League Of Losers

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:55 am

The only RTS games I've seriously played are Stronghold and Majesty, and I never had a chance to play multiplayer. Neither of those games particularly required lightning reflexes or millions of buttons against AI opponents. I was easily able to handle camera movement with the mouse for short overviews and by clicking the minimap to jump to faraway points. In fact, most games of Stronghold I played were all about turtling so I basically only had to direct units when they were hired and in the final battle. That said, I'll try out your control scheme sans mouse buttons in a few custom games and see how it goes.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:56 am

Surgo wrote:Is it fair to say that Warwick has no escapes? I mean, if you can keep your enemy below 50% you basically have permaghost, but that itself is a bit of a challenge.

Yep, no escapes. If you push and get ganked while your opponent > 50%, you're stuffed.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:09 am

While it's a fair point, Warwick can't really "push", per se.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:16 am

What normally happens is that the lane opponent recalls to get health/stuff or dies and leaves WW to freefarm. Bad WW players will push the lane and then die when the opponent returns. They should have roamed instead.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 1:46 pm

rampaging-poet wrote:The only RTS games I've seriously played are Stronghold and Majesty, and I never had a chance to play multiplayer. Neither of those games particularly required lightning reflexes or millions of buttons against AI opponents. I was easily able to handle camera movement with the mouse for short overviews and by clicking the minimap to jump to faraway points. In fact, most games of Stronghold I played were all about turtling so I basically only had to direct units when they were hired and in the final battle. That said, I'll try out your control scheme sans mouse buttons in a few custom games and see how it goes.

It definitely takes some getting used to if you haven't been using WASD for camera movement in other games, but I think it saves a lot of trouble if you don't mind the 1,2,3,4 skill setup and teach yourself where your items and summoner spells are. I imagine there's a reason everyone else uses the mouse for so much, but what the hell are they using all their other buttons for!? You rarely have more than 3 active items and practically every modern mouse at least has a scroll wheel you could bind an item to. Hell, you could bind 3 items to the wheel (one for click, one for scroll up, and one for scroll down) if you don't mind getting rid of the zoom feature (which nobody uses).

For the record, I was never remotely good at WC3 or SC. I tried for a while, but it felt like the massive APM required was out of my reach and fucking exhausting. And this is from somebody who played smash, where a common input was 3 buttons pressed in the correct order in 7 60ths of a second (3 60ths of a second for Fox, but haha fuck that). But microing a fight and also making sure my base is working correctly? Nope.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:02 pm

I find that mouse-moving the camera really isn't that much of a problem, especially with copious use of space to re-center the camera on myself. At this point I don't really notice it, honestly.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:41 pm

Doublepost! Finally finished my placemnt matches into... Bronze 1! Higher than one of my friends, thank god.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:26 pm

Last night I watched someone (okay had on in the background) Trick2gs stream, in which a bronze player who had been bronze for a long time played a best of five series to get to silver.

He lost the first game. Then he won the second and third game. Then he was in silver. The League system honest to god glitched and gave him a promotion to Silver V on three games in his five game series. Why can't I have that?

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 6:49 pm

Can you lose your ranking if you stay away from the game for a while? My placement matches put me on silver 5 some months ago, then I played a couple of ranked matches every week, and basically stayed at the same place.

Then I lost interest on LOL, left for a month or so and returned last week, to find out that I'm unranked. What happened?

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:05 pm

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:24 pm

ubernoob wrote:ELO soft reset at the start of the season. Happened to everyone. After 10 ranked games it will give you your league again. Basically it averages your current ELO wth 1200, has you do 10 placement matches from that point (so if you wreck all ten placement matches you could get higher, but odds are you're going to drop in terms of leagues).

Here's the deal though. EVERYONE had the elo reset happen to them, so if you're suddenly facing high bronze people... those people were probably silvers last season and you both just got kicked down in leagues. You're still playing against people just as good.

Why did they do this? Basically so that the diamond/challenger pool would get shuffled.

I see. Thanks!

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:07 pm

I'm back in promos for Diamond III! Almost to my S3 high again. Almost. Due to a new puppy my free time is heavily limited, so I'm lucky to play a game a day.

The two games that got me to promos were first with a smurf duo (somebody said they were 28-2?) that ended up snowballing mid and crushing the game as a mid + jungle combo (the best roles to get for a duo, it lets you control the whole map). They were good but dicks. One of them got mad at me not burning Leona ult on a Gragas who was barely in range and had bodyslam off cooldown.

Second game I was against them, tit slapped their mid (mid jungle combo again) with lots of help from my jungler, and ended up carrying. It felt so damn good.

In other news, when is the fucking Kassadin nerf coming? He's basically a deleted champion at this point. Why can't they just do what they did to Irelia and nerf him into the ground to free up the ban? It's kinda dumb that the second pick team only gets two bans.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:03 am

So I've been noticing more and more that bottom lanes with Leona just win. Almost regardless of who you the ADC is.

