League of Legends LIX: Ice Cream, Stamps, and Lorn

[thracian]

Top junglers include Lee Sin and Elise, you missed Jax in top lane and Kayle and Ziggs are both popular mid (Kayle also played top and jungle, because lolKayle). Nami is a super strong support atm, and as much as Winthur likes to deny it Janna is not (though she's still eminently playable). Karma is seen mid and support as well, although doesn't appear to be tip-top in either at the moment. Nidalee is of course a powerful pick in mid.

EDIT: Can confirm Udyr Q passive damage does not proc lifesteal. Has the exact same lifesteal per hit in Tiger stance and in Bear stance.

[Eldariel]

Toplane: Jax, Ryze, Kayle, Shyvana, Irelia, Lulu, Trundle, Renekton

Mid: Ziggs, Kayle, Lulu, Kassadin, Kha'Zix, Yasuo, Karthus, Orianna, Twisted Fate, LeBlanc, Nidalee, Syndra, Anivia [if you believe Froggen, and why wouldn't you]

Jungle: Elise, Lee Sin, Kha'Zix, Evelynn, Pantheon, Jarvan, Vi, Nunu


Off the top of my head. Also, OGN Club Masters Finals; SKT T1 vs. Samsung.

[thracian]

Prediction: Gragas become FotM at some point in the near-ish future in top lane.

[Winthur]

Nami is a super strong support atm, and as much as Winthur likes to deny it Janna is not.

*shrug* At least she isn't Taric. I don't think I ever denied that she isn't top tier at the moment and I suppose for most purposes Nami fills Janna's role well and does more (unless you really need super full disengage), but Janna can survive the FotM picks pretty well (Thresh/Leo/Morg; kinda bad against Sona and Nami obv) and the teammate saving potential is there. Also Janna is a super strong waifu.

[PersonMan]

Prediction: Gragas become FotM at some point in the near-ish future in top lane.

Both pre and post rework Gragas had/has significant top lane potential, imo. IIRC it was mentioned here ages ago as well. I can see why it'd get popular once more people start to realize how effective it can be.

[Don Julio Anejo]

ADC: Twitch, Lucian, Draven and Caitlyn are still considered top picks/FotM. Vayne has fallen out of favour since she can't deal well with most FotM picks and stronger engage supports - she's still played a lot but is no longer god tier that she was in S3. Kog'Maw is played in the LCS but not in yoloqueue since you heavily rely on your team to peel for you. He's actually the least picked ADC if you don't count Urgot. Jinx is super popular but isn't considered god tier since lack of a dash/escape prevents her from solo carrying games as hard as, say, Lucian and she doesn't have Draven's god tier damage.

Support: Thresh, Leona and Morgana are still the undisputed top 3. Nami is catching up in popularity. Karma was considered super strong for a while, but she falls off hard in utility past the laning phase - she mostly offers an AoE speedboost and an OK slow with her Q, no-where near the other 4. Pretty sure this was brought up in the previous thread.

[thracian]

Don't discount the value of a free Shurelia's in addition to another Shurelia's.

[Winthur]

Morgana still the undisputed top 3.

Be mindful however that Morgana has a lot of innate risk to her because if you miss any bindings you're pretty useless in the laning phase (well, or at least - not contributing properly; sure a spell shield is useful, but it's only good to stop engages and not at all to provide sustain). You still have a lot of utility and not as catastrophic issues as Blitzcrank (whom you render completely obsolete) but be mindful that on paper she loses to any poke supports.

Of course, the best part about the trio is the fact that they're very good at catching people and that can turn even a bad lane around. Thresh, for one, is, on paper, outpoked by Sona, Nami, Karma or Zyra, but there's the hook and he still has a ton of unique utility.

So ya, Thresh/Leo/Morg, but IMHO Sona and maybe Annie (unless they gutted her too hard) are underrated gems and both simple to play.

[Eldariel]

Syndra is the best support. Does the Blitz-thing with buffs while having the longest range stun in the game and insane zone control and obscene level 6 kill potential (and great poke before then). Syndra with some ballery controls ridiculous zones. Vel'Koz and Zyra are fun too, of course, but neither of them does the Syndra quite as well.

