League of Legends XXV: Who is your Summoner, and what does he do?

[tribble]

I think I may have something figured out here that Dog doesnt.

Teemo's poison applies a flat DoT (Ok it scales with ap, but not much) AND flat damage.

Fizz's trident applies a debuff that scales with the health the target is missing, and flat damage on an active.

Onhit items all increase attack speed except frozen heart.

Basically, Teemo's poison scales with attack speed more than fizz. Also, because teemo's passive poison has a crap AP ratio and his mushrooms aren't reliable, he doesn't scale as well with just AP. Fizz has an AP-scaling dash, an AP-scaling DoT (and an activatable flat damage on-hit that scales with AP), an AP-scaling... Pole dance, and DAT SHARK.


Do we have enough trickster champions to make team tricksy yet? So far I can only think of Wukong, Fizz, Shaco, and Teemo, and I feel Teemo is stretching it.

[Reinboom]

Do we have enough trickster champions to make team tricksy yet? So far I can only think of Wukong, Fizz, Shaco, and Teemo, and I feel Teemo is stretching it.

CnalBel Nommus!


...
Oh wait, Zatanna isn't in this game.

[Baxter190]

Do we have enough trickster champions to make team tricksy yet? So far I can only think of Wukong, Fizz, Shaco, and Teemo, and I feel Teemo is stretching it.

I'd say Leblanc as well.

[Math_Mage]

I think I may have something figured out here that Dog doesnt.

Teemo's poison applies a flat DoT (Ok it scales with ap, but not much) AND flat damage.

Fizz's trident applies a debuff that scales with the health the target is missing, and flat damage on an active.

Onhit items all increase attack speed except frozen heart.

Basically, Teemo's poison scales with attack speed more than fizz. Also, because teemo's passive poison has a crap AP ratio and his mushrooms aren't reliable, he doesn't scale as well with just AP. Fizz has an AP-scaling dash, an AP-scaling DoT (and an activatable flat damage on-hit that scales with AP), an AP-scaling... Pole dance, and DAT SHARK.


Do we have enough trickster champions to make team tricksy yet? So far I can only think of Wukong, Fizz, Shaco, and Teemo, and I feel Teemo is stretching it.

FWIW Toxic Shot's AP ratio is almost identical to Fizz's. You just have to remember that one is counted in total and one is counted per second. Also the only skill Teemo has that doesn't scale well with AP is Move Quick.

I'd guess it's mainly that because Fizz is melee, he just can't build all the offensive stats he wants without being jack of all trades.

[Neftren]

At my Elo there's always one feeder who looses his lane in the first ten minutes. I know that this is hardly unique, but it's still frustrating to win or tie my lane (I honestly don't think I've ever lost my lane in pvp) for the first 10-15 minutes only to get stomped on for the rest of the game because top was feeding kills like crazy early game.

Just pick up somebody that's ridiculously OP and supercarry your team to victory. I just played a ranked smurf game on an account at like, 1150 ELO. Seriously, reaction times are probably slower than molasses at sub-1200 ELOs. 17/4/11 Brand with Revolver, Deathcap, Doran's Ring, 20 Stack Mejais, Abyssals, Sorceress Shoes, which came out to 661 AP with a bunch of gold to spare because I never backed after that. I don't even play Brand either. So, yeah, I think if you want to get out of "ELO Hell", then just play OP carries and ignore team comp.

[Eldariel]

Also Eld: how to AP Janna? I really enjoy her and I wanna play her mid.

She has multiple viable skill paths. Basically:
- You want 1 rank in all skills rather soon. They scale well and have many uses.
- Against people you wanna harass (e.g. solo top melees like Wukong or Riven) with auto attacks, I max Shield first.
- Otherwise, I max Gale first. This is especially true with some hard-to-harass opponents. You can still take free auto attacks and even W (mana intensive tho!) and try and trick 'em into the Gales.
- If I'm in the pushing plan, I just constantly Gale every wave when they begin to approach the lane, use W Passive + E to be untouchable while I AA creeps as necessary to pick up last hits. Then just frolic around the lane.
- I pretty much never take more than 1 rank in Ult (which is primarily for the knockback still) in order to max Q, W and E ASAP. Usual order is Gale > Zephyr > Shield or Shield > Gale > Zephyr. Mind, I often take 2-3 points in Shield if maxing Zephyr first and kinda split between Gale and Zephyr while leaving Shield at 4 if maxing Shield first. And if I go Shield, I might take more Zephyr before Gale if that would help me win my lane.

