f13.net

Wondering if there's any interest in trying to coordinate something for season 3.  Obviously, a lot of us have conflicting schedules, so I'm playing with a few ideas, if there's any interest:

• Steam Group:  The Roll Call thread is nice, but I'm not generally sitting in the LoL client idle, I'm either playing or I'm out.  On the other hand, I am often running Steam in the background.  So I was thinking it might be more convenient for some people to have a Steam group for LoL where we can organize stuff.
• "LoL Time":  We could have a signup thread every week (or so) where we ask who wants to play that week, and try to find a time (or two or whatever) that works for the most people.  Whoever shows up, we see what we can do with those numbers.
• Fixed Teams: We could try to get a 5-man team going, or a 3-man if we're short on players.
• Roll Call part Deux: We could just re-post in the Roll Call thread or make a new one and glom together a huge list of the active S3 players, and see who's on when, try and coordinate things individually.

I'd love to kick it with f13 people for 3's, 5's, or anything. I think a Steam group is a really good idea. My schedule might be too erratic for a regular team but maybe I could make it work with some Aussies or something.

I made (and am regularly in when I am online) the F13 chat channel in NA. I am the only one who is there though. The in game chat channel is very handy and can easily be configured so that you join as soon as you log into the League client.

Just join the channel using the normal means and then press the little gear and click "join at startup"

I also stick people who play on my friends list under F13 but don't really check my friends list

Done.

I can play at set times, I can't really idle in any chat because my gaming computer is not the comp I am using for other stuff now.

If people want to play on a set schedule I am open to that, pretty flexible schedule in general.

I'm open to playing at set schedules. I went ahead and set myself up the f13 chat channel to autojoin on startup.

I'm down with playing in some team stuff as well.

Sounds good, I'll give that a shot.  I'm Weyen in game, in case someone's wondering who that is.

For people looking for a regular thing, what's your availability like?  I'm pretty open for most of the time, and my schedule should remain pretty stable for the next three months or so.  I'm in Central NA time zone (GMT-6, I think):

Monday:  Free at night, probably too late to play
Tuesday:  Free most of the day after about 13:00
Wednesday: Free in the evening after about 17:00
Thursday: Free most of the day after about 13:00
Friday: Changes, some weeks I'm free in the evening, some days I don't get back until later
Saturday:  Free all day
Sunday: Free all day

I'm keen - will join f13 channel on startup but Steam group can't hurt.

ezrast - can play during Aussie times, aye?

I'm a friendless misanthrope who hasn't gamed in a group since the burning crusade days before I quit WoW.

I'm in, and can play at most times.

I'm always game.  I just play rather late at night. 

For people who want in the Steam group, mind posting your steam names/profile links so I can send out invites without having to dredge the F13 group?  I'm lazy.

Edit:
I made the group public for now, so if you want to join without waiting for an invite, head to:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/F13lol

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197972329666/

League name is Logoth

Fortunato on LOL and support main, looking for a team for a while now.

Haemish M on both LOL and Steam.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/ezrast (I think this is what you mean?)

In GMT-6, I'm available either from about 07:00-11:00 or 17:00-21:00 depending on when I sleep. Sydney time I believe that works out to 00:00-04:00 or 10:00-14:00. Or all afternoon if it's a Tuesday or Wednesday, as Mon/Tues are my nights off here.

I'm around playing LoL still
AScottEGR

Invites to the Steam group are out for everyone whose ID I know, if anyone else wants in pipe up with a link and I'll invite, or you can just join (it's an open group atm)

On another topic, looking at scheduled play times.  There's a double IP weekend coming up, how are people's schedules looking this coming Saturday/Sunday (Jan 26,27)? 
Other than weekends, it looks like Tuesdays are the most open nights for Ez and myself, how are other people for Tuesdays?

I am free literally any time.

I could be free Tuesdays depending on what time.

Tuesdays are good.

I'm game.

Schedule is I'm typically free during the day (8a-6p eastern) or late at night (11p-2a eastern).

I'll idle in the f13 league chat in LoL.

LoL handle: Chocolate Jesus

Also joined the Steam group. 