EDIT: Okay, obviously Ashe ult has longer range than Syndra E balls but whatever. Anivia Q's detonation might be slightly bigger too, or at least the same, and Heimer Ult Grenade does outrange it with bounces.

[Winthur]

does the Syndra

Do the Syndra!
Swing your balls from side to side,
Come on, it's time to go do the Syndra
Take one creep and then, again,
Let's do the Syndra, altogether, now!

[TechnOkami]

Do the Syndra!
Swing your balls from side to side,
Come on, it's time to go do the Syndra
Take one creep and then, again,
Let's do the Syndra, altogether, now!

AC/DC - Big Balls

[Togath]

Be mindful however that Morgana has a lot of innate risk to her because if you miss any bindings you're pretty useless in the laning phase (well, or at least - not contributing properly; sure a spell shield is useful, but it's only good to stop engages and not at all to provide sustain). You still have a lot of utility and not as catastrophic issues as Blitzcrank (whom you render completely obsolete) but be mindful that on paper she loses to any poke supports.

Of course, the best part about the trio is the fact that they're very good at catching people and that can turn even a bad lane around. Thresh, for one, is, on paper, outpoked by Sona, Nami, Karma or Zyra, but there's the hook and he still has a ton of unique utility.

So ya, Thresh/Leo/Morg, but IMHO Sona and maybe Annie (unless they gutted her too hard) are underrated gems and both simple to play.

Leona was the one I'd been trying to remember
As for Annie.. She seems decent, though I do have trouble with aggressive bottom lanes(Jinx+Braum is a good example.. she can't get close enough without being blasted[and very very quickly killed] by Jinx's gun, or hit by Braum's poke[and then blasted by Jinx]. I was also owned by Yasuo the one time I encountered him in bottom lane.. though that might have been a coincidence/bad play on my part).
I have wondered if rushing a tankier build might work on her, since her main issue from what I've seen is her glassiness.

[ex cathedra]

According to the wiki:

Tiger Udyr's persistent effect procs lifesteal.

Kayle's E procs spellvamp

Cho's E procs spellvamp(arguably not an on-hit at all, but still)

Jax's ult procs spellvamp

Darius' passive has mixed listings about its ability to proc spellvamp, but I can't test it as I don't own him yet.

Kayle E and Cho E are both distinctly unlike traditional on-hit effects as both abilities significantly change the way in which their champion's basic attack functions. Jax's ult is also consistent with how other on-next-attack abilities (Jax W, Rengar Q, Darius W, etc) interact with lifesteal/spellvamp, the only difference being that the skill itself is a passive, so I would hesitate to describe it as an on-hit in the same way that Teemo E, Twitch passive, Irelia W, or Yi E are on-hits.

my testing suggest that the persistent effect on udyr's q doesn't interact with lifesteal.

[efdf]

martial cadence lifesteals and i'm pretty sure udyr's persistent q does too
or at least i hope so

lol udyr's q doesn't
and neither does martial cadence

i swear it used to...

[Don Julio Anejo]

Be mindful however that Morgana has a lot of innate risk to her because if you miss any bindings you're pretty useless in the laning phase (well, or at least - not contributing properly; sure a spell shield is useful, but it's only good to stop engages and not at all to provide sustain). You still have a lot of utility and not as catastrophic issues as Blitzcrank (whom you render completely obsolete) but be mindful that on paper she loses to any poke supports.

Disagreed unless you miss like 80% of your bindings. Her binding is on an 10-second cooldown with a few masteries (base is 11) and doesn't cost much mana (contrast: Blitz, who uses 50% of his mana per hook). She can honestly spam them and still come out ahead. The hitbox is Nidalee spear huge, the sound cue is pretty mild and delayed and there's no notable windup, so it's only easy to juke if you either expect it, or at max range. Contrast: Lux, Thresh and Blitz, who all have much smaller hitboxes with (except for Blitz) obvious windup. Unless your opponent is SivHD or Nightblue, they aren't going to be dodging it much. You'll hit if you can lead/aim your shots well enough.

