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
hello boys and girls
SWANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
those digging the item set generator, here's a script/instructions to pull your own with the most up-to-date data
https://github.com/Gavin770/champGG
allo swan
I picked up South Park The Stick of Truth the other day on sale on steam it was like 13 bucks. I am pretty impressed so far. Really nice game play, funny dialogue, side quests, graphics are nice for a game you wouldn't expect for it to really matter. Id recommend getting it. I probably wont finish it since I get so distracted by league of legends and my attention span for almost all other games is very low.
So cinderhulk/sunfire doesn't award your jungler gold therefore its bad? Pacov sent me a PM while I was in game about it since I tried running cinderhulk over a normal machete item. I was behind 2k gold with similar kills/assists/creep score to my jungler counter part (they did have 3-4 more towers than us though). I really don't see a point in getting this item over a machete item. Maybe as your second slot then?
Also had a really good showing on Bard support in Ranked again. I think hes pretty strong in his own weird way.
yeah i am going to re-install league today... not sure what the dealyo is as far as the game running properly on my laptop... on average like every two minutes it would freeze for like 2-5 seconds... it was quite frustrating yesterday... not sure if it's a pc problem, install problem, or internet issue... hard to tell... the ping on the client never showed raising... so i'm thinking it's either an install or pc issue... although my computer seems to run fine besides the league thing... gonna try reinstalling, so hopefully will be better next time i play (maybe tonight).
anyways... i missed you guys... so happy i had the chance to play with most of you (where did bryff dissappear to?). Maybe see you tonight depending on how late my math class runs (supposed to go to 8:10 tonight, and school closes at 10pm, but the class usually is "done" at like 7:00). anywho... thanks for playing with me with all my rust.
Cinderhulk is the name of the enchantment which can only be used to upgrade machete based items. You can't build it without having an (upgraded) machete.
I think that you mean Bami's Cinder, which is the separate item which gives some health and burning. It is bad to build over an upgraded machete item because you essentially lose 30 gold per cleared camp, plus your upgraded smite. That's quite a bit over a game.
OH lol I thought cinderhulk was Bami's cinder. Oh well..... I got thrown into jungling in solo queue and having not read the patch notes and seeing the fire rock thing in the store I thought that was the jungler item LOL.
haha cow... bummer though.
Yeah - I was curious watching cow's jungle build to see if he figured out something w/ olaf. He did not. Cow ended up about 2k behind the enemy jungler even though they both had 3 kills and 5 assists w/ similar cs. Cow also got fb. The sej rushed to get her machete > 1st upgrade > 2nd jung upgrade, while cow did not even get the jungle item. So, he fell way behind in gold, but not just due to the lack of the jungle item.
For just the machete, you get 15 bonus gold for every large monster in camps + scuttle, etc. When upgraded, to tier 2, you get 30 bonus gold. That starts to add up quite a bit as the game goes on as most rush to get that tier 2 upgrade. Anyway, the main reason for the difference was all of you goofs spending a bunch of chasing vlad around while you lost towers, etc. You guys got less money as you were splitting a kill amongst like 3-4 people and were also just killing a guy with lots of deaths. Anyway, no jung item + few obj + repetitive same target focus = 2k gold behind with similar looking stats.
also your fizz was only like 120 cs behind vlad... so.. there's that.
anyway... yah... build jungle item on jungler. fire rock thing 4 eva
@swan - bryff plays less with us but I still usually catch him a few times a week. I imagine he's jump in for a game if he saw you around. Good luck w/ the reinstall. Also anytime hunny annoys me I'm going to actively recruit bannick and force hunny to lane with him.
I think Bryff is just really busy with school this semester hes also in the college band I believe.
yeah even though vlad had like 7 deaths he was so fed from farm it took 3-4 people to kill him and stop his split push. He would of took inhib if we didn't give him attention.
