League Of Legends Catch All

I see a few familiar names in here, I think.

I've just recently started messing with LoL a bit. I don't know how much (or at least how regularly) I'll be able to play, but for the moment I'm having fun trying all the characters I can and earning some IP for daily wins (against bots).

Interested in mid (or a solo lane, not entirely sure of the difference between mid/top), jungle and support.

So far I think I'm tending to favor assassin/caster types and junglers. I really enjoyed both Bard and Thresh from this week's rotation so far though.

Non-cheap hero I played so far and really like, but may not be too strong: Diana
Non-cheap hero I think I'd like and is maybe stronger, but I haven't played: Katarina

To start though, I don't see spending IP on much but the 450 IP tier (Ryze, Warwick, Yi, Soraka maybe).

I understand I can't jungle until level 10 (Smite). Jungle also seems complicated.

StrayTanooki wrote:

I see a few familiar names in here, I think.

I've just recently started messing with LoL a bit. I don't know how much (or at least how regularly) I'll be able to play, but for the moment I'm having fun trying all the characters I can and earning some IP for daily wins (against bots).

Interested in mid (or a solo lane, not entirely sure of the difference between mid/top), jungle and support.

So far I think I'm tending to favor assassin/caster types and junglers. I really enjoyed both Bard and Thresh from this week's rotation so far though.

Non-cheap hero I played so far and really like, but may not be too strong: Diana
Non-cheap hero I think I'd like and is maybe stronger, but I haven't played: Katarina

To start though, I don't see spending IP on much but the 450 IP tier (Ryze, Warwick, Yi, Soraka maybe).

I understand I can't jungle until level 10 (Smite). Jungle also seems complicated.

Every champion is plenty viable through Platnium level. So never worry about how "strong a champion is" certainly early on. I thrive on playing champions that are considered "weak" because people don't know the matchups as well as I do.

Early on I would recommend on focusing on 2 main things.
Basic Mechanics - Last hitting, skill shots etc.
Learning champions - There is a lot of champions but knowing what they can do is key in learning to fight as or against them.

If you have not done another LoL like game it is a lot to learn up front. Most people have years experience so mostly I would just be ignore negative chat comments and just learn what you can.

For learning champions, I suggest playing some ARAM games. It won't help you with laning, last hitting, or knowing what is going on when you are playing on Summoner's Rift, but it is a good way to get low pressure introductions to a lot of different champions for you to play, play with ,and play against.

Thanks for the tips, guys. I haven't tried ARAM yet. It looks like a big group of free heroes this week, with quote a few I'm especially excited to try.

Really old post but thought it was funny

http://9gag.com/gag/arpxw5B?ref=fb.s

Biiiiiiiig changes coming to runes.

Rad, the rune system is so terrible in that game.

It is terrible and I am happy to see the change. I do hope however I get something reasonable being I have 100% rune unlock and 20 rune pages.

escher77 wrote:

I do hope however I get something reasonable being I have 100% rune unlock and 20 rune pages.

They say they're going to compensate for that investment, but we'll have to see if it's a reasonable compensation. I'm betting they're not going to be tossing RP back at us. Maybe some IP and keys.

I totally forgot that the Honor System existed, I just assumed they hadn't put it in the new client.

Also...yeah, the runes sucked. I have been playing for years and never bought more than 2 rune pages, an AD and an AP page. Glad they are simplifying both that and masteries into one system with hopefully more meaningful choices.

Not sure why but I was suddenly interested in playing after only ever doing the basic tutorial back in... 2010?

The game sure is prettier than I remember it being. Did baby’s first pub comp stomp last night and had a good time of it. Now... where do I sign up for my formal education and accreditation?

It's called solo queue

Forget that. If you want the informal "I don't even care, I'm just here for the hell of it and also esports" accreditation, then come join me over in the very infrequent games of only playing ARAM and pretending to know what you're doing.

I spent so much money, I miss this sometimes. Alas, HotS scratches the same itch, and better, most times.

