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
Random thing that I just learned - there's a simple command you can use that, at least for me, makes all my internet connections better. For instance, after a bit, I could click on a youtube vid and it might take a few seconds to start playing - same thing with a twitch vid. Running this command brings me back to immediately loading vids on open. Anyway, if you want to give it a go, just open a command prompt or create a batch file and run the following:
ipconfig /flushdns
soo.... this is on the air client and might not be actual... but if it is..
also of note - udyr has been disabled on pbe. This means most likely that they put in a "fix" for a problem and its still there. The good news is that they appear to have people back and actively working on whatever the problem was to prep for a release early this week. If they sort w/e the problem was on pbe today, I'd expect to see him live on Mon/tues.
streaming some ranked silver 2 with karl atm
fixed - i got mad a pal over a game tonight. fug it.
#adc
- The support is the teams support. Not the ADCs. You should be able to function safely after 20 minutes without constant protection. I mean how can you show any baron presence if it's 26 minutes and you want them to 2v0 botlane while you get farm?
Even though supports are the play-makers and certainly have a massive impact on winning/losing botlane, at the very least you should be able to do your job as an ADC and last-hit. Barring very extreme situations like dying level 1 or 2. if you expect your support to do their job with warding/zoning/controlling the lane then you gotta do your part as well. Being 30 CS behind at 10 minutes is not doing your job.
Part of your job is also you gotta know how to build your carries. Blue Ez doesn't build SotEL anymore (it's more like "Indigo Ez" nowadays). You certainly don't buy a Warden's Mail for a Frozen Heart ().
(though for vayne i was watching LCS games and the Vaynes were maxing W and going BotRK > PD but that is still crazy nonsense in my opinion and i'm still convinced it is inefficient except for 2v1 lanes Perhaps the idea might be to do a lower DPS build in favor of the mobility that PD offers. So maybe BotRK > PD isn't so bad for her specifically but it'd be bad for anyone else).
While obviously it is more acceptable to screw around with experimental builds in normals you shouldn't have these difficulties in ranked (if the Twitch/Nami game you are more than welcome to complain about me building Morellonomicon against a 4 AP team rather than Locket to protect my fed ADC from Lissandra Burst since there wasn't much sustain on the enemy team)
- Mid/Late game just because you say that you're going to go farm doesn't mean that you should go farm regardless of what happens. This is a thing that you tend to do and it has led into other problems. Not only do you just walk to where you said you are gonna farm, you rarely move your camera or check up on the rest of the team to see if you need to react.
- You push/go oom/shop wayyyyy too much. Sometimes it's a good idea to push lane and it's certainly fine to use a skill to get a few CS but mindlessly using skills off of CD with no bluebuff is \: Such as pushing against someone with a red buff (or Zac in general who is very difficult to ward against). Or right after the enemy support pink wards my explorer ward despite leaving it alone for 30-45 seconds... (though i didn't play that level 3 gank very well since the Sona baited me into it
- When you fall behind you need to not mindlessly run back to lane to die over and over again. This is espiecially true if your other 2 lanes are winning. If your other lanes are winning you should make zero plays. Give up CS, fall behind. It's better to exit the laning phase 50 CS and 2 kills behind than 30 CS but 5 kills behind. The game is not always on your shoulders as an ADC.
If you have already taken their tower (perhaps your jungler ganked or they shopped at a bad time) and your tower is up while you are behind, just rotate mid instead of trying to defend it and potentially die. Trading towers is better than dying and losing a tower.
Trying not to make any plays is less true if you are top lane (eg, proxy signed). If every lane is losing, you might as well try to make plays because you won't be able to win without doing "something".
- You probably were on a bit of a tilt already since you went so many negative games earlier today (0/4/4, 0/6/2, 4/5/6). You probably weren't playing at your top performance to begin with so it seems irrational to start critiquing everyone else's play when you were the single common denominator those three games.
#karl
i'm pretty sure Karl muting you wasn't the worst thing to do that game. You were saying stuff like "eat a dick" and trash talking him/blaming mistakes to the point to encourage the rest of your team (and hell, the enemy team in post-game chat) to report Karl.
The only reason for me playing ranked on this account with karl is to try to help HIM hit gold.
