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
worlds continues in 30 min!
Clg is getting taken apart...
How about them Flash Wolves doh
idk if any of you did the worlds pick'em thing but I made a leader board so we can see how each other is doing.
http://pickem.lolesports.com/share/series/2/user/458935/leaderboards/list/invite/ML9dhtCPa0bgs3CK9zpX/159606
lol'd at the title when i joined...
Time for BKT to sweep. Kids been playing possum - I'm sure of it.
BY sweep, I might have meant they have to stay behind and clean up after everyone leaves...
Sweep complete!
1st 2 games were boring af today. On the bright side, I did get to watch a very useless eve.
Cow - is there a pic you could send to dyrus to cheer him up? #SS
Good news - I'm currently beating qtpie in pick 'ems. Guess which one of us was probably trying..
watching the vods to catch up... cloud 9 having a rough day...
adc kennen is a thing today it would appear
rip
god bless reddit
http://www.myinstants.com/instant/quaaaaaaadra-kill/
5.20 patch notes out
http://eune.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-520-notes
kindred is out now.
So, my least favorite comp to deal with is that zilean/raka comp nonsense. We crush it early/mid and suffer against it late. Obv counters would be ending early or having huge burst and or cc like veigar. So freaking annoying to deal with.
Some things I've been thinking about - morgana. I really don't like how she's being utilized currently as support. Generally speaking, the days are gone of using her for an engage with zhonyas. She absolutely can't survive being used for a team engager w/o it, so you lose that power from her completely - and it was a pretty freaking useful power spike to be able to engage for your team like that - eg game changing. Now, you can just use her for q picks (against misplays) or chain cc in proper comps. You essentially become a black shield bot with the zekes bump and decent cc. But her ult just isn't all that useful in most cases as support.
It's kind of a crappy trade off - you generally have to choose between zekes/zhonya/aegis as far as build order. The zhonya engage is valuable whenever its up with your ult, but I think its potential is > mid game. Kind of rough though as if you rush it - but I think it might be worth it... but most pros and most folks playing her as a support seem to disagree.
Any thoughts? I'm not really talking about super late, lets get a zhonya as the game is 50 min long - I'm talking about trying to have it no later than 20 min or so - and the sooner the better. This makes her not just a black shield bot with a decent q - it gives her that flash engage back, which can be pretty huge and creates a very large zone of influence. I'm leaning towards wanting to get that zhonya back in the mix, but I don't know...
I would think that depends entirely on team composition. If you have a Malphite, you should be following him in, and wont even need one to get it off, if the enemy team has Malphite, you're probably going to want to be counter engage, which means not being the guy Malphite goes in on to start with, so it's probably not critical then either.
I'd say Zhonya's, and accompanying magic resist and general tankiness, is necessity when your team lacks some form of engagement, or when you just have the perfect setup for ass kickery with chain aoe cc on your team through other champs that can't really engage well either.
If you're paired with Kalista of course, Zhonya's would be really nice.
Zeke's in particular gives you reason not to build one to start with though. You're already boosting 30 armor, general durability has been achieved, so unless you really need to tank the whole enemy team it's a bit superfluous. You gain huge damage from a Liandry's as a low AP support, Twin Shadows and Rylai's give you additional slows, and a Banner would give a nice resist buff to the team, whereas Zhonya's is only going to make you tougher and give you a similar boost to damage. You're already up to four items with Zeke's, and unless you take merc treads, your magic resistance is so low that you have to take at least one heavy survival item for AP or you can't engage because you'll be burst down against most comps regardless of having a Zhonya's.
I don't really like the idea of taking Zeke's on her anyway, Ardent Censor would give your adc a more reliable boost off your shield, and work better in combination with Zhonya's thanks to having a speed boost, and not duplicating the role of boosting your armor. If you throw in a Ludens Echo or Liandry's on top of that, you've accomplished boosting your harass damage up pretty high, and can either tank up for the last item to be a good engage, or do something else and be counter engage/poke. Her shield makes her a natural counter engage, since she can greatly aid in the survival of whoever is engaged on, and the range on that root is more than long enough to safely harass most teams even if you can't survive engaging.
