League of Legends (Old)

[RayFrost]

Brand's pressure in lane is massive. Deathfiretouch + brand passive leads to extremely potent poke in the early game, his stun is one of the strongest stuns in the game and honestly requires very little effort. It's also fairly low cd. On top of that, his ult is significantly more powerful than lux's because it's targeted and doesn't have the .75-1.25 seconds when you're stuck not able to move.

Add on to that the fact brand's got higher damage values on his combos, and yeah.

[RayFrost]

I've never.....EVER(that's for you hippo) had a good support.

bruh

I should of qualified that as never.....EVER in a ranked game

Bullet dodged.

Edit:

On topic, I find it hilarious when people I know say that you're not actually "good" at the game until some seemingly arbitrary milestone. I had a guy tell me I'm not good in his eyes because I'm not plat 3+ - when I hit plat 1, he was like "yeah you're good man." I did not magically improve by leaps and bounds. I was just climbing. And I say it a lot, but...

"I'd like to think the top 3% of players is only slightly above average, yes."

Because that makes sense.

[RayFrost]

Don't pick ashe into olaf is really the only advice I can give for that one. For all of those, phantom dancer is a helpful item. As is being willing to position yourself further back from the fight to wait for them to engage elsewhere in it.

[RayFrost]

Getting a GA may not be a bad choice, given the recent buffs. Alternatively, you can build randuin's omen for a defensive item.

There are also limits to what you can do. Irelia was a stick that game. With an amumu, you really shouldn't have as many issues hitting the yi as compared to not having peel. Add on Janna and it's an issue of you + your team making mistakes somewhere in the process. Like for example, feeding yi 13 kills to begin with.

[RayFrost]

Then play champions that aren't so team reliant for their peel against yi. Some champions simply don't have good answers. They trade for it in the form of other things. Which is fine and balanced. But it does mean you have to play and pick intelligently. Shrug.

[RayFrost]

Teemo is legitimately better off jungling than he is going mid. AT least those things don't have the ability to turn him into paste in a single spell rotation.

[RayFrost]

"always" is always wrong.

[RayFrost]

You can still cast smite while under crowd controls that are not silence or suppression.

[RayFrost]

I find it much easier to win soloq than when duoq, since the system balances a duoq by decreasing the mmr level of my teammates (meaning on average my team does worse than the enemy team). Unless it's a four or five man premade, I don't see there being that much value to dyanmic queueing.

[RayFrost]

I've spent 10 usd. The 10 bucks I got from when I beat fate long long ago in the lee sin mirror matchup.

[RayFrost]

It was that one and then the one where I went ignite exhaust and you went heal ignite thinking I'd go exhaust flash again. And then you killed me levels 4-6 despite my having first blood advantage cuz I wasn't actually good at lee.

[RayFrost]

Sol just feels underwhelming until he's not. The game I played on him, I topped the damage charts for the whole game but felt like I was relatively useless. Similar to my experience with jhin. Tons of low key damage potential that doesn't really feel impactful.

[RayFrost]

I mean I only have one game on him so yeah.

[RayFrost]

MMR does not decay, this is correct.

[RayFrost]

Tho tbh some of his complaints read like "It's not fair that Karthus can't just win the game on autopilot rito pls."

Honestly, all of the "this champion's mobility makes it hard to play against them as Karthus" talk reads this way. The unhealthiness of hexdrinker / maw and the cost of zhonya's being a gate to survivability is true for more than just Karthus, and I'm not really sure how most of his commentary isn't just general "ad people have too many good options into mages right now" instead of "Karthus has these specific issues that need to be changed for Karthus specifically."

[RayFrost]

Now that I'm starting to reexperience the struggle of trying to find a support main I work really well with, I'm starting to regret not pouncing for the 1-2 random supports I found that fit that a couple weeks ago.

Hi

[RayFrost]

Plat is next to gold, also gold smurf etc

[RayFrost]

Well, they also wrote several paragraphs' worth of lore. I think the writing has definitely improved in consistency, quality, and depth when compared to the old stuff. Rito probably hired actual writers.

[RayFrost]

They drop at equal % drop rates across all game modes: treeline, rotating game queue, sr, aram all have the same drop rates for keys, which only drop on wins to begin with.

[RayFrost]

You transition to making pressure in a different lane / use the fact you're ahead to pressure the enemy jungle.

Also talon did warn you that he dunno how to play. Shoulda camped bot :^)

In all seriousness though, really shoulda camped bot. Looks like they were doing good, and shutting down urgot in the early game basically ruins his biggest power point (early/mid game carry shutter downer).

