League of Legends XXXII: Cupcakes and Kittens and Squirrels. Oh my!

[Math_Mage]

Some games just have more farm than others, for want of jungle fights or ganks or whatever. Not to mention, if you factor in split farm for lack of nofarm support in Qwertystop's game, it DOES come to around the same as if 4 champions farmed 200 creeps each.

(Though no matter how the game plays out, I just sit down there in bot lane trying to farm myself silly. Usually do, too. )

[toasty]

(Though no matter how the game plays out, I just sit down there in bot lane trying to farm myself silly. Usually do, too. )

I tend to do the same. I had the highest farm in a game as Malphite. Granted, what does malphite do with 18k gold? And the game also had a rather... bad bottom lane (it was Ashe/Sona v Graves+Ali granted, but still). So me and Zach grabbed those guys on our backs. Zach handled the actual babysitting while I managed to 1v1 a wukong ad infinitum and slowly gained an advantage over him.

[Dogmantra]

(Though no matter how the game plays out, I just sit down there in bot lane trying to farm myself silly. Usually do, too. )

I find the #1 tactic for winning games at my ELO is if you start losing, turn the game into a competition, see if you can beat your previous farm record. Of course you normally stop losing once you're up 100 farm on anyone. ;)

[toasty]

I find the #1 tactic for winning games at my ELO is if you start losing, turn the game into a competition, see if you can beat your previous farm record. Of course you normally stop losing once you're up 100 farm on anyone. ;)

I think the single greatest quote that Dyrus ever said was "Farm will never let you down. Your teammates will betray you but your farm will never betray you."

[Arbitrarity]

Until you get hit by Primordial Burst.

[Talesin]

I find the lack of help in the jungle to actually be one of the reason I hate counterjungling so much. I still do it, as it really helps set you ahead of the enemy jungler, but I find most times if i'm caught in their jungle or my own my laners almost never come to help.

There's been plenty of discussion about 'good' players going up through the ELO does anyone have a rough guess of what changes moving up through the ELO? I'm talking in general terms such as "warding is frequent but also smarter" even if its just from your personal experience.

I agree with Eld that 1 person can carry a game to a win below 1400, though i've not spent much time above so I really can't comment above that. Also people do think its the supports job to hug the carry but also ward the whole map.

On a side note, how awesome is Ashe? If you catch someone out of position, while away from their team, slow them to their death! Though saying that I ended up against a fed LB who if she hit me with her chains on top of her burst combo would 100-0 me even with a hexdrinker and a wits end.

Also, if a carry/mage builds BC/LW/Void how would you adjust your build if you were one of the brusier or tanky types? Would you stop building armour/MR and just go for health as your defence stat because of the flat/% reduction? Or just go for more damage because it's probably better to kill them now they've reduced a lot of your defences and health probably isn't going to save you?

[PEACH]

Effective HP calculations. Do them on the fly with some rough estimates, it helps.

Generally, though (not that the above suggestion is bad in any way; math is useful!), I have items planned out based on what damage types the enemy team is bringing in, and while penetration does hurt a lot, it doesn't really affect what I buy all that much. If I want a Randuins because it has decent multiplicative scaling, builds from my HoG, and has some CDR and a nice active on it, I'm not going build a Warmogs instead just because Ashe picked up a LW early.

EDIT: As for how awesome Ashe is, I don't find her that awesome. Anybody with a dash can get out of AA range and stop being kited (I suppose you can mitigate this by running up to them and attacking for maximum slow and closeness), and her stats are terrible besides her aspd. She's just boring to me.

[Madmal]

Allright, Poppy seems a bit too situational considering my current situation.

How about Jarvan IV? How's he doing on the current meta? Bought him on impulse the first time i reached 6300, and only tested him recently. I later noticed my build was lacking on Tanky items, specially magic resistance. Any points on playing/building him?

[toasty]

Allright, Poppy seems a bit too situational considering my current situation.

How about Jarvan IV? How's he doing on the current meta? Bought him on impulse the first time i reached 6300, and only tested him recently. I later noticed my build was lacking on Tanky items, specially magic resistance. Any points on playing/building him?

Jarvan used to be a godlike toplaner back when Gp/10 stacked and his base stats where out of control. Since then he's been nerfed enough that his top laning is weak at best. He's much better as a jungler. Jungle him standard, you can start red or blue, but a red start will leave you low on mana (J4 is incredibly mana hungry). Probably want to start either Cloth/5, Vamp or Regrowth+1 on his jungle.

