Need a recommendation

[Nebu]

I've been playing Lux as my primary and wondered if any of you could recommend another champion with a similar playstyle.  Prefer ranged dps with a little cc.  Doesn't need to be support.  I'm still on the learning curve, but am willing to explore a bit.  I just know that my twitch skills aren't good enough for melee.

Thanks. 

[Bann]

What about Morgana? Skillshot root like lux, aoe effect, and a shield. Im not sure if shes played at all anymore (I just came dipped my toe back in again) but once upon a time she was a viable mid and could also support.

[Ashamanchill]

I can second that. My buddy mained Morgana for quite a while and he loves Lux.

[HaemishM]

Morgana is a decent one - I think Lux is better because she doesn't have much fall off late game. Leona is a decent support with a similar rooty skillshot though she's melee not ranged. Ryze has a similar skillshot mechanic with serious damage potential, though his item build is more mana-focused.

[Kail]

Yeah, Morgana would be my first answer too.

Most ranged casters have some kind of CC, so just about any of them would fit the bill to a degree.  Lissandra might be worth looking in to if she's ever free, maybe Zyra if you can land her skillshots.  Really, though I can't think of any ranged caster who doesn't have some kind of slow or stun or knockup or something, so you should be fine with anybody who strikes your fancy.

If you want more physical damage, Ashe springs to mind.  She's loaded with slows and has a global stun skillshot.

[Azuredream]

Zyra, Xerath, and Ahri might be to your liking. And Morgana's already been mentioned.

[Nebu]

Funny that you mention Morgana.  She was my main until changes to her a few patches ago.  She falls off so much late game that I switched to Lux.  I played Annie a while too, but she's just too squishy for my tastes.  I'm thinking Veigar may be too.

I've been contemplating the following:

Cassiopia, Kennen, Swain, and Xerath. 

Any thoughts on those 4? 

What about Veigar and Syndra? 

[HaemishM]

Veigar is fun but you definitely have to land your combos. Cassiopeia is a BEAST.

Swain is also fun to just run around and toss ravens in your ult form and with the right team can totally wreck a teamfight. Xerath has insane range and damage potential but he is slow. He is all about positioning yourself for the rooting ult combo and the stuns.

Kennen is a weird little fucker. He's so annoying to play against but it requires some skill to not get CC'ed and focused.

Really though most casters are going to be squishy because of their potential for burst damage.

[Rasix]

Veigar and Syndra are major 100-0 champs.  They can burst people down incredibly fast once you get their combos down.

I like Swain, but he's fairly close ranged and his mana consumption is through the roof.  He can be incredibly tanky due to ultimate.

Xerath can be a major lane bully with his range and is another 100-0 champ once he has his ultimate. 

Kennen is good, but difficult if your teammates are morons.

As an aside, are you still playing only Twisted Treeline?  Because 99.9% of the advice here is going to be mostly applicable to Summoner's Rift.

[Nebu]

As an aside, are you still playing only Twisted Treeline?  Because 99.9% of the advice here is going to be mostly applicable to Summoner's Rift.

I only play Twisted with two friends to work on communication and teamwork.  I have been messing with ARAM and play 5's when we have 3-5 people in Mumble together.  My account is level 12, so I'm playing with friends that are using smurf accounts while I get my skills down.  I started playing more 5's when I got past level 7, but still have a long way to go with learning champs, tactics, buy orders and the like.  I'm a bit shy about playing with you vets for fear of reprisal!

[Goumindong]

Morgana is kind of bad at the moment. She can push but that is about it.

I would actually suggest Viktor.

3rd best poke in the game in terms of raw damage but its super easy to hit with since it has no cast animation and goes through creeps.

Second best AoE Burst in the game with competitive single target burst


Non-Blue reliant wave clear [easy to clear whole wave at once]

He fits into any team composition

Just buy death augment as your first major item and wreck face

here is an example of me wrecking face in Gold IV with him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-oc_8dv_cM

[Viin]

I love Lux. Ashe is also fun to play and taking skill shots with her ultimate all the way across the map is hugely satisfying.

