On May 20 2014 01:00 Alaric wrote:Nope, I've seen Sejuani and Amumu picked several times since my Elo dropped from high to mid Gold though. That surprised me, since I never saw them apart from the lone Amumu in the last months. Not sure if it's because of the current meta or just my Elo drop, though.
I tried jungling Sejuani in a normal with lower-level friends recently and I decided not to touch her with a 10-foot pole because she's painfully slow at clearing (slower than Vi) and reliant on people to actually follow up on what you do, which is
exactly what I want to avoid.
Noc's my secondary jungler but the Flare nerf didn't help him and I'm not at ease yet with his kit (easy to escape his ult ganks if Flash is up, esp. bot, and partially because of the delay on E, and I don't feel like expanding a 180s cd just to set up a kill later; Xin's more reliable in that sense but I'm bad at him). I'm still keeping him because he scales well and as decent utility with his mobility post-6 and his spellshield.
On May 20 2014 00:23 Slayer91 wrote:
im sure you have a really hard time alaric jungling in gold 3 where apparently its too hard to win with udyr in a bad team comp and your laners all fuck up if you dont gank before 6
Can't remember where I was when I dropped Udyr last season, but 2nd picking him and watching the other 3 go "oh they're picking Renekton Ziggs Cait and Lulu, time to pick Ezreal Sona and LB [pre-ult buff and the grail-W max build] and never ever try to hard engage or catch them" made for really fun games spent trying to soak up poke or flank and see the other 4 still cowering under tower.
I actually mentioned it at some point and you quoted the post accusing me of finding excuses, 'cause sure as hell I should have all 3 lanes pushed to enemy t3s and out-clear Ziggs or Lux without even trying as Udyr.
Thing is I'm bad at carrying. That's it, I won't go 10-0 ever, I won't 1v5, I won't be the silent hero with 0 kills but most damage done to champions in the post-game screen.
I climbed by playing a more supportive style where I'd create a ton of space in lane when playing support, or abusing my game sense and the fact that I time a ton of stuff (many less people did it in s3) to put my lanes ahead as a jungler and have them carry me. Top I often got leads but lacked the execution to convert them into kills (recurring motif in my "shit at snowballing/carrying") so I focused on drawing jungler attention and not dying from it.
Vi exemplified it well in the assassin meta because I'd go top at level 3-4 to try and burn a flash/chase off the enemy jungler/give room to my laner, farm to 6, then focus on mid, timing enemy ult cd so I'm there when it's available and I ganked as soon as he committed, punishing aggro botlanes the same way, and putting a lot of emphasis on taking objectives like enemy buffs and drakes to retain tempo.
In all these cases, Vi was reliable, and the aggro meta meant that her being shit at chasing/an ult bot was made up for the FotM picks' high damage.
In the current meta I can't abuse junglers as well because s4 gave us the trash "comeback" mechanics making any attempts at setting the enemy jungler back a waste of time, while mid becomes passive and riddled with safe picks clearing from afar (Ziggs, LB) or generally hard to kill (Lulu), while botlane moved from Barrier+Ignite to Heal+Exhaust or even double Heal, Soraka is popular, and Vi's damage and ult cd have been nerfed.
What makes Vi bad in that context is that she isn't reliable anymore. Previously, even if it was Fizz or Ahri, the way the meta went they'd be killable anyway because of how bursty/aggressive everything was. Now you may burn a 130s cd just to see the other guy burn Heal, escape, and even stay in lane afterwards. Meanwhile the enemy jungler farms some camps and sets on outscaling you.
Because I need my teammates to carry me and rely on setting them up for it,
reliability is precisely what I need.
Especially now that my Elo took a nosedive and it's painfully obvious how worse everyone is.
That's why I'm hesitant to pick up Xin (because he's more execution-reliant than others and I'm even badder at that than the rest) or Udyr (because while he's autonomous in the jungle he's the kind of champ that can get screwed over by bad comps). When I'm thinking of picking up a new jungler to replace Vi who went from meh to currently straight-up
bad, I'm looking for that reliability to find something that supports my playstyle, simply because it's easier than to relearn another playstyle that won't suit me as well (and needs me to improve a fuckton before it yields results on top of it).