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Viktor, the Machine Herald
Viktor is a powerhouse when played correctly. He offers a high amount of team utility as well as great burst and good range. It is amazing that people still don't know what Viktor does. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten "Omg what was that burst" or "Wait your ult silences? wtf?" Use this ignorance and destroy your enemies before they see it coming.
Patch Notes: + Show Spoiler + Release Passive: Evolving Technology Viktor starts with a Hex Core that provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, and cannot be sold back to the store. Power Transfer - Viktor blasts an enemy unit dealing magic damage, returning a portion of the damage dealt as a shield. Ability Augment: Increases Viktor's Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds Gravity Field - Viktor conjures a heavy gravitational field, slowing all enemies and stacking a debuff every 0.5 seconds. At 3 stacks enemies inside are stunned for 1.5 seconds. Ability Augment: Gravity Field has an additional 30% cast range. Death Ray - Viktor uses his robotic arm to fire a chaos beam that cuts across the field in a line, dealing damage to any opponents struck in its path. Ability Augment: Death Ray sets fire to enemies, dealing 30% additional magic damage over 4 seconds. Chaos Storm (Ultimate) - Viktor conjures a singularity on the field which deals magic damage and briefly silences enemies. The singularity then does magic damage to all nearby enemies every second. Viktor can redirect the singularity.
Ziggs Patch Power Transfer missile speed increased to 2000 from 1400 Gravity Field activation time reduced to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 Fixed a bug where Chaos Storm's tooltip stated that it dealt less damage than it actually did
PvP.net v1.61 Tuned Death Ray travel speeds and hitbox precision, especially when cast near walls Fixed an issue where Chaos Storm could sometimes be cast twice
Abilities
Passive: Evolving Technology (Innate): Viktor starts with an item that takes up one of his item slots, the Hex Core, that provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities and improve its stats. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, for 1000 gold, and cannot be sold back to the store. Hex Core: Grants Viktor 3 ability power per level.
Upgrades:+ Show Spoiler +Augment Power: (Passive): Power Transfer increases Viktor's movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds. It grants him +3 ability power per level, +220 health and +6 health regeneration per 5 seconds. I don't have much experience with this augment. I have tried Viktor top a couple of times, but to no avail. At some point in the future I will experiment with it, but I think they need to change something about it to make it more desirable. Augment Gravity: (Passive): Gravity Field has an additional 30% cast range. It grants him +3 ability power per level, +200 mana, +10% cooldown reduction, +5 mana regeneration per 5 seconds. I have played around with support Viktor with some moderate success. This augment gives you additional range for your main utility spell, as well as other good stats for a support champ. Overall, this is non-standard play style though. Augment Death: (Passive): Death Ray sets fire to enemies, dealing 30% additional magic damage over 4 seconds. It grants him +3 ability power per level, +45 ability power. This is by and large Viktor's best augment. For only 1000g, it is extremely cost efficient and makes him a mid-game monster. At level 18, it gives Viktor an extra 99 AP, which is nothing to scoff at for only 1000g of early investment.
This passive is one of the reasons that a lot of people don't like Viktor. They hate that there is one less item slot to work with. Personally, I love this passive. It gives Viktor early-mid game dominance that scales well into late game. Missing that item slot can be annoying at times, but the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Q: Power Transfer: (Active): Viktor blasts an enemy unit for magic damage, returning 40% of the damage dealt before reduction as a shield for 3 seconds.
Range: 600 Cost: 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 mana Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 seconds Magic Damage: 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+0.65 per ability power) Shield: 32 / 50 / 68 / 86 / 104 (+0.26 per ability power)
Since they increased the particle speed on Viktor's Q, it makes it awesome for damage trades in mid. It does pretty strong damage even from level 1, and if anyone gets close enough to eat a Q, they also eat a laser and auto attacks. This is one of his many tools for lane dominance. It also synergizes extremely well with Rylai's and scales pretty strongly.
W: Gravity Field: (Active): Viktor conjures a gravitational imprisonment device in an area near him, slowing all enemies that pass above it. Whilst under its effect, enemies generate stacks every 0.25 seconds; at 3 stacks the target will be stunned for 1.5 seconds.
Cost: 65 mana Range: 625 Cooldown: 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 seconds Slow: 28 / 32 / 36 / 40 / 44 %
This move is one of the most underrated utility spells in the game right now. It's main use is a "Hey man, you can't go here, and if you do, you will get stunned" effect. It can help guard against ganks if you drop it on yourself (especially fun vs Mao or Lee Sin). It can block escape or engage routes. In team fights, it gives your team a massive advantage because it forces the other team to reposition while slowed or else get stunned and destroyed by your team. Grab one point of this at lvl 3 or 4, depending on how threatened you feel by ganks.
E: Death Ray: (Active): Viktor uses his robotic arm to fire a chaos beam that sweeps across the field in a chosen path, dealing magic damage to every enemy it hits.
Range: 700 Cost: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 mana Cooldown: 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 seconds Magic Damage: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+0.7 per ability power) Magic Damage: 21 / 34.5 / 48 / 61.5 / 75 (+0.21 per ability power)
This spell...oh my freaking god this spell, man. This is Viktor's bread and butter. People underestimate the damage this spell can dish out. At level 3 Death Ray, with your (death) augment, you can full clear a wave with 1 or 2 auto attacks on melee minions. The cast range is 700, but that is only where you are able to start the laser. The laser itself goes an additional ~500 range. This gives you a 1200 range poke that does massive damage. Max this first in mid.
R: Chaos Storm: (Active): Viktor conjures a chaos storm at the target location, dealing magic damage and silencing enemies in the area for 0.5 seconds. As it churns, the storm deals magic damage every second to nearby enemies for 7 seconds. Activating this ability again while the singularity is active will redirect it. The storm moves faster the closer it is to Viktor.
Range: 700 Cost: 125 / 175 / 225 mana Cooldown: 120 seconds Initial Magic Damage: 150 / 250 / 350 (+0.55 per ability power) Continuous Magic Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 (+0.2 per ability power) Total Magic Damage: 430 / 670 / 910 (+1.95 per ability power)
I love this ult. The burst and silence is ridiculously strong. Dropping this on the AP/AD carry makes them cry. Once activated, your enemies have to decide whether or not they're going to sit under the storm and take damage, or focus on repositioning (noticing a pattern?)
Blasting any member of the enemy team with full combo (R - E - Q) is sure to put them in a world of hurt. Couple that with a well placed W and hit multiple enemy team members, gg you've won the team fight.
Runes & Masteries: Flat MPen Reds, Flat MRegen Yellows, AP/Lvl Blues, Flat AP Quints
If against mages with more DoT damage - flat MR blues (ie Cass, Morg, etc.)
21/0/9 (Note: taking Swiftness instead of Meditation in Utility).
Item Build: Standard AP opening.
+ x3
I've been a fan of going x2, and then getting your death augment
WotA is just too good of an item right now to not get. Deathcap and Sorc boots are standard.
Note: I have moved Rylai's into Viktor core. The synergy between his Q, wota, and the slow/tankiness from Rylai's is too much to pass up.
Situational Items
Zhonya for armor. Abyssal isn't a bad item to grab because you'll often be close to the action once fights break out. Come later in the game, switching out Sorc boots for Ionian boots and getting a Void Staff isn't a bad idea. Viktor is somewhat limited in items because of his passive, so spots must be used efficiently. Observe how fights are going and use your intuition.
Play Style: So let's look at what tools we have. We've got a shield, a DON'T TAZE ME BRO zone, a 1200 range poke nuke, and a burst silence ult. Early levels (1-3), your burst isn't very big. Just farm for now. If you're getting harassed a lot, use your laser to grab as much cs as you can, and if you can poke your opponent as well, then it's just a bonus. Come lvl 4 (lvl 2 laser), your ability to trade is very good. After a couple of rounds of trying to harass you, your opponent will realize how much damage they're taking compared to you. If they don't learn, destroy them.
If you get ganked, you can drop your W on yourself or to cut off the jungler's advance and either do damage or get away relatively safely. I have turned many a gank into a successful 1v2 because of his W. Be very careful in lane until you have the W though, because you can be very open to dying depending on the enemy cc. If you are winning on trades, be prepared to be ganked.
Viktor's mana costs are pretty high, but with this rune/mastery build, you have 11 Mp5 at lvl 1. You will be required to use abilities wisely, which can make things difficult early game if you're struggling in lane. If you're finding yourself using a lot of mana in a match up, learn to last hit under tower and bide your time until you can either push the wave back or harass/zone the enemy enough to prevent being stuck under tower. For AP players, managing mana is important, and it's no different with Viktor.
At level 6, your burst is akin to that of Annie. Flash - R - E - Q - Ignite is such a massive amount of damage. If you don't want to fully commit, just your E Q poke is strong.
The great thing about Viktor's E is that it gives you lots of great angles to hit your enemies with. Use this to your advantage. Use it around corners, use it when your enemies think you're retreating, and shoot the laser straight back at them. Another positive is that you can use it while moving. It requires no cast time, so you can use it extremely offensively even if you are retreating. I can't tell you how many kills I've gotten on unsuspecting enemies.
In team fights, use your abilities to control your opponents. Drop your W on the tanks while you blow up their back line with your ult and E. Or drop your W on the carries and kite the tanks. It's dependent on each fight and each situation, and only experience will truly tell you what you need to place and where.
Overview: "Adapt or be removed." Viktor states, quite simply, what his job is. He forces your opponents to adapt and readjust throughout fights. While they are on the back foot and in an uncomfortable position, you tear them apart with your burst.
VODs + Show Spoiler +I will be updating this with more VODs/commentary in the future. http://www.own3d.tv/Soniv#/watch/427479First and only commentary I've ever done. It is somewhat outdated (I believe it's from before the Q particle speed buff), but it gives the general jist of the play style. http://www.own3d.tv/friendlyfirect/video/683924First game of Friendly Fire LAN tournament finals in CT. Enemy team skill level isn't that high, but it's a good display of Viktor's still dominant power after his ult bug fix. Really shows how quickly he can snowball on one enemy misstep.
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A few more notes from someone who has to carry soniv's viktor on a regular basis:
Late game vikor poke is VERY good. He sieges towers incredibly well because his E will wipe a minion wave and chunk anyone stupid enough to actually try to fight you.
Most enemies also tend to underestimate how much damage viktor actually does with his ult. If you can, try to build him into a teamcomp that is going to rely on grouping squishies together. This means grab a jungle who can chase away the damage threats (like shyvana) while viktor destroys the tank line or any squishies stupid enough to stay, or running someone like amumu who locks people in place.
Also, if anyone yells at you for trolling, just tell them that you wont be the worst troll they have ever had.
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I actually love Rylai on Viktor. It's not that much, I'll agree, especially considering your lack of free slots, but in the midgame the rylai/WotA combo combined with the range on several of your spells make you hard to take down in fights where you managed to dodge the initial burst. Q and E allow you to kite (using E well you can slow bruisers w/o entering their gap closer's range), while healing a hefty amount of HP thanks to the spell vamp, on not-too-long cds to top it off. Q is pretty underwhelming in lane but since it's your only single target spell, it's 5s cd and the shield becomes really good with AP and used on squishies, it gives you a lot of durability. I would still flee from AD carries and mages like Ryze/Cass, though.
Rylai is also really great in an AoE comp, your ult ensures a 7 seconds slow on the people caught in it, giving it good synergy with Ryze under ult, Cass, Fiddle, Morgana, etc.
CDR can go a long way on him, but resists can make him pretty tanky too, so I like to get Zhonya as soon as the enemy team starts targeting me. If you can hit the ult on several people the damage heals you real fast during those 2 seconds, especially if there are minions in the way too.
I'm still not sold on him top. While champs like Rumble, Swain, Ryze, Kennen have inherent tankiness and/or sustain, and means of actually preventing the enemy to reach them, Viktor will take damage if said enemy wants to commit, especially against gap closers since if you don't place W on you (thus giving them the opportunity to jump you before the stun, or ignore it and hit once it's on cd) they'll just dash over it to you.
TL;DR: - amazing pusher - can check bushes as the laser gives vision of where if hits (but is visible in the fog of war) - ult and W turn off when you die, so make sure to survive at least until their full duration expires! - great for clean-up against most threats on equal farm, bar AD carries (those crits... ) - Best mid, as other AP top outclass him - has both burst and sustained damage - huge utility, especially positioning-wise - does well in double WotA and/or AoE comps - itemization can get tricky when starting with drings because of lack of slots and others used by pots/wards - last but not least, fun as hell
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If there are things that anyone wants answered in the OP, please let me know. This is the first one of these I've done, so I didn't really know what to put. I will be willing to update and answer questions as they come up.
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Viktor definitely isn't a bad champion. In a game against a good Viktor while I was anivia, if I didn't stay away from him or kill him first, he would just instantly kill me, and we were both equally fed, but if I got near him his lazer just hit so hard.
I used the same build on him, and I loved it. Also he is a lot of fun and its sad so many people think hes bad.
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I enjoy playing him because I get to shift drag rumble ult every 10 seconds. I think he's a late game monster but getting there is a slow climb -.-
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Baa?21242 Posts
RoA is the way to go imo. You're going for mid-late game anyways so you might as well take the slow ramp up time and get a good lanining phase with cata/RoA.
Death Augment is the way to go.
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On January 20 2012 11:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: RoA is the way to go imo. You're going for mid-late game anyways so you might as well take the slow ramp up time and get a good lanining phase with cata/RoA.
Death Augment is the way to go.
I 100% disagree. Why would you be going for mid-late game? Viktor's augment makes his early-mid game INSANELY powerful. Why would I delay even more power by going catalyst? It is way more logical to get the early advantage of the 2 DRings which then ramps into augment power, and hextech strength.
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Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing. I like the idea of RoA too at first, especially since before the hotfix balancing mana and harass could be tricky, but as he's already not the best in lane I think "gimping" him by delaying AP (and thus farming ability) by a lot can't be that useful.
Rylai gives you HP, util/mp5 yellows/blue helps your mana, and drings + fast rev gives you lane sustain, so I don't feel the need to dedicate one of those precious slots for a RoA.
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I've been playing a lot of viktor
Augment Death is gonna be your choice all the time.
I open Dring though in pretty much all matchups, I've found I can stay far enough back to avoid nearly all harass, while the mana gives me the ability to stay in lane and harass back with my lazer. I found opening Boots that I ran out of mana far before I would ever come close to running out of health, and lacked the juice to get lvl 3-9 kills. I've had no problem at all avoiding basically all damage barring xerath/brand.
Then the full item path is usually Dring/boots/dring/Death augment/ROA (or Dcap if your team is tanky and can peel for you)/Deathfires (or WOTA if you need sustain for poke wars etc, or Morellos if you cant get blue)/utility item (zhonya/banshee/rylai)
I would always build WOTA for lategame though, its obscenely strong on Viktor and can allow you to push forever as a single lazer minion wave will top you off.
Max R>E>Q>W, with one level in W as early as you feel you need it to avoid ganks.
DO NOT DESPERATION ULT, if you are going to die use it as early as you can, having it completely wasted and only be around for one second is a huge waste.
Running away while lazering is very strong, use smartcast on E at least, it allows you to use the skill much faster and works great, just flick it in the direction you want.
Viktor does have some pretty bad matchups Mid:
Kennen: You may get a kill early if you have a nice jungler or he's bad, but one he gets WOTA you will not be able to get him out of lane, and you will be much easier to gank than him when sticking around in lane. If his jungler is around when his ult is up expect to die, while he can lighting rush out of yours. Also his hitbox is small and hard to lazer.
Vlad: Same story really, too much sustain, but not as bad as Kennen because he probably wont kill you, just a farmfest.
Kassadin: Vik is actually not that bad against kass compared to other APs, but you still wont win trades when he silences you, I might try to max Q first, as you can get it off when he jumps you, but then he can harass you forever with his Q. Just ban kass.
Good Matchups:
Annie: You push too hard and outrange her hard Sion: great match, you can pop shield easy with E/Q, harass from far when shield is down with E, and push just as hard as he can. W prevents him from gettin up in yo grill. Malz: pay attention to his cooldowns and you get a lot of free harass, you can Q creeps to shield part of his Malefic visions if he uses it on you, and if you use ult early he sits under the whole thing if he ults you, you can push as hard as him. Karthus: Outrange, silence his ult, fat and easy to hit, shield his ult with Q a bit too.
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On January 20 2012 11:44 sob3k wrote: I've been playing a lot of viktor
Augment Death is gonna be your choice all the time.
I open Dring though in pretty much all matchups, I've found I can stay far enough back to avoid nearly all harass, while the mana gives me the ability to stay in lane and harass back with my lazer. I found opening Boots that I ran out of mana far before I would ever come close to running out of health, and lacked the juice to get lvl 3-9 kills. I've had no problem at all avoiding basically all damage barring xerath/brand.
Then the full item path is usually Dring/boots/dring/Death augment/ROA (or Dcap if your team is tanky and can peel for you)/Deathfires (or WOTA if you need sustain for poke wars etc, or Morellos if you cant get blue)/utility item (zhonya/banshee/rylai)
I would always build WOTA for lategame though, its obscenely strong on Viktor and can allow you to push forever as a single lazer minion wave will top you off.
Max R>E>Q>W, with one level in W as early as you feel you need it to avoid ganks.
DO NOT DESPERATION ULT, if you are going to die use it as early as you can, having it completely wasted and only be around for one second is a huge waste.
Running away while lazering is very strong, use smartcast on E at least, it allows you to use the skill much faster and works great, just flick it in the direction you want.
Viktor does have some pretty bad matchups Mid:
Kennen: You may get a kill early if you have a nice jungler or he's bad, but one he gets WOTA you will not be able to get him out of lane, and you will be much easier to gank than him when sticking around in lane. If his jungler is around when his ult is up expect to die, while he can lighting rush out of yours. Also his hitbox is small and hard to lazer.
Vlad: Same story really, too much sustain, but not as bad as Kennen because he probably wont kill you, just a farmfest.
Kassadin: Vik is actually not that bad against kass compared to other APs, but you still wont win trades when he silences you, I might try to max Q first, as you can get it off when he jumps you, but then he can harass you forever with his Q. Just ban kass.
Good Matchups:
Annie: You push too hard and outrange her hard Sion: great match, you can pop shield easy with E/Q, harass from far when shield is down with E, and push just as hard as he can. W prevents him from gettin up in yo grill. Malz: pay attention to his cooldowns and you get a lot of free harass, you can Q creeps to shield part of his Malefic visions if he uses it on you, and if you use ult early he sits under the whole thing if he ults you, you can push as hard as him. Karthus: Outrange, silence his ult, fat and easy to hit, shield his ult with Q a bit too.
I personally NEVER buy DRing first (on any mage). It doesn't fit my play style (aggressive), and I rarely run out of mana with boots unless I'm being balls to the wall aggressive spamming.
I generally have ALL moves on smartcast, but I take Viktor's off and put it to normal cast. How do you reliably get good angles with smart cast? Even with normal cast, I get it off very quickly.
I've had some trouble against Cass in lane pre-lvl 5 at least. Her Q E harass is so good lvl 2. Until you hit 5, avoid trading with her until you can actually deal good damage. As I said before, Viktor lvl 6 burst is insane, take advantage of it.
I haven't played against Vlad since his buff, so I can't comment on his strength. Kennen mid really doesn't have a bad lane, so putting it as a downside to Viktor seems redundant. I agree that Viktor does ok vs Kass, but you have to be very careful and selective with your trades once Kass hits 6.
At some point I'll update the OP with good and bad match-ups.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 11:25 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 11:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: RoA is the way to go imo. You're going for mid-late game anyways so you might as well take the slow ramp up time and get a good lanining phase with cata/RoA.
Death Augment is the way to go. I 100% disagree. Why would you be going for mid-late game? Viktor's augment makes his early-mid game INSANELY powerful. Why would I delay even more power by going catalyst? It is way more logical to get the early advantage of the 2 DRings which then ramps into augment power, and hextech strength.
The augment sucks for early game his numbers aren't that good compared to other burst casters and his cooldowns are too high to compare to Vlad/Ryze sustain casters. It costs 1000 for 30% more damage on E which you'll only have maxed by level 13, at which point you should have farmed enough to have roa and augment anyways. rings suck.
Maxing E in lane is terrible since your mana costs/cooldowns arent good enough to outpush any of the common mids...
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On January 20 2012 12:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 11:25 jcarlsoniv wrote:On January 20 2012 11:05 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: RoA is the way to go imo. You're going for mid-late game anyways so you might as well take the slow ramp up time and get a good lanining phase with cata/RoA.
Death Augment is the way to go. I 100% disagree. Why would you be going for mid-late game? Viktor's augment makes his early-mid game INSANELY powerful. Why would I delay even more power by going catalyst? It is way more logical to get the early advantage of the 2 DRings which then ramps into augment power, and hextech strength. The augment sucks for early game his numbers aren't that good compared to other burst casters and his cooldowns are too high to compare to Vlad/Ryze sustain casters. It costs 1000 for 30% more damage on E which you'll only have maxed by level 13, at which point you should have farmed enough to have roa and augment anyways. rings suck. Maxing E in lane is terrible since your mana costs/cooldowns arent good enough to outpush any of the common mids...
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It costs 1000g for 30% increased damage on E, 45 AP, and 3 AP per level. How is that even remotely bad.
You clearly have mana management issues if you are struggling in lane.
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Baa?21242 Posts
E costs 110 mana vs. 65, does 65 + .25AP more damage (with augment), and is on a 9 second ooldown vs. a 5 second cooldown. Only favorable comparison is its range but it's also dodgeable as opposed to Q. No reason to max E in lane over Q.
you shouldn't be using q shield to block enemy counters but you can aggressively auto attack in early levels and shield will block a bunch of minion damage and you'll come out ahead in trade. E doesn't give that. Q wins lanes E doesn't do shit until team fights ;d
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 11:41 Alaric wrote: Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing.
What lol? your line AoE doesn't do enough damage to instaclear and you're not gonna have your augment in lane. Gragas and Morgana actually can instaclear with AoE since your line is not gonna hit all 6 enemy creeps except in very rare waves where pathing/aggro lines them up.
Its cooldown is also high enough that you can't both clear and harass with it so you're forced to choose ;d Unless your enemy is terrible at positioning and stands in the same line as his minions zz, even then the line is pretty narrow and any competent mid should be getting hit by too many Es...
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For aggressiveness? Q generally means you'll hit retaliation, which will hit you before you're shielded. Also, against a pusher you'll have trouble fighting him back, while E also has the advantage of being an excellent AoE spell for farming. I'd rather get E and poke them to death (but I don't generally play aggressive enough to get kills pre-6 with APs, except perhaps Ryze or Galio).
E.: yes, you'd have trouble farming+harassing with E, never denied that. But running scaling ap blues, flat ap quints, and doing boots+3->2dr allows me to almost instaclear already (I'd have to play him some again to make sure when I instaclear, and when I just need to finish off the minions). The double DR+augment is only ~500 more than catalyst anyway.
As for the AoE, I've found that I can line all 6 minions w/o any difficulty, perhaps just a little timing. Using the fact that the laser travels slowly and the minions are running toward you makes it easy, in my experience at least. :/
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 12:18 Alaric wrote: For aggressiveness? Q generally means you'll hit retaliation, which will hit you before you're shielded. Also, against a pusher you'll have trouble fighting him back, while E also has the advantage of being an excellent AoE spell for farming. I'd rather get E and poke them to death (but I don't generally play aggressive enough to get kills pre-6 with APs, except perhaps Ryze or Galio).
E.: yes, you'd have trouble farming+harassing with E, never denied that. But running scaling ap blues, flat ap quints, and doing boots+3->2dr allows me to almost instaclear already (I'd have to play him some again to make sure when I instaclear, and when I just need to finish off the minions). The double DR+augment is only ~500 more than catalyst anyway.
As for the AoE, I've found that I can line all 6 minions w/o any difficulty, perhaps just a little timing. Using the fact that the laser travels slowly and the minions are running toward you makes it easy, in my experience at least. :/
You're standing in front of your minions as the enemy minions come? WTF kind of opponents/junglers are letting you get away with that...? That tends not to work unless you're already ahead in lane :<
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On January 20 2012 12:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 11:41 Alaric wrote: Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing.
What lol? your line AoE doesn't do enough damage to instaclear and you're not gonna have your augment in lane. Gragas and Morgana actually can instaclear with AoE since your line is not gonna hit all 6 enemy creeps except in very rare waves where pathing/aggro lines them up. Its cooldown is also high enough that you can't both clear and harass with it so you're forced to choose ;d Unless your enemy is terrible at positioning and stands in the same line as his minions zz, even then the line is pretty narrow and any competent mid should be getting hit by too many Es...
E should easily instaclear entire waves late, and by the time you get your augment it should clear melees with an AA or creep damage. I get all the ranged creeps and at least two of the melees with a diagonal shot every time I use it post aug, as one of the melee usually peels off. You can also instaclear the incoming wave while they are lined up in the exact same way sivir does. Have you played Viktor? E is probably the best minion clearing spell in the game.
If you dont use it from absolute max range its also one of the hardest skillshots to dodge in the game, as you cant tell what direction its going to go when cast. You can also almost always hit at least some creeps with every hit even if harassing, as you get to choose the vector, no matter where they stand you can put a line through two points.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 12:36 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 12:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On January 20 2012 11:41 Alaric wrote: Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing.
What lol? your line AoE doesn't do enough damage to instaclear and you're not gonna have your augment in lane. Gragas and Morgana actually can instaclear with AoE since your line is not gonna hit all 6 enemy creeps except in very rare waves where pathing/aggro lines them up. Its cooldown is also high enough that you can't both clear and harass with it so you're forced to choose ;d Unless your enemy is terrible at positioning and stands in the same line as his minions zz, even then the line is pretty narrow and any competent mid should be getting hit by too many Es... E should easily instaclear entire waves late, and by the time you get your augment it should clear melees with an AA or creep damage. I get all the ranged creeps and at least two of the melees with a diagonal shot every time I use it post aug, as one of the melee usually peels off. You can also instaclear the incoming wave while they are lined up in the exact same way sivir does. Have you played Viktor? E is probably the best minion clearing spell in the game. If you dont use it from absolute max range its also one of the hardest skillshots to dodge in the game, as you cant tell what direction its going to go when cast. You can also almost always hit at least some creeps with every hit even if harassing, as you get to choose the vector, no matter where they stand you can put a line through two points.
Then they walk cause they're paying a modicum of attention and your E misses. It's a skillshot, and every single skillshot boils down to both your skill and the opponent's skill in approximate equal parts. Skillshots are inherently harder and less reliable than a point and click, and a point and click will hit EVERY SINGLE TIME, and Q's uptime is so much higher than E with a 5 vs. 9 second cooldown, with only slightly less damage, that you need to hit like 80-90% of your Es to do equal damage as Q, and that's just unrealistic for a skillshot in lane against a not totally braindead opponent. If your opponent is so much worse than you that every skillshot hits, well, it really doesn't matter what you max or what you build.
And no I haven't played Viktor I just feel like theorycrafting and pulling shit out of my ass cause I'm bored WTF kind of stupid question is that why would you comment in a champion thread if you haven't played him?
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On January 20 2012 12:42 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 12:36 sob3k wrote:On January 20 2012 12:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On January 20 2012 11:41 Alaric wrote: Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing.
What lol? your line AoE doesn't do enough damage to instaclear and you're not gonna have your augment in lane. Gragas and Morgana actually can instaclear with AoE since your line is not gonna hit all 6 enemy creeps except in very rare waves where pathing/aggro lines them up. Its cooldown is also high enough that you can't both clear and harass with it so you're forced to choose ;d Unless your enemy is terrible at positioning and stands in the same line as his minions zz, even then the line is pretty narrow and any competent mid should be getting hit by too many Es... E should easily instaclear entire waves late, and by the time you get your augment it should clear melees with an AA or creep damage. I get all the ranged creeps and at least two of the melees with a diagonal shot every time I use it post aug, as one of the melee usually peels off. You can also instaclear the incoming wave while they are lined up in the exact same way sivir does. Have you played Viktor? E is probably the best minion clearing spell in the game. Why on earth would they let you just walk up to them? If you dont use it from absolute max range its also one of the hardest skillshots to dodge in the game, as you cant tell what direction its going to go when cast. You can also almost always hit at least some creeps with every hit even if harassing, as you get to choose the vector, no matter where they stand you can put a line through two points. Then they walk cause they're paying a modicum of attention and your E misses. It's a skillshot, and every single skillshot boils down to both your skill and the opponent's skill in approximate equal parts. Skillshots are inherently harder and less reliable than a point and click, and a point and click will hit EVERY SINGLE TIME, and Q's uptime is so much higher than E with a 5 vs. 9 second cooldown, with only slightly less damage, that you need to hit like 80-90% of your Es to do equal damage as Q, and that's just unrealistic for a skillshot in lane against a not totally braindead opponent. If your opponent is so much worse than you that every skillshot hits, well, it really doesn't matter what you max or what you build. And no I haven't played Viktor I just feel like theorycrafting and pulling shit out of my ass cause I'm bored WTF kind of stupid question is that why would you comment in a champion thread if you haven't played him?
You will never hit mid champs with Q, because its range is 600. Annie outranges you. I actually cant even think of a spell other than Sions Q that doesn't outrange you. How on earth are you going to get in range? I ask if you'd played Viktor because using primarily Q Mid makes no sense whatsoever, you will literally never be able to use it against a decent player, and everytime you go in to try they will be guaranteed a free hit. You will be out of lane in 40 seconds.
It also doesn't matter if you hit every single Q every cooldown for massive DPS if every time you go in to trade you take twice that much damage, which is exactly what would happen if you actually got in range to use it.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 12:52 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 12:42 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On January 20 2012 12:36 sob3k wrote:On January 20 2012 12:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On January 20 2012 11:41 Alaric wrote: Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing.
What lol? your line AoE doesn't do enough damage to instaclear and you're not gonna have your augment in lane. Gragas and Morgana actually can instaclear with AoE since your line is not gonna hit all 6 enemy creeps except in very rare waves where pathing/aggro lines them up. Its cooldown is also high enough that you can't both clear and harass with it so you're forced to choose ;d Unless your enemy is terrible at positioning and stands in the same line as his minions zz, even then the line is pretty narrow and any competent mid should be getting hit by too many Es... E should easily instaclear entire waves late, and by the time you get your augment it should clear melees with an AA or creep damage. I get all the ranged creeps and at least two of the melees with a diagonal shot every time I use it post aug, as one of the melee usually peels off. You can also instaclear the incoming wave while they are lined up in the exact same way sivir does. Have you played Viktor? E is probably the best minion clearing spell in the game. Why on earth would they let you just walk up to them? If you dont use it from absolute max range its also one of the hardest skillshots to dodge in the game, as you cant tell what direction its going to go when cast. You can also almost always hit at least some creeps with every hit even if harassing, as you get to choose the vector, no matter where they stand you can put a line through two points. Then they walk cause they're paying a modicum of attention and your E misses. It's a skillshot, and every single skillshot boils down to both your skill and the opponent's skill in approximate equal parts. Skillshots are inherently harder and less reliable than a point and click, and a point and click will hit EVERY SINGLE TIME, and Q's uptime is so much higher than E with a 5 vs. 9 second cooldown, with only slightly less damage, that you need to hit like 80-90% of your Es to do equal damage as Q, and that's just unrealistic for a skillshot in lane against a not totally braindead opponent. If your opponent is so much worse than you that every skillshot hits, well, it really doesn't matter what you max or what you build. And no I haven't played Viktor I just feel like theorycrafting and pulling shit out of my ass cause I'm bored WTF kind of stupid question is that why would you comment in a champion thread if you haven't played him? You will never hit mid champs with Q, because its range is 600. Annie outranges you. I actually cant even think of a spell other than Sions Q that doesn't outrange you. How on earth are you going to get in range? I ask if you'd played Viktor because using primarily Q Mid makes no sense whatsoever, you will literally never be able to use it against a decent player, and everytime you go in to try they will be guaranteed a free hit. You will be out of lane in 40 seconds. It also doesn't matter if you hit every single Q every cooldown for massive DPS if every time you go in to trade you take twice that much damage, which is exactly what would happen if you actually got in range to use it.
you trade aggressively at 1-3 when your shield blocks minion damage and minion damage still matters;
annie outranges you by like...<50 i think its 25 aka doesn't really make a difference
everything that outranges you is a skillshot just dodge/stay behind minions. else that is point and click has comparable range
Q is infinitely better than E in lane zz. It also outdamages E until you get augment which is not gonna be for a while if you're also getting 2 rings. If you're rushing augment then you have no lane power.
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On January 20 2012 12:11 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: E costs 110 mana vs. 65, does 65 + .25AP more damage (with augment), and is on a 9 second ooldown vs. a 5 second cooldown. Only favorable comparison is its range but it's also dodgeable as opposed to Q. No reason to max E in lane over Q.
you shouldn't be using q shield to block enemy counters but you can aggressively auto attack in early levels and shield will block a bunch of minion damage and you'll come out ahead in trade. E doesn't give that. Q wins lanes E doesn't do shit until team fights ;d
Your argument makes 0 sense. You are comparing the lvl 5 costs for both moves. However, we're debating which move to max first in lane. Why would you look at your lvl 13 Q and E costs when you won't still be stuck in lane at that point.
Their mana costs are both comparable IN COMPARISON WITH THEIR COOLDOWNS. Lvl 1 Q costs 45 mana on a 9 sec CD (costs 5 mana per CD second). Lvl 1 E costs 70 mana on a 13 sec CD (costs ~5.3 mana per CD second). Both of them cost more mana as you level them up.
Why would a single target, 600 range spell (that only shields you on return, which is too late when laning against mages) be better than a line nuke with a potential 1200 range (700 cast range + 500 laser area)?
E has a slightly smaller (read: 10 damage) base damage than Q, but has .05 better scaling (.7 vs .65). Going 2 Drings while maxing E, and then getting your augment, which you should get by lvl 9 if you're halfway decent at farming, gives you a massive amount of damage.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that by lvl 9, you have farmed 2000 gold. With this, I will have 2 DRings and my Death Augment. My E is rank 5. At this point, from Runes and Masteries, I have 26.37 AP. With the money I've farmed, I can afford 2 DRings and my Augment, giving me 107.1 AP, for a total of 133.47 AP.
Right now, my E does 250 + (.7 * 133.47) = 343.43 damage Keep in mind, that this is in a line, so it can hit multiple targets. On top of this, with the augment, all enemies hit will receive 75 + (.21 * 133.47) = 103 damage over 4 seconds.
Now, ok, let's look at your build. Same level, same farm, same runes and masteries. With your 2000g, all you've been able to buy is a catalyst. So all you've got for AP is your innate 26.37 AP.
