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So I picked up Rammus so I could fill the initiator role in the solo queue.  What other roles/chars I should look at so I can round out a team?  I was thinking of a hard hitting magic user to go with initiator and 3 physical dps teams.  The idea being the teams all physical dps are easy to counter with armor stacking.

Rammus is more than Initiator, he's a great tank too though worse (by varying degrees depending on perspective) than Shen.

It really depends on your team mates and what they like to play. If you're in Solo Queue, having more options to fill out the team is more important but teamwork and solo queue do *not* go hand in hand.

For hard hitting magic, I'd look at an Annie or a Ryze.  I personally like Annie  better because she's a bit sturdier than Ryze is...but for big team fights, if you can avoid being initiated on, and blow your load, Ryze does unbelievable amounts of AoE dmg.

I see some very good Nunus from time to time, and he's actually pretty fun to play, with an awesome passive ability.

He does bridge the gap between tank and DPS very well.

On top of all that, he's dirt cheap at 450 IP.

Nunu is fun, you just have to remember your ult is for cleanup and for getting attention, not initiating. I watch too many Nunu's charge into the fight and hit 'R' only to be burned down in an instant. Nun can solo a 2 v 1 lane really well which is handy while pubbing since a frightful number people decide to randomly jungle without telling anyone. He's also great for supporting a team with a couple physical carries. Bloodboil on Ashe can be pretty terrifying. He's a crappy baby sitter though; he can't force people off of his carries like Rammus or Shen.

For casters you really should start with Annie.

Anivia is better if you are mad pro with the wall but about 50 times harder to use. Ryze just doesn't bring as much to most lineups.

Fiddlesticks can pubstomp noobs who refuse to react to the oppositions champions and will let you get easy crowstorms off but with so many champs having built in teleports he suffers a little.

Morgana is a great champ if you are finding yourself on tank + 3 physical teams, black shield is still amazing and the ult can really setup if you get out ahead in gold early.

Veigar and Ryze are really just for people who love caster and want to try all the casters at this point. Really if you want to conserve your ip and have a caster option in your champ stable pick up Annie and be done with it. As always with champ questions, trying the various options on the free week is the best bet since who you play with and what champs and summoner spells you see in your elo bracket changes your metagame drastically.

Ryze is for maximum pub stomping.

Annie is one of the first champs I tried, mainly because of her theme and the goth skin.  I remember Tibbers taking too much micro to use effectively and generally disliked the cycling for stuns.  But she does seem like being worth a second look since I am no longer in the "learning how to play" stage.

Annie is brutal to learn the first time around. But the second time around she is one of the easiest champs to use in the game. I've seen a pretty lethal annie with movement speed runes and masteres. Oh you don't have to be generous about the tibers circle, you can stun people using the edge of tibbers cricle to stun, just try not to be over zealous and your fine.

Really don't be a noob and try to stun w/ Tibbers if it is a solo target gank or your only going to get one guy anyways. The other spells work too and then you can drop Tibbers on a stunned target. Noob Annies will telegraph their approach and try to stun w/ Tibbers and miss because its so obvious.

Ryze is not that much more stompy against anything but the worst noobs compared with any other champ you get fed. He's just easy to get the killing blows with but Annie fits in damn near any team and Fiddle's pubstomp abilities go much much farther up the elo ladder.

I starting think AP mord might be a good why to go.  The amount of pressure he can generate is crazy.

AP Morde is funfun.  ;)

Any thoughts on Sona?  With intelligent positioning and Flash, she seems to be a pretty powerful compliment to just about any team.

Sona is clearly good but it is quite hard to quantify. I do think that there will be situations in draft especially if you get Taric that you can just set up two unbeatable side lanes and win via dropping early towers using a push strat. Or something. Bottom line though is she should shift the meta in some way, which means she is pretty huge. Miss Fortune was the same way since she strengthened aoe comps at a time when they had been in decline versus tank to win or protect kog (or pre nerf ez) to win strats.

My main complaint is that she is probably the single most acute example of the "faceroll" mechanic.  Q/W/E all autotarget (within range), although R is an area skillshot.

Oddly, an AP Cho'Gath can be built AP as well.  QWE are all enhanced by AP, admittedly not as much E (Vorpal Spikes 0.2 AP)

sorc boots, rod of ages, Nashor's Tooth, Rylai's makes for a pretty nasty magic-based damage dealer with a decent amount of survivability (especially after adding Feast's max 900 health).

Can farm, a knock-up + slow, a silence, built-in health and mana regen and the opposition likely expects you to build like a tank.  And you CAN build like a tank if your current tank isn't getting it done.

Course, this doesn't help you so much if you are looking for all-ranged magic damage, but with this build much of your damage is done at mid-range anyway.

I am happy with my Rammus play so I am working on Annie.  Taking my lumps, generating lots of hate. "Why yes I am bad at Annie. Thanks for noticing! No I am not going to uninstall."  If Annie doesn't work out, I'll try Kennie.

I think Sona would be balanced if she did less damage.

I would like to see either a damage nerf or add some level of manual targeting to her Q ability.  In the meantime, I'll enjoy playing her in ezmode.

Sonas damage is made up for to some extent by it being untargeted. I have sworn many times at my monitor when she refuses to blast the guy with 2 tiny health bubbles left and instead nukes two tanks.

