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

[endoperez]

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.

Different champions play very differently. I also played mostly Annie early on, and it took me a long time to be comfortable with different champion roles. Trying out a few different champions each week will help your game a LOT even if you won't end up playing them at all - it will help you know what your enemies can do, and will help you know what your enemies want to do in the different roles. For example, there's many people in lower levels who don't know how Annie's stun works...

[PersonMan]

Why junglers are good.

Why junglers are good.

I understand all of this, it's just that, in blind pick solo queue I'm of the opinion that, well, if there's no jungler there's no jungler. No need to push for having one, especially as it might mean that someone who doesn't normally jungle gets put in a role they can't play very well.

Generally, in my solo queue experience there's a roughly 50-50 ratio of games without junglers to ones with. In about 1/4 of the games with junglers, only one side has them.

(Another thing is that, I think, at my ELO the objective/lane control potential of a jungler is often not capitalized on fully. I remember a few games where we had a jungler and they didn't, yet we didn't really take advantage of our control of dragon.)

[Winthur]

(Another thing is that, I think, at my ELO the objective/lane control potential of a jungler is often not capitalized on fully. I remember a few games where we had a jungler and they didn't, yet we didn't really take advantage of our control of dragon.)

"Hey jungler you got Wriggles?"
"Yeah/Nope, but I am Fiddlesticks"
"Force dragon, they can't stop us 3v4"
"Ok/Actually just let me solo it, I'm Shaco/Lee Sin, just put a pink ward on it".

That's very simple.

Also, as you admitted, your ELO is rather low. If you were simply winning games more you'd be at a level where people understand the game more and you'd probably see junglers on both teams every game. Although granted, I guess it doesn't really matter for casual players, but overall jungling isn't a thing that starts at 1500-1600 ELO, it starts at 1200. Which is the average ELO, AFAIK. So I don't think it's really that optional to making you more successful.

Besides, 2v1 top lanes are fairly easy to counter, even in blindpick.

Also, a smart jungler who abuses the fact that he effectively has both sides of the jungle for himself can actually outstrip the solo lanes early on. It's scary to see an Amumu who clears his jungle, gets off a gank for first blood, then runs off to the enemy blue, takes that with no effort, and then he's like, level 6 at 6:40.

[Qaera]

I had a game last night where I was going 5/1/7 Lee Sin, and then my visiting stepbrother got on and we got really bad lag, I ended up like 6/6/10, and I just couldn't do anything.
The only reason I mention it is before the lag, enemy Shaco tried to solo dragon, and my team was running around bot jungle trying to get to him, but he didn't move the dragon at all, so I just QQ him. He ulted, but I guessed and ulted one, killed him, and took dragon. Team arrives when I finish. Not as clutch as a Baron steal but still fun :D

~ ♅

[PersonMan]

That's very simple.

Yeah, one of the problems I have is that, when something like this comes up, I get too into my lane and end up realizing later that I should've just poked the jungler into taking advantage of the situation.

Also, as you admitted, your ELO is rather low. If you were simply winning games more you'd be at a level where people understand the game more and you'd probably see junglers on both teams every game.

Emphasis mine.

If it were just a matter of 'hey, I think I'll win my all of my games today', I probably would.

I understand what you're saying, it's that your wording makes the message a bit different, in a humorous manner.

[Dogmantra]

(Another thing is that, I think, at my ELO the objective/lane control potential of a jungler is often not capitalized on fully. I remember a few games where we had a jungler and they didn't, yet we didn't really take advantage of our control of dragon.)

Simply having a jungler compared to not having one improves your lane control, since it forces the enemy lanes to be cautious so as not to get ganked.

Also you basically never have to buy wards if the enemy doesn't have one because if they leave lane you can just look which direction they're going and make an educated guess.

[PersonMan]

Simply having a jungler compared to not having one improves your lane control, since it forces the enemy lanes to be cautious so as not to get ganked.

See, while I do this (that is, play cautious when the enemy has a jungler), it seems that quite a few people just ignore that. Which creates the issue of 'prime ganking opportunity top, meanwhile jungler is on the other side of the map'.

[9mm]

See, while I do this (that is, play cautious when the enemy has a jungler), it seems that quite a few people just ignore that. Which creates the issue of 'prime ganking opportunity top, meanwhile jungler is on the other side of the map'.

This is because the hardest part of jungling is predicting what the game state will be in 3-5 minutes, and reacting accordingly. Very few can do it, hence the rise in brute force ganks that force things to happen instead of the ideal ganks of coming in behind them.

