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I'm glad that Studio asked if newbies were reading the thread. This thread should serve as a great safe-haven for new goons to post and start discussions about how to advance. I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as a "stupid question", just varying levels of perfectly acceptable ignorance out there. I think sometimes the vets can get caught up in minutiae that ends up flying over most people's heads. I would encourage the new players to post a lot more of their own questions as they read and really drive the discussion. That said, later on I fully intend to post some graphical maps I've been working that should hopefully help teach about map control and influence of space. They should really give a clearer picture to newer players about what exactly constitutes "over-extending" and how to play within those boundaries.
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| # ¿ Jun 3, 2011 22:03 |
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| # ¿ May 21, 2013 22:15 |
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Z3n posted:Level 2 newbie here, finally got into the game after a friend of mine consistently kept bugging me to give it a shot. Currently have only played a few games but have been reading about it quite a bit. Been playing as Morgana and been enjoying it, looking forward to messing around with real life players and wards when I get a chance to play next Morgana is a great "safe laner" choice. This is because her W (Tormented Soil) basically kills an entire creep wave at level 4 or 5 depending on runes, and her passive lets her heal back quite a lot of health from doing so. As long as you are hanging back a decent distance and just dropping that W in the middle of the melee and ranged minions, you should be sucking up all kinds of gold and XP and there's not much the enemy can do about it. If they try to pressure you, just hold down the Alt key and press E to auto-self-cast your shield to yourself to avoid an enemy spell. Her Q (Dark Binding) is strictly for setting up kills with an ally present or for escaping from a chasing enemy. It's too expensive to really harass with, even at level 1. Just focus on farming a lot with W (Soil) until the mid game (around level 12 or so) at which point towers should be going down and you will want to be assisting your team mates. Drop your shield on the squishiest ally right before a fight starts and you've basically done your job! Level W>Q>E, taking her ult whenever you can (at 6, 11, and 18). You'll do pretty well as either a solo or a duo lane. Good items are going to be Rod of Ages, Rabadon's Deathcap, and Banshee's Veil (not necessarily in this order).
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| # ¿ Jun 3, 2011 23:28 |
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A quick tip for goons working on last hitting: Bind your "stop" hotkey to space bar. Walk up to creeps taking damage, hit space bar, then wait for the right time to strike. LoL does this kind of annoying thing where after you finish killing a creep with auto attacks, your champ will automatically target another creep and start attacking. This is counter productive and bad because not only does it screw up your last hit timing, but it also pushes the lane if you aren't paying too much attention to it. Even if you right click to move somewhere else after killing a creep, notice how your champ is still in that bloodthirsty state and will just keep right on auto attacking once you stand next to a creep! By hitting "stop", this clears that state so that you can simply stand still and plan your attack animation correctly. I promise you this will land you way way more last hits if you get in the habit of doing this. You'll also see that lots of top players who stream their games do this as well. Watch for when they walk up to last hit: they will do a glitchy looking stop where the champ's running animation comes to an abrupt stop mid-frame. This is them hitting the stop key so that they can time their last hit attack animations better! Work on that average per-game CS! It may seem minor, but you'll start noticing easier fights in game for you and more wins as a result. (Also yes, I am aware that stop is already bound to "S" by default. I just like having it on space bar so that my QWER fingers are always at the ready and I can use the space bar independently with my thumb. I think it works better this way, but just wanted to make all the newer players aware of the stop functionality in general.)
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| # ¿ Jun 10, 2011 20:44 |
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Androc posted:So, has anybody had success rushing one or two philo stones on Oriana? Lately I've been rushing catalyst at the urging of one of my teammates, but I'm still not totally sold on how to build her early game.  The thing with Philos right now is that they are pretty much great on everyone that has both mana and a health pool. Riot has said they will be nerfed soon though, so I wouldn't get too attached to them at this point for a "core" build. I think Orianna carries pretty hard given her ability kit (tons of AoE damage, range, and crowd control.) I'm currently experimenting with rushing a Sheen, since her passive encourages auto attacks, her Command: Attack is around a 3 second cooldown (perfect timing for Sheen procs since Sheen itself has an internal 3 second cooldown on the active ability), and it provides a big chunk of mana to help with her rather large mana demands. You can later take that Sheen and turn it into Lichbane which gives way more damage and also movespeed. Orianna doesn't really have any escape abilities (speed boosts or flashes) so I'm thinking that movespeed is pretty vital on her. If you grabbed a Rabadon's (literally THE best damage item for almost all AP casters) before the Lichbane upgrade, you'll