Your Q does 260 + (.65 * 26.37) = 277.14 damage to a single target. You then receive a shield for 104 + (.26 * 26.37) = 110 damage block, which you will usually receive after you've eaten the majority of your opponents attacks.
+ Show Spoiler +Let's pretend We're using my item build and I max Q first. It will do 260 + (.65 * 133.47) = 346.76 damage to a single target, which is STILL less than E will do when you factor in the DoT that E applies.
So now let's compare. With my build and skill order, I have a max 1200 range ability that can hit multiple targets and will do 446.43 damage to all enemies it hits. With your build and skill order, you have a single target ability that deals 277.14 damage to one enemy at 600 range. Yes, Q is 4 seconds shorter on cooldown, but if you have blue buff, the difference is reduced to 3 seconds.
You also advocate getting the Death Augment. Why would you not take advantage of the massive early-mid game benefit this gives you? You know what's also fun about your E? A 1200 range line nuke gives you MASSIVE control over dragon. Having a 600 range single target nuke as your main damage spell at that point of the game is just begging to get raped by the enemy team.
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On January 20 2012 12:56 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 12:52 sob3k wrote:On January 20 2012 12:42 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On January 20 2012 12:36 sob3k wrote:On January 20 2012 12:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On January 20 2012 11:41 Alaric wrote: Also fast AP allows you to instaclear waves earlier — and since it's a line AoE, it's even better. Morgana, Gragas, etc. have nothing on you when it comes to instaclearing.
What lol? your line AoE doesn't do enough damage to instaclear and you're not gonna have your augment in lane. Gragas and Morgana actually can instaclear with AoE since your line is not gonna hit all 6 enemy creeps except in very rare waves where pathing/aggro lines them up. Its cooldown is also high enough that you can't both clear and harass with it so you're forced to choose ;d Unless your enemy is terrible at positioning and stands in the same line as his minions zz, even then the line is pretty narrow and any competent mid should be getting hit by too many Es... E should easily instaclear entire waves late, and by the time you get your augment it should clear melees with an AA or creep damage. I get all the ranged creeps and at least two of the melees with a diagonal shot every time I use it post aug, as one of the melee usually peels off. You can also instaclear the incoming wave while they are lined up in the exact same way sivir does. Have you played Viktor? E is probably the best minion clearing spell in the game. Why on earth would they let you just walk up to them? If you dont use it from absolute max range its also one of the hardest skillshots to dodge in the game, as you cant tell what direction its going to go when cast. You can also almost always hit at least some creeps with every hit even if harassing, as you get to choose the vector, no matter where they stand you can put a line through two points. Then they walk cause they're paying a modicum of attention and your E misses. It's a skillshot, and every single skillshot boils down to both your skill and the opponent's skill in approximate equal parts. Skillshots are inherently harder and less reliable than a point and click, and a point and click will hit EVERY SINGLE TIME, and Q's uptime is so much higher than E with a 5 vs. 9 second cooldown, with only slightly less damage, that you need to hit like 80-90% of your Es to do equal damage as Q, and that's just unrealistic for a skillshot in lane against a not totally braindead opponent. If your opponent is so much worse than you that every skillshot hits, well, it really doesn't matter what you max or what you build. And no I haven't played Viktor I just feel like theorycrafting and pulling shit out of my ass cause I'm bored WTF kind of stupid question is that why would you comment in a champion thread if you haven't played him? You will never hit mid champs with Q, because its range is 600. Annie outranges you. I actually cant even think of a spell other than Sions Q that doesn't outrange you. How on earth are you going to get in range? I ask if you'd played Viktor because using primarily Q Mid makes no sense whatsoever, you will literally never be able to use it against a decent player, and everytime you go in to try they will be guaranteed a free hit. You will be out of lane in 40 seconds. It also doesn't matter if you hit every single Q every cooldown for massive DPS if every time you go in to trade you take twice that much damage, which is exactly what would happen if you actually got in range to use it. you trade aggressively at 1-3 when your shield blocks minion damage and minion damage still matters; annie outranges you by like...<50 i think its 25 aka doesn't really make a difference everything that outranges you is a skillshot just dodge/stay behind minions. else that is point and click has comparable range Q is infinitely better than E in lane zz. It also outdamages E until you get augment which is not gonna be for a while if you're also getting 2 rings. If you're rushing augment then you have no lane power.
Thats flat out not true.
Fiddle: Outranges you with targeted spell by 150 Cass: Outranges you with targeted spell by 100 Anivia: Outranges you with targeted spell by 50 Ahri: Outranges you with targeted spell by 200 Leblanc: Outranges you with targeted spell by 100 Malzahar: Outranges you with targeted spell by 50 Ryze: Outranges you with 3 targeted spell by 75/25/75 Soraka: Outranges you with targeted spell by 125 Zilean: Outranges you with targeted spell by 100 Kassadin: Outranges you with targeted spell by 50 Veigar: Outranges you with targeted spell by 50
And if you think you can dodge all their skillshots while running towards someone at 600 range....its ridiculous
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Baa?21242 Posts
K I'm not convinced but I go play a few games with E max/Dring into Death Augment and see how it goes.
edit: first game laned vs. a vlad. shit's op. was doing fine early, but e and q cooldown both too high to threaten any kills. had a chance at 6 but fuckd it up and we just traded summoners, then his cooldowns +revolver kicked in and it was farm fest. lost tower. didn't see it goign tha tmuch differently if i went q max. try again
game 2 vs. veigar, eqqwq, then maxed e. 3-0 in lane, FB then double when jungler came to gank. Q definitely better for trades vs. veigar he didnt really have any answer to me walking up and q ing him in the face. veigar longer range doesnt mean much when he has to q creeps and i just walk up during cd and he is hesitant to burn mana on stun. e'ed a bit at level 1 and it pushed the lane too much, when i stopped e'ing i could zone him much easier after the FB. started leveling e as iw as getting near to getting augment and teamfights were starting. lost game though cause 2 separate dcs on team TOUGH LIFE
game 3 vs lb eqqw max e. Early Q helped a lot to shield damage I still think I could aggressively trade with her at 1-3 and got a big advantage and snowballed. I had a half wave advantage though and was 2 when she was 1 because of level 1 shenanigans, but in her favor was she had their first blue. still crushed though, went dring x2 into mercs into death augment.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 13:05 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 12:11 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: E costs 110 mana vs. 65, does 65 + .25AP more damage (with augment), and is on a 9 second ooldown vs. a 5 second cooldown. Only favorable comparison is its range but it's also dodgeable as opposed to Q. No reason to max E in lane over Q.
you shouldn't be using q shield to block enemy counters but you can aggressively auto attack in early levels and shield will block a bunch of minion damage and you'll come out ahead in trade. E doesn't give that. Q wins lanes E doesn't do shit until team fights ;d Your argument makes 0 sense. You are comparing the lvl 5 costs for both moves. However, we're debating which move to max first in lane. Why would you look at your lvl 13 Q and E costs when you won't still be stuck in lane at that point. Their mana costs are both comparable IN COMPARISON WITH THEIR COOLDOWNS. Lvl 1 Q costs 45 mana on a 9 sec CD (costs 5 mana per CD second). Lvl 1 E costs 70 mana on a 13 sec CD (costs ~5.3 mana per CD second). Both of them cost more mana as you level them up. Why would a single target, 600 range spell (that only shields you on return, which is too late when laning against mages) be better than a line nuke with a potential 1200 range (700 cast range + 500 laser area)? E has a slightly smaller (read: 10 damage) base damage than Q, but has .05 better scaling (.7 vs .65). Going 2 Drings while maxing E, and then getting your augment, which you should get by lvl 9 if you're halfway decent at farming, gives you a massive amount of damage. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that by lvl 9, you have farmed 2000 gold. With this, I will have 2 DRings and my Death Augment. My E is rank 5. At this point, from Runes and Masteries, I have 26.37 AP. With the money I've farmed, I can afford 2 DRings and my Augment, giving me 107.1 AP, for a total of 133.47 AP. Right now, my E does 250 + (.7 * 133.47) = 343.43 damage Keep in mind, that this is in a line, so it can hit multiple targets. On top of this, with the augment, all enemies hit will receive 75 + (.21 * 133.47) = 103 damage over 4 seconds. Now, ok, let's look at your build. Same level, same farm, same runes and masteries. With your 2000g, all you've been able to buy is a catalyst. So all you've got for AP is your innate 26.37 AP. Your Q does 260 + (.65 * 26.37) = 277.14 damage to a single target. You then receive a shield for 104 + (.26 * 26.37) = 110 damage block, which you will usually receive after you've eaten the majority of your opponents attacks. + Show Spoiler +Let's pretend We're using my item build and I max Q first. It will do 260 + (.65 * 133.47) = 346.76 damage to a single target, which is STILL less than E will do when you factor in the DoT that E applies. So now let's compare. With my build and skill order, I have a max 1200 range ability that can hit multiple targets and will do 446.43 damage to all enemies it hits. With your build and skill order, you have a single target ability that deals 277.14 damage to one enemy at 600 range. Yes, Q is 4 seconds shorter on cooldown, but if you have blue buff, the difference is reduced to 3 seconds. You also advocate getting the Death Augment. Why would you not take advantage of the massive early-mid game benefit this gives you? You know what's also fun about your E? A 1200 range line nuke gives you MASSIVE control over dragon. Having a 600 range single target nuke as your main damage spell at that point of the game is just begging to get raped by the enemy team.
Yes 2 rings and augment does more raw damage probably if you're not Qing the instant it comes off CD, but catalyst gives benefits of HP + hp/mana regen in lane. I also have another ~700 gold I can spend on stuff.
Also RoA I think just helps more in the long run as the game goes on. Your E is the only long range spell, Viktor's range on Q and W are pretty short and you'll definitely be exposed in team fights and the extra hp helps. Also its more AP in long run which scales better into mid-late game. Catalyst is still a good laning item, it trades straight up damage trades for a more consistent laning phase imo.
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On January 20 2012 14:14 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: K I'm not convinced but I go play a few games with E max/Dring into Death Augment and see how it goes.
edit: first game laned vs. a vlad. shit's op. was doing fine early, but e and q cooldown both too high to threaten any kills. had a chance at 6 but fuckd it up and we just traded summoners, then his cooldowns +revolver kicked in and it was farm fest. lost tower. didn't see it goign tha tmuch differently if i went q max. try again
game 2 vs. veigar, eqqwq, then maxed e. 3-0 in lane, FB then double when jungler came to gank. Q definitely better for trades vs. veigar he didnt really have any answer to me walking up and q ing him in the face. veigar longer range doesnt mean much when he has to q creeps and i just walk up during cd and he is hesitant to burn mana on stun. e'ed a bit at level 1 and it pushed the lane too much, when i stopped e'ing i could zone him much easier after the FB. started leveling e as iw as getting near to getting augment and teamfights were starting. lost game though cause 2 separate dcs on team TOUGH LIFE
game 3 vs lb eqqw max e. Early Q helped a lot to shield damage I still think I could aggressively trade with her at 1-3 and got a big advantage and snowballed. I had a half wave advantage though and was 2 when she was 1 because of level 1 shenanigans, but in her favor was she had their first blue. still crushed though, went dring x2 into mercs into death augment.
So...you said you're going to try maxing E, and you completely disregard it and get a few points in Q before maxing E.
Game 1: I said before that I haven't laned vs. new Vlad, but if you said you had a chance to take your advantage at 6 but missed it, then that's your fault for not capitalizing.
Games 2 + 3: Sounds like you were laning against people who have no idea how to trade damage. If you're getting into 600 range to use your Q, you should be eating punishment for it before you get your shield.
On January 20 2012 17:54 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 13:05 jcarlsoniv wrote:On January 20 2012 12:11 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: E costs 110 mana vs. 65, does 65 + .25AP more damage (with augment), and is on a 9 second ooldown vs. a 5 second cooldown. Only favorable comparison is its range but it's also dodgeable as opposed to Q. No reason to max E in lane over Q.
you shouldn't be using q shield to block enemy counters but you can aggressively auto attack in early levels and shield will block a bunch of minion damage and you'll come out ahead in trade. E doesn't give that. Q wins lanes E doesn't do shit until team fights ;d Your argument makes 0 sense. You are comparing the lvl 5 costs for both moves. However, we're debating which move to max first in lane. Why would you look at your lvl 13 Q and E costs when you won't still be stuck in lane at that point. Their mana costs are both comparable IN COMPARISON WITH THEIR COOLDOWNS. Lvl 1 Q costs 45 mana on a 9 sec CD (costs 5 mana per CD second). Lvl 1 E costs 70 mana on a 13 sec CD (costs ~5.3 mana per CD second). Both of them cost more mana as you level them up. Why would a single target, 600 range spell (that only shields you on return, which is too late when laning against mages) be better than a line nuke with a potential 1200 range (700 cast range + 500 laser area)? E has a slightly smaller (read: 10 damage) base damage than Q, but has .05 better scaling (.7 vs .65). Going 2 Drings while maxing E, and then getting your augment, which you should get by lvl 9 if you're halfway decent at farming, gives you a massive amount of damage. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that by lvl 9, you have farmed 2000 gold. With this, I will have 2 DRings and my Death Augment. My E is rank 5. At this point, from Runes and Masteries, I have 26.37 AP. With the money I've farmed, I can afford 2 DRings and my Augment, giving me 107.1 AP, for a total of 133.47 AP. Right now, my E does 250 + (.7 * 133.47) = 343.43 damage Keep in mind, that this is in a line, so it can hit multiple targets. On top of this, with the augment, all enemies hit will receive 75 + (.21 * 133.47) = 103 damage over 4 seconds. Now, ok, let's look at your build. Same level, same farm, same runes and masteries. With your 2000g, all you've been able to buy is a catalyst. So all you've got for AP is your innate 26.37 AP. Your Q does 260 + (.65 * 26.37) = 277.14 damage to a single target. You then receive a shield for 104 + (.26 * 26.37) = 110 damage block, which you will usually receive after you've eaten the majority of your opponents attacks. + Show Spoiler +Let's pretend We're using my item build and I max Q first. It will do 260 + (.65 * 133.47) = 346.76 damage to a single target, which is STILL less than E will do when you factor in the DoT that E applies. So now let's compare. With my build and skill order, I have a max 1200 range ability that can hit multiple targets and will do 446.43 damage to all enemies it hits. With your build and skill order, you have a single target ability that deals 277.14 damage to one enemy at 600 range. Yes, Q is 4 seconds shorter on cooldown, but if you have blue buff, the difference is reduced to 3 seconds. You also advocate getting the Death Augment. Why would you not take advantage of the massive early-mid game benefit this gives you? You know what's also fun about your E? A 1200 range line nuke gives you MASSIVE control over dragon. Having a 600 range single target nuke as your main damage spell at that point of the game is just begging to get raped by the enemy team. Yes 2 rings and augment does more raw damage probably if you're not Qing the instant it comes off CD, but catalyst gives benefits of HP + hp/mana regen in lane. I also have another ~700 gold I can spend on stuff.Also RoA I think just helps more in the long run as the game goes on. Your E is the only long range spell, Viktor's range on Q and W are pretty short and you'll definitely be exposed in team fights and the extra hp helps. Also its more AP in long run which scales better into mid-late game. Catalyst is still a good laning item, it trades straight up damage trades for a more consistent laning phase imo.
What are you going to have bought with that 700g? You are trying to get to your RoA as soon as you can. You already have a long time to wait for AP when going catalyst, you don't want to delay it any longer. If you had 700g, you would just be letting it sit there and waiting for Blasting Wand.
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E was maxed first in all games; 2 I guess is the farthest away since 3 ranks of Q but against Veigar it really is impossible for him to punish -anyone- in lane no matter how close they get provided they're not under tower.
Game three was 1 extra point in Q instead of E max. It was because Q was off cooldown as I leveled in middle of engagement and I leveled it and Q'ed for FB.
The Vlad game was straight E max, the advantage came from his misplay first and I didn't capitalize on it, but if he didn't stay with no HP there was nothign to capitalize anyways and the lane would've gone the exact same way. Vlad is OP now though and dumber than ever before after revolver so I don't think anything helps vs. Vlad.
I don't understand why you want so many levels of E before you get your rings/augment/AP from sources thats not runes/masteries. E is only better than Q after the augment/rings so why not level it as you're getting close to getting it? Levels 1-5 you're not getting any items most of the time so why not Q? Range is still a dumb argument since if you're Eing from from outside of counterable range you have a high chance of missing, and if they go on you, you can E them but you can also Q them for more damage/shield to tank AAs after the spell trade.
edit: FWIW the Vlad was 1800 and the Veigar was 1500. Not sure what the LB was didn't check/lane started off silly anyways so it wasn't that revealing of a game to me. IDK if they're actually experienced with the champs they played but ya.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On January 20 2012 21:31 jcarlsoniv wrote:
What are you going to have bought with that 700g? You are trying to get to your RoA as soon as you can. You already have a long time to wait for AP when going catalyst, you don't want to delay it any longer. If you had 700g, you would just be letting it sit there and waiting for Blasting Wand.
you're not always going back with exactly 1950 gold to buy 2x rings and an augment. you go back when the situation calls for it. you could have gone back a bit later with 900 gold after you have catalyst and have enough for the blasting wand?
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On January 20 2012 21:38 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: E was maxed first in all games; 2 I guess is the farthest away since 3 ranks of Q but against Veigar it really is impossible for him to punish -anyone- in lane no matter how close they get provided they're not under tower.
Game three was 1 extra point in Q instead of E max. It was because Q was off cooldown as I leveled in middle of engagement and I leveled it and Q'ed for FB.
The Vlad game was straight E max, the advantage came from his misplay first and I didn't capitalize on it, but if he didn't stay with no HP there was nothign to capitalize anyways and the lane would've gone the exact same way. Vlad is OP now though and dumber than ever before after revolver so I don't think anything helps vs. Vlad.
I don't understand why you want so many levels of E before you get your rings/augment/AP from sources thats not runes/masteries. E is only better than Q after the augment/rings so why not level it as you're getting close to getting it? Levels 1-5 you're not getting any items most of the time so why not Q? Range is still a dumb argument since if you're Eing from from outside of counterable range you have a high chance of missing, and if they go on you, you can E them but you can also Q them for more damage/shield to tank AAs after the spell trade.
edit: FWIW the Vlad was 1800 and the Veigar was 1500. Not sure what the LB was didn't check/lane started off silly anyways so it wasn't that revealing of a game to me. IDK if they're actually experienced with the champs they played but ya.
At level 9, when you can have your first move maxed, and you get 2 DRings and Augment, your E does over 400 damage at massive range in a line. Even if you go 2 DRings + Augment while maxing Q, it won't do as much damage, and it will be to single target. From what it sounds like, you're spamming Q on CD. This is alright, except you also claim to have mana issues. AP mid is a delicate balance early levels. Viktor has fairly high mana costs, so it's imperative to manage it closely.
On January 20 2012 21:44 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 21:31 jcarlsoniv wrote:
What are you going to have bought with that 700g? You are trying to get to your RoA as soon as you can. You already have a long time to wait for AP when going catalyst, you don't want to delay it any longer. If you had 700g, you would just be letting it sit there and waiting for Blasting Wand. you're not always going back with exactly 1950 gold to buy 2x rings and an augment. you go back when the situation calls for it. you could have gone back a bit later with 900 gold after you have catalyst and have enough for the blasting wand?
Of course, this is the case with all of laning phase. I chose 2000g because it was an easy number to work with, as well as a completely reasonable amount of farm for you to have by lvl 9. It's also shows just how destructively powerful Viktor is starting at early-mid game, and it scales well into late game.
The thing with going cata first is it delays your early power. Viktor is an early-mid powerhouse (because of his Augment with maxed E), and using that to his advantage, takes that power all game. As soon as you have 2 DRing and augment, you can begin dominating the game.
Another problem with maxing Q first is that you sacrifice any and all pushing power Viktor has. As mid, it is important to have as much control over your lane as possible; this includes your lane opponent and the way the waves are pushing. Being able to quickly clear a lane with a laser and then move around the map is incredibly strong. Champions that struggle to clear lanes quickly will suffer unless they scale EXTREMELY well into late game (read: Ryze).
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I've been maining Viktor for a while now, and I do find him to be a good AP. In the late-late game he does fall off slightly with the itemslot less and the lack of real spammability. However, W becomes crazy good in late teamfights.
For my build I pretty much always start the same way: Boots+3pot, double dorans, Augment Death, Rylais, Deathcap. After this it just depends on what you want; WotA/Zhonya's etc. The reason for this item build is that the damage early on allows your pokes to actually hurt, and the HP mean you'll live quite a bit longer. Skillwise I put a point in Q, then EEW, after which I just go R>E>Q>W. Q is a very mediocre spell, short ranged and the shield is late and meh. E is godlike. W is highly underestimated.
Viktor is well suited for an aggressive playstyle early on, altho you do need to CS well while doing this since you need the farm. So far I haven't really found a truly unfavorable match-up, altho relentless pushers with a bit of health/defence (Morde/Morgana/Heimer) are a pain because you don't really have the mana to clear wave after wave. Blue buff soon is a huge boost, and allows you to clear as fast as the others. Lategame skirting around the edges of the fight is a good style of play, allowing you the best lasershots and zoning out or defending people with W.
I can see why Viktor might not be competetive; lategame his CD's are too long and the missing itemslot starts to really hurt, and the fact that Q's kinda meh starts to come into play more. Still, he's a pretty strong champ especially early-midgame, and he can give most champs a run for their money on the lane. Give it a go, he's fun ^^
P.S. On the Augment, just get Death. The passive bonusses from the other augments are crap lategame, and you NEED the extra damage on the laser to keep up with other AP's, which real-late you still wont be able to do due to the aforementioned high CD's.
+ Show Spoiler +
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About the Augments:
Gravity doesn't seem that bad, yeah, the bonuses are crap, but being able to play more aggressively because you can CC guys that aren't standing directly in front of you is pretty nice.
I dunno, I tried it and enjoyed it. I did miss the DoT on the laser and the 45 extra AP.
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On February 11 2012 07:44 triplej wrote: About the Augments:
Gravity doesn't seem that bad, yeah, the bonuses are crap, but being able to play more aggressively because you can CC guys that aren't standing directly in front of you is pretty nice.
I dunno, I tried it and enjoyed it. I did miss the DoT on the laser and the 45 extra AP.
To be honest I haven't played too much with Gravity Augment. I've messed around with it a bit as support Viktor, and it's pretty decent there. But yeah, the biggest thing is it sacrifices Viktor's insane earl-mid game without the DoT and 45 AP.
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Went against Vlad in one of my last games, I figured I'd get wrecked because of his superior range on Q. Turns out he used it on minions so I punished him everytime with Q (I started boots, he started amp), and after I stacked 2 drings he couldn't outpush me, while I won trades that went past the Qing each other phase (even with some E stacks built, he can't break the shield for enough damage compared to my E). Once I had the augment I just one-shot the minion wave while sometimes eating his Q.
I got a bit surprised, but I guess it's just him playing Vlad bad than Viktor doing well in the match-up.
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They said "when we get the chance to work on him", though, so it may take some time as they put it.
Boots+3 -> double DRing -> Death -> WotA/Rylai still feels really good to me. Great clean-up capabilities with blue buff (mostly for cdr) thanks to E range and the damage mitigation from spellvamp'd Q.
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On February 13 2012 18:36 Alaric wrote:They said "when we get the chance to work on him", though, so it may take some time as they put it. Boots+3 -> double DRing -> Death -> WotA/Rylai still feels really good to me. Great clean-up capabilities with blue buff (mostly for cdr) thanks to E range and the damage mitigation from spellvamp'd Q.
Yes, WotA is still very strong. I'll only get Rylai's on him if I'm really getting beat up, for some reason I don't feel the slow as much on him as, say, Cass. WotA -> DCap is solid, although delays a bit of burst while saving for the NLR.
Edit: If they were to increase the power of the augment for a T3 upgrade, they will need to nerf the T2 in either scaling or raw power. Right now, the augment only falls off when you hit your 6 item build, which, admittedly, does come sooner for Viktor. His early-mid to early-late game is monstrously powerful, so hopefully they won't make him blatantly op, and we can keep using him as sleeper op.
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Haven't played him in a little while, I'll admit, but it seems as though it might be viable to upgrade even Power. Saw Salce do it and it improves his survivability in small skirmishes, though he does fall off harder lategame if you do it this way.
I used to max E and upgrade either Gravity or Death, leaning towards Death more often, but now honestly I think you can win a lane much easier by maxing Q first even against mages with the new return speed on Q.
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Power just seems silly to get if you're already getting tanky caster items like WotA or Rylai, and ~2 DRings. After that, the extra health just seems unnecessary, and so you're paying a bunch for MS on Q. I'd rather build those tanky items and get Death as a damage boost.
I do kind of like Q first, or at least more than one rank early on. It's surprising how hard it will hit early on, most people don't expect it. However, E is just so good, even if just for pushing and zoning and you don't hit it every time. I'd rather have that insane pushing power and chance for burst, and WotA+Death augment means you rarely ever have to go back if you aren't spamming or have blue.
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Aah I hope they keep him as he is or just stealthchange the other 2 augments so we can keep him as our precious =) To be honest tho, I haven't faced a single decent Viktor yet, the most common mistake is trying to go pure Q-W and sort of forgo'ing E, and just way too squishy builds is another one. I still love the man, and I think apart from Morgana he may be my most dominating AP. One thing that might save his lategame if you were able to sell and rebuy Augments. That way late-late game you could perhaps get the gravity Augment to give your team better CC, since at that point AP's dmg tends to fall off compared to AD's, and if you catch them in a combo its generally enough to kill them anyway.
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viktor is in a good spot right now. he's a bit clunky and can be frustrating, but for the most part he's a blast imo. hah just saw someone say viktor is a sleeper op champ above. so true. ppl are surprised at how much damage i do.
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Just as a heads up, I think I'm going to try to update this thread later today. It's mostly the same, but I think there are some numbers that need to be updated, and I want to see if I can get all of the patch note changes in the OP. I'll see if I can go a bit more in depth on some things now that I've got almost 100 ranked games under my belt.
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England2649 Posts
I don't think Viktor is near the level of the top top casters but he's still decent.
I'm started to head towards building tanky ap stuff just because how much damage he deals anyway but I need to play around more. My main issue with him is having a game plan. I don't know if I'm meant to just afk farm, push hard or what.
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Push hard, steal wraiths, exert map control. If people come to gank you, kill them 1v2 (or 1v4 if you so wish). The more I've played him, the more I realize he is, in fact, a top caster.
I'm going to move Rylai's to core for him. You can delay the dcap because of all the innate AP you get from your augment. The slow is really nice on his Q and also still good on his E and R. The tankiness is very good coupled with the wota + Q.
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I first-day nought Viktor, loved him immediately but sucked REAL hard at him, so I'm only coming back to him recently.
Did his R always have a cast time? I could've sworn it was insta-cast like Tibbers but I could be wrong....perhaps a secret hotfix to prevent R-spam double-ult or am I just being paranoid?
It just feels like there's so much delay between when I want my cloud to land on somebody and it actually does that there's something wrong.
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Cast time has always been there. I have been getting a bunch of double-ult bugs lately. Hopefully they fix that soon.
Edit note: double ult bug achieved fairly easily by just spamming R as you're trying to cast it. I don't really ever do it on purpose, and I always feel bad when I get one =/
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On April 17 2012 02:24 jcarlsoniv wrote: Cast time has always been there. I have been getting a bunch of double-ult bugs lately. Hopefully they fix that soon.
Edit note: double ult bug achieved fairly easily by just spamming R as you're trying to cast it. I don't really ever do it on purpose, and I always feel bad when I get one =/ If by feel bad you mean laugh meniacly as you get a triple kill, then yes. You feel bad.
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OP updated: added patch note history and VOD section, as well as updated general info.
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On April 17 2012 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote: Push hard, steal wraiths, exert map control. If people come to gank you, kill them 1v2 (or 1v4 if you so wish). The more I've played him, the more I realize he is, in fact, a top caster.
I'm going to move Rylai's to core for him. You can delay the dcap because of all the innate AP you get from your augment. The slow is really nice on his Q and also still good on his E and R. The tankiness is very good coupled with the wota + Q. Ha! Now you see the light. Then toss a Zhonya in here and pretend you're Swain when you use it during your ult.
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I'm sure this comes up from time to time, but what kind of ability leveling do you follow nowadays? Is it still R>E>Q>W? Are there situations or matchups where you'd max Q first?
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I still go R>E>Q>W, yes.
There have been times that I've toyed with the idea of maxing Q, but when this happens, I honestly can't convince myself of it. The lane clearing power of E is just too powerful imo. It's one of those "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of things. I've seen the devastation of maxing E. It never leaves me wanting more.
I'll play around with it in normals just for funsies so I can come back with a more definitive answer. Even if I'm maxing Q, though, I think I would still have to go for the death augment.
Edit: The big difference is the range and aoe on E vs the spammability of Q. They both have fairly comparable damage as you skill them up. However, the range on Q is so much shorter. It's nice having a skill you can spam more, but unless you're completely destroying them, they can get in range to do things before you can punish them.
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On April 17 2012 01:32 Flicky wrote: My main issue with him is having a game plan. I don't know if I'm meant to just afk farm, push hard or what.
With most all ap carrys you should just push and gank bot correct? would say in 90% of the cases you should never just "afk farm"
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On April 17 2012 02:24 jcarlsoniv wrote: Cast time has always been there. I have been getting a bunch of double-ult bugs lately. Hopefully they fix that soon.
Edit note: double ult bug achieved fairly easily by just spamming R as you're trying to cast it. I don't really ever do it on purpose, and I always feel bad when I get one =/
On the PTR they discovered a bug where you can do this an infinite amount of times.
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So I tried a game maxing Q first and getting Power Augment. And yes, one game is totally definitive evidence.
The damage on the Q was really nice, and it was great to be able to spam it. However, I found that if I wanted to really do damage, I would have to be close enough for my lane opponent (Vlad in this case) to also do quite a bit of damage. This is as opposed to if I'm maxing E, and I can harass from a safe distance, and then have the insurance of my Q shield if they get too close.
Having the Power augment was pretty fun to be honest. The defensive stats were really meh, and there was an extremely noticeable lack of extra AP, but the move speed was really nice. That plus the slow of Rylai's and the spammability of Q meant no one would escape if they wanted to run.
Overall, I think it could have some merit. I did feel really uncomfortable with it though, but that could be because either I'm not used to it or it didn't fit my play style.
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Free week viktor, will try out your ideas Carl, i've tried him a few times on his his free week and he was insanely powerful back then and now he is even more insanely powerful. It's going to be interesting to say the least.
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I've tried the Q Augment a few times now but I just feel I lose so much damage, both from having an item that gives no AP and meh defences lategame and the fact that laser does so much less.
I was wondering, which champs do you really have a hard time against as Viktor? So far i've done pretty well against almost all I think, at least not a lot where I felt I was at a disadvantage. Ahri's probably the hardest one, champs like LB can be a pain but going a Negatron after the first Dorans pretty much shut her down in most instances in my experience. I generally just build boots+3pot > 2x Dorans > Rylais > Deathcap > Voidstaff > Wota/Zhonya's.
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On April 17 2012 14:06 jcarlsoniv wrote: So I tried a game maxing Q first and getting Power Augment. And yes, one game is totally definitive evidence.
The damage on the Q was really nice, and it was great to be able to spam it. However, I found that if I wanted to really do damage, I would have to be close enough for my lane opponent (Vlad in this case) to also do quite a bit of damage. This is as opposed to if I'm maxing E, and I can harass from a safe distance, and then have the insurance of my Q shield if they get too close.
Having the Power augment was pretty fun to be honest. The defensive stats were really meh, and there was an extremely noticeable lack of extra AP, but the move speed was really nice. That plus the slow of Rylai's and the spammability of Q meant no one would escape if they wanted to run.
Overall, I think it could have some merit. I did feel really uncomfortable with it though, but that could be because either I'm not used to it or it didn't fit my play style.
I tried maxing Q, but for mid there is no question its bad compared to E. The spell itself is great and obscenely mana efficient, but getting close enough to use it you will take alot of damage from any good mid. E is much better as you get to hit it for free 90% of the time. Maxing Q second is fine because it still hurts bad if they move in close and you can get nice bonus damage in between their CD's if they arent careful.
For top lane Maxing Q is strong, but I would still go with Death augment as it provides the best stats by far. I have been counterpicking Nasus/any other low range top with Viktor especially and it is hilarious how badly they get owned, just Q and auto them to death (shield eats minon aggro and helps you not push too hard) all day long and save W if they every try to make a move= they eat full combo and die.
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On April 17 2012 15:24 Promises wrote: I've tried the Q Augment a few times now but I just feel I lose so much damage, both from having an item that gives no AP and meh defences lategame and the fact that laser does so much less.
I was wondering, which champs do you really have a hard time against as Viktor? So far i've done pretty well against almost all I think, at least not a lot where I felt I was at a disadvantage. Ahri's probably the hardest one, champs like LB can be a pain but going a Negatron after the first Dorans pretty much shut her down in most instances in my experience. I generally just build boots+3pot > 2x Dorans > Rylais > Deathcap > Voidstaff > Wota/Zhonya's.
The only champ I get fucked by is LB, I thought I could bully her early and then just farm with lazer from under tower, but against a good LB I just got fucking destroyed. Like feeding uncontrollably 100% to zero under tower destroyed.
I havent had issues with Ahri, her ult is obnoxious, but its alot easier to dodge her stuff than it is for her to dodge yours. Feels like a pretty even matchup to me.
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On April 17 2012 15:24 Promises wrote: I've tried the Q Augment a few times now but I just feel I lose so much damage, both from having an item that gives no AP and meh defences lategame and the fact that laser does so much less.
I was wondering, which champs do you really have a hard time against as Viktor? So far i've done pretty well against almost all I think, at least not a lot where I felt I was at a disadvantage. Ahri's probably the hardest one, champs like LB can be a pain but going a Negatron after the first Dorans pretty much shut her down in most instances in my experience. I generally just build boots+3pot > 2x Dorans > Rylais > Deathcap > Voidstaff > Wota/Zhonya's.
Honestly, there are very few lanes that I feel uncomfortable in. Like, it's kinda at the point where when the enemy picks Viktor, I have to really think hard about what I want to use to counter him.
I have had trouble with LB. She's just an annoying as shit anti-mage. I haven't played against her in a while. Cass can be really annoying as her harass is almost as long range as yours and she's way more mana efficient. Morde is annoying in the early levels with the constant pushing, but if you just bide your time, he quickly becomes a non-issue.
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On April 17 2012 21:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2012 15:24 Promises wrote: I've tried the Q Augment a few times now but I just feel I lose so much damage, both from having an item that gives no AP and meh defences lategame and the fact that laser does so much less.
