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

[Lix Lorn]

Speaking of jungling... is it even worth trying before you have tier 3 runes? I just bought Udyr, and I fear it's time to delve into the jungle.

halp.

[tribble]

But then it doesn't go away. There's nothing more annoying than a surrender prompt that doesn't go away.

For the entire TEAM. In the future I intend to just park under a tower and type out the command.

Speaking of jungling... is it even worth trying before you have tier 3 runes? I just bought Udyr, and I fear it's time to delve into the jungle.

halp.

Udyr clears the jungle at the speed of bad news, and if you get a leash on blue he can do it with good health retention via turtle stance. You should do okay.

[Eldariel]

Speaking of jungling... is it even worth trying before you have tier 3 runes? I just bought Udyr, and I fear it's time to delve into the jungle.

halp.

Udyr can do it though you'll have to ask for a pull on blue (have your midlaner attack it once so the buff will not attack you and you get free hits) and go very conservative Cloth+5 with Phoenix+Turtle+Phoenix jungle to really pull it off successfully. Alternatively, you can clear the small camps first round around the jungle and then start at blue.

Either way, you probably don't want to try it before level 11 (you can get Awareness from Utility, and Armor masteries from Defense) and 13 is much better (you can get Utility Mastery from Utility too). Also, on lower levels you'll have trouble finding people with the skills necessary to lane against two people on top, so tread carefully.

On the flipside, enemy team will have junglers rarely enough too, so you can do a super-farming clear just maxing Phoenix + Turtle and blazing through both junglers to keep up with sololanes in XP. Udyr is actually one of the best champions for this since Phoenix clears jungle so fast.

[Math_Mage]

Speaking of jungling... is it even worth trying before you have tier 3 runes? I just bought Udyr, and I fear it's time to delve into the jungle.

halp.

No need. Turtle Lanedyr for the win.

Though if you do want to jungle, Eld has the right of it.

[Eldariel]

...holy ****, queue 30 mins for a Dominion game only to get THIS:

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Not only did Shaco DC for 5 mins, there were two trollbuilder "backdoorers" on the team ensuring we couldn't ever take points for them since we only effectively had 3 characters for combat purposes (and one of them was a flipping Twitch; you can guess how long he lives in combat against that team). The fact that I 1v3d them once, raped Singed bot early on, kept 4 guys on me for about 1 min (these guys are trying to "cap" bot from Singed in the meanwhile with enemy top entirely unprotected) and could 1v1 any of them didn't even matter.

Makes me seriously reconsider the value of ever actually playing Dominion with its stupid queue times for poor quality games.

[Math_Mage]

...holy ****, queue 30 mins for a Dominion game only to get THIS:

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<snip>

Makes me seriously reconsider the value of ever actually playing Dominion with its stupid queue times for poor quality games.

You hear that? That's the sound of the wind blowing through empty Twisted Treeline maps because the bad queues became a vicious cycle driving people back to SR in droves.

(That said, I can't imagine MM has an easy time placing someone with 2:1 win ratio over 300+ games. Can't be many like you.)

[balistafreak]

*Dominion rage*

Kind of like stonewall008's "social experiment" corelating Clarity with poor players, I've found that people who play Dominion on a regular basis tend to be extremely poor players in general, ironically. As in, if someone plays a lot of Dominion, they actually tend to be worse at it than someone who mainly plays 5v5 Summoner's Rift and dabbles into Dominion from time to time.

Personal example: my friends and I generally play 5v5. When we want to want to secure a FWOTD, we play a Dominion game. We currently have about a ~40-20 record on it in our premades, about a 66% win ratio, which is a far, far cry away from our approximately 55% win ratio in Summoner's Rift. (The only reason we don't do ranked is that we normally have four players, not five, and therefore can't queue up.)

Whenever we have a poor player who we can honestly say "cost us the game" (perhaps they had an absolutely do-nothing item build in Dominion, or managed to have the least CS as an AD carry in Summoner's Rift), we like to check out their profiles. Invariably, they have a surprisingly high amount of Dominion games, regardless of the the type of game they just derped in...

