tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58455257706967830262024-02-20T09:37:35.489-08:00VG LandVarious blog posts about video games.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-5911990364020806762014-07-10T13:58:00.000-07:002014-07-10T14:12:31.377-07:00Grinding Was Never FunRiot has said time and time again that they don't support smurfs but they won't take any action against them. Veteran(mobas or league) players make the complaint that the leveling process for new accounts is an irksome experience. At first glance this works out for Riot because new players usually don't detest leveling unless they have friends who tell them its something they should hate for so and so reason. In fact I don't even remember leveling my first account much less hating the process. Though as everyone knows very well in the online gaming industry, if you don't want to do something someone'll do it for you, if you have the money. There is currently a large number of bots leveling up accounts so they can be sold to players who can't be arsed to. In theory, bots really shouldn't have a reason to exist in a moba game. If they're made to play the game for you, and the fun comes from playing the game it really defeats the purpose of having a bot. They do all the mundane things for you (proving you don't get caught) so you don't have to; if you find the game mundane you should just stop playing. Even though I agree that the leveling system should be removed, doing so will create a few problems that'll need to be fixed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Ranked Play</h3>
The reason most people make smurfs is because they want to play ranked on a new account and climb with it. Now if Riot were to remove the leveling system you'd have a HUGE number of people who would create a new account just so they could try and climb again. Could imagine how skewed the middle elo range would be from all the new accounts? It would be like another elo reset, except nothing was reset. Now I know what some of you are thinking, "Dota 2 does this and their elo isn't skewed!!" and you're right. However when you put a red button everyone wants to press on a mountain, then remove it what do you think they're going to do? They're going to all run to press it, and its going to create a large influx of new accounts in ranked. So what Riot is going to have to do is replace the current mountain with another mountain. For example making the player have to win 50 normal games before becoming an experienced player and being able to play ranked. This allows players to experience the game in full (runes, masteries, summoner spells) without the annoying hassle that is leveling. Botting would be less effective (they would have to bot longer) because they don't just have to get EXP, they have to get wins.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Runes, Masteries & Summoner Spells</h3>
Allowing players to choose more masteries + summoner spells and place more runes upon leveling up isn't accomplishing what Riot wants it to. This is a common technique executed in many games, giving more access to the player upon leveling so the player can experience everything without being overloaded with information. Well Riot you don't have to worry about that with Runes, Masteries & Summoner Spells because the meat of the game actually occurs in the game. No new player is going to sift through the masteries they've got between games and then experience the difference from different configurations. They aren't going to notice any difference in game from shitty level 1 runes, especially when they don't even have all their rune slots. And just because they might choose a new summoner because it was just unlocked doesn't mean they would stick with their first spell choice if they had them all. In reality they would most likely mimic what they see other people choose, or they can search up guides. Whatever Riot is trying to accomplish with the leveling system isn't being accomplished.<br />
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<h3>
Replacing the Old System - Title System</h3>
Levels were used to determine a few things such as name change date. Instead of using levels you can use titles to dictate this stuff. A set number of normal/ranked game wins would give you a title. For example; 0 games = beginner, 10 games = novice, ... , 50 games = experienced, ... 1000 games = veteran and so on. People with higher titles can go for longer times without playing before their name can be taken. Same can be done with game modes.<br />
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<h3>
Recouping Loses</h3>
At the end of the day, Riot ultimately losses money on this. They have to spend the money to get people to make a new system and they lose the revenue from EXP bonus'. So what can Riot do to recoup losses? Sell a single title. They can sell the experienced title, which allows you to play ranked, for $20. For all you people with rustled jimmies, calm down. If it was up to you everything would be free. You aren't forced to buy anything and this will get rid of the botting problem. People still won't want to get the 50 wins in even though they have all their masteries. People will still look for websites that can just sell them experienced accounts, since as long as they don't want to do it someone will make a bot to do it for them. Riot will just cut out the bots and the middle man so that players can get the experienced account from Riot for 20$. Riot gets the money, trading accounts/scams won't happen as often and even more bots are taken off the rift.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<br />TL;DR</h3>
Removing leveling system(allow new players to start with all mastery and rune slots, all summoner spells) and replace it with a title system. Title changes as you get more wins, at 50 wins you get access to ranked play. Riot can sell experienced title for 20$. No more bots, no more leveling system, no more grinding.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-82185934362391901392014-07-02T20:17:00.004-07:002014-07-03T19:46:29.585-07:00State of AD Carries and PBE BloodthirsterThe popularity of the BT has dipped across all regions and elos since the changes made to it. With 30 stacks the old BT had 20 AD + 3% more lifesteal than the current one. While it may not seem like a lot on first glance, the BT lost 20% of its AD and 16% of its lifesteal. BT did get a new passive but that didn't stop it from being a low-tier item for ad carries. Aside from just the raw numbers there are also a plethora of other factors which made the BT lose the title of highest priority AD item.<br />
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<h3>
Power Spikes</h3>
As the game evolves and players understand to play the map better we learn to use the tools we have to garner advantages more efficiently. Power spikes were always identified through thresholds such as champion level and item progression. AD carries were identified strong once they hit their third big item, mages once they hit levels 6, 11 and 16. While you can still identify a powerspike through those means, players have started to manufacture pseudo power spikes. By doing this you're able to put more pressure on the map because your champion is much stronger than it regularly is at a specific time. Think of a Twitch with GB and BotRK versus a Twitch with BotRK and PD. The former is much, much more stronger than the latter if they only have those items with a zerkers and a dblade. GB's mid game power is very strong because it can be utilized much more efficiently mid game than in the late game. For most (if not all) ad carries their optimal build doesn't have GB in it. Since most players follow builds somewhat religiously, psuedo power spikes created by building off the beaten path have gone unnoticed for quite a while. Not to say it hasn't been done, just that it wasn't done enough for the builds to become staple for a role or champion.<br />
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BT had a HUGE powerspike when paired with TF and was a large part of the reason why it was so popularly built. Other than BT + TF, ad carries aren't all that useful during the mid game. Normally they would have to hit the big three item threshold before becoming of any real use, outside from a few outliers. The BT + TF powerspike developed a new playstyle for ad carries in competitive play, where they took a much more active role in the mid-game. When BT was nerfed, instead of returning back to the old style of play and build people searched for a different way to reach the powerspike so that they could still impact the mid game heavily. This is where the popularity of GB + BotRK skyrocketed.<br />
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<h4>
Buildpath</h4>
Its also worth noting that you're able to get more stats momentarily when buying a BotRK than a BT. BotRK has a bunch of small pieces to buy so you can back and come back into lane with more items than the person trying to save up 1550 gold for a BF sword. <br />
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<h3>
Youmuu's Uprising <span style="font-size: large;">+ Twitch</span></h3>
Before patch 4.10 GB already had a surge in popularity. AD carries who favored (mainly Vayne and Twitch) BotRK had tenancies to build GB right after to hit their powerspike. This was especially so with Twitch, infact we may have not seen this build at all if it weren't for him. During 2014 Allstars Twitch saw a rise in play due to the fact that not many people had experience playing against him. His mid game powerspike came from the fact that he could roam and pick off kills very easily but teams learned how to play against him very quickly and he fell off the map just as fast as he appeared. Teams learning to play against him lowered his mid game prowess a lot until BotRK/GB build took rise. Twitch was much more powerful mid game with this build but not just because he was able to gank other lanes, but the actives and ultimate allowed him to throw his weight around in teamfights mid game very effectively. Vayne players who were already building BotRK and maxing W (as opposed to maxing Q and building BT) started to build GB as well, as it synchronized with their ultimate. <br />
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When BT was nerfed and people felt like the powerspike that was brought from BT/TF wasn't worth the gold it cost anymore, BT fell to the bottom of the list of items you'd want to build first on an AD. Before 4.10 there were two mid-game powerspike builds for ADCs and so when one got nerfed, everyone obviously defaulted to the other. It worked very well for Lucian and the ones it couldn't work for defaulted back to the 3 item threshold playstyle. Not to say that AD carries got weaker, infact I would say that they got stronger late game. If they ever reached it, that is. With so much of the map outcome being decided in the mid-game, having an AD who is strong in the mid-game is very important. The team that doesn't have an AD with a mid game power spike will try not to make any map movements and will just wait until the enemy makes a mistake or starts getting outscaled before starting to take action. With BT gone, TF followed after since it was part of the BT/TF powerspike and the item diversity for AD carries stayed relatively the same early game, lower in the mid and the same during the end.<br />
