So, during the (12 day or so) downtime with the MP servers, I decided to give LoL another go and have been enjoying myself. I'm glad DG is back up and running, but the break was enough for me to try another competitive DoTa style game and start to enjoy it. This thread isn't about bashing DG or any nonsense (so don't ffs). Its simply a place for those of us that play or have played DG and now play LoL as a main or occasionally to discuss the game and keep in touch.
So - chime in here if you have been playing LoL with your experiences or whatever you want to chat about.
I'll get us started. I've been enjoying the F2P aspect of LoL quite a bit. Remember WAAAAYYYY back when favor points in DG meant something? Eg - remember playing games and looking forward to unlocking a favor item you wanted to try out? It's like that all the time with LoL (well, it will be for quite some time anyway). You get IP (favor points) for every game you play. You can shell out some money if you really want to buy all of the characters, etc (the temptation is always there for the quick win), but you can also just play for fun and earn enough IP to unlock a new char, etc. It's been very satisfying for me slowly earn enough IP to try out a new character, etc.
As it stands, I'm ok with 3 characters (card guy, silv, and viking pants - there are so many char it takes awhile to learn all the names). I'm ok early, decent mid game, and utter SHITE late game with my characters. It seems very diff from DG in that respect (if we are kicking ass early/mid, you can't harass like a god late game - that's gotten me killed more than a few times). There are ALOT of reasonable builds (from what I can tell). I started by trying out many diff char vs ai to learn them (that's why I'm like level 12 with "13 wins" or so). Then I learned you get more IP from playing against humans, so I just switched up.
Anyway, I think the game is fun now and I'm looking forward to the new domination mode (it's a Demigod knock off imo) that is essentially holding points to get bonuses from what I understand. Hearing about that mode is pretty much exactly why I started playing. Oh, and pretty damn close to 100% of games end because another team beat you - not because someone dropped.
Anyway, I'm going thru a learning curve. I play with folks that are "experienced" and I often think they are retarded after my impressive 40 games or so (vs their 500+ games). The strats often sound idiotic to me. But that said, I fell into line in a game with jon, paint, obi, and 2 of jon's clan mates tonight and we scored a win when i thought we were done. My biggest weakness (I think anyway) is not knowing what folks can do with their characters... I think there are like 70 char... as a new player, you have NO IDEA what each char can do until you play them or play against them enough... and that will take some time. Anyway, I'm pacov on LoL if you play and want to add me as a friend. I'm not exactly good, but I probably won't lose you the game at this point. We should organize some LoL games and some DG games. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you.
I agree that I think it would be more important to drop the tower and help out a lane that isn't going well. Getting some extra farm bot is good, but it doesn't really make up for hardcore zoning/underlvl/farm of another lane if you could help set up a gank. Hard to find good junglers sometimes.
yeah - their team didn't even have a jungler, but they were hurting top so much that they were able to have one and even 2 roam at points... yet my teammate just wanted to farm and keep us committed to the lane and create more opportunities for their team to gank. Anyway, I thought I had it right. Just wanted to see if I was being silly or not.
I've been learning a lot about the finer points of various roles lately. I think my jungle rammus has improved quite a bit - particularly in my paying attention to lanes and trying to help out as needed/appropriate. I'm not great yet, but I'm getting better and do fine with the ganks anyway. I get the feeling he'll be nerfed sometime soon, though.
I'm feeling like I must be meh still as a support, though. I've had games where I've been decent as support, but by and large its my weakest role now. My best is still gragas in any lane. I'm usually pretty spot on with my ult, but he's just not as useful late game, imo, as other ap folks. He's the only character that I feel like there is no chance that I'll get forced to base ever.
So I was thinking about how I learn and get better at games. With Demigod, it was just through repetition (eg playing a ton). Once in awhile I'd see someone using a different favor item and then I'd try that out. Probably about 95% of my builds were just what I decided to build and go with. And I'd occasionally watch a replay here and there. Anyway, mostly I just got better by playing ALOT.
With LoL, I feel like I get better by primarily by watching live streams or recorded videos of folks using a character. I feel like I'm particularly good at emulating an individuals play style after watching them for a little bit. And I'm really only watching folks with extremely high elos, so I know I'm learning from solid players. I find its MUCH easier than just playing a game and trying to pick up things that other players do well. That said, I was in a game with karl when he used rammus and I did my best to pay attention to where he'd go, when he'd try to gank, etc, and that helped alot in and of itself. I still read a lot of guides for input on builds - then, after trying all that crap out, I eventually come up with what I feel works best.
It's a lot of that situational stuff that I don't get and that's hard for me to figure out and put into practice. I understand that we should all group up at X time and occasionally have someone split push. What I don't get is when should you really split push. Me, I see the logic putting 4 folks at the middle to draw attention while someone else would push a lane to try to drop a tower, but that only really works if the group of 4 chooses not to engage. But then that leaves 4 people doing next to nothing or (what typically happens) is that they engage and then someone decides to yell at the guy that was clearly not there.
