League of Legends Thread XVI -Double International Salt Mine Edition-

[Aba Matindesu!]

3fab5me

[Cadmas]

3fab5me

those groans. Well sure be able to make a league hentai now.

[Patorikku]

3fab5me

L-lewd! Those moans are so lewd! When does NA get the japanese voice options?

[Raikaria]

Hextech Crafting is coming [PBE tomorrow; so probobly next patch; since we get a live patch tonight]

Key thing:  You can earn up to four chests each month, and each champion you play can earn you one chest per season.

Riot basically giving a massive middle finger to One Trick Ponies. Although that said a lot of the crafting is kinda pointless for those players anyway; they usually get a skin for their pony anyway.

[triangles]

I'm not following how it ties into champion mastery, since you can score S ranks no matter what your champion mastery level is - unless that's just the catch-all term for "level up bells and whistles we added"

Also rip Team Builder (on NA at least) it's apparently getting folded in with the normal draft mode with the fancy new Champ Select tomorrow.

[Mr. Sacchi]

Also rip Team Builder (on NA at least) it's apparently getting folded in with the normal draft mode with the fancy new Champ Select tomorrow.

Well yeah new champ select is just an enhanced version of team builder so there's no reason to keep it.

[triangles]

If nothing else now I can ban Rengar forever srsly when do we get to delete that jerk?

[Mr. Sacchi]

Leave barakitten alone 

[Ryuu]

but really, delete rengar

[Raikaria]

Riot themselves have said they're embarrassed by Rengar's current state.

Which is funny considering what makes him toxic has survived through TWO mini reworks.

[Bardiche]

Riot themselves have said they're embarrassed by Rengar's current state.

Just one Rioter, and he spoke from a personal standpoint, not "in the name of Riot our official stance is..."

New champion looks like he's Caitlyn v2, as far as sniper fantasy goes.

[Raikaria]

Meanwhile; a Shen reworks sneaks up on us.

And he's keeping Stand United. That surprised me. I mean I know it's core to his current identity but it's also such a problematic balance ability.

[Ryuu]

stand united isn't really a balance nightmare as long as one of two things are true

a: shen can't push his own lane very well and/or isn't able to effectively duel most opponents out of lane

b: stand united has a very small shield

[Raikaria]

Except Shen's passive still encourages HP stacking; and thus Titanic Hydra exists.

And Shen is easily a better duelist with his new Q/W than he is now.

[Bardiche]

If you take out Stand United from Shen, you get a pretty shitty champion to be honest. Very limited in what he can do with low range. I think that's OK: Shen is very easily kited, and doesn't bring much to the table still when he misses his dash. I think he might now be a bit better about duelling due to the huge shields he has access to pretty much all day, and he might be a duel god if he lands dash taunt, Q, then anti-AA shield... But I'd have to see him in action first. Kog'Maw looked super strong on paper but is weak in practice, so maybe Shen will still be pretty meh at duels.

His anti-AA shield MAY be good, but at 1.5s duration and 12s CD (and let's be honest: until level 15, that's probably 18s), it really comes down to once or maybe twice per teamfight. Lots of counter-play around it too since it confines people to a specific zone, making them easy pickings for skillshots (Xerath would have a field day).

[Mr. Sacchi]

Let's not forget that although Shen's energy has been doubled, his costs have also been doubled, but not his passive energy regen. He goes oom very easily if he doesn't actually land his stuff.

[Ryuu]

Except Shen's passive still encourages HP stacking; and thus Titanic Hydra exists.

And Shen is easily a better duelist with his new Q/W than he is now.

titanic hydra is a lot like crit or aspd for tanks in the sense that it's not that good until you get the base stats to back it up

rushing a titanic hydra shouldn't make shen able to outduel other top laners, especially fighters like jax and irelia that can just buy a rageblade as their first item

[Raikaria]

In other news:

TSM loses to CLG; without getting a single neutral objective while CLG gets 2 heralds; 2 Barons and 5 dragons
Wildturtle on Immortals wins and gets a Quadrakill

Regi's looking pretty stupid after Day 1 for ending his trials and Turtle's chance to stay on the team because OMG DOUBLELIFT GOT FIRED. Admittedly it's just Day 1 but still... first impressions man.

Also; in a single game Dignitas managed to throw THREE TIMES at Baron [One failed attempt with an excecute; two steals by a Viktor]

titanic hydra is a lot like crit or aspd for tanks in the sense that it's not that good until you get the base stats to back it up

rushing a titanic hydra shouldn't make shen able to outduel other top laners, especially fighters like jax and irelia that can just buy a rageblade as their first item

Dueling Jax as an autoattacker is probobly a far cry but I can easily see Shen dueling Irelia with Titanic between his own evasion and the %HP damage on Q and attackspeed bonus and reduced damage during taunt.

[Mr. Sacchi]

You're kinda forgetting that Irelia's E can't miss so if he engages with his taunt and manages to hit her and get a few hits in Irelia can just go "LOL THANKS FOR HITTING ME BRO" and suddenly there goes half your health as Shen.

I mean, you can either pop the evasion thing before the taunt ends (and then she presses E, waits for the missfield's super short duration to expire and then pummels you into oblivion) or you can do it right after (at which point she can just pop E before you can actually do the miss field and pummel you into oblivion even harder.)

Stuns tends to be really good in duels y'know.

