League of Legends

In other news, the World Championship is starting, you can watch it at http://na.lolesports.com

Augh, internet was down all day. D: The worst. Thanks for the link!

How common is Xerath in yall's experience? I've only seen one Xerath player, and he was in an AI game. I'm thinking of adding him to my pool of possible ARAM champions, because it seems like his range will be very useful. In every single one of my matches people will try to play it safe by dancing around the towers. I can't get close to the enemy team with characters like Shen or Nasus, so getting more ranged champions seems like a good idea.

Xerath is really fun, IMO, but a rare pick. His winrate's fine, AFAIK, but his style of siegemode activate is kinda... out of style, I guess, at the moment? For a second or two, he was seeing pro play, but then that disappeared.

Also, he's getting a big rework in the next few patches, theoretically.

Anyway, his range is hilarious, and in ARAM he can put out some amazing poke and damage in fights. However, he's also very expensive, and honestly other champs outclass his range. If you want OP range, try out Nidalee and Lux - the latter is one of my favorites, especially for ARAM, because with a bit of CDR her ult (the big fuckoff laser beam) basically is usable every thirty seconds. For reference, that's every time a wave of minions spawns. It's great. Neither Lux nor Xerath are particularly mobile, however.

Thanks for your input, Cobalt. I'll put Xerath down as a maybe, because that rework might do more harm than good.

It's my line of thought that rarely-picked champions like Xerath could be useful, if only for the fact that many people are not used to fighting them. I don't know if that's true, but it makes sense to me at the moment.

TIL There's something beyond a Pentakill: The Legendary Kill.

When I'm Blitzcrank. I have a friend who is actually good at Blitz, and I swear, the one time I freeweek'd Blitzcrank, he ignored his own lane just to watch mine and call out "CASUAL BLITZ" in allchat every time I tried to grab something. I started just running at people and uppercutting them.

It worked.

I bet that made you a bit cranky at first. Maybe even a bit steamed.

You tryin' to q-grab somethin'? Nuh-uh, you can't q-grab nothin'!

All in good fun, my even picking Blitz was trolly - we both knew my hooks were Thresh through and through.

So long as he isn't getting caught in the enemy jungle, pinging us to save him, and then flashing a wall the second we show up and booking it. We have learned to ignore his pings. =P He is both the strongest jungler I know, and the one most apt to getting me killed whenever I follow his lead.

We've got another recruit, it's my friend Craterfist here on Cloudsville. He's in the process of getting a PC, but he's totally in for our LoL nights. He's also up for a ranked team, if the lot of us still plan on doing that.

I'm now in a promo series! Fun. Promos are the worst.

Anyway, had a really good game to get me into it. Enemy team had a fed Lux and Vayne (she was toplane, so it wasn't my fault), and our jungler (Udyr) had taken all the kills so I wasn't that far ahead of my own lane (I was Caitlyn).

But then, something glorious happened: nobody on the enemy team bought armor. Ever. So I got to go bloodthirster->infinityedge->phantomdancer before getting a last whisper. It was glorious. I thought my positioning was spot on, my in-fight kiting was strong (I only died once, while killing the most people on our team and having a respectable number of assists), and I managed to escape an Elise/Vayne chase squad with some IMHO pretty clever wallhops and brush traps. A very satisfactory game.

But let me tell you about this Udyr. He was determined to think we were losing. I swear. First he complained that top had gotten counterpicked (which he had been, Singed vs. Vayne = sad Singed), and then complained that Singed hadn't responded properly to the one gank he attempted (Singed was oom), and then said "GG I'm done" and proceeded to farm the jungle after taking almost all the kills we'd managed to get. This continued even after we'd taken two barons uncontested and exposed an inhibitor - he tried to surrender because we'd gone three or four for one plus tower, even though we were ten kills and countless dragons ahead, and were clearly outplaying them (largely because we actually had a frontline - Udyr and Singed just ran at them, and if anyone got caught, they'd be exploded by me and Ryze in seconds). And this was the special kind of complaining - in the beginning of the game, for instance, he said he'd report Singed if he died at all. He clearly thought he was the second coming of Stonewall, and declared triage on a lane we could not afford to lose as badly as we did. It was not fun to carry him.

But other than that, 'twas a fun game, albeit a bit stompy!

That reminds me, in my first real game with Zed, I stomped something like 20/5/10.

Bah, y'alls LoL night takes place when I'm at work. Otherwise I'd love to join in, it sounds like loads of fun.

Maybe we should move LoL night to Saturday or something. I mean, it is quite a time-consuming game with penalties for leaving, it'd make sense to move it to a freer day.

Anyway, I'm considering getting Nautilus. Is he good for anything besides jungling? According to some youtube videos, he makes for great crowd control.

I think I've heard of a top Lane Nautilus at one point... I think he's just in the same situation as Amumu. He can technically go somewhere else, but the meta really only allows for one.

Aonee wrote:That reminds me, in my first real game with Zed, I stomped something like 20/5/10.

Oh, man, early Zed games... for me, this was in the beginning of S3, when he was obscenely strong and could free harass with his E all day. I wish I had abused him more when he was essentially a free win, I really do.

Naut's a good jungler 'cos he's got great ganking and doesn't need too much gold to do his thing. IIRC he does need some, though, and falls off a bit lategame compared to, say, Zac.

