League of Legends (Old)

[RayFrost]

CV is way more helpful than clarity wtf

[RayFrost]

But we have athene's / blue buff? (this is to show how poor the argument is)

I mean, I've had maybe... 1 game where I was like "man I wish I had clarity" (it was in

ultra rapid fire mode

aram)

I've had several where I was like "man I wish I had cv"

CV is global vision at will. This is useful at any point in the game.

Clarity is aoe mana. Worthless after about 15 minutes on just about every champion to ever exist, unless you're just horribly bad at landing the spells that you're burning all your mana to cast (if you've burnt a full mana bar and a half's worth of mana, when factoring in mana regen, without getting something then there's a different problem)

Clarity isn't good so much as a crutch for people without proper mana management in the early game. That's all of its value. CV is flat out good for what it does. It's just that, with the increase in ward presence, there's less value in having cv over a summoner spell that directly impacts a teamfight. Note that clarity doesn't impact teamfights either because you really shouldn't be able to burn 2 mana bars' worth without having already won or lost the fight.

[RayFrost]

I'm not sure if you're mocking what I did with panzer above or if you sincerely missed what I wrote in the beginning of explaining cv and clarity but I love you either way.

[RayFrost]

The great thing is I didn't like taking ignite to begin with and pretty much always took exhaust in bot lane.

Now I can take exhaust or heal in bot lane.

[RayFrost]

suck less than I do!

[RayFrost]

So I dropped to plat 4 today. In two literally unwinnable games where I try my best only to have the team shit all over my efforts. I've been on a losing streak since the 4v5 loss in my promos for plat 2. And I feel pained by how horrendously bad the players I'm getting paired with are lately. I've been smurfing in silver / gold and getting vastly less braindead players. I hate plat. So much.

[RayFrost]

Thanks for the kind words, brandi. I wasn't getting down on myself. Just expressing a bit of frustration with the zed jungle / nasus jungle picks I got minutes before I made the post. Painfully bad picks with painfully bad play.

I met a challenger guy from eu, and he mains adc (he said plat is the worst division because everyone feels they deserve diamond, also said getting challenger is super easy in season 4). If I really wanna hit diamond, I could do so pretty easily off of his back. (I'd prefer to do it on my own though cuz :soloqstruggle:)

[RayFrost]

I'm really not sure how to take that comment so I'm just going to say "cool, gl hf" and leave it at that

[RayFrost]

It still doesn't make her satisfactory as a basically escapeless adc. (You can't convince me her passive or e count, esp when compared to other adc escape methods)

I mean, she has her moments where she can shine, but mf is really really weak in the mobility creep meta (where it's hard to get the enemy team to stand there eating bullet time without getting shit on by something coming from the side or just diving past everything to piledrive you). She's strong in good places but weak in important places, given this.

She was stronger when the scary things didn't all have jumpy jumps and stealth and such.

[RayFrost]

His tears allow me to summon more voidlings.

I honor for feeding

[RayFrost]

I hear the best cure is self-restraint

[RayFrost]

No champ builds zephyr as first or second, lots of champions want it as third or fourth. Mainly champs that want to engage but lack superomgawesomeomega burst gap close powers and are bruiser types.

[RayFrost]

Just get ninja tabi, scrub.

[RayFrost]

Shen.

That is all.

[RayFrost]

Say whaaat

Shen has infinite taunt which is a dash and stops people from being able to spam their spells. If they don't get merc treads / cc reduction in the defense tree, they're stuck getting taunted with only like a third of a second to get out of it (and even if they flash you can just taunt after them). His shield is permanently up, and he has the ability to just make it a pain to do anything while he tower dives you level 3 successfully because trololo.

[RayFrost]

Every shen I've seen has been able to do it. And even I've been able to do it.

And I've seen it done by ap and tank shens.

[RayFrost]

Only going 4 points in the offense tree also seems reasonable. 4/21/5 or something.

It's not like ryze needs that ap/level, and you can make use of the movespeed / extra points in the defense tree / manaregen.

[RayFrost]

I never play draft normals (unless invited by a friend to one).

Always blind normals.

Though I also don't ever practice champions so....

[RayFrost]

KZ's ability is not targeted. Jax's ability is targeted.

Quality of computer / internet does matter, but I have consistently 150+ ping and still do fine. I got to gold on 12 fps with said ping.

My point isn't that you're wrong so much as that skill can overcome certain handicaps.

And nobody likes hearing people complain about how bad their computer / internet is regardless of the situation. If it's so bad that you could win with normal ping / computer quality but are losing horribly instead, then maybe you should consider not taking the game quite so seriously that you feel the need to complain about how badly your teammates are doing because you are already not performing close to what would be your 100%.

[RayFrost]

My rules for yoloq picking in general:

Above all else, play champions you know how to play. (Don't first time malphite just cuz your team wants you to play him for omgepicyasuocombos)

Then pick for what suits the team / lane out of that pool of things you're good at.

Then pick what teammates ask you to pick for their own preferences. If you're good at thresh lulu leona zyra and they all are good picks but your adc wants you to play zyra, play zyra - he probably understands how zyra works more than how the others work, and you're good with her so it's not a risk.

The reason for the third one has the added extension that it makes your teammate(s) like you more, which means lower chance of rage, higher chance of communication, and higher chance of them performing their best due to :feelgood:

Note that a lower chance of rage doesn't mean a guaranteed lack of rage. People get wound up and upset. Shrug.

My rules for yoloq playstyle as support:

Watch adc's movements and enemy bot lane's movements, decide if they're passive or aggressive. Adapt playstyle to match how the lane is playing out to minimize the loss / maximize the gain from the differences.

I've had games where I was passive until level 7 or so on leona because my adc wanted bf sword before going in. I was chill with this and then we suddenly went balls deep on the lane opponents that had been trying to bully us out of lane all game for free double kill. I've had games where I went aggressive on soraka / janna at level 4 and we just pushed the enemy bot lane out of the game.

I never go into a game with any specific playstyle set into my head. It's all about backing up a teammate's plays and deciding when you feel they'd back up your own / making sure they do by pinging / etc. Even a basic level of communication with pings can help coordinate this, or typing out ideas while in base for when you get back, etc.

There's bad games there's good games, but I find I have more good games than bad ones (in terms of coordination / teamwork / results) when I follow these guidelines. Whenever I stray away from being flexible or get caught up in trying to "mesh well" with the team at the cost of my ability to play my champion, I tend to lose.

You do you, they do them, it works out. Or it doesn't. And you move on to the next one. Rinse repeat.

[RayFrost]

Other laners that are fine being passive can include but are not limited to: singed, yasuo, warwick, udyr, trundle, shyvana, ryze, and mundo.

Note that some of these can be played aggressively, but they scale well enough to not NEED to be aggressive in the laning phase.

The noteworthy ones are udyr and shyvana. They split push insanely well, so they can serve a very powerful purpose in the game without ever actually ~fighting~ anything but minions and towers. Like legit these fucks are annoying as shit if you can't pin them down when they decide to take your top inhib then swing down to your bot towers then speeddash away when you chase them and waste your time while their team takes baron for free.

[RayFrost]

@Rayfrost- What does toplane Udyr build?

Toplane udyr can build variably, but I know trinity force is pretty standard with tanky item choices including things like frozen heart / visage or bveil.

If you get ninja tabi cuz high ad team comp then zephyr is a pretty valuable item purchase.

If you plan to go split push farmerino udyr build, you should probably go ghost tp and get early distortion boots to just zoom zoom and give absolutely zero of the metric fucks.

Other build paths are oriented toward other things, but yeah.

[RayFrost]

But do you get the tower(s) and then roam mid and get freelo kill and then get that tower then take drag then take bot tower with masterful guided rotations of your team?

Try it next time. It'll help more than just you do well.

[RayFrost]

Fiddle is probably worse in the sense that his sustain is better

Soraka is worse in the sense that she can push infinitely better than fid could ever dream of

[RayFrost]

Wow holy shit.

I'm actually surprised more with the bottom of that list, Bunch of supports are very low in toxicity.

I thought support would be slightly higher up the list in general.

Judging from the reddit comments, most of the support players just keep their rage outside of the game. Cursing out loud, etc.

I personally just don't feel the same level of anger that they're expressing. I'm just... not that emotionally invested. And everyone has bad games, so I find it hard to be upset with people.

[RayFrost]

Congrats, brandi.

You earned it.

[RayFrost]

I had someone ragepick riven because riven was "freelo" even though they sucked at riven then proceed to feed and decide to do draft racing in my ranked game one win away from promos. They were on the other team last game arguing that the riven that did really well was just palying an easy to win freelo champ and I disagreed. So they played riven to prove a point. And got destroyed.

Basically, rage and immaturity exists at all levels. Rank doesn't indicate quality of personality.

And then I just lost to an ashe support. I never knew it could be so unbelievably annoying or strong. Christ.

[RayFrost]

And then I just lost to an ashe support. I never knew it could be so unbelievably annoying or strong. Christ.

what

If your adc is a passive laner, ashe gets to poke with volley all day then has extremely good cc presence with the slow / ult.

