League of Legends (Old)

[hitogoroshi]

hito: what roles/champs are you comfortable blind picking into a lane? I gather you'll pick vlad first pick, but beyond that?

If I'm blind picking I aim for Vlad or Leona. I'm comfortable blind picking Jungle after asking my team what they're doing (it's not like the old days where Amumu gets wrecked if his blue is stolen), but I think Vlad and Leona are the two least-exploitable picks.

Re: Top Lane- Sure, fine, I guess. Vlad is actually pretty weak if you get matched against someone who knows what they're doing. But if you're getting morons, more power to you. I also feel like Nasus is super easily countered and if my team needed AD top there are a ton of bruisers I'd rather play.

People just love stupid builds like Warmog's Vlad for some reason. He's strong if you build him smart.

Yeah, I wouldn't ever blind pick Nasus into top - he has quite a few counters. Maybe I should grab a bruiser I'd be okay blind picking, if we want AD but enemy top hasn't picked yet?

Re: Mid Lane- Uhhhhh really? Okay, I guess. Galio is pretty bad though... he's not borderline OP at all against someone with half a brain. I could see picking him in response to something like Leblanc or Katarina.

See, this weird meme about Galio being bad has popped up seemingly out of nowhere but it's just not true at all! He's a little bit below the tippy-top mids but it's hardly any gap, and he's BY FAR the most obscure competitive mid. This has several advantages - no one can dodge resolute smite worth a damn, people don't realize you're deliberately tanking minions to heal and set up punishes, junglers go for bad ganks not realizing how much smite hurts, etc.

People focus too much on Durand, reason (correctly!) that Durand has a fair bit of counter-play available, and miss the point that Galio can build resistance and mana regen, receive huge damage for free, and just harass, shove to punish roam, and never ever die because of Bulwark. He's a lane bully with a teamfighting ult that demands respect. His cooldowns are a little long which is a bit problematic for prolonged teamfights, but Athene's helps a lot for that.

(Also, I think Galio gets a bad rap because of the world's mystifying fascination with Thornmail. Oh gosh, durand means the AD attacks you a few times, Thornmail is super OP on Galio!! Ya because when I get 90 armor just for hitting the w button and a 50% damage reduction on ult the defensive stat I really need is armor and not HP .-.)

Re: Jungle- Amumu is the low elo wrecker, good call. Voli can get super OP but he's also stupid easy to kite. If I were you, I'd play it like... tanky-AP Amumu... then pick a champ that does well as a real pure tank (like Nunu)... then get a bruiser in your lineup (J4 is OP obviously, Vi or Pantheon are always strong picks). Also just as a note, Fiddles is ridiculously good right now in the jungle, I've been playing a ton of him recently.

I might work on my Vi, she's fun.

re: ADC- AD Carry is my weakest role. Ez isn't very good in bot lane IMO just because of the meta right now... if you want someone that doesn't need to kite well, pick up Sivir. Great engage, great scape, and just throw Qs from miles away and press "W" and watch a minion wave disappear.

Haven't played Siv since the day's of Starks, maybe I'll give her a shot.

In the Sona for Nami trade you give up the Bubble and a little bit of healing power.

One crucial thing is that Sona's slow is one SHE fires but Nami's slow is one the AD CARRY fires. This is pretty significant when you have the crappy HP both Nami and Sona have!

I don't like Sona because it requires a lot of coordination. Nami does her poke by empowering the AD Carry to do it for her. As Leona I make big obvious plays because I am a juggernaut, but when I'm a vulnerable support I much prefer giving the initative to my lane partner.

[hitogoroshi]

Who in the holy hell have you been watching play Vlad that rushes Warmogs?

Or even, who builds Warmogs on Vlad period? Sorcs+WOTA+Zhonyas is the way to go. I also think Vlad is really beneficial against other AP tops like Maokai, Rumble, Ryze, etc...though those guys are out of the meta right now. I think Vlad probably splits lanes in an equally skilled lane versus the popular top laners. He probably loses to things that can easily get in his face like J4 & Riven, but poops on things that want to play the farm/sustain game like Gnar & Darius.

As for a blind pick safe bruiser, Irelia and Pantheon would be my safe picks. Irelia can be a monster no matter who she's against, and Pantheon has great poke and roam potential for a top laner.

I haven't seen one in a while but they're out there and they're terrible.

I mostly agree with your build but it's actually not worth finishing WOTA until you're slotcapped or at least close. The dream for vlad is Hextech + Sorc + Guise (swapping Armguard for Guise against AD that's strong early) - it's a pretty cheap core that demolishes most top laners. You don't really need spell vamp for sustained fights as Vlad, because you're already winning sustained fights - you're losing to being bursted or to grievous wounds. You just need spell vamp so you can roll up to 3/4 tides stacks in lane BEFORE you start trading.

He loses bad to J4, actually goes pretty even with Riven (you do need to open cloth 5, though). It pretty quickly transforms into a game of rocket tag. You need to pool the stun or you're in trouble, but by the same token if Riven wastes her shield she pretty much has to run away until it's up. It's a high skill matchup, but the saving grace is that if you play Vlad for any length of time you're going to have way more practice vs. Riven than Riven gets vs. Vlad.

Maybe I'll work on my Vi for top and jungle.

I think personally, Galio is in a bad place because Magic Resist itemization is bad right now. Athene's is almost never seen anymore because it's not very efficient but Galio needs it.

I take back what I said earlier, though. Thinking about Galio's kit, he seems like a decent pick if you want to shut down a mid laner, but he's severely lacking in a modernized kit compared to the rest of the game. Sure, you may stop that Leblanc from snowballing your lane, and you may be able to push when she roams, but does that matter when she's getting double and triple kills on your team? Same goes for Ahri or Zed or Annie... those guys can roam and just fuck up another lane, and Galio offers nothing in return. You may take a tower, but when your lane opponent comes back with an extra item, you're going to be really far behind either way.

Galio does need Athene's but it's fine because for him it's quite efficient. As for MR itemization being problematic, the trick is to front-load your MR EARLY and ride the passive out then, and then mostly ignore it. As Galio, your core is Athenes and Treads, along with MR runes and masteries. This is INSANE MR for the early game (ever feel like walking into Morg W to heal? Play Galio) and the AP makes your smites damaging even when you're focusing resistance. After that, you can cool it on the MR until you see you really need it - Runic Skin has already done enough and now your goal is to make sure your farm is making you scary to everyone and not just the poor abused midlaner. Galio has a lot of build paths depending on who's getting Void Staves, who's getting QSS's, whether anyone else is getting Aegis, etc. Your item fu needs to be quite strong for him (i.e STOP BUILDING THORNMAIL ON GALIO. GODDAMN) but Galio has plenty of good choices for MR should he want it - the trick for him is actually making sure you don't go TOO ham on MR.