Any tips on how to deal with her? She just seems good all game. I'm considering Alistar.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:39 am

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:30 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:So I've been noticing more and more that bottom lanes with Leona just win. Almost regardless of who you the ADC is.

Any tips on how to deal with her? She just seems good all game. I'm considering Alistar.

Dealing with Leona requires either a support who can wail on their adc hard + a high damage adc, a tanky support who can CC the enemy adc, or someone who can cancel her aggression.

Lulu is really good at making it so Leona, even if she gets in, loses the trade because of her high dps and slow to make it so Leona can't get out safely (Lulu is also better at level 1, and more likely to hit 2 first. As a Leona player her and Morg are probably my two hardest matchups).

Morgana and Janna both cancel Leona's aggression in different ways. Morgana waits for the gapcloser and shields whoever gets hit, Janna just cancels her gapcloser. Thresh can cancel her gapcloser, but it's harder than Morg or Janna (still not particularly hard, but it requires actual finesse).

Supports who tank her engage and CC her adc are Taric (he walks up to the enemy ADC if they try to capitalize on the Leona engage, stuns them and beats the shit out of them) and Alistar (he CCs the enemy longer than leona CCs them pre-6, and he can also do shit like throw her into the turret).

Leona is a melee support and that brings its own problems. If a ranged support can throw down harass without getting caught out they'll push Leona out. If her lane falls behind she stays behind without ganks, and if you dodge her gapcloser early she just doesn't do anything for a while. She's the tanky engage support, so you have to beat her with awesome disengage, poke, or a ridiculous high damage kill lane (unconventional supports work really well against her).

Also, Caitlyn is a trap against Leona unless you're running a support who's weak against her. You need the ability to trade if Leona catches somebody or you're forced out of lane after the very first engage. Even if you don't win it, you have to deal enough damage that you can still fight if your jungler comes to help. She's terrible at gank prevention pre-6.

Edit: <hipster>I fucking called Morgana support being awesome a long time ago. I kind of hate that people are picking her now that she was in the LCS. All these Sheeple, I played her before she was cool! Same thing with panth jungle in this patch! All my cool offbeat picks are popular now. Next thing you know people are going to start picking Brand (just kidding, he sucks all over the place).</hipster>

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:40 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:So I've been noticing more and more that bottom lanes with Leona just win. Almost regardless of who you the ADC is.

Any tips on how to deal with her? She just seems good all game. I'm considering Alistar.

Lulu + Doran shield. Source: I play with Lulu (0/9/21) and start the match with a Doran Shield + two cookies. Strategy is to keep poking their ADC with auto-attacks and pixie lances until they're forced to return to base before lvl 6. If their ADC is an idiot and dives on me or on my ADC, Lulu can do a minor burst (E + Q + auto attacks) that, coupled with whatever my own ADC is doing, more often than not kills the retard.

As usual with supporting, pulling this off requires a decent ADC that's not a coward and knows how to do their job.

By the late game, Leona support players seem to all build her into a tank with low damage output, so she becomes a low priority target during team fights. And if we had a nice start, she'll be like one or two levels behind.

Warning: I'm at a low ELO (silver IV) and have absolutely no idea if this kind of strategy works at higher level games.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 3:34 pm

Dshield Lulu is one of the stronger laning supports. Hell, you're seeing Lulu mid again even after Riot nerfed Lulu because she was so good at mid when she was released.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:37 pm

All of that makes sense except:

PS wrote:Also, Caitlyn is a trap against Leona unless you're running a support who's weak against her. You need the ability to trade if Leona catches somebody or you're forced out of lane after the very first engage. Even if you don't win it, you have to deal enough damage that you can still fight if your jungler comes to help. She's terrible at gank prevention pre-6.

I don't understand how having a countered support makes having a countered adc any better. Is it just because they're both countered so you're not losing anything extra?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 12:17 am

...You Lost Me wrote:All of that makes sense except:

PS wrote:Also, Caitlyn is a trap against Leona unless you're running a support who's weak against her. You need the ability to trade if Leona catches somebody or you're forced out of lane after the very first engage. Even if you don't win it, you have to deal enough damage that you can still fight if your jungler comes to help. She's terrible at gank prevention pre-6.
I don't understand how having a countered support makes having a countered adc any better. Is it just because they're both countered so you're not losing anything extra?

Basically yeah, you're not losing anything extra by going Cait. You can totally lose the lane because of her though, since the idea behind a lot of Leona counters are "Leona goes in, but I CC/dps their adc so it's basically an even trade" and that doesn't work very well if your adc has lower dps than theirs.