[RayFrost]

Also, omgproplayersarehot

[RayFrost]

man I played support skarner / shaco and got to bronze 3.

[RayFrost]

I'm not the only one, then.

[RayFrost]

An example of someone really good that's ranked lower: nikanor. Dude was silver last season. He's really damn good at adc.

We'd have to balance even harder around you than we'd have to balance around ani.

[RayFrost]

Wasn't ani a fresh face 30 when we did inhouses anyway

[RayFrost]

The first few games in placements are the biggest swing. There's a huge weight placed towards your mmr (match making rating, essentially elo but hidden) in the first few games which set the "area" you're in, and then it tweaks from there with your later games. If you win 3 early and then lost 5 and win 2, you'll get placed higher than if you lose 3 early and then win 5 and lose 2.

If you duo with someone, it inflates your mmr. The results of losing / winning changes.

For example if your friend is diamond 1 and you lose, the hit to your friend is bigger than the hit to you. Likewise if you win he gets less but you get a lot more.

On the reverse end, if your partner is bronze 5, you'll take a huge hit to your mmr if you lose and get less if you win. While your partner gets the same effect as you did when paired with the diamond.

If you're both in placements, losing costs more for both of you and winning gets more for both of you.

The current "starter" mmr is around silver 2/3, for perspective. Saying 1200 is kinda unclear given that mmr is hidden.

It used to be 1200 elo back when elo was used as the unit of measurement.

[RayFrost]

If he's played even one ranked game, it'll be different.

[RayFrost]

It's because support is the secret to getting high elo.

I'm not serious, but I do find it funny that AP / Brandi / Bro / Myself are all support mains and all high ranked.

[RayFrost]

Maybe having faith in teammates more often would lead to more wins instead of playing as if it's you vs the world

[RayFrost]

See? If you were leona you would have made good engages!

Proving my point that playing support is the key to victory once again.

[RayFrost]

I am half tempted to drop my currently plat 5 smurf down to bronze five and play only support all the way back up with a support option list of annie, janna, leblanc, and lux just to prove a point about competence overcoming role, but I don't think you'll hear me or anyone else commenting on things even if I do it.

I'd also feel like a dick throwing upwards of 20 games to drop down.

[RayFrost]

A sizable portion of this thread is people making up excuses for why they're losing.

If you want to iso people with valuable information, I think JDodge had some longer posts, ankamius had a few, and zepher has more info posts lately than his early iso IIRC. Thebuttonmen also had some useful comments here and there, I think.

If you have any specific requests for information, then you could ask in thread and get answers.

P-edit: brandi is correct.

[RayFrost]

Looking at the website, I already have several problems:

It thinks that one game is a good basis to judge me as a god among men on trundle. I *lost* that game yet I'm almost 70% better than the average trundle player. Small sample size, I had a lane against a cho so I got to free farm, and I was completely useless in teamfights because I'm bad at trundle and let myself get kited all day erry day by sivir lulu due to bad build bad mechanics.

It doesn't weigh anything against time. It's just a flat average. In a 1 hour game with 100 kills, the value is gonna be "better" than a 15 minute stomp on 15 kills. Yet consistently getting 15 minute stomps is clearly a greater sign of skill than having an hour long game where both sides die 50 times and you just happen to only be 4 of those deaths.

It says I'm shit compared to the average league player on 90% of the champions I play.

I'm fairly sure that the reason I got to plat isn't because I'm less than average. Pretty sure. Just kind of a feeling.

If you used it to look me up it'd indicate that I'm bad and got carried (via magical pixie dust and gumdrops) all the way to plat when I really belong in the gold4-silver3 range. Pls.

[RayFrost]

And "too late bush" is the bush in the river tight next to top lane.

Because if you see the jungler here and you're pushed up, you're probably fucked. No matter which side you're on.

[RayFrost]

Poppy shouldn't be able to shit on anybody early game.

Mana pool too small can't do anything but all in.

[RayFrost]

The fact bork gives jax speed in both the form of the active and the passive attack speed makes it better than the sustain value off of gunblade.

attack speed is jax's ultimate stat

[RayFrost]

What I ban when I have to ban: Xin, yi, ww, kassadin, anything people request, etc.

[RayFrost]

not worth to ban kassadin imo

I ban kass when the others are already banned. He's underplayed but still strong.

[RayFrost]

Well, xepeke built old school with rod of ages in the invitationals.

I've seen a fair bit of iceborne kassadin with a tanky ap bruiser-esque build aimed more towards frozen heart / iceborne for mana and cdr synergies.

I personally tried him recently (albeit on 3s) and went against an lb for a fairly easy lane. The shield lets kass trade rather aggressively into evenly-ranged mids. You take almost no damage when you combine 15% reduction on passive + damage shield.

[RayFrost]

Did I mention shyvana is the only champion that, just based purely on design, I feel should be removed from the game?

[RayFrost]

Let's start with one thing that a lot of super annoying champions have: no resources to manage. Shyvana only has cooldowns. Now this by itself clearly isn't a problem. Add on to this that her cooldowns are fairly long overall and you'd say okay this is fine.

But then look at the abilities: she has two different methods of gap closing / increasing, has excellent aoe wave clear, several single target damage steroids (that become aoe in dragon form), high base damage, decent damage scaling, and she gets a ton of free gold of defensive stats off the ult doubling the free stats she already gets off the passive. Add on to this that her e is an effective ranged poke in the early game, and you've got a champion with extremely good free tankiness and extremely good free damage. Just add water.

A lot of champions are abusive and strong or op or whatever, but I just don't like this specific brand of design of "let's give a champion free stats in both directions" - she's the least fun to deal with of any champion and the least fun to play as of any champion that I've played in this entire game.

[RayFrost]

I never said shyv was imbalanced. I just dislike the design. Completely different things.

Also thresh has enormously massive base damage on his ult. Like holy shit. 500 damage per wall at level 2. With a 1:1 ap ratio.

[RayFrost]

I actually don't enjoy the style of support a-la thresh that are engage-oriented. I'm more of a fan of classical soraka / janna / sona / zyra that provide more peel / zone presence / sustain presence.

And I've started to get the feeling that I should start playing lux / brand / lb support sometime to break my funk with thres / leo. Been doing badly with them lately for no real reason.

[RayFrost]

I think all the plat+ support mains on MS will agree that Sona is very powerful.

This is correct.

Sona's ult is still one of the best teamfighting ultimates in the game, sona's presence in the laning phase is massive, and sona is a fairly effective pick into the likes of morgana and thresh given the fact their key abilities rely on having a wide open swath to hit from. It's not that morg / thresh are bad at landing hooks, it's that sona's kit allows her to make sure the hooks never become an issue. She CAN hide in the minion wave, she has range to back off if they walk up, etc.

At six, thresh's potential in the lane is actually significantly weaker than sona's. Thresh ult: if you walk into this thing you will take dmgs and a slow (solution: don't walk into walls). I probably used all of my cd's to get you inside this thing to begin with. Sona ult: if I hit this wide aoe ability on you, you'll take dmgs and be stunned (solution: don't stand in range or be a god and flash right when she casts it to avoid the hit). And I have high base damage and other cooldowns up to punish you during this time.

The reason you rarely see her is the fact that it doesn't fit the "meta" to play her. The increase in carry jungle picks that are squishy increases the need to have a tanky front liner, like thresh or leona, to balance out the team's softness. With the changes to feral flare decreasing the number of carryjungle picks, options like sona / zyra become more viable. The only people playing sona right now are people that are really really really really comfortable with her because they're still able to do the plays and their large experience with sona make up for being squishy (aka: really good positioning, mechanics, and itemization).

Add that to the fact that low elo players tend to have really bad positioning that is easily punished by the all in style (but not by the poke style), and you'll almost always see annie/morgana/thresh/leona in silver / bronze (I'd think that gold is the point where people that play support might experiment with other things, but I haven't played against enough golds recently to know).

[RayFrost]

To add on the support / adc combo lanes:

Nami / cait is legendary, zyra / ashe is a pretty old synergy combo of similar levels of legend

Sona / MF and Sona / Ez are pretty old as well.

[RayFrost]

I often google counters to the enemy lane and then play someone I know.

"Oh so this champ counters them by doing this? Eh, I can do that with someone else"

#Malzaharcounterseverybody

[RayFrost]

Congrats, reck.

[RayFrost]

I just played with pbat. He's in his g5 promos right now and I just went 15/2 on akali mid to give him that freelo.

Feelsgoodman.

In other news akali is a good pick into kassadin.

[RayFrost]

Ziggs mirror for the first game.

I got a pentakill.

Next game ez and we had two ad ez builds　－　we lost horribly.

[RayFrost]

Go aegis in katarina vs katarina.

Be god.

[RayFrost]

If only you were playing a real adc you mighta been able to snowball properly.

This is a joke about quinn never being played.

[RayFrost]

You and a guy I know that named himself "phoenix quinn" are the only quinn players I have seen since quinn's release.

Said guy was bronze 4 last season and hasn't played this season at all.

[RayFrost]

Would someone be willing to teach me how to lane? I know this seems weird, but I can't lane at all - I can do pretty well after, but laning just confuses me.