Stele wrote:

I spent so much money, I miss this sometimes. Alas, HotS scratches the same itch, and better, most times.

How funny. The only things that favor HotS in my opinion is the shortness of the games and the general lack of toxicity. However, there's less communication in HotS anyway, so it evens out.

Is there any established time during the week when GWJers get together to play League? If not would there be any interest in establishing something like that?

I have been interested in getting together with GWJers to play some games but never really saw many people on. So if you set something up I would be interested in playing a few games a week.

I'm a long-time Dota player, been playing for close to 10 years now, and with a firm sense of rivalry between Dota and LoL. I've often been quite vocal about my distaste for the game, but...I'd never really played it other than a short, biassed experiment a few years ago.

Since moving into a unit behind some close friends who are avid players, I figured I'd give it a good honest try and see what all the fuss is about. I have so many mixed feelings, but the most important thing, I think, is that I'm really excited to play again.

I understand the flow of the game, but I also find myself getting cought out by different mechanics. A few notable examples:

  • Tower aggro. Omg tower aggro! In Dota, hitting an opponent with a spell while under tower range is safe. I'm continually poking like this but keep eating tower hits. Similarly, Dota lets you attack-target a friendly unit to reset aggro onto the closest allied unit...As far as I can tell, LoL towers will hit you until you move away.
  • You have so much mana in LoL? I'm using abilities to last hit! In Dota, you'll typically use a skill 2-3 times in lane and be out of mana. Dota seems heavier on resource management, LoL let's you use everthing all the time.
  • LoL is much more beginner friendly. It seems to have a "nobody left behind" approach. No gold penalty on death, no long stuns, no abilities that take off more half or more HP. Everything feels less impactful. I prefer Dota's focus on big plays and shutting down players, but it's nice to see how LoL has approached accessibility.
  • Every champion having a passive is neat. Dota sometimes has heroes with more than the 4 standard skills, but it's a cool way of creating new playstyles. I like it!
  • Paid or long-term players have a huge advantage in LoL. I don't have the optional skills (tied to D and F) that my friends do. If I need to play a certain character to counter an opponents pick, I can't. I really dislike this, and prefer Dota's style of having everybody on equal footing. Competitive games should be about skill, and nothing more.
  • Geez, the map is so tiny! I suppose it's offset by not having items that let you teleport to friendly structures...But I was shocked how small it was.

Anyway, it's neat! I'm having fun. I still prefer Dota, but I'm looking forward to playing with more friends who play LoL (I have...a single Dota playing friend, vs maybe 15 LoL playing friends). Does anyone else have much experience with Dota, and could lend me a few pointers?

Couple of things regarding your initial take. They are very different games in the same genre with focus on different aspects.

  • Towers are kind of meant to be a "safe" space early on in the game, where you can retreat too and try and get some last hits for gold if your opponent is pressuring you too hard. The more you learn how they towers work, the easier it becomes to juggle their aggro and make plays underneath them. For example, towers do increasing damage the more times they hit a player up to a cap. This "heating" doesn't reset until it fires on a minion, and I think a couple seasons ago they changed it to not completely reset after one hit. The only way to drop aggro from a turret is to leave its targeting range and let it choose another target, or become untargetable.
  • Mana management varies by champion. Some champions can get really strapped for mana, others are meant to use their abilities frequently and if they overuse them, mana becomes a problem. Some champions have no mana or alternate resources.
  • A year or two ago they changed assassins' "time to kill" to be about a second, so that your team always has a chance to react to them coming in. And while no single spell can 100-0 you, some champions have kits that when they use all their spells will accomplish this. But yes, they do want everyone to have a chance to play the game. Also, the meta we are currently in is extremely tank heavy, drawing fights out quite a long time. There have been points in League where entire team fights were over in 5 seconds.
  • Some passives are cool, some feel weird.
  • Only thing paying real money can get you over other players is champion selection, which isn't as big a deal as it is in DOTA. In DOTA, they have champions that will "hard-counter" other champions, so a lane matchup with go 80-20 in their favor. However, LoL tries for "soft-counters" so that you don't feel completely shut out of a game just because of champion select. These matches aim for a 60/40, so that one player has an advantage, but smart plays can keep the "loser" in the game to impact outside of lane.
  • Those optional skills (called Summoner Spells) are gated by account level to try and keep complexity down early for new players. You should unlock them rather quickly as they sped up leveling and I think the last one unlocks at level 12 (which is the one everyone uses on every champion basically).
  • Trust me, it can feel HUGE when something is going on on the opposite side of the map and you are trying to make it there to help. People have done tests about how long it takes to traverse the map and it is quite significant (like 20-30 seconds to go from base to middle of map)

