The Gaming Den

Soraka is basically a must ban. She's just one of like 10 must ban champs Sooo... she doesn't get banned all the time.

So Soraka finally gets banned and on a whim a get Janna for the first time since she's free and I don't care whether I win or lose ranked right now. Our ADC Dcs right off and continuously DCs throughout the game. We win with me going 7/5 able to solo 1v1 top teemo and ADC mf bot. The game wasn't even close. I did not know that janna with 45 percent cdr could toss her tornado constantly. The enemy didn't either apparently and I could own their carries v with just support items like fqc and ardent. So yea picking her up now.

Soraka has been a required ban for a long time (although she upgraded to even more of one since the preseason). She's my first or second ban every game. Janna is good right now, but tank supports are pretty strong. I think Braum will be getting a lot more play.

Also, team hit plat now that it doesn't matter. It still feels good though.

Well, I got to play a game against Pray and Madlife, who were duoing together on NA and got botlane together. This game happened directly after playing a game against the oddone.

Man, I fell to d2 and this is the shit I'm playing against. Preseason is so janky it hurts.

Triple post! I got my first solo queue penta as Jinx, and ended it by flashing through a Syndra stun. #LCSBigPlays

Anyone want to do a fantasy draft, for real this year?

http://fantasy.na.lolesports.com/en-US

I'd be up for that

I'd do the draft. Just let me know what time (EST) you want to do it and I'll fucking BE THERE.

Also, I got back into D1 (and am hanging out in the middle again) after sucking so much my lips went numb. None it matters because preseason, but maybe I can hit preseason masters if I find more time for games. That'd count as an accomplishment of sorts.

New Shen Rework:

WTF Riot pls?

So now Shen can't heal or poke as a support, so while his stupid no autoattack will probably be broken as shit, he probably still won't be able to support.

Shen jungle wasn't really a good idea to begin with, but now with zero fucking sustain, it's even less so.

Shen top lane is going to get roflstomped by any ability using champ, like, Cho, Darius, Garen, Riven, and also any poke based champ, like Fiora, or ... look, he can't win lane against anyone okay.

He has no sustain, no poke, and no ability to cs from anything besides melee range. Who could he possibly win lane against? His only defense is to all in someone (terrible idea against like 90% of top champs if you are a tanky low damage ZERO SUSTAIN champ), or if they only use auto attacks and not abilities, and they are melee, he can cs some of the time with liberal use of W.

Uhh... sure Riot. It was so important that you nerf shen, but you couldn't change any of his abilities, so just make the champion garbage with a rework so that no one will play him and they will instead play Riven and Fiora. Sure.

EDIT: As I type this, the Challenger series team has won twice with Shen, and now he's banned. So... this character needed to be reworked why? Because it sucks? Because it's two good? THAT'S WHAT BUFFS AND NERFS ARE FOR! You don't rework a champ because of power you shits. What was so bad about having a ranged attack to farm/poke with? Gangplank got to keep his!

Kaelik wrote:New Shen Rework:

WTF Riot pls?

So now Shen can't heal or poke as a support, so while his stupid no autoattack will probably be broken as shit, he probably still won't be able to support.

Shen jungle wasn't really a good idea to begin with, but now with zero fucking sustain, it's even less so.

Shen top lane is going to get roflstomped by any ability using champ, like, Cho, Darius, Garen, Riven, and also any poke based champ, like Fiora, or ... look, he can't win lane against anyone okay.

He has no sustain, no poke, and no ability to cs from anything besides melee range. Who could he possibly win lane against? His only defense is to all in someone (terrible idea against like 90% of top champs if you are a tanky low damage ZERO SUSTAIN champ), or if they only use auto attacks and not abilities, and they are melee, he can cs some of the time with liberal use of W.

Uhh... sure Riot. It was so important that you nerf shen, but you couldn't change any of his abilities, so just make the champion garbage with a rework so that no one will play him and they will instead play Riven and Fiora. Sure.