[Druzil]

Ranged Mids with CC that I like:
Morgana - Easily one of my favs
Ahri - Mobility, damage, lots of skill shots
Ryze - No skill shots, good damage, short range, builds different items than most mids
TF - Once you can lock gold cards semi consistently he is really fun, be prepared to be called out the ONE time you lock the wrong card though

No CC but still fun:
Cass - Super strong in lane/deuls, very fun, ultimate is deciptivly hard to use
Ziggs - Tons of harass, great range, shitty skins, his W is kinda hard to use for wall jump etc
Ezreal - Similar to Lux in that he has skill shots & global ult to snipe people with.  I prefer AD Ez though.

Not a fan to Synrda, Swain, Viktor, Veigar.  Not that they are bad I just don't enjoy them.  AP Kennen is good, it takes awhile to get going though.  Once you do though, flash -> ult -> zhoynas into a team is really strong.

[HaemishM]

Ziggs - Tons of harass, great range, shitty skins, his W is kinda hard to use for wall jump etc

What the fuck is wrong with you? He has some of the best skins in the game. Love me some pool party Ziggs.

[Nebu]

Keep the input coming.  I hadn't considered Ahri or Ziggs, but I may check them out.

[Druzil]

Ziggs - Tons of harass, great range, shitty skins, his W is kinda hard to use for wall jump etc

What the fuck is wrong with you? He has some of the best skins in the game. Love me some pool party Ziggs.

The concept/splash art for Pool Party Ziggs is awesome, the in-game skin... meh.  Love me some Pool Party Graves though.

[Goumindong]

Funny that you mention Morgana.  She was my main until changes to her a few patches ago.  She falls off so much late game that I switched to Lux.  I played Annie a while too, but she's just too squishy for my tastes.  I'm thinking Veigar may be too.

I've been contemplating the following:

Cassiopia, Kennen, Swain, and Xerath.  

Any thoughts on those 4?  

What about Veigar and Syndra?  

Most mages are going to be squishy, the exceptions are pretty few and far between. Cassiopia, Veigar, and Kennen, are amazingly squishy. Xerath is squishy against magic damage champions but fairly resilient against physical damage champions.

Personally, i don't like Kennen outside of two situations

1) Top Lane
2) Coordinated Team

His primary lane advantage is auto attack harass and q follow up. But its very hard to get q follow up in mid lane because the lane is so short and your auto attack harass is dampened because most everyone is ranged. In addition he needs Zhonya/Wooflet in order to be effective due to his team fighting mechanics so no matter the mode he takes a long time to get going

Cassiopia has the highest consistent magic damage provided you hit your q's. She is very strong on TT iirc but it really squishy and has very short range. Because of her speed boost with her q's she is more like an ADC kiting around and auto attacking [using e in her case] than a standard mage. If you don't like that, don't play her.

Swain is a super tanky tank beast but also isn't long range. His skill cap is also very high

Xerath is amazingly strong if you've got good positioning. If you don't then you will do nothing because you will siege outside of combat range

Veigar is Secret OP at the moment. He is very squishy and has an amazingly weak early game [which can be mitigated by taking tanky/runes/masteries i've heard though i don't play that]. Veigar has probably three things going for him. These things keep the OPness of Veigar from being evident

1) no one knows how to build him unless they main him
2) no one knows what items to buy unless they main him
3) almost no good matchups[he shits all over Karthus though], easily countered with items
4) Syndra is probably better

Basically on Veigar, R>Q>E>W. Dumbs build him R>Q>W>E. When you build him dumb enemies can leave your stun before the w lands on your head, so it doesn't matter how much damage it does. When you build him smart, the bonus AP[and 1.0 scaling] from items means W clears waves fast anyway so you don't need points in it. Get points in ragecage.

For Veigar you get double dorans -> DFG -> Penetration every time. You're single target burst and you need to burst as hard as possible. Dumbs buy the more expensive and worse Deathcap. Deathcap is a 5th item on Veigar [DFG,Sorc, Guise, Void first 4]. Sure it won't catapult your AP like Deathcap does but it will erase their team faster. Dumbs by the totally redundant Chalice.

