League of Legends XL: Season on Hold 'til Morello gets Gold

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

If Anivia is OP, why does her winrate pretty consistently float just below 50%?

Because she's probably a bit OP. Look at what Xypherous says in an ELOBUFF News Roundup.

"Actually, funny thing is - I'm not sure what sites people are getting win rate % off of - but naively speaking, if you don't discount mirrors, the more overpowered a champion is, the closer their win rate goes to 50% as the increased probability of mirror matches increases."

This is why Normal Queue win/loss ratios aren't really a good indicator. Normal DRAFT Queue, however, would be useful, since League is, in theory, supposed to be roughly balanced for ALL levels of play.

Winrate in solo queue means absolutely nothing. Actually, it should be completely ignored. What the half-sentient beings of solo queue pull off means nothing to the divine beings of Competitive play.

Winrate, yes. Unless a champion is winning +-10-15% games from the 50% mark (and currently a few champions are that extreme, according to LoLKing), I'd be more concerned about Draft results, which remove the mirror-matchup possibility.

[LordShotGun]

So I have read here that Garen hard counters Darius. Now, I was VERY skeptical of this but today I got the chance to try it out in a real game AND IT WORKS! I stomped all up and down that darius even with enemy jungler help. He would Q, and I would respond with my own Q and E combo with a W in there to counter darius's W.

Sadly the we totally threw the game and had not one, not two, but THREE baron's stolen so that even when we were 21 kills to 12 we were losing teamfights.

It also probably didn't help that I had 12 of our 21 kills (with most of them from a not very valuable darius) and the enemy ashe had 8 of their twelve. I would try and close with her but unless I used flash she would kite me to death (or she would counter flash and still kill me)

[McDouggal]

Shen jungle. Thoughts? Suggestions? Telling the guy who had the jungle Garen idea that he's crazy?

[LordShotGun]

Shen jungle. Thoughts? Suggestions? Telling the guy who had the jungle Garen idea that he's crazy?

I do it all the time. Well when he is not banned or picked top. Shen is a good sustainer jungler with his Q and W, and has an ok clear speed.

He is not relient on any buffs to do his job and excells at turning ganks into counter-ganks (although people usually bail when they see your shield incoming).

Pre-6 his ganks are decent with E and post-6 he has awesome ganks since you can support a tower diving lane from anywhere on the map.

Late game he can split push like all shens and you have enough money to build pure tank and still be disruptive.

Go boot+3 into HoG (for now anyway), then it is your choice for items depending on if they have a heavy AD or AP comp. Aegis is always good on him, as well as zeke's herald if you have an AD top lane that it would benefit.
Phage/hexdrinker are good, warden's mail is very good for tower dives, kage's lucky pick if you manage to get ahead early can help you alot but generally you want to pick up tanky/supporty items

[tyckspoon]

If I remember it correctly.. slow but well-sustained clear with Feint and Vorpal Blades. Good duelist if you expect to be invading/have to deal with an invading enemy jungler. Ganks pretty well, and after 6 raises serious paranoia issues among more intelligent enemies (global ult does this anyway, but at least if he's in lane you can be more certain of where he is and have a way to attempt to punish if he ults off somewhere else via farming to advantage/pushing tower/taking local jungle objectives/etc.) Works if you are interested in 'weird'/not-currently-in-tournament-meta junglers, but probably still better off taking Top and leaving the jungle to somebody who doesn't have a good place in a lane.

[ex cathedra]

Jungle Shen works but his clear speed is abysmal. Warwick levels of bad. He has better itemization options, though, his ultimate is more relevant without any items than Warwick's, and he transitions to split-pusher fairly well.

[toasty]

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere how Shen is gonna be terribly slow in the new jungle. Slower than Warwick.

[ChaosOS]

I can go test that. Just give me a sec.

[sonofzeal]

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere how Shen is gonna be terribly slow in the new jungle. Slower than Warwick.

I'm reasonably confident that "slow" is going to mean something different in the new jungle. More damaging mobs that scale faster means many currently fast junglers will have to base more frequently, slowing their clear speed significantly. It'll also make counterjungling much more devastating, since you can reasonably expect to be lower health, giving the intruder an advantage, especially if they catch you in the middle of a camp.

Shen and Warwick are both slow currently, but have above-average sustain. They're unlikely to suffer as much as many of the more aggressive choice - meaning they benefit by contrast. And if rewards are going up too, which sounds likely, that might make them quite solid choices.

