It’s been three days since Riot officially confirmed the patch for this week – yes, I’m considering a sale on new content that ends this coming Sunday an official confirmation – and there’s still no word on when it will actually drop. Nothing. Nada. No post in the announcement forums, nothing in the server status forums. Not even an update to the sale announcement that pushes the dates back.

I’d like to say I’m not one to speculate but, frankly, I speculate often so here it goes. My guess is that there’s some trouble related to a widespread Twisted Treeline rollout. I still stand on the assumption that it’s coming in this patch. The matchmaking test on the Test Realm was so short that my guess is they got a quick confirmation that, yes, it will work. If it was a no, you can bet there would have been more testing to figure out why. It’s a pattern Riot has followed rigorously to this point. Hell, when it seems 80% of the population can’t connect or chronically crashes the servers are set to “busy” while the team attempts to sort things out.

It’s also safe to say that this is the biggest patch since launch, with the possible exception of the store. The Twisted Treeline update will change the game in a huge way, and will likely a whole new set of hardware. Add to it the major revamp the patch gave to Twisted Fate and the release of a new champ with completely new mechanic and you have the heaviest content patch we’ve seen.

I’m still convinced it won’t happen, though. Tomorrow’s Friday and there’s still no news.

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.

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.

In my post about today’s patch I neglected to mention the big changes made to Gragas. The barrel-tossing brute hasn’t been in many of my games since his release. The ones in which he’s appeared have typically resulted in a loss for his summoner’s record. He simply doesn’t cut it. Today, Riot tried to rectify that situation.

Gragas got a round of buffs and bug fixes to help him get his groove back. He now attacks faster, scales better, moves faster in Body Slam, his barrels roll faster, and his ultimate casts farther and hits a larger radius than before. Granted, it was just patch day, but I have yet to see him once.

I’ll admit, I’ve never played Gragas. I’m willing to bet, though, that his unpopularity comes from his feel. His spells aren’t very interesting, and for thick casters you can do a lot better. I’ll keep an eye out for Gragas sightings over the next few days but I’m willing to bet the buffs weren’t enough.

It’s patch day again, bringing us a slew of changes to some of the less popular heroes, a much needed (though still lacking) TF nerf, and the new champ, Mordekaiser. The patch also gave us one highly undesirable feature: queue dodge penalties. Overall, though, I’d say I’m pretty happy about this patch.

My favorite part so far has been the Jax remake. I’ve played two games with him and he seems like he’s in a good spot. The extra HP makes a big difference and the Leap Strike change gives him a nice escapability buff. He’ll still struggle at times, as all melee DPS does, but the changes make a significant difference. Also, that Vandal skin is badass.

I’ll be taking a look at the Warwick changes later today. I had a Warwick in one game, but he was awful so I won’t say he’s a good judge of the situation. The mana changes alone should be a boon.

The TF nerf seems good, though it doesn’t address his real problem – map control. I played a game as Jax with Mundo, Ryze, Pantheon and TF in which our Ryze went AFK around level 9. We still stomped them, mostly because our TF held his port for the perfect moment in just about every situation. Sure, he does less damage, but when he’s stunning people consistently and turning even fights into landslides, I can’t help but think they nerfed him for the masses but he’s just as good for skilled players.

Mordekaiser actually looks to be a lot of fun. The fact that you can cast his shield on creeps makes him a bit like Dark Seer from Dota, though it’s only allies. That would be an interesting change if they feel he isn’t laning well. He does seem to harass decently enough, and his ult is pretty cool. I’m not going to spend the RP on him and all my IP has gone into runes recently, so I’ll have to wait for a free week to give a real analysis.

Lastly, the queue dodging penalty. This thing is so stupid I hate to even write about it. Every time you leave during champion select you get a leaver mark on your account. The first leave gives you a three minute queue penalty. The second brings it up to 10 minutes, though that timer does reset 8 hours after your first leave. I can’t understand why they would implement this when there are so many legitimate reasons to leave at champion select and no options to deal with those issues. AFK summoners are just part of the problem. There are also team composition problems, and the fact that matchmaking will still pair you with people on your ignore list. Add to all of this the fact that people are still dodging like mad and it’s pretty clear that a dodge penalty is about the worst solution Riot could have come up with.

