f13.net

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=137300 (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=137300)


At last!  One issue pointed out in the thread though is how this makes the need for additional rune pages even greater.  Also it seems kind of stupid that they are putting in a draft mode...but it won't be available in casual play, I guess I can understand some of the reasoning behind that but it would be nice if it was an option still.

It's pretty amusing how much their ladder ranking images and stuff are a carbon copy of the WoW ones.

Amusing, but smart, given their art style is modeled somewhat after Warcraft's cartoony look.

Only looks 9,000,000 times better than before. Who gives a shit if they copy WoW stuff, it works - and Ryze isn't going to tell me to kill 400 creeps before buying my infinity edge.

More excited about Rank and Draft than ladder. Don't have time for the latter.

I really can't take their esport ambitions very seriously if they can't keep their servers up for an extended period.

Kicks off on the 13th.

So any bets on what date after the 13th is will be fully functioned, playable, and stable?  I wouldn't disagree much with anyone that said "Not this year." if they stay consistant.

Crazy.  Did I miss the part where drafts were available for practice matches for a month and the servers were stable?

EDIT: Another "BUSY" night. Ya, season one is going to be clown shoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzMnCv_lPxI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzMnCv_lPxI)

Season one cinematic trailer, I thought it was pretty good.  Granted it's like not like Blizzard level awsome and you can always pick at little stuff (Kat needs a nose job!), but I was pleasantly suprised by it.

I think she used that money for being an assassin on a boob job instead.

Season One is here!
Ranked Games
5v5 Premade
5v5 Solo
3v3 Premade
Ladders
Draft Mode
Improved Visual Style for PVP.net and the Community Site
Story Tab in PVP.net and Issue 1 of the Journal of Justice
All Random Mode in Practice Games

We will be updating League of Legends and PVP.net during Season 1 Maintenance

New Skins in the Store
Commando Xin Zhao
Imperial Xin Zhao
Unmasked Kayle
Tempest Janna

League of Legends v1.0.0.96

Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of Demacia
Three Talon Strike: Xin Zhao's next 3 standard attacks deal increased damage, with the third attack knocking an opponent into the air.
Battle Cry: Xin Zhao passively increases his attack speed and can activate this ability to further increase attack speed and lower his ability cooldowns with each attack.
Audacious Charge: Xin Zhao charges an enemy, dealing damage and slowing it and all other enemies in the area. Audacious Charge increases Xin Zhao's armor temporarily and lowers the cooldowns of all of his abilities.
Crescent Sweep (Ultimate): Xin Zhao fiercely sweeps his spear around him, dealing damage to nearby enemies based on their current health.
Tireless Warrior (Passive): Xin Zhao is healed for every 3 attacks that he lands. This amount increases every 2 levels.

Akali
Shadow Dance will now gain an Essence of Shadow charge on Champion kills and assists in addition to her standard accumulation over time method.

Amumu
Fixed an issue where Amumu's attack timing was too slow.

Alistar
Fixed an issue where Alistar's attack timing was too fast.

Cho'Gath
Vorpal Spikes will no longer trigger cast effects like Lich Bane
Vorpal Spikes will now fire even if the target is missed
Cho'Gath can now more easily Feast on any unit, including Dragon, Lizard Elder, or other very large Cho'Gaths.

Garen
Fixed a bug with Decisive Strike that would cause the icon cooldown to display improperly.

Gragas
Fixed a bug where Body Slam slowed targets that were immune to slows
Fixed a bug where Body Slam would not display a hit particle or play a sound if it hit any target that blocked the slow

Heimerdinger
H-28G Evolution Turret tooltip has been updated to show that turrets do magic damage.
CH-1 Concussion Grenade now deals 50% damage to turrets, from 100%.
CH-1 Concussion Grenade cooldown increased to 13/12/11/10/9 from 12/11/10/9/8

Kassadin
Netherblade has been redesigned:
Passive: the mana drain component removed and replaced with a flat 4/8/12/16/20 mana restore on hit. This effect returns triple the mana against champions.
Active: Kassadin gains 7/15/25/38/50 Armor Penetration for 5 seconds. 15 second cooldown. 30/40/50/60/70 mana cost. Activating this ability counts as a spell cast for the purposes of Force Pulse.
Null Sphere projectile speed increased to 1150 from 900
Void Stone (Passive)
The attack speed effect from Void Stone has been changed so that it stacks and renews instead of replaces on spell impact. This change will result in Kassadin gaining significantly more attack speed, and keeping it for a longer duration on average.
Duration lowered to 4 seconds from 5 seconds.

Kayle
Divine Blessing movement speed reduced to 10/12/14/16/18 from 12/14/16/18/20.
Righteous Fury splash damage no longer affects turrets.

Kog'Maw
Fixed a bug where Zilean’s Chronoshift would not prevent Kog’Maw from dying

Malzahar
Nether Grasp range increased to 575 from 450
Fixed a bug where the stun component of Nether Grasp would not break even if the channel was broken.

Nunu
Nunu can now more easily Consume any unit, including Dragon and Lizard Elder.

