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
Having a jungler essentially always occurs in games with level 30 players. Therefore, you need to create an additional solo lane. Top is preferable to bottom because you want 2 people in the lane closest to dragon. You need those two people, otherwise the other team can exert superior dragon control, which is a significant advantage. Pro teams will frequently invert top and bottom and go 2v1 top and 1v2 bot. This is based on pre arranged champions that they can select and take advantage of the strange situation. This also requires significant coordination to make sure that the dragon is properly protected.
Having a jungler essentially always occurs in games with level 30 players. Therefore, you need to create an additional solo lane. Top is preferable to bottom because you want 2 people in the lane closest to dragon. You need those two people, otherwise the other team can exert superior dragon control, which is a significant advantage.
Pro teams will frequently invert top and bottom and go 2v1 top and 1v2 bot. This is based on pre arranged champions that they can select and take advantage of the strange situation. This also requires significant coordination to make sure that the dragon is properly protected.
Thanks. This makes sense.
I definitely see glimpses of the other side of the wall. On many games it is a matter of "if only.." when it comes to strategy.
I am also at the point where I am seeing the need for wards. Early learning games they are not really needed because you don't have any idea what you are doing. Recently - when I am ganked the first thing I think is that I wish I had a ward up... but I often stay in a lane until 1500+ gold so I am not back to grab one... I finally played a game with a good (to me) support Sona who started out with some wards. Nice.
I am digging Malphite
probably the best juke vid i have ever seen.
off to bed - night all!
Malphs a great champ. Strong initiator and really tanky. He's banned in like 95% of the draft games I play though.
another snip from reddit:
I got gold in two accounts this season and from what I've seen if you follow some simple tips it shouldn't be too hard to get atleast 1400.
People at this elo get caught out of position constantly. Suppose your friendly Darius at 22 mins is solo pushing the top lane when laning phase has ended. Entire enemy team is mia. You retreat ping him but he ignores and continues farming. Its your job now to rush to bot lane and start pushing that lane. Even if darius dies to 4 people ganking him, you push bot lane and get a tower. This is how you take advantage of retarded team-mates getting caught by entire enemy team. You rush to the opposite end of the map and push it and take turret down.
Pay attention to your csing skills. If you're a laner you MUST get 150 cs by 20 mins and around 90-100 cs from jungle. If you can't cs like that then its your fault for losing the match. You wasted tons of gold by missing minions so don't qq abt your team-mates feeding.
End the laning phase yourself, don't let enemy end it. Laning phase is commonly ended by 3 or 4 man collapsing at a tower and taking it down(most usually at bot). When you're around lvl9 to 12 you should be looking for mid and jungler to come bot and take bot tower as well as picking up kills so that laning phase is ended on your terms.
Suppose a siege has started. 5 man defending a tower while other team trying to take it down. You should poke the people grouped under the turret till they drop low. Once they do go all-in. Conversely if you're the team grouped under the turret then don't wait till you are poked to death. As soon as the enemy uses an ability for example ahri q or nidalee q, engage immediately while their abilities are on cd.
Do baron by pushing bot lane. If you shove bot lane, enemy team will be forced to send a person to clear that wave and hence you get 5v4 at baron. If they have an open inhib, take it down then wait for super minions to enter the base. Once they are there start baron. If enemy team comes to contest baron then super minions will take down their nexus turrets.
Keep in mind that those suggestions/tips are based on solo queue. So, that rule number 1 applies quite a bit when you can predict what's about to happen. And its quite specific to know that someone is overextended and there is nothing you can do for them. Quite situational at any rate. Some of those tips don't really work in solo queue, though.
Also - good article about the state of mid lane - good 'ol bryffs kass made the list http://www.rtsguru.com/game/435/article/4925/The-League-List-The-Top-AP-and-AD-Mid-Laners.html
in house game live in about 3 min
http://www.twitch.tv/1pacov1
yay - so we are hopefully developing a good trend with in house games. We've gone from like 1 a month, to 3 a month, to apparently about 7 per 2 weeks. Kudos to thunder for trying to make it happen more frequently. Thanks for all the games tonight.
I've mostly just been willing to play whatever, but I think we have no solid idea on how to handicap games based on player comp. We've got the obvious adv for bans for those of us that play often (eg I can ban cows strong guys, ensure hedgie will be soso jungling, etc, because I know what they do really well). And then it just comes down to team synergy. I think one of my teams tonight actually did ok in lane, but blew it when it came down to team fights. Our last game of the we were gelling pretty well re: strategies - and exploiting some bans at the start (I banned vi/xin - which made it so ed would have to play support as taric - and left karl with a choice (amumu banned by other team) of ww/udyr. Karl goes ww and we flip top/bottom to dominate trouser knowing karl can't do anything meaningful until 6 to help top lane.