be pumping out some ridiculous damage on her. It's a pricey item build but she farms better than most casters so you should be able to achieve it most games. This build leaves you somewhat squishy, but if you keep your distance during fights (kinda like Lux) you should be alright. It's lacking on cooldown, but I find that with Ionian boots I have all I need. Blue buff from golem is icing on the cake. Regarding ability skill order: I've seen some people mention maxing W first. I don't think this is a good idea because W costs way more mana than her Q for only slightly more damage. Not to mention, the only times you are going to be hitting the enemy with W is when you already spent the mana on casting Q to get it to the enemy. Only really bad players are going to walk into the ball when you are using it as area denial behind the creep line, and in this case you can usually use Q to hit them again anyway. Max Q first; it costs way less at a time when you don't have much mana and does more for you in terms of farming and harass. Siets fucked around with this message at Jun 17, 2011 around 18:15 |
| # ¿ Jun 17, 2011 18:13 |
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Philip Rivers posted:How do I deal with having a bad team besides wallowing in self-pity? I'm getting a lot better with Ashe and am pretty consistently the only one on my team who can keep a reasonable K:D and level, and everyone else on my team has spreads like 2/9/3 by endgame. I keep trying people to stop picking team fights and go after towers and lane harder, but nobody ever listens. What the heck can I do to not lose such embarrassing games? Passive solutions: -Drop wards at chokepoints in the jungle throughout the game. Hope that this results in less ganks when they see the enemies coming. -Split push towers by yourself (AFTER WARDING YOUR SIDE'S JUNGLE SO YOU DON'T GET CAUGHT OVEREXTENDING). Hope that this forces the enemy to at the very least stop their push to fall back and defend against you, and at the very most split their forces 3:2 and have your remaining 4 mop them up when the enemies mess up (assuming this is low Elo, this can certainly happen (they have tards on their team too!)) -Randomly ping enemies sighted in the river/jungle/dragon/baron and randomly ping large hordes of minions that are approaching your towers (before they get there!) Active solutions: -Ask team politely to place more wards throughout the game. -Ask team Politely to do dragon and/or baron when appropriate. -Ask team POLITELY to assist you in grabbing red/blue buff. -Ask team POLITELY to follow you into their jungle and try for ganks. -Ask team POLITELY to join a vent server with you at the start of the game (if you really feel like tryharding and putting forth the effort in random solo queue games). Aside from this, there is not much else you CAN do. You have to accept that you will just lose some games. Sometimes five or six in a row. All you can do is work on not taking losses personally, having fun while losing games (messing around with gimmick builds, saying random in-character quotes/insults into /all chat, making ward penises, etc.), and also studying the builds and playstyles of the enemies that are currently stomping you. Ask yourself why you are being stomped and analyze it. This analysis doesn't include WELP, FEEDER TEAMMATES because there is a reason they fed them: find out this reason! If you do all this, eventually your win/loss ratio might approach a 60% win ratio if you really develop. It's a team game and ultimately you are 1/5th of that contribution any way you try to cut it. Just relax and focus on having fun with it. Try to make the best of every situation. Siets fucked around with this message at Jun 20, 2011 around 19:49 |
| # ¿ Jun 20, 2011 19:47 |
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If you are playing Veigar in ranked and are: 1. Very good at last hitting with his Q. 2. Very good at positioning and laning in general. 3. The enemy team has lots of high-AP squishy damage champs. ...then Veigar is an ok-at-best pick. Beyond that, the better burst casters in the game are Annie, Malzahar, and Kassadin right now, the former two if you really need superior CC on your team. Or you can just keep on playing hardball with Veigar in normal, giving no fucks because he's just a fun little dude to play with a hilarious voice. Your call! 
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| # ¿ Jun 24, 2011 19:11 |
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Nethris posted:Ok, with Fiddlesticks and his ult, is there any way to interrupt it once he reaches the AoE part, or only in the short initial channel? Does silence work? I assume stuns don't do anything, as I found out the hard way as WW that suppression does jack poo poo (well, stops him from casting other things). Lost a game to a really fed Fiddlesticks, and was wondering what exactly counters that other than trying to run away, hopefully for reference in games where Fiddle isn't quite that fed to begin with. Fiddlesticks is pretty much hard-countered by just running summoner spell Exhaust. It reduces damage output by 40%. Take the mastery point for it to reduce his defenses further and pop him like a balloon when he ults into a teamfight. Just run Exhaust and always save it for Fiddle. This should go without saying, but also don't forget to buy at least one big MR item (like Banshee's Veil.) I suppose honorable mention could go to Janna and Gragas for being able to easily knock him around after Fiddle ults, but honestly Exhaust is the easiest way to deal with him.
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| # ¿ Jun 25, 2011 15:18 |
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Nethris posted:Good to know - course, it'll be much more useful to know once I can play Draft Mode and I actually get to see Fiddles while picking summoner spells, but hey.  Soooo... With any luck, you might!
