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Watching the Korean qualifiers for IEM I saw some interesting stuff.
First was duo lane mid and constant swapping between top/bot. The composition was Shen Karthus Ezreal Soraka Xin Zhao against Elise Jarvan Urgot Taric and a jungler that doesn't matter.
Toa void being countered by Urgot/Taric and Karthus getting owned by Elise, they swapped mid with bot. Karthus could farm really well against any botlane, as he is a really safe farmer. Their mid was getting demolished as Ezreal/Soraka was quite a bully lane against a melee champion.
In response to that, several occurences of swapping botlane with Elise hapenned, as they wanted Elise to fight Karthus. Lane-dancing occurs as midlane got destroyed.
Conclusions I took from the games:
1. Karthus as a 2v1 laner is legit. He survived against one of the deadliest botlane combos and farmed really well.
2. Sending a 2v1 lane to mid is, as well, legit and very good if you got countered in lanepicks. After you destroy mid, you should have enough gold/levels to sustain yourself to mid/late game. I suspect sending fragile AD carries to this position along with a babysitter would work really well. Thinking of Vayne/Ashe/Kog'Maw here.
3. I also saw two games with Support Elise. She has innate tankyness and has great options to build from Kage Lucky Pick. She also has a ranged stun and two %health nukes. No need for big items, just cooldowns! Both games where I saw her performing, she won the lane. Something to test by - how good is Elise support compared to others.
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Test Ideas for the next session
1 - Testing 1v2 Karthus. I suggest having one of our veterans to do this one, as it will require game sense and skill. Some familiarity with Karthus preffered.
2 - Elise support testing. Someone PM Spellsy!
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I just played against a duo playing Elise Jayce duo, and it was extremely abusive and deadly. If elise landed a stun it was pretty much game over, as jayce gets a gauranteed accel shock blast, then they both combo in on you with the slow from jayce. There is no getting out because of elise absurd gap closer and the gate. The combo you can chain with them both is pretty ridiculous.
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The next time I need to top lane I'm going to revisit the AP stack opening for Tryndamere. For reference:
Runes: AP Quints/Glyphs, Armor Seals, Crit% Marks
Masteries: 21/9/0
Starting Item: Amp Tome + 1 Pot or 2 Rejuvenation Beads + 1 Ward + 1 Pot
Summoner Spells: Ignite/Flash
The goal isn't to build Tryndamere AP, but simply to abuse his AP ratios as a means of securing his laning phase. His ultimate item build will still be AD (e.g. Hydra, Phantom Dancer, Infinity Edge etc.). Amplifying Tome can simply be sold later for the minimal net loss of 130g (one could build it into Gunblade, but that seems expensive and suboptimal).
With 51.56 AP at level 1 (56.56 with Ignite down) Tryndamere heals for 107+ Health every time Q is up (every 11.52 seconds). Combined with his base Hp5, this effectively puts him at 55.4 Hp5 without accounting for Fury. Tryndamere can literally lose all but 1 Health and heal to full less than a minute later.
The AP ratio on his Spinning Slash is also 1.0, meaning that not only does this AP stack give him ridiculous healing, it also increases the damage he does during a trade. This is an important point, as the healing value of Hp5 Quints is very close to AP Quints (8.1 Hp5 vs 9.7 Hp5 respectively) and 2 Rejuvenation Beads is very close to Amplifying Tome (10 Hp5 vs 13 Hp5 respectively). What makes AP valuable is not only the slight Hp5 edge, but the extra damage on Spinning Slash. For that reason AP Quints are clearly superior to Hp5.
However, starting Amplifying Tome is not necessarily superior to 2 Rejuvenation Beads. While Amplifying Tome provides an additional 3 Hp5 and 20 damage on Spinning Slash, the Bead build has advantages as well. Being able to start with a ward is an incredibly powerful option for the oft-ganked top lane, and the Bead build flows smoothly into Tiamat/Hydra, or Aegis, Locket and/or Warmog's. That said, it's also important to look at Amplifying Tome not simply as Hp5 but also as burst healing; if you enter into combat with full health, the healing from Amplifying Tome has increased value.
I've also been thinking about Tryndamere's role in the current meta, and it's occurred to me that the AD reduction from his Mocking Shout has a huge amount of potential against the AD-heavy compositions that often crop up. At rank 5 the 80 AD reduction is enough to put a BC-toting opponent into negative Bonus AD (even accounting for runes and masteries). In some cases an opponent's rank 1 ability could potentially do negative damage (e.g. Pantheon's Heartseeker Strike).
