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

[DDRMaster]

Just starting playing this yesterday and I'm already hooked. So much of my time is going to be wasted playing this game.

 

[Mr.E]

Corki doesn't even have anything that makes him scale especially well off attack speed. Incidentally, Varus does. ;[

Someone did the math on this, LW is superior when you are hitting targets above a certain thrshhold of armor (100ish iirc), I.e. the targets you should be hitting first as an ad carry.

they both had IE/BT/PD as an offensive core which is a ridiculous amount of damage. at that phase in the game BC starts losing effectiveness anyway since you can pretty much counter it with a 700 gold investment in a chain vest

The break-even point alone is 112.5 Armor, ignoring that Cleaver takes three hits to fully apply its armor reduction, so no it's not that low. -_- When you factor in that TBC gives AS and more AD than LW, the target value is really 160ish. It also lowers your target's Armor for any physical damage your teammates might output, after all this is a team game. TBC is somewhat more expensive, so the fact it's generally superior shouldn't be surprising (Triforce is better than Long Sword ololol) but I'm generally considering endgame builds where cost isn't a significant factor. LW isn't exactly an early-game item anyway, which Cleaver very well can be since it has reasonable base stats and its flat reduction is strongest then.

Vayne and Corki in particular have mechanics that make TBC even more favorable. Vayne's Silver Bolts scale off attack speed, which makes TBC almost strictly superior on her regardless of circumstance. (Tumble also scales AD but is a DPS loss late-game, so eh.) Corki already has flat armor shred on his E, which synergizes well with TBC and poorly with LW. The slightly higher AD also increases his passive true damage and Missile Barrage's magic damage, though it's not inconsiderable that LW is better for him in more extreme cases. (Is this one of them? Dunno, I'm not going to bother with that math.) My gripe in this case is the champions on which Last Whisper was bought and not so much the lack of Armor itemization on their respective enemy's teams, Vayne especially. See also: Twitch, Kog'maw.

 

[doomvendingmachine]

DoomVM> i was just watching one of the featured games
[5:32am] <DoomVM> cuz i noticed westrice was in it
[5:32am] <DoomVM> and
[5:32am] <DoomVM> it had a dude who went varus mid
[5:32am] <DoomVM> but instead of building him as an ad carry
[5:32am] <DoomVM> he build him as an ad caster
[5:33am] <DoomVM> game ended at 28:06
[5:33am] <DoomVM> he was 17/0/7
[5:33am] <DoomVM> lucidity boots / brut / manamune / hexdrinker / lw / bt (not build order just final items)

No comment on effectiveness but DAMN that was fun to watch, his q arrows absolutely chunked people.

 

[TheValkyries]

Corki doesn't even have anything that makes him scale especially well off attack speed.

Eh, there comes a point for Corki where the extra (True) Damage he could get is worse than the bonus AS, and he scales with it better than other ADs because part of his damage is true.

The break-even point alone is 112.5 Armor, ignoring that Cleaver takes three hits to fully apply its armor reduction, so no it's not that low.

This is also ignoring the increase in damage that BC gives with the AS that LW doesn't, so you'd still be dealing more damage over the course of a fight with the BC when the enemy is at 112 armor regardless. The better threshold is more around 140 armor (rough guess, don't quote me on it).

Also 112 is a low armor total for that point in the game. You'd only see it that low on Mages or other AD carries. Hell, I think in this case, Taric's aura probably put Corki over that threshold along with every other member of his team.

"Attack speed scales better on Corki" is a long disproved fallacy. Not to mention that he has two AD ratios.

Hi, maybe try reading context. With that build at that point in the game BC is better than LW on him because he takes better advantage of the AS and armor shred than most other AD carries. Which can effectively be restated as, "he scales better with attack speed". If you think I stated myself poorly then so be it.

I'm not saying rush a PD on him because he scales harder on Attack Speed early than he does straight damage, because that certainly would be stupid.

 

[vonFiedler]

Hi, maybe try reading context. If you think I stated myself poorly then so be it.

Ok, you stated yourself poorly. This "Actually, it depends, since Vayne and Corki both Scale with the Attack Speed Better than they do the AD." is the only context you gave, and if you think the type of armor shred is the deciding factor, then no, it's not effectively attack speed. Might as well say it's effectively building out of BF Sword.