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| # ¿ Jun 25, 2011 19:21 |
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Recalling rules: 1. Recall if you are low on HP. Don't die. It's not worth the risk. Just B and evaluate how you can change your playstyle to prevent it from happening again. Sometimes it's buying a certain item to counter a damage type or give you more sustain. Sometimes it's asking the jungler for a gank (or even a lane switch with a team mate). The "low HP decision threshold" also varies depending on who you are playing against in lane and how much burst they can do to you. Against Akali? Recall at like 60% HP if she has her ult. She will surprise sex you silly otherwise if she is good. Against Karthus with your flash still up? Hang around and try to farm at long distance if you can, use some potions, etc. If he presses you, flash out of his defile AoE, or flash over his wall and then recall. His ult hits for ~180 at 6, so definitely recall before you get to about 200 hp. Try to learn approximate damage values for various champions and you'll be a better judge of this. 2. Recall when you have pushed up the lane significantly if you need to go back and buy. You do this so that the enemy isn't in a good position to slam your tower with their minion wave and get lots of free damage on it. Just wipe a creep wave with tons of abilities and auto attacks, your wave will push up, and then recall. By the time you get back, the enemy tower should have killed all your pushed up minions and the wave should reset close to the middle of the lane. 3. You should think about recalling if you have been just megafarming your lane and have something over 2,000 gold. Farming is really good and you want to do it as long as you can while preventing your opponent from doing the same. HOWEVER, there comes a point where you need to turn that gold into an actual statistical advantage. Sitting on 3,000 gold at level 9 with that original pair of boots and pots you bought from the start means you are very very gankable if the enemy has been recalling and picking up items. Farm a lot, but be sure to do something with it. 3.1. Don't recall if you can help it when under 2,000 gold (just a rule of thumb I have). If you are constantly B'ing just to pick up one more 400'ish gold item, you will actually be losing out on too much exp and gold to make it worth the gain in stats. Once again, B'ing when you have over 2,000 gold and coming back with a nice big fat core item and not missing out on any exp + gold is how you maintain the high ground in LoL. Hope that answers your questions! A very good question for the thread if I might say so. 
Siets fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2011 around 16:39 |
| # ¿ Jul 10, 2011 16:25 |
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Rygar201 posted:I start mana crystal and 2 pots. My core is generally RoA, Sorc shoes, Crystal Scepter. I go QEQW then Q>E>W>. I like building her bulky ap because her high APM means that she is still doing a lot of damage without tons of AP.  The RoA is first mostly because the Catalyst is a great first item to rush on Cass (and a lot of other casters.) You will find that Cass's Q has a long animation time and better aggressive players with quick reflexes will start exploiting that by attacking you when they see you use it. The Catalyst helps you recover the health loss in harass you take against these players thereby keeping you in lane farming up for that mid-game where Cass can do surprisingly well. Pick up a Rabadon's Deathcap after RoA & Rylai's since it's the best caster damage item you can buy. Just don't rush it because you'll find yourself just getting blown up too fast. Some tips and tricks with Cass: 1. Get really used to Q, move, autoattack, Q, autoattack, move, move, Q, Q, oh hey they are running at me and are poisoned-- EEEE diediedie!! You just need to get in the zone with her and be clicking like an unusually accurate madman. 2. Last hit with auto attacks. Only farm with Q and E if the wave gets pushed to your tower. You don't want to push the lane and open yourself up to ganks. Cass doesn't have any escapes really. 3. Level E first against easy lanes where you find yourself out harassing your opponent. The damage from E is really really amazing if you get that QEEQEEQEE rhythm down and they start running from you like an idiot. In harder lanes where they have lots of range, just play it safe by leveling Q first and last hit with auto attacks, punishing them with your Q when appropriate. 4. Ward the enemy's blue and keep on it! Cass can have some really funny blue ganks if you warded that brush on the corner because she can ult through the wall to stun them while they are whacking golem, Q through the wall, etc. and destroy them. I've stolen lots of blue buffs just from a well timed ult. Cass really wants that blue buff too since she is pretty spammy. 5. With T3 mana regen per level blues and yellows, Cass can infinitely spam Q no matter what level it is at with 5 stacks of her passive. I actually made an Excel graph of this and her mana regen at 5 stacks with this setup exceeds the mana cost of casting a Q every 4 seconds. Q has a default cooldown of 3 seconds, but if you mash it every time it's up, you might start to slowly run out of mana. If you have the IP, try this setup. It's hilarious and let's you completely dump damage all over a lane. The key is just to not lose those 5 stacks. Never stop casting! 6. Finally, try binding Smartcast E to your mouse's button 4. It really really helps getting that combo off a lot faster when you can just mash the smartcast with your thumb. Your DPS really is a function of how fast you can put out this combo! (Thanks to Brackhar for this tip!) Siets fucked around with this message at Jul 12, 2011 around 21:04 |
| # ¿ Jul 12, 2011 20:59 |
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A jargogle posted:I often hear about the concept of "initiating" a teamfight. But I don't really understand it, as it seems to be quite different from just running into the enemy until they stand and fight. So can someone explain this concept to a newbie? This is initiating.  You catch someone out of position. The blue team is forced to fight, or else the Ashe will die no matter what and then it will be a 4v5 for blue. It's better to fight 5v5 (even if they initiate on you) because at least it's a 5v5 fight that might still go your way if they make a few mistakes while fighting. If you don't fight when the Ashe gets pulled (or stunned, or slowed, or Singed tossed, etc.) then you will have to deal with a 4v5, which almost no team can win unless grave mistakes are made by the initiating team. Some characters are better at initiating than others. The general idea is to just catch a high value target (hint: not their tank!) out of position like the image above, but only when your team is in position to blow them up right after you catch them. If your team is not in position, then it's not really initiating but rather more like 1v1'ing with a lot of people sort of in the nearby area and things could really go either way.
