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Surgo
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Post by Surgo »

Some people seem to really hate the new Skarner but I don't see the big problem. Having a big ranged slow is pretty cool and you can still get a permaslow, you just need to buy an Iceborne Gauntlet for it (which naturally synergizes with his huge base AD). That's a lot of gold though. I think he'd be really helped by a buff to Spirit of the Ancient Golem too, which doesn't seem very good right now (I've been buying Spirit of the Elder Lizard pretty much exclusively).
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

New Skarner has ridiculous dps but has a harder time sticking to people since he relies on a skillshot slow.

Spirit of the Elder Lizard is definitely the way to go on him, IBG is nice but he works well with Trinity Force too so it's really a style choice. He still has the basic Skarner problem of not being able to contribute if the other team has any kiting, but he kills people really quickly now.

Just as viable as he was before imo.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

Would skarner be a good top with Tear of the Goddess? With some damage, he gets really good waveclear, but I've been playing him too and I just always want to spam my spells.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

New Skarner can probably go top, but I don't think he'd be any good at it. Old Skarner could top lane too, but he was bad at it except for having a permaslow at level 1 to assist ganks with. I think new Skarner could lane well against AD casters where he can shield their initial damage and try to dps them down, but against true bruisers he'd get outsustained (in mana, health, or both) and fall behind.

Skarner's mana problems and lack of synergy with Muramana and Archangels do not help things. Sinking 700 early gold into mana when the final item isn't that great for you is a huge problem, especially with somebody who scales so hard off AD + AS. If you put Skarner top you'd probably want to just rush Sheen and get a triforce asap. Skarner is the best Sheen user in the game (given enough mana) because he's casting a spell almost every second and has one of the highest base ADs in the game. I'd say he's the second best triforce user after Corki as well.

But in the end Skarner is a pretty weak top. He lacks a solid ranged threat since you aren't maxing E, he's mana hungry, and his escape is a kind of weak MS boost. At 6 he's going to get a kill if his jungler ganks (and Skarner's ult basically doesn't have a cooldown if he gets to sit in lane and auto attack a lot), but that's not worth the shitastic early game.


Holy shit, teleport flash top lane Skarner would be so much fun if you could hit 6 without dying. Should be two free kills (and dragons) if you can drag the lane phase out.
Last edited by Pseudo Stupidity on Mon Mar 10, 2014 12:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ...You Lost Me »

Team Builder Beta is up!
Last edited by ...You Lost Me on Mon Mar 10, 2014 7:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
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Post by Kaelik »

...You Lost Me wrote:Team Builder Beta is up!
So the 48 hour beta is going to occur in a 48 hour period where I can't play League.

Thanks Rioto for not giving a schedule ahead of time so that I could more appropriately completely miss your beta.
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The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

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Post by Surgo »

They gave a schedule, it was just totally wrong.

Which is a lot like not having a schedule in the first place, if you think about it.
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Post by Kaelik »

Surgo wrote:They gave a schedule, it was just totally wrong.

Which is a lot like not having a schedule in the first place, if you think about it.
Well no, they gave a "schedule" that was a series of panels about the order, but absolutely nothing about the order told you"

1) If there would be breaks between panels.
2) How long the breaks would be.
3) If the panels overlapped in any way.

So the schedule was: It will start on day X. If you are on any server besides RU, yours will start some time between one Day X + one minute and the heat death of the universe.

That is not an inaccurate schedule, because by definition it is accurate, since it is so vague as to be 100% of all the times. Which is not a schedule.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Surgo
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Post by Surgo »

I was under the impression that everyone was supposed to get it for 48 hours, which wasn't true and made the schedule inaccurate.

It might not matter anyway. Login queue times are now longer than I have ever seen them, ever. I'm sitting on a 30 minute login queue right now and it keeps going up...
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

The queue for teambuilder is shit anyways. It took me 4 minutes to be placed onto a team (mid, Vel'Koz), then I just fucking quit after 4 more minutes because our team never fully populated. I'm not waiting 8 minutes to even start loading a fucking normal game. Ranked already gives me 4+ minute queues, this is ridiculous. My normal MMR isn't even that good, a blind pick normal game tends to take me under 2 minutes to find.

