League of Legends: Let's Talk About uhhh??

Jibaku

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basically what Jibaku said

1% crit is considered cheese whereas IE rush could very well become FotM with the item changes - however I do think Xypherous's reply is accurate, in that IE crit isn't any more "gamebreaking" than current BT bot lane snowballing

i really hate the direction they took new BT in, though, as an early shield is going to be much more destructive to lane dynamics than the current BT. basically it's a matter of "oh, I have my BT first, so now I can get 2 CS and suddenly be able to take an autoattack for free" while also directly weakening champions who rush BorK or Triforce just because the shield is going to be so strong in quick lane exchanges
 

Mr.E

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What is wrong with IE? It used to be way more common to rush and nobody considered it a problem before. At 25%, it's far more consistent than ~.9% crit rune cheese or the old 2% crit mastery that you can reasonably expect to eat crits from it and can (and should) plan accordingly.

I WILL RESERVE JUDGMENT ON THE PENDING ITEM CHANGES SINCE THEY ARE NOT NECESSARILY GOING LIVE BUT JESUS CHRIST RIOT SURE LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE MAKING SOME HUGE FUCKING CHANGES WHY THE FUCK also Xypherous can't even spell "Berserker" come on man
 
If ADs rush IE they will be stronger faster and teams will be more focused around getting them farmed and protecting them, so the early-mid auto-for-auto trades that AD do currently while the rest of the team is focused other places wont be necessary or even good anymore. Beside by the time you get IE the lane isnt in any way won or lost by 1 or 2 trades anymore, you way more likely to die from being caught by the enemy support or someone roaming.
 
Way, way, way too many buffs to adc and some conceptually flawed (if cool) new items imo.

I don't like the shield support item because of the conflation of super offensive steroids with what are meant to be defensive abilities. I feel like some supports benefit from it excessively, while others are recast as something that veers from their core strengths and weaknesses. I also think it needs to be limited more for champs with AoE heals/shields. I also dislike the shield on BT for the reasons given above, given the price range of BT.

I agree that adc should be buffed as a class and then the dominant adcs brought in line a bit but this is overkill (as usual) and I hope they will tone it down quickly, hopefully before live. Design is iterative as always
 

Jibaku

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I for one am looking for the return of adc dominance since s2. Since their nerf at the start of season 3, every other role has managed to take the spotlight at some point (Top in mid s3, support in early s4, jungle during the feral flare and lizard elder era, and mid since forever (although this one is understandable and should be kept like that due to their positioning on the map), but mostly during the end of s3 where assassins ran wild). Now we're back and the cycle starts anew.

Also most champs don't have access to aoe shields/heals in their kit. I think I can only think of Lux (whose shield mechanism is extremely awkward), Alistar (Riot hates his heal), Janna (ult), Karma, and Thresh.

Anyways I can't really predict from these changes where things will go because so many changes are going on at once. A special mention to Ezreal as he can charge up BT's overheal from a distance through Qs. I'll just leave a few differences here and maybe someone will figure it out. Assuming full build situations, an adc with BT/Scimitar/IE/LW/PD/Zerks will end up with:

+5% AS
+10 AD
+50% movespeed for 1s during Scimitar's active.
-3% lifesteal
+Overheal
Full Build cost increased by 500g (+350 from BT, +100 from Scimitar, +50g from zerks). Calcs assume fullstack BT.

compared to before. Seems like there are fairly significant buffs- probably mostly from the overheal feature. But remember, this is only for lategame. But if we want to talk about lategame, there is midgame to go through.


Midgame progression: (Dblade/BT/PD/Zerks)
-21 AD
-10 health
+Overheal (probably ~200ish shield and around 33% more health than ruby crystal).
-0% Lifesteal
+5% AS
-3 life on hit passive
Cost increased by 400g.

Noticeable nerfs here. -20 AD is a tough loss (720g worth of AD, although the true value should be smaller as items become more efficient. But that's a topic for another time). Overheal would probably be worth ~530g if you count that as health, which won't be enough to compensate for the AD loss. Plus, the total build costs 400g more. However, zeal is buffed so maybe that can be helpful.


Now the Bork build path. Let's assume bork/ie/pd/lw/zerks/scimitar
+30 AD
-5% Lifesteal
+5% AS
+50% movespeed for 1s during scimitar's active
+Bork damage shifted to passive (this will be a buff).
Cost increased by 150g

And midgame path (DBlade/Bork/PD/zerks)
+5% AS
-2% Lifesteal
-3 life on hit
-1 AD
-10 health
+Bork damage shift
Cost increased by 50g

Im not sure whether that's a midgame buff or nerf but the lategame buff seems pretty strong (especially when you consider the midgame). Bork-utilizing adcs will enjoy these buffs (and Ezreal). Oh and unless Riot significantly nerfs Lucian he'll still be strong with these item changes because his passive lets him make use of Bork rather effectively, and he can change his build from BT/Tri to Bork/Tri if needed).

If nothing else, I am pretty happy with the removal of the ms slow from Randuin's passive. 10% MS slow doesnt seem a whole lot but it really screws with your kiting. Also it makes Udyr more unviable which I am pretty happy with because I hate Udyr with a passion.

Adcs to keep an eye on:
- Vayne had the tendency to go out of control in games and she has less competition now with the BT path nerfs.
- Kog is currently a high tier pick and he benefits from these changes.
- Draven because he got a new skin but also having to deal with the BT nerf. Due to his nature as a snowball oriented adc, he seems to take a bigger hit than any other adc as he was reliant on utilizing his powerspikes to further progress into the game. Or you could run into IE rush Dravens who would crit you for 50% of your HP. WHo knows?
- Twitch will be nerfed but these changes can probably compensate for him. Also, the Ghostblade buff improves his assassination potential so he could very easily end up being stronger than before.
- Because of BT's weaker midgame strength, Tristana could rise here as her main weakness is less of an issue. Keep in mind that lategame trist is unrivaled in power and if she can pass through her midgame fine, she will become a monster.
- Caitlyn's build path will probably change. She was once an IE/PD adc before everyone realized that BT is so ridiculous. Jinx will probably go IE PD as well.

