League Of Legends Catch All

jollyeskimo wrote:

I've almost completely stopped buying Kitae's Bloodrazor on Kog as you can power level your W much faster than you can in Summoner's Rift games, and you basically become the late-game beast that Kog is in almost 10 minutes without having to work for the farm.

Love the Lightbringer option. So many bushes in Dominion this really helps.

But why not Bloodrazor for the endgame? It REALLY helps against tanks when you have your AS built up. You're basically adding 5% direct damage to your standard damage every second.

I lied. Dominion was WAY broken in a TON of ways. Graphical glitches moving the points, abilities not going off. Things were not right!!

Xerath is way evil in Dominion, especially at the top capture point. He can sit out of range of the tower and still nail you from the sides pretty well. I'm thinking of spending the IP and buying him. Looks like a lot of fun with his ability combos and harass ability.

_Free_ wrote:
Stele wrote:

Reduced the time range of the respawns to help early winning teams finish games

What does this mean?

You respawn in waves in Dominion, a la TF2, so it's probably a reduction in the wave timer or something.

carrotpanic wrote:

Noob Stardate -311239.9875380518

Morgana - Really dig her. Q's got huge range, W is a natural combo for locked champs, and good for pushing creep. E can get you out of some tough jams, especially with the spell block. Ult is really useful in team fights as well. She's a winner!

Always best to drop the W and then hit with the E. W gives the target a debuff that reduces MR. It isn't always possible, but is ideal.

I'm a big fan of Ghost on Morg. That way when you Ult and people run for the hills you can Ghost to keep up.

ELewis17 wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

Noob Stardate -311239.9875380518

Morgana - Really dig her. Q's got huge range, W is a natural combo for locked champs, and good for pushing creep. E can get you out of some tough jams, especially with the spell block. Ult is really useful in team fights as well. She's a winner!

Always best to drop the W and then hit with the E. W gives the target a debuff that reduces MR. It isn't always possible, but is ideal.

I'm a big fan of Ghost on Morg. That way when you Ult and people run for the hills you can Ghost to keep up.

I love ulting and then hitting someone with the Q. YOU CAN'T LEAVE.

_Free_ wrote:

Love the Lightbringer option. So many bushes in Dominion this really helps.

But why not Bloodrazor for the endgame? It REALLY helps against tanks when you have your AS built up. You're basically adding 5% direct damage to your standard damage every second.

It just feels like Kog does enough damage that it works out better if I went with more defense/lifesteal/AP/etc. The range on his W/R is his strength and keeps him from getting blown up, so I avoid fights where that I'm going to be attacking without my W or at point blank range. I favour hybrid "defense" items like Wit's End and Atma's Impaler for later in the game depending on how I'm getting blown up... been wanting to try Hextech Gunblade, but the few times that I had it just felt like it wasn't as effective as a Bloodthirster/Starks would've been.

I bought Xerath. I REALLY dig him. His ult is actually an insane farming tool in the mid game, and seems to have cured my mid-game stagnation problem. With his lockdown range increase thing, he just has ridiculous range for his Q, which also seems to do AOE on everything in a line, which again, makes him an awesome farmer.

jollyeskimo wrote:
_Free_ wrote:

Love the Lightbringer option. So many bushes in Dominion this really helps.

But why not Bloodrazor for the endgame? It REALLY helps against tanks when you have your AS built up. You're basically adding 5% direct damage to your standard damage every second.

It just feels like Kog does enough damage that it works out better if I went with more defense/lifesteal/AP/etc. The range on his W/R is his strength and keeps him from getting blown up, so I avoid fights where that I'm going to be attacking without my W or at point blank range. I favour hybrid "defense" items like Wit's End and Atma's Impaler for later in the game depending on how I'm getting blown up... been wanting to try Hextech Gunblade, but the few times that I had it just felt like it wasn't as effective as a Bloodthirster/Starks would've been.

Makes sense.

BTW, we saw a Jax last night with 3 Hextech Gunblades. He was completely unstoppable as he'd heal quicker than we could deal damage. Stuns worked, but we'd need 2 or 3 to kill him, which we only did a few times.

