I've been ruminating on Friday's less-than-successful testing, and I have a few new thoughts and some refinements.
First, more attention needs to be given to the affect one test has on another. Trying to test the carry jungle, no ad carry, and dunk lane concepts simultaneously was pure hubris. The same is true for concepts such as jungle Syndra or support Nasus. Testing these ideas should be done in a more sterile environment, after careful consideration has been given as to what will make them work and what will won't. For this reason any future testing should be much more focused.
Second, I would like to hear from researchers on the losing side of the one inhouse we got off the ground, but from my end it seemed like the best test of the night. Spirits were high, both sides were jovial, and most of the nights best moments occurred in that one game.
Finally, I have some more refined thoughts on the concepts we were attempting to test.
Carry Jungle: The idea that the jungler can simply farm the jungle forever appears deeply flawed. With ward proliferation (especially if the PBE's Sightstone buff goes live) a roaming mid will have difficulty making up for the jungler's lack of presence. The independence each lane needs to exhibit goes beyond what can be guaranteed by champion picks. Moreover, the level of coordination necessary to pass creep waves to the jungler is beyond our capabilities.
However, XJ9's solo queue jungle style has come up many times in the GD thread, and may model a simpler version of the carry jungle. Rather than farming the jungle forever, the jungler ganks at a fairly normal pace and simply taxes whatever lane he ganks. The only coordination necessary is the normal amount required for a successful gank, combined with the understanding that the jungler will tax the lane thereafter. This method might not be quite as efficient in theory, but the skill level required for implementation (especially in a motley, ragtag operation) is dramatically lower.
I therefore propose that future carry jungle tests mimic XJ9's style. Champions tested should have a good mix of carry potential, clear speed, and ganking power. Jax and Tryndamere are the first to come to mind, but feel free to suggest others.
No AD Carry: At no point was this concept properly tested. The chief concerns for this concept remain the viability of an alternative duo lane (not necessarily a dunk lane), and an alternative method of pushing towers. To properly test this concept we need to establish a team composition that will not horrifically lose before the mid-game, at which point we must create tower siege scenarios in order to test the limitations of the composition.
Alternative Duo Lanes: In many ways the No AD Carry tests failed because we became overly preoccupied with "dunk lanes" as the alternative to a standard AD/support lane. While a potentially viable alternative, the concept drew us away from the heart of what we were actually testing. I am not opposed to continued dunk lane testing, but it should be done with a lot more thought as to its role in the No AD Carry composition.
In my previous report I suggested using pseudo-AD carries (e.g. Jayce, Urgot, Zed) or pseudo-bruisers (e.g. Graves, Caitlyn, Ezreal) in the alternative lane, whether supported or as part of a dunk lane. I would like to add support/AP lanes into consideration as well, as I believe there is potential there.
Thresh: Thresh should be released this week, and I believe he has potential in a number of areas. Unless I find a better rune setup, his jungle potential is limited due to a slow and unsafe first clear. However, his strength in the lanes is appreciable.
While one of his more obvious roles would be to function as a support, I would like to examine the potential of Soniv's on-hit Thresh. Thresh's on-hit damage potential is essentially infinite as his Q Passive's minimum damage is equal to the number of souls he has collected. Thresh can therefore build extremely tanky while still doing exceptional auto-attack damage.
The two most critical items for experimentation are Wit's End and Hurricane. Wit's End is essential as it provides Attack Speed, MR, and additional on-hit damage. Hurricane is also important as applying his ridiculous on-hit damage to three targets at once could practically allow him to function as a carry of sorts, even while building tanky. Combined with obvious defensive items (e.g. Frozen Mallet, Warmog's, Randuin's, Spirit Visage) Thresh could have the potential for ridiculous damage while still being very tanky.
As always, testing can occur throughout the week if interested parties are present and available in the TROLLS chat channel. Otherwise, I'll see you all Friday.
I think one thing that you should try for alternative duo/no AD comps is going back to the style of AP/Support bot lane, and run the semi-standard anti-mage assassin or bruiser mid. This gives you an overall tankier composition, and many AP/Support lanes run very well (for example, any mana-hungry poke champion + Soraka, Veigar + Taric/Zyra to land his combo, Kat/Diana + Lulu/Leona for semi-dunk lane).
I'd like to see some other comps as well. I feel that there's a larger amount of mids as opposed to ADs, so we can see more varied pairings.
On January 22 2013 04:32 Seuss wrote: I've been ruminating on Friday's less-than-successful testing, and I have a few new thoughts and some refinements.
First, more attention needs to be given to the affect one test has on another. Trying to test the carry jungle, no ad carry, and dunk lane concepts simultaneously was pure hubris. The same is true for concepts such as jungle Syndra or support Nasus. Testing these ideas should be done in a more sterile environment, after careful consideration has been given as to what will make them work and what will won't. For this reason any future testing should be much more focused.
