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

[Jibaku]

it actually does seem that Akali has randomly risen in popularity

Big factors that contribute to this I think are:
1) BabyZeus being the first person going into Challenger Tier and maining Akali
2) Voyboy spamming Akali lately.

Anyways Akali got a few nice things this season - including the overall rise in assassin viability, gunblade buff, Lich Bane semibuff, Rylai buff if you build that on her, and oracles being nerfed. Having resets is also wonderful, esp with tanks being more burstable now and GAs no longer being everywhere. Akali has all the tools she needs to be one of the most effective pubstompers in the game (insane sticking ability, high burst, high sustain / no mana so she doesn't have to base very often, strong escapes if you're good with her, and is not a bad duelist).

Gragas is still played. Just not as much.

Ergh someone please bring Diana back into the spotlight T_T

holy shit! you said a hero was good and no one listened to you?

it's almost as if that's happened before!

I WONDER TOO

 

[New World Order]

I don't look at win rates that often, but...jesus, what happened to Gragas? What happened to the good ol' days when he was like a top tier mid laner? I mean good lord, I see him about as often as I see Trundle nowadays (I can honestly only remember seeing like one in the past two months).

I recall a patch where he got nerfed up the arse, including like a 30 second CD nerf on his ult or something.

 

[Jebus McAzn]

Gragas has been a monster in tournament play so I don't know what you're talking about

back when every team spammed MF+Amumu, i think NaJin Sword were the first to use Gragas as a counter to AoE team comps

arguably he hasn't been seen very often in solo queue but that doesn't mean he's not a top tier mid laner

 

[supermarth64]

Gragas is like the definition of FOTM (AP Sion lasted for a few months). He got buffed early July, not played for a few weeks initially, and then nerfed late August. His ult CD is why he was so strong, I could honestly care less about the Body Slam changes. It just forces him to need blue buff if he wants to spam Body Slam when roaming otherwise he just walks to the other lanes instead. Gragas doesn't like the meta right now with people stacking HP but he does well vs AD mids due to his passive and built in % reduction. You have to know how to itemize against them, Dorans into Deathcap won't work, you need the HP from RoA. I guess Dorans into Zhonyas would work but man you played Gragas to roam and poke like a mofo so go do some damage by getting Dcap,

 

[Xephyr]

Gragas has been a monster in tournament play so I don't know what you're talking about

back when every team spammed MF+Amumu, i think NaJin Sword were the first to use Gragas as a counter to AoE team comps

arguably he hasn't been seen very often in solo queue but that doesn't mean he's not a top tier mid laner

Admittedly I dont pay a ton of attention to competitive play and I base these off of my own games and streams I watch, so I may be completely off base.

 

[BigZac]

For anyone else watching the Twitch.tv stream of the North American LCS..is it lagging for you too?

 

[Jebus McAzn]

it's a little laggy yeah

how did xephyr get banned?

 

[mtr]

Working on my Jungle Shen runepage...all AS Runes with Armor Marks.

I like to run super-offensive runepages on my junglers. Last season I used AD Mark/Armor Seal/AS Glyph/Movespeed Quint on Alistar rather than whatever the textbook spec was.

 

[BigZac]

it's a little laggy yeah

how did xephyr get banned?

Putting in 720p fixed it for me, at least.

As for the ban, i have no idea.

Also, dat Curse.

 

[lmitchell0012]

So, am I the only one who's upset about the warmog's nerf and force of nature being removed?? Everyone said the bruiser champs (Like Irelia, Olaf and Darius) were too OP with them, but the whole reason they were so popular is because we needed champs that wouldn't get burst down in 2 seconds by all the new assassin champions (zed, diana, kha'zix, etc)??

 

[Cathadora]

What game are you playing/ wut

 

[DDRMaster]

Pretty sure Warmog's was buffed at the beginning of Preseason, and was recently more less put back where it was before. And I don't think we really need Force of Nature. Sure the Movespeed+MR was nice, but there's plenty of new Movespeed items and enough MR in this AD dominate metagame.

I've been trying out Nashor's+Liandry's Kayle and it's been working well, but I'm not sure whether Berserker's Greaves or Sorc Shoes provide more damage. Anyone have any damage stats for the two of them?

 

[jumpluff]

yeah okay sorry nopers users getting banned is really none of your respective businesses + really offtopic, even for this thread lol. sorry, guys, didn't think i'd have to step in at all but apparently so~

 

[Legendary1989]

yeah okay sorry nopers users getting banned is really none of your respective businesses + really offtopic, even for this thread lol. sorry, guys, didn't think i'd have to step in at all but apparently so~

You go girl!