Even if you don't do well as Veigar you will end up with a 2.5 second AoE stun on a 14 second CD. I.E. ultimate level CC 4 times per minute. But only if you rank it up second.

Syndra is like Veigar except better. Her stun is easier to engage with, longer range, and on a shorter CD (but doesn't last as long) and she is a lane bully. She requires timing in order to be most effective because if you don't have balls out for your ult you won't 100-0 people with it. Even moreso than veigar her power is contained in her ult.

Ahri is another mid assassin, but has a good early laning phase. Once you understand what you should be doing with her she dominates. Before then she will seem very weak. Her power is very ult dependent

---------------------

Which is why i recommend Viktor

Viktor is surprisingly tanky despite looking very squishy. The shield from his Q lets him bully in lane and survive ganks/fights which other AP mids would not be able to. While he doesn't have the shields of Lux [.7 AP] all of his abilities are super efficient. Before explaining this its good to start thinking about abilities in terms of combined effects. Is it better to do 100 damage in a fight or prevent 100 damage in a fight? All things considered they're about even in a knock down-drag em out fight.

So think about laning as Viktor. His Q then has an effective .91 AP ratio and 112-364 base "damage". Its on a decent CD but costs almost no mana. You can even level it up to 2 before you will have to delay rank 5 of your e.

Once Viktor has Death Augment his E does 91-325(+.91 AP) damage. That makes it one of the the strongest poke ability in the game. It does more damage than Gragas Barrels.

What does this mean in context? Well once Viktor his level 13 his two ability combo is generally as strong or stronger than the three ability combo of any other champion. Take Annie for example, a typical "high base damage champion". She has 245 on Q, 280 on W.  Her 2 ability combo is 525+1.45 AP. Viktor's two ability combo is 585+1.51 AP [699+1.71 including shield]. Viktor's ult does about as much damage as Tibbers too. And he does this from longer range with easier poke.

3 Ability combo from Brand[I.E. straight up the highest damage burst in the game, but really hard to land]? 545+1.9 AP +8% max health.

[Typhon]

I play a lot of TT.  I'll second Viktor for TT due to the surprisingly tanky (as mentioned by Goumindong) and the AOE stun.

I'll second Ryze (Haemish and Druzil).  Due also to the tanky build (ROA), hard CC and massive AE ult.

TT is tight, you have to expect that folks will get to you.  Ahri is decent due to being highly elusive and hard cc, but lacks the durability of the other two so unless you are very good at being elusive, you'll want to choose someone a bit more hardy.

[Goumindong]

Assassins tend to be weak on TT because there is no one to assassinate. Pick accordingly.

Oh, Karma is amazing on TT. She is basically a ranged bruiser mage. Another thing to consider

[Megrim]

Funny that you mention Morgana.  She was my main until changes to her a few patches ago.  She falls off so much late game that I switched to Lux.  I played Annie a while too, but she's just too squishy for my tastes.  I'm thinking Veigar may be too.

I've been contemplating the following:

Cassiopia, Kennen, Swain, and Xerath.  

Any thoughts on those 4?  

What about Veigar and Syndra?  

On Cass and Swaaaaaaaaaaaaaain:

Cass is quite strong as a solo lane, but you have to be aware of your opponent's mobility and burst. Because Cass doesn't become truly dangerous until six, if you are in a lane against someone who is more bursty than you, you will need to sit back and just control the lane with your two aoe. Once you are six though, as long as you can land your two dots on your opponent before you blow ult + fang spam, Cass will drop any of your typical mids.

Conversely, if you feel like you can press your opposite number, well landed poison dots and fang spam will wear down even tanky opponents.

I tend to run magic pen runes on my casters which makes an early sorc boots very effective; additionally you'll want to pick up some kind of early mana regen item (so tear or manacup thing) because she lives off of spam.