And yeah, being out-roamed is a weakness for sure. As Galio you want to really watch your minimap and try to shove mid hard. It's pretty easy to tag both the enemy champ AND minions with Resolute Smite and combine your harassment with more pushing, which makes any roaming attempt obvious and turret punishment easy. (You also generally should not go for flash - ult kills in midlane and instead save Galio ult for jungle ganks.) So Galio's biggest weakness (aside from the obvious "I blind picked him and they put AD in both solo lanes") is a jungler that can punish shoved Galio. Upgraded ward trinket comes highly recommended...

[hitogoroshi]

Yup, I pretty much agree on the meta thing. I'm making him one of my champs because when he's good, he's really good - but it's a REACTIVE pick against the enemy comp for sure. I'd much rather play Kennen or maybe even add Swain to the roster for times when I'm picking my mid first. (This almost never happens though, precisely because if I'm taking an early pick I like Vlad or Leona, and tend to only mid when it trickles down and no one's done it. How often does it happen that you're an early pick but forced to take mid because everyone below you called things that aren't mid?) Although J4/Vi/Rek'sai aren't actually too bad for Galio - the danger zone junglers are Xin and Udyr.

I've never done Iceborn Galio but I can see the appeal for sure - I'll keep it in mind.

P.EDIT: Sure, it's a limited scenario. However, it's much more common among my PERSONAL SAMPLE of mid games, exactly because it's my LEAST favorite lane to early pick. Combine that with the fact that mid is overrepresented in solo queue and it basically means that, just by recognizing that mid is very counter-significant and not calling mid, your personal mid games will be a much higher proportion of games where the enemy mid is known (but a lot fewer, total). In fact I used to pretty much only take support as first pick because I disliked the counter potential on other roles - but now I'm happy fping Vlad because J4 is pretty much always banned. (Also people sometimes flame you when you fp support.)

[hitogoroshi]

re: champ skill vs matchup strength: I mean both are right. It's unwise to focus too much on matchup when just being good at the champ is the biggest factor - that's the entire point of generating this kind of list when I have a roster of ~50 champs I play semi-frequently. At the same time, it's important to realize that "hard counter" means different things for different champs: sometimes you actually can do pretty well in a "countered" lane (Leona), but sometimes being "countered" is essentially a death sentence (Nasus). And it'd be stupid to not look at my Nasus/Vladimir experience (about the same) and understand "I can pretty much always blind pick Vlad, but Nasus is very dangerous to blind pick."

The skill advantage is why you make a constrained list from your champ pool, but within the constrained list, matchup considerations can and should loom large. Which is why I like starting this kind of conversation on my list.

As for Reck's suggestions: Yeah, I can see the value of a true bruiser but keeping Nasus on standby for specifically needing a clock. (It helps I don't really need to keep my Nasus mechanics "warmed up" - mechanically he's probably my single strongest champ.) Vi is fun and I get two for one value running her top and jungle. Galio does enough Swain doesn't that I don't want to fully replace Galio with Swain, but it is probably fair to play Swain primary and keep Galio as a swap I practice less, especially since part of his appeal is how stupid easy it is to hit Smite anyway. (My Galio mechanics chiefly consist of taking the skillshot the size of a golf ball and using it on enemies.)

So pretty much I agree with everything, aside from swapping Ken for Liss. And that's not because I think Kennen is flat better or anything - I just don't go mid often, as I said, and so I don't want to dump a lot of skill investment into Lissandra when Ken is both fine and goes top well too. Lissandra IS super fun and if I wanted to always call mid I'd probably grab her.

So maybe something like this, where the parens swaps are champs I only pick into known factors:

Top

: Vladimir, Vi, (Nasus)

Mid:

Swain, Yasuo, (Galio)

Jungle

Amumu, Vi, (Volibear)

Bot:

Graves, Ezreal

Support:

Leona, Janna, (Nami)

All-Lanes Wildcard:

Kennen

Seems like a decent compromise between depth and breadth. I'd need to drill my Vi and Yasuo a lot but the others will just take occasional refreshers. Also this would be a hilarious excuse to learn support/jungle kennen.

[hitogoroshi]

So can someone tell me why playing Bard as full-jungle is a bad idea? I mean, I kinda get that his clears would be terrible but he really just seems far more suited to being a true roamer in the jungle than just a support that roams.

I mean, you sort of answer your own question there. It's a bad idea because as a full-jungle it's generally advisable that you can kill the monsters that live in the jungle?

[hitogoroshi]

I've been getting rekted in Bronze 2 lately. Well... my teams have been. I am impressed with how well I have been supporting and I am carrying the shit out of people with Nunu jungle and Nasus top. Just not able to win.

try upgrading your trinket

[hitogoroshi]

Don't forget the super high mana costs and the lack of non-ult hard cc!

[hitogoroshi]

I just played a game with a blitzcrank that built 2 sheens but didn't upgrade boots

shit was adorable

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Corki W/Ez E, Ezreal's E cooldown is the major differentiating factor I think in addition to the mana cost, especially because Ezreal will max it second rather than third.

Ezreal has the build flexibility to bring utility with IBG and apply it at 1100 range, useful depending upon what the rest of your team pick and how the game is going. This is probably the most distinguishing characteristic vs. other champions in the ADC position.

Ez also has a very good siege kit. When Ez is with your team on siege you get super long range poke, attack speed buff for everyone if your team gets to turret, an ad carry really hard to flash-initiate on, and an ult that secures kills on people who get low from poke.

He's just weird and someone who wants to play all ad carries "by the book" won't like Ez. His commitment patterns are a lot stranger than the norm.

[hitogoroshi]

You know, I spent some time playing Swain mid and I think I just prefer Vlad. Even though top is generally better for vlad than mid because it plays to his strengths a bit more, he's a fine mid too. And the most annoying about being vlad mid (ignite + morellonomicon everywhere) is also annoying for Swain too, so whatever??

[hitogoroshi]

stole baron from cho? dat cho needs uninstalling

Sonic Wave's execute I think actually outdamages Feast. I think about the only junglers Lee can't steal from are...Nunu and maybe Voli?

[hitogoroshi]

FUUUUUCK I ENDED UP ON THE SAME TEAM AS THE FEEDER AGAIN! WHAT ARE THE GODDAMN CHANCES OF THAT.

Pretty darn high since you both requeued at the same time and already know you're close to each other in mmr?

If you don't wanna replay with the same people you gotta wait a minute or two to requeue, this is just a fact of life. It's good to do after every loss anyway so you don't tilt.

[hitogoroshi]

I think TP/Ghost is better, but in LCS they've tended to take TP/Ignite.