 

[Jebus McAzn]

i'd like to remind everybody that mathcraft is pretty and all but league of legends isn't competitive pokemon, or even a more straightforward game like guild wars for that matter (yes, the PvP in guild wars is generally simpler when you're trying to mathcraft). there are many variables when you take into account cleaver vs last whisper and in the context of the match we've been talking about i'd say LW wins. cleaver has a sweet spot on certain champions where it's optimally effective but that phase is short-lived.

a fellow veteran on MOBAFire once said "black cleaver looks good at first but then you realize that it's countered by a 700 gold investment". puts things into perspective.

personally i will continue to do what works and what seems to work in tournaments, simply because it's proved to be effective. reginald popularized the manamune->triforce->cleaver build on corki back when it was extremely common to see him as a solo mid champion. qtpie popularized rushing cleaver on corki and ezreal as kind of a cheese build, especially with an aggro support. i'm not saying "never get cleaver" or trying to trash it as an item, but that i personally won't be using it for a while.

 

[shinyskarmory]

Guys, I played Renekton mid earlier today and carried the team.

The funniest part was, we had a 5 man Smogon premade, but then one of us (who will remain unnamed) dodged when I said I was doing it.

Then we did it with 3 people and 2 randoms and I carried.

Renekton>Morgana

GG.

 

[natalie]

i'd like to remind everybody that mathcraft is pretty and all but league of legends isn't competitive pokemon

amen to that brother, this thread makes my head hurt!

On another note I would love to play with you guys sometime - lords/alex lets me use his spare level 30 NA account, so please add yakattack :)

 

[TheValkyries]

a fellow veteran on MOBAFire once said "black cleaver looks good at first but then you realize that it's countered by a 700 gold investment"

That's not how armor pen/reduction works.

Buying armor will always "counter" buying damage, because that's the goddamn point of buying Armor.

Let's put it this way. What if someone buys a chain vest, and the opponent responds with buying an armor pen item that would nullify the Chain Vest. You could say by your logic, that the buy of the Chain Vest was "Countered." In reality, it's not countering anything, it's just shredding through armor. Nor is the armor countering the shred. It's just more armor.

 

[jonnyrolo]

no, you spend 2700 for an item that is ment to reduce an opponents armor while the enemy spends 700 gold to nullify that armor reduction. its 2000 more gold for the cleaver then the chain vest. 2700 would be much better spent on items that increase your sustain or dps more so.

 

[vonFiedler]

2000 gold which buys you a 1650 BF Sword, a 415 Long Sword, and two 420 Daggers.

 

[Jebus McAzn]

2000 gold which buys you a 1650 BF Sword, a 415 Long Sword, and two 420 Daggers.

while last whisper is less than a 2300 gold investment which makes their armor purchases 40% less relevant and less cost-efficient while remaining effective throughout the game and providing a pretty decent amount of AD on top of it

also note that black cleaver will not always be at maximum stacks and that on most champions, by the time you can even start thinking about buying armor pen (which is usually after Infinity Edge+Phantom Dancer+Quicksilver Sash are already built) you're well into late game already and several enemies should already have 150 if not 200+ armor.

 

[Mr.E]

Black Cleaver is worth ~2800 gold just based on its AD and AS. Last Whisper is worth... ~1450. You're paying much more for the penetration on the latter, so you need to be getting more than your worth from it for it to be a worthwhile purchase. It's also not inconsiderable that Cleaver's reduction benefits teammates and, of course, is better for any AD/AS scaling abilities and where you deal non-physical damage (which is significant amounts on Corki, Ezreal, Kog'maw, Vayne, Twitch, and Varus).

i'd like to remind everybody that mathcraft is pretty and all but league of legends isn't competitive pokemon, or even a more straightforward game like guild wars for that matter (yes, the PvP in guild wars is generally simpler when you're trying to mathcraft). there are many variables when you take into account cleaver vs last whisper and in the context of the match we've been talking about i'd say LW wins. cleaver has a sweet spot on certain champions where it's optimally effective but that phase is short-lived.

a fellow veteran on MOBAFire once said "black cleaver looks good at first but then you realize that it's countered by a 700 gold investment". puts things into perspective.

personally i will continue to do what works and what seems to work in tournaments, simply because it's proved to be effective. reginald popularized the manamune->triforce->cleaver build on corki back when it was extremely common to see him as a solo mid champion. qtpie popularized rushing cleaver on corki and ezreal as kind of a cheese build, especially with an aggro support. i'm not saying "never get cleaver" or trying to trash it as an item, but that i personally won't be using it for a while.