Dunno about Masteries with this new system yet. I'm kinda interested in the ArPen mastery on her since you do use lots of autoattacks while laning. I used to go 9/0/21, which is certainly still fine.

Runes are MPen/Whatevs/Whatevs/AP where Whatevs is Mana Reg/Lvl, Armor, MR/Lvl, AP/Lvl or something along the sorts.


I build:
Boots + 3 Pots
Catalyst (with or without few Doran's Rings; I just like rushing it)
RoA
Deathcap
Voidstaff + DFG + tanky AP/Spellvamp/etc. depending on whatever feels convenient

How is Corki doing nowadays since the nerfs (and change to E?) More importantly, how does he play compared to other AD carries? Does he still have a high damage output?

And, more importantly, how does he hold up to Ez, who I found last night I quite enjoyed as a carry?

Corki is fine. He's seeing a resurgence. He still has stupid burst and does alright up-front damage. Shorter duration E on higher levels makes it easier to deliver the full punch.

He's less kitey than Ez since he needs to get up to the face to kill people but he's obviously still elusive. And yeah, Q + Big One + Sheen AA with Gatling Gun Armor Pen = Pain. And he rips low-mid armor people apart with Black Cleaver and E.

[Daverin]

Yeah, more recently I thought about it, and realized that Corki's damage nerfs pretty much were reversed by this last patch: Q's damage is back up, and E honestly was just made better with that change. The only damage nerf still intact is 50% instead of 60% on the Big One.

Also, I seem to basically always win when I am Nasus. Strangely enough, I don't like it. I need to be able to do well with more than just him.

Also, tried Vlad. He actually is really fun, and laning past 9 is hilariously good, but... that damage just did not meet standards afterwards, even with a Deathcap and a Rylais, and the enemy building no defenses. If only I could farm enough to get a Lich Bane, since it actually could work quite well on him, but by that point he needs to be harder to kill, which means that Zhonyas/Randuins and Abyssal are more important...

This sucks, because I like his style, and think the new skin is cool. I wish Riot could do something with him, but Morello has said that he is more likely to look at costs than damage, although E's damage is still something he may look into. If it were me, I would just make it so that he could legitimately stay in the middle of a fight and go WEWEWEWE; as it stands, the health alone just has not saved him the times I've played with him.

[Eldariel]

Also, tried Vlad. He actually is really fun, and laning past 9 is hilariously good, but... that damage just did not meet standards afterwards, even with a Deathcap and a Rylais, and the enemy building no defenses. If only I could farm enough to get a Lich Bane, since it actually could work quite well on him, but by that point he needs to be harder to kill, which means that Zhonyas/Randuins and Abyssal are more important...

This sucks, because I like his style, and think the new skin is cool. I wish Riot could do something with him, but Morello has said that he is more likely to look at costs than damage, although E's damage is still something he may look into. If it were me, I would just make it so that he could legitimately stay in the middle of a fight and go WEWEWEWE; as it stands, the health alone just has not saved him the times I've played with him.

This Vlad build should do fine. The big thing to realize about him is that you need to max CDR (and max E stacks, no, that's not negotiable).

Nowadays it's a simple enough matter; 9/21/0 gets a goodly bunch of CDR and stats so that's an easy choice. On SR, you have Elixir of Brilliance which allows cutting 10% more; e.g. Spirit Visage. Either way, you need him at 40% CDR fast since his big damage comes not from individual castings but from chain casting. He's more an "AP carry" than a burst caster.

[Daverin]

I understand that, well enough; I suppose I didn't prioritize it enough. Spirit Visage is pretty obviously good, though, so I'll make sure to include that, since that will cover what I was missing (Had 9/21/0 and CDR boots.)

I guess I just can't get the ratio of survivability to damage that I am looking for, though. I probably should just stick with Ryze, then.

[Eldariel]

I understand that, well enough; I suppose I didn't prioritize it enough. Spirit Visage is pretty obviously good, though, so I'll make sure to include that, since that will cover what I was missing (Had 9/21/0 and CDR boots.)

I guess I just can't get the ratio of survivability to damage that I am looking for, though. I probably should just stick with Ryze, then.

Don't forget MR/Level and Armor/Level runes. After thinking about it a bit, I've come to the conclusion he gets so ridiculously large amounts of Health and AP from his build he doesn't really need AP Runes while MR and Armor act as defensive multipliers, which is precisely what you need.