Olaf
Ragnarok now displays "Cannot be Disabled!" when it blocks a debuff

Pantheon
Spear Shot mana cost increased to 45 at all ranks from 30/35/40/45/50
Aegis of Zeonia
Cooldown modified to 12 seconds at all ranks from 20/17.5/15/12.5/10
Stun duration changed to 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 from 1.5
Aegis of Zeonia now properly interacts with spell shields
Heartseeker Spear
Base damage reduced to 4/6/8/10/12 from 6/9/12/15/18
Scaling damage reduced to 18/22/26/30/34% from 20/25/30/35/40%
Cooldown reduced to 20/19/18/17/16 from 26/24/22/20/18
Grand Skyfall will now apply smoother damage especially against large targets
Grand Skyfall will now properly interact with spell shields
General
Base health increased to 520 from 505
Base armor increased to 21 from 20.1
Health per level increased to 87 from 85

Poppy
Devastating Blow mana cost reduced to 55 from 65.
Paragon of Demacia mana cost modified to 70/75/80/85/90 from 60/70/80/90/100.
Heroic Charge mana cost modified to 60/65/70/75/80 from 50/60/70/80/90.

Singed
Fling can now be more easily cast on any unit, including Dragon, Lizard Elder, or a well-fed Cho'Gath

Sion
Fixed a bug with Death's Caress that was causing the cooldown on the tooltip to not be affected by cooldown reduction
Fixed a bug where Death Caress's buff tooltip would display the absorption amount as 0.00 instead of the correct amount

Soraka
Consecration Aura will no longer persist in the area around Soraka after she is killed.

Taric
Fixed a bug where Dazzle could stun for longer than 2 seconds

Twisted Fate
Pick a Card attacks are no longer subject to dodge or miss chances
Fixed a bug where Blue cards would restore mana even if the target died before the card hit

Veigar
Fixed a bug where Baleful Strike would grant Veigar AP even if the target died before the spell hit.
Dark Matter ability power ratio increased to 1.0 from 0.8.
Primordial Burst damage modified to 250/375/500 from 200/350/500.
Primordial Burst ability power ratios increased to 1.0 from 0.8 (both from Veigar and the target)

Zilean
Fixed a bug where replacing an enemy Time Bomb wouldn't cause the deactivation explosion
Fixed a bug where replacing your own Time Bomb caused more damage than intended from ability power
Fixed a bug where the Time Bomb explosion particle occasionally showed over fog of war
Fixed a bug where Time Bomb would occasionally remain on dead units

Items
New Item: Wriggle's Lantern
+35 Damage, +30 Armor, +14% Lifesteal
UNIQUE Passive: 20% chance on attack to deal 500 damage to a minion.
UNIQUE Active: Places an invisible ward with 1100 range sight and lasts for 3 minutes. 3 minute cooldown.
Fixed a bug where Aegis of the Legion was not affecting minions
Fixed a bug with Elixir of Agility’s tooltip to correctly show that it grants 15% Critical strike
Fixed a bug where Warden's Mail and Raduin's Omen were not slowing attack speeds

Summoner Spells
Revive now increases your movement speed by 225%, diminishing to normal over 12 seconds.
Cleanse now only removes crowd controlling effects, silences and blinds. It no longer removes effects such as damaging debuffs or armor/stat debuffs
Ignite damage per level reduced to 20 from 25.

General
Champion kill experience decreased by 5%
Turret damage scaling now begins at 90% instead of 85%
Turret damage scaling per hit increased to 20% from 15%
Removed global gold and experience rewards from Grez on Twisted Treeline
The Nexus and Nexus Turrets now become invulnerable if all of your team's inhibitors respawn
Inhibitors no longer remain destroyed for successively longer periods - they are always destroyed for 5 minutes now.
Normalized the jungle spawns on Summoner's Rift - the Wolf camp now always spawns in the same quadrant as the Ancient Golem, and the smaller golem camp will always spawn in the quadrant with Lizard Elder.
Team Kills and Enemy Team Kills are now shown underneath the Kill Count bar
Added tooltips to the Summoner Spells in the scoreboard
Fixed a bug where Champions could path through walls or appear on the other side when attempting to move
Fixed several bugs where some passive abilities were not showing up properly in Death Recap
Fixed a bug where certain particles would appear to drop to the ground before impact
Fixed several server crashes
Fixed several client crashes

Skins
Added a glow to Chosen Master Yi's sword



New Kassadin might be beast.  ATS melee w/ mega escape?

If all the patch had was that I'd be happy.

Also the new items active ability is that it drops a ward and it's an obvious fit for junglers????  That seems....too good.

Of course they didn't add the ability to save more rune loadouts or mastery specs, so the benefit of banning champions to encourage different character choices is not yet fully realized.

And so far, I am not sure I enjoy the bans I'm seeing - Heimer has been banned in all 3 of the games I've played. Xin Zhao was banned twice, which I can agree with. (Still, on the 3rd game, someone on my team picked him and proceeded to jungle, not knowing anything about the character.)

Then I had someone who refused to play in a game because they got killed 3 times by the same pair of characters, and blamed it on the team leader for not banning those 2 specific characters - like people never won games before bans happened.

I can say it is unlikely that Rammus will get much ban action (at least not before Shen,) so my incentive to experiment with other characters while the game doesn't support it very well is minimual. I doubt that many people will ban tanks anyways, unless they are scared of a heavy taunt/disable strategy.