I don't really care what pros do. Pros are pros because somebody is paying them to play the game. They are usually more mechnically-skilled and possess superior decision-making. They aren't necessarily math gurus. You can get away with a sub-optimal build just like you can get away making little mistakes in Pokémon if luck is on your side, the other guy fucks up or you simply out-play them like a boss. Ultimately, this is a game of numbers just like every other game and popular opinion and actions do not supercede math. You can still win with Last Whisper even in circumstances where The Black Cleaver is better, it just means you would've won more easily with the latter, yet other times it'll be the difference between winning and losing.

I mean hell, are you not just proving my point in your own statement? Reginald popularized a build which these days will get you ridiculed for using in a serious match. Now I haven't been playing that long but I'm pretty sure Manamune, Triforce and Cleaver are still the same as when that was considered the norm on Corki. What changed? The numbers sure didn't, just popular perception. Now Manamune is trash and even Triforce is shunned for the most part except as a late-game item but the fact is that they are exactly as viable as they've always been. That may or may not line up with what the masses think, most of whom have probably not done the math nor any actual playtesting with some of the less popular items available to them. Hell, nobody builds Cleaver on Corki either except qtpie's patented triple Doran's into Cleaver build. ;/

Chain Vest counters 55 AD and 30% AS. Hell, I guess we should just stop buying offense entirely since defensive itemization in general is more efficient than offensive itemization. :evan:

 

[vonFiedler]

League of Legends is not Pokemon. It is not a turn based RPG. Holding mathcrafting to the same standards isn't just wrong, it's foolish. Choosing Last Whisper or Black Cleaver is not going to be a matter of popular opinion but personal preference based on skill/playing style. Just like with Infinity Edge/Bloodthirster. You want to do more damage and build focusing on crit? Run IE. You want to stay alive in a fight and kill people 1-1 easily? Run BT. Neither of these are better than the other because neither of them do the same thing (though sometimes they do more of what they do well on certain champions than on others).

Only a few months ago Black Cleaver was a very overlooked item while Last Whisper was seen as almost mandatory. If that has changed, it will change again in a few months. And you will be just as certain about your math then as your are now. To me, BC is awful expensive as an armor shredder but awful lackluster as a way to upgrade my BF Sword. For these reasons I wouldn't consider it core. I'd like it to have a bit more attack speed to make up for the lack of AD compared to the other options.

 

[TheValkyries]

I dislike this idea being tossed around that you can't mathcraft in league of legends. Why not? The game is run by numbers... It is designed so that every situation will give similar if not exactly the same result every time. If it didn't do this, it'd be a terrible game.

I know that the counter-argument would be that we're ignoring variables in the calculations, but when you are talking about which item is better on a single hit the math doesn't lie. At a certain Armor threshold Black Cleaver will be better on a per hit basis. It gets interesting when you start throwing in time elapsed and adding in the AS boost of the Black Cleaver, and then your argument becomes stronger. However, saying it's "foolish" to mathcraft for this game, or any other for that matter, is in itself a foolish act.

 

[vonFiedler]

If a game is "run by numbers", the game designer is doing it wrong. Players run games. Player skill and choice needs to have an impact on games. Even Pokemon doesn't have every player with the same 6 Pokemon with the same movesets. Every situation giving the exact same result? Let's go 10 games mid with the same characters. It's like you think all players are robots, except pitting AIs against each other is another hobby and that rarely goes the same way twice either.

I said it is foolish to treat it like Pokemon. I mathcraft almost everything I do in LoL. I do it for fun, I'm notorious amongst my irl friends for tier listing everything I like. Which is enough matchcrafting to know that it means very little in League of Legends. Once a person is Level 10 they should know better than to put Boots of Swiftness on Ashe, and that is a hundred times more significant than Last Whisper vs. Black Cleaver is ever going to be.

