League of Legends XXIV: Today's Noob Strat, Tomorrow's New Meta

[Math_Mage]

Well, looks like my name had no chance, caught between a long-delayed favorite and the name of the hour.

Doran's Blade Riven/Lee Sin, Trap Stacker Maokai/Shaco, or Man-Leashed Blue Blitzcrank all have very fast times to a level 2 gank that is terrifying in its power. Compare Intentionally Low-laf or Super Sunfire Shyvana who focus on crashing through their jungle to get levels and XP rapidly, or full AS Udyr who just doesn't give a @#$! about creeps. Who is truly fastest?

You forgot Golems Xin Zhao and *pick a camp* Lee Sin. Shaco's power is a terrifyingly fast level 3 gank--which is important, because his level 1 skill is his weakest ganking skill.

[Daverin]

So, I tried Nasus for the first time. It was pretty fun, I really enjoyed being able to farm and in doing so tanking alot of harass. Sadly, it was a Poppy (and eventually Vlad) lane so I have no idea how well he holds up in a normal top matchup.

So, I want the opinion of other experienced Nasus players. Lanewick Bot currently is suggesting a Nasus build where Trinity is built last if at all. Instead, he thinks you should just go ahead and build pretty much pure tank, all but rushing Frozen Heart to handle solo top. Now, I'll admit, I kind of like the idea of getting Philos and HoG, then getting Glacial, then getting Sheen, then going tank, and worrying about Trinity later. That said, does it work, or where do the problems start with that?

[endoperez]

I just had a weird game.

It ended up as a 4v5, for one thing, because Shaco disappeared at one point. At level 13, Mejai's, with 39 last hits. Also, we lost.

I don't mind that. I had fun playing Graves. Graves is awesome, I'm going to buy him next.

What did annoy me was my mates. Here's a small rant no one's likely to care about.

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First, there's the Wukong I was laning with top (solonormals, no jungle). We two were against Singed. Minions arrive and Wukong... pushes. I try to get last hits and harass, but quickly notice I can't do both since Wukong just pushes. Then he gets Nimbus Strike and starts farming with that, so the lane's under their tower and I couldn't harass if I wanted. I cry for him to stop that, but nope, no effect. He wasn't a bad player otherwise, and when we did get ganked we got a doublekill, but still.

Then there was a Kat who demanded mid, built Mejai's, and then ordered a fight because she needs stacks. She did get them, no problem with that, but she was so arrogant. Nothing's ever her fault either. And then there's her idea of teamplay... which is getting into teamfights where she kills everyone:
Alistar was good at defending towers. Kat told him not to. "Don't defend sidelanes, ace them!"
Another example: Alistar was farming bot, I was farming top, others were mid. Enemies went towards bot, people pinged there, teamfight ensued. I was top, lane had just gotten quite far, so I decided to get the tower. I down the tower, enemies got a kill or two but so did us, and we didn't lose a tower. Kat's answer? "noob Graves, why did you do that?"

Any way, I've got a few questions about early game harassment.

I play a lot of supports, usually Alistar and Janna. Should they autoattack enemies? All the time, or only when there's a fight? It's been pointed out that I didn't autoattack enemies as Alistar at a lvl 3-5 lanefight, but I'm still not sure how eager I should be to do that.

Is there any kind of list about who's a good match against who, and what champions counter others? For example, I had trouble as Annie against Brand because Brand seems to have much longer range. And I countered Zilean's bombs pretty well with Janna's shields.

[Ziren]

Any way, I've got a few questions about early game harassment.

I play a lot of supports, usually Alistar and Janna. Should they autoattack enemies? All the time, or only when there's a fight? It's been pointed out that I didn't autoattack enemies as Alistar at a lvl 3-5 lanefight, but I'm still not sure how eager I should be to do that.

Do not attack all the time, you'll just pull minion aggro and end up pushing your lane. But is there's already a fight going on and you can safely attack, then by all means do so.

[tyckspoon]

I play a lot of supports, usually Alistar and Janna. Should they autoattack enemies? All the time, or only when there's a fight? It's been pointed out that I didn't autoattack enemies as Alistar at a lvl 3-5 lanefight, but I'm still not sure how eager I should be to do that.