[ChaosOS]

You pretty much don't lose health, pots are needed on blue but after that you are fine with feint. On the other hand, incredibly slow, I got 4:15 clear. We'll see how jungle shen does.

[toasty]

I'm reasonably confident that "slow" is going to mean something different in the new jungle. More damaging mobs that scale faster means many currently fast junglers will have to base more frequently, slowing their clear speed significantly. It'll also make counterjungling much more devastating, since you can reasonably expect to be lower health, giving the intruder an advantage, especially if they catch you in the middle of a camp.

St. Vicious, who has playtested the new Jungle with Riot said the new jungle "isn't very different," so I don't know how true this statement is.

[ChaosOS]

Basically, machete counteracts the buffs to the monster health, having 5 pots instead of 3 counteracts the increased damage, and then the loss of boots is evened out by the boots nerfs. Plus, with Dorans being even stronger for assuring lane dominance, we may see ADCs who can abuse lane dominance running Dblade instead of boots, which further evens out that difference. For example, I'm playing Ashe. You're playing someone like ezreal. I grab Dblade, and you grab boots+3. Your sustain isn't drastically higher with the buff of life on hit, and I will now outdamage you in trades, and speed is negated by my slows. Finally, reduced risk of jungle pressure due to the harder jungle and oracle's nerfs mean that I can extend more, ensuring lane dominance.

[Mtg_player_zach]

Reina there needs to be a TT solo q ranked. I would play the **** out of that. It's fun.

[Godskook]

Shen jungle. Thoughts? Suggestions? Telling the guy who had the jungle Garen idea that he's crazy?

Jungle Shen is a thing(Tier 1, even), but he's got abysmal clear times. He's very weak to counterjungling, so if you're draft-picking, try to pick him against junglers who can't threaten his jungle well, like Maokai(bonus points: at level 6, shen ult counters Maokai gank unless things went horribly wrong). Also, if you're able, try to put someone toplane who wants to transition into a teamfighter, rather than a split pusher, so that Shen can start split pushing later in the game, to leverage his ult's power better.

[Eldariel]

Anivia doesn't outburst Lux with Warmog's. That's not what was happening. Lux was just not hitting her skillshots. But yeah, her bases are amazing. Her Q is very hard to force to hit tho which balances out quite a bit; indeed, the better the enemy team the harder to land it becomes. That said, she might or might not be too strong; let's wait to the point where she becomes the most popular AP first tho.

It's worth noting that while e.g. RapidStar and SSONG play very decent Anivia, she's basically never banned against them. The only player Anivia is banned against is Froggen. Currently, she's being overshadowed by Orianna (she's even more powerful right now than on release; her Q is basically an autoattack nowadays with no cooldown) and Diana. It's worth noting that e.g. TF is permabanned vs. Misaya too (well, I recallSpider did the mistake of not banning him in Tencent Games Arena and...yeah), so it's not unique to Anivia; some players are just that much better on one champ than any others.

[toasty]

It's worth noting that e.g. TF is permabanned vs. Misaya too ... some players are just that much better on one champ than any others.

This is true. However, how much work would it take for all the APs to become as good on certain heroes. Or, rather, why is it that while Froggen's Anivia is permabanned, Regi's Karthus isn't. Is it because Froggen is, and likely will always be, a "better" player (especially considering I think Froggen's probably just as good on Karthus as Regi is) or is it because Regi simply hasn't "mastered" Karthus the way Froggen has?

I'm... I'm not entirely sure, especially seeing as I haven't seen Misaya play TF since IEM China (and I mean... he did kinda do some crazy-ass **** with TF, but he was a pretty bitchin Karthus too) which was a LONG time ago. So its hard to say for me. But... its an interesting question.

[Eldariel]

This is true. However, how much work would it take for all the APs to become as good on certain heroes. Or, rather, why is it that while Froggen's Anivia is permabanned, Regi's Karthus isn't. Is it because Froggen is, and likely will always be, a "better" player (especially considering I think Froggen's probably just as good on Karthus as Regi is) or is it because Regi simply hasn't "mastered" Karthus the way Froggen has?

Probably a bit of both; Froggen is easily the best AP player in the west and quite possibly the best AP player in the world right now. He basically never loses his lane even in bad match-ups (last I remember him actually losing a lane was Karthus vs. Alex Ich's Kassadin combined with jungle pressure) and generally somehow manages to out-CS everybody regardless of the lane match-ups, while being superresilient to jungle ganks too.