Vlad uses Ghost pretty well, since he can already dodge abilities with pool. Taking him mid and using both Flash and Ghost is magical, though.

real winners take ignite because ignite+hemo is super sick

I can see ignite/ghost being better than ignite/flash if you're in more of a pick comp, though. In an AoE/team fight comp you absolutely need flash because flash-hemo is the most important thing you will do.

[hitogoroshi]

I definitely did dragon before tp was back up.

I find for the four minute drake kids (Nunu, Udyr, etc.) it's not really about local force but just "are there wards", pretty much as a binary outcome.

[hitogoroshi]

Vladimir is radimir. And you should get an AP top if you play Yorick already.

For jungle, mummy is a timeless classic.

[hitogoroshi]

I seriously can't play vlad without feeding asdnuashdq how do you play this champion he deals 0 dmg.

Build haunting guise and enter an exciting world of relevance.

Remember, AP doesn't scale with empowered stacks, but magipen does. So early pen + 4 stack tides = oh dear.

[hitogoroshi]

Now, comparing. I have had one game where I hit 1.38 wards per min and that was really an outlier (long game as well, on soraka so really nothing better to do). More usual when I'm trying, 1/min. Less even when I'm not focussed on playing. Mata hit an average over those worlds group phase games of 1.78 wards per min. That's excluding the pinks, of which he got 3 down every 8 minutes. The pinks I figured out by now. You use them as portable instant sweepers and you get closer to those kind of numbers. But even, then, so many wards... I don't know how to do that.

I'm not certain about this but I think the "next level" after keeping sightstone on high uptime is recognizing when your oldest ward is no longer relevant and replacing it. I have a pretty good ward score but I almost never expire wards and that's probably where I could improve.

Also, to an extent, pros will have higher ward scores just by virtue of environment. They're having a lot more of their wards destroyed than you are. Also, paradoxically, having teammates ward less should actually put a bit of a softcap on your ward score. It's quicker to just ward what's right next to you than what's the most important to ward - you're going to put down a few more wards if you can just cover where you are now, instead of needing to hang on to a ward allotment to hit what really matters. This doesn't excuse a BAD ward score, of course, but it means that you shouldn't stress so much on hitting pro levels - your warding levels are pretty much what they should be, I think, since you're in a climate that destroys wards much less and requires quality placement over spam.

[hitogoroshi]

ez had a lot of problems that game. Both his four (!!!!!) wards and his build. Really Ez is the wrong AD to take in general with Annie/Diana, but if you're gonna do it, you should build him like a normal IE nerd because the hybrid poke is actually what you don't want you're already AP as balls.

That being said the fact that Ez is MOST at fault doesn't mean there's nothing to learn. So some thoughts. I think captain boots would help a lot more than disto. And while "mostly tank, a little magic damage" is good mummy equilibrium, sorc isn't where I'd go for that little AP. You know they're gonna get LW's and their cc is trash, so do tabi and drop the GA for Liandry's. Still get Magipen, but now you get tabi passive and more HP for cinderhulk, at the cost of armor that's getting whisper cleaved and MR you're not using.

Really I think you should never get GA on cinderhulk users; too many good armor/MR items that give HP.

[hitogoroshi]

I personally like distortion (just the flash ult, really). Captain is something I rarely get on offensive champs, feels much more effective going out of fights. So on backline supports that has my preference.

Sorcs is indeed a guilty pleasure. If I'm a better player I just buy mobi's there. It's just that pen kind of nice with mummy when dueling but yes, that's bad.

You can see where I bought the GA, we had one good fight ahead of us at that point, which imo would decided the winner, so I bought into my pink ward slot there. I don't think you can beat GA for that situation.

Yes, mummy flash ult can be strong, but the disto SPEED doesn't help with that. So it's just lower flash cd, which okay, but if you're flash ulting regularly you should just land bandage more instead? Flash ult is for those emergency bad positioning situations, and it's exactly in those that the captain speed boost will help your teammates get to the fight you started.

I disagree with mobis, and I don't think sorcs are a guilty pleasure per se. magipen on amumu is really strong! But Liandry's for pen instead of an armor item and tabi for armor instead of sorcs is a better way to get the pen here. LW doesn't stop Tabi passive, Liandry's has HP, etc. What's the point of getting sorc if you're using your slots on all defensive stats?

I understand the "one good fight" reasoning for lategame GA's, but those are for people who do damage, y'know? Try to describe a situation where GA on mummy will be impactful. It's actually pretty hard.

[hitogoroshi]

the presence of someone doing worse than you doesn't mean your performance doesn't matter. I've won 4v5's as the 4 and lost them as the 5 in ranked games. that's just a pyschological dodge people like to do where they think "if I'm not the MOST responsible for this loss, I'm not responsible at all!". It's also dumb and wrong.

your warding is pretty bad. that's a good next step to work on.

[hitogoroshi]

The last game had

3

afks. The last non-group game before that had our top laner running into other lanes and giving away kills after he got ganked ONCE, feeding everyone.

Explain to me how I can win those.

not saying you can win every single game. saying that the conclusion you "legit cannot climb" isn't valid. you get free wins too. And game-warping badness isn't necessarily game ending badness, even if it is sometimes.

more importantly, don't worry about the ranking. it's not like you'll get much higher in elo until, e.g your warding is better. so just focus on wards. and similarly for other metrics like cs. Why the rush to go up a bit in rank until you're at the point where EVERY game loss is due to your mistakes? If you're truly "below your skill level" (hint, your sample size is good so you're not), that's a free opportunity to get good at warding before you get punished over and over for it. what a swell opportunity! why be frustrated about it?

if someone elo boosted you up to the next league your team would just lose every game on vision. focus on improving your vision game to the point where you'll deserve to be in that league, and you'll find you get there precisely when you should be there. (again, extrapolating to other metrics that are also important. I just call out your warding because I can TELL that's a weak spot, but presumably there are other things to work on too.)

for example, my sample size is pretty low and I'm wining more than I lose, so it's likely I'm a bit below my "true" elo, e.g the place I'd be playing 100 games without improvement. it also happens I'm awful at wave control. my vision/shotcalling is carrying me and compensating for my crappy wave control. so I get some free games to work on the wave control against opponents who are at least ranked and not normal, but not as good as my "true opponents". I'm pretty glad for this! It's not like I'd like it more if every single ranked loss was because my lane opponent denied me minions to my turret and I didn't do the same well enough.

[hitogoroshi]

ani, here are your last ten games. all times rounded to nearest minute. pinks will be included in the number for wpm but listed out separately because they are a different beast.