For a melee character, don't auto-attack unless you're willing to fully commit to a fight such as when, in your judgement, piling in will get you to a kill; if you have to cross over the minion line to do it, it's not worth doing in the name of 'harass' (now, if your opponent is foolish enough to cross over the line to hit you, go ahead and hit him back- this kind of thing can give you a lot of lane kills, especially when they're crazy enough to think they'll get anything productive out of doing it to a sustain/tank like Alistar.) For Alistar in particular, my 'harass' is just Headbutting the guy off his minion wave and then using the passive's effects to walk back through the minions to my side (being able to ignore minion collision pretty much at will in lane is awesome, take advantage of it.) Otherwise, just stand around, keep yourself and your lane partner healed, and focus on picking up any last hits your partner is going to miss. Alistar *will* push the lane just by being there and doing anything, there's not much you can do about that.. fortunately Ali is also really good at bouncing off an attacker and letting you get back to tower safety when needed.

For ranged characters, go ahead and whip a few shots at the opposing champ when you don't have anything better to be doing. You won't do any harm to your lane situation if you're far enough away not to catch minion aggro and it's highly frustrating to an enemy to be getting hit without responding while they're either trying to CS or have to go the long way around the minions to get up to you.

[Qwertystop]

I vote for surrender at XXV.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

I vote for 'Who is your Summoner'

Also picked up Gragas last night, and did fairly well with him.

Looking for suggestions on alternates to AP Gragas (Even though it's fun) or even refinements on it, and also suggestions on tanky DPS Taric (I don't like my supports being useless in later game, and Ali and Karma already have good ways to scale. Trying to think of a good one for Taric.)

[tribble]

I vote for 'Who is your Summoner'

Also picked up Gragas last night, and did fairly well with him.

Looking for suggestions on alternates to AP Gragas (Even though it's fun) or even refinements on it, and also suggestions on tanky DPS Taric (I don't like my supports being useless in later game, and Ali and Karma already have good ways to scale. Trying to think of a good one for Taric.)

I imagine full tank Gragas would involve warmogs, both because his passive scales with max HP and because drunken rage is free armor and magic resist. Seems to me full tank Gragas would be much more reliant on landing his ult properly, being that he wouldn't have the benefit of huge damage.

[Qwertystop]

I imagine full tank Gragas would involve warmogs, both because his passive scales with max HP and because drunken rage is free armor and magic resist. Seems to me full tank Gragas would be much more reliant on landing his ult properly, being that he wouldn't have the benefit of huge damage.

I think Gragas is plenty tanky without building it at all. Have you seen his level 18 health?

[Arbitrarity]

According to Stonewall008, aka "The King of the Jungle" who does deep research into jungle routes, Shyvana has the fastest farm-to-6 jungle in the game. Granted, you have about zero ganking windows until that time due to being low on health, so if we're talking about fastest jungle to viable ganking...

**********************

See, the term "fastest" jungler has always bothered me. Fastest to a level point, or to a viable gank?

Doran's Blade Riven/Lee Sin, Trap Stacker Maokai/Shaco, or Man-Leashed Blue Blitzcrank all have very fast times to a level 2 gank that is terrifying in its power. Compare Intentionally Low-laf or Super Sunfire Shyvana who focus on crashing through their jungle to get levels and XP rapidly, or full AS Udyr who just doesn't give a @#$! about creeps. Who is truly fastest?

While not directly comparable, most of the time I go by clear time for preferred paths. Aggressive route to 4 is the most popular, but I'll often try to class junglers depending on if I'm expecting a sustained or direct clear. I also usually assume no leash, as those are usually inconsistent. With those metrics, I expect Shyvana to be fastest, given her double hit and 9s AOE.
This isn't precisely useful for determining direct impact on the game, but it can help when planning counterjungling or thinking about enemy location. I'm still not that good at memorizing enemy clear times at various buffs though, which would help a lot for CV's or active invasion.

[Spartacus]

So, I want the opinion of other experienced Nasus players. Lanewick Bot currently is suggesting a Nasus build where Trinity is built last if at all. Instead, he thinks you should just go ahead and build pretty much pure tank, all but rushing Frozen Heart to handle solo top. Now, I'll admit, I kind of like the idea of getting Philos and HoG, then getting Glacial, then getting Sheen, then going tank, and worrying about Trinity later. That said, does it work, or where do the problems start with that?