>Xin Zhao
They are allowing champs in ranked games on the first day he is available?  Very silly.

Hmm..both very good points.  Jumping straight into season one with new champs allowed from day 1, no additional rune pages and no saving masteries still just seems like major amateur hour.

Whoo hoo, first two ranked games were 5 man queue easy easy wins.  I don't know how Dispenser makes solo mid Shaco work but he does.

Xin Zhao may be a wee bit OP.

Waiting for the first set of balance fixes on him before I jump into ranked, champ's damage is currently dumb.

Just ban him then if you don't have first pick!

I have a feeling season one is going to make me more casual about normal games, and make me a raging tryhard nerd about ranked games and who I will queue with.  Don't have a mic and on vent? Go away.  Don't want to talk about team comp and lanes before we queue? Go away.  You want to play Olaf/Eve/Kogmaw/etc? Go away.  :P

Xin tends to become much easier to manage if there's a Frozen Heart in play. Thornmail is nice too. However he might have a few too many HP considering he has tank elements but can gank harder than Shaco.

Keep meaning to ask this and keep forgetting.  Does anyone know what happens if you dodge during the draft stage.  Just normal queue timer?  A Leave?

Counts as a Loss, Lower ELO according to Brackhar. That's in Ranked Games.

I don't know what's going on.

One game I go 17-3.  The next, 1-10.  Repeat.

Got a chance to play the new champ last night...if you aren't either playing him or banning him its your own fault if you lose. :P

He is fuck stupid at the moment, I believe they are going to tone down not just his meticulous ult but something else as well and he's still going to be very good. Once his attack speed is high its very hard to function as a physical carry if he gets on you and you'll basically get no damage the whole fight.  Not only are all his numbers really good but his skillset has great synergy with the good heal/support/invuln teams that are currently so hard to beat.

I blow with him.  Though I'd imagine that has more to do with me not being able to escape properly with a character with no escape mechanism.

Guess I could try him w/ Ghost+Flash.

Reminds me that they need to implement like 2-3 more rune books so I could try a ghetto movement speed + attack speed one.

If you have to escape with Xin Zhao, you didn't jump in to the right fight.  :oh_i_see:

Kidding, I know that doesn't encompass every situation, but whenever I see a good Xin Zhao, he's the last one standing regardless of the opposition. Note: That's when I *see* him.

Ya, I'm noticing a trend with my playing.  I'm not good at those chars where you have to wait in the jungle until someone else initiates and then time my entrance right.

It's why I like Morde and Kat.  You're there, they know it, but they can't do shit about it.

I'm thinking of picking up Mordekaiser. His play style suits me. Much love to Rammus but I'm getting ass-fucked frequently as him and Rammus is good on a TEAM and not a bunch of retards that don't know their ass from their mouth because of all the shit they spew.

Other champs worth trying if you guys are looking to go that route: Singed, Taric, Nunu, Shen & Gragas. Those four make their living being in the way and disrupting what the enemy is trying to do. You might really enjoy Poppy who is really more of an anti-carry but w/ the ult and charge you have escapes. Possibly Cho and Udyr as well when played in certain styles w/ certain teams.

Ya, I do great with Shen, Singed and Cho.  Haven't played Udyr yet, and I disliked Gragas.

I feel like Kat should be on the banlist.  Been ripping it up with her lately.

One of my current issues with draft, how does it pick who is team leader doing the bans?  It seems completely random, if I'm in a game (500+ wins and some ranked games) and a few other people with similar numbers, why does the guy with like 90 wins and no ranked games in his profile get to do our bans and first pick?

My personal 4 bans right now would probably be - Shen (if I don't think I'll get him), Xin, Soraka....hmmm, not sure on 4th actaully.  Hiem maybe?

Cripes, my last ranked game makes me want to uninstall and quit playing.  Whats the point of the game if you're going to get stuck with people like that.

Also, an obvious side effect to the Cleanse super nerf just dawned on me.  Characters like Tryn/Yi/etc. that were pretty bad in most cases before but could occasionaly get fed and carry....are now terrible, always, no exceptions.

Most of my games recently have made me want to uninstall. I'm hoping someone makes a more casual MOBA; I have high hopes for Valve's entry. I enjoy LoL but pretty much hate the community. I think tracking wins and losses is a big contributing factor. It makes everyone take the whole thing much too seriously, and turns into "it's all X's" fault. I'm generally not the one to get blamed anymore, but still, it's a caustic environment to play in. Going back to TF2 has reminded me what it's like to play games with people who are just trying to have fun.

I think forcing matches to be shorter would help too. It does suck to have one guy decide to farm an hour into the game and lose a major team fight because he is jacking off in a corner. If it was only 15 minutes wasted I think there would be less angst.

From what I have seen and played of DotA and HoN, LoL IS the casual MOBA.  The community for the other games is way, way worse.

For me it's just people joining ranked games and being stupid that piss me off.  If it's "Just a game, whatever." for you, fine.  But play practice or at least normal games then, don't come into ranked games and fuck over people who WANT to play try hard.

Low health. I mean when crossing the distance between range dps/casters and eating a stun/snare along the way the diferrence between a live melee toon and a dead melee toon is health. Thats why garen, oalf and xin is being released, high health and high dps, with some version of cleanse. Its going to take a awhile before melee dps is viable again.


