Quick attribution: while searching for a picture for my site profile, I came upon an album on photobucket full of LoL profile pictures. They are of varying qualities, but I wanted to share the site: both for your interest and to give credit to the source from which I found my picture. I have no idea who actually made these pictures.
http://s636.photobucket.com/albums/uu84/Oreot/LoL/
6.30.2011
Penny Arcade
Just in case you have not been aware, the creators of Penny Arcade are also playing League of Legends - and have made now two strips about it. In the spirit of sharing, those strips are posted below:
Also, having now struggled with putting in images twice, I recommend that the posting column be widened.
EDIT: thanks for widening the posting column.
EDIT: oh, btw, http://www.penny-arcade.com/
6.29.2011
Movement, or the lack thereof
I finally overcame my fear of playing as Kassadin in an actual match and, while I did decently enough, it highlighted something that I have been noticing a lot recently: I am not terribly mobile.
If left to my own devices, I tend to stay in my lane. I like the lane. It feels like a safe place, even considering the 1 or more people there for the express purpose of killing me. I am aware that other members of my team are often involved in skirmishes over on the other side of the map. Sometimes I even think to myself, "things are looking rather rough over there, I should probably go and help". I think of an ideal route to take, and what combination of attacks would lead to the best ambush. I think and plan and consider all of the options available to me. And then I stay in my lane.
It feels like I'm watching the news. Teemo has just been cut down twice in a row by Xin Zhao. "Oh dear," I'll think, "someone should really go up there and help." There is no reason why that person should not be me, but I am noticing more and more that it never is. I think the core problem is probably being overly-cautious. I learned caution early on when playing LoL and it has served me well, but every now and then I play against someone much better than I am, and I will marvel at the ease with which they change lanes, yet always managing to avoid losing a tower. It's clear to me that the best thing for me to learn at this point is knowing when to leave my lane to assist my teammates or set up an ambush. The key looks to be understanding the flow of the game better, which I'm hoping will come with experience. What say you, chaps? Anyone have similar problems?
Teamwork...
So I just lost my first real normal solo queue game with Gragas - and it wasn't pretty. It would seem that playing a champion with abilities that no one knows or understands is... dubious in solo queue. Now, to be fair, I have won several games in solo queue with Gragas up to this point, at times completely dominating lanes and laying on good damage.
The issue came with my team's complete lack of understanding of my ult. They seemed like the kind of people who were expecting a giant teamfight fustercluck with burst AoEs and tons of damage. So, when I would drop my barrel to blast the enemy team apart and to separate them into 5 small pieces which we, in theory, would then gang up on and burst down, my team instead scattered and each attacked a different person, some members even running away from our turrets and team to take on 2 enemies at once. So, my barrel had, in fact, the opposite result from what I had expected. By dropping my ult and intending to scatter the other team and make them easy to kill, my team instead scattered even more and became even easier kills.
I'm sure that they had just figured that they should keep attacking the person that they had been focusing, however, that person is now protected by their side and by the guy(s) with them. TURN AROUND. Focus them one at a time in easy-to-kill situations. You are not Rambo.
What also sucked was that their idea of a teamfight fustercluck with burst AoEs and tons of damage wasn't going to work because the enemy team had an Amumu. Guess what? If you all jump into a tiny little radius centered on Amumu, we're all going to die. They also didn't seem to realize that my ult leveled the playing field and reduced Amumu's effectiveness.
SERENITY NOW!
6.28.2011
Runes
Still being south of 30 and working on completing my first rune page has forced me to be very judicious in my IP expenditures. In a way I feel like if I can't fill (for my level) a page specifically built for a given champ, I need to wait until I can before I can even try that champ.
Hence the constant maining of Garen.