This is something we had problems with on the internal test servers. It's quite hard to deal with when you absolutely have to test multiple things at the same time. What you need to do in these instances is break down what actually happened during the game and see what factors influenced what events. Sometimes you're not going to actually get anything useful out of it; that's ok though. These things happen. That's what large sample sizes are for, although obv time constraints are a factor.
What amazes me about XJ9 is that he seems to always get farmed. His lanes might lose maybe a wave every 4 minutes or so, but he maximizes farming so efficiently, whether it's his jungle, enemy jungle, a lane, or enemy champions. He seems to always be doing something. Lots of times you'll see people try to camp lanes. He doesn't spend like more than 2 seconds waiting for a gank. If it's not there, it's not there.
I can't remember the entirety of the on-hit Thresh build (I don't think it was tested outside of that night we did it) but I can't see Hurricane being very helpful; it's really just a very mediocre item overall. He built BT and Malady I know that. I'm thinking Wit's/Malady is probably very effective on him considering the magic damage and then some tank/health items would work nicely.
As far as testing in a vacuum goes, not to toot my own horn, but I think if you have a specific test in mind, sometimes the best place to do it is in normals/solo queue since more often than not, people will be sticking rigidly to the meta and you will be able to test in a realistic situation.
Over our 5 support Nasus games, we didn't get a perfect idea as to the workability of it between skill differences, getting camped, and facing a really odd team/lanecomp once, but over all the games we had a basic idea of what works well with it and what doesn't. The more it gets tried the more one will be able to fill in the discrepancies even for the outlier cases, in my opinion. (Along with the testing we did though, I'm thinking testing it in an inhouse or two would probably be great additional data as well.)
On January 22 2013 04:32 Seuss wrote: I've been ruminating on Friday's less-than-successful testing, and I have a few new thoughts and some refinements.
First, more attention needs to be given to the affect one test has on another. Trying to test the carry jungle, no ad carry, and dunk lane concepts simultaneously was pure hubris. The same is true for concepts such as jungle Syndra or support Nasus. Testing these ideas should be done in a more sterile environment, after careful consideration has been given as to what will make them work and what will won't. For this reason any future testing should be much more focused.
This is something we had problems with on the internal test servers. It's quite hard to deal with when you absolutely have to test multiple things at the same time. What you need to do in these instances is break down what actually happened during the game and see what factors influenced what events. Sometimes you're not going to actually get anything useful out of it; that's ok though. These things happen. That's what large sample sizes are for, although obv time constraints are a factor.
Obviously if you let me into the internal test servers you would have none of those problems because I'm that awesome. :3
More seriously, I think it's just too much to ask. Even very experienced players can have trouble trying out one concept (ohai 5HIT trilane shenanigans), so throwing bronze/silver/gold players into a situation with three or four at once is just crazy. It's not that TROLLS is incapable of analyzing what went right or wrong and what affected what, but that when everyone on your team is unfamiliar with what they're doing the result is generally disastrous and not very useful for determining anything (though it was fun most of the time). The majority of our useful data came from the in-house, where everyone was fairly equal in their lack of comfort/experience.
On January 22 2013 04:56 WaveofShadow wrote: I can't remember the entirety of the on-hit Thresh build (I don't think it was tested outside of that night we did it) but I can't see Hurricane being very helpful; it's really just a very mediocre item overall. He built BT and Malady I know that. I'm thinking Wit's/Malady is probably very effective on him considering the magic damage and then some tank/health items would work nicely.
As far as testing in a vacuum goes, not to toot my own horn, but I think if you have a specific test in mind, sometimes the best place to do it is in normals/solo queue since more often than not, people will be sticking rigidly to the meta and you will be able to test in a realistic situation.
Over our 5 support Nasus games, we didn't get a perfect idea as to the workability of it between skill differences, getting camped, and facing a really odd team/lanecomp once, but over all the games we had a basic idea of what works well with it and what doesn't. The more it gets tried the more one will be able to fill in the discrepancies even for the outlier cases, in my opinion. (Along with the testing we did though, I'm thinking testing it in an inhouse or two would probably be great additional data as well.)
Hurricane is generally considered a mediocre item because it is of limited value on most AD carries. It only grants Attack Speed, leaving the carry without the Crit or Movement Speed needed to be effective at kiting single targets. The AoE damage is also fairly useless when only one target is chasing you, and isn't that potent even if there are multiple targets as extra targets only take 50% of AD in damage.
However, none of these limitations are particularly important to a tanky, on-hit Thresh build. This build has little/no use for Crit or Movement Speed as he won't be kiting single targets but fighting in the thick of things. This incidentally makes the likelihood of hitting multiple targets quite high. Hurricane applies full on-hit damage, meaning Thresh will deal full Q passive damage on all three targets being hit.
