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

[Laudandus]

It's not even that, so much. Hotshot only has Nidalee in his repertoire for dealing with Vlad, and that's still a tough matchup. Cho and Olaf? Can't do it at all. I could see him maybe playing Kennen, but I don't know if his Kennen is on the same level. And Mordekaiser, while a good matchup against Vlad, doesn't have the mobility to go top, especially when OddOne was constantly making his life difficult.

EDIT: Just saw the weirdest Urgot build. DBlade --> Manamune --> Shurelya's + CDR Boots. Then again, it was Doublelift, and he went 12/2/11, so he probably coulda built AP and won.

Olaf vs Vlad is a pretty even matchup, actually. I'd believe that Hotshot doesn't really know how to play it, but for example Voyboy vs Dyrus last time I saw them meet in tourney the olaf seemed to do well against vlad.

[TechnOkami]

@_@ I will do that when his AA gets a fix like Swain's. Is it a common thing that banana shaped projectiles need to be horribly animated?

Now now, I only use the finest of Surprise Party Pinwheels for my AA's. What's the banana stuff?

Anywho, I would legitimately like to try this out in the near future.

[Adumbration]

Had one of those "holy **** this synergy is amazing!" moments last game. We were losing a ranked game because our Cait was lagging like hell and Graves was fed. They were trying to baron.

Here's what happened: our AP Malphite ults in and catches EVERYONE. A seriously good ult if I ever saw one, they weren't even properly clumped up. They come down from the knockup and BAM, I Lulu ult Malphite and kick them straight back up. By the time they came down again they had lost the fight hard. Dat synergy: having Malphite allows you to land your Wild Growth perfectly, hitting and slowing down everybody and allowing your Malph to keep doing damage.

[Talesin]

Had one of those "holy **** this synergy is amazing!"

Another synergy that I thought worked superbly was during an aram game with Orianna throwing her ball on me, the Akali. They had a hugely fed Cait but apart from that the rest of her team was nothing. So I jump Cait, Ori ball keeps me alive and her ult and damage in addition to my damage takes the cait down allowing us to clear up.

A question I asked a while back got caught up before the discussion around the data base so i'll repost to see if anyone has any thoughts.

Had an interesting thought the other day relating to Karthus. Frequently I see people who play Karthus saying "ult ready" and then waiting for team fights in other lanes to occur so they can put that extra bit of damage on a lane to help secure a kill.

Has anyone tried playing it a little more "intelligently" and not waiting for the opportunity and ulting but having your entire team start a fight with the premise that Karthus can and will ult at the end of it? It could be done in all 3 lanes at once with the jungler ganking one of the lanes to help secure a kill. So 3 mini skirmishes start, top, mid and bot, and then Karthus ults to try and bring down all the enemies involved.

Could even be worth going for an early AP rune page with the premise that you'll doing this and it'll help start you being snowballed into the mid game.

[Qwertystop]

@_@ I will do that when his AA gets a fix like Swain's. Is it a common thing that banana shaped projectiles need to be horribly animated?

That fruit is NOT TO BE MENTIONED ON THIS FORUM.

[fred dref]

Man, I hate in-jokes that aren't related to the subject at hand.

[Qwertystop]

Man, I hate in-jokes that aren't related to the subject at hand.

Basically, one of the mods (Rawhide, I think) is renowned for being anti-banan*urk*

[PersonMan]

...I hate it when I'm wrong. DAMNIT I hate it when I'm wrong.

In short:

Irelia is just fine.

I just suck as Vlad.

I need to try Fiddle in mid lane. I might actually be able to do it in a real game.

Yeah, I was about to say 'what do you mean Fiddle's laning was nerfed?' Lanelsticks in the only Sticks I play. Viktor is my new AP jungler. (2 minutes in jungle followed by a 5 minute gank makes you a jungler, right?)

[fred dref]

Basically, one of the mods (Rawhide, I think) is renowned for being anti-banan*urk*

Yes, it was Rawhide. And yes, it was a misunderstanding that led to an in-joke.

Yeah, I was about to say 'what do you mean Fiddle's laning was nerfed?' Lanelsticks in the only Sticks I play.

He needs to face someone with at most one of the following: sustain, interrupts, huge early damage. If you deal with two of those, Drain is suddenly not going to trade well, and now you're relying on weak pushing and weak harass from Dark Wind. There are a fairly small list of strong laners that Fiddle works well against, including Vlad and bad Karthuses.

[Reinboom]

I just suck as Vlad.

The markings of a great Vlad player.

[Silverraptor]

I need to try Fiddle in mid lane. I might actually be able to do it in a real game.

Try focusing Dark Wind while in lane. It forces the enemy to stay away from their minions for fear of the bouncing bird. Play cautious, and poke them until you feel you can kill them in a straight fight.