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| # ¿ Jul 13, 2011 23:23 |
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Unless a champion has 3 or 4 fairly high cost abilities that deal AD and scale with AD, you should always be able to address mana issues by: -Masteries -Yellow runes (and blues if necessary) -Not spamming your abilities needlessly against enemy champs with too much lane sustainability, since they will just heal through it -Not spending mana on farming creeps since you have this nice little thing called auto attacking for that You have to remember that gold spent on mana is gold that could have been spent on actual damage stats if you are a carry. Corki buys Manamune because his way of dealing damage is primarily through spamming his abilities. Jax wants as much AD and AP as fast as he can get it. His ability costs are also incredibly cheap and the damage from his ult doesn't cost anything either. I would say not to get it on him and instead invest that gold in stats that will make you more of a threat early on to try and get a snowball going. edit: Manamune used to be better when it first came out because it cost a lot less and gave a lot more AD. It was essentially like buying a BF Sword for a tiny bit more of the cost, and then getting a nice big bulk of mana along with it. This made the item worth getting on lots of champs because the damage was competitive with other damage items and all that mana was essentially "free" in comparison. Then Riot nerfed it's AD contribution percentage AND increased the cost. This brought it back to that status of "wasting a bunch of gold on mana" that so many other items fall under for both AD and AP carries alike. It's just not that competitive of an item anymore unless that mana REALLY does something for you. Siets fucked around with this message at Jul 15, 2011 around 19:41 |
| # ¿ Jul 15, 2011 19:31 |
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Switch to armor pen reds if you can since he doesn't scale much from attack speed. If you have the IP, buy movespeed quints and start with boots and 3 pots. Max Q and then have ridiculous movespeed to harass people in lane while healing yourself. Look up Voyboy's Renekton guide and watch the video he has in it. You can see how ridiculous Renekton's laning phase gets when he has movespeed quints.
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| # ¿ Jul 15, 2011 19:44 |
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SarutosZero posted:Can anyone give me any advice on Yi? I usually hate everyone who plays him because they just stack phantom dancers and then are mad when Annie one-shots them but being a tower backdooring monster sounds really fun. Plus he's only 400 some points as opposed to all the 6300 people I want to get. DNK used to play Yi a lot on a smurf account he made at low levels. He would apparently stomp everybody by a combination of jungling, 1v1'ing enemy stragglers, and backdooring constantly. Yi hasn't really changed a whole lot in a long time, so this guide should still apply: http://goonlol.com/index.php/User:Dnk/Yi I know it sounds weird that the guide recommends some AP items (like stacking Doran's Rings if you are laning), but it is actually really amazing on Yi. His AP ratios on Alpha Strike and Meditate are super amazing. The Doran's Rings just let you have enough mana and AP to farm endlessly by spamming Alpha Strike, while healing away any harass they do to you in lane with Meditate. It's quite hilarious how easy it is to lane with Yi with just a few Doran's Rings. Jungling is more of a standard jungler build, and Yi can actually do it at pretty low summoner levels since he gets free kills with his Alpha Strike (if you're lucky  ). One of my favorite things to do with jungle Yi was to walk over to the enemy wraiths at the very start of the game and just do a quick gamble on them with Alpha Strike. Sometimes I'd kill 3 or 4 of them and just walk away with all that exp and gold laughing to myself at the other jungler's misfortune. It doesn't really affect Yi's jungle to do this, since you just walk to your wolves and keep on going as normal.Yi, while having pretty straightforward abilities, can require a good amount of finesse to play well. Once you get rolling with him though and know his limits, you can do some pretty amazing things.
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| # ¿ Jul 16, 2011 15:17 |
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Hard CC: Silence (I consider silence a hard form of CC; prevents people from using their spells during the duration reducing them to an autoattacker) -Malzahar's Call of the Void (Q), Kassadin's Null Sphere (Q) Stuns (prevents you from doing ANYTHING; no casting, attacking, or moving) -Annie's passive, Renekton's Ruthless Predator (W) Taunts (like a stun, except the champion being taunted continues to mindlessly autoattack the person doing the taunting) -Rammus's Puncturing Taunt (E), Shen's Shadow Dash (E), Galio's ultimate Fears (like a stun, but when feared you wander aimlessly in random directions; sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing) -Fiddlesticks's Fear (Q), Nocturne's Unspeakable Horror (E) Knockups (like a stun, but also cannot be cleansed out of or reduced by Tenacity; this is the second "hardest" form of CC) -Cho'Gath's Rupture (Q), Orianna's ultimate, etc. Knockbacks (like a stun, but you also get moved during the process) -Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab (Q), Alistar's Headbutt (W) Suppression Stuns (like a stun, but also cannot use summoner spells like cleanse to escape; the "hardest" CC) -Currently only on Warwick's ultimate, Urgot's ultimate, and Malzahar's ultimate. Soft CC: Slows (just slows you down, you can still do everything else) -Nasus's Wither (W), Kassadin's Force Pulse (E) Environmental Slows (like a slow, except cannot be reduced by Tenacity) -Kog Maw's Void Ooze (E), Rumble's ultimate Snares (prevents you from moving, but you can still do everything else like cast spells) -Ryze's Rune Prison (W), Lux's Light Binding (Q) Blinds (prevents all or some auto attacks from hitting depending on the ability and you see a yellow "Miss!" message above your head; these are rare since it is a mechanic that Riot has decided isn't as "fun" as others) -Teemo's Blinding Dart (Q) [100% miss chance], Corki's Phosphorous Bomb (Q) [35% miss chance] -- There are a lot of types of hard CC out there, but they seem to be rare among most of the cast. A team that has "at least" 3 different champs that all have some form of the hard CC above will almost always do better than those teams that do not have at least 3. Bonus points for your team if you have the types of hard CC that cannot be countered by items or summoner spell cleanse like knockups or suppression stuns. Soft CC is nice, but it isn't often game-winning during mid and late game teamfights. Soft CC is really only good for securing a kill on a gank, or catching stragglers after a teamfight was already won. Soft CC is a win-more mechanic, whereas hard CC is a mechanic that makes you win. It's important to recognize this distinction. Siets fucked around with this message at Jul 19, 2011 around 14:44 |
| # ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:14 |
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Ahh didn't know Urgot's was a suppression also! I had remembered them saying they were thinking about making it suppression but never learned if they followed through on it.