So, how about we meet on Tuesday, start at about 11:00 GMT (which, if I'm doing the math right, is about 18:00 Eastern, 15:00 Pacific, or 10:00 Sydney) and we run for a bit, take a break, and then run a second round at  16:00 GMT (or 23:00 Eastern, 20:00 Pacific, 15:00 Sydney)?  Hat will miss the first one, and Ezrast will miss the second, but everyone should be able to get in a few games at least.  People can show up for one or both or neither.  Sound good, or should I tweak it a bit?

Do we wanna do anything about voice comms?  I feel like it would be helpful, but I don't know anything about running a vent server or what the alternatives are.

Are we trying to compete or is this just more trying to get F13ers together for a few matches?

Just a get together at this point, so yeah, I don't know that voice comm would be necessary, now that you mention it.

IMHO voice comms make the game more fun. I've been meaning to see about setting up a Vent or Mumble server of my own, so I'll get around to that sometime this week. No promises.

If you're playing with friends you should have voice comms since matchmaking will try to put you with other 5s. And they will have comms and you will lose games because they have comms and are able to coordinate.

Yeah, I'd say voice comms are a must if for no other reason than to hear me screaming obscenities in Foghorn Leghorn Southern accent.

So, with season 3 officially out of the gates, anyone wanna kick this off tomorrow?  Who all can make it?

I'm in.

What time?

Seems like nobody showed up for the appointed times, but I can be up whenever.

Unless we have any more constraints, I'm looking at either 11:00 GMT (18:00 Eastern US) or 16:00 GMT (23:00 Eastern US).

Barring that, I'll just check when the most people are on the chat and we can aim for that time next week, if people are up for it.

Sorry, been busy, probably won't be on at all for a while.

Think those times should be 06:00 and 11:00 Eastern. That might be part of our problem.

I got on about 8 pm Central (9 pm Eastern) and there were I think 4 guys in f13 chat, but they were all in game already.

Uh, oops.
 :awesome_for_real:

To quote Barbie: Math is hard.


Yeah, looked like the game was more populated later in the day.

Next week, you guys want to try 02:00 GMT (which I think is about 21:00 Eastern, or 13:00 Sydney) instead?

I can swing that.

Queuing up for first game now. Only have four so more of you need to show up soon.

Ohhh, there's the problem.  It's still Monday here.

I'll be with you guys in a bit, ten minutes or so, just wrapping some stuff up here.

Ah, yeah, should have confirmed that. how i communication.

Anyway, we just wrapped up. My MF bot got wrecked by Corki/Soraka after giving up two kills early thanks to me splitting damage for the sake of positioning, and then not positioning properly anyway. Helm's Singed top wasn't doing great in lane either; thankfully our fill-in Akali mid snowballed hard and carried us through early game until the rest of us could catch up on items. Unfortunately she got fixed into the mindset of carrying the game by herself and kept teleporting into silly situations, and even though Singed, Phry's Mundo, and Lakov_Sanite's Thresh got seriously tanky I was too timid to engage on anything without Akali there. Fortunately the other team's awareness of dragon/baron was pretty poor and we managed to snag multiples of each while they were across the map. The game dragged on and we traded inhibs for a bit. Finally they pushed two inhibs of ours in and backed off, which we took as a sure sign they were doing baron for the final push, and Thresh and Akali ran to backdoor their nexus... only to get caught by the other team sitting in their base, not doing baron at all. Oops. With two down we couldn't stop the final push and took a defeat, but it was an interesting game and a lot closer than it looked like it was going to be.

Watched part of it before I queued up.  Some funny derps here and there (chain into... SORAAAKA), but we're not high elo, so that's expected.  That Akali was going beast mode, but those players tend to be a liability late game. 

That akali....she was doing good but tried so hard to be the hero she made some seriously dumb plays.  The second I dropped a ward in their base for her to tele and backdoor she went there, even though we had zero sight on any of their members....who were actually right there waiting for her.

People still getting on at 11 eastern? (AKA 8 cool person time?)

Will be ~20m late but sure.

I'm around, too, if you need someone to feed and die constantly :grin:

Got 3 good games in, after you fuckers stopped logging in and then solo queuing. :oh_i_see:

First game I took Nunu top against Singed, which is a good matchup for me. I did fine in lane and was up a lot of CS, but mostly it was irrelevant because Margalis and Phry won bottom lane hard with Tristana/Thresh. Trist stomped her way to 16/1 and a 23-minute surrender from the other team.