Even when we did kill him, it took 3 of us to do so, leaving 2v4 for the most of points.

I really think Riot needs to do something about stacking the same item over and over in Dominion. since you get money so fast, it can really break a game. Yah I know "don't let him get enough money for 3 blades", but that's not the answer to a clear balance issue.

Maybe institute caps for lifesteal/spell vamp similar to tenacity/AS caps?

All I know is that it was not a fun game to play.

rabbit wrote:

I bought Xerath. I REALLY dig him. His ult is actually an insane farming tool in the mid game, and seems to have cured my mid-game stagnation problem. With his lockdown range increase thing, he just has ridiculous range for his Q, which also seems to do AOE on everything in a line, which again, makes him an awesome farmer.

Also, if you stack a little health and magic resist he gets fairly tanky.
This is how I built him:
RoA
cooldown boots
Deathfire cap
lichbane
abysal scepter
Rylai's

_Free_ wrote:

BTW, we saw a Jax last night with 3 Hextech Gunblades. He was completely unstoppable as he'd heal quicker than we could deal damage. Stuns worked, but we'd need 2 or 3 to kill him, which we only did a few times.

Even when we did kill him, it took 3 of us to do so, leaving 2v4 for the most of points.

I really think Riot needs to do something about stacking the same item over and over in Dominion. since you get money so fast, it can really break a game. Yah I know "don't let him get enough money for 3 blades", but that's not the answer to a clear balance issue.

Maybe institute caps for lifesteal/spell vamp similar to tenacity/AS caps?

All I know is that it was not a fun game to play.

There's a couple of options... go for heal reduction with Ignite, items like Executioner's Calling, or champions with healing debuffs like MF/Trist/Kat, or alternately negate his dodge procs with Sword of the Divine. Jax is a pretty rough counter for a team with lots of autoattackers, I suspect you just had a team comp that didn't really work against him.

Login queue, sigh. And I was hoping to get my win of the day in before playing some Portal 2 and online boardgames.

Riot's login queue is a lying jerk.

"Approximate wait time: 30 sec"

Thirty seconds later: "The server is currently busy. Please try again later."

Try again. "Approximate wait time: 5 min"

Five minutes later: "The server is currently busy. Please try again later."

Third try. "Approximate wait time: 20 min"

Yeah... thanks.

Servers went down, and just came back up. I'm in the queue now hopefully it doesnt give me the "server is busy" any more.

Doesn't even give me the option to type in my password now.

Restarting results in... the Play button on the updater being grayed out... Blah!

It says in the client that they're working on it...

In unrelated news...

WTF is with dumbasses running all over the map trying to cap points on the other side and pinging the hell out of them on the map when we can't control the ones on our side from being overrun because we're stretched too thin just so they can hold their position for 5 lousy seconds before the other team swarms on that spot like angry bees!!!!! Five games today and all five degenerated into that unnecessary strained gameplay where half my team is dead from trying those stupid tactics! ARGH!!! PUBBIES!!!!

I know we have a bunch of new people playing and I just thought I would let them know how to win:

awright guys, this is a "help me come up with something because a friend of mine is about to quit the game" post. Bunch of us recently got into this and had a blast playing games inhouse both against bots and against each other on SR and TT respectively this past weekend. However, this friend of mine is not JUST "getting it" and is getting frustrated to the point of quitting the game.

His first character purchased is Miss Fortune and he's been working on trying to get her. Sadly, it's just not happening so far. I've watched replays of our games and tried to give him pointers (last hit, you're getting WAY too close to melee characters, adapt your gear to game situations, etc), pointed his way to youtube videos giving tips on how to play her, etc. As a complete package it's just not working for him.

So after going over the tier listing, he decided maybe he just needed a change of scenery and wanted to try Morgana since she's listed at the very top of tier 1 now. We set up a practice bot game and I chose Tryndamere, who's a new character for me. Even though I spent most of the game jungling just to let him experiment, I went after him a couple of times and it really did not go well. With him getting impatient again after only one game with Morgana, I offered to take Morgana and lane against him playing Miss Fortune so I could show him my style of play with her. That made him even more baffled as he insisted he was using the same techniques with her (and to Miss Fortune to some extent) but that it just never seemed to do sh*t, especially against melee characters. He ended the round 0/6/0, got tremendously frustrated at getting no kills whatsoever, and went to bed in a huff.