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| # ¿ Jul 16, 2011 22:30 |
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entris posted:It's pretty incomplete though - Alistar's pulverize is a knock-up, Janna's tornada is a knock-up, her ult is a knockback, etc.  That said, I did forget about fear. Only because I stopped playing Fiddlesticks a long time ago!
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| # ¿ Jul 17, 2011 00:53 |
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SarutosZero posted:I have a question about runes. People in these threads and on guides talk about runes breaking even and what levels they do it at. What does that mean? Per level runes offer an increasing amount of %STAT% each level. Flat runes offer a flat amount of %STAT% for the entire game. Flat mana regen yellows: +0.41 mp5 (for whole game) Per level mana regen yellows: +0.065 mp5 (per level) So if we take the flat runes and divide them by the per level runes, we see approximately at what level they offer the same stats or "break even". 0.41/0.065 = 6.308 So at around level 6, the per level runes offer about the same mana regen per rune. Then, for the rest of the game, they actually get better. The question you should always be asking yourself is: How early do these break even, and does that flat %STAT% advantage make more of a difference before that breaking point? In the case of mana regen, I always recommend the per level runes because you don't need as much mana regen before level 6 because your abilities tend to cost less and you have less abilities until you learn all of them. The advantage you would get from flat mana regen runes just wouldn't do a whole lot for you, unless you were playing a champion that really strongly benefitted from spamming one ability of theirs really early on. In the case of magic resistance blue runes, I say go with the flat ones. They even out around level 10, and you want as much magic resist as you can get early on when you are likely to be eating harass in lane. Pre-10 defensive stats are likely to make or break your laning experience against your foe, so you want as much as you can get as early as you can get it. This is why flat magic resist blues and flat hp5 quints are so popular right now.
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| # ¿ Jul 17, 2011 20:09 |
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If you already have all of your T3 ArPen reds, then I would get 6x T3 Attack Speed reds. For your jungler page you would have 5 ArPen coming from 3 reds, and Attack Speed coming from the rest. You want attack speed for all junglers because it helps you clear way faster if you are A: playing Udyr, or B: building Wriggle's Lantern (this is every jungler except like Fiddlesticks.) I can't remember exactly why the 3 ArPen reds are optimal for junglers, but I think it had to do with the fact that all jungle mobs have a little armor, so having that 5 ArPen is better for damage than the Attack Speed that the other 3 runes would provide. Plus this way you don't need to buy as many runes. At the end of the day, your AD carry page would have 9x ArPen reds, and your jungler page would be 6x ASpd + 3x ArPen for all junglers.
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| # ¿ Jul 20, 2011 19:08 |
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Quick "best choices" rune guide! Newbies, go for these with your hard earned IP and they will be optimal on a wide variety of champions. RED: Armor Penetration Magic Penetration Attack Damage Attack Speed YELLOW: Armor Health Regen per Level Mana Regen per Level Dodge BLUE: Magic Resistance Cooldown Ability Power Magic Penetration Mana Regen per Level QUINTS: Health Regen Health Movement Speed Magic Penetration Ability Power Armor Penetration Attack Damage Attack Speed Most of what is listed are what are referred to as "primary" stats for each color. This means that if you compared the Attack Damage runes between red and blue, the red runes will give the most of that stat. There are a few "secondary" runes that I listed (like Magic Penetration blues). These were listed simply because the stats are very desired and that even if the runes are secondary, they will still provide a very big benefit. Try to get the most out of your runepage! Make sure that all your colors are primary for their stat offerings. Very few characters get much out of stacking one single stat all across your page. On an all AP page, a lot of those runes are wasted IP since you could be getting lots of primary defensive or sustainability stats in your yellows or blues, which are good for everybody. Only if you are someone like Vladimir do you want to stack something like all AP (since his passive gives him free HP for having more AP.) If your champion is focused on a certain attack stat, you can often get by simply by running that stat in your reds and quints (like Jax running AD reds and quints for a really stompy early game.) Just buy primary stat runes. If you are unsure if the stat is primary on a certain color, just check the other colors for that stat and see which ones give the most between red, yellow, and blue (since Riot doesn't tell you which is annoying.)