In team fights, she is a clutch pick, but you will have to have good timing with your ultimate. I don't find it particularly reasonable to expect to get a lot of dots off before a fight, but you will usually be able to get some good ones after the initial 'everybody blow everything' stage. If you can time the ult well, it will often win the team fight outright, however.


I've less experience with Swain, but there are some similarities. He tends to lane slow, chew up mana and arguably has even less impact early in the game. He does not however have the ability to turn a fight with a huge play, instead having a somewhat different effect.

Swain feels a bit weak in today's paradigm of hyper mobile assassin/caster zip-around and blow stuff up type of gameplay, but he does have the advantage of being able to deal lots of damage over time and building into a lot of hp & mana, which makes him very hard to single out and blow up. If fact, being dove in a team fight when you are Swain is possibly one of the best things which can happen to you, because you only really have one disable (which is hard to nail and isn't up very often), and your damage amp thing is single target, so you want them to come to you.


I also have a fair amount of experience with Syndra (but this requires a bit of depth in explanation), but she is essentially easy-mode if you have passable micro.

Also, have you considered Brand?

[Goumindong]

Swain is however, OP on TT(i believe, i don't play it much). Basically, his ult and kit in general is balanced around fighting against a team of five. Fighting against a team of 3? GG

[Nebu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-oc_8dv_cM

Watched this last night... I am certain I could never make Viktor look that good. Well played.

Picked up Karma last night and played with her and Kennen all night.  Still trying things out.

Thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions.

[Goumindong]

There are only two wonky parts about Viktor. His ult and his auto attack animation. You might have noticed how i was canceling my auto attack every once and a while without actually attacking? This is because Viktor, like old Ryze, has an auto attack animation that tricks you. The "projectile fired" sound goes off slightly before the projectile is actually created and viktor actually recoils from the shot slightly before the shot goes off. His ult is only really hard to use because its range is kinda low and so puts you in danger of other abilities.

His E can be a bit touchy but as soon as you learn to smartcast it its really intuitive. Once you have that figured out Viktor is a beast. Part of the reason for that is that aside from his ult, strategically his play is very simple. Laser everyone you see, q them if they come close, w them if you can get a full stun/zone. Try him out. No joke, i have 6 ranked games with Viktor. That was probably my eighth game as Viktor ever and my fourth time on SR

That being said Viktor is much stronger on SR than TT or Dominion. If you're going to TT alot then Karma is the champion for you. She is super strong on that map.

I actually think that many of the champions listed here are much more mechanically and strategically demanding. They have more hard counters and fewer workable compositions. Kennen is weak on TT because he is not a mana champion (or otherwise balanced around a team of 5) and mana champions have advantages due to inherent MP5 on the map. He also has weaknesses to anyone with a knockback and so has to play around that very hard. Oh and he is item dependent, so if the enemy team is heavy on magic damage his itemization makes him poor.

[Draegan]

Viktor is so fun to play. Especially as a kill lane support.

[Nebu]

I actually think that many of the champions listed here are much more mechanically and strategically demanding. They have more hard counters and fewer workable compositions.

Been learning this the hard way.  I'm also finding that 5v5 is a nightmare when you're playing with random people.  Some people are so terrible as to make winning impossible.  I'm also learning quite a bit by watching better players lane against me.

For the past week I've been playing Twitch, Cassio, Lux, and Malzahar a lot.  I think I may buy Malzahar after this week.  He seems like a great mid that can hard counter the opponents apc/jungler when I play him well.  While I love Cassio for her ability to stay mobile and really give my side an advantage in team fights, there's something really satisfying about taking a single player out of a confrontation. 

Played wukong last night.  It was the first time I had ever played melee and was a very eye-opening experience.  I think I went 14/1/16 in my first match.  Seems much easier than playing a squishy caster under less competitive circumstances.  I can imagine that they are a greater challenge at the more competitive levels.

[Goumindong]

What level/rank are you? If you want someone to watch your games and give you 5v5 tips i would be happy to help out.

[Nebu]

What level/rank are you? If you want someone to watch your games and give you 5v5 tips i would be happy to help out.