EDIT: As I type this, the Challenger series team has won twice with Shen, and now he's banned. So... this character needed to be reworked why? Because it sucks? Because it's two good? THAT'S WHAT BUFFS AND NERFS ARE FOR! You don't rework a champ because of power you shits. What was so bad about having a ranged attack to farm/poke with? Gangplank got to keep his!

If Riot's rework history has taught me anything new Shen is going to be stupidly overpowered on release and then get nerfed into total shit because he is a tank instead of a bruiser.

I love current/old Shen because his two interesting abilities are super fucking interesting and his kit makes a really coherent playstyle. There isn't anything necessarily WRONG with having a point-and-click damage spell with riders or a shield (though his shield was pretty bad outside of lane). The new masteries definitely pushed him into the "holy fuck strong" lane because of Undying Grasp. Letting Shen scale his damage off max HP even more made him a lot more threatening.

New Shen probably can't jungle unless they let his shield proc off monsters, but I think he'll just turn into an all-in laner/support. Thing is, unless they tweak his taunt speed/range his lane is going to be kind of shit. That spell is such a short range and it doesn't move all that fast, he needs to be able to hit it if they're going to base his entire kit off it.

The AoE everyone dodge thing looks pretty good, maybe that + ult will keep him viable as a support. That's a damn good spell for trades.

Edit: A brief history of Shen is him being so fucking overpowered in organized competitive play (being able to teleport across the entire map while providing a shield for an ally is basically impossible to balance) but mediocre to bad in solo queue. Shen makes tower dives against your team really hard, makes doing tower dives for your team really easy, and he even has a global gank-prevention and assistance presence that requires literally no movement at all from Shen. The tradeoff is the CD on his ult and a kit that doesn't really scale except for his fucking passive.

Riot's rework has to push Shen into "useful in solo queue even without his ult, and thus OP" or it'll be the stupidest rework in the world. It's so much easier just to beat his numbers into submission like they used to do every patch.

Yeah, the problem is that without 1 he basically becomes a 100% all in laner, and a 100% all in laner has to either win the all in super hard, or be garabage. So whatever numbers they give him, he's either garbage or broken, and there is no inbetween.

If he had the ability to cs from any range at all, and perhaps even sustain, then he could be something besides a 100% in lane champ.

But I can't think of any possible ability that could give him those things!

Like seriously, if his shield sucks, replace his shield with a no auto zone and move the fuck on. For the love of god don't turn him into a 100% tank, zero% damage zero% sustain version of Riven.

Shen is definitely going to get very overpowered or terrible. I just lean towards overpowered because it's Riot doing a rework and that's just how they roll.

Old Shen required a lot of knowledge of your opponent because his all-in wasn't really special and his ranged farming was still pretty short and had a CD. Old Shen could go even in a lane or even turn a losing lane into a farm lane. New Shen is going to, as you said, stomp the shit out of the other guy or get fucked. There's no way to farm safely when your kit is based around melee range and lacks good mobility. You either win or get completely shit on, like Wukong or Jax.

I do think Shen deserved a remake. Laning as or again current Shen is among the most boring experiences I've ever had in league. When he's overbuffed or just ahead in lane there's basically no way to make plays, and when he's behind or nerfed you just throw daggers at minions all day and hit W sometimes. Targeted spamming poke/healing is just a stupid idea for a skill. It should never exist except on Vlad I guess.

I can see why top laners are salty about the changes, though.

As for jungle, I have no idea why people are doomsaying. We'll have to wait for the numbers but I suspect Jungle Shen is going to be better than ever. I'm a terrible player, but I'm pretty sure everyone complaining about his lack of sustain is stuck in the past. Sustain feels super unimportant in season 6. Jungle items provide so much healing, smiting krugs lets you stun monsters repeatedly, smiting lizard heals you, and champs with fast clears can take refillable if they want. Being forced to recall early doesn't even hurt you that much because getting your second jungle component is so good.

