League of Legends LXIII: You Spoony Bard!

[Artanis]

Yeah, I pretty much figured that out after a Swain game where I got fed 8 kills in the laning phase because my opponents could not dodge the root if their life depended on it. This just confirms things.

So, level 30 is competitive mode then. Is there anything I should be practicing against the chumps that might be hard to learn later on? Any bad habits I should try to avoid developing?

Like Djinn said, being level 30 doesn't necessarily mean you're in competitive mode, it just means that competitive mode is a possibility. At really low levels, a lot of players lack any real skill at the game, but even those who do (such as smurfs) lack a lot of the mechanical tools like runes, masteries, and available champions that a level 30 has unlocked.

[Qwertystop]

Yeah, I pretty much figured that out after a Swain game where I got fed 8 kills in the laning phase because my opponents could not dodge the root if their life depended on it. This just confirms things.

To be fair, if you can aim Nevermove well enough (dead-center) it can be pretty hard to dodge without high movespeed or a dash/blink, even with really good reactions.

People just wandering in or not bothering is another thing entirely, though.

[NineThePuma]

I'm sure my build and gameplay could have used work, but hot damn did it feel good to be a fish.

To be fair, if you can aim Nevermove well enough (dead-center) it can be pretty hard to dodge without high movespeed or a dash/blink, even with really good reactions.

People just wandering in or not bothering is another thing entirely, though.

On the other other hand, DON'T duel someone who is out healing your damage.

[Godskook]

champions like cho'gath, sion, and to a lesser extent sejuani and nautilus are literally everything that's wrong with league of legends.

You're gonna need to defend that opinion quite a bit, cause near as I can tell, those are champions that more closely exemplify everything right with tanks in League.

[Winthur]

chogath

riot itself admits that a tank that is afraid of going to battle for fear of losing stacks and needing a ton of preparation to get them isn't so cool anymore now that nobody picks him, also his cc is seen from a mile away and he can't initiate for that reason most of the time

sion

melee dps bruiser was turned into literally mundo with more cc and a passive that doesn't fit a tank, riot out of their depth as usual with their glorious reworks (hi sona)

nautilus

design is victim of riot deciding that it's okay to slap millions of ccs on a single champion, jumps in and out of viability solely depending on what crackhead is in charge of designing the jungle on the given season

sejuani

such a good tank design she's played ap, failed update on amumu

you're looking for malphite

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

riot itself admits that a tank that is afraid of going to battle for fear of losing stacks and needing a ton of preparation to get them isn't so cool anymore now that nobody picks him, also his cc is seen from a mile away and he can't initiate for that reason most of the time

This one I'll agree with.

melee dps bruiser was turned into literally mundo with more cc and a passive that doesn't fit a tank, riot out of their depth as usual with their glorious reworks

I'd argue that the Sion rework has been Riot's best to date, from a mechanical perspective. A few tweaks here and there (and, yes, an odd passive for a tank), but re-positioning Sion from DPS Bruiser to Tank was fully intentional, and the resulting character is incredibly tightly designed, minor tweaks and passive oddity not withstanding.

design is victim of riot deciding that it's okay to slap millions of ccs on a single champion, jumps in and out of viability solely depending on what crackhead is in charge of designing the jungle on the given season

It IS okay to slap millions of CC on a single champion, when one is a slow, one is a skill-shot that doesn't pass through ANYTHING, one requires a melee auto-attack from a slow-moving champion, and one's an ultimate. Nautilus is SUPPOSED to be a CC monster, like Sejuani, Cho'Gath, Thresh, Braum, and Leona.

Nautilus's occasional problems were traditionally caused more by the state of the jungle and his typically mediocre laning. Edit: I've also been reminded that he's been updated recently, and is apparently doing much better both in the jungle and in lane than previously. But there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Nautilus.

such a good tank design she's played ap

Numbers/ratio tuning can solve that problem, and Sejuani's core kit is nicely designed for a tank. AP ratios might be a little high, but there's nothing wrong with her conceptually.

