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, would that effectively
Does the pool actually grant spell vamp? I thought it was just damage dealt by the pool that was healed back.
Pool does not grant spell vamp, but if you could chain them when you're low and have Revolver/WotA, you could run into a creep wave, pool + Smite, and gain back a huge chunk of health.
Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
On February 16 2013 02:40 JingleHell wrote: Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
You're welcome - Hexdrinker is just sooooooo cost-efficient for what it gives (basically giving you 5 MR and 250 health magicshield for 75 gold on top of a pickaxe worth of AD+ a null mant). Don't feel trapped into upgrading the hexdrinker into Maw until late game though. The maw upgrade is not particularly cost efficient, it's merely giving an extra-cheap midgame item a final upgrade.
On February 16 2013 02:40 JingleHell wrote: Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
You're welcome - Hexdrinker is just sooooooo cost-efficient for what it gives (basically giving you 5 MR and 250 health magicshield for 75 gold on top of a pickaxe worth of AD+ a null mant). Don't feel trapped into upgrading the hexdrinker into Maw until late game though. The maw upgrade is not particularly cost efficient, it's merely giving an extra-cheap midgame item a final upgrade.
Yeah, the timing of the upgrade depends on the enemy champs. If they're squishy, Maw is great since you'd already have a Warmogs and some decent resists, and the extra smackdown is good. If they're bruisers, getting the Spirit Visage faster is probably better to go tank vs tank on them.
On February 16 2013 02:40 JingleHell wrote: Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
You're welcome - Hexdrinker is just sooooooo cost-efficient for what it gives (basically giving you 5 MR and 250 health magicshield for 75 gold on top of a pickaxe worth of AD+ a null mant). Don't feel trapped into upgrading the hexdrinker into Maw until late game though. The maw upgrade is not particularly cost efficient, it's merely giving an extra-cheap midgame item a final upgrade.
Yeah, the timing of the upgrade depends on the enemy champs. If they're squishy, Maw is great since you'd already have a Warmogs and some decent resists, and the extra smackdown is good. If they're bruisers, getting the Spirit Visage faster is probably better to go tank vs tank on them.
Nah. Even if they're squishy, you're probably better off just going for a BF item or an AS item after the 'mogs (Shiv?) Maw is REALLY gold inefficient.
On February 16 2013 02:40 JingleHell wrote: Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
You're welcome - Hexdrinker is just sooooooo cost-efficient for what it gives (basically giving you 5 MR and 250 health magicshield for 75 gold on top of a pickaxe worth of AD+ a null mant). Don't feel trapped into upgrading the hexdrinker into Maw until late game though. The maw upgrade is not particularly cost efficient, it's merely giving an extra-cheap midgame item a final upgrade.
Yeah, the timing of the upgrade depends on the enemy champs. If they're squishy, Maw is great since you'd already have a Warmogs and some decent resists, and the extra smackdown is good. If they're bruisers, getting the Spirit Visage faster is probably better to go tank vs tank on them.
Nah. Even if they're squishy, you're probably better off just going for a BF item or an AS item after the 'mogs (Shiv?) Maw is REALLY gold inefficient.
How low does your health have to be for the AD from the passive to make it efficient? at 85% health (15% missing), it gives equivalent AD to a Mercurial Scimitar, and only stronger from there.
On February 16 2013 02:40 JingleHell wrote: Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
You're welcome - Hexdrinker is just sooooooo cost-efficient for what it gives (basically giving you 5 MR and 250 health magicshield for 75 gold on top of a pickaxe worth of AD+ a null mant). Don't feel trapped into upgrading the hexdrinker into Maw until late game though. The maw upgrade is not particularly cost efficient, it's merely giving an extra-cheap midgame item a final upgrade.
Yeah, the timing of the upgrade depends on the enemy champs. If they're squishy, Maw is great since you'd already have a Warmogs and some decent resists, and the extra smackdown is good. If they're bruisers, getting the Spirit Visage faster is probably better to go tank vs tank on them.
