League of Legends XXXIII: Game of Mundo

[Eldariel]

Someone once said that Cass is good top, and honestly, Anivia is probably good top (if she wasn't so Blue reliant I would swear she is). Ahri might do alright top I feel. Morgana too.

Hi.

And yeah, if I need to just win toplane I like to run Cassiopeia since she's the ultimate bruiser destroyer in the game. Karthus is something Fnatic likes to run a lot on top too (since they play dual AP basically always) and it seems to work quite well provided you've got aiming down with Lay Wastes and Wall of Pains.

Since it doesn't matter where Karthus lanes with regards to his global presence, putting him on top where he can shred low range bruisers with infinite Lay Waste spam works pretty well.

[Tergon]

Also at the risk of being redundant... Heimerdinger is pretty good solo top as well. He can certainly hold a tower against two opponents easily and get lots and lots of last hits, and against one opponent as long as he wards middle he's got no reason to be scared of anything.

[PersonMan]

Mages for top?

Ryze, Swain, maybe Annie?

Malphite.

What do you mean Malphite isn't a mage? He's a semi-burst/semi-sustained damage armor caster.

Kassadin is someone who I prefer to play top or bot, so you can bushcamp and RQW harass enemies away from minions whenever you feel like they're getting too aggressive. Pushes the lane if you hit the minions, though.

[Talesin]

Malphite.

What do you mean Malphite isn't a mage? He's a semi-burst/semi-sustained damage armor caster.

Kassadin is someone who I prefer to play top or bot, so you can bushcamp and RQW harass enemies away from minions whenever you feel like they're getting too aggressive. Pushes the lane if you hit the minions, though.

Lost a game yesterday against a Malphite who just ate our Fiora top. They had Soraka, Ashe, Malphite, Nunu jungling and Karthus mid. I was playing Kog and more or less every team fight resulted in Malphite and Nunu going straight for me and just having me permaslowed between their two Qs and Nunu's ult.

I also had another game top as GP against Olaf. I won the lane easily killing him 3 times in the first 10 minutes. I brought the crit cloak and a phage to try and offensively snowball the game to a win by ganking other lanes and getting back to my lane to farm before my turret took any of the minions.

We ended up winning and I had the highest gold in the game but olaf really came back towards the end. He just sat top and farmed a huge amount of CS while I was off doing other things. When I tried to gank him he'd just ult and ghost away.

After the game I had a discussion with my friend and he said when I play mid and top I tend to win the lane early game and net a few kills, but then mess it up mid game while other people create a victory out it, and then come good again late game.

[PersonMan]

Lost a game yesterday against a Malphite who just ate our Fiora top. They had Soraka, Ashe, Malphite, Nunu jungling and Karthus mid. I was playing Kog and more or less every team fight resulted in Malphite and Nunu going straight for me and just having me permaslowed between their two Qs and Nunu's ult.

Yeah, Malphite is really brutal when you're playing someone who needs positioning like Kog does. In a fight he can just WREQ1 you, smack you a bit and then finish you with another E unless you're especially tanky or can kill him quickly, which often isn't possible.

Top I notice that he really gets better around level 4 or so, in part because at that point the other laner gets aggressive and you can just say 'no, I'm going to win this fight'. (Then again, I go against a lot of stupid tops when I play Malph. Once I was top against Lee Sin - big potential problem. Noc and I manage to kill him in a gank and only 3 minutes later he fights me in the bush closer to my turret. Alright, I think. Better not ult him, he's just going to shield-dash away after we exchange some smacks. Then he shields himself. Turns out that he seriously just tried to 1v1 me minutes after I got a 300 gold advantage. My response was to kill him, just rushing right back up to him when he kicked me away and ran.)

When I tried to gank him he'd just ult and ghost away.

Solution to this is the same one as 'he flashes away'. Unless he waits for cooldowns to push, just gank a bit more often.

After the game I had a discussion with my friend and he said when I play mid and top I tend to win the lane early game and net a few kills, but then mess it up mid game while other people create a victory out it, and then come good again late game.

Well, I primarily play Malphite or Galio (or Kennen, maybe) when I top, which means that I can make a massive difference by doing the whole 'fed bruiser initiator' thing i.e. rush in, burst and do a bunch of damage, be invincible and beat up the enemy team until my team helps me finish them off.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Okay, completely different subject, I'm unable to connect from Mumble because I'm on a new computer: it's the known issue. Can an admin kill my old connection so I can get on, please? Thanks much.

Sure. I'll do this later today.

