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 found that I could jungle just fine with nocturn without runes - perhaps unlock him next (or puchase the melee dps bundle like i did ). Anyway, as long as you get a leash, and cast a health pot almost immediately, you'll be able to take out blue without an issue. Then just keep popping those health pots as you continue to jungle. Oh - and I think you should wait to finish the kill using smite on blue. You'll get like an extra 5 gold for it and its safer to wait (imo) in case someone is counter jungling you. Then, ofc, there are other routes (start on golum or wolves), but I'm pretty confident you can easily jungle with nocturn (its easier than with amumu anyway with no runes). My amumu route didn't even go for blue until later (I'd start at the enemies witches, then goto our wolves, then to our witches, then to golum, then base - quick shop and then blue, etc).
I'd say just play who you want and spend some time learning how to jungle. About 90% of the games I play in pug do not even have a jungler, so you can typically go that route. Then, I'd suggest working on tanks. Seems like the least favorite roles are tank/jungler based on what I see folks playing. Or you could go the route I'm going and just play whatever the crap you want to (currently working on akali as a main)... this is what pretty much everyone seems to do in pugs regardless of what the best team composition would be. We could do a short custom game if you want (you and me vs 2 AI or w/e or we can just queue up together for a match and I can walk you through exactly how to jungle without runes in vent). Took me like 10 games to do it properly, but I've got it down.
Sarmis (he's an old dg player that I've been queing up with as a 2 man pre) had some really useful tips for me also. CS (creep score) is very important. We already know that. But monitoring your CS is pretty important. You can do this by pressing tab. You never really think of it if you have a nice AOE for farming, but if you don't or are forced to stay at range without an AOE, it becomes exceptionally important. Here's how I was playing Akali. I'd typically be soloing top. So, I'd just last hit for a bit and go back and forth with whoever was in the lane with me. Well, if its 2v1, last hitting can be a bit more challenging early. Anyway, I'd last hit as best I could, but eventually would fall behind on CS (last hitting any creep gets you 1 CS). If the creeps ended up being pushed a little too close to the enemy tower, I'd generally go on a run and attempt a gank at mid. This sounded smart to me as it could be dangerous to push out too close to the enemy tower if I'm solo and dont have a ward going (I typically don't shop until I'm like level 8 or 9). So, I'd leave the lane and go for a kill. If I snagged a kill, then great - that's equal to like 16 cs. If I don't get a kill (I'd get one out of like every 5 or so on early ganks), then I've missed all the xp and CS from my lane. Anyway, I'd repeat this process, occassionally getting kills, but generally having a pathetic creeps score for it. Anyhow, I'm going to adapt my style of play a bit and stay a bit more often in a lane and change the way I handle 2v1 matchups on top (if I'm soloing). Bottom line is that I need to work on my cs alot more.
Had a much more respectable game for CS with akali. I was in mid lane vs ezreal.
played a lot with sarmis and a few with futile emotion on their vent tonight. Was quite a bit of fun. Our last game was super entertaining. I'll jibber jabber about it in the morning. Night!
OK - so yesterday Sarmis invited me to jump onto his vent sever, so I popped over there and played some game with him and futile emotion. They were folks that played demigod as a premade back in the day with socialist ryan and I think another (can't remember off the top of my head). Another old dg player jumped on the vent as well - hellabadass. Anyway, we had several fun games. One where sarmis had some ungodly amount of damge + crit stacks (think he had like 499 AD). He was single hitting most of our opponents and dropping them to like 30-40% hp. Was crazy. Another game where he and I were the only players doing anything useful and managed to carry the team. The last game, one that we lost, was the most entertaining. We had a lousy player that just quit after 5 minutes or so. We did so so for a bit, but then it was clear tha we were pretty well sunk. It got to the point where we were trying to do the dumbest thing we could think of at any given moment. 3 of us were in vent and we had 2 pugs (1 of them quit early like i mentioned). The other pug was good spirited and figured out the nonsense we were doing and then just joined in. Towards the end of the game, I was threatening the other team that I was going to solo baron. I'd go in and hit him a few times, then dive into 5 on the other team. Then one by one each of us would flash in and hit baron and then die. I add that at this point, we had like no inhibitors and half of 1 turret covering the base (eg the game was over). Anyway, the guys on the other team were being funny and playful as well saying things like this after they died - "I can only kill 3 of you at any given time." To which I respond, "l2p noob." Anyway, it was just a silly good time with everyone being really good humored about it. It's a bit rare to have so many good humored folks in 1 game, but everyone on our team (but the leaver) was cool and the same goes for the other team.