Wit's End is more important than Hurricane because it is cheaper, provides damage equal to 42 souls, and increases his tankiness. However, I would easily want Hurricane over either BT or Shiv so long as the enemy team composition had any propensity for clustering at all. Malady and Zephyr are somewhat okay, but I'd rather simply build tankier or grab a Void Staff than build those items.
Testing with groups less than 5 players is fine so long as you're simply playing an odd champion in an existing role (e.g. Jungle Syndra, Support Nasus). When you're attempting strategies that blatantly break from the meta you typically need everyone on the same page.
On January 22 2013 06:14 stormtemplar wrote: Hey guys, I'd like to come play with you all! Where should I go on friday? Also, I approve of dunk lanes. (;
Go to the chat channel TROLLS in the league client. People are in there throughout the week but most of the testing happened Friday as far as I know.
Testing officially begins at 23:00 GMT (+00:00) Friday. Meet in the TROLLS chat channel on NA, and join TeamLiquid's TeamSpeak server (we'll be in one of the LoL channels).
I'm in TROLLS chat throughout the week if you want to talk about anything, and if there are people around we can always test on off days. So far the only time there have been enough interested parties has been on Friday.
I will be testing Jungle Syndra throughout the week both in ranked and in normals with TL, I will report more findings on Friday night (Probably after the official testing).
If anyone else wants to help me, add Hiicantpk ingame.
The most important thing in dunk lanes, in my experience, are strong gap-closing abilities. That's why a lane like Garen/Nasus wouldn't work very well. Riven/Vi/Lee Sin should make excellent partners to dunk lanes.
You should try out some junglers in lane, notably im interested in running Nocturne mid. He's got just massive sustain and clearing power in lane, plus excellent scaling with all the farm and a nice little spell shield. Running him mid gives him terrifying roaming capabilities to top and bot and makes entering his jungle basically impossible. His weakness seems to be his lack of a non ult gap closer. Perhaps a pairing with a very scary mid jungler such as Maokai would be helpful.
I've like never seen him played in lane, and I've tried him a few times and it was very interesting. His sustain from passive in a full creep wave is absolutely stupid. His laning issue was also that he basically automatically pushes. But thats not as much of an issue in shorter mid, and the spellshield is a stronger escape mid than it is top. Seems with the nice AD itemization and trend in mid it could be time to give him a shot.
In the testing for a non adc bot lane I propose that instead you send a ranged adc top lane like cait corki or graves. This would allow for flexability to still take down towers while still being able to experiment what would work bot lane best without the retriction of being forced into an adc + support paragidm.
On January 22 2013 07:58 sob3k wrote: You should try out some junglers in lane, notably im interested in running Nocturne mid. He's got just massive sustain and clearing power in lane, plus excellent scaling with all the farm and a nice little spell shield. Running him mid gives him terrifying roaming capabilities to top and bot and makes entering his jungle basically impossible. His weakness seems to be his lack of a non ult gap closer. Perhaps a pairing with a very scary mid jungler such as Maokai would be helpful.
I've like never seen him played in lane, and I've tried him a few times and it was very interesting. His sustain from passive in a full creep wave is absolutely stupid. His laning issue was also that he basically automatically pushes. But thats not as much of an issue in shorter mid, and the spellshield is a stronger escape mid than it is top. Seems with the nice AD itemization and trend in mid it could be time to give him a shot.
I've been running noc mid for two weeks now with mild success, when it works it's hilarious and unstoppable but if they camp you a lot you really have no escapes and if they're good they can outplay spellshield. Pushing is very easy, it takes very little to waveclear, and if they ever leave lane to gank you just take a tower immediately, but he actually has pretty harsh mana issues unless you get a blue buff. I've been rushing ravenous hydra because that shit is hilarious, but if I were doing it for real I'd probably be getting something like dorans vamp warmogs or something. Hydra is core, though, it's just a matter of when.
On January 22 2013 09:09 Sermokala wrote: In the testing for a non adc bot lane I propose that instead you send a ranged adc top lane like cait corki or graves. This would allow for flexability to still take down towers while still being able to experiment what would work bot lane best without the retriction of being forced into an adc + support paragidm.
Maybe adc top ad assasin mid ap support bot?
I think double caster bot lane is a good idea. I saw a pro korean team (mvp white i think) run a no-adc comp with amu kha kat or something but they lost to MF. I still think the idea's good though. I want to try out double caster bot or caster as support bot and double duo lane with no jungle. It requires the coordination to take your buffs and keep timers when they spawn but I think it's really strong with the correct play as 2v1 lanes are crazy hard to play. Probably need cait/mf with nunu to push one lane and something like sona graves/ez to harass the other.
The big key with a "carry" jungle is simply the lanes.
If you want to run someone you want to get farmed, you need strong lanes that wont demand constant attention. You really cant run a carry jungle with the rest of the tests because the only way to really end up with a farmed jungler is to run boring shit you know will win in lane and let the jungler do his thing.