Could even use MR Quints if you have a page but Tanky AP page with just defensive MR and Armor would work.


To be clear, objectively AP/Level and Health/Level are the strongest options numerically but that leaves your numeric multipliers to MR and Armor so long that having billion Health is far less efficient (and gets destroyed by percentiles). Seals and Glyphs are the best place to cut those for defensive stats 'cause the items you want all give you critical stuffs (Spellvamp, Rylai Slow, Percentile Penetration & company).

[Daverin]

Yeah, I switched out AP blues for MR. That said, I tend to not be satisfied with my defense until I can see at least around 150 in both armor and MR. Yes, I am aware that precious few champs can build that much and still hit hard. Thus why I am liking Ryze as my go to AP carry (that and huehuehue, Veigar.)

[Qaera]

Guys, I was playing a game on Summoners Rift as Blitzcrank. I was coming from mid river to top blue turret. I went into the jungle from across Baron and turned. There was like this cartoonish blue ghost that appeared for a couple seconds. I thought it might be an Easter egg or something? I had LoLReplay on so I went to check it out after the game but the data for that game was corrupted. Not the one before it or after it, but the one I saw the ghost in. It must mean something! Has anyone else seen this before?

Edit: I Remember when I clicked it it's name was "Urf".

~ ♅

[dgnslyr]

It's Urf, the Manatee, a cancelled champ. He shows up sometimes by top lane at the tombstones. If you're Warwick, I think he'll even hit you for 1 damage.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, I switched out AP blues for MR. That said, I tend to not be satisfied with my defense until I can see at least around 150 in both armor and MR. Yes, I am aware that precious few champs can build that much and still hit hard. Thus why I am liking Ryze as my go to AP carry (that and huehuehue, Veigar.)

That's the thing, Vlad has so much HP that he doesn't really need 150 MR and Armor. Almost 4k HP and 100 MR/Armor has very similar survivability to 3k HP and 150 MR and Armor. Though of course, more vulnerable to percentiles and static penetrations.

It's unfortunately impossible to get all the stats you need from items while getting high enough MR and Armor. You'd have to like, give up Rylai, Voidstaff, Deathcap or Boots to reach those numbers. And since much of his survivability is based on Damage/Spellvamp and being slow on a low range type isn't good, none of those doesn't seem like real options.

[TechnOkami]

Guys, I was playing a game on Summoners Rift as Blitzcrank. I was coming from mid river to top blue turret. I went into the jungle from across Baron and turned. There was like this cartoonish blue ghost that appeared for a couple seconds. I thought it might be an Easter egg or something? I had LoLReplay on so I went to check it out after the game but the data for that game was corrupted. Not the one before it or after it, but the one I saw the ghost in. It must mean something! Has anyone else seen this before?

~ ♅

A cartoonish blue ghost? Did it look like a manatee floating out of the ground and floating back down? Or rather... did it look like this?

[Daverin]

That's the thing, Vlad has so much HP that he doesn't really need 150 MR and Armor. Almost 4k HP and 100 MR/Armor has very similar survivability to 3k HP and 150 MR and Armor. Though of course, more vulnerable to percentiles and static penetrations.

It's unfortunately impossible to get all the stats you need from items while getting high enough MR and Armor. You'd have to like, give up Rylai, Voidstaff, Deathcap or Boots to reach those numbers. And since much of his survivability is based on Damage/Spellvamp and being slow on a low range type isn't good, none of those doesn't seem like real options.

You're right; I prefer 200 each.

In all seriousness, I don't know what it is, because it still didn't feel like enough. Maybe if I just build a completely defensive runepage and just rely on Voidstaff and mastery for penetration.

[Qaera]

It's Urf, the Manatee, a cancelled champ. He shows up sometimes by top lane at the tombstones. If you're Warwick, I think he'll even hit you for 1 damage.

Ah, cool, I remembered it's name. I forgot the fins that would make it a manatee :B

A cartoonish blue ghost? Did it look like a manatee floating out of the ground and floating back down? Or rather... did it look like this?

That's it, yep. Thanks~

~ ♅

[Eldariel]

You're right; I prefer 200 each.

In all seriousness, I don't know what it is, because it still didn't feel like enough. Maybe if I just build a completely defensive runepage and just rely on Voidstaff and mastery for penetration.