Second game I tried Akali jungle, which I don't think is as bad an idea as it sounds but I didn't play it very well. Part of the problem was that I counterpicked myself though; against Vi, Amumu, Ali, Olaf, Graves there was never a good target to jump on and burst down. So instead I jumped on bad targets and then died. We got caught by a few mummy ults and Vi got a legit pentakill. We ff'd at 30.

Last game I went Nunu mid and fed Orianna pretty hard. After my tower fell I transitioned to following our jungle Xin (a pubbie, as two of our party had left at this point) around, boiling him, and snowballing whatever he wanted to murder, with some success. We didn't score a ton of kills but we made sure our other lanes did okay and kept the other team guessing. Fortunately their Sivir made up for their Orianna and got caught repeatedly. We roamed as a group and amped up the defense, and fortunately wound up slightly tankier than they did (although they could make targets invincible at will with gigantic Ori+Janna shields). Eventually we were able to prolong team fights in their base long enough for inhibitors to die in the collateral damage, and at an hour we finally knocked down their Nexus. It was a nice comeback, and I was relieved to end up with a positive k/d after my terrible start.

That second game I suffered a lot from not playing against Vi much. I should have silenced her immediately when you came to gank. She just used her charge-up-and-dash thing to get well out of range. Probably missed out on 2 kills mid because of that. Oh well, live and learn.

That third game was pretty crazy. Still not sure exactly how we won. At some point Xin just went critical with the amount of support we could give him.

I think if I had been able to talk in voice comms, we could have avoided a few bad decisions.  ezrast getting popped early by Olaf could have been avoided, but it really didn't hurt the lane.

Their team was just insanely tanky, and we didn't have the comp/farm/damage to deal with it.  I think without Amumu we would have had a decent shot at winning.  But they still had an Olaf, Vi and Alistar.  I did no damage to Olaf top, but he couldn't really do anything either, except push.   I probably would have done better just using Elise and getting some more practice with her.

Was watching my recording of game 2, and I'm just curious if I'm seeing the same problems everyone else did, or if there's more/different stuff i should be focusing on.
edit: this is the game where I was Ezreal, our team was me + Akali, Cho, Ryze, and Thresh on support.

I think my biggest problem was that I was way behind on farm, so with regard to that:

• I need to work on last hitting... maybe just run some bot matches and practice for a few hours.  I don't suppose there's some easy trick to this or something, is there?  I'm just clicking on guys when their life bar looks low-ish
• I think I need to push harder.  I've been working on the assumption that pushing = bad unless you're going for tower, since it opens you up to ganks, but our tower ate a ton of minions.
• Not sure about my champion selection.  I dunno if Ezreal is worse/more difficult for last hitting than a lot of other ADCs or if I'm just bad at him.  Either way, I should probably look at another ADC... who's supposed to be good at last hitting?  I've had some luck with Draven, but he was banned that game and seems to fall off late game anyway.  MF and Graves see a lot of pro play, but I don't own either of them.
• Probably should have backed earlier.  I managed to stay in lane for something like ten or fifteen minutes with nothing but pots, because I wanted a BF Sword and figured I'd catch up on my opponent when he left lane after getting ganked, but I never managed to catch up and my damage was horrible for the first half of the game.

Anyone notice anything I missed, or any mistakes I made?

You were definitely way behind in CS but I couldn't tell why. AD carries probably need CS the most out of anyone, their scaling is generally terrible and their abilities don't have much utility. The strength of a traditional ranged carry is that you can build almost pure offense and still be effective due to range. If you don't have CS you don't have items and are basically useless.

Ez is one of the easier ADs to CS with, since you can use his Q to last hit. Last hitting is a bunch of different elements:

1. Knowing when to harass the enemy and when to hit minions
2. Knowing which creeps to attack when to make sure you don't get into an awkward situation where three creeps all hit low HP at the same time and you can't kill all three.
3. Controlling the position of creeps in lane.

In general you don't want creeps to push to your tower as it makes last hitting much harder and your tower takes damage. Against someone like Graves who can push quickly with buckshot you want to be auto-attacking a fair amount. In general the more the enemy is trying to push the more you should be auto-attacking to keep the lane even. Also if creeps get into tower range it makes diving you much easier as the tower will be hitting creeps instead of enemy champions until they actually damage you.