I was wondering, which champs do you really have a hard time against as Viktor? So far i've done pretty well against almost all I think, at least not a lot where I felt I was at a disadvantage. Ahri's probably the hardest one, champs like LB can be a pain but going a Negatron after the first Dorans pretty much shut her down in most instances in my experience. I generally just build boots+3pot > 2x Dorans > Rylais > Deathcap > Voidstaff > Wota/Zhonya's. Honestly, there are very few lanes that I feel uncomfortable in. Like, it's kinda at the point where when the enemy picks Viktor, I have to really think hard about what I want to use to counter him. I have had trouble with LB. She's just an annoying as shit anti-mage. I haven't played against her in a while. Cass can be really annoying as her harass is almost as long range as yours and she's way more mana efficient. Morde is annoying in the early levels with the constant pushing, but if you just bide your time, he quickly becomes a non-issue.
haha, enemy picking Viktor, good joke
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On April 17 2012 22:37 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2012 21:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On April 17 2012 15:24 Promises wrote: I've tried the Q Augment a few times now but I just feel I lose so much damage, both from having an item that gives no AP and meh defences lategame and the fact that laser does so much less.
I was wondering, which champs do you really have a hard time against as Viktor? So far i've done pretty well against almost all I think, at least not a lot where I felt I was at a disadvantage. Ahri's probably the hardest one, champs like LB can be a pain but going a Negatron after the first Dorans pretty much shut her down in most instances in my experience. I generally just build boots+3pot > 2x Dorans > Rylais > Deathcap > Voidstaff > Wota/Zhonya's. Honestly, there are very few lanes that I feel uncomfortable in. Like, it's kinda at the point where when the enemy picks Viktor, I have to really think hard about what I want to use to counter him. I have had trouble with LB. She's just an annoying as shit anti-mage. I haven't played against her in a while. Cass can be really annoying as her harass is almost as long range as yours and she's way more mana efficient. Morde is annoying in the early levels with the constant pushing, but if you just bide your time, he quickly becomes a non-issue. haha, enemy picking Viktor, good joke Ive seen it happen. Soniv immedialty goes into "oh woe is me what do I pick I cant handle this" mode.
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It's more of a "damn, I know what Viktor is capable of, what do I want to do to deal with it" mode.
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On April 17 2012 05:07 jcarlsoniv wrote: I still go R>E>Q>W, yes.
There have been times that I've toyed with the idea of maxing Q, but when this happens, I honestly can't convince myself of it. The lane clearing power of E is just too powerful imo. It's one of those "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of things. I've seen the devastation of maxing E. It never leaves me wanting more.
I'll play around with it in normals just for funsies so I can come back with a more definitive answer. Even if I'm maxing Q, though, I think I would still have to go for the death augment.
Edit: The big difference is the range and aoe on E vs the spammability of Q. They both have fairly comparable damage as you skill them up. However, the range on Q is so much shorter. It's nice having a skill you can spam more, but unless you're completely destroying them, they can get in range to do things before you can punish them. you max Q against people mid who it benefits you like any shorter range caster, and any long range caster with skill shots. maxing E is horribly stupid against characters like Vlad, Ahri ect. I max Q and get the gravity augment every game with viktor, and it's super powerful. death augment isn't nearly as effective to me. I feel like i nerfed myself every game i go death augment or max E first. The added range from grav aug just let's viktor be sooooo powerful in team fights, but i come from a dota background where you turn your casters into damage dealing supports later on in the game. and in this viktor is by far the best. So... yeah max Q and get gravity augment.
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Can't Gragas (clearing power, mobility) and Xerath (range, clearing power) do well? Brand clears about as mana-efficiently and has a better initial burst, with some long range. I don't think Malzahar can get up to Vik's clearing, esp. with his ult being countered if you cast W when he walks up to you.
@above: if you don't cripple them early on Vlad and Ahri will outpush you fairly easily after some levels, couple that with Ahri's ganking goodness and she'll just QW the creep wave + some aa then go gank, leaving you with the possibility to toss aside half your creep wave to follow her, or farm and arrive late. I liked the added range and cdr for teamfights (and I'd really like to push some cdr item in my usual build), but in lane power augment+ 2 dorans is enough to OS the whole wave in one E if you max it first, leaving you free to roam, help your jungler invade using W's excellent zone control, or just be annoying in general.
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On April 17 2012 23:40 PrinceXizor wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2012 05:07 jcarlsoniv wrote: I still go R>E>Q>W, yes.
There have been times that I've toyed with the idea of maxing Q, but when this happens, I honestly can't convince myself of it. The lane clearing power of E is just too powerful imo. It's one of those "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of things. I've seen the devastation of maxing E. It never leaves me wanting more.
I'll play around with it in normals just for funsies so I can come back with a more definitive answer. Even if I'm maxing Q, though, I think I would still have to go for the death augment.
Edit: The big difference is the range and aoe on E vs the spammability of Q. They both have fairly comparable damage as you skill them up. However, the range on Q is so much shorter. It's nice having a skill you can spam more, but unless you're completely destroying them, they can get in range to do things before you can punish them. you max Q against people mid who it benefits you like any shorter range caster, and any long range caster with skill shots. maxing E is horribly stupid against characters like Vlad, Ahri ect. I max Q and get the gravity augment every game with viktor, and it's super powerful. death augment isn't nearly as effective to me. I feel like i nerfed myself every game i go death augment or max E first. The added range from grav aug just let's viktor be sooooo powerful in team fights, but i come from a dota background where you turn your casters into damage dealing supports later on in the game. and in this viktor is by far the best. So... yeah max Q and get gravity augment.
I regularly trash Vlad and Ahri maxing E, I'm not sure why you would think otherwise. Vlad is not a long range caster. Viktor's E out ranges Ahri's Q, and she gets severely punished if she tries to get too close. In fact, when I still mained Cass, I would pick Viktor against Ahri for this very reason (since Ahri gives Cass quite a bit of trouble).
I don't know how you could possibly feel nerfed with death augment/maxing E. At level 9, with lvl 5 E, 2 dring and death augment (which you should have if you're farming with any kind of efficiency), your Q E poke can do almost half your opponent's health. The Death Augment is the only one that gives 45 AP as well as the +3AP/lvl. Add this on top of the additional DoT and .21 scaling for the laser. And that's only 1000g. You get way more bang for your buck with Death augment over the others.
But, as I said before, that's my play style. I never played dota, and have only dabbled a bit in dota2. But Viktor has the potential to deal out ridiculous burst, so I see no reason not to capitalize on that.
On April 17 2012 23:42 Alaric wrote: Can't Gragas (clearing power, mobility) and Xerath (range, clearing power) do well? Brand clears about as mana-efficiently and has a better initial burst, with some long range. I don't think Malzahar can get up to Vik's clearing, esp. with his ult being countered if you cast W when he walks up to you.
I really have no issue with Gragas. He suffers because he needs to melee for farm early. Just toss out a Q for poke and then AA, and your shield will protect minion damage. Once you level up a bit, you poop on him.
Now that you mention it, I think Xerath can be a tough match up. I haven't played against him in a while, and I've only face him a couple times. It's more because it's tough to get in to Q or R him. When he sieges up, it makes it pretty easy to pop him with laser though. It's just one of those annoying match ups that is in such a state because of how Xerath is. Xerath is just a pain in the ass, and I'm really happy he's underplayed.
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at lvl 9 with a maxed Q, you walk up to any character mid lane, dodge any skill shots easily, and then Q and walk back and last hit a bunch of times (you shouldn't ever need to spend mana last hitting, even under turrets, especially with viktors godlike animation) then zone the enemy out of their own creep waves. Then because you can farm well you get your revolver after sorc shoes (and THEN get grav augment) and your Q gives you 52% of your damage dealt back to you. it becomes a more damaging version of vlad's Q, which we all know gives him ridiculous sustain. and then your grav augment gives you MORE than enough mana regen to keep zoning with Q as you last hit all the creeps in the wave with viktors animation.
I don't see a point of a character that is burst based if you don't try to take advantage of his CC, which you can't do without gav augment. there are huge amounts of better burst damage champs, but viktor has the ability to have a long range powerful aoe CC. not using it is irresponsible.
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And what happens when your lane pushes back (as it inevitably will, especially if you're just committing to last hitting at tower)?
What happens when your lane opponent decided to let his creep wave go to tower and then wander the map ganking the other lanes?
There is more to mid lane than just laning against an opponent. It's a quite intricate process involving harassment, farming, and map control. If you're content to just sit at your tower and farm, you're going to put your team at a disadvantage in map control. And, even if you want to go help, you have so much less pushing power because you're maxing a single target skill as opposed to a skill that can insta clear waves once you hit lvl 9.
I'm not disputing that his Q is good for sustain, it definitely is. The issue is that you are absolutely committing to trade when you max Q. Maxing E is better in more situations. It allows you to be WAY more flexible and adaptive, which is what Viktor is all about. And if you think that I don't take advantage of his CC, you're sorely mistaken. In lane, W is better as a defensive utility spell. It helps protect against ganks and keeps you alive if your opponent gets too close. If you want to use it offensively, you're going to get ganked while it's on cooldown. I will agree that the increased range would be great for team fights, but that doesn't outweigh the opportunity costs of Death Augment.
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The issue with discussing strategy on a forum is people attach themselves to one phrase in your paragraph and write an entire counter-argument to that sentence out of context.
I said you can last hit with viktor easily because of his animation (second best in the game), which means that even under a tower you can farm very well. you AREN'T sitting under your tower farming and resigning yourself to that, hell i said the opposite you are out there zoning the person out of their waves.
pushing power isn't solely based on your aoe spells. If you make your opponent recall, you get a free wave of attacking a tower, which deals a lot of damage. in fact often mass clearing waves results in a much slower push, because you have to do it over time as waves come. properly controlling waves and the timings allows you to get a 2-3 times larger push on a tower that just isn't possible with mass clearing (which btw is 100% countered by another big aoe spell on the other side, especially when viktor's laser is so mana inefficient with death augment). When you learn to properly use waves to push you don't need to just mass clear and hope. you can strategically set up a push and then harrass heavily right before to get a free tower instead.
also focusing on that cheap harass let's you control and assist dragon much better than just mass clearing. I just cannot see viktor ever being a powerful member of a team with a max e get death augment strategy. might as well play kat if you just want max damage, at least kat doesn't run out of damage.
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On April 18 2012 01:39 PrinceXizor wrote: The issue with discussing strategy on a forum is people attach themselves to one phrase in your paragraph and write an entire counter-argument to that sentence out of context.
I said you can last hit with viktor easily because of his animation (second best in the game), which means that even under a tower you can farm very well. you AREN'T sitting under your tower farming and resigning yourself to that, hell i said the opposite you are out there zoning the person out of their waves.
pushing power isn't solely based on your aoe spells. If you make your opponent recall, you get a free wave of attacking a tower, which deals a lot of damage. in fact often mass clearing waves results in a much slower push, because you have to do it over time as waves come. properly controlling waves and the timings allows you to get a 2-3 times larger push on a tower that just isn't possible with mass clearing (which btw is 100% countered by another big aoe spell on the other side, especially when viktor's laser is so mana inefficient with death augment). When you learn to properly use waves to push you don't need to just mass clear and hope. you can strategically set up a push and then harrass heavily right before to get a free tower instead.
also focusing on that cheap harass let's you control and assist dragon much better than just mass clearing. I just cannot see viktor ever being a powerful member of a team with a max e get death augment strategy. might as well play kat if you just want max damage, at least kat doesn't run out of damage.
You have a pretty mistaken misunderstanding of how mid is played if you think you can zone anyone with a single-target 600-range spell. If it were that effective, Ryze would shut down every single mid in the game, but guess what - he doesn't, and ryze is several times stronger with short-ranged spammable nukes.
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On April 18 2012 01:39 PrinceXizor wrote: The issue with discussing strategy on a forum is people attach themselves to one phrase in your paragraph and write an entire counter-argument to that sentence out of context.
I said you can last hit with viktor easily because of his animation (second best in the game), which means that even under a tower you can farm very well. you AREN'T sitting under your tower farming and resigning yourself to that, hell i said the opposite you are out there zoning the person out of their waves.
pushing power isn't solely based on your aoe spells. If you make your opponent recall, you get a free wave of attacking a tower, which deals a lot of damage. in fact often mass clearing waves results in a much slower push, because you have to do it over time as waves come. properly controlling waves and the timings allows you to get a 2-3 times larger push on a tower that just isn't possible with mass clearing (which btw is 100% countered by another big aoe spell on the other side, especially when viktor's laser is so mana inefficient with death augment). When you learn to properly use waves to push you don't need to just mass clear and hope. you can strategically set up a push and then harrass heavily right before to get a free tower instead.
also focusing on that cheap harass let's you control and assist dragon much better than just mass clearing. I just cannot see viktor ever being a powerful member of a team with a max e get death augment strategy. might as well play kat if you just want max damage, at least kat doesn't run out of damage.
If your laning opponent lets you hit them with your Q, then yeah its fucking great, but anyone decent wont let that happen at the very least without fucking you up. You try running up to Casseiopia or Brand or Ahri and hitting them with a Q, you'll get fucking destroyed and you probably still wont get it off.
The only person whos gonna get pushed out of lane with Viktor Q is a really bad mid player or yourself from losing trades horribly.
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On April 18 2012 01:39 PrinceXizor wrote: The issue with discussing strategy on a forum is people attach themselves to one phrase in your paragraph and write an entire counter-argument to that sentence out of context.
I said you can last hit with viktor easily because of his animation (second best in the game), which means that even under a tower you can farm very well. you AREN'T sitting under your tower farming and resigning yourself to that, hell i said the opposite you are out there zoning the person out of their waves.
pushing power isn't solely based on your aoe spells. If you make your opponent recall, you get a free wave of attacking a tower, which deals a lot of damage. in fact often mass clearing waves results in a much slower push, because you have to do it over time as waves come. properly controlling waves and the timings allows you to get a 2-3 times larger push on a tower that just isn't possible with mass clearing (which btw is 100% countered by another big aoe spell on the other side, especially when viktor's laser is so mana inefficient with death augment). When you learn to properly use waves to push you don't need to just mass clear and hope. you can strategically set up a push and then harrass heavily right before to get a free tower instead.
also focusing on that cheap harass let's you control and assist dragon much better than just mass clearing. I just cannot see viktor ever being a powerful member of a team with a max e get death augment strategy. might as well play kat if you just want max damage, at least kat doesn't run out of damage.
I was not taking one phrase of your post, I was addressing your entire argument.
Last hitting with Viktor is easier than many champions, yes. However, if you're planning on zoning your opponent out the entire laning phase, good luck. The only place this is remotely safe is when their wave is at your tower. Your lane WILL push back, and then if you want to continue zoning, you are placing yourself at risk. You will get ganked. And since you're forcing yourself to be in a position to trade, you are, in fact, in more danger to die.
I'm well aware of how waves work. I am extremely well versed and versatile in mid lane. Because of this, I recognize that what you are saying does not and will not work in a setting of play with any level of competency. You do not get free harassment. You WILL be punished for trying to continually zone your opponent with a 600 range spell.
I don't see a world where maxing Q would give you more dragon control than maxing E. Laser gives vision, has 1200 max range, and hits multiple people for massive damage. It keeps you safer and does more in team fights.
I am speaking from many, many, many games as Viktor - solo q, arranged, ranked, and normals. I'm not dismissing the fact that Q could be good. You're reasoning is very poor though. Now, that may be because of whatever level of play you're at, but I don't know. What I do know is that I win lanes with E. I turn ganks onto me into double kills with my E. I can't do that nearly as well with Q.
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I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP...
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hes UP if you dont like big dmg
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So I just tried playing Victor for the first time and I did okay. What I noticed the most is how if you take the augment for your E, you deceptively do a ton of damage for the AP you have because the lingering 40% is really big. I was doing a shit ton of damage with E during the midgame. But the range for your W is rather low and it becomes more and more noticeable as the game goes along. Without taking the W augment it's very difficult and too risky to use W offensively most of the time. It seems like it's best used as a deterrent or to be tossed when the enemy team initiates on you.
edit: If you max E first, once you get something like 2 dorans and the E augment, your E will do a little more than 1/4 of the enemy health. He actually seems to do a ton of damage if you build him centering around his E.
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Have you tried getting DFG? My limited experience with viktor is that he has good burst but kinda long cooldowns (but my usual mids are ryze and cassio so pretty much everyone else has long cooldowns to me). anyway, it seems like he can use all the stats, but are other items just a higher priority?
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On April 18 2012 06:58 De4ngus wrote: hes UP if you dont like big dmg
????
Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them?
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Is it really so hard to just go in a game and play him once?
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On April 18 2012 06:59 koreasilver wrote: So I just tried playing Victor for the first time and I did okay. What I noticed the most is how if you take the augment for your E, you deceptively do a ton of damage for the AP you have because the lingering 40% is really big. I was doing a shit ton of damage with E during the midgame. But the range for your W is rather low and it becomes more and more noticeable as the game goes along. Without taking the W augment it's very difficult and too risky to use W offensively most of the time. It seems like it's best used as a deterrent or to be tossed when the enemy team initiates on you.
edit: If you max E first, once you get something like 2 dorans and the E augment, your E will do a little more than 1/4 of the enemy health. He actually seems to do a ton of damage if you build him centering around his E.
I tend to use W more defensively for this very reason. Before team fights, you can poke with E. Once the fight starts, dropping W where the main action is or where you think it will be, and you win the fight.
On April 18 2012 07:34 danana wrote: Have you tried getting DFG? My limited experience with viktor is that he has good burst but kinda long cooldowns (but my usual mids are ryze and cassio so pretty much everyone else has long cooldowns to me). anyway, it seems like he can use all the stats, but are other items just a higher priority?
I do like DFG on him, but I find the items I put in his core to fit better. Since he has one less item slot, I can't really justify DFG over the other items. I did mention that selling sorcs for Void Staff + CDR boots isn't a bad idea. I know where you're coming from, I went to Viktor from being a Cass main.
On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them?
It's a matter of play style. If you look at pro midlane players, they play who they feel comfortable with. Mid lane is pretty balanced, and so the selection can be very diverse. I play Viktor because I love the way he feels and I do well with him. Xerath is underplayed, although extremely powerful, because his play style is not fun. If you don't like him, that's fine. There are plenty of mages to choose from =)
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On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them? Cuz when we say vik has big damage we mean "pretend you are playing someone who can drop a nuclear bomb."
He makes Tibbers look like a sissy.
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On April 18 2012 06:41 Sufficiency wrote: I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP...
On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them?
love posts like this literally the entire topic has been a discussion about viktor and his viability you come in and say "should i play him? heard he's bad" adding nothing of value to the topic, while re-treading literally the entire conversation thusfar, instead of just playing him one game and deciding if you like him thanks for the contribution
anywho, looking at the numbers, why does everyone complain about a 'wasted item slot' on viktor? 100 AP for 1000 gold is nothing to scoff at seeing as NLR is 80 for 1600... not to mention it basically gives deathcap passive on one of his skills. seems pretty solid. i'm guessing they'll be undoing some of his recent buffs soon imo. e: and by soon i mean in like 5 patches because that's how lol works
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On April 18 2012 08:34 gtrsrs wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 06:41 Sufficiency wrote: I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP... Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:On April 18 2012 06:58 De4ngus wrote: hes UP if you dont like big dmg ???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them? love posts like this literally the entire topic has been a discussion about viktor and his viability you come in and say "should i play him? heard he's bad" adding nothing of value to the topic, while re-treading literally the entire conversation thusfar, instead of just playing him one game and deciding if you like him thanks for the contribution anywho, looking at the numbers, why does everyone complain about a 'wasted item slot' on viktor? 100 AP for 1000 gold is nothing to scoff at seeing as NLR is 80 for 1600... not to mention it basically gives deathcap passive on one of his skills. seems pretty solid. i'm guessing they'll be undoing some of his recent buffs soon imo. e: and by soon i mean in like 5 patches because that's how lol works
You can read up on the item slot efficiency of the various augments. They are good midgame its just when lategame comes around being almost exactly gold efficient doesnt really cut it when you have to sacrifice ROA/Zhonyas/Rylais etc for it. I dont think its that big a deal, but its a bit of a bummer. There have been several analyses of their cost and slot efficiency, and they are pretty poor excepting Death, which is decent.
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On April 18 2012 08:34 gtrsrs wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 06:41 Sufficiency wrote: I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP... Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:On April 18 2012 06:58 De4ngus wrote: hes UP if you dont like big dmg ???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them? love posts like this literally the entire topic has been a discussion about viktor and his viability you come in and say "should i play him? heard he's bad" adding nothing of value to the topic, while re-treading literally the entire conversation thusfar, instead of just playing him one game and deciding if you like him thanks for the contribution
It is not against TL rules to not read other replies before posting. Thank you.
On April 18 2012 17:59 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 08:34 gtrsrs wrote:On April 18 2012 06:41 Sufficiency wrote: I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP... On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:On April 18 2012 06:58 De4ngus wrote: hes UP if you dont like big dmg ???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them? love posts like this literally the entire topic has been a discussion about viktor and his viability you come in and say "should i play him? heard he's bad" adding nothing of value to the topic, while re-treading literally the entire conversation thusfar, instead of just playing him one game and deciding if you like him thanks for the contribution anywho, looking at the numbers, why does everyone complain about a 'wasted item slot' on viktor? 100 AP for 1000 gold is nothing to scoff at seeing as NLR is 80 for 1600... not to mention it basically gives deathcap passive on one of his skills. seems pretty solid. i'm guessing they'll be undoing some of his recent buffs soon imo. e: and by soon i mean in like 5 patches because that's how lol works You can read up on the item slot efficiency of the various augments. They are good midgame its just when lategame comes around being almost exactly gold efficient doesnt really cut it when you have to sacrifice ROA/Zhonyas/Rylais etc for it. I dont think its that big a deal, but its a bit of a bummer. There have been several analyses of their cost and slot efficiency, and they are pretty poor excepting Death, which is decent.
After playing as Viktor for a few games, it feels to me that the fact that he can only choose ONCE is a severe handicap. It would be nice if he could change his mind for, say, 2k gold... I think his Innate does affect his late game a lot. That, and the lack of good stuns (W range too short unless you use the upgrade.. then you get no godly E).
To be honest, it feels to me that Viktor is kind of like Annie+Veigar. Maybe this is the wrong comparison, I don't know, but Viktor's Q is kind of like Annie/Veigar Q, Viktor's E is kind of like Annie's W, Viktor's W is kind of like Veigar's E, and Viktor's R is kind of like Annie's R.
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I didn't notice how close Annie and Vik's ult were, damage-wise... But his E has nothing to do with her W : it's a line rather than a cone, and with a huge range at that. You don't bushcheck nor kill somebody from behind a wall with Annie's W.
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On April 18 2012 19:17 Alaric wrote: I didn't notice how close Annie and Vik's ult were, damage-wise... But his E has nothing to do with her W : it's a line rather than a cone, and with a huge range at that. You don't bushcheck nor kill somebody from behind a wall with Annie's W.
The shape of the AOE is different, but the general purpose is the same, in my opinion (beside Annie's Innate and Viktor's Item). It's just that Viktor's E can be directed in any directions (and goes further), thus more versatile, but Annie's W comes out faster. In terms of their utilities it's pretty much the same... aoe damage in a skillshot.
It's similar to saying how Lux and Morgana are "the same" and how Caitlyn and Ashe are "the same". These pairs are not 100% similar to each other (that would be embarrassing for Riot), but similar enough to be able to draw analogies.
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On April 18 2012 18:59 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 08:34 gtrsrs wrote:On April 18 2012 06:41 Sufficiency wrote: I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP... On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:On April 18 2012 06:58 De4ngus wrote: hes UP if you dont like big dmg ???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them? love posts like this literally the entire topic has been a discussion about viktor and his viability you come in and say "should i play him? heard he's bad" adding nothing of value to the topic, while re-treading literally the entire conversation thusfar, instead of just playing him one game and deciding if you like him thanks for the contribution It is not against TL rules to not read other replies before posting. Thank you.
It is generally recognized as considerate to not ignore discussion that has already happened. Here on TL, we hold people to a higher standard of posting. Stop being an ass. Thank you.
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On April 18 2012 19:28 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 19:17 Alaric wrote: I didn't notice how close Annie and Vik's ult were, damage-wise... But his E has nothing to do with her W : it's a line rather than a cone, and with a huge range at that. You don't bushcheck nor kill somebody from behind a wall with Annie's W. The shape of the AOE is different, but the general purpose is the same, in my opinion (beside Annie's Innate and Viktor's Item). It's just that Viktor's E can be directed in any directions (and goes further), thus more versatile, but Annie's W comes out faster. In terms of their utilities it's pretty much the same... aoe damage in a skillshot. It's similar to saying how Lux and Morgana are "the same" and how Caitlyn and Ashe are "the same". These pairs are not 100% similar to each other (that would be embarrassing for Riot), but similar enough to be able to draw analogies.
Viktor is E not like Annie W at all in application, the main point of Viktor E is the obscene range and poking ability, whereas Annie is very short range wide aoe that you just add to your full combo.
Viktor and Veigar do have a ton of similarities though:
Veigar Short range but mana efficient singe target nuke on short CD Long range high ratio skillshot nuke AOE conditional Stun Single Target Meganuke
Viktor Short range but mana efficient singe target nuke on short CD Long range high ratio skillshot nuke AOE conditional Stun AOE Meganuke
The main difference is that Viktors's stun isnt used as offensively due to its range, compensated by the fact that you dont need it to land your skillshot, which makes Viktor pokier as opposed to Veigar who is all or nothing. The moving cast on lazer also contributes to this. The ult is the other difference which is just AOE vs Single target.
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Viktor's W also takes time to apply the stun, which is why it's better used more defensively than Veigar's. This is compensated by the fact that it stuns the insides of the circle, as opposed to just the edge.
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On April 18 2012 20:46 jcarlsoniv wrote: Viktor's W also takes time to apply the stun, which is why it's better used more defensively than Veigar's. This is compensated by the fact that it stuns the insides of the circle, as opposed to just the edge.
made killing you early hard T_T
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Played a quick game of dominion after reading about viktor in GD (stayed away because looked hard xD) and he is a lot of fun. The E took a few tries to get used to but is quite enjoyable. I would consider purchasing him if I wasn't afraid of a nerf in the next few weeks...
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On April 19 2012 00:16 mordek wrote: Played a quick game of dominion after reading about viktor in GD (stayed away because looked hard xD) and he is a lot of fun. The E took a few tries to get used to but is quite enjoyable. I would consider purchasing him if I wasn't afraid of a nerf in the next few weeks...
I wouldn't be. Still nobody plays him. They will hopefully fix his ult bug, but I don't expect any nerfs any time soon unless in the next few weeks he becomes seriously fotm.
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Soooo they completely borked the model this patch. Laser so buggy. Gets stuck visually (but damage goes out) about 60% of the time.
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On April 19 2012 01:55 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 00:16 mordek wrote: Played a quick game of dominion after reading about viktor in GD (stayed away because looked hard xD) and he is a lot of fun. The E took a few tries to get used to but is quite enjoyable. I would consider purchasing him if I wasn't afraid of a nerf in the next few weeks... I wouldn't be. Still nobody plays him. They will hopefully fix his ult bug, but I don't expect any nerfs any time soon unless in the next few weeks he becomes seriously fotm.
Abuse it til you lose it.
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On April 19 2012 05:44 jcarlsoniv wrote: Soooo they completely borked the model this patch. Laser so buggy. Gets stuck visually (but damage goes out) about 60% of the time.
So basically a huge buff?
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On April 19 2012 08:50 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 05:44 jcarlsoniv wrote: Soooo they completely borked the model this patch. Laser so buggy. Gets stuck visually (but damage goes out) about 60% of the time. So basically a huge buff?
No, it's annoying as all hell to use.
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The laser is so op. The range is like 2x what the graphic shows, and smartcasting it while chasing is great.
Luckily it is tard-proof.
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is the ult glitch still in after this patch? hard to judge trades when someone has a 50% chance at 100-0ing you after lvl6
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On April 19 2012 09:35 ninjakingcola wrote: What is this ult glitch?
Mash R get double ults
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On April 18 2012 18:59 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 08:34 gtrsrs wrote:On April 18 2012 06:41 Sufficiency wrote: I noticed Viktor is free... should I give it a go at him? I heard he is quite UP... On April 18 2012 07:40 Sufficiency wrote:On April 18 2012 06:58 De4ngus wrote: hes UP if you dont like big dmg ???? Orthodox AP carries such as Ahri, Annie, Brand, Cass, Ryze, amd Xerath do "big damage" too. Why should I choose Viktor over them? love posts like this literally the entire topic has been a discussion about viktor and his viability you come in and say "should i play him? heard he's bad" adding nothing of value to the topic, while re-treading literally the entire conversation thusfar, instead of just playing him one game and deciding if you like him thanks for the contribution It is not against TL rules to not read other replies before posting. Thank you. You're wrong. TL 10 Commandments. Number 3. Thank you.
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On April 19 2012 09:04 Slusher wrote: is the ult glitch still in after this patch? hard to judge trades when someone has a 50% chance at 100-0ing you after lvl6
It's still in, unfortunately.
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testing in a custom game as we speak, don't own Vik, just free week
~33% success rate replicating the glitch ----.---- time to play only pokey champs vs Vik till the next patch.
whats dumb is I have seen more Viktor's in the last two weeks and at first I was nieve and thought it was about this sneaky good rumor I heard, but of course then I heard about this bug
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On April 19 2012 10:29 Slusher wrote: testing in a custom game as we speak, don't own Vik, just free week
~33% success rate replicating the glitch ----.---- time to play only pokey champs vs Vik till the next patch.
whats dumb is I have seen more Viktor's in the last two weeks and at first I was nieve and thought it was about this sneaky good rumor I heard, but of course then I heard about this bug
If I'm trying (ie, in custom), I can replicate is 100% of the time. I always feel terrible when it happens in actual games.
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Yea I think I've got it down now too (after 1 game with Vik) >.>
if you smartcast and move the mouse as little as possible after you begin R spam, I was able to get it 5 straight times.
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On April 19 2012 10:40 Slusher wrote: Yea I think I've got it down now too (after 1 game with Vik) >.>
if you smartcast and move the mouse as little as possible after you begin R spam, I was able to get it 5 straight times.
inb4soniv climbs to 2700 elo with 100% victor win rate.
Good guy soniv for not abusing that glitch in scrims.
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On April 19 2012 10:40 Slusher wrote: Yea I think I've got it down now too (after 1 game with Vik) >.>
if you smartcast and move the mouse as little as possible after you begin R spam, I was able to get it 5 straight times.
What can u fraps that?
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Played him again and loved it. Did notice the laser was super buggy. Like half the time, no movement of the laser animation but damage. Sometimes it didn't move or do damage at all. Forgot to try R glitch xD would have been fun.
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On April 19 2012 22:28 mordek wrote: Played him again and loved it. Did notice the laser was super buggy. Like half the time, no movement of the laser animation but damage. Sometimes it didn't move or do damage at all. Forgot to try R glitch xD would have been fun.
This has been happening to me too. I also think the laser needs a slightly larger hitbox.
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On April 19 2012 23:31 Ferrose wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 22:28 mordek wrote: Played him again and loved it. Did notice the laser was super buggy. Like half the time, no movement of the laser animation but damage. Sometimes it didn't move or do damage at all. Forgot to try R glitch xD would have been fun. This has been happening to me too. I also think the laser needs a slightly larger hitbox. Eh, I was pretty happy with the hitbox. Sometime I would be surprised it hit since I'm still struggling to be accurate while not lining it up for 2 seconds. When I missed I assumed it was more my lack of skill. Sometime the perspective is kinda funky which will just take experience I'm guessing.
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On April 19 2012 23:43 mordek wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 23:31 Ferrose wrote:On April 19 2012 22:28 mordek wrote: Played him again and loved it. Did notice the laser was super buggy. Like half the time, no movement of the laser animation but damage. Sometimes it didn't move or do damage at all. Forgot to try R glitch xD would have been fun. This has been happening to me too. I also think the laser needs a slightly larger hitbox. Eh, I was pretty happy with the hitbox. Sometime I would be surprised it hit since I'm still struggling to be accurate while not lining it up for 2 seconds. When I missed I assumed it was more my lack of skill. Sometime the perspective is kinda funky which will just take experience I'm guessing.
I've only played him about 3/4 times and laser felt really easy to use. I did get it bugging out a few times where it just didn't move but aside from that it's not that hard to use. It did feel like the hitbox was changing size sometimes.
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so basically go far out and start spamming ron a hero will usually cause a double ult? is it double burst from it or just double aoe damage?
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On April 20 2012 07:39 arb wrote: so basically go far out and start spamming ron a hero will usually cause a double ult? is it double burst from it or just double aoe damage?
Both. It's pretty absurd.
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On April 19 2012 11:41 Soloside wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 10:40 Slusher wrote: Yea I think I've got it down now too (after 1 game with Vik) >.>
if you smartcast and move the mouse as little as possible after you begin R spam, I was able to get it 5 straight times. inb4soniv climbs to 2700 elo with 100% victor win rate. Good guy soniv for not abusing that glitch in scrims.
Wrong attitude, he should abuse this shit as much as possible and make riot fix their game
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Not much point in abusing bugs in a scrim except to make people not want to scrim you any more.
Solo queue, on the other hand...
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If it's in the game, it's a legit tactic.
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On April 19 2012 14:23 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2012 10:40 Slusher wrote: Yea I think I've got it down now too (after 1 game with Vik) >.>
if you smartcast and move the mouse as little as possible after you begin R spam, I was able to get it 5 straight times. What can u fraps that?
I don't have fraps but there is an example on youtube if you look it up.
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On April 20 2012 08:54 dnastyx wrote: If it's in the game, it's a legit tactic.
Not true. Purposely abusing bugs repeatedly like invincible karthus or neverdie yorick can lead to bans. Even if the bug is not abusive enough for an outright ban it's still abusive enough that you know Riot will patch it soon. So in the long term practicing with it is counterproductive since it's a crutch that will be taken away ASAP.
If you don't want to practice that's your business but again I wouldn't blame scrim partners for not wanting to play if all you wanted to do was abuse a bug like double ult which is here today and gone tomorrow.
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I think I'm going to ban Viktor for the next while until the next patch. I faced two viktors today that double ulted in over 50% of the fights which 100-0s tanks and anyone near them. His laser is impossible to avoid now since you can see where it starts but you have 0 indication of which direction it's travelling 90% of the time. I've also seen a glitch that happened once but could happen more where viktor doublecasts his deathray. Not only can you not see it but instead of just doing a small portion of your health from not dodging, it takes off 1/3 to 2/5 of your health when the viktor only has boots + pots and 20 AP.