[Lix Lorn]

I think the problem isn't the fact that people go 'Meta says we need jungler', but the fact that that's the ONLY reason they do it. Few people go 'We need a jungler so we can pressure, get more ganks, and have objective control.' They do it 'cause the pros jungle.'

Am I completely off base, or..?

[Dogmantra]

I think the problem isn't the fact that people go 'Meta says we need jungler', but the fact that that's the ONLY reason they do it. Few people go 'We need a jungler so we can pressure, get more ganks, and have objective control.' They do it 'cause the pros jungle.'

Am I completely off base, or..?

I think you make a valid point and I think that a lot of people do say that you need a jungler just 'cause 1/1/2/jungle is THE meta for rift, but I think that there is a difference between this and, say, carry/nofarm support bottom. The game is pretty much designed for a jungler. Smite exists, you can pull, Phreak tells you to play everyone as a jungler, etc. While carry/support does definitely receive some consideration in balance changes, there's nothing inherent in the game that encourages it as opposed to other bottom lanes.

I suppose what I'm saying is that carry/support bot (to use an example of something that a lot of people do just because the pros do) is the meta because the playerbase thinks it's good, but jungling is the meta because Riot has designed the game so that it should be.

I also think that if you look at all the situations that are likely to happen top lane (1v1, 1v2, 2v2), jungling comes out ahead on every count unless the solo player messes up (extra xp for the team, extra gold assuming average last hitting skills, more map control vs the chance for the solo to get megadenied and feed quite hard). Since relying on your opponents messing up is generally poor strategy (see also: AP Shaco, AP Teemo) jungling is the default with 2v1 top a fringe consideration if you know you can make it work.


Talking of metagame though, best example of a metagame was pointed out to me by Astrella, she said that duolaning bottom on Treeline was literally JUST because everyone does it. I know that duo top (or jungle/solo/solo) works better in terms of map control and safety for all the same reasons as midlane vs botlane in Rift, but a lot of the time you can't do it since your opponent sends two bottom and you don't have a great 1v2 champion.

[PersonMan]

Talking of metagame though, best example of a metagame was pointed out to me by Astrella, she said that duolaning bottom on Treeline was literally JUST because everyone does it. I know that duo top (or jungle/solo/solo) works better in terms of map control and safety for all the same reasons as midlane vs botlane in Rift, but a lot of the time you can't do it since your opponent sends two bottom and you don't have a great 1v2 champion.

Although often, if you 'switch' your 2-person and 1-person lanes, the enemy switches, too. At least, this is what my 1-2-2 SR game (and similar experiences) tells me.

[Nadevoc]

This is because the hardest part of jungling is predicting what the game state will be in 3-5 minutes, and reacting accordingly. Very few can do it, hence the rise in brute force ganks that force things to happen instead of the ideal ganks of coming in behind them.

This is true. When I jungle, it's distressing how often I'm clearing the bottom part of jungle and then a perfect gank opportunity opens up top for a solid 10-15 seconds, but I can't get there. Or I plan it out like "Now I get mini golems and red, then gank"... and then the lanes I would gank either back or are at their tower.

[Chumbaniya]

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])

It's not really having the formulae be explicit that I'm worried about - even if you don't understand the exact scaling involved, it's clear that attack speed makes you attack faster, and armour reduces damage from attacks (and through the existence of magic resist, that armour must be for physical damage). The point about the bonuses to abilities not being explicit about their origins is interesting though - I think it does usually tell you in the tooltip when you get a bonus from an unconventional stat like armour or health, but it leaves it ambiguous when it comes to ability power and attack damage.

The difference with making the suggested change to critical strike is that it would become one statistic with two completely distinct properties, and I feel like having these two properties represented by one statistic is pretty confusing.

I do think crit should be clear on your champion though. I think it's the only stat which has a significant effect on combat that isn't shown when you click on someone.

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

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

Boots, Tear, Catalyst, finish Boots, RoA, 40 AP thingy... then I build into a deathcap where Nyjacky finishes Archangels.

(I used the edit function - I'm so proud of myself!)

[Mirrinus]

For anyone feeling down over the Irelia nerfs, Badministrator has something to cheer you up.

[Adumbration]

For anyone feeling down over the Irelia nerfs, Badministrator has something to cheer you up.

I don't know, I don't usually like rap or that kind of music, but Badministrator is kinda fun.

[Silverraptor]

Um guys...