The first page I'm looking to polish off is:
Mark of Desolation - 410 IP - Armor Pen +1.66
Glyph of Focus - 820 IP - CDR -0.65%
Seal of Evasion - 820 IP - Dodge Chance +0.75%
Quint of Desolation - 1025 IP - Armor Pen +3.33
After that I'd like to expand with:
Mark of Insight - 410 IP - Magic Pen +0.95
Glyph of Warding - 205 IP - Magic Resist +1.49
Seal of Clarity - 205 IP - Mana Regen/5/Level +0.1
Seal of Resilience - 205 IP - Armor +1.41
Quint of Potency - 1025 IP - AP +4.95
Quint of Fortitude - 2050 IP - Health +26
Focusing on the runes currently at my disposal, what champions besides Garen can I branch out to? Poppy?
What other runes should I be considering?
6.27.2011
AP Tristana: Possible?
Stats
| Damage | 44.5 | (+3 / per level) |
| Health | 415 | (+82 / per level) |
| Mana | 193 | (+32 / per level) |
| Move Speed | 300 | |
| Armor | 15 | (+3 / per level) |
| Spell Block | 30 | (+0 / per level) |
| Health Regen | 1.02 | (+0.13 / per level) |
| Mana Regen | 1.29 | (+0.09 / per level) |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Abilities
 | Rapid Fire - Tristana fires her weapon rapidly, increasing her attack speed for a short time. Increases Tristana's attack speed by 30/45/60/75/90% for 7 seconds.
|
 | Rocket Jump - Tristana fires at the ground to propel herself to a distant location, dealing damage and slowing surrounding units for 3 seconds where she lands. Tristana fires at the ground to propel herself to target location, dealing 70/115/160/205/250 (+0.8) magic damage and slowing surrounding units by 60% for 2.5 seconds when she lands. On a champion kill or assist, Rocket Jump's cooldown resets.
|
 | Explosive Shot - When Tristana kills a unit, her cannonballs burst into shrapnel, dealing damage to surrounding enemies. Can be activated to deal damage to target unit over time, and reduce healing received. Passive: Enemies explode when slain by Tristana's attacks, dealing 50/75/100/125/150 magic damage to nearby enemies. Active: Explosive Shot rends target enemy, reducing healing and health regeneration by 50% and dealing 110/140/170/200/230 (+1) Magic Damage over 5 seconds.
|
 | Buster Shot - Tristana loads a massive cannonball into her weapon and fires it at an enemy unit. This deals magic damage and knocks the target back. Tristana fires a massive cannonball at an enemy unit. This deals 300/400/500 (+1.5) magic damage and knocks surrounding units back 600/800/1000 distance.
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 | Draw a Bead - Increases Tristana's attack range as she levels. |
6.26.2011
Gragas!
Just got Gragas today!
I'm pretty excited to continue to play with him, he seems to be a lot of fun.
6.24.2011
Viking Tryndamere
Hey all, don't forget that today is the last day for Viking Tryndamere.
Just letting you know!
Just letting you know!
New Skins!
Got some new skins today. Bird of Prey Anivia and Dragon Slayer Jarvan IV. Two of my favorite champions that I didn't have skins for.
I have yet to try out Dragon Slayer Jarvan, but I did see it at Dreamhack and I liked it (at least, more than the base skin).
Bird of Prey Anivia is suprisingly nice for being a simple recolor. Maybe it's just that her base skin is so simple and boring that have several different colors is enough to make me happy.
6.22.2011
Patch v1.0.0.120 Reactions
I decided to record my initial reactions to the latest patch.
Yorick looks fun. I'll wait to see other people play him.
Evelynn nerf seems strange. She is now unusable. Why not allow her to remain lost in anonymity until the rework?
Fiddlesticks needed this buff. We'll see if anyone plays him now.
Gangplank buff was much needed. Still not enough to make him viable. He needs an actual rework.
Heimerdinger buff is still not enough to make him viable.
Irelia had just an interesting change. I'm not sure how much it will change anything.
Janna and Twisted Fate's passives deactivating on death makes a lot of sense.
Jarvan IV nerf = :( He's still viable, but I think I'm gonna try out Blitzcrank or Renekton now as primary offtank (3v3 is still Irelia)
Jax nerf is very strange. He's really not any good, maybe they're trying to force players toward AD?
Kassadin buff is very interesting. He is no longer handicapped by that armor penetration, but is now more AP driven. All in all, probably a very good and very strong change for kass.
