League of Legends XL: Season on Hold 'til Morello gets Gold

[ZeroNumerous]

Originally Posted by Eldariel

That said, I guess some of the new things in the tree, such as the slow reduction and the tenacity are quite interesting. Btw, I just reread pickpocket. Holy **** that'll add up fast on AD carries. I wonder if I could find an excuse to run 9/0/21 on ADs the oldschool way.

13/0/17. Off. masteries focus on last hitting. Sup. masteries focus on getting out of lane, back to lane, and gold gen in order to secure your late game.

The lack of late game damage hurts, but it's serviceable to run something like this.

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by ZeroNumerous

13/0/17. Off. masteries focus on last hitting. Sup. masteries focus on getting out of lane, back to lane, and gold gen in order to secure your late game.

The lack of late game damage hurts, but it's serviceable to run something like this.

Hm, Meditation over Wanderer, Biscuiteer and Explorer over Wealth, could be workable. Tho it does lose out on 1.5 damage early on, and Crit masteries, Sunder and Executioner. With the new Sword of the Divine, Artificer could be interesting. It's worth noting tho that with the patch, Sunder's value goes up significantly and we might want to look at ArPen runes again.

[Duos]

Also, it goes without saying that champions like Darius and Wukong with built-in armor shred or penetration become much better. I'm trying to get some Dunkmaster D practice in before we roll over into 3.

[ZeroNumerous]

Originally Posted by Eldariel

Hm, Meditation over Wanderer, Biscuiteer and Explorer over Wealth, could be workable. Tho it does lose out on 1.5 damage early on, and Crit masteries, Sunder and Executioner. With the new Sword of the Divine, Artificer could be interesting. It's worth noting tho that with the patch, Sunder's value goes up significantly and we might want to look at ArPen runes again.

Meditation might be more useful, but I favor mobility even if it is limited by combat. Biscuiteer and Explorer grant Boots+4+1 ward versus Boots+5 with wealth. I personally favor the HP, as your support will likely have Faerie+4 wards+3 pots due to biscuiteer and explorer. But the ability to take either one is there.

Losing out on Sunder is a big hit, as is losing Frenzy. The crit-damage I feel is less useful compared to a flat 2% increase at all times, but it's necessary for Frenzy. As far as ArPen: I'm already assuming ADCs are running it.

Sword of the Divine and Artificer I hadn't considered.

[Silverraptor]

The utility tree might be beneficial for Vayne. Get lots of gold quickly while having percent true damage in attack speed.

[aethernox]

Darius doesn't get full value out of ArPen since a large portion of his damage comes from his AD-scaling magic damage bleed and AD-scaling true damage ultimate. Frozen Heart, Randuin's, Shurelya's, Scimitar, Frozen Mallet Darius sounds really hard to improve upon.

Xin, J4, Wuk, GP, and Nocturne are gonna be interesting.

[Legoshrimp]

Originally Posted by aethernox

Darius doesn't get full value out of ArPen since a large portion of his damage comes from his AD-scaling magic damage bleed and AD-scaling true damage ultimate. Frozen Heart, Randuin's, Shurelya's, Scimitar, Frozen Mallet Darius sounds really hard to improve upon.

Xin, J4, Wuk, GP, and Nocturne are gonna be interesting.

Oh yeah, what are the changes to armor pen and magic pen?

[LordShotGun]

Originally Posted by Legoshrimp

Oh yeah, what are the changes to armor pen and magic pen?

More or less they "Stack" better now. As in, previously if you had 20 armor reduction and 40% armor penetration, the reduction would go first and the pen would go second. Now it is percentage first and flat second.

[Teron]

I don't think that's right. Percentages are applied before flat numbers now, but reductions of both kinds should still precede penetration.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Originally Posted by aethernox

Xin, J4, Wuk, GP, and Nocturne are gonna be interesting.

Wait, why are J4 and Wukong better now? Armour reduction works the way it used to, doesn't it? Is it just their itemisation getting better or am I missing something about the arpen changes?

Originally Posted by Teron

I don't think that's right. Percentages are applied before flat numbers now, but reductions of both kinds should still precede penetration.

Pretty sure it's like that, yeah.

[Teron]

If I'm right, they're not getting better (since there are no flat armour-reducing items left) except in combination with other champions like Corki and Taric.

[McDougal]

I'm saying "time to put 9 in utility on all masteries" now since the summoner spell CD is no longer 21. YOU ONLY NEED 7! HAHAHA!

Also, going deep into the defense tree looks very interesting.

[Tychris1]

Hmmm... With the meta changing due to Season 3, and my competency at the game slowly increasing I think it's about time I should play ranked games. Is it any better to play a full pre-made team of 5 or is the experience substantially worse with random other people?

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by Tychris1

Hmmm... With the meta changing due to Season 3, and my competency at the game slowly increasing I think it's about time I should play ranked games. Is it any better to play a full pre-made team of 5 or is the experience substantially worse with random other people?

What people usually mean by ranked is solo/duo queue, where you can form a premade with at most 1 other player and you will have at least 3 randoms in your team.

If you don't mind normal queue with randoms, ranked's no worse (though note, your ranked elo starts at 1200; if you're significantly better than average in normals, you'll have to put up with people you normally don't see for your first few games).

Just make sure you have some basic competency in every role preferably, decent runepages, understanding of how draft mode works, and preferably some not commonly banned champion you're really strong on and you'll be good to go. If you have one really good champion just tell it to your team and try to get said champion as often as possible, but be again, have a champ for each role prepared for when your role gets taken by somebody else.

[Joran]

Originally Posted by TechnOkami

k'

I still want to though.