Bottom line is you say "ignoring variables" nonchalantly, but you would go insane overthinking it. It is enough to simply like something, know why you like it, and why it compliments your playing style. There is no mathematically best build.

 

[TheValkyries]

Would you like it better if I said the game is run by numbers and player input?

End result is everything that happens in the game have numbers attributed to it, because if they didn't the game would run on magic.


Also, I don't think there is one mathematically best build. I think there are mathematically optimal options in certain situations. BC v LW is something worth Matchcrafting because neither is better than the other. BC is better in certain situations and LW better in others. In the same vein, I don't see one Mid particularly better than another, since they all do different things, all with unique roles and attributes. As for the human element, they are the input variables to these massive, yet in a way, simplistic equations that define the way a game plays out. Despite the randomness of the player however, you can mathcraft within the confines of certain situations, and that is where it is valuable.


I'm gonna stop now because I'm nerding out about the inner workings of games.

 

[vonFiedler]

Video games run on internal logic, not numbers. Programming isn't literally 1s and 0s.

 

[TheValkyries]

Video games run on internal logic, not numbers. Programming isn't literally 1s and 0s.

Which is funny, because it actually is. Programming Languages are all made from translated versions of other languages, which is probably translated from machine language which is translated from binary.

Hi, Computer Science and Game Design major, at your service.

 

[vonFiedler]

Hi, professional game designer, haven't appealed to authority once in this thread, wouldn't like to again. Your notion is facetious, you should know better what actually goes into making a game. We are the makers of tools, not the users of them.

 

[TheValkyries]

Hi, professional game designer, haven't appealed to authority once in this thread, wouldn't like to again. Your notion is facetious and asinine, you should know better what actually goes into making a game. We are the makers of tools, not the users of them.

Fair jab at my appeal to authority, but you're still wrong. Programming is all adapted binary. Computers only have binary logic gates, if you think that it isn't actually 1's and 0's at it's core, you're misguided.

 

[vonFiedler]

You should know what this means but in any design oriented programming, we don't simply use tools we are given but instead make our own systems of internal logic and those are what we the developers use to run the game. The computer translates our internal logic but your notion is facetious because the makers don't think in binary. We make a game run. A computer doing anything without our internal logic would also be magic. That or the uprising.

Binary is so far removed from player input that it is silly to say that every game is about numbers. You are mixing multiple contexts here. First you presented the context that every game is numerical on par with Pokemon, a game from a genre associated with numerical importance (is Mario about numbers?). The next context is that games are translated into binary. Only one of these is correct, but more importantly neither are remotely related. This is why your argument is facetious.

 

[TheValkyries]

Different viewpoints then. The code that we write in is for ease of human input as a programmer, not computer interpretation. I certainly don't think at the 1's and 0's level, but I recognize that computers only act once everything is at that level, so player input is actually a small fraction of a second away from the binary level.


First, I don't recall saying League's as mathematically basic as Pokemon. Certainly it's more complex. But to say it doesn't have mathematics at it's core would be incorrect. Second, my Binary comment was a joke, not an argument. You turned it into one.

 

[vonFiedler]

Trivializing it as a small fraction of a second takes the human variable for granted, something we should never be doing as entertainers.

At its core, no, I don't think League of Legends is math. When I started out at Level 1 and everyone was using the bad default equipment, it was just my play skill vs. the opponents. Somewhere between 15 and 30 people realized how to itemize, runes were added and mastery pages were filled out, but the skill game didn't change. There is definitely a corner of LoL devoted to mathcrafting, but 99% of what you can get out of it you get out of it easily. After that you are just fussing.

 

[TheValkyries]

The beauty of entertaining games is how they create complexity through their simplistic inputs and rules. The rules of Chess can be learned in a day and are rather simple, but that does not in anyway trivialize the true complexity of the game, nor does it belittle the human variable.

REGARDLESS. THIS BANTER DOES NOT BELONG IN LEAGUE OF LEGENDS THREAD. I BID YOU ADIEU.


EDIT: Basically we view games differently. You're looking at League as defined by it's Gameplay, which is fine. I like to look at it from the standpoint of its rules.