League of Legends XXXI: I'll Start My Own Team! With TF! And Janna!

[Lix Lorn]

So I bought akali!
I tried her in bots and died a lot. (also killed a lot, but bots...)

Any tips? Item advice? I managed to get both passives off of runes I already owned, so woo there. xD

[Eldariel]

I'm totally cool with them putting in some AD caster items. It's something I've thought was missing. I understand why they're cautious about putting new items in the game, but I find it odd that there's no sign they've even been looking at an AD caster item or two.

I don't really see a need to have separate itemization for AD casters and autoattackers tho. I mean, of course they'd have different preferences but I don't see a real reason to have two different sets of AD items in the game.

[A Rainy Knight]

So... I'm new to this whole thing. I've played a few rounds over the past few days against the beginner bots and taken a liking to Annie, partly because I could unlock her without playing a lot of games. Anybody have any advice for a beginner on how to use her (or suggestions on any other heroes I might like to try)? Right now I just use disintegrate to rack up a bunch of kills on minions and pump up my mana/ability power to hit the enemies with disintegrate and incinerate.

[Chumbaniya]

I don't really see a need to have separate itemization for AD casters and autoattackers tho. I mean, of course they'd have different preferences but I don't see a real reason to have two different sets of AD items in the game.

I think it can just be quite frustrating for AD casters not having much overlap between mana/CDR items and AD items because it means that AD casters that scale roughly the same (per unit cost) with AD as AP casters do with AP miss out on other stats that benefit their damage output that are found on some AP items. It would be really good to have something that built from, say, Glacial Shroud offering some AD, or an advanced version of the Brutalizer.

[Mirrinus]

Playing Annie is all about managing her passive, which gives you a stun for every 5 spells cast. Make sure you have your stun ready to go before any big plays. You can tell your stun is ready by the icon above your HUD, the white ring that appears around Annie when it's ready, and the fact that Annie makes a distinctive giggle when it's charged. If possible, try to save the stun activation for Tibbers, which makes it an AoE stun that lets you land the rest of your spell combo for massive damage, likely killing any non-tanky target and hopefully stunning anyone else nearby.

If you're new to the game, one of the most important skills you should start cultivating is learning how to last hit. It's a skill that will serve you well no matter what champ you play (for the most part, lol0CSsupports).

Let me know if you'd like to duo queue sometime, even if it's just for bot games. I like to show newer players around in pretty much any game I play. My main account's name is Parallaxal, although I do have a smurf account lying around somewhere too.

EDIT: Oh, and in case people haven't seen yet, leaked Lulu patch notes rumors. Irelia's passive lifegain has been halved.

The greatest skill around, Blitz's Rocke Grab, is also getting a sizable numbers buff. It will now be getting higher base damage, a 1.0 AP ratio (up from 0.8), and a 30 mana cost reduction.

[Nadevoc]

I don't really see a need to have separate itemization for AD casters and autoattackers tho. I mean, of course they'd have different preferences but I don't see a real reason to have two different sets of AD items in the game.

They share a main stat - AD - but their secondary stats are different. AD casters want spell vamp and CDR while auto-attackers want lifesteal* and AS. Many auto-attacker items are great for AD casters, but a few you're paying a good amount for AS that isn't worth it. And since AD casters weren't around when the item pool was designed, there aren't really items with AD and their secondary stats. The one I can think of - Brutalizer - was added later.

We don't need a second pool of items. Most of the AD caster and auto-attacker items WILL overlap. And, in fact, they can take from each others pool and will benefit. Really, I think an AD/spell vamp item is the one big gap.

*Yes, helps AD casters, too, but not as much.

The greatest skill around, Blitz's Rocke Grab, is also getting a sizable numbers buff. It will now be getting higher base damage, a 1.0 AP ratio (up from 0.8), and a 30 mana cost reduction.

Really? This seems weird since Riot has occasionally stated that they think Blitz is actually overpowered, but they're not touching him because he's sort of niche and not really popular or abused.