But then, I'm pretty good at skillshots and before I even tried Morgana, I played a lot of Lux and Ezreal. It's night and day when compared to Lux, whose snare is damn hard to land even point-blank.

[Slayn82]

So, new visual update for Summoners Rift is in development. Looks very nice, and since they are trying to diferentiate east and west sides of the map visually, maybe they will finally implement map rotation for the purple team to solve the camera issues.

[Qwertystop]

So, new visual update for Summoners Rift is in development. Looks very nice, and since they are trying to diferentiate east and west sides of the map visually, maybe they will finally implement map rotation for the purple team to solve the camera issues.

Nope - they're actually making it impossible. The way they're making it so much lower-resources to run is (partly) by removing all back-facing polygons, so now the map rotation goes from "possible if they got around to cleaning up the backs of things" (someone on the discussion thread said they'd flipped the camera in LoLReplay just to see if it was possible, and it was, though it didn't look quite as nice) to "pretty much impossible without as much work done on the backs as they're doing now on the fronts, which will also kill low-power computers," because looking at things (walls, trees, assorted decoration objects) from the other sides will now make them invisible.

[Cogwheel]

Snip

You're looking at this the wrong way.

The map is made of tiny blue team Shacos.

Or Teemos, your pick.

[Qwertystop]

You're looking at this the wrong way.

The map is made of tiny blue team Shacos.

Or Teemos, your pick.

Including the ground in places where it's covered by trees from a normal angle, which means it'll show whatever the renderer throws at you when there's nothing to show. Probably whatever was at that location at the last screen refresh, which means the ground and/or special effects will sort of smear over all the holes every time the camera moves or a spell passes over the area. I know that's how TF2 does it (I was experimenting making maps and forgot a skybox - it looks really weird).

[Hullabaloo]

I still wanna try ori sup with Quinn. Seems fun

[Winthur]

Disagreed unless you miss like 80% of your bindings. Her binding is on an 10-second cooldown with a few masteries (base is 11) and doesn't cost much mana (contrast: Blitz, who uses 50% of his mana per hook)

Any time you miss a binding you are exposed to attacks with little to no contribution until the next binding. Compare Thresh, who can still trade with people with the autoattack passive and has a very useful flay and shield for damage, disabling and sustain. Morgana has no sustain at all (spell shield isn't meant to deflect harass) and the only use of her W is to quickly apply Frostfang's or to combo with a binding. Any time I see a first pick Morgana I pick Sona/Nami/Zyra/Karma and win the lane unless a lucky binding ruins the laning phase. Sometimes I pick Janna because against Morg it's like bypassing her subpar laning phase, and E-empowered autos go straight through spell shield while movement speed lets you juke easier. Morgana functions much, much like Blitz - a pick support with a rather binary laning phase - except she has way more utility.

Contrast: Lux, Thresh and Blitz, who all have much smaller hitboxes

Thresh's hitbox is also really stupid though.

[Math_Mage]

Spoiler: CLG vs. C9

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The proud tradition of throws continues!

[Forum Explorer]

Any time you miss a binding you are exposed to attacks with little to no contribution until the next binding. Compare Thresh, who can still trade with people with the autoattack passive and has a very useful flay and shield for damage, disabling and sustain. Morgana has no sustain at all (spell shield isn't meant to deflect harass) and the only use of her W is to quickly apply Frostfang's or to combo with a binding. Any time I see a first pick Morgana I pick Sona/Nami/Zyra/Karma and win the lane unless a lucky binding ruins the laning phase. Sometimes I pick Janna because against Morg it's like bypassing her subpar laning phase, and E-empowered autos go straight through spell shield while movement speed lets you juke easier. Morgana functions much, much like Blitz - a pick support with a rather binary laning phase - except she has way more utility.

Not so much. Yeah she won't do much, but she can auto attack at relative safety since she is ranged, and her spell shield blocks engages. It's not like a blitzcrank or Thresh who after missing their hook have to sit back and do absolutely nothing until it's cooldown is back up.

