever, the enemy will refuse to chase. As Graves, I successfully kited the enemy team through the jungle while my team did Baron, using wards for vision, Smokescreen to put the fear of initiation in them, Quick Draw to hop over walls, and a final Flash to juke a Dark Binding.

Twenty some seconds later, I drop a Smokescreen in front of the Baron ramp while running across it. Wards spot them finally manning up, balling up, and running through it together -

- straight into my Baron-buffed team, artfully arranged to not be visible from the top of the ramp. They would have been visible from the bottom of the ramp, but anyone inside there was in a Smokescreen, and derping hard.

Murdered. Push to win, cue raging of "wtf their entire team was there".

[Dogmantra]

Gunblade on Ezreal doesn't seem horrible right now...? I mean, on Dominion I'm mostly building AP anyways. Were you stacking them or something?

Gunblade Mode is totally ruined, but his autoattacks were ALWAYS a huge part of his damage output because of his great passive. Losing 20 damage per hit is pretty awful.

Losing 5% of the lifesteal makes it eminently uninteresting as a lifesteal item; even the ****pile that is Sanguine Blade offers the same.

I'm not really a fan of Bloodthirster, I don't like farming it up then losing all the stacks, which is actually a big reason I got so into Gunblades, it's like a more slot efficient unstacked Bloodthirster, and that's just looking at the AD side. I guess it's Stark's or be lame and build Bloodthirsters now...

also, I wonder how Graves's Smoke Bomb works with wards.

[Eldariel]

I'm not really a fan of Bloodthirster, I don't like farming it up then losing all the stacks, which is actually a big reason I got so into Gunblades, it's like a more slot efficient unstacked Bloodthirster, and that's just looking at the AD side. I guess it's Stark's or be lame and build Bloodthirsters now...

It's even worse on Dominion. I'm pretty good at not dying when need be so I can keep my BT charges in endgames with ranged carries where I have all the equipment I want rather consistently (since my only job is being there and staying alive; not all that difficult provided the team isn't entirely useless) but Sanguine Blade doesn't have any built-in method to make it worth it.

So on Dominion, now you get to choose out of:
Sanguine Blade
Stark's Fervor
Executioner's Calling

This is almost enough to make me stop playing Ezreal on Dominion entirely... Stark's is trivially awful on him, Calling does nothing, Sanguine Blade is just bad. Hell, I'm almost interested in just building Emblem of Valor but it's such a horribly inefficient item gold-wise (1.4 times the lifesteal for 1.8 times the cost of a basic item!) that I really am not too crazy about that option either. And Bilgewater Cutlass alone is horribly expensive without too much Lifesteal, a short range active and a mediocre amount of AD. *sigh*

On SR I've always, and will always build Bloodthirsters. 25% Lifesteal <3

[Nargan]

So, owing to a bad connection, I can only play at certain times of day when other people aren't on their computers, owing to a 2 ragequits on my match history.

On the plus side, I got LoL replay working and this is a damn nice curbstomp I wanted to share, because I'm vain like that. Enemy was AWFUL, especially morgana, but I don't want to do ranked LoL and get sucked back into that, so it's the best I can hope for without queing with Elealar and Adumbration. It's always fun to pwn though

Oh, and it helps if you're listening to this while watching, so you get into the trundle mindset O.o

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Oh, and it helps if you're listening to this while watching, so you get into the trundle mindset O.o

Fun fact: I often listen to pony-related remixes while playing. I find it very hard to get mad at my team mates while listening to that sort of track. I also listen to a lot of Funk and funky Disco for the same reason.

Anyone else do this sort of thing?

[Nargan]

Fun fact: I often listen to pony-related remixes while playing. I find it very hard to get mad at my team mates while listening to that sort of track. I also listen to a lot of Funk and funky Disco for the same reason.

Anyone else do this sort of thing?

Well, as already proven, I do it a lot. Like the grand galloping gala 20% cooler remix. God I love that.