Ardent is still too silly imo. It's a sounds good on paper sort of item, but not really in practice - at least on morg. Gold efficiency of zekes is stupid and I think that's a major reason the zhonya's build went by the way side (zekes is, imo, like what they did with mord - throw so much crap at it so its adopted). Honestly, zekes needs toned down to make other paths more desirable. I actually don't really like zekes on with vayne or kali, but its still kind of a no brainer to get it even if they are substantially less crit reliant. At least until there's some sort of nerf that drops the gold efficiency below like 300% with the active running. Stuff like that makes the other support items less doable
You can't control it though, if you're on the defensive, it's only potentially useful. If you force an engage when it comes up, and get crushed anyway, it's burning a hole in your wallet for no reason. It's an "I'm already winning the lane anyway" item, which is probably why it's got such a high win rate and such a low pick rate. Ardent does not require lane control, has the same CD, better mana supply thanks to 100% regen instead of a flat 250, and almost as much base AP. Whether you're in control of the lane or on the defensive, you pop the shield off on your carry and away he goes with 30 on hit damage and 15% AS. Most ADC's don't benefit from the AP much at all, and 50% critical strike is likely only going to be a similar damage gain to that AS boost, particularly if it's a champ that starts BOTRK instead of IE or BT.
Dependability is a plus. Things that might help a lot versus things that will always help, Gnar is a great example of this, horribly broken power levels that just destroy teams, but he's below a 50% win rate because he gets crushed by the unreliability of his mechanics. His percent health damage is epic, but takes three consecutive hits, and his base stats are so horrid that even building full tank, he's not particularly tanky until he changes.
This goes back to it being an item that sounds good on paper, but isn't so much. Again - I'm isolating this to morg so we are apples to apples. Lane phase is typically over by the time you would complete this. You'd have to sacrifice something to get it in lane where it could have the most swing potential. Black shields cool down is crap early levels (23 seconds (and late really, outside of 40% cdr... and even then its kind of smeh)). Also factor in you aren't leveling black shield, so the only bonus you get is whatever cdr you pick up. So, now you have an item that supports a very short window for the bonus. And provides a buff that you can use every 20 seconds or so (whereas zekes on morg has more uptime even with the charge up and both you and the adc get the benefit of the passive).
Anyway, it sounds good, but that would be true if you like started the game with the item and the other team did not - then you have a 30 dmg spike for all ins when it would be a major factor. It's still useful mid game for the adc, but at that point, zekes will outscale it. Last, late game, if you had 40% cdr, you can cast black shield every 8-9 seconds or so - you are tossing on 30 ad, which is pretty negliglble. Compare that to having an adc with a bonus 50% crit rate. (imagine hitting for 200 with ardent + crit spike as they occur vs a very likely 320 or so with zekes). Last thought - as it does require black shield, you are likely going to have to use that on whatever target needs it - which might not be your adc based on what's going on.
I wouldn't give up on Zhonya's quite yet. Some of the top solo queue Morg supp players still seem to build it on her quite often. And it's still the top build on Champion.GG
http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Bigninjahwang
Think you might be taking the pros builds too seriously. They're the best of the best and will be high rank in SoloQ no matter what, so they can afford to build around the competitive meta to practice what they're going to be playing in tournies/LCS I think.
My understanding of Zeke's is that it is a must buy no matter what if your Marksman has gone 5/0 in lane and is ready to take over the game. It's a multiplicative item so the difference in its effectiveness varies quite a bit depending on if you're supporting Doublelift, DanKnee, or me. If you ever get paired up with a Bronze ADC in Teambuilder or have the misfortune to get Kaceytron as your 'ADC' in a Ranked game again, I would guess that building Zeke's would be a mistake in those situations.
Aegis isn't optional some games. If their AP Mid is fed then you kinda gotta buy it. But if their Mid is a Lulu that's doing okay, well I'd just say screw it and get started on the Zhonya's.
Also Poke Comps. Day 2 of Worlds, Flash Wolves vs Coo Tigers. They had Varus and Nid for the poke, Darius and GP to make countering the poke by engaging problematic (suicide) and Morgana helped with both aspects. Zhonya's was the choice for them over Aegis and Zeke's.
Black Shield get's leveled second so the cooldown is going to be dropping once you've completed Ardent. But Ardent is balanced around Sona I think, so I doubt it would really be amazing on anyone with a single target shield with a still relatively high CD compared to Sona's extremely short CD AOE shield...
It doesn't just sound good on paper, it performs quite admirably according to the stats. Ardent Censer has a 60%+ win rate at all tiers, just above Zeke's, and a 79% win rate on Morg in particular, beating Zeke's handily. It's not often picked, but it's often a winning pick. I think you're over-valuing the boost from Zeke's. It's potentially less damage than the 15% AS late game, both for AD builds and on-hit builds, and the 20% AP for yourself is probably going to add up to less damage than a single AA from your ADC after you've finished your low AP, semi-tanky support item loaded build.
johnny thunder is the LAST game of his promo to plat. GL!!!
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