Honestly with sona I try more to help others get kills than myself as many other characters get better use from them than I do especially the carries.

God teamed up as sona with a good udyr last night and the two of us pretty much beat the other team. The udyr was just moshing the bajeesus out of people and with the speed buff people could not escape him. With me throwing heals and nukes as needed and stunning when we needed to flee it was pretty brutal.

Sona is very good but she is not OP. A sona cannot win the game for you like a carry but it can help mediocre carries perform very well and if your team is good she can be super uber nasty.

I go away for a week and there's *another* champion. What are they doing, releasing two a month? I've got Dead Rising 2 and Civ 5 to play!

Sona is super squishy. Unfortunately she does not need to get very close. Also unfortunately, she needs to be treated with the same level of priority as a Soraka. As an initiating tank, I find this almost impossible to do in solo games. I can get to her just fine, but the rest of my team is running around to benny hill music trying to kite Mordekaiser.

I have found in solo games recently it is impossible for people to understand that Shen, Mordekaiser, Rammus, and Taric are not the ideal person to be attacking first while Teemo or Ashe are sitting back 10 feet behind said meat shield at half health cutting down your entire team.

I like Sona, but think she kind of turns games into poke & kite snorefests.  And she may be too strong in the laning phase.


It's pretty much been every other week since release.

So, I have been playing Kennen when i have some time between dealing with the new twins.... What's the 'pro' way to play him, AP?

I lost like four games (drunk teammates in solo queue didn't help :) - but now I've won a couple and feel like I am getting decent at him. Whats the word, Hoax?

I find his main weakness is having to go home so much after fights. I've moved to flash over ghost, cause it seems to help get out of bad spots a little better (and he already has a mini ghost). Maybe teleport would be worthwhile, but I don't see giving up ignite. The other complaint for me would be that once he blows his load in a team fight he's pretty lame.

I've tried both AP and an attack speed hybrid and I like the attack speed hybrid better but I think the AP build is more 'pro'.

AP is def more pro, Rylai's is stupid-good on him and gives him everything he wants, only Mallet compares and I think the common feeling is you get more damage from Rylai in a typical team fight situation.

Kennen is one of the best setup champs for teams that are using someone like Kog or Miss Fortune to win the late game. The fact that his early game and poke game are sick are bonus. Honestly I only have really basic experience with him but from what I've seen he is very much a team player and should never try to be the carry as you want to be forcing a hard decision from the other team to neutralize you (leaving your carry free to rape) or all being stunned/slowed and fucked with.

^seconded.  Kennen + Rylai's = win.  He needs to be a bit tankier than most casters because his W/E/R all require him to be in the middle of things to work optimally.  Abyssal Scepter is nice, too, and Haunting Guise if you want the extra mPen.

If you're taking a lot of damage as Kennen, you might want to hang back until after the fight has started.  With your speed, you can get in past the enemy tank/melee line and jab their ranged guys hard enough that they have to bug out or die, as long as they don't focus you down first, and if you wait until after the fight has started, they generally won't have the coordination to switch targets to you.  As long as they don't have ranged support, you can poke with Q and W all day long without taking much damage.  It's just that initial E+R+W charge that's dangerous.

I am failing at Annie, I am not sure why.  I guess I am just not aggressive enough early game nor do I have the twitch skills since most Annie kills are from getting the stun off before they can on pounce on you.

The more I play the more I realize there's a definite learning curve to gank timings, i.e. roaming the map to get kills vs. maintaining your lane.  Same goes for jungle/gank. I'm just a lot better at sticking my lane than I am at ganking.

Are you getting owned while laning or during team fights? Generally with Annie I play it very safe and just farm hard till 6. There are very few mids that can survive being hit by all three of your spells in succession, so once you hit 6 bury mid and go help your weak lane. Rinse repeat till the team fights start. Once team fights begin you play a pretty typical carry game.

I generally go for a cooldown build on Annie; her AP ratios aren't stellar, her base damage is great, and a lot of her utility comes from the constant barrage of AOE stuns. DFG also counts as a proc for pyromania to help get the stuns flowing. I think Shurelya's should be nice on her too

How do you keep Annie in mana?  Consumables?  She is another champ that I just suck with.  I'm better with Veigar than Annie.  Mostly I guess it's because I just don't 'get' Annie, I hate Tibbers and her Q seems pointless on such a fragile champ.

Use Q to farm and you'll never have mana issues early game. Your starting pool is plenty big for your early game burst. Once the team fights start your Rod of Ages should give you plenty of mana. DFG gives you a little mana regen as well. The rod will also give you the health you need to stay close to the fight.

Tibbers is amazing. His aura is the equivalent of a sunfire cape and he has a solid melee attack. He does about 120 damage a second at rank 1. Use him to flush bushes, tank towers so you can dive, and wreck towers. He's also great for killing champs while you kite them. I frequently pick up an Aegis to make him even butcher.

I typed "Q" and meant "E", sorry.  I do use Q to farm, for some reason I do a much better job of last hitting with Veigar or Nasus then I do with Annie, not sure why.

Yeah "E" just helps you stay close to the front line and charge your stun away from a fight. "Q" doesn't do that much damage in the grand scheme of things, so I always make sure to auto-attack at the same time. I can pretty routinely get 80% of a creep wave these days with her. Once your RoA is charged you can use her cone of fire to nuke an entire wave in one go.