[RayFrost]

Try playing him a couple times. He's pretty straightforward.

[RayFrost]

I'm gonna ask a super noob question: What do I do when I naturally push the lane? If I'm playing something like rumble or ekko in top lane where trading means the lane pushes up, what do I do at level 3 or 4 when the second wave is in their tower and I'm not safe enough to stay that far up? Mid is usually not in a position for a gank/roam at this point, and I only have a rank in my three basic abilities anyway. So I'm not really ready to roam and kill mid.

Is the solution just "don't manage your wave that bad, Oman, you idiot"? Is there anything I can take advantage of? Help me

The exact answer to this question depends on what exactly you're playing against / who you're playing.

If you're someone with pretty good natural escapes or against a jungle with poor ganking abilities or if you're someone that can handle a 1v2 situation well (darius, for example), then it can be pretty worthwhile to stay pushed up. As panzer said, ward, stick around.

There are some champions that you can also consider going to invade enemy jungle with (darius, for example) if you really can't touch your lane opponent but have a lot of free reign from pushing - just walk into enemy red/blue buff and be like "what's up, bitch?" If they're there, you at least force a flash in all likelihood, and can potentially get a kill / buff. This is easier done from blue side, as the jungle layout lends itself to that, but you can do it from red with no issues as well. If your opposing laner tries to collapse, it's supremely obvious and easy for you to react to - they will also lose quite a bit of farm and likely be down a level from having missed the xp.

Even if you don't necessarily go for the invade, it can still be good to get a deeper ward in the enemy jungle, as most junglers walk those paths with the assumption that they're out of vision. Getting a ward into the red buff brush from blue side or over the wall to get vision on grumpy / blue from red side. is significant.

However, if you're a champion with poor natural escapes and little 1v2 potential, you're probably better off pushing the wave, then going b to buy some small priced item / a pink (only if you feel confident your jungler will make use of the vision / that it won't be cleared when the wave pushes your way). Even if you don't actually have the gold for anything, being able to refill your health / mana bars is still good for you, as you come back to lane fresh and can likely push it back to their tower if they go b and punish them if they don't. Even if that punishment is simply them having no pressure on you despite having a natural powerspike. (Example: you're ekko vs darius, you pushed in early cuz pushing mofo, but darius level 3 shits on your face - you pushed, went back, and came back to lane, he's burnt significant mana or health by this point in most cases, meaning he can't abuse the powerspike to get a lead in the lane)

Other considerations are how good the enemy laner is at *enabling* a gank. Sure, a lee jungle can be pretty scary, but his actual ability to keep you in place is pretty low. Meanwhile, if you're against a lissandra / riven / cho'gath / etc, they have ways to keep you in place and then kill you with lee sin's extra damage. I'd be more scared into a cho'gath than into a trundle in these situations as, say, ekko. This is because trundle really can't keep you from running. His early game damage is great, but no sticking potential means you're still fine. Meanwhile, cho'gath silences you, knocks you up, and the jungler kills you. Rip.

[RayFrost]

Ekko outscales cho, has more mobility than cho, has range to be able to avoid taking a lot of free damage from cho, and has more pressure on the backline and arguably better engagement / disengagement than cho.

While cho is a soft counter to ekko in lane, ekko is not super unhappy to be laning against a cho. Cho individually should rarely if ever kill ekko. Cho with teammate will probably kill ekko.

Edit: Ekko also enables ganks on cho really well, as cho lacks mobility. Ekko passive + w is super strong. Cho's high mana costs can gate him from pushing ekko out of lane early, as ekko can often use his e to avoid taking significant damage and end up using a smaller portion of his mana pool.

[RayFrost]

Even ap ekko should be able to beat out cho, honestly. Abyssal still standard, so cho's high bases are less relevant, ekko's cd's are lower, his damage is higher, etc. I wouldn't like to be mid with ekko into cho because the shortness of the lane favors him, but in top lane ekko with any build still does well into cho imo.

[RayFrost]

Yeah I saw him scripting his rammus taunts when I played with him.

[RayFrost]

Please don't direct him to use his ultimate every time he lands q.

[RayFrost]

Please do not instill bad habits in players that are new and don't know any better.

[RayFrost]

Thought I'd share this gem with you guys.

[RayFrost]

Ryze pre-six isn't very scary, but his passive can give him bursty trade potential in the early laning phase.

Ryze post-six presses r and e while you're standing in the minion wave for 1000 damage, then proceeds to hit you for another 2000 with fifty billion q's.