[LordShotGun]

So I am curious. With the new ryze changes, why wouldn't you just stack rod of ages on him? The unique passive is relatively unneeded and it gives him everything he wants now.

I actually saw this in play one time and a 4000 hp ryze is a scary thing when combined with just a chain mail and a negatron cloak.

I understand that you may want a banshee's veil instead but how useful is the spell shield? Honestly.

I have never seen it change the out come of battles and by the time it is actually complete, team fights are occurring and the spell shield may save you from a 200-300 damage nuke (at best unless it is popped by the support) while a RoA would be giving you an extra 600 health and massively more damage from the AP and mana.

Edit: Thinking about this more. I realize that while stacking RoA would be nice on ryze, he just needs other items to reach his full potential. For example, tear of the goddess would be next (if not before) and possibly now archangel staff instead.

[ex cathedra]

So I am curious. With the new ryze changes, why wouldn't you just stack rod of ages on him? The unique passive is relatively unneeded and it gives him everything he wants now.

I actually saw this in play one time and a 4000 hp ryze is a scary thing when combined with just a chain mail and a negatron cloak.

I understand that you may want a banshee's veil instead but how useful is the spell shield? Honestly.

I have never seen it change the out come of battles and by the time it is actually complete, team fights are occurring and the spell shield may save you from a 200-300 damage nuke (at best unless it is popped by the support) while a RoA would be giving you an extra 600 health and massively more damage from the AP and mana.

Because... of MR.
Like, duh. I hear that mages spend a lot of the game fighting other mages.

RoA has the disadvantage of being awkward to build. Ryze's extended core takes a while to build already and there are a great deal of situations where turning that Cata or Negatron (depending) into RoA isn't as attractive as, say, finishing Frozen Heart or WotA. BVeil doesn't have that timer. You can hold on to that negatron cloak for 15 minutes and it'll do everything it needs to do. RoA forces you to finish it early, and that's hard enough considering that it isn't as much of a priority as boots, glacial shroud, or tear.

Resistances are also more useful than health at a great deal of expected health vs resist levels, and that's before taking the massive amount of eHP you get from Spellvamp into account. On Ryze, the spell-shield is a secondary effect. He wants the mana, the health, and most importantly the MR. Why? Because MR is cool and MR saves lives. A thought process that begins with "I need MR!" shouldn't end with Rod of Ages.

Also, anecdotal evidence and all that. I can easily retort with the dozens of times I've seen people denied a kill by BVeil's shield restore after a drawn-out fight.

[toasty]

Here's the thing about stacking RoA:
Its not actually that good, even on heroes that the stats are good.

The truth is, you need a balance of stats. Like, you NEED that. You NEED MR, you NEED armor. That's why Ryze gets Bveil/Glacial Shroud. If you're Ryze middle, getting a Bveil makes it very easy to win your lane. There is a reason that Ryze and Galio are so strong middle right now: they naturally counter AP Heroes with their tanky builds. My galio page is basically all MR. That's it. I then get Mercs and Chalice and second focus my W, no one can trade with me. Sure, some heroes, like Morde and Vlad and probably Ryze (Galio v Ryze would be fun; all the tank!) are unkillable without serious ganks, but for the most part you just sit there and farm and push and try to gank then.

[fred dref]

Regarding Heimerdinger, the one I faced recently was basically carrying his entire team. He noticed that I was a 4/0/0 Olaf, so he went top and just completely zoned me for a while (I had lots of armor and a bit of health, not so much MR). Well, he zoned me from kills, not creeps, I was too far ahead for that to happen.

Later, though, we noticed them taking Baron and ran right over to stop them, but man we did not think about how we were walking into a teamfight where Heimerdinger had already set up turrets, and without any of our minions nearby he just kinda shredded us to pieces.

I found him fairly easy to gank as Olaf, btw, for what it's worth. If he can only escape by using summoners, gank him, force him to blow Flash, then go farm Wraith's for 5 seconds as his turrets push up again and walk right back to kill him.

[Temotei]

Bug: On the profile under the Champions tab, many champions won't appear. There doesn't seem to be a pattern. Switching to the Available champions and then back to All gave me several more champions to view, but a lot are still missing.

Images:

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[Psyborg]

Bug: On the profile under the Champions tab, many champions won't appear. There doesn't seem to be a pattern. Switching to the Available champions and then back to All gave me several more champions to view, but a lot are still missing.

I've had this happen a few times. No idea what causes it but it's extremely annoying.

Regarding Ryze, well, he's still going to want Frozen Heart because A) complete blue-buff-independence is an amazing thing for any mage, and B) the aura is extremely powerful lategame.

