Playing passively

One of the hardest things for me to do when I'm playing League is to play passively. But sometimes that's just what you have to do. I was playing Sona with Caitlyn against a Volibear / Miss Fortune tandem. It was brutal. If I got in front of my ADC (which is what I typically do), the Volibear would just charge me and flip me back to his ADC who would promptly pound me. Part of the problem was that Sona is really squishy early levels (the lowest lvl 1 hit points of any champion in League. Part of the problem was i was playing aggressively. I was used to having a significant poke advantage over my opponent. Volibear started with a Doran's shield and I was never able to get anywhere near Miss Fortune. What I should have done was stayed back and helped Caitlyn farm. We should have stayed near our tower and I should have used my Q to keep the creep wave pushed just outside tower range (a trick that is somewhat easier with Sona then other support champs). It would have resulted in fewer deaths (I finished laning 0/4/1) and also gotten me a small amount of CS from keeping the minion wave level. Even then, it would have been difficult as MF is really good at pushing a creep wave with her AoE so we would have had to attack the creeps fairly aggressively. But it would have been a better game plan then just getting pounded and feeding their MF.

In our second game, my ADC went Cait again but I did two things different. First, I picked Nunu. His blood boil and snowball are much better to pair with Caitlyn then the poke of Sona. The reason is that Caitlyn doesn't have a gap closer. So where Vayne/Ezreal/Graves can finish off an opponent that I get weak, Caitlyn can't really do that. But Blood Boil + Ice Ball gives Caitlyn 1-2 extra auto-attacks against an enemy champ that she wouldn't otherwise have gotten. That's a powerful advantage for the champ with the longest base auto-attack range in the game. The other thing I did (as we were again playing a non-standard bot lane of Corki + Xin) was that I played more passively. Waited in the bush and poked them when they came near me. Nunu is inherently more tanky with more personal sustain than Sona (through his Consume) and can afford to play a bit passively while beefing up the ADC's ability to farm, farm, farm.

Every game is a learning experience. One of the really neat things about League of Legends.

Sometimes you just have a game where everything "clicks"

last night, my last game I played we had the following

ADC Vayne
Instalock Ashe mid
teamed up Garen/Wukong top (no jungle)
I picked Sona to support

Playing versus a Vayne / Lulu on bottom
Kayle top
Warwick jungle and someone mid that I can't remember

This kind of team didn't give me a lot of confidence, frankly. But I hadn't gotten to play Sona in awhile so it seemed okay. We start the game and Garen and Wukong are DC'd. Great. 3v5. I ask if I should go top but Garen comes back roughly as the creeps are engaging. So he'll be behind a bit but not the end of the world.

First blood on Garen. Well, I know which way this is going.

And then it happens. I get a good pop on Lulu and Vayne tumbles in for the kill. Nice.

The enemy Vayne tries to salvage it by hitting Vayne. Apparently he doesn't realize that pre items, I hit harder then Vayne. We get another kill.

We proceed to get 6 kills in the bottom before they switch and go mid. They kill our Ashe and send Warwick to the bottom with Lulu. At this point, our Vayne is so fed that this just results in us farming Warwick rather than their Vayne. Somewhere in there I get a kill and then another kill from soloing a split pushing Lulu.

In the end, we had 24 kills. Our Vayne had 17 and I had 4 (with 11 assists).

The lane swap was particularly dumb of them because, yes, we were bullying them. But, if you're going to do it, you have to commit. You can't go up there, get a couple kills/assists and then come back to the bottom to get pounded again. All that does is reset your gold bounty back to where it would have been rather than the diminishing number it had shrunk to.

Sona with Lichbane and Archangel's hits like a truck btw. I was taking Lulu and Vayne down to half health with my alpha and then easily able to chase them down with my E speed steroid. I was making sure other people (Vayne primarily but Ashe too) got the kills but I didn't really need their help in any 1v1 except for Kayle (and only then because of her ult). Not every game will go that smoothly, the other team had some bad players and our Vayne as definitely on the good end of the spectrum. But it was nice to finish the night with a proper slaughter ;)

Free Champion Week 11: Analysis

Corki: I think Corki is the most skill dependent ADC. He probably doesn't have the highest "skill cap" as that honor falls to Ezreal. But, the difference between an unskilled Corki and a skilled Corki is huge whereas an unskilled Ezreal and a skilled Ezreal has a narrower margin. Corki's gatling gun is relatively straightforward to use (though choosing WHEN can be tricky) and he has a weirdly spammable ult. Relevant when playing against him is that his Phosphorous bomb grants vision for 6 seconds so bushes are less useful then normal.

Dr. Mundo: One of the two champs that you probably are going to build hitpoints, hitpoints and more hitpoints (the other being Vladimir). Mundo has oscillated in popularity in the pro-scene tremendously with periods of high use and periods of no use. I don't think he's a particularly strong jungler unless you're going to aggressively counter-jungle against a weak jungler (so you need to tailor both your play style and your picks to weak junglers... and, I don't put "slow" junglers in that category but rather junglers who are frequently low on health like Skarner or Maokai). He's a viable beefy top laner as well.

Katarina: Typically played mid but there's a bit of a rage right now playing her as a tanky top laner. She's not ideally suited to that but her lack of mana usage does give her really good sustain (especially once she gets a hextech revolver and a giant's belt). She's got a very high base speed and her shunpo lets her get around fast. Once you get homeguard and/or have teleport, she has a tendency to hop around the map and show up nearly instantly which is exactly how you want to play her. Don't automatically shunpo and ult against a team with decent CC. They'll be waiting for you to ult. Wait for 2-3 seconds in a team fight and then hop in.