The markings of a great Vlad player.

Heh.

[fred dref]

Try focusing Dark Wind while in lane. It forces the enemy to stay away from their minions for fear of the bouncing bird. Play cautious, and poke them until you feel you can kill them in a straight fight.

The problem is, if you're a champion who can heal a lot of hurt a lot, Dark Wind is going to not deal much damage and deal that damage fairly unreliably. Fiddle really relies on Drain, and as I mentioned above, interrupts, sustain and/or huge damage make Fiddle either unable to put down enough damage to make the trade profitable or just plain takes too much and dies. Sure, at 6 he gets more damage than most ults at 16, but interrupts hurt poor Fiddle again, cancelling the ult (snares also screw over the ult, but not Drain). Fiddle has good matchups, but he's very much in the same place as Katarina. Great pick in certain circumstances, weak pick otherwise.

EDIT: Oh god, Udyr vs. Fiddlesticks seems to me like a horrible lane for poor Fiddle. That matchup just popped into my head due to me finally grabbing Udyr. He has great early damage, great sustain+a shield and an interrupt to stop Drain. Top all of that off with the ability to push really hard, one thing that I forgot to mention as a strong counter to Fiddlestick, and Udyr ticks every single box in the "How to beat Fiddlesticks in lane" chart.

EDIT2: Anivia doesn't have sustain, but standing still with Drain to let her land free Q stuns sounds like another way to lose lane as Fiddle. Heck, between Egg and Wall the level 6 free kill he gets on many characters disappears as well.

[TechnOkami]

...sigh... Goodbye Vladimir. 'twas fun. Maybe when I gain more skill I'll pick you up again. Who knows, maybe what happened with Irelia will happen again...

Also, that's pretty much what I'm going to try Silver. Hopefully it'll work out.

[Silverraptor]

Also, that's pretty much what I'm going to try Silver. Hopefully it'll work out.

Yeah, its a build I developed on my own when I never jungled and wanted to play fiddles. You can start with dark wind and wait to get drain at level 2, since you'll not be needing it until then if you play him right. If the enemy has good sustain (which he shouldn't, if Riot keeps up this nerfing sustain trend) then start focusing fear drain/fear. If they don't have good sustain, then you can get dark wind up to rank 3, or 4 if they are really keeping their distance from you, before starting to focus on drain/fear. Dark wind is primarily the zoning in lane ability for fiddlesticks and a secondary interupt, so maxing it early isn't the best. But it still does decently in most low level early lanes.

[tyckspoon]

A question I asked a while back got caught up before the discussion around the data base so i'll repost to see if anyone has any thoughts...

If you want to see how well this works, get in an AI game with a Karthusbot- the bots are almost suicidally aggressive and have perfect knowledge of current game-state, so what you've suggested is the default way Karthbot uses the ult. When you see the Requiem effect, it's near certain somebody on your team is about to die.

[PEACH]

If you want to see how well this works, get in an AI game with a Karthusbot- the bots are almost suicidally aggressive and have perfect knowledge of current game-state, so what you've suggested is the default way Karthbot uses the ult. When you see the Requiem effect, it's near certain somebody on your team is about to die.

Since Karthus attacks based on current health and MR (I believe), you can bait it so that heals, shields, or even natural regen lets you live in the three seconds (I did this once by going into an empty lane and baiting Karthus's ult out by tanking a large minion wave as Mundo).

[toasty]

...sigh... Goodbye Vladimir. 'twas fun. Maybe when I gain more skill I'll pick you up again. Who knows, maybe what happened with Irelia will happen again...

Also, that's pretty much what I'm going to try Silver. Hopefully it'll work out.

Vlad has to be the easiest mage in the game, I'm not sure how you don't know how to play him.

Runes are whatever. Dependent on matchups/playstyles. Masteries are the same. Obviously don't take stuff like mana regen on vlad. Armor, MR, Health, AP, CDR, MPen, Movespeed. Probably no need for spellvamp runes but it could be an interesting idea if you are going to try and rush spirit visage instead of the usual revolver.

Max Q, second focus E, getting R when its up.

Start Boots vs pretty much every matchup. Rush a Revolver.

Depending on matchup/teamcomp at this point you either want to finish WotA or get a Rylais. Solo top probably the best thing to do is rush a Giants belt.

After you do that build whatever. Deathcap means everything dies. Abssyal vs. Double AP means you never die (I just want to mention something here: Abssyal is really, really good). Z-Glass can be very useful as well. Heck, even something like Omen isn't really that out of line. Obviously spirit Visage has its situational uses. If you want to get CDR, outside of CDR boots (which are perfectly fine on vlad, btw) its really the best item. Also: Kindlegem is really underrated. Health is really a great stat.