[Godskook]

riot itself admits that a tank that is afraid of going to battle for fear of losing stacks and needing a ton of preparation to get them isn't so cool anymore

Source on this? Cause afaik, they've only admitted to the tuning being too harsh(hence the CD changes to his ult, rather than outright removing the restriction).

now that nobody picks him,

Um, he's getting picked respectably often at the Plat+ level.

also his cc is seen from a mile away and he can't initiate for that reason most of the time

His Q is seen from miles away, sure, but his W is not. Otoh, Riot seems to like some unreliability in a kit with good cause, so having a hard-to-hit Q is probably something that's -right- with league rather than the opposite.

Also, he's not an initiator, so "bad at initiating" is as weird a complaint as saying that Vayne is "bad at tanking".

melee dps bruiser was turned into literally mundo with more cc and a passive that doesn't fit a tank, riot out of their depth as usual with their glorious reworks (hi sona)

A crap kit that had no synergy or vision of design in itself turned into an actual kit that's not really mundo at all*.

That passive fits Sion the tank *PERFECTLY*.

Also, Sona's rework was definitely a step in the right direction, similarly all the reworks they've been doing lately(Soraka's and Sion's being notably grand). People conflate "the tuning is off" or "I can't play the new thing exactly like the old thing" with "this rework was a bad idea" way too much, which is frankly where most of Sona's "bad rework" status comes from.

*high-durability with a slowing skill shot is all you got, but Sion's is potentially pass-through on a medium CD with mana-gating, incentives for using or not using a minion, and just flat damage, while Mundo's is collision, spammable enough to CS with, and has percentile scaling. On top of that, both champions have very different kinds of durability, with Sion being all shields/hp, and Mundo being regen focused. They're really quite different, and that's before we examine the rest of their kits where the differentiation actually happens. I'm really tired of this "has a skillshot that slows, must be Mundo" meme, its as useless as it is wrong.

design is victim of riot deciding that it's okay to slap millions of ccs on a single champion, jumps in and out of viability solely depending on what crackhead is in charge of designing the jungle on the given season

I...basically want to say what Djinn said, but probably wouldn't do so quite as eloquently.

such a good tank design she's played ap, failed update on amumu

I really wouldn't classify "sometimes Liandry's, otherwise stack health" as "builds AP".

[NineThePuma]

I play full AP/Penetration sejuani. Her W is absurd.

[Artanis]

So due to a variety of reasons (most of which can probably be summed up by "Arty is weird"), I was trying to figure out the EU LCS playoff scenarios. My conclusions:

Spoiler

Show

Welcome to f***ing Europe. Hope you like tiebreakers!

As far as I can tell, no single standings spot can be locked in on Day 1. Plenty of stuff like byes and playoff spots (or lack thereof) can be clinched, but I can't find any combination of game results that will let us say, "Team X will finish in Spot Y no matter what happens on Day 2". And at this point in time, I count at least three potential three-way ties that, at least for now, are still on the table to potentially happen at the end of the season: SK/FNC/H2K for first, CW/EL/ROC for sixth, and EL/ROC/GIA for seventh.

Chaos in the EU LCS standings right up to the bitter end? Whoda thunk it?

Tangentially on-topic-ish aside:

*stuff about Sion*

The other night, I was playing a game with some others on Mumble and it was the most fun I'd had in a loss in a long, long time due to the enemy Sion's string of absolutely HILARIOUS ult whiffs. My personal favorite one was when he tried to use it to engage on us at our bot inhib tower, and proceeded to miss all of us, the base wall, the tower, the inhib, AND the nexus en route to being lasered to death on our fountain. Adding even more hilarity was that I - on Support Karma - got credit for the kill because the last thing he'd apparently been hit with was a random autoattack or something as he flew past.

...OK, so not terribly on-topic, but still

[SanguisAevum]

SPOILER (UOL v FNC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqgZADsNevo

BEST

GAME

EVER

[Godskook]

Tangentially on-topic-ish aside:


The other night, I was playing a game with some others on Mumble and it was the most fun I'd had in a loss in a long, long time due to the enemy Sion's string of absolutely HILARIOUS ult whiffs. My personal favorite one was when he tried to use it to engage on us at our bot inhib tower, and proceeded to miss all of us, the base wall, the tower, the inhib, AND the nexus en route to being lasered to death on our fountain. Adding even more hilarity was that I - on Support Karma - got credit for the kill because the last thing he'd apparently been hit with was a random autoattack or something as he flew past.

