League Of Losers

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:01 pm

I kind of wish they wouldn't rework heimer, he's always going to be "too good" or "too terrible" unless they change his turret mechanics a lot. Besides, I thought they replaced his ass with Zyra, who has actual interesting things she can do and real decisions to make.

Xerath rework looks...interesting at the very least.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:33 pm

What do you mean about the donger's turrets being too swingy?

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:53 pm

If you're in the spot that they are, they hit you for Tons of Damage (TM). If not, heimer's damage is below par for a mage because he's got only 2 abilities now.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:14 pm

I'm more concerned with how his turrets make him a ridiculously safe pusher because he pushes while not being around. Heimer is based off a terrible mechanic, having a permanent effect on the map, and that mechanic needs to be removed if he wants to be made viable.

Heimer is VERY GOOD at stalling games out. Nobody wants to dive a turret (and you can't siege it down with Heimer healing and Heimer's waveclear) guarded by two Heimer turrets, and minions get fucking melted. Heimer isn't terrible because his damage is low, he's terrible because he can't pick targets, has no mobility, unreliable CC, and his damage relies on immobile turrets.

To compare, Zyra plants are super fragile, go away after 10 seconds, and aren't permanent. Heimer turrets are decently tanky (and he can instantly heal them with his ult) and last forever. Get rid of them and you can balance Heimer properly, but then why even balance Heimer at all? It's just a new champion.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:22 pm

If he goes further than about the width of a lane, the turrets start to shut down, and totally shut down after eight seconds. They reactivate instantly once he comes within range, though.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:15 pm

Korgan0 wrote:If he goes further than about the width of a lane, the turrets start to shut down, and totally shut down after eight seconds. They reactivate instantly once he comes within range, though.

They gotta change that passive too. Healing turrets will drag games out like crazy if Heimer is made viable.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:57 pm

The new passive only applies to the Donglord's turrets.

EDIT: and allied champions, of course.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:08 am

Yeah, heimer will no longer heal actual turrets, he doesn't get that auto-heal on his ult, and his turrets stop functioning when he walks away.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:34 am

So this preseason changes are pretty dang huge. Off the top of my head:

There's a limit on placed wards per player
Pink wards are cheaper, tougher, and lack invisibility, and you can only have one placed per player
There's a new item slot purely for free items that provide some kind of vision thingy (free ward, trap detection or clairvoyance-lite)
Outer turrets give reduced global gold and more gold to people in the area when it's killed
Minions and camps are both going to spawn a lot earlier
There are going to be a bunch of new items and masteries focused on giving lane partners who don't get CS more gold, along with assist streaks giving bonus gold to champions who get a lot of assists
A lot of support champions are having scaling added to the utility parts of their kit, with the examples given being Janna's AD buff and Nami's MS buff
Baron buff now gives an out-of-combat MS buff and an increase to turret damage
There's a new jungle camp
Last but not least, there are going to be new jungle items that give a %increase to gold from monster kills

I'm sure there's other stuff that I forgot, too. r/leagueoflegends has some good overviews. Overall, they're trying to shift the burden of warding away from the support, and give them more gold to let them actually play the whole "buy items game." Misaya mentioned that 8 minutes into a game he played Madlife already had boots, sightstone and philo stone, which is impressive. I'm predicting a lot of off-carry supports, honestly.

edit: of course, now Madlife is going to literally ascend to a new plane of existence.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:43 am

Yeah, I'm looking forward to playing some money hungry junglers, like Hecarim, and possibly even Warwick again!

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:00 am

I think the laning support items are going to have the most severe change to the meta, if my current understanding of them is correct.

For one thing, the jungle will actually have to give more gold than a lane for their to still be a jungler. One item, Executioners whatever, allows the support to cs, and all the gold from the cs goes to the support. Then, on top of that, the adc(or really, the closest character) gets more gold from the cs than if they had last hit it themselves.

So what does that mean? Well, if the jungle doesn't give more gold than a lane, you start jungle, buy that item, and then go push one lane, giving you all the cs from the lane, and the laner even more than cs, then you go push a different solo lane, getting all the cs (and hey, extra if you coordinate well with lanes because you pushed mid and top froze until you go there) Especially mids would love this, because they could save abilities for zoning, poking, ect. Also obviously make brief detours for buffs on timers.