Last hitting takes a lot of practice and also mental discipline to not be lazy. Also any kind of damage item makes last hitting a lot easier, so the sooner you can buy one the better in most cases.

If the creeps push to your tower try to make a mental note of when you should be hitting creeps to last hit effectively. Pay attention to where the tower is aiming, take your time and remain calm. For example if you have one damage item typically you can let a ranged minion take one tower hit them hit them to last hit, and let a melee minion take two tower hits then hit them. If you don't have any damage item you need to hit the minion, then let the tower hit them one or two times, then hit them again. If you are off use your Q to quickly hit before the tower. Obviously this changes based on whether or not the creeps have already taken damage, but in general you want to have a good idea of how much damage you do and how much your tower does so you can still effectively last hit. The most important thing is to remain calm and scientific about it, rather than spazzing out and trying to hit creeps as fast as possible.

As far as when to push or not, you can push if you know where the enemy jungler is, if you are going to go back and buy, if you can consistently put damage on their tower. The situation you want to avoid is being stuck where your creeps are not quite at their tower, as that leaves you open to ganks without accomplishing anything.

Pushing is how you win bottom lane. Especially as Ezreal who needs to not be creep blocked in order to do damage.

Pushing to the enemies tower allows you to freely harass without retaliation. They can't retaliate because they're hemmed in by a lack of terrain and the tower eating their CS. This makes every trade happen on your terms and every time they don't decide to trade you win more.

Pushing generates a creep advantage which enables your aggression by sheer additional creep damage. This means that champions like taric can't all-in you without simply losing the trade. Pushing insulates you from enemy lane aggression. In addition, early creep advantages are also early XP advantages. If you've got 4 more creeps than them you've got level 2 and they're still level 1. That is a dorans blade on you and your support above them with ~30 free DPS in a team fight. (a first wave caster minion does 25 damage per hit, assuming they have -2 creep damage and 50 armor this means that each caster minion will deal roughly 10 DPS). Consider a level 1 ranged champion with a longsword will do ~70 damage a hit on the same attack speed and this is basically free auto attacks

Pushing generates vision advantages. It limits areas of the map that the enemy can get to which limits the wards they can place. If you're blue side and you are shoving the lane they cannot ward your tribrush. This means they can't counter ward your tribrush. They also can't ward your lane brush which means that you have easy lane ganks

Pushing insulates you when things go bad. If your lanes are pushed, even early, and you die, the enemy cannot take objectives off of it, since they will have to clean the wave off their tower. You will likely be back in lane by the time they get to your tower anyway, so even if they win a trade/get a kill they don't get anything additional off of it. On the other hand, if  you get a kill you are right there at the tower to kill it and generate a global gold advantage.

Pushing is how you win bottom lane.

The only time you can't push is if you don't have wards.

A: Haven't warded. If you're blue you want one on your wraiths and one up the river, if you're purple you want one up the river and one in tribrush.

B: They can gank you irrespective of your wards. Of which there are only a handful of champions that can do this. TF, Hecarim, Nocturne, Pantheon, anyone who has teleport.

C: You're so far ahead you can freeze the lane AND zone the enemy from XP/Gold. In this case, feel free to totally ruin their day.

Sorry, guys, I don't think I'll be able to make tomorrow :(

Should be back for next week, though (as well as later this week, if anyone's around)

I'm not sure I'll be able to either. Moving day is Friday and I'm wigging out trying to make sure everything is prepared in time.

We seem to be having trouble getting five people idle in the lobby at a time.  :awesome_for_real:

Any suggestions?  I'm looking at trying some Twisted Treeline games so we could queue with three, but I get the impression that people don't like it.  Other than that, I'm hesitant to queue for 5v5 with just two or three people because it seems unfair to the rest of the team, and the only other option I can think of is something weird like custom games.

I've stopped playing for a while.  The stability issues caused me to have to play out 2 4v5s in a row.  I hear it's worse at the moment.

I have no problem with Treeline, if I ever remember to log in again. Sorry I missed you guys; life has just been crazier than usual settling into the new place (apparently the leasing agents don't talk to the contractors, who had no idea we were moving in and keep having to come back to do things like install our stove :oh_i_see:). I'll do my best to be around next time.

I remembered to log in! Will be idling for at least the next couple hours if anyone wants to do stuff.