Yeah in about 2-3 weeks all the scrubs will hopefully quit playing ranked so I can solo que again. Which means that my ranked solo que is going to take 30 minutes but oh well. I wouldn't mind playing you with you thrawn and anyone else from f13.

Pretty much exactly how I feel.  I find it supremely frustrating that they brag about how they removed randomness from things like damage rolls and ability powers, but then they assign you five other random asshats from the community to be your team, like that isn't ten million times more likely to influence your win/loss.

I can see how this game might be fun with a regular team, but in terms of logging on for an hour or two to play a game, it's up there with running 5-mans in WoW.  You either have to somehow synch your schedule up ahead of time with four of your buddies who also play this game, or you have to put up with random jackasses, or you don't play.

I'll concede that it might be better than other games of this type (I refuse to call them MOBAs, that's the dumbest acronym I've ever heard), but it's still obviously not a game for casual players when the entire game is wrapped around competitive tournament play.

What nerf to cleanse ? How does it affect them ?


edit to add: I have yet to enter a ranked game, do I miss anything ?

Cleanse now only removes crowd controlling effects, silences and blinds. It no longer removes effects such as damaging debuffs or armor/stat debuffs.

I see you pick Tryn in draft, I take exhaust and ignite.  You can no longer cleanse exhaust, or ignite, or a slew of other abilities.

I am surprised how well the servers has held up in the new season.  Splintering the queues from 2 to 5 helped?  I like new locking system in normal.  I wish you could draft in practice.

I am splitting my starts between Teemo and Rammus.  I am try make sure there is always a Xin on my team if I play Teemo (unless we have a Ryze then we melt xin like the cheese he is).  I am still not very good with Rammus if I could figure out how to die less but still get xp during laning I would be doing pretty good.

Any ideas on how to initiate against high CC teams?

They've turned off a few features. No practice games and no in-game tells are the biggies. It has really helped with server stability, but I miss being able to play a game against bots that I could leave at any time.

If they blow all your CC on you then you've done your job. Hopefully your carries come in and mop them up. A quicksilver sash is a decent way to make sure they blow  all their stuns on you. Getting the carries to come do their job is the biggest problem I have as Rammus. His speed lets him get too far away from his carries, at which point pubbies just run away. I tend to use Amumu a lot just because he has an obvious initiation move that screams "get your ass in here and hurt people."

I'm convinced it's the shiny big circle that does it...moths to a flame.

Rammus only has minorly swirly red stuff to say "HEY FUCKERS, I JUST TAUNTED SOMEONE I WANT YOU TO KILL"...

It's not obvious enough, needs more sparkly.

Works too well sometimes.  Occasionaly you ult a bad fight as your team is running so they can get away and then they all go "OMG A FIGHT." And turn around and die when you wanted them to run.  :P

I've gotten in the habit of pinging my taunt target, or calling it out over Vent.

Rammus has been doing a lot better for me with competent teammates. Chasing down a runner with Powerball, not knowing if I'll hit at the end (due to bug or Powerball running out) is exciting.

I'm gonna branch out to Mordekaiser soon as I can afford him but I'm 5 wins of my last 6 games (which eradicated a 6 losses of last 8 game before it streak) so I'm feeling pretty good about the game.

Friends + Vent + Competence = Loads and Loads of Fun, regardless whether you win or lose. I'm sorry if this is obvious, I've rarely seen such synergy in my life.

This is what you need to survive as Rammus in the early lanes:

Start with Null-Magic Mantle and 2 healing potions. Your biggest vulnerability at this point is against a heavy ranged response, which is usually magic. In the case of a physical ranged resonse from Tristana, Sivir or Ashe, your healing potions will do wonders. And the Null Magic Mantle will help make your Mercury's Treads later on.

Summoner Spells:
Ghost: For chases, emergency lane switches, escapes, and synergy with power ball.
Fortify: As a tank, you should be so far up the defense tree that picking up this mastery is no problem. Also, you may spend a lot of time early game standing under a turret. Just make sure you don't have more than 1 of these spells on a team.

Skills:
1st: Power Ball (Chase down/flee, crowd control, damage, all things that are vital to survival and getting kills in early lanes.)
2nd: Taunt (or if things are really bad already, Defensive Ball Curl.)
3rd: Defensive Ball Curl (or Taunt if you picked up Defensive Ball Curl 2nd.)
Except for always leveling your ult (of course,) max skills in the following order: Taunt, Defensive Ball Curl, Power Ball

Items to buy:
1st: Heart of Gold. It provides Health and Armor, which you're going to need, and gold, which you may have noticed, is not easy for Rammus to earn. Eventually it will become a Randuin's Omen, but only after you feel good about your cash income.
2nd: Mercury's Treads. Magic Resist, which you need. Reduces CC effects by 35%, which is AWESOME for an initiating tank.