[Daverin]

I'm not really a fan of Bloodthirster, I don't like farming it up then losing all the stacks, which is actually a big reason I got so into Gunblades, it's like a more slot efficient unstacked Bloodthirster, and that's just looking at the AD side. I guess it's Stark's or be lame and build Bloodthirsters now...

also, I wonder how Graves's Smoke Bomb works with wards.

To be fair, Stark's can often be better dps than BT for autoattacks, unless you have last whisper I'd imagine. Also, how do you mean with the smoke bombs? If you mean wards outside the smoke, no dice, you still have no sight.

[Dogmantra]

You're right about Stark's, but considering Ez is my favourite AD carry with my second favourite being Vayne, who I would build Bloodthirster for lifesteal on anyway with... pitifully few other AD carries seeing play by me (I've been playing Graves a lot, I very rarely play Ashe, Caitlyn and Miss Fortune) it's just a bit of a shame :(

And no, I meant I wonder what happens if you chuck a smoke bomb onto a ward, does it get its sight radius reduced?

[Daverin]

You're right about Stark's, but considering Ez is my favourite AD carry with my second favourite being Vayne, who I would build Bloodthirster for lifesteal on anyway with... pitifully few other AD carries seeing play by me (I've been playing Graves a lot, I very rarely play Ashe, Caitlyn and Miss Fortune) it's just a bit of a shame :(

And no, I meant I wonder what happens if you chuck a smoke bomb onto a ward, does it get its sight radius reduced?

Yeah, it still is massive BS. Especially that they picked the AD portion to hit so hard, of all things! I was actually using that as a cool 6th item with a few champs.

And oooh, that's a good question. Would be interesting if that were the case, to see if you could screw with them at all with brief vision loss like that.

Also, occasionally, the reds are really funny. Like in this thread (using redtracker, btw.) Also, for anyone who knows about the silly Iron Solari thing going on in the forums... they have their own website. I lol'ed.

[Dienekes]

I have sort of a basic balance question to those infinitely smarter than me.

Armor and Magic Resistance both use the same mathematical equation to determine their usefulness. Also, we know how 100 in either means essentially double the effective hp in either.

So why are their two armor items that double effective health (essentially, Frozen Heart is only 99) but no magic resit items that offer the same benefit. Force of Nature is the highest, but after that nothing is above the 50s?

[Adumbration]

Am I doing something wrong when my AP jungle Shaco is more solid than my AD jungle Shaco?

[tribble]

So, I've been playing more and more carries, because I started to get bored with not being able to do significant damage, and I realised I have no idea how to build a carry. I don't really understand when to build damage versus building attack speed, I don't really know how to properly utilize crit, there are tons of fancy offensive items for my carrying pleasure but I don't know which ones are actually good, I'm kind of lost. Does anyone want to help me out and give me, like, a "general" item list that should allow me to deal good damage with most carries?

[Eldariel]

Watching Chauster own solo queue while playing absolutely awful is kinda saddening and awfully entertaining at the same time.

So, I've been playing more and more carries, because I started to get bored with not being able to do significant damage, and I realised I have no idea how to build a carry. I don't really understand when to build damage versus building attack speed, I don't really know how to properly utilize crit, there are tons of fancy offensive items for my carrying pleasure but I don't know which ones are actually good, I'm kind of lost. Does anyone want to help me out and give me, like, a "general" item list that should allow me to deal good damage with most carries?

Sorry to say, but depends on the carry. You'll have to be a tad more precise. IE, Trinity & Bloodthirster are the big 3 damage items so you'll want at least one of those. But what kind of a composition you want really depends. I can go more in-depth when I have more time, but in the meanwhile you can help us give you precision advice by being more specific.

EDIT: I guess corner cases exist where you use Bloodrazor instead so I'll mention it in addition to IE, Trinity & BT for completeness's sake. And I somehow forgot Black Cleaver. So those 5.