So... I'm new to this whole thing. I've played a few rounds over the past few days against the beginner bots and taken a liking to Annie, partly because I could unlock her without playing a lot of games. Anybody have any advice for a beginner on how to use her (or suggestions on any other heroes I might like to try)? Right now I just use disintegrate to rack up a bunch of kills on minions and pump up my mana/ability power to hit the enemies with disintegrate and incinerate.

I think Mirrinus has done a good job covering the basics. Last-hitting is crucial; generally try not to hurt minions except to get the last hit on them. Annie's actually a great champ to teach you that because her Disintegrate has a built in "Last hit with me!" incentive (though most champs last hit with their auto-attack). A lot of Annie's strength is in her passive, so definitely pay attention to that. I'd take Disintegrate at level one, then alternate that with Incinerate. I take one level of Molten Shield at level 4, but don't think of it as a defense spell; instead it's a way to go from 4 passive stacks to 5 and give me the stun.

I'd also be willing to queue with you a few games if you'd like. My main account is Xenik.

As far as other champs, we'd need some more information on your preferences (do you like being tanky? Playing mages? etc) in order to give suggestions. I'd suggest trying out free champions each week, though, at least the ones that look like they might be interesting. You may not be great, but you're just learning and it's a game, it's for having fun.

[A Rainy Knight]

Sure, I'd love to try a game with you guys - my account is ARainyKnight.

*finally understands what last-hitting is* Oh! All right, that makes sense when I think about it. You're right that Annie's Disintegrate got me to start doing that subconsciously.

Hmm... of the free champions this week, I've played Mordekaiser, Maokai, Sivir, and Annie. I liked being able to take a hit with Maokai's tankiness, but so far Annie's been my favorite since I've found it easiest to dish out reliable damage with her. Didn't care for Sivir since she seemed too fragile early on and I couldn't make very good use of her skills compared to the others. I guess I can't really come up with anything solid that I like until I try some more out, though.

[Eldariel]

They share a main stat - AD - but their secondary stats are different. AD casters want spell vamp and CDR while auto-attackers want lifesteal* and AS. Many auto-attacker items are great for AD casters, but a few you're paying a good amount for AS that isn't worth it. And since AD casters weren't around when the item pool was designed, there aren't really items with AD and their secondary stats. The one I can think of - Brutalizer - was added later.

We don't need a second pool of items. Most of the AD caster and auto-attacker items WILL overlap. And, in fact, they can take from each others pool and will benefit. Really, I think an AD/spell vamp item is the one big gap.

*Yes, helps AD casters, too, but not as much.

There's also Crit Chance. But yeah; this is pretty much my point; synch the secondary stats outside the obvious CDR/ASpd (since the differences are fundamentally too deep to combine) and suddenly you cut the need for spellvamp items, extra CDR items, excessively high AD ratios and all that, and make the existing item base far more interesting for AD casters.

[Dogmantra]

*finally understands what last-hitting is*

Three basic strategies regarding minions that are really helpful to know:
Last Hitting - killing minions in the lane with just the last little amount of damage to kill them but keep the minion waves roughly where they are.

Being pushed back - letting your enemies deal more damage to your minions than you deal to theirs, making the minion waves move towards your tower. This lets you stand closer to your tower and you're therefore safer while making it riskier for your lane opponents. You generally don't want your tower to be attacking enemy minions though, since that can make it a lot harder to last hit.

Pushing - constantly attacking minions to move your wave to the enemy tower. It's not just useful for taking a tower, there are a couple of other uses. The first is if you want to go and buy items and there'll be no one on your team left in lane, you can push the lane to put pressure on your opponent(s). The other one is that if you find yourself a bit far out, you can push until your minions are under the enemy tower, which should kill them quick enough to mean the next time minions meet it'll be in the middle of the lane again.

Although in all three of these, try to get as much gold from them as possible.