The concept would be to focus Tryndamere's mid-game around shutting down the damage potential of the opposing bruisers and AD casters. Mocking Shout would obviously be maxed first, a skill order made possible by the ridiculous bonus healing from the AP opening. By building Brutalizer, Kindlegem, and CDR boots Tryndamere would have 39% CDR, resulting in almost 50% uptime on Mocking Shout's debuff. This build's cost is 3237g, meaning that all else being equal it finishes immediately before an opponent finishes BC + Boots 1 (3350g). In terms of build timings one couldn't ask for more.
Forcing objectives as soon as level 9 is achieved in order to abuse Tryndamere's debuff would be ideal, regardless of Tryndamere's CDR at that point. This best fits into the low-economy playstyle, as it forces both teams to make due with limited items but largely invalidates whatever items the enemy ADs have built.
That's enough Tryndamere theory for now, but I'm pretty excited about trying all this out.
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Wow Monte.
I love that you're able to come up with this stuff and I mean, I don't get how your mind works and I'd never be able to think or analyze the way you do...but...
I feel like this is one of those 'theorycraft is an awesome magical world where everything works" things....
I dunno. Thinking out loud...rambling...ignore me
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From what playing Trundle in s2 taught me, you can't put a target in "negative bonus AD": in the jungle the creeps remain at their base AD. It seems that apart from armour and MR, stats can't be reduced under 0 (but this also means that according to his tooltips Galio can do negative damage if he survives Soraka's Starcall long enough to dive into negative MR—his shield also starts hurting him  ).
They probably stop at 0 bonus AD, with the base untouched.
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Pet Peeve: Dismissing ideas as "magical theorycrafting" without pointing out where the theorycraft has fallen short.
Theorycrafting, whose roots lie in logic, is flawed when its premises are incorrect or its model is incomplete. As researchers we should be capable of using reason and logic to articulate issues with an idea or concept. I don't want ideas, mine or anyone else's, discarded on the basis of vague feelings.
Apropos to this discussion is the fact that the first of the two ideas I presented was actually put into practice shortly after Tryndamere's rework.
On January 29 2013 05:06 Alaric wrote:From what playing Trundle in s2 taught me, you can't put a target in "negative bonus AD": in the jungle the creeps remain at their base AD. It seems that apart from armour and MR, stats can't be reduced under 0 (but this also means that according to his tooltips Galio can do negative damage if he survives Soraka's Starcall long enough to dive into negative MR—his shield also starts hurting him ). They probably stop at 0 bonus AD, with the base untouched.
I knew about the Galio interaction, so I'd assumed it would function similarly for AD. If what you say is true that is not the case, and we won't be able to laugh at Pantheons with rank 1 E healing everyone.
I'll have to run some tests versus both jungle creeps and champions to verify this. Even if it is as you say this strategy still has the potential to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of bruisers and AD casters/assassins.
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flat CDR glyphs on tryn instead of AP glyphs. (quints stay the same)
Negligable amount of negative difference in hp/minute of Q.
Better for ult (and W but who cares about W)
theoretically better for E, but you won't spam it on CD anyways, so practically not applicable.
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Another highly underused support champion: Zilean.
Shit go boooooom.
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I don't think you can call 4.4 Hp5 negligible (it's nearly a Rejuvenation Bead's worth of regeneration). More importantly, the value of AP isn't simply the sustain. The additional damage on E and the potency of burst healing add value to AP.
For example, consider the Bead build with Hp5 Quints and CDR Glyphs. The total regeneration of that setup is 44.9 Hp5, versus the 55.4 Hp5 of the AP setup. In addition to the 9.5 Hp5 difference, there's a 51.56 damage difference on E. Unless you never plan on trading damage, that's a significant loss.
Similarly, the AP setup has an advantage because its healing is up front. It takes less time to regenerate back to full health from any amount of damage due to the fact that the first heal happens instantly. If Tryndamere takes 615 damage, the AP setup immediately heals 107 of that damage, repeated every 11.52 seconds. The Hp5/CDR setup heals for 39 immediately, repeated every 10.818 seconds. The AP setup finishes healing after 46.0 seconds (effectively 66.7 Hp5) whereas the Hp5/CDR setup takes 64.9 seconds (effectively 47.4 Hp5). The gap between them can thus be much greater than first appears.
The difference when you only swap out Glyphs is obviously less pronounced, but these principles still apply. It sacrifices offense and sustain for a very small amount of utility.
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I fucking loooooooooove utility.
I went 9/0/21 on mids even with the old masteries. That's what's up.
Utility is always useful.
I am an utilitarian man.
