League of Legends

[Croaker]

CV is a great spell but you need an organized team to make use of it. Fortify is situationally useful, but it's not something to take every time, and you don't see it much. Clarity is mediocre at best. Champs who have mana issues generally are also champs that need other summoners badly (ie Jax), or champs who should be getting blue. Late game it's unnecessary because almost no one goes into a fight low on mana.

That said, in something like 90% of situations, personal player skill and preference will be more important to winning than what that preference is.

Ranked 5s is brutal because very few teams play it, so you end up matched against teams much better than you, or much worse than you almost every time. Just play ranked for ban draft.

 

[Demjou]

Yeah, most likely, I'm going to get ready to go into ranked play, and they'll make it a option for normal to have draft mode, and any interest in ranked mode will go right out the window.

On a earlier note, I've been looking at stats, abilities and builds, and I think I'm going to get Irelia. While I'm saving up for her, was hoping someone could answer a few questions, namely, should I keep her in a duo lane, or can she solo lane, what kind of runes should I have for her, and any must have SS or items/masteries?

 

[atlas_hugged]

Yeah, most likely, I'm going to get ready to go into ranked play, and they'll make it a option for normal to have draft mode, and any interest in ranked mode will go right out the window.

On a earlier note, I've been looking at stats, abilities and builds, and I think I'm going to get Irelia. While I'm saving up for her, was hoping someone could answer a few questions, namely, should I keep her in a duo lane, or can she solo lane, what kind of runes should I have for her, and any must have SS or items/masteries?

Wait on Irelia. She's going to be remade soon, because she's tanky dps right now.

 

[Demjou]

Really? Do you have a official source, or is this just one of those rumors that floats around the offical forum?

 

[atlas_hugged]

The exact quote from Morello I think is

After noodling with a lot of stuff, this is the conclusion we came to generally - we'll have to individually (and in the case of Irelia, fundamentally) adjust the character. We're moving in the direction of changes of role to make it so we can get her in the right place, all while trying to retain important core gameplay aspects.

 

[Demjou]

All right, guess I'll just keep saving IP till I have enough for any champ, then make a decision...

Personally, I wish they would release some new 3.1k champs... getting a little annoyed at all the 6.3s.

 

[atlas_hugged]

All right, guess I'll just keep saving IP till I have enough for any champ, then make a decision...

Personally, I wish they would release some new 3.1k champs... getting a little annoyed at all the 6.3s.

They won't, at least any time soon probably.

What kind of roles do you like to play?

 

[Croaker]

yeah, that morello quote was back around the patch when they tested tanky dps nerfs on Renekton. That said, Shurelia's announced that Kayle is the next champion to get a remake, so it'll probably be a while before Irelia gets touched.

that said Irelia, poster child of tanky dps, actually has really bad base stats. I also feel it's... eh... strange to call a champion who needs a 4k damage item tanky dps in the way garen used to be.

As for how to play the current Irelia...

Solo lane. Irelia loves gold. Irelia loves levels. A level+gold advantage with Irelia means you can p.much 2v1 dudes and win. I run Ghost/Ignite on her, but Ghost/Exhaust works too. Ghost is necessary imo, the other one can basically be whatever. I've had success with arpen/armor/mr/regen quints and arpen/armor/scaling mp5/arpen quints. My masteries go 21/8/1 (strength of spirit + imp.ghost). 0/9/21 also owns hard (strength of spirit again).

Trinity Force is your damage item. Your one damage item. Then build defensive shit. Banshees, randuins, mercs, etc.

you should be winning harass trades in lane thanks to hiten style's bonkers truedamage and life restore. (when harassing activate hiten before bladesurging a dude, bladesurge applies all onhits incl hiten). w>q>e>auto until they escape or you feel like backing up. After you get sheen and your ult, don't spaz all four ult shots onto a dude, space them out for the sheen procs (unless ofc you are dying and need the health badly). Bladesurge makes farming under your tower super ezmode, tower hit tower hit auto (bladesurge if necessary) melee creeps, tower hit auto bladesurge casters. your minions doing damage can fuck this up, but it's usually pretty easy to tell. If you're hitting a minion with bladesurge, you badly need to kill it because otherwise it owns your mana pool. If you're about to recall feel free to nuke the shit out of a creepwave with your ult because it has like no cooldown.