The basics concept of laning:

#1: CS

#2: Harass

#3: Ward coverage and jungle awareness

#4: Using a lead

#5: Punishing mistakes

#6: Catching up if/when behind

Which bits of this list do you need help with?

[RayFrost]

Could you go over 6 for me?

I'm generally good in laning phase, but if i get behind i struggle a lot.

There is only one global piece of advice I can give: buy a pink ward, even if you don't buy any other wards. (I tend to average 3-5 green and 2-4 pinks in any given game as a mid laner, for example)

For the rest, it depends highly on the matchup, but I can give general concepts per lane:

Top: Build defenses. You're fucked if you try to build damage and outdamage the other guy. Back off from trades, if you've got no disengage then stay in xp range and back off if they walk up, don't even try to farm until it hits your tower. If they get so strong they can just dive you, don't even bother defending the tower. Go farm a bit of the jungle / roam mid to try and get something done. Buy wards and keep vision on the map so your team knows when the guy you let get super strong is coming to smash them. Push the tower with your jungler if you have a good opportunity to do so, but I don't recommend trying to have your jungler counter the snowball effect as a lot of top lane matchups will just lead to the other guy being like "oh, double buffs and double kill? thx." Obviously exceptions exist etc etc.

Mid: Really depends on the style of the other champion.

If they're a roam heavy champ, put down wards and call every single mia ever even if you just killed them or saw them back. Say that shit, there's no promise they're gonna come back to lane.

If they are playing a super farmer angled toward late game, let them farm and go roaming. You let them get ahead, so you can't really fight them. Just punish other lanes instead to catch up / get the team ahead. Try to coordinate this with your jungler. Put down wards and get a sweeper to clear wards for the roam to make sure there's not an incoming counterroam.

If they're a lane abuser without a lot of potential to scale into a godly late game, buy a negatron cloak / chain vest and just farm and don't die. Put down wards, and stay alive. Keeping yourself and your team alive is 90% of your job in this situation. 10% is getting cs.

Bot: Depending on the timing, push down the tower with your jungler / mid then rotate to push down mid, get that global gold and map control early to give you a relief of pressure to be able to put down wards and go for picks / farm more comfortably than them. Around level 7-9 is a good time to do this, usually.

If it's early game, just survive and call for a gank from mid / the jungle together if the enemy bot is being mindlessly aggressive, keep wards up (if you're about to say "Well I'm adc I don't need to buy a ward the support can do it" fuck you, get a pink ward and put that shit down for your gankers - the support can only get one of these things), and just try to maintain the ability to get cs in that lane. Spam the shit out of health pots if you're dying to poke, get double doran's blades as adc if you're just losing flat fights (that extra health *is* significant).

[RayFrost]

If your goal is to blow up the ADC/APC, the low range on DFG combined with your lack of mobility seems bad relative to just going dcap/void after Athene's

This is correct.

[RayFrost]

On cdr veigar vs full dmgs veigar:

Similar to cdr lb vs full dmgs lb, it's a difference in thought process. With the athene's build, you're putting yourself solidly in the cdr range of someone that can get off your spell rotations frequently to abuse good base damage (or in veigar's case infinite free ap), giving yourself survivability, and getting solid mana sustain (anyone that assumes you'll always have a blue buff active on you / veigar passive is enough is silly). This also gives you more pushing and farm potential (farming veigar q is huge).

On the other hand, the damage build asserts as much presence as possible on one, maybe two, targets with the thought process of "burst one thing down before it can do anything, win game" which works when done right but has more risk involved in the sense that if you blow your rotation and they live... you're fucked. The cdr build is less likely to insta-burst people but provides more up-time on your burst casts.

It's a matter of playstyle, though I'm in the "build athene's on every ap champion that uses mana" camp. Not literally all of them, but close enough.

[RayFrost]

Ignite does more than just net a kill early. An ignite on an adc can shut down their lifesteal healing, an ignite in a teamfight situation can give vision on a key target trying to brush kite, finish someone that it'd be dangerous to go in range to finish with something else (burning your e to dive into tower range vs igniting them and saving your hp), etc.

The value of tp is to have more map presence, the value of ignite is to have more fight presence. It's a roughly even tradeoff at this level, even if tp dominates the scene at the highest levels due to insane shit like duo jungle -> tp bot lane swapperino strats.

[RayFrost]

Hi my name is 1% critchance rune

Fuck you

<3

[RayFrost]

I watched it for five minutes.

Not my cup of tea, though I see what she's doing. Also, I think she's still an attention-seeking fake girl gamer by virtue of the fact that she's being fake for the purposes of getting attention (views on her stream).

No hate, just don't appreciate.

Edit:

Also totally /in for the ranked teams funtimes. I could use something to do now that I've hit the limit for what I'm willing to try to get for this season.

[RayFrost]

If you consistently win back to your series, I do believe riot has put in the "your mmr gets higher and eventually you'll just promote without the series"

But if you're losing several after cuz of tilt, then you're not getting that.

[RayFrost]

As far as i can tell, FF isn't really worthwhile on anyone as it's either way too little presence or way too much snowballing.

Well, if you are playing a game oriented to the late late late game, then you might prefer to go ff. For example, your team is super omega bullshit levels of late game scaling (tristana, udyr, irelia, malz, morgana) into a team with substantially less late game (lee, thresh, vi, lucian, yasuo).

You:ll probably lose early and just try to stall out for a while, so the flare farming lets you hit late game harder than a spirit item.

Also, psa: do not build ninja tabi and elder lizard on vi, get mercs or elder golem. seriously.

[RayFrost]

Stuff about frozen mallet

Accurate.

Also, myko and zephyr said some accurate things in this page.

[RayFrost]

Step 1: Wait for enemies to go after your bitchass scrubass team
Step 2: Go in and suddenly you're not being focused
Step 3: ??? (Do deeps)
Step 4: Win and Profit.

The rayfrost guide to adc at all levels of play.

[RayFrost]

What manaume why no it does physical damage now so it's not efficient compared to seraph's + seraph shield

ryze still has ap scaling even if it's not stellar, and you're building fucktons of mana

[RayFrost]

The thing they fail to take into account with that math is that ryze's auto attack is proc'd a helluvalot less than the extra damage from ryze's low cooldown abilities.

It's more damage *per cast* / *per auto* - you get more per cast from the direct bonus damage, and muramana bonus damage falls off per cast whereas the direct bonus of seraph's is consistent regardless of mana pool.

Add on to this that a huge value to ryze is his ability to survive for an extremely long time AND that muramana is physical damage, and you can see where the value kinda falls off. Seraph shield keeps you alive longer to do your dps longer, and armor is easier to itemize (and more commonly itemized). Void staff increases the seraph's bonus damage significantly but actually has a much smaller impact on muramana since the majority of muramana's bonus damage comes from the physical damage active.

[RayFrost]

Deathnote: Bad attitudes happen at all levels. Plat is no escape from the ragequit ff@20 uallsuckomfgkillyourself personality problem people.

It's the people not the level of play. I've played down in bronze 5 and gotten some of the most willing to listen teammates ever (even if they weren't very good... I mean... they're still bronze 5) and some of the calmest games. I've played at literally every level of play below diamond across several roles / accounts (including an account on oce), and it's all the same as far as the number of unwinnable games (by unwinnable I mean "even if I played better I could not have forced this to be a win" games, not games that I lost), number of ragers, number of throws, etc.

[RayFrost]

When everyone is being bronze all you can do is be bronze with them

truer words haven't been said

I find this very hard to do. Please teach me how to properly bronze, all I do is go lee sin and solo-push through their top inhib.

[RayFrost]

I like playing akali into ziggs at low levels because I dodge the skills and then hit six and he can't escape me. It's quite hilarious, really. Not viable in cases of roughly equal skill.

If you're capable of going all in or simply sustaining, you can do well in the matchup. Examples include morgana (sustain whore of babylon), orianna (has all in potential surprising as this may be - the range on the ball is pretty significant toward this, esp with the ult's power and ziggs' overall mediocre mobility), ahri (has everything), swain (sustain king of babylon - married to morgana), and more.

Come teamfights, you either have the option of grouping in small areas and dying horribly as you get hit by everything or trying to pick fights outside of the jungle and having one really annoying fucker chase his ass away (say, a trundle) while your team decimates their's.

Fizz gets rekt (too low range / low damage for too long), kassadin gets rekt pre-six, zed gets rekt pre-six (and isn't that scary post six because of how one-shot his mobility is, which is interruptable by ziggs w), yasuo I don't know, and leblanc works if there's a significant skill gap between you and your opponent but not if you're on even terms.

[RayFrost]

Fizz's burst scales up but early on he relies on going for favorable trades when the other guy's skills are on cd, but ziggs' q is really really short cooldown. It's hard to do a favorable trade when to get it you take all the damage and then to disengage you take more.

Kassadin's q can mitigate the damage, but due to ziggs' range the shield will have to be cast on a minion (which means kass is burning mana to take less damage without dealing any damage). Post-six potential is heavily influenced by how badly the pre-six lane goes for him.

