Discussing balance 2.0

[Samprimary]

Since Riot's forums are terrible, how about you guys?

1. Flash, the free Get out of Fail card

Even by Riot's admission, flash is seriously dicking up the metagame and they are seriously contemplating its removal. Of course, they also wisely note that this isn't an easy thing to do, as many heroes are built around the its use, either for power usage or obligatory survival mechanisms. Galio, for instance — if you're playing him without flash, the high ELO players (correctly) assert, you're playing him wrong.

2. Ranged carries and homogenization

The high ELO bans are moving solidly towards being heavily biased towards the ranged carry or the AoE (or both): In the case of ranged carry, MF, kog'maw, twitch, etc. Each of these heroes is played more or less the same: three doran's blades, then work towards IE.

3. Impossible laners

The early to midgame gets pretty depressingly boring when, largely, you have heroes with manaless 'poke and heal' abilities and/or other things which make them essentially uncounterable in lane unless you are wildly better than them or in a more coordinated team.

4. Fancy new heroes render old heroes useless

When was the last time you saw an Alistair? Why is MF basically an unambiguously better Tristana? Does Soraka enjoy being worse than Sona in every way? Riot, in making these new heroes, sure enjoys fitting in a bunch of very varied and useful spells which have dual application (like passive + active, etc) to the point where they often have an old hero's skill mixed with a new skill for one skill point. Some heroes definitely have cause for complaint.

[Typhon]

1.  Flash. 

tl;dr -  Kill it, Re-balance as necessary.  Make summoner spells less reactive and more team-based.

Expand the conversation to "Summoner Abilities".  I think they should all be changed to less immediate, team-based abilities that require thoughtful use (versus "oh shit!" use) and are best used when supporting your team (although they should have self benefit).  New spells should be added based upon the idea that they are 1) best used to support the team 2) work toward keeping the game moving and/or 3) help teams defend, coordinate and recover, 4) are best used in a coordinated way (rather than everyone blowing heal NOW!).  Change them from "I win!/I live!" buttons with long cool downs to buttons that help a team win in what would otherwise be a very close match up.

Keep
-Heal (change to an unique heal-over time buff to prevent stacking)
-Clarity (also change to a unique buff to mana regen.  change to effect nearby allied Champs, modify the summoner mastery that effects Clarity to do something else)
-Clairvoyance
-Teleport (change to teleport to Champion or building, modify it to provide armor and mr buff to the champ/building that you are teleporting to.  Yes, this cheeses a little onto Shen's ult)
-Revive (change to an activatable ability that reduces the cooldown of currently dead champions.  Can only be used while you are alive)
-Fortify
-Ghost (reduce the speed bump, make it an AoE based around the triggering Champ).
-Rally

Lose
-Flash
-Ignite
-Smite
-Exhaust (there's already plenty of cc in the game)

[Typhon]

3. Impossible laners - agree this is a problem.

tl;dr - Get rid of energy, it's broken and not benefiting the game. Health-consuming champs are fine as long as they don't have a no cost/low cost way of regenerating health (especially early game) - such as Vlad.

Mundo and Mordenkaiser were done right - (especially early on) you have to be aware that using your abilities too much puts you in an uncomfortably weak state.

Vlad's Q is not right - a ranged health tap that has no cost and no opportunity cost.  It would be interesting if they could change it into a passive/active where the passive effect benefited W, while the active effect benefited E - forcing the player to make a choice about when to kick it off (i.e. activate it to boost E damage, or leave it passive to give W defensive oomph).  Maybe something as simple as a health regen passive and an AP boost active.  Change W's damage to be partially based upon the amount of health regen Vlad has (which would be new).  Passive effect is lost when the ability is on cool down.

Garen, Kennen, Akali, Shen - Did we really need energy?  Did we really need an attribute that isn't effected by any items or runes and has a short(ish) recharge time?  Really?  What is this adding to the game?  Next we'll be adding items and anti-energy champs.  These champs are fun to play, but I think they are broken from a strengths and weaknesses perspective.

Change Garen to a health consumer, everyone else goes mana. 

Given Garen's ability cooldowns, energy is largely pointless on him anyway - adding to him being a faceroll champ.  Reduce his cooldowns (and damage output).  Have ability activation place a buff similar to Kassadin's teleport buff - more effect, more cost.  Garen can do more damage by using his abilities more often, but he needs to watch his health.  Garen backed up by a healer could be scary.