I skill R > E > W > Q, but i've tried R > Q > W > E and it's not bad. You get to harass more with Q first, but stun longer with E so it's to taste. Whichever way you go have a point in all three skills by level 3. Hiten style is fucking insanely good (75 truedamage/attack at rank 5), and red's truedamage will make that even more stupidgood.

Bad people for you to lane against are ranged kiters (caitlynn and urgot mainly, mb ashe) and people who hurt bad and have heals (renek and nida).

I start cloth armor + 5 health pots. Going into lane with like, 60 armor + 45 mr + 25 HP/5 + 1k health in pots makes harassing you out super hard.

 

[Demjou]

Thanks for the info croaker.

And ucal, I can play just about any role, though I prefer to play either the tank/tanky DPS, the mage that just sits back and harrasses the enemy team, or picks one target and destroys him, or the melee DPS with high burst damage. I.E, Garen, Lux, Malz, and Akali roles. I don't do so well with pure support, at least last time I tried anyway, so that might have changed in the 15 or so lvls since I last tried actually playing supports.

Short and sweet version? I like playing the high damage mages/ADs, and tanks.

 

[atlas_hugged]

Then I would suggest Kog Maw for you. If you build him AP, and are competent at aiming his ult, nobody can touch you, while you literally sit behind a teamfight and kill everyone in it.

 

[Spaz]

I've been playing Caitlyn for the past week because of the rotation. My first game with her, custom however, I did 12/3/4. But, the next games in CoOp vs AI, with some friends, I did mainly 0-3 kills, many deaths, and few assists. I already have Tristana, so should I consider buying Caitlyn when I save up or should I look for another ranged AD carry?

 

[Croaker]

I've been playing Caitlyn for the past week because of the rotation. My first game with her, custom however, I did 12/3/4. But, the next games in CoOp vs AI, with some friends, I did mainly 0-3 kills, many deaths, and few assists. I already have Tristana, so should I consider buying Caitlyn when I save up or should I look for another ranged AD carry?

If you're losing to bots (negative kdr on a carry), idk man, the character may not be for you. On the other hand, play whatever you enjoy playing. (And if you've played against real people after the bot games and done well, go ahead and pick her up).

 

[shiki]

It just means that he needs to take more care with positioning. AD range carries are not meant to be rambo and up in someone's face. Take advantage of the 650 range to kite.

For Cait, you have to pretty much farm, farm, farm and harrass from range with Q and spam... um ... strategically place traps (works especially well because the bots walk over them almost 100%), the E is pretty useless as a offensive slow and should only be used as a slow-escape to hop walls or retreating (unless you have a super-coordinated team and you are at low hp, then a slow might get you an assist before you retreat).


Build AD. Lots of it. You need some AS, but for the most part build AD so you can do OMG! dmg from range with Q and R early- mid.

 

[Demjou]

Honestly, when it came to learning Cait, the biggest issues I had were learning the speed of her Q for timing issues, how to time her traps to snag someone, and what parts of the map you can use the net to push through. Thanks to her passive, I honestly see her as one of those champs that can sacrifice some AD for a bit more Crit, LS, AS, or some survivability items.

Though once you get better at placement, both in skill useage and aiming, and movement wise, she's pretty damn survivable even with no items. 1v1, unless they have a dash, or a long range stun or slow, your going to be pretty damn hard to catch up to with your net and traps. I can usually handle a 2v1 fairly well from early mid game onward as long as I've been getting a few kills or assists.

Souffle gave out a Cait build when I asked for some help improving mine earlier in the thread, and from personal experience, it's a damn good build. Try it out, see if it helps.