Nah. Even if they're squishy, you're probably better off just going for a BF item or an AS item after the 'mogs (Shiv?) Maw is REALLY gold inefficient.
Oh, the Warmogs goes straight into the Wits End for AS/MR. I tend to avoid crit since the passive can't crit and his AD side is really the lower side of his damage.
Shiv is plausible for AOE wave clear, I suppose, and Move speed, since he's a bit slow, but that would definitely be a third or later item. I think I'd actually prefer Zephyr, since it would let me open up different boots besides mercs. Mobility in particular would really shore up his map presence, which would help him collect souls, farm, and swing fights with disengage and counter-initiation.
On February 16 2013 02:40 JingleHell wrote: Oh, sylver, with further testing, Hexdrinker into a Maw is definitely a great replacement for Zeke's on my Thresh build, even though it doesn't beat out the Wits by the numbers. Thanks for insisting on it until I found a way to fit it.
You're welcome - Hexdrinker is just sooooooo cost-efficient for what it gives (basically giving you 5 MR and 250 health magicshield for 75 gold on top of a pickaxe worth of AD+ a null mant). Don't feel trapped into upgrading the hexdrinker into Maw until late game though. The maw upgrade is not particularly cost efficient, it's merely giving an extra-cheap midgame item a final upgrade.
Yeah, the timing of the upgrade depends on the enemy champs. If they're squishy, Maw is great since you'd already have a Warmogs and some decent resists, and the extra smackdown is good. If they're bruisers, getting the Spirit Visage faster is probably better to go tank vs tank on them.
Nah. Even if they're squishy, you're probably better off just going for a BF item or an AS item after the 'mogs (Shiv?) Maw is REALLY gold inefficient.
How low does your health have to be for the AD from the passive to make it efficient? at 85% health (15% missing), it gives equivalent AD to a Mercurial Scimitar, and only stronger from there.
Merc Scim isn't particularly efficient either.
At 75% health you're getting AVERAGE gold-efficiency out of the 1850G upgrade cost for Maw (equivalent gold efficiency to BF sword, valuing the +150 health bonus on the passive at around 400 gold worth of health.)
Returning to the discussion about AP+Support lanes, I think if you want to pick out where they're useful, look at Urgot + Support lanes, because you're trying to achieve something similar - You're putting a caster into your bot lane instead of a carry. So, you want to accomplish in lane what Urgot accomplishes, while you want to bring something special to teamfights (maybe you want to bring AOE CC to teamfights? Maybe you want to bring a ton of burst?)
When I say "lane like urgot" i mean like how Urgot lands his combo onto their carry and they can't avoid taking a TON of damage. So, if this were instead a Cassi+Taric lane, Taric stuns (much like she would with urgot) and cassi gets to land a huge pile of damage in the form of QEEE The thing is, Urgot does this from a much safer distance than Cassi, although I think Cassi's potential damage from the setup is higher? (Not sure, because Urgot is taking advantage of Armor Shred.) Urgot's passive is also uniquely suited for being an anti-ADC laner.
This is why I was suggesting AOE CC APs like Veigar and Annie to set up a scary lane for their AD, but you still bring something for your team besides just being a kill lane - which is a problem for the Leona-Jarvan type lanes - if you're not killing them, you bring very little to the team. If Veigar or Annie doesnt kill them in lane, but goes "even" in lane it's not AS terrible, because your AOECC and burst can still potentially win teamfights.
An opportunity to be immortalized in a stupid video.
And more!
Official testing begins at 23:00 GMT (+00:00). If you cannot be present by the appointed time then come whenever you can. We'll be testing so long as we have researchers and working servers, so it will continue for many hours and into the night presuming there is interest. All testing will be coordinated from the TROLLS chat channel and through TeamLiquid's TeamSpeak.
We will have multiple test groups and/or in-houses depending on the number of people present. As it is unlikely that the number of researchers will be an exact multiple of 5, one or more groups may sortie with unsuspecting pubs.
