I've locked/archived this thread/blog and have started a new discussion over here: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/454943/
Please join me if you like.
Am I streaming?
Well, I started a thread back in August (https://forums.joeuser.com/411269/) that's seen a lot of activity and actually had quite a few good bits of information for new and old players alike. I figure it's time to start a new thread and perhaps keep the OP up-to-date with useful information, etc. Feel free to use this post for any LoL discussion, etc.
Super fast background: I played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust. Back in August 2011 or so, I started getting heavily involved in LoL and folks have been kind enough to chime in with tips and links to various sites that have been quite useful to me. In addition, I've been able to keep up with folks that I've played Demigod with in the past and meet some new folks that play LoL and frequent these message boards.
Here's some of the things I've learned in the previous thread:
New Player tips
Great site I visit every day for LoL related news - http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends
pacov's misc info
Here's a guide I made
pacov's Guide to Improving at League of Legends and Moving Up in Elo
k - so I'm just going to put down some of my thoughts. I'm not amazing at this game, but I do certain things that improve my odds of winning in ranked and so far its panning out just fine (bronze 5 to gold 5 in about a month or so). We all have varied skill levels, so some of this might be useful and some not. Caveat complete.
Prerequisite- you need to know how to play every single role. You don't have to be a god at every single role (more power to you if you are - I'm certainly not). You need to be able to play at a serviceable level in every single role and excel at least at 1 role (preferably 2). In my case, I'm good at support and adc. I'm not great, but have serviceable mids and jungles and so so tops. Knowing what you are good at and bad at is very important. If you don't know, I can probably tell you - but you really should know... Anyway, you need to have enough champs to make solid picks in any role and you need to be able to cover any role if it comes down to it. I'll talk about how to get better at specific roles in a bit.
Champ select advice - Don't be the "fill" guy unless you really feel like you are awesome in all roles. Call your preferred role immediately when you hit the lobby. Say "adc pref." Do this as soon as you hit the lobby. Some people believe that if you call a role you magically get it. This is stupid, but if you call something out, folks will often accomodate your request. If you are feeling wishy washy for whatever reason, call out multiple roles in order of what you want to play - "adc/mid pref." In my experience, you generally do not want to call support. It's a very important role, but you want to be in a position to carry every single game if possible. If you aren't calling out a role, you are hoping that other players can carry you. If you are hoping that folks will carry you, you don't deserve to win. You need to know your best roles and you absolutely should request them.
Solo or duo in ranked? - Well, my 1st thought here is that you should solo. If you solo, you have to rely on yourself. IMO - its a much bigger test of skill to play solo and win than to duo. Do you want someone to carry you or do you really want to know that you are actually good? That said, provided you have the right duo partner, you can increase your odds of winning quite a bit. The simple math is that instead of having 4 teammates as unknown quantities, you only have 3. If you have a good duo teammate, you know what you can expect. When you duo, you get the most bang for your buck by having complimentary roles. Support/adc is good; jungle/mid also works. Even if you don't have direct symmetry in roles, if you are an amazing mid and I'm an amazing adc, our odds go up quite a bit if we both get those roles. Our odds go way down if we can't get those roles and are forced to play out of positions that we are weaker. For example, Bryff is a good mid. If he duo's up with me, the only way he will get to play that role is for me to call mid, take it myself, and then put myself into a position like support where I can't carry out of (I'm always 1st pick, Bryff is always last pick when we duo)... that and I have to show the mid I'm picking at the start which means Bryff gets hard countered. In short, we can expect that we will be a disadvantage when duo queuing. Now, if Bryff queued up with someone at a lower elo than himself that was solid, he'd likely be 1st pick and be able to get mid and have a better chance of carrying the game. Anyway, you need to keep in mind where you end up in pick order when duoing if you aren't looking to go adc/support. If you want that, you can usually get it.