Spoiler

Show

So, our Kat DCs when it seems were about to win 300 points to 30. THey then make a huge comback and we can't do anything to stop them. Then Kat reconnects and its a huge stuggle for the points. Highlight, we are losing top, so Kat and I start taking their bottom as fast as we can. Nunu shows up and top is taken, with them having 3 turrets to our 2 an us having only 6 points to their 12. Nunu marches up and snowballs Kat, then tries to get in range of me and ults. Just before the ult finishes, I decap the point with us having 1 point left. Kat and I kill Nunu and then hold that point as hard as our half life could until their points dropped to 0.

It was a very close game.

[Qwertystop]

Single-digit winner scores are surprisingly common, aren't they?

[Silverraptor]

Single-digit winner scores are surprisingly common, aren't they?

Try with just 1 point difference.

[Math_Mage]

Yeah, Badministrator is the exception that proves the rule where my dislike for rap is concerned.

Boots, Tear, Catalyst, finish Boots, RoA, 40 AP thingy... then I build into a deathcap where Nyjacky finishes Archangels.

(I used the edit function - I'm so proud of myself!)

You mean Blasting Wand?

(We'll get you using multi-quote soon enough. )

[Qwertystop]

Try with just 1 point difference.

I know, but one of my first few Dominion games had a 2 point difference. When you get that low, the exact amount of difference is almost all luck.

Not meaning to insult your game or anything, it does sound awesome.

[toasty]

Lemme explain something about not having a jungler on your team. It means 3 very apparent things:

The overall net gold income of your team will go down. This is because you have a guy top lane with your normal top solo who is sapping xp and gold from him. The enemy team will probably have more gold, even if their top lane is a 2v1. They will certainly have more experience.

The enemy team can push your lane down as much as they want. I once remember a game I played as TF where I just shoved the lane constantly and the enemy didn't really know what to do. If they had a jungler he could have ganked me multiple times and probably killed me a lot, and force me to play passive. Most players play passive if they fear a gank. If there is no jungler there is no fear of ganks. There is no reason to play passive, ever. There is a reason that roaming exists in DotA, even though jungling doesn't really exist in DotA: because otherwise ganks are very easily predictable.

The third thing to consider is that your control of neutral monsters goes way down. You can no longer expect to feed your Blue Buff to middle lane at about 7 minutes. If you've never played an AP middle with Blue buff at seven minutes then you have no idea how amazingly good it is to have Blue buff on a mage. It completely changes the way you play mages because mana management changes completely. You probably won't control dragon much. Back when I was a low elo scrub and no one jungled and WW could solo dragon at level 4 with double buff, I gave my team a LOT of free gold and xp just by soloing dragon constantly. If you have half a brain you can also steal the enemy jungle and smite-steal dragon or baron when they go for it. These are the strengths of playing a jungler. Abuse them. I remember a long time ago someone once told me that if your team has both of the Red and Blue buffs on the map you probably won't lose a teamfight. This is still very much true. Abuse it.

Having a jungler is one of the most important things in the game. Its probably more important than having balanced damage types. More important than having a 0 CS support. Its just a very natural and simple part of League of Legends and has been a single stable part of "the meta" since as long as I can remember playing. Its very much necessary if your team is at all competent.

it starts at 1200. Which is the average ELO, AFAIK. So I don't think it's really that optional to making you more successful.

Last I checked average elo was much lower than 1200. 1250, which is Bronze, is actually the top 25% of the Solo Queue playerbase. It always depresses me to realize that I'm around the top 15% of the playerbase right now at the pitiful elo of 1365 or something. >_>

Emphasis mine.

If it were just a matter of 'hey, I think I'll win my all of my games today', I probably would.

You'd be amazed at what picking strong, hard to counter in-lane heroes, and having a positive attitude of "I will carry my team" can do for a game and for your w/l ratios. I cannot emphasis more how much people point out that being positive about a game is for winning.

Also: if you were better you would win more. Get better at this game scrub.

I think the problem isn't the fact that people go 'Meta says we need jungler', but the fact that that's the ONLY reason they do it. Few people go 'We need a jungler so we can pressure, get more ganks, and have objective control.' They do it 'cause the pros jungle.'

Am I completely off base, or..?

I think this is true for a lot of this game at low elos. People know that you need things like an AD carry, an AP carry, a jungler, a tank, etc. But they don't know why. They don't understand what these roles accomplish once laning is over. This is why at low elo you can play pretty much anything, even a 0CS support (especially one like Taric, Alistair or Janna, who have CC and setup kills nicely) and flat out carry your games because you stomp the enemy in laning. It doesn't matter what your team comp is if you have a 5-0 WW at the 10 minute mark. It doesn't matter what your team comp is once you have a smart kassadin who is 6-0 early on.