Pseudo AD Carries: We've been working on AP Duo Lanes a lot, but I'd like to take a step back from that to look at some of the other ideas that have been floating around. Outside of my general concept (ranged bruisers and/or bruiser-built AD carries) we've had a few specific suggestions such as BotRK + Hurricane on champions such as Caitlyn or Twitch. I'd like to finally put some of them to the test.
AP Duo Lanes: We've made a lot of progress on this subject, but I'd like to limit it to the TL RnD crew for tonight. We have some clear areas of improvement we need to examine (reliance on Cho'gath, Ryze's weak pushing power, danger of 3v1 ganks early), but most of them can not be addressed effectively in an inhouse. We also need to further test non-Ryze options (Cass, Teemo, Kayle) and be more discerning about support picks.
Tower Rush Compositions: This has been discussed a lot recently, and may even be responsible for recent criticism, but if we have an opportunity I would like to examine this strategy. I don't believe any testing we do can settle the debate we've been having due to our level of play, but we may be able to garner some new insights.
Spectral Wraith Rush Mid: This idea has been put forward by several people for a variety of champions. I'd like to run it through its paces as it definitely is a very cheap and efficient source of powerful laning stats, especially for a mid-lane who plans on taking jungle. We should be careful to pick junglers who can deal with the taxation.
Support Zilean: Zilean has potential as a support, particularly with a pseudo-carry whose only issue is closing distances. This should work as well with some of our AP Duos as it does with champions as Jayce or Thresh.
Support Nasus: I previously expressed a significant dislike for this idea, but this was largely based on a misguided attempt to combine the idea with our bruiser kill lane testing. Given the opportunity, testing this concept with an actual ranged AD carry (or psuedo carry) is in the cards.
Bruiser Thresh: JingleHell has been pioneering this idea. We may try this out as an option for our top lanes.
Stupid Video: If we get an inhouse going I will likely demand 15-30 seconds of everyone's time in order to make a silly video after the game is all but decided.
Ooh I've been itching to go BOTRK Hurricane on Kog'maw, actually. (I've brought it up in the past, but I'm always scared to play Kog in the first place, let alone build extra-weird on him.)
If you want to consider it as an additional test, Thresh is capable of a slightly weird pseudo ADC build. His AS sucks, and his bonus magic damage won't apply to turrets, so he's a weaker pusher, but his passive armor gain and solid base HP can make for a sturdy bitch. And, of course, if you focus on AD items, there's something sexy about a crit for 750 backed up by a 600 magic damage first swing on a champ. Also nullifies building armor.
It's not a stellar pseudo-ADC, but it's definitely different, and could play well into a laneswap. Sorry, I love Thresh. I personally wouldn't mind testing either build. I might even be willing to forgo Friday Night Magic and just draft on Monday instead to test him some.
As far as pseudo-ADCs go, I think Nid could mess with people pretty hard in a 2v2 lane as the "AD" and going with an offensive version of AD bruiser nid (important: still building tankier than a standard ADC, like maybe BOTRK + Tank item) due to her heal (Nid+Sona? Sustain ALL the damage!)
Annie + Support is a potent bot lane, focused more on team-fight utility and AoE damage than the single-target focus of our Ryze/Cass lanes. It went toe to toe with many AD duos.
BotRK + Hurricane isn't an effective combo on champions like Caitlyn. Despite doing well in laning, the damage fell off extremely quickly. BotRK will likely be more useful if the PBE buffs go live.
Smite Akali is not something you should use to cheekily solo an enemy buff at level 1. You take way too much damage and then your opposing mid kills you before you can take off.
Bloodthirster is the best possible first item for Bruiser Thresh.
Spirit of the Spectral Wraith seemed to work decently on jungle Akali. Following it up with another Revolver gives her more Spell Vamp than Gunblade for 200g less.