Cait is good when she can get hits off on the enemy or shove them in to turret (ideally both), Leona's presence takes that away from her and forces big trades so other adcs can shine. It's so hard to poke vs her!

Edit: D3 again! My Pantheon jungle is 10/1, and my Brand mid is 6/1. Fuck yeah.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 4:46 pm

D2 again (I only had about 8 games in D3)! Pantheon jungle is now 11/1. Fuck yeah, Pantheon.

NEW CHAMP IS SO COOL. I want to buy him but have no IP.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:07 pm

Only 365 more years until team builder, and maybe then I get to actually learn a new champion ever.

7 consecutive draft games trying to learn Yasuo:
Times my own team banned Yasuo: 3
Times enemy team banned Yasuo: 3
Times I was last pick and had to support: 1
Times I was first pick and got to pick Yasuo: 1, Result: someone on enemy team dodged.

Tried Blind Pick:
Very first fucking game: Picked Yasuo, but did not type fast enough to call mid or top, and fuck blind pick who types fastest bullshit a thousand times, so when they refused to play anything else I changed my champ.
Second game: copy and pasted mid/top Yasuo so that I typed before anyone else, but someone else picked yasuo and locked in while I did that, so I didn't get to play Yasuo.

;kalsdfasdnfk lbhjkabglkjabdlkjdnanshpfoiasnvlhdnopashdfjbdnsikjhasdfkjihaskjdlfhaskldfhljdshfklASHBFOKSHNBFJDSFHLHDFKHDFKJLHDSFKLASHDFKLJHASDFKLJHASDLKFHASKDLFHALSKFHDFFLSHDFFHADSHFLKASHDFLKJHASFKJHAFKJDKJLHDFJAHDSFKJLHASFKJDLHAJDFHLKASHDFLKJHDSFLKJ

Can they please fucking release the goddam game type that allows you to learn how to play a champion you just bought? Can they do that? Please.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 9:20 pm

3 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 8

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 9:31 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:3 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 8

When someone dodges in champ select, you do not play the game, you go back into the queue and play a different game where Yasuo is banned.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 12:48 am

Just had my first mid lane matchup against a platinum Zed, I think I did pretty good. Now if only I could play more champs mid than just Anivia!

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 5:26 pm

If it helps, Anivia is good in pretty much any comp (but not outstanding in any of them either). I'd say learn Diana, Leblanc, Fizz, or Zed to be able to pick an assassin mid if your team needs it, but Anivia is always good. She's also fun to play because walls.

I'm now 13-1 with jungle Pantheon. I build and skill him differently than other people apparently (my friend said everyone maxes E on him now?), so I'm going to share my build and stuff because he's so effective and fun.

Start: Machete + pots, stay above 3/4ths health until your first back (which is ideally after a few successful ganks).

First back: Spirit stone + boots, buy longswords, a couple pots, and a pink if you can afford them (in that order), make sure you spend all your damn gold. Keep your warding trinket, you want to use it for escapes and gap closing over walls by using the ward and W'ing to the enemy champ if chasing or a creep if escaping.

Second back: Back once you can afford Lizard elder, buy it and kill fools.

Third back: If you're snowballing, buy a pick axe and CDR boots (unless you can afford a last whisper straight up). If you're falling behind get a pick axe and tank boots.

Fourth back: Back when you can afford a last whisper. Then buy a giant's belt as your next item.

Then the game is usually over, but you should try and get two defensive items (hexdrinker counts as a defensive item, sthe belt should become a Randuins or Warmogs) and a cleaver as your final damage item.

For skills, Q-W-E first 3, then max Q-E-W (points in ult whenever possible).

Ganking: Come in from the side or behind the enemy (unless you're lane ganking, then wait until they get into the bush or get vision of it to attack). Q first, W if they'll get out of range or your laner is going to be able to chain CC with it. After you W use auto, E, then Q should be off CD so you can do it again. If they're really low you can turret dive with a Q or auto because you've got crits on targets below 15%.

You can usually knock half a health bar off somebody on your own, so with a laner who can chain CC or do any real damage you'll get kills if lanes are gankable.

After 6 all that changes is you're ulting behind people (usually bot lane) so it's 1000x easier.

Teamfights: Fucking don't if you can avoid it, otherwise wait until you can ult near some squishies and then nuke them down. If you can't do that, just try to E multiple people and save your W for a squishy target getting into range or to peel for a carry. Don't try to fight a tank unless you're super fed because Pantheon sucks at killing tanks.

General stuff: Visit mid/top a lot before 6, stick around mid/bot after 6. If you burn an enemy flash CAMP THAT SHIT. Pantheon can gank, walk away and just turn around and immediately gank again because his CDs are short and he's a great ganker. One thing to do is gank, walk into the river bush that people tend to ward, then wait for the enemy to try to ward that bush and kill them.

tl;dr: Play Pantheon jungle.