Someone should do a quantitative analysis of ranked ELO versus amount of Dominion played...

[Qaera]

So when someone asks for masteries, usually you get a 9/0/21, 21/0/9 or whatever. But how do you determine which ones they go into...? I mean, some are obvious, like I want some AP for Ekaterina, but sometimes people surprise me like the utility mastery with the gold over another, or something. Is it just something you get after a while, intuition? Or an established "these are the best at the first row in offense, if you get anything else plz uninstall lol.exe"?

Also the meta... two bot to defend dragon doesn't really make sense at my level, where no one grabs it but me. Is all strategy assuming a level 30 playing field? How can I adapt that to 10/15/20/25, or is it basically the same? Also! Junglers! Never see them unless I play with 30's. What's up with that?

~ ♅

[balistafreak]

So when someone asks for masteries, usually you get a 9/0/21, 21/0/9 or whatever. But how do you determine which ones they go into...? I mean, some are obvious, like I want some AP for Ekaterina, but sometimes people surprise me like the utility mastery with the gold over another, or something. Is it just something you get after a while, intuition? Or an established "these are the best at the first row in offense, if you get anything else plz uninstall lol.exe"?

It's agreed that some of the masteries are just bad/irrelevant for a certain build/champion, like the Heal mastery or mana regeneration on a manaless champion and others are pointedly obvious, like Improved Exhaust or the 21st capstone on any tree. It's in the middle of each tree that choices get a little fuzzy.

Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference most of the time, especially in the utility tree. Some people prefer their +1 mana/5 over a few hundred gold over the entire 40+ minute course of the game, for example, believing it makes their laning phase easier. (I personally don't; I see the greed mastery as "four free wards over the game", but that's just me.) Or, some people prefer gold over buff duration. (I say buff duration is far better: those extra seconds of blue buff mean the difference between safely pushing a lane for gold and experience, and having to fall back because if you get ganked with no mana you're sunk. Or those extra seconds of red buff mean being armed and dangerous for the next skirmish that happens.)

Also the meta... two bot to defend dragon doesn't really make sense at my level, where no one grabs it but me. Is all strategy assuming a level 30 playing field? How can I adapt that to 10/15/20/25, or is it basically the same? Also! Junglers! Never see them unless I play with 30's. What's up with that?

~ ♅

All strategy talked about us long-timers is level 30 strategy, where everyone can be assumed to have 30 mastery points and a full runepage. Before that, it's just kind of a crapshoot. For example, junglers; before level 30, the lack of runes and masteries is extremely painful. For most champions, it's still preferable to lane. Also, the odds that your (random) teammate won't have his most likely 1v2 lane collapse under pressure are very low. Him losing the lane and feeding not only one but two champions several free kills can cost you the game despite the advantages jungling provides.

[Eldariel]

So when someone asks for masteries, usually you get a 9/0/21, 21/0/9 or whatever. But how do you determine which ones they go into...? I mean, some are obvious, like I want some AP for Ekaterina, but sometimes people surprise me like the utility mastery with the gold over another, or something. Is it just something you get after a while, intuition? Or an established "these are the best at the first row in offense, if you get anything else plz uninstall lol.exe"?

It's fairly simple, usually. Mages get most out of CDR and Archaic Knowledge so you invariably use 9/0/21 on any mana-using mage. On a mage without mana (ergo unlikely blue buff and mana reg needs making Meditation and Utility Mastery useless) you generally have the choice between 9/21/0 (and Ardor + tankiness) and 9/0/21 (CDR and summoner cooldowns) though. 21/0/9 and 21/9/0 are decent too but generally worse. Basically tho, far as Mages are concerned:
- Offense past Archaic Knowledge offers mages nothing before the capstone so pure mages practically never go over 9; and you practically always want 9 since Archaic Knowledge is so good and you get some CDR while at it (0/9/21 Ryze is viable due to Strength of Spirit being so good on him, and occasionally you want to consider that setup on tankier mages instead).
- Defense offers things of lesser importance to mages but still gives you tankiness and Ardor is surprisingly strong so if you take Defense you want at least 19 (and at that point, might as well go 21).
- Utility offers you extra mana reg, which really helps, and extra blue buff duration which is godlike if you are getting blue buff. Extra XP from the early levels is also great, but the parts mages really want are the CDR and Presence of the Master + Flash mastery (since mages always want Flash and those really make it more usable). This is why you usually want 21 in Utility on mages.