YOU CAN'T ARREST ME
Guy had like 40MR for 20-25 min of the game. Got quite a bit of armor if I'm remembering it right (so pretty much only liss was doing good dmg to him). You technically needed liss + 1 other - just seemed like more because the other people did incredibly low dmg due to the armor. In any case, would have been really hard to win with how bad cpt top lane fizz did and other lanes not doing super well.
OK - so I'm trying to see the downsides to zac jungle. I'm not seeing much. Solid sustain - built in weird zhonya like passive, fairly reliable cc, gigantic gap closer, viable with only tank items. Weakness = can be counter jungled a bit. I'm still seeing this guy as top tier after the tank change + the knockup duration change.Some skill cap required, but honestly, not a ridiculous amount. My personal #1 pick as jungle nowadays anyway. I think he's really underrated and still a bit off the radar and his win rate is still low enough and exposure low enough that I don't currently foresee him getting any nerfs.
Anyway, what tanks have you fellas noticed the biggest improvements in - or even non tanks that are taking cinder? I'm actually not as opposed to leona jungle with cinder. Voli feels better - cinder + the cd reduction on his bite in camps gives him even nicer clears - same weaknesses with his ganks, though - kind of a smeh gap closer susceptible to line cc. That said, righteous glory voli - nightmare level engage. Just takes a bit to build to that. Other jungler thoughts?
Righteous glory is a real nice pick up and I'm starting to see more and more utilization - its just a crazy steroid for ganks/initiation.
was happy to see a write up on zz portal on reddit with some fella that went into ALOT of detail on utilizing it properly. I certainly don't use it perfectly when I get it, but again - when it 1st came out, it was op. Then it was up with the 1st nerf. Now its still a little op. It's just a little bit difficult to get used to it.
Naut support is stupid, but fun.
I can see Zac becoming a standard pick top lane again. I might purchase him solely for that purpose, and get the ball rolling with it before everyone realizes it.
I don't think he's quite as useful to the team out of top. Obv still really useful late game at the very least. Let us know how it goes if you do get around to rolling w/ him top.
Well, to do one of the quick statistical analyses that you are so fond of:
Zac is a notably low winrate jungler with a low playrate. That combo is a very bad sign. Strong champions should have very high winrates with low playrate - it is very hard to explain why a very strong champion would have a substantially sub .500 winrate if he is mostly being played by specialists. His winrate also goes down as a function of ELO. This would generally indicate that he isn't hidden OP.
Now, I'm not saying he is bad. I think he is OK. But he is a jungler who probably wants to gank but gets destroyed by counter ganks just like all tanks do. He also has problems with counter jungling like you say. And I think that a lot of other jungle tanks do teamfighting as well or better.
not to mention ALL the tanks just got pretty massive buffs.
i feel like playing Sejuani or Volibear would be a lot stronger atm... and the win rates + pick rates clearly indicate that
My understanding of the current jungle hierarchy is that Sejuani is the best but is often banned. Volibear seems super strong right now but he fulfills a much different role than Zac.
Well, to do one of the quick statistical analyses that you are so fond of:Zac is a notably low winrate jungler with a low playrate. That combo is a very bad sign.
Seems like lots of people end up trying out champions that received buffs whenever there is a patch. I'm not sure that their win rates are the best way to judge the new strength of those champions. Some of those losses probably came from people who didn't even realize that Cinderhulk was the new machete upgrade. Sorry Cow, couldn't resist!
Pacov used to play Zac quite a bit and I'd say jungle might currently be his second strongest role so he might be finding more success than some other folks. I'm sure a lot of new Zac players only know that he received buffs. Some of them might be like me and don't even really understand the W CDR buff.
It's not. But winrates aren't meaningless either. Its very difficult to claim that a low winrate/low playrate champion is really strong.
Most tank junglers (with a few exceptions like Amumu) had a fairly similar pre patch playrate to Zac. I mean, were that many people playing Skarner? What really matters is the comparison to champions that do similar things. Yet despite similar playrate trends to Zac, many tank junglers manage to get up to a reasonable win percentage, while Zac can't. It's VERY difficult to explain if you want to go with the hypothesis that Zac is really strong.
good luck logging in now...
