Some new balance changes have arrived, and as usual I'll give them the old analysis once over.
The changes to Akali will have a semi-significant impact on her laning. While technically speaking she'll do more damage part 300 Ability Power, most games are decided before Akali could reasonably acquire that much power. You basically need a 3-4 item build finished before you cross that threshold.
Corki hasn't seen much play as of late. These changes help him a little, as missiles have been a limiting factor for him for some time. His lack of play is really an oddity in any case, so if you were on the rocks about playing him before now is as good a time as ever to pick him up.
Karma sees a few adjustments to her abilities. These are almost entirely quality of life buffs. Beyond making her Mantra easier to access through buffs to her passive and its activation, her most important change is to her Focused Resolve. Now that using Mantra charges automatically gives the 60% speed boost she no longer has any abilities who gain Mantra benefits for being skilled up.
The cast range reductions on Kayle's abilities are steep. Dropping her utility to 900 range forces her to stay much closer to a fight in order to ensure she can save or aid allies in need. However, this primarily affects Support Kayle, as any other form of Kayle is already going to be in the thick of it or near a needy ally.
Lux will no longer be able to instantly clear a creep wave every 24 seconds. Instead, she'll be able to clear a creep wave every 30 seconds. Ultimately (har har) she hasn't been significantly hurt, save for those foolish enough to consistently overextend while laning.
Morgana, Nami, Nautilus, and Nunu all got minor tweaks to make them more competitive. I'm of the opinion that it's largely unnecessary in Nami's case. Nami is good, but before anyone could get used to her Thresh (who is clearly amazing) arrived. Morgana and Nautilus' changes are mostly friendly bumps to remind you these champions exist and are good. Nunu, however, is still on the edge of competitiveness.
Quinn had a few significant playability issues which have now been addressed. Valor's mark timing was such that it was extremely common that you would start to attack a target, and before you finished Valor would have started to mark it. However, because your attack was in the air before he finished marking you'd fail to get the proc, resulting in no benefits and a 10 second wait for the next mark. This is a little more rare now, and along with her Vault change should improve her popularity slightly.
Volibear got a slight nerf. He's still extremely strong, especially when ganking, so don't freak out if you love jungling as a bear.
Jungling is now different, thanks to changes to the items which build out of Spirit Stone. They now all cost 2000 gold. In order to effect this change, Spirit of the Elder Lizard received a slight nerf, and Spirit of the Ancient Golem traded its Armor for Cooldown Reduction, with a slight change in recipe. This will incidentally also make it easier for jungle tanks to get the Cooldown Reduction they need to spam their utility.
Overall there were any crippling nerfs or incredible buffs, nor was there anything out of the ordinary. However, there were significantly more buffs and quality of life changes than nerfs this patch, which reverses the previous, concerning trend where almost everything was a nerf. Good show.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
Patch Day: Zac & Karma
The patch is actually here, and with it comes Zac and a remade Karma.
Karma's remake is interesting in that it makes her much more of an offensive caster than a support. While she can support, she'll likely be played as a straight carry more often than not due to her high damage and survivability.
Nerfing Akali's Twilight Shroud through its mechanics is painful, but only for those overly reliant on it. The truth of the Shroud is that beyond the laning phase its usefulness drops due to pink wards and Oracle's. In fact, in high level play pink wards are par for the course when it comes to ganking Akali.
Hecarim gets another bout with the nerf bat. This dramatically affects his survivability in longer encounters, especially at low ranks. He'll still be played, but his popularity is likely to decrease as will his chances at competitive play.
Rumble's ultimate is now entirely damage over time without any special upfront burst. Using it to catch people who were nearly dead was apparently too strong. I'd be interested in seeing the analysis which lead to this change.
Everyone's favorite gap closer-less jungler, Udyr, has essentially been given a minor rework. This should help his jungling and distance closing issues, though he loses a bit of tankiness, mana sustain, and longer duration mobility as a result. Chances are he'll still be very strong both top and as a jungler.
The changes to turret damage will make early dives harder, but in the end it's mostly going to make foolish junglers accidentally kill themselves more.
A decent patch overall, and nice in that it had a fairly even share of both buffs and nerfs (even if I didn't discuss them all). Hopefully this balance will continue in future patches.
Karma's remake is interesting in that it makes her much more of an offensive caster than a support. While she can support, she'll likely be played as a straight carry more often than not due to her high damage and survivability.
Nerfing Akali's Twilight Shroud through its mechanics is painful, but only for those overly reliant on it. The truth of the Shroud is that beyond the laning phase its usefulness drops due to pink wards and Oracle's. In fact, in high level play pink wards are par for the course when it comes to ganking Akali.