This is the tankiest Vlad I'd consider. Notice the all-MR Runepage with scaling CDR Quints. The big problem here is the lack of Penetrations but you have ~29 flat from Abyssal & Runes and 10% from Masteries so it's not all that bad. And you at least have a decent bunch of HP and AP still. That's really probably the only workable variant; losing lots of AP would lose out lots of HP too and make you decidedly-not-tanky (and losing Spellvamp basically removes E from your character entirely and makes you just kill yourself, and lacking Rylai costs you infinite AP + HP and would mean you can't kite anyways).

[Daverin]

To be fair, at my level, people don't even usually know what a Banshees or a QSS is, so percentage penetration oftentimes is not all that powerful anyways. Also, I myself would swap the Merc's for CDR boots and the Heart for Randuin's (and pull out blue pot,) just because I hate wasting the mana.

I probably should play him some more (with the first build you suggested.) Admittedly, the most glaring math was with an enemy team destined to wreck anybody, what with I think a Vayne, an Olaf, a Shyvana, a Lux, and a Nunu. So perhaps not the best test run for how durable somebody is.

[Eldariel]

To be fair, at my level, people don't even usually know what a Banshees or a QSS is, so percentage penetration oftentimes is not all that powerful anyways. Also, I myself would swap the Merc's for CDR boots and the Heart for Randuin's (and pull out blue pot,) just because I hate wasting the mana.

Meh, losing 25 MR & 24 Armor for some HP is precisely what Vlad can not afford (you'd be down to Ryzeish MR at that point and basically all percentile damage is magical and you're one of the highest HP champs in the game). Just use that as is; I handpicked everything for a reason :P

[Daverin]

To be fair, nobody at my level understands percentile damage either, unless they play Kog'maw (or Vayne, but that's Vayne.)

Losing the Merc's would probably be a good point then, and the the Heart to Omen wouldn't work, so... yeah.

Seriously, though, you're original build really should work fine, especially since I can at least substitute Voidstaff for Abyssal at my level. I think the biggest missing damage component was the last 10% of CDR, which Visage covers, so overall I think I can learn to make it work.

[tyckspoon]

I probably should play him some more (with the first build you suggested.) Admittedly, the most glaring math was with an enemy team destined to wreck anybody, what with I think a Vayne, an Olaf, a Shyvana, a Lux, and a Nunu. So perhaps not the best test run for how durable somebody is.

yeaaah. 'specially Vayne, IMO. The only way I feel comfortable going head to head with a halfway competent/correctly built Vayne is either being Ryze (Frozen Heart is the best counter item to her and your first cycle of spells delivers intimidating burst to her) or having TONS OF CC. Anything where you're trying to straight out damage-race her, even if you do have good lifesteal/spellvamp? No, you're probably going to lose.

Olaf.. I feel like shouldn't be a huge threat to Vlad? Armor blunts most of his abilities, and being Vlad with extra health soaks the true damage hits.. you might not be able to actually kill him unless you can ult him, he'll still be doing damage faster than you.. but it should take him long enough that you can get help or disengage, I think.

[Daverin]

yeaaah. 'specially Vayne, IMO. The only way I feel comfortable going head to head with a halfway competent/correctly built Vayne is either being Ryze (Frozen Heart is the best counter item to her and your first cycle of spells delivers intimidating burst to her) or having TONS OF CC. Anything where you're trying to straight out damage-race her, even if you do have good lifesteal/spellvamp? No, you're probably going to lose.

Olaf.. I feel like shouldn't be a huge threat to Vlad? Armor blunts most of his abilities, and being Vlad with extra health soaks the true damage hits.. you might not be able to actually kill him unless you can ult him, he'll still be doing damage faster than you.. but it should take him long enough that you can get help or disengage, I think.

Alone, yeah. But being in the middle of a teamfight with a near unkillable berserker with a low CD, high true damage burst only means you go down that much faster.

[Eldariel]

yeaaah. 'specially Vayne, IMO. The only way I feel comfortable going head to head with a halfway competent/correctly built Vayne is either being Ryze (Frozen Heart is the best counter item to her and your first cycle of spells delivers intimidating burst to her) or having TONS OF CC. Anything where you're trying to straight out damage-race her, even if you do have good lifesteal/spellvamp? No, you're probably going to lose.

I'll gladly do it with any long range mage like Anivia, Cassiopeia, Brand or company. If she ever comes close enough to me to damage me she dies. Assassins are also fine for dealing with her; Talon, Kassadin & co. can burst her pretty hard (though she can itemize against them, to be sure).

