Update 5/25/2017
Well, I started a thread back in Dec 2011 that’s seen a lot of activity (some 922,000 views over the course of a few years apparently...). That thread had a good deal of tips/strategies/discussions about League of Legends from new and old players alike. You can find the previous thread (now archived) here: https://forums.joeuser.com/413863. I think its time to start fresh with a new thread.
What’s this thread all about?For those that followed the previous thread, the type of content you see here will be fairly consistent to what you are used to. Please consider this a place to discuss LoL related content as you like. I'll do the same and treat the thread as a blog as well where I talk about what’s going on with me in LoL. Feel free to jump in and join the discussion if you like.
Quick background on meI played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust. Back in August 2011, I started getting heavily involved in League of Legends, and folks from the community were kind enough to help me figure things out. I play LoL most nights, stream, make videos and it’s my main gaming interest.
Some links
I don't buy any of this really. I think that this is almost entirely confirmation bias.
There are so many assumptions you have to get through before you would get to the point of "Riot has suddenly changed matchmaking". Should MMRs converge to the same score in two queues where play patterns are completely different? Probably not. Is op.gg's calculation of MMR all that reliable? Probably not. etc.
I mean, even if there was a change in normall MMR on op.gg, a far more likely explanation would be that op.gg changed their formula for normal MMR, not that Riot has done something suddenly and without announcement. To put it another way - your data is crap. Don't overinterpret it.
I won't even think about for a few minutes in passing and make a post about it. Curse my brain... always thinking and trying to make sense of the world around me.
Anywho, I think some changes did take place around the time there was that hiccup in ranked related to LP gains. Now, I don't really care, but while I like winning, stomps have been happening more often in my favor lately... which actually gets boring...
All of that said, check out what's going on with op.gg... notice a few things that are off? Methinks there are some problems on their site.
And I'm giving you the most likely explanation for the phenomenon. Yeah, its not the most exciting one. But thats how these things work.
In any case, I took a quick glance at your games. The simple thing to do is to look at your Boaz games since he is pretty bad. His normal MMR when he plays by himself seems to be around 1380 according to op.gg. Yet, when you last played with him (not that long ago) you were still playing in the upper 1500s. So I don't see your theory in practice. I don't see anybody else that you play with who is low enough to really throw off the MMR of your games to make any other statements about this in the last few days.
Also, your win/loss in normal games over the last two weeks is 19/18, so I don't see any evidence there of things getting too easy. I guess I can't speak to whether or not those games are more "stompy", but if the matchmaking system is keeping you right at .500, it seems to be doing something right.
You have been playing more Team Builder lately, which is a VERY stompy queue. So, you might just be getting that in your mind.
nah team builder excluded from this analysis. I accept that to be pretty skewed. Analysis points also need adjusted and I don't know exactly how long the "adjustments" take place when you pick a new champ, etc. its... super convoluted.
anyway, op gg says X mmr. I compare my experiences to that accepting it's not spot on. ranked games 1700-1800 (that happens when I solo or duo). Games often require me to work and can be challenging.
Normal games - mostly silly easy games lately - op gg's rating the games 1400-1600 mmr. Curious about the relationship between ranked games mmr and normal games. Seems like the weighting has been changed to me in the normal queue. They are separate queues, but I was under the impression that your status in ranked influenced your normal game mmr as well. Before, I believe that was true. Now, I think there has been an adjustment, but that could just be residual from the ranked mmr reset.... some sort of normal mmr reset? Don't know. Just interesting to think about, I'm having trouble identifying the reason for such easy games lately. Some are skewed by me queuing up with lower elo folks, but not all. The mmr data from op.gg just gets me thinking all the more. If that number's right, why would I be playing in normal games vs silver/gold. It's not much fun for me and often not fun for them...
Anyway, nemesis is live. I'm trying to think of the worst team possible. Also, does it work so that I get a specific champ that the enemy team picked specifically for me or do I get to pick from the champ pool the enemy team selected for me?
Who should we ban out? Urgot's actually potentially viable with him being up against C listers. Karl and I already decided that I will give the enemy team irelia and he will give them teemo every game, so we've got that covered. Drawing a blank on the crapiest team though... maybe zac, taric, possibly urgot, not sure who else.
If you are getting "mostly silly easy games lately", why is your win/loss in normal games right at .500 over recent games?
Why, when I played with you like 3-4 nights ago, were we both complaining about how hard the games were due to our teammates? And we lost a bunch of games.
Why is your normal MMR right at where it was when op.gg first started posting normal MMRs?
You probably want to go with a no damage team that also doesn't really have a jungler.
So probably Janna/Taric/Soraka/Leona/Ali or something like that. Sure it will be REALLY hard to kill them, but they can't kill anything and it will take them approximately 17 minutes to take a tower.