Modify Kennen and Akali to have abilities that burn a percentage of their mana pool (rather than a fixed amount).  Introduce a coefficient onto the mana regen rate (givng most champs a coefficient of "1").  Give Akali and Kennen a higher mp5 coefficient (trying to keep the hyper play style.  Need to limit them a little in the early part of the game and keeping them from becoming too powerful with a large mana pool).  With small mana pools and activation costs that eat a percentage of their mana they would be more susceptible to something like Wits End, but get less benefit from something like the Archangel staff.

Maybe make Shen a hybrid - when his mana runs out, he starts burning health.

[DLRiley]

I never had a problem with flash in fact it is probably the only summoner skill that makes people engage each other, either in the hopes of an easy getaway or in the hopes of an overwhelming advantage. Imagine playing league of last hitting creeps till level 18, cause that's where top to mid level play will go.

The only range carry that changes up another wise pick beef to win metagame is kogmaw due to his uncanny ability to chew at anything the same way oldschool twitch used to.

Mf isn't better than trist, she is better than twitch, ashe, and tf. trist is actually one of the few old school range carries that can hang with the likes of kogmaw and mf.

They nerfed taric and soraka ability to support. Alistar has been nerfed to uselessness a long time ago. Sona works cause she hits hard like a normal caster and doesn't have to compromise between doing damage and being a support character. Taric has to tank, Alistar has to tank, soraka could go straight AP but she wouldn't hit as hard as sona despite having the better aoe. Another problem when compared to sona her regular heal doesn't heal herself when targeting a team mate, meaning that to survive being focused she has to abandoned her team to heal herself or get tank items, again sona can just go straight AP and keep herself and a teammate alive with some effective kiting. They nerfed soraka healing and guess what soraka is only good for healing.

I find that the power creep, as in new champs being introduced that are inherently better than the old champs, really shines during the laning phase. Most of the new champs are better laners, though riot has produced plenty of duds, like slain, urgot and plenty of champs that while hitting hard don't do much else like kennen and akali. Garen and Shen hasn't replaced rammus, amumu, or malphite. there just easier to use then those characters and not very complicated to build for. Back in the day new champs like Shaco and Udry would get pentakills.

[Chimpy]

I don't play ranked, so I don't know a whole lot about the crazy meta-game stuff. It does seem to me that with the exception of Swain, the new champs they have released since I started playing (a little before MF) are all ridiculously better than the champs already in the game. I know they do that to make them intruiging to people so they will pony up cash for the bundles the first week, but a little balance ahead of time would be nice.

I think the whole last-hit minion mechanic over-rewards champs with low cooldown ranged AoE damage (hi MF), and the item selection required for some champions to be really effective is expensive dis-proportionate to their income potential. I don't mind killing champs giving more money to people, but being in range of a dead minion (and doing damage to them) should reward you, not just the last hit. I do 90% of a wave of minions damage some times, but get 0% of the cash because someone else uses their short cooldown multi-target ability and snags them all.

Also, turrets need to be smarter. Getting tired of standing with the turret between me and some champs and them able to kill me without the turret shooting them because they have such long range. It is especially bad early in the game.

[DLRiley]

I don't play ranked, so I don't know a whole lot about the crazy meta-game stuff. It does seem to me that with the exception of Swain, the new champs they have released since I started playing (a little before MF) are all ridiculously better than the champs already in the game. I know they do that to make them intruiging to people so they will pony up cash for the bundles the first week, but a little balance ahead of time would be nice.

I think the whole last-hit minion mechanic over-rewards champs with low cooldown ranged AoE damage (hi MF), and the item selection required for some champions to be really effective is expensive dis-proportionate to their income potential. I don't mind killing champs giving more money to people, but being in range of a dead minion (and doing damage to them) should reward you, not just the last hit. I do 90% of a wave of minions damage some times, but get 0% of the cash because someone else uses their short cooldown multi-target ability and snags them all.

Also, turrets need to be smarter. Getting tired of standing with the turret between me and some champs and them able to kill me without the turret shooting them because they have such long range. It is especially bad early in the game.

I like to get rid of the last hitting as well but "proportional damage" for gold gain would favor the aoe laners not decrease their advantage. I think the only real solution is to increase the gold giving passives to the support and tanks characters who can't farm creeps very well and don't get killing sprees like taric, soraka, alsitar etc.