[Chumbaniya]

The greatest skill around, Blitz's Rocke Grab, is also getting a sizable numbers buff. It will now be getting higher base damage, a 1.0 AP ratio (up from 0.8), and a 30 mana cost reduction.

Ok, that's it, I'm buying Blitz next. I've been debating whether to get Udyr or Karthus next time I get 3150 IP but every time I see Blitz I just think he's amazing and if he becomes even stronger I'll just have to play him. I'm just not sure where. I've got a friend who really wants to make double jungling work, and I saw a video of Alistar/Blitz double jungle absolutely dominating a game, so I might have to try that. (The solo lanes were Gragas, Sion and Wukong - must have been pretty frustrating for the enemy team that they never got to take any actions or decide where their champions should go!)

[Eldariel]

You can play Blitz top, Blitz jungle or Blitz bot (as carry or support). Blitz mid is kinda mediocre for most match-ups. He's a rather versatile champion, overall.

[Chumbaniya]

There's also Crit Chance. But yeah; this is pretty much my point; synch the secondary stats outside the obvious CDR/ASpd (since the differences are fundamentally too deep to combine) and suddenly you cut the need for spellvamp items, extra CDR items, excessively high AD ratios and all that, and make the existing item base far more interesting for AD casters.

I think crit chance is also too fundamentally different to any secondary stats AD champions want to be combined into something or co-opted into a scaling factor for AD casters. This isn't too much of a problem, except for the fact that the item with the highest base attack damage in the game has a massive amount of its stat budget spent on crit chance and making crits more powerful.

And before someone suggests it, NEVER EVER EVER should physical abilities be allowed to crit unless they're Parrrley.

[Chumbaniya]

You can play Blitz top, Blitz jungle or Blitz bot (as carry or support). Blitz mid is kinda mediocre for most match-ups. He's a rather versatile champion, overall.

I think Blitz top appeals to me most. I'd feel like I was putting all my eggs in one rocket-grab-shaped basket if I played him as a support since he doesn't have much to help a carry with beyond setting up kills. Jungle might be ok, but I assume he doesn't have a great clear speed and the I guess the grab won't actually place enemies where you want them to be if you're coming from the side of the lane.

The reason I think top is a good spot is that he can set up powerful early ganks without the need for a strong ganking jungler - if you can grab and knock-up an enemy then it should be sufficient for, say, Shyvana to just run in with burnout active and E->Q them to finish the kill.

[Daverin]

On patch note rumors: Jax can Empower on Leap Strike. Err... wasn't that the case already, or did I miss that being changed in his rework?

[Eldariel]

I think crit chance is also too fundamentally different to any secondary stats AD champions want to be combined into something or co-opted into a scaling factor for AD casters. This isn't too much of a problem, except for the fact that the item with the highest base attack damage in the game has a massive amount of its stat budget spent on crit chance and making crits more powerful.

And before someone suggests it, NEVER EVER EVER should physical abilities be allowed to crit unless they're Parrrley.

I said it before: Percentile scaling of the bonus portion of the ability damage. It'd be fundamentally the same Deathcap (except of course, different actual items and lower base values since AP is cheaper than AD).

This has already been in limited use before in Garen's Judgment and worked fine; made crit chance a vaguely interesting itemization option, didn't break anything.

[tyckspoon]

I think Blitz top appeals to me most. I'd feel like I was putting all my eggs in one rocket-grab-shaped basket if I played him as a support since he doesn't have much to help a carry with beyond setting up kills. Jungle might be ok, but I assume he doesn't have a great clear speed and the I guess the grab won't actually place enemies where you want them to be if you're coming from the side of the lane.