Lulu: I'm excited to finally play her. She's probably the most aggressive poke support character in the game right now (with Sona being her main competition). Her skills are tricky to master. Her W and E are dual modal meaning they change when cast on enemies vs. friendlies. Whimsy is almost always going to be better cast on the enemies as a polymorph. If it had a lower cooldown, it might be okay to lead into a team fight with the ally buff and then polymorph someone but in its current incarnation, I think the CC on it is far more important. Help! is far more situational and you'll be casting it on allies and enemies frequently. Her ult is a very strong save/CC to throw on a tank (gives them temp hit points, a slow aura and a knockup). It's broad utility is what makes it so good. Throwing it on a charging Cho'Gath/Malphite/Hecarim can be terrifying to an enemy team.

Malzahar: A really fun champion. He has a tendency to control, control, control, burst. His abilities are well geared towards zoning out an enemy champion from KSing in the middle while also harassing. Can be devastating against more melee oriented middle champs.

Maokai: When I first started playing, Maokai was the jungler of choice for the big pro teams. He was one of a few junglers frequently banned in pro play. He gets played far less now and I'm not really sure why. His saplings give him good scouting ability and his ganks are solid. He tends to run mana starved and a bit hit point light in the early game and that susceptibility to counter-ganking may be the reason he isn't as popular but he still seems playable nevertheless.

Riven: A weird champion that I can't really seem to do well with. The trick with him is using his shields to trade effectively during the laning phase. He's another no mana champion (making four with Tryndamere, below) so be prepared for a spam fest of abilities. A good Riven will trade hard with you and try to bully. It's important to back off when you see him come at you and bait the shield then smack him around afterwards. If you have some kind of poke, you might be able to use it. If you can't, just stay back and try to get xp. Like many AD bruisers, he doesn't scale into the late game quite as well as other champions.

Sivir: The most push heavy ADC in the game. If your goal is to take a tower down early (say you're doing a lane swap, for example) then Sivir is the champion for you. Her team steroid late game can be really good in the bruiser heavy meta we currently find ourselves in, allowing them to close into range quicker. The skill cap on her comes in when you look at her spell shield. The fact that it flat negates a spell along with the fact that it returns mana can make it a really powerful counter to a lot of powerful abilities while also giving her very good sustain.

Tryndamere: Beefy and tough to kill. The trick with Tryndamere is to have CC. He's going to charge in and drop his ult making him unkillable. Stop attacking him. Throw a stun. Kill him when he's killable. That's the secret. Because of the way his mechanics work, he will try to heal up immediately after his invulnerability expires so be ready to pop him at this point. He's scary if you don't know what you're doing but manageable if you do.

Ziggs: I like Ziggs a lot. That doesn't mean I'm good with him, however. He does have the ability to zone enemies hard because of his area of control ability. All of his abilities effectively scare people away. You'll find yourself not hitting with the skills as often as other champions but you can easily push a champion completely off their lane. I'd strongly consider giving a hard leash and stealing xp on wolves so that you can get to level 2 before your lane opponent and try to milk that edge. His ult can be a lot of fun as well. It has a pretty long range (about the same as TFs ult) and drops a giant bomb on an area. It's particularly good in dominion where you can interrupt team's capturing points in a very annoying fashion. I played a game where we had Ziggs, Gangplank, Pantheon all on the other team. Capturing the top point was next to impossible when we lost it.

Hecarim. A speedy little horse.

I got Hecarim unlocked and have been playing him a bunch. He's another character that I seem to "not suck too bad with" in the jungle. He's really fun to play with a neat set of abilities and the ability to really abuse Iceborn Gauntlet with his 2 second cooldown "Q".

You probably want to build a little bit tanky as his skill set tends to lend itself to diving in and initiating. A good core build looks something like this: Iceborn Gauntlet, Warmog's, Sunfire Cape, Abyssal Sceptre and an upgraded Hunter's Machete of some flavor (honestly, they're all good for him). Those five items make you pretty tanky while still allowing you to deal fairly good damage. His ultimate is fairly awesome (a charge with big aoe Fear at the end). It can go across walls and is a very powerful ganking tool early and initiation late. A couple notes about its use though.

First, it has a long range. It's easy to get caught out with it. My best initiates were when I caught the other team by charging in from behind them in the mid lane. Doing that requires certain conditions (they're either pushed past your outer turret or you've pushed them nearly to their inner turret). It's easy to screw up and either initiate in an awkward position (near the jungle, for example) or just charge forward too far so that you're alone with the enemy for too long. Picking your initiates well will separate you not from a good Hecarim and a great Hecarim but rather between a horrible Hecarim and a great Hecarim. I didn't initiate well last night and it probably helped cost us the game (the fact that our Ezreal couldn't do jack for damage didn't help).

Your early ganks are really good but, because of the way his charge works, they're really angle dependent. You really need to get in BEHIND the target to take full advantage of your knockback and pseudo-stun that comes with it. That means if you're blue, you probably want to gank bottom through the river bush and top through the tri-bush if you can. There are other ways to do it but those are the easiest. You also want to hit your E while you charge to maximize the healing you get from it (and the damage you do). Lastly, if you're trying to secure the kill and need to ult, aim your ult PAST your target so they fear back towards your teammates. It's only a 1 second fear but that can still be a lot of running in the wrong direction (especially since your iceborn gauntlet is going to make sure they have trouble getting away).