Alone, yeah. But being in the middle of a teamfight with a near unkillable berserker with a low CD, high true damage burst only means you go down that much faster.

Flat True Damage vs. the champ with the highest regular HP after maybe Singed and Cho? Doesn't seem all that frightening.

[Daverin]

I'll gladly do it with any long range mage like Anivia, Cassiopeia, Brand or company. If she ever comes close enough to me to damage me she dies. Assassins are also fine for dealing with her; Talon, Kassadin & co. can burst her pretty hard (though she can itemize against them, to be sure).



Flat True Damage vs. the champ with the highest regular HP after maybe Singed and Cho? Doesn't seem all that frightening.

Point being that Olaf's damage pretty much hits hard no matter what you have. Even having 100 armor/MR means reducing any other burst by 50%, but a blow from Olaf means 340 gone, no questions asked. And its not like the rest of his attacks aren't painful either. Again, I didn't mean him alone as some ultra-hard counter to Vlad or anything, but as far as bursters go he certainly supplemented the rest of the damage quite nicely.

Overall, though, it just was a poor demonstration of the character in that match. It just kind of felt like a constant problem, where either my damage isn't enough or I die too fast to do it. Sometimes I do think I do a poor job of really recognizing how good my damage is if not presented in burst form. That may be another hump I need to get over if playing Vlad.

[Eldariel]

Point being that Olaf's damage pretty much hits hard no matter what you have. Even having 100 armor/MR means reducing any other burst by 50%, but a blow from Olaf means 340 gone, no questions asked. And its not like the rest of his attacks aren't painful either. Again, I didn't mean him alone as some ultra-hard counter to Vlad or anything, but as far as bursters go he certainly supplemented the rest of the damage quite nicely.

Overall, though, it just was a poor demonstration of the character in that match. It just kind of felt like a constant problem, where either my damage isn't enough or I die too fast to do it. Sometimes I do think I do a poor job of really recognizing how good my damage is if not presented in burst form. That may be another hump I need to get over if playing Vlad.

Between Vlad having ridiculous Lifesteal and HP though, less so than with practically anyone else.

EDIT: Watching MLG Providence day 1 recording. G1 of Epik vs. Dignitas was awesome. Really showed the power of Rammus on assassins; very hard for either Kass or Akali to go in with Rammus being almost unkillable in the front, and able to death sentence either one with a single E.

Also, latest "anti-Dragon Baron" I've seen and the first one in a long time. Most of the time teams pull off enough vision denial to steal the Dragon quick and get back to Baron in time but a risky play from Dignitas really backfired with Vayne + Yorick + Vayne tearing Baron a new one.

Commentary is as amusingly uninformed as ever.

EDIT#2: And G2 with AP Carry/Carries (Kart/Kennen) instead of ADs. Real smart against a team of bruisers.

EDIT#3: TSM vs. Epik G1 was epic. Wow. Everyone who hasn't yet, watch 'em! http://mlgprovidence.leagueoflegends.com/

[Zen Master]

Is it just me ........ or is fish wildly overpowered?

Played my first game with him in it - on my team, luckily - and he does crazy, crazy damage and has enough escapes to never die. Literally, he scored 16/0/8 or something.

Of course he had me to watch him, as Alistar, but I'm not that good.

[Math_Mage]

Is it just me ........ or is fish wildly overpowered?

Played my first game with him in it - on my team, luckily - and he does crazy, crazy damage and has enough escapes to never die. Literally, he scored 16/0/8 or something.

Of course he had me to watch him, as Alistar, but I'm not that good.

Fizz is definitely good. Strong kit, decent scaling. Somewhere between release Jarvan and release Riven. OP? Eh.

[Dogmantra]

Fizz is definitely good. Strong kit, decent scaling. Somewhere between release Jarvan and release Riven. OP? Eh.

You think so? I thought he wasn't particularly great. Not underpowered, I mean, his ult is basically a slightly easier to hit (and more amusing) Rupture on a cooldown that's four times as long, his damage ain't bursty because of that DoT and the %health missing, Playful/Trickster, while stupid and also incredibly fun, doesn't seem to be amazing. That said, I do think he's like Lee Sin in that he's a really well designed melee who doesn't have to build practically straight tank.

[ArcanistSupreme]

So Epik fielded a team with no ranged AD against Dignitas and won. That is super interesting, and I hope we see more unusual team comps that can compete with the boring ol' team comps we see game after game.