I tend to typically get Philo, HoG, Glacial Shroud as my early buys. If the top lane is magic, I tend to grab a negatron here, otherwise finish Frozen Heart. I've started experimenting with getting Frozen Heart+Negatron/FoN before getting Phage (and then Triforce) and it seems to be working. I find I don't need an early Sheen to win my lane, and would rather just farm Q that much more.

EDIT: Rushing Triforce on Nasus, overall, is something I would never recommend. Early Phage, fine, but you really want to be a tanky brick so you can farm forever with your innate and Philo stone regen.

[Reinboom]

Alright, to answer first a couple of questions broadly, specifically "what will happen to X champion" question:
Patch notes internally change rapidly. There is always things being added and removed. This is why things like the patch preview and the actual full patch notes come so late, because it's not always certain what will finally be in or not.

With that, I simply can't tell you what upcoming changes there are for the next patch. I see many changes, but they are not always "what's coming up". So a designer who knows for sure "This WILL be in." can answer those questions best.
Otherwise, we might get in to a situation where I might say (note, this is hypothetical):
"In the internal realms, Galio's ult flashes him to the target location and then does the current effect."
And then when the patch notes get released you don't see that but instead see (again, this is hypothetical):
"Galio gained a +5 bonus to base movement speed."

Now, in the meantime this wouldn't be so bad. I could say "Oh, guess they didn't want Galio to be absolutely incredible and metagame defining after this patch." and would expect the response from here to be "Oh, okay", since everyone here tends to be reasonable people. (Which is why I love you all. )
However, Google never forgets. There can be constant lash backs for that even if this forum doesn't get much traffic. The community can be lead easily astray by just ripples of misinformation starting with a rock thrown in to the smallest of ponds. Even here, there's risk of "You lied to us Reina. Shun! Shun! Shen! Shun!"


It's for these reasons that I and most Rioters are welcome to spread out as much love for the community as we can, but when it comes to something very specific to a specific developer or designer's workings, we tend to leave it in the hands of that designer.


Now with that said, if I can quote a designer from elsewhere for a question, I will and still try to answer it.


Also, I could talk to game designers to see about posting here, but usually we're all quite busy.

League of Legends: We Still Only Surrender at XXV.

My vote goes here, btw.

[Spartacus]

I vote for Ahnold.

[tribble]

I think Gragas is plenty tanky without building it at all. Have you seen his level 18 health?

Well, yeah, I agree, I build like, rylais and/or ROA and I get over 3 thousand HP. In my opinion AP Gragas is best Gragas, he's also plenty tanky without resistances.

[Arbitrarity]

I tend to typically get Philo, HoG, Glacial Shroud as my early buys. If the top lane is magic, I tend to grab a negatron here, otherwise finish Frozen Heart. I've started experimenting with getting Frozen Heart+Negatron/FoN before getting Phage (and then Triforce) and it seems to be working. I find I don't need an early Sheen to win my lane, and would rather just farm Q that much more.

EDIT: Rushing Triforce on Nasus, overall, is something I would never recommend. Early Phage, fine, but you really want to be a tanky brick so you can farm forever with your innate and Philo stone regen.

Yeah, that was one of the things about rushing trinity that always dissatisfied me. You don't get as many Q last hits as you could, and you're kinda vulnerable to harass. Getting a quick Frozen Heart should keep you in lane a very long time, and its very good for making use of Cloth if you have to start with that. Also, more Q farm.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Just played a game as Annie and had so much fun. I'm super terrible at casters, but there just isn't another champion that can drop bears on people quite as well as Annie.

[Qaera]

Just played a game as Annie and had so much fun. I'm super terrible at casters, but there just isn't another champion that can drop bears on people quite as well as Annie.

Snoipin's a good job, mate.

~ ♅

[Raistlin1040]

I want to talk about comp. I understand the basics of the current meta (Tanky DPS top, AP mid, AD Carry and Support/Tank bot, plus jungle), and I understand certain easy concepts like "Harass Nasus top so he doesn't get to freefarm his Q". I play a lot of characters and I understand some ideas of when to play who ("If we have no tankiness, Amumu or Jungle Rammus is probably better than Fiddlesticks" or "We have lots of CC but not much damage. Vayne is probably better than Ashe"), but I still feel like I don't understand specific matchups (I know Nasus is their solo top, but I don't know if I should play Singed or Jax or Cho'Gath or Udyr to counter him) and I don't know how to compensate and fill out a decent composition if the current meta isn't what my team does.

