Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 155 of 260)

      The importance of a solo mid

      June 23, 2010 /

      Veigar.

      I caught a game late this afternoon with a four-man premade. Everything looked good except that our fifth picked Yi. I asked him to switch and he went to Veigar. Not a great swap, but that stun is still better than Yi’s nothing.

      This guy also wanted to solo. When I’m premading I try to make sure that one of us is always in mid because solo is so important. I decided that as TF I should probably take mid over Veigar. That was all well and good until I went to gank top, as TF is prone to do, and Veigar came middle. When I came back to resume solo farming, he wouldn’t leave. This stranded our Shen bottom alone and while I was top, my opponent’s mid, Annie, stayed and farmed. I was a level and a half behind her, but nothing I couldn’t fix by farming solo. Even after many requests Veigar wouldn’t leave. By the time Annie hit ten, he had just hit level six and proceeded to feed her two kills.

      Things went downhill from there. With solo experience and three kills (sadly I died to Annie once early because I fell for a very nice cleanse bait on her part) Annie was hugely ahead. Veigar wouldn’t leave middle so I was falling behind and our bottom lane was losing traction. By the 14-minute mark we had lost five towers and were on the way to losing our sixth.

      Nearly all of this could have been avoided had Veigar let me solo. The importance of a solo is not just easy farming. It’s about evening out the level advantage the other team gains with their solo. That’s the reason junglers are so strong – they create a level advantage in two lanes. By leeching XP mid, Veigar stole our level advantage and gave the other team a 2v1 opportunity to push a lane against our Shen.

      This isn’t to say a 2v1 mid is a bad idea – it can work, but it needs to be done from the beginning of the game so that your own lane facing a 2v1 can get level gapped. If he’s given a 2v1 too late, it’s just a 2v1 and h’s probably going to get pushed.

      Whenever you can avoid it, try not to lane juggle your mid. You need that level gap.

      league of legends, Strategy

      Riot releases 520RP skin images

      June 22, 2010 /

      Blast Zone Heimerdinger.

      The batch of “community response skins” is up now on the official forums, posted as new skins often are before a patch. Still no post in the Server Status forums so it’s unclear when we’ll see these new skins, but I’d say later this week is a pretty safe estimate.

      The only skin I’m really excited about here is the Heimerdinger. That thing is cool, and easily better than Alien Invader. But those other skins? Blitzcrank with a shirt? Even French Maid Nidalee is just another recolor. This is exactly why that post the other day bothered me. It was a bunch of crowing about all the good they’re about to do the community by releasing 520RP skins that suffer the same problems as all the skins before them.

      I love skins, I really do. I just think they’re overpriced for what they actually provide. It also seems prudent to remind everyone that got a skin in this batch already has one.

      Development, league of legends

      My 1000th win

      June 22, 2010 /

      1000-winsThere it is – the proof that I spend entirely too much of my free time on this game. I hit 1000 wins last night in a solid game with some friends.

      I’m glad I got to hit this milestone before the launch of Season 1. I’ve been spending less time playing lately in order to focus on some other hobbies, mostly writing (though I need some good books for the beach if anyone has suggestions), and the majority of my game time will go to Season 1 when it launches. It’s good to feel like I hit a pretty rare milestone, though, and in a weird way it makes me care about my win/loss record a lot less. I’ve had fun in my last few games playing some toons I haven’t played in a while, like Anivia and Nunu. Nunu is still a frustrating farmer, but when you land an ult it just feels so damn good.

      league of legends

      Riot responds under skin pricing heat

      June 22, 2010 /

      French Maid Nidalee.

      Riot caught a lot of criticism around the release of the legendary Alien Invader Heimerdinger skin, though it wasn’t just about the legendary skin. Most players think skins are in general too expensive, and I have to agree.

      I’ll include Riot’s full official response here, if only because it’s so weird:

      Summoners,

      We have a couple pieces of good news for you. For the next release of skins, we are going to be shipping out 6 skins, all for 520 RP, including the much-anticipated French Maid Nidalee skin.

      We have heard the community requests for more low-priced skin options and a more clear definition of Legendary skins. In response, we are doing a one-time release of skins at 520. Players have anticipated the release of French Maid Nidalee at prices up to 10,000 RP, but we are releasing her with the other 520 skins to start to balance the skin pricing. We are also releasing the other following skins at 520 RP:
      • Caterpillar Kog’Maw
      • Sonoran Kog’Maw
      • Goalkeeper Blitzcrank
      • Striker Ezreal
      • Blast Zone Heimerdinger

      Please note, we will be releasing skins at other price points in the future.

      Going forward, per suggestions from the community, Legendary skins will have:
      • Texture changes
      • Model changes

      And at least one of the following additional features:
      • Some New Animations
      • Some New VO
      • Some New Effects

      Finally, we wanted to share our plans for skins going forward. We are getting very close to meeting our goal of having a skin for each Champion. Once we reach that goal, we will move forward with creating downright awesome skins, and more player options in skin prices. To reach that second goal, we will be adding inexpensive skins for Champions that only have high-priced options, and we will be adding cooler skins for Champions that already have an inexpensive option. However, it will likely take a few months before we have multiple skins for every Champion.

      We will keep listening to (rational) feedback, and we appreciate everyone who has contributed ideas and suggestions for how to improve our skin offerings (a lot of them are in this post). Please let us know if this is a step in the right direction.

      – RiotChris

      For starters, why does it take a huge community response to not take a lashing on skin prices? And why does the post make it sound like this is some kind of favor? It’s also a little disconcerting to see that the primary goal so far has been churning out skins and that Riot will focus on quality later. If these are just the slush pile, how much will the “downright awesome” skins cost?

      All of this could be my own obsession with the wording, but this post really rubbed me the wrong way.

      league of legends

      Kog’Maw is patch-ready

      June 21, 2010 /

      Kog'Maw, Mouth of the Abyss.

      Riot’s gone and posted the official “champion approaches” info for Kog’Maw, including his skill list. It looks like the latest creature from the void will be making his way to the League by the next patch.

      Let’s have a look at his abilities, shall we?
      Bio-Arcane Barrage: Kog’Maw’s attacks gain range and deal a percent of the target’s maximum health as magic damage.

      Void Ooze: Kog’Maw launches a peculiar ooze which damages all enemies it passes through and leaves a trail which slows enemies who stand on it.

      Caustic Spittle: Passive: Increases armor penetration. Active: Kog’Maw launches a corrosive projectile which deals magic damage and doubles his passive armor penetration for 4 seconds (Removes the passive until available again).

      Living Artillery (Ultimate): Kog’Maw fires a living artillery shell at a great distance dealing damage and revealing targets. Additionally, multiple Living Artilleries in a short period of time cause them to cost additional mana.

      Icathian Surprise (Passive): Upon dying, Kog’Maw starts a chain reaction in his body which causes him to detonate after 4 seconds; dealing magic damage to surrounding enemies.

      It looks to me like he’ll play a little bit like Kayle, with the active cast on Caustic Spittle increasing damage he deals and the ranged attack he gets from Bio-Arcane Barrage. I have to say, I’m not thrilled to see another melee toon, and his passive has to be among the worst in the game. When will that be useful? When you die? Isn’t part of the game trying to not die? Four seconds also seems like an eternity for the detonation. It would be much more interesting, in my mind, if targets he killed were infected and would explode after they had died. As always, we’ll have to see how this plays out, but for now I am wholly underwhelmed by his skill list.

      Will Kog’Maw be the latest toon that’s banished to unplayability?

      Development, league of legends

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