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

[theamericandream38]

you're joking right


have you been watching tournament games at all

i mean sure you can start boots 3 pot or vamp scepter on shyvana or lee sin and still easily do a full jungle clear

but top junglers NEVER DO. they almost ALWAYS go cloth armor 5 pot. getting a wriggle's as fast as possible may be financially sound but it's rarely the best way to go in an actual game, where there's the threat of running into enemy champions in jungle as well as variability in ganking and in jungle paths.

regrowth/boots openings definitely are possible on some of the most popular junglers out there but that does not by any mean disqualify cloth five pots as a waste of money. far from it. what with mundo's lack of sustain, it would be unsafe to start anything BESIDES cloth 5 pot unless you're planning on just jungling until four, backing, and farming more as opposed to an invade-heavy, duel-heavy path that mundo really excels at.

Almost always go cloth 5 eh? I collected data from every game played at IEM Kiev last month and here's what I got:

cloth 5 pot - Occured 11 times: lee sin/shyvana in m5 vs sypher, lee sin in sk vs curse, shyvana in m5 vs dignitas, gangplank in sk vs dignitas g2, gangplank in dignitas vs solomid g2, shyvana in m5 vs sk g1, shyvana in m5 vs sk g2, lee sin in solomid vs m5 g1, lee sin/shyvana in solomid vs m5 g2, lee sin in solomid vs m5 g3

Notably, occured only on 3 characters: lee sin, shyvana, and gangplank. Certainly 3 of the better junglers in the game at the moment, but hardly the only viable 3 or even the top 3. Interestingly, neither shyvana nor gangplank presents a large threat for a gank at low levels, which may be why they chose the more sustained/safe build.

boots 3 pot- Occured 7 times: lee sin in white lotus vs curse, shaco/rammus in sypher vs AAA, shaco in AAA vs dignitas, udyr in sypher vs dignitas, pantheon in sk vs dignitas g1, lee sin in dignitas vs solomid g1

Had the most varied champion representation, occuring on 5 different characters. Most common on champions that have strong ganks at early levels such as shaco, lee sin, and udyr.

regrowth 1 pot - Occured 18 times: maokai in white lotus vs curse, maokai/skarner in sk vs white lotus, maokai in AAA vs dignitas, maokai in sypher vs dignitas, rammus/skarner in solomid vs curse, rammus/skarner in solomid vs sk, rammus in sk vs curse, maokai in sk vs dignitas g1, maokai in sk vs dignitas g2, maokai/skarner in sk vs dignitas g3, skarner in dignitas vs solomid g1, maokai in dignitas vs solomid g2, rammus in sk vs m5 g1, skarner in solomid vs m5 g1, skarner in solomid vs m5 g3

Only occured on 3 different champions, but was the only build used on both maokai and skarner, two of the strongest junglers in the game at the moment. By far the most popular build on Rammus as well, with only one game being different.

dorans blade - Occured 1 time: lee sin in m5 vs dignitas

A build that I have seen some lee sin players use, but not very often. Trades safety in the jungle for speed and powerful early ganks.

cloth pots/ward - Ocurred 1 time: udyr in sk vs m5 g2

This is a slight variation on the cloth/ 5 pot build that was only used one time in the tournament, and I have only seen a few other times.

So yeah, you might want to watch some tournament games yourself before you go making outrageous claims like "top junglers never start with anything but cloth/5".

 

[connoisseur]

boots + 3 pots works devilishly well on lee (especially) and udyr.

 

[Jebus McAzn]

Don't take my words out of context. Regrowth pot occurred on Skarner, Maokai, and Rammus. Skarner almost always jungles until six and rushes Philo, while almost never getting Wriggle's and never really concerns himself with in-depth invasion or dueling, although he's damn good at defending against it. Maokai has brilliant sustain and also doesn't go Wriggle's, while an early Philo is essential for his mana regen without blue buff. Rammus is bulky enough to survive skirmishes, has more than enough health at the end of his run with cloth 5 or with regrowth, and doesn't really need that early cloth armor either - on these champions, cloth 5 is not the most optimal choice, which is why the top junglers don't choose it.

