A friend of mine was on a serious Zilean kick for a while. He loved most everything about the toon, except the fact that it could be difficult to target himself in the midst of a fight. Getting that ult off is crucial, especially when you’re getting nuked. His speed controls suffered from the same problems. Well, no more. The upcoming patch has a little known change coming to spell casts: smart casting.

Players will be able to define a set of “smart cast” hotkeys that allow for self casting or the targeted cast of a spell like Karthus’ Lay Waste. By default, the modifier will be “alt” for all of your spells. On Zilean, for example, this means by pressing “alt + r” you will cast your ultimate on yourself. Pressing just “r” will still bring up the targeting cursor for selecting your allies. If you want to get really fast, you will be able to select teammates with the F keys for even quicker casts on your allies.

The change was implemented with Ezreal in mind. Since all of his skills are skill shots, players needed a way to quickly cast, like the cursor cast for Karthus. This gives players that option, so you can just hotkey your spell straight to cast while you’re chasing down a target.

One of the best differentiators between League of Legends and Dota is surrender. If at 25 minutes it seems a sure loss, teams with a heavy majority vote – 4/5 – can surrender the game by simply typing /surrender. It’s a great mechanic for those steamroller games, whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a brutal beating. It saves time and a lot of frustration for most everyone involved.

It can be annoying, though. I’ve had many games that have been close, only to have the other team surrender as we’re pushing down inhibitor turrets. It’s a small thing, but sometimes it’s nice to have that complete victory. The thing is, the minor frustration of not finishing a game is nowhere near the frustration of enduring a guaranteed loss because your teammates won’t surrender. Quite a few players believe there is some sort of surrender penalty and won’t surrender because they don’t want to cripple their IP gain. It was almost implemented – luckily, Riot was smart enough to see the problem and simply moved surrenders to 25 minutes instead of keeping it at 15.

Apparently Zileas posted a few months back suggesting a penalty for surrender. I haven’t been able to find that post – what I found was an old post asking Riot to reconsider. Zileas posted a couple times inside, both of which provide a disconcerting look what was then the possible future of the surrender mechanic. Basically Riot wanted to distinguish between true losses and surrenders so that it could properly “reward” players who stay until the bitter end. In turn, teams that surrender will be subject to a penalty, likely in the form of reduced IP gain. His first response is below:

Players tend to do what they are rewarded for. Players get a lot of satisfaction out of “Finishing” opponents off in our game, and everyone enjoys that sometimes. We want to reward people to not surrender for this reason.

This “reward” system completely ignores the fact that players can “surrender” by standing afk at fountain while the other team pushes it in. The strategy is used all the time with AFK players because it’s a waste of everyone’s time to play the game out. The new system wouldn’t have “rewarded” anyone, it would have incentivized people to AFK, effectively ruining the game. This was one of Dota’s major problems, one Riot combatted with the surrender vote.

Zileas’ second response revealed that the game would be going to 15-minute surrenders if a penalty system was implemented.

we want 15 min surrenders — but the platform doesnt distinguish between losses and surrenders presently. Once it does, we will go 15 mins. Right now, if we did that, the optimal behavior would be to chain surrender at 15 mins every game.

Luckily the system never went through. I’m not sure I would have noticed if that was the way surrender had always worked. We likely would have just seen a lot more AFK once a player thought the game was decided.

A post in the official forums today confirmed that we’ll be seeing the Ezreal patch this week along with a very special treat: ghost skins! The images for Ghost Fiddlesticks and Ghost Gangplank have been in the client for awhile now. Just think, you won’t have to see four posts a week theorizing about revive, Mordekaiser’s ult and the method to unlocking these beauties. It’s actually simple -give Riot your money and they will give you the skins.

There’s still no word on pricing, but the official post did mention that both ghost skins would be available at 20 percent off regular price through the weekend. This patch will also have a Highland Tryndamere skin, adding some Scottish flavor to everyone’s favorite barbarian.

As for Ezreal, everyone, myself included, is waiting to hear his cost in IP. He’s getting the typical new hero + skin bundle for a small discount at 1375 RP. Obviously that points to a 975 RP price, which could mean either 3150 or 6300 for the IP cost. I’m hoping for 3150 since I won’t be buying it with RP. I’ve got more ghostly things to spend my money on.

I decided to try something new recently and give Sivir a go. I’ve always hated her, mostly because I’ve seen her pushing power completely dominate a game. She’s always seemed like an unstoppable force in the right hands, so I figured I should see if it’s really the toon.

