Good character for a total newb

[jakonovski]

Last hitting is a bit like playing one-string Guitar Hero.

[Rasix]

While someone throws empty beer bottles at you.

[Thrawn]

Gotta play that string if you ever want to win though.  

Or just only jungle/support!

[Hoax]

Last hitting is a bit like playing one-string Guitar Hero.

That's last hitting on very easy. On easy you get high cs while not leaving yourself open to ganks. On medium you don't leave yourself open to ganks, avoid, harass and give harass without missing out on cs. On hard you do all of that plus control where the  creeps actually meet in the lane depending on the champion matchup, your jungler position, game state, etc. On very hard you do all that while also actively preventing the enemy from getting cs via disruption with your skills, implied threat, simple vision blocking, actually intercepting their skills when appropriate etc.

Sad part is many smart humans that are unskilled players try to do more than very easy without mastering very easy. The players who master it one step at a time tend to actually go up in elo because dominating cs really is the simplest way to win more than you lose.

Here's a test, take the non support/jungle champ that you think you are best with. Go into a custom game by yourself and try to get to 100 cs as fast as possible. If this is so easy that its boring for you try doing that while doing ZERO damage to the enemy tower.

Example:
Riven, cloth/5pot, normal skill build normal masteries 100 cs at 12:20, tower hp remaining 980/1550. Got that just now.

That is not good last hitting. That's pretty terrible although I'm ok with the level of lane control considering its been awhile since I've played the game at all let alone done any custom game last hitting practice.

[statisticalfool]

Hey, Hoax, what's your custom game last hitting practice strategy?

Also, yeah, a ranked game last night totally illustrated this. I was Sona supporting a Graves who was not terrible, but a) was way too quick to use abilities, and b) mediocre at last hits, and they had a Soraka/Vayne. Vayne had 53-20 CS at some point, and after one successful gank, a 14-minute infinity edge. And that was pretty much it.

[Rasix]

Hah, I supported a Graves last night as Sona too. Dude couldn't last hit for anything (lowest CS on team, outside of support), and we had a pretty easy lane (Nasus/Blitz).  It was easy to just harass them all day long and unfortunately that's all he did along with his bad last hitting pushing the lane so we couldn't really get ganks.  Lee See blamed the pushing on me, the person that wasn't hitting creeps. 

Sona's really fun when you can play super aggressive. I could only really be so bold because their Blitz never landed a hook that ended in a kill.

[Slayerik]

As a Sona player, I hate when people don't realize her early harass potential and first blood (or at least first flash) burst.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Just to pile on the last-hit-wins-all anecdote wagon, I had a seemingly-bad game laning Renekton top 1v2 vs. Tryndamere and Twitch, where I died twice early on (once due to my own stupidity, once because of a terrible gank by my jungler) -- but I did so while out-csing my lane, keeping my tower up, and occupying two champions (whenever Twitch left lane I got to stomp on the underlevelled Tryndamere.) By the end of the game, which we won, I had a negative K/D record and the highest CS in the game. I didn't carry or anything, I just did my part of the job better than their Tryndamere, despite a fairly crappy lane matchup and a laning phase that bordered on early feeding.

[Hoax]

In almost every game if you calm yourself down and look at CS you can discover that it wasn't just that one stupid mistake someone made in that one team fight you remember or that one bad (by your team) or perfect (by their team) gank that won or lost the game. Those events help lead to CS differentials that lead to wins, if you can keep calm, keep your wits and keep last hitting you can overcome all sorts of bad matchups, bad plays, bad luck and bad teammates. Which is critical if you want to win more than you lose in solo queue.

Hey, Hoax, what's your custom game last hitting practice strategy?

I don't really have one, I just do custom game with a pw and nobody but me. Take the champs normal runes/masteries, buy a realistic starting item setup and last hit until I get to 100cs. To make it more interesting and to give me something fun to pay attention to I also try to do as little damage to the enemy tower and spend as little time tanking the wave in front of my tower, which means controlling the push and counter push effectively. If you do that a few times it may open your eyes a little. If you aren't getting to 100 cs before 15 minutes though it might not even be worth doing anything but working on cs even if you push down the first tower early.

[statisticalfool]

I usually like having a bot in there too. I try not to abuse that they're terrible so much (and don't count killing them as anything positive). But at least with Sivir Bot/Annie Bot, if you're being too static, they will put some hurt on you. They can push a little hard, but this isn't bad practice otherwise.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Example:
Riven, cloth/5pot, normal skill build normal masteries 100 cs at 12:20, tower hp remaining 980/1550. Got that just now.

That was a fun thing to do once. Took me to 12:03 with Tristana, which is pretty sad. The tower was at 448, since as far as I can tell it's impossible not to autopush with Trist if you take E, and of course you take E. (Especially since 'last hitting with explosive shot' was mostly what made it actual practice.)