Boots 3 pot occurred on Shaco because he's an early pressure jungler who needs mobility and clears his initial camps so fast that he doesn't need armor. It occurred on Udyr because his jungling ability is so strong that he can afford to invest in mobility - he stays high enough at the end of his path anyway, he needs MS for bear stun, and he doesn't go Wriggle's anyway. If you notice the two Lee Sin games, both times the jungler went for early aggression - Jaximus going for an invade and an attempted gank top (although this failed in the long run and he fell BEHIND because he didn't want to attempt the buff camps with only boots, note how he's level 5 when the bot lane is outleveling him) while OddOne was likely also going for early aggression and instead transitioned to an invade path. Both builds work on him.

Cloth 5 works on almost every jungler in the game and is optimal for very few of them in theory - but is better in practice. My original point was to address starting Vampiric Scepter on Mundo for the sake of an earlier Wriggle's and saved money on health potions. Admittedly, the phrase "always start cloth 5" is completely wrong - but my main concern is instead with the misconception that cloth 5 is a bad start because you waste money on potions, or that cloth 5 is a bad start because you can clear it with XXX item.

And hey, if you really want to cite games, M5 vs TSM game 1 used cloth 5 on Diamondez when he jungled Mundo.

 

[Synre]

So I played Dr. Mundo for the first time today.

Notes: Did not go top lane. Did not start Regrowth pot. Did not pass go and collect 200 cs.


We've been like horrifically bad in normals the past week which super tanked our normal ELO but at least I can do shit like this now

 

[gene]

twisted fate tanked for his friend mundo

also mre is probably the worst anivia

 

[theamericandream38]

So I played Dr. Mundo for the first time today.

Notes: Did not go top lane. Did not start Regrowth pot. Did not pass go and collect 200 cs.


We've been like horrifically bad in normals the past week which super tanked our normal ELO but at least I can do shit like this now

I didn't say start regrowth pot on Mundo because he doesn't need philo lol :x

 

[Kinneas]

Oh cool. Is support Fiddlesticks a thing now? 3 second fear and a silence. I can see that being a lot of fun.

 

[Crux]

I played it a long time ago, it is pretty good.

 

[Cordyceps]

What in the sam hill is up with some of those item choices. Bloodrazor on Graves when there's an Udyr on his team? A Katarina (with Cleanse, as if it'd save her)? Ashe with Zeke's Herald (it sucks as an item)? Other than that, good stuff guys. I hear Regory hates solo queue, lol.

As far as the jungle Mundo discussion goes: Synre is following the guide he linked to, and I can attest to its effectiveness, as I used it before I spoke about Mundo here. Regrowth + Pot is usually done with junglers with high sustain/damage mitigation champs who also make use of Regrowth later on, typically through Philo Stone (or Warmog's). However, Mundo is better off with Fratmas over Atmogs, simply because it's insanely easy to peel with Mallet + cleavers. Therefore, Mundo shouldn't get Regrowth. Cloth + 5 pots helps to offset the health he loses through his W; remember, Mundo sacrifices health for insane clear times, thereby sacrificing the sustain he gets through his passive early on. So I wouldn't use Regrowth + pot anyway. Cloth + 5 pots or Boots + 3 pots really is the way to go with him; without potions, you might end up killing yourself (or just slow down your path to take advantage of your passive).

And to whoever said Mundo shines top and isn't a jungler: what makes a jungler a jungler? A couple of things, right? Clear times and ganking potential are two of the top things to consider. Junglers like Udyr, Shyvana, and Skarner excel at the former, while Lee Sin, Shaco, and Maokai excel at the latter. Dr. Mundo has one of the fastest clear times out there, meaning he can either gank more quickly or counterjungle (a typically high risk, high reward strategy). As a matter of fact, the ability to counterjungle "safely" is rare amongst junglers, and Mundo's insane AoE and steriod means he can steal quickly, and fight off the enemy jungler in a 1v1. In addition, his ult is a mini-ghost on a short CD, so he can get in and get out quickly. Now, as far as ganking potential, his is shaky. He has a good slow on a short CD, but no gap closer or hard CC. However, he brings heavy damage to his ganks; subpar CC with heavy damage makes for decent ganks. So let's see, we've got amazing clear times, the ability to counterjungle, and decent ganks. Sounds like a jungler to me.

 

[Synre]

Support Fiddle is a better thing when he doesn't randomly ult creepwaves in the middle of lanes during the midgame



Also I'm not sure we'd have gotten away with it except Kat was their "support". Bot was feeding pretty hard early until I cleaned them up a couple times and we got into the midgame. Incidentally I probably should have built more MR that game given their comp but no one was particularly threatening so I just kind of randomly clicked the suggested items I imported and haphazardly lobbed cleavers and stuff.

