League of Legends XXXVIII: Featuring Mumble, The Giant Halibut

[Fredaintdead]

Originally Posted by Eldariel

Syndra too!

As far as I'm aware/remember, she's just an Ionian who effectively went mad with power (IMO anyway). Or are you referring to the theories that she was Kassadin's daughter?
*shrugs*

[mrcarter11]

So could you do a void themed team comp? And have it be effective.

[Silverraptor]

Originally Posted by mrcarter11

So could you do a void themed team comp? And have it be effective.

Well lets see. You can have:
-Malzahar/mid
-Cho'gath/top
-Kog'ma/AD Carry
-Kassadin/support
-New character/Jungle

Everything seems legit with the weird kassadin or malzahar supporting thing.

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by Fredaintdead

As far as I'm aware/remember, she's just an Ionian who effectively went mad with power (IMO anyway). Or are you referring to the theories that she was Kassadin's daughter?
*shrugs*

Ah. They went with that instead. Okay; I remembered her title being "The Void Sovereign" but I guess I'm misremembering things.


Unrelated note, had the closest ARAM I've ever played:

Spoiler

Sorry about the bad screenshot, I ****ed up a bit and got DFG description on it too. Veigar had DFG, Sorcs, Chalice, Deathcap, Void, NLR (14.3k, 43cs) and Xin had Mercs, Black Cleaver, Trinity, Randuin's, Pickaxe and Vampiric Scepter (15.5k, 53cs).

Game:
I'm Soraka but we still somehow lose early game (Anivia refused to trade with a "sorry" and proceeded to suck). Enemy near-aces us a couple of times and eventually gets our inhib but I finish Aegis and get tanky and we start to turn it around. They push Nexus few times but we respawn just in time to thwart them; we near-ace them 3 times in a row first getting their Inhib, second time one Nexus tower (I'm tanking, now with Frozen Heart) and third time the last Nexus tower.

We go for Nexus but die with it at 27 health; enemy counterpushes against our lone Kennen, we get respawns and save it first from the superstrong Draven and then from the Poppy (who ulted Jayce and almost got it except for an Anivia Wall) at 200 health and then rush to finish. I gotta say, had my adrenaline running few times, that game


Lategame I also had a massive problem; I always survived fights but all the Starcalls and Astral Blessings rapidly consumed my mana and all the health pickups weren't nearly enough to restore it even with the Runic Affinity, Meditation and Mana Manipulator, and we didn't have a single Clarity. Forced me to suicide few times in the enemy base and pray my team can hold on for my respawn; which they luckily did. Also allowed me to finish Abyssal and Rylai's.

[mrcarter11]

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

Well lets see. You can have:
-Malzahar/mid
-Cho'gath/top
-Kog'ma/AD Carry
-Kassadin/support
-New character/Jungle

Everything seems legit with the weird kassadin or malzahar supporting thing.

Majority of this were my exact thoughts, but as I've never played malz or kass, I didn't know what either was good at. I've never seen malz in general, though I did play against kass a few times as talon, so I know kass can go mid. Malz, still no idea though.

[Godskook]

@Annie usage:

1.Auto is massively long range(equivalent of ~725 spell range). Abuse this for free harass on basically everyone.

2.Annie's got a scary zoning power while her passive is up. Combined with #1, you can easily force someone to choose between dropping into flash-burst kill range or losing CS.

3.Like Malzahar, I suspect that Annie can benefit from split-pen runes, especially cause of tibbers.

Originally Posted by Joran

Guardian Angel is frequently the same.

As someone who frequently buys GA in ranked, I *STRONGLY* disagree with this sentiment. People at ~1300 Elo are stuck in the "kill the low-HP guy", making GA baiting on a tank decently strong if you rush GA. Can't tell you how many times someone's suicided to 'secure' a kill on me just to proc GA. And that's just my Cho play.

I am also rushing it on Akali, who's a #1 priority kill in fights. Being able to do stupid dives to wipe out their carry, only to have my team follow me in to save my body(I can stealth too) is a huge advantage.

I expect that at higher Elos, GA rush won't be as strong cause people are smarter, but at 1300s, it can basically mean free kills.

Originally Posted by Fredaintdead

Kog'Maw, Cho'Gath, Malzahar and Kassadin as far as I'm aware.
And yes, Kha'Zix does sound interesting to say the least.