Strategy:
I hate to say it, but Rammus completely fails at pushing early lanes. Think of a Jax with a Guinsoo's auto-attacking like crazy and cracking skulls with every 3rd hit. whackwhackSMASHwhackwhackSMASH. Now take the complete inverse of that impression and that's Rammus. You're pretty much the anti-push. So that's the bad news - the good news? You're pretty much the anti-push. Nobody in their right mind is going to tower dive you if you have played it smart and have at least 1/3 of your hp. Also, when setting up ganks, you can isolate the squishy in the back with some skillful powerballing, and keep them where they don't want to be for a second or two longer with taunt. Of course your lane-mate has to finish the job, and that's where your disappointment may set in - if your lane-mate and you don't mesh together perfectly it is not worth your time to pursue a gank. Be realistic with yourself after a couple levels together and ask yourself "Is this guy going to get some kills if I give them some set ups, or should I let the tower do the work?" If you're ever unsure, pick the tower - you won't feed, and your tower will stay up.

While the basic concept of initiating offensively early lane with Rammus is simple, execution is what matters. Spend some time getting very familiar with power ball's hit box - it's deceptively large. Later on you can use your taunt to reposition an enemy closer to your allies - but starting out, your taunt doesn't last long enough, so don't try it. Think of it as a 1 second disable that makes your auto-attacks more effective. Later on it will make a huge difference, but don't stress right now if you powerball before or after the taunt - just make sure you connect with it. And of course, defensive ball curl when they try to fight back.

Tower hugging. There, I said it. There is no shame in tower hugging if you: A) Stay alive, B) Keep the tower up, C) Deny the enemy gold and D) Make your own gold. Stand just under the tower as the push advances. Take a step or two up to meet the creep just as they are coming into range. Let the first couple of hits go in while attacking. Turn on defensive ball curl. If any enemy champs are foolish enough to advance with their creep wave, taunt them, allow them to hit you once, and walk back towards your base. For bonus points, power ball them before they can run away. Also, don't forget your mastery spec'ed fortify summoner spell - if you think you'll need it after all that. Be very aware of MIA calls - while it's easy to hold off 2 summoners in this situation, 3 can be trying. Also, being the frustrating tar baby that you are, set up some ganks with your other lanes.

Edit: Forgot to mention managing the creep front line. When you tower hug like this, remember to stop attacking to keep the front line just outside of tower attack range. Try to only attack on last hits. You don't want your enemy to feel safe coming up to get minion kills - taking them on a little taunt walk into the tower's range should keep them in check.

Also, once you hit level 6, Tremmors will help you deal with any massive creep waves the opposing summoners cook up - and net you a handsome profit into the bargain.

I'll cover the other part of your question later in another response.

Hmm, first time I have hear mantle start.  It does make sense.  Most good harassing skill are magic. I'll have to give tower hugging some thought.  Right now it seems pretty fail unless people you are laning against are pushing hard.

Well, I don't recommend it as a default tactic - if your lane partner has the sauce to get the kills, go all out to support them. If not, tower hug - because Rammus' early game really is that bad. Just be sure you make that decision at some point, and be resolute in what you've decided.

Mantle going into treads is a nice investment, but I still like Doran's Shield a lot. I'm not sure how much Mantle does for you...

I have been fairly succesfull with Rammus since i got him and I usually start with the health crystal, because from there it is only 500g for the Heart of Gold. I then save up for a second one, after that I get the boots of mobility. Together with ghost and Powerball, I can be on any place in the map in seconds, helping with ganks or even (*gasp*) gank myself a bit. 2 HoGs keep the cash flowing till I get time to farm a bit with earthquake. One builds into a very nice tanking item "Someones Omen", I think.

I would not underestimate Rammus' early game. I too pick powerball first, but I almost always get the shield second and taunt at level 3. I also level shield before taunt, because the defense gain and damage reflect ist just to nice. More than a few times, people underestimate just how hard rammus is to kill when I throw my shield up. My lane partner gets a few hits in, they panic, I taunt, they die on my shield or my partner kills them. Works rather well and I am almost completely PUG these last days.

Lorekeep, we need to play together, I'd love to play with a good Rammus on vent, especially since I just now bought the new Champ, Xin or whatever he is called.

If your below level 30 your no longer allowed to play ranked games.  :drill:. So grind you scrubby noobs  :awesome_for_real:. But they do have evidence that that justifies the ban. http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=43920&d=1279678401

Nice work by Riot.

Thank god. All my friends were asking me to play ranked games, and I told them I wanted to wait until Lv. 30 so I can be at my full potential mechanics wise. Glad to see Riot has prevented them from asking the question now.

Helm, I'm on most nights, we could use a good Xin Zhao to balance out our team of Anivia / Taric / Zilean / Rammus that we seem to usually be playing.

Anyone else notice severe lag spikes during last night's games? On separate games there were many hiccups.

Yes, and I had the best lag spike ever.  I'm farming mid as Taric, they jump me with four.  I limp back under tower alive but barely where the game starts to lag.  So we end up O for 4ing them while we are all lagging terribly under our tower.

There are plenty of scrubby level 30's that can suck my balls one at a time. The trick to them is to not play between the hours and 10am and 11pm.

Ok, a few things that help initiate as Rammus, deal with CC, and make sure your team comes along too:

Strategy:
Always check your teammate's status. Try not to engage with anyone under 3/4 hp, unless you know you can trust them - they'll just run off. Make sure that carry in the jungle is setting up an ambush, and not just jungling or running off to another lane to farm creep.