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<h3>
PBE Bloodthirster</h3>
The BT on the live patch has been changed in the PBE. The shield amount has been lowered but it stays up for longer. The really important change is the new passive that gives 10% bonus attack damage. We've already established that the item efficiency isn't the only reason for an item being in flavor or not, we have to think about whether it can be used to create a power spike or if it'll just be an item to add to your build later on. If its the latter, the buff isn't really that game changing and just buffs AD carries who build it in the lategame. So the question is, can the new BT be used in conjunction with another item to create a 2 item powerspike? The passive gives 10% BONUS attack damage, so its not going to be as strong as it was before stat wise until you get a dblade and 200 bonus attack damage. First we should find out who it'll most likely benifit the most. Probably Draven, Graves and Sivir since they can dominate their lane and the game with enough AD. These champions have their own AS boosts as well, so they can do with just zerkers for a while. The champs do better with flat AD quints than with flat AS quints as well. With a dblade, flat ad quint + ad marks and a BT you have about 112 bonus AD with the new passive, 102 bonus AD without. Those three champions won't do well with TF and they don't need the AS early so more flat AD would be the optimal route. The only thing I can think of is LW.<br />
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BT+LW has always been a 2 item powerspike for Graves and Draven for a while but its even weaker now statwise than it was before even with the passive. You have 157 AD instead of the 163 AD you used to have, so about 6 ad short of the original. The only difference is now you still have the shield. Albeit weaker since it it got nerfed, it lasts longer so you're able to go into fights with it on much more easily. The question is, is it good enough to compare to the power spike of GB/BotRK? Well, its different. GB/BotRK is a powerspike, but as soon as those actives are used the power spike is greatly diminished until their back up again. You might think this doesn't matter because they'll just wait until the opportune time to use it but it isn't that simple. They <i>have</i> to wait until the opportune time to use them or else they'll be useless. The champs who build BT+LW are already lane bullies, but with their two item spike they don't have any downtime on it. They can throw their weight around in lane as much as they want and if the enemy tries to engage with their actives they can just back off and force objectives while its down. Not to mention that bullying the lane becomes even easier with a shield, BT+LW vs BotRK+GB may just become a case of apples vs oranges.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
Conclusion (TL;DR)</h3>
The new BT may be able to create a new powerspike with LW, enabling them to bully around enemy laners who have to save their actives or end up losing their powerspike. <br />
<br />
BotRK = Blade of the Ruined King<br />
ADC = AD carry<br />
AD = Attack Damage<br />
BT = Bloodthirster<br />
LW = Last Whisper<br />
GB = Youmuu's Ghostblade<br />
TF = Trinity Force<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-47478342342335337882014-06-23T21:44:00.003-07:002014-07-07T20:30:56.311-07:00League of CasualsLeague of Legends has been accused of sacrificing game depth by the various DOTA communities and even the game's own players. The accusation is that League of Legends panders to new players so that it can be more popular, that the game is made for the lowest common denominator. Whether that is true or not doesn't really matter; does making the game more simple actually lower the competitiveness of the game? This accusation rings true even more so now because Riot has recently revealed that <a href="http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/lol-design-values-depth-clarity">jungle timers </a>will be timed for the player, as long as they saw the death of the buff/monster. What change will this bring to solo-q if any and will it lower the competitiveness of the game?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://riot-web-static.s3.amazonaws.com/images/news/June_2014/DDBC/tm_thumb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://riot-web-static.s3.amazonaws.com/images/news/June_2014/DDBC/tm_thumb.png" height="250" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot of the new timers on the HUD at the top center of the screen. A timer for each team's buff, dragon and baron show on the HUD.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In short, yes, yes it does. Competitiveness is usually measured by the amount of platforms one can use to overcome the enemy. In soccer speed, stamina, ability to dribble/pass the ball, etc are all platforms one can use to overcome the enemy. Take away any of these and the game becomes less competitive. For league, just simply knowing timers was a platform in itself. Forgoing using that information simply knowing the timers relieves pressure on the map because you know its time that you don't have to worry about that objective being taken. Using this information creates so many opportunities for the team such as being able to sneak things right under the nose of the enemy because they weren't prepared. Players who used this information to squeeze wins out of their usual solo-q grind will soon find that anyone can now do this. The platform that they used was ameliorated for other players, closing the gap of skill of players. Make no mistake, if Riot continues to make these kind of changes(imagine if ultimate/summoner cds were shown, turret ranges, minions lit up when they can be lasthit, etc) the gap of skill between players would continue to shrink.<br />
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Normality breeds progression. Turn the clock back a few years and jump into solo queue. You're gold right now, but what rank would you be now? You would probably rank number one on the solo-q ladder, no joke. The things you're exposed to now were underdeveloped or not even known. I remember that during a pro game HotshotGG was praised for getting 100 cs at the 12 minute mark. Thats standard now, most people in gold get 100 cs by 13 minutes now. The playerbase's ability to farm has exponentially grown since the old times. People didn't know about lane control, people didn't even know dragon existed and bush control from supports wasn't maintained. Now all those things are standard, expected of the average league player. This application of information brings about change in players, they learn to slowly adapt and counter it. Whether subconsciously or by learning it from some sort of source, the loss of one platform creates another. When applying this to the new jungle timers, does this mean that players will eventually become better due to this change?<br />
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I did say that the competitiveness of the game will decrease and thats because Riot is removing one platform from the game and a new one won't be introduced because it already exists. The use of the knowledge would be the platform born from the normality of knowing timers, but since players already use this knowledge its not really adding anything. The level of overall play will certainly see a rise because the platform of using jungle timer knowledge will vastly increase in say, a years time. Most players will have new information to work around. I believe that you won't be able to see the timer of a jungle mob unless you see it die, and not just the spawn itself. This encourages people to clear out wards of spawns not just to make sure the enemy doesn't have vision of it, but they can't get the timer information to create advantages with. Things like this will overlap the current level of play so whether or not the competitiveness of the game will decrease shouldn't even be an issue. In the long term it should increase and surpass what was there before.<br />
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A more important question is what jungle timers did for the average player and what the change means going forward. It should go without saying that this change won't affect professional player since these things and more are already timed by the players. However having a timer may slightly change how players react as opposed to just having a time. Knowing the jungle timers is like a gate to using that information for the average player. Remember that the true power of knowing jungle timers come from the knowledge on how to use the information, not the timers themselves. Its simply a gate, but that could be said for all things that could be timed (player cooldowns) in the game. The thing that makes jungle times different is that their always stagnant. They never change on a game to game basis, they don't change according to how the player acts. If the player could do something to elongate or shorten the jungle times then it would be a different story, but they can't. The jungle time information is simply a gate, its a very, very, verrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyy small platform gating a much more large, and important platform which is using the information.<br />
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We can also look at it from a game design perspective. Imagine a door and a dimension behind it. The size of the door represents the information required to open it, the size of the dimension behind it represents the amount of information it holds. When it comes to jungle timers the door is relatively small, probably no bigger than 7 feet because all it holds is static timers. Behind it however is a rather large dimension, its size completely dwarfing the size of the door holding it by far. When it comes to things like player cooldowns, you meet a different story. The dimension is enormous, probably biggest there is in the game. The door however is nothing to scoff at either because this door holds information such as every single cooldown in the game, how they are affected by level and cooldown reduction. The door is very much proportional to the size of its dimension, if both the door and the dimension are platforms it doesn't make much sense to remove either one if they match. If the door is minuscule compared to the size of the dimension, removing the door may not be that bad of an idea. If the door is huge and the field is minuscule in comparison, you may not need the door or the field.<br />