Kassadin is less a void champ and more an anti-void champ. He's interacted with it, but he's about as affiliated with it as Viktor is with Piltover.

Originally Posted by Eldariel

Syndra too!

I find no evidence of this. Is this speculation or something semi-obscure?

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by Godskook

I find no evidence of this. Is this speculation or something semi-obscure?

It's my mistake. I had gotten the mistaken impression that she was void-themed.

[ChaosOS]

Iron Stylus confirmed that Kha'Zix is actually Kass' daughter. So yeah. [Source. Also, reveal is up. Seems really cool, if I'm counting correctly he chooses 4 of his 4 abilities to upgrade by level 16 with evolution points.

[Godskook]

Originally Posted by Eldariel

Lategame I also had a massive problem; I always survived fights but all the Starcalls and Astral Blessings rapidly consumed my mana and all the health pickups weren't nearly enough to restore it even with the Runic Affinity, Meditation and Mana Manipulator, and we didn't have a single Clarity. Forced me to suicide few times in the enemy base and pray my team can hold on for my respawn; which they luckily did. Also allowed me to finish Abyssal and Rylai's.

Is Athene's banned on Proving grounds? Cause my instinct is to use that instead of Abyssal from what you're describing. 2 more starcalls balance out the shred value, but with more CDR, you getting them all out faster.

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by Godskook

Is Athene's banned on Proving grounds? Cause my instinct is to use that instead of Abyssal from what you're describing. 2 more starcalls balance out the shred value, but with more CDR, you getting them all out faster.

It's not but there's a slew of problems:
- Two starcalls is still two starcalls behind from where I'd be with Abyssal.
- I already have ~40% CDR (35 + blue pot in this game), so that's a lot of wasted value.
- I have a team heavy on mages. Abyssal is an important aura (granted, Kennen has it too but she had trouble getting in range and surviving so I was mostly applying it while she stood back, threw shurikens and applied Will).
- Chalice doesn't build out of Negatron, which I wanted for the higher MR value earlier on (they have a lot of magic burst including flat penetration in Fiddle so I really want a lot of MR); the finished item would be fairly good but Abyssal still has significantly higher MR value. But the important point was that I left base with ~700 gold so I wanted a Negatron.

It'd definitely solve the mana issues and I like that but I'm thinking the opportunity cost is just too high; Abyssal synergizes amazingly well with a tanky Soraka (and I was tanky as hell; 3k HP, 225 Armor, 195 MR + 40% CDR heals/armor and 9% Spellvamp) as both, Starcall and Abyssal are Magic Resist Reduction so I can nuke enemies into negatives real fast. I'm thinking the right call would've simply been picking up Clarity over Heal.

[Nadevoc]

Two more things about playing Annie:

1) If you expect a level one teamfight (you're invading or you expect to be invaded), grab W at level one and charge the passive. Stunfire cone is crazy good in level one team fights.

2) I like to leave myself one charge short of the stun when wandering around, because people see the stun circle and avoid you getting to stun them. Then when you need to go in, shield and it is suddenly stun times.

[dgnslyr]

I have a sick fetish for Superchalice and think chalice + boots is a great start in ARAM for any mana-using champ. That said, I'd probably get it instead of Soul Shroud. They both give CDR and mana, but Superchalice gives a good deal more of both, alongside AP and MR. Sure, you don't have the aura for your team, but if they wanted mana, they should have bought mana items for themselves.

[McDougal]

OK, is there a way to hotkey a potion in your inventory?

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by dgnslyr

I have a sick fetish for Superchalice and think chalice + boots is a great start in ARAM for any mana-using champ. That said, I'd probably get it instead of Soul Shroud. They both give CDR and mana, but Superchalice gives a good deal more of both, alongside AP and MR. Sure, you don't have the aura for your team, but if they wanted mana, they should have bought mana items for themselves.

There's the thing of Soul Shroud giving 520 HP (fourth highest HP on a single non-snowball item in the game, btw, behind Warmog's, Frozen Mallet and full RoA) and a 10% CDR aura to your whole team tho IMHO it's the most underrated item in ARAM, not to mention the most crucial aura and probably the most underused item in the whole game right now.

The Mana Reg is bonus (though also really nice); giving everybody 10% CDR (basically nobody starts off with over 30% CDR on ARAM so everybody benefits of it) is huge. In a format where you have 4 allies next to you all game, auras are insanely strong and IMHO every team should try to cover at least:
WoTA (basically every champ has damaging abilities)
Soul Shroud (basically every champ has cooldowns)
Aegis (basically every enemy team does either magical or physical damage)

And outside corner cases (enemy has no ADs, you have no APs, you have only one AD), Frozen Heart, Abyssal & Zeke's.