On ranged AD carries:
- Offense gives you tons of good stuff from tier 3 forward (ArPen, AD, damage multipliers) so you generally want to go deep in Offense. It's either 15 or 21 (Sunder and Brute Force are the keys). Nowadays 21 is preferred due to the Havoc buffs.
- Defense is useful but you shouldn't really be getting hit much, much like Mages, so it's of lesser importance. 9 points is still occasionally good (6 Armor & MR is nice) and it's especially valuable if you run Dodge-runes (for Nimbleness).
- Utility has increased buff duration and move speed and XP. You're gonna be using the redbuff mostly and Movement Speed has obvious importance. This makes you want anywhere from 10 to 15 points in it. However, since Havoc is better than the second point in Utility Mastery, you often compromise with 9 points in Utility and 21 in Offense.

Tanky types:
- Offense gives you more damage. Depending on what champion you're playing this is more or less important (keep Archaic Knowledge in particular in mind if you are doing lots of incidental magic damage on an AD shell, like Udyr, Shyvana, Nasus or company). All the way up to 21 is viable but it's a tradeoff.
- Defense makes you tankier, especially significantly early on, so you generally put all you can in there. If you have Dodge, you 100% want 9 points and the next break point is 16 for Veteran's Scars (though they're nerfed and thus less alluring now). Then it's a question of whether you get more out of extra Utility/Defense or going 21 in Defense (and even more tankiness). Much depends on how valuable Meditation, Utility Mastery, Flash Mastery, Sunder, Ignite mastery & company are to you.
- Utility is what you take if you need nothing else. If Offense isn't giving you too much or if you need Awareness (such as if jungling), then you want at least 9 in Utility and a jungler wants Utility Mastery so 10, generally. More Utility-heavy builds are possible but generally you don't want to give up the early tankiness from Defense (though sometimes, Presence of the Master is just too good to pass up on but that's really the only time when you go 21 in Utility).

Supports:
- Offense gives you Archaic Knowledge and CDR. Since most supports scale best with CDR, 9 is generally popular here and might as well take Archaic Knowledge for free damage (you're unlike to be building MPen but you generally have magical damage sources so any help you can give is good).
- Defense has few good early masteries especially if you'll be in the front. Armor & MR are obviously good so 6 points is nice. Conflicts with maximizing CDR tho which means you're giving up output here so be sure it's worth it.
- Need 21 in Utility for CDR, Clairvoyance Mastery, Presence of the Master (CV is the most important summoner spell, need it as often as possible) & Greed (since you won't get farm otherwise, every gold counts in getting your Gold/10 running ASAP). You don't take Utility Mastery since you won't carry buffs.


Basically:
- Mana Mages go 9/0/21 or rarely 0/9/21
- Manaless Mages go 9/0/21, 9/21/0 or occasionally 21/9/0 or 21/0/9 (this is mostly hybrids like Akali tho)
- AD Carries go 21/0/9, 15/0/15, with occasional 21/9/0
- Tanky types go 9/21/0 or 0/21/9 or a mix (1/16/13 is how I usually do jungle, various 12/9/9 and 13/6/11 and company exist; this is easily the most malleable group)
- Supports go 9/0/21 or 0/9/21 almost always.

Variants exist. Sometimes people like 8 and 22 instead of 9 and 21 (if they don't e.g. want Utility Mastery while getting 8 in Utility) and there are weirder variants. But those are the most time-tested and logical setups for most champs.

Bigger questions come in what specific masteries you take inside each tree. Some are clear but e.g. Meditation vs. Greed, Ardor vs. Veteran's Scars, Lethality vs. Alacrity and so on come up and force you to make some choices on priorities.