The only champs that are inherently better then the ones that came before them are garen, mf, and kogmaw.

Also turrets are not cradles, you can die under them if someone is determined to get you. A lot of new players sit under their tower at 10 health expecting their tower to instant gib the tower diver as soon as he gets in range. Towers are road blocks to the nexus that's all. You think you die too often now? Wait till you get to the stage where the laning phase is 15 minutes of both sides tower hugging fearing that pushing the creep wave forward will invite a gank from the carry holding mid or the guy jungling.

[Chimpy]

When I am at 3/4 health, and the turret is between me and the other champ, they should not be able to get enough hits on me to kill me without ever being shot at by the turret.

I am not saying make turrets total safe havens, but when there is no risk at all of them being hit by a turret, that is a problem.

[Typhon]

4. Fancy new heroes render old heroes useless

Unlike the LoL boards, I see no conspiracy here.  Riot's designers are just getting better (well, ok, Urgot says, "mostly better") at designing Champs that have abilities that complement each other.  Newer Champs tend to have abilities that lend themselves to combos rather than individual abilities that may or may not work together.  Newer Champs tend to have inherent passives that don't suck.  And newer Champs have abilities that can be use in different scenarios/modes - making them more interesting (although Jax's leap is a good example of an old-school champ having multi-mode abilities).

Sivir is one of the most obvious examples of an old-school style Champ.  Each of her abilities essentially exist in a vacuum.  Her passive is underwhelming in the extreme (increased dodge chance while moving), and has very little to do with any of her other abilities (if you are using the ult to run from an auto-attacking enemy... ok, they synergize for that brief period of time while they are auto-attacking you).  The sole skill you need to learn with Sivir is how to anticipate when someone is going to try to hit you with an ability.  Even that doesn't really reward skill properly - you get mana back if you successfully block.  How about instead you get a cool-down reduction on the shield?  This would allow you burst-defense at the cost of mana.  In the early game if your Sivir is just running wide-open on the boomerang / bouncing blades you won't have enough mana to support the shield.

LeBlanc is the most obvious example of a new-style champ.  Her ult is by definition a synergy with any of her abilities, and each of her abilities has a good reason to use as the ult (back-to-back chains is brutal).  Part of Q depends on using another ability.  Despite being pretty meh in the mid-to-late game, she is very fun to play.  Mirror Image isn't useless - a half a second of stealth, another half a second to figure out which is which, a second total may be all that is need to escape or kill.  I'm having more trouble with learning to use some restraint with her abilities, rather than figuring out what the combo scenarios were.

[DLRiley]

When I am at 3/4 health, and the turret is between me and the other champ, they should not be able to get enough hits on me to kill me without ever being shot at by the turret.

I am not saying make turrets total safe havens, but when there is no risk at all of them being hit by a turret, that is a problem.

I'm sorry but that is an instance of being bad lolz.... the only two champs that could remotely do that solo is garen and trynadmere otherwise it takes 3 people to lolz gib you without a problem or two burst heavy casters. Either way this becomes less of a problem the longer you play since it doesn't sound like you have been playing very long.

Oh you are right Typhon sivir is one of the peeks of bad champ design. Like you said most people problem with new champions is that unlike old champions 75% of their skills are suppose to be used together instead of special circumstance.

[Chimpy]

They were not melee people killing me. But whatever o know-it-all.

[Typhon]

When I am at 3/4 health, and the turret is between me and the other champ, they should not be able to get enough hits on me to kill me without ever being shot at by the turret.

I am not saying make turrets total safe havens, but when there is no risk at all of them being hit by a turret, that is a problem.

It's supposed to auto-acquire as soon as a champ engages another champ in tower range.  There are a bunch of caveats and it seems a bit buggy.  Caveats like - is there another champ attacking someone already in range?  Was there a champ attacking someone (maybe you) and they moved off and now the tower isn't acquiring the champ that is now killing you?  Are there a bunch of enemy minions in range?  The towers aren't very bright.  You can really only count on them to work against you.  

That said, I think a part of it is due to us only remembering the cases where we get fucked (you get targeted by the tower the second you do anything, or the tower fails to target the enemy the entire time they are beating the crap out of you).

If you want to see a champ that proves to you that it works, roll up Swain, drop torment on a champ running to his tower, move into range of the tower - every single time it will immediately stop what it's doing and start fucking you up.