Oh - so I'm getting good with last hitting middle lane and being disciplined to stick with the lane. I'm still absolute rot if I'm paired up in a 2v2 or a 1v2 in top or bottom, though. I always end up getting aggressive and changing focus to one of the weaker characters and then neglect last hits... going to keep working on that.
My stats are getting much more decent with Akali, though, and I'm understanding when to dive and when to stay back MUCH better now.
I'd love to learn to Jungle and how to Leash at least, so if you got some time I'd appreciate it man. I don't care what everyone tells me, I started buying T1 runes so I can do better Jungling and just playing early game in general. They're about half as good as the T3 runes I can't buy and cost a tiny fraction of the price. Plus I can recycle them anyway so whatever.
Yeah, it takes some getting used to, all the DG/LoL differences. Feels like in some ways I'm ahead of all the other beginners strategy wise, but its balanced out by all my bad habits.
"2v1 next to their tower but I got a good chance for a kill... totally worth it! Gottem! Gotta get away... oh well, tower got me. Huh. I get a kill, and the champ I just killed got a kill as well and his friend an assist. Ooops..."
Getting the hang of the differences though. Harassed the hell out of an enemy squishy the other night and made their laning a miserable experience. Had them zoned out most of the time, down on life so they couldn't last hit, was wonderful. Then someone snuck up from another lane and helped him gank me. Was bummed that all that hard work and aggressive play went to waste... but did it really? I denied my laning adversary last hits and xp the whole early/mid phase and scored non-stop last hits myself. Think that outweighed my getting ganked mid game especially when you take into account the few fail attempts to gank me that wasted precious laning time.
That one game sounds fun... usually there's a mix of cool people and... well... you know how some are, so thats pretty rare. Generally I've been surprised at the general good naturedness of my allies and opponents in random pug games.
Leashing is just when you thump the minion and run, it will chase you for a bit. You leash blue for Warwick or whoever, run off, and he kills it half dead before it stops trying to kill you and smacks him back.
Jungling is all about a sustained presence. You need to be able to absorb the damage you're taking and just keep going. With a full set of level 30 runes, basically anyone with a vampiric scepter can jungle. Laning is about avoiding damage and hen pecking your opponents out of position, either by killing them off or sending them home, either way they lose xp. You can't avoid your damage as a jungler, you're the only target. The recommended junglers are all because they have good ways to turn minions into health. Akali can be a good jungler too, just take crescent slash and the starting sword and you have your 10 attack needed for 10% spell vamp.
Start a custom game, fill it with ai, play a guy that can restore health, and just try it out at your leisure. That's all an AI game is good for really, the bots are too dumb to be a challenge.
yup - leashing is ez. If you feel crazy weak, you can even ask someone to leash golum for you. The main adv is that the creeps target whoever attacked first, so you get some free hits in while they chase whoever attacked first. I'd even go so far as to help you kill if needed. The main thing for a jungler, though, is getting as much XP as possible while you work the jungle - so if I'm standing nearby, we split some xp if any die while I'm there. So, its almost always best to have someone just hit for you and run.
Most people in games understand what "I need a leash on BLANK" means, even at lower levels. So just ask when the game starts and u should be set.
Happy to help you with some basic jungle routes. Let me know who you are planning on using and we'll play sometime soon.
Heheh, thats what I thought but I had someone freaking out on me the other day that I didn't properly leash the Lizard King for him so I figured there must be something more to it than hitting once and walking away.
The rest of the game had our Jax player yelling at him that he was the worst WW ever so I guess I should have judged the source.
Thanks Pacov, I'll probably take you up on the offer soon.
He was probably less than capable of taking it down and wanted you to smack it a few more times. I had some tard pull that a while back. Went at blue off the start, and died because he only bothered to mention he needed more help after I was already back in lane...
