Is it too late?

[Samprimary]

We actually really love to fight garen. He doesn't have anything really notably threatening for teamfights and, like with Mundo, it's obnoxiously easy to kill his teammates around him.

[Samprimary]

by the by, I'm spending some time playing mal'zahar in spite of the fact that he is an underwhelming champ. What's the pro rune build / gear build / etc with him?

[Chimpy]

This character is broken IMO. Honestly, why pick any tank over him other than flavour (or a lust for gimping yourself).

Garen is not really a tank, he (like a lot of the melee physical carries) has a lot of HP and his item buys in most builds tend to all add to his HP as well. For pure tank though, I would take Shen over him any day.

One of the things to counter Garen while laning is to have someone with a ranged stun and a ranged character in the lane against him. Stun him when he is in the WW and he cannot do the "follow you and chop you to bits" thing. Also, as stated by Strazos, his health regen is after 8 secs of no incoming dmg. Make sure your ranged player is plinking him often.

Garen does need a look at (as do all of the no mana/energy champs) from the resource usage disparity side.

[Megrim]

So, who is still playing regularly? I've picked up the client again, not having played since the Beta. My account still has a bunch of people on the friends list (I'm Acid Burn btw, thanks Schild ), but I have no idea who most of them are.

Also, does anyone care to give a quick rundown of how the game is at the moment (I can earn points to buy champions, right? I don't have to use real money?), what the balance is like, any new champions to watch out for? Do Kassadin/Jax still destroy everything? Is Morgana still imba? Do people still stack Frozen Mallets?

[Kail]

So, who is still playing regularly? I've picked up the client again, not having played since the Beta. My account still has a bunch of people on the friends list (I'm Acid Burn btw, thanks Schild ), but I have no idea who most of them are.

Also, does anyone care to give a quick rundown of how the game is at the moment (I can earn points to buy champions, right? I don't have to use real money?), what the balance is like, any new champions to watch out for? Do Kassadin/Jax still destroy everything? Is Morgana still imba? Do people still stack Frozen Mallets?

I tend to play in cycles (quitting when the jackasses become too much to bear).  Seem to be on the upswing this week, after not touching it for a month or so.

You still earn points to buy champs, or you can buy them with real money.  You can't buy runes with real money (grr), but if you want to buy alternate skins you have to use real money for that (not the points earned from playing games).  There are a ton of skins, now, too, and a bunch of weird ones (though none of them have any in-game effect aside from looking/sounding different).  You can also get extra rune pages, now.

As for champs, seems fairly balanced at the moment to me, though I'm sure others have different opinions.  There are a few who are weak (new champs, like Cassiopiea and Caitlyn seem especially weak, their strategy seems to be to release them weak and then buff them) but I can't think of any who are really game breakingly strong.  Jax is kind of mediocre now, Kass was fairly mediocre but just got a pretty big peripheral buff from the Zhonya's Ring thing.

Probably the biggest recent change was that one of the major caster items, Zhonya's Ring, was split into two items.  Previously, it gave a 25% AP boost and had an invulnerability spell you could activate.  It's now been split into two items, one with the invulnerability and one with the AP buff (but now buffed to 30%).  Champs who used the invulnerability mode took this as a bit of a nerf (losing their AP bonus), while champs who didn't use the invulnerability took it as a buff (losing the invuln they didn't use and gaining more AP).  In general, though, it was a buff for casters.  I don't think anyone stacks Frozen Mallets, though having one is nice on a tank.

[schild]

So, who is still playing regularly? I've picked up the client again, not having played since the Beta. My account still has a bunch of people on the friends list (I'm Acid Burn btw, thanks Schild ), but I have no idea who most of them are.

Also, does anyone care to give a quick rundown of how the game is at the moment (I can earn points to buy champions, right? I don't have to use real money?), what the balance is like, any new champions to watch out for? Do Kassadin/Jax still destroy everything? Is Morgana still imba? Do people still stack Frozen Mallets?

I play regularly again, Acid Burn. Loooooooool.

I'm still Lord Nikon, so, whatevs.

[Slayerik]

I'm on late EST as, you guessed it, Slayerik.

[Thrawn]

Mitthrawnuruodo - but I'm probably pretty scarce now that school started up again.

[Vaiti]

I think I'm one of the only guys playing on the EU servers.

I recently started playing ranked games and there is a HUGE difference in the playerbase between normal and ranked games.

Just played a game where our Panth was feeding heavily, we still almost won, no one yelled at Panth aside from pointing out he was feeding and playing badly. No one called anyone a noob. We lost graciously. We thanked each other for the good game at the end. It was crazy land. After playing up to level 30 in just normal games, I was convinced the entire community was nothing but spergy mouthr breathers.

[Thrawn]

After playing up to level 30 in just normal games, I was convinced the entire community was nothing but spergy mouthr breathers.

It is, you just had a really odd ranked game I guess.  Ranked games as a whole are no better than normal in my experience. 