If you give them five high CC champs with good engages like that, it shouldn't take much of a build to chain CC you into oblivion even without good scaling for ability damage. It should be much safer to give them low CC/mobility champs so they can't shut down, escape, or pursue.
I could build Taric into a hybrid bruiser killing machine against a bad team, and some of the others even have decent base damage and ratios.
The only champion on that team who has really good engages is Leona. Its also a SUPER low mobility comp. And no, Taric never turns into a killing machine against anybody competent.
On another note, this may finally be the mode where pacov can build zzzzzzzzz'rot portal.
SoloQ MMR affects your RANKED TEAM MMR if you have never been on a ranked team before. Doesn't do anything with normals. One of the "old wise tales" about Meteos was he was actually one of the highest Normal MMR players in the world, but had massive ranked anxiety (and was actually like Bronze or something). It took Hai or Balls to encourage him to actually play ranked...
Not the mention, by the time you hit level 30, you have already a few hundred normal games (unless you leveled purely on bots). That's plenty enough to build out a proper MMR. Seems odd they would need your ranked games.
You're playing against competent players that you gave a bad comp to.
Taric top, Alistar jungle, Soraka mid, Leona/Janna bot.
A hybrid bruiser Taric should be quite serviceable against champs that are stunned/silenced/knocked up for several seconds in a row. You can burst a thousand plus easy off his skills with a spellblade item. If you gave the enemy team all AD squishies with bad cc, he should be pretty epic with his ult giving the team a heavy damage boost. He can also run a lane just fine against a squishy AD.
Soraka has decent scaling and high base damage on her low cd starcall, she's an excellent AP damage dealer once you get her a lichbane.
Alistar and Leona would be AP bruisers with higher damage output than Taric. You should be able to get an amazing engage off a Leona/Alistar combo.
Janna's the only one that really can't do much damage reasonably, but she can run the support role and use Talisman to facilitate the engage and split the team further during CC rapes.
Bot lane might be rough early on, but if the enemy hasn't got any proper cc and no one that can reasonably jungle, you should be able to swing it just fine with Alistar ganks.
Karl, you have to remember that Pacov tends to look at games from a personal perspective.
Games where his team wins where he was doing very well in the laning phase have more of a tendency to be 'stomps' even if they were in actuality somewhat close games. I would guess that has a little bit to do with how he feels his games have been going recently.
i did have a typo there, sure. Doesn't make my point invalid.
doesn't invalidate my ball busting either. Happens.
exactly right. If I'm personally really doing well, particularly in roles or champs I'm generally not good with, I start to wonder wtf. If you asked me about my recent wins and losses (nemesis aside), I could tell you what I think - and 90% of those games would not be me saying I played like crap. That's not to say I ignore everyone else, but if I stomp my lane, I wonder why the fug did that happen. I'm good here and there, but mostly I'm like... why the fug did they do that.. that's freakin stupid. Anywho.. I still think I'm on to something... and still don't super care if I am or not.
ERMERGERDDDDDDDDDDDD! got my first ranked pentakill on Brand today! Its been a long time coming!
1st pentakill, 3rd lcs loss. Looking good bby.
5's team:
Had fun playing 5's last night. Competition was right around our skill levels looking at the opposing teams solo queue ranks baring a few exceptions (2-3 silvers players). I think hunny on ADC worked on really well for us as a dedicated ADC was part of our problem last season.
Hedgie's Gnar was stellar and definitely kept us in the game on that last game? (which ever game it was that we almost threw).
A few questionable baron/dragon calls were made but that is sort of typical for us. We need to make better judgements for those two objectives. Also I wouldn't mind having a discussion about dragons in general.
Dragon to me is no longer that high of a priorty. If we manage to secure the first dragon I am fine with never taking another one (unless its really easy and we wont be contested). I would rather secure towers than taking a dragon given the option. Global gold is far more important than the next dragon buff. If we are ahead as a team and want to team fight at dragon we should let the other team start it and then collapse onto them (if we have decent vision). Taking the 2nd or third dragon if we are behind and could of gotten 1 or even 2 towers instead makes no sense to me. The global gold from the towers will help catch us up on items that we desperately need the medicore buffs of dragon 2-3 are not worth it, I would rather have a completed item instead. Knocking down towers also helps us get control of the map again and allows for getting easier jungle wards.
I am not saying that we shouldn't do dragon. I am just saying that dragons 2-3 are not really worth fighting over or making bad calls for when there are safer/less greedy options (sometimes even backing to buy items after a team fight is a better call then doing an objective when everyone is at 1/3 health and the enemy team can just push in a lane or baron because everyone HAS to back on our team).