And BVeil _can_ change the outcome of a fight- flashing in front of my carry to tank an Ashe arrow or Fizz fishyult has won me many fights. But I wouldn't complain about seeing a Ryze with Abyssal Scepter rather than BVeil for magic resist- flat-magic-pen is already a strong build on him with his E, and if the PBE version of Haunting Guise goes through (45AP, 20 spell pen, 7% movespeed) it'll be even better.

[toasty]

And BVeil _can_ change the outcome of a fight- flashing in front of my carry to tank an Ashe arrow or Fizz fishyult has won me many fights. But I wouldn't complain about seeing a Ryze with Abyssal Scepter rather than BVeil for magic resist- flat-magic-pen is already a strong build on him with his E, and if the PBE version of Haunting Guise goes through (45AP, 20 spell pen, 7% movespeed) it'll be even better.

That was reverted. :(

[Psyborg]

That was reverted. :(

I knew it hadn't made it to live yet, but I had hopes we'd see it soon. If they reverted it on PBE, though... Oh well. Flat-pen is still strong on Ryze (especially with his E now being more useful in its own right).

I'd actually been wondering about running Ryze + Battle Soraka solos for double-AP + double-WotA + double-MR-shred. It'd be absurdly strong in prolonged fights, but the combination of short range, low burst, and the fact that I don't know any Battle Soraka players means I've never actually tried it.

Question: How does Vayne fare against Graves in lane, particularly the dreaded Graves/Soraka lane?

I'm a longtime Vayne player, and lately I've been having a lot of success against Graves, which seems odd given his tankiness and burst. I had been assuming I just had more experience in that specific matchup than most of the Graves I faced, but yesterday I saw Chaox on stream pick Vayne into a Graves/Raka lane and proceed to do basically the same thing (only with a lot higher CS ). So now I'm wondering if Vayne is a legitimately strong pick in those circumstances.

Also, Question 2: What does the Playground recommend maxing first on Vayne? I always start QE, and after that max W if with Nunu (since he gives a giant AS steroid) and E if with Alistar/Blitzcrank (since they excel at setting up wall stuns). What should I be focusing the rest of the time?

[fred dref]

Almost always focus Q. Like, very rarely focus anything else. Q is really good.

Condemn is good to max in lane if you can get reliable wallstuns, Silver Bolts is good if you cannot and can reliably land 3 hits on a dude. It really depends on the lane, but I think the cooldown reduction on Condemn might be more generally useful.

[Qwertystop]

Sorry for the double post...



Magic penetration reds, mana regen yellows, mana boosting blues, and AP boosting quins. Early game, the boost to your turrets is terrifyingly effective: their power is to deal low damage with rapid-fire shots. Boosting that damage even slightly makes them deadly, and the mana boosters give you far greater sustainability.
Masteries I focus mainly on utility. Again, mana regen is important, and he relies on his Summoner Abilities to evade ganks (I prefer Flash and Heal, like I said). Some in defence won't hurt either. But the general rule that I follow is that Heim's priority early game is sustainability and survival, as he can already farm with ease, and there's not a need for him to actively chase kills yet.

For skills, I throw the first point into turrets and the second into his grenades. From there, upgrading his turrets always has first priority, upgrading his rockets has second, and upgrading grenades has third. And his ult should obviously be given points whenever the chance comes up, like most heroes.
I do use grenades a lot while playing, but I don't prioritise upgrading that skill after the first point. Their biggest advantage is the stun / blind effect, and that works just as well at level one as it does at level five. Frankly, his rockets do a LOT more damage if you can time their usage right.

Concentrate on putting your turrets in the right spot, ideally right were creep waves will meet, or if they're already engaged, put them in the middle of the caster creeps to ward off the enemy champ. As long as it doesn't die, it'll be there as a fallback point after the next wave goes down, getting the most possible use out of each turret.

And above all, micromanage. If your abilities and skills are all on cooldown, or your mana is low, play cautious. You can avoid almost any gank if you're got the spells to throw at someone who runs in at you. If they're on cooldown, hover around your gun turrets and be prepared to duck back safely if they push. More than once I've had someone gank me near my autoturrets, chase me back to the tower, and then walk off... right back to where my autoturrets are still waiting. I've earned many kills that way.

He's a tough champion to learn, but for my money, he's VERY worth it. And since his playstyle is so unique, he's difficult to counter. So many DPS champs will run up for what looks like an easy kill to get shredded by his turrets. Tanks will charge in confident in their magic resistance, only to find themselves stunned and gunned while Heimer runs around avoiding their attacks. Truly good Heimerdingers are so rare that most folks just don't know how to fight one. Use that to your advantage!