For Boots, I think that Boots of Mobility are a decent purchase but the one that has me excited is Boots of Swiftness + Alacrity. That jumps his speed to 405 at all times and adds 12% with every attack hit or charge. With his passive, that can be a lot of extra attack damage.

All in all, a very fun champion though.

Finally getting good with a jungler

My long struggle at getting competent with a jungler is finally paying off. I can play Amumu now and be reasonably sure that I won't suck hard. Played a game last night where I had computer problems and didn't actually get into game until minute 3 or so. Despite that, I was able to farm myself up and by level 14ish, I was adding to team fights quite comfortably. I like Amumu a lot because he naturally wants to build the really powerful items (Sunfire Cape, Abyssal Scepter, the Spirit Stone upgrade with Lifelink). I can go tanky and then its just a question of choosing the right champ to dive in on.

I'd offer four pieces of advice for someone playing these types of champions (tanky initiators)

1) Don't always initiate with your "initiate". Those stunning gap closers (like Bandage Toss) are really good for chasing down or countering a flash and you often want to use them that way. Sometimes you can just walk out at an angle and save the closer for AFTER the flash. That can be really scary and effective.

2) Choose your targets carefully. You almost always want to jump on the ADC or APC if you can. Generally you're tanky enough that they can't instantly clobber you and those targets are squishy that your burst plus a little bit from any teammate is sufficient to kill them. The thing that's important to work on is your map awareness. I find myself sometimes focusing so much on getting that good initiate that I don't realize my teammates had backed off because they took too much poke.

3) Balancing when to farm and when to gank. This is, I think, the most difficult skill to learn as a jungler. Every jungle champion is different which compounds the problem. You need to know your champions well enough to be able to sense when is a good time to gank. You also want to make sure that your laners know how to control their creep line. When you're on your way, let them know and they can generally move the line up or down a little bit if they know what they're doing. That can be a few critical inches that makes a gank successful.

4) If you can get a target to blow their flash, that's pseudo successful. If they're low enough, sure, go ahead and try to kill them. But if they're healthy or get back under tower, it's really best to back off and just come back in the next five minutes to try again. That often will be the time you kill them. Remember also to take advantage of forcing them back to push the lane quickly to cost them creeps. After a laner backs is not the time to last hit. It's the time to push.

My first LoL article

Getting paid in EVE currency doesn't help me much these days... but it's nice to be on the internet.

http://themittani.com/features/lol-persistence-meta

Finally found a jungler that fits my playstyle (I think)

I've been struggling with jungling for awhile. It's definitely my weakest position now that I've learned to last hit relatively well. I still struggle with being aggressive as an ADC but if I take a hyper carry (like Vayne) and a sustain support like Sona that can just harass but not go aggressive then I think I can do okay.

But jungling has eluded me for some time. I initially gravitated towards the more "assassin" types of junglers, like Kha'Zix and, to a lesser degree, Fiddlesticks. For whatever reason, I can't get them to work for me. I think a part of this is that I'm not familiar enough with the ganking routes and angles to effectively assault a lane and secure a kill. That's probably something that only comes with experience but, while I'm trying to gain the experience, I really don't want to suck for my team. I've had Kha'Zix games where I go 0 kills and that's just not acceptable.

Amumu plays similarly to Malphite, whom I'm actually pretty good with. They're both tanky, initiators with fairly straightforward builds. Malphite tends to be a little more Armor tanky while Amumu is a little more AP tanky but other than that, they're very similar. Amumu has really good jungle clear times mid game due to bandage toss and massive aoe damage. This lets him continue to farm his jungle well into the late game when other junglers are typically focused on team fights. He also clears waves very quickly making him great for cleaning up pushed lanes and getting massive late game gold infusions. I had a nearly full build by the 30 minute mark last night.

A couple things I learned about him.

Don't be afraid to try things with the bandage toss. You're going to get it on a relatively short cooldown by the time you hit 18 (8 seconds less whatever CDR you have). The bandage toss works like a slow deploy wall so throwing it slightly in front of people (even at close range) is probably a good idea. Anyone who walks into it will be hit (even if they aren't hit by the leading tip). I got a kill on Ezreal last night when I threw it blindly after losing vision on him.

Your Despari (W) can be activated mid bandage toss. Don't wait to land, you want to be doing the damage the instant you arrive.

The cooldown on your Tantrum (E) is long enough, even in team fights, that you should wait to melee a target before applying it. Your passive will reduce a target by 35 MR at 18 and your Abyssal Scepter by another 20. So most targets will be reduced to nearly 0 MR if they haven't built tanky. Because of the way MR works, the last reduction is far more important than the first reduction so getting Bandage Toss, Despair, Auto-attack, Curse, Tantrum is a big deal.

Your Curse of the Sad Mummy (ult) is not a stun but it sure feels like one. It stops movement and auto-attack for 2 seconds. Against AD or melee heavy teams that's huge. Positioning is critical. You want to be close enough to the ADC that they can't escape out. If you can land a bandage toss on the ADC or APC, you generally are going to keep them in place for 3 seconds (or at least within range). Remember also, it's not a channel. You can move around freely after you cast it. Take the opportunity to apply your passive debuff to everyone within easy range.

Maxing Tantrum first is a big deal. Tantrum scales up well (+25 damage per level and -1 second CD) without increasing mana cost. The fact that it's passive can very quickly make jungling danger a non-factor (while simultaneously making you tankier in team fights) is just icing.

