Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 63 of 260)

Champ of the Week: Malzahar wrapup

June 5, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

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My week with Malzahar was probably the most successful Champ of the Week I’ve had so far, though Nunu may have edged him out. In any case, I can only remember having one truly bad game with him, and that was this evening in a post-cookout haze. Malzahar is just an incredible pick for an AP carry, offering a solid mix of utility and damage without really falling short anywhere.

One of the biggest things to learn about Malzahar, and something I haven’t quite mastered, is when to use his ultimate. I know it sounds simple enough, but that ultimate is devastating, completely shutting out an opponent in most cases, and it can be used on a variety of targets if played right. There is that unspoken rule – never focus the tank – but if the tank has all of the enemy CC and made a misstep near a tower, a quick Malzahar ult can give your team 5v4 advantage and allow you to steamroll down a lane. The flipside is knowing when not to use your ultimate. Using your ultimate during a teamfight can cost you a lot of damage. A stun or silence and you’ve missed out on a crucial part of your kit.

Even without his ult, though, Malzahar still devastates teamfights. His AoE silence has excellent utility and the percentage based damage from Null Zone grows quickly with AP. Malzahar has no problem farming, either. At level 3, Malefic Visions hits hard enough to easily farm creep waves with a few auto attacks. With a Voidling proc, Malzahar not only burns through creep waves, he also becomes a strong side pusher that requires two people to gank.

If I could change one thing about Malzahar it would be the AI on his Voidlings. I lost more to towers than I wanted, and they often danced back and forth in the lane instead of defending me in the midst of a gank. The Voidling deals heavy damage, especially once it levels up. Having a little more control of that damage would probably make him a bit OP, which I honestly think he’s on the verge of, anyway.

Champ of the Week, Champions, Editorial, league of legends

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Reducing global ult range doesn’t solve the design problem

June 5, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Among the big changes slated for upcoming League of Legends patches is a rework to the global ults in the game, most notably the ones that that teleport the player to a new location. Riot has said in several places (none of which I can seem to find, though this quote from Phreak serves as an indicator of the design decision) that they want to limit the range of what are now global ults so that they work more like Nocturne’s Paranoia. The problem, of course, is that this doesn’t solve the problem with global ults.

Globals suck because they allow players to effectively be in two places at once. As Phreak mentions in the quote linked above, TF and Shen can go push bot during a mid stalemate, all the while planning to port mid when needed. They present all the defense necessary for mid lane while still being able to push bottom. This scenario isn’t completely fixed by limiting the range of those ultimates, but teamfights aren’t the only thing affected by semi-global ults.

When players can gank in a 3500 unit radius around them, they don’t have to play with any kind of foresight or worry about positioning. They can linger longer in the jungle. They can finish that dragon before defending a tower. They can spring out of the jungle from beyond ward range for the gank. In short, it encourages lazy play from less skilled players and offers masters of the game an easily exploited advantage. It’s also just not a lot of fun to play against.

Personally, I’d love to see the global ults removed. They’re too strong for skilled players and don’t provide the learning hurdle for map positioning that new players need.

Current Affairs, Development, league of legends

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Is the early game too passive?

June 4, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

If you watched the Dreamhack qualifiers, you may have noticed just how passive the early game is. It didn’t take Dreamhack to reveal that fact, though. Think of the last game in which a player died before the five minute mark and wasn’t called a noob. Yeah, I can’t think of one either. The early game in League of Legends has become extremely passive, a fifteen minute race to 100-minion counts with the occasional dragon. There’s a great thread on the forums discussing the issue, which I’ll leave you to read at your leisure. I think the poster, ParoX, makes some great points about contributing factors, but I think there’s another system in play that adds to the passive early game. Early game deaths are just too penalizing.

A couple months ago, Riot adjusted death timers in the early game to make deaths less punishing, but I’m still seeing towers drop before the five minute mark fairly regularly. When an early death means the loss of early lane protection, players tend to be much more conservative in what they will attempt.

A big chunk of the penalty can be attributed to the strength of junglers. Early ganks often happen when a jungler makes a move, turning a lane fight into a 3v2. If a kill succeeds, three champions are now pushing a turret that is often not well protected. If the tower drops, the game shifts dramatically, especially for the team that lost the tower. Because junglers rely on jungle creeps for XP, those players get territorial, leaving few places for the beaten lane to farm. This also opens the winning lane combo up for roaming, increasing the passivity of other lanes by presenting more threats from the brush near each lane.