That said, those are good counters to Morgana. I think she's best chosen as a counter pick to people like Leona, Thresh, or Blitz.

[ex cathedra]

uhh, thresh has comparable range, better auto damage, and flay alone is more valuable than both of morgana's other spells, particularly in lane

[Winthur]

Not so much. Yeah she won't do much, but she can auto attack at relative safety since she is ranged, and her spell shield blocks engages. It's not like a blitzcrank or Thresh who after missing their hook have to sit back and do absolutely nothing until it's cooldown is back up.

I already said Blitzcrank is basically an inferior Morgana and that he's not worth bringing up. Seriously, why are you people bringing up Morgana's mediocre cooldowns because of Blitz's terrible kit being even worse? Blitz hasn't been relevant in competitive play in a long while, especially since Morgana support was introduced (and not to mention Thresh). When you miss a binding, you have 10-11 seconds during which a Sona can freely harass you with both autoattacks (she has more auto range than Morgana) and her spells (Q, possibly Power Chord which is an autoattack reset, and she will heal all harass back up). Same for Karma. Same for Zyra. Your spellshield is on an even longer cooldown and you don't max it first so there's no sustain except for a paltry amount of magic damage. This is free harass if you know what you're doing.

As to Thresh, after missing his hook, he still has:

• an empowered ranged autoattack that is the same range as Morgana -- a lot of Thresh players, yours truly included, still run AD marks as well
• an AoE shield to sustain damage
• a reposition/slow/damage tool

And that's even without listing his ultimate because I don't expect people to try Boxing people after missing a hook since obviously it's an important all-in tool. Same way I wouldn't expect people to blow a Morg ultimate after missing a Q.

I'm not even implying Morgana isn't top tier. I'm implying that there's a certain risk carried with the pick and that there are ways to punish her, but one of her strengths is that a binding can easily turn the lane. Same with Thresh, who is a really scary mofo even if he can be outpoked and outsustained by the not-quite-top tiers. Same with Leona, who might have a rough time but easily gets back into the lane once it hits level 6, and becomes a superb initiator and damage sponge nonetheless, and has a number of ways to engage other than Zenith Blade into combo.

That said, those are good counters to Morgana. I think she's best chosen as a counter pick to people like Leona, Thresh, or Blitz.

She's an anti-meta pick from the start, nothing new here.

[Godskook]

Not so much. Yeah she won't do much, but she can auto attack at relative safety since she is ranged, and her spell shield blocks engages. It's not like a blitzcrank or Thresh who after missing their hook have to sit back and do absolutely nothing until it's cooldown is back up.

1.450 Auto range is short enough that most ADCs can auto her with impunity, as well as every support Winthur is listing as a counterpick. With zero auto steroids, she loses any well executed auto-trade with literally everyone on that list except Janna(who needs shield to make the trade decisive, which isn't saying much for Morgana).

2.Thresh has the same auto range as Morgana, but has a 'melee speed' auto, a charge-based steroid and a scaling steroid on his autos. As such, when comparing the two, saying that Morgana can "auto attack at relative safety since she is ranged" while Thresh has to "sit back and do absolutely nothing until it's cooldown is back up" is so biased, you might as well be saying that in D&D 3.5, a monk can beat a wizard at high optimization.

3.Point #2 was ignoring flay's active. Seriously, did you forget about this skill? Its a *REALLY* good skill in its own right, and most good Thresh players will typically open with it in lane for better engage, only using hook to catch fleeing opponents after they've run through his ult. Without binding, puddle is useless on Morgana. Without hook, Thresh *STILL* has Flay and all the pain that brings.

[McDouggal]

So, I had a really good game that I thought was ranked but turned out to be normal draft mode.

It was still hilariously good once I got to midgame though. Turns out that going BT-LW-IE does a lot of damage in midgame and early lategame.

Spoiler

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Replay file: http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/3927504/

[Math_Mage]

who needs AS when you have ult

[efdf]

just max e so you don't even have to auto in lane

[Winthur]

just take smite so you dont even have to lane