Of course the grab puts them where you want them to be- to wit, next to you and ready to receive a Power Fist/redbuff application. It is true that you don't want to use it to initiate a gank, unlike in-place stuns or knockbacks where you're mostly ok as long as they're going roughly toward your tower/friendly laner. As the ganker, you want to save Rocket Grab as a counter-Flash/other escape. Move in with Overdrive/Ghost/Flash if you have to, hit with a Power Fist. When the target concludes that they can't win and Flash/dash out, that's when you Rocket Grab to bring them back to you.

[Dogmantra]

And before someone suggests it, NEVER EVER EVER should physical abilities be allowed to crit unless they're Parrrley.

If you believe the tooltip, Spearshot can also crit :P

(of course all that means is 150% damage whenever you'd get crits from Heartseeker Strike)


Also I really will be surprised if they BUFF BLITZCRANK
Yeah guys he's only the best character in the game.

[Chumbaniya]

I said it before: Percentile scaling of the bonus portion of the ability damage. It'd be fundamentally the same Deathcap (except of course, different actual items and lower base values since AP is cheaper than AD).

This has already been in limited use before in Garen's Judgment and worked fine; made crit chance a vaguely interesting itemization option, didn't break anything.

That can work in an individual case if it's some gimmick of the ability, but if that becomes a general rule, what on earth can we rename crit chance to on items? The spell vamp -> life steal proccing on physical abilities is just a mechanic change and actually makes more sense in terms of labelling those two stats clearly, since 'spell vamp' already heavily implies it working with magic damage. But with crit chance, how do you convey that it's actually 'crit chance plus a proportional scaling on damage abilities'? I feel like two logically distinct properties that your champion possesses should be two different statistics on gear.

Then you've got the issue from the opposite direction, which is that you're using two different stats (AD and crit) to contribute to the same stat that you see listed on an ability's bonus damage. This already exists in the case of abilities that scale on both AD and AP, but I already consider these abilities a little messy (though mechanically a sound idea), but in the AD and crit case you're looking at the bonus that comes from one stat (the AD scaling) with the percentage bonus of the second stat applied to the first stat (the crit percent scaling of the AD scaling).

I just think it feels messy. I don't think it's the right approach to solve itemisation problems by squeezing existing stats into new roles to suit champions that don't have good items. The only true solution is to provide good items for all champions.

[Dogmantra]

But with crit chance, how do you convey that it's actually 'crit chance plus a proportional scaling on damage abilities'?

Critical strike, bam.

Isn't it already called that anyway?

[Mutant Bunny]

The only true solution is to provide good items for all champions.

That's a silly idea.

[Chumbaniya]

Critical strike, bam.

Isn't it already called that anyway?

How does that convey that it's a scaling factor on physical damage abilities? Referring back to an earlier discussion, that's just completely unintuitive design. People in all areas of gaming are familiar with critical strike as a percentage chance to do bonus damage (normally double) if you hit something. They can probably figure out that it doesn't apply to physical abilities when they see them not critting, but without some sort of unwieldy explanation on every physical ability or every crit item, how on earth do people work out that crit chance applies a non-RNG damage buff to physical abilities without referring to guides? I think people should at least be able to see what stats do, even if they can't choose the optimal items without some external help.

[Chumbaniya]

That's a silly idea.

I don't mean items specific to each champion. I just mean that it seems fair to provide a set of items such that each champion has a decent selection which are appropriate to them. If you have a champion that doesn't work with your item selection, either your item selection is poor (so you should add more items) or you've designed the champion to scale with the wrong thing (so you should redesign the champ to scale differently). Messing with established stats that work in a well-defined way is a really messy solution compared to the above two.

Or you're being sarcastic, I can't tell.

[Chumbaniya]

On a non-serious-mechanicsy point, I just saw Nyjacky play AP Kog on his stream and massively carry the game after going 1-5 in lane, using the same build that I do! I feel vindicated! AP Kog best Kog.