Your build should be (in some order), Sunfire Cape (2500), Abyssal Scepter (2650), Rylai's (2900), Boots, Spirit of the Spectral Wraith (2400). The sixth item is going to be something like Runic Bulwark (for team tankiness) or Liandry's (for more damage against high health targets) but is unlikely to ever get built (making me a sad mummy). Generally, I'd prefer to rush the Sunfire Cape but if the laning phase looks like it's going to last longer, Rylai's could be a good investment for maximizing ganks. Late game, once you've purchased Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, resist the urge to recall after a low health team fight. Instead, go back and farm Wraith, Wolves, Golems, Wraith and note your health returning pleasantly.

How to build Sona

There's a number of things that go into building a champion when you're looking at itemization. The Runes and Masteries are also important but they're going to typically be decided before the game. I'm assuming that most people have a set in stone rune page for supports and a set in stone mastery page for their specific support. If you have so many rune pages that you can choose between 2-3 for Sona then you probably don't need this ;)

So let's say you get in game. Here's what I'd suggest buying to start with

Take 1 point in the mastery that gives you an extra 25 gold and buy Crystalline Flask, Faerie Charm, Ward

Your goal is to stay in late for as long as you possibly can. You're probably going to harass a lot so you can delay dropping the ward until about the 3 minute mark when a jungle gank becomes possible (drop it earlier if you're pushing and/or they have a jungler likely to gank at lvl 2). To accomplish this, you need to aggressively control your own bush.

If you do all this, you can stay in lane for ~6 minutes. At that point, you'll have accumulated 600-900 gold (depending on when you backed, how much CS you accidentally stole with your Q and whether you have gold quints). Your wards have expired and your carry probably has a fair amount of gold to spend. You'll have more than this if you managed to bump off one of their laners.

At this point, you have four items that you should strongly consider buying.
Philo Stone (520): This is the typical support build. It will work well and adds roughly 50% to your gold gain. It helps your lane sustain and will eventually build into a "free" item that doesn't take a slot (not to be underestimated as a support since you'll have slots for wards taken up as well).

Tear of the Goddess (520): I like this when I feel like I'm going to be needed to add to the DPS total or if we're really bullying our laning opponent. Start building those stacks now so that when you buy the Archangel's Staff,  your getting fully value for it and can move quickly to the Seraphim's Staff:

Boots (350): I generally save these for my second back, but if you're playing an opponent who has a lot of skill shots or you sense that you're going to start roaming soon (because, for example,  you took their tower down already) then these are a good buy.

Sightstone (700): You always want to pick up wards but, on the off chance that you can afford this, it's generally the right purchase. Don't do what I did last night and back with 520 and buy the philo stone only to have no wards for the lane when you return. This item makes sure that you'll never make that mistake.

Once you've purchased those items, the general build to follow is this:

Ruby Sightstone (600)
Eleisa's Miracle (400)
Archangel's Staff: If you bought Tear
Merc Treads:
Aegis
Sheen: Whether Sheen grows into Lich Bane or Iceborn Gauntlet depends on your role. If you find that you're in the middle of team fights (perhaps you have the only decent initiation) then Iceborn makes some sense. Otherwise, Lich Bane is the more beneficial item.

All told, the build above costs 11450 (8750 if you didn't go Archangel's) which you should have in any reasonably lengthy game. It also leaves one - two slots open for other stuff. People seem to really like Sherelya's on Sona, I don't particularly. Especially with Lich Bane, I don't want my CDR to be sky high. If I spam abilities faster than 1 per 2 seconds then I actually reduce DPS on Lich Bane procs. Sometimes you need tankiness and something like Warmog's can help. Sometimes you need extra DPS so Liandry's, Blackfire Torth or even Rabaddon's could be in order. Rylai's and Twin Shadows can give you a little bit of both while Zonya's Hourglass can make you a great piece of bait. The last slot will only really come into play super late game so you want to make it something that scales well with you.

Dat Sona

I've also been playing a lot of Sona. She's got to be the most complete support champion in the game (with maybe Lulu as the other one). I know that Zyra support is really popular right now but, let's be honest, that's a hyper aggressive support designed to get kills and grow into a carry role. Sona on the other hand lets you play hyper aggressive while still providing buff/sustain. Her level 1 poke is just stupid (if you do it right, you can get AA -> Hymn ->> AA+Power Chord which will do at LEAST 180 damage and probably a little more. That's half the health of a lot of champions.

Her Aria (her W heal) doesn't scale super well with either level or AP. It provides 40 + AP * .25 HP which at level 1-6 is nice but by level 18, you're doing something like 120 + 50 HP which is next to nothing.

But she does a lot more than that. Each of her hymns gives an aura with a fairly significant bonus. You can make last hitting EASY for your ADC by buffing their AD by 8 by level 3. The Aria grants MR/Armor in fairly sizable amounts as well. Typically, I will wait on my first point until I see who the enemy is. If they've gone heavy attack (say, Dorin's and an aggressive support), I'll go ahead and get lvl 1 Q and tell my ADC to watch for a lvl 1 kill. On the other hand, if they've got a sustain champ (Soraka, Taric) then I will often just level my W and harass with auto-attacks (which now have pick-pocket!).

Late game, your ult is the magic. With it, you can do fair damage and stun 3+ people for 1.5 seconds. In a team fight, that's huge. Additionally, I tend to build a Sheen->Lichbane on Sona so that my auto-attacks are doing quite a bit of damage (since I'm permanently bouncing between Q/W and the occasional E. Being able to auto-attack every 2 seconds (coincidentally, your GCD from your abilities) for 100+ ~150 magic damage is pretty nice.

