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

BLIZZARD IS THAT YOU?

Flash has been getting slightly longer cooldowns since the beginning of time. They might as well just move it to usable once per game already.

Actually, Blizzard didn't invent "removing wasted points" from skill trees. They just improved on existing formula.

No, I'm pretty sure Warhammer's skill trees came from WoW.

Or remove it entirely. Flash is simply too powerful compared to the other options regardless of the cooldown.

McKnight will be along eventually to tell you why they can't do that. I don't remember exactly. Part of it is that some champs (mostly initiators and melee champs without gap closers) are too heavily dependent on Flash, but that seems like it could be fixed.

It's bullshit anyway. Yeah, you can use flash offensively as well, hell I do it on Rammus all the time to taunt peeps at range. Yet I don't take flash on neither Dominion or ARAM so rather then a champ problem I would say it's a gametype problem. Positioning is so important in classic that a spell that allows instant and uninterruptible positioning is simply too powerful no matter what.

They can nerf the cooldown all they want but that's not going to change anything. The distance nerf sure didn't.
It's a binary skill. Either it's useful or useless.

After flash, user taken 35% additional damage for the next 5 seconds..

They should rebalance it to have its longer range and lower cooldown but not let it flash over walls. There we go, it's not overpowered anymore!

(because it's terrible)

Then they could put disjoin back on it and it would be hilarious.

Alternatively, go the DotA route and make it disabled for 3 seconds on taking damage, because y'know, Blink Dagger is actually balanced.

I really wouldn't want to have gameplay strangled to within an inch of its life just because we are annoyed when someone occasionally manages to use flash successfully. It promotes more aggressive gameplay in every lane and it allows AD carries like Ashe or Kog to exist at all. Yes, you can say that this is an inherent design problem and I wouldn't disagree, but what's more likely: Riot fixing dozens of champions or flash remaining in the game?

Even I, the worst jungler ever to grace the fields of justice, could successfully the camp the bejesus out of a Kog'maw if he ever dared venture forth from under his turret. Likewise, any popular top lane without some sort of dash would be utterly screwed and forced to play extraordinarily passively or not picked at all.

Mind you, the shake up in the meta could be fun, and I'd be willing to see flash go if only for that reason alone. So maybe it wouldn't be all that bad after all. I just don't think it'll ever happen.

The correct way to counteract Flash initiations: Don't be in a position where a good Flash completely fucks your entire team. See also: Blinkdagger.

This is an odd tidbit from S3 patch:

As a person who plays support a lot (by virtue of being someone willing to play support), I like this, although I'm unsure what impact it will have.

I always liked how some people argue that you can't take out flash because some champions are dependant on using it to initiate or escape, but then also say that if someone flashes towards you the correct thing to do is flash away, and the correct thing to do if someone flashes away from you is to flash after them. So according to their explanations everyone having flash makes it a zero-sum game and if you don't take flash and flash when other people flash it's bad play!

Is there anything Karthus can do against LeBlanc? I let one get ahead a bit and then even hugging the tower, if I wasn't at full life she could dive and 2-hit combo kill me.

So far Karthus has been really fun when he gets fed, and kinda useless when he doesn't. I know a lot of carries are like this, but he seems to take it to the extreme.

That's what LeBlanc does. Lane swap, or alternate nuking the waves on your tower with taking wraiths/wolves. Go ganking, with wards up so you can see her coming to counter-gank and your jungler can jump on her, etc.

You run a flat MR rune page and rush a BV instead of a RoA. LeBlanc literally can't touch you once you get the BV and from there you grab a Deathcap and basically just rush as much damage as you can.

Karthus is basically a ridiculous AP Carry, you can become a monster lategame but you need to be able to play and farm consistently to get there. He's also probably one of the 3 hardest heroes in the game to play well, I know I can't do it anyway :)

So some new and improved item news.

From Tiamat Tuesday, we get the new Tiamat...

So pretty cool, but now it has an upgrade into.....

For the ranged characters, there is now...

For clarification, The Hurricane applies Varus's Blighted Quiver, Caitlyn's passive(But the bonus damage is main target only). It should also be noted that it is wasted on Vayne because Silver Bolts won't hit 3 consecutive times because of the multi-target.

Would it apply teemo's poison?

Probably applies Twitch's poison... I wonder what its interaction will be with S&P?

I have this feeling that lethality in Dominion is going to go through the roof. We're already looking at everyone and their brother packing a Blackfire Torch, but stuff like this?

Well, their goal is plainly to shake things up, and this will certainly do that.

From what is posted in the preview, looks like a yes to Twitch and Teemo's poisons, unknown on Spray and Pray.

Yeah, Blackfire Torch. I'm trying to think of any ap champs that don't want this and I come up with nothing.

Don't even have to be AP champs. Leona could make good use of it, and she's a tanky tank of tankliness.

The guy responsible for Dominion says he is fully aware of how high elo Dominion is shaken up by item and rule changes, but also that that isn't a problem because high elo Dominion is nowhere near the importance or visibility of SR high elo. The advanced Dom players will adapt and be able to survive for a while even with unbalanced and changing stuff.
His paradigm is that right now is the time to try out crazy stuff, adopt what works, tweak what doesn't, and maybe also make Dominion more appealing to people other than those elitist, handsome high elo Dom players.

I wish people would tell me they're supporting as Soraka before I lock in Graves. I don't want to be playing Graves if you're Soraka! I want to be playing Sivir or Caitlyn. Grrrr.

Why is that?

Because I'm used to playing Graves with Taric or Leona, and the, uh, flow? of gameplay is totally different with Soraka. More pokey, less burstey. And less control.

So Sivir, who has spellshield and amazing poke but mana problems; or Caitlyn, with good poke, just as good mobility, amazing attack range, and her trap.

So Riot cleared up some Runaan's Hurricane questions. Teemo and Twitch do apply their poisons on every shot, When Spray and Pray is up, Hurricane does spawn the extra bolts, but they are regular attack attacks and not piercing.

Is this blind pick, because don't lock in before the team is chosen.

Ranked, so draft pick.

Are you fucking kidding me? Karthus did not need a buff!

Removed items:
Force of Nature
Ionic Spark (poor Wickd)
Meki Pendant and Rejuvenation Bead
Madred's Bloodrazor (easier than a rework)
Elixir of Agility
Heart of Gold

Also, what may be my mostest favorite support item FUCKING EVER:

It upgrades to something, but he didn't say what. True sight wards, maybe?

Heh, I've griped for so long that that kind of ability should just be innate, just like town portal / recall.

Soraka Graves is quite a strong lane, as far as Soraka lanes go.

Ah, this is interesting

I assume this means they're buffing Irelia!

I'm not sure I understand their explanation for what's wrong with Force of Nature (caveat: I suck at LoL). I use it regularly on Maokai and Singed and I feel like the stats all work together just fine.

It was great for Singed, less so for others, I can kind of understand it, but oh well.

He provided a different explanation later in the thread. I don't want to dig it up but basically: if you stuck it on a bruiser it was too good as an anti-mage item and prevented them from implementing more anti-mage items because if you stacked them you would auto-win. Move speed + mr = what you want to kill mages.

Apparently.

New AA upgrade is going to be sex on wheels as Ryze. :D

Oh hey, new Nidalee model.

Ooh la la!

Blade of the Ruined King seems like something that is just straight up superior to Bloodrazor and is coming to SR. WW HAS ALL THE LIFESTEALS NOW!

It does seem like they're finally making the items in LoL much more interesting. Items that automatically upgrade themselves after reaching a certain point could open up some pretty awesome possibilities.