Anyway, folks that know who everyone plays well have a slight adv there - but team battles are often omgbbq as a several of my new pals are soso and its really difficult to predict what they will do.
Anyway, was fun as per the norm. Hope we can do it again soon.
here is a really good support guide - up-to-date with season 3. A good read even for experienced supports imo.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UZXpM4vXo2j8YjYzMsfD5kuZuvuxsPEkypFxHi2m1pA/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=0#slide=id.g77315ae7_8_75
Morello makes some interesting comments re: the upcoming patch:
On reverting some of the heavy handed Diana nerfs from last patch:
"Yes, though I don't have line-item details. We'll not be fully reverting (we did want to nerf her from there), but finding the middle ground - we did overnerf her.'
Regarding Rengar and his Bonetooth Necklace:
"Different approach, but same idea - we overnerfed, though what we buff might be NEW buffs as opposed to rebuffing some of the nerfs."
Regarding armor being undervalued now that penetration is so easy to pick up and if Riot will take another pass at item prices
"For now, I believe that's the plan (my first day back, though the guys have been here the last couple weeks). I think we agree tuning of either the formula, costs, defenses, etc needs to happen."
Speaking to the possibility of a lower tier item with both Ability power and armor:
"For AP, we think there's an item gap here. Xyph and I were just chatting about this the other day. The goal is to give an AP/armor mid-tier item. It needs to let you start cloth/5 for keeping mid AD honest, build into a new late-game item (maybe not initially, but want to do it) and replace the chain vest in Z Hourglass."
On the subject of Warmogs armor being a "mid game monster" instead of a solid end game HP items:
"Warmog's is a nasty problem - I totally agree. Your diagnosis of this is fairly accurate too - the timing is the biggest issue here, something that's core to the item in a few ways. I haven't had a chance to ask Xypherous his plan here - I will when I see him next."
On Crystalline Flask making top lane an absurd sustain war of starting flask + 7 pots:
"Agreed - we're hitting Flask this patch to help with this, I'm not certain it's enough, but it will definitely at least help."
Stolen from here: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2013/01/morello-talks-patch-cycle-and-champion.html
live with an in house game 1 min
you know its a good game when pacov has to take 2 minutes after the game to privately ask if his support is angry at him.
ah well - brutal, painful series of in house games for pacov. He has decided to ban blitz 1st pick going forward.
patch notes for any that missed (early tomorrow morning)
hresh, the Chain Warden
Alistar
Amumu
Annie
Blitzcrank
Cho'Gath
Corki
Diana
Evelynn
Ezreal
Kassadin
Katarina
Kennen
Kha'Zix
Lee Sin
Mordekaiser
Nami
Rengar
Riven
Shaco
Syndra
Talon
Udyr
Vi
Ziggs
Summoner's Rift
Items
Masteries
Twisted Treeline
Proving Grounds
Co-op vs. AI
Spectator
Ranked
UI
General
Also - best gif ever - http://imgur.com/KLAHb
Absolutely hilarious
I think folks are going to like the QoL change to recall. Should be particularly nice for junglers to easily see when folks are porting back, but a good change all around. I'm curious how the jungle changes will impact things. Extra gold is good, to be sure - I just wonder how much the added health on the creeps will actually impact aoe junglers.
Other things - muting a player will also mute emotes - that's cool, methinks. Wards showing up in the minimap as unique icons should be cool. Be much nicer if these icons show the difference between sight/vision wards, but I don't think so.
Anyone know what this does? "Added keybindings for Self Casting Items." I wonder if that means you can toggle sunfire cape?
The change to towers should be interesting, though I'm not 100% sure how much of a change it is. Targeting high value targets makes sense anyway.
pickpocket showing when its able to be used again is a really nice QoL change.
So, I read up on the new ranking system. I'm guessing it will go live with the official launch of season 3, but no idea for sure. I'm not all that concerned with the changes. Think I will dislike not being able to see elo, per se, but I guess we'll have to see how things pan out.
Random normal elo thoughts - I feel like I've been in the retard bracket semi frequently now. I'm sure a few of the people I play with don't have really high normal elo, but the balance just seems off. Frequently hitting games where we just stomp. We should be hitting more challenging matches, but it feels like maybe 1 of 6 games is about right - 5/6 are just blatant mismatches.
Man - fuck blitzcrank. Still annoyed about that rubbish last night. Ah well. Both of those games we'd have been better off with any more standard supports. Looking forward to firing up the game after the patch. Hopefully no more eve bans required imo.
I'm taking tomorrow off for my birthday, so I might stay up into the wee hours of the morning tonight.
another thing re: the new ranking system - the penalty for dodging is going up. During the division/promotion series, a dodge will knock you out of the series completely. You'll have to get another win and then start the series over. The new ranked system will be live on pbe in a few days - so possibly this week or early next. I'll do a few ranked on pbe to see how that pans out.