Advice and suggestions appreciated.

[toasty]

I want to talk about comp. I understand the basics of the current meta (Tanky DPS top, AP mid, AD Carry and Support/Tank bot, plus jungle), and I understand certain easy concepts like "Harass Nasus top so he doesn't get to freefarm his Q". I play a lot of characters and I understand some ideas of when to play who ("If we have no tankiness, Amumu or Jungle Rammus is probably better than Fiddlesticks" or "We have lots of CC but not much damage. Vayne is probably better than Ashe"), but I still feel like I don't understand specific matchups (I know Nasus is their solo top, but I don't know if I should play Singed or Jax or Cho'Gath or Udyr to counter him) and I don't know how to compensate and fill out a decent composition if the current meta isn't what my team does.

Specifically, if you face Nasus you need to shut him down early game. However, don't force his tower, that's allows him to free farm way into his base. The only excpetion to that is that if you have a high mobility champion top lane then you can apply pressure to the other lanes while Nasus free-farms. Once nasus hits mid game you can't really stop his farm without putting an non-ideal amount of pressure on him. The best way to counter him at that point is force objectives and fights constantly, because then he can't farm.

In general: you need to just play matchups. Go solo queue and play different heroes, you'll eventually learn matchups. The first time I played against a good lane tryndamere I just got raped. The first time I played Irelia v Garen I really screwed up and almost cost my team the game.

I think that's the main reason that pros like solo queue: it teaches them lane matchups, even if it doesn't help with the finer points of the game like communication.

[Merellis]

League of Legends: We Still Only Surrender at XXV.

I vote for this!

Also, recently tried Nasus. FUN!

[ArcanistSupreme]

I want to talk about comp. I understand the basics of the current meta (Tanky DPS top, AP mid, AD Carry and Support/Tank bot, plus jungle), and I understand certain easy concepts like "Harass Nasus top so he doesn't get to freefarm his Q". I play a lot of characters and I understand some ideas of when to play who ("If we have no tankiness, Amumu or Jungle Rammus is probably better than Fiddlesticks" or "We have lots of CC but not much damage. Vayne is probably better than Ashe"), but I still feel like I don't understand specific matchups (I know Nasus is their solo top, but I don't know if I should play Singed or Jax or Cho'Gath or Udyr to counter him) and I don't know how to compensate and fill out a decent composition if the current meta isn't what my team does.

Advice and suggestions appreciated.

You seem to have a good grasp on the strengths of most champions, now take it a step further to see where they come up short. Amumu, for example, can be shut down hard by a good counter-jungler, Katarina is obviously shut down by a little CC. LeBlanc has a super strong early game but a weak late game, so a champion that can hold on through her early dominance and outlast her would be a good counter-pick (as she would be to a champ with a terrible early game).

Basically, just think about where a champ comes up short and counter-pick with a champ that can capitalize on that weakness. Read guides, play different champions, and mostly play the game more in general.

[Silverraptor]

So yeah, still loving Graves. Going to buy him next.

Spoiler

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[Dogmantra]

I want to talk about comp. I understand the basics of the current meta (Tanky DPS top, AP mid, AD Carry and Support/Tank bot, plus jungle),

okay, here's the deal and toasty's going to disagree for probably three paragraphs, at least one of which will say something about how Dyrus does team comp, but!

Individual synergies give your team a greater advantage than following the meta ever will.