If on the other hand, jungle gives more gold than a lane, suddenly you will see a sharp transition away from modern utility/tank junglers who operate with less gold into hard carry junglers. Aatrox would remain a great jungler obviously, and Hecarim would see a resurgence, but imagine who else could be a jungler if they were getting tons more gold for it. If the timers are short enough and the gold high enough, you could see heavy farmers like Shyvana just showing up at level 6 with frozen mallet and boots when laners are still level 4-5 and haven't had much chance to buy.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:54 am

The thing about preseason changes is it appears Riot will rarely move things too far from the norm. At the start of S3 the jungle was made super easy, so you saw all those weird junglers like Pantheon coming out and Riot said "oh, well fuck this noise let's make the jungle creeps kick ass again." Same thing with the jungle giving more gold, S3 was supposed to be junglers getting almost as much gold as lanes. Instead, junglers actually got poorer (but could gank more often because of the mana restore, which was nice). At the end they raised jungle XP, but gold remained shit.

The true problem of jungle giving more gold than lanes is laners will just take the jungle and snowball that shit. In S2 mid took wraiths every damn time because your midlaner was usually the one who scaled hardest in the early game. If your mid did well you could expand that to the other team's wraiths, and your mid would just snowball out of control and be several levels above everyone. Top/bot used to take golems in addition to waves too (not just at the start, they'd farm golems consistently). Junglers get pushed aside because certain camps are near lanes and it's a better idea to put a lot of gold/XP on a few people than spread it out among the team.

Real jungle buffs without screwing with the map a lot (moving wraiths/golems away from lanes) will probably just mean mid laners who can farm camps effectively will come back into vogue and junglers will still be everyone's bitch unless you're Cloud 9.

I'd be surprised if Riot ever made carry junglers more viable than they are now. You already see Aatrox and whoever Meteos decides to play carrying from the jungle. At lower than the absolute top level you see Yi carrying from the jungle as well. Riot doesn't even like the idea of carries (marksmen!), so I doubt they'd want a massive damage dealer popping out of the jungle more often.

I'm kind of surprised at how hard they hit Zed in this patch. Zed needed a nerf, but they could have neutered his ult less. It's now much less damaging and much easier to escape. Sure Zed gets an out from it, but he's an assassin. If he isn't killing the guy he ults he's being useless. And they didn't change his waveclear, which was the biggest problem...

Also haha another tiny Shen nerf. Happens every patch.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:07 pm

Well, riot are increasing jungle gold via attaching %gold increases on monster kills to jungle items (Misaya mentioned a 40% increase on Wiggle's) so that should prevent laners stealing jungle farm.

Yeah, that Zed nerf seems really weird, but I don't play him, so I can't really comment. They're also nerfing Jarvan by reducing the knockup radius on his EQ, which strikes me as unnecessary, honestly.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:04 pm

Korgan0 wrote:Yeah, that Zed nerf seems really weird, but I don't play him, so I can't really comment. They're also nerfing Jarvan by reducing the knockup radius on his EQ, which strikes me as unnecessary, honestly.

Zed is just overreaction. He is the best Assassin mid right now, so they feel like they have to nerf him. They choose to nerf his assassinations, but they way they did it drastically decreases damage, making him less capable in assassinations. Not really a good fix, because either he still kills people and he is too good, or he doesn't kill people and he is shit. Meh.

As for Jarvan... it's the Nocturne, Jarvan, Shen principle. If your concept is so good that you are still worth playing even with nerfs, then you will just keep getting nerfed. As long as Cataclysm is Catalclysm and Jarvan has his eq, he will be liked, and if he isn't shit, he will be played. So they keep throwing on minor nerfs every time.

Same for Shen, Nocturne, because global (or really long range) movement is good, people will still want to play these characters in the LCS more than their worth in terms of viability quiet justifies, because they can use teamwork to compensate, so they have to be nerfed until they are objectively weaker than non teamwork champs, which is a balance they are never going to achieve.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:10 pm

Korgan0 wrote:Well, riot are increasing jungle gold via attaching %gold increases on monster kills to jungle items (Misaya mentioned a 40% increase on Wiggle's) so that should prevent laners stealing jungle farm.