Is it worth hanging around towers to heal them? I know it really helps in laning, but afterward?

[Talesin]

Bug

If you're on the spectator client and you reply to a friend by pressing enter, typing /r hitting space and then starting to type your message it cuts off the first letter.

[Reinboom]

I will be closing the bug submission things now, I need to hand these off to QA.
They will inform me which are dupes and which aren't. I'll figure out who gets the reward in a couple days.

Of course, any more bug submissions are welcome. Just not part of the contest thingy.

[Tergon]

Is it worth hanging around towers to heal them? I know it really helps in laning, but afterward?

You're right that it helps in laning. The tactic of chipping away at a tower by landing a few hits with each creep wave simply won't work on Heim. He can quite cheerfully farm gold and experience at his tower until he's ready to push back - it's what makes him so effective against two opponents when solo laning top.
Once you're out of that phase, though, the use drops dramatically. It just takes too long to heal a tower in any meaningful way, and while that's always helpful, it's most likely that there are other places you could be at that point. Certainly it's helpful to position Heimerdinger at a damaged tower to defend it against pushes - he can hold it without assistance aganst two or three opponents, and he'll be healing it while he's there - but you'd rarely want to sit out of a fight for the sole purpose of healing a tower. The only time that might be handy is if your base is under heavy attack and you need to repair Inhibitor or Nexus towers, and at that point you're probably already desperate enough that you won't have much to lose.

As for his item builds, I usually (not always, natch!) get Chalice of Harmony, Mercury Treads and Morelio's Evil Tome as my first three items, in that order. They're all quite cheap to buy, and their bonuses really complement Heimer's skillset by making sure he always has that mana pool ready, increasing his MR just a little to shrug off attacks, and with his natural 20% cooldown reduction from his ult, Morelio's will max out his CR easily.
After those three, though, you gotta match it to your opponents. Generally it's a toss-up between making him tanky or increasing his damage through AP. Thornmail works great against DPS, and a Guardian Angel can make him much less attractive as a target. Rabbadon's Deathcap and the Void Staff will make your turrets shred your enemies, and your rockets will deal massive damage. Rylai's and Aegis of the Legion are nice midrange ones - increasing your use in a teamfight while making you individually harder to take down. It all depends on what you need most.

[Qwertystop]

Thanks for the tips:

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The first 3 of my deaths were in laning, against Swain. At the end, my first tower had full health. They had no towers except top inhib.

[Duos]

Welp, I've got launcher problems. The launcher wouldn't move into the login screen, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I tried reinstalling the client from scratch, but it still says that it's unable to connect to the network. here's what the logs say:

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05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Solid LauncherLib [1.0.0.33] initializing...
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Add App[League of Legends Launcher] Exe[C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\lol.launcher.exe] to Windows Firewall
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Retrieved dynamic path [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/LOL.Produ...SourceURL.xml][http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Patcher_AddPackage([LOL.AirRuntime],[http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/],[C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\]) successful
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Attempt to retrieve package [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/LOL.AirRuntime.package]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Version retrieved [LOL.AirRuntime] 3/3 [AirRuntime.02_18_2010_01]/[AirRuntime.02_18_2010_01] type [PACKAGE_TYPE_INCREMENTAL]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [LOL.AirRuntime] State change [PATCHER_STATE_IDLE] to [PATCHER_STATE_ALLTASKSCOMPLETE]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Patcher_RemovePackage([LOL.AirRuntime]) successful
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Patcher_AddPackage([LOL.Patcher],[http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/],[C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\]) successful
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Attempt to retrieve package [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/LOL.Patcher.package]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Version retrieved [LOL.Patcher] 18/18 [LOL.Patcher.05_03_2011_RADStransition]/[LOL.Patcher.05_03_2011_RADStransition] type [PACKAGE_TYPE_INCREMENTAL]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [LOL.Patcher] State change [PATCHER_STATE_IDLE] to [PATCHER_STATE_ALLTASKSCOMPLETE]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Patcher_RemovePackage([LOL.Patcher]) successful
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Patcher_AddPackage([LOL.Air],[http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/],[C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\]) successful
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Attempt to retrieve package [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/LOL.Air.package]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Restart previous
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Start task [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/ssn/riot.ffs] [LOL.Air_93_73to93.solid] [C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\LOL.Air_p\] [C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\] [0.00/0.00]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [LOL.Air] State change [PATCHER_STATE_IDLE] to [PATCHER_STATE_IDLE]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Version retrieved [LOL.Air] 93/73 [Final]/[LOL.Air.12_13_2010] type [PACKAGE_TYPE_PROGRESSIVE_VCDIFF]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [LOL.Air] State change [PATCHER_STATE_IDLE] to [PATCHER_STATE_PREPARE]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] Start download [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/ssn/riot.ffs]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [LOL.Air_93_73to93.solid]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\LOL.Air_p\]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\]
05/02/2012 22:32 [WARNING] Download failed [TORRENTHELPER_ERROR_INVALIDMETAFILE]
05/02/2012 22:32 [WARNING] Attempt to retrieve metafile[LOL.Air/93/LOL.Air_93_73to93.solid]
05/02/2012 22:32 [INFO] [LOL.Air] State change [PATCHER_STATE_PREPARE] to [PATCHER_STATE_FAILED]