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All in all I think it'll be a healthy change for the game. I can't wait to see how the level of play will increase due to how players use the information and how they counteract it. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-13378049805125496102014-03-28T04:34:00.002-07:002014-03-31T13:57:48.061-07:00Guide to ChallengerBeing a challenger tier player is more about discipline and repetition than it is raw skill. Just like playing instruments, playing sports or doing almost anything worthwhile takes discipline. Reading guides don't make you a better player, believe it or not. Just like how reading a book on how to dribble a basketball doesn't make you better at dribbling, or how reading a book on better hand positioning for the piano doesn't make you play any better. You could theoretically read every league guide out there and you wouldn't be a better player. Not to say they don't help you become a better player but they don't make you a better player. The only thing that makes you a better player is practice. If you were to ask any professional player how to get better, they'd probably say just play the game a lot. No, you don't play the game a lot. You're not comparing how much you play League to other games. You're comparing how much you play to other players and chances are there are literally hundred of thousands of players who've played just as much as you or more. If you want to get better you're going to have to play more.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div>
Now even if you play more your rate of improvement isn't going to raise that much. Skill level is not stagnant across seasons, this year's gold players are probably just as good as season 1's platinum. So churning out a ton of games everyday alone isn't enough to reach your goal in a timely manner. What you have to do is be above the curve, if everyone is improving at a rate of x, you want to be increasing at a rate of 10x. This isn't where you run to guides to help you improve, you can probably forgo reading any type of guide and reach challenger. Guides tell you what to do and why you do it and you, which you don't need to know. Knowing why you do what you do doesn't make you a better player, you just know why you do what you do. Knowing what to do is what you want to know and normally guides are the best source material for finding out this information but we have plenty of vods of professional players playing a large range of champions. So this is what I invite you to do; choose one lane and champion, watch a bunch of vods of challenger players playing it and write a game plan(revise the game plan every 20 games or so). The game plan will be comprised of thing common things done in each game. For example the first three minutes would go something like;</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Renekton - Top lane VS melee</div>
<div>
Buy Dorans Blade + Health Pot + Ward Trinket, Q first</div>
<div>
[0:00 - 1:55]</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Guard blue by standing at baron pit ramp; Gaurd red by standing in top tribrush, help jungler until 2:00</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
[2:00 - 3:00]</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Hit each melee minion once, last hit as necessary, stand close to enemy melee minion and Q enemy as they approach to last hit, if agro taken run back or to brush if close</li>
<li>Reach level 2 before enemy, Q minions to push harder if needed, clear 1 wave and melee to hit 2</li>
<li>Push minions into tower by 2:45, ward river brush after</li>
<li>Should have 18 CS at this point</li>
<li>Watch for ganks</li>
</ul>
<div>
You're going to take too much damage from helping your jungler. You're going to take too much minion agro/damage from the enemy during trades. You're not going to get 18 cs and you're going to get killed by a gank. Thats only the mistakes you will make in the first three minutes but its to be expected though, but you'll get better with practice. You're going to have to churn out those games until you get 15/16/17/18 cs consistently, until you know when the jungler is going to gank and how to manipulate the lane properly. Knowing/Creating the game plan doesn't make you a better player, playing the game makes you a better player. Playing better than you currently are instead of playing at your level is how you raise your skill level efficiently.<br />
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If you're playing at your level and you're not raising in rank and want to, you're not doing something right. If you go 15/5 and still lose every other game your not doing something right. While it may be your team's fault you lost, you're always to blame for not winning. Playing the game is the only thing that will make you better at the game, so if you want to reach challenger you'd better start playing. <i>A lot</i>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-91207047163841649132014-02-21T22:55:00.003-08:002014-02-21T22:55:56.995-08:00Misconceptions in Solo-Q: You're not carrying shitI have to admit my pet peeve when it comes to League of Legends is when someone on my team says they couldn't carry in a demeaning manner. As if they were going above and beyond trying to carry us but we were trying to lose on purpose. Not to be the bearer of bad news but your score isn't the deciding factor of whether you're carrying or not, if anything it displays your potential to carry. And we all know that having potential doesn't factor into winning league games.<br />
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"Baaaah I dominated my lane but other lanes lost, I can't carry these scrubs"<br />
"q___q team doesn't know how to focus, I can't carry these scrubs"<br />
"this support/adc is sooo bad I can't carry this trashbag"<br />
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I'm not going to say you're lying, but I'd cut your sentence a little short to make it more truthful. "I can't carry." would be much more accurate. Thats nice that you went 4/0 by 20 minutes in top lane, but theres a game going on on the other 3/4 of the map. You could have went 0/4 and it would make no difference, you literally did nothing to carry the game. Oh, you killed the enemy botlane over and over but couldn't win teamfights? You'll get them next time. Your opponent mid was your bitch and under turret the whole laning phase barely getting any farm? I'm glad you had fun playing dominatrix. But please don't tell me you were carrying because you weren't. Let me make this clear however; I'm not saying you can't win lane or that you're not better than the people in your elo like you claim to be. I'm just saying that carrying implies that you're carrying the team on your back, which you most likely aren't doing. <br />
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Carrying is a playstyle. I've said it in multiple blogs before but winning your lane doesn't mean you win the game. Evidently so because of the popular phrase "win lane lose game". To carry you have to take the pressure off the other players. Give them breathers, make the game easier for them. Carrying the team on your back, breaking your back from carrying, being most impactful player, etc. When you're dominating your lane you aren't doing any of that unless the enemy has global pressure. If you win your lane and stay in it you probably carrying just as much as if you were going even or losing. Thinking "I'll win lane <i>then</i> carry the game" isn't going to do you justice. Just put pressure all over the map while keeping your tower safe. Get the minions (which also keeps your tower safe) and put pressure elsewhere on the map. Force fights that are unfavorable for the enemy, get objectives when you can.. what I'm basically saying is make plays. I know you've seen this advice on AMAs tons of times, but its the truth.<br />
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Now I'm not saying that stomping your lane doesn't open avenues for you to carry. Just that the act of just stomping the lane isn't carrying, its what you do after. You must push for objectives, get the jungler to pay attention to you, do things that affect the other players in the game. You have to dictate how the game is going, make the enemy team very aware of your presence by shoving it in their face. Gank other lanes and get their towers, and not JUST their first tier towers. Do it at second tier towers, inhib towers if you can. Your item advantage means nothing if you're not doing anything with it, and if you think you are doing enough but you're still losing games then you need to do more. Complaining about teammates is like complaining about the weather. You can do it all you want but it isn't going to change anything. If you don't like getting wet when it rains use an umbrella. <br />
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Just please don't surrender at 20 and complain about not being able to carry scrubs because you won your lane and did nothing else. You gain elo by carrying games, not winning lane. Don't let your item advantage carry you through games, use your item advantage to carry games.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-69058618060600164642014-02-04T13:05:00.000-08:002014-02-04T13:05:26.635-08:00Mute/Ignore Button; Useful but Unused Feature & Curbing Toxic BehaviorIn my opinion the ignore button is the single most powerful tool for keeping a game cleansed of toxicity. Generally to succeed in a game you have to be playing a mental game with your enemy. Thinking about what they're going to do, where you have to go or which objectives you should go for next. When someone spouts toxic nonsense at you(and if you argue back, you're definitely not thinking about the game anymore), you automatically lose this train of thought. You DO need concentration to play your best so anything that removes you from a comfortable environment should be dealt with. Whenever someone says something toxic, you have the ability to simply ignore them. Out of sight, out of mind. That being said the ignore function is barely ever used despite its power.<br />
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I don't believe the ignore button is accessible enough. Yes, the ignore being two clicks away isn't accessible enough. The mute button should be somewhere that as soon as someone says toxic, you're automatically reminded that you can mute them. In chat, right at the end of every sentence the mute option in the scoreboard should appear for a few seconds before fading away. Now, some issues may come into play if this is carried out. While it makes the game enjoyable again for the person muting, it does not curb the behavior of the verbal assailant. It doesn't tell them they've been muted and no doubt they'll go on putting up a show for the other players by slandering the player. Riot is adamant about correcting the player behavior (as they rightly should), so something should be done about this.<br />