Let me just say that I think Sivir might be the best character for mid in the game. She bulldozes creeps for very little mana and has no trouble with champions that aren’t built for extremely high survivability. I’ve faced casters, tanks, and carries all mid and had very little trouble, even against the good players. Some of them slowed my farm, forcing me to take Spell Shield over Boomerang Blade, but no one has been able to completely shut me down.

As of this post I’ve won 80% of my games as Sivir. My losses were actually in premades during which I suffered from unskilled teammates. In one game I was paired with a level 13 Annie. We lost. Badly. In the other games, though, I’ve been such a force mid that I have to wonder about her balance. I don’t think she’s particularly good for solo queue. Without solid team coordination she has too much pushing power that, when coupled with a move speed modifier and a spell shield, gives her the survivability to truly own a game.

Really, I think this latest patch has caused most of the problems. She has always been strong, but with the heavy prioritization on farming, Sivir can easily level gap people in ways only the best gankers could previously do. The upcoming patch should help, reducing the range at which she can farm and increasing gank XP. I’ll update this post with a little more in-depth match detail when I’ve spent more time with her.

I was lucky enough to pick up a Test Realm account in the giveaway so I’ve been spending a little time getting to know Ezreal and the new Twisted Fate. Both characters seem like they’ll be pretty powerful, though I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some changes to Ezreal before he goes live.

At first I thought Ezreal was extremely weak. From looking at his skills he can really go either AP or damage. From what I’ve been able to tell, though, his real power lies with a damage build. As with most carries, Ezreal is squishy. Insanely squishy. Twitch level squishy. He doesn’t hit as hard as a lot of carries, though, instead relying on skills and attack speed for damage output.

I’m a big fan of skill shots, especially because the heroes that have them tend to have great range. There’s also something extremely satisfying about landing that perfect snare or arrow to get a kill. Ezreal does get great range from his skills, though I think Arcane Shift needs about 20% more range. It doesn’t feel particularly effective and the cooldown is long enough that you’ll get one, maybe two casts off. Even then, you might unwittingly land next to a creep and lose the damage on whoever you’re chasing. While his Essence Flux is good for fighting physical damage dealers toe to toe, it has more limited range and doesn’t pack the punch I’d like to see. It would be really great if he got a slow from it, but more on that later.

Ezreal’s big problem is farming. Because he deals such low damage you have to be extremely attentive for last hits. I see him as a solo toon in almost every situation, both because his ult deals heavy damage and because he can’t afford to get behind. Luckily Mystic Shot is cheap – 30 mana at rank one – so you can spam it to pick up creep kills pretty easily.

As far as build goes, I think your best bet is to take one rank of Mystic Shot and then main Arcane Shift, alternating for Essence Flux when you can. Flux cannot be used to self heal so it’s pretty worthless as a solo and Mystic Shot’s damage doesn’t improve enough per rank to be worth the extra mana cost in the early game. From there you need to farm everything you can to get to a decent item loadout. I’m a firm believer in the trinity force on this guy. Sheen procs off your Mystic Shot in the same way Parrrley does, delivering the extra damage right when the shot hits. Phage gives you the slow you’ll need to catch runners and the extra health is always nice. From there, get to a big damage item like a Black Cleaver or an Infinity if you can. Your Mystical will be hitting quite hard and with a lucky slow you should be able to rip right through most players.

As with most carries, you should be waiting for the fight to start before getting in the mix. Supporting your team from the back is a perfect spot for Ezreal, using range to your advantage to pick up some kills. If anything, I’d like to see him get a little move speed buff and a range buff to Arcane Shift. Beyond that, I think he performs well in a lot of situations so long as you’ve taken the time to farm what he needs.

Every patch seems to bring with a slew of forum posts about Katarina. Since her nerf a few patches back, players have been clamoring for a remake, at the very least a buff back to even low-level viability. That hasn’t happened, and she remains queue dodge material for a lot of players.

It’s understandable. Personally, I consider games she’s in a 5.5v4 – yes, I think she’s currently so bad she’s giving the other team a leg up while simultaneously gimping her own. Part of the problem is her current mess of skills. Bouncing Blades scales with attack damage while Shunpo scales with AP. Killer Instincts doesn’t scale at all. It’s so bad that even when she was playable most people ignored it. Her ultimate scales with both AP and attack damage, though with poor enough coefficients that you need massive farm to put out respectable damage. There’s also the simple fact that she relies on her skills to deal damage, so in between cooldowns she’s incredibly weak and easy to kill.