I'm going to try queuing for other roles at some point, but I literally do not have the block of time required to wait 10 minutes and stay for a game that could take an hour.
sandmann wrote:
Zak S wrote:I'm not a dick, I'm really nice.
Zak S wrote:(...) once you have decided that you will spend any part of your life trolling on the internet, you forfeit all rights as a human.If you should get hit by a car--no-one should help you. If you vote on anything--your vote should be thrown away.

If you wanted to participate in a conversation, you've lost that right. You are a non-human now. You are over and cancelled. No concern of yours can ever matter to any member of the human race ever again.
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Post by Kaelik »

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:The queue for teambuilder is shit anyways. It took me 4 minutes to be placed onto a team (mid, Vel'Koz), then I just fucking quit after 4 more minutes because our team never fully populated. I'm not waiting 8 minutes to even start loading a fucking normal game. Ranked already gives me 4+ minute queues, this is ridiculous. My normal MMR isn't even that good, a blind pick normal game tends to take me under 2 minutes to find.

I'm going to try queuing for other roles at some point, but I literally do not have the block of time required to wait 10 minutes and stay for a game that could take an hour.
I think the point is that sometimes people want to play a specific champion or role, and that blind pick normals always 100% of the time involve four people calling the same role and fighting about it, and then three of them playing whatever the fuck.

So yeah, if you are content to play six games because you just want to play six games, you can get that done pretty quickly, but if you want to play only fucking Vel'Koz because you want to try out a champ you just bought you might have to play four games with guy who instalocks teemo mid and tells you he is playing it no matter what before you get that game.

If they can optimize the algorithms that assign people to teams they could plausibly get a real goddam system going that allows you to learn a new champion in 10 games instead of 50.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Blasted »

I'm figuring mid velkoz is about the most popular pick out there atm and the wait time reflects that
Surgo
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Post by Surgo »

I normally get matched up against Silver 1s/Gold Vs in normal queue, and I just laned against a Gold 1. My team included a plat 2 and diamond v. Eep.

I actually did pretty solid in lane though, despite it being a 4v5 on our side (our mid afked).
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

Kaelik wrote: I think the point is that sometimes people want to play a specific champion or role, and that blind pick normals always 100% of the time involve four people calling the same role and fighting about it, and then three of them playing whatever the fuck.

So yeah, if you are content to play six games because you just want to play six games, you can get that done pretty quickly, but if you want to play only fucking Vel'Koz because you want to try out a champ you just bought you might have to play four games with guy who instalocks teemo mid and tells you he is playing it no matter what before you get that game.

If they can optimize the algorithms that assign people to teams they could plausibly get a real goddam system going that allows you to learn a new champion in 10 games instead of 50.
I just feel like teambuilder should be for ranked matches where that shit matters. Learning a champ in normals consists of me locking and typing out whatever role most closely resembles the one I actually want. It's fast and easy to help me learn what the champ can do even if I'm stuck playing something stupid like Karthus support.

It could be that teambuilder just compounds the problems MMR matching brings, though. Ranked is hard to find games in because you need 10 people of Y MMR to start a game for people with Y MMR (though the range for Y increases over time). In teambuilder you need 10 people who each want a different role with Y MMR to start a game. This could be a problem that corrects itself (supports and ADCs probably find teambuilder games really fast, something I'll test tomorrow), but fucking 8 minute queue times where you have to be at the computer to accept and/or start playing are ridiculous.

Hopefully they figure out a good algorithm for matching it up, because the current one is shitty (or mid is far and away the most popular role).
Last edited by Pseudo Stupidity on Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Surgo »

They should give an IP bonus to supports and ADCs.
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Post by Kaelik »

I have only played one game. It was Yasuo mid, and I got in in like two minutes to a group of 4 already including a singed top, so it seems they were hunting for a Yasuo mid. We started immediately.