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Now I know a lot of people give Riot flak for not implementing things like prisoner island because of how toxic the community is. I'd argue that what they're doing is a good thing because they're actually trying to clean up the MOBA community in their own way. Some people may say its not their job to do so but then whose job is it? The players are not just going to fix it themselves and if you ever want a decent community some actions must be taken. Things like prisoner island doesn't help fix the problem. Its like a band-aid fix, a very very explosive band-aid fix. Just imagine a prisoner island game and how volatile the situation is. Everyone is a rager/afker and as we all know, even ragers can make people who are usually not toxic, toxic through arguments. In a game full of ragers its like throwing a lighted match in a box of explosives, just one sets off and everything explodes. There are arguments that if people don't like it they can remove themselves by bettering their behavior but in my opinion it would make 'light' ragers much more toxic than they normally are on a regular basis while only reforming a small amount of players. Much like prisons where people who are in jail for light crimes come out harder criminals.<br />
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Some things Riot could do to use the mute button to reform behavior;<br />
<ul>
<li>Suggested before but telling the player that they've been muted. "A player has muted you." No doubt it'll send the message that they're being toxic while taking the pack mentality away from them. Knowing that they have no audience will most likely stop them from raging.</li>
<li>At the end of the game, a little message could pop up saying "You muted X person this game, would you like to report them?" would appear. I often forget to report someone after a game because I just want to move on and only after closing the end game stats I realize I should have reported them.</li>
<li>Track mute percentage. Riot can use this information to understand what mute rate (eg. muted once ever 3 games) is toxic and administer a restricted chat punishment accordingly. People who go over the threshold they decide get a restricted chat.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Now I see some problems that may arise and I'd like to address them.<br />
<br />
People might abuse the mute button:<br />
Much like false reporting, it won't affect anyone who is not being toxic habitually.<br />
<br />
People might rage and afk/feed after getting notified that a lot of people have muted them.<br />
All the power to them, while it will ruin a few games it'll only hasten them being banned.<br />
<br />
Something else that would be good is to remove the ignore list. It doesn't do anything but keep people muted if you play with them again, the mute button would work like that in this case. They would be unmuted if you played with them again, but if they're toxic you just mute them once more. The ignore list can't really do much anyways, if it could prevent you from playing with other players I feel like it would be abused a lot. Especially in high elo where there isn't a large pool of players, someone could easily ignore the people they don't want to face against regardless of whether they're toxic or not.<br />
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These are not changes that would help to better the community in the short run. It may prove to make the environment more volatile for a while but in the long run it would make the community much less toxic.<br />
<br />
TL;DR Making the mute button more accessible while adding a few features onto the mute button can prove to curb toxic behavior.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-62278958614777102932014-01-16T11:29:00.000-08:002014-01-16T11:29:42.005-08:00ItemizationLately there has been a lot of discussion about itemization in league of legends. People complain that there isn't enough choice in items, that there is always an 80%+ optimal build path to choose. Then people ask for items with a different arrangement of stats, as if that will help anything. When people talk about the optimal build, you have to realize how much optimization and numbers relate to one another. The gold value/efficiency of 90% of items can be completely calculated. It only makes sense that people would be able to use this information to calculate an efficient build. There is a way to throw a cog in the calculation however, but I'll get to that later. First we've got to look at why people want "better" itemization, or what even makes itemization good or bad.<br />
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<br />
I'm going to go against the current consensus and say that itemization in league of legends is good. When I say itemization I don't mean variety, in my opinion thats isn't required for a game to be good. In most games with weapons/equipments there is usually always a "best" item to use and only in competitive games do you see a broad scope of items being used. Its the same in league of legends, at the end of a game look at the items people have built and you'll see a variety of items. Not only that but there are almost items for every situation you might find yourself in. Riot has done a great job of creating a staple choice of items for every class thats made. I'd even argue the idea that the variety in item choice is poor and I will argue that itemization in general is very well done. You have to remember that there was times where there was no AP item for vsing AD in lane. Or poor itemization choices for AD casters. Or even just recently how supports were pigeonholed into building "support" items and buying wards. Itemization is at a good place right now, there are items for every class to build even though there is no choice. Creating more items won't add any variety to builds, it'll just add to the pile of items people don't and shouldn't even use because there are better choices for getting what they want done.<br />
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The kind of items that create variety are niche items. Items that fill a niche roll in game, have some sort of unique ability that can't be calculated and are rarely picked. When I say niche I mean niche. Just because an item is rarely picked doesn't mean that its bad. People are always saying, "buff runnans so it'll be built more" or something along the lines of that. You can only build 6 items at a time. If runnans is buffed to the point where it starts to be more appealing than other items, another item is just going to fall out of flavor since runnans does its job better and it has a truly unique passive. Its fine just where it is, it performs a niche roll and should stay rarely picked. What you really want is not more items that will be popularly picked, that does not create variation. To create variation you need truly unique items that are rarely picked individually, but all together maintain a good pick rate versus staple items.<br />
<br />
Also its not even like there are no niche items to pick from, there are quite a bit of them. <span class="content-border" data-rg-id="3085" data-rg-name="item"></span>Runaan's Hurricane, Morellonomicon, QSS/upgrade, Guardians Angel, Gauntlet, Twin Shadows, Ohmrecker, Mikael's Crucible, Hexdrinker/Upgrade, Wit's End, DFG and some more popular ones such as Athene's. The stats on them may not be as good as the staple items for certain builds but have passives/uniques that make it hard for people, or impossible in some cases to calculate their item efficiency/value in raw gold. If you want more itemization, are you asking for an item that is a better/worse choice than the items already out there? That won't help the variety issue. More niche items? We have plenty, but more wouldn't hurt.<br />
<br />
Maybe there aren't enough niche items to create the illusion of build diversity but I honestly think the diversity is there. Why is it such a bad thing to have an optimal build route and why is diversity so sought after? The current item system works very well, there is no reason to break it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-39855726692909244052013-12-12T13:16:00.001-08:002013-12-13T11:38:26.317-08:00Chmpion Evaluation: Sion<h2>
<span style="color: #e69138;"><span style="font-size: large;">Champion Evaluation</span></span></h2>
What defines a champion? When someone mentions a champion what automatically comes to your mind? Perhaps the persona built for the character(Teemo, Draven) or how its kit is very cohesive (Zed, Syndra). When it comes to the champion Sion, only one thing really comes to mind. How did this champion pass its design phase? Being one of the original 40 champions is not a saving grace for this guy(maybe being one of the first four is) as Riot displayed that they were able to create multiple characters with cohesive kits. I'd argue that Sion is the only one without one, how did Riot go from creating great kits like Anivia, Karthus, Blitzcrank, etc to <i>this</i>? Now when I attack this champion I'm not saying that he isn't viable but I believe he needs to be changed so that his kit works like an actual kit.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110708215724/leagueoflegends/images/thumb/f/f3/Sion_WarmongerSkin.jpg/1000px-Sion_WarmongerSkin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110708215724/leagueoflegends/images/thumb/f/f3/Sion_WarmongerSkin.jpg/1000px-Sion_WarmongerSkin.jpg" height="188" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sion, the Undead Champion</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Sion's current viability is always brought to the table when discussing a rework on public forums. I firmly believe that how viable he is, is completely irrelevant to whether he should receive a rework or not. Being viable isn't something that should never take precedent for deciding whether a champion should be made or reworked. Champions are made months in advance, even if they were to be made for the current meta its quite possible that they'd be unviable in competative play by the time its released. A more appropriate question to ask is, "Is there any chance that this champion would make it through the design phase today?" The answer is a resounding no in my opinion, I don't see any way that Sion would make it through the design phase without being scrapped or changed. This is where things get difficult because Sion just can't be deleted from the league and forgotten, he needs to be changed so that his kit works like one.<br />
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<h2>
<span style="color: #e69138;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sion's Passive</span></span></span></h2>
No matter what path you take to rework Sion, its clear that his passive needs to be redone. Riot has started to phase a few things out of the game, namely global skills/passives and RNG based skills/passives. Since its unreliable, the passive has to have a lot of power to make up for that. Sion's passive is very RNG based, so lets try to normalize it first before we do anything with it to see if its any good.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">Feel No Pain</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">Sion has a 40% chance to ignore up to <span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted; cursor: help;" title="Level 1">30</span> / <span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted; cursor: help;" title="Level 8">40</span> / <span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted; cursor: help;" title="Level 13">50</span>
damage each time he is hit by an autoattack. The damage reduction is
calculated before armor and percentage damage reduction benefits are
taken into account.
