The Gaming Den

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2015 11:58 pm**

I've never actually had under 80 ping. Is it really that much of a difference?

Also It feels like Vel'koz is really underrated. He's been sort of my main for a while now and it feels like he does well against everyone. You have really good waveclear with W so even if you're doing badly you don't get punished that hard. You also have good poke and kiting plus an ult that rocks faces in teamfights.

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2015 1:22 am**

I'm on the west coast, but I'm not too worried about the server move. Back when I first started playing League I was on a crappy WiFi connection shared by my roommates and the landlady's family, so I was at 100 ping pretty often. I agree that it's completely playable. The real problem wasn't consistent ping in the 80-120 range, it was occasional unpredictable spikes from 100 to 300 for several seconds at a time. As long as my ping stays ~30ms higher instead of being unpredictable I'll be fine.

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2015 1:43 am**

Lord Mistborn wrote:I've never actually had under 80 ping. Is it really that much of a difference?

Also It feels like Vel'koz is really underrated. He's been sort of my main for a while now and it feels like he does well against everyone. You have really good waveclear with W so even if you're doing badly you don't get punished that hard. You also have good poke and kiting plus an ult that rocks faces in teamfights.

I haven't mid against a vel koz i couldn't beat. Usually, on the rare occasion I go mid I do so with Vlad, TF, or Talon. Vel has one actual move I really care about and the rest just require me to dodge skill shots. I would guess the reason he isn't rated very high is because of how hard he can be punished for minor mistakes. He has a single move he can use to not be killed and his ult isn't that impressive outside of a team fight. Having said that I've never tried to pay a "real" game with him myself and usually random him up from time to time with mixed results.

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2015 2:14 am**

Well pretty much every mage is going to be garbage if they can't land their skillshots. And the Ult is actually pretty good for getting kills in lane if you know what you're doing.

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2015 5:55 am**

Lord Mistborn wrote:Well pretty much every mage is going to be garbage if they can't land their skillshots. And the Ult is actually pretty good for getting kills in lane if you know what you're doing.

It's not just that he has to hit his skill shots it's that his among mages is easier to deal with. His kit just doesn't strike me as that good. His Q is his furthest ranged attack and doesn't hit that much of an area. Pre 6 I really only worry about not getting knocked up. Other than that I win trades (as long as I'm not being hassled by the jungler) and beat him at pushing. Post 6 I'll just push him up against tower and straight up leave to feed on top or bottom. I don't have trouble farming it up with TF and Vlad. I may not murder koz with those two every time but he doesn't give me any trouble. With Talon once I get big enough to own him there's not much people have been able to do about it. It used to be super easy but then they took his silence away so it's a bit harder now.

I don't play mid very often so I don't know how other champs fair against him though. Only the ones I typically use when going mid (at least in ranked) I use more people in normals but I very, very rarely see a velkoz that's not a support anymore.

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2015 3:25 pm**

There was a pro game in Korea where someone on Vel destroyed Faker on Azir. I feel like he could be very good, but not exciting enough for me to play.

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2015 3:56 pm**

Vel is good at poking with skills that are kind of threatening to get hit because they set up his other skills, so he's good against low-mobility mages. But he's a low-mobility mage himself, so he gets destroyed by mobile mages always and other low-mobility mages if they dodge his shit. He doesn't have an obvious niche like "I hit R and now your carry is dead" Viktor, "My DPS is higher than an ADC, also SHURIMA" Azir, "I killed somebody from 1,000 range because I landed a single spell that guaranteed my combo" Lux, or "Nowhere is safe" Xerath.

Vel'Koz is a decent teamfight threat who has no presence outside of lane because he is squishy, slow, and definitely dies if he misses E in any reasonably matched 1v1 situation. Most mages don't rely so heavily on a single skill.

Play Vel'Koz as support and he's pretty good if you grab a slippery or long-range adc. Play him as a mid if you're really, really fucking confident in hitting E and poking.

And finally, Vel'Koz doesn't scale super well outside of CDR (which is cuckoo bananas because his passive is fucking true damage). I think new Rylai's would be pretty impressive on him because of how his W works, though. Slowing on that spell would be fucking bonkers area denial.

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2015 5:49 pm**

Vel may not have an obvious "niche" but he's sort of 2nd best at everything you'd want any immobile mage for. So he's good if you want to main 1 specific champions or you're early in the pick order and you want to keep your options open.