 

[Mr.E]

Now that i have had a few games to mess around with tear lux i thought id post my general feelings on how the build stacks up to the old S2 build.

My old S2 typical lux build was the boots-3pots-doransx2-sorcs-Dcap With scaling ap glyphs this provided 1 moderate jump in power and one significant jump. Most of the time pre dcap you would have to ignite and get 1-2 autos to get a kill on anyone who wasn't as glass cannon as you were. Once you acquired Dcap however almost everyone was fair game until they got some Hp or MR. the general power curve for this lux build was peaking at mid game followed by a consistent damage output the rest of the game with no noticeable spikes in damage generally speaking. The athenes varient of this build has lower burst but more spells flying out resulting in about the same dps imo with no fact to back that statement up.

blagh blagh blagh lux shit

[youtube]cP43_M8cxPQ[/youtube]

also warmog's got nerfed itself, it just got better in comparison to everything else because Armor/MR became more expensive, League of Cleavers drove everyone to stop buying armor anyway and MR is way harder to build now period

 

[RODAN]

with this hp stacking meta going on it leaves me to question, why arent mundo and volibear more popular

 

[shinyskarmory]

Just did AD Jungle Fizz a few games ago, much better then I expected. Trinity Force+Wit's is a great combo on him (who isn't it a great combo on), and his clearing wasn't that terrible once i got Madred's Razor.

 

[supermarth64]

with this hp stacking meta going on it leaves me to question, why arent mundo and volibear more popular

Mundo got popular for no reason, people just want to play Locket champs more even though Mundo works fine with it (people are like no I have to get Warmogs first on Mundo because it's Mundo) so people don't play him as much. His first clear has always been weak but with the prevalence of strong early-game junglers, it's risky to run him. That and he can't carry solo queue and it's a formula for becoming slightly less popular.

In terms of Volibear, no one plays him and pros don't think he's good so the hivemind don't play him because no one wants to put the time to learn how to play him. Volibear was fine in S2, it's just people had other champs that they played that had similar advantageous matchups so there was no real benefit in learning him.

 

[Minwu]

Hey: can we make wit's end, bveil, maw, atma's, and thornmail not so bleh

 

[Jebus McAzn]

Voyboy>CLG

 

[New World Order]

with this hp stacking meta going on it leaves me to question, why arent mundo and volibear more popular

Mundo pretty much kills himself early game. Volibear is definitely not weak, once he gets on your carry, he's dead, and if the rest of your team comes to try and peel Voli off, you're all dead too. His dueling capabilities are unreal thanks to his flip and 60% AS steroid, and his teamfight is pretty strong for an offtank thanks to his ulti. The main problem with him is his lack of a reliable escape, which makes it difficult to lane with him, he's also pretty easy to kite/peel, but nothing's stopping him from just turning around, mauling peeler, then going right back after the carry 5 seconds later. This is a champion that's a few tiny buffs away from becoming hidden OP, the only reason people aren't playing him much is that they're still under the perception that "Voli sux in S2, ur a n00b if u play him!"

 

[Yeti]

I've always thought Voli's big problem was his 'gapcloser' is a ms boost to run in really fast as opposed to a direct blink/jump, so even though he has the fling he can still get kited or cced off (Udyr rip).

I am curious as to where you take Voli, jungle or top. I didn't think his clear was that remarkable and his ganks would just be ok, would probably need a lane with cc to help secure the kill.
What matchups does he win top? I can't think of one he should win or at least be able to force them out/away from the farm, or one where someone else doesn't win harder while doing more than Voli. Just what is his place in the meta and who can he actually shut down?

 

[New World Order]

I've always thought Voli's big problem was his 'gapcloser' is a ms boost to run in really fast as opposed to a direct blink/jump, so even though he has the fling he can still get kited or cced off (Udyr rip).

I am curious as to where you take Voli, jungle or top. I didn't think his clear was that remarkable and his ganks would just be ok, would probably need a lane with cc to help secure the kill.
What matchups does he win top? I can't think of one he should win or at least be able to force them out/away from the farm, or one where someone else doesn't win harder while doing more than Voli. Just what is his place in the meta and who can he actually shut down?

Don't actually play much Voli myself and mostly base it off my friend's play, but he appears to shit all over Darius and Irelia.

 

[Ampharos]

Voli is really strong in lane because of his passive enabling him to not die ever and his W's active doing ridiculous early damage if you max it first. Basically he just straight up engages and wins trades easily early in the game.

 

[xenu]

why does riot want to kill off the traditional ap carry?