Jockey for position. Feint and weave. Power ball is great for this. The more they move as a unit, the more chance you will have of someone going where they are not supposed to. Of course this requires a team with a little patience, so you may need to remind them to chill out a little. And of course, don't chase to deep, and beware of traps - have the situational awareness to know when the moment has passed, and it's time to retreat to within your team's effective range.

Don't just smack into someone because you can - pick your target, and have a plan for what you're doing with them. Sometimes you want to use ghost, power ball to close distance and connect with a high hp champ, then taunt a squishy and run back into your group with them. Because you went forward an initiated, your team should be right behind you - and usually that means they're going to attack the first target of convenience - which you want to be Ashe, rather than Cho'gath. I previously used flash to bypass enemy champs to get at the squishy - which works pretty well if you aren't expecting a heavy CC response.

Items:
Mercury Treads - I used to pick these only in heavy magic teams, trading off with Ninja Tabi against physical teams. Lately I have gotten so much value out of reduced snares, these have become my only choice. As a high initiate tank, getting your mobility back a second or two earlier can mean the difference between a good engage and a poor engage.

Banshee's Veil - It's not the first +HP item I finish, but against a magic heavy team, it might be my second. Not only is it +HP, it's +Magic Resist. The +Mana isn't a huge selling point, but it's not wasted on Rammus. Of course, the spell block every 30 seconds is the reason you want this - it keeps them from disabling you so easily, and let's you proceed with your initiate. It's particularly effective coming out of ambush with ghost and powerball running.

Aegis of the Legion - By itself, it's not amazing. In a team fight, it's usefulness is only really great through the mid game. However, this is the item that gets that wild rabble on your side thinking like a team. Buy it, and tell them you are doing so as you start to build for it. It's a psychological reassurance that reinforces your position as initiator/tank.

Lotta Rammus love on this forum!

Edit: Speaking of which, show your Rammus love! Amumu plushie would be great but I want a little Rammus. http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=178435

And one last thing: your Randuin's Omen.

Once the skirmishy mid-game team fights that I described earlier are over with, either your team or the enemy team is going to feel confident enough to make a hard push on the other base, and stay in force. I'd say you should make this decision when you feel confident that you can survive 5-10 seconds of a tower's agro. This is the point when you want to buy the omen (you should already have a Heart of Gold from earlier.) Omen will change how you fight for 1 reason: slow - your ability to significantly reposition an enemy using taunt will diminish. Enemy champs have a 20% chance of being slowed for 3 seconds when hitting you, and Omen has an AE active ability that slows movement speeds. The Warden's Mail used to build the omen has a similar speed debuff on hit, so don't buy that up either until you're ready for the comitment.

Omen is great for a defensive response to a team push - you can make use of your ability to tower hug, but be prepared for the enemy to want to fight it out right under the tower, or even to ignore you. Depending on which team members are moving on the tower, and which are in the rear rank, you can either fight it out at the tower, or disable the tanks they put forward with Omen's active, and move on the rear rank of squishies. If your team has great coordination and good CC,  you can rely on them to disable the front rank, and move with you on the squishies in the back having saved your taunt and omen's active.

On offense, the tactics are roughly smilar, but by this point you should have gotten over your fear of towers.  Fight under them. Soak the damage while your team works on a kill.  If 1 or 2 enemies tries to guard a tower, and you have as many of your team with you, a couple of creep and decent health, ignore that tower and walk right at those enemies. They will either stand and fight (and die to concentrated fire,) or run like a bunch of monkies, leaving you in good position at the back of the tower (where you can use DBC, and/or tremmors to deal with any new creep waves,) as your team stands at the front of the tower bringing it down.

I love me some Rammus, but I've recently started to get into Shen, I hate to say. Already I'm getting more kills, but I can see my tanking strategy needs to change a bit in order to have the same number of assists.

I've been finding myself getting Omen less and less over Frozen Heart, especially against an all Melee team. I'll get the HOG for early game buff and bonus gold, and upgrade it when I have time, but I keep forgetting to use Omen when I have it on me.

Rammus deserves some love, he's very fun to play.  But Shen is just plain better right now :P

I don't love Shen for initiation. He's a better tank overall, but I don't think he inits nearly as well.

Agreed - that's my problem with Shen so far to a tee.

I'm thinking about working a Rylai's Crystal Scepter into my build much earlier for use with Vorpal Blade - I'm hoping the combo will work like a poor man's powerball to help isolate my target - either straight off in a fight, or after taunting and repositioning. Of course Shen's taunt doesn't last as long, so it's kind of the worst of both worlds. The range from which both actions can be performed is a decided advantage though.

I tend to play Shen as a babysitter and rely on the rest of team to start the fight. With taunt you can keep them off your squishy and your ult can shield the poor schmuck they beat on first.

I really want to try a tower pushing build with Shen; stack armor and attack speed and use his feint ability to tank the tower some. With his teleport he should be able babysit fairly well even far away from his team. TF can do it beautifully, but I think Shen could be even more obnoxious with Feint.