...OK, so not terribly on-topic, but still

Dear Sion: You can manually stop your ult.

[Grytorm]

Tangentially on-topic-ish aside:


The other night, I was playing a game with some others on Mumble and it was the most fun I'd had in a loss in a long, long time due to the enemy Sion's string of absolutely HILARIOUS ult whiffs. My personal favorite one was when he tried to use it to engage on us at our bot inhib tower, and proceeded to miss all of us, the base wall, the tower, the inhib, AND the nexus en route to being lasered to death on our fountain. Adding even more hilarity was that I - on Support Karma - got credit for the kill because the last thing he'd apparently been hit with was a random autoattack or something as he flew past.

...OK, so not terribly on-topic, but still

Foolish Sion. He also didn't realize you can almost curve through their base and out mid lane. Although I think when I did that I was a bit further away from the inhib.

[Antonok]

Fastest and worstest ARAM ever.

And I FINALLY got Yas in one too =(

[endoperez]

I just had my first super-lategame game as Nasus, or any tank with a full build, really. I usually main supports, so the closest I've had to this experience has been with Leona. She doesn't deal damage like Nasus, so I made lots of mistakes trying to decide what to do — is it more important to chase the enemy ADC out of the fight, or stay and protect my carry? If I'm low on hp, should I run and maybe lure an enemy or two to chase after me, or stay and hit them even though I will die?

Also, lots of "I CAN DO THIS ALONE GUYS I WILL oh I'm dead".

http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflege...0?tab=overview

So, any comments are appreciated.

I'm thinking the Triforce was a mistake. It gave me more damage, yes, but I kept getting absolutely splattered by their combo wombo of Pantheon and Zed. The Spirit Visage was a mistake, pure and simple, the magic resistance part of it was useless. I should've started building for Righteous Glory right away if I wanted regeneration, but I didn't remember it had been added to the game.

I also didn't realize how important Pantheon was for their total damage output. I should probably have focused more on him.

[Renegade Paladin]

Team Newline, the season's been going on long enough and we haven't gotten back in yet. We should fix that. Do we want to go back to our old schedule, or have things changed enough that different days work better? My schedule's still the same as it was.

[Anarion]

I just had my first super-lategame game as Nasus, or any tank with a full build, really. I usually main supports, so the closest I've had to this experience has been with Leona. She doesn't deal damage like Nasus, so I made lots of mistakes trying to decide what to do — is it more important to chase the enemy ADC out of the fight, or stay and protect my carry? If I'm low on hp, should I run and maybe lure an enemy or two to chase after me, or stay and hit them even though I will die?

Also, lots of "I CAN DO THIS ALONE GUYS I WILL oh I'm dead".

http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflege...0?tab=overview

So, any comments are appreciated.

I'm thinking the Triforce was a mistake. It gave me more damage, yes, but I kept getting absolutely splattered by their combo wombo of Pantheon and Zed. The Spirit Visage was a mistake, pure and simple, the magic resistance part of it was useless. I should've started building for Righteous Glory right away if I wanted regeneration, but I didn't remember it had been added to the game.

I also didn't realize how important Pantheon was for their total damage output. I should probably have focused more on him.

Triforce wasn't really a mistake, it's pretty great on Nasus.

Strategically, you probably wanted to splitpush, not teamfight. You can kill any single person on the other team, if they send two, you still might be able to beat them, and you can at least kite them around while your team wins a 4v3. If they send 3+ you run while your team takes an objective.

GA is wrong, I think. You don't have a randuin's omen against an all AD team, which is also wrong. I'd probably not have bought the GA and instead get randuin's. You'd be much tankier and harder to kill.

[Antonok]

I just had my first super-lategame game as Nasus, or any tank with a full build, really. I usually main supports, so the closest I've had to this experience has been with Leona. She doesn't deal damage like Nasus, so I made lots of mistakes trying to decide what to do — is it more important to chase the enemy ADC out of the fight, or stay and protect my carry? If I'm low on hp, should I run and maybe lure an enemy or two to chase after me, or stay and hit them even though I will die?

Also, lots of "I CAN DO THIS ALONE GUYS I WILL oh I'm dead".

http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflege...0?tab=overview

So, any comments are appreciated.