[Vaiti]

That's the thing tho, that was just an example of many games. I've been playing nothing but ranked for a week, and I've literally only seen one guy, who was quiet the entire match on the enemy team, call anyone a noob. And that was at the end when they lost, he put in the typical "Noob team" comment. It's crazy.

[Ozzu]

I've played enough LoL lately to choke a horse.

I'm always up for an invite.

[Megrim]

So, who is still playing regularly? I've picked up the client again, not having played since the Beta. My account still has a bunch of people on the friends list (I'm Acid Burn btw, thanks Schild ), but I have no idea who most of them are.

Also, does anyone care to give a quick rundown of how the game is at the moment (I can earn points to buy champions, right? I don't have to use real money?), what the balance is like, any new champions to watch out for? Do Kassadin/Jax still destroy everything? Is Morgana still imba? Do people still stack Frozen Mallets?

I play regularly again, Acid Burn. Loooooooool.

I'm still Lord Nikon, so, whatevs.

Are you playing mostly Ranked games, or just scrub-tier ones? I think I need to be level 30 to play with the big kids (which, incidentally, is somewhat stupid. Why can't I play Ranked at level 1?). We should get five and do arranged team games. That way ya'll can yell at me for missing Morgana's trap shots.

Besides that, does anyone have any good advice for playing Vlad. I like the hero, but apart from building him with a ton of hp and "lol you can't kill me" gameplay, I have as yet to see a single decent build with him. Also, whats Poppy like? I'm intrigued, but I don't want to buy outright without playing her first.

[tazelbain]

The reason they force people to be 30 was because the 20-29s were far more likely to leave and ruin games.

[Megrim]

Er, how'd they figure THAT worked? 1-19 is all sugar and spice and everything nice, but past that it's the Thunderdome?

[tazelbain]

It sucks that you (as a HON, DotA vet) are hindered by the restrictions, but they stop true noobs from kicking themselves in the balls. 

[Der Helm]

Besides that, does anyone have any good advice for playing Vlad. I like the hero, but apart from building him with a ton of hp and "lol you can't kill me" gameplay, I have as yet to see a single decent build with him. Also, whats Poppy like? I'm intrigued, but I don't want to buy outright without playing her first.

I usually play him straight caster. Mana crystal, Sorc Boots, Mejas, "the HAT", Rylas, Lichbane.

Sorc Bots, Mejas and Hat being what I would call my core build.

You should have plenty of HP through the passive, I prefer this to building him like a tank.

[Mosesandstick]

Mana Crystal?

[Der Helm]

Mana Crystal?

I was at work.   Amplifying tome.

I think I DID buy the Mana Crystal once  thing on him once, got called a noob, crushed them like the cattle they are nonetheless.  

edit: Minor correction, I do not like Dorans items too much, at least on the level of play I am stuck with.

[Megrim]

So I'm saving up all my pennies to buy one of the 3k heroes. I would like to have some kind of ranged nuker/support type (I've bought Poppy for when I want to break kneecaps), and I think I've narrowed it down to either Lux or Le Blanc. Could someone give me a few quick points on one or the other or both?

The other option is Malzahazawhatsit SAND MAGIC guy, but I haven't been able to find any good info on him (and I've only seen one person play him, and he was terrible), even though I do like the sound of what he does.

[Kail]

So I'm saving up all my pennies to buy one of the 3k heroes. I would like to have some kind of ranged nuker/support type (I've bought Poppy for when I want to break kneecaps), and I think I've narrowed it down to either Lux or Le Blanc. Could someone give me a few quick points on one or the other or both?

The other option is Malzahazawhatsit SAND MAGIC guy, but I haven't been able to find any good info on him (and I've only seen one person play him, and he was terrible), even though I do like the sound of what he does.

In my experience, they're both fairly average characters in terms of effectiveness, but LeBlanc is a lot more fun for me.  Her ult makes her very combo-oriented and requires her to plan out which spells she's going to cast ahead of time.  Lux is more based on skillshots, but her actual abilities have always seemed a bit weak to me.

If you're worried about power, both characters, as far as I know, are kind of regarded as "Like X but worse" type champions, with Lux being compared unfavorably to Morgana and LeBlanc being measured against Kassadin a lot.

[Mosesandstick]

I've heard lots of good things about Lux, but never played her. Plus she has the laser...

[Slayerik]

I have seen very good Luxs and Le Blancs... Malzahar was buffed recently and I have been seeing more of him lately.

I think think of them as all on the same tier, dangerous in the right hands.  I have seen some very dominant LBs and Malz, they can carry....Lux is more support that if she KSes enough can carry.

[Typhon]

Cass is viewed as being sub-par, but I think that is not correct except in regard to her ult.  Focus on the poisons to do the bulk of your damage, and just use twin fang to finish off runners.  Build her a bit beefier (rod of ages, rylais) and go merc treads instead of sorc boots.   You won't burst folks down, but you will grind down large numbers of folks simultaneously.