[Rasix]

Free Cass week.  Going to have to inflict some pain some poor bastards unlucky enough to get on my team. Tried her out in a custom, seems really, really strong and not that hard mechanically to get used to.  

And.. I need to get better on more tops it seems.  In games where Kennen and GP are picked (or banned), I'm having problems picking favorable lane matchups.  Did a game as Irelia v. GP where I won my lane (almost even CS but I killed him 3 times) until a derpy TP on my part lost my tower.   Then we got in team fights and I felt like I did 0.0 DPS.  Didn't help that we had an AD Zilean and support Mundo.  Fucking trolls.  First Irelia game in months, though.  She has a great kit for just sitting in lane and farming all day long.

People seem hesitant to let me Ryze or Swain up top.  "Pick a tank!" Uggg.

[pxib]

Cass's main strength is that she fights very well while running away. If you can keep the enemy at arm's length and time your poison well you can keep people chasing you forever. While they die.

[Mosesandstick]

Cass is also a huge lane bully. There aren't that many mages Cass can't outharass early on. The mechanics of twin fang can also allow her to deal shocking amounts of damage in a toe to toe standoff.

[Rasix]

Cass's main strength is that she fights very well while running away. If you can keep the enemy at arm's length and time your poison well you can keep people chasing you forever. While they die.

Singed player approves. 

[statisticalfool]

How's new Vlad?

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Cass's main strength is that she fights very well while running away.

Conversely, she also fights very well while advancing.

[Margalis]

I find it hilarious that Cass has gone from the worst champion in the game to one of the best in the mind of the average LOL player while receiving essentially zero buffs.

Never change bandwagoners.

[Thrawn]

I find it hilarious that Cass has gone from the worst champion in the game to one of the best in the mind of the average LOL player while receiving essentially zero buffs.

Never change bandwagoners.

Even though she hasn't changed I'm sure Riot will nerf her into the ground in an upcoming patch due to the new popularity. 

[Mosesandstick]

I don't think Cass is experiencing that much new popularity. She's been a solid pick in EU for a while. I think the meta will continue to benefit her though.

[Hoax]

The destruction of Orianna was huge for Cassio. I don't think there were any Brand nerfs but he was always a champ that the more people saw his abilities the easier it got to not die to him. Annie is unplayable now because she can be counter picked. Kass has been nerfed and because he was so strong for so long people have learned his hard counters even the more obscure ones (like solomid trynd). Morgana is still getting nerfed. Cassio has a very strong lane against Ryze who rose in popularity greatly.

The knocks on Cassio are still true. The ult can be missed (in fact it will be more and more as people learn to deal with it) and she takes a lot of work to get her results compared to someone like Gragas, Ryze or Morg. Anyone who thought she was weak let alone the worst champ in the game is and always will bad at theorycrafting. It shouldn't take three games with her to realize that her damage output feels like one of the highest in league.

In addition, people have learned to play her better (she does have a higher skill ceiling than many) and people figured out that her damage is so stupid that you build tank first before deathcap making her easier for nubs to win with as that build is less risk for not much less reward than the rush deathcap become super glass cannon of doom builds.

If it turns out that Galio beats Cass free in mid expect her to dwindle in popularity as he rises. Not sure if the itemization exists yet for Galio to become a massive force but its possible and he should def see more play thanks to M5.

[Ashamanchill]

Those bastards! Solo mid galio was my thing!

[Rasix]

Dragonlady on sale (she may eat a nerf sometime soon).  Still none of the champs I'm waiting for.  Damn them. 

[HaemishM]

Ooooo, Deep Sea Kog'maw on sale too. I have been coveting that skin for a while now.

[Margalis]

As someone who plays both Galio beats Cass mid. Cass does DOT and Galio has a shield that gives him life every time he takes damage. In lane Galio barely takes damage from her and if he is low on health can just shield and run around some minions to get that back. (As Cass it might be smart to level E over Q, since E is not a DOT)

The problem with that is that Galio is Galio. He has some of the lowest DPS in the game, especially if you are putting points into shield. If you run Galio mid it's very dangerous to run a tanky jungler or a tanky low-damage AD top because as a team you won't have that much damage and especially not much magic damage. Galio is also not particularly good at ganking side lanes. And he needs blue, which means if you do have another source of magic damage (which you probably need) it will be in contention.

Ideally if you are running Galio mid you want an AP top who doesn't need blue - Rumble, Kennen, Vlad or something like that.

I've played Galio 4 times in ranked and lost all 4, all for the same reason. I have a good game, I get off awesome ults that catch 3 or 4 enemies each time, and we still lose because we just don't put out enough damage.

[Ashamanchill]

Galio is also not particularly good at ganking side lanes.