That is the deal and what I mean by that is that say you have someone who, for whatever reason, can only play Fiddlesticks, and they can, again for whatever reason, only play Lanesticks. You might think to pop 'em mid or top and hope for the best, but you could also say "well Fiddles has a lot of sustain and amazing single target DPS through Drain, provided they stand still, but his armour and sustain when he's not draining will make him lose to carries. Who gives sustain + armour + forces standing still on enemies? Freaking Taric that's who", so you could easily take those two. It looks like you've got a bit of an AoE to win team going, so you could round your Trio Of Destruction off with an Amumu in the jungle, or you could look at it as a sustainy team, and grab yourself an Olaf or Lee Sin or something. That leaves you with a top laner (who you'll probably want to be a mage, if you're popping some tanky DPS or Amumu in the jungle) and a carry who can mid. Top lane sustainy mages? Swaim or Vlad, they both work. Rumble'd be nice for the AoE to win direction, but personally I'd pick up Swaim. As for your mid lane, you need an AD carry who can solo a lane super well - Corki and Ezreal are probably your best bets. I'd pick Ez because he's got the lower cooldown on his flash to make up for being the only nonsustainer, and he's got a bit more of an AoE to win ultimate, PLUS he can double tap the bonus from Taric's ult for extra damage both from AP and AD.

So you've got Swain top, Ez mid, Fiddles + Taric bot and Amumu/Lee Sin/Olaf in the jungle. That's not a particularly traditional comp, but if you look at all the individual synergies (lots of use out of forcing someone to stand still with Taric's Stun then Birding them/Draining them/Mystic Shooting them, but also heavy emphasis on synergy and some AoE to win), it could totally defeat other more traditional comps made by players who followed that old strategy of "throw five vaguely OP champions together and hope for the best" 90% of the time.

Obviously I picked quite an obvious example, Fiddles + Stun is quite apparent, but there are LOADS of these little synergies and sometimes you lose and wonder "why did I lose", but it's because of this sort of thing.

[toasty]

Dog has an actually really good team comp. However, I will point out that Fiddle+Taric might lose if the enemy just picks a long ranged AD bottom like Caitlyn or Kog'maw and combine it with super sustain from Soraka.

Other than that... its probably a good comp.

edit: Let me point out that Dog's concept is solid. Fine the least versatile player on your team and build a comp around him. That, or find one or two core champions and build a comp around that champion.

For instance, when CLG picks Nidalee, they always go for a poke comp. That usually means Sona, Caitlyn and Trundle in addition to Nidalee.

[Volatar]

Runs into the room, extremely giddy.

So my dad was looking at Mint, and whined about someone spending $5 at a pizza place, screwing up his budgeting. Turns out that person was me, showing up on his budget. He is trying to remove his access to my account transactions now Once he does so I can buy all the RP I want without him knowing.

My only question now is which skins I should get...

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Played Kayle with Zerks, Malady, and Gunblade.

Wrecked face.

How else can she build?

[Math_Mage]

Exhibit Ranked game #1: I jungle Udyr, Ashe/Leona bot against Wukong/Sona (mid Kennen vs. Malz and top Morgana vs. Irelia rounds it out, their jungler is Gangplank). Wukong invades me at blue, dies for his trouble, but forces me to skip blue and do a minor camp clear--which means no early bot lane ganks. While I am doing wraiths and golem, Ashe/Leona are whining at me about free kills. They proceed to continually fight while I am not there, die, and then call out the noob jungler for not camping their brush--apparently that's easier than poking down a melee champion in a no-CC lane. Meanwhile solo lanes are losing and I have to save Morgana and cover for dead Kennen, while bot lane is bitching and Irelia is freefarming. Yeah, it's a loss.

Exhibit Ranked game #2: I AD carry Ashe with Sona against Cait/Nidalee. This lane spends a grand total of fifteen minutes pushed against my tower, but Amumu can't gank because he's busy trying to save Garen top against Sion. Oh, and Nocturne ganked us multiple times (not that he got much for his trouble, just the one kill on me, and no dragon). What do I do? Sit there and farm. Keep the tower alive. Wait for Amumu. We end up slightly behind, but the key here is I'm not throwing the game just because jungle isn't ganking my lane. Late game our teamfight comp advantage tells (Ashe/Sona/Amumu/Kennen/Garen vs. Cait/Nid/Malz/Sion/Noc) and we win.

Moral of the story: Just because your lane is gankable doesn't mean it's the jungler's fault when you lose it.

[tribble]

there is no worse feeling than losing a game because you pushed the wrong button on the surrender prompt.

[Math_Mage]

there is no worse feeling than losing a game because you pushed the wrong button on the surrender prompt.

So don't push any button on the surrender prompt.

[Darth Mario]

So don't push any button on the surrender prompt.

But then it doesn't go away. There's nothing more annoying than a surrender prompt that doesn't go away.