LB isn't op, so you're inherently wrong if you're thinking about it from that perspective. LB's major form of harass relies on walking into range to w q e (she prefers q w but into ranged things she'll accept w q e) but ziggs' q range is actually long enough for him to farm / back off before lb can get in - at level one ziggs can actually be fairly abusive to LB even if she has a huge power spike at level 2, so it's an extremely delicate laning phase for both lb and ziggs but it favors ziggs at base. He has the range, lower cooldowns, higher base damage off of single-proc q's (which may be all you can get off), and the aoe to push the lane supremely well.

Yasuo's wind wall only blocks ziggs w q and autos, the cooldown is long, and ziggs' cooldowns are short. The shield is easily poked out by a single auto (which is how you deal with yasuo's shield), so it's of minimal relevance in the face of a low cooldown harass.

[RayFrost]

Lb lost her silence. I think the nerf is probably too big. She relied on the silence to ever win trades with like 90% of the things she had to deal with. Now she just gets fucked in the face by the likes of malzahar, syndra, kayle, etc, that have the ability to get on her while she tries to just get some poke. She's essentially forced into the "instantly 100-0 them or get facefucked" role when going after anything with a cc / an effective gap closer.

Idk, I think sure she mighta needed a nerf, but I doubt that removing the silence completely from her kit is the right solution.

[RayFrost]

Zephy: It's not dramatic to call a nerf a bit too big if you actually have played well against leblanc / played well as leblanc and know how significant the silence is.

It's literally the bread and butter of lb's laning phase. I'm not saying "oh no lb is completely useless and can't do anything now" - I'm saying she'll get fucked in the face a lot more in lane than she did before because she *relied* on the silence to win trades. Without the silence, she now pretty much flat out loses into any trade because they will all involve the other guy blowing her up.

She's supremely squishy; squishier at base than a lot of other mid laners (which is fine, by itself). This means she needs to do more damage per trade to come out truly even / ahead (whereas the likes of malzahar, for example, can do a bit less to lb and be fine cuz bigger health pool). There is no opportune trade, because all trades that involved her taking damage weren't that good for her before but at least then she had the silence to prevent them from punishing her cooldowns being down (it forced people to trade with you before you did your damage, now they can choose to do it when they want and so they have all the control).

Maybe the biggest example is brand. Personally, I liked brand into lb before the nerf, but now that lb doesn't have a silence, brand probably completely dominates the lane. LB can NEVER w in for her q proc or she'll just eat the e -> q and then brand isn't silenced from the q so he can land the w combo (the majority of his damage). If she goes for the q - w to side - e, it's not exactly the most reliable thing, and she can't afford to stay still for the second e proc, meaning a lot less damage per trade (whereas w damage is upfront).

I'm not saying introducing counterplay into her kit is bad, but I feel like now lb has no effective counterplay for her matchups. She went from the renekton-esque "dominate the lane to dominate the game" style to having very little opportunity to win the lane.

I haven't played new lb to see how it feels, so maybe people will still be pussies in lane and let you walk over them because oh noes the damages how could I possibly think to retaliate, but....................... actually, lemme go find this out. To the smurf!

[RayFrost]

mimic'd e is now vastly superior to mimic'd q in a lot of cases, which I enjoy quite a lot

Because I'm a 2chainz kind of guy

[RayFrost]

Hi zephyr,

You're wrong.

With love,
RayFrost <3

[RayFrost]

In other news, I faced a skarner top lane earlier as vlad. He went oom pretty much constantly. 100% rekt

I think skarner should probably stick to the jungle.

[RayFrost]

If they're going to die and you can go in to scare the other guy off, no.

If they're going to be fine and you don't think you can get the kill, yes.

[RayFrost]

Then ward better.

[RayFrost]

Then play better and quit bitching.

Look, there are bad players at ALL LEVELS OF PLAY. Stop pretending that you're in some special slice of elo hell or whatever the fuck you think. You're wrong. Shit happens that makes some (SOME being less than 40%) games unwinnable. The rest is purely you not playing well enough to either 1) have your teammates carry you or 2) carry your teammates. Instead of focusing on crying about how many "fuckos" you get, start trying to improve your play to the point that you can carry the bad players you get and not be one of them in any of your games.

The only consistent thing is you in these games. If you consistently play better than your level, you'll get higher. Fact. It doesn't mean you'll win every game. It means you'll win more than you lose.

If you want advice specific to your play, I am willing to spectate you and tell you everything you do wrong sometime.

[RayFrost]

Can I bet without betting money cuz if I can I'd like to bet on silver 3/4 depending on whether he wins the first promo (3 if win, 4 if loss).

[RayFrost]

The e is also a gap closer / increases with a mini-interrupt, a slow, and procs your passive on the target for free.

Basically it's the best of her abilities to max.

W vs Q is about damage - q is more damage per level, w is a good level one then don't level again skill (similar to ashe's e)

[RayFrost]

Well, think of it like this:

Is the q super significant at level one? Eh, kinda. Is the w super significant at level one? Hell yes.

Which one needs more levels to be relevant into the mid-game? Q. Which one can be level one and still be relevant into the mid-game? W.

[RayFrost]

If you find you can't keep killing your lane opponent, abuse the fact you're ahead and push down the tower and roam to make use of your lead to get your team more of one.

If you're top, push it down and go push mid, then rotate to bot. If you're mid, push it down or just straight up roam to bot. If your roam is successful, dragon becomes free (successful includes forcing them to back on low health, meaning they can't contest). If you're bot, push it down, roam to get mid tower, and assert control over dragon. If you're jungling, counterjungle ward deep in their jungle assert presence and control over objectives (including going to gank and then push top lane for example or getting dragon after forcing them to be in bot lane).

Also keep in mind that you can get a kill but if you're losing a fuckton of cs having to go back all the time in exchange for getting them that you're not actually getting much of a lead. Sometimes it's worth it to just force them to b, get all that delicious farm, and conserve your flash for an easier opportunity (instead of flashing into tower while your lane is pushed to your side, getting the kill, then having to back or risk Foolish Death).

[RayFrost]

Bro, don't change the name. It's good as is.

the new bloodthirster is stupid and definitely not good on riven/people like her

Your only other option is hydra, which doesn't benefit her as much as it does other champions because her abilities are already AoE.

I guess hydra could be better if you were losing lane badly and couldn't even autoattack minions safely to build the shield, as then you're only losing 5 AD for a nice active. And you might just get hexdrinker against an AP lane opponent. Maybe double doran's into that could be OK in such a case.

I don't play top lane very often. ^^

Hydra was and always will be good on riven. It provides a way to cancel the animation of her w and ties in well with her ability to push / deal aoe in teamfights. The synergy with her passive and the hydra aoe is extremely helpful as well.

BT has always been a greed item for riven. And it's less valuable as a greed item now.

I'd say more but I'm headed off soon. I'll probably put in more time later today.

[RayFrost]

In fact you generally dont want a full hydra as a first item on renekton in lane, unless you're fighting someone who is going to start being able to bully you at around level 9 (which is quite a few matchups, honestly), because you don't want to autopush, you want to keep them having to come up for their cs so you can bully them with fury built up from autoing and not killing the entire wave.

Rayfrost got me to start building brutalizer as a first offensive item on renekton and honestly I like it a lot better than the tiamat rush

This is not to say that hydra is bad. It's just that brutalizer on renekton is sexy as hell for snowballing faster into an opponent you can afford to bully around. In matchups where I don't feel like I can curbstomp the other guy, I'd want the tiamat more so that I could afford to build tankiness (brutalizer I feel is less effective outside the snowball-laning phase in terms of efficiency)

Broseidon is correct that hydra is primarily gotten on champions with an animation to cancel: lee sin (e), renekon (w), riven (w), aatrox (e / ult), rengar (e), kz (w and q? - don't play him enough to know). The one exception that comes to mind is fiora. She's a special case because of the ult being a suddenly magical aoe damage-healing device.

This isn't to say that hydra is strictly bad on other champs. It's just that these champions in particular get a lot more out of hydra than other itemization choices whereas others have things that can provide as much value or more depending on the situation. For example, you

could

build hydra on udyr. But why not build something that has more synergy with his kit (frozen fist / trinity, tanky items with cdr, zephyr, etc etc etc)?

[RayFrost]

Pro-tip: if he prefers top and he loses a lot as top lane, then he's going to do a helluvalot worse somewhere else. Best to give him the shitty role and take something else and super hard godly carry to make up for it (or hope a teammate can)

[RayFrost]

It means you're doomed and can't connect. You're just doomed. Rip.

[RayFrost]

OK, serious question. How do I midlane? I may as well be speaking some unknown language when I play mid. Everything else I can do with moderate success, but midlane champs end up with me feeding my ass off nomatter how safe I play.

Mid is the lane with the greatest chances of you getting insta-bursted by people, so it's the most reliant on memorizing cooldowns / ranges on abilities to be able to kite in and out of harass / dodge important abilities / etc while getting your shit off.

Past that I can't really help you without like... doing hands on stuff or getting more specific questions

[RayFrost]

I can't really say that I agree that he's the best we know, but I'd trust him not to say really stupid things.