Other things I haven't quite figured out - when to focus a tower vs grabbing baron or dragon. When I'm playing with some of you more experienced folks, I typically defer to you, but the reasoning doesn't always make sense to me.
When should you push a lane if its 2v1 or 2v2... I get the basics, but not everything. For instance, let's say its 2v2. My teammate and I kill one and put some hurt on the other. The other guy is either waiting around unseen, or has tp'd or will tp back to base. Do we push the lane and use our current advantage or just last hit? Stuff like that I'm not sure about. I get solo lane logic very well anyway.
Random question about rammus - If I'm using my q and use my flash, will I still stay in rolling form?
Yes, you stay powerballed if you flash on Rammus.
Getting better means playing against better players. If you play against poor players, you get negative feedback a lot less often. This means that if you do something wrong, they are unlikely to punish you for it. So you dont realize that its wrong. Against good players, they will punish you for it, and you get better fast.
Right now you play almost exclusively low ELO normal. The easiest way to get better competition is to queue with only higher ELO normal players at times, or to play more ranked so that you can get a reasonable ranked ELO while still being able to play with lower ELO people in normal.
To put it bluntly, I think that playing at low ELO doesnt really help people get better much. It really just reinforces a lot of bad habits. I know that I always end up playing more sloppily when I play a lot of lower ELO normal simply because it doesnt matter too much if you are a little sloppy.
No, when you play low ELO ranked games, there's almost always some moron that bitches about everything, typically while sucking themselves... I'm stuck in the 1k range instead of the 1200's, and it's like junior high.
Useful feedback can be pretty rare, but negative comes aplenty.
Thats why I said that you had to get to a reasonable ranked ELO, which means 1350+ basically. Even thats a big step down from 1500, but its where you start seeing decent play.
Thanks guys - I appreciate the feedback. Positive and negative are great.
Just been pugging tonight. Playing leona (on sale for rp). I'm digging her (though I don't have all the right runes for her atm). Anyway, just playing super tanky. Was running flash/tp, but I'm thinking tp isn't valuable enough, so I'll prob pick something else that might be more useful.
Exhaust is always a good spell to have on a tank.
yeah - i was thinking that as well. I went promote with mixed results last game. It's been too weird, though. As soon as I drop TP, I magically end up at leona mid. It's a strange, terrifying world. Man - the low damage output is rough for me, but I'm getting used to it. Her cc's are very handy. I think she might become my main tank, but we'll see. Only played like 5 games total with her.
OK - here's what I'm thinking. If I'm trying out new characters or feel like I'm crap with them, I'm going to stick with normal games. Otherwise, I'm going to start playing ranked more often. If there is 1 person around that is comfortable going ranked, I'll give them an invite to queue with me. I generally don't have 5 folks on at the same time that would be willing to play ranked, though. I really wish my best character was slightly more respected in ranks, though. I like that gragas pretty much never gets a ban, but he's not exactly recommended for ranked. I honestly don't think he needs a buff, but I won't complain if he does. Anyway, sticking with my prediction that rammus will get a little bit of a nerf to either his taunt or speed ball.
Gragas is mid T1 according to Elementz.
I wouldn't place the entire world into Elementz's view point, but generally speaking if he says a character is strong it's probably pretty strong. Note that he also does it in terms of the current 1-1-2-1 meta and dragon control etc (that is, Shyvana isn't a weak "character" by any means, but her lack of CC makes her a mediocre ganker, and soltop she can be shutdown by a lot of people. So even though she's reasonably powerful and might work great if the meta were different she's 'bottom tier' anyway).
I mean, Leblanc was kicking ass in the tourney and supposedly T5 P:
I think gragas is great as well, ofc.
I would put leblanc into tier 4 or 5 as well. She's like a brand that can only focus 1 target. This is great for 1v1 mid, but then its just trying to pick off individual targets. She's fun to play and I've seen some folks play her extremely well, but i just don't think she's as valuable late game.
What's Xerath doing in Tier 1? Haven't seen anyone good with him yet...
Downloading initial LoL updates currently... (Hooray)
Well, I'm personally rubbish with him, but I've watched quite a few streams from high level games lately and almost always someone is using him.
That's peculiar...
I see tons of people USING him, but ALL of them are FAILING.
Maybe because people are playing him like Kog'Maw, and he's really not supposed to be played that way?
My first game went awful...
Vs. AI as an experiment, and I played as Renekton 'cuz he's free...
Our team:
Heimerdinger
Katarina
Vayne
Renekton (me)
Orianna (left and didn't come back in the first 5 secs of the game)
Opposition:
Cho'Gath
Renekton
Annie
Ashe
Soraka
I started out solo top against Ashe and Soraka...