I dunno, he is actually my most effective mid at ganking. When my ult is up I can easily push mid and gank bot, usually with success. One of my favorite things to do when I'm playing with my buddies is I ult as Galio, then he (playing support Malphite) ults in as it finishes. Then our carry cleans up.

[Rasix]

Fighting the urge to spend a bunch of IP on Rumble.  Almost no use spending the points on runes, when I don't really have enough rune pages to make use of them.    Plus, I'd rather not spend more money on the game at the moment.

Played a Cass game on my low level account.  Stunk it up pretty hard.  Well, I farmed well, but got outlaned by a Cait (who rushed a Blood Thirster).  I didn't expect to win it, but I did no damage to her it seemed.  Then in team fights I was just focused hard while my team didn't focus the right targets.    I think Cass needs more practice from me, decent teammates to keep people off her, and some more runes/masteries. 



 

[Rasix]

So, dragonlady worth the cash?  Or is she going to be nerfed into the ground soon?

[HaemishM]

I doubt she'll be nerfed. I bought her on sale. She could probably use a boost of some kind, IMO, but I'm probably playing her wrong. 

[statisticalfool]

Shyvana's not getting nerfed.

She has a lack of CC, she has counters, her ganking is bad, she's not even the fastest farmer: she's a character you build a team comp around. Random soloing her: results may vary.

Her counterjungling/dueling is bad ass, but again, those are skills which require lanes you trust.

[HaemishM]

My results with random soloing her or jungling her in draft? I die more than I kill but I get a shitload of assists. She does a lot of damage in team fights but closing the deal is a bit tough, ESPECIALLY if you jungle without exhaust.

[HaemishM]

Welp, I may have to revise my statements about her. 

This...


is not right. I am not this good a player. But holy shit, did Shyvana just FACEROLL motherfuckers at lunch today. Now, it helped me greatly that their Graves seemed to be a muppet who might have had some connectivity issues. Wukong and I went top lane (I decided to try a non-jungling build) and didn't face a single champ until we were right under their turret and already had the turret down to half. That champ was the aforementioned  Muppet Graves who promptly chased us from under his turret far enough where I could exhaust him without getting turret blasted, then whaled on him until he died. Turret was down seconds later. Their Shaco might have been AFK for a while at the beginning of the game too, because I didn't see him until he was level 4. He might have been jungling. Their Caitlyn was really the only competent player, and she was quite good. She escaped from a few good gank opportunities because 1) she knew how to use the flash and her knockback ability to GTF out of Dodge and 2) our Graves was terrible too. Their Nidalee was very aggressive and died too many times because of it. At least 2 of my deaths were because I went chasing after kills and only died to the turret AFTER killing 2 champs. I'll take those deaths. Their Yorick must have gone AFK about halfway through the game, as I killed him standing still in his base after having taken down a turret five feet from him. I don't think it can be overstated just HOW BAD this team was, but luckily I can say that my team wasn't much better. Our Volibear, Ziggs and I think Graves tried to take down Baron themselves when Volibear was level 13 (the others were a few levels above him but still). They got ganked by a Graves who got the Baron buff, then got assfucked by me. I then went on to score an ace, which was AWESOME.

I did find that I got a lot better results out of that item build. Wriggles, boots, frozen mallet, Atma's then I was torn between Wit's End or Zeal for an attack speed buff. I chose Zeal because of the move speed buff, which helped a SHITTON. The Ionic spark I threw in there because I love the effect, but really, it didnt matter by that point. I could have gone Bloodthirster or Wit's End to really amp up the damage/attack speed. Hell, by the time the game was over, with a full 6 slots I still had like 3k gold just doing nothing.

If I was that Caitlyn, I'd have been apoplectic with rage.

[Rasix]

Kennen sale.. BLARRGGGG.  That's the last goddamn time I purchase a full price RP champ.

Won a game as ranged AD last night and actually won my lane as well.  Most CS.  WTF.  My Soraka was hella good and put up with my derpiness rather well.

Then at lunch I win a game jungling, when I haven't jungled in months.  To be fair, it was more that my team won all their lanes hard and their jungle Fiddle is really awful.  I had a slower start since our mid Morg refused to leash stating "I'll be busy in lane".  Guess who got zero ganks and did the worst in lane?  

It's been like bizzaro land lately.  Losing my solo lanes but winning as support, ranged AD and jungle.    All just depends on what the RNG sticks you with it seems.

[jakonovski]

Tried my first game ever with Ashe, handily went 10/4/13. Is she easy or what?

[Thrawn]

Tried my first game ever with Ashe, handily went 10/4/13. Is she easy or what?

Well, yes actually.     Ashe is possibly the easiest to play carry (and still probably my favorite).  Multi shot harrass, if someone is chasing you then you kite them with Q, arrow to initiate.