This sort of false sense of victimization. "IM doing YOU a favor so you better serve me and make me happy". Espiecially since you know that your Stattik Shiv + BoS ahse build has a ... history with everyone who reads these blogs.
http://www.probuilds.net/champions/Ashe
They really aren't rushing that Stattik with a Vampiric Scepter and a BoS.
You're also maxing E... for farming i guess? How you gonna kite with that BoS and Stattik but a shitty Q?
#a shit friend
Regarding Karl "abandoning" you and being a "shit friend and support": Karl left you to go try to defend midlane ~16 and 18/19 minutes. You died when he was mid @16 but his presence allowed them to make a play mid (even if it wasn't the best). You re-group midlane at 17.
Note that they were literally knocking on your mid inhibitor at 19 minutes. Your support cannot simply stay in lane with you bot while you lose that inhibitor trying to get their bot outer tower.
When he is midlane @20 he is trying to take enemy tower while you are farming botlane (granted you died before that fight but that is a situation of him trying to win somewhere else on the map while you farmed botlane)
Minutes 21-23 they are sieging mid and you're all grouped. End up taking inhibitor.
Starting at 24 minutes you pretty much just run around to push things and die. You make 3 back-to-back "plays" on the botlane tower where Hecarim just runs you down to kill you while the rest of the team is posturing around baron. Then you act like you dying 1v1 multiple times is some great opprotunity the rest of the team is missing out on ("if i can tell you where the jungler is exactly going to be in one minute and won't be at baron for sure and you don't use it - you fucked up son. Don't use voice chat if you can't bother to listen"). Keep in mind at the time of this voicechat your team gets caught 3v4 and they get baron.
(that said, maybe it would have been the best plan to 3 man push botlane to try to accomplish dragon + tower and give up baron since you were not going to win a straight up 5v5 with you having no damage. But the rest of your team was not doing that plan at all. League is often a game of 5 people doing a stupid thing beating 4 people doing a smart thing).
So Karl "left" you twice before 20 minutes and for reasonably decent reason. The rest of the time you were doing the angry trolling thing that you do all the time.
Sorry.
udyr is still disabled on pbe as of 1:50PM. Still betting that we don't see a release until after its been enabled on PBE for a bit, but who knows. Still pretty early for the folks out in CA, so quite a bit of time for them to sort it out today.
Regarding complaints about me hanging up the Skype call:
I didn't find obscene, personal insults directed at myself very useful at that point in time. I was busy trying to win the game.
You might want to be aware that if your calls devolve into you yelling personal insults at people, you are probably going to get hung up on. I am pretty tolerant in terms of having discussions on specific decisions, but screaming personal taunts is something a bit different. I don't think that I am unique in muting such behavior.
k thanks. Still sorry.
my fav dj is now streaming and talking like a lunatic...
http://www.twitch.tv/aplfisher
sooo.... fiddle support. I think I played a total of 4 games as fiddle support yesterday. Went 2/2. Just wanted to provide some of my thoughts. So, 1 - its definitely not a support that you should pick in every situation. I was first picking him which gave the enemy team the option of going with a support that could cause more problems for fid. For example, lulu, in particular, is a bit of a pain as fid. Leona, on the other hand, is actually exceptionally weak vs fid (you fear her when she hits her snare and she's unable to stun then... which pretty much completely kills here early engages because the enemy adc likely won't be able to do anything and you just get free dmg on leona who is way out of position without that stun).
Other thoughts - I buy a lot of oracles on fid support. I like rushing the 1st one as it provides a good 2-3 minute window for easy ganks - not quite as useful if no ganks during that window, so its def good to call out that you picked up an oracles and are clearing bot so the jungler prioritizes ganks there.
Random supporting comment - more often than not on all my supports, I'm going a 1 pink, 4 green, 2 pot start. While its nice to start with one of the mana/health beads, its not really all that optimal imo. Those pots provide much higher sustain. Combine that with the extra wards and you are in a good position to maintain safe vision and typically have enough sustain to last it out.
Anyway, I've likely got the whole fid support out of my system for a bit, but I'd be pretty likely to go him again against a leona.
League of Legends is now deemed an official sport by the US government now apparently.
wut?
ah... here's what the comment was about then - http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/23321595
ok = so spirit guard udyr is no longer disabled on pbe. But now thresh has been disabled... so its quite possible that whatever they did to fix udyr broke thresh... or something...