[RayFrost]

Anyone with a lot of aoe

[RayFrost]

But I think they try to match non-30 vAI with non-30 vAI, so it's probably not an issue unless you queue with other players who are just starting.

This isn't quiiiite accurate.

It does weight things based on level a bit, but there's also a significantly higher chance of you playing with low level players if you have a low number of wins against bots.

Like I have roughly 20 wins or something, so if I decide to use bots to get my fwod because I'm feeling lazy, I'll regularly get level 20-25ish players.

[RayFrost]

Oman, that portal comparison is amazing. You beautiful soul.

[RayFrost]

How are you earning 100 ip every game I average 60

[RayFrost]

Ip isn't xp

[RayFrost]

to your mind what makes her unfair in laning?

Her long range and mobility makes it nigh impossible to get on top her of, so you can burst her down - and I can never get the width of her Q right, so I always end up eating it when I don't think I should be (admittedly the last one s my fault).

Have you considered taking the ashe zyra / ashe leona lane and just punishing the fuck out of caitlyn at six / using volley to trade effectively pre-six?

Alternatively you can consider playing tristana, focusing on farming and not dying and then suddenly turning into a longer ranged whore with better disengage (yes trist ult and w combined = better disengage).

On Ahri support:

Ahri charm doesn't win a lane level one any harder than a thresh hook level one, a taric stun level one, or a blitz hook level one. Or an ali pulverize level one. Or a janna tornado level one.

Winning lane level one isn't a realistic circumstance and other champions can abuse the lead more effectively. Ahri is reliant on a tiny ass heart hitting someone to engage, and is an immobile squishy fuck with mediocre base damage with only aoe (meaning lane-pushing) abilities pre-six. And the only thing fixed in this is the immobility when she hits six.

Compare to the value of other immobile, squishy fucks:

zyra - more base damage, better cc pressure (aoe cc that isn't blocked by minions = 100% better), better zone control

soraka - sustain whore of the century (ten billion free armor means the squishiness is only on paper, to an extent), 3 second silence, mr shred for high base damage (this shit fucking hurts after the fourth stack, but it's ana oe lane push so slight minus)

sona - higher base damage (way fucking higher don't even try to argue that an auto-q-powerchord isn't way more damage than a fucking charm-auto), piecemeal sustain, one of the single best teamfight ultimates in the game (reliable aoe 1.5 second stun with respectably high projectile speed and minimal casting indicators), and a highly flexible passive in the form of powerchord (you can reduce someone's damage by *20%* if you want - nothing in ahri's kit can even dream of matching this).

lux (yes, I am even entertaining the idea of lux) - aoe shield, extremely low cd high base damage high range abilities with built-in ccs, extremely low cd high range ult with high base damage, this is the weakest possible comparison to ahri and I'd still prefer lux because she has better bases, lower cds on her bases, and a more reliable cc (double-hitting snare with decent hitbox > single target charm with thin hitbox)

[RayFrost]

I do, religiously.

After level 12.

[RayFrost]

If it's your first time doing placements, you really should try your best.

I mean, you should probably try your best in general. It takes active throwing to reach bronze.

[RayFrost]

I remember the last time I had fun playing league.

Was two days ago. (I didn't play yesterday)

[RayFrost]

He doesn't scale well damage-wise come late-game, he has literally no hard cc's, his only reliable gap closer is a skillshot, and his abilities have overall low cds on average but he suffers from energy issues unless he's auto attacking (which isn't an efficient use of his time)

[RayFrost]

Sorry, ani, I meant "literally no non-ult hard cc. His ult's a good cc, but it's an ult. His w isn't a cc in any universe. It's a shield. His e is a mediocre cc due to low range (compare to: cait e, elise e, karma q, ashe w, syndra e, lux anything, etc etc etc).

The only way a lee does high damage into the late game is if he sacrifices his tankiness, which means he'll die before he gets much off. The only way that this isn't the case is if you've already fed him. In which case the problem isn't the champion. Anyone that gets fed can be ridiculously impossible to deal with (Have you seen a fed irelia?).

The thing about the energy is EXTREMELY relevant. How often does a full mana mage run out of mana mid-fight? Almost never, especially with how common athene's is (not to mention dangerous game, which by the way doesn't regen energy). Meanwhile, lee runs out of energy in prolonged fights *consistently*. Energy doesn't regen while it's being used. It regens at a rate of ten energy per second

after a set period of no energy use

. Mana regens regardless of your mana usage.

If you wanted to know how to deal with lee:

Are you laning against him or is he jungling?

If he's laning, be aware that his kit revolves around trading and disengaging after every trade and rely on either your ability to force heavier trades (renekton, riven, jayce) or go for sustain / tankiness so that you can shrug off the poke style until you get strong enough to kill him due to better scaling (shyvana, nasus, trundle, riven, ryze). If you have longer cooldowns but more damage with your cds, then force an engage once then just try to avoid the all in until your skills are back up (renekton). If you have roughly the same cds but less damage (which means you have better scaling, almost guaranteed), then rely on either the minions to block the q and try to get your jungler to come for a gank into the baited greed or just play it safe, go for sustain, and just take the knocks on the chin. If you're riven, just kill him.

If he's jungling, ward up and don't get caught in 1v1 situations. Lee is often going to try and invade your jungle due to the dueling kit, but the jungle is the place where his w can't save him nearly as much - a ward can allow your team to collapse and kill him with a well baited fight at a buff or w/e. If you're a laner against lee, learn to avoid all inning near the brush if you don't have vision (wall jumps / jumps from the jungle to the enemy laner) and don't always walk in straight lines. If you can start to predict where he's going to cast his q, you can start avoiding them more easily. Worst comes to worst, learn how to flash right when a lee goes for the insec.

[RayFrost]

If it's your first time doing placements, you really should try your best.

I mean, you should probably try your best in general. It takes active throwing to reach bronze.

I mean "it takes active throwing to reach bronze if you don't belong there" - if you just do nothing, you'll end up low to mid silver without fail.

Not "everyone who reaches bronze had to be actively throwing because there's no way anybody belongs there"

[RayFrost]

It regens at a rate of ten energy per second

after a set period of no energy use

.

ummmmm what?

Since when is the italics the case?

I thought energy started regening from the second you are under max.

I may be wrong on that, but I've watched my energy bar mid-fight and haven't seen it going up when I'm burning my energy. It might just be a visual thing, but it seems to take a couple of seconds before it starts recharging.

[RayFrost]

After playibg a match of Trist v. Blitz, trist's jump ability is fucking broken - blitz hook didn't effect me if I was jumping.

Jason is correct. Trist jump is actually pretty shitty when it comes to things like this (compared to ez e for the biggest example). The jump can be interrupted by just about everything. It's not broken. On thresh, I can e or q trist out of it. Trist jump will activate a cait trap if she travels over it. Any displacement ability cast on trist mid-air will interupt the jump, some stuns will stop her mid-air, etc.

Used to be hard to even jump over walls with her (because if you were too close you'd just hit your head into the wall and basically stun yourself for a second).

[RayFrost]

get CDR on

ashe

support.

Ftfy

[RayFrost]

It's meant to be a bit of a joke. That said, supports value cdr pretty highly in general (even if there's better things).

[RayFrost]

I think the favorite thing for me is e'ing lee q/w and xin e. So fun. Hard to do on 160 ping. But so fun.

[RayFrost]

And then your damage drops off late game and you become this annoying as fuck tanky guy with a pop-in mobility spell and aoe slow

[RayFrost]

I wish this wasn't a joke...

Honestly, it's like there's something wrong with learning about a game.

I don't get it, either. That said, I'm glad that you're enjoying your league experiences. <3

We should play sometime! I don't think we've played since like... season 2 or something.

[RayFrost]

I'm on OCE now...

I think I still have my NA account, and I could cop the ping for a fun game or two with scummers.

Well, I have a level 20-something account on oce.

On smite vs cypher: they're both worse than league because I don't play them and have no interest in them. Boom. Ultimate argument: I don't like it, therefore it is worthless.

[RayFrost]

I get really sad when I face off against people that pick malzahar and only try to push against me. Usually, I absolutely destroy them for playing the boring way. Like full all out force the all in balls-deep aggression. It's not like he has his cooldowns / mana to keep up anyway. The ones that try to be aggressive I at least show some respect for and don't just go all out constantly. It might be due to the fact that I really love malzahar and hate to see his potential wasted on people that think you just afk push with him and that there's nothing else interesting in the lane. Malz makes jungle ganks the easiest thing ever. There's so much kill potential in the lane that it's wasteful to focus only on the roam game (especially when you consider the fact malz is pretty fucking immobile).

Also congrats on promo ani

[RayFrost]

Thats true, but Malzahar alone cant push towers fast and since I dont want to rely on my jungle to show up. I rather roam bot/top, make a play there, then push a tower or a drag. That way, it opens that lane up to help me push mid

Malzahar alone can push towers fast. He's got voidlings on top of his own base autos, combined with an easy way to push.

