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

[Chaasrainer]

I'm thinking of learning Ezreal - I've had him for a while and his ultimate just got a huge buff. Any opinions?

Ezreal is not the ideal carry but he's very fun and definitely not as bad as most people say. The ult buff should help his late game a lot and seeing how his early and mid games are already amazing I can see him becoming a more reliable pick in the future, I just hope they don't buff him too much so he won't get nerfed into oblivion again.

Obviously you must be at least decent with skill shots to do well with him but on the other hand he's probably the best champion to learn them with. You also need to position well with him in team fights or you will hit the wrong targets and/or die. Of course this is true for all ranged carries but even more so with Ez. He takes some getting used to but in the right hands he has amazing potential.

 

[Jebus McAzn]

Mhmm. The skill shots, I'm not too worried about - I used to main Anivia, so I know how difficult it can be.

Not sure though, I'm having great success with jungle Amumu already. I don't play ranked much at all, but I got my 5th ranked win today (out of 6 games) and won 45 ELO with Jungle Amumu. Counter-jungled their Olaf so hard, it wasn't even funny.

 

[TheValkyries]

Been duo queuing a bunch in normal and ranked with a friend from irl. He has become my own personal Taric to my Sion, and it has won us every game we played it. I never actually believed it was this good until we played it and realized we would never die... ever. It's been helping us climb out of our crappy solo queue ELO's as we've lost a bunch of times for stupid reasons.

 

[mtr]

Since I'm an avid jungler, I bought Olaf.

And I'm like...why on earth would someone play this dude? He seems unremarkable unless he gets really fed early. He's pretty much an archetypal melee carry/fighter/bruiser dude, but it seems that either he's tanky but doesn't do anything, or does fuckloads of damage yet combusts in teamfights. And also, timing your ultimate is very tricky.

I dunno, it's only been my first day with him. I'll play him for about 20 more games, then take it to Ranked and see how I do. Any advice from Olaf pros is appreciated.

Also, a disturbing trend I've been seeing: random teams in normal that don't care to run junglers, but try to do level 1 teamfights at your blue. Then their top laner will ward your blue, or otherwise sit around waiting for you to start so he can gank you. You think that if they would be that tryhard, they'd just run a jungler themselves.

This just happened to me as Udyr, though fortunately I knew Udyr's level 5 gank path so I just went the slower route.

 

[Thorns]

fastest jungler in the game, his speed is unparalleled even by phoenix udyr

...that's about it

if the enemy team is any good they'll leave you at full health until they've killed the three members of your team that aren't you or the tank then they'll kill you

also approving of going tiger udyr, running into their team and yelling COME ON BRO I GOT TIGER BLOOD in allchat

 

[mtr]

Yeah, I can jungle quickly with him, but unlike Udyr or Shaco, he can't really gank too well.

Also, where are u these days Thorns? I need to get away from the cesspool of solo queue lol.

 

[Thorns]

my playtime has been cut down to friday and weekends because i have too much work to get through

 

[mtr]

my playtime has been cut down to friday and weekends because i have too much work to get through

Yeah, which reminds me, I should probably be studying for finals. LoL's just too tempting.

 

[Jebus McAzn]

Agreed, Olaf isn't too good of a jungle except in terms of pure speed. It's difficult for him to successfully gank unless he manages to catch an enemy champion who's completely overextended. Udyr can Bear Stance+Ghost in, Shaco can just Deceive in - overall, Udyr's initiation is less than desirable.

He does become quite a formidable tanky DPS and anti-carry late-game though.

Opinions on Nocturne?

 

[TheValkyries]

Opinions on Nocturne?

The concept art looks amazing. I figure he'll have a fear and it's very possible he might have invisibility. If he ends up looking like his art though, I'd buy him on sight regardless of what he actually is/does/can do.

 

[Rayquaza2233]

Maybe we'll finally see the "sleep" condition alluded to by the tooltip for Mercury's Treads.

UNIQUE - Reduces the duration of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, snares, sleeps, and immobilizes by 35%

 

[Mike B]

maybe sleep is a combo of slow (getting sleepy) and stun (FAST ASLEEP)

 

[Thorns]

my undefeated streak of nasus top solo continues unhindered!

 

[Killah]

If I had to guess, "Sleep" would be a status like stun except that it lasts only a set amount of time or until the champion gets attacked. That way it would be possible to temporarily shut down one opponent, but it wouldn't work exactly like a stun.

It doesn't matter, because they revealed Nocturne's abilities:

Duskbringer: Nocturne throws a shadow blade which deals damage, leaves a Dusk Trail, and causes champions to leave a Dusk Trail. While on the trail, Nocturne ignores unit collision and has increased Movement Speed.

Shroud of Darkness: Nocturne empowers his blades, passively gaining attack speed. Activating Shroud of Darkness allows Nocturne fades into the shadows, creating a magical barrier which blocks a single enemy spell and doubles his passive attack speed if successful.

