The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
[League of Legends] Worlds has started, keep spoilers in tags!
Posts
@Bethryn
I feel like there have been too many times where it'll swerve off in some strange direction because I got creep-blocked at the moment that it's calculating trajectory. Probably because there's such a large time gap between the cast and the return in contrast to Draven, so there's lots of time for something odd to happen with the player's movement. I'm not sure what the solution is though.
Also, I could SWEAR that I've seen it change direction mid-flight once or twice
Yeah, but Yasuo was actually trash from his release until they buffed him about a month later. He had something like a 37% win rate at release. There were 2 major reasons.
1) His EQ combo didn't work at all. There was a huge delay before you could Q after you used E, and it was awful and clunky. Much like Syndra was when they released her before her QOL buffs.
2) He just died when he ulted unless you had max flow built up so you'd get a shield after you leapt into the enemy team.
Both those things were fixed in in 4.1 a month after his release, and that's when his win rate became good. Then they steadily nerfed him until he sits around 47% or so now.
Everybody forgets how shit he was when he launched because it's easier to do a "CertainlyT champs always release OP!" circlejerk.
I think the one major difference I see between Yasuo and Gnar, is that nothing in Gnar's kit immediately made me say my god, what rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem? Yasuo's windwall and crit passive alone stood out as sea changes in terms of power and ability development. Like in a vacuum, it was impossible to really estimate the power of yasuo's wind wall. I over estimated just how devastating it is, but its still a ridiculously strong ability, that I thought as long as Yasuo was at least 2nd tier or higher would cause him to see pro play. Then you factor in his ult, passive and mobility and you can see he is a tier 1 champion that the QoL buffs made very clear.
Gnar has an interesting kit and I love the aesthetic, but nothing screams danger like Yasuo's kit. His ult seems really hard to use properly, and can't be activated like Yasuo's ult with help from other champions. So unless he can just dumpster people in lane, which it seems riot was cautious about making it so he couldn't do that, i.e. relatively short auto attack range, movement speed reduced on transform, etc, his lack of consistency will hold him back from pro play. It would have been cool if his Rage meter could be reduced by heals from friendly champions like sona/soraka/nami in order to better control the transformation.
Release champions with high skill caps will always have really low win rates to start, but in this case, I think buffs to Gnar right off the bat aren't an improper knee jerk reaction as his kit seems reasonable and his lack of consistency will hold him back no matter what. The crazy thing is, with over buffing you might see him as a solo que terror, but a forgotten champion at the pro level. It will be interesting to watch and see how Riot handles Gnar.
Also, interesting DPS calculations about Liandrys from reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2e1ugc/how_efficient_is_liandrys_torment_and_when_should/
The big danger I see with Gnar, after playing with him and against him for a while, is his CC. Being able to stun an entire team for 3 seconds is absolutely monstrous and can single-handedly decide a teamfight. If anybody else on his team is bringing an AOE CC ult then it's almost game over.
had a game with Gnar mumu and veigar. Other team didn't have a chance in hell to win after we started grouping.
Birds Fly,
'til there's Fire in the Sky...
God that guy is the fucking best.
CertainlyT, Xypherous, Gypsylord, and Feralpony have made the most interesting champs in the game imo. Though if Braum is any indication of what RiotWrekz is going to give us going forward, he might join the list in a hurry.
I'm gonna miss playing ADC. Jinx, Cait, and Draven are some of my favorite champs. Time to only play Vi, Udyr, Elise, Sejuani, Renekton, Urgot, Swain, Ziggs, Irelia, Zedd, Veigar, and Teemo. Possibly Riven if I get that going.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Really? We're doing this?
On this forum all of us were surprised that he wasn't insanely OP at release given CTs track record, which had been deservedly earned at that point. (I even publicly stated as such and apologized to INANTP). But that's a pretty different interpretation of history from the one I have:
The first couple of weeks, he had a very low win-rate. But, and this is important, his win-rate started to climb prior to the QoL changes he received. Once he got those, he took off and was an insane mid-laner. People were still arguing over proper build paths for him in the first couple of weeks, until Stattik Shiv became the agreed upon first item.
And while the hate for CertainlyT does occasionally go off the deep end (i'm guilty of that too), I don't think it's always unwarranted. Some of the more valid complaints I've seen, aren't even centered around powerlevel of the champs, but the way that he overloads kits and pushes the complexity creep of the game. Two things which I personally don't like.
I thought the reason you went for Liandry's wasn't so much that the item was inherently good. It was either
A) Someone on the other team needs to die and has a LOT of health
Is that wrong?
CertainlyT deserves his reputation because of Zyra, Zed, and Thresh.