If somebody else was getting Soul Shroud I'd probably go Superchalice (I'd miss the HP but I'd get 40% CDR without Pot and some extra AP and all the mana ever) but as you've probably noticed, you really can't trust pubs to get the aura items they should be getting even if you ask them to cover some.

Particularly bruisers' reluctance to build Aegis confuses me; it's efficient compared to base items for them alone, the aura is just pure bonus.

Originally Posted by McDougal

OK, is there a way to hotkey a potion in your inventory?

By default your inventory slots are hotkeyd to numbers 1-6. Just press the number for the slot the Potion is in to use it. You can change the hotkeys from Options if desired.

[tyckspoon]

The screenshots they chose for Ka'zix.. "No, Rengar, THIS is how you jump on people."

[Godskook]

Originally Posted by tyckspoon

The screenshots they chose for Ka'zix.. "No, Rengar, THIS is how you jump on people."

I thought the same thing, lol.

[sonofzeal]

Originally Posted by McDougal

Aside from "Raise AP, time your fourth spell for max effect, and last hit with your Q," any suggestions for Annie play?

I'm a bit late, but.....

Your Q is your bread-and-butter, but your W actually does more damage at rank 5, and the damage rises faster. Two or three points in Q will make farming much earlier, but it's often better to max out your W first instead. And a single point in E early (usually lvl 4) will let you charge your passive while out of combat for very cheap mana costs, and also let you surprise enemies by staying one step away from full charge, and then using that E to complete the passive right as they try to dive you. Plus, hey, it's an extra bit of tankiness and damage if they're attacking you.

Annie's weakness is mobility and range - she's practically defenceless past 650 units. Enemies that have to cross that threshhold to engage you can be bullied with impunity if your combo's up, but there's plenty of characters who can engage via skillshots (Ziggs can hit you from something like twice your range), or have leaps that cover more distance (notably Jax with a 700 unit dash). These matchups can go poorly for Annie because she has no way to close into engagement range, or can have the initiative stolen from her with trivial ease.

Thus, good Annie play requires high attention to zoning and zone control. Her zone is limited, but also "hard" in that there's a very small space between "can't hit them at all" and "can unload the full combo with ease". You've got to use that hard boundary to threaten and bully enemies that can't counter it, and be wary of the zoning power of champions who outrange you. Many will only have one major skill that's beyond your range (Lux is an exception in that she has three), so watching for its cooldown can help counter their zoning power and reassert your own.

All that said - I'm not actually good at implementing the above. I used to play Annie a lot, but I'm not even Summoner Lvl 30 yet, so take what I say with a grain of salt and don't think it actually reflects my ability to kick ass and take names. Theory and execution are hardly the same.

Hope that helps!

[Forrestfire]

Originally Posted by McDougal

Aside from "Raise AP, time your fourth spell for max effect, and last hit with your Q," any suggestions for Annie play?

Also a bit late, but since sonofzeal mentioned Lux in his post, I felt that I might elaborate and give some advice, seeing as Lux is my main AP and annie has a severely bad matchup against her.

Spoiler

The main thing to grasp about fighting Lux is that while she has some amazingly strong poke from outside your range, her autoattack's range is only 550, so to get her full burst, the enemy will be trying to duck in and out of that as quickly as possible while still throwing an attack to proc the passive. This is a very short window of opportunity, but it is also the best chance a short-ranged caster has to punish her.

A good lux will max her ball and shield first, and try to kite you until level 6, when she can pretty much full combo you if she lands a snare. However, if you can avoid taking too much damage from her E and passive in the early laning phase, you should be able to avoid being blasted to death the moment she hits 6.

One important bit of trivia about dodging the E is that most of the time, it's aimed behind you, because the first instinct of most players it to run away from a skillshot. I've found moving slightly forward or to the side instead of backwards is a good way to dodge the ball, and it is also a good chance to catch her with some harass of your own, because she will probably be moving forward with the spell in order to proc her passive with an attack.

However, even if you play perfectly and dodge the skillshots while harassing her when she comes to autoattack or farm, you will probably still be at a huge disadvantage. That's where the jungler comes in.

