League of Legends Spoiler Thread - mid or feed!!!

Isn't it about time for Lee Sin and Ez to be cheaper than 6300 IP?

They're probably too popular to lower in price any time soon...

If you want to see someone barely-semi-competently play League of Legends (1500s ranked ELO queues) and make fun of all the mistakes I make, now (or rather, not right now, but in the near future!) is your chance. I'm working on figuring out the right options to stream with, but yeah, mxlm should come swoon at my totally mediocre Ryze play or something.

You should queue with Therlun to see high-elo dominion.

But I suck at Dominion.

So what you're saying is that it'll make an excellent stream!

Oh man, the Nasus pick in CLG EU vs Curse.



Poor Scarra.

A preview of changes coming to items in season 3.

Armor pen is now % reduction then flat. Also, items with flat pen have had it reduced to compensate. Black Cleaver now builds from brutalizer, and looses the attack speed for the +10 pen, 10% cdr, and 5% armor reduction for 6 seconds on hit (5 stacks). The on hit now applies to lots and lots of skills, like Garen's spin (lol aoe pen).

Given that AD bruisers are so underplayed, I think it's nice Riot is giving them so love!

Crisco, where is that from something going on now?

Holy shit, vman is streaming with a shirt on. First time?

http://clgaming.net/live/8845-lonestarclash2

I probably should have pointed out the text above was a link since they're kind of difficult to see here.

Voyboy's Nasus pick is paying off with a little jungle help from Mundo.

Also, I have never seen Vman with a shirt on now that you mention it. What a creepy thing to type out.

I... thought that was already the case. Whoops.

I'm not interested in anyone's shirtless stream except jiggle_billy's Buff HoN stream.

Nope, it was flat reduction, % reduction, flat pen, % pen. They're reversing the flat/% only; still reduction then pen. Though it's worth noting that with the Black Cleaver change there is no known item with flat reduction at this point (I can't recall if there's a mode specific item that grants it; whatever Brutalizer builds into on TT maybe. But that's TT so who cares). It remains to be seen if they will introduce another item that does it..

On the magic side there is still Abyssal or are they changing that too? Some characters have skills as well that reduce armor on a target by a flat amount, at least I think it's a flat amount I'll need to reread some descriptions.

To this day my understanding of League's armor/MR mechanics is so poor that I know basically nothing beyond "Get Last Whisper/Void Staff if they have a lot of it" and "get flat early or if they don't." in what way does this change that calculus?

I don't know if they're changing either Abyssal or the whole formula on the magic side of things; given how radical the Black Cleaver rework is I wouldn't rule anything out. It was specifically mentioned Riot wanted more items that helped give characters unique builds. I wonder if they'll tweak the pen/reduction values on skills since they're lowering the pen values on items (flat and %, I misspoke above). The only skills I can think off of hand that give flat armor reduction are Kog's Q and Corki's machine gun. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other examples.

I am very curious to see how radical the rework is.

Well, Riot claim the Season 3 invisible (since they're still largely theoretical, and also just cause) maths are going to make Flat [pen/reduction] scale better into late game/synerguze better with %. Of course, one of the things they are doing is making new items/reworking old items, and this will probably have more of an impact on late game scaling than the rework. I mean, look at BC. The extra second of debuff time is probably actually going to be really helpful for a few champs, and now there are many more abilities which apply the stacks. Garen can stack you full while spinning on your face, and then drop his ult on you. That's like 4.3 times the hilarity!

garen's ult deal magic damage I remember...

It makes it worthwhile to have flat pen in addition to a LW, whereas previously that was sort of...eh. Currently I tend to have 31 pen on my AD guys, and often get a brute to bring that up to 46, and of course the 10% pen mastery. If I then get a LW, well...assume the target has 150 armor. Currently, you'd knock it down to 104 and reduce it by 50% to 62 (compared to 75 with just a LW). In S3 you'll cut it in half to 75 and then knock it down to 29 (compared to 75 with just a LW).

Without knowing the other changes it's hard to say for sure, but it sure seems like hitpoints are going to become a lot more valuable for tanks and that tanks (and bruisers) are going to be a lot easier to kill. Maybe ranged AD will have an easier time dueling bruisers, we'll see.

Yeah. Well, maybe they'll take pity on people like Trist and Garen and fix that sort of thing

Hit points becoming more valuable will make Kog'maw better and increase the power of the %hp damage bloodrazor thingy, too. Which will be nice.

My guess is Bloodrazor's up for a rework anyway. "Pay 3k to do 4% of their hps in damage, except if they have any MR it's more like 2%" isn't really compelling.

Although if it becomes like Black Cleaver and can proc off skills that'd make Volley hilarious. Also MF's ult would be the most OP thing ever.

Because if there's a carry that needed buffing, it's Kog'Maw! I agree, though, it sounds like moar health will be the reaction to all of this. Will Warmogs come back in vogue?

Yes, Garen's ult is magic damage, I forgot. But the point remains. A better example would be Panth using Heatseeker on you and getting enough procs to top off, then throwing a spear at you for even more hilarious damage.

Do bear in mind the numbers are going down. Last Whisper is not likely to be a 40% pen item any more, though who knows how much it'll go down? But yes, the takeaway is "mixing flat and % is no longer weird and sub optimal at various stages in the game" (relative to the other things you needed to be doing).