19 minutes, 3 wards, not support. .158 wpm.
47 minutes, 14 wards, not support. .298 wpm.
36 minutes, 19 wards, support. .528 wpm.
36 minutes, 14 wards + 1 pink. not support. .417 wpm.
31 minutes, 17 wards. support. .548 wpm.
33 minutes, 11 wards. support. .333 wpm.
20 minutes, 3 wards. not support. .150 wpm.
34 minutes, 13 wards. not support. .382 wpm.
34 minutes, 19 wards. support. .559 wpm.
50 minutes, 24 wards. support. .480 wpm.

so a rough not-support wpm average is .281 and a rough support average is .4896. you bought one pink ward in 10 games.

I'll do me now. I'm decent at warding. no myko but I get by.

29 minutes, 18 + 1 pink. support. .655 wpm.
25 minutes. 17 + 3 pink. not support. .800 wpm.
42 minutes. 25 + 2 pink. not support. .643 wpm.
33 minutes. 25 + 3 pink. support. .848 wpm.
34 minutes. 15 + 1 pink. not support. .471 wpm.
41 minutes. 22 + 1 pink. not support. .561 wpm.
20 minutes. 6 + 2 pink. not support. .40 wpm.
34 minutes. 9 + 1 pink. not support. .294 wpm. note that I had blue trinket for much of the game.
54 minutes. 37 + 2 pink. support. .722 wpm.
24 minutes. 15 + 2 pink. support. .708 wpm.

so a rough not-support wpm average is .528 and a rough support wpm average is .733. I had 18 pink wards in 10 games.

And I'm not a pro player by any means. I'm gold V for chrissakes. And yet my not-support average is higher than your support average. that's insane. If I was in your games instead of you, I could play support,

not buy sightstone,

and still have better vision control than you do. Not to mention how much we'd BOTH lose compared to myko, who you may note is also not a pro player. And the difference of pink control as opposed to normal wards.

I don't disbelieve that you're comparable to the other players in your games. that's because they're also garbage at warding, and like you, deserve to be precisely where they are. If you want to advance, you need to belong higher, and your bronze warding ain't gonna cut it. So don't focus on who "earned" the loss, focus on improving yourself. And if you think your vision numbers are fine, you should work on your game knowledge as well as your warding, because that's pretty obviously incorrect.

I'm tryin to help you here dog. you seem to play a lot of ranked and really care about advancing. this is a major thing holding you back. You're actually a higher rank than I am, at the moment - gold IV vs gold V. and yet your warding is absurdly shameful compared to mine. if your warding, with sightstone, as the role explictly tasked with the duty of chief warder, is worse than someone of a lower rank playing a random toplaner, do you really think you deserve to be a single division higher than you are?

[hitogoroshi]

do you really think you deserve to be a single division higher than you are?

Yes, because vision is not the sole determinant of who wins games.

of course it's not. I'm merely giving one example of one metric you're bad at.

the point is, if there's something you're objectively worse at - not just worse, but way way worse - than a player of a lower rank, maybe the last thing you should be focusing on is "gosh I deserve to be higher".

if you're just going to whine about the other players in your games and complain about not being to advance past them, despite objective and incredibly obvious evidence of a huge weak point in your play, you're going to stay exactly at the skill cap you're at until you have an attitude adjustment, homie. If you're not trying to fix every aspect of your play, you're not going to improve; and you've played enough games that you're at where you belong until you improve.

maybe you're not grokkin the scale. Here's an example. you get a sightstone in your support games because vision is important. But the difference between sightstone and no sightstone for you is less than the difference between "being hito" and "being ani". you wouldn't play a support game and not buy sightstone, right? well you're effectively not buying sightstone just by being so much worse at warding than me.

vision is not the sole determinant. But you shouldn't really be losing to a lower ranked player on ANY metric, let alone losing by such a hilariously huge margin. But if you can see me beating you so effortlessly and think "whatever, it doesn't matter, I still deserve to be higher than this dude", then you're done at improving for as long as your awful and wrong attitude persists. savvy?

[hitogoroshi]

I'd hire Hito as my League Life coach (actually if I could I'd link the replays of the five placement games I've had and ask some of you guys to critique me. I figure one part of it is having something like LoLReplay, but I don't think I have what I need to actually make the replays viewable to you guys or something.)

Btw, general question regarding mid: I'm fairly positive that the first item you should get is morello's/Athenes most of the time (because first-world mana problems), excluding mana-less champs like Kat, but should I almost always go for, like, Rabadon's next item unless I absolutely NEED to buy a defensive item (either because my opponent got fed or because someone else on their team is getting too huge to simply ignore them and go stragith damage)?

I'm not super good but if you poke me on steam/skype I can try speccing or whatever. Or getting more casting practice - it's been an off-and-on dream of mine to get good at casting but just hard to find the time. If a play-by-play person wants to join forces with me, let me know! (I'm color commentator to the bone.)

What would you all recommend for being a slightly-better-than-shitty Vlad?

oh gosh I could rant for ages about vlad. basically early magipen is king because magipen scales with empowered stacks. You want hextech often but not always, you virtually never want to finish out wota early. any time you have 1600 pretty much get a rod, aside from situations when you REALLY need to get an edge right the heck now (the hp on buying rod makes the vulnerability window for a naked rod much smaller than for most ap champs). You want to get to Zhonyas + Cap + Visage + Sorc + guise or void + sometimes hextech on Vlad, but there are a million paths to get there and mastering them is a key part of vlad.

Hito, how did you do all that analysis of Ani's games? My wardscore looks good to me on paper but I don't know how to delve deeper.

Just did it manually from the match history. it was a pain but I did it because I have love in my heart and want ani to succeed

[hitogoroshi]

I'm not super good but if you poke me on steam/skype I can try speccing or whatever. Or getting more casting practice - it's been an off-and-on dream of mine to get good at casting but just hard to find the time. If a play-by-play person wants to join forces with me, let me know! (I'm color commentator to the bone.)

Would it just be hitogoroshi or something?

flaminghito on skype and league. [ZPR] Hito on steam is the best way to contact me, though.

Also, someone please tell me why the fuck ads are carrying teleport? It's stupid and I don't see how it works at all.

dude built two shivs, let's not try to figure out his motivations here.

[hitogoroshi]

http://www.twitch.tv/flaminghito

still trying to make it work through technical difficulties, pop in and tell us if there's delay or whatever

[hitogoroshi]

here is the first rocky effort. let me know if the stream quality is good and in particular if you think more/less audio delay is needed to stop our voices tripping over each other. and enjoy the glorious 1080p.

[hitogoroshi]

Yeah, the problem is the hotkeys don't adapt so then you don't know the keys to jump to players.

My camera work was pretty bad regardless though so maybe I'll just put it on autocam and then I can line them up.