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| # ¿ Jul 23, 2011 21:30 |
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Oh god, how I miss Tier 1 runes! They were so cheap! You could experiment all day with those. But yes, don't feel like Tier 1 runes aren't worth it. They offer something like 50% of the stats of Tier 3 runes for a fraction of the cost.
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| # ¿ Jul 23, 2011 21:37 |
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Pyrolocutus posted:I'm considering buying Malzahar soon since he looks neat. Any tips on playing/rune loadout? http://goonlol.com/index.php/User:Dnk/Malzahar DNK's Malzahar guide from his high Elo adventures. Runes are pretty flexible, but DNK has always been a fan of sustainability over aggressive rune stat choices. The key to Malzahar early on is just to butter them up with his E around level 4, so that by the time you hit 6 you can blow them up with your ult. Later on, you need to land clutch silences on important targets (e.g. people with dangerous, channeled ults or other AP carries.)
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| # ¿ Jul 24, 2011 16:25 |
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Sarkozymandias posted:So a standard Jax build with a bad rune page then? edit: Jax is fine as a tank because he is naturally tanky due to his passive and base stats being high. He also gets free dodge, has an AoE stun, and can blink into action via leap strike. Having CC, free damage mitigation abilities, and positioning abilities are all marks of what tanking is all about in this game. Jax's damage being high also means that people are going to focus fire you in fights, so building defensive items that give some attack stats is also a good idea. Good "semi-tanky" AP items: Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Abyssal Scepter, Zhonya's Hourglass Good "semi-tanky" AD items: Frozen Mallet, Sheen/Triforce, Atma's Impaler Good hybrid items (since Jax gets health and damage for buying both AD and AP): Guinsoo's Rageblade, Hextech Gunblade, Triforce You can literally build any of these items and not be wrong on Jax. Just try to analyze your enemies and determine what you need. Lots of annoying bursty casters? Rush a Phage and grab a Negatron cloak, which gets turned into that Abyssal Scepter later. AD ranged carries kiting you a lot? Get the Cutlass component of Hextech Gunblade and those Ninja Tabi boots as fast as you can. If you make it to mid game and your team is feeling frail due to lack of a real tank, now you can build a true core tank item if it will really help. Jax doesn't need much to have relevant damage (since he has so many damage abilities anyway.) Randuin's Omen is a great "pure" tank item for Jax against AD teams because of it's synergy with leap strike. You just leap in to the right spot, and then use Randuin's active to nullify all their carries for the fight. Against AP, a Banshee's Veil is a great choice on every single champion in the game. Now here's the deal with runes at your level of play. Just grab AD reds and quints and you will be fine. That AD will make your leap strike hit really hard early on, while also giving you free health. Reds and quints are going to be most efficient for AD anyways, so just ignore anyone bitching at you to go for an all-AD runepage or whatever. Flat MR blues and dodge yellows are great choices. Dodge yellows are very expensive and largely specific to Jax. You could also run armor yellows in their stead or mana regen per level yellows (since Jax is kinda spammy.) Siets fucked around with this message at Jul 26, 2011 around 16:51 |
| # ¿ Jul 26, 2011 15:37 |
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I've got a mental image in my head right now of a Katarina ulting, spinning around while somehow holding 5 gunblades between her two hands and firing them in succession at the enemies around her. This has to be one of the better things produced by my imagination.
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| # ¿ Jul 26, 2011 23:49 |
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El Kabong posted:In the history of this game, has it ever been possible to downgrade an advanced item but retain one of its parts? For example, downgrade from banshee's but keep the negatron or catalyst to build into something else. Aside from simply selling back and rebuying the component you want, I do not believe so, no.
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| # ¿ Aug 9, 2011 23:11 |
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FirstPersonShitter posted:I really like the look of nocturne, I watched his champion spotlight and he looks like fun to play, but I'm pretty inexperienced with playing an assassin. Is he worth getting or should I go with renekton instead as a newer player? Nocturne is totally viable and threatening at all stages of the game. It also feels like he has fallen off of Riot's radar, so he's probably a safe purchase for quite awhile. I've seen lots of fed Nocturne's just pubstomp away to their little black heart's content. The key to most fights is simply to hang back and poke with his Q repeatedly until your team has initiated, then get in there with your spell shield up and tear them to pieces. There's also nothing more demoralizing than a game where you are facing a Nocturne and some idiot ends up feeding him a kill every time you hear "DARRRRKKKKNESSSSS" and the screen goes black. It literally, Pavlov-sytle, classically conditions you to hate the champion and wince every time he ults. You absolutely want to be that guy causing grief for everybody on the other team. It's in your goon nature.