OK - so more cool pbe news - spirit udyr now has unique death animations. Methinks this is one of the main reasons he's been delayed in all honesty. Some minor changes to his recall animations as well. Still shaping up to be the best looking skin in the game imo.
Shop sell back option is on pbe as well. EG you accidentally bought the wrong item, etc, you can sell it back AS LONG as you haven't left the base or done something that influences the game (likely talking about things like starting to tp, cv, doing crazy sells/buys when your base is under siege, etc.
yi and olaf changes
karma changes
tomorrow is the day - http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/releases/live/projects/lol_air_client/releases/0.0.1.32/files/assets/swfs/login.swf
riot says "tonight" so, tomorrow for me anyway. Hunny and I duo'ing ranked gold IV/V level. streaming. prob last game
well... 1 really easy win thrown away and another possible win pissed away. I have never worked so hard to help a pos jungler only to be repaid with nothing. Anyway, if you want to watch the vids and provide feedback, please do as I'm curious re: my performance. Game 1 I think I did amazing. Got frustrated towards the end and misplayed a smidge, but honestly I don't think we were going to win if you pay attention to our incredible teamwork. I simply crushed my lane though... and missed some FREE - that's right, FREE drags because fid is a jackass. That said, other interesting things happened. IMO - our team comp was really strong with the exception of our fid. Takes a guy that can assist on early drags hard and does nothing on drag calls.
Game 2 is less impressive. There, I give up some early game power to help my awful jungler...only to get to a chance to solo kill their adc and the shit takes red for exp... and then smites red when I'm 1 hit away from it and dies. Guy was a POS. Anyway, no VOD atm, but if you check the archive of tonights games towards the last 1-2 hours, you should find the games. Both games MF adc. MIght archive the games, but I'm quite welcoming of feedback. I'm really looking for instances where you think I misplayed and why.
i only had about 5/10 minutes of the game up (mostly the beginning). Helping your Nocturne was actually a really good, bold call and i think it saved him. It actually only put you behind a little bit.. so that was a great call.
However, i think a bit reason that it put you behind so little is because of MF passive giving you so much MS so not sure if it would have worked out so well on other lanes..
Anyway after you came back only about 1.5 levels behind, you had a huge creep wave and were able to catch up reasonably well. It was good Nocturne sat in that bush for a little while to let you safely farm up a level.
(i walked away here and came back when you were angry about being 1v1 against Trist 'with no red' -- reading your post it sounds like you were a bit on tilt about that smite 'steal')
It looked like the game was lost due to not grouping/lack of vision to know when you needed to group. The kills seemed pretty close and though you were down 2 towers + at most 1 dragon, if the CS numbers were close you had the Ori+Noct combo to pretty much instantly win a teamfight. But then it kinda snowballed and you were trapped at your base at like 19 minutes.
Anyway, the only real comment i have is that MF doesn't max W first and E second. (maybe you maxed E second to try to push/farm a little better due to falling behind in lane when i was away from the computer but you were 1/0/2 when i came back so it didn't look too bad in terms of botlane
Not much to say (again i didn't watch the games much) but that was the only real big thing that popped out about that game particularily.
humor me - why is that? Off to bed for now - thx for the feedback!
well her Q is an autoattack reset and so that is your big trading skill since you want to auto > q > auto.
The first point of Q is only 20 primary/30 secondary (because level 1 aa resets are stupid strong) but each additional point of Q decreases the CD by 1 second and increases primary damage by 35 and secondary damage by 42 for 5 more mana per point.
Her W is a % AS steroid, meaning it is really multiplicative of how much AD/Crit you have. Early game, that isn't very impressive. Plus it only gains 5% AS per point. The magic-damage dot gains 40 magic damage per point... assuming you manage to autoattack 6 times. If you auto 6 times, well, 40 additional magic damage is a pretty small % of that damage. The CD and mana costs are unchanged.
Her E gains 55 magic damage per point (AoE too) assuming they stay in it the whole duration. This is likely if you have a support with a stun... but unlikely otherwise. Maxing E 1st/2nd would make sense if you really need the farming. But that's it. Oh and i guess the slow increases by 8% per point which is alright given it is AoE.
I always max q then w on mf. I find her e to be a one point wonder.
I only watched the first game. A lot of the stuff you were saying in chat was not correct.