I'm only level 19.  If I knew you were watching, I'd just stress out.  I'll figure things as I go.  This is more or less just a palate cleanser until I head back to tanks.  I can't see myself staying with this game for long... just in bursts.

Thanks for the offer though.

[Nebu]

Ok... need you guys to tell me what's wrong with Twitch and Malzahar.  My inexperienced eye says that Twitch doesn't scale well late game and Malzahar suffers from having no escape tools.  I ask because I enjoy playing them a lot in 5's and have had some success... but I can see how they would be easily countered by someone that knows the game well.

[Rasix]

Twitch absolutely scales into the late game. He's seen as a hyper carry.  6 item Twitch is nasty.   His non-ult range isn't the best and his escape isn't instant like some of the other carries.  Pink wards can be a problem.

Malzahaar is s not incredibly mobile.  The problem with Malz is that you can QSS his ult and make it useless.  Also, his ult puts him in a lot of danger. He's incredibly vulnerable while it's channeling.   He is, however, a great lane bully and once you hit 6 you can just 100-0 a lot of match ups.  

You really won't get your ass kicked for a long time just based on picking Twitch or Malz.  Malz pretty much wrecks at low elo.

[Nebu]

Can you also recommend a top and jungle I should consider to broaden my horizons?

[HaemishM]

Jax and Wukong are both good tops (and both can jungle) for doing damage and being off-tanks. Volibear is also good at both, though he's much tankier and less crazy kill type. Teemo can top against certain champs but is very easily countered if picked too early. Jayce is fun but complex. Renekton is a good snowballer, and Yorick takes practice but if either are well-played, they can be nigh-unkillable. If you are good at last-hitting, Nasus is another good sustain/snowball top. Malphite is fun and not banned as much anymore.

For junglers, other than the ones mentioned above, there's Master Yi or Nocturne for your glass cannon types. Maokai is fun and tanky. Amumu may be one of the best AP junglers at lower elo but he is usually banned. Vi and Hecarim are both disruptive tanky jungler types.

[Goumindong]

Ok... need you guys to tell me what's wrong with Twitch and Malzahar.  My inexperienced eye says that Twitch doesn't scale well late game and Malzahar suffers from having no escape tools.  I ask because I enjoy playing them a lot in 5's and have had some success... but I can see how they would be easily countered by someone that knows the game well.

Twitch is amazing. Not very popular but very strong. His invisibility is very strong as a tactical tool and he has one of the best lategame team fights of any ADC. His only weakness at the moment is that under the current SR meta teams that are structured around 5v5 teamfights are often weak to teams designed to splitpush and assassinate. Those teams which split and assassinate tend to do better with ADC's which can kite because its very easy to gank up on the ADC when your team is splitting or your mid is off trying to get to the back line to assassinate. Even with those weaknesses, Twitch is amazingly strong with his strong early game, great team fight, and his ability to ambush and move around the map.

Malzahar is a big lane bully and great at pushing waves. His weakness is that he is an assassin that takes 5+ seconds to kill a target. He has to get his combo off and then suppress them for roughly the full duration. This makes him incredibly strong in 1v1's (or if he has the ally advantage) but incredibly weak in team fights where his immobility for 5 seconds as he suppresses your carry kills him. Malzahar is great at pushing but unfortunately weak at escaping, which means that if he tries the split push game he gets wrecked either by a burst assassin or by any two members of the enemy team. In low level soloqueue he should be easy mode.

For top, the strongest are probably: Renekton and Wukong. You, ideally should also know Jax and Shen but these are a lot harder to play. Renekton is super strong and a great tank. He beats Jax in lane, i think. Jax beats Shen because his split push power negates Shen's ability to ult. Shen beats Rene and since Rene is not a great split pusher like Jax is, Shen can use his ult more freely.  Wukong is a 5v5 destroyer of worlds. You build straight AD and pen on him and then ult their team and they all die.