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| # ¿ Aug 16, 2011 03:32 |
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kittentits posted:And is getting a skin a really pretentious thing to do? I can't seem to justify buying one the same way I justified buying the Champion's Bundle. I have bought... so many... skins. I dunno, Riot's designers are just very talented people. A lot of their skins have just enough of a mix between familiarity and originality, gimmick and serious, etc. that I have to have them. I bought Talon solely for the Crimson Elite skin so I could play like a comic book villain. I grew up with comics and the skin just looks plain badass! I love it! It's all about fun and playing how you want to play. Visuals matter for me, and I'm at a place in my life where the money doesn't hurt to spend it, so I do and it's fun. If that works for you, by all means grab a few skins and support
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| # ¿ Aug 26, 2011 04:59 |
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Any new goons feel free to add me (IGN: Siets) and let me know that you are new! I love playing with new goons, showing people the ropes, bs'ing in TeamSpeak, running gimmick games, etc. I also won't rage at you for any reason, even if you keep missing those last hits after I told you not too. A little about me: I'm a vet since beta for this game and have probably spent a bit too much money on skins. I consider myself pretty good, but I haven't ever really tryharded it up in ranked so I don't have a number to show for it. I mostly play normal mode for fun. I have lots of T3 runes, so I love experimenting and trying to find new "secret OP builds" for champions that are considered mediocre or bad. Siets fucked around with this message at Aug 26, 2011 around 14:30 |
| # ¿ Aug 26, 2011 14:26 |
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Tear,Glacial,Banshees,Frozen Heart, Voidstaff, finish arch angels last and even then manamune might be better.
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| # ¿ Aug 31, 2011 00:03 |
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I keep noticing Vayne talk popping up in this thread. She is a hard one to learn, but it has less to do with learning how to be effective with her QWER spells and more to do with learning how to play ranged carries in general and how to position yourself in fights (when to stand and shoot, when to run, when to kite them, how to kite them, etc.) This is a very hard thing to learn and it is always very very dependent on who you are up against, what kind of range they have, and what kind of CC they have. The best advice I can give on this is to look up Chaox's Vayne guide on Solomid's website. The dude is a super high Elo player so it's definitely legit advice. In his guide he has a link to a YouTube video of him playing Vayne and it shows you all these little nuances and how to dominate right from level 1. You just have to watch how he plays her and take lots of mental notes on things like how many attacks he shoots off before running away, when he tumbles with Vayne, when he uses her wall-pin, how much harassing he does vs farming he does, etc. You just get a sort of feel for a "rhythm" with ranged carries which is very very different from how you play an AP carry or a tank. It's like being in an entirely different mindset in terms of what visual cues are important and worth reacting to whereas on other champions they wouldn't be as much. That's the best I can do on that. 
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| # ¿ Sep 1, 2011 20:56 |
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Mercedes posted:So to those goons who play Vayne, I ask you this. What kind of build do you adopt when there are alot of magic users? They basically insta-gib you Against casters, you should have a strong early game advantage as Vayne because you can Tumble to avoid all their skillshots and then punish them. You will also have an easier time last hitting since you are building for AD. Get an early game advantage rolling so they don't end up with a Rabadon's at the 20 minute mark.
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| # ¿ Sep 3, 2011 20:55 |
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Akali is the burstiest burster that ever did burst and she does it all game. She scales extremely well to the point where the game is basically over if she is fed even a few kills early on.
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| # ¿ Sep 4, 2011 18:39 |
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ImpAtom posted:What runes do people get on Akali anyway? There are sneaky combinations of runes and masteries that allow you to trigger both of her passives at level 1. This gives her a huge early game advantage, but they are pretty strange runes that a lot of people may or may not have yet. The guide you want to follow is Westrice's Akali guide. The dude basically got famous because he is known as the best Akali player in the world. http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=1785 Watch his videos too to see how he zones people in lane using her shroud. There is also a bursting trick with Q where you hit them with it, wait for it to come off cooldown, then walk in and attack (triggering the first Q), then Q again, then attack again. It's probably the most lethal pre-6 burst combo in the game, it just requires finesse to pull-off since it is heavily timing-based and melee.
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| # ¿ Sep 4, 2011 23:26 |
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Here's a list of carries that generally perform pretty well: Akali, Akali, Yellow Jacket Akali, Akali, Blood Moon Akali, Akali, and Akali. Akali can go solo top / duo top / jungle / roaming / trilane / mid / solo bot / duo bot and own everyone! She is incredibly versatile in this regard! For solo top Akali, but boots and 3 pots. Make sure to get at least 2 kills by the 10 minute mark or else you are doing it wrong! For jungle Akali, start with Cloth armor and 5 pots. Start wherever you want and one-shot all the monsters. Smite is optional because your incredible burst basically mimics smite's burst already, making it pretty redundant. You should be level 6 when mid is just hitting 4, which means you can gank any lane by flashing a good 1200 units with your ult and red buff. For bot Akali, after your 3rd kill, you should go and one-shot dragon with your Q, wait 3 seconds, R, attack, Q, attack, E, W, Q, attack, Ignite combo. Don't worry about running short on energy, as energy management doesn't really matter for Akali. Riot just wants you to think it does, so they put a yellow bar there that mimics the energy system. The key to good Akali play is to Google a player named "Westrice" and follow his guide. Once, you've watched his YouTube video and learned his ways, you should start joining games. Pretend to be pro and make sure to beat your chest audibly every once in awhile. Of course, now that I have shared this secret to winning with the newbie thread, it's sure to backfire and reach the official LoL forums resulting in her eventual nerf! Make sure to abuse Akali as much as you can to reach gold rating tonight in ranked before Riot catches on!