So the question is, have any of you out there had similar issues and gotten better with practice? Any that didn't and just gave up? Any other advice you can think of offering him? He is new enough that he generally follows the recommended gear, but after watching him play I can say (mostly) that gear isn't the issue. Thanks guys.

Jow wrote:

awright guys, this is a "help me come up with something because a friend of mine is about to quit the game" post...

So after going over the tier listing, he decided maybe he just needed a change of scenery and wanted to try Morgana since she's listed at the very top of tier 1 now. We set up a practice bot game and I chose Tryndamere, who's a new character for me. Even though I spent most of the game jungling just to let him experiment, I went after him a couple of times and it really did not go well. With him getting impatient again after only one game with Morgana, I offered to take Morgana and lane against him playing Miss Fortune so I could show him my style of play with her. That made him even more baffled as he insisted he was using the same techniques with her (and to Miss Fortune to some extent) but that it just never seemed to do sh*t, especially against melee characters. He ended the round 0/6/0, got tremendously frustrated at getting no kills whatsoever, and went to bed in a huff.

Now I don't know your friend, and I'm only looking at anecdotal evidence here, so don't bite my head off if I'm way off base, but this looks similar to behaviour I have seen playing other games, particularly time I spent playing Magic the Gathering, casually and competitively.

I have a good friend, who I sometimes find it a chore to play with because he is always complaining that luck is against him, his opponents got really lucky, and he gets very frustrated easily, gets in a huff and it affects his play for the next games too. There is a term for it, derived from poker I believe and it is called 'going on tilt'. This is where you let your emotions override your reason, and it makes you play poorly but you don't really realise it, and you are just re-enforcing the idea that the game is against you.

Some people have a hard time realising that they are making mistakes, and an even harder time admitting it, and often they don't take kindly to being told that they did. Sometimes this manifests in going on tilt, other times (that you see a lot in solo queue) they blame everyone but themselves for the results.

Unfortunately I don't really have a good solution for how to help. I don't play that many games with my friend now, we are more likely to hang out with a beer and watch sports. I tried explaining to him that being easily frustrated was compounding his issues, and he needed to take a step back and try and focus calmly on his play, but he always reverted to type.

A final point is that Morgana's main weakness is against strong melee DPS characters exactly like Tryndamere. She is much better against other mages and squishy ranged DPS. So perhaps re-run the training session with you playing something less threatening and let him work on his skills with her. Morgana takes time to play well, I have logged over a 100 games with her and I'm still learning ways to optimise her play.

Jow wrote:

awright guys, this is a "help me come up with something because a friend of mine is about to quit the game" post. Bunch of us recently got into this and had a blast playing games inhouse both against bots and against each other on SR and TT respectively this past weekend. However, this friend of mine is not JUST "getting it" and is getting frustrated to the point of quitting the game.

His first character purchased is Miss Fortune and he's been working on trying to get her. Sadly, it's just not happening so far. I've watched replays of our games and tried to give him pointers (last hit, you're getting WAY too close to melee characters, adapt your gear to game situations, etc), pointed his way to youtube videos giving tips on how to play her, etc. As a complete package it's just not working for him.

So after going over the tier listing, he decided maybe he just needed a change of scenery and wanted to try Morgana since she's listed at the very top of tier 1 now. We set up a practice bot game and I chose Tryndamere, who's a new character for me. Even though I spent most of the game jungling just to let him experiment, I went after him a couple of times and it really did not go well. With him getting impatient again after only one game with Morgana, I offered to take Morgana and lane against him playing Miss Fortune so I could show him my style of play with her. That made him even more baffled as he insisted he was using the same techniques with her (and to Miss Fortune to some extent) but that it just never seemed to do sh*t, especially against melee characters. He ended the round 0/6/0, got tremendously frustrated at getting no kills whatsoever, and went to bed in a huff.