LASTLY

The new ad/mana restore item looks really nice on Jayce. I've always wanted to build crit on Jayce due to its ridiculous interaction with W, but there was always something that he had to sacrifice (mana, cdr, or lifesteal). This item puts all of those into a cute little package and allows me to build something else in the spare slots!

Essence Reaver/Ghostblade (now buffed too)/IE/LW/CDR boots/defensive item. Lategame you can be healing for 50+ mana per auto which easily keeps your poke ammo sustained. And when they get into your autoattack range you have nearly a 100% uptime on W to shred everything to pieces. Ghostblade's buff allows Jayce to run around more freely as well.

TL;DR: Big midgame nerfs for BT adcs, while Bork adcs seem relatively unphased. Lategame buffs overall.
 
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Jibaku

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Madlife was one of the last few players who played on the same team since 2011. This leaves us with:
Xpeke, Cyanide, Doublelift, Imaqtpie, and Cop as the last few to still have that title. Well Cop was replaced by Aphro for like a week but that didn't amount to any competitive significance so he still counts as the last few true legacy players.

Helios to EG will be a long term investment and I can't see them suddenly taking over the LCS. 6th place would likely be their best position at the end of the split and that's just being generous. I dont see EG overtaking C9/CLG/TSM/DIG/LMQ and Curse is actually not a bad team.
 
if blaze benches flame it will be one of the dumbest moves that they've done in a long time

blaze has just now been learning to let their bot lane carry and it would be HUGE for them if emperor + madlife started stomping lanes and flame no longer feels like he's obligated to go 10/2 all the time

this also means that CJ is essentially throwing all of their eggs in blaze's basket since madlife and shy were the cornerstone of frost (swift and coco are far too inconsistent)

SAMSUNG VS SKT ON SUNDAY GET HYPE
 

Jibaku

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Behind the scenes team toxicity (Xpecial)? Flame not liking not being the superstar (maknoon)?

Anyways I have my doubts on Flame being benched. But if he does I can't wait to see Thooorin's reaction.
 

Mr.E

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If nothing else, I am pretty happy with the removal of the ms slow from Randuin's passive. 10% MS slow doesnt seem a whole lot but it really screws with your kiting.
Which is the whole point because non-gapclosing melee champs tend to have a pretty hard time doing anything useful in teamfights other than straight peeling (the enemy ones WITH gapclosers), which some champs just aren't well suited to doing.

also I'm pretty sure Riot already nerfed Jayce W with crit a while back
 

Jibaku

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Riot planned on nerfing Jayce's W but scrapped the whole Jayce mini-rework project because it completely missed what made Jayce so annoying to fight against. So at the moment we still have Jayce W critting for insane numbers and nobody's taking advantage of that due to his item restrictions.

I dont mind non gapclosing champs not being able to walk over adcs in the backline so they maintain their intended weakness and Riot can work to buff their other strengths that don't involve trying to maul the carry.
 

supermarth64

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"Jibaku, please!" Theorymon cried in frustration, "I am trying to finish my analysis!" Jibaku sighed exasperatedly as Theorymon rejected his latest advance. If only there were something he could do to draw the handsome yet reclusive writer out of his analysis cave...and into his fun cave...
 

Colonel M

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I like how Xypho openly admitted the potential overkill AS bonus with Nidalee heal + new support item.

Also looks like Frozen Mallet may finally be put to death now. Kind of sucks too because there were some nice situations where Frozen Mallet was nice. Someone suggested Frozen Mallet to be more like a Phage that steals movement speed though.

But... that Randuins nerf. ;_;

Also what do people think of Essence Reave so far? It intrigues me even for some top lane champions that are mana hungry like J4 and Pantheon but it still seems off to the Black Cleaver / Hydra rush.
 

Jibaku

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I'd just get Hydra on J4. Not sure about Panth but it does have an interesting synergy with his passive crit execute.

Still don't think I can find anyone who uses the item better than Jayce tbh. When you consider all the other mana eating ad/adc casters, I don't think their mana issues are that problematic that they'd need it.

Corki's mana costs have been substantially buffed over the past couple of patches and are easily manageable now with just that extra mana from sheen/triforce.
Ezreal Q spam has interesting synergy with the Essence Reaver passive due to it applying on hit effects, but at this point I'd probably look into making Ezreal do more damage because he just doesn't do enough lategame (this doesnt mean his lategame scaling sucks).
Graves would prefer more damage.
Lucian isn't that mana hungry.
Varus may be able to make use of the item to spam his Q with, especially as a non-tear building adc.
Urgot would prefer muramana due to Q being able to apply Muramana's passive. Also 425 range autoattacks make it rather difficult to make use of his passive, especially since he wont be building crit.
 

Colonel M

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I think the problem with Essence Reaver on some of the champions boils back to most of them not really having that big of mana issues or they would rather just build tear. Like Jayce and Urgot really dig Manamune for their builds since it solves their mana troubles anyway. Maybe if the passive worked with spells and auto attacks it may seem a little more enticing.

I also disagree (slightly) with Graves but I think most of it has to do with Buckshot eating a lot of mana. Still, Bloodthirster or Infinity Edge seem like better rushes for him.
 
essense prolly better 4 top laners.

ppl nvr got manamune 4top bcos of big ramp up time, but essense is beri progresive

/jst my 2sense
 

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