How do you get better in roles that you are not good at? - Well, here's what I do. And this is really what I do on a regular basis. I think about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. For instance, I realized that I don't play any hyper carry ads. So, I read up on hyper carries like vayne and kog maw. I look for guides on how to build them (most adcs are the same btw ), I look for vids on how people play them (eg how do I all in with a specific champ - is there a combo - when do I all in - what's the best way for me to burst - how should I behave in lane with this champ). Then, I fire up a custom game and try out the mechanics of whatever champ vs AI. Usually I learn a few tricks during that custom on how to position myself, etc. Then, I'm off to normal games where I'll request the role or character I'm trying out. Now, people still report your for being awful in normals, but it really is where you need to try out characters to see if you are any good or not as the bots are useless for proving your skill level to yourself. So, fire up that normal and ask to play a role (again - after you've tried out the champ against bots). If you don't know anyone you are with and you are quite awful, I suggest muting everyone at the start of the game. Then, do your best. Continue with this until you feel like you have a serviceable skill level in whatever role. And keep in mind what you need to work on. For me, I noticed I didn't really have alot of mids for ranked, so I started practicing some with gragas against and karth. That way, I'll be able to get the job done if I need to play mid. The next thing I need to do is put more time into being better top lane. Again, because while I prefer adc/support, I might need to play top for the team. So, best to be ready for it. Put your time in and practice roles.
One last thought - there are certain things you can generally expect in ranked. 1 - if you are 1st pick, you generally can call whatever you want. Common knowledge, I'm sure - but I'll add - CALL WHATEVER YOU WANT. 2 - if you duo queue, you generally can lock down both adc and support. It works best if your adc is 1st pick, ofc. I've bumped into like 10 random dedicated supports in all of my games of LoL. People generally aren't going to call support. So, if you are 1st pick and duo'd, just call adc and then your duo partner can almost always get support.
Lol King profiles for ranked tracking
I'm not going to update this regularly, so just consider it a snapshot (I'll add a date when I update them). Anyway, I enjoy seeing folks progress through ranked and keeping tabs on that sort of thing from time to time.
Snapshot updated 05/28/2014
Character guides
I added some tags on the youtube page for those that are interested and updated some of the categories. You can find past in house games and full game vids on the front page. Take a look if that's something you like watching from time to time: http://www.youtube.com/user/LeagueOfPacov
Holy crap, that curse vs tsm game was crazy. Curse had lost a nexus (with the other nexus tower at half) and TSM was up 5 dragons and 8-2 in towers. And somehow Curse turned it around. Funny as hell.
Terrible guide. It recommends you start with machete and 5 pots.
http://www.probuilds.net/champions/Nocturne
As you can see here, every loss with Nocturne had people starting with machete and 5 pots. Obviously a bad starting choice of items because Diamond+ players occasionally lose with them, like they sometimes lose when buying Aegis.
The SK vs Fnatic game was amazing.
anyone have vod links to the games you are referring to? Not sure if it was best of 3 and its game 2, etc. thx.
If your sarcasm makes me say wtf if he trying to say, you are doing it wrong. Probably shouldn't be doing it at all at this point... thanks for the quality feedback at least.
I'm touched you finally acknowledged me at the end of your stream!
longest thought filled post pacov has made on the internet accidentally deleted. fml.
Shortest summary with little to no context begins - swan/brad wong - bust my balls a little in game due to f-ups, fine. Bust my balls repeatedly for 20 minutes - kindly go fuck off. Seriously - fuck off. 2nd - hedgie - really like him - he busts my balls accordingly but is also great at helping me calm the fug down and think out how to improve as a player. No one else I know does that. 3rd - thunder - enough of your passive aggressive bullshit please. I had the longest section about this, but the short version is that you very often bust my balls on the forum and are a kind fellow when we talk. Be consistent. Not a fan of pointless ball busting posts when you could be helpful as a pal. You are a really solid player and I'd be so much better if I had any actual feedback instead of bullshit posts like this:
Would love if you tried to be more of a pal and less of this. I'll still post to my silly little blog without you. I'm sure you can find something else to do if the best you can offer is jabs at me. Would really prefer for your feedback. Bust my balls accordingly, but please offer more useful stuff as well.