So the question is, have any of you out there had similar issues and gotten better with practice? Any that didn't and just gave up? Any other advice you can think of offering him? He is new enough that he generally follows the recommended gear, but after watching him play I can say (mostly) that gear isn't the issue. Thanks guys.

First off, why did he pick MF as his first purchase? Not only is she as expensive as anyone in the game, she's not a great choice for new players. Her ult is very difficult to land and she is very dependent on building her correctly. He could have stashed his RP/IP (guessing he spent RP b/c he'd be a lot better at the game if had accumulated 6300 IP) and just got Ashe/Annie/Nunu/Soraka after a few matches.

Secondly, why is a complete noob even aware of the tier list, let alone basing decisions off it? This will continue to be a problem as he thinks he's "trying only the best" champs and failing with them. They're not the best for him, they're the best for teams of 5 of people who have played thousands of matches. The best champs for him will be a completely different list.

Have him play easy-to-learn champs against beginner bots. Riot provides a "difficulty" bar on all their champs. I'm sure some Goodjers here would know best who to play for beginners as they've been teaching the game for a long time. Personally, I started with Ashe/Annie and mostly used Annie. She's incredibly simple once you get her passive stun timing down and she wrecks faces.

Eventually he'll get the basics down (how towers/creeps work, how items work, getting used to using QWER/DF efficiently) and then he'll be ready for PvP. If he plays PvP against people with the same level as him, he should be fine.

Have him play the the tutorial*

If this is too troublesome then... well.. er..

Simple concepts you should get by the end of the tutorial:

Last hitting creeps (basically all your early game gold).

Take objectives (kills are a nice, but if you don't use that advantage for anything then what's the point?)
-Buffs, Dragon, Towers

The map awareness.. Well, I am still terrible about going into tunnel vision from time to time.. This one is going to take a while

Honestly, if he isn't enjoying the game, he shouldn't play it.
In order to play this game you can't get overly frustrated over failure. The only way to get better, past the point of learning about the game outside the game, is to play. The learning process should be enjoyable and if he feels like it's just a grind and isn't having fun, he should stop playing. Maybe the game just isn't his style.

Also, have him play coop AI games. They are stress free and a good way to practice game mechanics.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Also, have him play coop AI games. They are stress free and a good way to practice game mechanics.

This.

Until you're summoner level 20 and actually have runes, you'll be at a disadvantage in random pvp when matched with anyone over 20. And it's not worth wasting IP on the earlier runes when you can be buying champions instead. And until summoner 10 beginner bots give 100% xp/ip. And until level 29, intermediate bots give 100% xp/ip. That's a whole lot of time to learn, and still get rewards. You should be able to confidently crush intermediate bots with a champion before playing them in pvp. Learn their abilities and get a basic plan for a build by killing bots and then take them to pvp.

_Free_ wrote:

Have him play easy-to-learn champs against beginner bots. Riot provides a "difficulty" bar on all their champs. I'm sure some Goodjers here would know best who to play for beginners as they've been teaching the game for a long time. Personally, I started with Ashe/Annie and mostly used Annie. She's incredibly simple once you get her passive stun timing down and she wrecks faces.

And this (and the rest of the post I snipped). Miss Fortune is not easy to play, nor is she as strong as Ashe, Annie, or Tristana (free from Facebook). Cheap ranged champs that are easy to learn and also highly effective the better you get with them.

I really don't think you're at that much of a disadvantage without runes (even in that video with min/maxed runes/masteries against a completely stock character it was the difference of a hit or two--at non pro levels that can be mitigated with smart play). It's more important to play people to understand how people play, once your basic competencies up. I don't think you benefit from playing bots at all once you hit, say, level 10.

That being said, this friend should definitely chill with some bots.

carrotpanic wrote:

I really don't think you're at that much of a disadvantage without runes (even in that video with min/maxed runes/masteries against a completely stock character it was the difference of a hit or two--at non pro levels that can be mitigated with smart play). It's more important to play people to understand how people play, once your basic competencies up. I don't think you benefit from playing bots at all once you hit, say, level 10.