</span><br />
<br />
Lets use 100 autos to change this to a normalized passive. <br />
<br />
Since it procs 40% of the time, its reasonable to say that it would block 40/100 autos, or 40% of those autos. If Sion's passive procs 40 times which allows him to ignore 30 dmg, he ignores 1200 dmg in all. We want to take out Sion's passive, so we make it so that he procs his passive 100 times (instead of 40 times) while ignoring the same amount of damage. 1200 dmg divided evenly amongst the 100 autos is 12 dmg ignored each auto.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">Feel No Pain</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Sion ignores up to 12/16/20 damage each time he is hit by an autoattack. The damage reduction is
calculated before armor and percentage damage reduction benefits are
taken into account.</span>
</span><br />
<br />
Now that we got rid of the percentage chance we can start to really look at whether the passive is useful or not. In a teamfight the previous Sion may proc every time which makes him seem a little tanky or it may not proc at all and the passive is worthless, but now that its normalized the passive seems very weak. Blocking 20 damage isn't anything late game and percentage damage reduction benefits are taken into account. While it does technically scale, we need it to scale into lategame effectively and this can be done by blocking a percentage amount of damage.<br />
<br />
The average base damage of a level 1 is 54 among the 116 champs. This means that at the start of the game Sion can block up to 22.2% of the base auto damage from champions at level 1. We'll use this number to help us create a new passive that scales into the game but blocks a percentage amount of damage.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Feel No Pain</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Sion ignores up to (20/25/30)% damage each time he is hit by an autoattack. The damage reduction is
calculated before armor and percentage damage reduction benefits are
taken into account.</span><br />
<br />
While it may seem like a lot, it should be taken into account that the percentage amount blocked is effected by percentage damage reduction.<br />
<br />
We'll use this version for the passive for Sion for now.<br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #e69138;">Sion's Kit </span><span style="color: #e69138;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></h2>
To edit his kit we must know what path we're planning to bring Sion to, whether it be a mage, assassin, support, etc. In my opinion, Sion best works as a fighter. Sion's abilities require quite a bit of mana because they have a lot of damage and utility. The iteration of Sion I've thought up will be using rage instead of mana and his skills will be changed because of it.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">Q - Cryptic Gaze</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="font-size: 89%; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase;"></span> <b>ACTIVE:</b> Sion's gaze terrifies a single enemy, dealing magic damage and stunning it for 1.<small>5</small> seconds. </span><br />
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Now this skill scales with AP very well, incentivizing people to build Sion with AP. I want Sion to scale off AD, so the first thing we can do is make it scale off AD. It now scales off AD, requires no mana and does magic damage. This skill has a little too much power, especially since it makes it hard for people to itemize against Sion. We can change the skill a bit to make it more in line with the rage mechanic.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Q - Axe Raze</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>FIRST CAST:</b> Sion beings to wind up his axe, gradually increasing its damage and maximum range over 1 second. While in this state Sion cannot attack or use his other abilities and his movement speed is slowed by 15%.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>SECOND CAST:</b> Sion slams his axe to the ground, dealing physical damage to everyone around him and stunning enemies for 1 second. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This skill would scale off of bonus AD, range would be 100 - 400 (maximum). 18 second c/d starting.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e06666;">W - Death Caress</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e06666;"><b>ACTIVE:</b> Sion surrounds himself with a shield which absorbs damage for up to 10
seconds. After 4 seconds, if the shield has not been destroyed, the
ability can be cast again to explode and deal magic damage to
surrounding enemies. It will explode automatically after the 10 seconds
have passed.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Another skill that incentivizes people to build AP on Sion. Being that it is a shield, we don't need to make it scale off AD but it would be nice to make it scale off his fury. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">W - Death Caress</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>ACTIVE:</b> Sion consumes all of his fury and surrounds himself with a shield which absorbs damage for up to 10 seconds. After 4 seconds, if the shield has not been destroyed, the ability can be cast again to explode and deal magic damage to surrounding enemies. It will explode automatically after 10 seconds have passed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This skill would scale similarly to Tryndamere's heal, increasing the amount of shield given to Sion depending on how much fury his has collected. Scales with AP as well, the AP scaling increasing with the amount of fury Sion has.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e06666;">E - Enrage</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="font-size: 89%; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase;">Toggle:</span>
While toggled on, Sion has increased attack damage at the cost of some
health for each autoattack. While Enrage is active, Sion permanently
increases his maximum health whenever he kills a unit with either his
attacks or abilities. This effect is doubled against champions and large
units.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I think this would be a good skill to implement his fury, since its already a passive. We can still give the same feel of the skill by letting it give free AD. The part about increasing the maximum health will be removed though.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">E - Enrage</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>PASSIVE:</b> Sion's basic attacks grant 2 fury and passively generates 1 fury every second. Permanently grants Sion attack damage, granting a larger bonus per fury gained. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It would most likely be something like 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 attack damage plus 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 AD per fury.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e06666;">R - Cannibalism</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e06666;"><b>ACTIVE</b>: For 20 seconds, Sion gains bonus lifesteal and 50% attack speed.
Additionally, Sion's autoattacks will heal surrounding allies for a
percentage of the damage dealt. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This ultimate has a ridiculous amount of power. This is part of the reason why Sion's first two skills scale with AP, if they didn't Sion would have too much power. Since our skills scale with his fury/AD, we're going to have to strip a lot of power from this ultimate. However, we'll try to leave some so that it feels similar.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">R - Cannibalism</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>TOGGLE: </b>Sion consumes 5 fury per second and no longer generates fury passively. Sion gains 10 / 15 / 20% lifesteal and his auto attacks steals 5% of enemy champions movespeed (up to 15/20/25%) for 2 seconds.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sion has a lot of trouble because he can easily be kited. His stun is a small aoe around him so it makes it hard for him to catch anyone. However, with this ultimate once he does catch an enemy he can stick on his opponent much more easily.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #e69138;"><span style="font-size: large;">Reworked Sion:</span></span></h3>
<h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Passive - Feel No Pain</span></h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Sion ignores up to (20/25/30)% damage each time he is hit by an autoattack. The damage reduction is
calculated before armor and percentage damage reduction benefits are
taken into account.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Q - Axe Raze</span></h2>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>FIRST CAST:</b>
Sion beings to wind up his axe, gradually increasing its damage and
maximum range over 1 second. While in this state Sion cannot attack or
use his other abilities and his movement speed is slowed by 15%.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>SECOND CAST:</b> Sion slams his axe to the ground, dealing physical damage to everyone around him and stunning enemies for 1 second. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><br /></span></div>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">W - Death Caress</span></h2>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>ACTIVE:</b>
Sion consumes all of his fury and surrounds himself with a shield which
absorbs damage for up to 10 seconds. After 4 seconds, if the shield has
not been destroyed, the ability can be cast again to explode and deal
magic damage to surrounding enemies. It will explode automatically after
10 seconds have passed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">E - Enrage</span></h2>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>PASSIVE:</b>
Sion's basic attacks grant 2 fury and passively generates 1 fury every
second. Permanently grants Sion attack damage, granting a larger bonus
per fury gained. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">R - Cannibalism</span></h2>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>TOGGLE: </b>Sion
consumes 5 fury per second and no longer generates fury passively. Sion
gains 10 / 15 / 20% lifesteal and his auto attacks steals 5% of enemy
champions movespeed (up to 15/20/25%) for 2 seconds.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #38761d;"></span>This is my reworked version of Sion with some insight as to why I changed some things. Feed back would be appreciated!<br />
<br />
After some feedback from the reddit thread located <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/summoners/comments/1sqw59/my_idea_of_a_sion_rework/">here</a>, a second updated version of the kit was made.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Passive - Feel No Pain </span></h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Sion reduces damage taken by 2% + (0.05/0.1/0.15)% per fury missing. </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">
</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Q - Axe Raze </span></h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">FIRST CAST: Sion beings to wind up his axe, gradually increasing its
damage and maximum range over 1 second. While in this state Sion cannot
attack or use his other abilities and his movement speed is slowed by
15%. Releasing the skill before the charge is complete consumes no rage
and stuns enemies within a 200 radius.</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">
</span><span style="color: #6aa84f;">SECOND CAST: Sion slams his axe to the ground to launch himself at the targeted area, dealing physical damage to everyone hit and slows them for 2 seconds. This consumes 30 fury.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">
</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">W - Death Caress </span></h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">ACTIVE: Sion consumes 30 fury and surrounds himself with a shield which
absorbs damage for up to 10 seconds. After 4 seconds, if the shield has
not been destroyed, the ability can be cast again to explode and deal
magic damage to surrounding enemies. It will explode automatically after
10 seconds have passed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">
</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">E - Enrage </span></h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">PASSIVE: Sion's basic attacks grant 2 fury and passively generates 1