The newest patch will give Killer Instincts more staying power, as the stacks carry between targets, but it still isn’t enough damage to make her viable. Consider the other characters in the game with no CC. Those toons nearly all have high damage output, which is necessary for survival. They play a lot like mages, relying on the kill-you-before-you-kill-me strategy for success.

In short, Katarina is terrible. She’s in desperate need of a skill rework to make her viable again.

Patch notes are up on the Test Realm forum for the Ezreal rollout and I’ll say it, I’m scared. I was mostly excited for the last patch, but the XP system blew chunks and that queue dodge penalty is the worst thing to happen to the game since Nidalee. There are a few diamonds in the rough, though, and I’m hoping they will be enough to carry me through.

First, Shaco is getting a massive nerf. Deceive damage is down 10% at all levels, Jack in the Box damage scales more slowly and has its AP ratio decreased, and, the whopper, throwing Two-Shiv while stealthed breaks you out. It’s not clear whether that removes your crit damage bonus – my hope is that it doesn’t – but it’s possible. You might notice that none of this makes him any more viable for the late game, which is most players’ complaint.

Then there’s Nidalee. I’m personally of the opinion that she needs the kind of nerf Shaco received. Unfortunately, Riot didn’t contact me regarding the matter, so she’s getting a tiny nerf and a little buff. Primal Surge now has its mana cost increased by 5 per level instead of the flat 50. Can I just say that this is in no way a nerf. By the time you reach the max rank, most players have more than enough mana to cover the difference, particularly if they’re going AP build. Which reminds me, AP Nidalee just got a fat buff. Javelin Toss AP ratio is up to 55% from 40%. The other change is reducing her passive to 15% move speed from 25%. Really, though, that’s not the issue with Nidalee’s escapability. It’s the fact that you can spam Pounce, which, when coupled with the brush bonus, makes her extremely difficult to kill. They could take it down to 8% and she would still probably get out of most situations.

Twisted Fate got enough changes to make him a lot less frustrating to play against and probably more overall fun. His new passive, Loaded Dice, grants TF’s team an extra 2 gold per kill. It’s actually worse than Second Sight in my mind, but not such a problem. Gate is gone. In its place is Stacked Deck, which is basically a built in Sword of the Divine. Every fourth attack deals magic damage that scales by level, affected by ability power. It also increases his attack speed and reduces cooldowns. He’s another in the latest string of toons that will benefit in big ways from Guinsoo’s. The new skill is obviously severely overpowered, but a slight nerf should bring it in line. Gate is now built into Destiny, allowing you to teleport anywhere on the map though it no longer slows. Overall, I think it’s a good change, and will actually make him a lot more fun.

There are some other minor changes, including a slight buff to the XP system (50% of a level’s XP for same level champion kills instead of 40%) , but most of them shouldn’t change the game much. The XP system will still likely too heavily prioritize farming, but it just might be enough to discourage a lot of 5-man while encouraging some push. Honestly, though, ganking is what makes the game fun. Almost no amount of XP nerfing will make me want to stop.

ByronicHero dropped by the forums today to give us a sneak peak at yet another hero: Ezrael. I’m much happier about another hero release knowing that Twisted Treeline is heading to matchmaking soon. Also, Ezrael is ranged, which adds another hero to the short list of toons I choose from when my team goes all melee. Does that happen to anyone else as often as it happens to me?

Here’s the text from the official post:

As you may have noticed, we’ve been releasing some champions that really challenge existing gameplay paradigms. And this next one is no exception. In addition to a haircut that defies the very laws of physics, the latest and greatest from our design team is sporting some pretty edgy magical abilities. Meet Ezreal the Prodigal Explorer, a champion who breaks new ground – in both gameplay and fashion – here at the League of Legends. If you’re feeling rather passionate about skill-shots these days, start getting excited, because this particular gentleman should really scratch that itch.

So far so good. I am a pretty big fan of skill shots, though I don’t think they’re necessary for a hero to be fun. There is no official word on the ability list, but someone on the EU forums dug up a screenshot of his potential abilities, presumably from the test realm.

Mystic Shot (Q) – Ezrael fires a bolt of energy dealing 40 + 100% of his attack damage as magic damage. Ezrael’s cooldowns are reduced by 1 second if Ezrael hits a target.