Hecarim gets another bout with the nerf bat. This dramatically affects his survivability in longer encounters, especially at low ranks. He'll still be played, but his popularity is likely to decrease as will his chances at competitive play.
Rumble's ultimate is now entirely damage over time without any special upfront burst. Using it to catch people who were nearly dead was apparently too strong. I'd be interested in seeing the analysis which lead to this change.
Everyone's favorite gap closer-less jungler, Udyr, has essentially been given a minor rework. This should help his jungling and distance closing issues, though he loses a bit of tankiness, mana sustain, and longer duration mobility as a result. Chances are he'll still be very strong both top and as a jungler.
The changes to turret damage will make early dives harder, but in the end it's mostly going to make foolish junglers accidentally kill themselves more.
A decent patch overall, and nice in that it had a fairly even share of both buffs and nerfs (even if I didn't discuss them all). Hopefully this balance will continue in future patches.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Patch Day: 3.04
A day late, but there was a patch which had notes and everything yesterday.
Elise takes a laning phase hit, but ultimately this isn't going to dramatically change her viability. The Health-based damage on Neurotoxin wasn't affected, so it'll still be a very effective poking/damage tool against top lane champions.
Jarvan loses his team Armor buff. This actually surprised me when I saw it. Jarvan is definitely strong, but at lot of his current power stems from the current popularity of physical damage junglers and solo lanes. His winrate wasn't excessive despite that circumstance, and he would have fallen in popularity with a shift in the meta. As a result I think this change was premature.
Everyone's favorite chemist, Singed, receives nerfs. This will make him slightly easier to catch, but his deadly cloud of poison is still the most dangerous part of his kit, and will still choke to death anyone foolish enough to chase him.
Taric is likely to see a significant drop in popularity due to these nerfs. However, I'm inspired to try a variation on jungle/top-lane Taric where his stun is maxed first. With these changes it makes a lot more sense to max that first, regardless of role, especially with Shatter's armor bonus no longer based on skill rank.
Runic Bulwark and Locket of the Iron Solari both received nerfs. Yes, each is cheaper, but the combination of the two was extremely common on support-oriented junglers. Dropping 200 Health and 5 Magic Resist is significant, even if you save 400 gold in the process.
As with most recent patches, most changes are aimed at making popular champions and items weaker, with a few minor buffs here and there to make others more viable. In general the nerfs have been outnumbering the buffs, a trend which remains concerning. We'll see what 3.05 hold, but for now I wonder what popular jungler will next get the nerf bat.
Elise takes a laning phase hit, but ultimately this isn't going to dramatically change her viability. The Health-based damage on Neurotoxin wasn't affected, so it'll still be a very effective poking/damage tool against top lane champions.
Jarvan loses his team Armor buff. This actually surprised me when I saw it. Jarvan is definitely strong, but at lot of his current power stems from the current popularity of physical damage junglers and solo lanes. His winrate wasn't excessive despite that circumstance, and he would have fallen in popularity with a shift in the meta. As a result I think this change was premature.
Everyone's favorite chemist, Singed, receives nerfs. This will make him slightly easier to catch, but his deadly cloud of poison is still the most dangerous part of his kit, and will still choke to death anyone foolish enough to chase him.
Taric is likely to see a significant drop in popularity due to these nerfs. However, I'm inspired to try a variation on jungle/top-lane Taric where his stun is maxed first. With these changes it makes a lot more sense to max that first, regardless of role, especially with Shatter's armor bonus no longer based on skill rank.
Runic Bulwark and Locket of the Iron Solari both received nerfs. Yes, each is cheaper, but the combination of the two was extremely common on support-oriented junglers. Dropping 200 Health and 5 Magic Resist is significant, even if you save 400 gold in the process.
As with most recent patches, most changes are aimed at making popular champions and items weaker, with a few minor buffs here and there to make others more viable. In general the nerfs have been outnumbering the buffs, a trend which remains concerning. We'll see what 3.05 hold, but for now I wonder what popular jungler will next get the nerf bat.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Thought: Dragon Priority
There may be a few spoilers regarding MLG Dallas in this post. Consider yourself forewarned.
There were many fantastic games over the weekend, but rather than highlight any particular one game I'd like to focus on an interesting trend I've noticed across all of LCS and Season 3 thus far. It's something Gambit Gaming has picked up on and made central to their strategy. Specifically, Dragon is more valuable early than turrets.
The strategy Gambit Gaming, and some others, employed was to simply take every Dragon during the early-game, even if it meant committing all five members of the team and losing a turret. Dragon is considered more valuable because the outer turrets are almost guaranteed to fall eventually. Thus, taking a turret in exchange for Dragon will only temporarily keep the teams even in gold. The team that prioritizes Dragon has an advantage because they evenly trade a permanent advantage for a temporary one, and eventually the other team will have to pay the piper.