Ewww, that strikes me as "YOU WILL BUILD THIS ITEM OR SUCK," and that is boring. You can still start Doran's blade in the jungle right now and be fine, which is cool. And I'd still steal wraiths, because fuck yeah hitting 6 or 9 or 11 first.

Kaelik is spot on with why nerfing J4 and Shen doesn't matter. Well, Shen was bad (sans awesome ult) for some time but it was because of energy problems rather than other problems. J4 was also considered terrible before people were good, then he went to the top and fucking stayed there. Nerfing their numbers (even range numbers) will never matter unless they're extreme, you have to nerf their mobility or CC. Look at what they did to Janna when she was THE support you had to play. Howling Gale used to be twice as good, and Monsoon had about 200 more range.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 3:52 am

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Ewww, that strikes me as "YOU WILL BUILD THIS ITEM OR SUCK," and that is boring. You can still start Doran's blade in the jungle right now and be fine, which is cool.

You are currently a sucky support if you don't build sightstone. You will be a sucky support if you don't build one of the three gold items. If you have to build one of the four jungle items, wriggles/spirit of the Lizard/Golem/Wraith, that isn't particularly restrictive to the jungle.

Certainly giving the jungle more gold than lanes with one of those items and disincentivizing the lanes from taking jungle would expand the champion pool way more than letting people build whatever items they want and giving them shit gold.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:10 pm

Kaelik wrote: You are currently a sucky support if you don't build sightstone. You will be a sucky support if you don't build one of the three gold items. If you have to build one of the four jungle items, wriggles/spirit of the Lizard/Golem/Wraith, that isn't particularly restrictive to the jungle.

Certainly giving the jungle more gold than lanes with one of those items and disincentivizing the lanes from taking jungle would expand the champion pool way more than letting people build whatever items they want and giving them shit gold.

Supports don't have to rush a specific item, nor do they have to start with a specific item (except wards I guess). Even then, support itemization is seen as a major problem so that's a shitty argument for being forced into buying certain items being OK.

If wriggles/spirit are a 40% gold increase for junglers they will be rushed 99% of the time (the 1% being when you get a bunch of kills super early and decide to win fast). Not starting machete stands to set you very far back when gold spent on anything else delays your 40% gold increase.

Look at the most desired roles (solo lanes and adc), they all have diverse itemization*. Sure you want to rush certain items most of the time (most adcs loves a BF start, most ap mids would rush NLR if they could), but you don't have to build any one item at any specific time. A lot of people don't even think about switching builds around, but people like options.

*Among other things, but they don't (outside of mid) influence the game more than other roles.

More gold might actually hurt diversity too, as shitty gold-scaling champs have a place in the jungle right now. If jungle gets tons of cash you NEED a big gold-scaler or fast farmer there. No more Nunu et all.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:42 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Supports don't have to rush a specific item, nor do they have to start with a specific item (except wards I guess). Even then, support itemization is seen as a major problem so that's a shitty argument for being forced into buying certain items being OK.

If you aren't willing to keep up with the actual changes being made to support items, you don't get to talk about how supports are itemized.

Seriously, read up on the Preseason/Season Four Support items, and realize that the problem with support items isn't that they have to build a specific one, it is that they can't build six.

Riots solution is to basically mandate the build of one of three items on all supports, and give supports six item builds.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 10:25 pm

Kaelik wrote:
If you aren't willing to keep up with the actual changes being made to support items, you don't get to talk about how supports are itemized.

Seriously, read up on the Preseason/Season Four Support items, and realize that the problem with support items isn't that they have to build a specific one, it is that they can't build six.

Riots solution is to basically mandate the build of one of three items on all supports, and give supports six item builds.

I said support itemization has to be fixed (though it is LESS BAD than potential new jungler itemization). I'm talking about what the problem is (fixed item builds in general are bad, supports are also poor but that is a separate problem) rather than what the changes are. I could be strange in that I don't mind my usual build being "boots + wards + support items (if I get lots of cash)." Did you not read what I wrote?