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I wasn't able to replicate the ult bug in my games last night
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On April 20 2012 09:40 phyvo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2012 08:54 dnastyx wrote: If it's in the game, it's a legit tactic. Not true. Purposely abusing bugs repeatedly like invincible karthus or neverdie yorick can lead to bans. Even if the bug is not abusive enough for an outright ban it's still abusive enough that you know Riot will patch it soon. So in the long term practicing with it is counterproductive since it's a crutch that will be taken away ASAP. If you don't want to practice that's your business but again I wouldn't blame scrim partners for not wanting to play if all you wanted to do was abuse a bug like double ult which is here today and gone tomorrow. remember infinitedie yorick? lol he ults you, you are doomed to be killed over and over for the rest of the game.
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On April 20 2012 22:38 mordek wrote:I wasn't able to replicate the ult bug in my games last night
Still possible with smart-casting, just dont move your cursor before you spam the ults.
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Bug real dumb. Be sure to ban Viktor unless you plan on first picking him or you want to roll the dice on instalose.
Hope this gets fixed ASAP.
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Double ult isn't a guranteed win in games, especially if their team is spread out. You need good synergy with teammates, like jarvan or alistar, to really exploit the bug.
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On April 22 2012 09:40 Blanke wrote: Double ult isn't a guranteed win in games, especially if their team is spread out. You need good synergy with teammates, like jarvan or alistar, to really exploit the bug.
don't kid yourself,
-it's prohibative to trades in lane - if he gets the stun on his prison thing it's a 100% kill -Fed Viktor E is enough for teamfights even if he dosen't hit your entire team with ult
if it were not for the fact that only like 10% of the player population even owns Viktor I would first ban him until it's patched out.
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I hate how people seem to think Viktor is only good because of his retarded ult bug.
Of course he isn't the best pick compared to a lot of other mages, but he is damn good.
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not saying that
I'm saying the ult makes him a must ban.
being good =/= must ban, most people don't ban Cass unless they plan to pick Ryze and I don't think anyone thinks she is UP
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Is the ult bug still in the game? i've been playing him a lot and haven't seen it occur once. Also Viktor is so much fun, i bought him at release and didn't play him much until recently. Only thing i'm bad with is his stun, i can never land it.
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I'm pretty sure that the double ultimate bug is still in the game and the invisible glitchy laser is definitely still in the game. Double ulti I'm pretty sure of because there's no other way that viktor should be able to 100-0 me on maokai with merc treads, MR runes and a heart of gold without being in his gravity field.
Also I've been running into a disturbing trend lately.
Viktors are running normal AP runes, (Ap/level blues, mpen reds, flat AP quints,any yellows (I've seen some running flat/scaling AP yellows and that makes this worse) and going boots+3 pots straight into augment: death on their first b.
What this is doing is giving him a 0.91 scaling, huge range skill that takes off 267 (+0.91) magic damage before resists at around level 7. The laser bugging out probably gave rise to this trend but with just AP quints/blues a little math:
At this point, viktor should have 15+10.8 AP from quints/blues, another 10 from masteries and 66 from his hexcore, giving 102 AP (An absolutely monstrous amount at this point in the game)
Most of the APs I play have around 1000-1100 health at this stage with double dorans rings. I run +21 MR against viktor nowadays so I have 51 MR. With mpen reds, that's 42.5 meaning spells do 70% damage.
Viktor's E (rank 4) does 267+93 damage at this point, for 360 damage, 252 after resists, a quarter of most mage's health from a skill that can't be dodged since it can't be seen half the time.
It's a bit of QQ but also a reason why I've been banning him in ranked games for the last few weeks. If the Viktor decides to, he can win mid by trying to hit you with his laser on cooldown and there's nothing you can do to avoid the damage, little you can do to mitigate it and very little you can do to counter it unless you're kassadin or leblanc.
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Rejoice, there's also a bug where the laser go through people and doesn't hurt them at all.
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On April 26 2012 19:37 Lmui wrote: I'm pretty sure that the double ultimate bug is still in the game and the invisible glitchy laser is definitely still in the game. Double ulti I'm pretty sure of because there's no other way that viktor should be able to 100-0 me on maokai with merc treads, MR runes and a heart of gold without being in his gravity field.
Also I've been running into a disturbing trend lately.
Viktors are running normal AP runes, (Ap/level blues, mpen reds, flat AP quints,any yellows (I've seen some running flat/scaling AP yellows and that makes this worse) and going boots+3 pots straight into augment: death on their first b.
What this is doing is giving him a 0.91 scaling, huge range skill that takes off 267 (+0.91) magic damage before resists at around level 7. The laser bugging out probably gave rise to this trend but with just AP quints/blues a little math:
At this point, viktor should have 15+10.8 AP from quints/blues, another 10 from masteries and 66 from his hexcore, giving 102 AP (An absolutely monstrous amount at this point in the game)
Most of the APs I play have around 1000-1100 health at this stage with double dorans rings. I run +21 MR against viktor nowadays so I have 51 MR. With mpen reds, that's 42.5 meaning spells do 70% damage.
Viktor's E (rank 4) does 267+93 damage at this point, for 360 damage, 252 after resists, a quarter of most mage's health from a skill that can't be dodged since it can't be seen half the time.
It's a bit of QQ but also a reason why I've been banning him in ranked games for the last few weeks. If the Viktor decides to, he can win mid by trying to hit you with his laser on cooldown and there's nothing you can do to avoid the damage, little you can do to mitigate it and very little you can do to counter it unless you're kassadin or leblanc.
Those are the runes I run, but I'm personally not a huge fan of rushing straight to the augment. It's too all or nothing. It leaves Viktor a bit squishier and with less Mp5. It causes him to have a much smaller margin of error.
If he does this, rush a Negatron and get your jungler to gank. Also, avoid his laser as best you can. Because he's relying on his laser to absolutely hit, if he misses, punish him. Since he's squishier, he should be much easier to gank, and if he misses his laser, he's going to struggle a bit more with mana.
Yes, the augment makes his early-mid game absolutely terrifying. But play safer and punish the all-in strat. If you can get ganks off and shut down his early-mid game, he really struggles late game.
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AP quints? Why not MS, since keeping his distance is really important to him?
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AP quints for doing ze killings. Since all of viktor's spells travel slow as balls and he doesn't have any sort of on-demand cc, it's not that important to have MS quints for offensive purposes. Using MS quints defensively also rarely matters because he doesn't kite people so much as he deters people from trying to get to him by using W and blowing them up.
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As much as I love MS quints (believe me, I freaking love them), I generally run AP quints on all my mages. It's especially good on Viktor because of how strong his early-mid game is. I can't stress it enough. That extra flat AP early just makes it even better.
Since his 1-4 is a bit weaker, he needs to be able to reliably deter people from wanting to jump him. MS quints are nice to just avoid it sometimes, but it's not my play style. I like to be more aggressive mid.
Also, when getting ganked, MS quints won't save you from a targeted hard CC (like Ryze W), so once people are on top of you, being able to dish out that extra damage while getting away with your W helps. The extra AP also helps with the shield on Q.
I do have a page with MS quints, but I don't use it much. I just prefer the AP quints in general.
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I'm starting to switch up my build order and get DCap right after Augment and before Wota. It just makes him so much more powerful. I've also been playing around with AP/lvl blues against the mages I can get away with it on (instead of MR blues) just to help out Vik's later game a bit. With the early DCap, you can really get the ball rolling and start snowballing very very hard. At some point, I'm going to play around with Kage's Pick -> 1 DRing -> Augment -> DCap, and then get the DFG at some point later on (cuz Vik's burst totally isn't good enough already, right?)
I'm also adding a VoD from the LAN tournament in CT last night. The enemy skill level wasn't incredibly high, but I feel I played Viktor really really well that game, so it's probably a good watch for anyone trying to figure him out.
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Nearing 90% WR with Viktor. I know I'm bad, and it probably seems like I'm bandwagoning on Soniv's success but I swear I've loved Vik since the beginning and didn't understand how people thought he was bad. (Arguable he is much better now since the Q buff.) Wish they'd fix his damn laser though.
Anyway, what are people's thoughts on Athene's? Just had a lane where I was shut down hard early against a Morde (and failed Shyvana ganks). I couldn't farm under turret early and was taking too much harass from Morde's E to get in and laser shit, and even when I could it eats up mana REAL fast early.
Whereas I normally rush Dcap after the 2xring Augment start, this time I felt it necessary to grab the extra Mres and CDR/mregen from Athene's before so I could harass more (and incidentally be less scared of Fiddle.) I might have grabbed an Abyssal instead or after chalice but before finishing Athene's except our Kennen already had one. (I also tend not to grab WotA in favor of extra beefiness after Dcap in most games in the form of Rylai's/Abyssal)
Thoughts?
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On June 30 2012 00:13 WaveofShadow wrote: Nearing 90% WR with Viktor. I know I'm bad, and it probably seems like I'm bandwagoning on Soniv's success but I swear I've loved Vik since the beginning and didn't understand how people thought he was bad. (Arguable he is much better now since the Q buff.) Wish they'd fix his damn laser though.
Anyway, what are people's thoughts on Athene's? Just had a lane where I was shut down hard early against a Morde (and failed Shyvana ganks). I couldn't farm under turret early and was taking too much harass from Morde's E to get in and laser shit, and even when I could it eats up mana REAL fast early.
Whereas I normally rush Dcap after the 2xring Augment start, this time I felt it necessary to grab the extra Mres and CDR/mregen from Athene's before so I could harass more (and incidentally be less scared of Fiddle.) I might have grabbed an Abyssal instead or after chalice but before finishing Athene's except our Kennen already had one. (I also tend not to grab WotA in favor of extra beefiness after Dcap in most games in the form of Rylai's/Abyssal)
Thoughts?
I'm pretty iffy on Athene's. I think it's a great item, but is more suitable for champions with a kit more geared to supporting your team (Galio, Anivia, etc.) or sustained damage champs (Swain). Viktor can be built as more of a tanky sustain damage mage, so I think Athene's could be decent on him.
However, if you want to use Viktor as a burst mage (which, I believe, is what he's best at), then I don't think Athene's works the best. In your situation, a tankier build may have been a good choice. In which case, sure, Athene's works, especially if you already have an Abyssal on your team.
I'm just curious, what made you lose the lane against Morde so hard? Viktor vs. Morde is generally a lane I don't mind. It lets me farm pretty hard if I do it right, and if I capitalize on the right moments (between his CDs and when his shield is lower) I can generally kill him or force him out of lane.
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I'm just curious, what made you lose the lane against Morde so hard? Viktor vs. Morde is generally a lane I don't mind. It lets me farm pretty hard if I do it right, and if I capitalize on the right moments (between his CDs and when his shield is lower) I can generally kill him or force him out of lane. Maybe I overexaggerated a bit I guess, but I'll explain. ( I remember specifically at one point having like 2 cs to his 16) From level 1-4 or so he sits in the minions wave and clears it with usual AoE, sometimes saving E to try and hit me along with the minion wave if I get close to try and autoattack to last hit. I can hit him with Q/E every so often when his cds aren't up, but low early damage means I don't burst through the shield very hard, and since his full minion wave is now heading to my turret I need to use mana to farm rather than harass.
A failed gank and bait from our Shyv nets him an early kill on me so now he's even further ahead. Eventually my damage caught up and I was able to burst him a little harder and since E now has some levels in it I can clear minions better with it from range. I roam, grab some kills and even though his cs is crazy high (he was farming our wraiths as well, I couldn't stop him alone) teamfights are ours every time and we win.
I probably misplayed it and took too much of his harass early tbh, and outside factors kinda helped to screw me early but I caught up eventually. It's funny because someone yelled at me during the game 'If you're getting fucked so hard why would you 2nd pick Viktor if he's so easily countered?" And I was like o.o DON'T NO ONE COUNTER MA VIKTOR
I think I might watch the replay and see exactly where I went wrong.
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On June 30 2012 03:02 WaveofShadow wrote:Show nested quote +I'm just curious, what made you lose the lane against Morde so hard? Viktor vs. Morde is generally a lane I don't mind. It lets me farm pretty hard if I do it right, and if I capitalize on the right moments (between his CDs and when his shield is lower) I can generally kill him or force him out of lane. Maybe I overexaggerated a bit I guess, but I'll explain. ( I remember specifically at one point having like 2 cs to his 16) From level 1-4 or so he sits in the minions wave and clears it with usual AoE, sometimes saving E to try and hit me along with the minion wave if I get close to try and autoattack to last hit. I can hit him with Q/E every so often when his cds aren't up, but low early damage means I don't burst through the shield very hard, and since his full minion wave is now heading to my turret I need to use mana to farm rather than harass. A failed gank and bait from our Shyv nets him an early kill on me so now he's even further ahead. Eventually my damage caught up and I was able to burst him a little harder and since E now has some levels in it I can clear minions better with it from range. I roam, grab some kills and even though his cs is crazy high (he was farming our wraiths as well, I couldn't stop him alone) teamfights are ours every time and we win. I probably misplayed it and took too much of his harass early tbh, and outside factors kinda helped to screw me early but I caught up eventually. It's funny because someone yelled at me during the game 'If you're getting fucked so hard why would you 2nd pick Viktor if he's so easily countered?" And I was like o.o DON'T NO ONE COUNTER MA VIKTOR I think I might watch the replay and see exactly where I went wrong.
I always fp Viktor - 0 fucks given in solo queue.
The trick to early laning against Morde is to do your best to either not get hit with his cone, or to trade the damage with him. His abilities cost health, and it's enough health early that he has to be careful about it. Viktor's auto attack is very responsive. You should be able to quickly pop some AAs on him to get his shield down and hit his health bar. One thing I like to do is pretend to walk towards my minions and juke away at the last second, baiting his E. If he doesn't hit a champ with skills, the amount he gets as a shield is much less and more manageable.
But yeah, giving Morde an early kill instantly makes your life a living hell. Also, if your jungler lacks presence around your lane, or if you're behind, Morde can pretty much free farm your wraiths without worrying - but that's true for most AP mids, not unique to Viktor.
One thing I've been meaning to try with Viktor is getting a 2nd point in Q early (possibly delaying W til 8, else sacrificing the 1 point in E til a little later). This is something that Aranium does (2k-ish player with ~200 ranked Viktor games I think). He builds Viktor a bit differently than I do, but I think the 2nd point in Q has some merit in certain lane matchups. Viktor vs. Morde lane is probably one of those. It gives you nice base damage to punish Morde for getting close, and it gives you a bit more shield and lower CD to keep punishing.
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Ah I didn't realize you don't put the 2nd point in Q...I personally always do. It makes most iffy trades immediately favourable for Viktor. In this case against Morde I didn't since I knew I'd need E for safe long-range harass and farming, but I can see how stronger Q works well also (I'm just really bad at analyzing when to and when not to trade). I'm certain I screwed up early in the lane by taking harass and not giving back...I guess I'm always just surprised how tiny little advantages like that are enough to make you win/lose a lane if nothing else is done.
As for delaying W until 8, I don't think there's any way I could do that in the era of behind-the-turret jungle Alistar ganks. Way too paranoid about getting baited/ganked early before I have the chance to go back for a ward to leave it up to Flash. My standard build is QEQWEREQ and so on.
Edit: Damn it, my replay of that specific game is broken for some reason. Oh well, I still think I know where I went wrong.
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On June 30 2012 03:35 WaveofShadow wrote: Ah I didn't realize you don't put the 2nd point in Q...I personally always do. It makes most iffy trades immediately favourable for Viktor. In this case against Morde I didn't since I knew I'd need E for safe long-range harass and farming, but I can see how stronger Q works well also (I'm just really bad at analyzing when to and when not to trade). I'm certain I screwed up early in the lane by taking harass and not giving back...I guess I'm always just surprised how tiny little advantages like that are enough to make you win/lose a lane if nothing else is done.
As for delaying W until 8, I don't think there's any way I could do that in the era of behind-the-turret jungle Alistar ganks. Way too paranoid about getting baited/ganked early before I have the chance to go back for a ward to leave it up to Flash. My standard build is QEQWEREQ and so on.
Oh, if I'm going against a jungler who has strong ganks, having W early (even lvl 3) is almost a must. The reason I don't get a 2nd point in Q early is because I really like having Rank 5 E at lvl 9. It coincides extremely nicely with the 2 DRing/Augment that I will be getting right around that point.
But that's what I like about Viktor, you can really adapt him to your play style. I personally love having the ridiculous power of E as early as I can. But at the same time, I definitely see the merit in having that 2nd rank in Q early. I've also seen a few people at higher level have success with building tankier and getting W Augment to be more of a support-like mage.
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Hey Soniv, how do you deal with long range mages? I just played against a Xerath and while I wasn't really troubled by his combos (I could pretty much evade 80% of his Qs and he made it obvious when he wanted to EQ so I just dodged it, while keeping up in cs) my Q was basically useless past the first few levels as once he had some AP and regen he just sat behind and cast spells to last hit, leaving me with only the laser (can OS minions by level 3 with augment:death, but you also need a blue buff or drings to have the mana regen to overcome its prohibitive mana cost).
Long story short, I was outfarming him a bit and harassing him despite their jungler coming several times and ours never, but then said jungler followed me in our jungle and though we burst him down when I turned Xerath got a double kill and bought a blasting wand to match my death augment. It was also right after the junglers handed the second blue to us, so he kept his for quite awhile and that allowed him to spam (esp. the cdr) while I could only laser once to clear the wave and occasionally for some harass.
After that, he never lost his lead (and even increased it) as even though he wasn't very good and missed me most of the time, , even 2/3rd of an ult and a EQ combo would truck me, while my Q and R were too short range to allow me to reasonably harass him down before going in for the kill (did it once, he just flashed out of my ult range with 20hp left after ignite).
How are those match-ups in your experience? Passive farming, with a bit of harass when you can get it, hoping they won't abuse their range advantage to get aggressive on you?
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One of Viktor's weaknesses is against mages who never get within range to be attacked. This can be either mages who can farm from a long distance (Xerath, Karthus, etc.) or mages who just choose to turn the lane into a farm fest (Morgana, Galio, etc.) It's just an inherent weakness in his kit that you can't really do much about.
In my experience, you can't do much about the long range mages. You just have to cs and then wait for a mid game team fight to dominate in. If you're capable, push the wave in, and then counter jungle or gank other lanes.
It's pretty much the same deal with the farm fest mages. However, often times they can just avoid mid game team fights altogether (if the team plays it right), and you slowly become more obsolete as the game goes on. The difference here is that if they do choose to go aggressive too soon, they will be in range for you to destroy, and then you can snowball this little lead.
Best advise is to just do your best to capitalize on mistakes. Viktor isn't that good against Xerath unless you can flash combo him when he sieges up.
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I'm wondering actually (since I used to play Xerath quite a bit) how it was you didn't just stomp him really hard early on? Xerath's early game mana costs are very high and if you spam Q (your harass is 40 mana vs his 70+) you should be able to gain a very sizable lead on him or force him back real early. I do understand that he was getting jungle help, but yeah, Xerath's early game is VERY bad until he can start oneshotting ranged creeps from his turret. and combo the shit out of you with his ult.
Also did this Xerath miss his ultimate a lot? I'm just wondering since I'm kind of afraid to play him now with the nerf to his ult and I figure it's going to take me a long time to get used to the cast time increase.
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I tried to, but as I said his jungler came several times (jungle Shen, didn't get banned, meh) and that was before the first back so I was out of wards to be able to safely go on him. He went oom once but then his jungler appeared again and we both had to back (me because he did and I didn't want to end up behind). Maybe I didn't spam aggressively enough.
He did miss a lot of Qs after his E (I didn't retaliate immediatly as I basically zigzag-ed around him until he missed his Q, mine's animation would have been too slow so he mainly wasted mana on those), and he often missed his first ult because I was moving. If he managed to hit with the first one, he'd generally be able to hit the others unless I flashed.
I think it had more to do with him obviously being bad at skillshots (most long-range Qs he hit his target was in a straight line too): he could have hit more if he lead his ults correctly but he more or less piled them at the same point unless I dodged the first by far where he'd adjust. I'd say it's more getting used to it and not trying to instaburst your target now—but seeing how it's the way we learnt to play him I may not be easy for all (I know it won't for me).
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couple questions about viktor:
1) His E.. does it work well with smartcasting? Do you recommend smartcasting?
2) Do you still get wota in its current nerfed state? I can understand picking up a revolver in some lanes where you're trading a lot, but I think leaving it at revolver and then going dcap or rylai's is probably better
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On July 04 2012 03:34 Perplex wrote: couple questions about viktor:
1) His E.. does it work well with smartcasting? Do you recommend smartcasting?
2) Do you still get wota in its current nerfed state? I can understand picking up a revolver in some lanes where you're trading a lot, but I think leaving it at revolver and then going dcap or rylai's is probably better No and no, personally. I don't even like revolver on him, honestly since he already trades really well and relies mostly on huge burst I'd rather rely on high-AP items and Rylai's/Athene's/Abyssal when I need some tankiness.
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On July 04 2012 03:34 Perplex wrote: couple questions about viktor:
1) His E.. does it work well with smartcasting? Do you recommend smartcasting?
2) Do you still get wota in its current nerfed state? I can understand picking up a revolver in some lanes where you're trading a lot, but I think leaving it at revolver and then going dcap or rylai's is probably better
I don't smart cast it. It's personal preference, I just don't like the way it flows. I have very good accuracy without smart cast, and I don't want to mess with that. If you can get used to smart casting it and you do well with it, I see no reason not to smart cast it.
If I get wota, I get it late. Like, I even get revolver after DCap now. Q does heal a lot with spell vamp, as does a full clear on minions. However, with the new wota cost, I find myself not wanting to commit the time and money early to wota, and rather go for other items. After I complete different items, then I'll complete the wota. It really depends on the flow of the game.
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WotA is more utility, and then some damage, considering the AP it provides, while Viktor likes AP to go with his ratios and his power peak midgame, so the new WotA is paying a lot of money for mostly utility, which doesn't suit his needs. I was playing him bruiserish when he came out (WotA, Rylai, Abyssal/QSS, Zhonya—the QSS had a lot to do with the fact that W and R used to disappear on death, which made it annoying to get bursted down before your dps could heal you or you cast that clutch Q), but now I find that 2 drings/augment:death/rabaddon does a lot more for his burst, which is what I want. It's a bit harder to play, as the spellvamp allowed you to take more risks while poking your opponents lower before the burst, and with dcap you can burst from higher but have to account for the movespeed of the singularity in case they flash out or simply run.
Regarding E and smartcast... I turned it on once. Couldn't cast it while moving for the life of me, too weird. It was a coop. vs AI game. Never turned it on again.
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On July 04 2012 04:08 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 03:34 Perplex wrote: couple questions about viktor:
1) His E.. does it work well with smartcasting? Do you recommend smartcasting?
2) Do you still get wota in its current nerfed state? I can understand picking up a revolver in some lanes where you're trading a lot, but I think leaving it at revolver and then going dcap or rylai's is probably better I don't smart cast it. It's personal preference, I just don't like the way it flows. I have very good accuracy without smart cast, and I don't want to mess with that. If you can get used to smart casting it and you do well with it, I see no reason not to smart cast it. If I get wota, I get it late. Like, I even get revolver after DCap now. Q does heal a lot with spell vamp, as does a full clear on minions. However, with the new wota cost, I find myself not wanting to commit the time and money early to wota, and rather go for other items. After I complete different items, then I'll complete the wota. It really depends on the flow of the game. Pretty much this.
Going for early Wota just isn't worth it anymore. What I normally do now (or plan to do now - haven't that often recently), is get dcap and if fights are more drawn out or where I receive prolonged sustained dmg I would get a revolver. Other wise I would normally complete something like Rylais/Abyssal (I don't get Void until a bit later). But then again variations will occur - as some games go differently than others.
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Ugh. Riot is saying that they are going to buff Viktor's Q and W (in terms of their augments). I wonder if they still want to fix his broken laser or did they give up... I feel that Viktor's E needs a big buff should his laser gets fixed.
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Do you even read what you wrote before you hit "post"? Why in the hell would that be necessary?
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On July 04 2012 03:34 Perplex wrote: couple questions about viktor:
1) His E.. does it work well with smartcasting? Do you recommend smartcasting?
Just to chime in here - I have been playing a bit of Viktor lately, and have found smartcasting his E to be rather intuitive.
It works like this: When you press the hotkey down, you place the start point for the laser. You can then move your mouse to aim its direction while the key is still pressed. It will fire when you release the key. It reminds me of gesture clicks from the Myth games when done fast (this probably doesn't help anyone). I find I can fire off a laser quickly and accurately.
The one major downside is the lack of the range indicator, making it harder to get max range out of the laser.
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On August 03 2012 08:26 StrigHT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 03:34 Perplex wrote: couple questions about viktor:
1) His E.. does it work well with smartcasting? Do you recommend smartcasting?
Just to chime in here - I have been playing a bit of Viktor lately, and have found smartcasting his E to be rather intuitive. It works like this: When you press the hotkey down, you place the start point for the laser. You can then move your mouse to aim its direction while the key is still pressed. It will fire when you release the key. It reminds me of gesture clicks from the Myth games when done fast (this probably doesn't help anyone). I find I can fire off a laser quickly and accurately. The one major downside is the lack of the range indicator, making it harder to get max range out of the laser.
Whatever works for you mang, I use dumbcast.
I will be updating this thread eventually...just need to actually commit to it, and I'm lazy.
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On August 03 2012 10:21 jcarlsoniv wrote: I will be updating this thread eventually...just need to actually commit to it, and I'm lazy. ^ less moonflowers, more pew pew guide updating.
Also, DFG range: 750. Q range: 600 R range: 700 Viktor's burst: around 2.6 AP ratio with Death augment and assuming people eat 2 ticks of Chaos Storm (does it tick immediatly, or starting a whole second after cast?), and 597 damage from R>E>Q>W @7 (assuming one point in W).
That's a lot, but nothing like an assassin. Add in a DFG for ~29% of current health at the start of the burst, and it's suddenly way more likely to kill people. I'm not too sure about it as Viktor's just so good at harassing people with laser until they're brought into killing range whether you've got a DFG or not, and using R and Q is more likely to happen either when you're defending yourself in a teamfight (where DFG would arguably give you a chance to kill your opponent and live to send another rotation in the enemy team's faces) or when you're laning... and the augment cost does slow down your DFG buy, and hence the window in which you can use it before the laning phase ends.
What do our Viktor players here think?
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On September 10 2012 20:33 Alaric wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2012 10:21 jcarlsoniv wrote: I will be updating this thread eventually...just need to actually commit to it, and I'm lazy. ^ less moonflowers, more pew pew guide updating. Also, DFG range: 750. Q range: 600 R range: 700 Viktor's burst: around 2.6 AP ratio with Death augment and assuming people eat 2 ticks of Chaos Storm (does it tick immediatly, or starting a whole second after cast?), and 597 damage from R>E>Q>W @7 (assuming one point in W). That's a lot, but nothing like an assassin. Add in a DFG for ~29% of current health at the start of the burst, and it's suddenly way more likely to kill people. I'm not too sure about it as Viktor's just so good at harassing people with laser until they're brought into killing range whether you've got a DFG or not, and using R and Q is more likely to happen either when you're defending yourself in a teamfight (where DFG would arguably give you a chance to kill your opponent and live to send another rotation in the enemy team's faces) or when you're laning... and the augment cost does slow down your DFG buy, and hence the window in which you can use it before the laning phase ends. What do our Viktor player s here think?
shhh...
I haven't played TOO much with DFG, but the few times I have I didn't like it that much. Theoretically it should work - more burst, CDR, all of it is good. But yeah, what you said is partially true. The augment delays it and it kinda feels awkward delaying dcap even more as well, and you would have a Kage's instead of 2 DRings in lane, which leaves you more fragile while getting there.
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i have only tried him once, but i liked him. prolly my next buy ^^ he is waay too underplayed
I originally had a pretty long post about viktor, then accidentally managed to delete the content. I'll rewrite it once I had overcome my sorrow.
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On September 10 2012 21:11 Antyee wrote: i have only tried him once, but i liked him. prolly my next buy ^^ he is waay too underplayed
I originally had a pretty long post about viktor, then accidentally managed to delete the content. I'll rewrite it once I had overcome my sorrow.
For as strong of a champion as he is, it is astounding that he is the 7th least played champ. I don't really mind, as long as Riot doesn't take that as a sign that he needs massive overhauls. He is almost perfectly fine the way he is, he's just gone unnoticed because many pros (including scarra) have very ignorantly said he's bad.
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DFG is good in an isolated situation, but considering viktors role as a zoner, and a poke, DFG is not critically important, but what is amazingly nice about DFG, is the CDR. Viktor has semi-long cd on his E, so cdr from DFG helps, but I could see going athenes unholy grail being more useful for viktor.
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The thing with DFG is it just doesn't fit. At least, not for the way I want to play Viktor. It's a great item, has stuff he wants (burst, CDR), but in the build it's awkward. You get Kage's early, and you're weaker in lane. Well that's not really what I want, I want to dominate my lane. It also delays your dcap and/or your augment (depending on how you decide to itemize it). Well that's not what I want either.
With Viktor, you need to translate early power into a mid-late game advantage. If you don't do that, you'll be struggling. The DFG build comes at not quite the right time and makes it weird.
That's not to say it doesn't work. If you can find a way that DFG really fits well, then awesome. For example, off the top of my head, it might be worth trying against Morgana. You can't really be entirely aggressive against Morg in lane, so all you can do is farm and try to win the early team fights. Unfortunately, the Kage's will still leave you fragile, but if you can match Morg's passivity, it might be worth it.
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On September 11 2012 01:02 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2012 21:11 Antyee wrote: i have only tried him once, but i liked him. prolly my next buy ^^ he is waay too underplayed
I originally had a pretty long post about viktor, then accidentally managed to delete the content. I'll rewrite it once I had overcome my sorrow. For as strong of a champion as he is, it is astounding that he is the 7th least played champ. I don't really mind, as long as Riot doesn't take that as a sign that he needs massive overhauls. He is almost perfectly fine the way he is, he's just gone unnoticed because many pros (including scarra) have very ignorantly said he's bad.
I am PRETTY sure scarra thinks Viktor is ok. He even played him yesterday.
No I don't think he is fine. His augments are not balanced right now.
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On September 11 2012 10:52 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 01:02 jcarlsoniv wrote:On September 10 2012 21:11 Antyee wrote: i have only tried him once, but i liked him. prolly my next buy ^^ he is waay too underplayed
I originally had a pretty long post about viktor, then accidentally managed to delete the content. I'll rewrite it once I had overcome my sorrow. For as strong of a champion as he is, it is astounding that he is the 7th least played champ. I don't really mind, as long as Riot doesn't take that as a sign that he needs massive overhauls. He is almost perfectly fine the way he is, he's just gone unnoticed because many pros (including scarra) have very ignorantly said he's bad. I am PRETTY sure scarra thinks Viktor is ok. He even played him yesterday. No I don't think he is fine. His augments are not balanced right now.
About a month ago scarra was explaining on stream that he didn't think Viktor was good. That could very well have changed since then. Still, there are no well known pros who stream frequently and play Viktor at a consistent basis for people to latch on.
Viktor's E augment is balanced. It allows him to be a burst mage and do it very well. His Q and W augments are lackluster, and I'm sure they are being looked at. I think the E augment should stay the same while the others are brought up to its relative power to offer more options.
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I believe they want to increase the variety, and also the way his augment would be able to scale into the late game to make up for the slot they take.
Scarra said recently that he tought Viktor was kinda good, but not played. I don't remember well which other reasons he gave as to why he isn't played competitively, but I do the fact that it annoyed me. Shhh Scarra.
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that OP is one of the dumbest OPs I have ever read how did that make front page?
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On September 13 2012 01:27 Slusher wrote: that OP is one of the dumbest OPs I have ever read how did that make front page? REDDIT.
Is that even a question?
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Predictable item path = bad champion I mean really?
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Don't you know? Buying Augment: Death compels you to push, which means you'll stand stupidly in front of the enemy tower after you one shot the enemy creep wave. Then the jungler comes and kills you and there's nothing you could have possibly done to stop it.
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On September 13 2012 01:41 Slusher wrote: Predictable item path = bad champion I mean really? The guys premise is fine its just his conclusion that is wrong. He's right in that Death outclasses the other augments, he's wrong in what that means.
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On September 13 2012 01:41 Slusher wrote: Predictable item path = bad champion I mean really? Well, that's the reason all ADs suck, right? And Supports?
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On September 13 2012 01:51 Hyren wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2012 01:41 Slusher wrote: Predictable item path = bad champion I mean really? The guys premise is fine its just his conclusion that is wrong. He's right in that Death outclasses the other augments, he's wrong in what that means.
well then it's still a dumb post because there is already a riot red thread looking for suggestions on other augments.
"Viktor doesn't have much viability in the current meta" not true
"I appreciate that he is an extremely strong poke champion, however that comes naturally with his skills" this is like saying, I know cassio has a mechanic to reset the cd on her E but lets pretend for a moment that you can't. If Vik didn't have good poke, he WOULD be a terrible champion, but he does, and is S tier poke.
"This lack of versatility makes Viktor an extremely weak pick because it is very easy to predict his item build and counter accordingly" He says you can get ganked if you get death (covered by seuss) or you show your hand that you are ganking if you get we the other one is, which I don't know the name because you shouldn't have bought it.
like I don't know what you want me to say here, it's a bad op
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On September 13 2012 01:54 Slusher wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2012 01:51 Hyren wrote:On September 13 2012 01:41 Slusher wrote: Predictable item path = bad champion I mean really? The guys premise is fine its just his conclusion that is wrong. He's right in that Death outclasses the other augments, he's wrong in what that means. well then it's still a dumb post because there is already a riot red thread looking for suggestions on other augments. "Viktor doesn't have much viability in the current meta" not true "I appreciate that he is an extremely strong poke champion, however that comes naturally with his skills" this is like saying, I know cassio has a mechanic to reset the cd on her E but lets pretend for a moment that you can't. If Vik didn't have good poke, he WOULD be a terrible champion, but he does, and is S tier poke. "This lack of versatility makes Viktor an extremely weak pick because it is very easy to predict his item build and counter accordingly" He says you can get ganked if you get death (covered by seuss) or you show your hand that you are ganking if you get we the other one is, which I don't know the name because you shouldn't have bought it. like I don't know what you want me to say here, it's a bad op No I agree with you that its bad
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Viktor is fine, remove the other 2 augments so baddies stop complaining about buffing them
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Hum i've been toying around a bit and tried viktor with mpen red, ap/lvl yellow and blue and ms quints. I'm building boots 3x pot > chalice > augment death > deathcap Seems to work ok, i like ms quints because you get the mobility viktor lacks and you're ap/lvl runes are just crazy good with the addition of viktor's passive and the 21/0/9 masteries. Chalice is just because i dont like dorans that much, gives mana regen + mr (that you dont have from runes) and you can upgrade it in athene's which i think is not that bad either on viktor since it gives you some ap, cdr and manaregen (i feel both are good since you're a poke champ)
Problem is i dont really know what to build after deathcap, rylai's seems nice but i'd rather go athene's or even void staff if they go the usual abyssal mid/mercs and aegis everywhere. Dunno :/
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I'm not going to dignify that reddit post with a post of my own. It's bad, and OP should feel bad.