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| # ¿ Sep 8, 2011 01:59 |
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Akali is pretty drat good man but she isn't OP, she is really OP at lower levels of play though, and against teams with a few squishys and low amounts of AOE and CC. Ok. I alone cannot pick the entire team to ensure a jolly good match against every Akali I come across. She simply does too much damage and has too low of cooldowns for a manaless caster. As I said before, she is a massive idiot check. It's not even at just "lower levels of play." Westrice got to 2400 Elo abusing the sideboob ninja. She's always a solid pick for any team that wants... damage (hint: all teams). Yeah it was a joke post. But hey, it's the newbie thread, and inquiring goons wish to know how to obtain free wins. The thread title is "Just pick Mordekaiser", but I think it might be better advice to "Just pick Akali."
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| # ¿ Sep 8, 2011 03:28 |
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Mercedes posted:You mean to tell me I can kill people FASTER? Holy poo poo. Don't forget, proccing Q with the auto-attack refunds 40 energy! With the time-delay in between your animations, you will get 40 back + another 20 meaning that the cost of Q combo'ing an opponent is essentially zilch! Oh and her ult doesn't have an energy cost, it just expends counts that refill faster than Zilean's abilities with max CDR. This leaves plenty of energy for you to combo in an E afterwards (plus the Lich Bane procced auto attack) for even more extra burst, AND a shroud to escape.
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| # ¿ Sep 11, 2011 17:28 |
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Bullio posted:I just started this game. I tried some melee champions but I ended up always getting too eager and chasing them to my death. I bought Ashe and started learning how to farm minions and do some hit and run tactics. I've got enough IP to unlock another and I was considering Twisted Fate. Is he worth it? If not, who's another decent one that I should go for instead? How's Morgana? Also Morgana owns. I am playing her a lot again these days and others are too. Follow this high Elo guide if you want to really master her. http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=1619
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| # ¿ Sep 16, 2011 17:23 |
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^^^ Feel free to add me "Siets" in game. I like playing with newbies on my smurf accounts, and like teaching people over microphone in Team Speak. It's a good chance for me to sorta goof around and experiment with builds and it breaks up the pace of tryharding for wins. Dominion does give you lots of practice with team fights. Lots! I mean, that's all it is. What it won't help you with are the first 1-9 levels laning stuff. There are both roles in team fights and roles in laning. I would say to definitely try to get a feel for them. General laning roles in SR: Jungler: Needs sustainability and special runes. Roams the jungle and keeps gold/xp pace with other solo lanes. Ganks lanes to get kills or at the very least weaken the enemy so that the lane is in your team's favor. Top solo: Generally someone with strong sustain that scales well. Top is just going to farm all day since they are so far away from dragon. You need to be good at last hitting and need to be able to stay in lane for a long time without going back to base much to excel here Mid solo: Strong AP carry or other carry that does lots of damage but is weak on escapes. Mid lane is short so it's easy to retreat to tower and be safe. Still offers solo xp and gold, so you want to be a primary damage source for your team if you are going here. Bot support: Buy gold per 5 items. Give most last hits (except the ones you see they WILL miss) to your bot carry partner. Typically someone with strong CC or strong healing (or both.) You make your partner deadlier by setting up kills for them or zoning for them so that they get lots of farm. Bot carry: If you have a bot support partner, treat this like a solo lane. Get all the last hits and farm aggressively. Watch your partner and strike with them in tandem against your enemies for maximum effect harassing or going for kill. Bot kill duo: You both pick bot champs that have some incredible combination of burst/CC/damage/tankiness and start getting hyper aggressive at 2 or 3. I've done Team Cold Blooded (Renekton and Cassiopeia) to crazy effect in this lane. Renekton has a manaless stun with a good duration, which enables Cass to land her ultra lane bully combo repeatedly at level 3. You will get kills running this if you coordinate right. If any of this is wrong, my apologies. I'm sure it's by no means complete. Some of the better players can probably fill in a lot of the gaps for me. Siets fucked around with this message at Sep 25, 2011 around 16:04 |
| # ¿ Sep 25, 2011 16:01 |
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Absolutely. That is probably one of the hardest things to learn since it requires instant head math and knowledge of pretty much every factor in the game! (Map awareness, positioning, cooldowns, summoners, minion count, turret damage, items... Yeahhh...)
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| # ¿ Sep 25, 2011 16:32 |
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| # ¿ May 21, 2013 22:15 |
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Don't harass a support/carry bot combo because they will just heal it to negate it and then you will be out some mana. If you are playing a manaless champ though, you can slowly bleed out the healer's mana through constant harass and attrition. Generally a bottom carry will be some kind of ranged auto attacker like MF, Cait, or Ashe. They have trouble lasthitting under tower unless they are really good, so just max whatever your AoE farming ability is and wipe creep waves fast. This slams the wave into the tower and hopefully denies their carry some farm while giving you a lot. It also keeps you set up to do dragon if and when the opportunity presents, because you don't want minions beating on your tower while attempting it. In general though, if you or your partner can't do any of the above, bottom lanes like that are strong and boring. You just have to wait for your jungler to disrupt things and stay safe until that happens. It sucks, but that's why all the tournament players run it.
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| # ¿ Sep 25, 2011 17:09 |
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