Posted: **Mon Aug 17, 2015 4:54 pm**

I've been playing some rework Fiora and she is amazing. Far more interesting than her old version, though a bit overtuned with the recent buffs.

This balance patch also seems enormous. I'm really want to see a Mordekaiser bot lane in competitive.

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:22 am**

I've been enjoying the reworked Fiora. The change on repost has made laning against her as Quinn much easier. I suspect that the blind also affects the lunge, but I'm not sure. I'm sure I'll see someone go nuts with her, but it hasn't happened yet.

edit This is as good a time as any to rage about the LCS finals.
Dammit Team Liquid you tossers.

Posted: **Sat Aug 29, 2015 1:47 pm**

These tank nerfs are strange as hell (same with the buffs to Garen, Morde, Darius, and Skarner). I never thought I'd see the day Morde was a permaban.

Posted: **Sun Aug 30, 2015 1:42 am**

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:These tank nerfs are strange as hell (same with the buffs to Garen, Morde, Darius, and Skarner). I never thought I'd see the day Morde was a permaban.

I've seen some pretty strong Morde tops (before his lil rework) so I've not doubted that morde can be effective but the way he is now, dealing with him is a pain in the ass. I also don't get the villain thing with Garen or how it makes him better designed but whatever. Naut is still good at being support (against a bunch of other tanky sups) so I don't care a lot. People (in my elo) seem to be figuring out how to deal with yi but he's still banned an awful lot. I apparently am amazingly good with cait all of a sudden so I've been using her almost exclusively as my adc. A lot of people pick vayne right now, so that helps make laning pretty easy.

Posted: **Mon Aug 31, 2015 3:44 pm**

This game is so much more fun with mid-30 ping. Fuck skillshots, I can dodge now.

Posted: **Mon Sep 07, 2015 4:09 am**

I didn't notice this but Darius is fuckin' strong right now. He'd been banned so much recently I haven't really had time to appreciate it but fuck this last match showed me. I go naut jungle and come out ganking hard at level two. We're 16 and 8 mid game. I go to gank top and this darius has an 8th of his HP and beats me without his ult from half HP (had just killed their jungle as was trying to finish him off). He persists to be a big fucking deal for the rest of the match. I won it (because I didn't bother to build damage and could out tank him and Hec) but fuck was it harder than I think it should have been.

Posted: **Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:20 am**

MGuy wrote:I didn't notice this but Darius is fuckin' strong right now. He'd been banned so much recently I haven't really had time to appreciate it but fuck this last match showed me. I go naut jungle and come out ganking hard at level two. We're 16 and 8 mid game. I go to gank top and this darius has an 8th of his HP and beats me without his ult from half HP (had just killed their jungle as was trying to finish him off). He persists to be a big fucking deal for the rest of the match. I won it (because I didn't bother to build damage and could out tank him and Hec) but fuck was it harder than I think it should have been.

Skarner, Morde, and Darius are all permabans. Garen is a common ban too.

Yay for way overcompensating with buffs...

Posted: **Wed Sep 09, 2015 4:24 am**

All of them are gonna get slammed next patch, along with GP and Fiora.

Has anyone else seen the new champ teasers? Looks like a two-character champion.

Posted: **Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:47 pm**

It's weird that Vayne is getting banned right now. That's weird, right?

Also, I'm back up to 60 LP in D1. I might actually go for Masters just to see if I can. I'm close, apparently still good enough, and there's plenty of time left in the season. I'm only confident in my ADC and Support play right now, but when I get one of those I win a lot more often than not. My Jinx, Ashe, Vayne, Leona, and Janna are all rocking 60%+ winrates (combined is around 70%) and they're some of my most played in solo queue.

Maybe I'll steam next weekend and waste spend a whole day going for it.

Posted: **Thu Oct 08, 2015 5:01 pm**

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:It's weird that Vayne is getting banned right now. That's weird, right?

Not weird at my Elo. The phrase "Focus the ADC" seems to pass right over the head of people in most games. Personally I'm not too worried about her because Caitlyn is good against her early game, so 'if' I'm the ADC in a game vs her I usually am able to dominate her early game as long as my support isn't stupid.

Posted: **Thu Oct 08, 2015 5:21 pm**

...You Lost Me wrote: Has anyone else seen the new champ teasers? Looks like a two-character champion.