I think one thing Riot should seriously consider is a nerf to early game jungling, at least at the rate jungling can currently be accomplished. The fact that junglers can keep pace and in some cases outlevel lanes, all in the cover of fog of war is kinda silly. What I would really like to see is a move toward roaming instead of jungling. Unlike jungling, at least for many junglers, roaming has some serious risk. The roamer loses XP or leeches from his lanes, can miss kills, can botch tower dives, and certainly loses quite a bit of farm by leaving a lane. As it stands, junglers suffer very few of the consequences without a concerted effort by their opponents, and even then jungle fights are fairly risky for invaders.

I’m glad to see RiotStatikk paying close attention to the current thread on the forums, but I’m worried by the caveat he placed at the end of his call for help: “I will be reading this thread. Identify what you see as the root problem and offer solutions on how to solve it with the least game-shaking changes possible.” I think it might be time for the game to get a decent shake. In fact, this is the perfect time to make some big changes. Season Two is forthcoming, hopefully giving people a chance to tune up their game and make some positive movement on the ladder. I can hardly imagine a better time to make some significant changes to prevalent player strategy and game mechanics.

Current Affairs, Editorial, league of legends

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More Orianna thoughts

June 3, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Orianna’s playstyle is engaging enough that I’ve been spending a decent amount of time with her, enough to have some additional thoughts about her just a day after my impressions post. It’s tough to help myself – she’s just so much fun. The ball mechanic makes for an active and powerful lane phase that I find much more interesting than most of the characters in the game.

Orianna is a return to the poke style metagame, and I’ve actually had the most success with her when I can zone an enemy back to his turret. You’ll definitely need to have some regen, but using the ball to basically sweep the lane can keep an opponent at his turret while you stand outside the turret’s range. There is one limiting factor: mana.

I have huge mana problems on Orianna, which is why I think you pretty much have to run with RoA/Archangel’s. That build also has the added benefit of being very consistent. I’ve tried rolling with Soulstealer and it just doesn’t feel as good. Because Orianna’s base damage is a little on the low side, I feel like it’s necessary to do everything I possibly can to make sure she scales consistently.

Champions, league of legends, Patches

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Orianna impressions

June 2, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I’ve spent a decent number of games playing Orianna now, most of which have been really enjoyable. The playstyle of the ball pet is unique but more importantly, it’s a lot of fun. With enough mana and cooldown reduction, Orianna can utterly dominate a lane. The one problem is that it seems to take her quite a few casts to be able to do that, and very few other casters rely on that mechanic. It often results in her getting more than she gives in the lane, and in a duo lane she doesn’t seem to scale quickly enough to keep up with bruiser damage, which is really her downfall.

I realize this may be an odious comparison, but I laned against Vlad in a game early today and totally worked him. I was placing my ball deep in the field (yes, I know, but there isn’t another way to write this) and basically blocking him away from creeps, using Command: Attack and the occasional Dissonance for extra burst. I was up 30 kills at one point, and then he hit level 7. After a recall he had a revolver and it was all over. He caught back up on kills and ended up carrying the game.

Vlad is a special case, but there are other casters, and certainly other champions, with that kind of laning potential. I played as Vayne against an Orianna yesterday and smoked her. Her 60 damage at level one was no match for the 105 my Tumble was putting out.

I’m not going to call for buffs just yet, because I think Orianna has a very strong lane phase, which can help her get the farm she needs. I think her big problem is the design of the ball in combination with her passive. Orianna can harass just about anyone in a 1v1 situation, but to deal maximum damage she needs to get in a few auto attacks, which means soaking creeps, something she totally cannot afford to do. Her ball gives her excellent harass from a distance, but she has to be fairly close in order to get those auto attacks in, which don’t hit all that much harder than a normal attack, especially early in the game.

It gets a little easier once she has a couple hundred AP, but even then she doesn’t seem to hit as hard as Annie or Anivia. I’ve seen some math that suggests she has very high burst, and while I think that’s true against the squishy targets, she doesn’t really seem to hold up one the enemy has a little HP/MR.

For now, I think Orianna is a solid choice against a fairly soft team, and she’s a total blast to play, which helps a lot. I’m going to have to do some more testing on that passive to see what I think, but for now I think shifting some of her damage to her auto attacks makes her early game feel very lackluster.

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