Ask the jungler to gank often. This will not only make the enemy play a bit safer with their mana, but it also has a high probability of killing her if she misses the snare when trying to escape. Lux has some nasty mana issues, so if she drops under 100 mana or so between harass and avoiding a gank, you pretty much have free range to do as you please without worrying about a burst.

Another thing to mention is that, depending on the enemy lux's summoner spell, she can be horrendously dangerous in the first 2 or 3 levels. I alternate between ignite and teleport, because both of them are very strong on lux.

• Ignite: If an enemy lux has this spell, be very careful during the first five minutes or so, because if you get caught out of position, you will die. No questions asked. Her level 3 burst is very, very strong if she has landed a few passive procs and harass before she leveled up.
• Teleport: This means the lux can roam very easily, and if forced back while it is up, may come back with full mana and burst you to death if you try to push the tower. I would definitely be careful of ganks in other lanes, and also be careful of wards placed in the side bushes, since it's hard to dodge a snare-laser combo if you don't expect anything at all.
  
  I think the best strategy for fighting lux as a short-ranged caster boils down to punishing her when she tries to farm or autoattack and asking your jungler to gank often. In 1v1, she has very few bad matchups, because she can be very versatile due to her strong cc and long range. Watch out for the shield, too; it can be almost as troll as Karma's at times, because it is applied twice.

And that concludes my (probably unnecessary) guide to fighting Lux.

[Godskook]

Originally Posted by sonofzeal

Annie's weakness is mobility and range - she's practically defenceless past 650 units. Enemies that have to cross that threshhold to engage you can be bullied with impunity if your combo's up, but there's plenty of characters who can engage via skillshots (Ziggs can hit you from something like twice your range), or have leaps that cover more distance (notably Jax with a 700 unit dash). These matchups can go poorly for Annie because she has no way to close into engagement range, or can have the initiative stolen from her with trivial ease.

1.Her pre-6 engagement range(in spells, which is what you're using) is ~725, not 650. You're not taking into account her auto range, which is frakkin huge. (Where did you get 650 from? Nothing on her kit is 650)

2.Her post-6 engagement range is 880, as her ult's got a hefty diameter on it, making stun-bear quite long compared to her normal kit.

Combined, this makes her a lot stronger against Jax than you're letting on. Also, Annie's burst is not to be underestimated. Anyone jumping her needs the ability to avoid paying for that jump with a stun-combo. Jax could do it if he charged up counterstrike, but that's a bit telegraphed, so there's lots of counterplay between the two on that one.

[Terribad]

Originally Posted by McDougal

OK, is there a way to hotkey a potion in your inventory?

You could assign say Slot 6 into any key you want then make sure your pot is always in that slot.

I tend to shift all pots or active items to Slot 1 or 2 for easy access.

[Terribad]

Originally Posted by Forrestfire

A good lux will max her ball and shield first

Sorry I have to disagree here. Her shield is pretty worthless. I'd rather level Q for the reduced cooldowns.

Lux is so squishy that if you miss your snare to escape, the shield will hardly make a difference. It comes into play more in mid-late game teamfights when you can shield the team, not so much in the laning phase.

[dgnslyr]

There should be options to set key bindings for everything, including item slots, so you could set your items to whatever keys you want. Items are keyed by slot, not by type, so you'll still have to make sure your items are in the right slots.

On the subject of Lux, she's generally rather sub-par as an AP mid. The best thing about her laning is her relatively easy-to-land damage spell, E. Then, when she hits 6, she has a pretty good chance of instagibbing anybody with a full combo, provided she lands her snare.

On the other hand, her mana costs are pretty painful, and her CDs rather terrible for what her spells do, so CDR and mana are key. You know what gives both of those? Superchalice. Have I mentioned my sick fetish for Superchalice? Because Superchalice is magic. I even get CDR boots, just to hit the cap between blue buffs, so I can keep up the rapid-fire spell-spamming.

[sonofzeal]

Originally Posted by Godskook

1.Her pre-6 engagement range(in spells, which is what you're using) is ~725, not 650. You're not taking into account her auto range, which is frakkin huge. (Where did you get 650 from? Nothing on her kit is 650)

Working from memory, sorry.