I'm not sure about the specific numbers or if Riot released that information. I'd suggest googling "how many reports needed to get a ribbon" and see what you get.
I build thresh roughly the same way when I'm using him as a support regardless of lane opponent. Here's a support card for thresh
Ok then - onto the topic of triaging a lane. We had some decent discussion re: this after our last game and I wanted to reiterate some of my thoughts/what folks said and then see if anyone has some additional feedback.
Triage in LoL - Definition
The actual definition of triage is the following: "the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors." In league of legends, when we say triage, we mean that a jungler/mid should cease actively ganking a lane for a period of time. The reason for a call like this is because we believe that a particular lane will not produce results (due to arse whooping most likely) and that ganks would be better focused on other lanes that are doing well or have a much higher percent chance of producing results. I think the way we use the term is a bit of a fallacy, though. It's a quick way of saying I'm not going to be ganking your lane - you are on your own; however, triage really means prioritization. I'm going to prioritize another lane in favor of your lane due to circumstances. In that case, triage is really the active process of being a jungler. The jungler prioritizes objectives based on lane status, etc. So, having said and thought through that, we'd actually be better off not saying "triage bot lane" as that doesn't make consistent sense with the definition (even though we all have a basic shared understanding of what is meant by that statement).
Considerations for No Longer Ganking a Lane
So, moving away from calling for a "triage," I think we should some about reasons for stopping actively ganking for a lane. And I'd like to add that everything in the post is really me trying to improve as a jungler and think more about prioritization and also think through instances where someone else might call for no more ganks on a lane. I also want to add that I'm intentionally trying to move away from the term triage as that, as illustrated in our game last night, meant something a bit different to me than it did to karl. So - 1st thing, I don't think we should ever take ceasing gank support of a lane lightly. It would be best if we had some set criteria for making a decision to triage. Here are my thoughts.
Here are some additional considerations:
One of the things I had a problem with last night was when karl called for a triage of bot lane. I'm working on my jungle skillset and karl's a good jungler, so I say OK - triaged. Which in my mind meant (at the time) no ganks - focus attention elsewhere. This is a poor decision on my part. Had I interpreted his request as simply prioritize other lanes instead of write off his lane, things would have probably gone MUCH better. Additionally, playing this way lost us blue buff/dragon control (karl was not in a position to get out and ward due to the pressure on bot lane) and was just riddled with misplays by me.
Here's what I'm still trying to figure out. In that game in particular, I still think it might have been wise for me to have more of a presence bot lane either via camping a bit or just routinely tossing out pink wards here and there. I think that's how I should have played it. re: camping - I think that also would have been beneficial for the bot lane to remove some pressure here and there. Instead, I exuded zero pressure bot lane during the laning phase which I think was pretty detrimental. Anyway, that said, I should have had a stronger presence overall and made better decisions like rushing aegis for the team.
Anyway, all I have time to write about now. Any thoughts or feedback?
That is the way I've been trying to be a pal to you.
Karl has forgotten more about jungling than I'll ever know and Hedgie is a wealth of knowledge on every intricacy of this game and I don't have anything better than what they have to say as advice goes. When you completely dismiss what they tell you, I sometimes use ridiculous sarcasm in an attempt to help break through your stubborn refusal to see the reason in their arguments. It's a shame that it comes across to you as me acting like a two-faced prick, but the truth is that it is the only way I know to attempt to get through to you.
Want me to put aside the sarcasm and "passive aggressive bullshit"? Fine.
You're not a stupid person, so are you putting on an act and playing games with the people who are sincerely trying to help you become a better jungler?
Pacov: "Nocturne doesn't build Aegis"
Hedgie: "Well, here is a list of recent pro nocturne games where they did build it."