Lamb and Wolf, aka Kindred.

Buddy of mine's into League and he's been excited about it. Knew I'd dig the flavor (they're a psychopomp. Lamb is the death you don't see coming and Wolf is the death you do) and linked me to the wiki about it.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Kindred

Posted: **Thu Oct 08, 2015 6:25 pm**

Champion concept mechanics seem pretty shit for the most part, but the champion spotlight didn't show how their passive works in the jungle, so no idea what clear looks like.

Ult is a nice crazy bonkers banananananananana level ult, easily weirder and more niche, but more possibly OP than Bards.

Posted: **Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:21 pm**

Two more games, two more wins; I'm up to 90 LP in D1.

Kindred looks fucking weird. Is it supposed to be two champs at once (Edit: As in two champs you control using Alt to use the "secondary")? I can't tell.

Posted: **Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:50 pm**

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Two more games, two more wins; I'm up to 90 LP in D1.

Kindred looks fucking weird. Is it supposed to be two champs at once (Edit: As in two champs you control using Alt to use the "secondary")? I can't tell.

It looks to me like all the second champion effects are just abilities. You just activate an ability and your spirit buddy attacks the same champ you attack, or you activate and ability, and your spirit makes no one die in an AoE.

Posted: **Fri Oct 16, 2015 7:05 pm**

After playing with Kindred for a bit I am underwhelmed. Actually getting through the jungle wigh her is easy, ganking and team fights are decidedly not. I think Rito should have given her a stun or a snare because for a champ that has to warn her targets to get one of the better benefits of her passive sealing the deal is just not easy. She's not bad but with the nerf they made to the ranged devourer on top of her not having any hard CC I just cannot come up with a reason to use her over established jungles like panth, j4, vi, udyr, or nid. Is there something she is supposed to do that I am missing?

Posted: **Sat Oct 17, 2015 11:27 pm**

Well she's a marksman with on-hit %CurrentHP plus a life-saving ult. So you siege towers and take objectives, then put out lots of DPS in fights if you get peel.

Posted: **Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:45 am**

Edited from Skype with permission

League Buddy wrote: Well, I can see where they wouldn't be to someone's taste.
Main trouble I see is that they are definitely a farm jungle.

They take a while to get their damage, but have pretty strong clears. Early ganks are kind of mediocre, but not awful. So it's basically a thing where you do most of your work in the dark, unless you spot a good opportunity.

If you do that alright, late game, you emerge from the woods as a flat out killer with good utility. While I feel like she's a bad primary ADC, she's almost perfect for the role of a second ADC.
Bringing mobility, utility, pushing power (Wolf attacks towers) and more or less providing a good bit of damage while shoring up gaps. Lot of assorted useful.

Devourer is fucking awful on her anyway. Run Warrior. Build Armor Pen.

Yeah. You want armor penetration. She has good base damage but bad ratios, and gets a built in percentile damage.

And while she lacks hard cc, I was...pretty alright with what she has. She has a slow, and she has a way to get multiple dashes. More or less, she's a damage ganker. You drop your slow, put your dash down and use it to keep ahead of them and keep autoing their ass. Your laners should be coordinating with you. If they aren't, that's a problem.

I ramble, but on champions with bad ratios, but good base damage, you build penetration. Once you're up to 12% on hit damage, you don't need more damage or whatever, you need to make sure the 12% it says on the can is what they're taking.

I agree with the second person. Where I really had my best time was in coordinating with team-mates, and contesting objectives. As for the passive thing that warns someone? Don't activate it just as you're running into lane, that's stupid, it gives them a heads up. I honestly used it for mindgames. Enemy top laner was pushed up hard. I am nowhere near toplane, but I mark them anyway.It's a way to globally announce "I'm coming for you." even if you are, or aren't.

I also had success with the mark where....Okay. You can't choose a target in combat, and there's an 8 second delay before you can try to collect. I did pretty well with it dropping it on my way to teamfights and scrums where someone isn't going to be able to skeddadle in the 8 seconds, and I will note that I think one thing that's kind of bleh for soloqueue is where her ganks get awesome is when your laner is the ballsy one to engage.

I'm still unsure what smite to run on her, I ran Trailblazer just because she's new, I'm going to have to do some testing there.

The Gaming Den

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