I'm thinking the Triforce was a mistake. It gave me more damage, yes, but I kept getting absolutely splattered by their combo wombo of Pantheon and Zed. The Spirit Visage was a mistake, pure and simple, the magic resistance part of it was useless. I should've started building for Righteous Glory right away if I wanted regeneration, but I didn't remember it had been added to the game.

I also didn't realize how important Pantheon was for their total damage output. I should probably have focused more on him.

I'd of also went with Warmogs over Rightous Glory personally. You had Triforce and Frozen Heart for mana.

And yea, you had good mid game advantage but it looks squandered. You had an inhib turret/inhib at 33 mins, but not really anything more for another 11-12 mins. Thats a rather large time gap for them to farm up in.

[mrcarter11]

Tabi probably would have been useful as well. The Morg ult and panth stun are likely to be about all the CC you personally will encounter. Unless you're trying to body block morg Q, but I'm not sure that's the best idea. Omen over GA should be have a thing as already pointed out. I'm not a fan of RG on nasus, but if it was working for you, cool beans. Leona should be able to handle the engage thing though. Don't worry about peeling for fizz, he's fizz. Don't worry about peeling for your lux, she wasn't worth the effort. Don't worry about peeling for Graves, he hits 3 buttons, blows his load and needs a 5 second refractory period to do jack all. If you discount RG, I feel mogs could have been a thing on you since you have so much armor, and they only have a single useful source of percentile damage.

I have no idea what level player you are, but split pushing is a thing that requires a team to not fight, while you do the wetwork stuff. They have panth, sivir and vi. You will never be able to split push against that, because they will always engage on your team and your team will get wiped since the tank isn't there. Against that team you had to teamfight.

[Qwertystop]

Team Newline, the season's been going on long enough and we haven't gotten back in yet. We should fix that. Do we want to go back to our old schedule, or have things changed enough that different days work better? My schedule's still the same as it was.

For me, any evenings work.

[thracian]

Don't worry about peeling for Graves, he hits 3 buttons, blows his load and needs a 5 second refractory period to do jack all. is still a full build ADC with a 80% ASpd steroid.

Triforce is a good midgame damage spike and a decent source of chasing people with Phage/Zeal, but lategame it might be worth going for Swifties and another defensive item. As long as you could survive Morgana's ult, enough minion stacks makes up for the loss of damage from Triforce and the extra defense will definitely make you harder to take down. It sorta depends though. It honestly shouldn't really be feasible for you to chase down Sivir against that team, so I might have kept the Triforce and concentrated on dealing Tons of Damage to whoever tried to kill Graves, peeling with damage so to speak. They'd probably have to use Vi/Zed ult on Fizz to kill that slippery fish, so there would be opportunities for Graves to get work done before they come for him. Try to give him those opportunities.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

So, any comments are appreciated.

You have a lot of armor, but very little health. Especially against a team with so many damaging physical abilities (Pantheon & Zed in particular), Randuin's Omen will serve better than Thornmail. It also helps Nasus avoid being kited, as if you can catch up to them from Wither you can then use the Randuin's slow to stick to them further.

Righteous Glory is a great Nasus item, and always a solid choice: again, it helps allow him to hit the targets he wants to hit, and avoid being kited into oblivion. Strong choice there.

Frozen Heart is a classic and, against this team, a decent call. Same with Trinity Force

Guardian Angel is a little more iffy. These days I actually like Zz'rot Portal on Nasus as a GA replacement: nice movement speed when pushing towers (!!), and extra pushing power, along with 60 MR and 60 Armor? It's fantastic.

Spirit Visage is normally a great item, just not against that team. You seem to have realized that though.

Personally, I'd probably have gone Glacial Shroud into Randuin's Omen, then bought Sheen and Ninja Tabi, then finished the Frozen Heart. That'll set you up nicely to survive and punish Pantheon engages. I might even have opted for Iceborn Gauntlet in place of Trinity Force: that's a TON of AD you're looking at, and this is doubly good if you're running 0%-10% cooldown runes instead of my preferred 20%. Then Righteous Glory, then Zz'Rot Portal to make me a pushing monster.