fury every second. Sion gains 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 AD per fury.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">
</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">R - Cannibalism</span></h2>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">ACTIVE: Requires at least 70 fury to use. Sion consumes 5 fury per
second and no longer generates fury passively. Sion gains 10 / 15 / 20%
lifesteal and his auto attacks steals 5% of enemy champions movespeed
(up to 15/20/25%) for 2 seconds. Once his fury is depleted, the effects
wear off. Sion's passive is deactivated while his ult is up.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-34679896719872847842013-11-19T22:38:00.002-08:002013-11-19T22:38:20.580-08:00Improving Your Level of PlayLeague of Legends is a game in which ten players called summoners summon a champion to fight for them on a battlefield known as Summoner's Rift. The summoned champions start off on opposite sides of the map, five on each side which form a team. The map is divided by a river and each side belongs to the team that starts out on that side of the map. Each team has a base where their nexus, a giant crystal the enemy team wants to destroy, resides. The <i><u>objective of the game is to destroy the enemy nexus</u></i> which means victory. There are several towers that must be destroyed before the nexus is targetable so you have to take them out as well. Everything else is optional. Optional does not mean you don't have to complete said tasks to win the game, it simply means you don't have to do it to win <u><i>every</i></u> game. However, to complete every game you must destroy towers and the nexus.<br />
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Tasks required to win:<br />
<ul>
<li>Destroy Towers</li>
<li>Destroy a Inhibitor</li>
<li>Destroy Nexus </li>
</ul>
<br />
Optional Tasks:<br />
<ul>
<li>Kill Enemy</li>
<li>Use Wards</li>
<li>Acquire Buffs</li>
<li>Farm minions</li>
<li>Destroy Inhibitors</li>
<li>Everything that isn't required </li>
</ul>
<br />
Now that we have the basics outlined we can focus on how to improve your level of play. <br />
<h3>
Better Equipment Helps</h3>
I'd like to say that getting better equipment doesn't matter, but it does in some cases. If you ever reach the point where you wanted to do something in game but found yourself unable to do so because of mechanical limits it may be time to upgrade your equipment. Your regular mouse just isn't going to do it anymore and turning up the sensitivity in the options isn't a permanent solution. You'll want to get a 3500 dpi mouse (more if possible) and turn it all the way up. You could most likely get a lower mouse moving as fast as a 3500 dpi mouse by turning the sensitivity up in the game options but it'll be inconsistent. Once the game is over you'll return to your regular mouse speed and switching between the two (and more if you play other games at different mouse speeds) just isn't good.<br />
<h3>
<br />Play a mouse movement game</h3>
If you get a new mouse games like osu! will really help you adapt to your new mouse speed movement and master it. If you're looking to move in game with better speed and precision then games like osu! really do help you in this department. Something that isn't done often in league of legends is warming up. Playing a few games of a movement game before you jump into queue will rid you of sloppy mechanical play in the first game of the day.<br />
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Thats as far as it goes for trying to improve your play outside of what goes on in the game. Lets be frank though, that shit don't help much. Having better mechanics means nothing if you don't know what to do with it so what you really want to improve on is what goes on mentally during the game.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
Who gon' stop me?</h3>
The way you play a game is decided by the game's objective. If you've forgotten already, the objective of league is to destroy the enemy nexus. To destroy the nexus you have to destroy the towers around them, to destroy those you have to destroy an inhibitor and to destroy the inhibitor you have to destroy three towers infront of it. I doubt anyone will argue against this even if they run into lane thinking about how they're going to kill their lane opponent. I understand that if you kill your lane opponent you can destroy the tower, however you're limiting the way you think. This kind of thinking is what bred the saying "win lane lose game". Well shit, of course you lost the game. Winning lane =/= winning the game, so stop trying to win the lane. Start trying to win the game so you can start your path to being a better player.<br />
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If you can't drive this mentality into your head, then I'll tell how you can. You need to go straight up your lane blasting <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2mBK9LsKf4">Who Gon Stop Me</a> on repeat with your sight set on their nexus. As soon as you see your lane opponent chosen in champ select (or confirmed at the loading screen) you ask yourself, "Who Gon Stop Me?" Mind you that who gon stop me does not mean "who is going to try and stop me", it means what it says. Who WILL stop you, if that answer is ever no one then you'd better be all over their towers. This question is THE question you need to ask yourself if you want to win the game. It works in every single situation, do not question it. Enemy Yi backdooring nexus towers? "Who gon stop me?" Well obviously if Yi destroys your nexus, you can't destroy his. He is stopping you, so you have to eliminate him. They stop you in every game you lose and fail to in every game you win. If you fail then you fix what was wrong and try again. If you had the choice to lose lane every game yet still win, would you take it? I'm not saying that learning how to win lane is a bad thing. It simply means that if you're trying to learn how to win games, winning lane isn't what you need to learn how to do first.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
Conscious Play</h3>
Before you start trying to win anything, you should know that your play isn't going to go up a division just by reading this guide. You get better with practice and twenty games doesn't count as practice so it will take a while. Its important to know what you're practicing though, which was the whole point of the previous paragraph. Learning League is like learning anything, except its on your own. You don't have a teacher (most likely) so you have to do some self learning here. Pretty sure self learning isn't taught but its pretty easy to get the hang of. You simply do, and when you fail you make an assertion as to why you failed and how to correct it. As long as you can say you didn't play the match perfectly, there was something you can learn. When you play a game just pick one mistake you noticed in your gameplay and then guess why that mistake was made and how to fix it. I say guess because it doesn't have to be right- its important that you just make a guess. It'll be an educated guess which means that it was based on the knowledge you already have for the game. If you guess and its wrong, you've lost nothing because you were wrong the first time (which is why you made the mistake). If your knowledge is poor at first you'll get a lot wrong but no one else is going to tell you what mistakes you made so this is something you have to do. You don't have a teacher to do this, so you have to do it yourself. Its like fighting a hard boss on a video game, you try one thing and fail. So you try another and fail, and another and another until you beat the boss. League didn't come with a manual on how to play the game perfectly, meta knowledge and all that stuff came from experimenting until something worked. Once you start getting a few things right your next guesses will build off of the previous guesses that worked. It'll snowball until its much easier to guess what you did right and what you did wrong.<br />
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<h3>
Failing</h3>
You should never settle because you're afraid of failing. If you don't fail you won't get better, its just that simple. Contrary to popular belief, reaching diamond doesn't unlock the ability to create plays with characters. You don't become diamond with Zed and unlock the ability to do that awesome Ahri play you saw on youtube. I know people will say things like "Stop doing what X does on stream, you're not diamond" but fuck them. They aren't interested in getting better, so you keep doing it until you can. Faker didn't play Zed the first game and was amazing with him because he was diamond. Albeit he was better than a bronze player with Zed but he wasn't youtube highlight reel good. He played him, failed with him, corrected his play until he could. If you're mid sin and you're thinking "I can probably kill him if I do X but I'll probably fail." then you should do it 100% if you're trying to get better. No if ands or buts about it, just do it. You WILL fail, but it won't be in vain if you learn from the experience. By the time its your 50th time doing it, you'll have no problem executing it. You never see the fails on highlight videos, just the end result. That lee sin thats failing ward jumps horribly isn't going to be forever if they keep at it, eventually they'll perform them reasonably well. It may sound contradictory saying this after putting so much emphasis into going after towers but playing to win and playing to learn are two different things. Once you have the proper playstyle drilled into your head then learning other things is only natural.<br />
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<h3>
Conclusion</h3>
Learning should be done in normal games, ranked is where you should <i><u>always</u></i> tryhard. You may want to dive your enemy laner instead of getting the easy tower in ranked but unless you know you can do so 100% and get the tower you shouldn't. As long as you're not trying to lose in normals, failing is fine. However playing dominion with characters you aren't familiar with goes a long way. All in all, if you're having fun as is and your level of play isn't an issue to you then don't worry about getting better and just play for fun. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-41422568868550810342013-06-22T00:38:00.001-07:002013-06-22T00:38:15.619-07:00Solo-Q Is a JungleFor some reason everyone wants to reach high elo, but they aren't willing to do what is necessary. Most people will create invisible barriers preventing them from getting better and it makes no sense to me. The use the barriers to justify why they can't climb to the top while not realizing if they removed the barriers they'd rise to the top. Its like setting up a roadblock so you can't get to work, then explaining how you would have gone to work if the roadblock wasn't there. Does that make sense?<br />
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<br />
<h2>
The Jungle</h2>
Metaphorically, Solo-q is the jungle of league of legends. Its not a person or a living being, so for the love of god stop trying to reason with it. You simply survive it, and you don't stop doing it until you stop playing the game. I'm tired of people trying to pioneer their own method of getting to high elo and say that all they want to do is be a challenger tier player. Frankly, they're lying to themselves or just being straight up disrespectful to everyone else. If they really wanted to get high elo, they wouldn't need to pioneer a path to do it. I'm not saying its wrong to do it, pioneer your path to diamond but don't do it under the guise of wanting to be a better player. If you got lost in the jungle would you choose that time to try and survive your own way? What would you do? Most likely you'd try to remember all the survival shows you watched and try to copy what you saw.<br />
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I mean, it is the jungle and the best way to survive in the wild is to adapt. Yet you rarely see anyone scouring forums on how to get better at league of legends using this basic skill. That person isn't going to attempt to adapt because adapting in a non-life threatening human vs human environment is harder to start. In the wild you can admit to yourself that an animal can find food better than yourself, so you'll follow it and eat what it eats. If a rabbit eats some berries I'd probably figure I can eat them too. When it comes to the game however some people would be hard-pressed to admit that there is something that can be learned from another player. "How did Kha'zix go 12/0 by twenty minutes? My team is such garbage. If they had let me mid Malphite like I wanted to I would have won against Kha'zix." Thats just the typical stuff you see in solo queue, and this is the wrong mindset for multiple reasons. I'm not going to go on and say that you couldn't beat that Kha with Malphite mid, that point is literally irrelevant to getting better. Its as if you're downplaying what the Kha has done by stating you could beat them.<br />