It takes all kinds.
heh - yeah. I suppose we all have to start learning somewhere. When I was trying to learn to jungle, I just started by playing a few 1v1 custom games against bots. That way, I wouldn't look like a complete idiot if I died to blue, etc. Unfortunately, this meant I couldn't start on blue as I wouldn't have a leash, but I just worked some of the alternate paths to see how much damage I could absorb, how long I had between smites, etc.
I jungle most of the time when I play ranked (for example, I have almost 250 ranked games worth of WW), so I'll say a few things about it:
In general, dont take a jungle route if you absolutely NEED a leash. If you really need the leash that badly, you will probably get very low on hp. That means that any kind of counter jungling will stomp you. You usually want to make sure that you have enough health at all points on your jungle path to at least be able to flash away if you get counter jungled. Getting killed on your first path is just too crippling to risk.
For solo queue pickup games, just going blue to wolves to wraiths to red to little golems is usually best. Its not the fastest route for hitting level 6, but it frees you up for ganks the fastest. Typically I want to be available to help out my lanes as early as possible. In more organized games where you can trust your lanes, you may want to take other routes that let you level faster.
Some junglers (Amumu for example) can't safely do red on that route (he can get it, but will be VERY low on hp if he tries). Thats fine - skip red, go back after clearing little golems, get boots, do red, then start ganking. Its a bit slower, but you get to be ganking with red and boots, so its not a horrible tradeoff.
Stonewall on the Reign of Gaming blog (google it) is an experienced jungler who posts about jungling all the time, including tutorials. I dont agree with all his opinions (in fact, I think that he is wrong about a lot of stuff), but watching his stuff is a really solid intro to jungling.
Good tips - thx!
Ugh, seems the luck of the Carbon has gone out.
Losing streaks sucks.
We should play... it sadly just occurred to me tonight that you are carbon in my friends list. Was wondering who that was.
Anyway, think I had a full night of wins. Played again with sarmis and his boys. Still maining akali and getting better. I HATE 1v1 against singed, though. Quite painful for akali if singed is good.
i have no idea what you are talking about or who you are
he's the original robertmunch (side note - takes you 3 weeks to read his post? heh). Anyway, if bobby gets attacked, bobby is welcome to defend himself.
That said, back to my lol blahblahblah.
I'm still maining akali. Starting to get sick of it (even in dg, I could never stand playing the same character more than like 10-20 games in a row or w/e). I'm sure I'm past that number with akali. I figure with like 70 + characters, getting really good with one will be a smart decision for ranked games (think I'm only level 23 or 24 now.. almost there anyway). Starting to play more and more games with different folks to see who I have good chemistry with as I really want to tear things up on the ranked scene (and not linger in elo hell). I'm prob 2-4 weeks out from ranked games anyway, though.
Nothing super exciting to report - got to play a few with max tonight - fun games. Played some with sarmis and some pug. One pug was annoying as crap. We had a "shot caller" on the team that was an idiot. We are up like 11 to 1. We even get one player on the other team to RQ. Then this idiot wants to do NOTHING (literally nothing else) but push mid at 11 min in with no tank etc. And what happens, over and over, is that the team gets killed. Yet he wants to continue this amazing strategy. This is a guy that rushes in when I'm grabbing red, a teammate says wait for akali, and he pushes anyway, then whines to the team after getting the 4 at mid killed... smeh. Anyway, should have been a cake win, but the whole damn team just died over and over again (with me getting anyway with like 100 hp for the most part)...sigh. Dumb player. Dump people listening to him as well.
A few comments about ranked since you say you want to transition into it:
Team composition is A LOT more important in ranked. In normal people generally dont care too much. So if you take that second AP carry or whatever, people arent going to be upset and it wont be a big deal. But in ranked the team comp not only matters, but if you make a strange pick, people are going to yell at you for doing it.
So that means that you MUST be able to play multiple champs in all categories if you want to do well in ranked. That means at least 2 tanks, at least 2 AP Carries, at least 2 AD carries, at least 2 junglers, and at least 2 supports. Obviously there are some overlap in that champs can fill multiple categories, but you have to be able to cover your bases.