That being said, this friend should definitely chill with some bots.

Agreed. After he's got the fundies down, he needs to play PvP and only PvP. You learn the game so much faster and you deal with opponents that have brains. Even if it's his first time with a champ, after level 10 (if not earlier) he needs to be PvPin'. Also, it's just so much more fun!

As long as he's solo queue or with people of similar level, that should be just fine as his opponents will be as bad as him.

Miss Fortune is a terrible first character. Unlike the aforementioned Ashe and Tristana, she has zero defensive/escape abilities and is therefore 100% dependent on positioning and map awareness, which are two of the most difficult concepts to master for any player. The difficulty meter Riot has under the champions should be taken lightly.

You can try to help your friend with the suggestions mentioned above, but I'm with Fedora. This probably just isn't the game for him. I've played Dota, WoW arena, and other similar style pvp games with plenty of people just like your friend, and many of them were lost causes. Some people just aren't cut out for the big leagues

It's not about getting good at the game, it's about having fun. No matter how much you play there is always more to learn. I've played 1500+ games and still learn and grow every game. Even the best players in the world are far from masters of the game.

_Free_ wrote:

fundies

luls

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

It's not about getting good at the game, it's about having fun. No matter how much you play there is always more to learn. I've played 1500+ games and still learn and grow every game. Even the best players in the world are far from masters of the game.

Indeed. Just to clarify my statement above, I wasn't referring to player skill. Some people just seem to have a hard time dealing with the stress and responsibility that is inherent in this kind of competitive, team based game.

Thanks for all the responses, guys. Bunch of stuff to reply to.

Torq: You actually hit the nail somewhat on the head in that he is not patient with himself at all and is very quick to pronounce a champion worthless (as he has with Miss Fortune) or completely broken (as he did with Jax after some 3v3 over the weekend). In addition, he IS a really emotional guy at times so once the top few cards get knocked off the whole house starts falling in. Didn't really occur to me that Tryndamere was a natural counter - I'll have to see if he's willing to try again.

_Free_: I honestly don't know why he picked Miss Fortune. As far as I know it was a completely blind purchase. As for the tier list, I am the one to blame for him being aware of the tier list. He was so bent on declaring Miss Fortune a completely worthless champ that I brought up Miss Fortune's current positioning in tier 2 as someone's experienced opinion, hoping that he'd realize she wasn't worthless and that he just needed to be more patient with her. Instead, he took home that there are a bunch of inferior champs and that he was immediately going to start checking out tier 1s and not bothering with anyone else. *sigh* As for the choice of champs, he's already a bit constrained because in the group we play with, one of the guys mains Annie and I main Ashe. He prefers to try someone different just for that reason. I think I might recommend he try Soraka. Basics: he's actually got the basics down pretty well... creep patterns, how the towers work, triggering his abilities at-will, etc. What I think is confounding him are more advanced topics like situational awareness, positioning, and really understanding what it is the champs he's fighting against can do.

Sitrikecho: See above - he's definitely beyond the tutorial now I think. When I say I'm reminding him about last-hitting, I mean specifically telling him not to constantly auto-attack in the spirit of getting him to understand the positioning of where the minion fights end up.

Multiple people mentioned coop bot games. We've actually done a lot of these. Basic and beginner difficulty bots are a snoozefest for all of us now (including him) but as a group (with 2 guys even newer than the friend I've been talking about) we were 0-for-5 or so against the intermediates.

Edit:

I sent him some of your advice and this is what he said:

I never think the game is a grind. WOW is a grind. And RIFT now too. Is it frustrating as all hell, YES. After we talked I did decide to play some more, just me against AI unless you want to jump in but on my side if you want to. Maybe I just need to be more observant of the situation and adjust faster. As far as why I picked Fortune, I just liked her attributes. I don’t want to play anybody that you guys are already on your way to mastering. So Annie and Ashe are out. Soraka, isn’t she basically support? That is not what I want to do. I will focus on Morgana and Fortune.

He's not giving up yet!