Mundo's ganks are really pretty strong. It's definitely not Maokai or Rammus or Shaco(or even Jarvan) where you can create something that isn't there, and he doesn't have the ability go in and out easily the way Lee Sin or Shaco can, but he's one of the better gankers who aren't in that group in that cleavers are pretty easy to hit and apply a fairly powerful slow and Mundo himself does a lot more damage early and mid game than most junglers do. He's not someone I'd pick if I hadn't been fooling around if I didn't have CC from a couple of my laners (which I did in this case with TF mid and Ashe+Fiddle bot, though I picked Mundo first), which is kind of how I look at Shyvana too(Mundo is the easier of the two to gank with but weaker offensively late), but he's easily Shyvana/Phoenix Udyr/pre-nerf Skarner-tier in-jungle and reasonably decent outside of it. He has a pretty thoughtful skillset that I'm surprised didn't get more attention after the recent nerfs: His aoe keeps the jungle clear time among the best in the game(even if Shyvana has a slightly better version of the same thing), his steroid makes him a strong duelist and punishes teams that ignore him in team fights, his ult has tons of utility with both the speed and regen and the cleaver kind of ties everything together. The team I played in that screenshot wasn't very good(3 of the 5 were silver solo queuers so not what I'm used to being against in normals at this point), but it was kind of funny to see how hard they got baited by Mundo's ult in situations where I seemed low but couldn't possibly have lost the duels... wound up getting lots of easy doubles. I'm still not sure I'd whip him out with thousands of dollars on the line the way M5 did, but he's very playable for us normal folk, and I was glad to see Rincent finally made a guide for him since he's like the only real Mundo player in NA. Now if only he'd get to writing about Twitch...

Not mentioned in guide, by the way, but Diamondez actually used Spell Vamp quints in Kings of Europe fwiw(and ended up building Spirit Visage as well, though he may not have done so if he wasn't so far behind... he ended up in a more support oriented Visage/HOG/Shurelyas thing). Not sure if I agree with the logic of that one, though... I was playing around with 2 AS 1 MS and it felt pretty good.


Also I think you're misrepresenting that statistic pretty severely there tad given that Maokai, Skarner, and the support-style G/10 building Rammuses are really the only junglers that frequently start Regrowth right now(though you "can" do it on Jarvan, though I think it's pretty silly to rush Philos and delay the badly needed Wriggles and Boots to have any ganking success at all), and they just appeared a bunch of times each because they're the most popular junglers right now which makes the statistic seem disproportionate. Basically every other viable jungler in the game goes Cloth 5 or Boots 3 depending on how aggressive they're planning on being early unless they're trying to do some usually misguided all-in level 2 gank with Doran's.

 

[Slaing17]

Hey I play everyone should add me Jamalivise

 

[theamericandream38]

\
Also I think you're misrepresenting that statistic pretty severely there tad given that Maokai, Skarner, and the support-style G/10 building Rammuses are really the only junglers that frequently start Regrowth right now(though you "can" do it on Jarvan, though I think it's pretty silly to rush Philos and delay the badly needed Wriggles and Boots to have any ganking success at all), and they just appeared a bunch of times each because they're the most popular junglers right now which makes the statistic seem disproportionate. Basically every other viable jungler in the game goes Cloth 5 or Boots 3 depending on how aggressive they're planning on being early unless they're trying to do some usually misguided all-in level 2 gank with Doran's.

Yeah you're probably right, I just wanted to prove that not every jungler starts cloth/5 :x I just feel like the number of junglers that (typically) build Wriggles has dramatically decreased since the jungle nerfs, so the necessity of starting with cloth armor (along with the fact that the creeps are weaker) is much lower than it used to be. Maybe it's just because those characters are seeing less play and characters that don't need to build wriggles are seeing more play, but it is something to consider. Another advantage to building philo/hog is the fact that the jungle gives much less gold now than it formerly did, so the extra gold is helpful for keeping up with the laning characters.

 

[sdoner8790]

So happy I decided to buy Shyvana. played 3 games with her so far, went 4-0 in the first, 4-0 in the second, and 14-5 in the third. first 2 were 20 min surrenders, last one was about a 40 minute game. Their trynd was pretty fed, but I bought a Randuins and shut him down so hard late. She just does so much damage and is so tanky, love it.

 

[Synre]

Also can't really hyperlink because I'm in class but Morello said they were nerfing Soraka sustain this patch(he thought) and some Sona nerfs too, +new support champ out soon and some Riot was tweeting about a Karma remake a week ago. Might finally see some life bot.