Now you have the option here of admitting you were mistaken, and that Aegis is SOMETIMES a viable item choice for Nocturne... but instead you take the stances that:
-When a pro doesn't build an Aegis on Nocturne in ONE game, that pro believes that you should NEVER build one on him.
-When a pro loses a game with Aegis, that indicates building Aegis on Nocturne at least had something to do with the loss.
My sarcastic comment about the jungler guide you posted was simply an attempt to help you realize how silly the second conclusion was and how putting too much stock into whether a pro won or lost a game after buying a certain item leads to inaccurate beliefs.
Message received. Wish you all the best in your future endeavors...
One last thing, I'd like to leave you part of the definition of Passive Aggressive Behavior I looked up:
"Passive-aggressive may also refer to a person who refuses to acknowledge their own aggression (in the sense of "agency"), and who manages that denial by projecting it. This type of person insists on seeing themselves as the blameless victims in all situations."
as someone who worked in wildlife rehabilitation for a few years, it surprises me sometimes that people don't actually know what "triage"means.
You have your patients that have a 0% chance of recovery.
You have your patients who have a low-medium chance of recovery with a lot of work (but will die/be crippled otherwise)
You have your patients with a high chance of recovery with a lot of work (but will die/be crippled otherwise)
You have your patients with a high chance of recovery with medium work (but will die/be crippled otherwise)
You have your patient that are are only mildly afflicted - it wouldn't take a lot of work to "recover" them but even if you neglect them entirely they'll survive.
This system was developed because medics have limited time and resources. Stonewall, however, is the one who came off with "triage" is more equal to "amputate". "You should amputate top lane because it is totally lost".
(btw: i really don't like a lot of Stonewall. i think he is a pessimistic player who writes a lot of anti-teamwork commentary that other people use to justify their actions. i think "triage" is one of those things)
The analogy also doesn't work in some ways because League isn't "quarantined" like a hospital. If you don't deal with "Patient 0" the Zombie Apocalypse will spread. Additionally, camping lanes that are already slightly ahead/drawn to get them fed ... well that analogy doesn't work with "triage" either, unless we talk about Steroids.
One of the big struggles about learning Jungle is that it is really hard to know if you did the right/wrong thing until the game is over.
Well... fair enough. I've been feeling pretty dense lately. I'm sorry that you feel that's the only way you can get through to me. I sometimes feel like some of your commentary is just kicking a dead horse and not really a useful add. I suppose I'm singling you out as you are often one of the folks to attempt to or tear me a new one. I say plenty of rude, douche, ignorant things from time to time. For that, I expect I'll have my chops busted from time to time. I deserve it. I doubt its any consolation that my OP that I foolishly deleted was quite a bit less blunt and much more thoughtful, but it was at any rate. I overreacted in my short post and should not have started if I didn't have time to explain my thoughts more adequately. I'm sorry.
yeah - I took it as amputate as I thought that's how karl always used the term (and he was the one asking me to triage bot in that particular game). Anyway, writing out thoughts in detail helped clear that up for me anyway
hmmm... that could be. I don't really like the idea of refusing to support a lane with ganks as jungler either. Well... unless I'm being a vindictive shit, of course.... which hopefully I'm not doing with you guys when I'm jungling. I'm thinking we just drop the triage lingo... doesn't really matter that much in my mind now as I've thought through it a bit and if karl called for a triage of a lane, I'd play it differently after all the feedback from the previous game (eg I'd ward for the triaged lane, I might go for a gank based on what I see, etc - I really played that crappy).
So much crap to learn and think through as a jungler... I'm guessing its a good practice to always ward for lanes that are doing poorly and never FULLY abandon a lane. I'm just not sure about the best decision. I've had times where I'm getting wrecked top lane and a jungle assist gets me back into the game.