[hitogoroshi]

yeah, ani I think you're thinking of it from a marksman perspective. LW is usually gonna be better for marksmen. BC is for AD casters.

I'm pretty excited to sub out LW in my Talon build for BC. I think it will help a lot. Not because I'm getting more armor pen per se (it's probably less!), but because I'm getting HP and CDR on my armor pen slot, while still having enough for extended fights with tanks.

[hitogoroshi]

nope I just got brutalizer/ghostblade and the...somewhere between 5-12.5% on runes/masteries I forget.

[hitogoroshi]

There's full tank galio but that gives up the lane and just hopes you get carried till midgame.

what??? Galio is a super lane bully even if you build him tanky. because you want chalice anyway for mana regen and CDR. are you losing lane vs. AP with chalice/treads? Do you not have dedicated galio runes/masteries?

[hitogoroshi]

J4 does really well against vlad

[hitogoroshi]

new adaptive armor is horse manure

but new enchanted armor is pretty neat! Tank masteries focusing more on the lategame makes them feel tankier for sure, even if in general you get masteries for early game

even though it kinda sucked I will still miss runic blessing because the troll factor of Biscuit Bruisers was fantastic

[hitogoroshi]

even though it kinda sucked I will still miss runic blessing because the troll factor of Biscuit Bruisers was fantastic

Explain

in a top lane bruiser v bruiser, you get runic blessing, biscuits, and wealth, and do a bunch of level 1 / level 2 trades.

you do less damage so the enemy feels like they're winning, but you had runic shield + have one more health pot from wealth + your pots are biscuits

so you heal up and then use ignite and all-in them while they're sitting around thinking "wait...am I losing to someone who took runic blessing, biscuits, and wealth on a bruiser"

[hitogoroshi]

Yeah? You get a randy ins and get 3 Mr? Hooray

Then why is legendary guardian looked at as such a good mastery in it's current form? It only gives 4 armor and 2 mr.

because it doesn't take 30 minutes to turn on

[hitogoroshi]

it's funny how even with all of the vlad I play sometimes I get into lanes I've never done v. vlad before

it is not funny to do this in a ranked game and have THAT be how you learn that cho'gath scream ignores vlad pool

[hitogoroshi]

yeah swain is an infamous vlad counter because all of his stuff is DoTs. I think he's one of the worst vlad matchups along J4.

Scream isn't DoT though, I have no idea why that goes through

[hitogoroshi]

The scream actually hits BEFORE the anmiation starts, so you can appear to totally have avoided the animation, but if you were in cho's range amd noonpooled when he actually presses the button, it hits.

This explains alot. I've played Cho for a long time, and have always loved how wide/long ranged the scream seems to be.

the moral of the story is after Nidalee's multiyear reign on my "I don't give a shit about the meta if someone asks me who I wanna ban it's always you" list, I think Cho has finally supplanted her

he's that combination of annoying, versatile, and strong that just makes him a huge pain

[hitogoroshi]

brut is really solid for ad casters

flat arpen and flat magipen are probably the most underrated stats in the game

[hitogoroshi]

normally don't care for the champ hype/teasers but the bayou aesthetic is criminally underused and I'm quite excited about what Riot is going for

also reading the proposed AP item changes, vlad will really enjoy the liandrys + rylais buffs.

[hitogoroshi]

normally don't care for the champ hype/teasers but the bayou aesthetic is criminally underused and I'm quite excited about what Riot is going for

also reading the proposed AP item changes, vlad will really enjoy the liandrys + rylais buffs.

do you really want liandry's on vlad?

Issue with it that I see is that on vlad you want to build ap (duh). Even if you dislike wota personally, lets call that an item for him. Zonya's is valuable. Rylais does everything you want. I think at some point in the game those items are going to appear in your inventory. Guise is fine, pen multplies with that, gives other stuff you need. Liandry's though, dumps 1000+ gold into a passive that doesn't scale off your other ap items at all.

Wouldn't you simply get more bang for your buck with a hat at that point?

it's more that guise is incredible for vlad and having liandry's be more viable means that you're less likely to need to sell it / have that option for tankbusters.

I don't think liandry's is core for Vlad or anything, it's just that Guise is grotesque for him and Liandry's buffs give him more options. I think Vlad has some of the most varied buildpaths of any AP champ and this just takes a lot of his midgame dominance paths and makes them scale better into late, because it lets you shove more AP into your Guise slot without forcing you to take the hit selling Guise

[hitogoroshi]

re: vlad build


like, say you have rylais already when you complete it, you get 9% enemy hp damage on your damaging skills. Say your average enemy at that point has 2500 hp, that gives ~1250 current hp give or take on average. So that's 112.5 damage you get out of that if you don't stack your abilites (and lets be fair, you will q stuff you've e'd within 3 secs). For that damage you need 250 hp to get it off tides (less off transfusion). So slot effiency for hat is already achieved at 300 ap. That's runes, masteries, wota, zonyas, rylays and you are already there, and that's with calculating everything in favor of liandry's so far. Still, that's a break even.

Say you get to 6th item with that build (so add a void staff, another 80 AP, I think that puts you past 400 ap already, given the percentage ap mastery you take, I think. And there you have to chose between building out your guise or selling it for a hat. The AP hat passive gives you out of the void staff is worth 650, that's more than the 440 that it would cost you to sell guise at that point. So at that point on top of simply getting a lot more damage out of your slots (since you are now over 100 past the break even), you are also winning out in gold, if you still care about it at that point.

I think you're forgetting that when you sell the Guise you also lose the HP/pen

[hitogoroshi]

uh i didn't get a champion on my main. am I toxic?

I got corki on the other.

it's for having the linked fb account and presumably it won't let you link the same fb account to more than one lol account

[hitogoroshi]

I don't think heimer counters exist.

AP Nunu puts heimer so far in the dumpster it's hilarious

[hitogoroshi]

BotRK has a smoother curve + the active works better with Corki's kit. BotRK proc is same range as Corki's range, and barely shorter than Gatling range. Slow keeps them in Gatling range longer, AS means that you're benefiting more from Gatling shred and it changes the dps math. Lots of little synergies.

BT's not bad if you hit the BF cleanly on your first back after TForce+Sorc, but otherwise BotRK makes a ton of sense, like it does for every short range adc with no cc.

[hitogoroshi]

I mean Corki is more of an ad caster than a conventional carry, focusing on crits is a great way to spend a lot of money not making your missiles, bombs, or gatlings any stronger

[hitogoroshi]

I mean Corki is more of an ad caster than a conventional carry, focusing on crits is a great way to spend a lot of money not making your missiles, bombs, or gatlings any stronger

Well the crit part maybe not, but IE is still better for Phos bomb, missiles and gatling gun than BOTRK is. Plus except for when you're long distance missile sniping, presumably you're weaving in AAs to proc the triforce's sheen, which the crit is meaningful for but attack speed isn't very meaningful.