Dat Malphite

I played a game the other night with my favorite top laner, Malphite. Despite their Nidalee being not too bad (note the CS and gold count), I pretty much dominated the game along with our jungler who was ganking like a fiend. What makes Malphite good is that:

A) He scales off of armor and health
B) His abilities don't require him to purchase AP
C) His initiate is freaking ridiculous

My general plan is to rush Spirit Fire cape as I find that it makes everything easier. Your damage goes up by a fair clip. You get health (making your shield better) and armor (making you tankier and your ground slam hurt more). I also max Q because, with it, you can generally out trade all but the most dedicated ranged Bruiser because your shield will give you "free" health to trade with. It has a surprisingly good range and, it's great for ganks and escapes because it has a speed siphon to it (4 seconds of +20% movement speed from your opponent given to you). If you're careful, you can use it AFTER an opponent uses a speed burst ability and make yourself go REALLY fast. I've had upwards of 500 movement speed if I hit the right target.

Late game, the real fun begins. With high armor and sunfire cape, your initiate is going to hit for the following:
~500-600 damage burst
Reduce their MR by 20 (which, I THINK, will get applied before the charge damage)
Ground Slam for ~350 (reducing attack speed by 45-50% + 20% if you have Frozen Heart)
40 damage per second (which you get at least 1.5 seconds on)

So you're initiating, significantly debuffing and dishing out ~1000 damage. They can't just IGNORE you but trying to DPS you is going to be a full burn from two AP Carries.

At a nearly full build (Abyssal, Ninja Tabi, Frozen Heart, Sunfire Cape) you have a a stupidly high 10,800 effective Hit Points against physical attacks and 8800 against mixed damage (penetration obviously lowers this but armor penetration specifically won't do very much because of the way mitigation stacks).

The trick is to choose your initiates. It's ALWAYS worth it if you can initiate on the ADC. He's the MOST dangerous to your team and the LEAST dangerous to you. If you can grab another squishy at the same time (support or APC) then all the better. Initiating on the bruiser and/or jungler is a little less certain. If you can catch them out of position and exposed, while your team is there, go ahead and do it. But, against better opposition, that's usually not possible. Better to push to their inhibitor towers and then wait for a minion wave. Late game, you have no reason to fear the towers so I wouldn't even let them worry you. In fact, you want the towers hitting you because it means they're NOT hitting your ADC/APC.

So go have fun with Malphite. He's basically perma-banned in most draft right now (along with Amumu and Blitzcrank it seems) but that will change and when it does, you want to be the guy there punishing people for moving on to other toys.

Test of picture for blog

This is a test

Road to improvement

Below, I've rated the champions that I own and how good with each of them (on a scale of 1-10) I am. I doubt I'll ever be good enough to rank a 10 on them but I'd like to have more 8's (right now, Malphite and Sona are the only 2) and also be able to play an ADC and a jungler without embarrassing myself (my 0/6/0 jungle Kha'Zix performance yesterday was, in fact, an embarrassment... only slightly worse than my 1/7/2 Vayne performance). I'm also pleasantly surprised by the relatively low number of "never playeds" on that list. Lets me know I'm getting my money's worth for those bundles.

Ahri: 7

Alistar: 4

Amumu: 4

Anivia: 5

Annie: 5

Ashe: never played

Blitzcrank: 6

Cho'Gath: 5

Corki: 2

Darius: 4

Diana: 7

Mundo: never played

Evelynn: never played

Ezreal: 3

Fiddlesticks: 5

Gangplank: never played

Heimerdinger: 6

Janna: 4

Jax: never played

Jayce: 3

Karthus: 4

Kassadin: 5

Katarina: 6

Kayle: 3

Kha'zix: 4

LeBlanc: 7

Malphite: 8

Malzahar: 5

Master Yi: never played

Morgana: 5

Nasus: 5

Nunu: 6 (for support, 4 for jungle)

Rammus: 5

Rumble: 3

Ryze: 4

Shaco: never played

Singed: never played

Sion: 4

Sivir: 5

Skarner: 5

Sona: 8

Soraka: 6

Swain: 5

Talon: 6

Taric: never played

Teemo: 5

Tristana: 5

Tryndamere: never played

Twisted Fate: 5

Twitch: 5

Vayne: 4

Veigar: 6
Vladimir (don't own): 6

Warwick: 4
Yorick (don't own): 6

Zilean: 6

The Lore of League of Legends

As I've gotten more into the game, one of the things I've realized is how well fleshed out the world is. Because Riot started with a pretty "shotgun" approach to champion creation, their champions cover a wide swath of genres. There are elemental phoenixes, military warriors, undead, a race unique to the setting (yordals), creatures of the void, talking fish people and a host of other types. Each character has a little blurb of history. For many of them, it's merely a unifying element to give some relationships to the champions (Teemo and Tristana are friends, Draven and Darius are brothers, etc) but if you read closer, you'll find some interesting hints about other future champions that might be out there.

Anivia: She's trying to bring other elementals into the world. Sounds like a Fire/Earth/Water/Plant/Metal elemental champion may be in the future?

Kog' Maw, Kha'Zix, Cho-Gath, Malzahar and Kassadin: All of these characters are affiliated in some way with the "Void". It's essentially the holding ground for Cthulhu-eque horrors. Not every champion can be from there but it does represent a nearly endless supply of possibilities.

Morgana and Kayle: They come from an angelic plane where angles and demons battle for control. Seems like others could easily come from here as well.

Blitzcrank and Orianna: These champs point to a complex steampunk type of technology that hasn't really been heavily mined.

I suspect that Riot will start putting out books that flesh out the lore. It seems like a slam dunk given the level of interest internationally around the game. It also provides them interesting possibilities for new champions that they can use at the drop of a hat.