Ranged auto-attacks seem to draw less attention than spells, not sure why (or maybe it's just me imagining things) - possibly due to the champ dancing in and out of tower range confuses the tower.  Was it Kog Maw or Ms Fortune that burned you?

Edit: made sentences suck less

[Chimpy]

Was Nidalee and Lux. And they were standing closer than some of the minions being targetted by the tower. Both times there were no other champs anywhere around.

[Muffled]

Towers do have a cooldown on their attack.  You can launch a spell or an attack and dance back out of range before the tower has time to shoot at you.  It will decide to hit a minion instead, rinse and repeat.  Not sure if that was the case, but it's the one way to do what you're describing that I'm aware of.

I've never encountered a tower actually bugging and continuing to auto attack minions while a champ that should have been tagged was in range.

Edit: some abilities also out range the tower.  Lux's laser, Nidalee's javelin Q, Kog'maw's spit artillery thing.  Others that I'm forgetting for the moment. 

[Typhon]

Towers do have a cooldown on their attack.  You can launch a spell or an attack and dance back out of range before the tower has time to shoot at you.  It will decide to hit a minion instead, rinse and repeat.  Not sure if that was the case, but it's the one way to do what you're describing that I'm aware of.

I've never encountered a tower actually bugging and continuing to auto attack minions while a champ that should have been tagged was in range.

I have.  Ran the dude around the tower (which is really all you can depend on - a physical obstruction) with him spell tagging me the whole way - he finally caught up to me when I got tangled in his minions that were on the tower and killed me, then ran off.  Tower never acquired.  That one I'm guessing was due to latency, but who really knows?  Pissed me right off, I'm guessing he laughed about it pretty good.

I wouldn't say that experience isn't common though.

Edit: experience ISN'T common

[DLRiley]

What i used to like to do was ryze was just wait just outside the range of the enemy tower and pop my combo on someone while cooling walking out. I do this twice and occasionally risk two shots by the tower for the harass. My policy has been to generally not fighting someone at my tower unless i'm baiting. If i have no intentions of fighting and i know they could potentially dive me i bug out. I've been killed 3 times while under my tower, once when running up to a tower just after a teammate just got dived for a kill. I deserved that death...

2. Ranged carries and homogenization

The high ELO bans are moving solidly towards being heavily biased towards the ranged carry or the AoE (or both): In the case of ranged carry, MF, kog'maw, twitch, etc. Each of these heroes is played more or less the same: three doran's blades, then work towards IE.

I recently discovered, like 5 minutes ago that 3 doran blade twitch is a bad idea. like 3/14 bad idea.

[Kail]

1. Flash, the free Get out of Fail card

Kind of torn about this.  On the one hand, I use Flash constantly.  I've run Flash/Exhaust for probably the last hundred or so games I've played.  It really helps give a lot of flexibility in terms of strategy and survivability.  Without Flash, I can't really do much by myself, everything has to be with the group or I'll be screwed when five enemies jump out of the bush.  Flash isn't an instant win in these situations, it just nudges the difficulty from "guaranteed death" to "possible to escape if they don't chase well".  Without Flash, I'm stuck playing even more cautiously, taking even fewer risks, staying in the back of the blob, etc.

On the other hand, I do think it's so useful that I can't really play as well without it, and getting rid of it would free up a slot for ghost or ignite or something.  Dunno if that would make up for the loss in flexibility that removing Flash would cause.

The excuse of "some champions need Flash to be effective" seems stupid to me, though.  Mostly I see this for nuke/CC characters with no mobility like Galio and Nunu.  That's a champion design problem that should be addressed, not an issue with the spell.  And flash is just as big a problem for those champions (play against Nunu and estimate how many kills he'd get if people couldn't flash out of his ult) as it is a benifit to them.

2. Ranged carries and homogenization

Not sure what the problem is here.  Ranged carries all tend to get the same items?  Yeah, so do most of the AP carries I play, as do most of the tanks I play.  Ranged carries are unique in that they don't require much extra HP to be effective, and they don't require mana to be effective, so they can just focus on MOAR DEEPS and do well.  Not sure how you'd change that, or why you'd need to change that.  If they played the same, then I'd be a bit worried, but I don't know that they do, really.