I think hunny on ADC worked on really well for us as a dedicated ADC was part of our problem last season.
i agree. While i am a decent Kog player, Kog is not always a safe pick or the pick we want to put into a teamcomp. We do also have pacov, i know that he's been playing a lot of Graves and stuff as well.
That said, i do want to say that, at the moment, i am very much a "top or feed" player. Last season, i could play a few different roles, and i didn't mind supporting and stuff. While i *can* support still, i no longer am mostly only playing support in ranked, etc, and i feel like i might be a liability in most lanes but top or mid (and mid would really only be Velkoz and Anivia).
i know that pacov can sometimes get bored/frustrated with playing support all the time, and since i can't really "sub in" to support anymore, i think that if pacov is bored of support, that we should just switch to Normals and then someone else can support.
#dragons
i agree.
The first dragon buff is pretty good, and the third one is too, so we should commit a little more to those. The primary advantage of getting the second dragon isn't the buff, it's denying the opponent their first dragon buff. If it's a very close game and we go 0-for-3, but get the dragon, them getting the kill gold is better than us getting the 2nd dragon buff, so we actually slip a little bit behind. And if they get the dragon steal...
i know in a lot of the games last night i was teleporting around a lot, and my opposing top tower was still standing: that would have been an easy source of income, for example.
The thing about dragon is that it gives you the opportunity to force neutral ground fights (i.e. not under enemy tower) in the early/mid game. This is a very good thing if the enemy team outscales you. So its not so much the buff as it is the opportunity to be forcing something at neutral ground with a team that is stronger at that phase of the game.
Last season we didn't really have to worry about getting outscaled much. We generally had Irelia top and WW jungle, so we could go with the general mentality that as long as we didn't lose early very badly, we would probably win late. This also fit in with Cow's general mentality that he likes to play a very slow early game. But, if we are doing things like Graves bot and Pantheon jungle, we might want a fairly different mentality. Those kind of lineups typically want to build leads in the early/mid game or they could get into trouble.
I can play junglers that scale better (or have very neutral scaling), but the point is that dragon is probably a piece of a larger puzzle. Its really about the level of team aggression, and we should be on the same page there. Pacov and hunny tend to be very aggressive, Cow is very passive early. I'm all over the place depending on what I'm playing.
I like fighting at dragon if we are the team thats doing the collapse but for that to happen we need vision (wards, crab, whatever) of what is going on at the pit. The first dragon I am all about fighting over but the next 2 I would rather let the other team try to do and us jump on them in the middle of it (rather than the other way around). I am suggesting this style of approach to dragon because we seem to throw or get the other team back into it by starting dragons ourselves and losing team fights on the ensuing fight.
Assuming that either Cow or myself is going to be playing mid, we will almost have a low-mobility AoE mage with a lot of zoning potential. Similarily, Pacov and Hunny tend to play more early-game focused ADCs (more often Lucian/Caitlyn/Graves rather than Kog/Twitch/Trist). Pacov also tends to be rather gank-focused bot lane, and tends to purchase a lot of pink wards, etc.
i think that means that we are often going to be in a position where we will be advantaged for the first dragon or so.
For myself, i can certainly play a few different styles, but my champs tend to be more teamfight focused:
1- Gnar
2- Rumble
Champs i have worked on a fair amount but may not be as consistent as my Gnar:
3- Hec
4- Kennen
5- Renekton
Rumble is pretty crazy when it comes to dragons. Gnar is pretty good if the team is ahead. Can be difficult if we are behind though, because probably won't be able to build rage. Hecarim and Kennen are worse than Rumble for the first 2 dragons but equal/better later on.
Luckily a lot of these champs are all reasonably well scaling, especially if the rest of the team is doing really well (Rumble, Gnar, Hec, Kennen). i don't mind playing the "sucker" in the team and not always getting as much attention as the rest of the lanes.
The biggest gap in my roster is a pure-tank that isn't weak early (Hecarim is pretty tanky, but has very little lane presence early game). If we really need me to learn Maokai, i could do that.
A lot of my roster is also very vulnerable to Lissandra or Irelia. Gnar and Kennen both really struggle against Irelia unless i receive jungle backup (since they will push the lane pretty hard). Lissandra is really good against Gnar in lane until i finish Hexdrinker, and can bypass Mega-Gnar in teamfights.
i feel like of the two, Lissandra is the greater evil of the two, and i think that we should be using a ban on her if possible.
Well, the play we want to be running is we go to dragon, get the crab, then try and start a fight with them. Use xerath or brand to poke them first. If they have better scaling teams, they generally aren't even going to go to the dragon if we don't make them.
What was happening last night was there was some confusion. We would get to dragon, somebody would hit it once, then we would have an angry dragon hitting us while the other team was staring at us. This kind of put us between a rock and a hard place, so it was like "screw it, GO FOR THE DRAGON FAST".