If anybody can help, I would be rather grateful. If I can't play LoL, I might actually have to do something productive! PERISH the thought. But seriously, help.

[9mm]

... NEW JOURNAL OF JUSTICE!

I missed these so much.

[Reynard]

Every time I log into LoL and see my 7000 ip just sitting there, I get the urge to top waiting for Varus and just get two 3150 Champs, or Jarvan and some more Ryze runes, or Lee Sin. Every day from now on, I'm going to roll a d20. If I get a 20, I'm going to not bother waiting for Varus. More dice may be involved to see what I DO get, though.


But yeah, that Journal of Justice was a nice surprise. Still letting that "Leblanc is pretending to be Jarvan" thing sit in the background, I see. Seems that, if that's accurate, Leblanc's little spy group wants to bring down the League.

[TechnOkami]

... NEW JOURNAL OF JUSTICE!

I missed these so much.

SO DID I! q-q

[Math_Mage]

Glad to see we're getting nontrivial lore in the JoJ. One hopes they'll do something with that soon.

[toasty]

I had 8k IP and caved and bought some runes, Gold/10 seals for a 2nd Support-page. I now have 5k RP and I'm probably gonna wait and see if Varus is any good. If he's not I'll buy Riven. I need to learn more solo top bruiser/carries like that. Right now I feel like the only really good bruiser I can play is Udyr. I can play WW and GP, and they're alright, but they're not perfect.

[Tergon]

Thanks for the tips:

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The first 3 of my deaths were in laning, against Swain. At the end, my first tower had full health. They had no towers except top inhib.

Haha, nice work! You dominated creep kills and clearly kicked butt in your lane. Bravo!

I had 8k IP and caved and bought some runes, Gold/10 seals for a 2nd Support-page. I now have 5k RP and I'm probably gonna wait and see if Varus is any good. If he's not I'll buy Riven. I need to learn more solo top bruiser/carries like that. Right now I feel like the only really good bruiser I can play is Udyr. I can play WW and GP, and they're alright, but they're not perfect.

Trundle is an under-used champ who's also a lot of fun, and he can start doing some pretty fantastic damage when used right. His only real weakness is that he can't close on the enemy very easily without ranged attacks or dynamic entries.
Depending on how you build him, Blitzcrank is a pretty effective bruiser. Hard to put down and with a whole host of abilities to disrupt an enemy who's trying to fight back, plus he can do some formidable damage.
Otherwise, yeah. Riven and WW and GP are all good choices, we just don't know much about Varus yet! :P

[Daverin]

... NEW JOURNAL OF JUSTICE!

I missed these so much.

FRAAGGGLE!!! OMGWTFBBQ!!!

This is so completely awesome! If you get a chance Reina, please let Riot know that this is very appreciated. I understood their reasoning behind why they wanted to cut down, but honestly, I never thought their desired approach and the JoJ was mutually exclusive.

Now if we could just get the judgments, or some equivalent. There are definitely a few champs who I played because the judgment made them seem so interesting.

And, a bit belated, but about Zilean, I definitely understand Reina, and I always find it a good sign when a company looks for those little things to change for QoL. Still, I like to poke fun at just about everything (myself included), from time to time.

[Talesin]

Gragas is such a fun character to play. I messed my build up, should've gone for Hat into Rylai's rather than WotA (was on autopilot with mage builds). We lost the game in the end but I got some compliments from my team saying that i'd played well and I thought a few clutch barrel kill I got helped our team.

Defo going to play him some more. I also repeatidly had to refresh my W at the wrong time but saying that we didn't have a single mexican style stand off. It seemed to end up with our team of 5 meeting up and a team fight starting almost instantly so my timer was off.

[Temotei]

...Zilean...from time to time.

I'm glad the journals are back and saying something more than "Gragas wins a drinking contest."