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Try Awareness on ult-reliant (or with strong level dependant all-ins) champs. I run 21 utility on all my mids and I know Soniv does it at least on Viktor too. Hitting 2 before your opponent even when you give a smiteless leash while he autos once then runs to lane an start pushing is pretty good (and can give second thoughts to aggressive players hoping to reach said level 2 before you), and on somebody like Ahri, Akali or Annie hitting 6 while your opponent shouldn't for at least half a creep wave is an excellent opportunity to all-in them and force them out.
Plus, if you do it right they'll still be level 5 when coming back to lane and you'll arrive before they reach 6. As long as you don't get caught by a counter all-in you can be pretty threatening.
On January 29 2013 05:22 Seuss wrote:
I'll have to run some tests versus both jungle creeps and champions to verify this. Even if it is as you say this strategy still has the potential to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of bruisers and AD casters/assassins.
Certainly is: ranged and AoE versus a melee attack debuff laughs at expressed doubt. If you can get a locket on top of it against people rushing early AD, like bruta+vamp and stuff, and relying on burst initiation it could be so much HP saved.
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On January 29 2013 07:30 Dandel Ion wrote:
I fucking loooooooooove utility.
I went 9/0/21 on mids even with the old masteries. That's what's up.
Utility is always useful.
I am an utilitarian man.
To be fair, Offense past the first 9 was always kind of meh on AP champions.
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Also, crit reds > ArPen? (for Trynd)
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I think you'd be better off with AD reds than either of them, but it's worth mathcrafting
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Thoughts about Malady on Thresh, when going for jungle/non-support role?
On an AS build relying on souls to do damage, the only other scaling stat is magic penetration, since you can't itemize souls. Malady would provide both AS and MR reduction, which can help to increase his dps. On the other hand, he won't benefit from it at all for his first attack, the AD scaling one that should hit the hardest.
I get that Wit's first is more desirable because of his lack of MR/level and short range, but in the long run since he'll get "free" AP from his passive on top of souls to increase his magic damage, wouldn't malady synergize with his passive, his Q's passive and wit's as a whole?
Or is "damage" Thresh built kinda like Vayne or Kog, AD (for a bigger burst on the first hit) with a focus on AS first?
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Also pretty freaking fantastic AP 1v2 laner: Zyra. She has the ability for bush control, ranged CS, and absurd amounts of damage and utility, even when shut down. I laned against a friend of mine as Leona Ez and we just got forced out of lane trying to kill her. Due to dumb moves on our part we ended 0-7 in lane, so it has potential to be pretty strong
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On January 29 2013 12:33 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
I think you'd be better off with AD reds than either of them, but it's worth mathcrafting
Mathcraft ahoy!
Assuming a trade consists of running up to an opponent, auto-attacking them twice, and then spinning away, the math for total damage dealt is determined by this equation:
Total Damage = (Total AD * 2 + Spinning Slash Damage) / (1 + (Enemy Armor - Armor Penetration) / 100)
Assuming level 2 and full health against an average opponent (~30 Armor from base stats, runes, and masteries):
AD: (80.28 * 2 + 143.02) / (1.25) = 242.86
APen: (71.73 * 2 + 132.76) / (1.1348) = 243.41
Crit*: (71.73 * 2 + 132.76) / (1.25) = 220.98
So there's a 0.55 damage advantage for Armor Penetration over AD, which reverses if you add another auto-attack.
*Crit is behind if you do not crit, or if you look at averages over many trades. On an individual trade, however, crit surges ahead to 284.10 if you're get a crit, and to 347.22 if you luck out with a double crit.
AD runes are probably the best for consistency, but the unpredictability of Crit runes can work to your advantage. A couple lucky crits can create zoning and kill opportunities. Crit Runes also bring you to 98% Crit when you have full Fury, PD and IE. As such, I think it's largely a matter of personal preference.
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Looking at that math, I'd lean towards AD reds for increased last hitting ability - we do, after all, want to farm up as Trynd. Since the trading numbers are pretty close,
I'd lean towards 2 rejuv beads because the extra potions and option of a ward provide versatility in your healing, and also builds into a core item, while the only useful thing I see the tome doing is increasing healing.
How do you feel about Statikk Shiv on Trynd? It seems like since stand-still autoing is not very common as Tryndamere, the passive of Shiv would work better than the higher target-dummy DPS of PD. (In fights getting just a few attacks on someone is likely before you have to either back off or they die from focus.) Also if you get it in laning, it's pretty neat for trading as well as pushing.
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I'm thinking about making an AD page for Lux vs. certain melee mids (Kassadin, Yi). People who are melee and have no early escape mechanics.
Something like Mpen reds, HP/level yellows, flat AP blues and flat AD quints, for maximum level 1 abuse.
Thoughts?
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EPT