Last - been reading about graphical glitches post patch for people with radeon 7800... which I have. So, hoping its not 100%. Buggy ass game a good gift is not.
If you're anywhere near the drop in point for new ranked players, it's going to be a clusterfuck most games.
You get new guys in the mix that have played a dozen ranked games or less, damn near all of them are just plain bad. You can have even ELO between the teams and still have massive disparity in skill. I'm pretty sure they aren't equalized by ELO either, based on how the breakdowns work out when you have leavers reset the teams. It seems to me they select from a range and just fill it up, one team into the next. I've been team captain, someone has dropped, and I end up on the other team at the bottom of the list.
New people can kick into the middle of the deck, but the guys that are getting traded back and forth seem to be in the middle of the range, coming off the bottom of the higher ranked team, or the top of the lower ranked. I kinda think they make uneven matches on purpose to keep the game pace up, well matched games go for an hour or better much of the time.
riot is doing an ama right now over on reddit re: the new rank system: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/16pay7/ranked_league_system_ama/
interesting tidbit from that ama.
7) Is the anything in the UI that will let me know I'm in a Division/Promotion Series or I will know just cause I have 100 LP?
[–]RiotYegg
[+1][S] 31 points 43 minutes ago (28|0)
Yep, it's called out very clearly in the Leagues UI, and you'll know when looking at the league standings how the other players are doing in their advancement series. We do not however tell other players in your game or champion select lobby that you're currently in a series.
So, I think its possible that I could be duo queued with someone that is in an advancement series while I am not... maybe. def going to try this out on pbe when its live to see what the ui is like, etc.
"Man - fuck blitzcrank. Still annoyed about that rubbish last night. Ah well. Both of those games we'd have been better off with any more standard supports."
I learned that lesson a little while back. Blitz has OP invasion and late game initiation, but his laning phase is very counterable through champ selection and if you make him fall behind. Falling behind with any champ(s) in any lane is obviously bad, but nothing is worse than having it happen to you when you're playing Blitz or Leona.
Your game with Trouser playing Blitz must have been a nightmare for him. Maintaining level advantage is really important for Blitz and while you were doing whatever you were doing top lane, he was being semi zoned from XP 2v1 bot lane. He reached level 2 the exact same time Hedgie and I both hit 2, and you arrived in lane level 1. We had the tri warded, cause we knew Karl would be coming but we weren't worried about that at all. You two were both level 2 and you were at less than half health, while Hedgie, Karl, and I were level 3 and we had a huge wave of friendly minions on your tower... and this is Season 3, they are a big factor in skirmishes now. Also I wasn't sure how far you guys were going to chase us since it would mean abandoning all that xp and gold to die at the tower. Even if Trouser went first, you were still dead the moment you jumped in the fight... we're not the bot lanes from the "retard bracket" so we were would have saved our firepower for the half health, under-leveled squishy.
So yeah, it actually worked out pretty well for you guys that only you died in that. When I watched the replay, it looked to me like Karl was one good Blitz hook from losing his double buffs when they were chasing us after you died.
nt
[quote who=Thundercles reply=2345 id=3309126]Also I wasn't sure how far you guys were going to chase us since it would mean abandoning all that xp and gold to die at the tower. Even if Trouser went first, you were still dead the moment you jumped in the fight[quote]yup - i had every intention of dying in that fight - my goal was to pull out a 2 for 1. Everyone gets money and I come back with some more damagesustain. Trouser plays it right and karl at least gets 1 of you fellas. That 1 gank is not even what got me going. It was trouser coming back to lane without wards when we were already behind... the previous game, without folks bitching at him, mind you... he went 2 snowball items on akali. Either way, fuck blitz. Side note - I had that graphical glitchnightmare from the patch today (using radeon 7800). Anyway, I've patched up to the 12.11 beta which is rumored to resolve the issue completely. Suggest you check that out if you have problems.
edit - hey - if you find you cannot post or reply in the this thread, just click on page 1, then type your reply and post... something strange up with this page in particular.
Gotta say, the annie art update looks pretty great
Would any of you are run on anything other than windows 8 (and play semi frequently with me) be willing to run lol replay and occassionally provide me with some replays for videos? Ever since I started using windows 8, lol replay has made lol unstable, so I had to uninstall. I had 0 issues with it on windows 7, though. The replay files are small and you don't really have any overhead associated with the program. Prease let me know if you'd be willing to help me out.
side note - there is an update to adobe air out now. Not sure if it does anything swell for LoL, but I typically upgrade that sucker when possible.
bumping to a new page... hopefully solving problem for posting
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