Essence Flux (W) – Ezrael fires a fluctuating wave of energy that only hits champions. Enemy champions: deals 75 magic damage and reduces attack speed by 20% for 5 seconds. Allied Champions: heals 75 health and increases attack speed by 20% for 5 seconds.

Arcane Shift (E) – Ezrael teleports to a target nearby location and fires a homing arrow at the nearest enemy unit dealing 80 magic damage.

Trueshot Barrage (R) – Ezrael channels for 1.2 seconds to fire a barrage of missiles dealing 300 magic damage to each unit it passes through. It deals 10% less damage for each unit it hits (minimum 30%).

He’s definitely an odd character, though I wouldn’t quite say he breaks character paradigms. To me he’s like a mix of every “unique” character out there. He’s got a bit of TF, a bit of Nidalee, and a bit of Jax. I can see him benefiting from Guinsoo’s in a big way, and I’m willing to bet a lot of people will build him as a hybrid.

My guess is that we’ll see him live as early as next week. The Mordekaiser preview came just a week before he released.

A friend of mine really likes Master Yi. I try to understand, I really do, but at the end of the day all I see is a toon with no escape mechanism and no team utility. If your opponent is bad enough he can be fine, even great, but if your enemy is mildly competent you’re going to have some trouble. To some extent his problem can be blamed on the fact that he’s melee, and melee toons have it rough. You have to throw yourself in harm’s way and hope you can live through the CC and burst long enough to get your damage in. As one forum poster put it, “when will melee DPS be viable?”

Here’s what Phreak had to say:

Melee DPS poops on kids in Treeline. It’s going into matchmaking soon. Melee DPS being underpowered is simply a function of 5 people being able to burst down 1 melee DPS super quickly. Champions like Udyr, Tynda (sic), and Mundo are able to kite in and out and heal or shield themselves, ignoring a lot of the burst out there. Yi can do similar things with meditate, I suppose.

Mostly, I feel like melee DPS does really well in small battles, and then in the larger ones seems to require a good support champ like Morgana or Kayle to keep him alive vs 5 champions. Otherwise you need to use supreme discretion to get in and out. Generally you should grab Cleanse. Ghost isn’t a bad option either. IMO it’s a different playstyle.

I agree with him for the most part. Melee toons have to choose their battles very carefully, which is why a full melee team rarely succeeds. But played well, I think melee is just as viable as any ranged. Most ranged suffer, in fact, from a reduced health pool or slightly lower damage. I’ve had some excellent games with Nasus, a toon with no escape to speak of, simply through smart play and the Ghost/Cleanse combo. It’s all about picking your battles, and making sure your teammates can help support you on your way to close the gap.

The patch a few days back brought along one of the most undesirable things I’ve seen in League of Legends: queue dodge penalties. I’ve written enough about the semantics that you should have a feel for how it works. As a quick overview, your first dodge gets you an advertised 3-minute ban from joining queue. The next dodge is 10 minutes, with a reset 8 hours from the initial ban. Here’s how it really works.

This afternoon I queued up with a friend for a quick game. For whatever reason he didn’t join queue when I did. Instead, he was stuck at the invite screen for Arranged Team. By the time he asked if I was in queue, the game had popped. It showed him at champ select but on his screen he was still at the AT invite screen. He hit cancel and got dumped back to the home page. Instead of staying in queue and forcing him to relog, reconnect, and deal with whatever random hero he got, I dodged.

On relog we tried to queue only to be greeted by the new leaver screen that pops up over the client with a timer that counts down your penalty. Our timer? 5:14. I haven’t take math since my freshman year of college but that seems like slightly more than three minutes. Luckily we didn’t have the same problem, but I will say, I’m fairly annoyed by the fact that this isn’t functioning as advertised and that I was penalized because of a client error over which I had zero control. The more interaction I have with this new system, including the fact that dodging is till extremely common, the harder it is to believe that Riot actually pushed this through. There are so many reasons for a game to fall apart in queue that penalizing the process seems arbitrary and absurd.

I hope to god Riot realizes just how bad this system is and fixes it soon, but my guess is they won’t. It took a poll in the forums about Champ Select AFKers for someone from Riot to take interest in any opinion that doesn’t penalize queue dodging. This could have easily been considered prior to the patch. Now we get to sit back and watch as the company tries to clean up. It’s going to be a rough couple of weeks.