<br />
This is where the jungle metaphor and adapting comes into play. You're in the jungle and you just can't seem to catch any meat. You might be stronger, smarter or even faster than some of the animals but they're not hungry like you. So what you do is copy what they do to catch the food they do. If they catch rabbits by flushing them of the shrubbery then catching them, you do it just as they do. You don't go on about how if you were the rabbit that shit wouldn't work on you or how you couldn't be killed as easy. You use the same techniques to pray on them- you adapt to the jungle. You don't go on about how you could have won that lane against Kha, you watch the replay and study the player. You note his every movements, you study his play like you're going to make a documentary about it and then you employ his tactics next game. You play Kha and do what he did, you adapt. WORST case scenario you get stomped, learn how to counter him and gain something new to adapt to. Its literally that easy, you just learn what stomped in your last game. Whether it was your teams mid, the enemy support or yourself. You study how that happened and do it next game. Once you got this down and gain all that freelo, you realize that you haven't even achieved your final form yet.<br />
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<br />
<h2>
Normal Games</h2>
Now some people might think what I'm saying isn't really valid because my surviving the jungle metaphor is about a single person while winning games takes the whole team. If you were thinking that I can already tell you weren't thinking about surviving the jungle, you were just thinking about winning. Winning doesn't mean you're surviving the jungle, its a product of surviving. First of all, stop playing so much solo q games like normals if you're worried about your rating. Normal games are like street football(get a few friends, some nets and playing) games, ranked solo q is much more akin to organized football. Not in the team sense, but that the outcome of the game matters. Not to say you can't apply what I say in this post to ranked games, but most people probably can't bring themselves to it because at the end of they day they're trying to win the game and not improve. They may not take the extra risk which could be a huge learning experience because its a ranked game and that could really hurt progression. If thats the case it'd be much better to play normals to improve your gameplay, then ranked for the sole purpose of winning(or "tryharding" as some put it).<br />
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<h2>
Hunger & Thirst</h2>
You can survive thirst seven times over before you have to survive hunger. A lot of people are thirsty for some form of online validation. How many people who are trying to raise on the ladder drop the line "I don't play X champion because its FoTM/I stopped playing X champion because its FoTM" like thats a good thing. Those people are going to hit a brick wall in their play and won't overcome it anytime soon. Those are the people not willing to adapt, simply because they let their ego get the better of them. Those people have so little hunger, no, they've run into the negative amount and now they're thirsty. They're thirsty for validation from other people because of what they do or do not play as if that gets them some sort of respect. They're letting that thirst get in the way of what they want. You don't want to be recognized for what you play, how you got to where you are but the kind of player you are now. Stop with the thirsty habits and watch the replay of that Jayce that dominated your last game, copy and apply to your next game. The only pro player I know that was famous for this was Chaox and he got clowned for it sometimes as if it was a bad thing. He'd state how X was OP if he got stomped from it and proceeded to only play X. You need to adapt that kind of mentality to evolve in this game. Most high elo players have it because as soon as they get stomped with something or see an item used in an intuitive way they're already q'd up and ready to try it out. "OP" shit is like wildfire in high elo as far as I've seen on streams, as soon as its introduced its beaten until its apart of the meta and finite counters are in place.<br />
<br />
The biggest thirst(and hunger) enabling mechanic in my mind is the league system, or any rating system for that matter. It a breeding ground for negative thoughts such as being better than another player. Your rating means literally nothing once your in game, and yes, I know this is said a lot. Said so much people just take it for granted and don't really think about it. That 12/0 Kha might be rated silver, but he may have been playing like a diamond player that game. He may forever play the rest of his games like a bronze player, or silver, but lets just say he played like a diamond player that game. He gave your team such a beating you surrendered at 20 minutes, the only reason the Kha didn't have over twenty kills. Your rating doesn't set a cap on your play in a game. If that was the case you could never get any better or worse. That number is nothing, stop overplaying its value. It simply states how far you have come up the ladder, thats it. Knowing it doesn't mean the level at which you will play that game, realize you can always learn something from players in games. Don't use rating to prevent you from getting better, use what you know will you games. From experience, you know that Kha dominated your team and you will use said Kha to dominate others.<br />
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I haven't even talked about hunger yet, most likely because it isn't needed to climb the ladder. Its something you have or you don't, not really something you can manufacture as its natural. Hunger can be triggered by pretty much anything, but you can get up and one day decide you're going to hunger for X. You don't play league all your life, never watch a game of Dota, know nothing about it and then wake up the next morning and hunger to be the best dota player of all time. Hunger is much stronger than thirst, I mean if you really hungry to get better you'd already be playing OP heros and things such as pride for not playing them wouldn't even come into the equation for you. I mean real hunger, losing sleep at night because you couldn't do something you thought you could so you stay up thinking of what went wrong. So hungry that you hate/admire wildturtle because he has three accounts in the top 5 of the challenger tier. Just the thought that the only real thing preventing him from having 50 accounts and preventing anyone from becoming a challanger is that it may not be humanly possible. You may not see that as a reason to hate/admire someone but its probably because you're not hungry. Its like there is 50 spots to a university and the university allows you to take multiple tests and take up as many spots as possible. They have 50 tests, they all are different and one guy just gets the highest mark on all of them and gets all 50 spots. Its not even that he's currently smarter than you, its that no matter what you do, no matter how much you study and that ONE person is always ahead of you. Its one thing to know that there will always be someone better than you, but to know that there is one specific person who will always be better than you is something else. When that person has no advantage over you, and they're effectively letting you know that they'll always be better. Its that kind of competition that breeds hunger.<br />
<br />
tl;dr Stop feeling sorry for yourself, adapt to the jungle and stop being the food for the people who do adapt.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-66568054463195895372013-06-20T09:58:00.001-07:002013-06-20T09:58:11.209-07:00Team PracticeThere seems to be a common misconception about how easy it is for a team to train. It isn't just scrimmaging, watching replay of said scrimmage and then correcting the mistakes in the teams play. That may work, however there are far more efficient ways of getting better as a team. Scrimmaging is just a means to an end, the platform on which you decide what you practice. By itself scrimmaging is nothing but inefficient(it will still get the job done, but very poorly) and it promotes bad habits, this has a lot to do with the infrastructure of the scene you currently play on. Its why I believe Korea will always be ahead of every other scene, simply because their infrastructure is so good. Note I will not be explaining Koreas infrastructure, mainly because I don't know it but I'll be explaining what I believe to be at least a basic infrastructure.<br /><br />
<br />
<h2>
The Problem</h2>
Communication is a key component to getting the most out of a team and should be developed before anything else. You can't create a team and just end up with structured communication, its obviously something created. Your team doesn't just end up explaining their lane situation in an ordered fashion at specific times in game naturually. You get together as a group and set clear and concise rules for communication. Saying "You need to communicated your situation more to us at X point in the game" is vague, and is not going to get the results needed. "When we lane swap, every 20 seconds say outloud your tower HP." is much better, and will display much better results. Don't leave it up to the person to decide how they are going to communicate, as a team set out rules on how you will communicate. When there is a communication error it makes it much easier to fix, as you know what you didn't do and what you must do to fix it.<br />
<br />
After the terms have been made, you scrim. You don't scrim in this situation to win those games or get better at the game itself. Any mistakes other than miscommunication ones should be effectively ignored, there should be no emotional energy spent on anything but miscommunication. By doing this you're putting a mental focus on miscommunication, building a barrier in which you must cross to trend into other parts of the game. Its like a coach telling a team their not touching any of the equipment until they do X. X is now whats in the way of you and what you actually came here to do. If you focus on other mistakes, the importance of miscommunication in your mind is undermined and it will be corrected much later(or not even properly, the team may let little miscommunications slide) even if you were to correct more miscommunication mistakes this way. If you can't fix your communication, you're much better off finding a team in which you can.<br />
<br />
Later on com practice can be used as warm-ups and can be used as a punishment by a coach for getting lazy with communication. Now, you may be thinking that getting lazy with communication can be warranted in some situations but it never is and should always be corrected. You have team A and team B, Team A is much more experienced than Team B. Team A practices a team comp which needs their top laner to 2v1, so the top laner does but team Bs bot lane decides to freeze instead of push. Team A agreed that their top laner would say the turret health out loud every 10 seconds after the 2:15 mark. Since they don't push to the turret, the top laner decides he doesn't have to do this until they do. Now the rest of Team A doesn't know whats going on in that lane anymore and they've built their game around that knowledge because its the base that they use. Its a constant in every game and it may hinder their gameplay without it, no matter how useless the information may seem. The information isn't actually useless because if the top laner says his turret health is 2500 every ten seconds he is effectively telling everyone they are freezing the lane.<br />
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<h2>
Learning a Team Composition/Strategy</h2>