Having said this, as player skill increases, so does the need and understanding of having a balanced team comp and heroes that fulfill certain roles so that, once laning ends, you don't flop around like a fish out of water. I was reading something yesterday on Reddit how, below about 1500, AD carries are actually a BAD role to carry on because you have to duo lane with semi-retarded supports most of the time, and because supports are the key to winning bottom lane, this is rather bad. The funny thing is, once you get out of 1700 elo, AD carries become one of the most important roles because, once you get out of laning, they are a HUGE amount of your damage.

TD;DR: Jungling is very important. At low elo though, anything can stomp and its just a matter of getting a lot of kills quickly. The higher your elo goes that harder it is to simply get kills and the more important having a balanced team comp and playing cautiously become.

[ex cathedra]

While carry/support does definitely receive some consideration in balance changes, there's nothing inherent in the game that encourages it as opposed to other bottom lanes.

There are four streams of gold income for each team in a Summoner's Rift game; Top, Mid, Bottom, and Jungle. How is that not inherent to the game? There are five champions on each team. Putting a champion that can affect the game without gold income (generally just supports) with a champion who scales extraordinarily well with gold and generally needs to be babysat (AD carries) is simply logical.

[Dogmantra]

There are four streams of gold income for each team in a Summoner's Rift game; Top, Mid, Bottom, and Jungle. How is that not inherent to the game?

Ain't nothing in that sentence about farming sweetcheeks.
There is simply stuff in that sentence about lane setups. If you insist on a nofarm character, you can put 'em with someone who's not a carry, and they certainly don't have to be a designated support champion.

If the fact that support characters aren't "supposed" to farm is relevant I will call 'em nofarm support.
I seem to have used it in the sentence before because I was going somewhere else and then changed direction but I very deliberately left off the nofarm in that bit.


Also I feel like that's a somewhat flimsy argument when you're supporting the idea of one character never getting any last hits, since you can split farm between two characters in a lane, and hey, the jungler has to make do with a bit less gold than everyone else so it's obvious that not every character needs to get solo lane levels of farm.

[fred dref]

it's obvious that not every character needs to get solo lane levels of farm.

The fact that zero CS supports exist is much stronger evidence of this. However, due to the fact that AD items scale in a multiplicative fashion with each other means that you want as many of those high cost item as soon as possible. If we accept that AD carries are generally less safe laners and should thus be in the duo lane, it makes sense to give them a solo lane farm. It's more effective on them and they need to be be effective. There is a reason 0CS support is just plain better than splitting farm. Even kill lanes like Jarvan Leona gives all the farm to one person.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I think you make a valid point and I think that a lot of people do say that you need a jungler just 'cause 1/1/2/jungle is THE meta for rift, but I think that there is a difference between this and, say, carry/nofarm support bottom. The game is pretty much designed for a jungler. Smite exists, you can pull, Phreak tells you to play everyone as a jungler, etc. While carry/support does definitely receive some consideration in balance changes, there's nothing inherent in the game that encourages it as opposed to other bottom lanes.

I do believe there is: multiplicative offensive scaling with gold. You want to put as much gold as you can on as few characters as you can because the more gold you have in one place, the more more damage you do.

Which leads to the fact that 4 rich guys and one poor guy is a better setup that 3 rich guys and two middle-class guys because the former will blow up the latter faster than the latter can blow up the former. Especially when the poor guy is specially selected to have a lot of power even if completely lacking in gold. And possibly why tanks (who spend all their gold on defense) are usually put in the lowest-income positions (jungle and support), since giving them gold is gold that's not going to any of the explode-the-other-guys guys on your team.

Am I way off here?

Edit: bah ninjas.

I'd like to note that AP casters in general also have multiplicative scaling in the form of CDR. Only you never bother buying CDR because blue buff.

[Dogmantra]

The fact that zero CS supports exist is much stronger evidence of this. However, due to the fact that AD items scale in a multiplicative fashion with each other means that you want as many of those high cost item as soon as possible. If we accept that AD carries are generally less safe laners and should thus be in the duo lane, it makes sense to give them a solo lane farm. It's more effective on them and they need to be be effective. There is a reason 0CS support is just plain better than splitting farm. Even kill lanes like Jarvan Leona gives all the farm to one person.