I also disagree with the sentiment that augments should scale better into late game. No. Just no. His death augment provides an incredibly strong (borderline OP) early-mid to late game phase. If they were to make late game improvements (ie. a second augment upgrade), they would need to nerf the mid game power, and that's not what I want. They should, though, do something about the other two augments to make them usable. They're really not that bad, they're just overshadowed because most people build Viktor as a burst mage, and E augment caters very well to that.
On September 13 2012 02:52 StateAlchemist wrote: Hum i've been toying around a bit and tried viktor with mpen red, ap/lvl yellow and blue and ms quints. I'm building boots 3x pot > chalice > augment death > deathcap Seems to work ok, i like ms quints because you get the mobility viktor lacks and you're ap/lvl runes are just crazy good with the addition of viktor's passive and the 21/0/9 masteries. Chalice is just because i dont like dorans that much, gives mana regen + mr (that you dont have from runes) and you can upgrade it in athene's which i think is not that bad either on viktor since it gives you some ap, cdr and manaregen (i feel both are good since you're a poke champ)
Problem is i dont really know what to build after deathcap, rylai's seems nice but i'd rather go athene's or even void staff if they go the usual abyssal mid/mercs and aegis everywhere. Dunno :/
I think chalice and Athene's are quite good items on Viktor. I don't usually go that route only because I really like the way 2 DRings works with his early game. I could certainly see it working against something like Morgana or Karthus (champs you can't usually be overly aggressive on), but to be honest, I haven't experimented with that much.
Your rune choice is incredibly aggressive. I like it, but in reality, it doesn't always work out that way. It leaves you really vulnerable when you don't have some armor yellows and MR blues. If it's working for you, and you know when you play safe enough, then I don't see any massively pressing reason to urge you to change it (you'll just be super super squishy).
I like going Void Staff right after DCap, and I also like just building Abyssal in general now. It still gives good MR, and often my enemies are on top of me to utilize the aura. I'll generally go a zhonya's after abyssal.
(yeah yeah yeah, I know, I need to update op...)
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Hey man, update the OP.
I think Chalice is an interesting build for him. Always push lane, never not push lane.
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it really depends on how the game is going. If they are gap closers and are focusing you and shit - well I would get Zhonyas after Deathcap, use entire cycle of spells if possible (including W) and just Zhonya dat shit up lol,
But if they have MR and you are generally safe etc as you mentioned just get Void staff,
Rylas is generally good on him too.
But I feel that the dorans rings are kinda needed early/mid game for you to be relevant damage wise. But chalice could work yea.
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I don't see how rylais would be a good buy for him... RoA is probably optimized better. his giant AOE slow on that gravity field thing, is more than enough slow, that he doesn't really need it on his Q and E.
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On September 13 2012 04:03 wei2coolman wrote: I don't see how rylais would be a good buy for him... RoA is probably optimized better. his giant AOE slow on that gravity field thing, is more than enough slow, that he doesn't really need it on his Q and E.
The slow on Q spam is real nice for chasing. MS quints kinda also help with that. That's why I've kinda stopped building Rylai's. I've gravitated more towards full burst mage than tankier.
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RoA is a crap load of mana you dont need and you generally want it first which viktor doesnt.
2Drings -> DCap -> Voidstaff/Zhonyas/Abyssal is what I do depending.
Rylais can be good later for kiting
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On September 13 2012 04:06 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2012 04:03 wei2coolman wrote: I don't see how rylais would be a good buy for him... RoA is probably optimized better. his giant AOE slow on that gravity field thing, is more than enough slow, that he doesn't really need it on his Q and E. The slow on Q spam is real nice for chasing. MS quints kinda also help with that. That's why I've kinda stopped building Rylai's. I've gravitated more towards full burst mage than tankier. yeah, i mentioned roa as a replacement item for rylais, not necessarily as a good item for viktor.
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I do boots+3 -> 2 drings -> death (sometimes 1dr -> death -> 1dr) with scaling mp5 yellows, flat AP blues and MS quints. It's always worked out in lane for me because death, laser level 3+ and a bit of AP from runes/drings is enough to instaclear the caster minions, and put the melee minions one auto away from death. The 2 drings are here more for mp5 purpose (and a bit of HP) than anything, really.
After DCap I generally build rylai starting with belt as it seems to help me live better. Since I tend to not use my ult until people have started to engage (either we have an initiator that gives me the signal, or I wait for their AP/AD carry to try and get in range of your team to blow him/them up, or I just send my clusterfuck of AoE on them if they stacked up foolishly), I generally don't feel like I need voidstaff since none of my targets build defensive items until later. I haven't seen too much abyssal rushes tho. I like grail for the cdr+mp5 but it gives AP quite late (if you start chalice) and after my DCap I like to get more AP faster. Also there's the problem of the number and cost of components, as Viktor is pretty slot-starved after his first major item.
Viktor's really good at cleaning up with some CDR and somebody to tank/peel for you, since you stay frail even with Zhonya and a MR item. Feels strange not to build spellvamp anymore as blue+Q spam is huge in giving you the edge when all big cds are expanded.
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On September 13 2012 04:03 wei2coolman wrote: I don't see how rylais would be a good buy for him... RoA is probably optimized better. his giant AOE slow on that gravity field thing, is more than enough slow, that he doesn't really need it on his Q and E.
Rylai is godly on Viktor. I wouldn't buy it as the first item, but definitely after DCAP. Kite forever with Q and E. Hue.
EDIT: btw, I feel that Viktor is getting "better" because people are starting to appreciate his Q more. Should his power augment get a buff I can see him being OP.
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Does this guy's E still glitch out and not show up when you strafe after shooting it? I recall tricking out so many people with this and basically poking them to death.
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any augment that is better than 30% more damage on your strongest nuke would have to be OP for anyone to ever buy it.
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What is the current build for viktor now that DFG got nerfed?
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On November 02 2012 19:36 Leonite7 wrote: What is the current build for viktor now that DFG got nerfed?
I never bought that stupid item on viktor
2Dring, augment, dcap, void staff, and then situational defense (abyssal, athene, zhonya)
After the dcap, you don't necessarily need void right away either. You can kinda branch out once you get cap.
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Is the abyssal really that useful? Seems like laser is mostly longer range poke, and the athena would be the go-to for MR days.
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On November 02 2012 23:52 sylverfyre wrote: Is the abyssal really that useful? Seems like laser is mostly longer range poke, and the athena would be the go-to for MR days.
Depends entirely on what you need. If you're going for strict poke/disengage comp, then absolutely get Athene's instead. If you're going to be jumped on a lot and/or in the direct middle of battle (which Viktor does well with Q + ult), then Abyssal works as well. Viktor is a fairly flexible champ.
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Vikor has taken over ahri as one of my favorite mid champs now.
damn you soniv.
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Vik is so damn fun... its not even fair xD
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I was wondering a bit earlier about Ahri anyway, since the nerfs on Abyssal and DFG kinda skewed her itemization, if she is nearly as good early as she was previously. Viktor is good, he's fun, and he shuffles. What could you ask for?
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I most certainly hope Vik doesnt get any buffs tbh ^^ I love him and not in a small part because he's so underplayed. If he becomes FotM he'll lose his charm for me =/
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On November 03 2012 03:54 Promises wrote: I most certainly hope Vik doesnt get any buffs tbh ^^ I love him and not in a small part because he's so underplayed. If he becomes FotM he'll lose his charm for me =/
He won't become FotM unless they really do something ridiculous. People are bad, and they can only play faceroll champs like Ahri or Kat. Give them anything they actually have to try with, and they fail hard. Same reason people can't play Syndra.
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On November 03 2012 03:59 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 03:54 Promises wrote: I most certainly hope Vik doesnt get any buffs tbh ^^ I love him and not in a small part because he's so underplayed. If he becomes FotM he'll lose his charm for me =/ He won't become FotM unless they really do something ridiculous. People are bad, and they can only play faceroll champs like Ahri or Kat. Give them anything they actually have to try with, and they fail hard. Same reason people can't play Syndra. People like you?
OH SICK BURN
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Well at least he is capable of decent casting. (Makes me remember I haven't checked your channel in several days, brb.)
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Careful there, Wave. I've got a super covert army of TLers behind me.
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Well we haven't heard of you feeding first blood for awhile. But that means we haven't heard of you feeding first blood then carrying either.
Damn, I'm using "well" way too much.
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On November 03 2012 03:59 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 03:54 Promises wrote: I most certainly hope Vik doesnt get any buffs tbh ^^ I love him and not in a small part because he's so underplayed. If he becomes FotM he'll lose his charm for me =/ He won't become FotM unless they really do something ridiculous. People are bad, and they can only play faceroll champs like Ahri or Kat. Give them anything they actually have to try with, and they fail hard. Same reason people can't play Syndra.
for some reason i take huge offense to this statement.
but it's from soniv, so it's k.
WHY YOU CALLING ME NO SKILL FACEROLL PLAYA
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On November 08 2012 11:23 Soloside wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 03:59 jcarlsoniv wrote:On November 03 2012 03:54 Promises wrote: I most certainly hope Vik doesnt get any buffs tbh ^^ I love him and not in a small part because he's so underplayed. If he becomes FotM he'll lose his charm for me =/ He won't become FotM unless they really do something ridiculous. People are bad, and they can only play faceroll champs like Ahri or Kat. Give them anything they actually have to try with, and they fail hard. Same reason people can't play Syndra. for some reason i take huge offense to this statement. but it's from soniv, so it's k. WHY YOU CALLING ME NO SKILL FACEROLL PLAYA
I've always accused you of using gimmicky things to get ahead. And I've also always tried to convince you to get good at something that isn't gimmicky, so that when it gets nerfed, you don't fall behind.
It's all outta love <3
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So, as i am a TLer and playing more and more mid, i had to give Viktor a try, thx to soniv and wave and all the other advertisers. Really funny. picked him specifically vs a katarina, figuring out he might be one of the better champs to play with against her. Worked well. I just maxed Q and was able to outtrade her pretty hard. But in the end, maxing e first seems to be the better thing to do over all, for wave clearing and so on. Do i need Q first vs champs like that, or am i just bad for relying on it?
Additionally, i was oom pretty fast, so, athenes first a good thing to do, or should i open with more ap stuff?
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you shouldn't go oom very fast if you q max and you have those mana regen yellows. I start maxing e after 6 and use ad quints reds and flat mr blues myself. most of your harass will be auto attack based and those extra ad will help you farm as well.
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I would be pretty conservative with using E until I get some mana regen going on (blue, or double dring) as it's a very mana-intensive spell until you buy the death augment. I go QEQEER, taking a point in W at level 8 (or sometimes 3 or 4 if I feel like it'll do the difference against junglers, but it's rare), R > E > Q > W. Once E is level 4 (so you're level 7) and you have death augment, you'll start one-shoting the caster minions (and even the melee minions with the DoT if you have some AP), but before that I pretty much restrain from using E unless I'm 100% sure to land it on my opponent or I've blue buff.
I generally just OS the wave once I get rolling, so I can steal wraiths or roam easily.
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God damnit, every time this gets bumped, you guys remind me that I keep forgetting to take time to update OP...
Viktor is a definite favor vs. Kat. You don't need to max Q, do what Alaric above says (QEQEER, R>E>Q>W, W at 8). That's my standard solo queue set up. It can vary depending on certain things though (if I absolutely need W at 4 because of imminent death).
You shouldn't be going oom on Viktor any more than any other mages really. It's just about proper mana management. Q is fairly low mana. As Alaric said, I also tend to refrain from E early on, although I think I'm more aggressive with it around lvl 4/5 than he is.
That said, Athene's certainly isn't a bad item on Viktor. Getting it early really just delays his early-mid game strength, which I'm personally hesitant to do. If it works for you, though, then go for it.
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On November 15 2012 11:25 jcarlsoniv wrote: God damnit, every time this gets bumped, you guys remind me that I keep forgetting to take time to update OP...
Viktor is a definite favor vs. Kat. You don't need to max Q, do what Alaric above says (QEQEER, R>E>Q>W, W at 8). That's my standard solo queue set up. It can vary depending on certain things though (if I absolutely need W at 4 because of imminent death).
You shouldn't be going oom on Viktor any more than any other mages really. It's just about proper mana management. Q is fairly low mana. As Alaric said, I also tend to refrain from E early on, although I think I'm more aggressive with it around lvl 4/5 than he is.
That said, Athene's certainly isn't a bad item on Viktor. Getting it early really just delays his early-mid game strength, which I'm personally hesitant to do. If it works for you, though, then go for it.
What are bad mid match ups for Viktor?
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I've had the most trouble against Zyra because it's incredibly hard to get close to her to be agressive.
Other annoying matchups are Karth/Morg because they can just sit and farm and not fight you if they really want.
Ahri can be a bit rough because she's so bouncy.
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God help any Viktor that has to face Annie. You're two of the best burst mages in the game, but she does it better because she has instant cc. The only hope I've had against her is to go all in at level 6. Flash and drop your combo+ignite.
I really don't like facing Swain as Vik. He out damages you pretty hard overall, so you need to poke him with e or shove the lane with it. Swain sucks at shoving back.
Ahri is a fun matchup from my experience. She can't mess up or you kill her, and if you get taunted, she murders you. If you catch her during ult in your w, she will die from everything.
Also, I've been experimenting with itemization+runes with Vik. Basically your standard ap page with scaling ap yellows and 5 flat ap blues. Been going chalice>death+sorc shoes>hat. So much waveclear in your e if you aim it well, and you basically have infinite mana, so go farm jungle when you push lane.
Also, I still really think Viktor at least goes even with Kat if not a solid advantage over her. He has the tools to fight back against her.
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Its funny, I've never had any trouble with morg/Karth/Annie. I max E first thing and I've been able to just poke them out of lane or to such a health differential that I can just go in for the kill safely...I tried playing with the early Q levels and just didn't like it, range too short.
I'm sure I'm playing much worse players than many of you, but I really have had no difficulty with those matchups whatsoever. In my experience none of those mids has the range or sustain to stay in lane vs the lazer, and I can hit a really high percentage. Morg has a huge fat hitbox too.
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It's not that Karth/Morg are bad for Viktor. It's just that they can be annoying if they go super passive mode. I'm used to being hyper aggressive on my opponent, so if I can't, I might struggle (assuming I can't roam and get kills elsewhere).
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Morg is probably not that bad (max Q manmode), but I can imagine Karthus being a bad match up for Viktor. Viktor does not have gapclosers and he can't really play very aggressive against Karthus. Karthus just farms and eventually outscale.
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Where can someone possible farm from where they can't be lazered?
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On November 15 2012 15:08 sob3k wrote: Where can someone possible farm from where they can't be lazered?
In that case Karthus can harass even more easily with his Q. I guess you can argue it's a skill match up, but it is probably much harder for Viktor to play aggressive than Karthus farming.
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Yeah, for Viktor to kill Karthus, you need to land several Es in a row (going to Q him will only make you eat a Wall of Pain and then he does more damage to you in 3s than you did to him over the past 30) to lower him enough, and even then you'll probably have to go in really hard as he'll just have to switch to passive mode (unless you can flash-ult for the kill of course).
Other annoying match-ups are Lux, Xerath, because of their range that makes it hard to go up and harass them as soon as they start clearing with spells (Xerath in particular will eat a E if he goes into siege mode, but shrug it off and just EQ you), and not only can their combo often 100-0 you (esp. Xerath), they can do it from outside your range and not commit until they catch you somehow (stun/binding). (All champs with enough range nullify your W, basically making you a 2-spells champ against them.)
Gragas is horrible to fight because his E makes it easy for him to escape both your ult's DoT and your W with enough reaction time, he can farm with Q from afar, has damage reduction and sustain to reduce your E effectiveness, and with Viktor's squishiness and lack of mobility a good Gragas ult will get you killed everytime his ignite his up.
Morgana isn't a "counter" per see because Viktor can just OS the wave while it's still in a line, denying Morgana the round formation she needs to hit everything with her W, unless she tanks the wave. So you get a few seconds on her to roam, and she can't really prevent it unless she walks up and try to Q you while you come to E the wave. She'll probably beat you in a straight-up full combo exchange, though, and benefits more from ganks through Black Shield and Dark Binding.
Swain's annoying as soon as he gets ahead. Your Q reduces his damage early on (since it's DoT) and he can't really escape your W, nor deal with you shoving the lane on him, but to get the full damage out of your ult (often needed as he'll heal during it if you didn't harass him down enough) you have to follow him while he flees, which often needs he'll keep sustaining off of you, so he's hard to finish off if you didn't estimate your burst well. But if you can harass well Viktor should have the advantage.
Katarina is an "easy" match-up because she can't attack you. Q+autos hurt her a lot more than her Q does early on, and if she tries to shunpo to you she'll just eat some more autos. If she tries her full combo at level 3 some won't go through (if she uses Shunpo before other spells she'll be on top of you so you'll be shielded instantly, if she doesn't she'll have to walk up to W you so your Q will come back before too) while your damage from level 2 Q + E will outtrade her hard, on top of the free autos while she runs away. If she ever Shunpo on you can W to slow/stun her despite her MS buff from her W, which shouldn't be enough to get more spells on her, but a big threat in case your jungler was waiting nearby. She also can't ult because either you run away if she does it from afar, or ult her if she shunpo'd to you, making her eat most of the AoE (even more if you drop W on top of it). She can instaclear the wave after awhile, doesn't suffer from mana issues and has pretty solid roaming, so if you don't take advantage of the match-up early on she may outroam you (she'll have her ult available more often than you, and is better in skirmishes because of the reset mechanic while your AoE isn't as good against spread out people).
I'm pretty sure you can/should get a kill before 6 though. I'm just bad at dealing the finishing blow (without using flash) once my opponents are below 25% and just play scared.
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On November 03 2012 03:59 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 03:54 Promises wrote: I most certainly hope Vik doesnt get any buffs tbh ^^ I love him and not in a small part because he's so underplayed. If he becomes FotM he'll lose his charm for me =/ He won't become FotM unless they really do something ridiculous. People are bad, and they can only play faceroll champs like Ahri or Kat. Give them anything they actually have to try with, and they fail hard. Same reason people can't play Syndra.
Woo, I'm not terrible at the game, I can only effectively play Brand/Syndra/Viktor nowadays.
As for build are you guys still going something similar after the new patch Boots>Double Doran>Upgrade>Dcap>whatever fits best here.
From what i've seen so far none of the new items are much snuff, the new DFG if nice for the ultimate facemelting but yeah.
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Soniv likes guise->augment, I can see where he's coming from, Viktor is good at poking anyway and Liandry's helps reducing enemy HP further, plus he has good base damage (esp. on E with augment) so MPen makes sense. I'm a bit concerned about his lane sustain and stuff, since before you could boots+double doran+augment+wards+pots, and be pretty much set for until you had 1600 for NLR (at which point you've invested around 3500 in items, so you're probably not in a phase where pots will matter anymore), but now if you want flask you have to switch one out (let's say the pots slot, but it's the first to go anyway).
Also, Viktor's shining point was levels 11-14 with E maxed, Q soon to be, level 2 ult and if you farmed correctly your sorcs/augment/deathcap combo, ready to melt away anyone who tries to fight in your range, but now with DCap nerfed I wonder how it compares. Since they lowered slot-efficiency for tier3 items, it's supposed to 'buff' Viktor's lategame as his augment was untouched while his opponent's 6th item is probably weaker, but it also "nerfs" his midgame where he'll rely on augment+tier3 items (deathcap most notably, also zhonya) to exert dominance and that combo isn't as strong. Also the new "toys" (Liandry's, DFG, twin shadows) aren't as useful on him as on other AP mids, so he's worse off than before compared to them.
Soniv has apparently always been picking up an early void staff on Viktor so I'll play him some when my computer gets fixed and see how I do (well, once BC is nerfed too so we don't see it everywhere), the penetration changes mean good for him, but as I preferred a typical 6-items endgame of sorcs(mercs)/augment/deathcap/zhonya/rylai/grail, abyssal or DFG (depending if I need to poke, chase people in my ult's AoE, or add some burst to get a priority target; also MR) it doesn't change as much for me.
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Just to jump in, Alaric sums up my thoughts/tendencies pretty well. But I'm still figuring new shit out.
Unfortunately, viktor is disabled, so experimentations must yield for now.
I'll update OP once I actually feel a little less lost in this patch. (Soon TM)
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bump, want to look at builds.
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On January 16 2013 05:32 necrosed wrote: bump, want to look at builds.
Haven't been playing too much of him because flask is such a pain to deal with and I'm experimenting with other champs.
I still build pretty much the same stuff. I am, however, finding myself getting my augment earlier or first so I can just shove my lane and run around.
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I've had a fairly good streak of people picking Katarina into me lately(huehue) so I've found just going Flask, 3Hpot, 2MPot, Ward > Boots > Guise > Augment > Sorcs > DCap > Void > Liandries > Zhonya's(or whatevers needed)
Learning to manage mana again without having chalice has been interesting but flask helps fill the void a bit.
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Oh? Guise better for trading (esp. all-ining), but I think augment is better overall, for poking (especially if they have MR, like first buy chalice, or MR runes) and particularly for farming. The MPen on Guise won't make you able to one-shot the wave and roam. I'm wondering how I'll start now without the ward. I'm spec-ing 21 utility so if I want to hit at a specific timing (say I'm close to 6 and he won't be since I took Awareness, I ward a side and hug it so I know I can all-in without risks) I will be able to use the explorer ward, but in general playing aggro, esp. in the early levels with a champion like Viktor tends to attract those pesky junglers. And I'm not sure that flask+1 pot + ward compares well to boots+3.
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VS heavy-trading champs in mid I like going deep in Q and even buying the augment for it. Works really well against Kat.
Hrm, I've never tried going deep utility. It might be good since Viktor has so much damage already (I mean, who can clear a wave with just one skill mid-game?). Biscuit is very good, too. I like the chalice idea. Will give a try.
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I pretty much go chalice>augment+boots and then build a hat.
I usually like flask a lot, but I just grab a faerie charm+ward+pots on Viktor first. Builds into a faster chalice, which is always nice to have.
I have played a few games on Viktor so far, and his build still feels the same. Liandry's has potential to be nice on him, but I feel hat+zhonya's+void+sorcs+augment+grail is a fairly strong build on him. I can see switching grail out for something if you really need it though.
I really like the utility tree as a whole. I've experimented a bit with 9/0/21 with Kennen, but not with a mana-based champ so far. Dunno how it fairs against the meta shift of ad mid though. Not having a lot of offense in masteries might hurt vs them in the long run.
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On January 17 2013 10:38 necrosed wrote: VS heavy-trading champs in mid I like going deep in Q and even buying the augment for it. Works really well against Kat.
Hrm, I've never tried going deep utility. It might be good since Viktor has so much damage already (I mean, who can clear a wave with just one skill mid-game?). Biscuit is very good, too. I like the chalice idea. Will give a try. Against Kat I still do the regular QEQEE skill order and trade hard with her at levels 1 and 3, and sometimes the others too if I see a kill opportunity. Once I'm level 5 she'll take a bunch of damage if I can QE her (and if she shunpo on me she'll eat it, she'll also generally take a Q for hers if she isn't attentive to positioning or lets me abuse my 21 utility), and otherwise I can just push. When I hit 6 she can't try fighting me ever because if she tries to ult I'll just use mine and if she doesn't die she'll have to go back to base. At around level 7 and augment, E will one-shot ranged minions, and melee will only require one or two autos on top to die, so you can outpush her fairly easily, and Viktor roams quite well.
This was before the flask or full pots start, though the main difference now is that they'll outsustain your mana if they start pots, but you can still zone then a bit at the early levels, especially since they won't be able to last hit safely without using Q.
The utility tree gives me %MS, which helps during the laning phase (600 range on his Q is very short, which is why past level 3-4 you stop trying to trade/harass with it since you'll eat so much just trying to get into range, and then the shield is useless as they already unloaded everything when it comes back; more MS allows you to sneak one while they take a cs, or enhances your zoning power at levels 1-3) and to chase with ult (speed depends on distance from Viktor) or cover more distance during W's stun/slow. It also gives artificer if you rely a lot on activated items (those 2 points can also go into biscuiteer+explorer, I like the explorer ward in their wraiths bush or near so I know if they had a smiteless or regular pull, if they go to red or if I have to expect a level 2 gank, etc.), additional cdr (I drop butcher and ignite masteries so I start with 10% cdr), which is especially nice on champs not looking to itemize a lot of it, like Viktor for example.
Also, Awareness. Which would be called "I hit 6 a full wave before you, SURPRISE!" if it could fit into the tooltip. I actually more often reach it right at the start of the same wave that'll give them 6 when they finish clearing it, but that's because smiteless pulls have me miss 2-3 cs worth of exp from the first wave so I could even ding faster.
As for Chalice, I'm not a fan (I tend to build Abyssal or DFG as my last item, depending on needs: DFG is still what it is and sometimes you need a bit more burst to bite that #1 threat in the enemy team that made a mistake and stepped a pixel too close to you, and considering his Q range, the ability to zone people where he wants with W, and the need to stay close to the ult to redirect it quickly my targets are often in Abyssal range). I managed my mana with 2 drings in s2, and s3 a dring+flask is usually enough (I start 4 hp pots 1 mana pot currently but I don't use the mana pot in most of my games), I'll se how it works out with flask's price increase once the patch hits EUW. If starting flask makes my sustain feel weak I could consider starting faerie just so I can use more pots/wards.
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Alaric and I play Viktor very similarly. I haven't gotten a DRing in a while, I think I'll try that +flask into augment.
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Do you use flat mana regen seals? I've been using 5 of them (the rest is armor) and my mana needs early game are easily quenched by a DRing. This way I start boots 3 pots and buy a DRing on my first b. No need for flask.
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On January 17 2013 11:36 necrosed wrote: Do you use flat mana regen seals? I've been using 5 of them (the rest is armor) and my mana needs early game are easily quenched by a DRing. This way I start boots 3 pots and buy a DRing on my first b. No need for flask.
I do the same seal set up, some armor, some regen. Boots start is just so nice on Vik, esp with MS quints. I might revert back to that as well.
Through all the changes, it might just turn out that Vik is just perfect with the items I was getting before S3..
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Depends on my runepage. Most of them use all 9 mp5/level seals, the only exception is a page with armor seals for playing top (which was mostly on Swain and I switched to my "bruiser top" pages when playing him, even for mid, so that page hasn't seen play in months).
I mostly use AP/level glyphs with MS quints, or flat MR glyphs with MS quints. If it's a really smooth/easy match-up I may take flat AP quints (I have ~5-6 runepages dedicated to AP carries) just to bully harder with Q at early levels, but it requires a champ I can trade with, I won't need MS quints to outrun, and/or low enough range that I can Q him easily (the less distance I need to cover, the less my opponent's MS matters). Against annoying stuff like TF, Teemo, or long-range champs that you want to hit before they start instaclearing from 1k range (hi Lux, annoying match-up really), MS quints are pretty much mandatory if you intend to play the early levels aggressively.
Edit: those mp5/level seals are the first set I bought, though, more than a year ago, and I never bothered to modify my setups once I bought more pages, nor tried to play mids without them (except when against an AD champ, or playing Swain since I don't have mp5 seals on my bruiser pages). Maybe he's 100% fine without any mp5 (flat or scaling) seals, haven't really tried. When I start using E to farm around level 7 I'm going to need blue anyway, since even with those 9 seals he burns through his mana pretty fast considering E's cost (not that I complain about it).
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I use scaling ap yellows myself. I like how they add up with the hex core passive and the +45 ap from death augment. I'm usually pretty good about managing mana early in lane, so the mana regen isn't that big. I don't like using e early unless I'm trying to last hit distant creeps. I just q all day for the most part, and since that costs 0 mana, you should be fine.
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Flask start Viktor tests: I'll mainly use the flask+ward+pot opening, since a flask+3 pots is a boots+3 with a bit less mobility and a bit more sustain. The difference from having a ward or not (and the weaker sustain as a result) seems more significant to me.
Game 1, against Kayle (starting 9pots 1 ward). + Show Spoiler +Ssong said Kayle has trouble with Viktor. Experiencing the match-up makes me wonder how, since he can't trade with her (Q has shorter range than hers, and he can't Q+auto her like he does other champs because she has better damage with E activated). Since she started pots, trying to fight her was useless, and she has way, way better mana-efficiency on her pushing before augment + level 7 at least, so the flask+ward was weak but maybe because of the match-up (can't kill her because her ult has a way shorter cd too), and the 9 pots start that bores everyone to death. Game 2, against Ryze (starting sapphire+3). Xin jungle. + Show Spoiler +Shaco fed double buff to Ryze at level 4, so it start made the start way too biaised (ultimately Ryze stood in most Es so he lost until he bought a Negatron and farmed away with his jungler's help, but that isn't related to the openings). If a gank gets you low flask+pot+ward can be tight against your opponent if he has some sustain himself. Game 3, against Pantheon mid (starting flask+3). Jax jungle. + Show Spoiler +Hard to tell. Pantheon was bad (started EWE) and got ganked early. Seemed enough sustain though. Other remarks: League of Warmogs and mobility creep seem to hurt Viktor a lot more than flask/pots starts. He's rather constricted so while his burst his strong, it hits a ceiling rather short (a lot of his dps comes from Augment:Death and his ult's DoT, the actual ratios for instant burst are only 1.9 AP). Against all the dashes, jumps, etc. his W is alot weaker (short range, and delayed effect) while his E is "easily" avoidable (Graves let his team be meatshields for Nautilus/Caitlyn/Lee and kept his E specifically to try and dodge mine). Game 4, against Ahri mid (starting boots+3 pots). Maokai jungle. Their bot is a kill lane (Xin/Panth) so less squishy to roam against, and more susceptible to roam. Shouldn't impact the early tho. + Show Spoiler +They forced my flash with an invade attempt, so I expected Mao to camp. He didn't, and I beat Ahri's boots+3 pots start. The ward was enough to stop ganks. Ahri didn't land many skillshots and I think it's that I played better rather than sheer superiority of flask though. About the aforementioned scaling problem, Olaf and Panth ended up with a warmogs, Xin with a mallet, while Mao built SV. Before they had their HP items landing a good E on them, Q and R and controlling the ult to follow them was enough to do my part, and a second spell rotation (especially a several-men E) would be devastating for them (I went zhonya instead of deathcap first so less damage). After, I would barely "soften" and damage them (it was truly incidental AoE rather than devastating a team), and a second rotation was mandatory at that point if I wanted to play my role in the fight (the fact that Ahri and Mao, my squishier targets, somewhat fell off played a role too). My range and utlity could still peel and disengage pretty well though (esp. if I could live through Olaf's ult). (33 minutes game, they got them around 25+ minutes I'd say.) Game 5, against Kassadin mid (starting boots+3 pots), Xin jungle. + Show Spoiler +Went very well, auto harass helps complement Q and Kass is a melee champ so if he doesn't abuse league of consumables Viktor actually crushes him early on (also Q lower cd than his). Game 6, against TF mid (starting flask+3), Mundo jungle. + Show Spoiler +With the MS advantage, TF gets destroyed early. Never felt I lacked sustain because of that. * Game 7, against AD Tristana mid (starting long sword+2), Darius jungle. + Show Spoiler +Went pretty well, it was hard to trade with her at level 1 (and in general: 9 range per level actually does wonder to reduce your threat) because of her AD advantage, at level 1 taking 1 auto for Q+E would damage her heavily and 2 pots wouldn't be enough. I got ganked once, and a little before that Darius spent ~45s in my bush, so it was hard to play aggresively despite Trist taking heaps of damage at level 3. Her E helps her a lot if I can't just shove (because Darius) since she can easily finish off the creeps before they reach tower and she doesn't miss much cs. The ward actually allowed me to farm despite my aggressiveness pushing the lane a bit, since I could waste his time. Game 8 against Katarina (starting boots+3). Wukong jungle. + Show Spoiler +Crushed. Katarina is still fucked in the early levels because Viktor heavily outtrades her and has zoning potential if she doesn't buy sustain and ride it off. Wukong ganked elsewhere so I pushed a lot and killed her once (using ignite and flash) before 6. Game 9 against Ahri (starting boots+3). Kha'Zix jungle. + Show Spoiler +Pretty comfortable. As usual, flask+one pot is enough to outsustain boots+3. Game 10 against Ahri (starting boots+3). Olaf jungle. + Show Spoiler +Pretty comfortable. As usual, flask+one pot is enough to outsustain boots+3. Olaf camped me but I was able to farm fine and bully Ahri. She went chalice+abyssal (starting negatron) so even after I got a void staff it was really hard to kill her tho, and I needed the blue buff to sustain her pushing more than a few minutes. (I managed to 100-0 her at the end, but I ambushed her in a brush so I got a QER combo on her and since she didn't want to blow flash or her ult she took most of the ult DoT, and I managed to finish her with a second E. I had sorcs/death/void staff/NLR at that point though, so that was ~1k spent into items more than her. Another defensive (MR or health) item and swapping the second E with an ignite wouldn't have been enough to kill her.)
Conclusion: So far flask+ward+pot seems to still be able to beat boots+3 openings (the 3% MS from the utility tree that I pick probably helps), and feels even more miserable against mass pots openings. I have only seen one flask opening since the nerf.
* TF is such a boring match-up btw. As long as he gets enough AP to 2-shot the waves with Q he'll never lose because he can clear them as soon as they reach his tower, and since he doesn't have to use Red Card to clear he can sustain his mana with Blue Card. Of course you can roam, or even poke him under his tower during this. But then you're pressured if any of your lanes lose and somebody roams. He's also fine with a farmfest since he scales much better than you (shorter cooldowns, can clear for ages through Blue Card during sieges while you rely on blue buff, and new lichbane), and if you try to punish him by roaming he'll just ult. That must be the 3rd or 4th game I lose to a terrible (and I really mean terrible) TF because even though I can even zone their jungler from wraiths through E poke while pining TF at tower and poking him, another lane loses and suddenly people all clutter up mid and TF can start free farming just fine (his team can't take the cs from him) and get carried through the midgame. It's like playing against a Teemo top. It's not a hard match-up. It's just boring, annoying, repetitive, and there's absolutely nothing fun to it. I loath those terribles TF.