Oh, and generally you take summoner spells and Mastery them. This leads to e.g. occasional 8/1/21 on Revive Karthus. Obviously it's optimal if your normal mastery setup allows you to Mastery them tho. E.g. the reason Singed generally goes 0/21/9 over 9/21/0 is because he needs Ghost Mastery from Utility (could of course go e.g. 9/20/1 or 9/17/4 if wanting Archaic Knowledge on him).

Under 30 you just work from there; see which masteries would benefit your champion the most (I listed most of the key ones and they tend to be relatively obvious) and prioritise them. For example, on jungle Udyr on level 19 I would run 0/9/10 for Nimbleness, Utility Mastery and Awareness because those are the biggest impact masteries for him.

Also the meta... two bot to defend dragon doesn't really make sense at my level, where no one grabs it but me. Is all strategy assuming a level 30 playing field? How can I adapt that to 10/15/20/25, or is it basically the same? Also! Junglers! Never see them unless I play with 30's. What's up with that?

Eh. At that point it's largely irrelevant. Things like laning matchups don't even matter since players are so varying in skill that you can have Anivia losing to Vladimir, Ashe beating Caitlyn or something to that effect (those are two examples of things that should never ever happen; before the massive Vlad-nerfs, I scored tons of free Elo by just leaving Vladimir unbanned whenever I was the captain, and picking Anivia - free win lane) just as easily as the opposite.

Two bot is no worse or better than two top since it just doesn't make a lick of a difference. Just try for the easiest lane match-ups or the match-ups your players are most comfortable with.

As for junglers; runes + masteries really, really help jungling (ergo it's harder on low levels) and there's no LoL tutorial for "junglers". Fact is that many lower level players don't even know what to do with the jungle creeps. Hell, I'll bet half the players under 20 don't know what blue buff and red buff actually do, or why you'd ever bother with Dragon.

Baron is sorta obvious but lower level players will basically never go for it unless they get an ace and are all 18 or something (easy way to get free wins; just randomly go do Baron at like level 13 for solo laners - chances are it's not warded and they won't even give it two seconds to wonder where your team other than the bot pushers are).

[toasty]

Also the meta... two bot to defend dragon doesn't really make sense at my level, where no one grabs it but me. Is all strategy assuming a level 30 playing field? How can I adapt that to 10/15/20/25, or is it basically the same? Also! Junglers! Never see them unless I play with 30's. What's up with that?

~ ♅

Meta assumes common sense and a reasonable understanding of the game. It also assumes you own perfect rune pages, all the champions, and are level 30. Meta breaks down when you don't understand the game.

For instance, a popular lane right now is support+carry bottom. In theory this is the best because the support doesn't need farm and carries rely on farm more than levels. However, it breaks down if the support takes a bunch of farm.

As to why no one jungles: first of all, Jungling, like supporting, is a role that a lot of people don't like. I'm not entirely sure why, but the least popular roles in the current meta seem to be: support, jungle, ad carry. Tanks are unpopular, yet low elo scrubs always ban Singed and Amumu, (yet never pick Galio or Chogath, who are 10x more OP), so go figure. Supporting is unpopular for obvious reasons; supporting solo queue players sucks 90% of the time. Jungling ... i dunno why.

I will admit that it is impossible to effectively jungle without runes and masteries. Heroes like GP, Nocturne, Rammus, and Maokai, while technically very good junglers, can't do it without runes and masteries. Other junglers like Warwick and Fiddle can probably do it, but would be so slow its not even worth it. However, don't expect a lot of jungling once you hit level 30 because more often than not, when I play normal queue, there is something like a 50% chance people won't jungle. There is about a 10% chance those people that do jungle will be a smiteless fiddle or warwick.

TL;DR: Meta assumes people actually know how to play the game and adjusts itself accordingly. When people are bad/don't know how to play the game the meta breaks down. Also: its actually very difficult to effectively jungle without proper runes and masteries.

[Geigan]

Another 50 pages come and gone. Ideas for next thread's title?

I'm struck with an idea for a jungle title

League of Legends XXV: Lizards and Golems and Dragons, oh my!

[Qwertystop]

Another 50 pages come and gone. Ideas for next thread's title?