[Dogmantra]

How does that convey that it's a scaling factor on physical damage abilities? Referring back to an earlier discussion, that's just completely unintuitive design. People in all areas of gaming are familiar with critical strike as a percentage chance to do bonus damage (normally double) if you hit something. They can probably figure out that it doesn't apply to physical abilities when they see them not critting, but without some sort of unwieldy explanation on every physical ability or every crit item, how on earth do people work out that crit chance applies a non-RNG damage buff to physical abilities without referring to guides? I think people should at least be able to see what stats do, even if they can't choose the optimal items without some external help.

I have been playing LoL for almost two years, I have around about 2.5k games under my belt and I only found out like a week ago how attack speed actually works. It doesn't tell you anywhere in game that the percentage is of your base at level 1, but that's how it works. Doesn't tell you anywhere in game how armour and MR translate into damage reduction and it doesn't actually tell you in the game via tooltips (possibly in the tutorial) what the green and orange numbers mean on skills. Naming a bonus damage thingy "critical strike" isn't much more obscure than that. Obviously those things are all bad design, but there's a lot of stuff that you don't see. I'm not sure what my point is here, I'm very tired.

Just pop a crit strike percentage underneath attack speed on your champion stats and give it a little tooltip.
This has the added bonus of making you able to see your opponents' crit strike from clicking them which is really helpful for crit runes (but less of an issue now crit mastery has gone byebyes)

(also as a fun aside what I think of when I think of critical hits is a 2% chance to deal triple damage with no damage falloff that scales up to 15% based on how much damage you dealt in the last 20 seconds [reaching 15% at 800 damage])

[fred dref]

I saw a video of Alistar/Blitz double jungle absolutely dominating a game

What you didn't see is the other half a dozen games where it completely failed to anything meaningful and totally threw the game.

[Raistlin1040]

I was in Blind Pick last night and we didn't have a jungler. I said "Hey guys, we need a jungler". No one picks a jungler. "Hey guys, we still need a jungler." No one picks a jungler. "Hey guys, we still need a jungler, seriously." Nothing. At this point, we have Vayne, Zilean, and Cassiopeia iirc and our fourth is screwing around between various tops. I lock Olaf and decide to jungle. Last second, our fourth switches to Master Yi and picks smite right as the game starts.

We're going to lose, right? Well it turns out the other team doesn't have a jungler at all, and although Vayne and Top Zilean have tough lanes, I take the enemy jungle, gank everywhere all the time, Yi gets a few good ganks, and no one feeds and we end up winning.

TWO JUNGLERS?
TWO STRONG

[Math_Mage]

Crit masteries aren't gone, it's there in the offense tree still.

On a non-serious-mechanicsy point, I just saw Nyjacky play AP Kog on his stream and massively carry the game after going 1-5 in lane, using the same build that I do! I feel vindicated! AP Kog best Kog.

What build is that? Tear, Catalyst, Deathcap or something along those lines?

(Also, use the Edit button to avoid triple posting. )

[PersonMan]

I've never understood the whole 'we MUST HAVE a jungler' thing. I mean, some meta-esque things make sense (differing damage types, not all squishies, etc) but a jungler isn't something you have to have all the time, especially in solo queue where there's a good chance the enemy won't have one either.

[ex cathedra]

Uhm, junglers provide massive and undeniable advantages and a team with a jungler has a fairly significant advantage against a team of similar skill without a jungler. Your team just makes more gold than their team. You can more easily secure objectives like Dragon and Baron and you have infinitely more cross-lane pressure.

[Math_Mage]

I've never understood the whole 'we MUST HAVE a jungler' thing. I mean, some meta-esque things make sense (differing damage types, not all squishies, etc) but a jungler isn't something you have to have all the time, especially in solo queue where there's a good chance the enemy won't have one either.

You lose out on a lot of XP and mapwide gank threat in order to starve one lane. And at an Elo where jungling isn't common, it's rare for a duo to properly starve a solo. Even when it's done right, between hovering in XP range and CSing under tower, the solo can usually keep up. So unless the jungler is lower level than the duo lane AND fails to gank effectively, his team will have the advantage.