Gave Galio a try last night... Holy skill shots batman

I've been very excited to try out Galio on a free week and it finally happened. He's a unique champion in that he scales off MR and tends to be incredibly AP tanky by the end game. However, what's odd (and somewhat frustrating) about him is that his two damage dealers are fairly slow traveling skill shots. His Q, in particular is tough to land against an opponent who's moving with any kind of speed at range. His E is a little easier but even it has reasonably significant travel time. I had trouble just hitting the Bot Malphite I was playing against for practice. Now granted, part of the problem with hitting a bot is that they move somewhat erratically and differently than what a human would do... But I was still a little frustrated. Compounding this is that he doesn't start out very tanky and he's melee for his auto-attacks so you almost are forced to farm with his skills (making him an early game mana hog).

Having said all that, I think he's very powerful. His damage is actually very good for a tanky character. Malphite is probably the best counterpart to him (tanky AP melee) and his damage absolutely eclipses Malphites. His ult is really interesting (AoE taunt with magnified delayed damage after a channel). I wouldn't pop it immediately in a team fight but it was doing nearly 30% of malphite's health in the trial game (and taunting him).

So I'm not surprised he doesn't get played a lot. He's somewhat niche (in that he's a heavy counter for AP but fairly squishy against an AD team) and he's also got a reasonable skill cap. his builds, after the first couple items, are not intuitive either which is a bit frustrating (clearly abyssal scepter, merc treads and Athene's are the first three items you're going to want... but after that it's tougher). But I do think he's an important champ to know and you shouldn't leave him out of your repertoire just because he's so different. He's pretty much a hard counter to Malphite (although you won't kill Malphite in lane) and also Amumu or any diving AP Assassin (Katrina, LeBlanc, etc).

Things people should try

Here's a random list of slightly off the wall things that I think people should try in LoL. Some of these I've given a go at and some of them I've yet to do. All of them are significant breaks from the traditional mold.

Heimerdinger solo top: Heimerdinger is known as a pusher. But he doesn't have to be. You CAN just set up camp outside your turret and farm and poke. His HP regen allows him to sustain for a good long while. He can survive 2v1 fine and against a single opponent, buying Banner of Command can lead to many a pushed down tower.

AD Zilean: Zilean has a lot of cycles to do different things with in the late game. He also only has one ability that really scales off of AP (although BOY does it scale... the only .9AP scaling AoE I'm familiar with). Building pure AD + Attack speed or building Hybrid through something like Guinsoo's + Hextech can give your team significantly more AD damage from a fairly unexpected source (I mean, really? Who targets the Zilean?)

Super Tanky Malphite: Sunfire Cape + Runic Bulwark + Guardian Angel + Frozen Heart + Merc Treads: That's a Malphite that is very, very hard to kill. If you make your 6th item Warmogs, you might as well just walk straight for the nearest tower and face tank it cause nothing will kill you.

Hybrid Morgana: I want to try Hybrid Morgana with Lichbane. It sounds like a surprising amount of fun.

Lane swapping: Purple side lane swaps with some fair regularity these days in competitive play. I'd get used to seeing it and get comfortable with your ability to 1v2 if you're a top laner. Additionally, get comfortable bullying people 2v1 because it's GOING to come up.

Double Jungle: The new jungle provides an interesting new way to max resources. In theory, double jungle then jumping out to double support should yield more total xp because of the bonus shared xp you get. Add to the fact that the double jungle provides a HUGE amount of uncertainty to the other team (they can double counter jungle, double gank, double support, etc) and you have the potential for real fun.

Play Yi, Akali, Darius, Teemo at least once: These are probably the biggest "noobstompers" in the game right now. They have mechanics that you need to understand and playing them is the best way to do that.

Just some fun ideas

My personal "skill with" list

I would recommend for anyone who's trying to get better at league of legends to familiarize themselves with the following:

Rengar (top, sometimes jungle)
Lee Sin (top / jungle, sometimes mid)
Olaf (top, sometimes jungle)
Orianna (mid)
Zyra (support, sometimes mid)
Ezreal (ADC)
Lulu (support)
Cho'Gath (Jungle, sometimes top)
Nunu (Support, sometimes jungle)
Sona (Support)
Vayne (ADC)
Corki (ADC)
Jax (Top)
Shen (Top, sometimes jungle)

That list above represents the most commonly played / banned champions at IPL (except for Diana who got nerfed hard). If you're not playing as one of them, that's fine, but you need to know how they work, especially if they're in a lane that you're typically in. Once you have at least a passing familiarity with them (at least 3-4 games played to get a feel for them, I'd recommend), figure out what YOU'RE good at. Here's the general roles in the present meta:

Top Lane Bruiser
Mid Lane Assassin
Mid Lane AoE Caster
ADC
Ganking Jungler
Farming Jungler
Sustain Support
Aggressive Support

A brief explanation as some of the differentiations are nuanced

The current meta supports two different types of mid laners. Assassins and more traditional damage casters. The latter generally has good AoE capacity (think Orianna, Anivia etc) who play very differently from the former (think LeBlanc, Diana, etc). Your goal when laning with each of them and your skill set around them can be very, very different.

Generally there are two different types of junglers at present. By far the more common is the ganking jungler (think Nocturne) but the jungle changes have given rise to another type of jungler who focuses on farming and sustaining so that they can counter jungle heavily and take advantage of their usual health advantage (fiddlesticks and warwick, for example).