Both Nasus and Gangplank support worked very well. Nasus complemented Miss Fortune very well with both Wither for the enemy AD and Spirit Fire for turning her ultimate into a death zone. Gangplank's harass and AD buff made both him and Draven very scary.
Mid lane Maokai is a scary roamer.
Tower Rush compositions make people mad in ranked 5s.
It's really, really important to push hard when you lane swap. Several AP duo lane swaps didn't do this, which resulted in eventual defeat.
I'll ruminate on everything as usual. Thanks everyone for showing up and for all the fantastic inhouses!
APstone on jungle akali is really not good, I mean its fine and all but its emphatically not worth delaying your gunblade for, especially because the regen is completely wasted on her. Gunblade is just wayyyy so much better and provides the same functionality.
Maokai mid is a jerk. He's like that school bully who holds you 5 feet away and asks you why you're hitting yourself.
Cait vs Malzahar in the AP duo seemed impossible. Despite potential issues with my build order, I simply couldn't push the tower down like I could last week vs Twisted Fate.
Cait vs Fizz was real easy, I had him very much shut down.
I feel like we need to examine the pushing potential of the AP duo, because this problem has been consistant. Is it a problem with the lanes? Is it a problem with our play? I feel like it's not a problem with the lanes, but I wonder if we couldn't optimize things a bit and make it easier. I wonder what kind of rune/mastery/item setups our AP duo is going with.
For my part, I'm also wondering if ArPen wouldn't be better on an AD Carry mid for runes than Attack Damage. Mid laners start with such low armor that something like 10 ArPen might be really big. Especially on Caitlyn for her Q damage.
I still feel like Tristana is stronger than Cait though. She pushes harder, doesn't need mana to push, does more damage to the tower faster with her Q, and while she's way up at the enemy tower she's safer because she can jump so far out of the way. While Cait has better harass, she can't really close in for a kill by herself, while Tristana can do that very easily. She can even tower dive if she knows she's going to get the kill since it resets her jump.
I think if I had done Trist vs Fizz I could have killed him 1v1 early, and I also think I could have survived the double gank that got me.
I think you're not understanding why Cait is such a good pusher. It's not the Q. It's the autoattack range (and the headshot damage vs. minions) It's hard to STOP cait from pushing. As Annie vs. Nunu+Cait, I couldn't help but get pushed because Cait would take potshots on me any time I tried, then she'd net away. If I were against Tristana, I'd just fucking kill her - her jump is interruptible (I couldnt get close enough to cait to stop the net with a stun). Ultimately, though, Annie assists ganks SO well, I was able to flashstun cait when akali showed up, even though Akali was pre-6, it was a kill. Then later in the game,
I feel like Lulu is SUPER important vs. Nunu Cait, because glitterlance helps slow down the pushing so well, and also harasses back well. You NEED help from your support to deal with a bloodboiled caitlyn autoattacking your lane constantly. Elise support just wasn't doing a lot - she's too much of a 'harass' support and not a 'set up' support.
On February 16 2013 14:07 sob3k wrote: APstone on jungle akali is really not good, I mean its fine and all but its emphatically not worth delaying your gunblade for, especially because the regen is completely wasted on her. Gunblade is just wayyyy so much better and provides the same functionality.
I think I prefer Gunblade as well, but it's not completely one-sided. The mana regen on Spectral Wraith is wasted, but so is the Life Steal on Gunblade. More importantly, you can finish Spectral Wraith 1700g sooner than Gunblade as the former costs 1400g less and builds out of your starting item. Is 45 AD and Gunblade's active worth 10% CDR, 65 AP and slowing down a DFG/Cap? I don't think that's clear cut.
I just played 3 games of AD thresh top, and it seems really strong, every other lane fed in all three games, but I won top and they all went over 45min . We lost but I was a goddamn beast. All the people Ianed against were pretty bad though. I just went for an early BT, then tanky. I got wits one game because we were against a ton of ap, and it seemed like a good AS item. Or you could just get another BT. I wish there was an item like mega-malady, because I would buy it on him.