Jarvan is a tank with lots of free stats via auras. Aura stacks ala taric is kinda good on him. Wriggles+Aegis+Mercs is a great core. Shurelias, Frozen Heart, Warmogs, Sunfire, FoN, BVeil, Atmas are all great items on him. Try to initiate with your Ult, even if people instantly flash out of it thats a wasted flash at the beginning of the team fight! If they don't they'll probably die. My favorite strat with J4 is to run AoE comps, because its very easy to land all your AoE when people get trapped inside J4 ult.

Apparently J4+Leona bottom is very good. You basically rely on free defensive stats and amazing zerg/burst to kill squishy carries and snowball the lane. Its dangerous but effective, especially if you run a powerful ganking jungler. I've never done it before though, so...

[Eldariel]

Jarvan used to be a godlike toplaner back when Gp/10 stacked and his base stats where out of control. Since then he's been nerfed enough that his top laning is weak at best. He's much better as a jungler. Jungle him standard, you can start red or blue, but a red start will leave you low on mana (J4 is incredibly mana hungry). Probably want to start either Cloth/5, Vamp or Regrowth+1 on his jungle.

Actually, J4 Top is making a bit of a comeback in higher levels of solo queue (he matches up well against many currently popular picks like WW, Vlad & co.). He has extremely significant damage thanks to Dragon Strike Armor Shred plus Martial Cadence being Physical now (Armor starts lower than MR so his early game damage is impressive), and he is hard to gank and a very good gank support due to his tank skillset.

His jungle is obviously still superb and he's one of the better bruiser jungles in the game currently and really the only heavily physical damage dealing primary initiator. Lee Sin, Shyvana and Riven don't really initiate as well and Malph & Alistar lack in terms of physical damage potential.


He's also one of my favorite junglers. I tend to still build him oldschool metagolemish, even going as far as to build Atmog's outta the jungle even though it has the weak phase and is kinda slow to get going, once you finish it you become godlike and thanks to his kit making him such an excellent CC bot and utility champion along with having nutty base stats, you're kinda fine until then.

Atmog's Trinity is still plenty good on him. Early Philo can be used to deal with the mana issues too.

[ex cathedra]

Jarvan is fun. His jungle ganks are endearingly capable of ruining people's days. His laning is slowly improving alongside the slow (slowwww) decline of hyper-sustain lanes, but his mana costs are still pretty high.

[Talesin]

Does metagolem include wriggles? If not do you find his jungle speed quick enough to make Atmas straight out of the jungle worth it? Jarvan is a great jungler though

I tend to play him cloth start into Wriggles, treads then glacial shroud. Gives good jungle speed, sustain and a bit of CDR on top of masteries which I find help that little bit. I've experimented with Philo instead of glacial shroud and I think they both work pretty well. I tend to then build Atmogs mallet and he ends up sufficiently tanky with enough CC and damage to not be totally ignored.

I'd spend sometime practising with the ult as you can mess it up but I find as long as you're not totally stupid with it you tend to do more good than bad. But if you trap your AD carry in with a bruiser then be prepared to drop the ring to save him.

[Eldariel]

Does metagolem include wriggles? If not do you find his jungle speed quick enough to make Atmas straight out of the jungle worth it? Jarvan is a great jungler though.

I usually get Wriggle's on him. If you have Mages who don't want bluebuff you might not need Wriggle's but otherwise I find it somewhat necessary. Occasionally I go Gold/10 instead but I find that'll slow down your clearing annoyingly. And obviously, Gold/10 into Wriggle's is the slowest build ever.

What I usually do is simple Wriggle's (at this point you don't really need spells to clear the jungle anymore so your mana worries are goner) -> Warmog's -> Atma's in some order, alongside the obvious Negatron (now Maw is an alternative too) should it appear necessary. Phage, then Trinity eventually, etc. Phage is rather key in that it enables you to use your CC on other targets and then stick on one target with the slows even without redbuff. Rest of Trinity's stats are of course nice too; health hits a sweet spot, the ASpd/Crit complements Atma and his kit nicely, and it's quite doable to get ~8 second's worth of Sheen procs at least in the start of the fight. And as you don't get blue, the extra mana enables sustaining through whole fights.