The key to the strategy is the initial mid-game team fight. If the Dragon-hoarding team wins that first, crucial team fight they'll easily gain several thousand gold on their opponents due to all of the easy objectives within reach, regardless of their relative position before the fight started. Even without a decisive win, it's far harder to defend outer turrets than inner ones, meaning even a disadvantaged team is likely to make up ground. The result is a near-guaranteed slingshot effect, where the team which had yet to take towers will catapult forward.
This is not an invincible strategy, but it appeared to be a very reliable one for Gambit Gaming. It took them all the way to the international exhibition finals, and almost made them the victors. It was only KT Rolster B's superior early game pressure, consistently shutting down Darien, which kept Gambit in check.
I've mentioned this to a number of people in a number of places, and the reaction has been largely the same every time. Practically everyone becomes immediately concerned about map control, citing how the loss of one's jungle, increased necessity of wards, and the like negates any benefits. Given how prominently this strategy was on display, especially during the first two games between Gambit and KT Rolster B, I myself was, in turn, surprised by the reactions.
Map control is an issue, but I believe it to be nowhere near as dire as others seem to believe, at least competitively. Against a coordinated team who wards as a team and reacts as a team, jungle invasion and aggressive map control are risky even with turrets down. The potential for the defending team to intercept incursions is high with proper warding, and the likelihood that there are unsuspecting players to catch out of position is low. Especially with GG Edward prioritizing warding and clearing wards over personal development, the map control issue seems born out of solo queue experience more than competitive. At the very least, Gambit Gaming was not particularly inhibited by this.
It's also important to note the progressive nature of the exchanges. One does not instantly trade three turrets for Dragon, but does so over the course of 12 minutes. For much of that time map control is still assured due to the remaining turrets and the developmental stage of both teams. It's only when the mid-game is effectively in progress that map control becomes a major issue, and that's when the strategy calls for team-fighting in order to begin making up the difference.
Again, the strategy isn't perfect or without counter, but I believe it's more effective than many players will realize. It has potential applications in both solo queue and ranked 5s, and should be carefully considered by any competitive player.
There were many fantastic games over the weekend, but rather than highlight any particular one game I'd like to focus on an interesting trend I've noticed across all of LCS and Season 3 thus far. It's something Gambit Gaming has picked up on and made central to their strategy. Specifically, Dragon is more valuable early than turrets.
The strategy Gambit Gaming, and some others, employed was to simply take every Dragon during the early-game, even if it meant committing all five members of the team and losing a turret. Dragon is considered more valuable because the outer turrets are almost guaranteed to fall eventually. Thus, taking a turret in exchange for Dragon will only temporarily keep the teams even in gold. The team that prioritizes Dragon has an advantage because they evenly trade a permanent advantage for a temporary one, and eventually the other team will have to pay the piper.
The key to the strategy is the initial mid-game team fight. If the Dragon-hoarding team wins that first, crucial team fight they'll easily gain several thousand gold on their opponents due to all of the easy objectives within reach, regardless of their relative position before the fight started. Even without a decisive win, it's far harder to defend outer turrets than inner ones, meaning even a disadvantaged team is likely to make up ground. The result is a near-guaranteed slingshot effect, where the team which had yet to take towers will catapult forward.
This is not an invincible strategy, but it appeared to be a very reliable one for Gambit Gaming. It took them all the way to the international exhibition finals, and almost made them the victors. It was only KT Rolster B's superior early game pressure, consistently shutting down Darien, which kept Gambit in check.
I've mentioned this to a number of people in a number of places, and the reaction has been largely the same every time. Practically everyone becomes immediately concerned about map control, citing how the loss of one's jungle, increased necessity of wards, and the like negates any benefits. Given how prominently this strategy was on display, especially during the first two games between Gambit and KT Rolster B, I myself was, in turn, surprised by the reactions.
Map control is an issue, but I believe it to be nowhere near as dire as others seem to believe, at least competitively. Against a coordinated team who wards as a team and reacts as a team, jungle invasion and aggressive map control are risky even with turrets down. The potential for the defending team to intercept incursions is high with proper warding, and the likelihood that there are unsuspecting players to catch out of position is low. Especially with GG Edward prioritizing warding and clearing wards over personal development, the map control issue seems born out of solo queue experience more than competitive. At the very least, Gambit Gaming was not particularly inhibited by this.
It's also important to note the progressive nature of the exchanges. One does not instantly trade three turrets for Dragon, but does so over the course of 12 minutes. For much of that time map control is still assured due to the remaining turrets and the developmental stage of both teams. It's only when the mid-game is effectively in progress that map control becomes a major issue, and that's when the strategy calls for team-fighting in order to begin making up the difference.