I made an audio clip of some of our triage discussion from the end of our last game of the night in case its of interest to anyone - http://www.twitch.tv/1pacov1/c/2507803
A few general comments:
Pacov generally likes to try and come up with hard and fast rules or plans. This often means sticking to the rules no matter what. But jungle doesn't really work that way - there might be some general principles, but there are lots of exceptions to everything.
Basically, its about flexible thinking, rather than dogmatic thinking.
When it comes to "abandoning" a lane, this generally means that I won't go for garden variety ganks. They probably won't result in good outcomes. But I will still pay attention to what is happening and try and show up if it will be useful (for example, during an ill advised enemy tower dive).
Abandoning a lane also isn't quite as simple as not ganking it. If you are letting one lane crush, you have to get work done somewhere else. So this means more ganking elsewhere, or more counter jungling, or something. It also might mean that the jungler has to take more responsibility with warding. This last one is pretty common since a crushed lane will usually mean more jungle invading, so you have to defensively ward to protect yourself.
jungle doesn't really work that way - there might be some general principles, but there are lots of exceptions to everything.
I think that's probably why I had trouble adapting. You called for a particular play which deviated a ton from how I would have normally worked the jungle. I added a rule to the normal rules I go by (don't gank bot) and was very dogmatic about that. Def need to work more on flexibility in the role. Think I do ok, but perhaps not.
wow... last game of Demigod I played was roughly 2 years ago today.
when pacov is afk split pushing as an ADC:
I don't see what's wrong in the picture. It's just a passionate guy picking berries for the greater good of his people. Look at the dedication on that guy to get the job done! Man's a hero.
Was yesterday karl's b-day? I had something pop up on one of my calendars. If so, sorry... those team games were a bit of a let down.
So, I haven't played ranked in a bit and got back into it briefly yesterday. Went 1/1. Dealt with a little ranked anxiety, so I'm going to flesh out some thoughts here.
First, I only play ranked if I'm in the mood for it and typically if no one else is on or just 1 other pal that also enjoys playing ranked games is on. I also factor in elo decay, so I've got that "you lose elo" in X days thing in my head. I was about 20 days away from elo decay up until yesterday. If I'm going to take an elo decay penalty, I just get a game in to avoid that and then move along.
So, that stated, I don't like to play ranked games when I'm still figuring out things. By that, I'm trying to increase my skill as a jungler and want to play jungle, but I don't think I'm consistent enough to do that. I actually put a lot of thought into things before playing ranked. As I don't feel solid atm with how I'm jungling, I'm not as apt to do so. Regardless, hunnybadger is on and we queue up for ranked. I end up 2nd pick; hunny is last pick. I ask him if he had anything in mind for what role he'd like us to shoot for. He wants me to go jungle, so I go for it. He, however, ends up support... and he's not really a great support... but he's last pick so that's that. Anyway, I have a pretty sub freaking par game and things don't come together. I'm running ghost on voli... and I'm against a kennen, a nidalee, an amumu, a janna, and some adc. Everyone is doing their warding, so ganks are a pain in the ass + the champs have natural abilities to disengage or get folks out. I was 2nd pick and one typically doesn't hide a voli pick, but it was a really rough setup to get anything good done. And we had a forever farm ez. Anyway, we eventually lose the game. We had an aatrox on our team that was doing pretty great, but outside of that, lots of failure. We lacked strong initiate while they had both poke and initiate.
Game 2 - hunny and I are last pick. I offer to fill with every intention of playing support instead of hunny. He ends up running jungle hecarim. I go support leona working with a vayne. The vayne is pretty solid, but didn't push for a creep wave reset, so we actually ended up in a position close enough to their tower that I couldn't safely initiate. Kind of crap positioning as it kept me super broke as I couldn't really do a heck of a lot or secure kills. I actually think it was pretty bad to keep a wave of creeps where she did (kept us pushed and gankable and didn't allow me any opportunity to initiate without tower diving. That said, she was great about getting damage on trist while she pressured them. Anyway, we eventually win the game. There were some really great moves by our annie at one point with vayne and how she turned. We had a semi competent shen that had some nice ults here and there. And my vayne's mechanical skill was pretty strong. Just not sure why she played the laning phase the way she did.