[toasty]

Jarvan is fun. His jungle ganks are endearingly capable of ruining people's days. His laning is slowly improving alongside the slow (slowwww) decline of hyper-sustain lanes, but his mana costs are still pretty high.

Decline? lolwut? Okay, disregarding Wukong and a few assassins, name me 1 Solo Top that doesn't have either natural sustain, or doesn't rush spellvamp/vamp almost instantly?

Yeah, sustain is still king top lane. Its arguably king middle lane and bot lane too. Maybe all these nerfs to MR runes will change that though and make burst actually viable.

[Dogmantra]

I get Leviathan and Sword of the Occult after my Wriggle's on Jungle Jarvan.


too op

(actually the first time I played him in the jungle I genuinely did, but that was because I sort of got nine kills in about 15 minutes)

[Arbitrarity]

Decline? lolwut? Okay, disregarding Wukong and a few assassins, name me 1 Solo Top that doesn't have either natural sustain, or doesn't rush spellvamp/vamp almost instantly?

Yeah, sustain is still king top lane. Its arguably king middle lane and bot lane too. Maybe all these nerfs to MR runes will change that though and make burst actually viable.

Let's use all the colors.
AD carries top tend not to have enormous sustain, even if they do get Wriggles early. Same with Teemo. The problem isn't that they are "hyper-sustained", like they were with old Wriggles, but that they're hard to engage on.
Kayle's heal is abominable, and she doesn't rush much in the way of Vamp, from what I've seen.
Poppy/Fizz (though Fizz is a weak top), Pantheon. (may all be assassins)
Singed, unless you count ult regen. I wouldn't. It's considerably weaker than, say, Swain's. Same with Ryze.
Shyvana's sustain, even with Wriggles, is nothing to write home about.

[Eldariel]

Decline? lolwut? Okay, disregarding Wukong and a few assassins, name me 1 Solo Top that doesn't have either natural sustain, or doesn't rush spellvamp/vamp almost instantly?

Yeah, sustain is still king top lane. Its arguably king middle lane and bot lane too. Maybe all these nerfs to MR runes will change that though and make burst actually viable.

Whatever the case, Jarvan beats most sustain-laners currently and is quite popular solo top as a consequence.

[ex cathedra]

Decline? lolwut? Okay, disregarding Wukong and a few assassins, name me 1 Solo Top that doesn't have either natural sustain, or doesn't rush spellvamp/vamp almost instantly?

Do you not know what "decline" means? Here, let me help.

Yeah, sustain is still king top lane.

I never said otherwise, and thus your post is kind of irrelevant. Sustain is unarguably weaker than it was pre-Udyr, Wriggles, Irelia, Warwick, Vlad, Alistar, Soraka, Sona, and Nidalee nerfs, to name a few. I never said that it wasn't strong, and Jarvan's lack of sustain in comparison to other bruisers is only relevant when discussing those with natural sustain, since Jarvan is perfectly capable of acquiring a Wriggles of his own.

Also, the QoL buff that turned his passive into physical damage was so great. Last Whisper rush all day every day.

[Arbitrarity]

I feel like a lot of J4's unfavorable matchups are very popular top lane picks (Riven, Udyr, Lee Sin, Olaf, AD Nidalee, Shen) and other picks remain strong against him (Yorick, Wukong, Pantheon, Warwick). I can see using him as a counterpick, but if you pick him early or are in blind, odds are good you'll have a bad lane.

[Math_Mage]

Kog'maw makes me rage inside. If I go top, he straight-up dominates the lane (picking Ashe/Taric into Kog/Leona, 2 gud); if I go bot, we expend a lot of effort to acquire a slight advantage over him, which disappears late-game because Kog scales so hard. Besides flat-out picking or banning him, wat do? Gank him out the *** with Pantheon or something?

[toasty]

I never said otherwise, and thus your post is kind of irrelevant. Sustain is unarguably weaker than it was pre-Udyr, Wriggles, Irelia, Warwick, Vlad, Alistar, Soraka, Sona, and Nidalee nerfs, to name a few. I never said that it wasn't strong, and Jarvan's lack of sustain in comparison to other bruisers is only relevant when discussing those with natural sustain, since Jarvan is perfectly capable of acquiring a Wriggles of his own.