Eager for you guys to tell me how Soraka is unplayable like Skarner and Udyr before her after nerfs once they're posted.

 

[Cordyceps]

The link Synre is referring to.

Guinsoo is working on Karma and Shen, and will have the tweaks done soon(tm). I'll be disappointed if they nerf Soraka into old Sivir area. I can understand wanting to increase the mana cost of her heal (to prevent near infinite sustain), and I do admit that she's a powerful laning support, but she brings little to no damage later on, no CC outside of a silence, and the only AoE boons she brings are her passive and her ult; outside of laning, she's considerably weaker than other supports, imo. I fear that if they hurt her laning skills too much, she'll be weak throughout an entire match, rendering her useless.

 

[Phiddlesticks]

I'll be disappointed if they nerf Soraka into old Sivir area. I can understand wanting to increase the mana cost of her heal (to prevent near infinite sustain), and I do admit that she's a powerful laning support, but she brings little to no damage later on, no CC outside of a silence, and the only AoE boons she brings are her passive and her ult; outside of laning, she's considerably weaker than other supports, imo. I fear that if they hurt her laning skills too much, she'll be weak throughout an entire match, rendering her useless.

i agree, personally i prefer to use supports like sona and janna so i can do thousands and thousands of damage and pick up pentakills in team fights with my 0 CS and no damage items

 

[Synre]

The only thing I'd miss about Soraka if she actually was nerfed into oblivion would be the loss of a viable competitive option in a lane with way too few viable competitive options. Really uninteresting champion where little separates the good Sorakas from the great ones(probably because she can't do massive damage). Sona is pretty faceroll too, but at least she has to make decisions and play farther up in lane, but I'd much prefer botlane centralized around higher skillcap champs like Janna and Alistar and like Karma would be if her skillset worked without farm. Part of why I stopped playing support basically at all and started jungling mostly fulltime was because it was so hard to make a reasonable difference relative to my counterpart because of how effective event badly played Sona/Soraka can be, if they stay viable while losing some sustain it'll be good changes.

Sounded like they like the heal on Sona, though, so I wonder what they do? Lower Q damage? Lower aura bonus/duration? Seemed like auras were main issue they had with her but the poke sustain combo + silly ult is why she's a must pick more so than the (admittedly ridiculous) auras for most comps.

 

[Wikey]

Nautilus's splash art looks sick.

 

[Buzzcut]

The only thing I'd miss about Soraka if she actually was nerfed into oblivion would be the loss of a viable competitive option in a lane with way too few viable competitive options. Really uninteresting champion where little separates the good Sorakas from the great ones(probably because she can't do massive damage). Sona is pretty faceroll too, but at least she has to make decisions and play farther up in lane, but I'd much prefer botlane centralized around higher skillcap champs like Janna and Alistar and like Karma would be if her skillset worked without farm. Part of why I stopped playing support basically at all and started jungling mostly fulltime was because it was so hard to make a reasonable difference relative to my counterpart because of how effective event badly played Sona/Soraka can be, if they stay viable while losing some sustain it'll be good changes.

Sounded like they like the heal on Sona, though, so I wonder what they do? Lower Q damage? Lower aura bonus/duration? Seemed like auras were main issue they had with her but the poke sustain combo + silly ult is why she's a must pick more so than the (admittedly ridiculous) auras for most comps.

I think the only real issue is the huge AOE stun TBH. I was thinking about it today and could see a knock back instead of a stun would require a lot more skill to use in team fights, yet still useful.

I was also thinking of how some people (and Riot) hate the 0 CS support meta and was thinking about that as well:

there are 4 places to achieve gold and 5 champions: we all know that. But why does a champion go bot lane? To help the AD carry CS as much as possible and to maintain dragon control.

But what if levels were global? Meaning each person on a team gets a level at the same time. What incentive does a support have to go to lane if they get levels by roaming? There is none really. A champion could be useful to a team by ganking the entire game and getting gold that way. If a team did this, and the other team opts for the 2 vs 1, that means the "support" could help gank that lane, or help the other 2 lanes win while a champion who CAN farm under tower and handle a 2 vs 1 quite easily (Yorick) can farm and help the other team members get fed. If a team member dies, the ganker can go to that lane and get some CS/team XP while their team member comes back to lane. This means ganking junglers with a very large clear time (Rammus comes to mind) can be a "support" and gank the entire game, where someone like Udyr or Shyvana can just farm all game. If a lane is pushed, they gank.

