Hm its interesting but I dont get any crit as i think its a waste of the stat when you don't plan to get IE. Also he is forgetting in a team game you only should really have to chip off 3/4s of a tanks life and other people will contribute losts of dmg as well.
Also i wish he would put a runnan in there it makes all your dmg doubled if you use it perfectly
the aoe on the extra bolts from runnan is really bad and won't help you in 70% or more of the teamfights that you'll find yourself needing to take control of especially when you get dived and are far away from the rest of the enemy team.
bortk seems like a good item for the games where the enemy has brusiers and thisters starts are better for games with assassins.
bortk dancer ie wisper with a defensive item thrown in there vs a thister wisper dancer ie
On February 14 2013 05:04 Ketara wrote: I don't see how Mana Manipulator in the early push comp isn't 100% the absolute best item to have.
Yes it means the support doesn't have wards, but does the support have to have the wards? They can start mana manip and 1 ward and the 2 "mages" in the comp can each start 2 wards instead of a faerie charm, and the team ends up with more wards AND more mana regen.
This is supposing you'd need all that many wards. I don't think you'd need a ton of them. 1 per player is probably fine imo, that's how much a team normally starts with, it's just all on the support.
Mana Manipulator is very underrated at the moment. It's a great starting item.
Ok, so further on the Thresh bruiser thing, with testing. I still find Wits End to be superior to Hexdrinker/Maw, however, a Warmogs, Wits End, Hexdrinker build is sexy. Unfortunately, I think I've about tested it as far as I can on bots, and need to give it a real workout.
On February 14 2013 05:04 Ketara wrote: I don't see how Mana Manipulator in the early push comp isn't 100% the absolute best item to have.
Yes it means the support doesn't have wards, but does the support have to have the wards? They can start mana manip and 1 ward and the 2 "mages" in the comp can each start 2 wards instead of a faerie charm, and the team ends up with more wards AND more mana regen.
This is supposing you'd need all that many wards. I don't think you'd need a ton of them. 1 per player is probably fine imo, that's how much a team normally starts with, it's just all on the support.
Mana Manipulator is very underrated at the moment. It's a great starting item.
You can get away with that start in lower tiers, but around the gold/plat level junglers notice when supports come to lane without wards. It's an easy gank, and they'll shoot for it every time. Unless something about the item or wards changes, a support starting Mana Manipulator is either a mistake or a dead giveaway.
Keep in mind as well that at the professional level a lot of wards get dropped even before minions spawn. Running around visionless can lead to very bad situations at level 1, even if you're all grouped. Requiring other players to grab wards weakens their ability to contribute to the push, as they must sacrifice the ability to start with items like Doran's Blade/Ring or Long Sword.
Mana Manipulator is ridiculously good in ARAMs, but there are reasons you don't see it rushed out of the gate in SR.
Talking about Mana Manipulator in an early 4 mid rush strat, not a normal strat.
Where I don't see why you wouldn't take it.
Support starts mana manipulator 2 pots, other 3 pushers start 9 pots 2 wards. You've got 6 wards and an explorer ward out the gate and a silly amount of sustain.
On February 15 2013 06:00 Ketara wrote: Talking about Mana Manipulator in an early 4 mid rush strat, not a normal strat.
Where I don't see why you wouldn't take it.
Lacking wards while you're pushing, you're just inviting the rest of the team to come at you from any angle they please while your team is up near the tower. Considering you have no map presence anywhere else, you probably should have vision at least.
Edit: if your entire team starts pots, what's to keep them from, I don't know, just fucking killing you because you can't fight?
In the GSG game everybody started pots but Caitlyn who had a Dorans Blade.
Heimer started with a flask. Blitz started pots and wards. They could have done an identical strategy except with Heimer starting mana manipulator instead of flask and it would have worked better.
I can see all kinds of issues with their starting lineup. None of them has a biscuit which seems really stupid given their strategy. All 4 of them should have one. I don't see why Heimer has Smite at all, aside from the red buff steal which I assume was supposed to go to Caitlyn and they screwed it up (turret killed it). Second one went to Caitlyn.
CJ Entus also responded to it kind of badly. They put 3 people mid and the only one who could really do anything was Cho, Kha and Sona were just kind of sitting there waiting for a dive or something. If they really wanted to deny it, Shen would have come in for the taunt, or Ez to poke back alongside Cho, or both. OR, what what they could have done, was just leave Cho there (since Sona and Kha weren't really doing much), and then they 0v2 bot and top lanes, get those turrets, and counter power push. It was just kind of a bad response, imo.
CJ's team was really set up bad for defending it. Khazix can't defend towers pre 6, if Shen wants to do anything he's fairly all in and can't push waves. Sona early on if she wants to really fight she runs out of mana very fast.
Their only champs who could really defend were Cho and Ez. If they pulled Ez away it would force an early fight, and with GSG's lineup so stacked for an early fight (they even had specialized rune pages with like flat HP quints and shit) CJ would have lost.
It was sort of a build order win, really. All they had to do was not fuck it up and they didn't fuck it up. But they could have done it better.
My issue with this sort of a strategy is it pretty much requires Heimerdinger, and you don't use Heimer for anything else, so even if he's last picked it flags a rush strat and the enemy team can have anti-rush runes and masteries prepared.
If you notice at about 4:30, they've just killed Khazix and Shen for Blitzcrank. Ez and Sona both have to base, but GSG has to go back too because Cait, TF and Heimer are all completely out of mana. If they had a Clarity there they could have popped it and pushed the second tower down even earlier than they did. Likely could have downed it and backed before anybody caught them.