Obviously sample size of one, so... my experience has been positive so far.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Korgan0 »

I've been playing a lot of Mantheon jungle too, but I build him differently, getting a brutalizer instead of a last whisper. I find that by the time I've got sotel people do enough damage that I need tankiness ASAP, but I suppose LW would be better if you were snowballing. I've never seen anyone max E on him. He's also a pretty competent counterjungler, and I'd feel comfortable bullying a Vi pre-, although you might want to stay away from Eliseesin and co.
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Post by Kaelik »

Korgan0 wrote:I've been playing a lot of Mantheon jungle too, but I build him differently, getting a brutalizer instead of a last whisper. I find that by the time I've got sotel people do enough damage that I need tankiness ASAP, but I suppose LW would be better if you were snowballing. I've never seen anyone max E on him. He's also a pretty competent counterjungler, and I'd feel comfortable bullying a Vi pre-, although you might want to stay away from Eliseesin and co.
Yeah this. I haven't seen any pros/diamonds/challengers maxing e, they all max q. They also all get Brutalizers.
Last edited by Kaelik on Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

Korgan0 wrote:I've been playing a lot of Mantheon jungle too, but I build him differently, getting a brutalizer instead of a last whisper. I find that by the time I've got sotel people do enough damage that I need tankiness ASAP, but I suppose LW would be better if you were snowballing. I've never seen anyone max E on him. He's also a pretty competent counterjungler, and I'd feel comfortable bullying a Vi pre-, although you might want to stay away from Eliseesin and co.
I feel like brut -> tanky removes a lot of Pantheon's instagib power., which is his real presence in fights. If you grab an LW you can chunk people really, really hard well into midgame, but brut falls off the moment anyone buys an armor item. In huge snowball scenarios I grab them both before any defensive item, but that's "the game is already over" levels of snowball.

I'm of the opinion that if Pantheon can't solo the enemy adc he's not being useful, and I think sotel and brutalizer isn't quite enough damage to do that for all of mid game. That and I fucking love CDR boots, and LW rush is a good excuse to buy them.


You can bully pretty much anyone as Pantheon early because you can easily block 2 or 3 autos during a fight. Elise/Lee depend on their skillshots a lot, and if you juke them you'll crush the trade, but if you get hit it'll be in their favor.
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Post by Kaelik »

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I feel like brut -> tanky removes a lot of Pantheon's instagib power., which is his real presence in fights. If you grab an LW you can chunk people really, really hard well into midgame, but brut falls off the moment anyone buys an armor item.
Armor pen items become useless the moment someone buys armor? I mean, we are talking about an item that people specifically build so that Pantheon can AoE reduce armor by 15% at the beginning of a fight.

Yeah, you want to solo the ADC, but other people want the gank bot lane to also increase the adc's damage, and it is reidiculous to say that building burt/black cleaver is useless when someone builds armor.
Last edited by Kaelik on Thu Mar 13, 2014 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Pseudo Stupidity
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

Kaelik wrote: Armor pen items become useless the moment someone buys armor? I mean, we are talking about an item that people specifically build so that Pantheon can AoE reduce armor by 15% at the beginning of a fight.

Yeah, you want to solo the ADC, but other people want the gank bot lane to also increase the adc's damage, and it is reidiculous to say that building burt/black cleaver is useless when someone builds armor.
Flat pen is countered directly by building more armor/mres, percent pen is countered by building health. The most popular carry defensive items are armor/mres items because those provide the awesome effects like Zhonyas or GA.

You shouldn't be finishing BC early unless you're an all AD team or something, as it's too expensive for the stats it gives. BC is 700 gold more than an LW for 10 more AD, 200 health, and less overall penetration on most targets. It shreds defenses for your team, but as Pantheon you aren't trying to hit max BC stacks on someone, you're trying to nuke them down. BC is a great last item because it's got all the stats Pantheon wants, but if you rush it your damage isn't that great and your defense isn't that great.

The idea behind brut rush is the 10 flat pen is better early game, but since you're already rushing soel you aren't getting your brut until people have enough armor just from leveling up that the brut pen is underwhelming. Brutalizer is around a 4-8% increase in your damage, and that's fucking sad compared to the ~15% you'll be getting from a LW (and the LW will only get better as the game goes on).