He's really easy to last hit with and has great utility. Plus you scale infinitely and do mixed damage.
The thing about him is that you'd want to gank his lane a ton, he support ganks obscenely well....like, you arent getting out no matter what. Also he kinda needs hybrid pen, although AD reds and quints would make his weak early a lot easier.
He felt strong though, you do an assload of damage just from Q and really tanky.
Nasus Veigar Sion Thresh
We just need one more and then we can have a whole infinite scaling team. Just stall for 2 hours every game.
On February 16 2013 14:39 sylverfyre wrote: I think you're not understanding why Cait is such a good pusher. It's not the Q. It's the autoattack range (and the headshot damage vs. minions) It's hard to STOP cait from pushing. As Annie vs. Nunu+Cait, I couldn't help but get pushed because Cait would take potshots on me any time I tried, then she'd net away. If I were against Tristana, I'd just fucking kill her - her jump is interruptible (I couldnt get close enough to cait to stop the net with a stun). Ultimately, though, Annie assists ganks SO well, I was able to flashstun cait when akali showed up, even though Akali was pre-6, it was a kill. Then later in the game,
I feel like Lulu is SUPER important vs. Nunu Cait, because glitterlance helps slow down the pushing so well, and also harasses back well. You NEED help from your support to deal with a bloodboiled caitlyn autoattacking your lane constantly. Elise support just wasn't doing a lot - she's too much of a 'harass' support and not a 'set up' support.
It's hard to stop Cait from pushing in bot lane, where she has a support, the lane is much longer and you don't have blue buff.
The dynamics of pushing top/bot lane and mid lane are different. In top and bot lane if you want to quickly kill the minion wave you have to be somewhat vulnerable. You're also expected to have some form of sustain and stay in the lane for long periods of time. Caitlyn is great for this because of her autoattack range, she's able to punish you while you're standing in the lane.
In mid lane it's not like that. You're expected to kill the minion wave near instantly and then go back to your tower or roam and go back to base a lot. A lot of common mid laners these days will near literally have one spell that just instagibs the whole creep wave so they can just kill it and then leave mid and do something somewhere else on the map. Having a stellar long range safe autoattack there is nice but not as much of a premium, because you have time to get maybe 1 or 2 autos for every creep wave.
On Caitlyn even if I have the wave pushed and the enemy mid is roaming, I have to think about where the enemy jungler is. If I can't see him then taking more than one or two shots on the tower is very dangerous. Tristana however is SO safe, and since she needs zero mana to push, she never has to go back to base. She doesn't have to worry about lack of ward coverage or not knowing where the enemy jungler is, because she can just walk right up to the enemy tower and shoot it and rocket jump away the instant something comes into her vision. This combination means that any time the enemy mid leaves the lane for any reason, if the jungler is not there immediately she's at the tower popping her Q and taking a pretty sizeable chunk out of it. That's different in mid as opposed to top/bot as well. If you're at the enemy tower and the jungler comes around from behind your tri-bush, no escape tool is going to prevent you from fighting there. In mid lane the difference in jump range between Caits net and Trists rocket jump is huge.
Another facet here is we're considering this strategy primarily against vulnerable mid lane champions, and those champions are typically melee. Caits auto range excells against other ranged champions, not to mention other ranged champions who have a support in a bush zoning for them. Vs a melee 1v1, any ranged autoattack works fine. And considering Tristana's range goes up with levels and she's getting solo lane levels in mid, it's not such a huge difference.
I've done several games of both now and in the Tristana games I feel like I'm safer, more threatening to the enemy mid, and able to take the tower down faster, all at the same time. She just seems to be straight up better.
EPT
. We lost but I was a goddamn beast. All the people Ianed against were pretty bad though. I just went for an early BT, then tanky. I got wits one game because we were against a ton of ap, and it seemed like a good AS item. Or you could just get another BT. I wish there was an item like mega-malady, because I would buy it on him.