But that's not even the point of what I'm trying to express. Malzahar's kill potential in mid lane is enormous, and a lot of malzahars I see just decide to roam constantly on a champion with no mobility spells to speak of. Sure, it can work, but like... you could just abuse your opponent and then get ahead and roam when it's timely rather than feeling obligated to be roaming constantly and leaving the enemy mid to free farm

[RayFrost]

Congrats, iece!

[RayFrost]

Well, it uses your mmr and if you win consistently enough you'll get a high enough mmr to hit g2

But it requires having won a helluvalot

[RayFrost]

We learn from the mistakes AND good decisions of others.

[RayFrost]

Congrats on your first penta.

My first official penta was on ezreal in a normal.

I didn't feel all that great about it. I had to chase jinx for like 10 seconds. The bitch.

[RayFrost]

I really need a good safe jungler and top laner to play.

If you enjoy playing them, some fun top lane / jungle picks are lee sin (both), wukong (jungle), nasus (top), renekton (top), and if you feel like being a dick you can go lulu top.

[RayFrost]

I hate RoA on Malz.

I just go Liandrys, Rylais, Deathcap, Void, Hourglass/or some other item like Banshee's depending on the situation.

I personally feel that malz's kit has a lot of built in utility: getting cdr in the form of athene's provides a pretty solid laning phase (the 10% cdr off of codex is huge presence, so convenient itemization).

I itemize athene's, liandry's if ahead rylai's if behind, the other, void, selective defensive ap item (abyssal / zhonya).

Depending on the matchup, this order can change a bit. Into yasuo, seeker's rush is super good. If you're into an aggressive all-in styled champion that can be a hassle to deal with like diana, then an early negatron can be extremely helpful.

I personally hate rod of ages right now on champions other than ryze and karthus because there's just so much to get out of other things (less of a focus on the purely late game oriented build and more pressure onto the early/mid game to snowball into the late game). Ryze and karth are better at farming their way into late game and not dying, so rod of ages supports the style. Catalyst was nerfed, and that makes it less efficient imo than other itemizations.

The reason for rylai's is that it gives you a better peeling cc (silence doesn't save you if they can keep walking after you) and procs amazingly with your kit + liandry's along with the tankiness. It basically makes malzahar's siege, kite, and poke all better with only a slight decrease in the amount of direct damage given when compared to RoA. The reason for rod of ages is the lane sustain and horrifyingly good late game scaling.

What you can take out of the posts on this: roa vs rylai's is stylistic, and you should find which style works better for you.

A thing that I hate when I see is malzahar players that burn their w to push. Your w is NOT a pushing ability in the laning phase. It's a 10+ second cd that gives you an extra 10 damage per second on minions standing on it... and it burns a quarter of your mana. It's not worth doing. It opens up the chances of your opponent engaging on you (your ult is a lot less damage if you're not holding them in null zone) and adds almost nothing to the actual push. The w should be reserved for zoning when sieging (offensive) or creating a negative incentive for them to chase you (defensive) if you aren't using it for your ult.

Another thing I hate is watching malzahar players act as if they have no lane presence outside of pushing. You are malzahar, god of the level six destruction beam. Vel'koz wishes he had eye beams like your's. Fucking use 'em. Push your lane opponent around. You're not mobile, but you're powerful. Use your strength to zone the other guy until you feel like going someplace else and killing things. The focus isn't just farm / roam.

Generic malzahar tips that you probably already know:

Start q level one, e is absolutely worthless level one, you can charge q in the fountain to have your passive up for the first in-combat cast.

Your ult won't go on cd if you don't get the cast off from someone moving before you can cast it, so attempt the cast instantly on people you catch out, don't wait to try and cast other shit. You have a team. rely on them to follow up the long ass time you have target bitch stuck there. Sometimes, you'll even catch target bitch after their flash for maximum /all rekt

Your q is your single strongest utility spell in your entire kit. It's also the most reliable harass outside of lane. It's a 3 second silence at max rank (aoe too! soraka can suck it). That is extremely powerful in its own right. Max this second, not your fucking w.

Get a second point in q at level four instead of w. Your w is specifically only useful with your ult, so getting at level 5 is more beneficial. In cases where you don't feel you're likely to get your ult combo off, you can even consider just getting your third point in e at this point.

Specific to playing against yasuo as malzahar tips because why not:

At around level 3 is when you want to start being more aggressive, proc voidling + e, and wait for him to commit to backing off before casting q (if he e's back in toward you, he's e'ing back into the voidling, if he just walks away he's eating the q).

When he looks like he wants to proc the GNARLY KNOCKUP WHIRLWIND SLICE in an all in, just press r. Even if you don't get the w off, he's so mobile he can react to the cast anyway. Preventing his ult to use your's is probably almost guaranteed a won fight.

[RayFrost]

Malzahar is amazing into yasuo. Don't really need to get barrier to make that true.

The thing with catalyst is it sacrifices fucktons of pressure in the early / mid game in order to farm more to hit a strong late game power spike. I prefer to snowball into a lead for the more consistent presence.

[RayFrost]

The issue with the "malefic visions or two" thing is if you're against something that you don't kill right then and there, they can turn that around on you and shit all over your face. There's very few cases where you blowing your full load, not killing the other guy, and sticking around doesn't lead to them punishing you.

I can't imagine you just magically blowing everything and them not even trying to hit you at all. It just doesn't make sense. And it's not like malz is king of the disengage. He's one of the least mobile champs in the game.

[RayFrost]

Well of course you try to silence them but during the duration of your ult the silence runs out, meaning they can hit you afterward.

[RayFrost]

If you're relying purely on base damage without ignire (because bro runs barrier), I really can't imagine that being the case.

[RayFrost]

I don't remember anybody saying that

[RayFrost]

Well yeah after the nerfs shaco's half ass mobility weak ass cc and unreliable gap closing is not gonna do as well as the god of mobility

[RayFrost]

Someone give me an idea on what I want to buy next. As an example, some of my best/favourite champs in each role:

Top: Ryze, Shen, Pantheon (Have been kinda learning wukong top)
Jungle: Wukong, Xin Zhao, Pantheon, Evelynn
Mid: Twisted Fate, Ahri (I can kinda play Talon, and am somewhat learning Orianna/Ryze mid)
ADC: Graves, Lucian, Jinx, MF
Support: Karma, Thresh

I'm considering Zed (The Zed outplays are REAL), Zyra (Has damage and CC, good at zone control), Varus (I really like his ult), Lulu (Good even when behind, can go anywhere), and Ziggs (Stalls are OP).

Stop learning wukong top. Wukong has way too many bad matchups top lane for it to work well for him. Renekton is similar to pantheon top (kill), jax is kinda similar to ryze top (farm then kill), and lee is like pantheon as well.

Zyra's an okay support, but I feel that she doesn't mesh well with the current meta. (I love her, but she just doesn't) Might consider learning lulu, I never really got the feel of her but she's strong. She also can go mid or top if you feel like being a dick and ruining someone's day.

If you want to play something in mid, I might suggest syndra. Syndra or orianna are both pretty good. Twitch or tristana for adc right now is pretty strong.

Don't look at me for jungle shit.

[RayFrost]

how do i fiora?!

You don't.

Alternatively, you can go the super passive w max route but I honestly feel that q max provides a lot more presence in any lane that you can't just auto attack a lot. If you can q burst more often, then you have a bit more to offer yourself than your autos, which means it's harder to kite you (reduced cd) and makes the kite worth less in terms of damage mitigation.

If I have time, I'll ask my friend that mains fiora about it.

[RayFrost]

The fact it's silly should indicate you're getting away with it because your opponents are silly.

Also, ziggs was nerfed. He's not AS good as he used to be (read: top tier), but he's still viable.

[RayFrost]

Zyra's an okay support, but I feel that she doesn't mesh well with the current meta. (I love her, but she just doesn't)

I would love you to expand on this. I've played a ton of zyra support previous to last month, but in fairness probably against (slightly) lower quality opponents where building greedily paid off inevitably. I did get her in EUW for the final 6 games in ranked there, but again in fairness those games I did pick her were won off completely unrelated reasons (and some serious greed in the build again). I don't think I know the matchups too well, even with the amount I've played her.

There's actually a few reasons to this. It's not 100% about the lane matchups (zyra's actually got fairly fun laning against a lot of the common picks).

She's extremely immobile, with her only non-ult cc being a non-spammable snare. Her ult's biggest impact relies on people staying in it.

Lately, there's been an increase in the more damage-heavy picks with weaker initiation in the jungle / top lane, which means that the slack has to be picked up somewhere else (support). Zyra's initiation potential is among the weakest, she has no mobility (or tankiness to make up for it), and her actual teamfight presence is more damage oriented than cc oriented. None of these things really go with "my team has mostly damage and is lacking in hard lockdown."

The lack of mobility thing is a dual problem of she's easy to pick off and she's not able to get her initiation off easily (this is especially true in League Of Mobility). She still works in disengage-oriented or heavy aoe engage-oriented compositions, but those are significantly less common lately. I feel she's just lacking in synergy with the most common picks.

She can perform amazingly with the right comp, but she's not flexible into her teammates' picks like you tend to have to be in support lately.