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Took me 9 days to complete 10 Viktor games in the end... I had 7 of them done under 3 days, thought it'd go faster. The above post has been edited as the games were played, with match-up, opposing start, and opposing jungle (the ward is much more useful against a Shaco or Maokai than a Shyvana jungle, obviously) and notes about what happened.
Conclusion about the flask+pot+ward start for Viktor:
- I was never on sustain, even mana-wise, assuming I backed around level 6 at the latest (with awareness I reach it a bit earlier than normally).
- The ward wasn't always useful, and it certainly won't be enough to protect you against a camper that'll try from both sides, since the interest of sustain for Viktor in early laning is to be able to trade and bully hard, meaning the lane will push.
- The biggest advantage of the flask opening was being able to use E more liberally at lower levels to bully harder, or even zone from farm/exp. It may make a few match-ups significantly stronger, but in general it felt more like an insurency/some kind of crutch than an opportunity to win a lane outright/harder (except in edge cases like a Katarina starting boots, which is a very abusive match-up before first back).
- While not entirely related to this start, it's hard to use the explorer ward well (assuming we don't get invaded) since putting it at the enemy's wraith bush by ~1:20 makes it tight to reach one's own wraiths by the time they spawn, and 2:20 can be a bit short. It shows if the opponent got a smiteless pull and headed to his red, but depending on jungler it can be hard to determine whether he didn't get a smiteless, or was just a few seconds late, or is heading to a level 2 gank.
- Post TL;DR: the flask never felt needed unless I was camped. Boots+3 is certainly a better start in every match-up relying on MS to be able to reach the opponent (for example TF). I could see flask being more interesting against champions starting full consumables (Kassadin, Katarina were the only ones I played Viktor against since s3 in general) because of the added lane sustain, since the MS from boots wouldn't allow you to outbully their regen before you go oom unless they misplay grossly. Flask prevents them from outsustaining you too early, and gives you some mana if you ever want to push the lane and back before their superior sustain kicks in.
More general conclusions regarding Viktor:
- I hate the TF match-up. But the omissible portion of last post's already told some of you that.
- Ahri, TF and Katarina seemed to be specificaly picked after I took Viktor (I often had to fp him, I almost never had mid without being fp). I have no idea regarding Katarina (they probably thought Shunpo > his E and W), TF doesn't beat him in lane but it's like playing Kog against Ezreal (you lose in the first levels but don't care because you can farm ezpz and outscale), and Ahri was arguably a harder match-up.
+ Show Spoiler [Thoughts on Ahri match-up] +I usually win it unless I'm camped quite hard (especially post-6) but that's more me being more experienced in the match-up I think, as they usually get bullied pretty hard by my 3 first Qs then switch to a very defensive mode, trying to only farm until a gank or their level 6 occur. It's a bit like playing Pantheon vs Morde: make her choose between Qing the wave or you, and do your best to juke it while punishing her with a Q. If she Qs the wave and you get one off her, use the advantage to zone her from cs. Abuse the creep wave when appropriate to mess with her foxfire and charm, and abuse every opportunity to Q her (another example where boots start is probably valuable considering her range). I was surprised that Ahri didn't always try to all-in me at level 6, considering how much stronger she is. Maybe Awareness and reaching 6 first made them play more carefully. Viktor's immediate burst at 6 is 435 + 1.9 AP, Ahri's is 405 + 2.16 AP, and for the next 8 seconds all he has is 48 + 0.21 AP from Death assuming Ahri uses her ult smartly to not stand in his, while she has 170 + 0.7 AP from her ult, and her Q will come off cd before his (around 100 damage more) and her W before his E, so even if both can survive each other she'll usually be able to kill Viktor, even through his flash, though it's possible she'll have to recall herself. I'm usually able to hold my own because I wait for them to Q the wave, one-shot it myself then ward the sides and pressure them at tower (constantly buying double wards tends to negate my cs advantage though), but it'd probably be much harder if they refused to Q the wave and waited for me to use my E on the wave to all-in me. She can also get a negatron without hurting herself too much in the "long" run (Abyssal still pretty good on her) while becoming virtually unkillable (Viktor will still need 2k+ for boots+augment as first items) unless she eats lasers like candy.
- I'm happy Maokai didn't camp me. Really. He probably is one of the worst champs for Viktor to face since he punishes pushing extremely hard and bypass W easily through Twisted Advance (it's too late if Viktor has to drop is W beneath himself: the opposing mid will get a full combo on him while the jungler will at worst tank a few towers hits if he doesn't screw up totally).
- Within the current health meta, any champ with an escape can pretty easily survive Viktor's burst at some point if he builds a belt item, has a lot of his damage will come from E (dodgeable) and his ult's DoT (the escape ability is used to get out of its range and if Viktor wants to relocate it quickly enough he'll have to get closer to accelerate it, exposing himself).
Against such champions (which includes a lot of bruisers, but also Graves, Ezreal, for example) Viktor tends to fall off harder than with the "QSS/GA as staple defensive items" meta in s2.
Now I'll go back to Morgana/Swain/Syndra/Orianna/Ryze (and maybe prune one, that's a lot of champs to train for a single role) but if I pick Viktor again I'll probably treat myself with some funky builds working around Augment: Power. I'm thinking about Sheen and Tear variations, and the rest to get tankier. Augment: Power+Gauntlet for super chasing/kiting Viktor? Lichbane+Muramana for mobile sniping? Since it would be a more sustained damage build, and with a lot less range it'd rely on tankiness and CDR too. Abyssal seems a good MR option considering the range on Q, and glacial shroud looks like a pretty good option overall, CDR+mana+armour. The usual "HP" option for mages is Rylai, but it'd probably overlap with Gauntlet. That, or stacking a Tear to Seraph's Embrace and managing its timing well. WotA is a pretty good item on a Viktor played that way because it makes it hard to actually drop his HP between the shield+low cooldown heal. What's hurting him isn't the champs good at sticking to a target, but those whose immediate burst once they're on top of you hits hard, as they shouldn't have much time to hit him between his Q, W, and potentially rylai/gauntlet. I know the usual build is way better than that! I'm just pondering silly funny stuff to do so I can dps/clean-up without being dramatically ult reliant as soon as people start buying health.
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Preliminary results for S3 having relatively good success:
Build him the same as you always used to. Running same rune page, 21/0/9, start Boots + 3 pots into 2 DRing to augment, dcap, etc.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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Why not 9-0-21 on him? Because you want to be able to burst hard as long as possible considering his kit naturally falls off, even w/o taking his passive into account?
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Rylai / Liandrys / Void Staff
OPOPOP
So much fun seeing their HP drop by like 1000 per E and seeing entire teams melt with ult. Haven't done calculations but the DPS is pretty insane.
And yeah, hitting E is 7 secs of Liandry 5.5 of which is 2x.
(Rylai just because with Q it's good for kiting, with E it gives 5.5s of 2x for Liandry as I said(and a 5.5s slow) and with ult it gives 2x for Liandry and becomes extremely difficult to get away from. )
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On April 26 2013 05:52 Alaric wrote: Why not 9-0-21 on him? Because you want to be able to burst hard as long as possible considering his kit naturally falls off, even w/o taking his passive into account?
Yes. I mean, he plays very similarly to Annie, just with less stun and more range.
On April 26 2013 09:12 Shikyo wrote: Rylai / Liandrys / Void Staff
OPOPOP
So much fun seeing their HP drop by like 1000 per E and seeing entire teams melt with ult. Haven't done calculations but the DPS is pretty insane.
And yeah, hitting E is 7 secs of Liandry 5.5 of which is 2x.
(Rylai just because with Q it's good for kiting, with E it gives 5.5s of 2x for Liandry as I said(and a 5.5s slow) and with ult it gives 2x for Liandry and becomes extremely difficult to get away from. )
I really like this build in theory. However, it always feels so awkward to get to, and it's a hell of a long build path just to get an advantage on Liandry's.
I prefer to take more advantage of Viktor's early game with rushing DCap after augment. Even rushing Zhonya can work too if you need some early defense.
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How is it hell of a long build path? I don't really understand. You rush Liandrys. Haunting Guise is like the best build path possible and any Viktor skill with Liandry does deal more damage than with a Deathcap, either try it out or do the math(it won't be the case if the opponent has low hp of course). Your shield is worse but I doubt it should be the focus...
I've only done this build once in ranked and although that game went wonderfully(ended it 7-0) it's of course still theory level, mostly because my Viktor is terrible.
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On April 27 2013 00:11 Shikyo wrote: How is it hell of a long build path? I don't really understand. You rush Liandrys. Haunting Guise is like the best build path possible and any Viktor skill with Liandry does deal more damage than with a Deathcap, either try it out or do the math(it won't be the case if the opponent has low hp of course). Your shield is worse but I doubt it should be the focus...
I've only done this build once in ranked and although that game went wonderfully(ended it 7-0) it's of course still theory level, mostly because my Viktor is terrible.
I could certainly be wrong.
In my eyes, it's a long build path because you don't get the full effect of liandry until you have rylai (unless you're using your W as the CC, which certainly isn't uncommon).
I've never really liked guise opening. Idk what it is, but it always felt like it was missing something. The lack of mana regen certainly is noticeable at the very least.
That said, I'll try liandry again.
Also, I've been toying with the idea of lichbane as a 4th or 5th item. The move speed is super nice on Viktor, and I find myself auto attacking a lot with him. Haven't really tried it out extensively yet though.
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you don't ever come back, once you go full machine
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so how do i build him in aram?
edit: omg guys hurry
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On May 31 2013 06:51 craaaaack wrote: so how do i build him in aram?
edit: omg guys hurry start red augment + boots get hat, build rylais liandrys
can get athenes too prolly.
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for fucks sake people, how long is it gonna take before you realize that chalice start is best on every pokey champ
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Yeah, not having augment sucks for your poke compared to most popular poke champs in ARAMs, but being oom sucks even more and Viktor is a mana hog. So in ARAMs you swallow it and start chalice, buying augment next. You'll probably want to upgrade to grail either before or after deathcap, Viktor's ult cd doesn't go down with levels so you'll just get wrecked if the enemy team has means of fighting with lower cooldowns (about every other mid but Galio, since Karthus and TF aren't ult-reliant).
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So I noticed that you're still using his worst skin's splash art for the guide... screw you, Soniv. Maybe the guide could be quickly updated? At least runes, items and the early laning stuff, since it's pretty different now (WotA fell out of favour, Grail tends to beat Abyssal because CDR and mp5, etc. and the QEQ and W at level 8 thing for hyper-aggro early laning). Viktor probably still works the way the OP is written but it's not as good or fun (at least we still arren't advocating a chalice first :< ).
More on point, I'm wondering if anyone here has extensive experience of the Elise match-up. Last game our solos were Malphite+Viktor vs Elise+Nidalee, and she apparently makes Rock miserable so he requested a swap (which made me sad because Nid is a practice target for Vik pre-6 and a roaming war after that). I expected Elise to be a bitch the same as to any bruiser, but it turned out relatively well: despite the range advantage, the lack of wind-up on Power Transfer let me retaliate, and she generally avoided following-up with autoattacks (while I did) because of the shield. I died because Viktor has no escapes, I started without wards expecting to go mid, and Hecarim+Elise ganks are annoying, then despite not killing her I made the experience back when a gank zoned her a bit (and she didn't last hit too well so we were roughly equal in farm).
Once I had my Augment and level 6+ things changed a lot as I was able to shove the wave way more efficiently than her W could, apparently preventing her from initiating trades (no idea how her melee form would fare against my Q shield and a bigger creep wave). She also was easy to harass under tower, and couldn't turn to melee form past level 8 because I'd just W to zone her from cs for 6s (or force her to blow Q and E for a single last hit, or eat mine). Since she's pretty squishy and Viktor's burst is pretty strong I was able to kill her once with ult and ignite under her tower and from there I won the lane.
A few observations:
- Hecarim was often busy bot after the initial kill (he tended to die too, Ezreal carried that game pretty hard) so I had pretty much free reign over the lane as I knew no ganks were coming (I killed her 3 times, I wouldn't have went for any of the 2 before her tower fell hadn't I known that Hec was on the other side of their jungle).
- I was blue side, which gave me access to blue buff and reduced the amount of zoning Elise could exert before I got wards. I also skipped a bit on wards, never warding both the tribrush+the river (Hecarim could probably have ganked through lane too, killing me before I could 100-0 Elise—it'd be 1 for 1 if she was previously hit though).
- Setups were MPen/Armour/AP/MS and 21-9-0 for me against MPen/Armour/MR/AP and 21-0-9 for her, which should be in my favour.
- She didn't switch to Spider Form much, problably because a Q would result in a free Q+E for me and forcing her Rappel once I was ahead, but before that I don't know if she was playing carefully, not knowing what Viktor can do, or just badly. Being ranged and making use of the creep wave, I wasn't easily hit by her Ws either so it reduced her trading potential (unless jumping into the wave in Spider Form to bring the Volatile Spiderling with her).
- Being top made me somewhat safer against early ganks, while preventing me from really roaming (Nidalee is was winning her lane, and it's hard to pin her from a flank with W compared to baiting her aggro). I felt like I missed more farm too, which reduced my impact during the midgame.
TL;DR I did much better against an Elise (top) than I'd have thought, so I wonder if it's actually a bearable match-up or good circumstances combined with a bad opponent, and I'm beseeching the spirits of Viktor players for input. °O°
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I HAVE TAKEN UP THE MANTLE OF VIKTOR
BEEP BOOP
But yeah I've really been liking Rylai's on him, even though it's not the full slow on his E/R, it gives him a lot of utility and you still have a lot of damage with Death/Rylai -> DC.
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Viktor is free this week in the Philippines and I'm really enjoying him.
While i agree that Rylai's on him is really solid, does it feel like it hurts your damage a little bit too much going for Rylai's? I'd imagine building the blasting wand first, but from there you're just kinda stuck with that while you get a belt.
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I don't really feel so, but I'm prepared for some math hammer to tell me otherwise.
The thing is, his damage is pretty huge with just Death and his base numbers. I like getting Rylai's early because you're rather mid-ranged as a champion. While you clearly want damage to just nuke people, aside from W (which is good, don't get me wrong), he has little in the way of defenses or mobility and you're going to have to be pretty close to get off anything aside from E. A Belt really helps with that. I mean, you could try Abyssal/Zhonya and be a tanky mage, but you do need scaling to keep up in the late game, honestly.
I thought of going something more damaging like DC/VS core, but getting Power Augment instead for your tankiness, but the truth of the matter is you really need Death for waveclear and early power spikes.
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You'd be surprised how good Q ends up being as a 100 + 0.25 AP shield on a 4s cd if yo'uve got blue. Won't save you from focus, but can buy you that 1s to cast another spell or walk away from the AoE/hitting the closest enemy guy. I tend to build Zhonya's and either Abyssal or Grail though, and I never hesitate to build Tabi or Mercs if I think that'll help me survive a dangerous match-up and deny the opponent a stronger midgame than me, so HP shields suit me better than someone going Rylai.
Augment:Death is your "if you don't check my inventory and keep moving so candidly I'll take 25% of your HP next cs you go for" power spike. Then when they realise maybe it's time they start getting more careful it's often too late. I never hesitate to Flash->QE for a kill though, since Viktor is not enough of a bully [anymore] to try and zone people while you farm. And a big part of it probably comes from people not knowing what to expect, too. I tend to go rather aggressively (I don't get that many blue buffs and I rely on it for the mana, not going chalice or anything till super late, so I can't afford to poke to death with E unless I somehow hit every single one we can't all be Jayce o Kha'Zix and it makes me rely on getting in Q range of the juicy targets to have the damage to kill them) so while I generally save for a NLR after Augment, unless I get super fed it'll go to Zhonya's over Deathcap most of the time.
A bit less damage, but protects me from assassins, and let me get in range to ult their backline more easily (hopefully the battlefield clears by the time Zhonya's expires and I'm not in range of 4-5 enemies anymore).
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On September 30 2013 23:47 Alaric wrote: You'd be surprised how good Q ends up being as a 100 + 0.25 AP shield on a 4s cd if yo'uve got blue. Won't save you from focus, but can buy you that 1s to cast another spell or walk away from the AoE/hitting the closest enemy guy. I tend to build Zhonya's and either Abyssal or Grail though, and I never hesitate to build Tabi or Mercs if I think that'll help me survive a dangerous match-up and deny the opponent a stronger midgame than me, so HP shields suit me better than someone going Rylai.
Augment:Death is your "if you don't check my inventory and keep moving so candidly I'll take 25% of your HP next cs you go for" power spike. Then when they realise maybe it's time they start getting more careful it's often too late. I never hesitate to Flash->QE for a kill though, since Viktor is not enough of a bully [anymore] to try and zone people while you farm. And a big part of it probably comes from people not knowing what to expect, too. I tend to go rather aggressively (I don't get that many blue buffs and I rely on it for the mana, not going chalice or anything till super late, so I can't afford to poke to death with E unless I somehow hit every single one we can't all be Jayce o Kha'Zix and it makes me rely on getting in Q range of the juicy targets to have the damage to kill them) so while I generally save for a NLR after Augment, unless I get super fed it'll go to Zhonya's over Deathcap most of the time.
A bit less damage, but protects me from assassins, and let me get in range to ult their backline more easily (hopefully the battlefield clears by the time Zhonya's expires and I'm not in range of 4-5 enemies anymore).
So you're talking about getting Augment:Gravity?
Every time I try it, I regret it the moment I cast laser and the wave doesn't instantly die.
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Uh? No, I even mentioned Augment:Death explicitly, what makes you think that? I think it's probably the worst augment because mana takes such a big part of the stat boost and it doesn't scale as well as HP or AP (even worse, since you have CDR if you want to use it you'll still get oom as fast despite the additional mana).
The additional range on W can be pretty good for long-range support, sieging, and trying to get picks, but overall I think it's the worst of the 3 (but it's also because I think with some tweaking you can probably find a semi-decent build for Augment:Power).
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Considering how easy it is for people to sustain in lane nowadays (one of the reasons Soniv mentioned he stopped playing Viktor), I've been thinking about getting Chalice/Athenes so I can just constantly spam E even without blue buff. Also nice considering the prevalence of AP assassins like Fizz and Ahri, and how LeBlanc is annoying in lane. I just think it delays Ryali's or DC too much, difficult to fit in.
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Dunno, I've never felt the need for more MR against Fizz or Ahri. As usual, "their players often suck in my experience and Viktor isn't a popular pick", but I'll build mercs if I'm afraid of the cc and want some MR, and Zhonya will usually help me survive better than Chalice.
Now LB is another beast...
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I don't like Rylai's on Viktor (and I loooooooove Rylai's as an item). It feels like a crutch for bad positioning, tbh. Sure, it makes chasing/kiting pretty nice. But your game plan through the midgame is to just blow at least 1 person up and lay a bunch of damage on some others.
Why would you want to gimp your midgame power when you could spend a bit more on pure damage (DFG/DCap) or spend a bit less on penetration (Void) + other items, work on positioning/poking, and take advantage of how much damage you do at that time period?
I would get Abyssal over Rylai's almost without fail. At least that way, even if you end up in the middle of the fight, you have some more durability while also taking away their MR and bursting the living hell out of them before you die.
Also, sorry for not ever updating the OP. I'll get around to it when I have a jolt of motivation. + Show Spoiler +
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I've really been liking starting Flask and then going Augment Death->Guise filling in Sorc Shoes whenever its convenient as my early-midgame core, followed by either D-Cap or Zhonya's. It's such a smooth buildup that leaves room for lane sustain+wards.
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On October 04 2013 03:05 Hyren wrote: I've really been liking starting Flask and then going Augment Death->Guise filling in Sorc Shoes whenever its convenient as my early-midgame core, followed by either D-Cap or Zhonya's. It's such a smooth buildup that leaves room for lane sustain+wards.
I used to frown upon this, but it comes to play style.
If all you want is a little poke, some nice sustain, and get some farm for augment, then awesome, that can work. For me, I like DRing start because I tend to be very aggressive (especially around lvls 4 and 5), so I like having that early damage for my burst.
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Rylais feels a lot like buying Yellow augment, to me, since you're giving up your midgame-E-powerspike to get a bit more durability and a really good amount of kiting in exchange. I think I'd rather get a Lich Bane, in this case, since it fits cleanly on top of a midgame-E-powerspike focused build and accomplishes similar things.
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On October 02 2013 03:01 Alaric wrote: Dunno, I've never felt the need for more MR against Fizz or Ahri. As usual, "their players often suck in my experience and Viktor isn't a popular pick", but I'll build mercs if I'm afraid of the cc and want some MR, and Zhonya will usually help me survive better than Chalice.
Now LB is another beast...
I have always felt that, with Viktor, its better to go damage than defense. While he can do decent sustained DPS due to his Q his CD's are still high enough that most other champions will operate inside of his rotation. At the very least until level 10-13.
What this means is that if you attempt to go sustained damage against a burst champion(or even an assassin) when maxing E first then they're going to win that fight by virtue of their cooldowns. If you max Q first then you are, more or less, sacrificing Viktor's primary advantage as a mage [Wave Clear, Poke, level 9 Death Augment power spike] until level 13 and significantly delaying Viktor's team fight power. This may be acceptable depending on the game, but i think that if things go poorly in lane as Viktor you're better off just getting your Death Augment and starting team fights than trying to salvage the lane.
Now, i haven't actually played him Q max against someone like LB. I prefer to get 2/3 points in Q and then max E if the lane is rough [and the Q shield actually helps*]. This lets me trade decently in lane but also still max E by level 9/10 and get the Death Augment power spike.
Basically look at LB's rotation speed. Since she silences you she should get her second rotation off before your second rotation Q unless you've maxed it first. If you build MR and this causes you to not be 100-0 by her rotation it does not matter. Why? Because you can't kill her with MR and one rotation and she kills you on her next rotation. If you build AP and she 100-0's you you're just as well off as you were when you built MR with the exception that you can poke harder and burst harder. If you build AP and she doesn't 100-0 you you can kill her.
The ideal way to play against her is vision dominance in order to get your abilities off first [that way your second rotation comes up before her second rotation] and/or burst her out in your first rotation. But in that situation you're still best off with AP rather than MR unless you have the cash to get Veil.
Rylai's is an extension of this. Possibly strong if you're going to be dueling the entire time and maxing Q. But if you're going the standard E max route then you're better off just making your E hurt more and abusing its 325 base damage and .91 AP scaling.
That being said, as a final item its not bad at all. Because you're almost certainly going to get Guise and because Liandry's is relatively powerful due to the DoT on your ult and E the Rylai's slow is worthwhile, just not more worthwhile compared to more damage. I.E. My optimal build path is double dorans->Sorc/Guise->Death [depends on level timing, no use buying at level 5, must have by level 10]->Void/Deathcap ->Rylai's->Liandry's. A Q max build could go double dorans->sorc/guise->Rylai->Liandry->Death->Void. Lots of HP early, lots of damage from burn, lots of slow from Q. Maybe i will give top Q max Rylai's viktor a play today and tell you how it goes.
*Kassadin for instance outranges you with his Q so while you can get your Q off the shield is 100% useless except for tanking some minion damage if you can keep auto attack harass up, might as well max E since it has more damage.
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On October 01 2013 22:19 Alaric wrote: Uh? No, I even mentioned Augment:Death explicitly, what makes you think that? I think it's probably the worst augment because mana takes such a big part of the stat boost and it doesn't scale as well as HP or AP (even worse, since you have CDR if you want to use it you'll still get oom as fast despite the additional mana).
The additional range on W can be pretty good for long-range support, sieging, and trying to get picks, but overall I think it's the worst of the 3 (but it's also because I think with some tweaking you can probably find a semi-decent build for Augment:Power).
My mistake, I meant to say power, because you opened your psot talking about the useful of Q, and when you describe augment death it sounds like an alternate or something, don't mind me.
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Recently picked up Viktor, and after a tough first couple of games, have been having some pretty good times. Been going for the Whatthemoose build with flask > augment death > sorc shoes > haunting guise > void staff > rylais.
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On October 07 2013 20:45 GolemMadness wrote: Recently picked up Viktor, and after a tough first couple of games, have been having some pretty good times. Been going for the Whatthemoose build with flask > augment death > sorc shoes > haunting guise > void staff > rylais.
Looks decent. You may want to look into an early DRing (probably after Augment) just because it's very cost effective and fits well with his power spiked.
I'm still unsure of how I feel about Guise/Liandry on him. I honestly haven't played him enough S3 to know.
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Feels pretty good to have 44/40% magic pen.
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I definitely like WhatTheMoose's build http://www.lolking.net/guides/189026
The only thing I am not sure about is running AP/lvl Yellows. If you don't need the armor I think its much better to take mana regen since you are skipping the dring.
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He makes good points for several things, but as often in guides it looks like he's severely exagerating on others, notably Viktor's mana needs (yo you can't say "Viktor can easily push with E and then poke Ahri", you need blue to use E more than once per wave, and even once per wave puts you oom very, very fast w/o blue, for example) and poke (no, Viktor's poke and push isn't safer than Nidalee's and Jayce's; he has 1040 total range but needs to be within 540 range of the first minion for example, so when people start grouping it's actually riskier for him to push than for most other mages without a frontline, eg. if you want to push the enemy mid tower you stick out like a sore thumb when you walk up to kill their wave). Or his "if I want to finish in the midgame I'll look at Rylai+Liandry's", it's 4600 gold past his core, how do you expect to "close out" when you want to much gold unless you're already insanely ahead?
I should try the Guise builds though, haven't done it enough (Zhonya's often ends up being my post-augment item).
Yeah there are gems like "After Lv 1 try not to push the wave when you E. Farming under your tower is fairly easy on Viktor with E and Q's short cooldown. Poke when possible but prioritise farming until you get Augment", of course, you'll burn 80-90 mana and a 10s cd with your E to get a last hit under tower, shit's easy yo! Or, you know, you get oom after 3 last hits with E and you look dumb.
And I like how he speaks all the time about "EQ double auto combo". Viktor's auto and Q range are about the same (525 aa range ~= 625 spell range), when he does that he's in range of anyone. If they run you can only auto them once, and if they won't to retaliate you can't "double auto" because then it won't be harass, it'll be a trade as you stick around well within most mids' range. Also "not tanking enemy wave". Yo, you've got 525 range. I don't care that you're D I, if you try to auto people who don't fuck up royally you will take their minions' aggro.
Nidalee "easily" go out of mana if you trade E poke for her heal. Yeah, the part where your spell costs 30 more mana than hers till she gets level 10+.
"Viktor has a higher auto attack range than TF." Nope it's the same.
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On October 23 2013 06:37 Alaric wrote: He makes good points for several things, but as often in guides it looks like he's severely exagerating on others, notably Viktor's mana needs (yo you can't say "Viktor can easily push with E and then poke Ahri", you need blue to use E more than once per wave, and even once per wave puts you oom very, very fast w/o blue, for example) and poke (no, Viktor's poke and push isn't safer than Nidalee's and Jayce's; he has 1040 total range but needs to be within 540 range of the first minion for example, so when people start grouping it's actually riskier for him to push than for most other mages without a frontline, eg. if you want to push the enemy mid tower you stick out like a sore thumb when you walk up to kill their wave). Or his "if I want to finish in the midgame I'll look at Rylai+Liandry's", it's 4600 gold past his core, how do you expect to "close out" when you want to much gold unless you're already insanely ahead?
I should try the Guise builds though, haven't done it enough (Zhonya's often ends up being my post-augment item).
Yeah there are gems like "After Lv 1 try not to push the wave when you E. Farming under your tower is fairly easy on Viktor with E and Q's short cooldown. Poke when possible but prioritise farming until you get Augment", of course, you'll burn 80-90 mana and a 10s cd with your E to get a last hit under tower, shit's easy yo! Or, you know, you get oom after 3 last hits with E and you look dumb.
And I like how he speaks all the time about "EQ double auto combo". Viktor's auto and Q range are about the same (525 aa range ~= 625 spell range), when he does that he's in range of anyone. If they run you can only auto them once, and if they won't to retaliate you can't "double auto" because then it won't be harass, it'll be a trade as you stick around well within most mids' range. Also "not tanking enemy wave". Yo, you've got 525 range. I don't care that you're D I, if you try to auto people who don't fuck up royally you will take their minions' aggro.
Nidalee "easily" go out of mana if you trade E poke for her heal. Yeah, the part where your spell costs 30 more mana than hers till she gets level 10+.
"Viktor has a higher auto attack range than TF." Nope it's the same.
Not to say you don't make good points but on the 1st thing one of the important skills I got better at as I played Viktor more was to angle E so you hit both the minion wave and the enemy champion. Its often possible and very helpful especially earlier in the game.
also Viktors push is totally safer than Nidalee lol....
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On October 23 2013 06:37 Alaric wrote: He makes good points for several things, but as often in guides it looks like he's severely exagerating on others, notably Viktor's mana needs (yo you can't say "Viktor can easily push with E and then poke Ahri", you need blue to use E more than once per wave, and even once per wave puts you oom very, very fast w/o blue, for example) and poke (no, Viktor's poke and push isn't safer than Nidalee's and Jayce's; he has 1040 total range but needs to be within 540 range of the first minion for example, so when people start grouping it's actually riskier for him to push than for most other mages without a frontline, eg. if you want to push the enemy mid tower you stick out like a sore thumb when you walk up to kill their wave). Or his "if I want to finish in the midgame I'll look at Rylai+Liandry's", it's 4600 gold past his core, how do you expect to "close out" when you want to much gold unless you're already insanely ahead?
I should try the Guise builds though, haven't done it enough (Zhonya's often ends up being my post-augment item).
Yeah there are gems like "After Lv 1 try not to push the wave when you E. Farming under your tower is fairly easy on Viktor with E and Q's short cooldown. Poke when possible but prioritise farming until you get Augment", of course, you'll burn 80-90 mana and a 10s cd with your E to get a last hit under tower, shit's easy yo! Or, you know, you get oom after 3 last hits with E and you look dumb.
And I like how he speaks all the time about "EQ double auto combo". Viktor's auto and Q range are about the same (525 aa range ~= 625 spell range), when he does that he's in range of anyone. If they run you can only auto them once, and if they won't to retaliate you can't "double auto" because then it won't be harass, it'll be a trade as you stick around well within most mids' range. Also "not tanking enemy wave". Yo, you've got 525 range. I don't care that you're D I, if you try to auto people who don't fuck up royally you will take their minions' aggro.
Nidalee "easily" go out of mana if you trade E poke for her heal. Yeah, the part where your spell costs 30 more mana than hers till she gets level 10+.
"Viktor has a higher auto attack range than TF." Nope it's the same.
Some of this is pretty nitpicky. You have blue ~60% of the time, so those are the times when you push and poke Ahri. You also can for a few waves by using your flask or if you buy a mana pot.
Not sure what you're referring to about his poke and push being safer than Nidalee's and Jayce's; he specifically says that their poke is better than Viktor's. All he says is that Viktor's is arguably more reliable since it can't be blocked by minions.
He says that if his team is ahead mid game, he looks towards those items to try to close things out. How is working towards specific items while ahead to start finishing the win unreasonable?
Obviously you only use E to farm if you have to. You can mostly use Q and autos. Since you have flask, it's not at all unreasonable to use E to farm a bit early on. It's not like you're doing it the entire game; he specifically says you're only doing it for the first few levels. Since you gain levels more frequently earlier and E is cheaper and you have flask, it's not a huge issue.
You can double auto because of the time it takes for your Q to return to give you the shield. There's a difference between taking some minion aggro and standing around tanking it.
I assume this is only because he recommends contesting her blue buff post 6, so if you do manage to take it, then you can run her out of mana.
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Yeah, it's definitely nitpicky, I'll admit I tend to get carried away when I read a guide for accurate information if its wording leans too much toward "X is so strong, you just have to do Y and Z it's easy!" or exaggerate.
+ Show Spoiler [Because it's too long] +About the poke he said in his itemisation section that Viktor's poke is safer and easier than Jayce's and Nidalee's; on one hand it's true that it's you've got more angles to do it from since it passs through minions (Jayce's is AoE and can hit this way too, but it's the longest cd of all 3), but on the other hand it's quite dodgeable when people see it coming (it's narrow) and despite having more angles you can't cast from outside vision as easily. I agree that Viktor's pushing is safer than Nidalee's, though (debatable for Jayce, when angled correctly he one shots the wave too, and from further away).
When he says "if I'm ahead I'll try to close it out with Liandry's+Rylai's" it's at a point where he doesn't need the burn to kill people, and I'm not a fan of Rylai's offensively (if they're far enough to outrun your ult 15% slow usually won't change much). Maybe if I did the maths it'd turn out it's not that bad of a peak/timing, but if I want to snowball a win I'd probably go void staff and wards anyway, so that regardless of who I hit they have to back and let us poke/push the tower (I'm specifically referring to inhib towers here since we want to end the game, not force a surrender).
Regarding mana a dring gives you ~5 mp5 if you farm well, which beats Flask in around 4 minutes (3x80 mana iirc?), so you don't get as much burst regen early on but catch up pretty fast (and you shouldn't spam E at levels 1-2 anyway, too mana-inefficient). Even starting with dring (and often getting another one first back) puts you oom somewhat fast, so I assume it's similar for Flask. I never expect to have blue most of the time as Viktor, precisely because you need it to sustain your poke: it depends on my jungler's timing and awareness, the state of he game, etc. and I often get camped or have our blue contested when playing him (moreso than Orianna), which is why I'm wary of "no mana problems at all". Normally you shouldn't be able to hit the whole wave+your opponent with a single E, so when his wording implies it (if you hit half the wave and they hit yours whole, they'll still push faster so to hit levels first or put them under tower you have to E the wave) and he specifically talks about post-6 and not the first few levels (cf. Ahri match-up and others) I label it under exaggeration again.
I could speak about the way he tells people "don't ward, don't even buy them or their jungler won't come, instead be super aggro to pull him, and if you die as long as you don't give up an objective it's 0K because this way he doesn't gank your other lanes and they don't rage", or his obsession with "easily" winning 1v2 but I'd just keep nitpicking.
I'm not saying his guide is trash or anything, he does things differently and obviously it works for him so I'll try it out (or do some math if EUW lags again) before I make my opinion/criticise, however his wording is full of exaggerations and it tends to irk me in guides, you're teaching people how to play a champion, not selling him to them.
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I agree with Alaric here. His itemization and spell choices don't make much sense.
He says he likes to trade early and often but doesn't start with the lower CD higher damage ability which also has a shield on it. I mean you don't have to max it but i can't see why you would want to walk into lane with E instead of Q. [You can get two points of Q before you are prevented from maxing E at level 9, so if you want to level Q first to magnify your early bully and/or defend against a hard lane this is reasonable but he makes no mention of it
Viktor's damage is also heavy on the scaling side despite the very high base damage on his E. (his ult is especially heavy on scaling) and i feel like you math out better with Deathcap as opposed to Void Staff (and then void staff).