You can find complete patch notes in the announcements forum.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of an ability power beatdown, the kind where you can’t seem to leave your tower without getting insta-gibbed. There are few things that make me want to play mage more, but it’s not always a walk in the park. Mages walk a very fine line between blowing up the opponent and dying themselves because of low defense and a tiny health pool. Played well, though, mages can be very rewarding.

Playing a mage well requires you to plan further ahead than any other toon in the game. You should have a constant awareness of how much damage your skills will do by the number, not just how much you think you can pull off you enemy’s health bar. A Malphite at half health is very different from a Tristana at half health. For Malph, you have to break his shield before he actually takes damage. Trist, on the other hand, can jump away in most cases. Whichever you choose, you better be confident your spells can either take them down or hurt them badly enough that they’ll run. Part of being a mage is putting yourself into compromising positions for kills. If the kill doesn’t go off, be assured that you’re the next target.

If you’ve come up through the ranks playing mostly physical DPS toons or tanks, I would highly recommend making a smurf account to learn your mages. The playstyle is radically different from the other champions in the game, and learning at a high ELO can be difficult. Once you have a general feel for being the squishiest thing on the map, pick up a few games with friends before heading into the solo queue. The extra experience will give you the edge necessary to enjoy early success

There’s a nice discussion happening on the forums about Pantheon’s position in the game. I’ve included my response below, but be sure to check out the entire post. After a few weeks, what do you think? Does he need some buffs? Some nerfs? Is melee DPS just not fun enough?

I think he’s in a great spot – definitely some of the highest utility of any melee DPS champ while churning out solid damage. Unfortunately, a lot of people try to build attack speed and don’t scale like they think they should. An early bloodthirster is easily the best thing you can do for yourself. The damage puts Heartseeker through the roof, making attack speed practically unnecessary (everything dies in 3 hits). Once you have that you can pick up some survivability and a little attack speed for later in the game.

I will say, I don’t care for his passive. Yes, it’s a nice laning tool and the only passive counter to Deceive and Parrrley (it’s also saved me from a few Blitz crits), but I feel like I get very little use out of it once you get past level 13 or so. From there on that shield just doesn’t save me often enough to care about it. I have not played many high survivability builds with him, so it’s hard for me to say if it’s better when you have some more health. I’ll give it some serious testing and post some thoughts if I remember.

He definitely struggles late game as most melee DPS does. Again, I have to test some survivability builds to see what I can make work.

Original Post

Alongside the double IP weekend, Riot has released the Winter Games map to celebrate this year’s winter olympics. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s like a flag monster went and puked all over Summoner’s Rift. It’s actually pretty cool – I like to see developers constantly updating their games to fit the times.

The official Riot post for the maps also reminded me that you can actually get quadruple IP this weekend if you’re willing to part with a few of those Riot points. The company is offering its IP boosts for 20% off this weekend, and since the double IP is done passively, you can apply an additional boost for 4x the IP. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s like 500 IP per game. Time to get those rune pages going.

Source: Official Forums

When I opened the announcement forums and saw the words “Twisted” and “Timeline” next to one another I was ecstatic. Finally there was some news about the 3v3 map that we’ve long awaited. You know how this ends, though. There is no timeline, no new information. Just a nostalgic look at how far the map has come (which could actually be a good sign that it’s coming fairly soon).

It’s a fun read, and it does give me hope that we’ll see the new map by the time Spring rolls around. As I’ve said many times on this blog, I primarily play with two friends – we’re looking forward to the map for obvious reasons.

There is at least one more change to be made before the map is quite ready. Here’s the teaser for that change from the original post:

The Twisted Treeline originally envisioned needed a lot of work to bring it in line with the goals of the Design Team. In order to balance it to be on equal footing across the various champion types, to allow for multiple opening strategies, and to keep the game length under control, many different aspects of the map required extensive tweaking from the original design. Ultimately, the Twisted Treeline of today is a very different place than the one that debuted on October 21st, 2009.

And there’s more to come! The Design Team has authorized me to tease you all with the promise of at least one more, game changing feature that they intend to pull from their proverbial bag of tricks. Stay tuned!

Source: LoL Forums