"Supports don't have to rush a specific item, nor do they have to start with a specific item (except wards I guess). Even then, support itemization is seen as a major problem so that's a shitty argument for being forced into buying certain items being OK."

Pretty sure I said supports being poor sucks. And that building one specific item or falling behind sucks. Both things can suck. Riot's item solution to supports being poor is a bag of dicks, just as surely as their item solution to junglers being poor is a bag of dicks.

A HUGE problem with itemization is fixed builds. Old deathcap was built on every ap champion early. Old IE was built on every adc, and usually as a first or second item. Riot said "this is bad" and diversified builds and the game got better. I don't know why they're considering reversing this trend, but that is bad.

Part of the fun of the game is building adaptively, outplaying your opponents by building things to counter them or cause them problems. There is no gameplay in saying "I am the jungler so my first item is <jungle item> every time or else I am shit." It solves the problem of "jungle is terrible and you are poor," but creates the problem of "fuck your first X gold you are getting this or you will suck." If the jungle item isn't good enough to cause that but STILL fixes jungle gold woes because it can be built later without falling way behind than kudos, but that'll be tough.

That and, if these jungle items offer meaningful stats + free gold, laners will buy that shit anyways. Look at spirit of the spectral wraith.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 10:41 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Even then, support itemization is seen as a major problem so that's a shitty argument for being forced into buying certain items being OK."

Support itemization is not seen as a major problem because they buy the same things. It is seen as a problem because they don't buy anything.

You are the only fucking person who thinks having one of your 6 items be the first item every game is a terrible death of all fun.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Nov 01, 2013 6:48 pm

Kaelik wrote: You are the only fucking person who thinks having one of your 6 items be the first item every game is a terrible death of all fun.

Do you honestly think having one item be "you must buy this, and you must buy this first" is a good thing? Like "thank god they took away my agency, I was worried I'd have to make a decision in a game." Even if you think that's fun for some reason, incredibly good items are bad for actual game reasons as well.

1. Building to counter your opponent is a part of the game. You are removing a part of the game for the first X gold, and it's important. If I can't buy MR early to counter Elise when I pick Amumu first I'm fucked from champ select. I can get by with machete -> clear -> MR right now, but if I have to get one of 4 items I can't build to the situation without screwing myself.

2. If an item is so strong as to be a must-have, whoever gets it first will snowball moreso than having a bunch of balanced items. If jungler A is ahead by 500 gold when they get +40% gold item, they will be at least 700 gold ahead assuming all things equal by the time other jungler gets theirs. It's a snowball without even interacting with the enemy (and the reason heart of gold was removed and philo stone was nerfed).

You could up the Smite on-use gold mastery to 50 (effectively adding ~32 gold/minute to junglers) and nobody but junglers and terrible supports would take smite still. You could buff wolf gold more because it's still bad. You could buff the gold of small monsters at buff camps. It sounds like Riot is doing other things to fix jungle gold, so why make their builds more boring?

tl;dr: Riot said having to rush a certain item sucks and then fixed it. Now they're apparently going back to that as a bandaid. Riot is smarter than that, one would think.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Nov 01, 2013 7:07 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Do you honestly think having one item be "you must buy this, and you must buy this first" is a good thing?

Congratulations. If you just continually refuse to fucking read over and over again, you too can be the fucking master of stupidity.

There are four different jungle items that generate gold in different ways and have different stats. You could viably choose any of those four fucking items.

Again, if you refuse to actually read anything ever, then no one fucking cares what you think.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:26 pm

Kaelik wrote:
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Do you honestly think having one item be "you must buy this, and you must buy this first" is a good thing?
Congratulations. If you just continually refuse to fucking read over and over again, you too can be the fucking master of stupidity.

There are four different jungle items that generate gold in different ways and have different stats. You could viably choose any of those four fucking items.

Again, if you refuse to actually read anything ever, then no one fucking cares what you think.

You know only 1 or 2 jungle items are viable on any given jungler, right?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 1:47 pm

Got diamond last night.

I assume the money and women will be arriving any minute now.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:19 pm

I'd assume it's mostly DDOS'es.