3. Impossible laners

Some champs lane better than others.  I don't know of any who are lethal deathbombs early and lategame.  If you're up against a Vlad or Kennen, play defensively and just try to keep behind your creep wave.  If they don't get kills early, their late game contribution (Vlad especially) is pretty meh.  Maybe I'm biased (Vlad and Kennen are probably my 2nd and 3rd most played) but they don't seem like unstoppable powerhouses unless you feed them.  Great for laning, rarely die, but when it's 5v5 they tend to be less influential than other carries.  I guess I don't have a problem with some champs being better at X than others as long as they have some other significant weakness.

4. Fancy new heroes render old heroes useless

Seems like selective memory to me.  I agree with Typhon that the newer champs are generally more specialized and older champs are more broad, but I don't think that makes them underpowerd.  Some of them hurt when Riot decides to across the board nerf, say, healing (since more of them had some kind of incidental "heals teammates" move, like Alistar), but they're by no means totally outclassed.  Corki, Amumu, Warwick, Janna, Annie, Ashe, Anivia, Rammus, and Taric are all fairly solid champs, while Lux and Swain (and maybe even LeBlanc post-nerf) are waving from the benches.

[Samprimary]

The problem with the impossible laners thing is where you have characters with 'poke and heal' mechanisms, or unambiguously superior harassment, to the extent that most high-elo players don't feel they can be countered by anyone but the same. The real issue with that, to me, isn't one of balance but more of how it can make laning unfuckingbelievably boring; a stretch of the game where you're not fighting against a lane opponent but rather you are resigned to suffering through it with little variation against someone who, mechanically, you can not defeat. Your only goal is to not fall so far behind that your opponent isn't stacked well enough to swing the mid to late game that dramatically. Riot, to their credit, acknowledges this issue and thinks they went a little too liberal especially in the case of heroes who don't have mana pools to worry about.

Not sure what the problem is here.  Ranged carries all tend to get the same items?

Only one element of the problem. Though it's true that doran's cheese needs to be addressed (most likely solution is preventing stacking) the issue is about how ranged carry is disproportionately important to whether or not your team wins or loses the game, and this homogenizes teamfights and team composition some. I was really very interested to see, at high ELO, what heroes started getting banned more and more. Twitch, not Galio? Not Sona (pre nerf)? Really? Kog'Maw? Sheesh.

Seems like selective memory to me.

No, a trend. I don't claim it's universal (they have released a slew of league duds recently, but that's more due to the general weakness of Teh Magic), but when you start seeing heroes appear that cause other heroes to practically vanish, even two or three times, and you look at their abilities and see that they do everything that an old hero's ability did And More™ .. you should give it some thought.

Again, to Riot's credit, some of them have copped to this.

[Samprimary]

I recently discovered, like 5 minutes ago that 3 doran blade twitch is a bad idea. like 3/14 bad idea.

No. It's a wonderful idea. It's carried me to a lot of wins I didn't deserve, but now it's starting to appear on all the dpsers in all the games, so the comparative edge is lost. I'm playing against people who understand that the cost / mechanical bonus ratio is, essentially, unbeatable through the entire phase you're collecting/swapping.

[DLRiley]

I recently discovered, like 5 minutes ago that 3 doran blade twitch is a bad idea. like 3/14 bad idea.

No. It's a wonderful idea. It's carried me to a lot of wins I didn't deserve, but now it's starting to appear on all the dpsers in all the games, so the comparative edge is lost. I'm playing against people who understand that the cost / mechanical bonus ratio is, essentially, unbeatable through the entire phase you're collecting/swapping.

but but i know there are better starting items...

[Samprimary]

I don't think three doran's blades count as 'starting items.' You obviously have gone back to the fountain to get more. As for what items are better for squishies like twitch: there are none.

The item grants you:

120 hitpoints, about 2/3 of what ruby crystal provides. 1/3 of what vampiric scepter provides 3/5ths of what longsword gives. Adding up those fractions of the costs of all those items gives you about 715 gold's worth of item. Since the blades are transitory items in the progression up to multiple high level items (after IE/razor), we add the sell value to that for about 933 gold. The combined value of a single blade is all provided for the investment loss of only about 220 gold.

The investment also remains completely fluid; you're not locked into reaching an obligatory three or more. If you're facerolling and you don't go back to the fountain for a while, you can skip one or two of them and go straight for the BF sword; if not, the extra durability the items provide you keep you nice and comfortable during the continued runup.

Therefore, you start seeing doran's blades (or shields) on all the squish. Multiples. Usually three.

[DLRiley]

I'll keep that in mind the next time I use a twitch to feed me.