[RayFrost]

I ban vi when I am first pick

[RayFrost]

I mean, technically skill > everything, but picking certain things to be good at can make it easier

[RayFrost]

Mf goes oom about as often as a caitlyn does.

If you aren't going oom on cait you shouldn't go oom on mf.

#manageyourshit

[RayFrost]

I think what iece means is that jinx's kit is really fantastic and so the lack of built-in mobility is to balance out the fact she has long range, high damage, low cooldown, vision-giving poke that slows, an attack speed steroid, an aoe execute with global range and short cd, and a range + aoe + damage steroid.

On paper, it sounds pretty ridiculous. In practice, it's not quite as ridiculous, but etc.

[RayFrost]

Conventional wisdom to Jinx is that her lack of mobility outside of her passive is the balance to her being so OP.

Seems like what iece is saying.

I was just breaking down how jinx's kit looks on paper. I wasn't arguing for her being op.

That's why I said that it's not op or ridiculous in practice.

[RayFrost]

Jinx is also immobile compared to elise, j4, lee, riven, rengar, aatrox, rammus, kha'zix, ahri, katarina, yasuo, zed, akali, and other bruiser / assassin type things that would want to kill her.

Ez / cait can e out of (or out of range of) j4 eq / r, rengar leap, kz leap, rammus q, kat r, ahri charm, yasuo q, etc. Jinx has nothing.

I mean, the bruiser / assassin types are more mobile than ez / cait overall. But they're able to at least disengage *once* (which may be all they need, given the ability to go over walls, etc).

[RayFrost]

Did doom bots level 2, was zed mid, easy lane easy life. Galio ain't shit.

Then do doom bots 5 and have mumu lux top as lee / jayce. Woulda been fine except lux had swain passive. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

[RayFrost]

They should just make a doom bot level 10 with 5 lux bots.

Because masochism is a thing.

[RayFrost]

Sometimes i hate my friends and them being too stubborn to take advice.

That aside, biscuits are fine. I personally prefer summoners' insight and buff time extension, but it's a style thing.

Not going full 21 / leaving out devastating strikes in offense is kinda silly (as is the auto attack = spell damage thing), but the defense mastery he chose was the best option for the two points.

Zhonya is common enough that it provides good value even if you don't get any other defensive items (which is pretty rare: athene's is super common, etc).

[RayFrost]

liandry's is wasted, void staff woulda been a better finishing item

Iceborn is something you get into ad heavy team comps - if you're not, you can afford to get deathcap or zhonya instead

[RayFrost]

I can't see what about the extra 9 points in the offense tree makes it worth more than the potential sustain / tankiness options in the defense or utility trees given how abusive a lot of his early-level matchups are

[RayFrost]

Long matches happen at all elos.

Jason: that's not really a reason it's bad to have jungle timers. You could estimate it and prepare to be early as well. Like... if the enemy team doesn't take into account the risk of a counterjungle at the buff, having the precise timer or not will hardly change that. You outplayed the enemy jungler. Simple as that.

[RayFrost]

shrug

It's equal information. If they can't actually play properly with it, it's on them.

[RayFrost]

Rito's word on the subject:

It doesn't really take more skill to type the numbers better than others, so they're removing a game-based barrier to effective play. Equal information puts a greater emphasis on the skill of the players against each other

On brand vs fizz: start e, use e on fizz, auto him. Win lane. Brand passive + auto power is intense. Brand e + q makes it hard for fizz to engage with q, but using e leaves him open to getting a w to the face. Brand is honestly one of the best keepaway mids out of the ones with 0 mobility. Even leblanc when she had her silence had trouble pre-six.

[RayFrost]

Start flask, go tp / heal / barrier instead of ignite, focus on farming consistently and not dying. Ahri's one of those champs that has fuck all she can do aside from push until six and then at six needs to poke ryze down a bit before going in, so all you really need to do is avoid the early poke, get your early items by farming well, and then spam laugh in lane.

[RayFrost]

My feel on the forced transform is it actually makes the character way more interesting and relevant than a boring-as-fuck nidalee-esque type thing. It creates another form of resource management, etc, etc.

Also, I like how exhaust is slowly becoming more like the season 1 exhaust. It's hilarious.

[RayFrost]

That feels like a stealth nerf if they only take damage from one. I've often used q to push while harassing to give more pressure on the lane. I mean, it's not that hard to avoid pressing q when it'd kill the second closest thing to you.

It makes sona less punishing for lower levels cuz no take-y the cs-y but makes things inefficient for me since there's not often a case where I can get in range of both champions in lane without going splat.

Mind you I haven't tried new sona yet to really give a verdict. Will probably do that later today. Sona was my girl, gotta see if she's okay.

[RayFrost]

Are you saying that you actually get your summoner spells mixed up

and that you actually don't keep them on the same button every time

and that you don't use flash

wut

[RayFrost]

Yasuo / janna lanes are pretty hilarious

[RayFrost]

Mute anyone that you don't feel like reading what they have to say to you. Or, if you're me, never mute anybody and just ignore people by force of will / use it to justify your righteous fury that you unleash on the enemy team.

In terms of practice, I always tell people that ask me to keep going hard. If you're dying a lot, then you're learning your limits. Keep going for the things you think you can do and try to think through what happened when it fails. Did you all in the low health vlad but overestimate your burst, which allowed his w to prevent you securing the kill? Did you chase a riven into the brush thinking you could kill her and forget the burst potential of her kit? Did you make a call for dragon but then get initiated on by the enemy team because of a lack of proper ward coverage? These are all things that you can point out to yourself and say "I died for [reasons], let's try not to do that."

Dying is fine as long as you don't keep making the exact same mistake over and over (like going all in when the enemy laner goes all in only to die to the jungler that has already ganked you that same exact way five times). Learn from your mistakes and you learn the limits of your mechanics and your champion(s). If you spend all your time not pushing your limits, you're going to stagnate.

[RayFrost]

Panzer sometimes says worthwhile things, zepher sometimes says worthwhile things.

But they, like everyone else in this thread, shouldn't be trusted 100%

Always take a rain check

[RayFrost]

Congrats oman. teamwork is best work. People don't really give honor in any of my games, though. It's kinda sad. The only honors I get lately are "honorable opponent" lol

Panzer sometimes says worthwhile things, zepher sometimes says worthwhile things.

But they, like everyone else in this thread, shouldn't be trusted 100%

Always take a rain check

I didn't mean to insult anyone, I was just saying that nobody here is going to be perfectly accurate. Always make sure not to blindly follow advice.

I think just about everyone that posts in this thread has something of value to offer. Even the people that annoy me.

(Though I love you broseidon pls don't be sad <3)

[RayFrost]

Panzy, panzy.

Didn't we agree not to do the whole supports suck thing. Pls.

[RayFrost]

Play thresh, lantern them away from olaf, play lulu and ult them so they don't die to olaf, build crucible / locket and use it to save their health from olaf

then cc olaf out the fucking wazoo

[RayFrost]

Was talking with cabd and he demanded this, so....

In a dark and dusty jungle, cool wind in my fur
Smell of old wards, rising up through the earth
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my mana went dim
I had to back for the night

There she stood in the fountain;
I heard the minion bell
And I was thinking to myself,
"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell"
Then she lit up a ward and she showed me the way
There were voices by the tower,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel Leaguefornia
Such a bloody place (Such a bloody place)
Such a bloody ace
Plenty of room at the Hotel Leaguefornia
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here

Her mind is Fate-twisted, she got the mordekaiser bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty ezreals she calls friends
How they dance in the brushes, warm winter breath.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
"Please bring me my wine"
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since gragas got jail time"
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of a buy
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the Hotel Leaguefornia
Such a bloody place (Such a bloody place)
Such a bloody ace
They killin' it up at the Hotel Leaguefornia
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis

Shacos on the ceiling,
Volibear and tibbers on ice
And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can log-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! "

[RayFrost]

I'm putting it here that support nunu is still hilarious to play

[RayFrost]

Was fun playing, guys. Good fights, llamarble.

Cabd, I'd like to offer lessons on how to body the planet playing support. Also, you're pretty good mechanically. Your items and wards, though.

[RayFrost]

tp on jungle works for: yi, udyr

doesn't work for: else

[RayFrost]

How to aatrox vs shen: take tp, backdoor. Get two towers + inhib when enemy team fights your's at dragon.

Tp to enemy nexus ward after your team grouped and took the towers. Finish game like 15 minutes earlier than it would have.

AATROX LORD OF THE BACKDOOR

[RayFrost]

There is technically a "report for unskilled" option, but it's pretty shitty if you actually use it

[RayFrost]

On skins giving advantages: I guess it's arguable that they give an advantage if you're below a specific attentiveness level (note: not skill level, attentiveness level). If you aren't paying attention, then not having the slightly slightly easier to notice warning sign might punish you. But then it's not really on the skin, it's on you for not paying attention.

Cho q knocking you up higher = completely untrue. Trynd crit animation being longer on demonblade - it looks longer, but it won't have any relevance outside of being hit by skillshots if you're waiting for the animation to go through (in which case you need to animation cancel that shit, and I highly doubt the .25 seconds saved by the cancel will be relevant in 99% of situations).