So apparently since season 1 went live you can find your elo for normal games recorded in log files.  This may be slightly redundant now ranked games are here, but as someone who has barely played since the patch I thought it was interesting anyway.

http://forum.leaguecraft.com/showthread.php?tid=8029&page=1


Seeing as leaguecraft is down half the time I'll paraphrase it here:

    Open a recent log file where you've played a normal game. (located in LoL folder\air\logs).

    search for:
   
    There is an elo entry for every summoner in that game, with summoner names appearing a few lines after the elo for that player.

 
Apparently mine was 1596 after the last game I played, now I just need to work out what that means  :awesome_for_real:

Wuh oh. I don't think they wanted that to get out...

It's a pretty huge goof if they didn't.  It seems lolbase are going to start listing them in their next update as well.

http://www.lolbase.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=128

Higher then I would of guessed for how casually I've been taking my normal games since the patch, 1877.  :grin:

Went 5-0 with Rammus yesterday. Not feeding in the early game anymore.  The mental game of figuring how much physical vs magic the opposition has is really key to having the items needed to properly tank.

I'm seeing a lot more teams lately that are just a bunch of very high hp/hard to kill characters and a couple carries.  Is this where the new meta is?  Might have to start building bloodrazor before bloodthirster on Ashe.

High HP, good escape mechanisms so you can't get focused, and lack of CC on the opposing team makes for one tough to kill SOB.

I'm seeing more Shacos that emphasize their unkillable nature by building HP, Guardian Angel, etc. and just letting Shaco's high base damage abilities do the trick.

I found out my Normal ELO is almost 1800. I guess that's good? Our three-man premade (all around the same ELO) got paired with a 1985 and a 1283. Both sucked ass. We lost hard, but thankfully faced them again next match and kicked their motherfuckin' ass. It felt gooooood.

Blitzcrank is mighty in the wake of these "I'mma just gonna run off and not let you guys kill me neener."

There was a dev post some time before ranked games went live that said ~1% of players were currently 1800 or above.  I'd try to find it for you but the site is down.

Vlad's a bit of a beast, but he's easily focused and goes down even faster if he uses his abilities since they are based off his HP. A Vlad that opens with his "Can't Target Me" pool doesn't have it for escape afterwards. Though it's a bit of a bitch that he can use it to get pass towers.

Though, three Sunfire Vlad... not sure that's the best tactic?

Seems pretty solid. Health, AP, and armor all in one. I think 3 is probably overkill; at 2 you have more than enough armor. An Aegis would probably be good to throw in there to get some magic resistance while still stacking health and AP.

My new favorite asshole is kill-whoring Garren.  Doesn't help during team fights except at very end to get kills after we are mostly dead. Calls us noobs and points his K/D as proof of how awesome he is.

Garen is ridiculously fucking hard to kill, I've found.

So Rammus' against heavy magic item build, so far I have: mantle + 2 pots, magic boots, HoG(need the cash), banshees, FoN.  After the I am confused.  I don't really like any of the other resist items.  So I am divided between stacking hp or guardian's for the extra survivability.  Any thoughts?

You'll be hella gimped on doing any type of damage outside of Tremors and Powerball. Also, ability damage doesn't do that much earlier on. Here's something I was trying to figure out on SomethingAwful, but got no responses:

--

Rammus just has a rough time period against AP teams. I can't seem to get the right tactics to take them on. I want to contribute more, but stacking MR leaves him gimped in most cases. Maybe... would doing AP alongside MR make him better?

Proposed Build Order: Sapphire Crystal + 2 Health Pots -> Catalyst -> Boots 1 -> Negatron Cloak -> Treads -> Rod of Ages (?) -> Force of Nature -> Rylai's

I really fucking hate starting with Catalyst and prefer HoG, but building Catalyst seems critical as you need to get RoA fast.

--

I felt like Rod of Ages should come earlier after reading that and you'd need *really* good farming / ganking to get that going. Cooldowns would be an issue; Rammus needs to get at least one Mana and one Cooldown item to be really viable, or just hog the Golem rune.

Banshee's Veil is great and all but I think I'd rather have the health regen and AP to make up for lack of armor than one spell from one champion that could be knocked off with the right poke hitting him. The high regen works with the extra health RoA would provide, and Rylai's is there for survivability and ass-kick and a way to mop up at the end. But man you gotta be a good farmer and Rammus just isn't that most of the time.

The thing that nixes that all is if you have one physical high DPS on their team. At that point, I guess it's standard HoG -> Boots -> Aegis -> ?

Oh, things I've learned today: All of Katarina's abilities do magical damage. She's a caster.  :oh_i_see:

But her abilities scale off attack power as well as ability power.  Only shunpo has a better ratio for AP than AtP I believe.  The bigger advantage is that AP Kat, once she shoots her wad, does exactly dick to anyone, and can't push towers to save her life.  AtP Kat still hits like a truck auto-attacking, and can push towers pretty well.

Having said that, rylai's is actually a pretty amazing item on her.  Extra health for survivability, and the slow means no one ever gets away from you.

Your WoW accent is showing.  :grin: Common abbreviation is AD for Attack Damage in LoL.

Yeah yeah, you play a game for years and it rubs off on ya, what can I say. :)

Coming down the pipe:

Galio - The Living Guardian

Runic Skin:  Galio converts 60% of his Magic Resistance into Ability Power.

Bulwark: Galio shields a friendly champion, reducing all damage suffered by that unit and converting a portion of the damage into health for himself.