Playstyle: Farm. A lot. What makes Vladimir dumb is that he is an AP hero that wants to farm like a AD hero because he scales the way they do. CDR, Spellvamp and AP all give him more defensive stats (through spellvamp and the passive). Health gives him more AP. His R can make or break teamfights because of its damage amplification. His W means that,if played right, he is ungankable, it also means that he is one of the few heroes in the game is that is completely untargetable for what can be a long period of a teamfight. Hell, I've INITIATED with Vlad using R+Flash+Pool.

The thing that makes vlad so easy is that none of his spells are skill shots and most of his abilities are AoE. So just walk into a teamfight and press all the buttons. You'll probably kill something. Especially if you've been farming.

In other news: Well yesterday I had the worst string of luck. Then i played chogath and realized that I had actively fed the entire game because of my demoralized state. Then I said "screw this. I wanna win." And I played AP Galio middle vs Morde and went 6-1 and carried my team to victory.

A few other thoughts:
Morde isn't OP. He's just incredibly difficult to deal with and acts as a soft counter to Double AP/Sustained DPS.

The entire premise of teamfighting with morde is that you can burst 1 guy down while keeping yourself alive through constant shield/spellvamp. You don't need CC becuase you are a damage threat. If someone gets next to you your single-target burst with Q+R+E combo is high enough to be a threat regardless of CC.

The counter to this is more bursty heroes with High amounts of CC. Heroes like Galio, while they can't actually touch you in lane (because Galio's burst is actually kinda low. Galio's a weird mage in that he's all about his ult and he's really... tanky. But not like Ryze), can CC you enough in a teamfight to make you die.

The biggest problem is that Morde can push his lane a lot. Unless your jungler is prepared to counter this strategy then middle lane will have a problem.

Anivia is probably a good counter. Tanky heroes do moderately well. I'm curious to see how good TankyAP-Maokai middle would fair against Morde. Rush a RoA and you're really tanky and can spam your spells all day.

[Winthur]

Vlad has to be the easiest mage in the game, I'm not sure how you don't know how to play him.

Who's your summoner, and what does he do?

[LordShotGun]

Who's your summoner, and what does he do?

Nah, vlad is way easier then sion. Sion has to watch his shield to make sure it doesn't break before it can blow and know enough that you don't skill his ultimate unless under very specific circumstances. He also has to watch his mana while obviously vlad does not.

[TechnOkami]

@ Toasty: I just, just got over my 3 year long angst of q-q about Irelia, a champion I know for a fact I've professed to be terrible when I'm playing as her, whereas now I'm highly considering trying her in a normal game relatively soon.

Give me time to get away from Vlad so I can see what he is now vs what he was.

[PhoeKun]

Vlad has to be the easiest mage in the game, I'm not sure how you don't know how to play him.

Actually, there's an attitude component to playing any champion that's just as important as build knowledge and champion difficulty. Vlad's a pretty intuitive champion, but if you approach him thinking he's going to be something he's not (in this case I guess that would Vlad pre-ages ago nerfs) then it's going to get you in trouble over and over again. Imagine playing a game where all of your internal calculations are off by 50-200 points. You're running around, feeling supremely confident, and then all of a sudden and for no apparent reason, you die. You miss a couple of creeps when you overestimate your Tides of Blood damage, then a few more as you kick yourself and a few more after that when you overcompensate. Now you're playing underfarmed and feeling morose because this just isn't supposed to happen and your enemy preys on your weakness and the next thing you know everypony is flaming you and the game is over and you're 1-9-7.

When you have an understanding of a champion and he doesn't quite mesh up with that understanding, it can get you into huge amounts of trouble. There was a time back in the days of Garen being the ultimate noobstomper where I watched a bunch of people play him and thought, "Hey, me too!" only to feed like a spinny little boss because, even knowing build and skill order, I didn't really get what it was that was supposed to make me strong. Or, sometimes you'll tune into a high elo stream and you'll see him queue up for a Ranked 5s match because their scrim got cancelled or whatever it was that possessed them to sit though a 35 minute queue and they'll wind up against a vastly inferior team. In those moments you'll see things like Skarner sucessfully 1v4ing and walking away with 35 health and a triple kill. This is a point way before farm advantage or build advice could take over, but it happens because those top players understand the numbers, the feel, the correct playstyle of their champion way better than their opponents do. They play with the proper attitude and assumptions to succeed.

Incidentally, you should ask Reina sometime how she plays Vlad these days. It's... interesting.

[ex cathedra]

For what it's worth, I still think that Ryze is the easiest mage in the game. Against equally farmed opponents Vlad at least has to utilize basic positioning to teamfight. Similarly, Sion requires decent positioning if he expects to transition well into lategame at all.

...I hate it when I'm wrong. DAMNIT I hate it when I'm wrong.

How could you possibly think that you were right in the first place? Irelia and Vlad have reliably been some of the most notable champions in the game for months.