[Typhon]

I wonder if Riot cares about this?  It took me along time to start to value an item for what it could do for me now (and how efficient that item was), rather than what it could build toward.  Especially in the context that a single team fight win (and corresponding tower crush) could overcome any loss (due to selling Doran's items).

I don't think they should, but they do seem to tune things based up strats that the high-end players adopt/exploit.  I guess the thinking here is that if you are just casually following the game you might not know about buying highly efficient dead-end items as an early-game accelerator.  This would result in even more pub-stomping of uniformed scrubs (such as myself, especially a month or two ago), which could lead to said scrubs rage-quitting the game forever (and never buying anything from Riot ever again). 

In that context, I guess it makes sense that Riot should at least be watching the impact of this upon community.

Edit: last paragraph was so brief I'm pretty sure it made no sense (it was originally a sentence) .  I expanded upon it.

[DLRiley]

Dorans shield is the best bang for buck item. Dorans Sword is meh and Dorans Ring is ok with a bump to decent considering the meta. That has been the general consensus since the last time riot changed dorans sward. Actually i preferred the old dorans sword.

[Samprimary]

Your idea of the general consensus is probably not one that has observed high-ELO play recently?

[DLRiley]

Gotta give me some links sir.

[Thrawn]

Doran's Sword > Doran's Sword > Doran's Sword > Boots > BF Sword > Whatever is the mid carry build I'm seeing more and more and works well on pretty much any carry. 

[Chimpy]

I can't stand to not at least get brown boots before buying a second "real" item. But I am in semi-scrub land so I don't count heh.

[Thrawn]

I can't stand to not at least get brown boots before buying a second "real" item. But I am in semi-scrub land so I don't count heh.

Build whatever you are comfortable with, I personaly believe that knowing how to play your champ well and working with your matters more then your build.  I don't build Infinity Edge on Ashe for example but I still think I carry very well with her.  (Usually do Doran's Blade > BF Sword > Boots > Bloodthirster > Attack Speed Item, but will just buy brown boots before BF sword if I get pushed out of lane and have to back before I have the G.  More often then not if I can farm hard for a quick BF sword, I can back, Teleport into lane, arrow the opponent and immediatly get a kill.  Even if I don't get the kill I dominate the lane wtih so much early damage in most cases forcing them to react to me)

[DLRiley]

Doran's Sword > Doran's Sword > Doran's Sword > Boots > BF Sword > Whatever is the mid carry build I'm seeing more and more and works well on pretty much any carry. 

High level game link, i know the logic of getting 3 dorans than reselling them for better items, just not convinced it works against anyone who would otherwise be stuck in rank 1200 hell.

[Samprimary]

Doran's Sword > Doran's Sword > Doran's Sword > Boots > BF Sword > Whatever is the mid carry build I'm seeing more and more and works well on pretty much any carry. 

I usually finish out my boots (greaves, unless the CC is nasty that game) before the third sword. It all depends on if I'm going back to the fountain with 500, or I've scored a couple of mid ganks or successful harass and have the 950. But otherwise than that, yeah, that's exactly it. Straight from third sword to BF Sword is particularly nasty on Twitch, what with his high attack speed + S&P, but it just works for .. well, all of them.

I used to see it about one in three games. Now, it's most games. I watched two other dps carries get called nooblord for not doing it.

[Prospero]

Oh how times change. I remember a few months back when people were called nooblord for doing it. I love the ARPG community.

[Chimpy]

People in scrubland still call people nooblords for doran's stacking. I used to do it occasionally on Tristana and people would always call me an idiot for doing it.

[DLRiley]

I can doran shield/ring amumu, cause its amumu... some champs don't need a lot of items to scale, trist, kog, mf, garen and amumu being one of the few.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Watch any game on this page. I would guess that 90-98% of them will feature all physical ranged carries buying 1-3 doran's blades, some kind of boots, followed by IE. Sometimes with a mid-cost item before the IE, but not usually.

[DLRiley]

Point taken, though the MF was pretty bad and gargas was a lozly choice (yeah i know gargas is pretty effective in his own right but still   ). Actually couldn't watch the game to the end in one sitting, pretty boring really. Having seen top level (been a while since i played at that level honestly), mid level, and scrub level, the difference in ability is so small its laughable how "eportish" riot wants league to be rofl. The key difference between Mid level to Top level seem to be last hitting purposely clearing your own jungle.

Lolz at not one but two failed baron attempts...top level play indeed