If you're using Corki as an ADC, of course. If you want to just focus on casting, you're better off with the AP items' higher numbers and better passives and better penetration options.

Right, the raw damage from IE is higher, but BotRK gives life steal, attack speed AND the active, for a cheaper package. (Bork + pickaxe is almost the same cost as IE).

Honestly, I don't think Corki should even count as an AD carry; I think he gets in by historical accident and because he happens to lane well against ad carries / has trinity siege. And so people just call him a "midgame ad carry" even though he's a pretty huge outlier in adc space.

Imagine this definition of ad carry: "A ranged champion with either an attack speed steroid OR abilities that scale with BOTH attack speed AND damage." It's almost perfect - it captures how ad carries are those champs who get a lot of value buying in to the crit / attack damage / attack speed system. The only two real discrepancies are Caitlyn and Corki. Caitlyn because she has no aspd steriod and only her passive scales with attack speed - but she clearly gets her outlier status as a result of her extraordinary range. Corki is in the same boat - no aspd steriod, and his only aspd steroid is his passive - and that's a very small aspd scaling factor that doesn't change the fundamental math of the crit / attack damage / attack speed network - just makes the whole thing a little more efficient.

When you think about the two paths to becoming an adc - either getting free attack speed or having your kit benefit strongly from building attack speed and damage - I think it's more clear how distinct Corki is from other ADCs, and why the conventional itemization wisdom doesn't apply. And if you get out of that mental model, it's hard to make a compelling case for IE. Unless you're rich enough early enough that you want the endgame power of the crit / attack damage / attack speed network, even though your kits only contribution is making the endgame state a bit more efficient.

[hitogoroshi]

Of course most mids and adcs do their damage much differently. Mids do a lot more burst damage. Which is great if you're just targetting squishy targets in isolation, but grouped up with tanks, you're kind of in trouble if you can't bring the sustained damage of an ADC to the party.

Or have a, you know, sustained damage mage.

Or melee carry.

Or bruiser-carry.

Or AD assassin.

Or you can run a double-bruiser comp with a mage, which beats ADC+Mage+tank.

ADC's don't do bad damage, but they do 95% of the damage of midlaners (which, by the way, includes support-mages like Lulu and Ori whose main purpose isn't to deal damage) while having less utility and generally being weaker in most non-objective taking contexts. They are mandatory on every team (unlike every other class of champion) because of they fact that you have to kill turrets.

'

there are plenty of non adcs that have great siege, and plenty of adcs who can't siege well at all. in no way is siege the definitional trait of an ad carry.

the point of an ad carry is that the attack damage/attack speed/crit system has a higher peak than ap/cdr or whatever, and doing that damage at range is very powerful. but it scales UP slower. But an ad carry can actually kill someone who stacks up a ton of resists which is really hard to do late game for assassins, ap carries, brusiers, etc. who aren't super fed.

now a team needs a certain amount of siege or it's vulnerable to turtling, and ad carries are often pretty good at siege. this is because the primary way to make it efficient to build into the attack damage/attack speed/crit system is to have good aspd scaling AND an aspd steriod, and aspd is a great stat when it comes to siege. And of the ad carries who don't have aspd steriods, they often build trinity force (corki) which is fantastic against turtling, or have other incentives to get a ton of attack speed from items (kalista). sure, no ones contesting that! But it's bizarre to think ad carries are REQUIRED for siege, because in a siege scenario, e.g ziggs is going to do a lot more than urgot. It's just a happy fact that the same factors that make you good at being an ad carry will generally make you good at siege.

I actually don't think ad carries are

quite

mandatory. It's partly meta calcification, which league has always been bad at, although it's slowly getting better. I think Ziggs could fill Corkis role, for example, on teams with two ad in top/mid/jungle. I think it's because MOST COMPS want to have the late game threat of a character who's strong on 6 items, which ad carries are overwhelmingly the king of. And then when your comp wants something else (willing to trade lategame for Corki's midgame), I think that the midgamey ad carries are probably just played because that's what the ad carry players are comfortable with in terms of positioning, playstyle, and what have you. When you have a Trist, Vayne, etc. you're providing something that ad carries do easily the best. But I bet Corkis and Urgots could be replaced by non-ad carries in some comps and are used chiefly due to historical accident + being familiar to the kind of player who has to always be good with Trist, Vayne, etc...

[hitogoroshi]

Thing is, stuff like that could work at all levels if ADCs weren't basically required because of their sieging abilities (or at least perceived as required b/c nobody wants to run comps that can't siege effectively)

Corki is like a top ADC and his siege is garbage aside from trinity force - and lich bane siege is more or less the same thing as trinity force siege.

I mean, I think we both agree that adcs are viewed as "required" when they shouldn't quite be, and both agree that siege and sustained damage are things that adcs are good at and things you need to make sure your comp has if you have no adc. I'm just saying that the statement "adcs are required due to siege" is absurd, because Ziggs, Nidalee, TF, etc. are so much better than Urgot, Vayne, Corki, etc. when it comes to knocking down turrets in contested situations.

I also think being able to kill a 6-item tank without being kited is a harder to replace benefit from adcs than siege, but I do agree with you that it's not ONLY adcs who can do this. I think it's probably just that there is a group of champs who do siege and sustained lategame damage effectively (call them "pure adcs" maybe, and tag Trist as the absolute best example). So when your comp doesn't need one or the other that much and wants something else from bot lane, I think these ad carry players are only sticking to champs that play like the pure adcs they have to be good at because it's what they're used to do. Or something. I don't really know why people don't break the meta sometimes, just like I don't know why people still take wota first item on Vlad. I guess the game is just so gosh darn big that people use herding at the high level to efficiently figure out what to learn and they miss some good stuff. Who knows.

All I'm saying is that if you had like, a Jayce top and Ziggs mid, and then your bot lane didn't do adc for whatever reason, it's bonkers to think you'd be sitting around sad because you're not good at siege.

[hitogoroshi]

I think he means not including jungle intervention

Yup. If we're talking about one champ laning against another, it's pretty standard to assume lack of junglers, I thought.

issue with that is that some champs are better with dealing with junglers than others, so it gives you a skewed perception.

For example, Cho stomps Vlad so hard it's not even funny. But when you're thinking about ban-pick, it's also important to remember that Cho is a sitting duck and Vlad is one of the best 2v1's in the game. Maybe this was a bad example because I hate ban Cho every single gosh darn game, but yeah, you can't really review the 1v1 in a vacuum for any lane. (That being said, it's still sometimes good to KNOW - it's just not the best metric for comparison.)