I should be getting a dedicated internet account at my GF's place on Wednesday assuming I can pull some strings and be available to sign for it while I'm working. If not then it will be soon and hopefully the connection will be solid even with almost every dwelling on the property having it's own modem.
When I start playing on a regular basis I'd love to fill in for you guys on Support if you want me. However if Pacov is ever going to be playing ADC in these situations, we would have to figure out a way for us to coexist with me playing Thresh in the bot lane.
@Pacov: Actually that may be something you would want to iron out anyway if you're still planning on climbing to Diamond this season. Thresh is a popular, high impact, versatile Support that's currently played quite a bit in higher levels and he is being built almost exclusively with Relic Shield. Your Graves is pretty damn good right now so that would probably be a great option if you play any Ranked games without Duoing with Hunny. Talking your team's Support out of playing one of the stronger champions or going on tilt in champ select if you look like you're going to lane with a Thresh isn't going to be ideal in those situations.
My suggestion would be to learn to play Thresh with Relic Shield. If memory serves, the last time you laned with my Thresh a lot of our frustration came from you trying to get me to proc the passive at what I felt were inappropriate times. The sustain is an important part of the item's appeal and to waste that by proccing it when we're at full health and I'm not at full charges isn't ideal. Also, you have to let that E damage charge up over time though so when you insist on me trying to last hit right after harassing it becomes very difficult to pull off. I think if you learned to play Thresh you'd kinda keep this all in mind better when playing ADC alongside a Thresh and you'd have the funnest Support in your arsenal which would help making playing Support for Cow's team less boring.
Top 3 roles for me - TOP/ADC/SUPPORT. Gnar/irelia/liss, graves/cait/lucy, all. I'm a little backslid"en" on jung - mid serviceable, but not super.
Here's the thing re: me playing supp eg here's the tilt formula - if someone is worse than me at top or adc and I'm stuck supporting (eg non carry), I get fed up very quick. If I consider the folks in those roles on par or better than me, then I don't mind at all. If hedgies running top and consistently underperforms.. yeah - I'm annoyed. He'd doing fine afaik. Hunny's fairly solid at adc, but most games requires steering (eg what are you doing now). I duo w/ hunny - I don't mind him at adc and he does fine. It's worth noting that I don't enjoy support, but am happy to fill that role as long as I agree with folks being in certain roles. If we are better off in a comp with a lissandra top and gnar is banned, then I'd hope we can be more flexible than top or feed though. No real complaints from me atm though. That will change if we have some streak of underperformance in those roles (eg an actual streak - not just a few bad games here and there). I'm pleased with folks performance as is, but do hope we can be a little bit fluid as benefits the team.
re: your thresh idea thunder - well, I personally could work with that, but I also personally don't pick that item when I play support. I don't think folks are consistently good with using it in the gold/plat realm (eg it costs me more money than its worth as an adc). It might be worth praticing some with someone like you, but that won't change my mind re: the item when others run thresh. Same diff - i could start working on using that on thresh when I'm supporting, but I just don't think its cool to get in solo queue unless you are freaking amazing. The moment I lose 2+ cs because of someone wailing away.. smeh. Take some other item and do something more useful than setting me behind. I don't want to worry about ganks, then enemy adc/support, and my support making me lose cs.
I play exclusively with Gold players in Ranked and have experienced the full range of my ADC flawlessly working around my Relic Shield procs and getting near perfect CS to having one threaten to AFK if I caused him to miss another CS. Getting my CS in without fucking up my ADC's almost feels like a skill unto itself, one that I've got much better at.
However I still run into some ADCs who don't really work around my CSing at all. It's not that they're less skilled at ADC... its just like they aren't as good playing with a Thresh? They tend to obliviously try to take every minion that I'm going for which causes my attack to finish on another minion and then... well, gold get's wasted. But for the most part my ADC's are getting better at the Thresh CS Game... probably because I am.
I feel playing Thresh with Relic Shield is the optimal way, as do almost all Thresh players. A small amount go Coin and that's fine, but playing Coin Thresh doesn't help people get better at learning to CS with and around a Relic Thresh. If you're not into learning that skill, that's fine but waiting for you to tilt as soon as you miss your 2nd CS doesn't sound fun. I think Pacov/Thunder bot lanes are a no go at this point... as long as Thresh is my best champ anyway.
I'll point some things out that hopefully will help you keep your cool next time you have a Thresh Support you as ADC. The CS you miss because a Thresh screws up your CSing is offset somewhat. Pushed against your tower? You can't get all the minions every time and Thresh can help you grab ones that you would have missed. In some circumstances you're not going to be able to reach minions without taking massive harass but your tanky full health Thresh can get them for you. Etc etc.
tl;dr Sometimes you gotta focus on the dopeness, not the whackness...
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