Hope you stick around and have fun!

Not really posting that much cool information, but I just wanted to post some gameplay thoughts as of 8.4 as a silver ADC main

1. I miss being able to carry games after leaving lane. Having 3-5 kills after laning phase is over doesn't mean you'll be able to carry as hard: team coordination is key.

2. Because of it being a team coordinated meta, this means that every game is winnable. Yesterday I was playing Ezreal (enemy picked my xayah), and was pretty behind after laning phase: think 0-3 or 0-4. My jungle ganked early and gave away a kill to their adc, so she got early damage and I wasn't able to fight through my early game lull of tear/sheen. Also, the enemy support was an AP Sion with aery. His minion throw onto me was hella hard to dodge and I kept getting chunked and hit with his aery. I had a Rakan who wasn't able to do much because of Sion's strengths right now.

3. ADC Meta is kinda weird atm for me. Outside of Xayah, all of the 'late game auto attacking ADCs seem to be out of meta. See, twitch, trist, Kog. The bot lane is all about that mid-game power spike (Varus after rageblade, Xayah with 2 items.

4. Been playing the game off and on since season 4. The game still feels fresh, I just hope for the day itemizaiton isn't just IE/Essence Reaver+ 2 Attack Speed Crit items + Survivability/armor pen.

5. Solo lanes feel useless as heck unless they manage to snowball their side lane or both side lanes. Waveclear+ roam, rinse and repeat.

Throwback Thursday

IMAGE(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2767/4302956070_5e2d63e42b_o.jpg)

eesh. i don't even recognize half those names.

There's only 3-4 that no longer game with the community. The rest are relatively active within specific game types

Honestly, HotS has stolen me away from LoL for the most part. I like LoL more, but the community is crap. The games I play in HotS are comp-stomps for now and I'm just fine with that. Players are basically competent and decent, with a few outliers. Games are shorter and not nearly as depressing when you lose. I wish LoL could steal some of that HotS magic, but I'm not holding my breath.

I haven't played LoL in a few years now. At the end I got on a hellacious winning streak queuing up solo, and you know how that goes... what goes up must come down. I figured it was probably never gonna be better than that and took a break and just never went back.

I miss playing with Goodjers but not really the game itself. Just too many bad games over the years that went on and on and on. I also picked up HotS along the way and now prefer it due to game length and lack of itemization. There are still bad games, but they are over a lot faster.

I do wish HotS had a role selector like LoL did, though. Matchmaking/team comps are still all over the place in Quickmatch.

Yeah HotS is just easier.

I miss some of the characters, skins, and powers in LoL. But never the player base, and never all the ridiculous ways to make you spend money for no good reason like runes.

Runes got reworked, all free now and combined with masteries

It really feels like HotS is the McDonalds of MOBAS: quick, easy, not overly complex, but very competent. So you get the highs in LoL that you can't get in HotS, but you also get real lows, where your team is just incompetent.

I thought so early on but ... Not really? There are just different tradeoffs... e.g., differentiation by talent selection rather than itemization. There's still a lot going on under the hood, especially when you take multiple maps with different strategies for each into account.

I have more thoughts on the two models that I'll share later when I'm not typing on my phone.

Anyone still playing this? Sometimes I think fondly of Teemo.