I haven't put in a huge amount of thought or even mentioned this to anyone else yet, so I may be missing a glaring issue, but what do you guys think?

It's also really all over the place because I've re read and added stuff all over the place, but whatever. I don't even mind the 0 CS Support meta, I just was playing around with this idea. Doesn't seem like a HUGE change and could be quite interesting to add to the game, given I'm not missing something extremely stupid.

 

[doomvendingmachine]

I would like to say I am a fan of the zero cs support meta (take this with a grain of salt, as it's the only meta i've played). It seems to me that if you have one guys who scales REALLY well and one guy who can do ok even with no farm and help secure the other guy farm better, they will always do better than two guys who need to split farm. You can't make a viable support who needs farm to be effective; then you get zilean, morgana, and karma, who all chose to take a solo lane. I mean, i guess you could make it so EVERY champ in the game isn't viable without farm, but there are so many things in the game that don't scale (crowd control in particular never scales, which is why supports have so much of it) but that would require a HUGE overhaul of LoL.

 

[UsernameSayWha]

I always see Saint using Jungle DPS Nunu on stream so I finally got the guts to use it, and tbh I'm impressed. After he gets Wriggle's his jungle is INSANELY fast. He easily solo's dragon and with a full build can probably solo baron. It's an on-hit build. So basically Teemo with a self steroid, heal, slow, nuke, can jungle and is a billion times tankier. All for just a little bit of damage. They surrendered pretty early but, I got Mercs, Wriggles, Maladay, Wit's End, and was building Ionic Spark. I went R>E>W>Q. I went 4/0/10. Any tips?

EDIT: The everyone levels at the same time thing gets rid of the risk-reward factor of the game that makes it fun. For example, There's an enemy with 200 HP hugging his tower. Do I risk it and try to kill him? Or do I continue to gain XP and farm the lane? While with global leveling theres no risk to it. Oh look! It's a 1HP Teemo! -tower dives- -gets kill and dies- Oh well. Its not like I'm losing levels or anything. This also ruins the 2v1 solo top lane. So if this happened Yorick wouldn't be able to 2v1.
EDIT2: This was my longest post.

 

[Wikey]

Wikey: people are so ******* dumb
Wikey: bitched at me for feeding
Wikey: I did go 0/14
Wikey: but the enemy team dove me all game
Wikey: I literally couldn't farm at all because they would just dive me the second they saw me
Wikey: and wukong was pushing lane so I couldn't farm under tower
Wikey: also, I had 10 assists
Wikey: because every time they dove me they died to wukong
Wikey: ******* stupid

Teammates: Stop feeding, play more defensive!

When I am standing under tower and they are just diving me because they don't care if they die (and they died, every time) what the fuck am I supposed to do? You can't farm from Nexus.

Also, I died in team fights because my teammates were the standard idiots who pussy foot around instead of committing to team fights because they're afraid of dying. They never focused anyone. They just poked all game and even when someone was almost dead they wouldn't pounce. The enemy team pounced on the low health people and so won every team fight.

OH MY GOD IM GOING TO UNINSTALL.

Next game after this I went 6/0 in lane because their Twitch was feeding me. Our mid fed Morgana so she was like 6/0 as well. I tell Volibear to build MR. He buys two warmogs and armor by the end of the game. No offensive items. He only died TWICE. ALL GAME. THE TANK SHOULD DIE MORE THAN ANYBODY! He was never there for teamfights. If he was all he did was use all of his spells on Blitzcrank. My team NEVER focused Morgana. Always focused Blitz and WW.

 

[Atlas]

[youtube]AbxXzw8ONdc[/youtube]

shen buffs look fun, cant wait to try him out after. really like the soraka buff, with double mana output there might be able to have more team comps. and hurray for sona nerfs, she was way to good early game.

 

[sdoner8790]

[youtube]AbxXzw8ONdc[/youtube]

shen buffs look fun, cant wait to try him out after. really like the soraka buff, with double mana output there might be able to have more team comps. and hurray for sona nerfs, she was way to good early game.

Soraka buff? It's a nerf, she won't be able to give herself mana anymore.

 

[Stagnant]

I have 6300.. but I dont really want any champion available... I mean of the ones I have left to buy and that I would consider Cait, Cass, Yorick, and to a lesser extent Sejuani. ~

I could wait for.. Nautilus...

Maybe its time to pickup a different game.