I think I am going to try AD jungle Leona

Just do Iceborn on Support Leona, against a primary ad team it's really good!

[hitogoroshi]

@ns, I see what you mean. Only one who doesn't fit in the explanations of dive comps to me is Vlad? I guess he's decent at countering dives so that's why I'd imagine

Vlad is one of the best 1 v many fighters in the game. His W, E and R all do AoE damage. Particularly, if people are swarming you, it's the kind of AoE that's brainless to hit. His pool makes him invincible no matter how many people are trying to attack him. And on the OTHER hand, he does really well when he dives - hemoplague and pool are both amazing abilities for divers.

His principle problem is poke; but yeah, if the meta turns to dudes just running at each other and diving a lot, Vlad will probably become pretty dominant (especially if people stop the bad vlad wota/lucidity madness)

[hitogoroshi]

maybe this new academy vlad skin is avatar worthy, Nosferatu has been the only good vlad skin for a long time but I have high hopes

but yes I am a fervent vlad fanboy, actually ever since mid has changed to be more vlad friendly (average range of engagement has gone down, morellos is less popular) I've preferred him there to top and now I'm kind of trying to just only play vlad as much as possible.

[hitogoroshi]

Holy fuck I love Kennen.

Kennen has always been really solid without making waves and he's excellent against juggernauts/bruisers top so I bet he's about to come back in a big way

in fact come to think of it I haven't played him since new Rylai's and that was probably a good buff for him as well

[hitogoroshi]

nowadays it's better to take Vlad mid and only flex top if you know it's a good matchup; top has most of vlads bad matchups (j4, rengar) or shares them with mid (cho, fizz). Whereas mid is full of shit vlad does well against.

[hitogoroshi]

the best way to play voli is bot lane with targons laning with a blitz with coin

flip, grab, knockup, slow, silence, execute, and two survivability passives

what's an adc to do

[hitogoroshi]

Hey, Hito. I've been trying to build Guise first on Vlad when I play him top, but iunno if I'm really getting anything out of it. Any help here?

what kind of folks are you against? Top lane is getting pretty hairy for vlad nowadays (I try to take him mid now). I think top lane, my first item is armguard more often than anything else.

Guise is really good on Vlad, but sometimes you don't get it, or get it late. Vlad has some of the most flexible itemization of any champ, because his "glass cannon" builds still have health, and especially with new liandries - he can be a liandrys/rylais control asshole or a cap/void master blaster.

Also worth nothing - the thing I get angry about is that WOTA, specifically, is a trap option early, because all it does is let Vlad get to full health quickly when he's already really good at that, while doing nothing to shore up his weaknesses.

Hextech

can be a valid buy sometimes, especially in losing lanes when you want to use Tides on cooldown. You just need to sit on it until late and either sell it or get WOTA only in response to approaching buildcap. (It also helps that CDR helps a bit more starting level 15 ish when double pool actually becomes feasible).

Let me try to be a bit more detailed than just "Guise owns"

Starting items: Boots (default), Dorans shield (semi-dangerous lanes where move speed will not assist much), cloth armor (dangerous physical enemies like Riven), amp tome (enemies who cannot threaten you early). Always get hp pots with remaining money.

Boot upgrade: 98% sorc - pen is super strong on vlad because of tides. very occasionally tabi against an all physical, heavy auto-attack squad. I've entertained the idea of wanting swifties against people trying to kite you when you're going rylais just to pin them down - haven't found a chance to actually try it yet but it's something on my mind. Even when you're focusing on heavy roaming, mobi boots suck because you want to transfuse/tides jungle creeps you run past for extra power. (scuttlecrab was a secret vlad buff.)

First major items:

Lane is strongly in your favor: {sorc boots + rod}, finish rod into hourglass/rylais depending on situation. Sorc boots are to roam.
Lane not strongly one way or the other, enemy is not super tanky: sorc + guise, dunk that nerd into the shadow realm.
Farm lane where neither of you can kill the other: this probably means they're a tanky fuck, so often I just rush liandries / rylais (order depending on the specifics of the match).
A lot of lane abandonment/split-pushing: I think first item Ludens would be really good here but haven't gotten to try it because my games haven't really been ending up like this recently. Just writing it down!
Losing lane against magic: If you think you can kill them when you get stronger, cowl/guise. If you are getting utterly oppressed and shoved in - well that should be pretty rare, but then go cowl/hextech. If they're poking you a shitload and lanes are persisting for a long time, you actually CAN get a wota after cowl/hextech.
Losing lane against physical: armguard first by a mile. This is one of the most complicated lines to sort after that - guise, hourglass, hextech, all have cases when they're the correct pick. Just play a lot of vlad and learn how to feel it. These are the games you watch out if you're in that rare Tabi case. Boot upgrade can also be nice to help you run away and farm jungle during a freeze / let you procrastinate a pick until you know where to go next.

endgame dreams are something like:

boots
{hourglass / spirit visage}

sustain / vs. tanks: rylais, liandries, (void staff or cap), (the other endgame damage item or the other resist item)
burst: cap, void, (hourglass if visage above, else ludens), (wota/rylais/liandries/ludens/visage to taste)

[hitogoroshi]

Leona just needs immunity to cc during Zenith to stop that thresh flay bullshit

[hitogoroshi]

Leona just needs immunity to cc during Zenith to stop that thresh flay bullshit

No no no no. That'd also make her far too good.

I don't know, who besides Thresh reliably knocks Leona out of Zenith? It just stops Leona from being super-countered by one of the most popular supports. It makes her a lot better in that one specific matchup, but I don't think it really makes her oppressive in other matches. It'd just make her less annoying to pick blind because Thresh is such an outlier counter for her. The only counter on that level is Morg but she can only shield one or the other so you can play around it, whereas Thresh can literally just hard-deny any Zenith from landing because it targets Leona and not the person she's attacking. It's just dumb.

The big problem with top-Vi is that you need to DAMAGE with an ability to get a blast shield. If you want a shield against a ranged thing, you basically need to manipulate the wave to try to hit the enemy at max range. I think the only way top-Vi can really make a comeback is if they nerf Blast Shield and buff some other part of her kit. It's just so much easier for Jungle Vi to use blast shield efficiently (and you always get the excessive force reset!) and Denting Blows is such a good ability against monsters. Any Vi buff would have to not help her jungle or else it just wouldn't fly.