Her AA range is huge, but unless you're building AD Annie I'm not really going to consider that her "engagement range". Her AA damage scales slower than almost every other champion (Lulu is slowest but her passive compensates), and her attack speed is the worst, at every single level. AA makes a nice harass supplement at lvl 1, but even by lvl 4 I really wouldn't count it as a plus

2.Her post-6 engagement range is 880, as her ult's got a hefty diameter on it, making stun-bear quite long compared to her normal kit.

Tibbers has a cast-range of 600 and a splash of 200, where are you getting the 880 from? And unless you've got the reflexes of a coked-up chipmunk and the distance sense of an OCD machinist, you risk blowing both your ult and your passive. Her actual engagement range is thus something solidly less than 800, depending on how close you're willing to cut it and what your ping is. Mine is fairly high, so I might be overly pessimistic, but I'm still not going to believe there's much of anyone who can nail an 800 range Tibbers-stun reliably against an uncooperative target.

Combined, this makes her a lot stronger against Jax than you're letting on. Also, Annie's burst is not to be underestimated. Anyone jumping her needs the ability to avoid paying for that jump with a stun-combo. Jax could do it if he charged up counterstrike, but that's a bit telegraphed, so there's lots of counterplay between the two on that one.

I don't see Jax caring much about Annie's AA past lvl 3 for the above reasons, and being in melee range makes landing her W much more difficult (at least on my machine with its mediocre ping)

[Forrestfire]

Originally Posted by Terribad

Sorry I have to disagree here. Her shield is pretty worthless. I'd rather level Q for the reduced cooldowns.

Lux is so squishy that if you miss your snare to escape, the shield will hardly make a difference. It comes into play more in mid-late game teamfights when you can shield the team, not so much in the laning phase.

Neat, it's always cool to see other perspectives on champions. I max my shield over the Q because in laning, I'm not going to be spamming the snare enough for the cooldowns to be relevant, whereas the shield is what lets me come out on top of trades. Also, I like being able to use my best CC for only 50 mana, since it makes it easier to save mana for E and later the full burst combo.

[Terribad]

Originally Posted by Forrestfire

Neat, it's always cool to see other perspectives on champions. I max my shield over the Q because in laning, I'm not going to be spamming the snare enough for the cooldowns to be relevant, whereas the shield is what lets me come out on top of trades. Also, I like being able to use my best CC for only 50 mana, since it makes it easier to save mana for E and later the full burst combo.

I'm not spamming Q in lane either. But I'd like it on lower cooldowns for the inevitable mid-game skirmishes over dragon or during ganks.

Secondly, Lux doesn't do trades. Lux abuses her long range to harass and stay out of range of the opposing mid. During laning phase, I feel its not really worth it to move into AA range just to proc the passive. What I try to do is to poke enough to force the mid to either back (giving me a level advantage) or use up their pots pre-6 so once the ults are in play, the Q-AA-E-R-AA-Ignite combo will do enough damage to kill. I find the extra 50 dmg on Lv 2 Q makes a lot of difference in securing the kill.

Anyway I hope they re-make the shield. Its really horrid. I rather something more light themed or useful. A non-skillshot AOE shield or a cone-shaped effect that does some damage and afflicts Blindness ala this classic:

Spoiler

[Chess435]

While we're on the subject of long-range AP casters, can anyone here explain to me how to play Xerath properly?

[Drascin]

Originally Posted by ChaosOS

Iron Stylus confirmed that Kha'Zix is actually Kass' daughter. So yeah. [Source. Also, reveal is up. Seems really cool, if I'm counting correctly he chooses 4 of his 4 abilities to upgrade by level 16 with evolution points.

If this was actually true it'd be neat. You know, avoid the whole "default everything that is not especifically a hot girl to male" thing that was going on.

[Dienekes]

Originally Posted by Drascin

If this was actually true it'd be neat. You know, avoid the whole "default everything that is not especifically a hot girl to male" thing that was going on.

I doubt it is. Largely because Kassadin had a daughter and they keep referring to this thing as a male. I think it was a joke about that, because Iron Stylus also said Kass is a mother.

[Winthur]

Originally Posted by Dienekes

I doubt it is. Largely because Kassadin had a daughter and they keep referring to this thing as a male. I think it was a joke about that, because Iron Stylus also said Kass is a mother.

"That Kass is a bad mother-"
"Shut your mouth!"
"I'm just talkin' 'bout Kass..."

[dgnslyr]

The Void can do strange things to a person, you know, and Kha'Zix could very well be Kassadaughter after experiencing painful, corrupting influence of the Void. Who knows?