But I've seen people as recently as the last 2 weeks refer to "how OP Yasuo was at release just like all CertainlyT champs." That's all I was talking about.
I'm pretty positive Yasuo's win rate didn't approach 50% until after his buffs a month after release. Sure he didn't stay at 37% for a month, because that'd have been unreal, but it wasn't good until the buffs.
And while I don't disagree that CertainlyT pushes complexity into his champs, I don't think it's a bad thing as long as the champions stay balanced for play.
You yourself have been going on about how much you love Gnar, a champion with 2 forms, both of which give him 3 and 4 free bonus passives per the form, a Q that is complicated enough that you can throw it backwards and hit somebody 2500 units away on the return path if you miss it on purpose, slows in both forms, has CD reduction on catch/pickup in both forms, slows in both forms, a W that gives bonus move speed on proc, stacks with autos and Q, gets even more passive move speed by levelling up his ult, an E that works as a gap closer/creator that can bounce off any units, 2 stuns that can be chained for 3 seconds of hard CC in an AOE, one of which requires terrain to stun with. And the way his form swap works, managing rage generation/decay to try to transform when you want, etc.
IMO win rate aside, Gnar is just as overloaded a kit and just as guilty of complexity creep as any of CertainlyT champs. I mean, I could explain how every single CertainlyT champ works in fewer sentences than it takes to describe everything Gnar can do and all the free stats he gets.
The League community is horrendous at remembering champion power. Rengar was another champion who was initially terrible yet became a nightmare after a patch. No one remembers pre-patch Rengar, only his later reign of terror, and cites him as evidence of Riot intentionally making champs OP
According to this site he averaged a 48% win rate in the patch before his buffs.
Intentionally making champs OP is business strategy. Why would you release a product that nobody wants? Release a product that overpowers all, and it will sell very well. Hell, some may even buy an extra skin for that champion because they want to /l with all the bm they're likely spewing in chat, such as "gg ez".
I like to imagine it like a game of rock, paper, scissors; introduce a gun to the game, and suddenly there aren't counters, so they start scaling back until it's a water pistol (which is usually a couple of months after a majority of the playerbase has spent money on acquiring the new addition).
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
I wish I had something else noteworthy to add, but it's fucking early and I was kept up by the boom of thunderstorms all night.
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
I love his aesthetic and how Gnar plays, that said I am in agreement with you that that the complexity in his kit is not great. I don't know why the bounce grants attack speed for example, and many people may not know that's how it even works. Also the weird scaling off attack damage, AP, and health is also bizarre, but has been done before with Volibear, so I guess there's precedent.
I don't think the transform really adds a lot to the complexity of the champ though - you're not toggling between forms, it's easy to understand the hero in two states, and treat those states as individual champions.
My approach to Lulu top:
Summoners: Teleport/flash. Feel free to go fairly oom at the beginning harassing and pushing cause you can B and teleport; you can also probably survive a gank while pushed up and agian use teleport to get right back to lane. The teleport gank/paramedic squad is also pretty good (go botlane, hugify your dying adc, glitterlance the enemies to death, whimsy back to toplane)
Start: Doran's ring+ 2 pots
First buy: Chalice or a couple more rings
If doing well: basically just go AP: Sorc boots, Athene's unholy grail, rabadon's, rest of AP items to taste (I think I probably get void staff and zhonya's and maybe abyssal or lich bane)
If feeding: no worries, you are still extraordinarily useful. Build a tankier Lulu: merc treads or ninja tabis, Frozen Heart, Abyssal scepter, more AP or tankiness to taste.
My winrate as top Lulu is probably my highest winrate of any champion (but of course diluted by some losses as support Lulu, which I am not great at, so I need to stop trying it), but I never call top because I can only play one champion top and because top is so scary...
they might not have figured out more elegant ways of adding complexity at this point but the simple stuff is pretty much done to death in the game
I agree that adding complexity to most of the new champions is better though. It's just more interesting in general, and as long as they keep them in check it's not a problem balance wise.
i thought w wa nerfed to shit, so all the cool kids lvl q first and evolve leap first...
Joe's Stream.
W got some buffs back in 4.9 and I'm seeing lots of pro players evolve his W again. I'm just not sure what order they do it all in.
http://viktorjayce.league-art.com/chapterone/
this is a good comic because no one is a generic waifu
Last night I deleted an entire enemy team with one ult at level 6. Granted the most health any of them had was about 50%, and they happened to all be chasing a low health Gnar. But still, that felt like one of those too good to be true moments.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
i liked the part where the artist completely redesigned caitlyn to be less awful