But Regi was never that good of a Karthus, really. Regi never truly learned one champion over any others. He's always practiced a bit of everything and his mechanics are nothing to write home about; he's solid but he doesn't really win his lane consistently like e.g. Froggen or RapidStar does. He never focused on one champ so I think the biggest thing here is that Regi's Karthus isn't that much better than his Everything Else™. Hell, he's even played Kat and Eve over Kart in tourneys before; if his Kart truly were that scary he'd just instalock it every time.

If we're thinking about Karthus in specific, it's worth bringing up PhantomL0rd. When he played on V8, they easily trounced the qualifiers for IEM New York. At IEM New York, Karthus was banned every game against them and while PL plays decent Brand & Cassiopeia, they proceed to 0-3 wipe as he can't carry in the same way with those champs and V8 wasn't really that strong of a team overall.

We'll see what happens with CornSalad's AP Yi (from Team OP, former Xenics Storm) if he keeps this up


OGN has Azubu Frost playing with support Brand, AD Jayce. Annie mid, support rushes WoTA.

[TFT]

I hate solo queue sometimes.

So, in order:

Duo'd with a friend so we played botlane. My friend didn't know the matchup, and we lost lane and game mainly because of that.

Played Lux mid because someone else picked a support after I called and picked and didn't want to dodge. Didn't end well.(I don't play mid lux often.)

Vayne backs lvl 2 with 2 healthpots and 1/3 health.(The enemy team, having about the same amount of damage, just stayed in lane). Since they have a snowball lane, they kill me while trying to soak up xp and snowball the lane hard from there with their level up. No other lane won.

Played Only Jaximus in smurf form. Despite winning lane(admittedly due to camp), we lose the game because skarner ulted their support twice and their morde killed trist fast a couple of times and no one jumped on the ad carry. We were 17-5 at one point. : /

Triple bugsplat. Not much I can do there.

And suddenly I'm down 100 elo. I'll admit I made mistakes and generally didn't play well, but to lose that many games because of outside factors is frustrating, to say the least. Maybe I'll just try to pick up mid and carry every game.

[sonofzeal]

What would you guys recommend for Urgot's build order in Dominion?



Last game I started Brutalizer + 2 pots, went bot, proceeded to get two kills off Rengar within the first couple minutes, and took their bot completely unopposed - and managed to sit on it off and on through most of the game. I did seem to be falling off late-game, which I'm told is normal for Urgot, but I'd be interesting in opinions on improving.

Final build order: start Brutalizer, rush Blackfire Torch, then Sheen building towards Triforce. Ninja Tabi boots instead of the Ionian I usually get for him, since I already had good CDR from Brut and BFT.

Next time, I'm tempted to leave it at Sheen and not go for TriForce at all. In SR I'd try to get Manamune, and earlier rather than later, but I'm not sure if that's wise here with less time to charge and less pressing mana issues in general. I guess just building AD is the thing?

[Dada]

I am curious to why you would get blackfire. I'd probably start boots+Prospectors blade, rush Brutalizer, then build depending on my opponent and their team in general. Hexdrinker, Mercs vs. magic, Frozen Heart vs. physical, Triforce is solid, I assume Entropy would be good as well. Last Whisper is good too. I am no expert at Urgot, nor at Dominion though.

[Eldariel]

What would you guys recommend for Urgot's build order in Dominion?

Brutalizer > Frozen Heart > Tanky **** (Aegis of the Legion/Banshee/Maw/etc.) > Last Whisper if it looks like that kind of a game (Trinity Force is remotely viable as you kinda sit there and shoot people in the face anyways and Sheen's always procced).

Urgot's a bruiser's bruiser who mostly cares about getting 40% CDR, some Armor Penetration and then initiating fights with ult and duking it out. Items that give some mana don't hurt either.


His AD scaling is **** (his Q's .85; even full combo of E Q Q Q Q is only 4.0 over 5 seconds). Don't bother with a lot of AD; Hexdrinker & Brut are items with individually good stats so those work but beyond that it's all crap. Just stack useful auras and defensive stats (MR and Armor > HP since you have a low cooldown shield), shift into the enemy team, keep slowing them all, reducing their armor & damage and nuking them in the face; kite as desired, he's a brutal kiter. FH and Brut is 30% CDR so all you need is 10% from Masteries (I run 8/15/7 on him) to cap out.

Sauron suggests that piecemeal crit build (and starting Manamune against extremely tanky enemies is viable) but I find just plain tanky works better for holding the points and he really isn't one for burst damage.