For instance a typically "high base damage/AP ratio" is around 373 [higher means more base damage per point of AP damage] which is a 280 base damage ability for .75 of AP scaling. Viktor's Q is 400 [with or without the shield] and Viktor's E is 357[with or without augment]. Viktor's ult initial damage is very high at 636 but the scaling on the ticks is low a 333. Overall its merely decent at 403[rank 3 values, much better with regards to scaling earlier]. However this belies the power of scaling before level 16 and since it is between levels 11 and 13 that Viktor really shines* his relative scaling in these levels favors AP more than penetration.
Spellvamp isn't efficient on Viktor, he only has one ability which gains full spellvamp and long cooldowns so that is right out. Additionally because he has scaling on his shield you need a lot of vamp to make up the extra AP on the shield. Rylai's/Liandry's is really potent on him because the tick damage on his E ticks both but its probably still better to just go damage and pick up those two items last when you're more concerned about adding the 600 HP the Rylai/Liandry's upgrade adds and getting the damage as icing.
* Viktor is strongest between 11 and 13 because level 13 is the point at which you get two skills maxed. Champions with three damage abilities will continue to grow in base damage whereas Viktor will not since he is now leveling his W. Viktor's two ability damage is commensurate with many champions 3 ability damage [especially if you consider the shield] and so this point tends to be viktor's strongest.
Fake Edit: I also think that his E is only strong wave clear and not particularly mana hungry if you've got the double d-rings for the extra MP5[or have blue] so its strange to suggest that flask is enough to mitigate this
Edit: His math is also wrong
At 21/0/9 masteries and his penetration from masteries/runes a Deathcap Q does 385.14 damage against a target with 60 MR[using his damage values, which are incidentally also wrong]. Voidstaff Q will be doing true damage and so hits for 383.5. [The Deathcap Q also provides a larger shield]
Since his Q is the ability which has the best base damage relative to scaling the damage differences will be larger on his E and R [significantly so on his R unless he is level 16]
He also lowballs the amount of AP he should have before items at level 13 by a significant amount [I.E. when he has maxed Q]. At level 13 with Death Augment and Haunting Guise only[no d-rings], 1 AP/Level from masteries, 6 flat AP from masteries, 2.43 AP/level from runes and 5% bonus AP he should have about 167 AP before he buys a Deathcap or Void Staff [207 AP if he gets double dorans] this extra 77 AP you should have before buying those items increases the value of Deathcap significantly.
This conforms to my experiences in playing Viktor, where i feel much weaker if i go for Void instead of Death [after having Sorc/Guise/Death augment]
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Ok, I just had a Viktor on my team going chalice into catalyst as first two items (before upgrading his Augment). Was I right to call it a shit build?
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Chalice first is ok, but he needs ap really fast to compliment how well he performs mid game. I could see it vs scary lanes like Fizz/Diana or when you get behind early.
I tried roa on him. Extremely inferior to hat first imo.
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Na, Fizz isn't that scary against him. You can poke him, and if he E-dodge it, but then you're back to square one. If he uses it but fails to get on top of you (eg. he has to use Q too if he wants to punish your E being on cd) then he has nothing to disengage or at least dash out of your stun (and if he really wants to all-in he'll eat your whole ult), and your Q+autos kinda wreck him early game. The shield also helps survive against his aggro. Of course this assumes you stay out of his EE range.
Diana on the other hand really abuses your costly clear compared to her Q and her lack of "ult-sized" cooldown compared to your flat 120.
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I have been messing around with a lot of builds on Vik lately, for a while I tried the famous guide's Mpen build, but to be honest I didnt like it too much. While it might be good against a team that is built up of almost exclusively tankies, I felt it was lacking in oomph against squishyer teams. The thing I do agree on is opening flask+pots, it lets you poke longer, harass more and ensures you can almost always get your augment on your first back.
I usually go for a fairly fast Deathcap again after the augment, with probably a dorans ring in between, followed by (in order of what's needed) Rylais, Zhonyas and Void Staff. This means that, certainly if you have a good start you will absolutely blow up squishies, and heavily damage all but the most avid Mres stacker.
I experimented a while with RoA after augment to mend some of the heavy mana costs in messyer games, but the problem seems to be more in the direction of regen then the actual manapool, so I'll have to try something else =)
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Plus I'm not a fan of the build-up on RoA (the 10 minutes charging), since Viktor has a pretty strong early laning (if people don't stack up on regen <<) and hits several early power spikes (Augment, levels 6, 7 (starts one-shotting caster minions), 11, etc.), you want to leverage it, especially before their frontline starts becoming too beefy for you. As people gain levels, they gain items (since they're supposed to farm), HP and oftimes cd reduction on their abilities, while Viktor who's ult-dependant stays at a flat 120. I'd rather wreck these Nasus, Singed, Renekton etc. before they complete their SV because I'd empty my manapool before I kill them past that point, and I can't afford to burn my ult on them without zoning the backline either. RoA's charging would make me strong too late compared to when I want to be accomplishing things.
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The problem for me seems to be the somewhat messyer games with lots of small skirmishes in the jungle and in between lanes. If we get a good decent laning phase and then coordinated teamfights my mana holds up fine, but these small skirmishes tend to cost a lot of mana, and I often have to back after every single one or risk going into a new fight at 1/3rd mana or so. While I think Vik's mainly fine (hey, he's my main AP ^^) I would like it if they either decreased his mana costs a bit or upped his manaregen somewhat.
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On October 28 2013 21:29 Promises wrote: The problem for me seems to be the somewhat messyer games with lots of small skirmishes in the jungle and in between lanes. If we get a good decent laning phase and then coordinated teamfights my mana holds up fine, but these small skirmishes tend to cost a lot of mana, and I often have to back after every single one or risk going into a new fight at 1/3rd mana or so. While I think Vik's mainly fine (hey, he's my main AP ^^) I would like it if they either decreased his mana costs a bit or upped his manaregen somewhat.
Viktor loves these kinds of games. You can farm wave instantly, then go skirmish, always win in creeps in these games.
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United Kingdom20170 Posts
Some of this is pretty nitpicky. You have blue ~60% of the time
Hahaha oh man, come jungle for me please
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I know a lot of people advocate Death Cap rush, but I've been going Zhonya's as my first NLR item a lot lately. You definitely don't have the same raw burst of Cap, but without Zhonya's I've been running into a situation a lot where I have two choices: 1) sit back and blow my load on their initiator, or 2) try to get close enough to kill the squishies and die before my ult has a chance to go to town.
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On October 29 2013 09:39 Cyro wrote:Hahaha oh man, come jungle for me please
Yeah, junglers who pay zero attention to when buffs are going to come up are pretty annoying.
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Coming in to say - WhatTheMoose is probably a very mechanically good player, with good decision making, but reading that guide, I wouldn't say he's a phenomenal Viktor player (or at least not a good guide writer). The team fight gifs made me sad. Of course you're going to have a huge impact when their entire team face checks your full combo in the bush...
I agree with most of what Alaric said.
Fizz matchup can be scary. Mitigating your burst with E (even just one spell) can really be annoying, especially on your mana pool. Tbh, Annie is a much better pick into Fizz because if he troll poles your Q stun, it doesn't consume the stun charge and it doesn't cost as much mana.
I don't see how people have trouble with Diana. Yes, she can be scary at lvl 6, but you harass the hell out of her before that, maybe get W at 4 depending on how scared you are of her, and then if she jumps you at lvl 6, you unload your full combo and watch her take all that damage to the face.
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That's the thing, though: you heavily outtrade her with ult, but she's still tough to kill, so you're more likely to only send her back (and you'll prob too because you spent a lot of mana and prob lost HP too), and when 30s lter you're both back to lane she's got a bit above a minute to outtrade you at every turn while it's on cd.
You don't necessarily die to her (gotta use pots because she can easily play aggro though) but she's very strong in her own right (I'd say superior roaming becaus not cool-down gated too) and you don't exactly beat her the way you can beat Ahri or Fizz. it's, uh... it's a bit like playing against Renekton vs playing against Riven in top lane: sure, you can survive and stuff, but because of how tankier he is you're not going to kill him and snowball the lane the way you can Riven.
Maybe I just see it this way because the first times I laned against Diana stuf like Zed wasn't there yet and there was less sustain, so the contrast between Diana and the standard lane was wider than now.
I've tried WhatTheMoose's build (eg. flask, try to farm till augment first back by skipping dorans, then Haunting Guise and either Zhonya's/Rylai's as defensive item; I don't like finishing Liandry's when people fight anyway and didn't put in MPen quints), and I didn't like it. Losing ~150 HP from drings is significant for a squishy like Viktor as soon as you do something not-E, maybe moreso at my level than his since my positioning, etc. is worse. There are also timings where 0 drings will put the caster minions under 10 HP, which defeats the purpose of clearing with E. Guise is strong, but it doesn't provide that much survivability compared to 2 drings, and it ends up delaying your other items by 500-700 gold (depending on how you manage wards and pots you may sell a dring earlier, esp. if building stuff like Zhonya's with 2 big intermediate components). You don't really need the 15 MPen to kill squishies, and I'd rather get Zhonya's or Void Staff earlier to have a bigger impact in full teamfights that I seek to use my ult.
Viktor's going to have trouble reaching the backline and/or killing the frontline anyway, so I'd rather bank on higher survivability or kill potential, and void staff beats guise as soon as ~47 MR as far as MPen is concerned.
TL;DR: I don't feel like I need Guise at the point where he rushes it, and going double dring then void staff as first non-augment item is ~1500 gold more expensive, which isn't a huge window considering how well Viktor farms, while giving you equal or stronger damage all game long.
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I agree Alaric. I think part of what he is going for was a tankier build, which, in the assassin meta, isn't a bad idea at all.
I don't like playing Viktor tankier, I like playing him full burst. This is part of the reason I haven't played him much - he's just so squishy and there are so many champs with high mobility that can shut him down. It's just so difficult for not enough return, imo.
edit: that's not to say what he's doing is wrong, just not my cup of tea.
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I think that Viktor easily has the capacity to play either role. Certain mages can't really work with a tankier build, but I think Viktor's base damages, his utility (AoE silence + big fuck you field) can work easily with a more defensive build, without making him much of a burden on the team. Sure, he'll rarely 100-0 someone, but they're different roles.
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it would be cool if your Q gave more shield the closer the enemy was. Would help you getting bumrushed by zed etc.
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Thing is the guy advertises his build as super burst kill everyone Viktor, not "tanky". I still think Zhonya's > Rylai though, 500 HP won't last you more than 3s (active+EHP from armour) and cds can be crucial.
Problem with "tanky" build is that Viktor's damage while relying on only Q and E is rather meh, especially without E augment (but that's another problem): by playing tankier, you're going to need void staff anyway. That's a part of why he's so ult-reliant, and your "dps" isn't that strong, I wouldn't try "tanky" Viktor unless my team already has a very high damage output to make up for my very relative contribution.
If you can't explode squishies, you'll naturally have longer fights ahead of you, which usually means that you have to deal with the frontline more, and they're typically the kind of champs that Viktor struggles against because of his low output and survivability, and delayed cc (W is strong for positional play/zoning, but against mobile champs it usually needs a setup). I'd say he falls off even harder in late game.
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One thing I've found to help is to just build Lichbane as a last item (Usually that puts me at SorcShoes-Deathcap-Zhonyas-VoidStaff-Augment-Lichbane), it gives you some pushing power (in case of base trades or situations where you need to down shit fast), and gives you some added sustained damage and duelling power. But yea, I think certainly when compared to really low cd champs he does fall off late. However, I think people underestimate the effect stunfield has, it can be quite strong in teamfights
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I don't see how people have trouble with Diana. Yes, she can be scary at lvl 6, but you harass the hell out of her before that, maybe get W at 4 depending on how scared you are of her, and then if she jumps you at lvl 6, you unload your full combo and watch her take all that damage to the face.
Sadly Diana is pretty tanky for a mid laner, therefore it's hard to make a lot of your damage stick on her. That, and if she hits you with q at 6+, she gets to go in and probably outtrade you. She gets the benefit of having cheaper mana costs for wave-clearing purposes, and also gets to come back with negatron first if she really wants to.
Plus she still has scaling mr. Because that makes sense.
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On October 31 2013 01:36 Promises wrote: One thing I've found to help is to just build Lichbane as a last item (Usually that puts me at SorcShoes-Deathcap-Zhonyas-VoidStaff-Augment-Lichbane), it gives you some pushing power (in case of base trades or situations where you need to down shit fast), and gives you some added sustained damage and duelling power. But yea, I think certainly when compared to really low cd champs he does fall off late. However, I think people underestimate the effect stunfield has, it can be quite strong in teamfights
I'm a huge fan of Lich Bane, I find it really lulsy. The MS is also really good on him.
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On October 30 2013 01:18 Alaric wrote: Guise is strong, but it doesn't provide that much survivability compared to 2 drings, and it ends up delaying your other items by 500-700 gold (depending on how you manage wards and pots you may sell a dring earlier, esp. if building stuff like Zhonya's with 2 big intermediate components). You don't really need the 15 MPen to kill squishies, and I'd rather get Zhonya's or Void Staff earlier to have a bigger impact in full teamfights that I seek to use my ult.
Viktor's going to have trouble reaching the backline and/or killing the frontline anyway, so I'd rather bank on higher survivability or kill potential, and void staff beats guise as soon as ~47 MR as far as MPen is concerned.
TL;DR: I don't feel like I need Guise at the point where he rushes it, and going double dring then void staff as first non-augment item is ~1500 gold more expensive, which isn't a huge window considering how well Viktor farms, while giving you equal or stronger damage all game long.
Void staff also costs 2200 gold compared to guises 1500 and also provides health.
My typical start is Double Dring/Death Augment(time this for level 8 or 9 ideally) ->Sorc/Guise->Death/Void depending on enemy team comp. I find that the early game spike power on the Guise (both the health and the Mpen) make for really solid roaming/skirmishes and in the early game when so few people have itemized against MR or leveled up enough that they have 50+ MR that the bonus damage and timing on Guise make it easy to snowball Viktor's mid game power spikes.
Because of Viktor's DoT on his E and R he is going to want to get Liandry's at some point anyway. The burn damage combined with the pen and HP make it too efficient to pass up. This lets Viktor have a lategame of Death Aug, Sorc, Liandry, Void, Rylai, D-Cap [With the order of D-Cap,Void, Rylai variable on the situation]. Which makes him both surprisingly tanky(+800 HP between the Liandry and Rylai + 200 or so HP on his shield) and ridiculously DPSy.
On October 30 2013 07:48 Alaric wrote:
Problem with "tanky" build is that Viktor's damage while relying on only Q and E is rather meh, especially without E augment (but that's another problem): by playing tankier, you're going to need void staff anyway. That's a part of why he's so ult-reliant, and your "dps" isn't that strong, I wouldn't try "tanky" Viktor unless my team already has a very high damage output to make up for my very relative contribution..
Not quite true. So long as you have E augment and you're level 13 or under, Viktor's two ability damage is comparable to most three ability damage champions(with his total effectiveness including shield easily comparable to any "damage on Q,W,E" champion). This is why level 13 is Viktor's primary power spike. Once enemies start being able to level up their third ability which has base damage/scaling Viktor is only getting utility on his stun. What is weak is his two ability consistent damage (compared to tankier/bruiser AP's like Diana or assassins like Fizz). You are absolutely right in that his damage if you build tanky is weak
Fortunately for Viktor at this point the game tends to move towards objective centered team fights where Viktor's R and W shine (especially at jungle chokepoints). It is totally OK to go for a full super-early game build on Viktor because you transition so well into teamfights anyway that you don't actually have to be strictly itemized for it. You can use your R and W to zone/damage the enemy back line while you deal with the front, or use your R and W to kill the enemy front line while peeling for your ADC* depending what the situation calls for. Because the total up time on your R is 7 seconds, if you use your full damage combo at the start of the fight and then use your W and R(move it to the enemy back line after using it) to zone the enemy back line by the time their back line can start engaging your E and Q will be up again (and their front line will most assuredly be dead )
*Probably one of the funniest games i've had as Viktor involved a vanye who didn't get that until late. We got in a team fight and their two bruisers would dive her. So all i had to do to win the team fight was drop W right on top of her and then go ult the backline.
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So well in season 4, what is everybody building on Vik these days? Where I always used to go for a pure AP build or AP with some health (something like Deathcap-Zhonyas-Voidstaff-Deathfire or Rylais-Liandris-Zhonyas-Void), these days I rather favor the CDR and mana-regen build; Athene's/Morellos (against full AD), Deathcap-Zhonyas-Void). I feel the CDR and regen help me a lot during weird skirmishes and jungle fights, and just give a smoother ride overall. What are you all building?
And as a seperate question, which champions do you fear as Viktor, and which do you love to fight?
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Anything that moves is a pain in the ass. LeBlanc, Zed (unwinnable match-ups), competent Ahri (they're rare), etc. Stuff that outranges you. There's a fuckton here too. Ziggs is Ziggs, so it's retarded and you'll farm with E while he plays solo. Syndra.
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Zed is a tough match up, but definitely not unwinnable. With exhaust and seeker's he's only going to kill you with jungle help, so you can always just play safe and farm. Once you have augment death you can start poking him out as well. Champions like Zed are just really annoying because the delay on your ult cast and his shadows can make you completely whiff a lot of the time.
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It's more that if you try to poke him with E he can freely dodge it with W and get close enough to damage you with Q and maybe E. Even if you drop the gravity field under him the cooldown on E is big enough that you won't hit one on him. Add to that that if he wants to all-in you that's another Q/E dodge for free and another shadow to get out of W once you drop it. Plus he'll have sustain, no mana "problems", and he can use that to zone you, the same way LB does, if he doesn't want to shove.
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Was watching Bjergsen's stream last night and there was a Viktor top on his team. He took the cheesy support poke page of mpen/X/mpen/mpen for a solid 20 MPen purely from runes. He absolutely wrecked shit.
Link to the replay from op.gg: http://na.op.gg/match/observer/id=1725737077
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I'll have to check it out at some point.
In somewhat related news - if anyone has any desire to make a new Viktor thread, please feel free. Let's be serious, there's not a chance I'm going to update this one.
edit - although maybe I'll try that super pen build and see what it gets me. I have definitely been struggling to get Viktor to work this season.
edit 2 - I can't edit the OP even if I wanted to, button isn't there
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I can't stand playing Viktor any more. I used to love him but now his Q-auto feels super awkward and clunky, its just not smooth at all.
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On February 18 2015 11:31 sob3k wrote: I can't stand playing Viktor any more. I used to love him but now his Q-auto feels super awkward and clunky, its just not smooth at all.
I kinda agree. It changes how you have to play the lane (which is tough for me after having so many S2/3 game with him). I really like the move speed boost though.
I tried playing him with the mpen/half armor half mp5/mpen/mpen (although I only had enough IP for 8 blues so I have 19 mpen) last night, but only had time for one game and the rest of the team did incredibly poorly.
I might make this another little project of mine cuz I'm so disappointed in how he feels in S5. Gotta figure this shit out. I've been rushing full augment first, but with the Morello changes (since S3) I might get that between 1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd augment, not sure yet.
Just sucks that so many of the good mids right now are terrible matchups for Viktor. I'll try him top too, I'm sure.
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gonna be streaming attempts to make Viktor work in S5
twitch.tv/jcarlsoniv
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Initial attempts at Project: Viktor 2.0 are marginally successful.
21/0/9, mpen/half armor half mp5/mpen/mpen
Rush Augment 1 (E), Morello's, further damage items and augments later
Last couple of games I held off on any other Augments for quite a while. I think I may want to get Augment 2 (W) a little sooner cuz it's really strong in mid game team fights, but it's tough to say at this point. I'm sure I will continue this experiment.
Vods can be found here: http://www.twitch.tv/jcarlsoniv/b/626656528
Game 1 was a shit show and Game 2 was a support game.
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On February 17 2015 23:12 jcarlsoniv wrote: I'll have to check it out at some point.
In somewhat related news - if anyone has any desire to make a new Viktor thread, please feel free. Let's be serious, there's not a chance I'm going to update this one.
edit - although maybe I'll try that super pen build and see what it gets me. I have definitely been struggling to get Viktor to work this season.
edit 2 - I can't edit the OP even if I wanted to, button isn't there You can't edit the OP because of how long it's been since it was last edited. If you contact a mod they can unlock the editing function for the post.
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On February 19 2015 23:46 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 23:12 jcarlsoniv wrote: I'll have to check it out at some point.
In somewhat related news - if anyone has any desire to make a new Viktor thread, please feel free. Let's be serious, there's not a chance I'm going to update this one.
edit - although maybe I'll try that super pen build and see what it gets me. I have definitely been struggling to get Viktor to work this season.
edit 2 - I can't edit the OP even if I wanted to, button isn't there You can't edit the OP because of how long it's been since it was last edited. If you contact a mod they can unlock the editing function for the post.
I'm probably going to make a new thread, honestly - this one is super old and I kinda want to start fresh. So that's on my to-do list, hopefully I'll get something done in the near term.
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Okay, I want to help with this.
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On February 19 2015 23:56 Ketara wrote: Okay, I want to help with this.
Cool, I'll talk to you about formatting and shits
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So, here's your level 1 mpen rune vs. AP rune math.
Build 1 - Mpen runes: 6%+19.53 mpen, 21.9 AP Build 2 - AP runes: 6%+7.83 mpen, 49.8 AP
E damage vs. 30 MR - 82.09 vs 91.07 vs. 42 MR - 74.37 vs 83.27
Q damage vs. 30 MR - 42.69 vs. 43.39 vs. 42 MR - 35.24 vs. 39.67
Q auto damage vs. 30 MR - 80.85 vs. 82.57 vs. 42 MR - 73.25 vs. 78.92
The AP ratio for ult is so ridiculously large that I'm not going to bother for that, AP runes are obviously better for the ult.
It's entirely possible since you're delaying Void by so long that mpen runes are better later on, but it looks like AP runes are about a 5-10% damage increase early game.
Also AP runes make CSing and pushing easier. Also more shield strength (4 more, not a big deal).
Some other time I'll do this for like mid game and we can compare.
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Oh woops, I forgot to add 3 AP from the Prototype Hex Core.
Don't want to bother though, it's not going to make a big enough difference to change it.
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I assume you're talking about quints, yeah?
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That was for both quints and blues together.
vs. AP for both quints and blues together.
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K. I'll throw a page together and see how I like it.
Early stages of Project: Viktor were for figuring out builds. I feel comfortable enough fiddling with runes at this point.
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I have a suspicion that if you were maxing Q first, Mpen runes would be better. So they might be better for some weird top lane Viktor BS.
But for the way you're playing it I'm pretty confident that AP is better.
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Likely true
The mpen page was mentioned earlier in the thread and I wanted to give it a shot. I'll be streaming later on today.
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Most of Q's damage comes from levels anyway, because it's the auto (and it's backloaded, you triple the base with the latter half of your levels) that does the most. Which is why unless you need the shield (and then it's going to suck for you whatever you do, the shield is a nicety, not a big part of his strength in lane like Kassadin), or the low cooldown, E max is simply better.
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Q max actually has some pretty big strengths over E max. It mostly comes down to whether or not you want to push the lane.
A level in E gives you 45 damage and a 7.5% lower cooldown for 10 more mana.
A level in Q gives you 20 damage, 20 shield, and a 15% lower cooldown for 5 more mana.
So they're really very comparable. The big difference is that E pushes creep waves and Q does not, so if you want to push you max E, and if you don't want to push you max Q.
In mid lane you want to push almost all the time, so maxing E is obvious. But if you were doing top lane, in a lot of matchups you want to freeze lanes instead of push them, so Q max would be preferable there.
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The biggest downside is that max Q makes your mid game really bad until you get max E
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You need to be able to use Q too. Your auto range is 525, against someone like Ziggs, Syndra, Ori, etc. you'll get punished for doing it, while with E you can poke "safely" and evade skillshots more easily (you can cast it while moving).
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You're not gonna max Q in mid lane against Ziggs obviously.
But I think it's an interesting idea for top lane Viktor against like a Renekton or whatever.
I think top Viktor could actually be pretty strong, his kit + Q augment seems good for top.
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On February 22 2015 07:30 Ketara wrote: You're not gonna max Q in mid lane against Ziggs obviously.
But I think it's an interesting idea for top lane Viktor against like a Renekton or whatever.
I think top Viktor could actually be pretty strong, his kit + Q augment seems good for top.
I intend to try it when I get forced top. I went E max against Irelia, and it turned out to be fairly poor. It was mostly due to discomfort with top and Q maxing in general.
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United States11390 Posts
On February 22 2015 07:30 Ketara wrote: You're not gonna max Q in mid lane against Ziggs obviously.
But I think it's an interesting idea for top lane Viktor against like a Renekton or whatever.
I think top Viktor could actually be pretty strong, his kit + Q augment seems good for top. Top viktor with Q max and getting Q augment first has been around ever since Viktor was changed. After that, you just rush a rylais and make life a living hell for any melee top laner. Quas is one of the people who have played with this a lot.
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Soniv, can you outline your general goals during the laning phase and explain it like I'm 12 years old? In generalities of course, if you could group match ups etc.
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I'd be happy to. I've got a bunch of things to get done between now and tomorrow evening, but I'll try and get at least a little something done tonight =)
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Ok, because I said I would -
This is gonna be pretty quick and dirty. Keep in mind, I'm still relearning the game.
Top priority - don't sacrifice farm. This might seem odd coming from me (last hitting is too hard), but do your best to always kill as many creeps as possible, you have a lot of tools to do so.
Hit the enemy champion - As you get to lvl 3/4/5, your E starts doing quite a bit of damage. Hit them with weird angles, force them to position badly, even at lvl 1, your Q does a fair amount of backloaded damage. However, do not sacrifice minions to hit the champ. You can do both very effectively with E angles, learn them and love them.
At level 1, I like to take E and shove the lane instantly. In mid, it's important to be even or ahead in levels for trading advantage. E Q E W E, R>E>Q>W. Starting at lvl 3, you can really start to lay down the pressure with a few well placed lasers, especially if they are low resistance.
By level 5, you should have your first augment. I've been going back almost immediately for it a lot, but you kinda have to judge and miss as little farm as possible. It's pretty worth it, because once you come back, you can one shot the back line for super shoving.
Main goal is to come out even (at worst) from lane. Your mid game is strong as fuck with Aug 1, Sorc boots, Seeker's or Codex (seeker's if you really need the early armor, you've already delayed it enough with Aug 1), and so if you can come out of lane even, you're in a pretty good place to start pressuring objectives.
Some matchups kinda suck in that you have to just farm and dodge skills (Xerath, Lux, Ziggs, Ahri to an extent). Some can be really contentious and you'll have to rely on good execution to gain the upper hand. Once your laser starts chunking them for 1/3 health, especially from long range or a weird angle, people start to reconsider. Other matchups, your opponent will have flask, and you kinda have to balance harassing enough to keep them from fighting, and not completely blowing your mana for no reason.
Biggest thing is probably learning accuracy with laser.
One thing I'm still trying to learn is how aggressive I'm allowed to be. S2, I was super super aggressive in lane and very confident that I could easily live to ganks. If you watch my recent vods, I get caught a lot now because of Chilling Smite. I'm still trying to find the balance with that again.
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You're a gentleman and a scholar thanks. It was fun watching the stream last night.
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On February 22 2015 03:29 Ketara wrote: So, here's your level 1 mpen rune vs. AP rune math.
Build 1 - Mpen runes: 6%+19.53 mpen, 21.9 AP Build 2 - AP runes: 6%+7.83 mpen, 49.8 AP
E damage vs. 30 MR - 82.09 vs 91.07 vs. 42 MR - 74.37 vs 83.27
Q damage vs. 30 MR - 42.69 vs. 43.39 vs. 42 MR - 35.24 vs. 39.67
Q auto damage vs. 30 MR - 80.85 vs. 82.57 vs. 42 MR - 73.25 vs. 78.92
The AP ratio for ult is so ridiculously large that I'm not going to bother for that, AP runes are obviously better for the ult.
It's entirely possible since you're delaying Void by so long that mpen runes are better later on, but it looks like AP runes are about a 5-10% damage increase early game.
Also AP runes make CSing and pushing easier. Also more shield strength (4 more, not a big deal).
Some other time I'll do this for like mid game and we can compare.
The AP ratio on the ult is actually pretty low. 500 AP to double on the entire thing. 631 to double on the burst. Its not lux low, but its easily more MPen focused than Laser's 357 to double. So you would expect that any calculation that just looked at laser damage unfairly bias AP.
Basically, as soon as you're over level 3 or so, the bonus AD -> magic damage makes Mpen do more on Q. As soon as you get your ult, you're back to Mpen doing more.
Trace does indeed max E on toplane Viktor (and you should more or less always max E on Viktor, in every matchup, because Q can't clear waves and because E max will always do more damage except in fights that you can't win anyway, or will win regardless.
Your core will be Various Hex+ Void/Abyssal + Rylai's/Lichbane/Zhonya unless you're really far ahead. Rylai's is really good regardless of the lane (mid/top) due to its raw power and the fact that Viktor does not need Deathcap to clear, so the raw fighting power (and slow) is very good)
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Rylai's is not even remotely close to core. Lichbane is an item I really like having, but I can rarely convince myself to get it earlier than 6th item, and even then, it's kinda "win more".
Been looking through Kuro's past Viktor games after he picked Viktor in LCK today. Gonna try out these runes (I have the page, just haven't been using it on Viktor) and build paths:
http://www.probuilds.net/kuro
He gets Aug 2 before building other damage items, and he does not get Morello's.
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I'd like to see their playstyles too, but spectating them isn't exactly easy I assume. Faker goes scaling CDR blues and Augments E before building Grail for near-max CDR (effectively maxed when he gets blue).
Kuro gets either scaling AP blues, or flat MR, depending on match-up. He also seemed to take Cleanse against support Veigar rather than Lissandra. Not sure about Abyssal, he takes it even against a Lulu/support Morgana/Kog'Maw line-up that will outrange the aura.
I don't see the point of what looks like a level 8-9 Augment, where he spends 1k for under 30 AP, 150 mana, and the augmented Q. It's clearly cost-inefficient.
It looks like you'd want to brawl, taking Ghost, a fast completed Hexcore for the faster ult, and Abyssal, trying to stay near people to maximise the ult damage. My own style is closer to "poke until an ult-E can kill them in less than 2s worth of ult ticks" because it's so unreliable to try and get the 7s of damage. Apparently that's what he does in fights though? I'd be curious to see his games.
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On February 28 2015 00:56 jcarlsoniv wrote:Rylai's is not even remotely close to core. Lichbane is an item I really like having, but I can rarely convince myself to get it earlier than 6th item, and even then, it's kinda "win more". Been looking through Kuro's past Viktor games after he picked Viktor in LCK today. Gonna try out these runes (I have the page, just haven't been using it on Viktor) and build paths: http://www.probuilds.net/kuroHe gets Aug 2 before building other damage items, and he does not get Morello's. Any thoughts on Ghost?
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On February 28 2015 03:05 mordek wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2015 00:56 jcarlsoniv wrote:Rylai's is not even remotely close to core. Lichbane is an item I really like having, but I can rarely convince myself to get it earlier than 6th item, and even then, it's kinda "win more". Been looking through Kuro's past Viktor games after he picked Viktor in LCK today. Gonna try out these runes (I have the page, just haven't been using it on Viktor) and build paths: http://www.probuilds.net/kuroHe gets Aug 2 before building other damage items, and he does not get Morello's. Any thoughts on Ghost?
Definitely seems interesting and I want to try it. I know I'll fuck up a lot thinking I have ignite, but it seems nice to stick to targets with chaos storm (especially with full Augment speed storm), and it also helps make up for low move speed.
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Based on preliminary test (1 game) - I really fucking like Ghost
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On February 28 2015 00:56 jcarlsoniv wrote:Rylai's is not even remotely close to core. Lichbane is an item I really like having, but I can rarely convince myself to get it earlier than 6th item, and even then, it's kinda "win more". Been looking through Kuro's past Viktor games after he picked Viktor in LCK today. Gonna try out these runes (I have the page, just haven't been using it on Viktor) and build paths: http://www.probuilds.net/kuroHe gets Aug 2 before building other damage items, and he does not get Morello's.
He wasn't very effective in that game. It was seen mainly as a troll pick against a weaker team
Rylai's is the most efficient AP item in the game for raw stats, and Viktor can use all parts of it(the slow, the HP, and the AP). The extra HP gives him ways to bully that he otherwise would not be able to due to his very low stats and the slow gives you the advantage of Q augment without buying the really inefficient item. Its super useful on him.
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I wouldn't make rylais a part of the core item build. But as a situational item for sure. Like vs assasins vs some kitable tankline etc.
And Lichbane is an amazing item but as soniv mentioned, not too sure when to actually get it. I think it would be good vs ezreal mid
Viktor spam incoming
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Lichbane does less damage than Voidstaff and Deathcap for your combo.(unless you get two Q's per E and don't have ult) So there isn't much point in getting it before them. Get it after Void/Cap if you are looking for a third pure damage item. Its OK to get a sheen and sit on it due to the bonus damage application being magic.
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I'm not saying they're bad items on Viktor, they're not. But they are not core. Shr3dd3r is correct in saying they are situational.
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Try Rylai's as a first item for me.
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On March 01 2015 01:52 jcarlsoniv wrote: no How about for me?
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On February 28 2015 09:05 jcarlsoniv wrote: Based on preliminary test (1 game) - I really fucking like Ghost So I'm certainly not a Viktor player (and I can't even claim to be a mid player), but I can say that I really, really like ghost. I actually run Ghost + Ignite on Darius instead of Flash + Ignite.
And I think that for Viktor at least, I think Flash + Ghost is really powerful. I know you're giving up quite a bit of kill power by not having ignite, but I don't think that you'll always be in range to get that ignite off.
Furthermore, increased movement speed for 10 seconds is really strong in my opinion. Especially when you're playing top lane, I think in some circumstances ghost can save you where flash can't. Also popping Ghost during a team fight or just before a team fight can help your positioning immensely or even reach the team fight on time (Not that you have that problem in your ELO).
I just think Ghost has much more utility than Ignite on Viktor, but I'm not a Viktor player so forgive me if I spoke out of my element.
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Don't you get 5% MS per enemy affected by your passive as Darius? So easily 10-15% in teamfights, and even the 5% is huge, it's like having MS quints anytime you hit a Q in lane, makes for strong level 1 if you hit a blade Q and walk into melee because you can chase them down if you're stronger. Also the strength of Flash-Apprehend.
Viktor's base MS isn't as good, and a lot of his power is tied to his ult's churning damage, he also lacks both tankiness and escapes.