Idol of Durand: Galio assumes the form of a statue, taunting nearby enemies and storing concussive energy as they attack him. Galio then bursts from his statue shell, releasing the stored energy to damage surrounding foes.

Resolute Smite: Galio fires a concussive blast from his eyes, slowing and dealing damage to enemies caught near the impact point.

Righteous Gust: Galio claps his wings, unleashing a gust of concussive wind that damages enemies and leaves a directional draft in its wake that increases ally movement speed.

--

So, an Anti-Magic Rammus, seems like.

Seems like a fantastic tank.

He has 2 great tank abilities: a shield for an ally and a taunt.

Depending on the range of the taunt, he could be pretty fun to play.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND how I could have played 200 games, be decently ranked in ELO, and still get matched up with pieces of shit not fit to come out of my ass. Other team is always on the ball and sticks together, my team is always spread out, terrible at their characters, and infighting is unstoppable.

Same thing is happening to me, and it's become more mystifying than frustrating.  My Elo isn't super high or anything (like 1100) but I'm still on a massive losing streak, much of which I don't think is my fault.  I'm not carrying the team on my back or anything, but generally my k/d/a is comparable or better than everyone on the rest of the team, we've just got one or two people that are completely useless.  Last game, our solo mid spend the entire match raging at the rest of us, then went 1/5 before disconnecting, and my lane partner went 2/6, while I was 8/8/8 as Blitz.  Match before that, I went 3/5/6 as Ez (my first game with him in like two months, I guess they removed his heal which pisses me right the fuck off, but that's a rant for another day), but I was still at the top of our team, the bottom of which was inhabited by a 1/12 Xin.

This has been happening over and over and over again for like twelve games, it's starting to get weird.  I'm not pissed anymore, I just wonder what the hell is happening.  Something is fucked up, either I'm screwing up in some way that I can't figure out, or I'm getting some kind of insane chain of bad luck, I dunno.

I'm finding a lot of power in getting Veil, Treads, and then stacking HP and AP (Rylai's) as Anti-AP Rammus. But you do have to rely on your teammates, have to have the game last a bit, and get boatloads of cash.

Have they ever said how their matching system works?  I wouldn't be surprised if people with high rankings were dropped in with lower ranked players in a misguided attempt to bring up their average rank to a level close to the other team.

I have seen 2000 + 1200 somehow equating to 1750 for the other 3 members. Thing is everyone needs to be on the same page; one suckass teammate is all it takes to ruin a game.

There have been some posts about it on their official boards.  The way the dev explained it, the MM looks for ten players of roughly the same Elo, assigns them to a game, and then assigns them to teams so that each team has a roughly fifty percent chance of winning.  Most of the really extreme stuff I've seen has been due to friends playing as a partial team (e.g. one friend with 800 and one with 1500 join a game, it finds a group somewhere in the middle, but a bad player can drag a team down a lot more easily than a good player can pull it up).

What I assume is happening is that Elo is not really a great representation of skill per se in mid level solo queue games; since players are gaining and losing ranking based on their team's performance rather than how well they personally do, I suspect there's a lot of randomness in the ratings of pug players based on who they get assigned to play with.  Get four amazing players, and your average self can probably sit in the back and coast to victory.  Three or four noobs and the best player in the world is going to lose.  And when your personal rating is a bit skewed, it uses that skewed rating when it's determining the performance of everyone else you're playing against.  I dunno.  It just seems like it's got a lot of room for error.

Once I get on a losing streak I just go do something else. I go solo que and my win rate is around 50%, just like they're shooting for. However I feel like my wins and losses come in streaks, 3 or so wins followed by 3 losses. It's probably more a feeling than statistical fact though.

Are you guys talking about ranked games?  Normal ELO rankings didn't carry over for ranked ones so it'll take some time for things to settle.  It's also probably very dependent on time of day since the MM system needs a big pool of players.

Lately I have been encountering a dramatic decrease in leavers and significant increase in 60+ minute games. Some have been so balanced that our team stayed within 2 kills of each other until the very end.  Something has changed in the last week.  Less leavers is better, but 60 minute games can be very frustrating.

I think it's the new metagame of 3 tank/2 carry team comps. You end up with two teams with a ton of health and little damage. I also blame Heimer; his turret nests tend to turn into tea parties.

and poking teams, and new veigar.

I need to get at least one win a day and sometimes that means Solo Queue and sometimes that means grouping with people who just aren't really good at the game despite having played it a lot. I had two games with two very successful side lanes / early lane ganking going on (including a jungling Xin Zhao we killed not once but twice at Golem before Lv. 3), but a mid-Vlad completely wrecked our Ezrael and then our Tristana, and despite having four awesome people, that was it. Mid fails, everything fails.

Second game went wrong not only because of Ez failing but WW was left unchecked and just wrecked. :oh_i_see: Warwick + Garen is usually a strong team combo because they don't die.

I'm seeing a LOT of Garen playing today and he's usually doing pretty well.

Yeah, Garen is a beast. I've seen him clear even a cautious lane with nothing more than a Doran's Shield. He's up next on my buy list.

edit: I take it back; the Sion I played with that game was anything but cautious. Still, a beast.