[Ryuu]

people's attitude about remi on the internet is making me Actually Mad

[Aba Matindesu!]

it's twitch chat, i'm not sure anyone expected anything less

[Ryuu]

it's also reddit and basically everywhere people discuss league

[Silent Harmony]

4 games today.
4 different champions.
3 different roles.
2 champions I never played before (Poppy and Amumu).
1 lane I never played before (Top).
All wins.

Is...is this real life?

(that said I sucked in 3/4 of those games but I like to think I made some last-fight contributions to those wins :V)

[Raikaria]

Meanwhile I play Alistar in the first time in forever. I come out of the lane phase 0/0/6.

Despite this; and despite the fact that I had Relic Shield line; at 25 mins [Having Given Vayne a good 20CS]; my Vayne still doesn't even have 100 CS. And this is despite her not grouping and doing the old Vayne splitpush.

Just... how ._.

And then in another game where I am Diana Jungle and the entire enemy team is AD [Graves/Yasuo/MF/Volibear]; our Nasus; who has built a Frozen Heart and has Wither against 4 autoattackers; decides; despite the fact we have been winning teamfights; that he needs to farm for 10 minuites. He literally said that. Nasus then proceeds to AFK toplane.

Of course you don't get 10 minutes 4v5 against a full AD comp. Especially when the 1 missing is the champion with the skills and items which dumpster them. They wreck our towers. Nasus only shows up when it's too late and proceeds to attempt to 1v5 and fails miserably.

[Widermelonz]

Graves/Yasuo/MF/Volibear

What was their 5th champion? This is important; because looking at these 4, their siege is awful shouldn't be able to wreck your towers even in a 4v5.

[Raikaria]

What was their 5th champion? This is important; because looking at these 4, their siege is awful shouldn't be able to wreck your towers even in a 4v5.

If I recall it was Morgana, and our team was pretty short-ranged too.

One of three things would happen:
Volibear gets Black Shielded; pops Glory and flips someone. Not careing about the tower because he's Volibear.
MF and Graves ult forceing us off the tower with massive conic AoE
Yasuo manages to land a Q3 and ults and everyone dies

Any of these may involve a Morgana snare. Also; Wind Wall if we try to go aggro [Like; blocking my Diana Q's]

And Graves + MF can rip towers apart. Love Tap applies on Towers; and Graves just eats towers if he gets a shot off. They don't need to force you off the tower for very long at all.

[Silent Harmony]

Just to share notes (anybody can respond) how do you respond to bad games, whether it be teammates or yourself?

Me? This latest go-around I've tried something different. Rather than going in thinking "I am god awful and everyone else has to carry my sorry ass QQ" I think "no matter what I'm going to try and be a positive influence on the game through chat and/or through my play." This I feel has helped me not only have a ton of fun, but maybe even win. The first 2 games yesterday really solidified this in my head.

Game 1 had a Rumble top who constantly bitched our Lee jungle about not getting ganks (vs. Riven). Was he correct? I don't know, and I didn't care. Instead I tried to mediate when I could (Lee calmed down I believe) and play up my teams accomplishments and help, even when they congratulated me. Rumble being a cocky s.o.b. aside, we won the game. Even though I went 7/3/17 on Sona, I still feel like it was a team win because there were so many times where we worked together to get things done.

Games 2 was horrible because I had very little presence despite being the main tank of the team. It got really bad because our Jinx was getting pretty salty about my play and we actually went down 8k gold despite having constant pressure on their base. Unlike before, where I would get really down on myself for dying so much and with so little positive coming out of it, I kept psyching myself up to give it one more shot. Sure enough, we ended up getting a jungle fight late and a great charge and ultimate before dying landed me 4 assists and, more importantly, gave Jinx the path needed to charge the Nexus and end it. I'm under no illusion that I was the driving force behind the win, but I feel like I played a small, yet important, part late.

Hell even bad teammates don't get me down at all. Game 4 had a Yi that spent the whole game either split-pushing or dead. One moment that encapsulated his performance was when their team was sieging mid and 2-3 of us were huddled around the inhib turret waiting for them. Sudden here comes Lee out of the jungle behind them alone. Needless to say got gibbed before getting a single attack off. My response?

I laughed. I laughed hard. I didn't get angry, I didn't scream at my computer. I just laughed. Because it's just a game, and I was having fun despite his idiocy.


Another thing that I've improved greatly on is my warding. I always tried to keep wards up in the past (and often failed) but whether it's the new system or what I noticed I'm a lot better now.

G1: 13/2 (Placed/Vision)
G2: 26/6
G4: 23/6

[Ryuu]

rumble/riven is almost entirely a pure skill matchup iirc so rumble was correct to hope for a gank(but, of course, incorrect to bitch about it). a single gank on a skill matchup can snowball a lane super super hard. imo tho, if you know you can't win or are actively losing a skill matchup, you should know how to back the fuck up and farm safely so you don't fall even more behind. judging by the game timeline, he seems to have just kept faceplanting into her for no reason and dying. there's also literally no reason for him to be fighting her at level 1, which is just a super bizarre choice to make since rumble doesn't really turn on until level 3 or 4

[Raikaria]

Massive rewards for the remainder of the week for playing in parties in the new champ select. Minor ones for other selects

Of course; EUW; being EUW; catches fire and the new champ select is disabled.

[Bardiche]

Of course; EUW; being EUW; catches fire and the new champ select is disabled.

Legit refusing my provisionals because I can't use new champ select. :[