If your still having issues, then it might any number of things. It might be that her personal play-style doesn't mesh well with you, you might not have enough practice with skill shots like her Q, it might just be that you had a bad run for a few games.

Best thing I can say is, if you like her, and can either do well with her, or are willing to put in the practice to get good, then buy her. If you don't like her, or just feel that you can't do well with her no matter how much you practice, then look into a different champion. At least because of the free week you got to try her out for free, and aren't going to waste IP or RP on a blind buy.

Lord knows I still regret getting Sion...

Oh and ucal, thanks for the advice, I'll probably wait till I get a kog free week before I make a final decision either way. How well does he build as a AD/AS champ? And any runes that I should get for either build, or will mag pen/armor pen, and scaling Mp5 runes suffice?

 

[A Curious Stranger]

So I tried out Malzahar for the first time, and man is he super-troll tier against bots. They just run right into Visions range and I end up with double and triple kills against them all the time. I think I won't play him against humans though. I'm kind of crappy with laying down the 'W' and ulti, and I always forget to trigger items, so Deathfire would be a worthless buy for me. But man, getting like 600 AP and using your 'E' is hilariously awesome against squishies.

 

[Demjou]

But man, getting like 600 AP and using your 'E' is hilariously awesome against squishies.

This. This so many times. I don't know how many times I've gotten a ace while dead cause the last two squishys running away weren't paying attention.

 

[Spaz]

It just means that he needs to take more care with positioning. AD range carries are not meant to be rambo and up in someone's face. Take advantage of the 650 range to kite.

For Cait, you have to pretty much farm, farm, farm and harrass from range with Q and spam... um ... strategically place traps (works especially well because the bots walk over them almost 100%), the E is pretty useless as a offensive slow and should only be used as a slow-escape to hop walls or retreating (unless you have a super-coordinated team and you are at low hp, then a slow might get you an assist before you retreat).


Build AD. Lots of it. You need some AS, but for the most part build AD so you can do OMG! dmg from range with Q and R early- mid.

Yeah, I recently learned that from that match talking to my friends. So who do you guys think would be more suitable for me? Like I said in my OP, I'm using Sona right now as my main, since my small group of friends needed a support.

 

[Demjou]

Well, what kind of a role do you like to play? Up close? Back row sniper? Take everything they throw at you and walk away? Do you prefer just supporting your team?

 

[Spaz]

Well, what kind of a role do you like to play? Up close? Back row sniper? Take everything they throw at you and walk away? Do you prefer just supporting your team?

I like situational typed characters. If I need to snipe from afar, I'll do that. If I need to cut down the enemy close range, I'll do that. If I need to tank, I'll do it. If I need to buff and support, I'll do it. I want to bs stronger where my teammates aren't, so I can help as much as I can. Sona can do the snipe from afar or close range, she's mid range, and she can buff, but she can't tank. I would play Taric, but he gets too close and is too slow.

 

[A Curious Stranger]

Well, what kind of a role do you like to play? Up close? Back row sniper? Take everything they throw at you and walk away? Do you prefer just supporting your team?

I like situational typed characters. If I need to snipe from afar, I'll do that. If I need to cut down the enemy close range, I'll do that. If I need to tank, I'll do it. If I need to buff and support, I'll do it. I want to bs stronger where my teammates aren't, so I can help as much as I can. Sona can do the snipe from afar or close range, she's mid range, and she can buff, but she can't tank. I would play Taric, but he gets too close and is too slow.

Wait, you want to do every single role with a single character? Wat.

Dude characters are specialized. It's a team game. If a single hero can perform every role well, there would be no need for other heroes. You might be able to perform 2 separate roles, but you're just being greedy and setting yourself up for a fall.

 

[Croaker]

Wait, you want to do every single role with a single character? Wat.

Dude characters are specialized. It's a team game. If a single hero can perform every role well, there would be no need for other heroes. You might be able to perform 2 separate roles, but you're just being greedy and setting yourself up for a fall.

Thumbs up.