The new Q is a melee skill that divides damage over 3 autos, so I would expect it to do more damage than point and click daggers. Also, I've always counted both shields and heals as sustain, and he still has a shield. If takes the +8% shields and healing mastery, attack speed reds + machete and start by smiting krugs he can probably clear his first 3-4 camps with basically full health.

I've seen PBE shen clears. Right now it's good, like really good. As in leashless full clear, leaving at max HP without using all health pots.

We'll see what happens on live, but I'm thinking Shen will see less pro play in top lane because of how much he struggles in lane swaps, while becoming a more common support pick. He doesn't have earlygame pressure like Elise / Rek'sai / Lee Sin, so I doubt he'll be used as a jungler in pro games at all.

Other news: Jhin's kit looks awesome. I'd guess that first two weeks after his release are going to be awful and full of feeders.

So Shen's shield procs on hitting any target and not just champs? That'll make him a lot better in both lane and jungle.

On Jhin: Was Graves' ammo mechanic just a test for this guy? My guess is yes. It isn't an interesting enough mechanic to add to multiple champions.

Jhin looks really stupid to me.

An ADC who can't crit and can't increase attack speed... So what, just build the biggest dumbest pile of AD you can on a character and call it an ADC?

Shen shield procs after using a spell, it doesn't have to hit anyone. The cooldown reduction comes only when affecting a champion.

Gypsylord said the ammo mechanic on Graves was inspired by a conversation between him & CertainlyT about Jhin's ammo, so it sounds less like a test and more like recycling the concept.

Also, Jhin uses crit chance like a normal person. But his crits are weaker, crit chance also multiplies his AD, and he auto-crits on his 4th shot. You could build 100% crit and have speed boosts on every attack if you wanted.

...You Lost Me wrote:Also, Jhin uses crit chance like a normal person. But his crits are weaker, crit chance also multiplies his AD, and he auto-crits on his 4th shot. You could build 100% crit and have speed boosts on every attack if you wanted.

What do you base that on? Because I see that he gets bonus AD from crit chance in the champion preview.

I watched some PBE gameplay footage. You can see this guy getting the speed boost off every attack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO7VkcjnamM

Jesus fuck CertainlyT didn't have a hand in making Jhin, did he? I thought that after Darius, Zed, Thresh, Kalista, and Yasuo he wasn't allowed to make champs anymore. His champions ruin blind pick for months until they get nerfed into a good place.

His kit ideas are fine, but then he slaps on a ton of ridiculous bonus shit that fucks the numbers. I mathhammered release Zyra (touted as a zone control mage rather than damage) and got shouted down by goddamn Morello for showing that she burst harder than Brand from further away. Something about how Brand's passive totally makes up for it (and ignoring Zyra's plants).

G2's Trick is playing udyr jungle... He has to be trolling at this point.

To be clear, G2's Trick is not the same as Trick2g, a prominent American streamer who primarily plays Udyr, but because of the team name, people have been making that joke constantly. And now, he's playing udyr.

So Rito is planning on changing up the mages but I don't see Annie on the list. And they don't seem to plan on Nerfing Kench for some reason. I don't think I've been in a game with bans where he wasn't on the blist. Sooo wtf is going on?

MGuy wrote:So Rito is planning on changing up the mages but I don't see Annie on the list. And they don't seem to plan on Nerfing Kench for some reason. I don't think I've been in a game with bans where he wasn't on the blist. Sooo wtf is going on?

I just played a game where Kench and Mundo weren't banned. Our team got both of them, fell behind early, and then midgame hit and we completely rolled them.

Talk to your kids about banning Kench and Mundo.

Annie needs more than a small kit change in order to be healthy. That's also one of the reasons Swain isn't part of the immobile mage rework.

Mundo and TK both have nerfs coming in 6.2 which is maybe a week away.

I can't wait for some nerfs to Kench and Mundo. Those guys have been a problem for a while now.

Also, placed in Plat I after going 6-4 in placements.