I mean, if you aren't paying attention enough to see the animation of underworld tf throwing his wild cards to notice the emerging GHOSTLY LIGHT LINES then you probably woulda been hit by normal tf anyway because you aren't paying attention - but maybe that slightly more noticeable card would make you take the two steps you need to move out of the way idk. Same for lux.

None of the hitboxes and such change, so any arguments of "oh the projectile is bigger/smaller" or whatever are silly. It's arguing that you would hit skillshots / get hit by skillshots more often because the image of the move (not the actual move) looks like it hits / misses at a certain range. The only way this works as any kind of advantage is if you're one of the types of people that likes to go "oh it won't hit me" and then bam you realize you have no idea what the range / hitbox is (meaning you should probably try to dodge things - you're likely getting hit by skillshots regardless of skin just based off of this bad habit).

For things that have indicators: most of them aren't even relevant. Sona e slow shows regardless of skin because THEY ARE SLOWED even if we ignore the giant purple soundwave that she shoots with the auto, hecarim speed progression shows regardless of skin (because he moves faster, and the model of his run is different even in the classic skin) and q stacks can be counted / are visible at the bottom of the screen.

Highly doubt snow ziggs is noteworthy unless you're not paying attention, but I haven't been on aram with a snow ziggs in so long I couldn't say anything either way.

Sona w is barely noteworthy in that it's slightly more clearly indicated to your team with the little debuff notifier, but I highly doubt anyone's going to be like "oh sona debuffed them I can see that little nodule there that tells me so I can definitely win this fight that I am already trying to win now" - not to mention we're ignoring the giant green soundwave. If anything, this is a disadvantage because it's clearer for your opponents, the people that have to change expectations to take it into account for the all in. I'd argue that it's not noteworthy, but if it was it's negative.

[RayFrost]

tl;dr: skin advantage exists in the case of champions with sunglasses getting -1 damage from leona, that's it

[RayFrost]

I highly doubt people will appreciate your help more because of a tiny little indicator if they don't appreciate your help to begin with

[RayFrost]

If the team with nasus didn't win, then there's a problem.

Please tell me nasus won.

[RayFrost]

Renekton would be trash if his e only had one dash.

Pls.

J4 would be trash without his mobility too

like wtf

[RayFrost]

I know that but arguing the champs shouldn't have the mobility when they'd be trash without them is kinda weird

[RayFrost]

I agree. Olaf needs some buffs.

[RayFrost]

But a loss of mobility would also phase the assassin archetype out in favor of kiting and keep-away team comps to punish the lack of escapes / engages.

[RayFrost]

Orianna is super good, like panzer said.

I'm a personal fan of anivia, but she might be hard to pick up. Same for swain.

Might want to pick up an ad mid or two to kinda flesh out your pool (conveniently, they're assassins): zed, talon, etc.

[RayFrost]

I wanna try out gnar + lulu bot lane sometime.

For the shits'n'giggles.

[RayFrost]

Had a ranked game start 2 kills to 18 before 20 minutes in their favor.

They surrendered when they lost a late game teamfight 4 for 1. We ended the game 25 kills to 40. So satisfying.

[RayFrost]

How do you know that

[RayFrost]

Across all of my accounts, I've spent well over 150 days of my life.

[RayFrost]

Hi guys, I play an okay talon.

Talon should theoretically beat nidalee. Rake being the main thing to fear is only the case before level three when talon has q w e all available.

[RayFrost]

I'd like to consider the position of trying to be better than OCE bronze so that you die 4 times and have more than 15 kills. Some good champions for this include: everything, as long as you're better than oce bronze.

Seriously though, it's way better to avoid death than to go ham constantly. Sure, you're fed, but you've got no mechanics to back that up. Just try to play it safe sometimes and think about the risks you're taking versus the rewards. A double kill late game for a kill on you if you're the most fed person isn't worth it because YOUR TEAM WONT DO SHIT WITHOUT YOU.

So you stay alive instead and use your team as a buncha meat shields so you can come late to the party and kill everything.

[RayFrost]

How to face talon as Jayce:
Level one, q him when he tries to farm, auto him when he tries to farm, keep auto'ing him, if he rakes you and tries to fight swap to hammer, hit him and keep hitting him.
Level two: rinse repeat level one, except use your e when you're done hitting him so he can't hit you back as much.
Rinse repeat process until 10/0 with 20000 cs advantage

Lilg:

Timezones may or may not permit my attempting to play talon for the first time in a couple of months. I'll practice him a bit tonight so that there's not any mechanical deficits that'd particularly limit me.

[RayFrost]

I had the most fun when I played in bronze.

HI I AM ZED I DODGE SKILLSHOTS WITH SHADOWS AND SHIT FOR TRIPLE KILL WHILE AT 100 HEALTH HAIL ME AS YOUR GOD

[RayFrost]

I am also shadow isles.

I just went like 16/8/14 on adc thresh and lost, sadly. Fucking pirates.

[RayFrost]

Time zones prevented me from being able to play him, he was already sleeping by the time I got on.

Also, it was fiddle thresh bot lane. Turns out the guy I thought was gold graves on the bilge team was actually smurfing and is really diamond.

Wattadick

[RayFrost]

The guy in there said "Bilgewater is officially winning now" which made me think it was the first match, but I guess that just means Bilge has been stomping all around.

I sub'd in for bilge and helped them win a match against frel, and then I played for SI before that and we lost to bilge as well. But in both games a guy named kahsing was the bilge adc and he admitted that he was smurfing, which is kinda against the point of balancing teams / giving points according to said balance. >.>

Victorious skin is clearly morg from the artwork. Soraka's got completely different style.

[RayFrost]

Gem elf taric skin

[RayFrost]

Current bird comp already has anivia doe

Is it azir top or nivia top

hmmm

[RayFrost]

Wukong top shouldn't even be a thing it's a horrible idea that's punished so much by so many things mother of god please stop doing it

Also, nautilus isn't that great right now because of how much weight has gone into more mobile, more flexible champions. Why pick naut when you can go kz / j4 / etc who all have better damage, more mobility, better dueling in the jungle, and still respectable/good ganking capabilities?

I mean, nautilus can't really be built damage if you need to snowball that way. Meanwhile, champs like j4 / kz can build damage items or build tankiness and be really good

either way

.

[RayFrost]

Alternatively you can apply pressure at level 3/4 with w, walk in, q, e to gap close for an optimal gank

[RayFrost]

The NA server ddos is strong, BUT I HAVE MY OCE ACCOUNT WHAT NOW DDOSERS?

[RayFrost]

Uuuugh Darius is a champion that I hate because you CANNOT beat him in lane so he just wrecks your face at every stage and just ugh. Why hashe not been reworked to not be able to instantly be able to delete tanks.

Because he's trash that gets kited to death while being relatively worthless if you don't feed him and barely as relevant as other champions when fed. Mainly because he's the most kiteable champion in the game.

[RayFrost]

He's fun to play, but he's horrible as a champion.

[RayFrost]

The issue is that even if he really wins he still can't do sweet fuck all compared to [insert long list of champs that he beats in lane] because, well... he's fucking darius.

[RayFrost]

My favorite "invisible" initiation is varus ult.

[RayFrost]

Poison is op it's nearly invisible can't see what the hell is a singed even anyway

[RayFrost]

Annie does better than thresh in lane and has equivalent presence in teamfights as far as cc presence. She has more damage, but her initiation isn't as good and she can't afford to build tankiness the same way thresh can.

Annie turns into a secondary apc / damaging peel bot, thresh turns into a heavy cc initiator tanky thing

[RayFrost]

Get tear super early.

Use ryze q to farm / harass at a pace that doesn't make you go oom.

Use jayce e / q to harass at a pace that doesn't make you go oom.

That's about it, to be honest. Also, press all the buttons in teamfights. If you're in fountain healing as jayce, press q and e and w a lot for more stacks.

[RayFrost]

Guys, I've done it. I've done the impossible.

I took a guy who was toxic and made him see the light of positivity and strive toward the path of rising above the mire of filth and abuse.

It's so beautiful.

[RayFrost]

Get tear at start, then rod of ages as ryze

core items: tear, rod of ages, void staff

good itemizations: frozen heart, bveil, will of the ancients, GA

[RayFrost]

Fiora's a strong soloq champion.

Fuck fiora.

[RayFrost]

If you ask me, you don't play fiora if you know what's good for you.

If you ask my challenger friend, you play her mid and kill everything and everyone all the time like a beast.

Basic fiora build before bt changes: hydra, bt, bt, bt, bt, lw

Basic fiora build after bt changes: hydra, bt, lw, youmuu's, ga, boots

[RayFrost]

So playing Tris bottom

I'm gong to call you out on FOTM abusing. There's no one on earth who can say they honestly like playing tristana - she's not fun to play as, with,or against.

i honestly enjoy playing tristana.

Tristana is the only adc in the game that I have played and enjoyed.

And I played her and enjoyed her in all of the previous seasons.