Positioning is a big draw though, mostly because Viktor's ult's range is so low. You can't get too close for fear of being picked off, but when your frontline initiates at a distance (like a Malphite or J4) you often end up having to Flash-ult to make sure you get the burst off.
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The other thing I wanted to mention about Ghost, and why I like it more than Flash is because of it's lower cooldown. Having Ghost every three minutes and thirty seconds can really mean a lot, especially when you're someone like Viktor who has no escapes. But if you're playing him in the midlane, Ghost might not always be necessary as the lane is so short.
Alaric I would love to fiercely debate Ghost versus Flash on Darius with you, but this isn't the place to do it!
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I agree with you Frudgey. If anything, not having ignite makes me play a little smarter rather than always balls to the walls aggro.
I even like Ghost mid, and I've taken Cleanse a few times where their team has a lot of CC that is super punishing (Morgana binding or Xerath stun or Ahri charm with the right comp = auto death)
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I've played so much mid/jungle that I literally can't play anything other than ignite or smite. I run ignite on support because my brain just doesn't understand what exhaust is and I either never use it or only use it in the most stupid obvious situations when I can think about it for days. I'm way more effective with ignite because I just automatically use it at a certain hp threshhold lol.
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I feel like Flash is generally mandatory. The last summoner I change depending on the team. Versus heavy CC I play with Cleanse, versus big burst I play Barrier. Ghost if I wanna run around a lot, etc.
One of the things I'm still figuring out is when the best time to upgrade the rest of the trinkets. My build is generally Dorans 2pots -> Dorans + 1st Augment and from here it varies a lot. The last few games I've played I haven't upgraded my augment till after my first two big items. When are you guys upgrading yours? And does everyone upgrade in the order E > Q > W?
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E > Q > W for aug, yes
There's no need to get a 2nd Doran's, you want to get that E aug as soon as possible (which you should have at lvl 5 if you're csing properly). I've been experimenting getting 2nd aug after my first mid tier item (seeker's or codex) and after my first full item (Morello or Zhonya). The third one is a bit weird for me still, but I've kinda been liking getting it right after aug 2 or after the next item. Having speed storm is nice.
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Whelp I guess I'm just not csing properly ahaha thanks for the help. I'll give your build orders a run tonight
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I played Vik again, meh.
He just feels like a weaker version of old Viktor to me. He just doesn't bring anything special to the table with weaker laser. If I want to play an really really immobile AOE poker then Velkoz or Brand does way more damage. Vik Laser used to be crazy, but now its just another skill thats good for farming.
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Viktor and Velkoz are incredibly similar, it's true.
It's like Lux vs. Xerath, only it's not immediately obvious that one of them is completely overpowered and broken.
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Vel'Koz has a poke (+ cc) and a clear skills, while Viktor has both in E. Vel'Koz's E is a very strong AoE displacement which works well for picks and counter-initiation/peeling while Viktor's W is a slow into a delayed stun with a bigger AoE, which makes it about zone control and can't peel from burst.
Vel'Koz's ult also doesn't have the issue of reaching targets if you aim it well enough because it goes over terrain and at long range you don't have to rotate a lot to cover a dash's distance. Viktor's ult has to follow the target by keeping Viktor close to them (thus exposed) and can't go over terrain.
They're not "incredibly similar", and it's more about how they have strong but fairly dodgeable poke, high base value on their damage but inherent squishiness, and a lack of mobility, than what you described (and it works on a lot of mages so... ).
As for Viktor in general there's not too much to expect from him because he's never brought something to the table than another champion didn't, nor was he ever the best at something. Soniv and me play Viktor because we like him and we have fun with him, but about any way you'd want to play him you can look at the roster and think "Hm, this one would work better". What could have been his "thing" (evolving and adapting to overcome obstacles) hasn't come into its own since either pre- or post-rework you still favour the same augments every single game.
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Alaric echoed most of my thoughts, although I think Viktor is in a far better place than he has ever been (contrary to my original thoughts). His ability to change his build and still be quite effective is very high, and the extra utility/fluidity you get with augment upgrades is super nice. Slingshotting off a creep wave to catch up with speed Q always feels super good.
I'm not quite sure why Chaos Storm can't go over walls - that would be such a nice QoL buff.
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Ehh, they're both incredibly similar in that they are both high damage, low defense mages with similar ranges (about 1000).
Brand/Velkoz/Viktor are sort of the medium range lots'o damage AOE AP mages, while Ziggs/Xerath/Lux are the long range notquiteasmuch damage AOE AP mages.
Except that Xerath has both the range and the damage and is a stupid champion.
Also yes, why can't Chaos Storm go over walls. It fucking flies. It can't even see over the walls what is that shit.
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It uses pet control, even though it doesn't use some of their aspects (it can't auto so the "can't spellvamp from it" part doesn't apply), and pets are units. It probably has no unit collision for the purpose of following and covering targets, but it still has pathing.
And it's probably not something Riot can change easily (pet UI in general has been horrendous for years, and having Chaos Storm not be one would almost certainly require recoding the skill and engineer UI tech to still allow you to move it around).
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Xerath matchup is one where I've been favoring getting Aug 2 a little earlier. Being able to zip around makes dodging a lot of his skill shots mostly a non-issue. The matchup still isn't that fun, but it's bearable.
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So, a little math about some things I saw Soniv do this past week.
One thing I saw him do was pick up Q augment before boots. You can't really make a direct comparison between the two, but here's as close as we can get.
Assuming about level 10, the Hex Core upgrade gives 30 AP and 150 mana, as well as the Q movespeed, for 1000g. Sorc shoes are 1100g.
The Q movespeed gives no boots Viktor 96.4 movespeed on about a 25% uptime, while boots gives him 45 movespeed on a 100% uptime. This is bad to directly compare because the Q speed burst is probably better at some things (dodging skillshots) while the boots speed over time is probably better at other things (roaming). But boots is giving half as much movespeed as the Q aug boost, while having 100% uptime, we can say that.
In terms of damage, Sorc shoes is obviously going to outdamage 30 AP, but lets see by how much.
Our level 10 Viktor if he already has Morellos and a Dring will have about 205 AP. 236.5 with the Hex Core.
Here's his level 5 E damage on some different MR levels given this.
vs. 30 MR (no MR runes) Sorc: 409.74 Aug: 360.82
vs. 42 MR (MR runes) Sorc: 368.35 Aug: 329.91
vs. 67 MR (MR runes + Chalice) Sorc: 304.32 Aug: 279.95
So, for E, boots outdamage Q aug by 10-15%. Q and R it would be either similar or more than that.
So basically, Sorc shoes give half as much movespeed as Q aug, give it all the time, and also give 10-15% more damage. Given this, I feel like the right circumstances for Q aug before Sorc Shoes would have to be pretty specific indeed.
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Another thing that I saw Soniv do is get Deathcap before Void Staff.
Math for this one is going to be a little bit more complicated, and I'm not going to do it for every ability.
But basically, lets look at his E damage, right. 250+70% AP. We're gonna compare Deathcap to Void Staff + Blasting Wand, against different MR levels. Then, since I know Void Staff is going to win, we're going to see how much AP Viktor has to have before Deathcap becomes better.
vs. 30 MR (no MR runes) Void: 345.88 Hat: 363.20 AP for hat to be better: Hat already better
vs. 42 MR (MR runes) Void: 345.88 Hat: 326.52 AP for hat to be better: About 175
vs. 62 MR (MR runes + Locket aura) Void: 314.20 Hat: 279.47 AP for hat to be better: About 550
I'm gonna stop there, because having over 550 AP prior to even starting a deathcap is 6 items, if even that.
Note that these are the ratios for E, when Q favors mpen quite a bit more than E does. R likes AP more, I could do that some other time I suppose, but basically, this is what I'm getting from this.
There's two critical factors here to think about. #1 - Viktor does not, and will never, need Deathcap to farm. His waveclear is already ridiculous without it. #2 - Because of the way we're building Viktor, you already have at least 200 AP before you start on Void / Deathcap.
As such, it appears that the question of Void vs. Hat on Viktor actually does depend on how much MR the enemy team has, which is usually not the case and I'm a little taken aback.
If the enemy team has a Locket, or has any MR itemization at all (even like a Chalice / Merc treads / melee champion with MR runes / Something in their kit like Leona / etc), then Void first is better.
But if the enemy team is not buying any MR, which does happen, then Deathcap first is better, even if they're a ranged champ with MR runes.
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fwiw - I've pretty much abandoned getting dcap (and have for the last few days, so I'm assuming you just happened to watch a game where I got it earlier) because, as you said, he doesn't need it to farm, and I value Zhonya's far more. If I'm ahead and don't need Zhonya, I have been getting Void earlier
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I was under the impression the main reason for trying earlier dcap was Kuro seemed to get it every game.
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Given all that crap, here is my MATHS concept of what I'm seeing for a Viktor build order.
Dring > E aug > Morello > Sorc Shoes > Void Staff / Deathcap > Perfect Hex Core
Void/Hat order depends on enemy team MR.
Q augment when you need it, but not before Sorc Shoes.
Zhonya when you need it, possibly super early if you really need it.
6th item is probably Lich Bane for pure damage, but lots of potential 6th items depending on what you want. Rylai, Banner of Command, Twin Shadows, Locket, Banshee, Frozen Heart, Randuin, GA probably all acceptable in the right circumstances, who knows. Not too sure about Liandry, but maybe. I feel like Viktor probably doesn't have the slows in his kit for Liandry to be any good.
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On March 03 2015 05:11 jcarlsoniv wrote: fwiw - I've pretty much abandoned getting dcap (and have for the last few days, so I'm assuming you just happened to watch a game where I got it earlier) because, as you said, he doesn't need it to farm, and I value Zhonya's far more. If I'm ahead and don't need Zhonya, I have been getting Void earlier
Well, the math seems to say that if the enemy team is all squishy and hasn't even bought like a Chalice or a Locket or something, you should be getting hat first if you're going pure damage.
The Zhonya timing isn't really part of that equation, because you're not getting Zhonya to do damage. You're getting Zhonya because you're making the decision that you don't need help doing damage and want defense, which is a fine decision and correct a lot of the time, but it means it's not really a part of the "Do I get Void first or Deathcap first" process.
Based on those numbers, if you get Zhonya over Void you're probably only doing 5-10% less damage, but getting the Zhonya active, and the extra Q or whatever you get to cast after you come out of Zhonya probably basically makes up for that lost damage, so I'd be willing to bet that Zhonya first of the three is actually almost always the correct decision.
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On March 03 2015 05:12 mordek wrote: I was under the impression the main reason for trying earlier dcap was Kuro seemed to get it every game.
From the games I looked through, he was valuing defensive items over dcap in many of the matchups, and that is really indicative of the meta - many mobile champs that can crash in on Viktor easily (hence ghost/cleanse + flash). With Aug + Abyssal or Zhonya, his damage is still quite high and gives him enough survivability to make it out of bad situations. But I am still figuring things out. I have had pretty good success with my more defensive builds on him.
@Ketara - you forgot E Aug immediately after DRing, which, in my mind, is 100% non-negotiable (ok, maybe 95% - weird things can happen early game that force you to deviate unfortunately). But yes, 6th item is very flexible. That right there might be the reason he's in a better spot than he ever used to be. Augment used to be widely regarded as a shit item slot consumer once you hit 6 items. But it is not powerful enough with all of its utility that I think it offers some really nice choices come late game.
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I'm still really skeptical about Abyssal Scepter. I'd like it if you'd try Banner of Command instead when you want to go Abyssal and tell me how it feels.
Abyssal gives you 70 AP, 50 MR, and an aura that probably doesn't help for R or E.
Banner gives you 60 AP, 40 MR, 200 HP, 10% CDR, some HP regen, the active, and the MR aura for your team.
The only real nice thing Abyssal has going for it IMO is that you can build Negatron and then say fuck it for a while, whereas Banner your options for that are either null mantle or codex.
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On March 03 2015 05:22 Ketara wrote: The only real nice thing Abyssal has going for it IMO is that you can build Negatron and then say fuck it for a while, whereas Banner your options for that are either null mantle or codex.
Correct - which can be crucial in certain matchups.
But I'm definitely willing to try Banner - I freaking love that item and had no idea it gave that many stats. I just build it on Heimer cuz it's lulzy as fuck, but I built it in its S3 iteration.
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Yeah it's actually like really stat efficient now. It's just sort of awkward because it gives like some AP, some MR, some HP, some CDR, but not a lot of anything. The active is a lot better now too because you can use it on any minion, not just cannons.
But for your "I want an MR item that does damage" purposes it might be just right.
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YOU CAN USE IT ON ANY MINION?! Holy crap I'm totally trying that item.
There are a few downsides - it's an awkward first item (I've really only been getting Abyssal if I need it first for the matchup), it's more expensive than Abyssal, and not being able to grab a Negatron and sit on it kinda sucks (already mentioned), but that all might be outweighed by the other benefits.
Definitely worth trying though
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I don't think you would first item it ever.
So many of the stats it gives are in the aura and the active is really best for roaming/teamfighting and not for laning, you don't want it if it's not mid game.
If you need MR just buy a null mantle and sit on it IMO. Also if you need defense in a matchup why you no take Barrier/Heal.
What matchups require MR, and in those matchups can you reasonably run Barrier instead of buying MR?
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1v1 ban match your viktor vs my syndra lol
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Marmy, you realize you're just asking to get yourself banned there.
Not that I'd stop you.
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On March 03 2015 06:22 Ketara wrote: I don't think you would first item it ever.
So many of the stats it gives are in the aura and the active is really best for roaming/teamfighting and not for laning, you don't want it if it's not mid game.
If you need MR just buy a null mantle and sit on it IMO. Also if you need defense in a matchup why you no take Barrier/Heal.
What matchups require MR, and in those matchups can you reasonably run Barrier instead of buying MR?
Lissandra is one I've been doing it occasionally - that's a matchup that I think I'd rather have cleanse over barrier or heal (which begs the question, do I even need Abyssal in that situation?)
Leblanc - I've generally struggled in this matchup across the board. Barrier is a solution, but then what happens when her ult is back? Pretty sure I still need the early MR.
Diana? I figure having Abyssal against her is pretty nice and probably needed. She hurts =(
I need probably a couple hundred more games before I'm actually content with giving a more definitive answer.
On March 03 2015 06:25 Marmy wrote: 1v1 ban match your viktor vs my syndra lol
go away
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Not sure what to say about Lissandra.
Leblanc I'd imagine is a hard matchup, and one where I'd advocate going for Athenes over Morello. Athenes is gonna give you 25 MR, and more mana regen than Morello so you'll be better able to afford to just spam shit 24/7 and shove all day erryday.
I'd try flat MR blues + Athenes, + one more Mantle if you need it against Leblanc and see if you can survive with that.
MR/level runes are really good against Diana. She has no way to fight you pre 6 and when she hits 6 you've already gotten as much MR as flat runes, and it just scales better from there.
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LB is autoloss. Depending on teams, especially if they're dive-heavy, Abyssal is fine.
Had to go top after some guy locked in Ahri. Let's just say Rumble wins after a few items because you're dps-oriented but his dps > yours and he'll get tankier later while even with Abyssal and MR blues you die if Flash is down and he has ult. If he tries to use his shield to sustain Heat, you can punish it. He can zone you from the wave because better base MS, flamespitter > your autos in terms of range, and he won't draw aggro.
A bitch of a match-up, that I'd have won without the Talon camping me from mid but that's probably the Rumble not being used to Viktor and taking way too much free damage.
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There's no such thing as an autoloss matchup.
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So, lets take a look at Athenes + Mantle vs. Morello + Negatron.
Athenes + Mantle = 3200g 60 AP 50 MR
Morello + Negatron = 3150g 80 AP 45 MR
So it's basically the same cost, you lose 20 AP and gain 5 MR.
The advantage to going Athenes is basically that you don't have to guaranteed invest in the Abyssal. If you build Athenes and you're doing fine, you just don't buy more MR after that, and if you really need to you grab the mantle which can turn into all sorts of things, or you can just sell it later without it being a big investment.
The advantage to going Morello+Negatron is that it's somewhat more cost efficient earlier, but then it locks you into either Abyssal or GA, both of which I'm really not too fond of.
I suppose if you have a lot of AP in top/jungle and they aren't going to be buying Abyssal themselves, it's maybe not so bad an idea. Or if it's some perfect storm of my mid matchup is shit and I really need the Morellos healing reduction too, like Leblanc mid Mundo top.
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You can't just randomly sit like that on items as Viktor though. He's only got 3 slots at that point, since first item, boots and hexcore take the rest. Then if you want pots, or you have your dring left, or wards, it's even less. And if you sell your dring for a NMM that you may sell itself later, that's a lot of wasted gold in the end and your next items get delayed.
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Psst, Alaric.
It's the same number of item slots either way.
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No it's not, usually when most champions ask themselves about that, they have one more slot available.
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Psst, Alaric.
Morello + Negatron = 2 slots
Athenes + Mantle = 2 slots
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I'm more likely to get Morello + Abyssal than Grail + Abyssal.
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Okay buttbag, you bag of butts.
Here's some rune and mastery pages for you, you buttbag.
MASTERIES: 21/0/9
You can change movespeed to Summoner cooldowns if you want, dunno how often Viktor makes plays with aggressive flashes like an Annie does.
3 Archmage 2 Devastating Strikes is I THINK correct, I'd have to do a ton of math to confirm, which would be ugh.
21/9/0
If you think you need more defense against a point and click champion like Leblanc or whoever. Against Yasuo change Enchanted Armor to Block/Unyielding.
RUNES: vs. AD - Mpen / Armor / AP per level / AP Offensive vs. AP - Mpen / HP per level / AP per level / AP Defensive vs. AP - Mpen / HP per level / MR / AP
THERE YOU GO SONIV, NO EXCUSES NOW
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Enchanted armors pretty ass imo. Would not recommend on any squishy champion. 5% of bonus armor/MR on an AP mage that is unlikely to get too much MR to begin with is pretty garbage. 5% of maybe a bonus 50-75 MR is 2.5 to 3.75 MR, which only kicks in after you finish your MR items, and that's assuming you go a Grail/Scepter route, which is fairly unpopular. Rather have block/unyielding, as it blocks 3 dmg from autos at any stage of the game as well as 1 damage from any incoming damage source. Adds up to a lot more than 3.75-4 MR tops only after you get your items.
This is all assuming you go 21/9, which imo is inferior to 21/0/9, except against really dumb AD champions mid.
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I'd definitely prefer 21/0/9 to 21/9/0 on Viktor in general, although it's matchup dependent, and 21/9/0 has some advantages.
Enchanted Armor is actually pretty much strictly better than Block/Unyielding, given the assumption that you're taking MR or Armor runes for the matchup and are going to buy an early Chalice or Armguard.
Point for point it's about half as effective at level 1, and as soon as you buy the Cloth Armor / Mantle it becomes better, and continues to scale better throughout the game, while Block actually gets worse the more resistances you have. 3 Armor/MR is actually like 4x as good as 2 damage reduction later on in the game. There's a bunch of math in the Lux guide to show this.
The matchups where you'd go 21/9 on Viktor are probably also the matchups where you'd favor getting a really early defensive item, so that's why I suggested it. The exception is Yasuo, since his kit has so much innate armor pen and his Q counts as an autoattack. Wukong also veers close to an exception case but I haven't seen a Wukong mid in a long time.
In terms of 21/9/0 vs. 21/0/9, they both have their advantages. In terms of early game defensive stats, they're actually both about the same, because biscuits give you right around the same amount of defensive stats that you get from the 9 points in Defense.
The advantage to 21/0/9 is you get the mana regen (pretty great), and either movespeed or summoner CDR reduction. Movespeed is much better against certain champions (Xerath) than others (Annie), while summoner CDR reduction is much more useful on certain champions (Annie) than others (Xerath).
The advantage to 21/9/0 is you get defensive stats that scale throughout the game in bonus Armor/MR and bonus HP. So if the enemy champion isn't skillshot based and has 1v1 all in pressure throughout the game, 21/9/0 can be a stronger choice.
But since a lot of the time as Viktor you're the one who is threatening to all in them, and you're going to build a ton of AP before starting on a defensive item, in general I'd prefer 21/0/9 on him I think.
Not against Leblanc tho.
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Biscuit gives you 70 HP just from the 2 pots you start with (and 20 mana), and an additional 35 HP for each further health pot. That's more than Juggernaut with just one pot until you get ~1200 HP, and a single pot is also better than 3 points in Veteran's Scar.
I'm not sure if Block and Unyielding are applied before or after resistances (I know Amumu's passive is, for example). But in general, Biscuiteer (and the potion duration mastery that unlocks it) alone beats out the defensive tree in the laning stage, which is usually where you're going to buy said defensive items early because of the match-ups.
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Before the first back, Utility gives you 70 HP from the biscuits. Defense gives you 63.6 from Veterans Scars/Juggernaut, assuming you base at level 6 which is about what I've seen from Sonivs games. The difference is then more than made up for by the additional early game HP regen you get from 2 points Recovery vs. Strength of Spirit.
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I dunno man, 5% of 12 MR or 9 Armor is pretty much nothing. Don't see how you can say it's better at lvl 1 than flat damage mitigation. It's bonus, not total MR/Armor. That means everything that isn't base/scaling, which for most mages is just their runes. 5% of 12 MR is .6 MR, which is basically what I consider ass.
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Like, here's some real basic numbers comparison.
9 bonus Armor = 0.225 armor per point of Enchanted Armor, right.
If I buy a Cloth Armor, I'm at 24 bonus and get 0.6
So, if an attack does 100 damage, my Enchanted Armor stops 0.6 while Block stops 1.
When you account for the rest of your resistances, and champion skills not being affected by block and doing a lot more than 100 damage, and armor helping against minion damage which in pre 6 fights can be like half of the damage dealt, it's pretty clear that Enchanted Armor wins.
Yes, Block/Unyielding is better at level 1, but if you assume that you're going to buy either Chalice or Armguard pretty early, Enchanted Armor becomes better by your first or second back, and then continues to scale throughout the game. And it's not as though it does nothing at level 1, it really is roughly about half as good just with that 0.5 or whatever from runes.
When Block/Unyielding is good is when you're expecting to take a lot of autoattack damage and are also expecting to not buy defensive items for a long time. So it's good for ADCs, and it's good for melees who will prefer damage items, like a Katarina or something. It's not the best thing for ranged APs, or for melees who will rush a tank item first.
Again, if you're gonna go Augment > Morello > Void, you don't want Enchanted Armor, but then you probably want to go 21/0/9 in the first place so it's a moot argument.
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On March 05 2015 07:07 Ketara wrote: Like, here's some real basic numbers comparison.
9 bonus Armor = 0.225 armor per point of Enchanted Armor, right.
If I buy a Cloth Armor, I'm at 24 bonus and get 0.6
So, if an attack does 100 damage, my Enchanted Armor stops 0.6 while Block stops 1.
How much the 0.6 extra armor stops depends on how much armor you have already, it's clearly not 0.6 in every scenario.
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Well, that's not the way armor is calculated anyway, it's calculated through Riots silly "Effective HP" thing.
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor
But the short version is that yes, no matter how much armor you have or don't have, 0.6 more armor is still just as effective.
I think the disconnect here is that Roffles is thinking that 0.6 armor is ass, and 1 damage reduction is not ass.
The reality is that they're both ass, but one is ass that scales and the other is ass that does not.
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On March 05 2015 07:30 Ketara wrote:Well, that's not the way armor is calculated anyway, it's calculated through Riots silly "Effective HP" thing. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/ArmorBut the short version is that yes, no matter how much armor you have or don't have, 0.6 more armor is still just as effective.
But that's plain wrong. I'll just take a simple example to illustrate. Going 0->50 armor means your damage reduction goes 0->33%: those 50 armor take away a third of the damage. Going 50->100 armor means your damage reduction goes 33-50%. Those extra 50 armor takes away a sixth of the damage. 50 armor in each case, are you going to argue that blocking a third or a sixth of the damage is just as effective?
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Actually, yes.
Lets say I have 1000 HP.
Lets say that attacks are doing 100 damage to me.
If I have 0 armor, it takes 10 hits to kill me.
If I have 50 armor, each hit does 66.6 damage, and it takes 15 hits to kill me, so my armor has made me 50% harder to kill.
If I have 100 armor, each hit does 50 damage, and it takes 20 hits to kill me, so my armor has made me 100% harder to kill.
Every 1 point of armor makes you 1% harder to kill, no matter how much armor you have.
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On March 05 2015 07:50 Ketara wrote: Actually, yes.
Lets say I have 1000 HP.
Lets say that attacks are doing 100 damage to me.
If I have 0 armor, it takes 10 hits to kill me.
If I have 50 armor, each hit does 66.6 damage, and it takes 15 hits to kill me, so my armor has made me 50% harder to kill.
If I have 100 armor, each hit does 50 damage, and it takes 20 hits to kill me, so my armor has made me 100% harder to kill.
Every 1 point of armor makes you 1% harder to kill, no matter how much armor you have.
You were dying in 15 hits, now you're dying in 20 hits, that's not a 100% increase. With your maths, if every 50 armor was removing a third of the damage, all I'd need is to get 150 armor to be invincible.
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20 is 100% more than 10.
Let me ask you this. If the more armor you had the less valuable armor was, why would any champion ever buy 5 tank items?
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On March 05 2015 08:04 Ketara wrote: 20 is 100% more than 10. Yes, except I don't want to how much it's worth to go 0->100 armor but how much it's worth to go 50->100 armor (which obviously doesn't depends on whatever happens if you have no armor).
On March 05 2015 08:04 Ketara wrote: Let me ask you this. If the more armor you had the less valuable armor was, why would any champion ever buy 5 tank items? There is still multiplicative scaling with HP and it helps you fill your role. It may come as a shock to you, but many offensive stats (ad, ap, as, crit chance) have the same issue, each point gives less % damage increase than the previous one. It doesn't mean getting more than one ap item is terrible.
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On March 05 2015 07:30 Ketara wrote:Well, that's not the way armor is calculated anyway, it's calculated through Riots silly "Effective HP" thing. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/ArmorBut the short version is that yes, no matter how much armor you have or don't have, 0.6 more armor is still just as effective. I think the disconnect here is that Roffles is thinking that 0.6 armor is ass, and 1 damage reduction is not ass. The reality is that they're both ass, but one is ass that scales and the other is ass that does not.
Damage = Base damage / [1+(armor/100)]. So if you have 50 armor you take 1/1.5 if you have 100 you take 1/2 if you have 150 you take 1/2.5
Invert that and you get riots "effective HP" thing which is just another way of talking about armor, albeit one which isn't particularly efficient if you're doing "what should i buy/choose" maximization.
In this case NpG is correct. The effective amount of damage reduced depends on the amount of armor you have.
E.G. suppose you go from 50 to 51 to 52 armor and take 100 damage at each point. At 50 you take 66.66 damage at 51 you take 66.22 damage. At 52 you take 65.789
Or, going from 50 to 51 you reduced damage by .4451. A .666% increase in durability over 50 armor
and going from 51 to 52 you reduce damage by .4356 A .662% increase in durability over 51 armor
Either way. 5% more bonus stats is actually decent at higher levels if you're buying those stats. Going from 150 to 155 armor is about 2% more durability and as you continue to add bonus stats this increases to 5% more durability asymptotically . (plus its defenses and so is also an effective regen/healing boost)
But its probably not something that you should consider on a mage or over the hard regen from HP pots like biscuits or the early game defense of the flat damage reduction
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I'm not going to involve myself too much into this because I really can't be bothered but the tl;dr is that Ketara is right. The difference between 98% reduction and 99% reduction is greater than the difference between 10% reduction and 70% reduction.
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On March 05 2015 21:17 the p00n wrote: I'm not going to involve myself too much into this because I really can't be bothered but the tl;dr is that Ketara is right. The difference between 98% reduction and 99% reduction is greater than the difference between 10% reduction and 70% reduction. What do you mean by greater? I don't get how doubling your survivability is greater than tripling it.
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On March 05 2015 21:17 the p00n wrote: I'm not going to involve myself too much into this because I really can't be bothered but the tl;dr is that Ketara is right. The difference between 98% reduction and 99% reduction is greater than the difference between 10% reduction and 70% reduction.
No. Ketara is applying a fixed reference point where applying one does not make sense. The fixed reference point he is using is the champions base health with zero armor. Which we don't care about because we care about the margin. And at the margin we're at +some amount of armor.
The 5% more bonus resistance gives you more survivability like so
Survivability With/Survivability Without = Damage Taken Without/Damage Taken With
Damage Taken With = DMG/(1+base armor + Bonus armor x 1.05)
Damage taken without = DMG/(1+base armor + Bonus armor)
So the ratio is (1+base armor + Bonus armor x 1.05)/(1+base armor + Bonus armor)
As you buy bonus armor it goes up. As you gain levels it goes down (as base armor is more of a component). Asymptotically this moves to 5%, though you typically won't get that much armor/mr ever.
We can however look at two examples. Level 13 Viktor with Scaling Armor runes and Zhonya(I.E. the KurO vs AD assassin build). 69.5 bonus armor 66.5 base armor. 5% more bonus armor is worth about 1.47% more survivability. Pretty clearly not worth it over getting the bonus HP early from pots.
Level 18 Maokai with Frozen Heart, Randuin's Omen, Sunfire Cape, and Thornmail, scaling armor yellows, flat armor quints, 21 defense in the middle of 6 enemy champions. 96.7 Base Armor. 383 Bonus armor = 3.3% more survivability. Might be worth it there.
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On March 05 2015 07:50 Ketara wrote: Every 1 point of armor makes you 1% harder to kill, no matter how much armor you have. Everyone 1 point of armor makes you 1% harder to kill relative to your base amount without any armor, but not relative to your previous armor level.
50->100 is the same as 150->200 relative to being at 0 armor, but 50->100 relative to 50 armor is more than 150->200 relative to 150 armor, which is what we actually care about.
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No, what you actually care about is a mastery page for Viktor, and somehow this has turned into a giant semantics argument that I refuse to continue to take part in.
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On March 06 2015 07:21 Ketara wrote: No, what you actually care about is a mastery page for Viktor, and somehow this has turned into a giant semantics argument that I refuse to continue to take part in.
Sure but you described the effect of the mastery page for Viktor incorrectly.
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Armor doesn't have diminishing returns and %increase in damage isn't as important as flat increase in damage. There's so much misinformation in this game on how multiplicative scaling works.
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On March 07 2015 14:57 obesechicken13 wrote: Armor doesn't have diminishing returns and %increase in damage isn't as important as flat increase in damage. There's so much misinformation in this game on how multiplicative scaling works.
Short answer: No. Armor has diminishing returns
Long Answer: It depends on how you define "returns". If we define it from the static point of "your current HP" then no, armor doesn't have diminishing returns. You gain the same EHP per point of armor. But this has problems. Because then we have an issue that Health increase the returns from armor. Our point really isn't static
If instead we define based on the margin then armor does have diminishing returns. One point of armor does not increase your tankiness as much as the prior point of armor. This had advantageous properties. The biggest is that the armor return no longer depends on the amount of HP i have. If i go from 20 to 30 armor i increase my EHP vs armor by 8.3% (assuming no pen). I can then compare that to buying health directly. If i have an item which increases both because they're unitless increases i can product rule them together.
Whether or not you want to explicitly use the second framework, as soon as you start maximizing with regards to armor and HP you will find that you're working under the effects of that framework anyway, you're just doing more work for no reason
Edit: maybe a concrete example. You think you care about EHP multiplier, which is X = 1+ armor/100. This is linear. It's first derivative is positive (positive returns) and its second derivative is 0(constant returns)
But don't actually give a fuck about that. We care about is DR which is (1-1/x). The first derivative of this is 1/(x^2). Positive, so positive returns. The second derivative is -1/(x^3) negative, so decreasing returns. So it looks like armor has decreasing returns.
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On March 08 2015 18:00 Goumindong wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 14:57 obesechicken13 wrote: Armor doesn't have diminishing returns and %increase in damage isn't as important as flat increase in damage. There's so much misinformation in this game on how multiplicative scaling works. Short answer: No. Armor has diminishing returns Long Answer: It depends on how you define "returns". If we define it from the static point of "your current HP" then no, armor doesn't have diminishing returns. You gain the same EHP per point of armor. But this has problems. Because then we have an issue that Health increase the returns from armor. Our point really isn't static If instead we define based on the margin then armor does have diminishing returns. One point of armor does not increase your tankiness as much as the prior point of armor. This had advantageous properties. The biggest is that the armor return no longer depends on the amount of HP i have. If i go from 20 to 30 armor i increase my EHP vs armor by 8.3% (assuming no pen). I can then compare that to buying health directly. If i have an item which increases both because they're unitless increases i can product rule them together. Whether or not you want to explicitly use the second framework, as soon as you start maximizing with regards to armor and HP you will find that you're working under the effects of that framework anyway, you're just doing more work for no reason Edit: maybe a concrete example. You think you care about EHP multiplier, which is X = 1+ armor/100. This is linear. It's first derivative is positive (positive returns) and its second derivative is 0(constant returns) But don't actually give a fuck about that. We care about is DR which is (1-1/x). The first derivative of this is 1/(x^2). Positive, so positive returns. The second derivative is -1/(x^3) negative, so decreasing returns. So it looks like armor has decreasing returns. Yeah sometimes you buy health when you have enough armor. That's fine, but the discussion in this page so far has been talking about how a 25% reduction in damage (0->33 armor) is better than a subsequent 15% reduction in damage (100->133 armor) when in reality the flat increase in ehp is the same.
Diminishing returns doesn't care about %increase/decrese it's about flat increases/decreases.
Finally your post is going on a tangent. Everyone knows you buy resists and health together.
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I... I just explained to you, in both math(i literally did the derivatives to show you!) and in practice how it has diminishing returns. I don't know what else to say.
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If you have 1000 HP, and are taking 100 physical damage per second.
At 0 armor it takes you 10 seconds to die, at 100 armor it takes you 20 seconds.
Going 0->33 takes you from 10 seconds to 13.3 seconds.
Going 100->133 takes you from 20 seconds to 23.3 seconds.
In either case 33 armor made you survive 3.3 seconds longer.
There are no diminishing returns.
Yes, 3.3 seconds is a smaller percentage of 20 than it is of 10, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion, which is why I called it a stupid semantics argument. It has derailed the thread, is of no use to the champion discussion, and really needs to stop.
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I thought this was the goddaman Viktor thread. How about people create a math thread if they want to talk about that instead? Also that there aren't diminishing returns in terms of absolute values don't necessarily mean that relatively speaking you can't start getting less out of your buys.
In other news, after some more tests I'm 0K with augmenting Q after sorcs+morello if I don't immediatly need zhonya's or void staff to be able to do something. If it lines up with the roaming/skirmishing part, or if you get a match-up that lets you shove then move to gank sidelanes then the ability to chase/kite is really nice.
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