Mana had little/nothing to do with the recalls at 4:30. They recalled because they'd just gotten two kills (and a turret not too long before), which is the absolute best time to go back, buy, and return with an item advantage. If GSG had stuck around they wouldn't have been able to push the inner turret (Sona and Ez didn't recall until it was clear Caitlyn and Heimerdinger were gone), and would actually have given CJ Entus the opportunity to counter-push.
In general you're approaching this strategy almost as though it were an ARAM, which it obviously isn't. Unlike the Proving Grounds there are a myriad of ways for the opposing team to gain advantages while you're pushing, making pushing speed a much greater priority than sustain. For the same reason, surprise is an incredibly vital aspect of the team composition; the more damage you can pour onto the first turret before your opponents react the faster it will fall, and the less time the one or two opponents who don't come immediately will have to out-farm/level you. If the enemy team anticipates what you're doing they can be in place from the beginning, greatly increasing the amount of time it takes and severely weakening the strategy.
For this reason I don't like Heimerdinger either; he's something of a giveaway, especially with Smite (although you wouldn't want to run a Smiteless composition, as that's a dead giveaway as well). However, I think GSG's choices were otherwise extremely well thought out, including items.
Spirit of the Ancient Wraith on Midlaners. Mainly looking towards those that can benefit from both CDR and spellvamp (Akali, Syndra, Ryze). I've tried it myself on Syndra mid once or twice and disregarding the fact that its an item designed for junglers, the Spellvamp+CDR+AP+Mana regen are all things Syndra benefits from.
Why smite ignite? Why not just flash ignite unless you're doing some cheesy buff steal?
I still think nasus is a fantastic pick when you have another high priority target on the team + AD carry. (such as ryze for instance.) Still want to test that kind of stuff out. Basic idea is if you have someone else the enemy MUST focus, either they can't kite nasus as they're focusing on hitting the high priority targets, retreating and taking a ton of damage, or they focus nasus and die to the other high priority targets. But those lanes still need to be fairly self sufficient (like no poppy vs singed matchups top lane) :p
With just Revolver and Spell Vamp Quints Smite's personal benefit is almost identical to Heal, and surpasses it handily upon completing any Revolver-based item (especially Gunblade). Combined with its ridiculously shorter cooldown (56-70 seconds versus 300 seconds), it has significant potential. It's a gimmick, but it's at least one that isn't completely crazy.
I don't necessarily think it's a competitive idea, and I doubt any other champions could possible use it the way Akali does, but it's at least an interesting one. Consider the potential benefits:
An additional Smite placed on the second most mobile champion on the map allows for much greater objective control.
Smite may also be used to steal enemy buffs, push cannon minion waves before roaming, clear jungle camps between waves (historically more difficult for Akali than other champions), or counter champion-specific abilities (e.g. Heimer turrets, Zyra plants, Malzahar Voidlings).
While any other champion would be sacrificing an important summoner spell, Akali's ability to use Smite as a self-heal means she potentially gains more than she loses. The shorter lane makes the loss of an escape summoner more palatable.
Again, not necessarily a competitive idea, but no more crazy than AD LeBlanc or bruiser Graves.
A ranged Consume with zero cast time, but that's actually a fairly accurate description.
Morde doesn't gain shield from Smiting. At one point there was a bug where if you smote in the window between Q's primary and secondary damage it would boost his shield, but that was fixed almost two years ago.
I don't think there will be many (any?) champions outside of Akali for whom this idea makes sense. Akali has several factors in her favor:
High single target damage.
Low cooldown abilities with minimal/renewable resource costs.
Built-in Spell Vamp.
Strong mobility and escape tools.
No other champion has all four of these qualities, and even those who have three have caveats (e.g. Ryze has three, but he can only spam freely once he has mana items, and his Spell Vamp is only active during his ultimate). Perhaps there's another champion who can make use of the strategy, but I'm skeptical.
Vlad might be able to if you could cast Smite while in pool, but I'm not sure. As someone who rushes Revolver pretty much every game and occasionally runs Spell Vamp Quints (seen it a couple times), it could be pretty interesting for a more defensive approach. That said, I don't know if he could really trade another spell for it.
On February 16 2013 01:44 Seuss wrote: A ranged Consume with zero cast time, but that's actually a fairly accurate description.
Morde doesn't gain shield from Smiting. At one point there was a bug where if you smote in the window between Q's primary and secondary damage it would boost his shield, but that was fixed almost two years ago.
I don't think there will be many (any?) champions outside of Akali for whom this idea makes sense. Akali has several factors in her favor:
High single target damage.
Low cooldown abilities with minimal/renewable resource costs.
Built-in Spell Vamp.
Strong mobility and escape tools.
No other champion has all four of these qualities, and even those who have three have caveats (e.g. Ryze has three, but he can only spam freely once he has mana items, and his Spell Vamp is only active during his ultimate). Perhaps there's another champion who can make use of the strategy, but I'm skeptical.
The test plan for today will come later.
Lee Sin fits all that. This is partially already "known" that jungle Lee should be activating his Iron Will before smiting, but I doubt anyone has taken smite on Lane Lee (who additionally sometimes levels W pretty early on.)
On February 16 2013 01:48 Requizen wrote: Vlad might be able to if you could cast Smite while in pool, but I'm not sure. As someone who rushes Revolver pretty much every game and occasionally runs Spell Vamp Quints (seen it a couple times), it could be pretty interesting for a more defensive approach. That said, I don't know if he could really trade another spell for it.
Vlad already sometimes runs Heal instead of Ignite... if you ran smite instead of heal, couldn't that effectively "replace" heal, but with a shorter cooldown?
Does the pool actually grant spell vamp? I thought it was just damage dealt by the pool that was healed back.
EPT