Now Akali has some flexibility in that she can take either solo lane and can jungle. So you can cover quite a few bases by being good at Akali (I do the same thing with WW - I can play him a hell of a lot in ranked because he can do a lot of things). But if you want to hit the ground running in ranked, you should learn to play more champs.
Good tips. Thx karl.
working on jung akali now. Good tips.
I'm trying to get a head start on trying to learn at least a few champs in different categories while I'm playing low level games since there's not so much... agro-ness right now.
I found a good Mobafire guide that I'm using as a quick reference for which guys fulfill which role for the more obscure champs people end up picking so I know what positions are already likely taken on my team.
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/5-champs-you-should-know-how-to-play-aka-who-do-i-buy-next-70445
^The list seems a bit off... maybe it's a little older?
I'm not exactly sure what level you're in, but if you're climbing up to 30, the easiest thing to do is to just pick an AD carry and just carry your way to ~1500 elo, then support.
AD carry is extremely easy and as long as you can keep your distance (which isn't that hard with flash and a lot of AD carries have escape mechanics) then you should be ok. The problem with AP carry is that they're not as efficient in taking down tanks and they start to wane in late game when everyone starts to stack MR. There are better armour pen items in the game so even if the opponent starts stacking armour it's not a big deal for an AD carry.
Once you get to 1500 elo, then support is honestly the easiest role. Their only purpose is to beef up the AD carry and try to not die more than 5 times. I have quite a few friends in high elo purely from supporting even though they're not really all that great at the game themselves.
ok butch i've practiced up a bit now I'll hit you up for a game later on. Man LoL is full of feeders - my rage is going well.
Thunder add me what's your tag? Re your Q I found that using Ashe is good for practicing initially as you usually get given the centre lane to yourself - so you can practice final hits etc and generally have to have map awareness to avoid ganks and pick up kills on the sides.
Screenshit.
There is nothing wrong with trying to play an AD Carry whenever possible, but sub 1200 ranked is littered with people who insist on playing Carries all the time no matter what their team needs on the "I must carry" line of reasoning. The bottom line is that its a terrible idea to take an AD Carry if you have a 4th or 5th pick and your team doesnt need one. It loses teams games so often.
Luckily I got clear of that nonsense, since the people who insist on being all carries all the time dont make it past 1350 or so very often.
Playing support alone is a good way to win about half of your games in solo queue. I dont think that its a great idea if you are queuing ranked alone (obviously you have to play support sometimes if your team needs it). But its a really strong way to play if you are playing with somebody who can carry you to higher ELO. Its kind of hard to be terrible at support champs if you have basic LoL skills, so yeah, if you can find somebody good and just play support, its a great way to get carried to higher ELO than you would be in another role.
@Ninki Yeah, its definitely an outdated list but I don't think much has changed from what I need to reference. I'm still only at level 13 so having that list handy as a cheat sheet at least lets me figure out what would be good for me to practice with considering what everyone else has picked. Also, if its a PvP game, it keeps me from embarrassing mistakes when certain enemy champions roles in the game aren't intuitive. For instance Shen seemed like some sort of assassin melee DPS character when I first started playing but I was educated otherwise by a teammate one game.
"Dude... Please. Stop. Attacking. Shen. HE'S THEIR !@#$ing TANK!"
Not to toot my own horn, but I'm feelig like a Big Dick Playah when I pick Urgot, so your advice is good I think... but I really want to get good with all different types of champs while I'm at the lower skill levels and feel like one of the better players most games I get matched up in. Gotta take advantage of this window before things get more competitive and its harder to learn different styles of play.
@Doggu I think we're already friends, I'm "LavaShark" in LoL. Lets play some games bro, think we're about the same level if I'm not mistaken.
Got to play a couple with krazikarl on vent yesterday. Played some with sarmis and quite a few with his bud mccheesypants. McCheesey taught me how people like to blame shen anytjime they die (mccheesy went shen). It was quite entertaining to watch terrible players do pointless things, die, and then yell at whoever was playing shen. More later mayhaps (and I apparently have a bit of reading material in this thread since last I checked it. )
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