Malzahar. Why did they nerf him? He was already pretty difficult to use and really only useful on a team that knew how to play with him... This makes me really sad. I guess I'll move on to Vlad...?
Morgana gets a pretty insignificant buff. This won't make anyone play her.
Nunu nerf was coming. I really like the change to Ice Blast slow. It was a little too powerful at low levels. Also, consume at low levels was letting him jungle too fast. Basically, his ganks were too good and his jungle too fast.
Rumble nerf makes sense. They didn't realize how easy that ult was going to be to place.
Udyr buff. THANK YOU. I love him, and it's been too long coming. This makes his jungle super fast. He might rival Olaf now, but I doubt he'll be viable without a legitimate ranged ability or valid initation ability.
Vayne nerf. Fuck you very much and go away :P She was just a dumb design. They basically just scaled back ALL of her damage. Maybe she'll finally come back down to earth.
Vladimir change is very interesting. They buffed him early and nerfed him late... I thought the problem with Vladimir was that he was too good early...?
Xin Zhao nerf makes sense. He's been a little too good recently.
Philo stone nerf is strange on top of making the passive unique. Speaking of which...
I'm one of the few fans of the 5per10 item nerfs. It makes sense of philostone and heart of gold, but why Kage's pick and Avarice Blade? Who were they hurting?
Quicksilver Sash buff is much needed. That item isn't used enough.
Hextech revolver nerf is so necessary. Basically a vladimir nerf.
I like the changes to player kills, and I also thought that Spirit Visage and Ignite already affected lifesteal and spell vamp? So I was confused to find out that I was wrong all this time about that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TL;DR
Big Winners:
- Fiddlesticks (he might actually be playable now!)
- Kassadin (he might be Tier 1 now, not just a counterpick)
- Udyr (he still needs a minor rework to be Tier 1)
Winners:
- Gangplank (pirate gets a buff, another shot at a new build making him viable)
- Irelia (escapes the nerf hammer again! no big change here, she's still top-of-the-line)
- Heimerdinger (reduced mana costs on turrets makes his lane phase stronger)
- Quicksilver Sash (reduced cooldown might make this more playable)
- Spirit Visage (the item doing what it is supposed to do seems like a good thing)
- Ignite (the summoner spell doing what it is supposed to do seems like a good thing)
Neutral:
- Janna (no big change here, just stay alive, you're a support)
- Twisted Fate (no big change here, just stay alive, there is a support babysitting you)
Losers:
- Jarvan IV (slight nerf, probably still very strong, but we'll see)
- Jax (random nerf on underpowered champion - Gangplank's remake anyone?)
- Malzahar (nerf hurts Malzahar pretty bad, I hope he's still viable)
- Morgana (nothing much changed, but that means she's still underpowered after they addressed her)
- Nunu (nerfed jungling, nerfed ganking. this patch really hurts Nunu)
- Rumble (nerfed the ultimate. they discovered that it wasn't as hard to land as expected)
- Vladimir (hopefully not ungodly powerful anymore, we'll have to see how hard he falls)
- Xin Zhao (nerfed his strength in teamfights - he's back to his intended role, usefulness in question)
- Philosopher's Stone (nerfed stackability - not the end of the world)
- Heart of Gold (nerfed stackability - not the end of the world)
- Kage's Lucky Pick (nerfed stackability - but no one played more than one copy of this ever anyway)
- Hextech Revolver (nerf aimed at Vladimir unintentionally renders this item useless for all other mages)
Big Losers:
- Evelynn (nerfed into OBLIVION)
- Vayne (we'll see how hard this nerf hits her, but it looks like it's gonna be rough)
- Avarice Blade (this was only used to stack for crit builds - this may never be purchased again)
What do you guys think?
The LoL Blog!
Hey everyone!
So this is a blog that should be for everyone we know who is a friendly. I don't mean to make it exclusive to just the people that I invited or only to Pittsburgh people. I'd like this to be as open and free as possible.
Invite friends and family, please!
Let's have some fun!
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