I don't think your premise of carries being less safe laners is particularly sound, I'm not sure how a carry with a flash/dash like Ez, Corki or Tristana is less safe than Brand or Annie for example (I know Annie doesn't see much play but if she did it'd be solo, right?). Some carries are less safe than some mages and toplaners. I'm not going to deny that carries DO get multiplicative benefits from gold, what I am going to deny is that a carry/support lane is explicitly supported by game mechanics to the extent that jungling is. They're two completely different ideas, too. I mentioned previously that the initial "nofarm" in that was because I was going somewhere else with the post and changed my mind.

I do believe there is: multiplicative offensive scaling with gold. You want to put as much gold as you can on as few characters as you can because the more gold you have in one place, the more more damage you do.

Again, that passage wasn't meant to refer to nofarm support at all and I apologise if it was misleading. It was simply meant to refer to the practice of popping an AD carry with a support character bottom, regardless of whether the support was played by someone who staunchly refused to farm or by me who turns it into a little game of how many last hits can I sneak with my terrible animation.

[Zen Master]

I understand all of this, it's just that, in blind pick solo queue I'm of the opinion that, well, if there's no jungler there's no jungler. No need to push for having one, especially as it might mean that someone who doesn't normally jungle gets put in a role they can't play very well.

I think it's simply advantageous to have a jungler - and it's an advantage you'd rather have, and the other teams doesn't, than the other way around.

Other than that, I find that in solo queue, people so rarely build defences of any sort, it hardly matters if you bring different damage types at all. But that's an entirely different discussion.

[Fay Graydon]

Hey just found the thread ^^
If your on EU west feel free to add me
PixieWolf
(I play Ziggs, Miss Fortune or Caitlyn mostly)

[fred dref]

I don't think your premise of carries being less safe laners is particularly sound, I'm not sure how a carry with a flash/dash like Ez, Corki or Tristana is less safe than Brand or Annie for example (I know Annie doesn't see much play but if she did it'd be solo, right?).

Well, AP carries want solo xp, not just solo gold. Carries don't need levels nearly as much, so they can take a duo lane without being punished. Mages also tend to have more CC, and it's easier to gank from mid than from bottom or top (can gank either way). Not to mention that mages are generally strongest in the early and mid game, so being mid to help with jungle invades where ever the jungler happens to be is pretty strong. Since they want a solo lane and they want to be able to go anywhere quickly to apply their CC and early game damage, mid makes sense. It also happens to be such a small lane that it's fairly easy to simply walk back to the tower. Since AP carries want a solo lane that is safe, mid is perfect. Carries just want any lane that is safe, so bottom works perfectly fine, and certainly better than top.


Regardless, full-time junglers are not explicitly supported by the game mechanics either. Why not run two top, with one of them ducking out every so often to take jungle farm from the top jungle? Mid can take wraiths, and one of the bottom laners can take the camp closest to them. You end up with the jungle being farmed, buffs can be grabbed in much the same way (whoever is closest in a duo lane can start Blue, for example, while mid comes to grab it shortly). It just happens that between solo lane farm/XP in top lane, people not knowing where the jungler is so they're cautious of ganks and the ability to have 4 guys at Dragon early instead of 3, jungling is a good thing to do. Just like AD carry with a 0DS support isn't explicitly spelled out in the game mechanics, but it is a stronger option than alternatives.

EDIT: Oh yeah, safe carries exist, but then you have Vlad, Fizz, Ahri, Morgana, etc.

[Dogmantra]

Well, AP carries want solo xp, not just solo gold. Carries don't need levels nearly as much, so they can take a duo lane without being punished. Mages also tend to have more CC, and it's easier to gank from mid than from bottom or top (can gank either way). Not to mention that mages are generally strongest in the early and mid game, so being mid to help with jungle invades where ever the jungler happens to be is pretty strong. Since they want a solo lane and they want to be able to go anywhere quickly to apply their CC and early game damage, mid makes sense.

See, this bit is all absolutely fine and none of it relies on the idea that carries are crap laners.

Though I disagree with the idea that all carries only want farm, Tristana, Ezreal and Corki want their levels pretty quickly, and it's not like Caitlyn and Graves would complain about getting levels.

Jungling: I'd have thought the idea that Smite goes on you and stays with you all game was a quite strong indication that one guy should take the jungle all game.

Nofarm being better:
Hey remember when people used to send carries mid and there were thousands of convincing arguments for it and it was a bit of a joke if your opponents didn't have a solo carry?
Ideas change and I think it's a tad presumptuous to say that nofarm is the best option.