I just got over my 3 year long angst of q-q about Irelia

Irelia's barely a year and a half old...

@_@ I will do that when his AA gets a fix like Swain's. Is it a common thing that banana shaped projectiles need to be horribly animated?

It's the only way to balance them. Fruit es OP.

[toasty]

For what it's worth, I still think that Ryze is the easiest mage in the game. Against equally farmed opponents Vlad at least has to utilize basic positioning to teamfight. Similarly, Sion requires decent positioning if he expects to transition well into lategame at all.

Ryze can have a hard time early game against numerous opponents that outrange him middle. Playing Vlad, esp. playing him top, you have the advantage of being a ranged hero with 3 ranged spells against heroes that are often melee with only a few ranged spells.

And I mean... if ryze was so easy, I feel like people would play him more often. I dunno.

[Eldariel]

Ryze can have a hard time early game against numerous opponents that outrange him middle. Playing Vlad, esp. playing him top, you have the advantage of being a ranged hero with 3 ranged spells against heroes that are often melee with only a few ranged spells.

And I mean... if ryze was so easy, I feel like people would play him more often. I dunno.

The reason he isn't played that much is the stupid runepage requirement; not many players actually have 20 runepages and all the IP in the world for painless Ryze play.

[Winthur]

The reason he isn't played that much is the stupid runepage requirement; not many players actually have 20 runepages and all the IP in the world for painless Ryze play.

But scarra and Nyjacky run him with no mana runes. :<

[Eldariel]

But scarra and Nyjacky run him with no mana runes. :<

Yeah, it's certainly doable but that's not exactly public knowledge. Besides, the only other champ who'd use the manaless runepage they use with him is like Singed so you're still kinda forced to make an unique runepage for him, even if you don't need to invest in runes.

[toasty]

Yeah, it's certainly doable but that's not exactly public knowledge. Besides, the only other champ who'd use the manaless runepage they use with him is like Singed so you're still kinda forced to make an unique runepage for him, even if you don't need to invest in runes.

Movespeed, Mpen, mana regen... stuff (?)

Play Galio? Play Brand? Play ... any mage that likes positioning advantage.

Hell, play Udyr and Warwick.

edit: Also: i have 19 rune pages and I think, disregarding gold/10 yellows and spellvamp Quints... I'm out of Runes to buy. I'm kinda running out of heroes to buy as well. Pretty soon the only way riot is gonna make any money out of me is skins. To bad I love skins.

edit: I want to buy Spellvamp quints and try a crazy CDR/Spellvamp build on Vladimir.

[Math_Mage]

Olaf vs Vlad is a pretty even matchup, actually. I'd believe that Hotshot doesn't really know how to play it, but for example Voyboy vs Dyrus last time I saw them meet in tourney the olaf seemed to do well against vlad.

Well, my feeling about that matchup is that Vlad can fall behind and sort of struggle through thanks to range and sustain and trollpool and fast AOE farming, but if Olaf falls behind he's totally screwed. Hotshot fell behind and fell off a cliff as far as being effective later on. I didn't get to watch the match you watched, though.

[toasty]

Its generally accepted that HotshotGG can't play Olaf. I thought his build (Omen+Shurelias) was dumb, but Chauster apparently thinks its very strong, so I dunno.

The thing about Vlad is that he's impossible to deal with if you don't shut him down in lane, and with Saint playing Shyvanna that wasn't gonna happen.

[Eldariel]

Play Galio? Play Brand? Play ... any mage that likes positioning advantage.

Hell, play Udyr and Warwick.

Warwick, mebbe. Udyr; ehh, MPen? AD or ASpd tends to be vastly preferable depending on if you're Tiger or Phoenix. Galio would definitely like Health-Lvl or Flat Armor yellows in my experience and MR Quints are fairly darn good on him, I daresay significantly stronger than Move Speed.

Brand? Your range is long enough, what do you need the Move Speed for? You have 4 damaging abilities, get those flat APs for your level 6 burst or MR for laning.

edit: Also: i have 19 rune pages and I think, disregarding gold/10 yellows and spellvamp Quints... I'm out of Runes to buy. I'm kinda running out of heroes to buy as well. Pretty soon the only way riot is gonna make any money out of me is skins. To bad I love skins.

edit: I want to buy Spellvamp quints and try a crazy CDR/Spellvamp build on Vladimir.

I'm still getting Lifesteal Quints, MR Quints, Armor Quints, Energy Regen Seals & Gold/10 Seals Finally finished my Spellvamp Quints & Mana-Lvl Yellows tho. Then I'm probably set until the next set of rune changes tho (aside from the potential Health Regen Quints tho I have no clue where to find the runepages necessary to run those; I have 17 and I can barely fit half of the pages I want as it stands).