I died 9 times in the lane, getting Soraka to level 13 or so in the process, and she just wiped the rest of the team out afterwards... I managed to push after they left for mid. I smashed in three towers and an inhibitor on top until Cho'Gath and Soraka killed me...
After that it was just everyone running mid and getting killed by Annie and Soraka...
Final stats:
2/24/9
I really STANK!
Is this expected for a first game?
Or am I REALLY BAD?
Losing against AI is pretty bad actually... When you hear that some players win against 5 of them alone (that is 1v5)... So you should be able to handle at least two. Also AI buys items depending on their level (not gold), so they can never actually get that really farmed, as you can. It also always buys all recommended items, which are also not so good. They are very aggressive, so can be killed by tower easier, are very easy to know what they will do (walk to another lane to gank), etc. So, yeah, you were bad with renekton in your first game. So were your allies if they managed to lose (1 good player can carry 3 bad players against bots). But I think we all had such games (embarrassing to lose against bots...), where we were terrible... So just try again and again. You'll get better eventually
Generally speaking, yes. Especially if you had someone quit on you and folks are inexperienced. I'd really recommend playing the tutorial if you have not - you get a good amount of IP for doing that - should be enough to unlock one of the cheaper characters.
Once you get used to playing against the AI, any AD or AP carry can pretty easily dominate. Basically, all you need to do is get mejias soulstealer if you are AP champ or sword of the occult for AD. Those items increase your AP or AD for every kill and assist you get to a pretty substantial amount... and thats for like 1k gold. The downside is that those items are generally very impractical in normal games, but extremely practical vs AI.
Here's how to beat the AI. Get in a lane with one other person. The AI is quite dumb and predictable as to who it will try to attack. It goes after whoever has the lowest health. So if there are 2 of you in a lane and your buddy has lower health, have him move towards the ai, but just out of range. The AI will lock onto him. This frees you to go in for an attack and then your partner can join in. The AI is super easy to kite like this once you get the hang of it. After you nab a few kills, get one of those items I mentioned and keep killing. Before you know it, you will be very well fed and be able to buy whatever you need.
yup. I'd suggest looking over some build guides over on mobafire as well. It will help you understand decent items and a good order to choose abilities. Feel free to add me or anyone and I'll show you how to work the AI.
I was just thinking about the type of games I usually play and was curious if any of you do the same thing. I always play 1 or 2 games vs AI if I'm trying a brand new character or someone I've never used before. I do that as well if I'm trying a brand new build that sounds a little crazy to me. Then, I mostly play normal games as a pug or with pals. And then my graduate level is playing ranked with characters that I feel I'm decent with (though somehow I ended up as garen in one).
Both.
I didn't do anywhere near that bad my first game, I've done worse in the interim though.
Soraka is OP, in my not the least bit humble opinion. Infuse does absurd damage for a free ability, and all abilities in the lane might as well be free since it alternatively replenishes loads of mana to caster and target. Sona, the closest comparison, has inferior healing and damage, no silence, and actually runs out of mana. Late game it's less of a disparity, but anyone good can guarantee a fed lane partner thanks to restoration of mana and health.
As Renekton, 2v1 top, you had no prayer. You need either a heavy sustain, and then they'll still farm like crazy, just not kill you constantly, or long range burst damage capability along the lines of Graves. Renekton will get halfway through Ashe before eating a silence and dying to ice arrows from the now healed and armor buffed archer.
We all have to start somewhere. I had never played ANY DOTA style games before getting into LOL. I did absolutely terrible in the beginning. I'm not going into specifics, but it took me far too long to figure out how tower aggro worked So don't feel bad.
The Tutorial is a good way to start like others said. Get a feel for last hitting minions, the range of different champ spells, learning summoner spells and when to use them, etc. There are tons of resources for you to learn things: Player streams, solomid build guides, new players LOL forum, among others.
In my experience, I found it a lot easier to master ranged champs first.
I agree. Until you understand the distance of ranged attacks, etc, its a bit tricky to try a melee character. Ryze, morgana, and ash are all pretty good starting places (and after the tutorial, I think you could buy any one of them).
Gragas is fine in ranked. In fact, he can open up things in terms of bans since playing Gragas means that you dont have to ban Morgana since Grag can stand up to Morg and his ult counters her ult to some degree.
Hrm, season 2 is started and we can now make team that will get ranked. This should be very interesting.
ooo - i thought you were opposed to grag in ranked. excellent. And yes, ranked team forming must happen very, very soon.
patching now...
well... 1 team is formed so far...
side note - I THINK i can add 2 more to the team. Alternates and whatnot. The goal would be to have folks on at the same time and kill stuff. Happy to join many more teams, so invite if you want me.
Thanks for the game last night folks. I thought we all played well. Karl, you are so brave with Panth haha. I caught on to your playstyle eventually. Panth and Janna was actually a pretty good combo. Pacov, your Rammus has improved nicely. Just make sure not to dragon when Karl and I are almost dead haha.
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