I was basically like "Hmmm... It's a 1v3, ya, I can totally get a kill and still escape." And that's exactly what happened.  I wound up with like over 330 ad or something.

Today was League of Legends and board games day at college! :D

Well, apparently Aatrox is good. Really good. Who knew? At least if he gets an advantage... and I was against a Fiora. She was higher ranked than me, so I anticipated getting my ass handed to me (on account of preferring to play pretty much anything over playing toplane). Well, she goes all-in at level 2, and does... nothing, while I do tons of damage. Doran's shield start and heal procs FTW (also she started boots and pots)! She then sticks around in lane, so I flash ignite and grab first blood. I start farming behind her tower, waiting for her to come back. Turns out, she hadn't been able to farm, so she comes back with boots and... even fewer pots.

It does not go well for Fiora from there on out. Their jungler was Mundo, and inexperienced to boot; he came top twice, and I nearly killed him both times, getting his flash once. Our mid did well, too, so the entire top half of their jungle was mine, so I took red buff.

Bottom line, I 1v3'd and killed all 3. Now I see why the EU scene likes him; if he gets going, he pushes forever, lifesteal tanks, initates, deals tons of damage, and never dies (well, once, but it was worth it).

I have some news that makes me feel kinda proud of myself; I just got my first 10/1 KD score, and I happened to be playing as Cho'Gath. Though, it was against bots, but still. I feel like I'm quickly becoming a better player.

EDIT: Just recently went 13/0 as Cho immediately after that last game.

@Iron
Grats! Cho's hard to play - not dying with him isn't too difficult, but landing his ruptures and timing his screams takes some learning and skill. If you can consistently land ruptures on real people, then you're pretty much set. Not as great an initiator as other tanks (Zac exists and continues to outclass friggin' everybody), but with max stacks and some good defensive stats, you can just keep eating skillshots for your team while disrupting the enemy.

BTW, if you ever get the chance to go on-hit machine gun Lulu... do it. Oh my god, it's SO FUNNY. Get a red buff on her and shred through any tank, get a wit's end and laugh as Kassadin tries to explode you, get a Nashor's because more purple numbers... all while bringing her hideously irritating utility to your team. She was free this week. First, I did this as a support. Then, I did it as an ranged carry. =P All custom games with friends, mind you.

... I have LuLu. I'm going to try this now.

Just to screw with people I could get good with Shaco, and then laugh maniacally as I tear new ones across the game. Admit it, this is a scary thought. You people should know by now how I tend to snowball when I dedicate myself to something.

And if and when I actually pay attention.

/joking

I don't get to play with you guys much anymore on account of night classes on Tuesdays. :( Sadface.

If you really want to go for a snowball-y jungler, Iron, there are... better choices than Shaco. Skarner, for one, apparently, is reasonably strong at lower elo, can apparently duel anything, and has one of those ults that just makes your team back your plays no matter what. If you want to go the melee carry route, Aatrox and Trynd also exist. Aatrox especially. Stonewall has officially declared him OP.

I looked at Shaco because I heard that he's a nightmare if used properly  but is less than useless without skill. Anyway, I think I know what you're saying. Stone said it partly has to do with Aatrox's passive. My biggest issue with Trynd is that I get nuked every time I initiate, though I'm probably doing something wrong.

While I'm thinking about it, what's your opinion on Hecarim? Stone said that his status as a selfish tank can be detrimental, but is he still useful? I don't remember if I brought him up before.

I've not played Hec, personally; I know he used to be an absolute terror before they nerfed the shit out of him over and over again. You see him less than you used to when he was a hidden gem now, even, so I think the Hec diehards have mostly moved on. If he gets fed, he can do tons of damage while building tanky, and his ganks are killer, but consensus seems to be that he's just not strong enough in the meta of tank junglers.

Of course, Trynd isn't a tank jungler to begin with. With him, you kinda can't be the initiator, IMO - not unless your team is already ahead. Sure, you won't die, but you'll only get a few swings off before having to back out, and you won't be dropping strong CC (like Aatrox) while you're at it. So, you need help to start fights - a toplaner that can start them for you is good, an Orianna ball attached to your face is good, initiation supports are good (like Sona, Thresh, Leona... Zyra if she lands a good snare). Basically, ideally you need a dive buddy - you're more the second wave of diving after the Zac flies in, usually.

Really strong positioning can be initiation, too, (like, sometimes Fnatic's version of initiation seems to be sandwiching teams between a rock and a hard place, and oh jeez does it work) but that requires a lot of coordination that you generally won't see in soloq.

Jungle Trynd...That's what I was afraid of. I was playing him top lane the entire time. X) Anyway, I was for the longest time under the impression that the fighter was the initiator regardless of character, so most of my games as Trynd consisted of running straight in and getting dead.

Oh, no, Trynd's a top; frankly he's better as a top than a jungler, 'cos his ganks aren't super great.

But yeah, before Riot released the new nomenclature, there was a thing called "melee ADCs" - Trynd was one. =P They call him a fighter now, but he's not like J4 or Zac, or even Riven. He's a diver, and his place is in the middle of a fight (which is why they went with that label, I guess), but not all fighters can really initiate for their team, and other people can initiate, too. Like Ashe, for instance; that arrow can be a very strong initiate.

Herfacescaresme: http://beta.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-reveal/jinx-loose-cannon-revealed