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I'm sure there's a bit of personal preference w/ what tank jungler. The reason I think zac excels specifically is not just the cc, the changes to how his blobs interact, etc - its the mobility. I find zac strong - maybe its a skill cap thing with the champ, but I dont think so. His hop goes down to like 6-7 sec or so late game - that's a pretty big bit of mobility. The other night it meant I could reengage on a few peeps that no other jungler could get to due to the high range of his hop. The only downside to his hop is wind up time. Honestly, I think of him as shaco as a tank - shaco can do the same thing for ganks. Zac's on par and makes a solid tank with a zhonyas (baby zhonyas anyway). I haven't even super explored the passive cheese w/ him. Its like slightly weaker than aatrox's, but I excelled with him during his prime time as jungler. Anyway, I'm totally fine if zac just happens to be someone I'm good with, but I think there's alot of overlooked potential. Looks at karl and says "have you even played zac?" You should give it a try one game in the near future and see how you do.
learned an interesting (but kind of useless) game mechanic when i was putzing around today. Ludens echo procs in an interesting way with zilean. There is a delay with the time bombs. Lets say you have 70 stacks and toss a bomb and stand still keeping luden from building more stacks. You get no luden effect as you'd expect. But if you cast a bomb with 70 stacks and move enough to get it up to 100 stacks before the bomb goes off, luden will proc even though you cast the spell earlier.
same mechanic applies to morg pools. Cast, get to stack limit while its still on the group and it will proc. Thinking malz could be OUCH with his dot. Also kart perhaps...
Supports used in LCS are stupid?
Actually an honest question Pacov cause your League vocabulary confuses me sometimes. For instance you always say 'skill cap' to describe an individuals skill level where most people would use that term to describe how much mechanical skill a champion requires to use to their full potential. Such as "Riven is a high skill cap champion."
So... do you mean Nautilus is a stupidly good support? Or do you not think Naut is as strong in Solo Queue as he is in competitive play?
He uses "high skill cap" meaning "high skill capacity". That is, high skill floor, high skill ceiling. Think of it as a really big cup... It can hold a lot of water, but it's kind of dumb to use a huge 32 ounce cup to drink shots.
Likewise, "low skill cap" is "low skill capacity". Low skill floor, low skill ceiling.
A lot of champs in LoL generally have this "high, high" or "low, low" pattern. Eg, nearly every tank is "low, low", Assassins (when they aren't OP) generally fit into "high, high". Champs that are "high, low" are pretty dumb to play, since they are hard to pick up but once you achieve basic mastery you don't really get much better with them...
The only thing that is left is "low floor + high ceiling". In LoL, i think that is mostly generally safe, medium-high range, skillshot-reilant AoE mages such as Orianna, Ziggs, etc. Champs that have a pretty low barrier to entry (once you get blue buff level 7, laning is easy and you just get 6/6 CS every 30 seconds), but there's a huge difference between an Orianna who has perfect ults, shields, QWs and one that doesn't...
Anyway, since pacov doesn't play a lot of midlane... No need for more complicated terminology.
i think this is also approaching from purely a "mechanical" perspective, not a decision-making perspective. While champs such as Lissandra and Gnar are not really mechanically intense, there are other decisions those champs have to make, such as making clean initiations, who to ult in teamfights, whether to dive or peel, etc.
I think naut can function as a legit support, but think leona's kit is superior and generally fills the same function. Its fun, but folks will likely frown/tilt with that. That said, give me a halfway decent adc and I'll probably lock down an early kill pretty easily with naut - or at least get lane control. That sort of thing happens when folks aren't used to champs in certain roles though.
I haven't seen all the lcs games outside of seeing lemon playing a bunch of naut the other day. I think its ok with decent adcs and folks you know - less accepted in solo queue - and not as good as leona for instance.
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