So the team has mastered communication and they can finally move on to the fun stuff; team compositions. At this point you should realize that time ingame you don't account for is black space, just like the fog of war when you don't have vision. Its simply an unknown, something you leave up to chance. If you want the best chance of winning, for every team comp you have you should at least have a general outline for every minute describing what each team member should be doing. It sounds like a lot to remember, but each individual player only has to remember their roles. You should know at what times you are vulnerable and play to accommodate that, doing things like giving up dragon(by not warding/ignoring it) and leaving it up to the enemy team to take what you leave them. Your main concern when learning a team comp should never concern the enemy team or your interaction with them, the main point of this practice is to perfect your side of it. An example of this is if your team decides to run Blaze's early wave strategy. You would practice rotating your players properly, wave clearing mid and having your top lane last hit. If the enemy mid laner is playing badly in mid, you wouldn't capitalize off of it and kill him multiple times then roam. Thats not apart of the plan, you would simply enable his mistakes and continue as planned. Why? Because its what you're putting an emphasis on, learning the team comp. If your team solely wanted to practice that they would go into a game, execute it, surrender and then move on to the next game. You're not interested in winning or stomping the other team in lane. You simply want to get your execution on the strategy down, and that's what you practice.<br />
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You don't need to practice against teams your level for most things. If you do not need an enemy response to practice it, then the calibur of the enemy team doesn't matter. Things like going for early dragons, counterjungling, etc don't NEED a response from an enemy team.<br />
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<h2>
Creating/Changing a Team Composition/Strategy</h2>
This is the last step in the infrastructure, and its very complicated. I don't know how this phase goes really, but I'll just touch on the obvious because this step is needed to wrap up the blog. This is where all the analyst data and theorycrafting comes into play. The theorycrafter and analyst use data to make strats and then the team uses the strat in a scrim against an opponent their level. The enemy response goes back to the data analyst and theorycrafter and they use it to make the composition stronger.<br />
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That pretty much sums up my blog on team practice. While it may not be the best infrastructure, its better than just jumping into team queue with your team and hoping for the best. At least this way you can log your progress more easily and fix what needs to be fixed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845525770696783026.post-22998483106997614442013-05-18T04:31:00.001-07:002013-05-18T20:52:18.216-07:00How do I become a better AD carry?"What AD carry should I play to carry out of bronze?"<br />
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This is one of the, if not the most misguided questions asked about the role. Its a really myopic question that really isn't worth asking one way or another. The question proposes that the ability to carry a game comes from the champion and not you(your game knowledge), the summoner. I'm probably going to sound condescending in this blog post quite a bit but as you know, everyone was once in this position. You have to ask yourself what you want out of the question. Do you really just want to carry out of bronze and get stuck in silver? You'll just be asking this question for a new tier, if you ever get there. Do you want to become a Challenger tier player? Do you really believe an answer to that question will get you to that tier? The question you want to ask is "How do I become a better AD carry?" because the answer to this question will get you to whatever tier you want.<br />
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I'm not trying to say champions are irrelevant when it comes to winning a match up or that learning a the FOTM AD won't get you some LP. I'm just pointing out how minuscule that amount of LP is compared to what you could be getting if you focused your attention elsewhere. Before you start focusing on the unknown and unpredictable aspects of the game you should have a strong pillar to hold you up if you fall. A pillar based upon game knowledge dealing with static elements of gameplay within league. If you haven't clued into what I'm saying, I'm talking about the basics of the game. Last hitting, harassing... all that good stuff you've heard a hundred times over. Oh, this is going to be one of <i>those</i> blogs that tells you everything you "know" already? Well I'm not sure how well you know it, but I'll break it down for you bit by bit starting with the two main concepts in this game;<br />
<ul>
<li>[1]Opportunity</li>
<li>[2]Pressure</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3>
<u>[1]Opportunity</u></h3>
You ever go on a stream and watch a Diamond Division game or higher and wonder why it looks like their playing a completely different game? Going on the basis that the two main concepts of the game are opportunity and pressure, you are playing a different game. An opportunity is exactly what it sounds like: a chance to invade, harass, cs, kill, put pressure and just generally making the game easier for you. If there was a program that could run replays and then highlight all the opportunities in the game you'd see a metric ton more in a bronze game compared to a diamond game. The program would light up like a Christmas tree if it processed a bronze game. Imagine if you had that program and were able to run it in game, it would be so easy to carry the game because it would be basically telling you the best steps to take to win the game.<br />
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Well guess what, this "program" runs in the minds of high elo players all the time. Not only that, but their program is more advanced as they are able to rank which opportunities are greater than another. They can tell when its better to cs or harass(in cases where they can only do one in the span of say, a second), take a tower or go for an objective like dragon. When they go on a smurf and climb the ladder, every game they play seems easy because they have this program running in their mind(If you had it wouldn't the game be much easier?). To get better at league, you'll want to acquire this program.<br />
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<h3>
<u>[2]Pressure</u></h3>
This game is similar to games like Samurai Warriors or Dynasty Warriors in a strange way. They are games of pressure, and in those games there is a little bar in the bottom or top corner with the color of your team beside the color of the enemy team. The colors push, or pressure one another until one dominates the other and that struggle accurately represents what goes on overall in the battlefields of the games. That bar could easily apply to league of legends: every time your team take an opportunity you pressure the opponent, which pushes your bar forward while theirs recede and vice versa. Obviously the bar would fluctuate pretty frequently in the beginning, taking its big first dive when a turret gets taken or first blood is given up. You should get the general idea though, pressure decides the way the game goes and pressure is made by seizing opportunities.<br />
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Now that you have some basic knowledge of how the game flows, you should be ready to apply this knowledge to your AD carry role. It should be apparent that the champion you play has little to do with getting you out of bronze than you first thought. Don't get this wrong though, the AD carry you play now becomes more important when you have this knowledge. Each champion has their own set of opportunities that you can utilize to your advantage. For example going in Level 1 with pantheon vs a mid if the enemy gets too close, as soon as they get in range for your stun and an opportunity raises and you jump on their face and get some decent damage off. New opportunities arise when you're playing Ezreal as an AD carry because you have Q to harass with. When Fizz hits level 2, you better back up because he sees an opportunity to go in and all in you he will.<br />
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So, how do these things apply to the AD carry role?<br />
<ul>
<li>[3]Laning Phase</li>
<li>[4]Team Fighting </li>
</ul>
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<h3>
<u>[3]Laning Phase</u></h3>
Here is where your knowledge of your character can really make you shine. You may not have noticed, but its your knowledge of your character and your enemy that let you know whether or not there is an opportunity. You want to harass while not getting harassed back. You want to CS while making it difficult for the enemy to CS. This is a LOT harder than it actually seems, everyone does it to a degree but people in higher tiers do it better. It simply takes a lot of practice to learn how to harass well while getting a reasonable amount of CS, you just have to be constantly pressing your limits in lane. HARASS HARASS HARASS(protip: you know you're harassing enough when the enemy ADC says "get off my dick bro") unless you know FOR A FACT it will be a bad trade for you. Example? The enemy is at their tower, the wave is at my tower. I shouldn't go harass them at their tower because I'll get hit by the their tower and miss CS. It may be a dumb thing to say, but knowing these things however obvious make you aware of things like the creep wave dictating whether you can harass or not.<br />
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I won't be able to tell you all the instances where its good for you to harass and I won't even try. Its something you have to learn on your own, playing games while harassing as much as you can will eventually make you better at it. You'll harass when its a good time to sometimes, and you'll continue at it and get better. You'll harass at times when its bad(doesn't matter if its due to match-up, if the jungler is there, or creeps, a bad time to harass is a bad time to harass) to do so, you'll learn not to do it and get better. Soon you'll be putting you in your enemies shoes, thoughts like "They could harass me so easily right now, why aren't they? I'm just going to farm it up for free." will come up more and more frequently and before you know it you'll be in Gold wondering why it was so hard to climb out of bronze.<br />
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<u>[4]Teamfights</u></h3>
At this point in the game, your team and you are sizing up the enemy team and are about to fight. Because of your role, there are a few things you are unable to do. You cannot capitalize on the poor positioning of their tank (say he is in the back) and initiate the fight because thats not what you do unless you're Ashe. You have to sit behind your team and wait for them to initate. Its also good practice to use your tank to pressure the enemy assassin, ap carry, bruiser, etc. Say I'm Graves and the enemy Lux wants to throw a binding on me and 100 to 0 me. If I stay behind my team's Jarvan, I'm creating an imaginary line Lux can't cross if she wants to get to me which is effectively Jarvan's initiation range. Practice using your teammates in this way is a great way to hone your positioning to be as effective as possible.<br />
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Anyways, thats all I wanted to touch on. I think that pretty much sums it up when it comes to the AD carry role. If people like this post I'll make some more about more roles, but I'm only a gold player myself. I can't really make posts about what's what when it comes to high elo decision making, you'll have to look at high elo players for that. I can only tell you how to get better, or at least how I got better. A tip worth mentioning is that watching stream generally don't make you a better player. They're better for learning the ins and outs of champions. The reason I say this is you're more likely to learn a trick with a champion then an opportunity you can seize in your games because said opportunities rarely show up in high elo games(unless you are high elo trying to better your play), you'd do much better watching vods of say WildTurtle's smurf account when he was just climbing up, you'd learn a lot more than watching his stream now. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03045408584456881010noreply@blogger.com2