Don't fight ryze while standing in minion waves due to the aoe nature of his e combined with the aoe damage proc off his ultimate: it will chunk you down insanely hard.

Any sustained fight favors ryze. Any burst fight when his passive gives him his shield favors ryze. Fight during not-these-times and try not to die during-these-times.

Champions that do well into ryze have very good burst and get away or survive his early game passive damage only to stick to him and kill him. Merc treads aren't a bad purchase if you're a melee laner. Irelia does pretty okay into ryze.

[RayFrost]

It's weak to account for the low cd and the fact it can potentially heal 5 people very easily (bastion back line, be in front line, press q huehuehue). Honestly think two levels on q is the cap before it starts to lose mana efficiency. Maxing it fully leaves you oom way too quickly for way too little value. Most of the scaling seems more health based.

I second timed taric in ranked because I'm fabulous and went 2/1/9. Positioned my e perfectly several times to catch flashing enemies / prevent routes of escape off the angles on both ranges. Feels great so far.

[RayFrost]

The website would be battlefy, which is honestly not great for

finding

tournaments, but it's pretty good for organizing them.

I don't know which tournament Ank joined, but it'd be one of the many numerous tournaments.

[RayFrost]

Jhin's got self-peel and better kiting abilities in a vacuum than jinx does (jinx needs to get hyper, jhin just needs to crit or land his w). Not so much a range thing as a survivability thing. I also think (but haven't chcked the numbers on this) that Jhin is a bit tankier naturally than Jinx is.

Jhin's late game hypercarry potential is insane as well, so comparing jhin and jinx should show that they're actually both performing as expected: hypercarrying. Would be better off comparing jinx with someone like caitlyn or sivir

[RayFrost]

Not dying is pretty good. There may be certain cases where dying would be better for your team when playing Karthus, but the decision's pretty situational and stuff.

[RayFrost]

Spoiler: image

I really don't understand the mastery ranking system like ever.

I believe my S+ thresh game was ad thresh with a 32/8/16 300+ cs score.

I may be ruining it for the rest of you.

[RayFrost]

130/140 or so I think for me

[RayFrost]

Is everyone hype for league of protobelt?

[RayFrost]

Malzahar ult at base level 3 does 50% of max health in damage to every target in the pool if you let him get the full channel.

[RayFrost]

Only assign value to s ranks as anything less is completely worthless and means you did nothing that game.

In all seriousness, it only really matters for the hextech crafting. It's a comparison to the other people that play that champion's scores (cs / kills / assists) without regard to game length or anything. So if you've got a few people that go 32/45/70 (how games get to this point I have no clue, but they apparently do) with 300 cs, they're going to have a better rating than you on 8/1/10. The first score is the sign of a clown fiesta, the second is a sign of well played game.

[RayFrost]

No. Heimerdinger is inherently a pushing champion, not an objective control champion. His zoning is on too long of a cooldown to be as relevant as the more common (and more effective) zone control champions to be relevant in that role.

[RayFrost]

New Malz is interesting.

His ult is aoe % damage with no flat damage, his q is aoe with a flattened cooldown, his e *refreshes* from hitting people with his other stuff. They've enabled him to be a more significant initiator working off base numbers, and I could see myself going a malzahar-jungle build that includes banshee's veil and is angled towards a tankier build path rather than a strictly damage oriented one. Would need to science to confirm actual competitive value of this.

Edit: I actually like the looks of Anivia's mini-update a lot.

[RayFrost]

By the way guys,

Madred's bloodrazor is basically back in the game now! The return of jungle kog'maw, mayhap.

[RayFrost]

Patch 6.9 introduced the removal of devourer and change to rageblade

[RayFrost]

Patch 6.9 has not been implemented yet.

[RayFrost]

Probably in the jungle as ad bruiser-esque malzahar.

Legit. I've done no math or playtesting (just had my jungle malz taken from me) but I'm sure it's good.

[RayFrost]

I have a solution for everyone wishing ADC was relevant.

[RayFrost]

One sec, gonna go log in and try third time vayne with rageblade on my 200 ping.

[RayFrost]

17/10/14 on jhin while I fucked around completely. I shat on everything and anything that I chose to when I was actually paying attention. GP? NP. Vayne? NP. Vayne + Morgana? NP. Kindred? NP. Kindred + Vayne? Fml.

[RayFrost]

I play and hardly ever get involved in these arguments so.

[RayFrost]

Pantheon is one of the best picks to obliterate gnar.

I say this having a 100% Kill Crush Destroy rate against gnar as pantheon.

[RayFrost]

Oh yea just realized trundle is probz unbeatable

true