I'm struck with an idea for a jungle title

League of Legends XXV: Wolves and Wraiths and Golems, oh my!

Bit late. There's been voting for a while.

[Geigan]

ah nvm then.

[Joran]

Kind of like stonewall008's "social experiment" corelating Clarity with poor players, I've found that people who play Dominion on a regular basis tend to be extremely poor players in general, ironically. As in, if someone plays a lot of Dominion, they actually tend to be worse at it than someone who mainly plays 5v5 Summoner's Rift and dabbles into Dominion from time to time.
.

I resemble that comment! I can't last hit worth a crud anymore. I'm unwilling to spend 45 minutes per game and the shorter duration Dominion game is just right.

I have noticed that draft Dominion seems to take awhile now :(

[tribble]

I dunno guys, I found dominion to be something of a masterclass in landing skillshots. My olaf game improved by a HUGE amount just because Dominion finally taught me how you fight with the guy, and I land a lot more hits with Ezreal now.

I do still feel like I'm not hitting as hard as I want to as ezreal outside of dominion, but meh, I'm a very slippery, very juicy spell magnet who's just tough enough to get a foolish assasin to get themselves killed diving me. Unless they have a stun.

[Arbitrarity]

Djinn and Mario seem to be confused about which game they're playing.

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[Djinn_in_Tonic]

So...my Mundo build last game.

64,000 damage.

FOUR DEATHS


...our guy with FIFTEEN deaths took only 37,000 damage. The enemy team couldn't kill me with less than 5 unless they had Baron (when they managed it with 4 after about 20 seconds).

[Silverraptor]

So...my Mundo build last game.

64,000 damage.

FOUR DEATHS


...our guy with FIFTEEN deaths took only 37,000 damage. The enemy team couldn't kill me with less than 5 unless they had Baron (when they managed it with 4 after about 20 seconds).

Did you win or lose that game?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Did you win or lose that game?

Oh. We lost fairly horribly at the end. But that doesn't matter, 'cause it was hilarious.

[toasty]

I should really stop playing tanks in solo queue... if the game goes past the 30 minute mark you just don't do enough damage on tanks. EVEN IF YOU BUILD DAMAGE ITEMS.

[Math_Mage]

I should really stop playing tanks in solo queue... if the game goes past the 30 minute mark you just don't do enough damage on tanks. EVEN IF YOU BUILD DAMAGE ITEMS.

I dunno, the tank that's winning always seems to be doing enough damage. Like the indestructible top lane Shen my team couldn't deal with a couple games back.

[EternalMelon]

I should really stop playing tanks in solo queue... if the game goes past the 30 minute mark you just don't do enough damage on tanks. EVEN IF YOU BUILD DAMAGE ITEMS.

Play Amuumuuuuuuuu, for 50 games, eventually your teammates will follow you into the fight. Kill Nexus.

Rinse, repeat.

[ArcanistSupreme]

I should really stop playing tanks in solo queue... if the game goes past the 30 minute mark you just don't do enough damage on tanks. EVEN IF YOU BUILD DAMAGE ITEMS.

Try Nasus or Cho'Gath. They both scale pretty darn well into late game and can soak up stupid amounts of damage.

[LordShotGun]

Try Nasus or Cho'Gath. They both scale pretty darn well into late game and can soak up stupid amounts of damage.

Particularly nasus. Cho'gath is the better tank if only because his huge size almost forces people to click on him, but he is still limited in the damage he deals once his feast is used (his CC however is still amazing) while nasus can two shot squishy targets if left alone using his Q even if you only build tank items on him.

[TechnOkami]

Djinn. What is your Mundo build?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Djinn. What is your Mundo build?

That game I was basically trolling with 2 Warmogs, Spirit Visage, Sunfire, Merc's, and Thornmail.

My normal build is actually close to that...

Merc's or Swiftness
Spirit Visage
Sunfire
Warmog's or Frozen Mallet
Force of Nature
--Bloodthirster
--Atma's
--Starck's
--Guardian Angel

[Spartacus]

NEW THREAD IS UP