First off, the fiddles. I'm not saying he was great, but he wasn't as terrible as you want him to be either. I mean, his early build and buff control was terrible, but he didn't get punished for it. The moment that sticks out is when you were really bitching at him while he was setting up his ult for a play to your bottom tower. Eventually he pulls off your team's best play of the whole game with 3 kills into a dragon, and you were calling him out nonstop on that play.
I also don't see all the free dragons you are complaining about. Fiddles is pretty squishy when he isn't draining, and that Udyr can casually take him out of his drain at will. When you combine that with the threat of Shen ult, I just don't see those as free dragons in general.
This is especially true because you weren't pinking the dragon. The moment that sticks out is around 8 minutes or so. You tell fiddles in chat not to gank bot because you are winning. Hunny asks you where he should place his pink - at dragon or in tri. You specifically tell him tri. This doesn't make much sense to me since that is to support a gank which you just told fiddles not to make. And then you complain about dragon, when your own call was not to pink in support of a dragon.
Either tell fiddles to gank for you and pink tri (then dive and take drag after) or pink out dragon. Your own instructions were inconsistent with either potential dragon play, and then you blame fiddles for not making the dragon play.
Basically, if you want fiddles to dragon, dragon should be pinked or you need a successful bot gank. Fiddles can clear dragon early, but he REALLY doesn't like getting knocked out of his drain while under a dragon.
Also, the complaining about your tanks at about 33 minutes was not correct. You were really upset about a non engage, but your tank correctly saw that fiddles was nowhere near the fight. And you wanted Malph to engage on a BV'd ryze. My advice is to not go on tilt when your tanks don't do something, especially if you aren't tracking everybody's position. As an ADC you don't necessarily have to track everybody at all times on the minimap, but you shouldn't yell at your team about engages if you arent aware of where everybody is. Also, at least some of them had baron buff then, so even a marginal engage (if Fiddles had been there) is probably not advised.
Your complaints about Hunny not warding your lane around 26 minutes were also way off base. The laning phase is WAY over. He has other priorities other than warding your lane (like warding baron). If you aren't safe farming, go somewhere else. You can't be expecting to 2v0 bot at that point in the game, and your supports don't appreciate being yelled at when they choose to not 2v0 a bot lane when the laning phase is well over.
But all that is about stuff in chat. My criticism with gameplay would be in that first big teamfight between somewhere roughly around 25 minutes in. The one near the dragon. You guys basically chased them through your jungle to the dragon area. You split off and chase a Sona (whose ult is down) with a Shen to that side. Most of the rest of your team decide to go for ryze/ez/udyr instead. They get wiped because they don't have the damage and you are still running after Sona/Shen. You then blame your team in chat for splitting off.
ADCs follow the rest, not the other way around. If I had been tanking for you there, I would have been really pissed. And your team made the better decisions for targets IMO.
I also don't get ignoring Q on MF and it is pretty inconsistent with builds I have seen. But I don't play MF, so I can't say too much about that.
holy crap am I tired today. Also, posting at 3:13AM - jebus karl... hope you have the day off bro.
probably the best call I made all night methinks.
me go on tilt about something simple? impossible.
Did not even know that... mf mechanics are apparently not strong with this one. Thx for the logic on her other abilities and why you chose this or that. Helpful to see the info like that.
All dragons are free and they are everywhere. tbh - I was just a bit pissed about the 1st very freaking free dragon... which full mana fid choose not to take with his mid/adc/support so he could slowly work on blue buff. Giving up a free (yes, free) dragon because you are obsessed with your blue (which you could also pick up right after drag) is crap jungling.
I'm fine with considering the call questionable - mayhaps it was. But in a lane where we are crushing it, we put out additional pressure on bot lane and likely draw their jungler... which is what I was wanting to do - get more pressure put on us so pressure eases up some elsewhere. My main concern going into the game was the enemy mid getting too strong. Anyway, a pink in the tri bush puts a bunch more pressure bot. Probably could have just as well cleared dragon with it... also kind of sure they didn't have a ward on it at the time, but I might be wrong.
good feedback overall and thx.
spirit guard udyr released!
If you want to push the lane fast, or need to clear safely, leave W for last. I find that I need E leveled first to stay in a losing lane with MF against someone like Trist or Leona. If you've got a tard jungle or support that fed the lane up, or you did, it becomes the best thing you've got since it's the quickest and safest way to farm the lane and push them back from tower. It combos well with R too, which is where it really shines.
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