I wonder if this will see ranged AD move back to mostly/all flat pen runes.

What do most people use for marks if not flat pen? AD?

(Also, the other day I had a game as Vayne where I went Zeal -> Black Cleaver -> PD, using flat pen marks and quints. My team bitched up a storm but I was killing people just fine in the space of my stun.)

Yeah.

That makes sense, thanks.

You're adorable.

Well, remember, just because something worked for you in one game doesn't mean it's good. Lazy has beaten real, actual humans as Tank Rikimaru -- and continues to beat real, actual humans as Perseverance everyone -- but it's still a stupid idea.

In your specific example, I am not sure that a Zeal before you have any damage whatsoever is an optimal path to follow. On the other hand, GOTTA GO FAST.

I frequently see Vayne grab a Zeal before any damage items save a Prospector's Blade. In Dominion. I have no opinion on whether it makes sense in SR.

Also, one of the scariest Vaynes I've seen had three Phantom Dancers and a Frozen Mallet and boots and that's it.

Well, it was more like...

Boots (Start) -> Doran's Blade x2 -> Zeal -> Black Cleaver -> ASpd Boots -> Vamp Scepter finish PD -> build IEdge -> Start building GA, win game.

Vayne gets flat damage during her ult and has the W, so attack speed scales unusually well for her.

Anyway, my point is that flat pen marks + quints + cleaver was fucking hilarious, more than anything else. I clearly should have also built a brut.

That's true, I wasn't taking Vayne's bonus damage into account, I was thinking of a more traditional AD carry. Oh well.

I use a hybrid 12 pen/8.6 damage page on ADs like MF for early harass and kills, especially versus supports like Sona who absolutely melt if they wander out of position even a little bit. I use pure AD reds/quints for farm lanes where I know kills are unlikely and I need my suspect last hitting to be at its very best, or the broken as fuck Taric/Sivir lane. But that is another thing entirely.

But is something actually a stupid idea if it works and leads to you having a better than average win ratio? And yeah, Vayne's W.

One of the announcement for LoL said they're changing magic pen to work the same way as the armor explanation. It's kind of interesting because they are actually reverting an old switch, I remember back when I started they used to apply % and then flat but switched it because people thought it was too strong and were stacking flat pen runes and items on top of LW/VS to get enemies to 0 armor/resist.

Flat AD runes are a pretty common setup, especially since boots + 3 pots is such a popular item start right now. If you are getting LW anyway, and frequently you are getting LW anyway. . . that + early farm help and so on and so forth. Incidentally that's something I've seen a lot more of lately, going back to the world championships. LW as the third, and sometimes the second, item on a lot of AD carries. Given how often people face dangerous AD bruisers (speaking not merely of the champs in question but the general summoner skill level), and the fact that LW is the best item for killing the typical AD bruiser. . . well there you go.

Also, in the major tournament action I've seen lately + any number of high level streams, people starting PD on Vayne and Kog was pretty common. Dat steroid. Usually it's boots, 1 dorans, zerkers, then PD.

Yes.

If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

NOTE: ideas can be stupid at one ELO and not another.

If it works because your opponent(s) were significantly worse than you, it could still be stupid.

Stacking Phantom Dancers on Hecarim is stupid even if you win.

This is not true, a stupid idea can work if your opponents are bad enough, but it doesn't make it a good idea. It just means your opponents are so much worse than you that that difference outweighed your poor choice(s).

Assuming your opponents will be worse than you is a strategy I recommend against.

Wingsofdeathx just built six tiamats and instantly pentakilled the enemy team off a Sejuani ult. The final day of season 2 has elicited some funny trollish stuff.

Re: Odd builds.

I can't stand people who immediately start screaming "TROLL BUILD" the moment someone does something that isn't a carbon copy of whatever build is popular that month. I recently had a Dominion game with an AD Malzahar on bot and our Nunu started whining about it and then afked.

Fact 1: AD Malz is a valid build in Dominion.
Fact 2: He was winning his lane.

Yes but the double Doran Blade is pretty key to that build aswell, it's usually something people will gloss over but if you don't have the 2x dorans you will literally do no damage when you get your PD.

Therlun recently mentioned AD Malzahar to me. I'm trying to remember why it's feasible; I think he said it was to do with the minions.

Malz his minions autoattack scales of his AD at a 1:1 ratio. The reason this works is that combined with cooldown reduction and auras you can make them both dangerous and numerous (up to three). Furthermore Malz his spells work even without extra ap as you can use his Q as a silence. His W is percentage based and his ult is a suppression while up to three voidlings gnaw at their ankles. Add in your AD auto attack dmg and you are good to go. The reason this works well in Dominion bot lane is basically turns Malz in a sort of Yorrick with minions that give chase.

All that said, any champ that can easily deal with the voidlings before they grow larger can beat this build handily.

Masteries and summoner spells. (link)

Some highlights:

1. mastery changes, but who knows what this will mean. They claim they are knocking out "wasted points", trying to make "off" trees interesting to all classes (they mention a tenacity boost coming to defense, and junglers taking extra starting gold), and removing the minion defense skills (or possibly rebalancing them and I'm not remembering correctly).
2. Flash and ignite getting "slightly longer cooldowns".
3. Barrier will come to all game modes with increased cooldown and reduced duration.
4. Heal evenly heals everyone.
5. Promote going to an item. Surge going away.