Don't worry, I'm also on board with the "I dislike last hitting". However, I recognize that last hitting adds an easy to understand dynamic to the game and it adds nice depth (e.g. do I harass or do I focus on last hitting). I keep trying to think of a mechanic that would be less based on mechanical skill, especially one that differs so much depending on champion and role, but I can't think of one as elegant as last hitting.

So I've mostly made my peace with it and just curse every time I miss a last hit =P

P.S. Anyone else getting the feeling "Hey, I finally understand the game! I know what items are good, what masteries to put on which champions, how to rune, the current meta and wuh... they're changing everything AGAIN?"

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Originally Posted by Tychris1

Hmmm... With the meta changing due to Season 3, and my competency at the game slowly increasing I think it's about time I should play ranked games. Is it any better to play a full pre-made team of 5 or is the experience substantially worse with random other people?

In my experience, soloQ Ranked is a real crapshoot, moreso than normal soloQ. Since most people put their tryhard caps on, player behaviours are magnified somewhat. Depending on the type of tryharding they do, the overcompetitive whiners and ragers rage and whine that much more, the team players play with the team that much better, the trolls are trollier and that one skilled player in the team becomes a godlike play-making machine.

Originally Posted by Joran

P.S. Anyone else getting the feeling "Hey, I finally understand the game! I know what items are good, what masteries to put on which champions, how to rune, the current meta and wuh... they're changing everything AGAIN?"

For me it's more a "Wow, this is getting pretty stale. Oh wait, everything is different again. AWESOME!".

[Joran]

Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly

For me it's more a "Wow, this is getting pretty stale. Oh wait, everything is different again. AWESOME!".

But I've finally figured out how to mastery an ADC properly two weeks ago!

P.S. Yes, I'm behind, so sue me XD

[Fredaintdead]

Originally Posted by Joran

I keep trying to think of a mechanic that would be less based on mechanical skill, especially one that differs so much depending on champion and role, but I can't think of one as elegant as last hitting.

SMITE has a different mechanic that works fairly well (in that it encourages champ vs champ harass/combat over focusing on last hitting). Basically, as long as you hit a minion, you'll get gold when it dies, but you'll get a bit more if you last hit. Which I think could work, but yeah, last hitting as it exists is okay in terms of its mechanical depth, and a different system may not work in LoL as it does in another MOBA (in SMITE, the fact that you're in 3rd person over the shoulder view instead of topdown, kind of makes you focus on map and spatial awareness instead of timing last hits).

[Godskook]

Originally Posted by Eldariel

That said, I guess some of the new things in the tree, such as the slow reduction and the tenacity are quite interesting.

I'm really loving the multiple sources of anti-slow. Might help make Udyr more useful in higher Elo games.

[ChaosOS]

Freaking PBE que is forever. Got into que like 4.5k, 2 hours later 200 away from being in.

[NineThePuma]

While it's probably not optimal, I'm really digging Spirit Stone + Philo for my jungle sustain needs. Spirit Stone and Philo both provide mana + health regen, which you don't really need a lot of unless you're blowing abilities to clear camps, but damn if the both of them aren't really good at it.

[toasty]

Originally Posted by Tychris1

Hmmm... With the meta changing due to Season 3, and my competency at the game slowly increasing I think it's about time I should play ranked games. Is it any better to play a full pre-made team of 5 or is the experience substantially worse with random other people?

Ranked Solo Queue and ranked 5s are completely different and here's why:

Ranked Solo Queue promises you, no matter what, there will be 3 guys on your team who cannot talk to the others without using chat. You can have the almighty double duo queue+ 1 random, but still, you'll never meet 3 stacks, 4 stacks, or 5 stacks (unless you are in high elo and players end up in the same vent by some weird twist of fate).

Ranked 5s means you're on a team, against another team. Teams always are a lot more coordinated and make more complicated plays. Level 1s happen more often. Aggressive ganks, lane swapping, counter jungling, specific team comps. Solo queue is a crap shot in terms of any of this happening, but in ranked 5s I've learned to expect all of it.

Overall, Ranked 5s is a BETTER experience because, IMO, its the way League of Legends, and other MOBA/ARTS games are meant to be played: 5 people on 1 team communicating with voice chat against a similarly skilled, similarly equipped, team. Its a richer experience. I've learned more in a few Ranked 5s than in a 100 Solo Queue games.

Having said that: its hard as hell to maintain a regular ranked 5s team.

[aethernox]

Primal Udyr is going on sale.

This can mean only one thing.

Legendary Udyr skin incoming.

[Silverraptor]

Originally Posted by aethernox

Primal Udyr is going on sale.

This can mean only one thing.

Legendary Udyr skin incoming.

Wait, Primal Udyr wasn't a legendary skin?

[Godskook]

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

Wait, Primal Udyr wasn't a legendary skin?

Wait....Primal Udyr is a skin?
Speaking as someone who has played several hundred games as Udyr, I have no idea what his 'base' skin looks like.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Originally Posted by Godskook

Wait....Primal Udyr is a skin?

Wait, who's Udyr?

[Godskook]

Originally Posted by Maeglin_Dubh

Wait, who's Udyr?

The manliest champion in the League.

[Tychris1]

Originally Posted by Godskook

The manliest champion in the League.

"Don't worry guys, i'm going to Udyr their faces."

-One of the scariest Junglers i've ever played with

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Originally Posted by Godskook

The most-kitable champion in the League.

Oh, right, him!

[Nadevoc]

So I'm kinda upset that the support's gold generation mastery is so deep in the Utility tree. I understand that they want it to be hard for other people to pick up, but I've never specced that deep into Utility on supports. I went 0/21/9 for a long time, and now I go 1/15/14. Admittedly part of that is that the Utility tree is pretty meh right now, but I also like having extra bulk/defense so I can be more aggressive and try to harrass and push people out of lane. I feel like this might basically force supports to have at least 17 points in Utility.