Sustain was nerfed approximately equally all across the board. Relatatively speaking, Udyr has as much sustain now as he did before the whole Wriggles glitch fiasco. The fact that he has technically less sustain doesn't seem the matter.

Honestly, the only solo top that has been seriously weakened by nerfs is GP, and that's just plain idiotic. GP solo top right now is seriously, seriously hampered by mana costs to nearly Warwick levels (speaking of which, the way Mana and Warwick operate together is idiotic given compared to other bruisers), and seeing as GP doesn't generally want to rely on his mana for health, this leaves him in a kinda terrible spot. the only thing going for him is the fact that his ult is still stupid.

Think about it: Vlad, Udyr, Shen, Warwick, Nidalee, Lee Sin, hell, even Rekenton all have innate sustain. Heroes like Kennen and Ryze survive top because they get sustain eventually. The biggest reason, IMO, that we haven't seen the return of Corki solo top is because he has sustain problems against diving bruisers. Irelia might suck right now but she can still constantly dive him and outsustain him. Udyr and Nidalee can kinda do the same thing. Especialy nidalee, especially early game.

Yesterday I played against a Lee Sin who won his lane by pushing the entire time and lifestealing away. Yes, this is counterable via ganks, in certain circumstances, but if you can't get ganks for whatever reason you're pretty much ****ed if you make 1 wrong move. As a nonsustain champion? You're ****ed 100%. As Vladimir with a Revolver? You're only ****ed if you try anything but farming. That's kinda how stupid sustain is right now.

edit: I'm finding it interesting that right now the two mainstays in bans tend to be mages and junglers/bruisers, at least in solo queue. This is despite the high win ratio of heroes like Janna and the obvious usefulness of certain AD carries.

Then again, an AD carry is an AD carry. The utility morgana brings to a team is kinda stupid.

[fred dref]

My team in Draft likes to ban Lulu and Janna, because neither of our support players play them very well and **** them on the enemy team. Depending on what the enemy team bans and what we plan to run, we'll often ban Nocturne or Soraka as well. Soraka is annoying, and for some reason we always have real problems against Nocturne.

[Legoshrimp]

My team in Draft likes to ban Lulu and Janna, because neither of our support players play them very well and **** them on the enemy team. Depending on what the enemy team bans and what we plan to run, we'll often ban Nocturne or Soraka as well. Soraka is annoying, and for some reason we always have real problems against Nocturne.

If your supports don't play them you should just run them mid and top.

[fred dref]

I hate Lulu and our mid player hates anything remotely unconventional or unpopular, so that seems out.

[Legoshrimp]

I hate Lulu and our mid player hates anything remotely unconventional or unpopular, so that seems out.

Aww. Hmm so team comp. top lulu, mid soraka bot janna/kog maw jungle alistar. Best team?

[toasty]

I just played a Soraka middle game and it was stupid. I farmed everything. And then we snowballed to victory.

[Eldariel]

...so I just got to be in the giving end of Rumble vs. Shen-lane in Ranked (I've played Shen in the same match-up before). I don't think "counterlane" quite suffices to describe it. Like, I barely died to a gank on level 4, still proceeded to kill Shen level 5 vs. level 6 after respawn, and steamrolled the lane and all the MR in the world didn't help him after that.

Flamespitter damage is just ridiculous and best of all, it's practically impossible to avoid if they want to CS, while W and E generate and maintain a gap and make chasing extremely difficult and negate most of Shen's Vorpals.

[toasty]

@Arb: You brought up Singed. Technically his ult gives him sustain, yes. But I'd like to point out that I don't really know how viable singed is at this point. He's... okay, but he's nothing special. I don't think I'd play him except in specific matchups.

Teemo is a good counterexample though, even if a lot of teems get Wriggles.

Annnd: two games as AP Soraka Mid, i think I'm on a role. My heals are terribly off time though.

[TechnOkami]

Soo... Galio's a "support", right? I think I like playing as him. Anyone have a general build for him?

[ex cathedra]

Soo... Galio's a "support", right? I think I like playing as him. Anyone have a general build for him?

He's primarily AP mid, secondarily AP/off-tank top, and thirdly support.

Mid Galio builds Sorc Boots/Merc Treads, Chalice of Harmony, Abyssal Scepter, Deathcap, RoA, ,WotA, Hourglass, etc. You're a mage, except Abyssal is super core.

Support Galio builds support.