Seriously, if that's your goal, you need to learn to pick your dude around your team's dudes. Which means basically that you need to know a lot of champions. That said, Taric and Sona are the only ones who can kind of multirole like that.

 

[darthturtle]

I'd actually recommend Nidalee, if you haven't tried her yet.

Essentially, she deals huge damage with her poke, then DPSes for a few seconds, and then finally pulls out an entirely different skillset and bursts someone to death. Also, tremendous zoning and ganking potential.

So, yeah. A character that tries to do everything all at once? Well, Nidalee comes close.

 

[Demjou]

Eh, Garen can multitask a tank and damage role decently well, as long as the enemy team isn't filled with tanks or stacking mass amounts of HP and/or armor. As far as multitasking roles go though, Sona, Taric and Nidalee are the only ones that can do decently large amounts of damage while still supporting your team with heals and such.

If you want a champ that can do large amounts of damage while putting out good amounts of CC, Kennen is a good champ to go with. Karma can make a extremely good support champ, and if you build her with large amounts of AP, she can put out huge amounts of AoE damage with a Mantra enhance shield, while also being able to heal and damage with her cone fan, and give speed boosts to the whole team for escapes and chases.

Singed,shen, and rammus are three of the more versitile tanks, and veigar can put out large amounts of AP damage while corralling the enemys with his stun circle. Yi can end up as a team destroyer/lane pusher from hell if built AD/AS.

Most champs can fill two roles, though not usually at the same time. Mess around with different champs, and find one that you can build two or more ways to suit the game.

So, yeah. A character that tries to do everything all at once? Well, Nidalee comes close.

If you try to make her fill all those at once though, she ends up failing most of the time. AD/AS makes her a Phys carry with a heal and escape. AP makes her a sniper and healer that will drive you crazy trying to take her down, and still able to rape you up close. Only thing she can't do AMAZING if focused, is a tank role, and even then if you grab some AP, she can still heal tank most champs.

Her skills take quite a bit of practice to use effectively though. Her spear is a line skill shot that deals more damage the farther it is from nidalee when it hits, so throw it, then move away for more damage. Every nidalee player I know personally says that her cougar form skills are the most annoying to learn placement for.

 

[Vexarian]

Pretty much. It's like that old saying. He who tries to defend everything, defends nothing. Except it's more "Do" then "Defend" here.

There are very few champions that can fill Hybrid roles very well, and of those basically all of them require you sacrifice some level of efficiency in one in order to gain in the other.

Off the top of my head, the ones that pull hybrid off best are Garen, Mundo and Nunu.

A defensively built Garen can both tank and do some nice DPS if you get an Atma's Impaler (or possibly a Bloodrazor, but I've never tried that), since his ultimate works based on enemy health and his Q and E have good alternate uses.

The best parts of Mundo's abilities aren't affected by AD or AP unless he got patched recently, his E doesn't change, his main attack skill works based on percentage and so does his ult, so you can stack nothing but Warmogs and still be pretty effective at offense in addition to being an utterly unforgiving tank.

I've got a pretty good Tank/Support build for Nunu too. Stack together a chunk of health and some AP and you get a pretty decent thing going on. You won't be the best tank ever unless you've got some minions to cram down your face in the middle of things, but you'll be amazing in team fights. The extra durability makes you a good off-tank and your abilities make you a fucking nightmare for the other team to deal with. Particularly if you grab the Frozen Mallet and Crystal Scepter like I do.

 

[Croaker]

Nidalee is actually a super difficult character to play well which is why I'm not going to recommend her to anyone. Ever. Despite her probably being my favorite champion.

Karma can make a extremely good support champ, and if you build her with large amounts of AP, she can put out huge amounts of AoE damage with a Mantra enhance shield, while also being able to heal and damage with her cone fan, and give speed boosts to the whole team for escapes and chases.

support-Karma is actually worthless since she has no actual CC and therefore needs mass AP to make her skills useful. She deals shittons of damage with stacked AP though.

Mundo is actually a good recommendation I forgot about since he does tons of magic and physical damage while building defensively but always get a spirit visage on him.