In general stacking BC on the enemy is hard on Pantheon because he's not a tanky dps, and pretending his kit makes him a good tanky dps wastes his ridiculous AD scaling and great dueling passive. His E deals 360% bonus ad to champions, his Q is 140% bonus AD. BC is best used to reduce the armor of tanks so your ADC can rip through them, and Pantheon doesn't want to be using his CDs on tanks if he can avoid it.
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Post by Kaelik »

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:You shouldn't be finishing BC early unless you're an all AD team or something, as it's too expensive for the stats it gives.
Challenger Jungler players do. That is what I am saying.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:It shreds defenses for your team, but as Pantheon you aren't trying to hit max BC stacks on someone,
One e hits max stacks with no autos or spears or ws. This helps the ad and you when you throw your spear right afterward from a R, or your second spear from a regular gank.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

Kaelik wrote: Challenger Jungler players do. That is what I am saying.
Then they're building him more as a tanky dps or subpar assassin and should be picking a different champion for that. Why pick Pantheon if you're going for BC stacking when Wukong exists?
Kaelik wrote:One e hits max stacks with no autos or spears or ws. This helps the ad and you when you throw your spear right afterward from a R, or your second spear from a regular gank.
One E gives you 3 stacks, BC stacks 5 times for 5% each hit. The full Pantheon spell combo isn't giving you max stacks, you need an auto as well (W and R do not stack cleaver because they're magic damage). Getting full stacks on a target means your first combo didn't do its full potential damage. While you can afford to not instagib your target early if you're tanky, you're not fucking tanky if you rushed a BC after sotel. You're squishy with 200 bonus health and no resists.

Fuck, the passive shred doesn't even apply until AFTER damage is dealt (your first attack is against their armor - 10, your second attack is vs their armor - 5% - 10, etc.), so your first few hits are a joke with cleaver if the enemy has any armor at all (and they do, because you aren't getting cleaver until maybe 20 minutes in barring the game being a bloodbath). Cleaver is better than LW on squishy targets after 4 hits (it is significantly worse for the first few hits), but the problem is your full combo is blowing up squishies if you get an LW so who cares how strong your second combo on that target is? You're an assassin and your only defense is 200 bonus health! They're dead or you're about to be dead.

I don't understand the fucking BC rush because it goes against Pantheon's style of "kill target with combo and try to stay alive long enough to kill another target with your combo." Wukong isn't rushing BC to assassinate people, he's building it because he can get full stacks during his giant AoE knockup. Urgot is building BC because his corrosive charge lets him get tons of stacks on multiple people and he can stay safe enough to keep shooting people while applying stacks.

Zed doesn't build BC early. Kha doesn't build BC early. They don't do that because their goal is to kill somebody, and a passive that specifically helps other people team kill their target if they fail at their job isn't useful to them.

Edit: It's really worth remembering that cleaver should be compared to LW + other items as well. 700 gold is a lot for a jungler. You could afford the CDR boot upgrade for that much, which helps your ganks a lot because Pantheon is fast as hell with tier 2 boots and it gives you more cdr to spam your shit.
Last edited by Pseudo Stupidity on Fri Mar 14, 2014 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Surgo
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Post by Surgo »

Whoawhoawhoa absolutely retarded Pantheon nerf on the PBE.
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Post by Pseudo Stupidity »

Nerfing Pantheon is absolutely a terrible idea. He's not that great, he's just a good jungler because he has ridiculous early damage + a targeted stun. If you nerf Pantheon he'll be gone forever. Granted, I'm really glad they did that to Kassadin, but Kassadin was gamebreaking past 20 minutes, Pantheon is just very effective pre-10.

Also, diamond 1 now. Fuck yeah!
sandmann wrote:
Zak S wrote:I'm not a dick, I'm really nice.
Zak S wrote:(...) once you have decided that you will spend any part of your life trolling on the internet, you forfeit all rights as a human.If you should get hit by a car--no-one should help you. If you vote on anything--your vote should be thrown away.

If you wanted to participate in a conversation, you've lost that right. You are a non-human now. You are over and cancelled. No concern of yours can ever matter to any member of the human race ever again.
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