Situationally Cait, Vayne, and Karma can also top. Karma(AP/CDR) or Bruiser(CDR/tank) is dumb strong in 1v1 lanes because her Mantra W restores 20-40% of her missing health. Which is well a pretty massive heal especially when you've got a lot of HP or a Spirit Visage. So long as the enemy isn't ranged Karma should win that engagement. Cait wins most melee engagements as well. She is especially strong if the enemy has only 1 dash and no ranged poke. For instance against Jax Cait just auto attacks him every chance she can while standing on/near a trap. If Jax jumps to her Cait E's away and Jax is standing on a trap. Then Cait kills Jax. Then Jax comes back to lane and can't do anything. Then cait kills him again. Then cait kills the enemy team. Vayne can do similar things but is harder to make work IMO.

 The weaknesses of these three are susceptibility to ganks mainly, since they are so squishy early as soon as you have the second target coming in it makes it very hard to kite both targets (since this relies on single target roots/slows)

For Jangle:

There are generally three types of Jangles

1) Farmers
2) Gankers
3) Counter Janglers

You want to know at least one of each. Farmers farm till 6 and then team fight/take objectives with their dumb dumb ults [E.G. Nasus, Sejuani]

Gankers snowball lanes by killing the enemy team before 6[and after 6, but mainly before 6 is most important]. [E.G. Amumu, Jarvan, Vi, Hecarim]

Counter Janglers go into the enemy jangle and kill the enemy jangler/take their camps. [E.G. Lee Sin, Shyvanna, Shaco]

Best atm are probably Vi, Jarvan, Sejuani, and Lee Sin [if you're good at him] due to their ability to fit into comps and perform various roles [j4 and vi for instance can counter jungle fairly well as well as gank]

Things to note:

1) Almost anyone can Jungle. Quinn, Jinx, Karma, Ezreal, Karthus, Viktor [no shit you can jungle Viktor], Brand and these can even be ideal in the right situations. Don't be afraid to experiment

2) Almost anyone can perform any role of the three jangles, some just do it better. Nothing stops Nasus from farming the enemy side of the jungle too, he just isn't as good at it as other Junglers with escapes and better early dueling

2) Typically: Counter Jangle>Farmer>Ganker>Counter Jangle [but always think about what your team needs]

Resons for this are as follows.

a) If Shyv steals your wraiths i don't much care if you ganked mid successfully due to that. If you fail the counter jungler is behind but if you push the enemy out of lane at all this forces the enemy jungler to hold, negating their jungle advantage [you can take theirs back]

b) If you're ganking mid and do so successfully this just means more farm for Sejuani and a faster 6. Its not great for Sej, but you're not putting the jungle behind any and the enemy jungle is. Additionally farmers tend to be better at counter ganking since their pre 6 weaknesses lie in engagement [but by ganking you've solved that issue for them]. A counter gank, unless the ganking junglers team kills the farmer almost always favor the farmer. This is because the farmer can clean up the lane experience and the total experience overall even at a kill deficit won't be too huge. E.G. lets say a ganker comes in for a fight and the farmer counters. Farmer's lane dies, but the ganker and gankers lane are too low to do anything but back. Who wins? Sure the gankers team got a kill but the farmers team soaks all the lane XP/gold. The kill is less important to the farmer because they're concerned with winning team fights and their XP/Gold totals, not necessarily snowballing all their lanes.

c) If you're farming and your wraiths are gone, you can't farm them. If you go to the enemy jungle to take back camps and you meet the enemy jungler there, you're probably going to lose that fight. If the enemy jungler comes to contest in your jungle they don't have to kill you to win, just get some of your creeps/deny you xp. Which they almost are guaranteed to be able to do since those early fights are their specialty.

[Nebu]

That was a very thoughtful write-up.  Thanks for the education! 

I need to think about this a bit.

[Furiously]

The answer is simple... Jana.

[Nebu]

The answer is simple... Jana.

Been playing her a lot lately.  I'm enjoying support more than I should. 

The learning curve with her seems to be about timing her ult and making sure you're in a good place to pull it off.  You don't want to anger your melee by pushing the enemy adc/apc away but also want to give them the health boost.  She does have great cc potential though with the knock up and single target snare.  I also love love love her mobility.