Finally, we're seeing two very different support roles when you compare someone like Soraka (probably the most sustain oriented support in the game) to someone like Nunu (who's all about attacking and pressuring). You need to know the ADC you're with and what they're capable of. Unfortunately, all of the typical ADCs CAN harass, this one is more about the player. So ask your ADC what they prefer and, if in doubt, take someone like Sona that can do a bit of both.

So, for me, here's my current "competent" repertoire (note, these are my estimates of my skill level... not necessarily how good I think the champion is)

Top Lane Bruiser: Malphite > Vladimir > Nasus > Yorick > Jayce
Mid Lane Assassin: Diana > LeBlanc > Ahri > Katarina > Talon
Mid Lane AoE Caster: Heimerdinger > Veigar > Lux > Twisted Fate > Swain
ADC: Twitch > Graves > Tristana
Ganking Jungler: None
Farming Jungler: Fiddlesticks > Cho'Gath > Skarner
Sustain Support: Soraka > Sona
Aggressive Support: Sona > Blitzcrank > Nunu > Zilean

Those represent my comfort level with a variety of champions. Note: The lists need to be read independently as I'd feel much more comfortable with a Zilean than  a Cho'Gath for instance. I typically play AP Mid (preferring the Assassin sub-type) or Support (preferring the more aggressive supports). I'm also VERY comfortable with Malphite but drop off considerably after that.

So, for me, the two claring weaknesses on here are ADC and some kind of ganking jungler. I don't own Nocturne, Kha'Zix or Hecarim so I can't really get good with them yet (though it is Nocturne free week). Shaco, despite my love of assassins, isn't my cup of tea in the jungle. If and when they retweak Diana, I'll likely try to make her work in the jungle. I know her really well and her ganking ability out of the jungle would be pretty awesome. On the ADC front, frankly, Twitch is the only one I feel "comfortable" with. Corki and Ezreal have proven to be tricky in my hands. I don't own MF or Caitlynn and haven't tried Ashe.

Anyways, that's my homework for the next two weeks. Learn how to gank out of the jungle better while also improving at the two things I have an aptitude for.

--
It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt
-Abraham Lincoln

The problem with Internet quotes is that you can never be certain of their accuracy
-Abraham Lincoln

Worst Study Ever?

This study has so much wrong with it that it's not even funny. Start with the horrendous title for the article (to be fair, not the fault of the study writers). But move on to the core "problem". The study asks the question, "Are irredeemable villains and inept cops appropriate depictions for cartoons."

Now let's leave aside your particular issue that you may have with this issue (perhaps you think that cops ARE incompetent or criminals ARE irredeemable) and just look at their core assumption. "Cartoon depictions predominantly feature these two archetypes."

I don't grant that premise.

Batman deals primarily with two police personalities, neither of whom could be described as inept. One of them doesn't like Batman and considers him a barely acceptable vigilante, but that's not "incompetence" and, if anything, represents two valid world views that police might have about a Batman running around.

Now let's look at whether or not the criminals are irredeemable.

Certainly Joker, Penguin, etc are, in fact, irredeemable. They're the psychotic mass murderers. Even the most liberal sociologist would surely concede that a serial killer with multiple souls black marking their heart are "probably not redeemable".

But the "next tier" of villains is anything but. In fact, I'd argue that many of the spider-man villains are depicted as almost too sympathetic. The guy who is "forced to rob a bank to feed his family" is a pretty cliche super villain motif. As is the beleagured inventor who has his inventions stolen by the giant corporate behemoth and sets his sights on hurting said corporation. These villains frequently reform.

Catwoman works with Batman (and they have clear romantic attraction)
The Mad Hatter realizes what he's doing was wrong
Eddie Brock has the venom suit removed from him and goes back to normal
Harry Osborne gets control of the Green Goblin
Black Cat has a romantic entanglement with Spider-man and goes straight
Rex Mason is a crooked CEO who becomes the hero Metamorpho

Those are what I could get from memory but I'm certain there are others. Worth mentioning is that the comics are full of this treatment. Nearly the entire roster of the West Coast Avengers (Wonder Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye) started out their comic careers as villains. Emma Frost has become a good guy. Sinestro is currently back to being a green lantern (although not exactly a "good guy") and the newest green lantern is a former car thief. Braniac's descendent Braniac 5 is the leader of the Legion of Super Heroes.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that these shows do not represent the most recent comic book television fair. Left off this list is 2 different X-Men series, Iron Man cartoon, another spider-man cartoon, Batman Brave and the Bold, Young Justice and others. I'm always skeptical when I see three shows cherry picked across two decades. Now it's possible they went with some criteria (most recent three shows with 4+ seasons) but that's not clear from the article.

Something I learned regarding XP split

I didn't realize this (and apparently most people don't) but when XP is split (based on proximity), there's bonus XP awarded. I don't know the exact formula but when there's two people they each get 60% of the xp they would've gotten solo. Since this is "experience from the ether", it seems appropriate to maximize it making a dual lane pretty nice and also providing an incentive to "jungle tax" when your jungler ganks (for those not familiar, the "jungle tax" is the joking reference to when junglers will kill a wave of creeps after they scare off / kill an opponent).

Free Week Champion Analysis

I'm really excited about this week as there's four champions I'd like to give a try to with 3 of them being on my tentative "definitely going to buy" list

Anivia: The bird is slow and fragile (although a built in GA is pretty nice as a passive). She has ridiculous wave clearing ability as well as one of the more unique and game breaking skills in her ice wall. The skill cap on her is incredibly wide, however, so practice with her a couple times. My brother played her as an aggressive support with a Riven in a game a month or so ago and they tore the other team to shreds. I'd be curious to see if some people don't try to play her as a melee support champions because the wall synergizes really well with that plan.