Again, the strategy isn't perfect or without counter, but I believe it's more effective than many players will realize. It has potential applications in both solo queue and ranked 5s, and should be carefully considered by any competitive player.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Jungler: Karthus
Jungle Karthus? What madness is this!? You might be confused by the topic, but believe me when I say that jungle Karthus is real, effective, and arguably the strongest Ability Power-based jungler in the game (apologies Akali, but tis true).
Jungle Karthus:
His ganking is also extremely dangerous both before and after level 6. His Wall of Pain is an extremely long range and long duration crowd control, reaching 1000 range and lasting 5 seconds. With only one rank the slow is a potent 40%, making any opponent hit an easy target for Lay Waste. So long as your aim is true Karthus brings more than enough damage to a gank to take down all but the tankiest, most slippery champions by himself.
Once he has Requiem, Karthus can "gank" without even leaving the jungle, although it serves just as well as a follow up to an actual gank. The constant, global pressure applied by the threat of red orbital laser death is not to be underestimated. If undisturbed or distracted Karthus can hit level 6 less than a minute after a typical solo lane, sometimes in parity. The result is a jungler who can quickly take control of the game.
Karthus also is extremely good at taking Dragon. His huge single target damage when spamming Lay Waste on a stationary target means Dragon falls quickly, not even requiring the presence of anything other than a support should there be sufficient mana. Later in the game he poses a similar threat to Baron, meaning that as a jungler he has surprisingly few weak areas despite being so unorthodox.
It's important to embrace lane taxation and selfishness as jungle Karthus, for it benefits your team significantly for you to gain farm. Hold lanes whenever possible, do not shy away from grabbing a few creeps following a successful gank, and figure out in advance who will have priority on Blue buff. So long as you do not handicap your team you'll be able to carry them in mid-game fights.
In terms of item build I generally focus on getting a quick Spirit Strone, followed by Sorcerer's Shoes. The former item helps your clearing significantly, and the latter makes your ganks and Requiem significantly scarier. From there, building a Tear of the Goddess and finishing Spirit of the Spectral Wraith should be your priorities. Follow those items with Haunting Guise, Seeker's Armguard, and whatever else suits the game at hand. Unless your team is truly struggling, you'll have a commanding presence in team fights.
Jungle Karthus is often overlooked in today's meta, but despite not being a dive-oriented tanky bruiser he is an extremely secure and viable jungler. Just be ready for when people call you a troll (they don't know any better).
Jungle Karthus:
- Quints: Spell Vamp
- Marks: Attack Damage or Magic Penetration
- Seals: Armor
- Glyphs: Flat Ability Power or Magic Penetration
- Masteries: 21/0/9 or 21/7/2 or 9/0/21
His ganking is also extremely dangerous both before and after level 6. His Wall of Pain is an extremely long range and long duration crowd control, reaching 1000 range and lasting 5 seconds. With only one rank the slow is a potent 40%, making any opponent hit an easy target for Lay Waste. So long as your aim is true Karthus brings more than enough damage to a gank to take down all but the tankiest, most slippery champions by himself.
Once he has Requiem, Karthus can "gank" without even leaving the jungle, although it serves just as well as a follow up to an actual gank. The constant, global pressure applied by the threat of red orbital laser death is not to be underestimated. If undisturbed or distracted Karthus can hit level 6 less than a minute after a typical solo lane, sometimes in parity. The result is a jungler who can quickly take control of the game.
Karthus also is extremely good at taking Dragon. His huge single target damage when spamming Lay Waste on a stationary target means Dragon falls quickly, not even requiring the presence of anything other than a support should there be sufficient mana. Later in the game he poses a similar threat to Baron, meaning that as a jungler he has surprisingly few weak areas despite being so unorthodox.
It's important to embrace lane taxation and selfishness as jungle Karthus, for it benefits your team significantly for you to gain farm. Hold lanes whenever possible, do not shy away from grabbing a few creeps following a successful gank, and figure out in advance who will have priority on Blue buff. So long as you do not handicap your team you'll be able to carry them in mid-game fights.
In terms of item build I generally focus on getting a quick Spirit Strone, followed by Sorcerer's Shoes. The former item helps your clearing significantly, and the latter makes your ganks and Requiem significantly scarier. From there, building a Tear of the Goddess and finishing Spirit of the Spectral Wraith should be your priorities. Follow those items with Haunting Guise, Seeker's Armguard, and whatever else suits the game at hand. Unless your team is truly struggling, you'll have a commanding presence in team fights.
Jungle Karthus is often overlooked in today's meta, but despite not being a dive-oriented tanky bruiser he is an extremely secure and viable jungler. Just be ready for when people call you a troll (they don't know any better).
Monday, March 11, 2013
Quote: On Skillshots
"I love skillshots. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
-Douglas Adams
-Douglas Adams
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