[hitogoroshi]

cowl/sorc was the correct opener there so good job on that score

and yeah, liandrys + rylais + visage + zhoynas + cap + boots was your goal. That kite does a lot vs TK and Voli and these disrespectful kids aren't meriting a void staff. So item order was pretty good, you just didn't get enough farm to pull it off. Maybe your 14:02 buy should have had a rod in it - remember you get 84 hp from rod so it's less glass cannony to naked rush and it seems like the active would help a lot against that team. But Guise may have been the correct choice, it's hard to judge just watching postgame. Guise is better if you're getting to roam and scrap but if it was a lot of pussyfooting around the map waiting for someone to fuck up (which the cs numbers seems to indicate) zhoyna's active does more for you in 5v5 than guise does. a glib way to think of it - vlad is super good in teamfights because pool is a shield that scales with the amount of incoming damage, and most of his shit is AoE. Zhoynas works the same way, and lets you get another round of Tides off.

[hitogoroshi]

ya I did mean needlessly large and not roa, and also I don't think warmogs is good on vlad

in my eyes the tankiest vlad build you should do is zhonyas, visage, rylais, liandries, cap, boots. three items with both ap and hp (vlad passive value!) and the cap amplification, resists for both types of damage. I guess in extreme team comps (they all have one type of damage and are slacking on whispers/voids) you could do resist boots and maybe swap visage -> thornmail or zhonyas -> banshees but those should be pretty rare games.

[hitogoroshi]

please offer tips for rushing up to gold v

grind janna games

[hitogoroshi]

Hito, what is a good build on Vlad? I usually rush WotA, is Guise and Pen Boots the better rush, or does it depend on matchup.

Let me try to be a bit more detailed than just "Guise owns"

Starting items: Boots (default), Dorans shield (semi-dangerous lanes where move speed will not assist much), cloth armor (dangerous physical enemies like Riven), amp tome (enemies who cannot threaten you early). Always get hp pots with remaining money.

Boot upgrade: 98% sorc - pen is super strong on vlad because of tides. very occasionally tabi against an all physical, heavy auto-attack squad. I've entertained the idea of wanting swifties against people trying to kite you when you're going rylais just to pin them down - haven't found a chance to actually try it yet but it's something on my mind. Even when you're focusing on heavy roaming, mobi boots suck because you want to transfuse/tides jungle creeps you run past for extra power. (scuttlecrab was a secret vlad buff.)

First major items:

Lane is strongly in your favor: {sorc boots + rod}, finish rod into hourglass/rylais depending on situation. Sorc boots are to roam.
Lane not strongly one way or the other, enemy is not super tanky: sorc + guise, dunk that nerd into the shadow realm.
Farm lane where neither of you can kill the other: this probably means they're a tanky fuck, so often I just rush liandries / rylais (order depending on the specifics of the match).
A lot of lane abandonment/split-pushing: I think first item Ludens would be really good here but haven't gotten to try it because my games haven't really been ending up like this recently. Just writing it down!
Losing lane against magic: If you think you can kill them when you get stronger, cowl/guise. If you are getting utterly oppressed and shoved in - well that should be pretty rare, but then go cowl/hextech. If they're poking you a shitload and lanes are persisting for a long time, you actually CAN get a wota after cowl/hextech.
Losing lane against physical: armguard first by a mile. This is one of the most complicated lines to sort after that - guise, hourglass, hextech, all have cases when they're the correct pick. Just play a lot of vlad and learn how to feel it. These are the games you watch out if you're in that rare Tabi case. Boot upgrade can also be nice to help you run away and farm jungle during a freeze / let you procrastinate a pick until you know where to go next.

endgame dreams are something like:

boots
{hourglass / spirit visage}

sustain / vs. tanks: rylais, liandries, (void staff or cap), (the other endgame damage item or the other resist item)
burst: cap, void, (hourglass if visage above, else ludens), (wota/rylais/liandries/ludens/visage to taste)

[hitogoroshi]

Tentative first impression is that Grasp of the Undying makes Shen really strong now

I also think Stormraiders Nasus is going to be secret tech

[hitogoroshi]

I think for Shen it's really important to focus on his laning with runes and masteries. Obviously Bond of Stone synergizes with Shen ult and taunt but Shen is going to be a beast in teamfights regardless of his runes and masteries. I think what's important for Shen is to be able to handle 1v1s for split pushing and to patch up his early laning. Grasp is excellent for both. I was outdueling a Yasuo as soon as I had Cinder.

Obviously need more data points to speak definitively, but that's the reasoning.

[hitogoroshi]

I mean I'm not saying that it won't be better on some people other than Shen, but I do think it's the best keystone for Shen.

It's a fair argument that, since Shen scales so well with HP, runes/masteries should maybe try to be more of a flat bonus instead of just multiplying the scaling factor. In practice though, the number is just

so big

for Grasp that it's just as good early.

Say you start with 700 hp on Shen (this is lowballing it for most starting shen setups, but we'll use it anyway). Level 1 Vorpal is going to heal 16.5 hp and deal 60. Grasp is going to heal and deal 28. So basically the heal you get landing that Vorpal auto is >250% bigger, wow!

If you get to level 5 Vorpal without getting hp then it's still almost doubling the heal you get hitting a Vorpal target, since Vorpal heals 32.5 and grasp is still on 28. And as soon as you back for your Bamis (reaching 1000hp) grasps heals 40, beating out the 37 from Vorpal and making it again a >200% greater heal.

So even early, Shen gets double healing from Vorpal blade with Grasp, as well as some nice bonus damage. And of course as Shen starts becoming monstrous it's just another HP scaling factor to make him even more of a pain in the ass.

[hitogoroshi]

wait, my numbers are slightly wrong because I was going off memory and thought it was 4%, not 3%.

So it's not quite THIS good, but it's still pretty good.

[hitogoroshi]

dear league thread.

shield/heal supports for the win, right? I'm not entirely convinced I still get the same out of my support kennen as previously, and I dislike brand there now as well.

I think tank supports will still probably be fine with bond of stone. but yes probably not the best time for the "I meant to go mid I am lost and afraid" supports.

[hitogoroshi]

Varus

Varus is no one's best bet. I want him to work and he just WONT.

Varus Leona is amazing

[hitogoroshi]

J4 is also one of Vlads hardest counters. It's disgusting.

[hitogoroshi]

Vlad's counter has always been sticky gap closer bruisers early.

this is the correct answer. J4 is particularly Vlad's nemesis for a few extra reasons too. J4 passive is on a similar clock to Transfuse early which makes trading nearly impossible, especially with shield. it's also because both e AND q outrange transfuse, so he can mix up the combo. sometimes trying the combo and sometimes just going straight to q for damage. it makes it hard to use pool well at all, not to mention iec's point that pooling does so much damage even if you do pool the whole e-q. just a friggin nightmare all around.

hiplop, as a vlad kid, I'd reccomend trying Ken. He plays kinda similarly to Vlad but has good matchups against a lot of Vlad's nemeses.