Gangplank: One of the more interesting champions. I don't really like his flavor but his mechanics are all fairly fascinating. He has a insta-cast CC removal / heal spell (he eats an orange). He's a melee champ but his Parrrley skill (sic) gives him a semi-spammable ranged attack that works like an auto-attack. And he has a global ult allowing you to put down an AoE of doom on an area anywhere on the map for 7 seconds (a BIG AoE). His versatility allows him to fulfill a lot of roles. One note worth mentioning if you play Dominion, an enemy Gangplank will wreak havoc on your ability to capture otherwise uncontested nodes. He can throw that ult from anywhere on the map and really ruin your day, essentially giving his team 7 more seconds to get to you (which, let's face it, is sufficient to get nearly across the map in dominion).

Janna: Another high skill cap champ. Janna is a support champ with an odd mix of abilities. A really good Janna support will put a lot of pressure on the enemy team by landing fairly long duration knockups as well as buffing (both with a shield and an AD boost) the ADC in lane. This combination of skills is somewhat offset by a pretty lackluster (IMO) ultimate that pushes enemies away (no damage) and heals nearby allies. It's really only a skill that you want to use when either you're winning a fight or the enemy flanked you and are spread out. Keep this in mind as it does limit the effectiveness of striking from odd angles against teams that have a Janna ult up.

Morgana: Kayle's evil sister (or freedom fighter if you believe her lore and not her skin). Morgana is an interesting AP champ because she has very long CDs on all of her spells (12, 11, 15 for QWE respectively). They're strong spells, but you have to make them count. What's interesting about this is that it makes her a reasonably strong candidate for something like Hextech Gunblade, DFG and Lichbane where you're using her "extra cycles" to do something productive. One other note, her snare on her Q has a REALLY long top end duration (3 seconds) so some kind of tenacity is probably going to help if you're laning against her.

Rammus: Spin to win. He's been free a couple times recently so I'm not going to say a lot about him. One thing I've learned, however, is that some people refuse to build him tanky. Punish these people. A non-tanky Rammus is not scary in the slightest.

Galio: One of the champions that I'm very excited about and is on my "definite" buy list (at least tentatively. He's a melee AP champion who scales off MR. Kind of the magical opposite to Malphite. Like Malphite, he also shares a really good team fight skill in his ultimate. His Bulwark skill gives him some lane sustain. He's a prime candidate for AP support if that ever becomes a thing again (he can do AD support but it's not as efficient). He's a hard counter for certain champions so a good one to get to know and play around with.

Nocturne: The scariest jungler ever. Another on my "probably going to buy" list. His ult is, frankly, terrifying. He also builds to cap attack speed by the end of the game so he's throwing like 2.5 attacks per second when he goes all-in. When he ults, talk to your teammates so they know where he is. It makes the darkness less scary.

Lee Sin: One of the highest skill cap champions in the game. He can play jungle, mid, or top, has great engagement range and is highly mobile. I'm definitely going to try him but whether he makes it on the "buy" list or nor is questionable given my personally low skill level at this point. Watch the pros play him though (someone like Soaz for example) and you'll see him do ridiculous things.

Varus: The forgotten ADC. I don't know a lot about him other than he was supposed to be an AD champ and you rarely see him. He has good range with his arrows but the skill shots are dodgeable. He wants to stack his blight so don't let him go crazy on you.

Nami: Another on my probably buy list. She's a really interesting support who, like Sona and Lulu, can serve that "sustain/attack" support role that seems really popular right now. She's great for team fights because her AoE stun is a bit of a monster when it hits (and it WILL hit in the chaos of a team fight) and she'll basically be guaranteed to heal 2 teammates or hurt 2 opponents. A couple notes. One, her R buff doesn't have a very big graphic so watch for it and make sure you use it (next 3 attacks in 5 seconds deal bonus damage and slow). It also increases the move speed of the champion per her passive. Her W will bounce ally, enemy, ally (or enemy, ally, enemy) so if you're casting it to heal, cast on an ally first. If you're casting it to do damage, cast it on an enemy first. It also buffs the move speed (again, through per passive) of friends. The damage actually scales better than the heal on this (interesting for a support) so late game, you'll probably want to target enemies with it for maximum effect.

All in all, another good week with some champs I'm reasonably excited about.

The joy of music (League of Legends style)

After acquiring Sona about a week ago, I finally got in to playing her some. She's a BEAST of a support champion. She has all of the tools you'd want a versatile support to have (with one exception, more on that in a moment).

She can sustain her lane's health (and her own... without targeting)
She has very high burst damage early game
She has good range (550) and great speed (330)

So she fits both the mold of sustain support AND aggressive support which is a rarity (I'm not sure there's anyone else that comes close). The one thing she lacks is a spammable CC. Her slow power chord requires a reasonably high skill cap and doesn't do enough (IMO) to be worth it. However, she makes up for this by having a HUGE AoE stun as an ult that can absolutely change team fights. Stunning three enemy team members (and smacking them with 500+ magic damage) can lead to a completely flipped team fight.

In a game where I was paired with Ashe on bot, I managed to go 3/0/1 at one point. He and I then roamed to stop an Amumu from taking Dragon. Not only did we easily chase off and kill Amumu, I managed to land enough Hymns of Valor (the damaging one) that I got the kill on the Dragon following behind us. Right now, I'm building her as a fairly standard support but I'd point out that her speed, range and natural aggression makes it so that pick pocket is probably a very good skill to take. Take control of brush and just go bonkers harassing your laning opponents.