Bonus rp is live now

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/store/sales/extra-bonus-rp-here-limited-time

Waste - pfft.  You are investing in your future... or something.  Besides - unless you are expecting to become bored of LoL, you'll... you know... use it and benefit from the bonuses.

Random rant - I've been a bit more prone to negativity lately.  I try to keep it in check, but we just had to put our dog to sleep this past Saturday and things were moving in that direction for a bit now... so... I've been a lot more tilt prone.  My apologies for being quite rotten here and there.  Not cool of me.  But hopefully I'm about done now.

Other stuff - I really like Boaz but I'm kind of getting sick of his setup.  He seems to be consistently having some sort of issue every game that always sets us back.  Hoping that stuff ends soon for him or I'll just stop playing with him for a bit.  Sucks, but I don't think he's tech savy enough to solve his problems and I guess shipping of computer parts to Alaska is somewhat expensive. 

Cow - did you actually think that kat from last night was scripting?  I didn't really get to pay much attention to tracking any of that.  Riot's been banning alot of accounts lately for scripting  - would be pretty easy to get that person banned if that's true.  Pretty sure I have a replay as well, but don't really know what you experienced or if you were just salty. 

Anyway, I'll be on tonight probably a little earlier than normal (7PM or so).  Happy to get in games with folks that are around.  My mid is still kind of rubbish but I'm improving alot now and moved over to a more consistent mid - syndra.

The level of skill that the kat played at was on par with Dan's kat and imo Dan is absurdly good with her.

Hrm yes, looking her up, she is a 320+ win Plat V.  Really the number of wins matters in things like this since there is a big difference between people who have to get up to someplace by grinding there over a million games and somebody who just doesn't play ranked much.  That kat certainly didn't play like a 300+ win Plat V player.  And she did have really really quick reaction times.  With that being said, she did also go in at the right times in teamfights, which isn't all scripting.

Anyways... Its that time of the year again when LCS starts up. I had a blast playing fantasy LCS last season and would like to do it again. If anyone is interested I have created a league: http://fantasy.lolesports.com/share/join/league/430055/6umwfWu13hkpYmycUNrV 

We can draft players when all the spots are filled. 

oh and dfg just said cya nerd - http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/GinIa17t-52-live-gameplay-patch-forecast

So, what do you fellas think about the screw with the enemy jungler start?  I'm obviously goofing about with it, but I really think the way people are currently starting the jungle just opens things up wide open for shenanigans.  I'll back up a sec though...

yesterday I watch a vid that was on reddit showing a fairly legit jungle invade strat based completely on taking advantage of the way junglers are starting.  In the vid, the guy starting his own blue or red buff with a leash (and using smite) and immediately went directly to the enemies red/blue buff (whichever is closer).  There the jungler would wait until the enemy jungler was low from soloing their red/blue, then go in for an attack or kill knowing the enemy junglers smite is not up.  If the enemy jungler did not ward, they won't really be expecting it.... and also people aren't even typically pulling the jungle creep into the bush, so you can literally walk into the bush, stand right beside them, and wreck them.  Best case you get a kill and their buff.  Worst case the enemy team somehow knows you are there and collapses, but the timing is so early and vision has almost always decayed by the time you go in with folks just using trinkets.  So, you probably get a kill, or you get a flash and set back the jungler... AND you can go at it with your support to increase the odds of a kill.

OK - so, that strat works, but it does require knowing where the jungler has started.  You get that wrong (and often you are just guessing), now you are behind and in a bad position (eg you are  jungler that just came to a full hp buff camp and your smite is down - and the enemy jungler is likely on his way towards you). 

K - so the next cheese strat I've been doing with blitz.  The goal initially is to steal the jungle camp, but depending on the jungler, you can opt for a kill if you have ignite.  You simply wait until 1:50, then run where vision has like a 95% chance of being expired, and toss a ward into the jungle camp you are looking to steal.  Just wait there for the enemy jungler to appear (usually around 2:05 or so).  Pay attention and realize they have no smite and have a good idea of how much damage they do.  IF they are pretty low hp themselves and not pulling the camp into the bush, either try to get an angle where you can pull the jungler or go stand in the bush next to them.  Once they are a couple hits from getting the buff.  engage hard on the jungler and pop ignite.  You play it well enough and you likely get a flash and a kill.  At the very least, you've set their jungler back and they will have to base.. which should buy your jungler time to steal their other camp (or, if they are smart (hue) realize that its probably worth their time to join you when you do this and just take the buff for themselves, back and then bee line to take another buff camp). 

Barring that, you can fairly consistently pull off a very easy buff camp steal just by timing your pull and landing another auto attack after grabbing. 

I'm also thinking you can just run in like a thug as most supports (provided you have ignite) and just go for a kill or steal while they are attacking red.  Obv that works better against some junglers than others. 

Last - the obv trade off is that you force your adc to be solo lane vs an adc and support.  It translates in about 30 seconds of along time for your adc.  that's not as big a deal as the other downside - you come back to lane more than likely down in levels and smart enemies should take advantage of that offset.... which puts even more pressure on your adc. 

I'll be on tonight and tomorrow if anyone wants to play.

Re: Blitz Invades

Sounds fun but it has some risks.  Let's make a deal?  If you pull it off (hahaha!) then we will praise you appropriately.  If bad things happen, then you don't get to complain about how the rest of the game goes if you give up FB or your ADC get's zoned and loses bot lane because of the invade.

@thunder - I'll be around and hope to catch ya.  I don't complain if my strat fails as I get the risk.  I will add that I have an extremely high rate of success (min requirement is costing the jungle a buff - like at least 75% of the time)).

@karl - can't argue the its a strat that works really well in lower elo, but to be fair, it also should work reasonably well in solo queue - it usually does take a small amount of time to realize the support is not present and a delayed invade is generally not expected. 

Here's a vid that is worth taking a look at re: a jungle invade strat.  It goes into detail of when to attempt this sort of thing including that take your buff camp and immediately go the enemy buff for a kill route. 

I don't even know about this... anyone else know what karl's on about? 

back to the lower elo thing - the result of me doing this against a skilled bot lane should be my adc getting zoned and losing some cs as a result (dying/losing summoners if he's bad).  The question is, is it worth it if I kill the jungler?  What if I just steal a buff? hat if I just force the jungler to base?  You can add the lower elo math in there and go with is it worth either of those if my adc isn't super impacted - THAT makes it a pretty easy decision for me (I think its worth). 

Honestly, I'd really like to get to a place where we can come up with a complementary jungle plan to go with an invade like that.  Even the jungler showed up right I as forced the jungle to back, that's a free camp and you can likely defend your camp by basing immediately or steal/gimp another camp as your smite will be back up shortly.       

I drop my wards late specifically to guard against junglers that come after their buff, trinket is more than long enough to do the job.  I can't be the only one that does this.

Smite is going to have up to 2 charges that can be used within 15 seconds of each other.  Kinda this season's version of Conservation.  You'll have more route variety, able to build up charges while you gank or use a charge to gank right after clearing a camp with smite.  Really good change IMO... that kinda fucks up your tactic.

Yeah, looks like routes aren't going to change unless the jungle AI change makes some sort of difference... but maybe it's a little better for the jungler who gets invaded.  You'll get 2 smites to get back into the game when you're trying to recover after getting killed or sent back to base by Blitz shenanigans.