But honestly Le Blanc is the same way - unless you are crazy overfed a single full combo isn't bursting anyone except the most fragile into the ground, you'll need to expect to have help or have a running battle.  Fortunately both Cass and Le Blanc have tools to help them with a running battle.  I think Cass just does more damage than Le Blanc, while Le Blanc has more versatility

[Thrawn]

One upside to Le Blanc though is that a good Le Blanc will beat a lot of good mids 1 on 1.

[Astorax]

Lux's strength, IMO, is that she can, with some smart map control steal buffs from the other team REALLY easily.  If you can get/keep wards around the other side's red/blue and dragon, she can lazer from mid anywhere on the map to steal those buffs.  It's absurdly frustrating when done well.

She's also really hard to pin down to kill.  Between her shield, her immobilize, and AoE slow, she's good at keeping distance while still dishing out decent dmg...but as been mentioned, she's not really a carry per se.

As Thrawn mentioned, LeBlanc is absurdly hard to mid against when played well.

Cass isn't underpowered at all...just her ult sucks.  Her poisons do REALLY good dmg even early on if you can keep up a good harass (better than Karthus IMO) and they buffed her ratio a lot on her E (the direct attack) so it scales much better into late game.  I love getting lich bane on her.  Pumps up her burst dmg pretty well.

[Megrim]

Thanks for the advice guys, you're much more useful than the LoL forums. I picked up Le Blanc, and so far the results have been very good. The utility she has is, impressive, to say the least.

[Ashamanchill]

Cass isn't underpowered at all...just her ult sucks.  Her poisons do REALLY good dmg even early on if you can keep up a good harass (better than Karthus IMO) and they buffed her ratio a lot on her E (the direct attack) so it scales much better into late game.  I love getting lich bane on her.  Pumps up her burst dmg pretty well.

I 100% disagree. I think she is one of the worst champions in the game right now. In team fights, you apply a poison to someone, and by the time it's ticked once, they are already dead from other damage, or you are dead. I understand that I'm not that good with her, but her moves are just bad. Maybe good Casses are seen at high elos, where people could play a chair and win, but where I am I have yet to see her in a game not played by me.

[Samprimary]

You aren't going to see cassi in high level organized matches. Her problems are twofold: there's other heroes who can do her ap role and do more damage with putting themselves at less risk, AND in addition to that, they're able to do that in less than half the clicks and intense micromanagement of abilities, with abilities which are much harder to miss with.

[Astorax]

Cass isn't underpowered at all...just her ult sucks.  Her poisons do REALLY good dmg even early on if you can keep up a good harass (better than Karthus IMO) and they buffed her ratio a lot on her E (the direct attack) so it scales much better into late game.  I love getting lich bane on her.  Pumps up her burst dmg pretty well.

I 100% disagree. I think she is one of the worst champions in the game right now. In team fights, you apply a poison to someone, and by the time it's ticked once, they are already dead from other damage, or you are dead. I understand that I'm not that good with her, but her moves are just bad. Maybe good Casses are seen at high elos, where people could play a chair and win, but where I am I have yet to see her in a game not played by me.

The point of her poison in team fights isn't to do the dmg, that's what her fang spell is for...the poison just lets you spam it with zero cooldown.

Towards end game when big team fights are happening, I've had it do upwards of 800 per hit, with zero cooldown, that's a lotta burst.  Add on to that, there's often team fights where one champ "gets away" with very low HP but gets back to heal in time to defend a tower...with your poison ticking on them, the chances of them making it away drop significantly.

No, you won't see her in high elo because of what Samprimary points out, that there are other heroes that do her job as well or better than she does...but in pub stomp games, she's still a lotta fun.  They need to tweak her ult to make her a solid high elo champ, other than that, she's pretty good IMO.

[Megrim]

Played a few games with Galio on the new champ rotation. Holy sweet jesus on a pogo stick, how is this guy not played more often?! He nukes, he chases, he tanks, he aoes, he tower dives, my god what the hell.

[Xuri]

I have recently picked up this game again, and despite it not really managing to intrigue me all that much the first time around, this time I am pretty darn addicted. Mainly playing as Master Yi, who seems to be a bit slow vs other champions at the start, but really, REALLY shines off in the higher levels, where I've been able to go head-to-head with pretty much any of the other champions I've met, and in some cases been able to take down three champions in a row, one by one, since all his cooldowns are reset if he kills a champion while one of the buffs are up (highlander?).

My in-game name is "Xoduz", for anyone that cares.

[Der Helm]

Don't play Yi exclusive. 

I HATE those players.

[Thrawn]

Don't play Yi exclusive. 

I HATE those players.

I hate anyone that plays ANYONE exclusive. 

[Slayerik]

Don't play Yi exclusive. 

I HATE those players.

I hate anyone that plays ANYONE exclusive. 

Whew, good thing I've learned a couple champs :)