[efdf]

I think Triforce should've been replaced with either LW or some defensive item like Warmog's, GA should be Randuin's. Chasing Sivir would probably be a complete waste of time.

[mrcarter11]

Nitpick, I thought Graves had a 70% steroid. Past that, when I quickly looked at the deaths, vi and panth seemed to be the two that dove graves ever fight. While nasus can stand there and bop them both to death, graves will be far and away dead by that time. Granted trying to chase sivir as mentioned would be a waste of time. I'd probably try to kill the panth personally but I'm sure better target selection exists.

[Artanis]

I just had my first super-lategame game as Nasus, or any tank with a full build, really. I usually main supports, so the closest I've had to this experience has been with Leona. She doesn't deal damage like Nasus, so I made lots of mistakes trying to decide what to do — is it more important to chase the enemy ADC out of the fight, or stay and protect my carry? If I'm low on hp, should I run and maybe lure an enemy or two to chase after me, or stay and hit them even though I will die?

Also, lots of "I CAN DO THIS ALONE GUYS I WILL oh I'm dead".

http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflege...0?tab=overview

So, any comments are appreciated.

I'm thinking the Triforce was a mistake. It gave me more damage, yes, but I kept getting absolutely splattered by their combo wombo of Pantheon and Zed. The Spirit Visage was a mistake, pure and simple, the magic resistance part of it was useless. I should've started building for Righteous Glory right away if I wanted regeneration, but I didn't remember it had been added to the game.

I also didn't realize how important Pantheon was for their total damage output. I should probably have focused more on him.

I'll let others who are better at the game than me (read: pretty much everybody here) comment on item builds, Nasus play, strategy, etc. However, I thought I'd mention a couple of random things I noticed:

1) You guys got five dragons and six inhibs. Doing that and not winning means strikes me as something that those more knowledgeable than me should touch on, even if only to say, "there's nothing more you could do."

2) Vision. Vision vision vision. The game lasted for over an hour, yet out of the ten players, you were one of only five to upgrade your trinket. Lux, Graves, Sivir, Pantheon, and especially Morgana having that much money and not upgrading their trinkets is absolutely inexcusable on their parts

[Renegade Paladin]

Well, at least I was only in Bronze V for four games. Onward and upward!

[endoperez]

Thanks for the advice.

I didn't realize I had too little health, thanks for that. Yes, Randuin's seems like a good idea once I accept that, and GA worse.

I actually chased Sivir down in the last fight. Ws kept me close, Righteous Fury helped when W was off. We started from their blue, she died at their inhib.

Morgana was inconsequential, so yes, Tabi would've been better.

I splitpushed, but kept dying, or my team got into fights, or both. I died incredibly fast, Graves demanded constant mid pushes because he wanted to end it.

[Renegade Paladin]

If anyone from Newline can get on right now, Recaiden and I are waiting for a third for ranked Treeline. We're currently 2/0 in placements.

[Qwertystop]

Logging on now.

[sonofzeal]

SPOILER (UOL v FNC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqgZADsNevo

BEST

GAME

EVER

HOLY FLIPPING FLAPJACKS YES

I've been watching all the UoL games, but as soon as I saw the champion select on this one I knew it was going to be special. Little did I know HOW special it was going to be!

[Anarion]

I splitpushed, but kept dying, or my team got into fights, or both. I died incredibly fast, Graves demanded constant mid pushes because he wanted to end it.

This is your problem, not the item build. The only reason that teams lose when they've got so many objectives and so much map pressure is because people want to win NOW and do stupid things. In that circumstance, you group with your team and you do everything you can to keep all 5 of them together. If you're sitting on 5 dragons and you do anything remotely approaching an even teamfight, you'll crush it and win the game. If you weren't with the team, you needed to ping them back until you got there.

You zone for a Graves by killing the enemy front line. Oh, they have a Vi and Panth? Cool, walk up and start hitting Vi. If the Vi and Panth use their skills to jump you, then Graves can kill them. If they don't, you're hitting them and they're not using skills on you, keep fighting and they'll die. If your team gets even a couple kills with everyone still up, you just steamroll their nexus.

Edit: though, of course, improving the item build improves your ability to do your job. Just, like, if your team is doing that well and throws, the items aren't the main thing to look at.