[sonofzeal]

I am curious to why you would get blackfire. I'd probably start boots+Prospectors blade, rush Brutalizer, then build depending on my opponent and their team in general. Hexdrinker, Mercs vs. magic, Frozen Heart vs. physical, Triforce is solid, I assume Entropy would be good as well. Last Whisper is good too. I am no expert at Urgot, nor at Dominion though.

Urgot's Q is one of the most spammable pokes in the game. With a 2 second cooldown and 1000 range, not to mention the whole lock-on thing from his E, I figured that'd make it a sweet way to pound someone with BFT procs. And heck, Urgot's E itself burns for 5 seconds, constantly refreshing BFT procs every tick.

It occured to me when the item first came out, and then I saw Sauron's famous Dominion Tier thingywhatsit specifically call out Urgot's ridiculous synergy with the item, wasted stats be damned. AP Urgot OP. Or somethin'. :P

[Cogwheel]

I feel a bit bad for even asking this, but...

What build order/runes/masteries would you recommend for jungle Karthus? I can make a couple guesses, but if I'm going to make a fool of myself, I want to do it right.

[ex cathedra]

I ****ing love jungle karthus, yo.

9/12/9, picking up MPen, damage reduction, armor, HP, mana regen, and buff duration. Boots+3 and Regrowth+1 are my favorite starts.

MPen reds, armor yellows, scaling AP blues, and flat AP or preferably Spellvamp quints. Smite/Flash or Teleport/Flash if you're saintvicious trolling normals.

[Cogwheel]

I ****ing love jungle karthus, yo.

9/12/9, picking up MPen, damage reduction, armor, HP, mana regen, and buff duration. Boots+3 and Regrowth+1 are my favorite starts.

MPen reds, armor yellows, scaling AP blues, and flat AP or preferably Spellvamp quints. Smite/Flash or Teleport/Flash if you're saintvicious trolling normals.

Hmm. If I can't afford those runes (have flat health quints, flat armour yellows, ArPen reds and flat MR blues), and the quints/reds are tier 2...

Well, I should avoid buying tier 2 and also upgrade my runes once I can afford to, but besides that, does this invalidate a boots or regrowth start?

[Eldariel]

Hmm. If I can't afford those runes (have flat health quints, flat armour yellows, ArPen reds and flat MR blues), and the quints/reds are tier 2...

Well, I should avoid buying tier 2 and also upgrade my runes once I can afford to, but besides that, does this invalidate a boots or regrowth start?

Much comes down to your mechanics too; Q positioning, timing Qs right to get the autoattacks, kiting & maximizing mana gains from E while keeping it active as possible.

But yeah, I think Boots start should still be viable, especially since Health Quints are good for first jungle clear specifically.


Completely unrelated, we had an awesome Assassin Wars (and Malphite) game with Adumb on 3v3 just now:

Spoiler

Show

We did few silly mistakes and Zed wasn't very useful so we almost managed to throw it but then methodical play and me finally getting my own play right turned us into beginning to win it.

Playing Kassadin is such a painful balancing act when anybody in the enemy team can kill you in about two seconds, and you have 3 such targets to kill.

[ex cathedra]

Armor yellows are the only truly essential part; scaling AP blues are for mid/late-game and have negligible effects on your first clear while jungle monsters don't even have MR so 9 MPen isn't necessary.

At some point you'll definitely need to save up for tier 3 runes, but take what you have and just test it out.

[lord_khaine]

Dammit, CLG.EU vs scandinavian wolfes, and the bastards ban Aniva

[ex cathedra]

Of course. We've discussed this. She's overpowered :p

Anyways, Fnatic 3-0'd their group and 2-0'd their semis. :D
I'm so proud. It'd be solid if they took first overall, and they're well on their way towards it.

[MCerberus]

Winrate, yes. Unless a champion is winning +-10-15% games from the 50% mark (and currently a few champions are that extreme, according to LoLKing), I'd be more concerned about Draft results, which remove the mirror-matchup possibility.

That would be interesting to see, but Riot doesn't make public a lot of their internal statistics for obvious reasons. I still contend that it isn't some sort of rampaging issue, since people are beating Anivia pretty solidly with a ton of bad matchups.

Toasty, Anivia doesn't have a dash or escape mechanism. A stun/silence actually turns off her sustained damage for a good period after it wears off, unlike AD characters. Her Q is slow, hilariously slow. This is why those are more important than against the examples you've listed.