Anyway, after that we got into normal games with pals. Game 1 was feeding gp top, following by ks gp, followed by us getting stomped. Game 2 was also kind of bad and disappointing. Felt like I under performed quite a bit yesterday. My performance as ranked jungle was like low siliver skill level imo. I did much better as support, but I was at a disadvantage some in lane and lower money due to the vayne denying me the opportunity to get us some early kills. Think I did a decent job overall, though - just a bit money starved due to laning decisions. Vayne ran the lane, though, and got results come end game.
Reign of gaming has a great article up that covers info on the heimerdinger rework, changes to yorrick, thoughts on changes for 2v1 lanes (eg melee champs can get abused in a 2v1 lane (adc/support) - riot no likey no much), and other stuff. Def worth a look if you have not read up yet - lots of good content: http://www.reignofgaming.net/news/24965-big-info-on-heimerdinger-rework-next-champion-to
Copying some info from reddit as it might not be commonly known.
Hi reddit!
So i see a common mistake when the time comes to take baron. Typical scenario: -lets go take baron! -let the lifesteal/heavy AD tank baron -why is it so slow when our tryndamere is in 99-0-0 ?
Because Baron decreases the AD of the closest target by HALF! so if you have 160 ad it will be 80.
Please do a little favor to your team and tank baron if you are not playing an AD heavy champ.
tldr: baron decreases the closest target's AD by half
link to wikia: link 3. skill
edit 1: dragon's auto attack decreases attack speed so it is also good if not the ad tanks it (thanks to 1whiteshark1)
FURTHER WARNING: BARON DRASTICALLY INCREASES THE MAGIC DAMAGE YOU TAKE.
Each attack creates an effect that increases any magic damage dealt to you. This is part of the reason that AoE mages such as Kennen, Rumble, Brand, and so forth can absolutely destroy you if they catch you in the Baron pit.
What I'm saying is... DON'T BARON AGAINST A HEAVY AP/AOE TEAM UNLESS YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THEY CANNOT CONTEST.
I'm Plat 5 and you would not believe how many games I've won by simply playing AP champs and waiting for the enemy to attempt a baron early.
It's a targeted attack that can stack the passive magic damage increase.
Here's the specifics:
Wrath of the Ancients
Deals 70 magic damage and applies a debuff which increases magic damage taken by 25% per stack, stacking every half second up to ten times. This increase in damage is applied to the damage taken before magic resistance, and while functioning in a similar manner to magic resistance reduction, it is not the same thing.
I believe it is AoE however. It will effect anyone in the pit that gets hit by Baron attacks IIRC. I could be wrong.
I've got lol replay working again btw. Will be able to make short clips, etc, at higher quality. If we do some in house games, please remind me and I'll post the replay for anyone interested.
Counterjungle the Amumu. You will murder him 1v1 and as long as minions are down, he doesn't have an easy escape. In cases like that you aren't really looking to just steal buffs, but you want to chase the Amumu around too.
yeah... I don't really have a strong counter jungle mentality outside of the initial start and then the occasional catching the enemy jungler off guard. I'm typically not waiting around to ambush or anything like that either. Need to get that into my game. Thanks for the tip. If you want to get more practical, how exactly would you do this? If you were purple side, you'd probably start blue and then rush to red and f him up. What else would you do?
I'm not really talking about an initial level 2 or level 3 invade. There should be ganks available (hopefully) at that point.
I'm talking more about later in the game (maybe starting when buffs respawn). If the ganks aren't there, just try and steal blue at 7:10 and wander around his red side a bit later. You can try and kill Amumu if you see him, or just gimp all his camps and gank from a weird angle if you don't see him.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