Unspeakable Horror: Nocturne plants a nightmare into his target's mind, dealing damage each second and fearing the target if they do not get out of range by the end of the duration.

Paranoia (Ultimate): Nocturne reduces the sight radius of all enemy champions and removes their ally vision in the process. He can then launch himself at a nearby enemy champion.

Umbra Blades (Passive): Every 10 seconds, Nocturne's next attack strikes surrounding enemies for physical damage and heals himself for each target hit. Nocturne's physical attacks reduce this cooldown by 1 second.

 

[theamericandream38]

DO WANT

 

[Jebus McAzn]

He seems like a fantastic assassin and would be extremely fun to play in conjunction with global ult champs.

 

[Rayquaza2233]

Paranoia worries me. Also, his Q is the same as Mercurial... Spectre? from DotA except the DotA one ignores unit collision on his path too.

 

[Killah]

Paranoia is perfectly named too :)

Dunno how much use it will actually have, though. Ganking with it is effective, but more than likely the enemy team will group up earlier in the game to avoid you. Duskbringer is also more geared for 1v1s but could still be pretty useful. I like his passive, though, and unspeakable horror could be very useful if it has decent range and only takes a few seconds to fear the target.

 

[Thorns]

lol free ghost when chasing, excellent

if this guy doesn't use mana i might actually cry in joy. i'm wondering if tf will be a hard counter to this guy though, i mean you just pop his ult during paranoia and BAM you can take out whoever you like. on the other hand paranoia + destiny + stand united seems like a guaranteed gank on pretty much anybody...tf and shen out of nowhere indeed...

 

[mtr]

Sounds like this guy will be able to jungle, and you know what that means!

 

[vonFiedler]

I can't imagine Paranoia lasting very long... these epic ganks would have to be very well coordinated.

I don't how TF would be a hard counter, as Paranoia only reduces enemy Champion's sight range. If it reduced your allies, you just know it would be used for trolling.

 

[Thorns]

i dunno paranoia seems 'weak', the only bit that stands out is that it's global. if it wasn't global, if it was just in an area about the same size as trundle's contaminate (you never have team fights in a larger area) then i would imagine it lasting a while

i played coop vs ai with some randoms. the bots aren't horrible actually, they're probably as good as a low elo player (which is to say not very good). annie bot is devestating, she clicks buttons faster than is humanly possible...i got instagibbed when i tried to sneak up on her. they have incredibly fast reaction times which compensates for the fact that they don't have the best judgement. i saw a glitch where annie just ran into the tower without a stun up and no minions nearby...it couldn't have been a tower dive so i don't know what that was about

they don't jungle either, so it's a guaranteed win if you have a jungler. they DO gank at baron and dragon if they think you're in the area, it's pretty nasty if you think they're just regular bots. my team got away without a tank but if you're not confident you should seriously consider it. if anyone wants to try coop vs ai with me just add me, username is manisier

 

[vonFiedler]

I won 3 Co-Op Vs. AI games today, though the last one was VERY close, and up until the end my teammates were constantly complaining that the bots were cheating "How can they have full builds OP!" "They have 45 kills and they still have their Doran's items guys..." Annie does seem to hit like a truck though.

They are not good at laning, though they are crazy aggressive which can throw you off. Soraka is capable of kicking ass in ways I've only seen me do, which isn't op at all but most players expect a squishy Soraka who can't kill them. Even without a jungler, the bots have always had a good team comp and while they suck at laning, they are great in teamfights. They are perfectly coordinated, when they focus someone they don't fuck around, they are very good at getting the first kill in a teamfight. Nunu won't Ult until your team is out of CC. Cho'Gath almost always has 6 stacks. Every single bot gets Banshee's Veil, which makes out controlling them almost impossible.

The only way to beat the bots is to get a significant lead in kills before teamfighting starts, which is very easy to do. But even with twice as many kills, the game plays out very even.

 

[Thorns]

yeah, everybody could learn a lot from these bots, aside from the overly aggressive laning phase. it's good to be aggressive, it's good to bully your laning opponent but don't take chances with the tower before level 7, and don't autoattack creeps. i had a really satisfying game with swain just then, though to be fair most of the enemy team was ad so i built thornmail. they had three ignites and it still couldn't stop me from walking into their team and roflstomping them with my combo. ignite is so good with swain, anybody who plays swain should use it

i'm not very good at landing nevermove (quoth the lazer bird) but it's easy if i hit them with decrepify first. unfortunately this means my combo usually consists of torment > decrepify > nevermove > ult > ignite > autoattack > torment > decrepify so i'm not great at ganking or chasing, but i'm getting there. when i have enough ip i'm definitely buying swain. i like bulky casters, i bought vlad and sion :3

i've really been doing good lately, probably from the break i took during the week. tackling the game head on with a blank mind, with no previous games to dwell on really works. stuff like my 15/0 gangplank game and the swain game just proves that to me

 

[Frieddimsum]

Why does nocturne seem exactly like spectre??